Machine Learning Job Trends

Machine Learning (ML)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Machine Learning skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 30 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 15 82 79
Rank change year-on-year +67 -3 +8
Permanent jobs citing Machine Learning 5,320 1,847 1,873
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 8.97% 3.34% 3.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 10.93% 3.72% 3.98%
Number of salaries quoted 699 1,016 1,104
10th Percentile £43,750 £45,000 £43,734
25th Percentile £57,500 £57,500 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £77,000 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.90% +2.67% +7.14%
75th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £96,539
90th Percentile £130,500 £112,500 £120,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £66,000 £70,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -5.71% - +12.00%

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 permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 48,662 49,693 47,075
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 82.06% 89.92% 91.48%
Number of salaries quoted 28,549 24,753 35,968
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,750
25th Percentile £36,565 £45,000 £42,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.09% +4.76% -3.83%

Machine Learning
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Machine Learning relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Machine Learning job vacancy trend in the UK

Machine Learning
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Machine Learning

Machine Learning
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Machine Learning over the 6 months to 30 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Machine Learning in the UK

Machine Learning
Top 18 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Machine Learning within the UK over the 6 months to 30 December 2025. 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +68 5,161 £80,000 +3.90% 5,253
UK excluding London +79 4,205 £66,000 -5.71% 4,609
North of England +97 1,715 £67,500 -2.88% 994
North West +82 1,539 £67,500 -3.57% 501
Midlands +119 1,105 £65,250 +0.38% 797
London +32 1,008 £90,000 +5.88% 1,080
West Midlands +109 959 £67,500 +17.39% 411
South East +34 751 £75,000 - 1,236
East of England +101 424 £65,000 -15.58% 693
Work from Home -46 357 £78,750 +12.50% 2,644
Yorkshire +71 169 £79,000 +2.60% 428
East Midlands +62 156 £62,500 -21.63% 332
South West +8 120 £61,250 -5.77% 526
Wales +27 45 £68,500 +39.80% 126
Scotland -28 38 £76,250 +19.61% 227
Northern Ireland -9 11 £83,750 -9.46% 73
Channel Islands +8 8 - -
North East -8 7 £62,500 -0.60% 66

