Machine Learning Contract Job Trends

Machine Learning (ML)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Machine Learning skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 77 105 165
Rank change year-on-year +28 +60 +63
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,376 748 649
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.21% 2.54% 1.46%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.73% 2.81% 1.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 846 490 478
10th Percentile £401 £375 £413
25th Percentile £477 £454 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year - - -6.66%
75th Percentile £692 £738 £702
90th Percentile £788 £874 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 17 25
10th Percentile £41.95 £23.65 £41.16
25th Percentile £50.00 £26.50 £42.50
Median hourly rate £59.50 £52.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +13.32% +13.69% +31.94%
75th Percentile £80.05 £78.70 £66.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £83.81 £69.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £79.69 £46.18
% change year-on-year -19.69% +72.56% +31.94%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Machine Learning falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,854 26,627 38,581
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.05% 90.37% 86.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,339 16,995 25,088
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,197 898 2,338
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.48 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.36 £32.50 £31.50
% change year-on-year -15.82% +3.17% -10.00%

Machine Learning
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Machine Learning relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Machine Learning job vacancy trend in the UK

Machine Learning
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning

Machine Learning
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Machine Learning over the 6 months to 13 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning

Machine Learning
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Machine Learning over the 6 months to 13 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Machine Learning within the UK over the 6 months to 13 March 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +18 1,157 £575 -4.17% 1,240
London +24 761 £600 -3.23% 653
UK excluding London +32 442 £550 +4.76% 819
Work from Home +32 432 £600 +10.09% 503
North of England -8 103 £534 +6.80% 192
South East -6 95 £581 +5.68% 283
Scotland +52 74 £450 +2.86% 47
East of England +4 72 £550 -8.33% 76
Midlands -10 69 £550 +29.41% 109
North West +4 62 £550 +10.00% 95
West Midlands -23 47 £550 +33.33% 50
South West -23 34 £550 -17.60% 90
Yorkshire -36 31 £525 - 69
East Midlands -18 20 £600 +33.33% 59
Wales -4 19 £750 +33.33% 26
North East -8 13 £563 +57.12% 29
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 14

