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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 81 114
Rank change year-on-year -14 +33 +81
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,597 1,030 780
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.89% 3.10% 2.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.40% 3.42% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,010 671 513
10th Percentile £405 £401 £386
25th Percentile £475 £463 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% +4.35%
75th Percentile £688 £688 £731
90th Percentile £776 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £508 £500
% change year-on-year +8.37% +1.50% -5.66%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 28 17
10th Percentile £28.50 £28.55 £13.06
25th Percentile £39.91 £42.00 £17.50
Median hourly rate £77.00 £53.22 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +44.68% +15.24% -
75th Percentile £85.19 £81.13 £48.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £88.00 £53.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.83 £65.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +15.12% +40.75% -

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 46,911 30,121 32,352
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 90.54% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,189 18,721 19,488
10th Percentile £325 £296 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.42%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,476 1,911 1,239
10th Percentile £13.51 £14.38 £15.00
25th Percentile £16.75 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £37.24 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +48.07% -37.13% -10.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £42.79 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £66.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.24 £22.27 £40.00
% change year-on-year +67.26% -44.34% -8.88%

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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 1,359 £584 +3.59% 3,979
London +7 904 £600 -2.28% 2,679
UK excluding London -20 520 £550 +8.37% 1,460
Work from Home -22 436 £588 +6.82% 1,635
North of England -8 161 £550 +14.58% 352
South East -19 134 £600 +11.63% 342
Scotland -1 96 £456 -9.20% 151
North West -16 76 £600 +33.33% 213
Yorkshire -2 66 £513 -0.29% 96
South West -6 52 £528 -4.09% 163
Midlands -39 50 £588 +11.90% 155
West Midlands -37 40 £575 +9.52% 96
East of England -49 27 £538 +2.38% 207
North East -25 20 £550 +29.41% 43
Wales -11 7 £530 -21.48% 45
East Midlands -7 6 £425 -8.11% 59
Northern Ireland +5 2 £467 -33.29% 54

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
1 105 (6.57%) Apache Spark
2 79 (4.95%) Apache Airflow
3 70 (4.38%) Apache
4 35 (2.19%) Jupyter
5 25 (1.57%) Confluence
6 11 (0.69%) SAS
7 7 (0.44%) IIS
8 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.31%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.25%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.25%) Palantir Foundry
11 3 (0.19%) OpenStack
11 3 (0.19%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Pulsar
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Superset
12 2 (0.13%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) CMS
12 2 (0.13%) Headless CMS
12 2 (0.13%) nginx
13 1 (0.063%) Luigi
Applications
1 28 (1.75%) Chatbot
2 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.19%) CPLEX
4 2 (0.13%) DaVinci Resolve
4 2 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.13%) Notion
4 2 (0.13%) NUKE
5 1 (0.063%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.063%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.063%) Simulink
5 1 (0.063%) Sketch
5 1 (0.063%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.063%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.19%) Cloudability
2 3 (0.19%) SAP IBP
3 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
3 2 (0.13%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.063%) Actimize
4 1 (0.063%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.063%) Endur
4 1 (0.063%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.063%) OpenLink RightAngle
4 1 (0.063%) Oracle Cash Management
4 1 (0.063%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.063%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.063%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.063%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 546 (34.19%) Azure