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 74 (1.39%) Apache Spark
2 40 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
3 24 (0.45%) SharePoint
4 13 (0.24%) Confluence
5 11 (0.21%) Appian
6 9 (0.17%) Apache
7 8 (0.15%) Apache Solr
7 8 (0.15%) Jupyter
7 8 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
8 7 (0.13%) CMS
9 5 (0.094%) Apache Pulsar
9 5 (0.094%) IIS
9 5 (0.094%) SAS
10 2 (0.038%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.038%) CICS
10 2 (0.038%) Luigi
11 1 (0.019%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.019%) Kinematics
11 1 (0.019%) nginx
11 1 (0.019%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 40 (0.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (0.30%) Chatbot
3 15 (0.28%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.11%) Trello
5 5 (0.094%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 4 (0.075%) Fusion 360
6 4 (0.075%) Weka
7 3 (0.056%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.038%) Adobe XD
8 2 (0.038%) Sketch
8 2 (0.038%) S-PLUS
9 1 (0.019%) 3ds Max
9 1 (0.019%) Blender
9 1 (0.019%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 14 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.11%) Shopify
4 5 (0.094%) NetSuite
5 4 (0.075%) Distributed Ledger
5 4 (0.075%) Elite 3E
6 2 (0.038%) Adaptiv
6 2 (0.038%) SAP SCM
7 1 (0.019%) Fidessa
7 1 (0.019%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.019%) Odoo
7 1 (0.019%) SAP PLM
7 1 (0.019%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 4,056 (76.24%) Cloud Computing
2 470 (8.83%) Azure
3 416 (7.82%) AWS
4 203 (3.82%) GCP
5 148 (2.78%) Power Platform
6 68 (1.28%) SaaS
7 64 (1.20%) Vertex AI
8 62 (1.17%) Serverless
9 58 (1.09%) Azure AI
10 50 (0.94%) Azure Machine Learning
11 48 (0.90%) GitHub
12 46 (0.86%) Snowflake
13 45 (0.85%) Amazon SageMaker
13 45 (0.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 43 (0.81%) Amazon Bedrock
15 42 (0.79%) Microsoft 365
16 41 (0.77%) Azure Data Factory
17 37 (0.70%) Azure DevOps
18 33 (0.62%) Entra ID
18 33 (0.62%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4,048 (76.09%) Internet
2 12 (0.23%) Network Security
3 6 (0.11%) Firewall
4 5 (0.094%) Bluetooth
4 5 (0.094%) Broadband
4 5 (0.094%) Modbus
4 5 (0.094%) VLAN
5 4 (0.075%) InfiniBand
5 4 (0.075%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (0.075%) Kerberos
5 4 (0.075%) TCP/IP
5 4 (0.075%) Wireless
5 4 (0.075%) Wireshark
5 4 (0.075%) ZigBee
6 3 (0.056%) 5G
6 3 (0.056%) 802.11
6 3 (0.056%) LAN
6 3 (0.056%) VoIP
6 3 (0.056%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (0.056%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (2.44%) Power BI
2 99 (1.86%) Data Warehouse
3 75 (1.41%) NoSQL
4 68 (1.28%) Data Lake
5 58 (1.09%) Metadata
6 57 (1.07%) Tableau
7 53 (1.00%) Big Data
8 51 (0.96%) SQL Server
9 39 (0.73%) Amazon Redshift
10 37 (0.70%) Hadoop
11 33 (0.62%) PostgreSQL
12 25 (0.47%) Data Mining
13 24 (0.45%) MySQL
14 23 (0.43%) BigQuery
15 22 (0.41%) MongoDB
16 19 (0.36%) Elasticsearch
17 17 (0.32%) Looker
17 17 (0.32%) Pinecone
18 15 (0.28%) Power Query
19 13 (0.24%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 51 (0.96%) Git
2 45 (0.85%) MLflow
3 22 (0.41%) JIRA
4 21 (0.39%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.17%) GitLab
6 6 (0.11%) Visual Studio
7 5 (0.094%) Selenium
7 5 (0.094%) WebDriver
8 4 (0.075%) Burp Suite
8 4 (0.075%) Metasploit
9 3 (0.056%) Browser DevTools
9 3 (0.056%) Charles Proxy
9 3 (0.056%) Fiddler
9 3 (0.056%) Maven
9 3 (0.056%) Postman
9 3 (0.056%) TestNG
9 3 (0.056%) Zephyr
10 2 (0.038%) Balsamiq
10 2 (0.038%) CircleCI
10 2 (0.038%) TestRail
General
1 4,444 (83.53%) Social Skills
2 4,103 (77.12%) Banking
3 4,086 (76.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 387 (7.27%) Finance
5 212 (3.98%) Analytical Skills
6 151 (2.84%) Marketing
7 89 (1.67%) Manufacturing
8 85 (1.60%) Law
9 81 (1.52%) Public Sector
10 69 (1.30%) Retail
11 68 (1.28%) Pharmaceutical
12 57 (1.07%) Legal
13 49 (0.92%) Telecoms
14 37 (0.70%) Electronics
15 31 (0.58%) Games
16 30 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
17 24 (0.45%) Financial Institution
18 23 (0.43%) Organisational Skills
19 22 (0.41%) German Language
20 15 (0.28%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 3,143 (59.08%) Lecturer
2 254 (4.77%) Senior
3 190 (3.57%) Lead
4 127 (2.39%) Architect
5 105 (1.97%) Data Engineer
6 99 (1.86%) Data Scientist
6 99 (1.86%) Developer
7 79 (1.48%) Software Engineer
8 76 (1.43%) Consultant
9 55 (1.03%) Analyst
9 55 (1.03%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 53 (1.00%) Data Architect
11 36 (0.68%) Solutions Architect
12 35 (0.66%) Senior Consultant
13 34 (0.64%) Senior Data Scientist
14 32 (0.60%) Machine Learning Engineer
15 27 (0.51%) Data Analyst
16 26 (0.49%) Gen AI Consultant
17 25 (0.47%) Graduate
17 25 (0.47%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (2.46%) PyTorch
2 116 (2.18%) TensorFlow
