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

6 months to
20 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 79 104 188
Rank change year-on-year +25 +84 +15
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,116 818 615
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.12% 2.24% 1.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 2.60% 1.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 738 535 448
10th Percentile £402 £393 £381
25th Percentile £475 £480 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £556
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +8.01% -11.12%
75th Percentile £688 £731 £705
90th Percentile £775 £800 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £517 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +3.40% -4.76% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 14 30
10th Percentile £29.52 £13.06 £42.50
25th Percentile £42.39 £14.17 -
Median hourly rate £53.22 £27.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +93.53% -40.45% -11.19%
75th Percentile £84.88 £46.18 £47.17
90th Percentile £114.05 £51.48 £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 32,116 31,513 40,735
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.73% 86.36% 88.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,100 18,975 27,383
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,121 1,108 1,576
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.17 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.17 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.36% +25.57%
75th Percentile £45.00 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.00 £33.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -30.30% -25.84% +50.29%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +22 944 £575 -4.56% 2,280
London +14 618 £625 -3.85% 1,334
UK excluding London +58 368 £517 +3.40% 1,022
Work from Home +40 360 £550 +4.76% 1,357
North of England -15 93 £480 -3.03% 315
South East +35 85 £550 +4.76% 269
Scotland +44 62 £503 +26.02% 48
East of England +17 62 £538 +7.50% 83
North West -9 49 £458 -4.29% 173
Yorkshire -14 39 £525 - 129
Midlands -3 36 £508 +12.78% 175
West Midlands -9 28 £520 +12.32% 83
South West -21 25 £550 -15.38% 97
Wales +6 10 £700 +185.71% 22
East Midlands -18 8 £410 +15.17% 90
North East -16 6 £450 -9.09% 15
Northern Ireland -7 1 £700 - 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 90 (8.06%) Apache Spark
2 67 (6.00%) Apache Airflow
3 29 (2.60%) Apache
4 25 (2.24%) Jupyter
5 10 (0.90%) Confluence
6 9 (0.81%) SAS
7 8 (0.72%) Apache Pig
8 6 (0.54%) GeoServer
8 6 (0.54%) Smallworld
9 4 (0.36%) Appian
9 4 (0.36%) IIS
9 4 (0.36%) SharePoint
10 3 (0.27%) CMS
11 1 (0.090%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.090%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.090%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.090%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.090%) nginx
11 1 (0.090%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 44 (3.94%) Chatbot
2 17 (1.52%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.08%) Microsoft Office
4 8 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 6 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.54%) Simulink
6 1 (0.090%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.090%) GNU Octave
6 1 (0.090%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.090%) Sketch
6 1 (0.090%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.090%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (0.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.18%) Distributed Ledger
3 2 (0.18%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.18%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.090%) IBM Planning Analytics
4 1 (0.090%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.090%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.090%) Shopify
4 1 (0.090%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 471 (42.20%) Azure
2 383 (34.32%) AWS
3 220 (19.71%) GCP
4 106 (9.50%) Power Platform
5 92 (8.24%) GitHub
6 90 (8.06%) Serverless
7 87 (7.80%) Azure Machine Learning
8 70 (6.27%) Azure DevOps
9 64 (5.73%) Snowflake
10 59 (5.29%) Amazon SageMaker
