Machine Learning Engineer Job Trends

Machine Learning Engineer
UK

The median Machine Learning Engineer salary in the UK is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 21 October 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 737 604 685
Rank change year-on-year -133 +81 +4
Permanent jobs requiring a Machine Learning Engineer 91 48 65
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.076% 0.098% 0.094%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.082% 0.11% 0.099%
Number of salaries quoted 48 19 57
10th Percentile - £64,500 £52,500
25th Percentile £48,750 £67,125 £68,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £75,000 £92,500
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% -18.92% +32.14%
75th Percentile £90,000 £102,500 £93,750
90th Percentile £100,000 £123,000 -
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £71,000 £92,500
% change year-on-year -1.41% -23.24% +68.18%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

6 months to
21 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 110,883 44,071 65,836
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.27% 89.76% 95.36%
Number of salaries quoted 75,047 25,988 37,616
10th Percentile £30,500 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £35,000 £41,353
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £52,500 £56,252
Median % change year-on-year +12.38% -6.67% -6.25%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £93,750 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £45,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +22.22% -10.00% -4.76%

Machine Learning Engineer Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Machine Learning Engineer' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Machine Learning Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Machine Learning Engineer Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Machine Learning Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Machine Learning Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Machine Learning Engineer Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Machine Learning Engineer over the 6 months to 21 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Machine Learning Engineer in the UK

Machine Learning Engineer Top 12 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Machine Learning Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 21 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads		 Median Salary
Past 6 Months		 Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year		 Live
Jobs
England -117 77 £65,000 -13.33% 190
London -35 46 £52,500 -41.67% 113
UK excluding London -149 40 £70,000 -1.41% 85
Work from Home -42 34 £90,000 +5.88% 72
North of England -58 24 £65,000 -8.45% 23
North West -41 16 £65,000 -5.45% 17
Scotland +18 9 £70,000 - 6
North East -65 7 £65,000 - 2
East of England -43 3 £100,000 - 15
South West -72 3 £82,500 +11.86% 16
Yorkshire -31 1 £65,000 -8.45% 4
South East -64 1 - - 13

Machine Learning Engineer Skill Set Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 October 2026, Machine Learning Engineer job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Machine Learning Engineer in the job title.

RankSkillShareJob Ads
1Machine Learning100.0%91
2Python62.6%57
3AI57.1%52
4MLOps47.3%43
5Azure40.7%37
5CI/CD40.7%37
7Data Science37.4%34
7Software Engineering37.4%34
9AWS35.2%32
9Data Pipeline35.2%32
11PyTorch31.9%29
12GCP24.2%22
13SQL22.0%20
13TensorFlow22.0%20
15Continuous Improvement20.9%19
15Roadmaps20.9%19
15Technical Leadership20.9%19
18Analytics19.8%18
18Collaborative Working19.8%18
18Test Automation19.8%18
18Use Case19.8%18
22Deployment Automation18.7%17
23Architectural Design17.6%16
23Community of Practice17.6%16
23Generative AI17.6%16
23IT Strategy17.6%16
23LangChain17.6%16
23LangGraph17.6%16
23Low Latency17.6%16
23Quality Management17.6%16

Machine Learning Engineer Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Job Titles

RankJob TitleShareJob Ads
1Software Engineer30.8%28
2Data Engineer17.6%16
3Operations Engineer16.5%15
4Artificial Intelligence Engineer15.4%14
5Embedded Engineer13.2%12
6AWS Engineer7.7%7
6Python Engineer7.7%7
8Senior Data Engineer6.6%6
9Systems Engineer4.4%4
10Audio DSP Engineer3.3%3
10Audio Software Engineer3.3%3
10DSP Embedded Software Engineer3.3%3
13Computer Vision Engineer2.2%2
14Research Engineer1.1%1
14Senior Systems Engineer1.1%1
215 Machine Learning Engineer jobs Nationwide