2 524 (32.81%) AWS
3 311 (19.47%) GCP
4 116 (7.26%) Power Platform
5 105 (6.57%) Serverless
6 98 (6.14%) GitHub
7 93 (5.82%) Amazon S3
8 91 (5.70%) Snowflake
9 82 (5.13%) AWS Lambda
10 66 (4.13%) Amazon Bedrock
10 66 (4.13%) Amazon SageMaker
11 65 (4.07%) Azure Machine Learning
12 62 (3.88%) dbt
13 54 (3.38%) Vertex AI
14 53 (3.32%) Azure AI
15 51 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
16 48 (3.01%) SaaS
17 47 (2.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
18 46 (2.88%) Azure Data Factory
19 39 (2.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.50%) Network Security
2 20 (1.25%) Broadband
3 18 (1.13%) Internet
4 15 (0.94%) Firewall
5 14 (0.88%) DNS
6 11 (0.69%) HTTP
7 9 (0.56%) DHCP
7 9 (0.56%) VPN
8 5 (0.31%) SMS
8 5 (0.31%) SMTP
8 5 (0.31%) TCP/IP
9 4 (0.25%) NAS
9 4 (0.25%) SAN
9 4 (0.25%) VLAN
10 3 (0.19%) CTI
10 3 (0.19%) MQTT
11 2 (0.13%) FTP
11 2 (0.13%) PCoIP
11 2 (0.13%) Remote Desktop
11 2 (0.13%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (6.64%) Power BI
2 104 (6.51%) Data Warehouse
3 94 (5.89%) Data Lake
4 93 (5.82%) Metadata
5 73 (4.57%) BigQuery
6 60 (3.76%) Big Data
7 56 (3.51%) Delta Lake
8 53 (3.32%) Amazon Redshift
9 47 (2.94%) NoSQL
10 42 (2.63%) Tableau
11 39 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
12 32 (2.00%) Amazon Athena
13 30 (1.88%) Neo4j
14 28 (1.75%) Relational Database
15 25 (1.57%) Hadoop
16 22 (1.38%) Elasticsearch
17 20 (1.25%) Amazon RDS
18 19 (1.19%) MongoDB
19 18 (1.13%) Looker
19 18 (1.13%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 104 (6.51%) Git
2 56 (3.51%) GitLab
3 49 (3.07%) MLflow
4 48 (3.01%) JIRA
5 14 (0.88%) Jenkins
6 12 (0.75%) Claude Code
7 7 (0.44%) JMeter
7 7 (0.44%) Vite
8 6 (0.38%) Postman
9 5 (0.31%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.31%) RStudio
10 4 (0.25%) ERwin
10 4 (0.25%) Newman
10 4 (0.25%) Pylint
10 4 (0.25%) Selenium
11 3 (0.19%) Applitools
11 3 (0.19%) Cucumber
11 3 (0.19%) Cypress.io
12 2 (0.13%) ER Studio
12 2 (0.13%) Spinnaker
General
1 371 (23.23%) Social Skills
2 329 (20.60%) Finance
3 249 (15.59%) Analytical Skills
4 152 (9.52%) Public Sector
5 126 (7.89%) Banking
6 40 (2.50%) Marketing
7 38 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 31 (1.94%) Retail
9 27 (1.69%) Telecoms
10 26 (1.63%) Pharmaceutical
11 25 (1.57%) Manufacturing
12 24 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
13 22 (1.38%) Legal
14 21 (1.31%) Aerospace
14 21 (1.31%) Financial Institution
15 19 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
16 16 (1.00%) Billing
16 16 (1.00%) Front Office
16 16 (1.00%) Investment Banking
17 15 (0.94%) Law
Job Titles
1 290 (18.16%) Senior
2 262 (16.41%) Architect
3 200 (12.52%) Data Engineer
4 191 (11.96%) Data Scientist
5 179 (11.21%) Lead
6 146 (9.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
7 110 (6.89%) Machine Learning Engineer
8 76 (4.76%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 72 (4.51%) Solutions Architect
10 71 (4.45%) Python Engineer
11 66 (4.13%) Data Architect
12 63 (3.94%) Developer
13 62 (3.88%) Analyst
14 60 (3.76%) Platform Engineer
15 57 (3.57%) Senior Data Engineer
16 53 (3.32%) Senior Data Scientist
17 48 (3.01%) Security Architect
18 46 (2.88%) Software Engineer
19 42 (2.63%) DevOps Engineer
20 38 (2.38%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 209 (13.09%) Terraform
2 109 (6.83%) Kafka
3 104 (6.51%) PyTorch
4 96 (6.01%) PySpark
5 78 (4.88%) LangChain
5 78 (4.88%) REST
6 76 (4.76%) TensorFlow
7 61 (3.82%) scikit-learn
8 56 (3.51%) pytest
9 54 (3.38%) React
10 50 (3.13%) Pandas
11 41 (2.57%) LangGraph
11 41 (2.57%) NumPy
12 36 (2.25%) FastAPI
13 30 (1.88%) .NET
14 28 (1.75%) JSON
15 26 (1.63%) Hugging Face
16 25 (1.57%) Model Context Protocol
17 23 (1.44%) LlamaIndex
17 23 (1.44%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 208 (13.02%) Cloud Native
2 184 (11.52%) AI Agents
3 103 (6.45%) Algorithms
4 79 (4.95%) Onboarding
5 73 (4.57%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (3.88%) Product Ownership
7 43 (2.69%) Enterprise Software
8 42 (2.63%) Data Structures
9 31 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
10 28 (1.75%) Life Science
11 24 (1.50%) Management Information System
12 21 (1.31%) Hybrid Cloud
13 19 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
13 19 (1.19%) Social Media
