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

6 months to
8 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 113 140
Rank change year-on-year +27 +27 +85
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,452 717 731
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.93% 2.45% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 2.69% 1.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 886 436 518
10th Percentile £413 £390 £413
25th Percentile £489 £456 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £553 £575
Median % change year-on-year +4.07% -3.91% -1.71%
75th Percentile £675 £689 £738
90th Percentile £775 £850 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £525
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 19 19
10th Percentile £40.54 £29.85 £41.25
25th Percentile £51.21 £45.00 £46.22
Median hourly rate £66.00 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +42.86% +50.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £81.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.00 £88.00 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £78.10 £56.25
% change year-on-year -16.77% +38.84% +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 41,928 26,614 37,088
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.71% 90.94% 85.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,175 16,900 23,706
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £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 2,525 1,165 2,567
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.53 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.68% -24.58% +1.39%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.16
90th Percentile £81.24 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 8 June 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 8 June 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Top 16 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 8 June 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 +16 1,205 £575 - 1,735
London +35 811 £575 +1.77% 1,015
UK excluding London +6 450 £550 -4.35% 861
Work from Home +22 422 £575 +4.55% 737
North of England +1 125 £554 +0.68% 241
Scotland +50 100 £518 +10.81% 44
South East -34 89 £630 +9.57% 234
North West -8 66 £588 +6.82% 157
Midlands -18 60 £550 +12.82% 81
Yorkshire -19 45 £550 - 56
East of England -14 44 £550 -13.73% 100
West Midlands -31 43 £550 +10.00% 43
South West -28 36 £500 -20.63% 126
North East -15 17 £550 +46.67% 29
Wales -13 15 £579 +0.70% 25
East Midlands -17 15 £650 +52.94% 37

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
1 111 (7.64%) Apache Spark
2 67 (4.61%) Apache Airflow
3 53 (3.65%) Apache
4 34 (2.34%) Jupyter
5 19 (1.31%) Confluence
6 9 (0.62%) Appian
7 8 (0.55%) SharePoint
8 5 (0.34%) CMS
8 5 (0.34%) Headless CMS
9 4 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
9 4 (0.28%) SAS
10 2 (0.14%) Luigi
10 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.069%) Apache Pulsar
11 1 (0.069%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.069%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.069%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.069%) NetWeaver
11 1 (0.069%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 27 (1.86%) Chatbot
2 12 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.62%) Microsoft Project
4 7 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.21%) LaTeX
6 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.14%) Simulink
Business Applications
1 11 (0.76%) SAP IBP
2 6 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.069%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.069%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.069%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.069%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.069%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 534 (36.78%) Azure
2 496 (34.16%) AWS
3 252 (17.36%) GCP
4 125 (8.61%) Power Platform
5 90 (6.20%) GitHub
5 90 (6.20%) Serverless
6 85 (5.85%) Azure AI
7 77 (5.30%) Amazon SageMaker
8 76 (5.23%) Amazon S3
9 72 (4.96%) Azure Machine Learning
10 65 (4.48%) Snowflake
