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

6 months to
1 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 79 97 159
Rank change year-on-year +18 +62 +61
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,388 761 670
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.11% 2.62% 1.51%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.63% 2.90% 1.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 860 497 493
10th Percentile £413 £375 £413
25th Percentile £494 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £586 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year +1.96% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £700 £725 £717
90th Percentile £788 £874 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £548 £525
% change year-on-year +0.46% +4.29% -12.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 21 19
10th Percentile £42.48 £25.25 £41.22
25th Percentile £50.00 £31.00 £42.50
Median hourly rate £64.00 £57.50 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.30% +15.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile £83.75 £78.70 £66.25
90th Percentile £95.00 £81.01 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £77.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year -16.13% +24.00% +78.57%

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 38,255 26,278 38,264
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.62% 90.49% 86.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,265 17,064 24,859
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £636 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,246 966 2,352
10th Percentile £14.96 £15.00 £12.84
25th Percentile £18.87 £20.26 £16.00
Median hourly rate £35.50 £32.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.94% -1.54% -11.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.72 £70.64
UK excluding London median hourly rate £34.07 £31.50 £31.65
% change year-on-year +8.14% -0.47% -12.69%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 1,177 £575 -4.17% 1,132
London +18 787 £600 -2.44% 588
Work from Home +23 427 £600 +9.09% 460
UK excluding London +21 415 £550 +0.46% 725
North of England -14 101 £542 +3.24% 168
South East -17 88 £600 +6.67% 249
East of England +1 64 £520 -13.33% 60
Scotland +43 63 £518 +18.29% 36
North West -6 61 £550 +0.46% 94
Midlands -25 61 £575 +27.78% 87
South West -18 40 £550 -16.51% 97
West Midlands -28 40 £550 +18.92% 38
Yorkshire -35 31 £525 - 46
East Midlands -18 19 £600 +33.33% 49
Wales -6 18 £738 +31.11% 27
North East -7 12 £575 +60.61% 29
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 13

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
1 121 (8.72%) Apache Spark
2 81 (5.84%) Apache Airflow
3 57 (4.11%) Apache
4 29 (2.09%) Jupyter
5 11 (0.79%) Confluence
6 9 (0.65%) Appian
6 9 (0.65%) SAS
7 6 (0.43%) CMS
8 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.29%) Palantir Foundry
10 3 (0.22%) Headless CMS
11 2 (0.14%) Luigi
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Superset
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.072%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.072%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 33 (2.38%) Chatbot
2 13 (0.94%) Microsoft Excel
3 12 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
4 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Office
5 9 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.29%) Simulink
7 3 (0.22%) LaTeX
8 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 6 (0.43%) SAP IBP
2 5 (0.36%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.14%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.072%) OpenText VIM for SAP
4 1 (0.072%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.072%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.072%) Sprinklr
Cloud Services
1 610 (43.95%) Azure
2 495 (35.66%) AWS
3 261 (18.80%) GCP
4 148 (10.66%) Power Platform
5 123 (8.86%) GitHub
6 106 (7.64%) Azure Machine Learning
7 103 (7.42%) Azure AI
8 92 (6.63%) Serverless
9 85 (6.12%) Azure DevOps
10 81 (5.84%) Snowflake
11 68 (4.90%) Amazon SageMaker
12 63 (4.54%) GitHub Actions
13 62 (4.47%) Azure Data Factory
