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

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 108 133
Rank change year-on-year +26 +25 +79
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,561 754 750
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.04% 2.45% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.57% 2.70% 2.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 960 457 527
10th Percentile £413 £391 £409
25th Percentile £488 £459 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £588
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -6.38% +2.17%
75th Percentile £675 £676 £738
90th Percentile £775 £850 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 21 20
10th Percentile £40.28 £31.00 £41.25
25th Percentile £50.00 £45.00 £46.18
Median hourly rate £70.00 £75.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% +42.86% +39.07%
75th Percentile £83.75 £81.01 £66.25
90th Percentile £89.00 £88.00 £75.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.00 £78.10 £52.50
% change year-on-year -14.21% +48.76% +50.00%

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 43,674 27,949 36,811
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.97% 90.88% 85.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,163 17,650 23,450
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £501 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.79% -4.57% -4.55%
75th Percentile £621 £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 2,623 1,373 2,554
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.61 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +3.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.86 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +75.84% -34.42% +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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +26 1,298 £575 +3.60% 1,722
London +33 866 £575 +1.77% 1,071
UK excluding London +6 497 £550 - 856
Work from Home +17 447 £588 +6.82% 725
North of England +2 142 £575 +13.30% 170
Scotland +49 105 £483 +3.43% 49
South East -29 105 £600 +4.35% 274
North West +4 80 £599 +8.89% 104
Midlands -21 63 £550 +10.00% 80
Yorkshire -14 48 £550 -5.38% 43
West Midlands -22 46 £538 +7.50% 38
South West -25 45 £534 -11.04% 121
East of England -14 37 £525 -8.70% 99
Wales -11 18 £565 -1.83% 61
North East -23 17 £513 +28.13% 25
East Midlands -5 15 £650 +52.94% 42
Northern Ireland - 1 £334 - 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
1 103 (6.60%) Apache Spark
2 73 (4.68%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (3.33%) Apache
4 35 (2.24%) Jupyter
5 22 (1.41%) Confluence
6 8 (0.51%) Appian
7 7 (0.45%) SharePoint
8 6 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
8 6 (0.38%) SAS
9 5 (0.32%) CMS
9 5 (0.32%) Headless CMS
10 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.13%) Luigi
11 2 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Pulsar
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.064%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.064%) NetWeaver
12 1 (0.064%) OpenStack
Applications
1 32 (2.05%) Chatbot
2 13 (0.83%) Microsoft Excel
3 9 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.19%) CPLEX
6 2 (0.13%) Simulink
7 1 (0.064%) LaTeX
7 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.70%) SAP IBP
2 7 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.064%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.064%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.064%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.064%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.064%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.064%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 569 (36.45%) Azure
2 563 (36.07%) AWS
3 283 (18.13%) GCP
4 141 (9.03%) Power Platform
5 114 (7.30%) Serverless
6 103 (6.60%) Amazon S3
7 99 (6.34%) GitHub
8 88 (5.64%) Azure AI
9 87 (5.57%) Amazon SageMaker
10 86 (5.51%) AWS Lambda
11 79 (5.06%) Azure Machine Learning
11 79 (5.06%) Snowflake
12 65 (4.16%) Azure DevOps
13 58 (3.72%) Vertex AI
14 57 (3.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 55 (3.52%) Amazon Bedrock
16 50 (3.20%) GitHub Actions
