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

6 months to
28 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 106 118
Rank change year-on-year +24 +12 +92
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,629 823 777
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.08% 2.51% 1.94%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 2.78% 2.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,027 516 551
10th Percentile £413 £400 £413
25th Percentile £492 £463 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £593
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -7.17% +1.07%
75th Percentile £688 £675 £750
90th Percentile £788 £800 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £501
% change year-on-year - +9.74% -8.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 23 20
10th Percentile £36.00 £33.80 £13.06
25th Percentile £50.00 £52.86 £26.25
Median hourly rate £71.25 £75.00 £46.84
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +60.12% +1.43%
75th Percentile £82.86 £81.01 £53.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £88.00 £75.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £77.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year -10.40% +47.62% +13.69%

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 44,902 29,618 34,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.94% 90.44% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,798 18,592 22,057
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.10% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,679 1,619 2,026
10th Percentile £14.79 £14.20 £13.56
25th Percentile £20.06 £17.33 £17.55
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.39 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +87.06% -41.25% -

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 28 July 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 28 July 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 28 July 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 +20 1,376 £575 +1.77% 1,644
London +35 915 £590 +2.61% 1,064
UK excluding London -2 519 £550 - 774
Work from Home +5 438 £600 +9.09% 618
North of England -5 144 £554 +13.59% 179
South East -20 133 £600 +4.35% 258
Scotland +33 94 £463 -7.50% 57
North West -19 75 £599 +22.23% 102
Midlands -17 65 £550 +10.00% 65
Yorkshire -1 56 £538 +9.64% 48
West Midlands -22 51 £550 -6.38% 38
South West -31 45 £528 -8.26% 91
East of England -22 36 £500 -21.57% 95
Wales -5 16 £540 -20.00% 27
North East -33 15 £463 +8.82% 31
East Midlands -8 12 £700 +64.71% 27
Northern Ireland - 1 £334 - 16

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 (5.52%) Apache Spark
2 75 (4.60%) Apache Airflow
3 47 (2.89%) Apache
4 33 (2.03%) Jupyter
5 21 (1.29%) Confluence
6 8 (0.49%) SAS
7 7 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 5 (0.31%) CMS
8 5 (0.31%) Headless CMS
8 5 (0.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 5 (0.31%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.25%) Appian
10 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.12%) OpenStack
11 2 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.061%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.061%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.061%) Luigi
12 1 (0.061%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 28 (1.72%) Chatbot
2 12 (0.74%) Microsoft Excel
3 6 (0.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.37%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.31%) CPLEX
4 5 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.12%) Notion
6 1 (0.061%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.061%) Simulink
6 1 (0.061%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 11 (0.68%) SAP IBP
2 8 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.12%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.061%) Dynamics CRM
5 1 (0.061%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.061%) OpenText VIM for SAP
5 1 (0.061%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.061%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.061%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.061%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.061%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.061%) SAP APO
5 1 (0.061%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.061%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 575 (35.30%) Azure
