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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 90 106
Rank change year-on-year -5 +16 +89
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,571 947 812
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.87% 2.87% 2.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.41% 3.16% 2.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 998 609 546
10th Percentile £413 £400 £391
25th Percentile £475 £463 £491
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +2.13%
75th Percentile £682 £675 £731
90th Percentile £775 £775 £794
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £525 £495
% change year-on-year +4.76% +6.06% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 21 19
10th Percentile £28.50 £25.17 £13.06
25th Percentile £43.92 £43.84 £25.93
Median hourly rate £77.00 £61.23 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +25.77% +32.58% -
75th Percentile £86.06 £80.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £87.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £77.00 £63.25 £46.18
% change year-on-year +21.74% +36.96% -

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 46,089 29,922 32,856
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.33% 90.54% 85.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,886 18,587 19,900
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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,201 1,858 1,386
10th Percentile £13.70 £14.29 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.50 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.06% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £65.88 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.00 £74.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.78% -47.67% +1.18%

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 27 September 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 27 September 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 27 September 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 -4 1,348 £575 +2.00% 5,123
London +18 890 £580 -3.33% 3,460
UK excluding London -22 520 £550 +4.76% 2,008
Work from Home -8 411 £575 +4.55% 1,902
North of England -13 148 £558 +17.37% 410
South East -12 140 £600 +9.09% 491
Scotland 0 97 £463 -7.96% 222
Yorkshire -10 66 £538 +4.57% 102
North West -36 64 £600 +26.32% 255
South West -16 49 £513 -10.87% 325
Midlands -32 48 £575 +9.52% 182
West Midlands -40 39 £575 +9.52% 103
East of England -25 36 £463 -17.78% 268
North East -25 19 £531 +25.00% 55
Wales -10 7 £530 -21.48% 49
East Midlands -16 6 £425 -8.11% 79
Northern Ireland +2 1 £334 -52.29% 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 91 (5.79%) Apache Spark
2 81 (5.16%) Apache Airflow
3 57 (3.63%) Apache
4 35 (2.23%) Jupyter
5 24 (1.53%) Confluence
6 11 (0.70%) SAS
7 7 (0.45%) IIS
8 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.32%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Superset
12 2 (0.13%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) CMS
12 2 (0.13%) Headless CMS
13 1 (0.064%) Apache Pulsar
13 1 (0.064%) Luigi
13 1 (0.064%) nginx
Applications
1 29 (1.85%) 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%) Trello
Business Applications
1 8 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.38%) SAP IBP
3 3 (0.19%) Cloudability
3 3 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.064%) Actimize
5 1 (0.064%) Endur
5 1 (0.064%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.064%) OpenLink RightAngle
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle Cash Management
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.064%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 514 (32.72%) Azure
2 512 (32.59%) AWS
3 293 (18.65%) GCP
4 110 (7.00%) Power Platform
5 103 (6.56%) GitHub
5 103 (6.56%) Serverless
6 93 (5.92%) Amazon S3
7 90 (5.73%) Snowflake
8 84 (5.35%) AWS Lambda
9 71 (4.52%) Amazon SageMaker
10 62 (3.95%) dbt
11 61 (3.88%) Amazon Bedrock
12 58 (3.69%) Azure Machine Learning