11 64 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
12 61 (4.20%) AWS Lambda
13 53 (3.65%) Vertex AI
14 52 (3.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 50 (3.44%) GitHub Actions
16 47 (3.24%) Azure Data Factory
17 39 (2.69%) Amazon Bedrock
18 34 (2.34%) AWS CloudFormation
19 32 (2.20%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (0.83%) Firewall
1 12 (0.83%) Network Security
2 10 (0.69%) DNS
3 9 (0.62%) HTTP
4 7 (0.48%) SMTP
5 6 (0.41%) Internet
6 5 (0.34%) FTP
6 5 (0.34%) SSL
7 4 (0.28%) DHCP
7 4 (0.28%) NAS
7 4 (0.28%) SAN
8 3 (0.21%) VPN
9 2 (0.14%) 4G
9 2 (0.14%) 5G
9 2 (0.14%) Ethernet
9 2 (0.14%) InfiniBand
9 2 (0.14%) MQTT
9 2 (0.14%) PCoIP
9 2 (0.14%) Radio Access Network
9 2 (0.14%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 98 (6.75%) Power BI
2 92 (6.34%) Data Lake
3 77 (5.30%) Big Data
4 67 (4.61%) Metadata
5 64 (4.41%) BigQuery
6 51 (3.51%) Data Warehouse
7 49 (3.37%) NoSQL
8 40 (2.75%) Tableau
9 35 (2.41%) Hadoop
10 32 (2.20%) PostgreSQL
10 32 (2.20%) SQL Server
11 31 (2.13%) Delta Lake
12 28 (1.93%) Pinecone
12 28 (1.93%) Relational Database
13 26 (1.79%) Amazon Athena
14 21 (1.45%) MongoDB
15 20 (1.38%) Amazon Redshift
15 20 (1.38%) Mixpanel
15 20 (1.38%) Weaviate
16 15 (1.03%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 88 (6.06%) Git
2 80 (5.51%) MLflow
3 41 (2.82%) JIRA
4 33 (2.27%) GitLab
5 22 (1.52%) Jenkins
6 9 (0.62%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.48%) Selenium
8 5 (0.34%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.28%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.28%) ERwin
9 4 (0.28%) JMeter
9 4 (0.28%) Maven
9 4 (0.28%) PyCharm
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%) ER Studio
General
1 313 (21.56%) Social Skills
2 287 (19.77%) Finance
3 184 (12.67%) Analytical Skills
4 143 (9.85%) Public Sector
5 91 (6.27%) Banking
6 36 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 35 (2.41%) Marketing
8 28 (1.93%) Pharmaceutical
9 27 (1.86%) Legal
10 25 (1.72%) Documentation Skills
11 23 (1.58%) Front Office
11 23 (1.58%) Retail
12 22 (1.52%) Aviation
13 21 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
14 20 (1.38%) Investment Banking
15 18 (1.24%) Telecoms
16 14 (0.96%) Law
17 12 (0.83%) Aerospace
17 12 (0.83%) Financial Institution
17 12 (0.83%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 214 (14.74%) Data Scientist
2 203 (13.98%) Senior
3 186 (12.81%) Architect
4 147 (10.12%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 134 (9.23%) Data Engineer
6 127 (8.75%) Lead
7 98 (6.75%) Developer
8 79 (5.44%) Analyst
9 70 (4.82%) Python Engineer
10 64 (4.41%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 62 (4.27%) Software Engineer
12 58 (3.99%) Solutions Architect
13 56 (3.86%) Data Architect
14 51 (3.51%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
15 41 (2.82%) Senior Data Scientist
16 39 (2.69%) Consultant
17 34 (2.34%) Python Developer
18 30 (2.07%) Business Analyst
18 30 (2.07%) Senior Data Engineer
19 29 (2.00%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (12.19%) PyTorch
2 127 (8.75%) TensorFlow
3 107 (7.37%) scikit-learn
4 93 (6.40%) Pandas
5 83 (5.72%) Kafka
6 72 (4.96%) LangChain
7 67 (4.61%) NumPy
7 67 (4.61%) PySpark
8 65 (4.48%) React
9 56 (3.86%) REST
10 54 (3.72%) .NET
11 44 (3.03%) Hugging Face
12 34 (2.34%) LangGraph
13 33 (2.27%) Model Context Protocol
14 32 (2.20%) AngularJS
14 32 (2.20%) Node.js
15 30 (2.07%) FastAPI
16 28 (1.93%) RESTful
17 19 (1.31%) Faiss
17 19 (1.31%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 172 (11.85%) Cloud Native
2 142 (9.78%) AI Agents
3 117 (8.06%) Algorithms
4 55 (3.79%) Product Ownership
5 41 (2.82%) Onboarding
6 40 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
7 28 (1.93%) Data Protection Act
8 21 (1.45%) Fixed Income
9 19 (1.31%) Data Structures
9 19 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
10 18 (1.24%) Life Science
11 17 (1.17%) Management Information System
12 16 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
13 15 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
14 13 (0.90%) Distributed Computing