14 18 (1.13%) CMDB
14 18 (1.13%) Taxonomies
15 17 (1.06%) Clustering
15 17 (1.06%) Virtual Team
16 16 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
17 15 (0.94%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 44 (2.76%) Linux
2 21 (1.31%) Windows
3 16 (1.00%) Unix
4 4 (0.25%) Android
4 4 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 4 (0.25%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.19%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.063%) macOS
6 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
6 1 (0.063%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,318 (82.53%) AI
2 577 (36.13%) Data Science
3 521 (32.62%) CI/CD
4 486 (30.43%) Analytics
5 430 (26.93%) LLM
6 398 (24.92%) Generative AI
7 364 (22.79%) Data Pipeline
8 343 (21.48%) DevOps
9 329 (20.60%) Agile
10 316 (19.79%) MLOps
11 297 (18.60%) Data Engineering
12 274 (17.16%) Software Engineering
13 259 (16.22%) Stakeholder Management
14 254 (15.90%) Use Case
15 241 (15.09%) Decision-Making
15 241 (15.09%) Roadmaps
16 224 (14.03%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 222 (13.90%) Infrastructure as Code
18 216 (13.53%) Problem-Solving
19 214 (13.40%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 845 (52.91%) Python
2 419 (26.24%) SQL
3 107 (6.70%) Java
4 74 (4.63%) JavaScript
5 65 (4.07%) TypeScript
6 40 (2.50%) Bash
7 33 (2.07%) C#
7 33 (2.07%) R
8 30 (1.88%) PowerShell
9 28 (1.75%) Scala
10 21 (1.31%) Go
11 17 (1.06%) Bicep
11 17 (1.06%) C++
12 14 (0.88%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.69%) Cypher
14 10 (0.63%) Gremlin
14 10 (0.63%) PL/SQL
15 8 (0.50%) SPARQL
16 5 (0.31%) Kotlin
16 5 (0.31%) Perl
Qualifications
1 311 (19.47%) Security Cleared
2 245 (15.34%) SC Cleared
3 131 (8.20%) Degree
4 58 (3.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 57 (3.57%) DV Cleared
6 52 (3.26%) AWS Certification
7 43 (2.69%) BPSS Clearance
8 40 (2.50%) Master's Degree
9 32 (2.00%) CISSP
10 30 (1.88%) Azure Certification
11 26 (1.63%) PhD
12 19 (1.19%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 15 (0.94%) CISM
13 15 (0.94%) TOGAF Certification
14 10 (0.63%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 10 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
14 10 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
15 9 (0.56%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 8 (0.50%) DBS Check
17 5 (0.31%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (14.97%) Data Quality
2 56 (3.51%) GDPR
3 53 (3.32%) QA
4 31 (1.94%) NIST
5 21 (1.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (1.13%) Accessibility
7 12 (0.75%) EU AI Act
8 11 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 10 (0.63%) GRC
9 10 (0.63%) NCSC
9 10 (0.63%) SLA
10 9 (0.56%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.44%) Actionable Recommendations
11 7 (0.44%) GxP
11 7 (0.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 6 (0.38%) HIPAA
13 5 (0.31%) Basel III
13 5 (0.31%) Solvency II
14 4 (0.25%) SOC 2
15 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
System Software
1 219 (13.71%) Docker
2 16 (1.00%) Active Directory
3 13 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
4 10 (0.63%) Hyper-V
4 10 (0.63%) IAG
5 8 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.44%) NFS
7 5 (0.31%) 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 (0.063%) Firmware
10 1 (0.063%) zsh
Systems Management
1 294 (18.41%) Kubernetes
2 46 (2.88%) Ansible
3 30 (1.88%) Kubeflow
4 27 (1.69%) Grafana
5 19 (1.19%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.38%) Istio
6 6 (0.38%) systemd
7 5 (0.31%) Podman
8 3 (0.19%) Argo
8 3 (0.19%) Kibana
8 3 (0.19%) Nagios
8 3 (0.19%) NetBackup
8 3 (0.19%) Puppet
8 3 (0.19%) vCenter Server
8 3 (0.19%) vMotion
9 2 (0.13%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.13%) Packer
9 2 (0.13%) SCCM
9 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.063%) Kustomize
Vendors
1 222 (13.90%) Databricks
2 165 (10.33%) Microsoft
3 115 (7.20%) Google
4 71 (4.45%) OpenAI
5 39 (2.44%) ServiceNow
6 36 (2.25%) SAP
7 33 (2.07%) Oracle
8 29 (1.82%) Foundry
9 21 (1.31%) Informatica
10 20 (1.25%) Dynatrace
11 14 (0.88%) VMware
12 12 (0.75%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.69%) Splunk
14 10 (0.63%) Nexthink
14 10 (0.63%) UiPath
15 9 (0.56%) IBM
16 7 (0.44%) Cisco
17 6 (0.38%) New Relic
17 6 (0.38%) Pega
18 5 (0.31%) HP