Machine Learning
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 127 (9.23%) Apache Spark
2 79 (5.74%) Apache Airflow
3 58 (4.22%) Apache
4 30 (2.18%) Jupyter
5 12 (0.87%) Confluence
6 10 (0.73%) Appian
6 10 (0.73%) SAS
7 7 (0.51%) Palantir Foundry
8 6 (0.44%) CMS
8 6 (0.44%) GeoServer
8 6 (0.44%) Smallworld
9 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
10 3 (0.22%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.15%) Luigi
12 1 (0.073%) Apache Pig
12 1 (0.073%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.073%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.073%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.073%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.073%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 37 (2.69%) Chatbot
2 17 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
3 13 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
4 12 (0.87%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.36%) Simulink
7 3 (0.22%) LaTeX
8 1 (0.073%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.073%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.073%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.073%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.073%) SAP IBP
3 1 (0.073%) Shopify
3 1 (0.073%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.073%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 613 (44.55%) Azure
2 499 (36.26%) AWS
3 262 (19.04%) GCP
4 144 (10.47%) Power Platform
5 122 (8.87%) GitHub
6 107 (7.78%) Serverless
7 103 (7.49%) Azure Machine Learning
8 96 (6.98%) Azure AI
9 88 (6.40%) Azure DevOps
10 78 (5.67%) Snowflake
11 72 (5.23%) Amazon SageMaker
12 62 (4.51%) Amazon S3
12 62 (4.51%) Vertex AI
13 59 (4.29%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 59 (4.29%) GitHub Actions
14 57 (4.14%) Azure Data Factory
15 47 (3.42%) AWS CloudFormation
16 46 (3.34%) AWS Lambda
17 42 (3.05%) Azure AKS
18 38 (2.76%) Amazon Bedrock
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.16%) Network Security
2 10 (0.73%) Firewall
3 7 (0.51%) DNS
3 7 (0.51%) HTTP
4 5 (0.36%) Ethernet
4 5 (0.36%) FTP
4 5 (0.36%) Internet
4 5 (0.36%) SMTP
4 5 (0.36%) SSL
5 4 (0.29%) 5G
5 4 (0.29%) InfiniBand
6 3 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
6 3 (0.22%) LTE
6 3 (0.22%) VPN
7 2 (0.15%) 4G
7 2 (0.15%) Bluetooth
7 2 (0.15%) Hyperconnected
7 2 (0.15%) Mobile Backhaul
7 2 (0.15%) Modbus
7 2 (0.15%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (8.07%) Power BI
2 92 (6.69%) Data Lake
3 81 (5.89%) Data Warehouse
4 66 (4.80%) Big Data
5 59 (4.29%) NoSQL
6 54 (3.92%) Metadata
7 51 (3.71%) BigQuery
8 44 (3.20%) PostgreSQL
9 40 (2.91%) Tableau
10 37 (2.69%) Pinecone
11 36 (2.62%) Hadoop
12 32 (2.33%) Delta Lake
13 29 (2.11%) SQL Server
14 27 (1.96%) Weaviate
15 26 (1.89%) Relational Database
16 24 (1.74%) Mixpanel
17 23 (1.67%) Amazon Athena
18 20 (1.45%) Elasticsearch
19 19 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
20 18 (1.31%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 117 (8.50%) Git
2 93 (6.76%) MLflow
3 40 (2.91%) Jenkins
4 27 (1.96%) JIRA
5 26 (1.89%) GitLab
6 13 (0.94%) Selenium
6 13 (0.94%) Visual Studio
7 12 (0.87%) JMeter
8 9 (0.65%) PyCharm
9 7 (0.51%) Gradle
10 6 (0.44%) MSTest
10 6 (0.44%) SonarQube
11 5 (0.36%) Cypress.io
11 5 (0.36%) Maven
12 4 (0.29%) Android Studio
12 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
12 4 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
12 4 (0.29%) RStudio
13 3 (0.22%) Postman
13 3 (0.22%) Spinnaker
General
1 356 (25.87%) Social Skills
2 286 (20.78%) Finance
3 161 (11.70%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (10.32%) Public Sector
5 91 (6.61%) Banking
6 40 (2.91%) Pharmaceutical
7 39 (2.83%) Marketing
8 31 (2.25%) Retail
9 30 (2.18%) Legal
10 28 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
10 28 (2.03%) Investment Banking
11 25 (1.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 24 (1.74%) Front Office
13 20 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
14 19 (1.38%) Manufacturing
15 18 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
16 15 (1.09%) Telecoms
17 14 (1.02%) Financial Institution
18 13 (0.94%) Electronics
19 11 (0.80%) Law
Job Titles
1 197 (14.32%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 189 (13.74%) Data Scientist
3 185 (13.44%) Architect
4 183 (13.30%) Senior
5 137 (9.96%) Data Engineer
6 123 (8.94%) Developer
7 119 (8.65%) Lead
8 66 (4.80%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 64 (4.65%) Analyst
10 61 (4.43%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 58 (4.22%) Python Engineer
12 55 (4.00%) Software Engineer
13 52 (3.78%) Data Architect
14 41 (2.98%) Gen AI Engineer
14 41 (2.98%) Senior Data Scientist
15 38 (2.76%) Solutions Architect
16 36 (2.62%) Azure Engineer
17 35 (2.54%) Consultant
18 32 (2.33%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
19 26 (1.89%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 237 (17.22%) PyTorch
2 201 (14.61%) TensorFlow
3 142 (10.32%) scikit-learn
4 109 (7.92%) Pandas
5 87 (6.32%) LangChain
6 84 (6.10%) React
7 78 (5.67%) NumPy
8 62 (4.51%) .NET
8 62 (4.51%) Kafka
9 61 (4.43%) FastAPI
9 61 (4.43%) Model Context Protocol