14 13 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (0.90%) Low-Code
15 12 (0.83%) Public Cloud
16 11 (0.76%) Cyber Threat
16 11 (0.76%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.07%) Linux
2 16 (1.10%) Windows
3 11 (0.76%) Unix
4 6 (0.41%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.41%) VMS
5 5 (0.34%) Android
6 3 (0.21%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.069%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,158 (79.75%) AI
2 542 (37.33%) Data Science
3 451 (31.06%) CI/CD
4 424 (29.20%) LLM
5 399 (27.48%) Analytics
6 327 (22.52%) Data Pipeline
7 323 (22.25%) Generative AI
8 302 (20.80%) DevOps
9 292 (20.11%) MLOps
10 266 (18.32%) Data Engineering
11 264 (18.18%) Agile
12 215 (14.81%) Use Case
13 196 (13.50%) Problem-Solving
14 191 (13.15%) Software Engineering
15 186 (12.81%) Decision-Making
16 178 (12.26%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 177 (12.19%) Data Governance
18 176 (12.12%) ETL
19 153 (10.54%) Containerisation
19 153 (10.54%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 831 (57.23%) Python
2 371 (25.55%) SQL
3 108 (7.44%) Java
4 71 (4.89%) C#
5 62 (4.27%) R
6 48 (3.31%) TypeScript
7 46 (3.17%) JavaScript
8 26 (1.79%) C++
9 19 (1.31%) Bash
10 17 (1.17%) PowerShell
11 13 (0.90%) Bicep
12 11 (0.76%) Scala
13 10 (0.69%) Kotlin
14 8 (0.55%) Go
15 7 (0.48%) Rust
15 7 (0.48%) SPARQL
16 6 (0.41%) MATLAB
16 6 (0.41%) PL/SQL
17 5 (0.34%) Perl
18 3 (0.21%) Korn
Qualifications
1 248 (17.08%) Security Cleared
2 172 (11.85%) SC Cleared
3 117 (8.06%) Degree
4 50 (3.44%) Master's Degree
5 42 (2.89%) DV Cleared
6 41 (2.82%) BPSS Clearance
7 39 (2.69%) Computer Science Degree
8 33 (2.27%) PhD
9 31 (2.13%) AWS Certification
10 19 (1.31%) Azure Certification
10 19 (1.31%) CISSP
11 16 (1.10%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 15 (1.03%) CISM
13 6 (0.41%) DBS Check
13 6 (0.41%) ISTQB
14 5 (0.34%) CEH
14 5 (0.34%) CompTIA Security+
14 5 (0.34%) GIAC
14 5 (0.34%) Microsoft Certification
14 5 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (11.29%) Data Quality
2 57 (3.93%) GDPR
3 52 (3.58%) QA
4 32 (2.20%) NIST
5 18 (1.24%) Accessibility
6 17 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 13 (0.90%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
8 11 (0.76%) HIPAA
9 8 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 7 (0.48%) GRC
10 7 (0.48%) GxP
10 7 (0.48%) NCSC
11 5 (0.34%) WCAG
12 4 (0.28%) COBIT
12 4 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 3 (0.21%) SLA
14 2 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
System Software
1 193 (13.29%) Docker
2 12 (0.83%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 11 (0.76%) Active Directory
4 4 (0.28%) Firmware
4 4 (0.28%) Microsoft App-V
4 4 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
6 2 (0.14%) BitLocker
6 2 (0.14%) HDFS
6 2 (0.14%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.14%) Terminal Services
6 2 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
6 2 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.14%) VMware Workstation
7 1 (0.069%) Ceph
7 1 (0.069%) Embedded Firmware
7 1 (0.069%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 230 (15.84%) Kubernetes
2 140 (9.64%) Terraform
3 21 (1.45%) Kubeflow
4 20 (1.38%) Grafana
5 15 (1.03%) Ansible
5 15 (1.03%) Prometheus
6 9 (0.62%) Podman
7 6 (0.41%) Istio
8 3 (0.21%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.21%) Rancher
9 2 (0.14%) Argo
9 2 (0.14%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.14%) Kibana
9 2 (0.14%) Nagios
9 2 (0.14%) Packer
9 2 (0.14%) Puppet
9 2 (0.14%) SCCM
9 2 (0.14%) vCenter Server
9 2 (0.14%) vMotion
10 1 (0.069%) logstash
Vendors
1 191 (13.15%) Databricks
2 164 (11.29%) Microsoft
3 98 (6.75%) OpenAI
4 86 (5.92%) Google
5 56 (3.86%) Foundry
6 38 (2.62%) SAP
7 33 (2.27%) Oracle
8 21 (1.45%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.10%) Informatica
10 15 (1.03%) IBM
10 15 (1.03%) UiPath
11 12 (0.83%) Dynatrace
12 11 (0.76%) Automation Anywhere
13 7 (0.48%) Amplitude
13 7 (0.48%) Sybase
14 6 (0.41%) NVIDIA
14 6 (0.41%) Talend
14 6 (0.41%) Workday
15 5 (0.34%) Ariba
15 5 (0.34%) Splunk