17 46 (2.95%) Azure Data Factory
18 43 (2.75%) dbt
19 40 (2.56%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.02%) Firewall
2 12 (0.77%) Network Security
3 11 (0.70%) Internet
4 7 (0.45%) DNS
5 5 (0.32%) DHCP
5 5 (0.32%) VPN
6 4 (0.26%) HTTP
6 4 (0.26%) NAS
6 4 (0.26%) SAN
7 3 (0.19%) SMTP
8 2 (0.13%) 4G
8 2 (0.13%) 5G
8 2 (0.13%) Ethernet
8 2 (0.13%) MQTT
8 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
8 2 (0.13%) Radio Access Network
8 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
9 1 (0.064%) InfiniBand
9 1 (0.064%) LTE
9 1 (0.064%) Modbus
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (7.30%) Power BI
2 100 (6.41%) Data Lake
3 79 (5.06%) Big Data
4 73 (4.68%) Metadata
5 72 (4.61%) Data Warehouse
6 68 (4.36%) BigQuery
7 49 (3.14%) Tableau
8 47 (3.01%) NoSQL
9 42 (2.69%) Amazon Athena
10 41 (2.63%) Amazon Redshift
11 40 (2.56%) PostgreSQL
12 36 (2.31%) Hadoop
13 32 (2.05%) Delta Lake
13 32 (2.05%) Relational Database
14 30 (1.92%) SQL Server
15 26 (1.67%) Pinecone
16 25 (1.60%) MongoDB
17 20 (1.28%) MySQL
18 18 (1.15%) Weaviate
19 17 (1.09%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 96 (6.15%) Git
2 78 (5.00%) MLflow
3 50 (3.20%) JIRA
4 48 (3.07%) GitLab
5 27 (1.73%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.51%) Claude Code
6 8 (0.51%) Vite
7 7 (0.45%) Selenium
8 6 (0.38%) Visual Studio
9 5 (0.32%) Cypress.io
10 4 (0.26%) ER Studio
10 4 (0.26%) ERwin
10 4 (0.26%) Maven
10 4 (0.26%) PyCharm
11 3 (0.19%) Gradle
11 3 (0.19%) JUnit
11 3 (0.19%) REST Assured
11 3 (0.19%) SonarQube
11 3 (0.19%) Spinnaker
12 2 (0.13%) Oracle APEX
General
1 323 (20.69%) Social Skills
2 301 (19.28%) Finance
3 199 (12.75%) Analytical Skills
4 150 (9.61%) Public Sector
5 105 (6.73%) Banking
6 42 (2.69%) Marketing
7 38 (2.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (2.05%) Pharmaceutical
9 31 (1.99%) Retail
10 26 (1.67%) Legal
11 25 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
12 22 (1.41%) Front Office
13 21 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
14 20 (1.28%) Aviation
15 19 (1.22%) Telecoms
16 17 (1.09%) Financial Institution
16 17 (1.09%) Law
17 16 (1.02%) Investment Banking
18 14 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
19 13 (0.83%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 224 (14.35%) Data Scientist
2 222 (14.22%) Architect
3 219 (14.03%) Senior
4 152 (9.74%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 143 (9.16%) Data Engineer
6 135 (8.65%) Lead
7 103 (6.60%) Developer
8 73 (4.68%) Data Architect
8 73 (4.68%) Python Engineer
9 71 (4.55%) Analyst
10 68 (4.36%) Solutions Architect
11 67 (4.29%) Software Engineer
12 64 (4.10%) Machine Learning Engineer
13 57 (3.65%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
14 45 (2.88%) Consultant
15 42 (2.69%) Senior Data Scientist
16 41 (2.63%) Platform Engineer
17 36 (2.31%) Python Developer
18 35 (2.24%) Full-Stack Engineer
19 31 (1.99%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 171 (10.95%) PyTorch
2 119 (7.62%) TensorFlow
3 107 (6.85%) scikit-learn
4 98 (6.28%) Kafka
5 90 (5.77%) Pandas
6 83 (5.32%) LangChain
7 71 (4.55%) PySpark
7 71 (4.55%) React
8 69 (4.42%) NumPy
9 64 (4.10%) REST
10 50 (3.20%) .NET
11 45 (2.88%) Hugging Face
12 33 (2.11%) FastAPI
12 33 (2.11%) LangGraph
13 29 (1.86%) AngularJS
14 28 (1.79%) RESTful
15 27 (1.73%) Model Context Protocol
16 26 (1.67%) Node.js
17 23 (1.47%) pytest
18 21 (1.35%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 186 (11.92%) Cloud Native
2 147 (9.42%) AI Agents
3 113 (7.24%) Algorithms
4 59 (3.78%) Product Ownership
5 51 (3.27%) Distributed Systems
6 49 (3.14%) Onboarding
7 27 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
8 25 (1.60%) Enterprise Software
9 23 (1.47%) Data Structures
9 23 (1.47%) Life Science
10 19 (1.22%) Fixed Income
11 18 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
12 17 (1.09%) Management Information System
13 16 (1.02%) Security Posture
14 15 (0.96%) Hybrid Cloud
15 13 (0.83%) Distributed Computing
15 13 (0.83%) Taxonomies
16 12 (0.77%) Autonomous Agent
16 12 (0.77%) Low-Code
16 12 (0.77%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 46 (2.95%) Linux
2 17 (1.09%) Windows
