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 2 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 107 133
Rank change year-on-year +29 +26 +81
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,564 762 751
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.04% 2.46% 1.73%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.58% 2.71% 2.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 961 461 529
10th Percentile £413 £393 £409
25th Percentile £490 £459 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £580
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -5.17% +0.87%
75th Percentile £675 £676 £738
90th Percentile £775 £838 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £525
% change year-on-year - +4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 21 19
10th Percentile £40.15 £31.00 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.00 £45.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £73.40 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.13% +42.86% +39.07%
75th Percentile £84.06 £81.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.13 £88.00 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £78.10 £52.50
% change year-on-year -11.65% +48.76% +50.00%

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 43,739 28,136 37,017
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.99% 90.86% 85.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,189 17,763 23,600
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £415 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.08% -3.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,627 1,381 2,550
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.45%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +8.91%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 +26 1,302 £575 +3.60% 1,658
London +37 869 £575 +1.77% 1,048
UK excluding London -3 496 £550 - 765
Work from Home +14 446 £592 +7.55% 731
North of England +4 142 £575 +13.30% 160
South East -23 106 £600 +4.35% 262
Scotland +43 103 £475 +1.71% 43
North West -5 80 £599 +8.89% 101
Midlands -12 64 £550 +10.00% 68
Yorkshire -8 48 £550 -5.38% 40
West Midlands -28 47 £538 +7.50% 35
South West -30 44 £534 -11.04% 120
East of England -13 37 £525 -8.70% 93
Wales -11 18 £565 -1.83% 19
North East -21 17 £513 +28.13% 21
East Midlands -11 15 £650 +52.94% 33
Northern Ireland - 1 £334 - 15

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
1 103 (6.59%) Apache Spark
2 73 (4.67%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (3.32%) Apache
4 35 (2.24%) Jupyter
5 22 (1.41%) Confluence
6 8 (0.51%) Appian
7 7 (0.45%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
8 6 (0.38%) SAS
9 5 (0.32%) CMS
9 5 (0.32%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.19%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.13%) Luigi
11 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.064%) NetWeaver
12 1 (0.064%) OpenStack
Applications
1 32 (2.05%) Chatbot
2 13 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.19%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.13%) Simulink
7 1 (0.064%) LaTeX
7 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.70%) SAP IBP
2 7 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.064%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.064%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.064%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.064%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.064%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.064%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 571 (36.51%) Azure
2 562 (35.93%) AWS
3 284 (18.16%) GCP
4 144 (9.21%) Power Platform
5 113 (7.23%) Serverless
6 103 (6.59%) Amazon S3
7 102 (6.52%) GitHub
8 89 (5.69%) Amazon SageMaker
9 88 (5.63%) Azure AI
10 86 (5.50%) AWS Lambda
11 80 (5.12%) Snowflake
12 79 (5.05%) Azure Machine Learning
13 63 (4.03%) Azure DevOps
14 58 (3.71%) Vertex AI
15 57 (3.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 55 (3.52%) Amazon Bedrock
17 50 (3.20%) GitHub Actions
18 46 (2.94%) Azure Data Factory
19 43 (2.75%) dbt