13 48 (3.06%) Azure DevOps
14 47 (2.99%) Azure AI
15 46 (2.93%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 45 (2.86%) Vertex AI
17 44 (2.80%) SaaS
18 43 (2.74%) Azure Data Factory
19 40 (2.55%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 21 (1.34%) Network Security
2 19 (1.21%) Broadband
2 19 (1.21%) Internet
3 13 (0.83%) DNS
4 12 (0.76%) Firewall
4 12 (0.76%) HTTP
5 9 (0.57%) DHCP
5 9 (0.57%) VPN
6 5 (0.32%) SMTP
6 5 (0.32%) TCP/IP
7 4 (0.25%) NAS
7 4 (0.25%) SAN
7 4 (0.25%) SMS
7 4 (0.25%) VLAN
8 3 (0.19%) CTI
8 3 (0.19%) MQTT
9 2 (0.13%) FTP
9 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
9 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
9 2 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 102 (6.49%) Power BI
2 98 (6.24%) Data Warehouse
3 94 (5.98%) Data Lake
4 88 (5.60%) Metadata
5 78 (4.96%) BigQuery
6 60 (3.82%) Big Data
7 54 (3.44%) Amazon Redshift
8 50 (3.18%) Delta Lake
9 44 (2.80%) NoSQL
10 43 (2.74%) Tableau
11 36 (2.29%) Amazon Athena
11 36 (2.29%) PostgreSQL
12 29 (1.85%) Relational Database
13 24 (1.53%) Neo4j
14 20 (1.27%) MongoDB
15 19 (1.21%) Hadoop
16 18 (1.15%) Elasticsearch
17 17 (1.08%) Data Mining
17 17 (1.08%) Looker
18 16 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 106 (6.75%) Git
2 53 (3.37%) GitLab
3 45 (2.86%) JIRA
4 40 (2.55%) MLflow
5 15 (0.95%) Jenkins
6 13 (0.83%) Claude Code
7 7 (0.45%) Vite
8 6 (0.38%) Selenium
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
9 5 (0.32%) ERwin
9 5 (0.32%) JMeter
9 5 (0.32%) RStudio
10 4 (0.25%) Postman
11 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Pylint
11 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
12 2 (0.13%) Locust
12 2 (0.13%) Newman
12 2 (0.13%) Spinnaker
12 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
General
1 354 (22.53%) Social Skills
2 304 (19.35%) Finance
3 236 (15.02%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (9.17%) Public Sector
5 120 (7.64%) Banking
6 39 (2.48%) Marketing
7 35 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (2.04%) Retail
9 29 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
10 26 (1.65%) Telecoms
11 24 (1.53%) Legal
12 23 (1.46%) Aerospace
12 23 (1.46%) Manufacturing
13 22 (1.40%) Front Office
13 22 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
14 19 (1.21%) Documentation Skills
15 18 (1.15%) Financial Institution
16 17 (1.08%) Investment Banking
17 16 (1.02%) Law
18 15 (0.95%) Billing
Job Titles
1 283 (18.01%) Senior
2 253 (16.10%) Architect
3 192 (12.22%) Data Scientist
4 183 (11.65%) Data Engineer
5 179 (11.39%) Lead
6 142 (9.04%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 96 (6.11%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 72 (4.58%) Developer
9 70 (4.46%) Python Engineer
9 70 (4.46%) Solutions Architect
10 68 (4.33%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 66 (4.20%) Data Architect
12 63 (4.01%) Analyst
13 56 (3.56%) Platform Engineer
14 55 (3.50%) Software Engineer
15 52 (3.31%) Senior Data Engineer
16 49 (3.12%) Security Architect
17 48 (3.06%) Senior Data Scientist
18 40 (2.55%) DevOps Engineer
19 37 (2.36%) Full-Stack Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 200 (12.73%) Terraform
2 108 (6.87%) PyTorch
3 105 (6.68%) Kafka
4 90 (5.73%) PySpark
5 79 (5.03%) TensorFlow
6 70 (4.46%) REST
7 68 (4.33%) LangChain
8 63 (4.01%) scikit-learn
9 60 (3.82%) Pandas
10 58 (3.69%) React
11 49 (3.12%) pytest
12 47 (2.99%) NumPy
13 37 (2.36%) FastAPI
13 37 (2.36%) LangGraph
14 34 (2.16%) .NET
15 28 (1.78%) Hugging Face
16 27 (1.72%) JSON
17 26 (1.65%) Model Context Protocol
18 22 (1.40%) RESTful
19 20 (1.27%) vLLM
Miscellaneous
1 201 (12.79%) Cloud Native
2 171 (10.88%) AI Agents
3 89 (5.67%) Algorithms
4 73 (4.65%) Onboarding
5 66 (4.20%) Distributed Systems
5 66 (4.20%) Product Ownership
6 39 (2.48%) Data Structures
7 36 (2.29%) Enterprise Software
8 28 (1.78%) Life Science
9 26 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (1.34%) Hybrid Cloud
10 21 (1.34%) Management Information System
11 18 (1.15%) CMDB
11 18 (1.15%) Social Media
