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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 100 139
Rank change year-on-year +18 +39 +79
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,396 747 723
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.90% 2.56% 1.70%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 2.81% 1.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 860 473 529
10th Percentile £413 £364 £413
25th Percentile £493 £450 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £557 £580
Median % change year-on-year +3.23% -3.97% -1.28%
75th Percentile £675 £700 £738
90th Percentile £775 £850 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £525
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 22 19
10th Percentile £50.00 £25.38 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.99 £45.00 £46.22
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.25 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.77% +20.48% +50.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £78.74 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.25 £81.01 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £77.50 £56.25
% change year-on-year -16.13% +37.78% +60.71%

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 40,582 26,548 36,652
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.29% 91.02% 86.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,477 17,040 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £514 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.88% -2.10% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +4.21% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,387 1,106 2,443
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.80 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.17 £36.05
Median % change year-on-year +50.90% -21.86% +0.13%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.70 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.93% -32.93% +7.14%

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 May 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 20 May 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 20 May 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 +10 1,164 £575 - 1,498
London +26 777 £575 - 746
UK excluding London +24 432 £550 -4.35% 1,013
Work from Home +4 392 £598 +13.86% 721
North of England 0 114 £550 +8.37% 265
Scotland +54 91 £516 +9.61% 55
South East -37 85 £600 +4.35% 310
Midlands -26 64 £575 +21.05% 115
North West -15 56 £575 - 148
East of England -18 48 £500 -20.00% 130
West Midlands -23 46 £550 +10.00% 58
Yorkshire -18 45 £519 - 79
South West -37 37 £500 -21.88% 119
North East -15 16 £575 +60.61% 40
East Midlands -19 16 £675 +52.11% 57
Wales -15 12 £759 +31.96% 21
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 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
1 116 (8.31%) Apache Spark
2 68 (4.87%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (4.01%) Apache
4 30 (2.15%) Jupyter
5 16 (1.15%) Confluence
6 9 (0.64%) Appian
7 5 (0.36%) CMS
7 5 (0.36%) Headless CMS
7 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
8 4 (0.29%) SAS
9 3 (0.21%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.14%) Luigi
11 1 (0.072%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.072%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.072%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 27 (1.93%) Chatbot
2 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.21%) LaTeX
5 3 (0.21%) Simulink
6 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 11 (0.79%) SAP IBP
2 3 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.072%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.072%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.072%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.072%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.072%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 530 (37.97%) Azure
2 480 (34.38%) AWS
3 240 (17.19%) GCP
4 125 (8.95%) Power Platform
5 94 (6.73%) GitHub
6 93 (6.66%) Serverless
7 90 (6.45%) Azure AI
8 84 (6.02%) Azure Machine Learning
9 74 (5.30%) Amazon SageMaker
10 71 (5.09%) Amazon S3