20 40 (2.56%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.02%) Firewall
2 12 (0.77%) Network Security
3 11 (0.70%) Internet
4 7 (0.45%) DNS
5 5 (0.32%) DHCP
5 5 (0.32%) VPN
6 4 (0.26%) HTTP
6 4 (0.26%) NAS
6 4 (0.26%) SAN
7 3 (0.19%) SMTP
8 2 (0.13%) 4G
8 2 (0.13%) 5G
8 2 (0.13%) Ethernet
8 2 (0.13%) MQTT
8 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
8 2 (0.13%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (0.064%) InfiniBand
9 1 (0.064%) LTE
9 1 (0.064%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (7.48%) Power BI
2 102 (6.52%) Data Lake
3 80 (5.12%) Big Data
4 73 (4.67%) Metadata
5 72 (4.60%) Data Warehouse
6 68 (4.35%) BigQuery
7 49 (3.13%) Tableau
8 47 (3.01%) NoSQL
9 42 (2.69%) Amazon Athena
10 41 (2.62%) Amazon Redshift
11 40 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
12 36 (2.30%) Hadoop
13 32 (2.05%) Delta Lake
14 31 (1.98%) Relational Database
15 30 (1.92%) SQL Server
16 26 (1.66%) Pinecone
17 25 (1.60%) MongoDB
18 20 (1.28%) MySQL
19 18 (1.15%) Neo4j
19 18 (1.15%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 98 (6.27%) Git
2 78 (4.99%) MLflow
3 50 (3.20%) JIRA
4 48 (3.07%) GitLab
5 27 (1.73%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.51%) Claude Code
6 8 (0.51%) Vite
7 7 (0.45%) Selenium
8 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.26%) ER Studio
9 4 (0.26%) ERwin
9 4 (0.26%) Maven
9 4 (0.26%) PyCharm
9 4 (0.26%) Visual Studio
10 3 (0.19%) Gradle
10 3 (0.19%) JUnit
10 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.19%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.19%) Spinnaker
11 2 (0.13%) Oracle APEX
General
1 325 (20.78%) Social Skills
2 304 (19.44%) Finance
3 200 (12.79%) Analytical Skills
4 150 (9.59%) Public Sector
5 105 (6.71%) Banking
6 43 (2.75%) Marketing
7 38 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (2.05%) Pharmaceutical
8 32 (2.05%) Retail
9 25 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (1.60%) Legal
10 22 (1.41%) Front Office
10 22 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
11 20 (1.28%) Aviation
12 19 (1.21%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.09%) Financial Institution
13 17 (1.09%) Law
14 16 (1.02%) Investment Banking
15 14 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
16 13 (0.83%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 225 (14.39%) Data Scientist
2 223 (14.26%) Architect
3 216 (13.81%) Senior
4 153 (9.78%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 143 (9.14%) Data Engineer
6 137 (8.76%) Lead
7 103 (6.59%) Developer
8 74 (4.73%) Data Architect
9 73 (4.67%) Python Engineer
10 70 (4.48%) Solutions Architect
11 69 (4.41%) Analyst
12 66 (4.22%) Software Engineer
13 64 (4.09%) Machine Learning Engineer
14 57 (3.64%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
15 44 (2.81%) Consultant
16 42 (2.69%) Senior Data Scientist
17 41 (2.62%) Platform Engineer
18 36 (2.30%) Full-Stack Engineer
18 36 (2.30%) Python Developer
19 31 (1.98%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 171 (10.93%) PyTorch
2 119 (7.61%) TensorFlow
3 109 (6.97%) scikit-learn
4 98 (6.27%) Kafka
5 92 (5.88%) Pandas
6 84 (5.37%) LangChain
7 72 (4.60%) React
8 71 (4.54%) NumPy
8 71 (4.54%) PySpark
9 64 (4.09%) REST
10 48 (3.07%) .NET
11 46 (2.94%) Hugging Face
12 33 (2.11%) FastAPI
12 33 (2.11%) LangGraph
13 28 (1.79%) AngularJS
13 28 (1.79%) RESTful
14 27 (1.73%) Node.js
15 26 (1.66%) Model Context Protocol
16 23 (1.47%) pytest
17 21 (1.34%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 188 (12.02%) Cloud Native
2 149 (9.53%) AI Agents
3 114 (7.29%) Algorithms
4 59 (3.77%) Product Ownership
5 51 (3.26%) Distributed Systems
6 49 (3.13%) Onboarding
7 27 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
9 23 (1.47%) Data Structures
9 23 (1.47%) Life Science
10 19 (1.21%) Fixed Income
11 18 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
12 17 (1.09%) Management Information System
13 16 (1.02%) Security Posture
14 15 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
15 13 (0.83%) Distributed Computing
15 13 (0.83%) Taxonomies
16 12 (0.77%) Enterprise Cloud
16 12 (0.77%) Low-Code
