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 11 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 75 105 170
Rank change year-on-year +30 +65 +55
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,380 748 644
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.24% 2.54% 1.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.77% 2.81% 1.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 854 490 476
10th Percentile £401 £372 £413
25th Percentile £477 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £561
Median % change year-on-year - +2.45% -9.40%
75th Percentile £688 £734 £700
90th Percentile £785 £864 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +4.76% - -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 16 25
10th Percentile £41.95 £23.25 £41.16
25th Percentile £50.00 £26.19 £42.50
Median hourly rate £59.50 £48.75 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +22.04% +5.57% +31.94%
75th Percentile £80.05 £69.00 £66.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £84.51 £69.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £80.68 £46.18
% change year-on-year -20.67% +74.70% +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 36,632 26,629 38,749
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.08% 90.34% 86.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,216 16,983 25,185
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 £743 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -1.84% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,179 898 2,347
10th Percentile £14.64 £15.57 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.89% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £64.75 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £74.68 £76.53 £71.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £26.55 £32.00 £31.80
% change year-on-year -17.02% +0.63% -9.14%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +24 1,161 £575 -4.17% 1,275
London +25 766 £600 -3.23% 677
UK excluding London +34 445 £550 +4.76% 815
Work from Home +28 430 £600 +10.09% 562
North of England -11 104 £550 +10.00% 192
South East +3 94 £588 +9.30% 288
Scotland +60 78 £475 +8.57% 39
East of England +7 73 £550 -8.33% 85
Midlands -11 69 £550 +29.41% 101
North West +3 63 £550 +10.00% 98
West Midlands -19 47 £550 +33.33% 50
South West -17 34 £550 -17.60% 90
Yorkshire -48 31 £525 - 66
East Midlands -19 20 £600 +33.33% 51
Wales -5 17 £738 +31.11% 22
North East -7 13 £563 +57.12% 30
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 12

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
1 125 (9.06%) Apache Spark
2 79 (5.72%) Apache Airflow
3 58 (4.20%) Apache
4 30 (2.17%) Jupyter
5 11 (0.80%) Confluence
6 10 (0.72%) Appian
6 10 (0.72%) SAS
7 7 (0.51%) Palantir Foundry
8 6 (0.43%) CMS
8 6 (0.43%) GeoServer
8 6 (0.43%) Smallworld
9 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
10 3 (0.22%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.14%) Luigi
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Pig
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.072%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.072%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 37 (2.68%) Chatbot
2 16 (1.16%) 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 (0.072%) CPLEX
8 1 (0.072%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.072%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 1 (0.072%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.072%) SAP IBP
3 1 (0.072%) Shopify
3 1 (0.072%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.072%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 609 (44.13%) Azure
2 498 (36.09%) AWS
3 257 (18.62%) GCP
4 142 (10.29%) Power Platform
5 121 (8.77%) GitHub
6 111 (8.04%) Serverless
7 104 (7.54%) Azure Machine Learning
8 95 (6.88%) Azure AI
9 87 (6.30%) Azure DevOps
10 76 (5.51%) Snowflake
11 74 (5.36%) Amazon SageMaker
12 66 (4.78%) Amazon S3
13 62 (4.49%) Vertex AI
14 59 (4.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 59 (4.28%) GitHub Actions
15 57 (4.13%) Azure Data Factory
16 50 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