2 571 (35.05%) AWS
3 303 (18.60%) GCP
4 142 (8.72%) Power Platform
5 119 (7.31%) Serverless
6 114 (7.00%) GitHub
7 99 (6.08%) Amazon S3
8 89 (5.46%) AWS Lambda
9 86 (5.28%) Amazon SageMaker
10 83 (5.10%) Azure Machine Learning
11 81 (4.97%) Snowflake
12 77 (4.73%) Azure AI
13 59 (3.62%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 58 (3.56%) Amazon Bedrock
15 54 (3.31%) Azure DevOps
15 54 (3.31%) Vertex AI
16 49 (3.01%) GitHub Actions
17 46 (2.82%) dbt
18 44 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
19 43 (2.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 20 (1.23%) Firewall
2 16 (0.98%) Network Security
3 14 (0.86%) Internet
4 10 (0.61%) DNS
5 9 (0.55%) VPN
6 8 (0.49%) DHCP
7 6 (0.37%) Broadband
8 5 (0.31%) HTTP
9 4 (0.25%) NAS
9 4 (0.25%) SAN
10 3 (0.18%) MQTT
10 3 (0.18%) SMTP
10 3 (0.18%) TCP/IP
10 3 (0.18%) VLAN
11 2 (0.12%) 4G
11 2 (0.12%) 5G
11 2 (0.12%) Modbus
11 2 (0.12%) PCoIP
11 2 (0.12%) Radio Access Network
11 2 (0.12%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (7.24%) Power BI
2 92 (5.65%) Data Lake
3 77 (4.73%) Big Data
4 76 (4.67%) Data Warehouse
5 73 (4.48%) Metadata
6 72 (4.42%) BigQuery
7 53 (3.25%) NoSQL
8 48 (2.95%) Tableau
9 45 (2.76%) Amazon Redshift
10 39 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
11 38 (2.33%) Amazon Athena
11 38 (2.33%) Delta Lake
12 35 (2.15%) Relational Database
13 32 (1.96%) Hadoop
14 25 (1.53%) MongoDB
15 22 (1.35%) SQL Server
16 21 (1.29%) Looker
16 21 (1.29%) Neo4j
17 19 (1.17%) MySQL
18 18 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 99 (6.08%) Git
2 72 (4.42%) MLflow
3 51 (3.13%) GitLab
4 46 (2.82%) JIRA
5 27 (1.66%) Jenkins
6 10 (0.61%) Vite
7 9 (0.55%) Claude Code
8 8 (0.49%) Selenium
9 5 (0.31%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.25%) ER Studio
10 4 (0.25%) ERwin
10 4 (0.25%) PyCharm
11 3 (0.18%) JUnit
11 3 (0.18%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.18%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.18%) Spinnaker
12 2 (0.12%) NUnit
12 2 (0.12%) Oracle APEX
12 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
13 1 (0.061%) Maven
General
1 344 (21.12%) Social Skills
2 302 (18.54%) Finance
3 214 (13.14%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (9.02%) Public Sector
5 114 (7.00%) Banking
6 43 (2.64%) Marketing
7 35 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 35 (2.15%) Retail
8 32 (1.96%) Pharmaceutical
9 30 (1.84%) Telecoms
10 24 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
10 24 (1.47%) Legal
11 22 (1.35%) Front Office
12 19 (1.17%) Aviation
12 19 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
13 18 (1.10%) Financial Institution
14 17 (1.04%) Manufacturing
14 17 (1.04%) Presentation Skills
15 16 (0.98%) Aerospace
15 16 (0.98%) Law
Job Titles
1 244 (14.98%) Architect
2 243 (14.92%) Senior
3 232 (14.24%) Data Scientist
4 160 (9.82%) Lead
5 153 (9.39%) Data Engineer
6 151 (9.27%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 104 (6.38%) Developer
8 78 (4.79%) Solutions Architect
9 77 (4.73%) Python Engineer
10 76 (4.67%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 71 (4.36%) Data Architect
12 66 (4.05%) Software Engineer
13 65 (3.99%) Analyst
14 58 (3.56%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
15 54 (3.31%) Platform Engineer
16 48 (2.95%) Senior Data Scientist
17 46 (2.82%) DevOps Engineer
18 42 (2.58%) Security Architect
19 40 (2.46%) Consultant
19 40 (2.46%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 157 (9.64%) PyTorch
2 110 (6.75%) Kafka
2 110 (6.75%) TensorFlow
3 98 (6.02%) scikit-learn
4 83 (5.10%) LangChain
4 83 (5.10%) Pandas
5 77 (4.73%) PySpark
6 73 (4.48%) React
7 71 (4.36%) REST
8 63 (3.87%) NumPy
9 43 (2.64%) .NET
10 38 (2.33%) Hugging Face
11 37 (2.27%) LangGraph
12 32 (1.96%) FastAPI
13 30 (1.84%) AngularJS
13 30 (1.84%) Node.js
14 27 (1.66%) Model Context Protocol
15 24 (1.47%) RESTful
16 22 (1.35%) pytest
17 21 (1.29%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 191 (11.72%) Cloud Native
2 168 (10.31%) AI Agents
3 124 (7.61%) Algorithms
4 63 (3.87%) Product Ownership
5 60 (3.68%) Distributed Systems
6 59 (3.62%) Onboarding
7 29 (1.78%) Data Structures
7 29 (1.78%) Enterprise Software
8 25 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (1.53%) Life Science
