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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 100 147
Rank change year-on-year +19 +47 +73
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,409 776 697
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.98% 2.65% 1.60%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.52% 2.92% 1.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 878 511 511
10th Percentile £413 £375 £413
25th Percentile £492 £463 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.17%
75th Percentile £688 £731 £725
90th Percentile £782 £874 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £575 £525
% change year-on-year -4.35% +9.52% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 46 21 21
10th Percentile £50.00 £25.25 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.88 £45.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.69% +17.14% +50.00%
75th Percentile £83.75 £78.70 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.38 £81.01 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £76.25 £60.00
% change year-on-year -14.75% +27.08% +71.43%

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 39,989 26,597 37,605
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.62% 90.89% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,206 17,155 24,229
10th Percentile £319 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.62% -3.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,387 1,068 2,445
10th Percentile £14.99 £14.65 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.96 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.65
Median % change year-on-year +43.29% -18.65% -4.42%
75th Percentile £66.00 £60.84 £59.95
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £27.76 £37.18
% change year-on-year +57.38% -25.34% +3.28%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +11 1,185 £575 -4.17% 1,052
London +26 786 £575 -4.17% 598
UK excluding London +19 438 £550 -4.35% 572
Work from Home +11 403 £596 +8.27% 471
North of England -12 105 £550 +7.32% 166
South East -24 91 £600 +4.35% 182
Scotland +48 85 £518 +10.81% 41
Midlands -27 66 £550 +15.79% 62
East of England -6 58 £520 -16.80% 65
North West -19 53 £558 -7.08% 92
West Midlands -27 46 £550 +10.00% 27
Yorkshire -18 41 £550 +10.00% 39
South West -30 40 £525 -17.97% 55
East Midlands -18 18 £625 +38.89% 35
North East -12 14 £575 +60.61% 35
Wales -10 13 £750 +30.43% 9
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 2

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
1 123 (8.73%) Apache Spark
2 76 (5.39%) Apache Airflow
3 59 (4.19%) Apache
4 26 (1.85%) Jupyter
5 12 (0.85%) Confluence
6 9 (0.64%) Appian
7 7 (0.50%) CMS
8 6 (0.43%) SAS
9 5 (0.35%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.28%) Headless CMS
10 4 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.14%) Luigi
12 1 (0.071%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.071%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.071%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.071%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 29 (2.06%) Chatbot
2 12 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.28%) Simulink
6 3 (0.21%) LaTeX
7 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 10 (0.71%) SAP IBP
2 5 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.071%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.071%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.071%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.071%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 556 (39.46%) Azure
2 482 (34.21%) AWS
3 248 (17.60%) GCP
4 139 (9.87%) Power Platform
5 107 (7.59%) GitHub
6 100 (7.10%) Azure Machine Learning
7 97 (6.88%) Azure AI
8 95 (6.74%) Serverless
9 73 (5.18%) Amazon S3
9 73 (5.18%) Azure DevOps
10 72 (5.11%) Amazon SageMaker
11 71 (5.04%) Snowflake
12 61 (4.33%) GitHub Actions
12 61 (4.33%) Vertex AI
13 59 (4.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 58 (4.12%) Azure Data Factory
15 55 (3.90%) AWS Lambda
16 43 (3.05%) AWS CloudFormation
17 38 (2.70%) Amazon Bedrock