11 66 (4.73%) Azure DevOps
12 63 (4.51%) Snowflake
13 56 (4.01%) AWS Lambda
14 55 (3.94%) GitHub Actions
15 53 (3.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 51 (3.65%) Vertex AI
17 49 (3.51%) Azure Data Factory
18 40 (2.87%) AWS CloudFormation
19 34 (2.44%) Amazon Bedrock
20 28 (2.01%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.00%) Network Security
2 10 (0.72%) Firewall
3 9 (0.64%) HTTP
4 8 (0.57%) DNS
5 5 (0.36%) FTP
5 5 (0.36%) SMTP
5 5 (0.36%) SSL
6 3 (0.21%) Ethernet
6 3 (0.21%) InfiniBand
6 3 (0.21%) NAS
6 3 (0.21%) SAN
7 2 (0.14%) 4G
7 2 (0.14%) 5G
7 2 (0.14%) DHCP
7 2 (0.14%) Internet
7 2 (0.14%) PCoIP
7 2 (0.14%) Radio Access Network
7 2 (0.14%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.072%) 3GPP
8 1 (0.072%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 95 (6.81%) Power BI
2 92 (6.59%) Data Lake
3 75 (5.37%) Big Data
4 61 (4.37%) BigQuery
5 60 (4.30%) Metadata
6 53 (3.80%) Data Warehouse
7 49 (3.51%) NoSQL
8 38 (2.72%) Tableau
9 36 (2.58%) Hadoop
10 35 (2.51%) Delta Lake
11 30 (2.15%) Pinecone
11 30 (2.15%) SQL Server
12 28 (2.01%) PostgreSQL
13 27 (1.93%) Amazon Athena
14 25 (1.79%) Mixpanel
14 25 (1.79%) Relational Database
15 23 (1.65%) Weaviate
16 19 (1.36%) MongoDB
17 16 (1.15%) Amazon Redshift
18 15 (1.07%) OLTP
Development Applications
1 90 (6.45%) MLflow
2 87 (6.23%) Git
3 34 (2.44%) JIRA
4 25 (1.79%) GitLab
5 24 (1.72%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.50%) Selenium
8 5 (0.36%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.29%) ERwin
9 4 (0.29%) JMeter
9 4 (0.29%) Maven
9 4 (0.29%) PyCharm
10 3 (0.21%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.21%) Gradle
10 3 (0.21%) JUnit
10 3 (0.21%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.21%) Spinnaker
10 3 (0.21%) Vite
11 2 (0.14%) NUnit
General
1 302 (21.63%) Social Skills
2 270 (19.34%) Finance
3 163 (11.68%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (9.96%) Public Sector
5 79 (5.66%) Banking
6 30 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 29 (2.08%) Marketing
8 26 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (1.79%) Pharmaceutical
10 24 (1.72%) Legal
11 23 (1.65%) Retail
12 22 (1.58%) Aviation
12 22 (1.58%) Influencing Skills
13 20 (1.43%) Investment Banking
14 19 (1.36%) Front Office
14 19 (1.36%) Telecoms
15 13 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
16 12 (0.86%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.79%) Law
17 11 (0.79%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 210 (15.04%) Data Scientist
2 189 (13.54%) Senior
3 185 (13.25%) Architect
4 160 (11.46%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 130 (9.31%) Data Engineer
6 117 (8.38%) Lead
7 94 (6.73%) Developer
8 73 (5.23%) Analyst
9 69 (4.94%) Python Engineer
10 59 (4.23%) Software Engineer
11 58 (4.15%) Machine Learning Engineer
12 56 (4.01%) Solutions Architect
13 55 (3.94%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
14 52 (3.72%) Data Architect
15 40 (2.87%) Senior Data Scientist
16 38 (2.72%) Consultant
17 31 (2.22%) Python Developer
18 30 (2.15%) Azure Engineer
19 29 (2.08%) Business Analyst
19 29 (2.08%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 189 (13.54%) PyTorch
2 135 (9.67%) TensorFlow
3 112 (8.02%) scikit-learn
4 98 (7.02%) Pandas
5 80 (5.73%) Kafka
6 69 (4.94%) LangChain
6 69 (4.94%) NumPy
7 67 (4.80%) React
8 65 (4.66%) PySpark
9 54 (3.87%) REST
10 52 (3.72%) .NET
11 48 (3.44%) Hugging Face
12 34 (2.44%) LangGraph
12 34 (2.44%) Node.js
13 33 (2.36%) AngularJS
13 33 (2.36%) Model Context Protocol
14 29 (2.08%) FastAPI
15 26 (1.86%) RESTful
16 22 (1.58%) Faiss
17 20 (1.43%) Great Expectations
Miscellaneous
1 162 (11.60%) Cloud Native
2 134 (9.60%) AI Agents
3 128 (9.17%) Algorithms
4 47 (3.37%) Product Ownership
5 43 (3.08%) Onboarding
6 37 (2.65%) Distributed Systems
7 27 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
8 18 (1.29%) Data Structures
8 18 (1.29%) Fixed Income
9 17 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (1.22%) Legacy Systems
9 17 (1.22%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.15%) Life Science
11 13 (0.93%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (0.79%) Augmented Reality
