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 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 81 105 187
Rank change year-on-year +24 +82 +25
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,083 802 628
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.10% 2.23% 1.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.45% 2.58% 1.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 714 520 461
10th Percentile £402 £391 £381
25th Percentile £464 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £570
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +5.26% -8.80%
75th Percentile £688 £725 £713
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £508 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +1.50% -4.76% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 15 30
10th Percentile £30.00 £13.06 £42.36
25th Percentile £42.52 £15.28 -
Median hourly rate £55.00 £28.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +92.98% -38.28% -11.19%
75th Percentile £84.75 £46.18 -
90th Percentile £113.50 £51.75 £65.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £46.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year +40.75% - -12.04%

All Process and 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 31,413 31,031 41,625
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.99% 86.14% 88.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,677 18,660 28,067
10th Percentile £297 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,038 1,093 1,604
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.07 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.33 £20.12 £18.95
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £42.75
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -18.13% +22.14%
75th Percentile £43.75 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.50 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.58 £33.00 £43.83
% change year-on-year -31.59% -24.70% +58.04%

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025.

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 November 2025. 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 +24 915 £575 -4.17% 2,152
London +16 600 £625 -0.79% 1,423
UK excluding London +45 360 £508 +1.50% 838
Work from Home +34 353 £550 +7.32% 1,017
North of England -4 91 £475 -3.46% 217
South East +45 84 £525 +0.48% 296
Scotland +32 61 £503 +18.24% 47
East of England +19 61 £550 +10.00% 68
North West -6 48 £450 -5.56% 146
Yorkshire -17 38 £525 - 54
Midlands -4 36 £514 +20.94% 101
West Midlands -9 27 £525 +16.67% 61
South West -22 21 £550 -17.60% 76
Wales +1 11 £700 +185.71% 19
East Midlands -11 8 £410 +15.17% 38
North East -17 6 £450 -9.09% 19
Northern Ireland -6 1 £700 - 17

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 93 (8.59%) Apache Spark
2 66 (6.09%) Apache Airflow
3 27 (2.49%) Apache
4 26 (2.40%) Jupyter
5 10 (0.92%) Confluence
6 8 (0.74%) Apache Pig
7 7 (0.65%) SAS
8 6 (0.55%) GeoServer
8 6 (0.55%) Smallworld
9 4 (0.37%) Appian
9 4 (0.37%) IIS
9 4 (0.37%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.18%) Camunda
10 2 (0.18%) CMS
11 1 (0.092%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.092%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.092%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.092%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.092%) nginx
11 1 (0.092%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 41 (3.79%) Chatbot
2 17 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.11%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 7 (0.65%) Simulink
6 5 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.092%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.092%) GNU Octave
7 1 (0.092%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.092%) Sketch
7 1 (0.092%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.092%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (0.83%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.28%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
3 2 (0.18%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.18%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.092%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.092%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.092%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.092%) Shopify
