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 19 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 93 111
Rank change year-on-year 0 +18 +81
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,592 921 819
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.90% 2.80% 2.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 3.09% 2.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,014 588 554
10th Percentile £413 £405 £400
25th Percentile £490 £475 £493
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +2.13%
75th Percentile £685 £675 £731
90th Percentile £788 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £539 £495
% change year-on-year +2.09% +8.95% -10.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 23 19
10th Percentile £28.50 £26.34 £13.06
25th Percentile £42.58 £44.42 £25.93
Median hourly rate £77.00 £62.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +23.20% +35.34% -
75th Percentile £88.62 £79.38 £53.75
90th Percentile £89.25 £87.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £75.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +2.67% +62.41% -

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 46,340 29,830 33,021
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.48% 90.53% 85.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,136 18,534 20,247
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,159 1,812 1,459
10th Percentile £13.81 £14.23 £14.96
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% -1.91%
75th Percentile £67.50 £44.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +82.22% -47.67% +1.18%

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 19 September 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 19 September 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 19 September 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 +1 1,369 £575 +1.77% 5,648
London +22 912 £584 -2.67% 3,872
UK excluding London -24 515 £550 +2.09% 2,178
Work from Home -7 422 £600 +9.09% 2,043
North of England -30 142 £550 +13.11% 428
South East -9 140 £600 +6.67% 507
Scotland +15 97 £450 -14.29% 294
Yorkshire -3 65 £538 +4.57% 109
North West -50 60 £600 +26.32% 258
South West -17 50 £513 -10.87% 302
Midlands -45 47 £563 +8.28% 198
West Midlands -44 39 £575 +10.68% 105
East of England -27 36 £463 -19.57% 325
North East -39 18 £513 +20.59% 64
Wales -8 7 £530 -21.48% 53
East Midlands -15 6 £425 -8.11% 93
Northern Ireland +3 1 £334 -52.29% 90

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 90 (5.65%) Apache Spark
2 79 (4.96%) Apache Airflow
3 54 (3.39%) Apache
4 35 (2.20%) Jupyter
5 23 (1.44%) Confluence
6 11 (0.69%) SAS
7 7 (0.44%) IIS
8 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.31%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Superset
12 2 (0.13%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) CMS
12 2 (0.13%) Headless CMS
13 1 (0.063%) Apache Pulsar
13 1 (0.063%) Luigi
13 1 (0.063%) nginx
Applications
1 28 (1.76%) Chatbot
2 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 4 (0.25%) CPLEX
4 2 (0.13%) DaVinci Resolve
4 2 (0.13%) Notion
4 2 (0.13%) NUKE
5 1 (0.063%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.063%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.063%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.063%) Simulink
5 1 (0.063%) Sketch
5 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.63%) SAP IBP
2 8 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.19%) Cloudability
3 3 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
3 3 (0.19%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.063%) Actimize
5 1 (0.063%) Endur
5 1 (0.063%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.063%) OpenLink RightAngle
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.063%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.063%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.063%) SAP APO
5 1 (0.063%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 532 (33.42%) Azure
2 517 (32.47%) AWS
3 303 (19.03%) GCP
4 113 (7.10%) Power Platform
5 112 (7.04%) GitHub
6 103 (6.47%) Serverless
7 91 (5.72%) Snowflake
8 90 (5.65%) Amazon S3
9 83 (5.21%) AWS Lambda
10 73 (4.59%) Amazon SageMaker
11 62 (3.89%) dbt
12 61 (3.83%) Amazon Bedrock
13 58 (3.64%) Azure Machine Learning
