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

6 months to
16 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 81 99 173
Rank change year-on-year +18 +74 +27
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,150 834 624
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.13% 2.44% 1.41%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.54% 2.77% 1.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 767 565 450
10th Percentile £401 £375 £400
25th Percentile £463 £463 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £587
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +2.13% -6.01%
75th Percentile £688 £731 £702
90th Percentile £780 £820 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £505 £501 £530
% change year-on-year +0.76% -5.44% -11.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 20 29
10th Percentile £31.36 £13.06 £42.50
25th Percentile £42.79 £20.31 -
Median hourly rate £58.36 £27.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +112.23% -40.45% -7.64%
75th Percentile £79.75 £48.07 £47.50
90th Percentile £105.70 £54.88 £65.35
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £46.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year +40.75% - -9.89%

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 32,471 30,121 39,108
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.45% 87.99% 88.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,452 18,385 26,091
10th Percentile £300 £306 £308
25th Percentile £406 £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 £745 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,090 1,000 1,510
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.61 £14.49
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £19.02
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.85
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -25.88% +25.29%
75th Percentile £48.75 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.00 £74.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.04 £32.39 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.87% -27.21% +39.06%

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 16 December 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 16 December 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 16 December 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 +9 970 £575 -4.17% 3,761
London +11 638 £625 -3.85% 573
UK excluding London +40 365 £505 +0.76% 3,519
Work from Home +26 352 £550 +4.76% 11,399
North of England -15 88 £475 -2.86% 1,144
South East +22 81 £513 -3.53% 750
East of England +17 72 £520 -13.33% 579
Scotland +44 56 £503 +25.63% 149
North West -17 49 £458 -4.29% 537
Midlands -15 40 £511 +27.69% 516
Yorkshire -18 38 £511 -4.98% 416
West Midlands -11 28 £514 +14.22% 316
South West -22 23 £570 -10.06% 350
East Midlands -12 12 £426 +19.66% 200
Wales +3 10 £700 +201.08% 111
North East -23 2 £575 +32.95% 208
Northern Ireland - 2 £675 - 9

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 87 (7.57%) Apache Spark
2 64 (5.57%) Apache Airflow
3 36 (3.13%) Apache
4 23 (2.00%) Jupyter
5 10 (0.87%) Confluence
6 8 (0.70%) Apache Pig
7 7 (0.61%) SAS
8 6 (0.52%) GeoServer
8 6 (0.52%) Smallworld
9 5 (0.43%) Appian
10 4 (0.35%) IIS
11 3 (0.26%) CMS
11 3 (0.26%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.087%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.087%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.087%) nginx
12 1 (0.087%) Red Hat Fuse
Applications
1 43 (3.74%) Chatbot
2 16 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (1.04%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
5 8 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 5 (0.43%) Simulink
7 1 (0.087%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.087%) GNU Octave
7 1 (0.087%) Sketch
7 1 (0.087%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.087%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.17%) Distributed Ledger
3 2 (0.17%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.17%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.087%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.087%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.087%) Shopify
4 1 (0.087%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 487 (42.35%) Azure
2 386 (33.57%) AWS
3 218 (18.96%) GCP
4 113 (9.83%) Power Platform
