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

6 months to
11 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 96 80 113
Rank change year-on-year -16 +33 +84
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,562 1,011 792
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 3.05% 2.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.38% 3.37% 2.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 989 659 521
10th Percentile £405 £401 £388
25th Percentile £475 £463 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +3.45%
75th Percentile £688 £688 £731
90th Percentile £788 £775 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £525 £500
% change year-on-year +4.76% +5.00% -6.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 26 18
10th Percentile £28.50 £27.59 £13.06
25th Percentile £39.91 £41.50 £19.47
Median hourly rate £77.00 £53.22 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +44.68% +15.24% -
75th Percentile £85.13 £80.00 £52.50
90th Percentile £88.75 £87.75 £53.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £63.11 £46.18
% change year-on-year +22.00% +36.67% -

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 46,170 29,963 32,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.61% 90.48% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,721 18,625 19,646
10th Percentile £325 £295 £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 £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £737 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,354 1,887 1,283
10th Percentile £13.53 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.00 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £37.50 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +49.11% -37.13% -9.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.90 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.65 £65.06 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £22.27 £40.33
% change year-on-year +68.43% -44.79% -7.99%

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 October 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 October 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 October 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 -13 1,339 £584 +3.82% 5,203
London +6 891 £600 -2.28% 3,604
UK excluding London -23 510 £550 +4.76% 1,837
Work from Home -17 427 £575 +4.55% 2,010
North of England -15 152 £550 +14.58% 414
South East -20 135 £600 +11.63% 416
Scotland 0 93 £450 -10.45% 215
North West -23 72 £600 +33.33% 258
Yorkshire -1 61 £513 -0.29% 102
South West 0 52 £525 -4.55% 198
Midlands -36 49 £600 +14.29% 179
West Midlands -42 39 £588 +11.90% 105
East of England -46 29 £500 -9.09% 281
North East -26 20 £550 +29.41% 55
Wales -11 7 £530 -21.48% 66
East Midlands -10 6 £425 -8.11% 74
Northern Ireland +4 2 £467 -33.29% 81

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 81 (5.19%) Apache Airflow
3 70 (4.48%) Apache
4 33 (2.11%) Jupyter
5 25 (1.60%) Confluence
6 10 (0.64%) SAS
7 7 (0.45%) IIS
8 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.32%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.26%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Superset
12 2 (0.13%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) CMS
12 2 (0.13%) Headless CMS
12 2 (0.13%) nginx
13 1 (0.064%) Luigi
Applications
1 28 (1.79%) Chatbot
2 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.19%) CPLEX
4 2 (0.13%) DaVinci Resolve
4 2 (0.13%) Notion
4 2 (0.13%) NUKE
5 1 (0.064%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.064%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.064%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.064%) Simulink
5 1 (0.064%) Sketch
5 1 (0.064%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.064%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.19%) Cloudability
2 3 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
2 3 (0.19%) SAP IBP
3 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.064%) Actimize
4 1 (0.064%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.064%) Endur
4 1 (0.064%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.064%) OpenLink RightAngle
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.064%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 523 (33.48%) Azure
2 510 (32.65%) AWS
3 297 (19.01%) GCP
4 112 (7.17%) Power Platform
