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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 96 156
Rank change year-on-year +14 +60 +59
Contract jobs citing Machine Learning 1,405 786 682
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.99% 2.68% 1.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.54% 2.95% 1.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 874 516 501
10th Percentile £413 £384 £413
25th Percentile £492 £463 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year - - -4.17%
75th Percentile £688 £728 £725
90th Percentile £788 £875 £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 47 21 20
10th Percentile £50.00 £25.25 £41.24
25th Percentile £50.99 £45.00 £45.26
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 £66.38
90th Percentile £90.00 £81.01 £75.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £76.25 £61.25
% change year-on-year -14.75% +24.49% +75.00%

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 39,735 26,655 37,382
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.81% 86.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,044 17,231 24,097
10th Percentile £319 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -0.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £631 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £500
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,400 1,068 2,424
10th Percentile £14.96 £14.84 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £18.51 £16.00
Median hourly rate £40.25 £29.15 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.08% -16.71% -6.27%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.24 £59.44
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.00 £28.00 £35.98
% change year-on-year +50.00% -22.17% -0.07%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +13 1,184 £575 -3.16% 1,278
London +21 786 £584 -2.67% 526
UK excluding London +21 437 £550 -4.35% 982
Work from Home +16 404 £598 +8.68% 458
North of England -13 112 £550 +11.11% 435
South East -33 89 £615 +6.96% 271
Scotland +48 82 £519 +11.08% 38
Midlands -18 65 £550 +15.79% 83
North West -4 59 £550 +0.46% 339
East of England -10 58 £520 -16.80% 70
West Midlands -26 45 £550 +10.00% 32
Yorkshire -26 42 £550 +10.00% 60
South West -37 38 £538 -16.67% 60
East Midlands -24 18 £625 +38.89% 50
North East -12 14 £575 +60.61% 36
Wales -13 13 £750 +30.43% 25
Northern Ireland - 1 £650 - 14

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
1 117 (8.33%) Apache Spark
2 76 (5.41%) Apache Airflow
3 59 (4.20%) Apache
4 26 (1.85%) Jupyter
5 11 (0.78%) Confluence
6 9 (0.64%) Appian
6 9 (0.64%) SAS
7 6 (0.43%) CMS
8 5 (0.36%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
10 3 (0.21%) Headless CMS
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 31 (2.21%) Chatbot
2 12 (0.85%) Microsoft Project
3 10 (0.71%) Microsoft Excel
4 9 (0.64%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
6 4 (0.28%) Simulink
7 3 (0.21%) LaTeX
8 2 (0.14%) CPLEX
Business Applications
1 10 (0.71%) SAP IBP
2 6 (0.43%) 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 (39.57%) Azure
2 482 (34.31%) AWS
3 249 (17.72%) GCP
4 137 (9.75%) Power Platform
5 109 (7.76%) GitHub
6 100 (7.12%) Azure Machine Learning
7 99 (7.05%) Azure AI
8 94 (6.69%) Serverless
9 75 (5.34%) Azure DevOps
10 73 (5.20%) Amazon S3
11 72 (5.12%) Amazon SageMaker
12 70 (4.98%) Snowflake
13 63 (4.48%) Vertex AI
14 61 (4.34%) GitHub Actions
15 60 (4.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 56 (3.99%) Azure Data Factory
17 55 (3.91%) AWS Lambda
18 42 (2.99%) AWS CloudFormation
19 40 (2.85%) Amazon Bedrock
20 31 (2.21%) 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 (0.36%) FTP
5 5 (0.36%) Internet
5 5 (0.36%) SMTP
5 5 (0.36%) SSL
6 4 (0.28%) Ethernet
6 4 (0.28%) InfiniBand
7 3 (0.21%) 5G
7 3 (0.21%) Cisco IPT
8 2 (0.14%) 4G
8 2 (0.14%) Bluetooth
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
1 107 (7.62%) Power BI
2 90 (6.41%) Data Lake
3 74 (5.27%) Big Data
4 63 (4.48%) BigQuery
4 63 (4.48%) Data Warehouse
5 62 (4.41%) Metadata
6 53 (3.77%) NoSQL
7 40 (2.85%) Tableau
8 36 (2.56%) Pinecone
9 34 (2.42%) Hadoop
10 33 (2.35%) Delta Lake
11 31 (2.21%) PostgreSQL
12 30 (2.14%) SQL Server
13 28 (1.99%) Weaviate
14 27 (1.92%) Amazon Athena
15 26 (1.85%) Relational Database
16 23 (1.64%) Mixpanel
17 22 (1.57%) Amazon Redshift
18 19 (1.35%) MongoDB
19 17 (1.21%) Redis
Development Applications
1 95 (6.76%) Git
2 91 (6.48%) MLflow
3 31 (2.21%) JIRA
4 30 (2.14%) Jenkins
5 27 (1.92%) GitLab
6 8 (0.57%) Visual Studio
7 7 (0.50%) Gradle
7 7 (0.50%) Selenium
7 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
8 6 (0.43%) 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
1 330 (23.49%) Social Skills
2 279 (19.86%) Finance
3 176 (12.53%) Analytical Skills
4 141 (10.04%) Public Sector
5 90 (6.41%) Banking
6 35 (2.49%) Marketing
7 28 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 28 (1.99%) Pharmaceutical
8 27 (1.92%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (1.92%) Legal
9 23 (1.64%) Front Office
9 23 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
9 23 (1.64%) Investment Banking