5 104 (9.04%) GitHub
6 100 (8.70%) Azure Machine Learning
6 100 (8.70%) Serverless
7 68 (5.91%) Azure DevOps
8 67 (5.83%) Snowflake
9 64 (5.57%) Amazon S3
10 62 (5.39%) Amazon SageMaker
11 57 (4.96%) Vertex AI
12 55 (4.78%) Azure AI
13 52 (4.52%) AWS Lambda
14 50 (4.35%) Azure AKS
14 50 (4.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 49 (4.26%) GitHub Actions
16 46 (4.00%) Azure Data Factory
17 36 (3.13%) Amazon Bedrock
17 36 (3.13%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.74%) Network Security
2 19 (1.65%) HTTP
3 18 (1.57%) DNS
4 14 (1.22%) SSL
5 13 (1.13%) FTP
5 13 (1.13%) SMTP
6 6 (0.52%) Ethernet
6 6 (0.52%) Firewall
6 6 (0.52%) Internet
7 4 (0.35%) InfiniBand
7 4 (0.35%) VPN
8 2 (0.17%) 5G
8 2 (0.17%) BGP
8 2 (0.17%) Bluetooth
8 2 (0.17%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.17%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.17%) Modbus
8 2 (0.17%) OSPF
8 2 (0.17%) VoIP
8 2 (0.17%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 100 (8.70%) Power BI
2 78 (6.78%) Data Warehouse
3 67 (5.83%) Data Lake
4 62 (5.39%) Big Data
5 56 (4.87%) PostgreSQL
6 49 (4.26%) NoSQL
7 43 (3.74%) BigQuery
8 40 (3.48%) Tableau
9 31 (2.70%) Metadata
10 27 (2.35%) Hadoop
11 26 (2.26%) Pinecone
12 22 (1.91%) Delta Lake
13 21 (1.83%) Amazon Athena
13 21 (1.83%) Elasticsearch
13 21 (1.83%) MongoDB
14 16 (1.39%) Amazon Redshift
14 16 (1.39%) Data Mining
14 16 (1.39%) Relational Database
15 14 (1.22%) Weaviate
16 13 (1.13%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 95 (8.26%) Git
2 70 (6.09%) MLflow
3 59 (5.13%) Jenkins
4 38 (3.30%) GitLab
5 26 (2.26%) JIRA
6 18 (1.57%) Selenium
7 16 (1.39%) JMeter
8 15 (1.30%) SonarQube
9 8 (0.70%) Cypress.io
10 7 (0.61%) JUnit
10 7 (0.61%) Visual Studio
11 6 (0.52%) Postman
11 6 (0.52%) PyCharm
12 5 (0.43%) Cucumber
12 5 (0.43%) Gradle
12 5 (0.43%) Mockito
12 5 (0.43%) MSTest
12 5 (0.43%) Snyk
13 4 (0.35%) Oracle APEX
13 4 (0.35%) RStudio
General
1 335 (29.13%) Social Skills
2 221 (19.22%) Finance
3 138 (12.00%) Analytical Skills
4 105 (9.13%) Public Sector
5 78 (6.78%) Banking
6 43 (3.74%) Pharmaceutical
7 42 (3.65%) Marketing
8 37 (3.22%) Retail
9 30 (2.61%) Investment Banking
10 28 (2.43%) Manufacturing
11 27 (2.35%) Legal
12 26 (2.26%) Telecoms
13 22 (1.91%) Front Office
14 19 (1.65%) Documentation Skills
15 17 (1.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 17 (1.48%) Influencing Skills
16 14 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
17 13 (1.13%) Electronics
18 11 (0.96%) Financial Institution
19 10 (0.87%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 182 (15.83%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 167 (14.52%) Data Scientist
3 151 (13.13%) Architect
4 121 (10.52%) Data Engineer
5 117 (10.17%) Senior
6 109 (9.48%) Developer
7 74 (6.43%) Lead
8 58 (5.04%) Python Engineer
9 57 (4.96%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 53 (4.61%) Analyst
11 52 (4.52%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
12 42 (3.65%) Software Engineer
13 36 (3.13%) Data Architect
13 36 (3.13%) Gen AI Engineer
14 33 (2.87%) Solutions Architect
15 31 (2.70%) Azure Engineer
16 26 (2.26%) Consultant
16 26 (2.26%) Senior Data Scientist
17 24 (2.09%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
17 24 (2.09%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (17.57%) PyTorch
2 177 (15.39%) TensorFlow
3 120 (10.43%) scikit-learn
4 109 (9.48%) Pandas
5 93 (8.09%) LangChain
6 83 (7.22%) FastAPI
7 72 (6.26%) NumPy
8 65 (5.65%) Hugging Face
9 60 (5.22%) Kafka
9 60 (5.22%) React
10 54 (4.70%) PySpark
11 53 (4.61%) LangGraph
12 51 (4.43%) RESTful
13 48 (4.17%) REST
14 39 (3.39%) Node.js
15 35 (3.04%) .NET
16 32 (2.78%) Flask
17 31 (2.70%) pytest
18 23 (2.00%) Faiss
19 21 (1.83%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 179 (15.57%) Algorithms
2 147 (12.78%) Cloud Native
3 96 (8.35%) AI Agents
4 45 (3.91%) Product Ownership
5 40 (3.48%) Onboarding
6 39 (3.39%) Distributed Systems
7 35 (3.04%) Data Protection Act
8 30 (2.61%) Analytical Mindset
9 29 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
10 28 (2.43%) Distributed Computing
11 25 (2.17%) Genomics
12 23 (2.00%) Life Science
13 22 (1.91%) Data Structures
14 21 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
14 21 (1.83%) Management Information System
15 17 (1.48%) Enterprise Software