3 11 (0.70%) Unix
4 6 (0.38%) Apple iOS
4 6 (0.38%) VMS
5 5 (0.32%) Android
6 4 (0.26%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.064%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,259 (80.65%) AI
2 581 (37.22%) Data Science
3 495 (31.71%) CI/CD
4 450 (28.83%) Analytics
5 445 (28.51%) LLM
6 364 (23.32%) Data Pipeline
7 356 (22.81%) Generative AI
8 326 (20.88%) DevOps
9 308 (19.73%) MLOps
10 301 (19.28%) Agile
11 290 (18.58%) Data Engineering
12 256 (16.40%) Use Case
13 214 (13.71%) Decision-Making
14 213 (13.65%) Software Engineering
15 210 (13.45%) Problem-Solving
16 191 (12.24%) Data Governance
17 189 (12.11%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
18 177 (11.34%) ETL
19 175 (11.21%) Roadmaps
20 174 (11.15%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 872 (55.86%) Python
2 394 (25.24%) SQL
3 111 (7.11%) Java
4 63 (4.04%) C#
4 63 (4.04%) R
5 60 (3.84%) TypeScript
6 56 (3.59%) JavaScript
7 33 (2.11%) Bash
8 22 (1.41%) C++
9 16 (1.02%) PowerShell
10 15 (0.96%) Bicep
10 15 (0.96%) Scala
11 13 (0.83%) Go
12 10 (0.64%) Kotlin
13 9 (0.58%) PL/SQL
13 9 (0.58%) SPARQL
14 7 (0.45%) Rust
15 5 (0.32%) Cypher
15 5 (0.32%) MATLAB
15 5 (0.32%) Perl
Qualifications
1 273 (17.49%) Security Cleared
2 187 (11.98%) SC Cleared
3 126 (8.07%) Degree
4 48 (3.07%) Master's Degree
5 46 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
6 45 (2.88%) AWS Certification
6 45 (2.88%) DV Cleared
7 43 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
8 31 (1.99%) PhD
9 23 (1.47%) Azure Certification
10 21 (1.35%) CISSP
11 20 (1.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 15 (0.96%) CISM
13 7 (0.45%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (0.45%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
14 5 (0.32%) CEH
14 5 (0.32%) CompTIA Security+
14 5 (0.32%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.32%) GIAC
14 5 (0.32%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 184 (11.79%) Data Quality
2 66 (4.23%) GDPR
3 53 (3.40%) QA
4 29 (1.86%) NIST
5 18 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.02%) Accessibility
7 14 (0.90%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.70%) HIPAA
8 11 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 9 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
9 9 (0.58%) GRC
9 9 (0.58%) GxP
10 7 (0.45%) NCSC
11 5 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
11 5 (0.32%) WCAG
12 4 (0.26%) COBIT
12 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
13 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 3 (0.19%) SLA
System Software
1 213 (13.65%) Docker
2 12 (0.77%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.70%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 5 (0.32%) Microsoft App-V
4 5 (0.32%) VMware Infrastructure
5 4 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.19%) BitLocker
6 3 (0.19%) Firmware
6 3 (0.19%) Hyper-V
6 3 (0.19%) IAG
6 3 (0.19%) Terminal Services
6 3 (0.19%) VMware ESXi
7 2 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 2 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
7 2 (0.13%) VMware Workstation
8 1 (0.064%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 264 (16.91%) Kubernetes
2 170 (10.89%) Terraform
3 23 (1.47%) Kubeflow
4 22 (1.41%) Grafana
5 19 (1.22%) Ansible
6 13 (0.83%) Prometheus
7 12 (0.77%) Podman
8 6 (0.38%) Istio
9 3 (0.19%) Nagios
9 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
9 3 (0.19%) Puppet
9 3 (0.19%) Rancher
9 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.19%) vMotion
10 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.13%) Argo
10 2 (0.13%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.13%) Kibana
10 2 (0.13%) Packer
10 2 (0.13%) SCCM
Vendors
1 199 (12.75%) Databricks
2 168 (10.76%) Microsoft
3 101 (6.47%) OpenAI
4 96 (6.15%) Google
5 55 (3.52%) Foundry
6 44 (2.82%) SAP
7 35 (2.24%) Oracle
8 29 (1.86%) ServiceNow
9 23 (1.47%) Informatica
10 17 (1.09%) IBM
11 15 (0.96%) UiPath
12 12 (0.77%) Dynatrace
13 9 (0.58%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.51%) Salesforce
15 7 (0.45%) Amplitude
15 7 (0.45%) Sybase
15 7 (0.45%) Talend
16 6 (0.38%) Palantir
16 6 (0.38%) Pega
16 6 (0.38%) Workday