18 31 (2.20%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.14%) Network Security
2 10 (0.71%) Firewall
3 9 (0.64%) HTTP
4 7 (0.50%) DNS
5 5 (0.35%) FTP
5 5 (0.35%) SMTP
5 5 (0.35%) SSL
6 4 (0.28%) Ethernet
6 4 (0.28%) InfiniBand
6 4 (0.28%) Internet
7 3 (0.21%) 5G
8 2 (0.14%) 4G
8 2 (0.14%) Bluetooth
8 2 (0.14%) Cisco IPT
8 2 (0.14%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.14%) LTE
8 2 (0.14%) Modbus
8 2 (0.14%) VPN
9 1 (0.071%) 3GPP
9 1 (0.071%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 109 (7.74%) Power BI
2 94 (6.67%) Data Lake
3 77 (5.46%) Big Data
4 63 (4.47%) Metadata
5 62 (4.40%) BigQuery
6 61 (4.33%) Data Warehouse
7 51 (3.62%) NoSQL
8 40 (2.84%) Tableau
9 36 (2.56%) Hadoop
10 35 (2.48%) Pinecone
11 33 (2.34%) Delta Lake
12 31 (2.20%) SQL Server
13 30 (2.13%) PostgreSQL
14 28 (1.99%) Weaviate
15 27 (1.92%) Amazon Athena
16 26 (1.85%) Relational Database
17 23 (1.63%) Mixpanel
18 21 (1.49%) Amazon Redshift
19 19 (1.35%) MongoDB
20 17 (1.21%) Redis
Development Applications
1 95 (6.74%) Git
2 93 (6.60%) MLflow
3 31 (2.20%) JIRA
4 29 (2.06%) Jenkins
5 26 (1.85%) GitLab
6 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.50%) Gradle
7 7 (0.50%) Selenium
7 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.35%) PyCharm
9 4 (0.28%) Android Studio
9 4 (0.28%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.28%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.28%) JMeter
9 4 (0.28%) Maven
10 3 (0.21%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.21%) JUnit
10 3 (0.21%) REST Assured
10 3 (0.21%) Spinnaker
10 3 (0.21%) Vite
General
1 324 (23.00%) Social Skills
2 274 (19.45%) Finance
3 173 (12.28%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (10.22%) Public Sector
5 88 (6.25%) Banking
6 35 (2.48%) Marketing
7 30 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 27 (1.92%) Legal
8 27 (1.92%) Pharmaceutical
9 23 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
10 22 (1.56%) Front Office
10 22 (1.56%) Investment Banking
10 22 (1.56%) Retail
11 20 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
12 18 (1.28%) Aviation
12 18 (1.28%) Telecoms
13 12 (0.85%) Aerospace
14 11 (0.78%) Law
14 11 (0.78%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 207 (14.69%) Data Scientist
2 196 (13.91%) Architect
3 185 (13.13%) Senior
4 179 (12.70%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 137 (9.72%) Data Engineer
6 118 (8.37%) Lead
7 112 (7.95%) Developer
8 73 (5.18%) Analyst
9 63 (4.47%) Python Engineer
10 59 (4.19%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 58 (4.12%) Machine Learning Engineer
12 57 (4.05%) Software Engineer
13 54 (3.83%) Data Architect
13 54 (3.83%) Solutions Architect
14 39 (2.77%) Senior Data Scientist
15 36 (2.56%) Consultant
16 35 (2.48%) Gen AI Engineer
17 33 (2.34%) Azure Engineer
17 33 (2.34%) Python Developer
18 30 (2.13%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 210 (14.90%) PyTorch
2 157 (11.14%) TensorFlow
3 128 (9.08%) scikit-learn
4 110 (7.81%) Pandas
5 78 (5.54%) NumPy
6 77 (5.46%) LangChain
7 74 (5.25%) Kafka
8 72 (5.11%) React
9 61 (4.33%) PySpark
10 56 (3.97%) .NET
11 53 (3.76%) REST
12 52 (3.69%) Hugging Face
13 49 (3.48%) Node.js
14 44 (3.12%) LangGraph
14 44 (3.12%) Model Context Protocol
15 37 (2.63%) AngularJS
16 36 (2.56%) FastAPI
17 29 (2.06%) Faiss
18 26 (1.85%) RESTful
19 22 (1.56%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 176 (12.49%) Cloud Native
2 140 (9.94%) Algorithms
3 136 (9.65%) AI Agents
4 46 (3.26%) Onboarding
5 45 (3.19%) Product Ownership
6 32 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
7 29 (2.06%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
8 19 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
8 19 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
9 18 (1.28%) Fixed Income
10 17 (1.21%) Management Information System
11 15 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
11 15 (1.06%) Data Structures
11 15 (1.06%) Distributed Computing
12 14 (0.99%) Life Science
12 14 (0.99%) Public Cloud
13 11 (0.78%) Augmented Reality
13 11 (0.78%) Virtual Reality