12 11 (0.79%) Distributed Computing
12 11 (0.79%) Low-Code
12 11 (0.79%) Public Cloud
12 11 (0.79%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.15%) Linux
2 14 (1.00%) Windows
3 10 (0.72%) Unix
4 8 (0.57%) VMS
5 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
6 6 (0.43%) Android
7 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.072%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,103 (79.01%) AI
2 519 (37.18%) Data Science
3 429 (30.73%) CI/CD
4 404 (28.94%) LLM
5 379 (27.15%) Analytics
6 305 (21.85%) Generative AI
7 304 (21.78%) Data Pipeline
8 283 (20.27%) DevOps
9 268 (19.20%) MLOps
10 261 (18.70%) Data Engineering
11 251 (17.98%) Agile
12 194 (13.90%) Use Case
13 192 (13.75%) Problem-Solving
14 173 (12.39%) Data Governance
15 172 (12.32%) ETL
16 170 (12.18%) Software Engineering
17 168 (12.03%) Decision-Making
18 166 (11.89%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
19 157 (11.25%) Containerisation
20 146 (10.46%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 809 (57.95%) Python
2 355 (25.43%) SQL
3 101 (7.23%) Java
4 75 (5.37%) C#
5 64 (4.58%) R
6 50 (3.58%) TypeScript
7 48 (3.44%) JavaScript
8 23 (1.65%) C++
9 20 (1.43%) Bash
10 18 (1.29%) PowerShell
11 15 (1.07%) Bicep
12 13 (0.93%) Scala
13 11 (0.79%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.57%) Go
14 8 (0.57%) MATLAB
15 7 (0.50%) Rust
15 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
16 5 (0.36%) PL/SQL
17 4 (0.29%) Perl
17 4 (0.29%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 241 (17.26%) Security Cleared
2 166 (11.89%) SC Cleared
3 113 (8.09%) Degree
4 54 (3.87%) Master's Degree
5 41 (2.94%) DV Cleared
6 38 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
7 35 (2.51%) PhD
8 30 (2.15%) Computer Science Degree
9 24 (1.72%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.36%) Azure Certification
11 18 (1.29%) CISSP
12 14 (1.00%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 14 (1.00%) CISM
13 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 6 (0.43%) ISTQB
14 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.36%) GIAC
15 5 (0.36%) PMI Certification
15 5 (0.36%) PMP
16 4 (0.29%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 144 (10.32%) Data Quality
2 55 (3.94%) GDPR
3 51 (3.65%) QA
4 29 (2.08%) NIST
5 18 (1.29%) Accessibility
6 14 (1.00%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 13 (0.93%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.72%) Actionable Recommendations
8 10 (0.72%) HIPAA
9 8 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.50%) NCSC
11 5 (0.36%) GRC
11 5 (0.36%) WCAG
12 4 (0.29%) COBIT
12 4 (0.29%) GxP
13 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.21%) DO-254
14 2 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
15 1 (0.072%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 190 (13.61%) Docker
2 11 (0.79%) Active Directory
2 11 (0.79%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 6 (0.43%) Firmware
4 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.14%) Ceph
5 2 (0.14%) HDFS
5 2 (0.14%) Lustre
5 2 (0.14%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.14%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
6 1 (0.072%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 221 (15.83%) Kubernetes
2 140 (10.03%) Terraform
3 21 (1.50%) Grafana
3 21 (1.50%) Kubeflow
4 14 (1.00%) Ansible
4 14 (1.00%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.64%) Podman
6 4 (0.29%) Istio
7 3 (0.21%) Rancher
8 2 (0.14%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (0.14%) Kibana
8 2 (0.14%) Knative
8 2 (0.14%) NetBackup
8 2 (0.14%) Packer
8 2 (0.14%) SCCM
9 1 (0.072%) Argo
9 1 (0.072%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.072%) logstash
Vendors
1 200 (14.33%) Databricks
2 162 (11.60%) Microsoft
3 101 (7.23%) OpenAI
4 91 (6.52%) Google
5 60 (4.30%) Foundry
6 38 (2.72%) SAP
7 32 (2.29%) Oracle
8 24 (1.72%) ServiceNow
9 14 (1.00%) IBM
9 14 (1.00%) UiPath
10 13 (0.93%) Informatica
11 12 (0.86%) Dynatrace
12 11 (0.79%) Automation Anywhere
13 9 (0.64%) Amplitude
14 8 (0.57%) NVIDIA
15 7 (0.50%) Workday
16 6 (0.43%) Siemens
16 6 (0.43%) Talend
17 5 (0.36%) Ariba
17 5 (0.36%) Salesforce