4 1 (0.092%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 450 (41.55%) Azure
2 374 (34.53%) AWS
3 217 (20.04%) GCP
4 100 (9.23%) Power Platform
5 91 (8.40%) GitHub
5 91 (8.40%) Serverless
6 79 (7.29%) Azure Machine Learning
7 69 (6.37%) Azure DevOps
8 59 (5.45%) Amazon SageMaker
9 57 (5.26%) Amazon S3
10 55 (5.08%) Snowflake
11 51 (4.71%) Azure AI
12 49 (4.52%) Vertex AI
13 48 (4.43%) Azure AKS
14 47 (4.34%) AWS Lambda
14 47 (4.34%) Azure Data Factory
15 43 (3.97%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 40 (3.69%) GitHub Actions
17 34 (3.14%) Amazon Bedrock
17 34 (3.14%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.48%) Network Security
2 14 (1.29%) HTTP
3 13 (1.20%) DNS
4 9 (0.83%) SSL
5 8 (0.74%) Ethernet
5 8 (0.74%) FTP
5 8 (0.74%) SMTP
6 7 (0.65%) Internet
7 6 (0.55%) Firewall
8 5 (0.46%) 5G
8 5 (0.46%) LTE
8 5 (0.46%) VoIP
9 4 (0.37%) Radio Access Network
9 4 (0.37%) VPN
10 3 (0.28%) 4G
10 3 (0.28%) DOCSIS
10 3 (0.28%) GPON
10 3 (0.28%) MPLS
10 3 (0.28%) xDSL
11 2 (0.18%) OSPF
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (8.22%) Power BI
2 73 (6.74%) Data Warehouse
3 69 (6.37%) Big Data
4 57 (5.26%) NoSQL
5 56 (5.17%) PostgreSQL
6 55 (5.08%) Data Lake
7 45 (4.16%) BigQuery
8 38 (3.51%) Tableau
9 31 (2.86%) Metadata
10 30 (2.77%) Hadoop
11 25 (2.31%) MongoDB
12 21 (1.94%) Data Mining
13 20 (1.85%) Elasticsearch
14 17 (1.57%) Amazon Athena
14 17 (1.57%) Relational Database
15 15 (1.39%) Geospatial Data
15 15 (1.39%) Pinecone
16 14 (1.29%) Amazon Redshift
16 14 (1.29%) DynamoDB
17 13 (1.20%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 95 (8.77%) Git
2 63 (5.82%) MLflow
3 54 (4.99%) Jenkins
4 30 (2.77%) GitLab
5 24 (2.22%) JIRA
6 18 (1.66%) Selenium
7 16 (1.48%) JMeter
8 12 (1.11%) SonarQube
9 10 (0.92%) JUnit
10 8 (0.74%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.65%) Visual Studio
12 6 (0.55%) Mockito
12 6 (0.55%) Postman
12 6 (0.55%) PyCharm
13 5 (0.46%) Artifactory
13 5 (0.46%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.46%) MSTest
14 4 (0.37%) Gradle
14 4 (0.37%) Robot Framework
14 4 (0.37%) RStudio
General
1 311 (28.72%) Social Skills
2 200 (18.47%) Finance
3 121 (11.17%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 67 (6.19%) Banking
6 50 (4.62%) Marketing
7 42 (3.88%) Pharmaceutical
8 39 (3.60%) Retail
9 32 (2.95%) Telecoms
10 29 (2.68%) Legal
11 27 (2.49%) Investment Banking
12 24 (2.22%) Manufacturing
13 20 (1.85%) Front Office
14 18 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
15 16 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 13 (1.20%) Electronics
16 13 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
17 11 (1.02%) Financial Institution
18 10 (0.92%) Aerospace
18 10 (0.92%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 154 (14.22%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 146 (13.48%) Data Scientist
3 142 (13.11%) Architect
4 115 (10.62%) Developer
5 109 (10.06%) Data Engineer
5 109 (10.06%) Senior
6 66 (6.09%) Lead
7 57 (5.26%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 52 (4.80%) Python Engineer
9 50 (4.62%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
10 48 (4.43%) Analyst
11 42 (3.88%) Software Engineer
12 35 (3.23%) Data Architect
13 31 (2.86%) Solutions Architect
14 30 (2.77%) Azure Engineer
14 30 (2.77%) Consultant
15 26 (2.40%) Python Developer
16 24 (2.22%) Data Analyst
16 24 (2.22%) Full-Stack Engineer
16 24 (2.22%) Product Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 175 (16.16%) PyTorch
2 153 (14.13%) TensorFlow
3 103 (9.51%) scikit-learn
4 100 (9.23%) Pandas
5 81 (7.48%) LangChain
6 78 (7.20%) FastAPI
7 65 (6.00%) Kafka
7 65 (6.00%) React
8 64 (5.91%) NumPy
9 58 (5.36%) Hugging Face
10 57 (5.26%) RESTful
11 45 (4.16%) LangGraph
12 44 (4.06%) REST
13 43 (3.97%) PySpark
14 35 (3.23%) .NET
15 33 (3.05%) Flask
16 31 (2.86%) pytest
17 29 (2.68%) Node.js
18 22 (2.03%) AngularJS
19 20 (1.85%) OpenCV
Miscellaneous
1 169 (15.60%) Algorithms
2 139 (12.83%) Cloud Native
3 86 (7.94%) AI Agents
4 45 (4.16%) Product Ownership
5 38 (3.51%) Distributed Systems
6 36 (3.32%) Data Protection Act
7 35 (3.23%) Distributed Computing
8 30 (2.77%) Onboarding
9 26 (2.40%) Genomics
10 25 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
11 24 (2.22%) Data Structures
12 22 (2.03%) Life Science