11 57 (5.11%) Amazon S3
12 56 (5.02%) Vertex AI
13 51 (4.57%) Azure AI
14 50 (4.48%) Azure AKS
15 49 (4.39%) Azure Data Factory
16 47 (4.21%) AWS Lambda
17 46 (4.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 41 (3.67%) GitHub Actions
19 36 (3.23%) Amazon Bedrock
19 36 (3.23%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.25%) HTTP
1 14 (1.25%) Network Security
2 13 (1.16%) DNS
3 9 (0.81%) SSL
4 8 (0.72%) FTP
4 8 (0.72%) SMTP
5 7 (0.63%) Ethernet
5 7 (0.63%) Internet
6 6 (0.54%) Firewall
7 4 (0.36%) VPN
8 2 (0.18%) 2G
8 2 (0.18%) 5G
8 2 (0.18%) BGP
8 2 (0.18%) Cisco IPT
8 2 (0.18%) Ethernet VPN
8 2 (0.18%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.18%) LTE
8 2 (0.18%) Mobile Backhaul
8 2 (0.18%) OSPF
8 2 (0.18%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (8.51%) Power BI
2 79 (7.08%) Data Warehouse
3 67 (6.00%) Big Data
4 60 (5.38%) Data Lake
5 55 (4.93%) PostgreSQL
6 54 (4.84%) NoSQL
7 45 (4.03%) BigQuery
8 40 (3.58%) Tableau
9 35 (3.14%) Metadata
10 30 (2.69%) Hadoop
11 25 (2.24%) MongoDB
12 22 (1.97%) Pinecone
13 21 (1.88%) Elasticsearch
14 19 (1.70%) Data Mining
15 17 (1.52%) Relational Database
16 16 (1.43%) Amazon Athena
16 16 (1.43%) Amazon Redshift
17 13 (1.16%) Delta Lake
17 13 (1.16%) DynamoDB
17 13 (1.16%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 94 (8.42%) Git
2 63 (5.65%) MLflow
3 57 (5.11%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.05%) GitLab
5 25 (2.24%) JIRA
6 18 (1.61%) Selenium
7 16 (1.43%) JMeter
8 13 (1.16%) SonarQube
9 10 (0.90%) JUnit
10 8 (0.72%) Cypress.io
11 7 (0.63%) Visual Studio
12 6 (0.54%) Mockito
12 6 (0.54%) Postman
12 6 (0.54%) PyCharm
13 5 (0.45%) Artifactory
13 5 (0.45%) Cucumber
13 5 (0.45%) Gradle
13 5 (0.45%) MSTest
14 4 (0.36%) Android Studio
14 4 (0.36%) Bitbucket
General
1 323 (28.94%) Social Skills
2 208 (18.64%) Finance
3 126 (11.29%) Analytical Skills
4 95 (8.51%) Public Sector
5 77 (6.90%) Banking
6 50 (4.48%) Marketing
7 43 (3.85%) Pharmaceutical
8 39 (3.49%) Retail
9 29 (2.60%) Legal
10 28 (2.51%) Investment Banking
11 27 (2.42%) Telecoms
12 24 (2.15%) Manufacturing
13 21 (1.88%) Front Office
14 19 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
15 17 (1.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 16 (1.43%) Influencing Skills
17 12 (1.08%) Electronics
17 12 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
18 11 (0.99%) Financial Institution
19 10 (0.90%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 163 (14.61%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 151 (13.53%) Data Scientist
3 148 (13.26%) Architect
4 119 (10.66%) Developer
5 117 (10.48%) Data Engineer
6 112 (10.04%) Senior
7 69 (6.18%) Lead
8 55 (4.93%) Machine Learning Engineer
9 52 (4.66%) Python Engineer
10 51 (4.57%) Analyst
10 51 (4.57%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 42 (3.76%) Software Engineer
12 37 (3.32%) Data Architect
13 34 (3.05%) Gen AI Engineer
14 33 (2.96%) Azure Engineer
15 31 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
16 29 (2.60%) Consultant
17 27 (2.42%) Python Developer
18 24 (2.15%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 23 (2.06%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 182 (16.31%) PyTorch
2 161 (14.43%) TensorFlow
3 108 (9.68%) scikit-learn
4 101 (9.05%) Pandas
5 84 (7.53%) LangChain
6 82 (7.35%) FastAPI
7 67 (6.00%) Kafka
8 66 (5.91%) NumPy
9 65 (5.82%) React
10 59 (5.29%) Hugging Face
11 58 (5.20%) RESTful
12 49 (4.39%) LangGraph
13 45 (4.03%) REST
14 43 (3.85%) PySpark
15 36 (3.23%) Node.js
16 35 (3.14%) .NET
17 34 (3.05%) Flask
18 31 (2.78%) pytest
19 22 (1.97%) AngularJS
20 20 (1.79%) OpenCV
Miscellaneous
1 175 (15.68%) Algorithms
2 142 (12.72%) Cloud Native
3 91 (8.15%) AI Agents
4 45 (4.03%) Product Ownership
5 38 (3.41%) Distributed Systems
6 36 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
7 34 (3.05%) Onboarding
8 31 (2.78%) Distributed Computing
9 29 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
10 25 (2.24%) Genomics
11 23 (2.06%) Data Structures
11 23 (2.06%) Life Science
12 22 (1.97%) Analytical Mindset
13 20 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
14 17 (1.52%) Enterprise Software