5 102 (6.53%) Serverless
6 98 (6.27%) GitHub
7 92 (5.89%) Amazon S3
8 91 (5.83%) Snowflake
9 80 (5.12%) AWS Lambda
10 65 (4.16%) Amazon Bedrock
10 65 (4.16%) Amazon SageMaker
11 63 (4.03%) dbt
12 61 (3.91%) Azure Machine Learning
13 51 (3.27%) Azure AI
14 49 (3.14%) Azure DevOps
15 46 (2.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 46 (2.94%) SaaS
16 45 (2.88%) Azure Data Factory
16 45 (2.88%) Vertex AI
17 39 (2.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 22 (1.41%) Network Security
2 20 (1.28%) Broadband
3 19 (1.22%) Internet
4 14 (0.90%) DNS
5 13 (0.83%) Firewall
6 11 (0.70%) HTTP
7 9 (0.58%) DHCP
7 9 (0.58%) VPN
8 5 (0.32%) SMTP
8 5 (0.32%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.26%) NAS
9 4 (0.26%) SAN
9 4 (0.26%) SMS
9 4 (0.26%) VLAN
10 3 (0.19%) CTI
10 3 (0.19%) MQTT
11 2 (0.13%) FTP
11 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
11 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
11 2 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (6.59%) Data Warehouse
2 102 (6.53%) Power BI
3 92 (5.89%) Data Lake
3 92 (5.89%) Metadata
4 70 (4.48%) BigQuery
5 61 (3.91%) Big Data
6 55 (3.52%) Delta Lake
7 52 (3.33%) Amazon Redshift
8 49 (3.14%) NoSQL
9 41 (2.62%) Tableau
10 38 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
11 31 (1.98%) Amazon Athena
12 28 (1.79%) Relational Database
13 26 (1.66%) Hadoop
13 26 (1.66%) Neo4j
14 22 (1.41%) Elasticsearch
15 21 (1.34%) MongoDB
16 19 (1.22%) Amazon RDS
17 17 (1.09%) DynamoDB
17 17 (1.09%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 105 (6.72%) Git
2 56 (3.59%) GitLab
3 47 (3.01%) JIRA
4 43 (2.75%) MLflow
5 13 (0.83%) Jenkins
6 11 (0.70%) Claude Code
7 7 (0.45%) Vite
8 6 (0.38%) JMeter
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) Postman
9 5 (0.32%) RStudio
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Pylint
10 4 (0.26%) REST Assured
10 4 (0.26%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) Newman
12 2 (0.13%) Applitools
12 2 (0.13%) ER Studio
12 2 (0.13%) Spinnaker
12 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
General
1 360 (23.05%) Social Skills
2 319 (20.42%) Finance
3 238 (15.24%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (9.41%) Public Sector
5 125 (8.00%) Banking
6 39 (2.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 38 (2.43%) Marketing
8 29 (1.86%) Retail
9 27 (1.73%) Pharmaceutical
9 27 (1.73%) Telecoms
10 24 (1.54%) Manufacturing
11 23 (1.47%) Aerospace
12 22 (1.41%) Legal
13 21 (1.34%) Financial Institution
13 21 (1.34%) Influencing Skills
14 18 (1.15%) Front Office
15 17 (1.09%) Investment Banking
16 16 (1.02%) Billing
17 15 (0.96%) Documentation Skills
17 15 (0.96%) Law
Job Titles
1 286 (18.31%) Senior
2 249 (15.94%) Architect
3 193 (12.36%) Data Engineer
4 189 (12.10%) Data Scientist
5 177 (11.33%) Lead
6 145 (9.28%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 109 (6.98%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 71 (4.55%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 70 (4.48%) Python Engineer
10 69 (4.42%) Solutions Architect
11 65 (4.16%) Developer
12 64 (4.10%) Data Architect
13 59 (3.78%) Analyst
13 59 (3.78%) Senior Data Engineer
14 58 (3.71%) Platform Engineer
15 53 (3.39%) Senior Data Scientist
16 47 (3.01%) Security Architect
17 46 (2.94%) Software Engineer
18 40 (2.56%) DevOps Engineer
19 37 (2.37%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 206 (13.19%) Terraform
2 108 (6.91%) Kafka
3 103 (6.59%) PyTorch
4 95 (6.08%) PySpark
5 77 (4.93%) TensorFlow
6 76 (4.87%) REST
7 73 (4.67%) LangChain
8 61 (3.91%) scikit-learn
9 58 (3.71%) React
10 53 (3.39%) pytest
11 50 (3.20%) Pandas
12 41 (2.62%) NumPy
13 39 (2.50%) LangGraph
14 36 (2.30%) FastAPI
15 28 (1.79%) .NET
16 27 (1.73%) JSON
17 24 (1.54%) Hugging Face
18 23 (1.47%) Model Context Protocol
19 21 (1.34%) LlamaIndex
19 21 (1.34%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 199 (12.74%) Cloud Native
2 171 (10.95%) AI Agents
3 104 (6.66%) Algorithms
4 77 (4.93%) Onboarding
5 69 (4.42%) Distributed Systems
6 64 (4.10%) Product Ownership
7 41 (2.62%) Data Structures
7 41 (2.62%) Enterprise Software
8 29 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
8 29 (1.86%) Life Science
9 24 (1.54%) Management Information System
10 21 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
11 19 (1.22%) Social Media