13 21 (1.94%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.57%) Management Information System
15 16 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
15 16 (1.48%) Greenfield Project
16 15 (1.39%) Hybrid Cloud
17 12 (1.11%) IoT
18 10 (0.92%) Derivative
18 10 (0.92%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.77%) Linux
2 11 (1.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 9 (0.83%) Ubuntu
4 8 (0.74%) Unix
4 8 (0.74%) Windows
5 7 (0.65%) VMS
6 5 (0.46%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.37%) Android
8 2 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.092%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 791 (73.04%) AI
2 432 (39.89%) Data Science
3 308 (28.44%) LLM
4 291 (26.87%) CI/CD
5 276 (25.48%) Agile
5 276 (25.48%) Analytics
6 262 (24.19%) DevOps
7 203 (18.74%) Data Pipeline
8 192 (17.73%) Generative AI
9 187 (17.27%) Problem-Solving
10 182 (16.81%) MLOps
11 172 (15.88%) Data Engineering
12 163 (15.05%) Natural Language Processing
13 158 (14.59%) Software Engineering
14 138 (12.74%) Containerisation
15 131 (12.10%) Computer Science
16 130 (12.00%) Visualisation
17 127 (11.73%) Data Modelling
18 119 (10.99%) Use Case
19 118 (10.90%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 686 (63.34%) Python
2 268 (24.75%) SQL
3 76 (7.02%) R
4 71 (6.56%) Java
5 56 (5.17%) JavaScript
6 53 (4.89%) TypeScript
7 39 (3.60%) C#
8 36 (3.32%) C++
9 33 (3.05%) PowerShell
10 30 (2.77%) Scala
11 19 (1.75%) Bash
12 18 (1.66%) Bicep
13 16 (1.48%) C
14 15 (1.39%) MATLAB
15 9 (0.83%) Go
16 7 (0.65%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.65%) SystemVerilog
16 7 (0.65%) Tcl
17 6 (0.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 3 (0.28%) Rust
Qualifications
1 180 (16.62%) Degree
2 142 (13.11%) Security Cleared
3 102 (9.42%) SC Cleared
4 70 (6.46%) Master's Degree
5 46 (4.25%) PhD
6 44 (4.06%) Computer Science Degree
7 43 (3.97%) MCP
8 26 (2.40%) DV Cleared
9 24 (2.22%) Azure Certification
10 18 (1.66%) AWS Certification
11 14 (1.29%) BPSS Clearance
12 9 (0.83%) CISSP
13 7 (0.65%) HNC
13 7 (0.65%) HND
14 4 (0.37%) Cisco Certification
14 4 (0.37%) ISTQB
14 4 (0.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Certification
14 4 (0.37%) TOGAF Certification
15 3 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (6.00%) Data Quality
2 53 (4.89%) GDPR
3 39 (3.60%) NIST
3 39 (3.60%) QA
4 31 (2.86%) EU AI Act
5 24 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 21 (1.94%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 7 (0.65%) DO-254
9 6 (0.55%) SOC 2
10 5 (0.46%) HIPAA
10 5 (0.46%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 5 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 4 (0.37%) Disclosure Scotland
11 4 (0.37%) GRC
12 3 (0.28%) NCSC
12 3 (0.28%) PCI DSS
13 2 (0.18%) EMIR
13 2 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 2 (0.18%) OASIS TOSCA
System Software
1 185 (17.08%) Docker
2 12 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
3 11 (1.02%) Active Directory
4 7 (0.65%) Firmware
5 3 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.18%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.18%) KVM
6 2 (0.18%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.092%) GPFS
7 1 (0.092%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 180 (16.62%) Kubernetes
2 112 (10.34%) Terraform
3 32 (2.95%) Grafana
4 25 (2.31%) Ansible
5 22 (2.03%) Kubeflow
6 16 (1.48%) Prometheus
7 15 (1.39%) Kibana
8 11 (1.02%) SCOM
9 10 (0.92%) logstash
10 9 (0.83%) ITRS Geneos
11 7 (0.65%) Argo
12 5 (0.46%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.37%) Cilium
13 4 (0.37%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.37%) Rsyslog
14 3 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
14 3 (0.28%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
15 2 (0.18%) Amdocs OSS
15 2 (0.18%) Podman
16 1 (0.092%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 156 (14.40%) Microsoft
2 128 (11.82%) Databricks
3 95 (8.77%) Google
4 58 (5.36%) OpenAI
5 37 (3.42%) Foundry
6 31 (2.86%) SAP
7 19 (1.75%) Splunk
8 11 (1.02%) Oracle
9 10 (0.92%) NVIDIA
9 10 (0.92%) Salesforce
9 10 (0.92%) ServiceNow
10 9 (0.83%) Solace
10 9 (0.83%) TIBCO
11 8 (0.74%) Palantir
12 7 (0.65%) Actel
12 7 (0.65%) Altera
12 7 (0.65%) Cisco
12 7 (0.65%) Intel
12 7 (0.65%) Microsemi
12 7 (0.65%) Xilinx