17 47 (3.41%) AWS CloudFormation
18 42 (3.04%) Azure AKS
19 38 (2.75%) Amazon Bedrock
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.16%) Network Security
2 10 (0.72%) Firewall
3 8 (0.58%) HTTP
4 7 (0.51%) DNS
5 5 (0.36%) Ethernet
5 5 (0.36%) FTP
5 5 (0.36%) Internet
5 5 (0.36%) SMTP
5 5 (0.36%) SSL
6 4 (0.29%) 5G
6 4 (0.29%) InfiniBand
7 3 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
7 3 (0.22%) LTE
7 3 (0.22%) VPN
8 2 (0.14%) 2G
8 2 (0.14%) 4G
8 2 (0.14%) Bluetooth
8 2 (0.14%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.14%) Mobile Backhaul
8 2 (0.14%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (7.90%) Power BI
2 92 (6.67%) Data Lake
3 81 (5.87%) Data Warehouse
4 64 (4.64%) Big Data
5 59 (4.28%) NoSQL
6 54 (3.91%) Metadata
7 51 (3.70%) BigQuery
8 46 (3.33%) PostgreSQL
9 38 (2.75%) Pinecone
9 38 (2.75%) Tableau
10 35 (2.54%) Hadoop
11 32 (2.32%) Delta Lake
12 29 (2.10%) SQL Server
13 27 (1.96%) Weaviate
14 26 (1.88%) Relational Database
15 24 (1.74%) Mixpanel
16 23 (1.67%) Amazon Athena
17 20 (1.45%) Elasticsearch
18 19 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
19 18 (1.30%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 117 (8.48%) Git
2 94 (6.81%) MLflow
3 41 (2.97%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.88%) GitLab
4 26 (1.88%) JIRA
5 14 (1.01%) Selenium
6 12 (0.87%) JMeter
6 12 (0.87%) Visual Studio
7 9 (0.65%) PyCharm
8 7 (0.51%) Gradle
9 6 (0.43%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.36%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.36%) Maven
10 5 (0.36%) MSTest
11 4 (0.29%) Android Studio
11 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
11 4 (0.29%) RStudio
12 3 (0.22%) Postman
12 3 (0.22%) Spinnaker
General
1 356 (25.80%) Social Skills
2 286 (20.72%) Finance
3 158 (11.45%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (10.43%) Public Sector
5 92 (6.67%) Banking
6 40 (2.90%) Marketing
6 40 (2.90%) Pharmaceutical
7 31 (2.25%) Retail
8 29 (2.10%) Legal
9 28 (2.03%) Influencing Skills
9 28 (2.03%) Investment Banking
10 24 (1.74%) Front Office
10 24 (1.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 20 (1.45%) Manufacturing
11 20 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
12 18 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
13 16 (1.16%) Telecoms
14 14 (1.01%) Electronics
15 13 (0.94%) Financial Institution
16 11 (0.80%) Law
Job Titles
1 201 (14.57%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 189 (13.70%) Data Scientist
3 183 (13.26%) Architect
4 179 (12.97%) Senior
5 138 (10.00%) Data Engineer
6 124 (8.99%) Developer
7 119 (8.62%) Lead
8 64 (4.64%) Analyst
8 64 (4.64%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 62 (4.49%) Python Engineer
10 60 (4.35%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 55 (3.99%) Software Engineer
12 52 (3.77%) Data Architect
13 43 (3.12%) Gen AI Engineer
14 41 (2.97%) Senior Data Scientist
15 39 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
16 36 (2.61%) Azure Engineer
17 35 (2.54%) Consultant
18 32 (2.32%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
19 26 (1.88%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 236 (17.10%) PyTorch
2 197 (14.28%) TensorFlow
3 140 (10.14%) scikit-learn
4 110 (7.97%) Pandas
5 89 (6.45%) LangChain
6 84 (6.09%) React
7 79 (5.72%) NumPy
8 64 (4.64%) FastAPI
9 62 (4.49%) .NET
9 62 (4.49%) Model Context Protocol
10 61 (4.42%) Kafka
11 60 (4.35%) PySpark
12 56 (4.06%) LangGraph
12 56 (4.06%) REST
13 53 (3.84%) Hugging Face
14 52 (3.77%) Node.js
15 43 (3.12%) RESTful
16 42 (3.04%) AngularJS
17 32 (2.32%) Faiss
18 28 (2.03%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 195 (14.13%) Cloud Native
2 178 (12.90%) Algorithms
3 126 (9.13%) AI Agents
4 49 (3.55%) Product Ownership
5 48 (3.48%) Onboarding
6 38 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
7 34 (2.46%) Data Protection Act
8 30 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
9 25 (1.81%) Hybrid Cloud
10 22 (1.59%) Distributed Computing
11 21 (1.52%) Life Science
12 19 (1.38%) Data Structures
13 18 (1.30%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