12 17 (1.08%) Taxonomies
13 16 (1.02%) Clustering
13 16 (1.02%) Credit Risk
14 15 (0.95%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (0.95%) Virtual Team
15 14 (0.89%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 48 (3.06%) Linux
2 19 (1.21%) Windows
3 17 (1.08%) Unix
4 4 (0.25%) Android
4 4 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.19%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.064%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,299 (82.69%) AI
2 571 (36.35%) Data Science
3 498 (31.70%) CI/CD
4 475 (30.24%) Analytics
5 431 (27.43%) LLM
6 385 (24.51%) Generative AI
7 345 (21.96%) Data Pipeline
8 325 (20.69%) Agile
9 320 (20.37%) DevOps
10 292 (18.59%) MLOps
11 275 (17.50%) Data Engineering
12 262 (16.68%) Software Engineering
13 247 (15.72%) Decision-Making
14 245 (15.60%) Stakeholder Management
15 236 (15.02%) Use Case
16 235 (14.96%) Roadmaps
17 218 (13.88%) Infrastructure as Code
18 203 (12.92%) Data Modelling
19 200 (12.73%) Problem-Solving
20 197 (12.54%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 839 (53.41%) Python
2 392 (24.95%) SQL
3 110 (7.00%) Java
4 76 (4.84%) JavaScript
5 59 (3.76%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.55%) Bash
7 35 (2.23%) R
8 34 (2.16%) C#
9 28 (1.78%) PowerShell
10 25 (1.59%) Scala
11 20 (1.27%) C++
12 19 (1.21%) Go
13 17 (1.08%) Bicep
14 14 (0.89%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.70%) Cypher
15 11 (0.70%) PL/SQL
16 7 (0.45%) Gremlin
16 7 (0.45%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.38%) Kotlin
18 5 (0.32%) Perl
Qualifications
1 315 (20.05%) Security Cleared
2 248 (15.79%) SC Cleared
3 122 (7.77%) Degree
4 56 (3.56%) DV Cleared
5 54 (3.44%) Computer Science Degree
6 47 (2.99%) AWS Certification
7 39 (2.48%) Master's Degree
8 36 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
9 31 (1.97%) CISSP
10 27 (1.72%) Azure Certification
11 26 (1.65%) PhD
12 18 (1.15%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.95%) TOGAF Certification
14 14 (0.89%) CISM
15 10 (0.64%) Cisco Certification
15 10 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
16 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
17 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Certified Professional
18 7 (0.45%) DBS Check
19 6 (0.38%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 225 (14.32%) Data Quality
2 57 (3.63%) QA
3 55 (3.50%) GDPR
4 30 (1.91%) NIST
5 19 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.02%) Accessibility
7 15 (0.95%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.64%) SLA
9 9 (0.57%) GRC
9 9 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 8 (0.51%) GxP
11 7 (0.45%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
12 6 (0.38%) HIPAA
12 6 (0.38%) NCSC
13 5 (0.32%) Basel III
13 5 (0.32%) PCI DSS
13 5 (0.32%) Solvency II
14 4 (0.25%) COBIT
14 4 (0.25%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 210 (13.37%) 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
1 279 (17.76%) Kubernetes
2 41 (2.61%) Ansible
3 27 (1.72%) Grafana
3 27 (1.72%) Kubeflow
4 20 (1.27%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.38%) Istio
5 6 (0.38%) systemd
6 5 (0.32%) Podman
7 3 (0.19%) Argo
7 3 (0.19%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) Nagios
7 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
7 3 (0.19%) Puppet
7 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
7 3 (0.19%) vMotion
8 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.13%) Packer
8 2 (0.13%) SCCM
8 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.064%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 200 (12.73%) Databricks
2 150 (9.55%) Microsoft
3 101 (6.43%) Google
4 59 (3.76%) OpenAI
5 38 (2.42%) SAP
6 33 (2.10%) ServiceNow
7 29 (1.85%) Oracle
8 26 (1.65%) Foundry
9 22 (1.40%) Informatica
10 17 (1.08%) Dynatrace
11 14 (0.89%) VMware
12 10 (0.64%) IBM
12 10 (0.64%) Nexthink
12 10 (0.64%) Salesforce
12 10 (0.64%) Splunk
12 10 (0.64%) UiPath
13 7 (0.45%) Cisco
14 6 (0.38%) Pega
14 6 (0.38%) Sybase
15 5 (0.32%) New Relic