15 16 (1.43%) Greenfield Project
15 16 (1.43%) Management Information System
16 12 (1.08%) IoT
17 10 (0.90%) Cyber Threat
17 10 (0.90%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.60%) Linux
2 11 (0.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 9 (0.81%) Ubuntu
3 9 (0.81%) VMS
3 9 (0.81%) Windows
4 8 (0.72%) Unix
5 5 (0.45%) Android
5 5 (0.45%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.18%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.090%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 819 (73.39%) AI
2 438 (39.25%) Data Science
3 320 (28.67%) LLM
4 304 (27.24%) CI/CD
5 298 (26.70%) Analytics
6 284 (25.45%) Agile
7 262 (23.48%) DevOps
8 209 (18.73%) Data Pipeline
9 205 (18.37%) Generative AI
10 196 (17.56%) MLOps
11 189 (16.94%) Problem-Solving
12 178 (15.95%) Data Engineering
13 166 (14.87%) Natural Language Processing
14 161 (14.43%) Software Engineering
15 141 (12.63%) Containerisation
16 135 (12.10%) Use Case
17 133 (11.92%) Visualisation
18 132 (11.83%) Data Modelling
19 131 (11.74%) Computer Science
20 124 (11.11%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 701 (62.81%) Python
2 269 (24.10%) SQL
3 79 (7.08%) R
4 74 (6.63%) Java
5 56 (5.02%) JavaScript
6 53 (4.75%) TypeScript
7 43 (3.85%) C#
8 35 (3.14%) C++
8 35 (3.14%) PowerShell
9 32 (2.87%) Scala
10 20 (1.79%) Bicep
11 19 (1.70%) Bash
12 14 (1.25%) MATLAB
13 13 (1.16%) C
14 11 (0.99%) Go
15 6 (0.54%) SystemVerilog
15 6 (0.54%) Tcl
16 5 (0.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 5 (0.45%) Shell Script
17 3 (0.27%) Rust
Qualifications
1 179 (16.04%) Degree
2 150 (13.44%) Security Cleared
3 109 (9.77%) SC Cleared
4 69 (6.18%) Master's Degree
5 47 (4.21%) Computer Science Degree
5 47 (4.21%) MCP
6 41 (3.67%) PhD
7 27 (2.42%) DV Cleared
8 24 (2.15%) Azure Certification
9 17 (1.52%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
11 10 (0.90%) CISSP
12 6 (0.54%) HNC
12 6 (0.54%) HND
13 5 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
14 4 (0.36%) Cisco Certification
14 4 (0.36%) CISM
14 4 (0.36%) ISTQB
14 4 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 4 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (6.27%) Data Quality
2 55 (4.93%) GDPR
3 39 (3.49%) NIST
3 39 (3.49%) QA
4 31 (2.78%) EU AI Act
5 23 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 21 (1.88%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 6 (0.54%) DO-254
9 5 (0.45%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 5 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 4 (0.36%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.36%) GRC
10 4 (0.36%) HIPAA
10 4 (0.36%) NCSC
10 4 (0.36%) SOC 2
11 3 (0.27%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.18%) EMIR
12 2 (0.18%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.18%) NIST 800
System Software
1 187 (16.76%) Docker
2 11 (0.99%) Active Directory
2 11 (0.99%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (0.54%) Firmware
4 3 (0.27%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.18%) GPFS
5 2 (0.18%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.18%) KVM
5 2 (0.18%) Lustre
5 2 (0.18%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.090%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 184 (16.49%) Kubernetes
2 116 (10.39%) Terraform
3 33 (2.96%) Grafana
4 24 (2.15%) Ansible
5 22 (1.97%) Kubeflow
6 16 (1.43%) Prometheus
7 15 (1.34%) Kibana
8 11 (0.99%) SCOM
9 10 (0.90%) logstash
10 9 (0.81%) ITRS Geneos
11 8 (0.72%) Argo
12 5 (0.45%) Kustomize
13 4 (0.36%) Cilium
13 4 (0.36%) Progress Chef
13 4 (0.36%) Rsyslog
14 3 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
14 3 (0.27%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
15 2 (0.18%) Podman
16 1 (0.090%) HP ALM
16 1 (0.090%) Opsgenie
Vendors
1 163 (14.61%) Microsoft
2 142 (12.72%) Databricks
3 99 (8.87%) Google
4 63 (5.65%) OpenAI
5 38 (3.41%) Foundry
6 35 (3.14%) SAP
7 21 (1.88%) Splunk
8 14 (1.25%) Salesforce
9 12 (1.08%) ServiceNow
10 11 (0.99%) NVIDIA
10 11 (0.99%) Oracle
11 9 (0.81%) Solace
11 9 (0.81%) TIBCO
12 8 (0.72%) Palantir
13 7 (0.63%) Cisco
13 7 (0.63%) Informatica
13 7 (0.63%) Intel
13 7 (0.63%) Pega
14 6 (0.54%) Actel
14 6 (0.54%) Altera