14 61 (4.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 59 (4.25%) Amazon S3
15 59 (4.25%) Vertex AI
16 42 (3.03%) AWS CloudFormation
17 41 (2.95%) AWS Lambda
18 39 (2.81%) Amazon Bedrock
19 33 (2.38%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 16 (1.15%) Network Security
2 11 (0.79%) Firewall
3 7 (0.50%) DNS
3 7 (0.50%) HTTP
4 6 (0.43%) Internet
5 5 (0.36%) FTP
5 5 (0.36%) SMTP
5 5 (0.36%) SSL
6 4 (0.29%) 5G
6 4 (0.29%) Ethernet
6 4 (0.29%) InfiniBand
7 3 (0.22%) Cisco IPT
7 3 (0.22%) LTE
7 3 (0.22%) VPN
8 2 (0.14%) 2G
8 2 (0.14%) 4G
8 2 (0.14%) Hyperconnected
8 2 (0.14%) Mobile Backhaul
8 2 (0.14%) Modbus
8 2 (0.14%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (8.21%) Power BI
2 88 (6.34%) Data Lake
3 73 (5.26%) Data Warehouse
4 69 (4.97%) Big Data
5 58 (4.18%) NoSQL
6 54 (3.89%) BigQuery
7 51 (3.67%) Metadata
8 40 (2.88%) Tableau
9 37 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
10 36 (2.59%) Pinecone
11 34 (2.45%) Delta Lake
12 32 (2.31%) Hadoop
13 31 (2.23%) SQL Server
14 29 (2.09%) Relational Database
15 28 (2.02%) Weaviate
16 25 (1.80%) Amazon Athena
16 25 (1.80%) Mixpanel
17 20 (1.44%) Amazon Redshift
18 19 (1.37%) MySQL
19 18 (1.30%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 112 (8.07%) Git
2 93 (6.70%) MLflow
3 39 (2.81%) Jenkins
4 32 (2.31%) JIRA
5 28 (2.02%) GitLab
6 13 (0.94%) Visual Studio
7 11 (0.79%) Selenium
8 10 (0.72%) PyCharm
9 9 (0.65%) JMeter
10 7 (0.50%) Gradle
10 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
11 6 (0.43%) MSTest
12 5 (0.36%) Maven
13 4 (0.29%) Android Studio
13 4 (0.29%) Bitbucket
13 4 (0.29%) Cypress.io
13 4 (0.29%) Oracle APEX
13 4 (0.29%) RStudio
14 3 (0.22%) JUnit
14 3 (0.22%) Vite
General
1 346 (24.93%) Social Skills
2 278 (20.03%) Finance
3 170 (12.25%) Analytical Skills
4 143 (10.30%) Public Sector
5 82 (5.91%) Banking
6 37 (2.67%) Marketing
6 37 (2.67%) Pharmaceutical
7 34 (2.45%) Legal
8 28 (2.02%) Retail
9 26 (1.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 23 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (1.66%) Influencing Skills
10 23 (1.66%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.59%) Front Office
12 20 (1.44%) Presentation Skills
13 17 (1.22%) Manufacturing
13 17 (1.22%) Telecoms
14 13 (0.94%) Aviation
15 12 (0.86%) Electronics
16 11 (0.79%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 194 (13.98%) Architect
1 194 (13.98%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
2 190 (13.69%) Data Scientist
3 184 (13.26%) Senior
4 133 (9.58%) Data Engineer
5 121 (8.72%) Developer
6 119 (8.57%) Lead
7 63 (4.54%) Analyst
7 63 (4.54%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
8 59 (4.25%) Machine Learning Engineer
9 58 (4.18%) Data Architect
10 57 (4.11%) Python Engineer
11 54 (3.89%) Software Engineer
12 45 (3.24%) Solutions Architect
13 40 (2.88%) Gen AI Engineer
13 40 (2.88%) Senior Data Scientist
14 39 (2.81%) Consultant
15 37 (2.67%) Azure Engineer
16 29 (2.09%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
17 28 (2.02%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 220 (15.85%) PyTorch
2 180 (12.97%) TensorFlow
3 142 (10.23%) scikit-learn
4 112 (8.07%) Pandas
5 82 (5.91%) NumPy
6 81 (5.84%) LangChain
7 78 (5.62%) React
8 72 (5.19%) Kafka
9 60 (4.32%) PySpark
10 58 (4.18%) .NET
11 54 (3.89%) Node.js
12 52 (3.75%) LangGraph
13 51 (3.67%) REST
14 48 (3.46%) FastAPI
14 48 (3.46%) Model Context Protocol
15 46 (3.31%) Hugging Face
16 45 (3.24%) AngularJS
17 37 (2.67%) RESTful
18 29 (2.09%) Faiss
19 27 (1.95%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 192 (13.83%) Cloud Native
2 159 (11.46%) Algorithms
3 130 (9.37%) AI Agents
4 49 (3.53%) Product Ownership
5 43 (3.10%) Onboarding
6 33 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
7 26 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
8 23 (1.66%) Legacy Systems
9 22 (1.59%) Hybrid Cloud
10 21 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
11 19 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (1.30%) Fixed Income
13 17 (1.22%) Distributed Computing
13 17 (1.22%) Life Science
13 17 (1.22%) Management Information System
14 15 (1.08%) Data Structures
15 13 (0.94%) Security Posture
16 12 (0.86%) Derivative
16 12 (0.86%) IoT