3 73 (1.37%) React
4 67 (1.26%) LangChain
4 67 (1.26%) scikit-learn
5 64 (1.20%) Kafka
6 59 (1.11%) REST
7 55 (1.03%) Pandas
8 50 (0.94%) Node.js
9 42 (0.79%) FastAPI
10 41 (0.77%) Hugging Face
11 38 (0.71%) PySpark
12 37 (0.70%) RESTful
13 35 (0.66%) NumPy
14 31 (0.58%) Django
15 30 (0.56%) .NET
16 29 (0.55%) AngularJS
17 25 (0.47%) Vue
18 22 (0.41%) gRPC
19 21 (0.39%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 4,066 (76.43%) IoT
2 117 (2.20%) Algorithms
3 111 (2.09%) Cloud Native
4 100 (1.88%) Product Ownership
5 80 (1.50%) Life Science
6 73 (1.37%) AI Agents
7 68 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
8 48 (0.90%) Management Information System
9 45 (0.85%) Legacy Systems
10 36 (0.68%) Onboarding
11 33 (0.62%) Low-Code
12 29 (0.55%) Data Structures
12 29 (0.55%) FMCG
13 21 (0.39%) Enterprise Software
13 21 (0.39%) Pharmacovigilance
14 20 (0.38%) Self-Motivation
15 18 (0.34%) Greenfield Project
16 17 (0.32%) Analytical Mindset
17 15 (0.28%) CUDA
17 15 (0.28%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 43 (0.81%) Linux
2 32 (0.60%) Windows
3 27 (0.51%) Android
4 15 (0.28%) Apple iOS
5 12 (0.23%) Unix
6 10 (0.19%) Ubuntu
6 10 (0.19%) Windows Server
7 5 (0.094%) Kali Linux
8 2 (0.038%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.038%) zOS
9 1 (0.019%) Robot Operating System
9 1 (0.019%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 5,033 (94.61%) AI
2 4,127 (77.58%) Cybersecurity
3 4,125 (77.54%) User Experience
4 4,056 (76.24%) Web Development
5 467 (8.78%) Data Science
6 462 (8.68%) Analytics
7 297 (5.58%) Computer Science
8 289 (5.43%) Agile
9 241 (4.53%) DevOps
10 238 (4.47%) LLM
11 235 (4.42%) Decision-Making
12 232 (4.36%) CI/CD
12 232 (4.36%) Roadmaps
13 228 (4.29%) Generative AI
13 228 (4.29%) Problem-Solving
14 198 (3.72%) Data Pipeline
15 194 (3.65%) Data Engineering
16 179 (3.36%) Business Intelligence
17 171 (3.21%) Data Governance
18 170 (3.20%) MLOps
Programming Languages
1 588 (11.05%) Python
2 293 (5.51%) SQL
3 106 (1.99%) Java
4 71 (1.33%) R
5 69 (1.30%) JavaScript
6 63 (1.18%) Bash
7 57 (1.07%) TypeScript
8 56 (1.05%) C++
9 51 (0.96%) C#
10 47 (0.88%) Scala
11 35 (0.66%) Go
11 35 (0.66%) PowerShell
12 26 (0.49%) PHP
13 23 (0.43%) Kotlin
14 18 (0.34%) Rust
15 14 (0.26%) Bicep
15 14 (0.26%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 12 (0.23%) T-SQL
17 10 (0.19%) C
18 7 (0.13%) ANSI SQL
Qualifications
1 4,484 (84.29%) Degree
2 4,229 (79.49%) Master's Degree
3 4,156 (78.12%) PhD
4 4,053 (76.18%) Postgraduate
5 141 (2.65%) Computer Science Degree
6 108 (2.03%) Security Cleared
7 82 (1.54%) SC Cleared
8 34 (0.64%) DV Cleared
9 19 (0.36%) AWS Certification
9 19 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
10 18 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
11 13 (0.24%) Azure Certification
12 12 (0.23%) CISSP
13 11 (0.21%) MCP
14 10 (0.19%) CISM
14 10 (0.19%) Numerate Degree
15 8 (0.15%) Microsoft Certification
16 7 (0.13%) CISA
16 7 (0.13%) CRISC
16 7 (0.13%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 132 (2.48%) Data Quality
2 69 (1.30%) GDPR
3 38 (0.71%) GxP
4 35 (0.66%) QA
5 28 (0.53%) Accessibility
6 27 (0.51%) EU AI Act
7 22 (0.41%) HIPAA
7 22 (0.41%) Solvency II
8 21 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 21 (0.39%) PSD2
9 15 (0.28%) SLA
10 12 (0.23%) HL7
11 11 (0.21%) CDISC
12 10 (0.19%) ISO 13485
13 8 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
13 8 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
14 7 (0.13%) ISO 9001
15 5 (0.094%) NIST
15 5 (0.094%) Sarbanes-Oxley
16 3 (0.056%) SOC 2
System Software
1 146 (2.74%) Docker
2 18 (0.34%) Virtual Desktop
3 15 (0.28%) Active Directory
4 12 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.075%) Lustre
5 4 (0.075%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.038%) Ceph
6 2 (0.038%) GPFS
6 2 (0.038%) RACF
6 2 (0.038%) VMware Infrastructure
6 2 (0.038%) vSphere
7 1 (0.019%) Hyper-V
Systems Management
1 133 (2.50%) Kubernetes
2 85 (1.60%) Terraform
3 28 (0.53%) Ansible
4 19 (0.36%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (0.26%) Kubeflow
6 11 (0.21%) Prometheus
7 8 (0.15%) SCCM
8 5 (0.094%) Argo
9 4 (0.075%) Grafana
9 4 (0.075%) Nessus
9 4 (0.075%) Nmap
10 2 (0.038%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
10 2 (0.038%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.038%) Puppet
10 2 (0.038%) SELinux
11 1 (0.019%) Istio
11 1 (0.019%) Kustomize
11 1 (0.019%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 167 (3.14%) Microsoft
2 130 (2.44%) Databricks
3 114 (2.14%) Google
4 64 (1.20%) OpenAI
5 46 (0.86%) SAP
6 22 (0.41%) Palantir
6 22 (0.41%) Salesforce
7 21 (0.39%) Dell
7 21 (0.39%) NVIDIA
7 21 (0.39%) Oracle
8 14 (0.26%) Foundry
8 14 (0.26%) Palo Alto
9 13 (0.24%) CrowdStrike
9 13 (0.24%) Fortinet
10 9 (0.17%) Adobe
10 9 (0.17%) UiPath
11 8 (0.15%) Cisco
11 8 (0.15%) ServiceNow
12 7 (0.13%) Alteryx
12 7 (0.13%) Automation Anywhere