9 21 (1.29%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
11 15 (0.92%) Fixed Income
11 15 (0.92%) Management Information System
11 15 (0.92%) Security Posture
12 14 (0.86%) Public Cloud
12 14 (0.86%) Taxonomies
13 13 (0.80%) Enterprise Cloud
13 13 (0.80%) Virtual Team
14 12 (0.74%) Augmented Reality
Operating Systems
1 54 (3.31%) Linux
2 16 (0.98%) Windows
3 12 (0.74%) Unix
4 6 (0.37%) Apple iOS
5 5 (0.31%) Android
5 5 (0.31%) VMS
6 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
7 3 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 1 (0.061%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,305 (80.11%) AI
2 610 (37.45%) Data Science
3 514 (31.55%) CI/CD
4 473 (29.04%) Analytics
5 448 (27.50%) LLM
6 377 (23.14%) Generative AI
7 366 (22.47%) Data Pipeline
8 338 (20.75%) DevOps
9 330 (20.26%) Agile
10 307 (18.85%) MLOps
11 290 (17.80%) Data Engineering
12 261 (16.02%) Use Case
13 250 (15.35%) Software Engineering
14 231 (14.18%) Decision-Making
15 212 (13.01%) Problem-Solving
16 206 (12.65%) Roadmaps
17 195 (11.97%) Data Governance
18 192 (11.79%) Infrastructure as Code
19 188 (11.54%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
20 183 (11.23%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 906 (55.62%) Python
2 404 (24.80%) SQL
3 118 (7.24%) Java
4 72 (4.42%) JavaScript
5 64 (3.93%) TypeScript
6 54 (3.31%) R
7 53 (3.25%) C#
8 39 (2.39%) Bash
9 20 (1.23%) PowerShell
10 18 (1.10%) C++
11 17 (1.04%) Bicep
11 17 (1.04%) Go
12 12 (0.74%) Kotlin
13 11 (0.68%) Scala
14 9 (0.55%) PL/SQL
14 9 (0.55%) Rust
14 9 (0.55%) SPARQL
15 8 (0.49%) Cypher
16 7 (0.43%) Gremlin
17 5 (0.31%) Perl
Qualifications
1 296 (18.17%) Security Cleared
2 206 (12.65%) SC Cleared
3 138 (8.47%) Degree
4 57 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
4 57 (3.50%) DV Cleared
5 55 (3.38%) Master's Degree
6 48 (2.95%) AWS Certification
7 41 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 36 (2.21%) PhD
9 31 (1.90%) CISSP
10 24 (1.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 24 (1.47%) Azure Certification
11 14 (0.86%) CISM
12 13 (0.80%) TOGAF Certification
13 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
13 7 (0.43%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 6 (0.37%) Cisco Certification
15 5 (0.31%) CompTIA Security+
15 5 (0.31%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 194 (11.91%) Data Quality
2 64 (3.93%) GDPR
3 52 (3.19%) QA
4 30 (1.84%) NIST
5 19 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (1.10%) Accessibility
7 14 (0.86%) EU AI Act
8 12 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.55%) GxP
10 8 (0.49%) HIPAA
11 7 (0.43%) GRC
12 6 (0.37%) SLA
12 6 (0.37%) WCAG
13 5 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
13 5 (0.31%) Solvency II
14 4 (0.25%) COBIT
14 4 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 4 (0.25%) NCSC
15 3 (0.18%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 219 (13.44%) Docker
2 12 (0.74%) Active Directory
3 8 (0.49%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 6 (0.37%) IAG
5 5 (0.31%) Microsoft App-V
5 5 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.18%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.18%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.18%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.12%) Firmware
7 2 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 276 (16.94%) Kubernetes
2 183 (11.23%) Terraform
3 29 (1.78%) Ansible
4 26 (1.60%) Grafana
4 26 (1.60%) Kubeflow
5 18 (1.10%) Prometheus
6 10 (0.61%) Podman
7 6 (0.37%) Istio
8 3 (0.18%) Kibana
8 3 (0.18%) Nagios
8 3 (0.18%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.18%) Puppet
8 3 (0.18%) Rancher
8 3 (0.18%) systemd
8 3 (0.18%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.18%) vMotion
9 2 (0.12%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.12%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.12%) Packer
9 2 (0.12%) SCCM
Vendors
1 206 (12.65%) Databricks
2 173 (10.62%) Microsoft
3 103 (6.32%) Google
4 94 (5.77%) OpenAI
5 50 (3.07%) SAP
6 48 (2.95%) Foundry
7 34 (2.09%) ServiceNow
8 29 (1.78%) Oracle
9 24 (1.47%) Informatica
10 16 (0.98%) Dynatrace
10 16 (0.98%) IBM
11 13 (0.80%) UiPath
12 10 (0.61%) Splunk
13 7 (0.43%) Amplitude
13 7 (0.43%) Sybase
14 6 (0.37%) Nexthink
14 6 (0.37%) Pega
14 6 (0.37%) Salesforce
14 6 (0.37%) Talend
14 6 (0.37%) Workday