14 10 (0.71%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.13%) Linux
2 11 (0.78%) VMS
2 11 (0.78%) Windows
3 10 (0.71%) Android
4 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 6 (0.43%) Unix
6 2 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.071%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,107 (78.57%) AI
2 516 (36.62%) Data Science
3 429 (30.45%) CI/CD
4 415 (29.45%) Analytics
5 395 (28.03%) LLM
6 310 (22.00%) Data Pipeline
6 310 (22.00%) Generative AI
7 273 (19.38%) DevOps
8 269 (19.09%) MLOps
9 267 (18.95%) Data Engineering
10 262 (18.59%) Agile
11 201 (14.27%) Problem-Solving
12 196 (13.91%) Use Case
13 180 (12.78%) Data Governance
14 169 (11.99%) Software Engineering
15 165 (11.71%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 164 (11.64%) Containerisation
16 164 (11.64%) ETL
16 164 (11.64%) Natural Language Processing
17 161 (11.43%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 824 (58.48%) Python
2 354 (25.12%) SQL
3 109 (7.74%) Java
4 83 (5.89%) C#
5 70 (4.97%) R
6 53 (3.76%) JavaScript
7 51 (3.62%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.92%) C++
9 19 (1.35%) Bicep
9 19 (1.35%) PowerShell
10 16 (1.14%) Bash
11 15 (1.06%) Scala
12 10 (0.71%) Go
13 9 (0.64%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.64%) MATLAB
14 7 (0.50%) Rust
15 5 (0.35%) SPARQL
16 4 (0.28%) SystemVerilog
16 4 (0.28%) Tcl
16 4 (0.28%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 248 (17.60%) Security Cleared
2 169 (11.99%) SC Cleared
3 132 (9.37%) Degree
4 65 (4.61%) Master's Degree
5 41 (2.91%) BPSS Clearance
5 41 (2.91%) DV Cleared
6 39 (2.77%) PhD
7 36 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 22 (1.56%) AWS Certification
9 19 (1.35%) Azure Certification
10 17 (1.21%) CISSP
11 13 (0.92%) CISM
12 12 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 10 (0.71%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 6 (0.43%) ISTQB
15 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.35%) PMI Certification
15 5 (0.35%) PMP
16 4 (0.28%) HNC
16 4 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 141 (10.01%) Data Quality
2 60 (4.26%) GDPR
3 51 (3.62%) QA
4 28 (1.99%) NIST
5 20 (1.42%) Accessibility
6 13 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 12 (0.85%) EU AI Act
8 10 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
8 10 (0.71%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.64%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 6 (0.43%) NCSC
11 5 (0.35%) GRC
12 4 (0.28%) DO-254
12 4 (0.28%) WCAG
13 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
13 3 (0.21%) GxP
14 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 2 (0.14%) Def Stans
14 2 (0.14%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 2 (0.14%) NIST 800
System Software
1 195 (13.84%) Docker
2 12 (0.85%) Active Directory
2 12 (0.85%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 7 (0.50%) Firmware
4 3 (0.21%) Lustre
4 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.14%) Ceph
5 2 (0.14%) HDFS
6 1 (0.071%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.071%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 211 (14.98%) Kubernetes
2 139 (9.87%) Terraform
3 22 (1.56%) Grafana
4 20 (1.42%) Kubeflow
5 14 (0.99%) Prometheus
6 13 (0.92%) Ansible
7 9 (0.64%) Podman
8 4 (0.28%) Istio
9 3 (0.21%) Rancher
10 2 (0.14%) Argo
10 2 (0.14%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.14%) Kibana
10 2 (0.14%) Knative
11 1 (0.071%) HP Fortify
11 1 (0.071%) logstash
11 1 (0.071%) Opsgenie
11 1 (0.071%) SELinux
11 1 (0.071%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 212 (15.05%) Databricks
2 176 (12.49%) Microsoft
3 107 (7.59%) Google
4 105 (7.45%) OpenAI
5 64 (4.54%) Foundry
6 43 (3.05%) SAP
7 29 (2.06%) Oracle
8 21 (1.49%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.14%) Informatica
10 15 (1.06%) IBM
10 15 (1.06%) UiPath
11 11 (0.78%) Automation Anywhere
11 11 (0.78%) Dynatrace
12 9 (0.64%) Salesforce
13 7 (0.50%) Amplitude
13 7 (0.50%) NVIDIA
13 7 (0.50%) Workday
14 6 (0.43%) Siemens
14 6 (0.43%) Splunk
14 6 (0.43%) Talend