12 18 (1.15%) CMDB
13 17 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
13 17 (1.09%) Taxonomies
14 16 (1.02%) Analytical Mindset
14 16 (1.02%) Clustering
14 16 (1.02%) Credit Risk
15 15 (0.96%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 45 (2.88%) Linux
2 21 (1.34%) Windows
3 16 (1.02%) Unix
4 4 (0.26%) Android
4 4 (0.26%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.26%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.19%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.064%) macOS
6 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,288 (82.46%) AI
2 564 (36.11%) Data Science
3 503 (32.20%) CI/CD
4 476 (30.47%) Analytics
5 422 (27.02%) LLM
6 390 (24.97%) Generative AI
7 356 (22.79%) Data Pipeline
8 335 (21.45%) DevOps
9 325 (20.81%) Agile
10 303 (19.40%) MLOps
11 288 (18.44%) Data Engineering
12 267 (17.09%) Software Engineering
13 247 (15.81%) Stakeholder Management
13 247 (15.81%) Use Case
14 241 (15.43%) Decision-Making
15 238 (15.24%) Roadmaps
16 216 (13.83%) Infrastructure as Code
17 208 (13.32%) Data Modelling
18 207 (13.25%) Problem-Solving
18 207 (13.25%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 833 (53.33%) Python
2 412 (26.38%) SQL
3 110 (7.04%) Java
4 76 (4.87%) JavaScript
5 64 (4.10%) TypeScript
6 42 (2.69%) Bash
7 33 (2.11%) R
8 30 (1.92%) C#
8 30 (1.92%) PowerShell
9 27 (1.73%) Scala
10 20 (1.28%) Go
11 18 (1.15%) C++
12 17 (1.09%) Bicep
13 14 (0.90%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.70%) Cypher
14 11 (0.70%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.51%) Gremlin
16 7 (0.45%) SPARQL
17 5 (0.32%) Kotlin
17 5 (0.32%) Perl
Qualifications
1 305 (19.53%) Security Cleared
2 241 (15.43%) SC Cleared
3 133 (8.51%) Degree
4 59 (3.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 55 (3.52%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.33%) AWS Certification
7 41 (2.62%) Master's Degree
8 40 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
9 31 (1.98%) CISSP
10 30 (1.92%) Azure Certification
11 26 (1.66%) PhD
12 19 (1.22%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.96%) TOGAF Certification
14 14 (0.90%) CISM
15 10 (0.64%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
15 10 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
15 10 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
16 8 (0.51%) DBS Check
16 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 5 (0.32%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 232 (14.85%) Data Quality
2 55 (3.52%) GDPR
3 53 (3.39%) QA
4 30 (1.92%) NIST
5 21 (1.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 17 (1.09%) Accessibility
7 12 (0.77%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 10 (0.64%) NCSC
8 10 (0.64%) SLA
9 9 (0.58%) GRC
9 9 (0.58%) PCI DSS
10 7 (0.45%) GxP
10 7 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 6 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 6 (0.38%) HIPAA
12 5 (0.32%) Basel III
12 5 (0.32%) Solvency II
13 4 (0.26%) SOC 2
14 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 214 (13.70%) Docker
2 16 (1.02%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.64%) Hyper-V
4 10 (0.64%) IAG
5 8 (0.51%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.45%) NFS
7 5 (0.32%) 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 (0.064%) Firmware
10 1 (0.064%) zsh
Systems Management
1 286 (18.31%) Kubernetes
2 47 (3.01%) Ansible
3 29 (1.86%) Kubeflow
4 27 (1.73%) Grafana
5 19 (1.22%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.38%) systemd
7 5 (0.32%) Podman
8 4 (0.26%) Istio
9 3 (0.19%) Argo
9 3 (0.19%) Kibana
9 3 (0.19%) Nagios
9 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.19%) Puppet
9 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.19%) vMotion
10 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.13%) Packer
10 2 (0.13%) SCCM
10 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.064%) QRadar
Vendors
1 210 (13.44%) Databricks
2 157 (10.05%) Microsoft
3 109 (6.98%) Google
4 66 (4.23%) OpenAI
5 36 (2.30%) SAP
6 35 (2.24%) Oracle
7 34 (2.18%) ServiceNow
8 28 (1.79%) Foundry
9 21 (1.34%) Informatica
10 16 (1.02%) Dynatrace
11 14 (0.90%) VMware
12 11 (0.70%) Salesforce
12 11 (0.70%) Splunk
13 10 (0.64%) IBM
13 10 (0.64%) Nexthink
13 10 (0.64%) UiPath
14 7 (0.45%) Cisco
15 6 (0.38%) New Relic
15 6 (0.38%) Pega
16 5 (0.32%) HP