14 17 (1.23%) Fixed Income
14 17 (1.23%) Genomics
15 15 (1.09%) Management Information System
16 13 (0.94%) Credit Risk
17 11 (0.80%) Derivative
17 11 (0.80%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 37 (2.68%) Linux
2 12 (0.87%) Windows
3 10 (0.72%) Apple iOS
3 10 (0.72%) VMS
4 9 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.58%) Android
5 8 (0.58%) Ubuntu
6 2 (0.14%) Unix
7 1 (0.072%) CentOS
7 1 (0.072%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,079 (78.19%) AI
2 522 (37.83%) Data Science
3 413 (29.93%) CI/CD
4 385 (27.90%) LLM
5 383 (27.75%) Analytics
6 316 (22.90%) DevOps
7 295 (21.38%) Data Pipeline
8 286 (20.72%) Agile
9 284 (20.58%) Generative AI
10 269 (19.49%) MLOps
11 259 (18.77%) Data Engineering
12 234 (16.96%) Problem-Solving
13 199 (14.42%) Natural Language Processing
14 190 (13.77%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
15 182 (13.19%) Software Engineering
15 182 (13.19%) Use Case
16 175 (12.68%) Containerisation
17 164 (11.88%) Prompt Engineering
18 161 (11.67%) Data Modelling
19 159 (11.52%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 858 (62.17%) Python
2 349 (25.29%) SQL
3 94 (6.81%) Java
4 79 (5.72%) C#
5 71 (5.14%) R
6 62 (4.49%) JavaScript
7 57 (4.13%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.96%) PowerShell
9 26 (1.88%) C++
10 21 (1.52%) Bash
11 20 (1.45%) Scala
12 17 (1.23%) Bicep
13 12 (0.87%) Go
14 11 (0.80%) MATLAB
15 10 (0.72%) 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
1 231 (16.74%) Security Cleared
2 185 (13.41%) Degree
3 160 (11.59%) SC Cleared
4 81 (5.87%) Master's Degree
5 49 (3.55%) PhD
6 45 (3.26%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (2.83%) DV Cleared
8 31 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (1.74%) AWS Certification
9 24 (1.74%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 19 (1.38%) Azure Certification
11 10 (0.72%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 8 (0.58%) CISSP
13 7 (0.51%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.36%) CISM
15 5 (0.36%) HNC
15 5 (0.36%) HND
15 5 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
16 4 (0.29%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 131 (9.49%) Data Quality
2 57 (4.13%) GDPR
3 54 (3.91%) QA
4 37 (2.68%) NIST
5 27 (1.96%) EU AI Act
6 17 (1.23%) Accessibility
7 16 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 8 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
9 7 (0.51%) GRC
10 5 (0.36%) DO-254
10 5 (0.36%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.36%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 5 (0.36%) NCSC
11 4 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.29%) PCI DSS
11 4 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
13 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
13 2 (0.14%) NIST 800
System Software
1 219 (15.87%) Docker
2 12 (0.87%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 11 (0.80%) Active Directory
4 7 (0.51%) Firmware
5 3 (0.22%) Lustre
5 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.14%) Ceph
6 2 (0.14%) HDFS
7 1 (0.072%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 216 (15.65%) Kubernetes
2 150 (10.87%) Terraform
3 20 (1.45%) Ansible
3 20 (1.45%) Grafana
4 19 (1.38%) Kubeflow
5 13 (0.94%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.72%) 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 (0.14%) Istio
11 2 (0.14%) ITRS Geneos
11 2 (0.14%) Knative
11 2 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.072%) Cilium
12 1 (0.072%) HP Fortify
12 1 (0.072%) Opsgenie
12 1 (0.072%) SELinux
Vendors
1 205 (14.86%) Databricks
2 186 (13.48%) Microsoft
3 121 (8.77%) Google
4 105 (7.61%) OpenAI
5 75 (5.43%) Foundry
6 39 (2.83%) SAP
7 27 (1.96%) Oracle
8 23 (1.67%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.01%) Informatica
10 13 (0.94%) UiPath
11 11 (0.80%) Automation Anywhere
12 10 (0.72%) NVIDIA
12 10 (0.72%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.65%) Greenplum
13 9 (0.65%) IBM
14 8 (0.58%) Dynatrace
14 8 (0.58%) Palantir
15 7 (0.51%) Amplitude
15 7 (0.51%) Pega
16 6 (0.43%) Splunk