9 23 (1.64%) Retail
10 20 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
11 18 (1.28%) Telecoms
12 17 (1.21%) Aviation
13 13 (0.93%) Manufacturing
14 12 (0.85%) Aerospace
15 10 (0.71%) Law
Job Titles
1 206 (14.66%) Data Scientist
2 196 (13.95%) Architect
3 185 (13.17%) Senior
4 182 (12.95%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 133 (9.47%) Data Engineer
6 118 (8.40%) Lead
7 114 (8.11%) Developer
8 68 (4.84%) Analyst
9 64 (4.56%) Python Engineer
10 59 (4.20%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
10 59 (4.20%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 58 (4.13%) Software Engineer
12 54 (3.84%) Data Architect
13 51 (3.63%) Solutions Architect
14 41 (2.92%) Senior Data Scientist
15 37 (2.63%) Consultant
16 35 (2.49%) Gen AI Engineer
17 33 (2.35%) Azure Engineer
18 32 (2.28%) Python Developer
19 26 (1.85%) Business Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (15.02%) PyTorch
2 159 (11.32%) TensorFlow
3 130 (9.25%) scikit-learn
4 113 (8.04%) Pandas
5 80 (5.69%) LangChain
5 80 (5.69%) NumPy
6 73 (5.20%) Kafka
6 73 (5.20%) React
7 58 (4.13%) PySpark
8 56 (3.99%) .NET
9 54 (3.84%) Hugging Face
9 54 (3.84%) REST
10 51 (3.63%) Node.js
11 47 (3.35%) Model Context Protocol
12 45 (3.20%) LangGraph
13 38 (2.70%) AngularJS
13 38 (2.70%) FastAPI
14 29 (2.06%) Faiss
15 27 (1.92%) RESTful
16 24 (1.71%) LlamaIndex
Miscellaneous
1 175 (12.46%) Cloud Native
2 142 (10.11%) AI Agents
3 139 (9.89%) Algorithms
4 46 (3.27%) Onboarding
4 46 (3.27%) Product Ownership
5 32 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
6 30 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
7 19 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
7 19 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
7 19 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
8 18 (1.28%) Fixed Income
9 17 (1.21%) Management Information System
10 16 (1.14%) Analytical Mindset
11 15 (1.07%) Data Structures
12 14 (1.00%) Distributed Computing
12 14 (1.00%) Life Science
12 14 (1.00%) Public Cloud
13 12 (0.85%) Credit Risk
14 11 (0.78%) Augmented Reality
14 11 (0.78%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 31 (2.21%) Linux
2 11 (0.78%) VMS
3 10 (0.71%) Android
3 10 (0.71%) Windows
4 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
5 5 (0.36%) Unix
6 3 (0.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.071%) Robot Operating System
7 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,100 (78.29%) AI
2 514 (36.58%) Data Science
3 431 (30.68%) CI/CD
4 414 (29.47%) Analytics
5 395 (28.11%) LLM
6 310 (22.06%) Generative AI
7 306 (21.78%) Data Pipeline
8 279 (19.86%) DevOps
9 266 (18.93%) Agile
9 266 (18.93%) MLOps
10 265 (18.86%) Data Engineering
11 201 (14.31%) Problem-Solving
12 193 (13.74%) Use Case
13 179 (12.74%) Data Governance
14 171 (12.17%) Software Engineering
15 168 (11.96%) Natural Language Processing
16 167 (11.89%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
17 165 (11.74%) Containerisation
18 163 (11.60%) Decision-Making
19 159 (11.32%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 822 (58.51%) Python
2 351 (24.98%) SQL
3 108 (7.69%) Java
4 83 (5.91%) C#
5 70 (4.98%) R
6 53 (3.77%) JavaScript
7 49 (3.49%) TypeScript
8 27 (1.92%) C++
9 20 (1.42%) PowerShell
10 19 (1.35%) Bicep
11 16 (1.14%) Scala
12 14 (1.00%) Bash
13 10 (0.71%) Go
14 9 (0.64%) Kotlin
14 9 (0.64%) MATLAB
15 7 (0.50%) Rust
16 5 (0.36%) SPARQL
17 4 (0.28%) SystemVerilog
17 4 (0.28%) Tcl
17 4 (0.28%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 244 (17.37%) Security Cleared
2 167 (11.89%) SC Cleared
3 136 (9.68%) Degree
4 68 (4.84%) Master's Degree
5 41 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
5 41 (2.92%) DV Cleared
5 41 (2.92%) PhD
6 37 (2.63%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (1.64%) AWS Certification
8 20 (1.42%) Azure Certification
9 17 (1.21%) CISSP
10 13 (0.93%) CISM
11 12 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 11 (0.78%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 6 (0.43%) ISTQB
14 5 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
14 5 (0.36%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.36%) PMP
15 4 (0.28%) HNC
15 4 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 141 (10.04%) Data Quality
2 61 (4.34%) GDPR
3 51 (3.63%) QA
4 28 (1.99%) NIST
5 20 (1.42%) Accessibility
6 13 (0.93%) 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 (0.36%) 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
1 198 (14.09%) 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
1 215 (15.30%) Kubernetes
2 138 (9.82%) Terraform
3 21 (1.49%) Grafana
4 20 (1.42%) Kubeflow
5 14 (1.00%) Prometheus
6 13 (0.93%) 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%) SCOM
11 1 (0.071%) SELinux
11 1 (0.071%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 211 (15.02%) Databricks
2 177 (12.60%) Microsoft
3 109 (7.76%) Google
4 106 (7.54%) OpenAI
5 65 (4.63%) Foundry
6 44 (3.13%) SAP
7 29 (2.06%) Oracle
8 22 (1.57%) ServiceNow
9 16 (1.14%) Informatica
10 15 (1.07%) IBM
10 15 (1.07%) 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%) Pega
13 7 (0.50%) Workday
14 6 (0.43%) Splunk
14 6 (0.43%) Talend