14 50 (3.14%) Azure AI
15 49 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
15 49 (3.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 48 (3.02%) Azure Data Factory
16 48 (3.02%) Vertex AI
17 43 (2.70%) SaaS
18 42 (2.64%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.26%) Network Security
2 19 (1.19%) Broadband
3 18 (1.13%) Internet
4 12 (0.75%) DNS
4 12 (0.75%) HTTP
5 11 (0.69%) Firewall
6 9 (0.57%) DHCP
6 9 (0.57%) VPN
7 5 (0.31%) SMTP
8 4 (0.25%) NAS
8 4 (0.25%) SAN
8 4 (0.25%) TCP/IP
8 4 (0.25%) VLAN
9 3 (0.19%) CTI
9 3 (0.19%) MQTT
9 3 (0.19%) SMS
10 2 (0.13%) FTP
10 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
10 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
10 2 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (6.60%) Power BI
2 94 (5.90%) Data Warehouse
3 92 (5.78%) Data Lake
4 86 (5.40%) Metadata
5 80 (5.03%) BigQuery
6 65 (4.08%) Big Data
7 52 (3.27%) Amazon Redshift
8 48 (3.02%) Delta Lake
9 45 (2.83%) NoSQL
10 42 (2.64%) Tableau
11 35 (2.20%) Amazon Athena
11 35 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
12 28 (1.76%) Relational Database
13 23 (1.44%) Neo4j
14 22 (1.38%) MongoDB
15 20 (1.26%) Hadoop
16 19 (1.19%) Data Mining
17 18 (1.13%) Elasticsearch
17 18 (1.13%) Looker
18 16 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 102 (6.41%) Git
2 54 (3.39%) GitLab
3 47 (2.95%) JIRA
4 43 (2.70%) MLflow
5 17 (1.07%) Jenkins
6 13 (0.82%) Claude Code
7 7 (0.44%) Selenium
7 7 (0.44%) Vite
8 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
8 5 (0.31%) ERwin
8 5 (0.31%) JMeter
8 5 (0.31%) RStudio
9 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.19%) Postman
9 3 (0.19%) Pylint
9 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
10 2 (0.13%) Locust
10 2 (0.13%) Newman
10 2 (0.13%) Spinnaker
10 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
General
1 352 (22.11%) Social Skills
2 306 (19.22%) Finance
3 233 (14.64%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (9.05%) Public Sector
5 117 (7.35%) Banking
6 40 (2.51%) Marketing
7 36 (2.26%) Retail
8 33 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 29 (1.82%) Pharmaceutical
10 28 (1.76%) Telecoms
11 23 (1.44%) Aerospace
11 23 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
11 23 (1.44%) Legal
11 23 (1.44%) Manufacturing
12 22 (1.38%) Front Office
13 21 (1.32%) Influencing Skills
14 18 (1.13%) Financial Institution
14 18 (1.13%) Investment Banking
15 17 (1.07%) Law
16 14 (0.88%) Billing
Job Titles
1 283 (17.78%) Senior
2 261 (16.39%) Architect
3 196 (12.31%) Data Scientist
4 181 (11.37%) Data Engineer
5 177 (11.12%) Lead
6 149 (9.36%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 98 (6.16%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 74 (4.65%) Python Engineer
9 73 (4.59%) Developer
10 72 (4.52%) Solutions Architect
11 71 (4.46%) Data Architect
12 66 (4.15%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
13 61 (3.83%) Analyst
14 57 (3.58%) Software Engineer
15 54 (3.39%) Platform Engineer
16 51 (3.20%) Senior Data Engineer
17 50 (3.14%) Security Architect
18 49 (3.08%) Senior Data Scientist
19 45 (2.83%) DevOps Engineer
20 40 (2.51%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (12.31%) Terraform
2 111 (6.97%) PyTorch
3 107 (6.72%) Kafka
4 93 (5.84%) PySpark
5 80 (5.03%) TensorFlow
6 71 (4.46%) REST
7 69 (4.33%) LangChain
8 65 (4.08%) scikit-learn
9 63 (3.96%) Pandas
10 56 (3.52%) React
11 47 (2.95%) NumPy
11 47 (2.95%) pytest
12 40 (2.51%) .NET
13 38 (2.39%) LangGraph
14 35 (2.20%) FastAPI
15 29 (1.82%) JSON
16 28 (1.76%) Hugging Face
17 26 (1.63%) Model Context Protocol
18 23 (1.44%) RESTful
19 19 (1.19%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 196 (12.31%) Cloud Native
2 173 (10.87%) AI Agents
3 95 (5.97%) Algorithms
4 68 (4.27%) Onboarding
4 68 (4.27%) Product Ownership
5 64 (4.02%) Distributed Systems
6 38 (2.39%) Enterprise Software
7 37 (2.32%) Data Structures
8 27 (1.70%) Life Science
9 25 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.38%) Hybrid Cloud
10 22 (1.38%) Management Information System
11 18 (1.13%) CMDB
12 17 (1.07%) Social Media
12 17 (1.07%) Taxonomies
13 15 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
13 15 (0.94%) Public Cloud
13 15 (0.94%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.88%) Clustering