16 12 (0.86%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 36 (2.59%) Linux
2 12 (0.86%) VMS
3 11 (0.79%) Windows
4 9 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (0.58%) Android
5 8 (0.58%) Ubuntu
6 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
7 4 (0.29%) Unix
8 1 (0.072%) CentOS
8 1 (0.072%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,086 (78.24%) AI
2 507 (36.53%) Data Science
3 422 (30.40%) CI/CD
4 400 (28.82%) Analytics
5 375 (27.02%) LLM
6 304 (21.90%) DevOps
7 298 (21.47%) Data Pipeline
8 292 (21.04%) Generative AI
9 273 (19.67%) Data Engineering
10 267 (19.24%) Agile
10 267 (19.24%) MLOps
11 213 (15.35%) Problem-Solving
12 191 (13.76%) Natural Language Processing
13 188 (13.54%) Use Case
14 180 (12.97%) Software Engineering
15 172 (12.39%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
16 171 (12.32%) Containerisation
16 171 (12.32%) Data Governance
17 166 (11.96%) Data Modelling
18 154 (11.10%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 837 (60.30%) Python
2 358 (25.79%) SQL
3 94 (6.77%) Java
4 85 (6.12%) C#
5 71 (5.12%) R
6 58 (4.18%) JavaScript
7 51 (3.67%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.95%) PowerShell
9 23 (1.66%) C++
10 21 (1.51%) Bash
11 17 (1.22%) Bicep
12 15 (1.08%) Scala
13 10 (0.72%) Go
13 10 (0.72%) MATLAB
13 10 (0.72%) Rust
14 7 (0.50%) Kotlin
14 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
15 5 (0.36%) C
16 4 (0.29%) SystemVerilog
16 4 (0.29%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 240 (17.29%) Security Cleared
2 174 (12.54%) Degree
3 162 (11.67%) SC Cleared
4 77 (5.55%) Master's Degree
5 50 (3.60%) PhD
6 44 (3.17%) Computer Science Degree
6 44 (3.17%) DV Cleared
7 35 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.51%) AWS Certification
9 19 (1.37%) Azure Certification
10 15 (1.08%) CISSP
10 15 (1.08%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 11 (0.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 10 (0.72%) CISM
12 10 (0.72%) ISTQB
13 7 (0.50%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Certification
15 5 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
16 4 (0.29%) PMI Certification
16 4 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 137 (9.87%) Data Quality
2 68 (4.90%) GDPR
3 52 (3.75%) QA
4 31 (2.23%) NIST
5 21 (1.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 18 (1.30%) Accessibility
6 18 (1.30%) EU AI Act
7 9 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
8 8 (0.58%) HIPAA
9 7 (0.50%) HMG Security Policy Framework
9 7 (0.50%) NCSC
10 6 (0.43%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 5 (0.36%) GRC
12 4 (0.29%) DO-254
12 4 (0.29%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.29%) WCAG
13 3 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
13 3 (0.22%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.14%) Def Stans
System Software
1 217 (15.63%) Docker
2 12 (0.86%) Active Directory
2 12 (0.86%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 7 (0.50%) Firmware
4 3 (0.22%) Lustre
4 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.14%) Ceph
5 2 (0.14%) HDFS
6 1 (0.072%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.072%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 217 (15.63%) Kubernetes
2 142 (10.23%) Terraform
3 21 (1.51%) Kubeflow
4 18 (1.30%) Grafana
5 14 (1.01%) Ansible
6 11 (0.79%) Prometheus
7 10 (0.72%) Podman
8 7 (0.50%) SCOM
9 3 (0.22%) Argo
9 3 (0.22%) Rancher
10 2 (0.14%) Istio
10 2 (0.14%) Kibana
10 2 (0.14%) Knative
10 2 (0.14%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.072%) Cilium
11 1 (0.072%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.072%) HP Fortify
11 1 (0.072%) logstash
11 1 (0.072%) Opsgenie
11 1 (0.072%) SELinux
Vendors
1 223 (16.07%) Databricks
2 190 (13.69%) Microsoft
3 120 (8.65%) Google
4 111 (8.00%) OpenAI
5 71 (5.12%) Foundry
6 36 (2.59%) SAP
7 29 (2.09%) Oracle
8 18 (1.30%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.08%) Informatica
10 14 (1.01%) UiPath
11 11 (0.79%) Automation Anywhere
11 11 (0.79%) IBM
11 11 (0.79%) NVIDIA
12 8 (0.58%) Dynatrace
12 8 (0.58%) Salesforce
13 7 (0.50%) Amplitude
14 6 (0.43%) Pega
14 6 (0.43%) Siemens
14 6 (0.43%) Splunk
14 6 (0.43%) Talend