16 12 (0.77%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 46 (2.94%) Linux
2 17 (1.09%) Windows
3 11 (0.70%) Unix
4 6 (0.38%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.38%) VMS
5 5 (0.32%) Android
6 4 (0.26%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,262 (80.69%) AI
2 582 (37.21%) Data Science
3 493 (31.52%) CI/CD
4 454 (29.03%) Analytics
5 446 (28.52%) LLM
6 366 (23.40%) Data Pipeline
7 359 (22.95%) Generative AI
8 323 (20.65%) DevOps
9 306 (19.57%) MLOps
10 301 (19.25%) Agile
11 290 (18.54%) Data Engineering
12 260 (16.62%) Use Case
13 216 (13.81%) Decision-Making
14 213 (13.62%) Software Engineering
15 210 (13.43%) Problem-Solving
16 192 (12.28%) Data Governance
17 189 (12.08%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
18 176 (11.25%) ETL
18 176 (11.25%) Roadmaps
19 174 (11.13%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 876 (56.01%) Python
2 395 (25.26%) SQL
3 112 (7.16%) Java
4 63 (4.03%) R
5 61 (3.90%) C#
6 60 (3.84%) TypeScript
7 55 (3.52%) JavaScript
8 33 (2.11%) Bash
9 20 (1.28%) C++
10 17 (1.09%) PowerShell
11 15 (0.96%) Bicep
11 15 (0.96%) Scala
12 14 (0.90%) Go
13 11 (0.70%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.58%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.58%) SPARQL
15 7 (0.45%) Cypher
15 7 (0.45%) Rust
16 6 (0.38%) Gremlin
17 5 (0.32%) MATLAB
Qualifications
1 274 (17.52%) Security Cleared
2 188 (12.02%) SC Cleared
3 129 (8.25%) Degree
4 51 (3.26%) Master's Degree
5 46 (2.94%) BPSS Clearance
5 46 (2.94%) DV Cleared
6 45 (2.88%) AWS Certification
7 44 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (1.98%) PhD
9 23 (1.47%) Azure Certification
10 21 (1.34%) CISSP
11 20 (1.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 15 (0.96%) CISM
13 7 (0.45%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (0.45%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 5 (0.32%) CEH
14 5 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
14 5 (0.32%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.32%) GIAC
14 5 (0.32%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 184 (11.76%) Data Quality
2 65 (4.16%) GDPR
3 53 (3.39%) QA
4 28 (1.79%) NIST
5 17 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.02%) Accessibility
7 13 (0.83%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.70%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.58%) GRC
9 9 (0.58%) GxP
10 7 (0.45%) NCSC
11 5 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.32%) WCAG
12 4 (0.26%) COBIT
12 4 (0.26%) SLA
12 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
13 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 213 (13.62%) Docker
2 12 (0.77%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.70%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
4 5 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.26%) IAG
5 4 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.19%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.19%) Firmware
6 3 (0.19%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.19%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.064%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 266 (17.01%) Kubernetes
2 170 (10.87%) Terraform
3 23 (1.47%) Kubeflow
4 22 (1.41%) Grafana
5 20 (1.28%) Ansible
6 13 (0.83%) Podman
6 13 (0.83%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.38%) Istio
8 3 (0.19%) Nagios
8 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.19%) Puppet
8 3 (0.19%) Rancher
8 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.19%) vMotion
9 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.13%) Argo
9 2 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.13%) Kibana
9 2 (0.13%) Packer
9 2 (0.13%) SCCM
Vendors
1 201 (12.85%) Databricks
2 168 (10.74%) Microsoft
3 101 (6.46%) OpenAI
4 96 (6.14%) Google
5 55 (3.52%) Foundry
6 44 (2.81%) SAP
7 35 (2.24%) Oracle
8 30 (1.92%) ServiceNow
9 23 (1.47%) Informatica
10 17 (1.09%) IBM
11 15 (0.96%) UiPath
12 13 (0.83%) Dynatrace
13 9 (0.58%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.51%) Salesforce
15 7 (0.45%) Amplitude
15 7 (0.45%) Sybase
15 7 (0.45%) Talend
16 6 (0.38%) Palantir
16 6 (0.38%) Pega
16 6 (0.38%) Workday