10 60 (4.36%) PySpark
11 57 (4.14%) LangGraph
12 55 (4.00%) REST
13 52 (3.78%) Node.js
14 50 (3.63%) Hugging Face
15 44 (3.20%) AngularJS
16 43 (3.13%) RESTful
17 32 (2.33%) Faiss
18 28 (2.03%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 200 (14.53%) Cloud Native
2 177 (12.86%) Algorithms
3 126 (9.16%) AI Agents
4 49 (3.56%) Onboarding
4 49 (3.56%) Product Ownership
5 37 (2.69%) Distributed Systems
6 33 (2.40%) Data Protection Act
7 29 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
8 24 (1.74%) Hybrid Cloud
9 23 (1.67%) Distributed Computing
10 21 (1.53%) Life Science
11 18 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
11 18 (1.31%) Data Structures
11 18 (1.31%) Fixed Income
12 17 (1.24%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.24%) Genomics
13 15 (1.09%) Management Information System
14 12 (0.87%) Credit Risk
15 11 (0.80%) Robotics
15 11 (0.80%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 37 (2.69%) Linux
2 12 (0.87%) Windows
3 10 (0.73%) VMS
4 9 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.58%) Android
5 8 (0.58%) Apple iOS
5 8 (0.58%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.15%) Unix
7 1 (0.073%) CentOS
7 1 (0.073%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,073 (77.98%) AI
2 519 (37.72%) Data Science
3 413 (30.01%) CI/CD
4 382 (27.76%) Analytics
5 379 (27.54%) LLM
6 320 (23.26%) DevOps
7 298 (21.66%) Data Pipeline
8 286 (20.78%) Agile
9 285 (20.71%) Generative AI
10 272 (19.77%) MLOps
11 261 (18.97%) Data Engineering
12 233 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
13 199 (14.46%) Natural Language Processing
14 188 (13.66%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
15 184 (13.37%) Software Engineering
15 184 (13.37%) Use Case
16 175 (12.72%) Containerisation
17 166 (12.06%) Prompt Engineering
18 160 (11.63%) Data Governance
18 160 (11.63%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 854 (62.06%) Python
2 354 (25.73%) SQL
3 94 (6.83%) Java
4 82 (5.96%) C#
5 72 (5.23%) R
6 61 (4.43%) JavaScript
7 59 (4.29%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.96%) PowerShell
9 26 (1.89%) C++
10 22 (1.60%) Bash
11 20 (1.45%) Scala
12 17 (1.24%) Bicep
13 12 (0.87%) Go
14 11 (0.80%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.73%) Rust
16 7 (0.51%) Kotlin
16 7 (0.51%) SPARQL
17 5 (0.36%) C
17 5 (0.36%) SystemVerilog
17 5 (0.36%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 227 (16.50%) Security Cleared
2 186 (13.52%) Degree
3 156 (11.34%) SC Cleared
4 81 (5.89%) Master's Degree
5 47 (3.42%) PhD
6 46 (3.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 36 (2.62%) DV Cleared
8 31 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 25 (1.82%) AWS Certification
10 23 (1.67%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 19 (1.38%) Azure Certification
12 11 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 8 (0.58%) CISSP
13 8 (0.58%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.36%) CISM
15 5 (0.36%) HNC
15 5 (0.36%) HND
15 5 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 5 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (9.59%) Data Quality
2 57 (4.14%) GDPR
3 54 (3.92%) QA
4 35 (2.54%) NIST
5 24 (1.74%) EU AI Act
6 18 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.24%) Accessibility
8 8 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
9 7 (0.51%) GRC
9 7 (0.51%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 5 (0.36%) DO-254
10 5 (0.36%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.36%) NCSC
11 4 (0.29%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.15%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
13 2 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 2 (0.15%) NIST 800
System Software
1 222 (16.13%) Docker
2 12 (0.87%) Active Directory
2 12 (0.87%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 8 (0.58%) Firmware
4 3 (0.22%) Lustre
4 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.15%) Ceph
5 2 (0.15%) HDFS
6 1 (0.073%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.073%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 216 (15.70%) Kubernetes
2 148 (10.76%) Terraform
3 19 (1.38%) Ansible
4 18 (1.31%) Grafana
4 18 (1.31%) Kubeflow
5 13 (0.94%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.73%) Podman
7 7 (0.51%) SCOM
8 5 (0.36%) Kibana
9 4 (0.29%) Argo
10 3 (0.22%) logstash
10 3 (0.22%) Rancher
11 2 (0.15%) Istio
11 2 (0.15%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.15%) Knative
11 2 (0.15%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.073%) Cilium
12 1 (0.073%) Microsoft Intune
12 1 (0.073%) Opsgenie
12 1 (0.073%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 209 (15.19%) Databricks
2 187 (13.59%) Microsoft
3 122 (8.87%) Google
4 108 (7.85%) OpenAI
5 77 (5.60%) Foundry
6 38 (2.76%) SAP
7 27 (1.96%) Oracle
8 23 (1.67%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.02%) Informatica
10 13 (0.94%) UiPath
11 11 (0.80%) Automation Anywhere
11 11 (0.80%) NVIDIA
12 10 (0.73%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.65%) IBM
14 8 (0.58%) Dynatrace
14 8 (0.58%) Greenplum
14 8 (0.58%) Palantir
15 7 (0.51%) Amplitude
15 7 (0.51%) Pega
16 6 (0.44%) Splunk