16 14 (1.22%) Cyber Threat
17 13 (1.13%) Cyberattack
17 13 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
17 13 (1.13%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 31 (2.70%) Linux
2 11 (0.96%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 11 (0.96%) VMS
3 9 (0.78%) Ubuntu
4 8 (0.70%) Unix
4 8 (0.70%) Windows
5 6 (0.52%) Android
5 6 (0.52%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.17%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.087%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 842 (73.22%) AI
2 462 (40.17%) Data Science
3 332 (28.87%) LLM
4 305 (26.52%) Analytics
4 305 (26.52%) CI/CD
5 279 (24.26%) Agile
6 265 (23.04%) DevOps
7 227 (19.74%) Generative AI
8 225 (19.57%) Data Pipeline
9 203 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
10 196 (17.04%) Data Engineering
10 196 (17.04%) MLOps
11 167 (14.52%) Natural Language Processing
12 161 (14.00%) Software Engineering
13 152 (13.22%) Containerisation
14 140 (12.17%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
15 134 (11.65%) Data Modelling
15 134 (11.65%) Visualisation
16 133 (11.57%) Use Case
17 127 (11.04%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 742 (64.52%) Python
2 277 (24.09%) SQL
3 77 (6.70%) R
4 70 (6.09%) Java
5 55 (4.78%) JavaScript
6 51 (4.43%) TypeScript
7 44 (3.83%) C#
8 42 (3.65%) PowerShell
9 34 (2.96%) C++
10 29 (2.52%) Scala
11 20 (1.74%) Bash
11 20 (1.74%) Bicep
12 13 (1.13%) MATLAB
13 12 (1.04%) Go
14 10 (0.87%) C
15 5 (0.43%) SystemVerilog
15 5 (0.43%) Tcl
16 3 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 3 (0.26%) PL/SQL
16 3 (0.26%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 173 (15.04%) Degree
2 171 (14.87%) Security Cleared
3 128 (11.13%) SC Cleared
4 70 (6.09%) Master's Degree
5 53 (4.61%) MCP
6 47 (4.09%) Computer Science Degree
7 39 (3.39%) PhD
8 34 (2.96%) DV Cleared
9 24 (2.09%) Azure Certification
10 12 (1.04%) AWS Certification
10 12 (1.04%) BPSS Clearance
11 8 (0.70%) CISSP
12 5 (0.43%) HNC
12 5 (0.43%) HND
12 5 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
12 5 (0.43%) TOGAF Certification
13 4 (0.35%) Cisco Certification
13 4 (0.35%) CISM
13 4 (0.35%) ISTQB
13 4 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (6.52%) Data Quality
2 58 (5.04%) GDPR
3 43 (3.74%) QA
4 39 (3.39%) NIST
5 32 (2.78%) EU AI Act
6 23 (2.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 16 (1.39%) Accessibility
8 7 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 5 (0.43%) DO-254
9 5 (0.43%) HIPAA
9 5 (0.43%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 5 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 5 (0.43%) SOC 2
10 4 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
10 4 (0.35%) NCSC
10 4 (0.35%) PCI DSS
11 3 (0.26%) GRC
12 2 (0.17%) EMIR
12 2 (0.17%) JSP 440
12 2 (0.17%) NIST 800
System Software
1 199 (17.30%) Docker
2 12 (1.04%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.96%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.61%) Firmware
5 4 (0.35%) Lustre
6 3 (0.26%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 3 (0.26%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.17%) Ceph
7 2 (0.17%) GPFS
7 2 (0.17%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.17%) KVM
7 2 (0.17%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 191 (16.61%) Kubernetes
2 128 (11.13%) Terraform
3 30 (2.61%) Grafana
4 29 (2.52%) Ansible
5 16 (1.39%) Kubeflow
5 16 (1.39%) Prometheus
6 14 (1.22%) Kibana
7 11 (0.96%) logstash
7 11 (0.96%) SCOM
8 9 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
9 8 (0.70%) Argo
10 4 (0.35%) Cilium
10 4 (0.35%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.35%) Rsyslog
11 3 (0.26%) Kustomize
11 3 (0.26%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
12 2 (0.17%) Knative
12 2 (0.17%) Podman
12 2 (0.17%) Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.087%) HP ALM
Vendors
1 169 (14.70%) Databricks
2 165 (14.35%) Microsoft
3 106 (9.22%) Google
4 71 (6.17%) OpenAI
5 45 (3.91%) Foundry
6 39 (3.39%) SAP
7 18 (1.57%) Splunk
8 16 (1.39%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.30%) Salesforce
10 14 (1.22%) NVIDIA
11 10 (0.87%) Oracle
12 9 (0.78%) Greenplum
12 9 (0.78%) Solace
12 9 (0.78%) TIBCO
13 7 (0.61%) Cisco
13 7 (0.61%) Pega
14 6 (0.52%) ESRI
14 6 (0.52%) Intel
14 6 (0.52%) Intergraph
15 5 (0.43%) Informatica