14 14 (0.88%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 46 (2.89%) Linux
2 19 (1.19%) Windows
3 17 (1.07%) Unix
4 4 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.19%) Android
6 2 (0.13%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.13%) VMS
7 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,314 (82.54%) AI
2 579 (36.37%) Data Science
3 499 (31.34%) CI/CD
4 483 (30.34%) Analytics
5 434 (27.26%) LLM
6 397 (24.94%) Generative AI
7 356 (22.36%) Data Pipeline
8 332 (20.85%) Agile
9 324 (20.35%) DevOps
10 293 (18.40%) MLOps
11 280 (17.59%) Data Engineering
12 262 (16.46%) Software Engineering
13 250 (15.70%) Decision-Making
14 240 (15.08%) Stakeholder Management
15 239 (15.01%) Use Case
16 233 (14.64%) Roadmaps
17 216 (13.57%) Infrastructure as Code
18 204 (12.81%) Problem-Solving
19 201 (12.63%) Data Modelling
20 196 (12.31%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 855 (53.71%) Python
2 393 (24.69%) SQL
3 113 (7.10%) Java
4 76 (4.77%) JavaScript
5 58 (3.64%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.51%) Bash
6 40 (2.51%) C#
7 39 (2.45%) R
8 29 (1.82%) PowerShell
9 23 (1.44%) Scala
10 21 (1.32%) C++
11 18 (1.13%) Go
12 14 (0.88%) Bicep
13 12 (0.75%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.69%) Cypher
14 11 (0.69%) PL/SQL
15 7 (0.44%) Gremlin
15 7 (0.44%) SPARQL
16 6 (0.38%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.31%) Perl
Qualifications
1 316 (19.85%) Security Cleared
2 243 (15.26%) SC Cleared
3 123 (7.73%) Degree
4 58 (3.64%) DV Cleared
5 55 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
6 47 (2.95%) AWS Certification
7 39 (2.45%) Master's Degree
8 38 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 35 (2.20%) CISSP
10 28 (1.76%) PhD
11 27 (1.70%) Azure Certification
12 18 (1.13%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 16 (1.01%) CISM
14 15 (0.94%) TOGAF Certification
15 11 (0.69%) Cisco Certification
16 10 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
17 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
18 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
19 7 (0.44%) PMP
20 6 (0.38%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 223 (14.01%) Data Quality
2 62 (3.89%) GDPR
3 58 (3.64%) QA
4 32 (2.01%) NIST
5 19 (1.19%) Accessibility
6 18 (1.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 17 (1.07%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.63%) SLA
9 9 (0.57%) GRC
9 9 (0.57%) GxP
9 9 (0.57%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 9 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.38%) NCSC
11 5 (0.31%) Solvency II
12 4 (0.25%) Basel III
12 4 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 4 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
12 4 (0.25%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 211 (13.25%) Docker
2 15 (0.94%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.63%) Hyper-V
4 10 (0.63%) IAG
5 8 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.44%) NFS
7 5 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
8 3 (0.19%) BitLocker
8 3 (0.19%) Terminal Services
8 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 2 (0.13%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
9 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.063%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 278 (17.46%) Kubernetes
2 40 (2.51%) Ansible
3 28 (1.76%) Kubeflow
4 26 (1.63%) Grafana
5 19 (1.19%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.38%) Istio
7 5 (0.31%) Podman
7 5 (0.31%) systemd
8 3 (0.19%) Argo
8 3 (0.19%) Kibana
8 3 (0.19%) Nagios
8 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.19%) Puppet
8 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.19%) vMotion
9 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.13%) Packer
9 2 (0.13%) SCCM
10 1 (0.063%) Cilium
10 1 (0.063%) logstash
Vendors
1 207 (13.00%) Databricks
2 160 (10.05%) Microsoft
3 102 (6.41%) Google
4 61 (3.83%) OpenAI
5 44 (2.76%) SAP
6 34 (2.14%) ServiceNow
7 29 (1.82%) Foundry
7 29 (1.82%) Oracle
8 22 (1.38%) Informatica
9 17 (1.07%) Dynatrace
10 14 (0.88%) VMware
11 13 (0.82%) Splunk
12 11 (0.69%) IBM
12 11 (0.69%) Salesforce
13 10 (0.63%) Nexthink
13 10 (0.63%) UiPath
14 7 (0.44%) Cisco
14 7 (0.44%) Sybase
15 6 (0.38%) Pega
16 5 (0.31%) New Relic