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 7 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 20 86 91
Rank change year-on-year +66 +5 -14
Permanent jobs citing Machine Learning 4,376 1,944 1,659
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 7.76% 3.13% 3.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 9.23% 3.61% 3.51%
Number of salaries quoted 695 1,086 1,106
10th Percentile £43,750 £45,625 £45,750
25th Percentile £58,500 £57,500 £57,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £77,000 £76,383
Median % change year-on-year +3.90% +0.81% +9.12%
75th Percentile £105,000 £95,000 £96,539
90th Percentile £132,500 £112,500 £122,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £67,000 £70,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year -4.29% - +14.75%

All Process and 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 47,424 53,892 47,309
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 84.09% 86.75% 93.74%
Number of salaries quoted 28,060 28,022 36,472
10th Percentile £28,250 £35,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -0.83%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £55,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -13.64% +4.76% -1.87%

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 7 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 7 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 4,201 £80,000 +3.90% 2,696
UK excluding London +79 3,376 £67,000 -4.29% 2,609
North of England +104 1,438 £65,000 -3.70% 555
North West +90 1,285 £65,000 -3.70% 273
London +34 903 £90,000 +5.88% 392
Midlands +132 827 £65,000 -7.14% 482
West Midlands +120 696 £65,500 +5.65% 242
South East +34 592 £77,500 +3.33% 706
Work from Home -52 339 £80,000 +14.29% 3,477
East of England +91 304 £65,000 -15.58% 407
Yorkshire +47 143 £71,000 +3.27% 234
East Midlands +77 137 £65,000 -21.21% 211
South West -6 103 £60,000 -7.69% 277
Scotland -2 69 £76,250 +17.31% 123
Wales +21 36 £68,500 +39.80% 61
Northern Ireland -5 13 £83,750 -9.46% 33
North East 0 10 £55,000 -18.75% 51
Channel Islands +9 6 - -

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
1 104 (2.38%) Apache Spark
2 41 (0.94%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (0.59%) SharePoint
4 13 (0.30%) Apache
5 12 (0.27%) Confluence
6 8 (0.18%) Apache Solr
6 8 (0.18%) Appian
6 8 (0.18%) Microsoft Exchange
6 8 (0.18%) SAS
7 5 (0.11%) CMS
7 5 (0.11%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.091%) Apache Pulsar
9 3 (0.069%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.069%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.046%) Camunda
10 2 (0.046%) CICS
10 2 (0.046%) Luigi
11 1 (0.023%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.023%) Kinematics
11 1 (0.023%) nginx
Applications
1 39 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (0.43%) Chatbot
3 13 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.14%) Trello
5 4 (0.091%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 3 (0.069%) Adobe XD
6 3 (0.069%) Sketch
6 3 (0.069%) S-PLUS
6 3 (0.069%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.069%) Weka
7 1 (0.023%) 3ds Max
7 1 (0.023%) Blender
7 1 (0.023%) Fusion 360
Business Applications
1 20 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.091%) Adaptiv
3 4 (0.091%) Elite 3E
3 4 (0.091%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.091%) SAP SCM
3 4 (0.091%) Shopify
4 3 (0.069%) Oracle EBS
4 3 (0.069%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.046%) Distributed Ledger
5 2 (0.046%) SAP IBP
6 1 (0.023%) Fidessa
6 1 (0.023%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.023%) Odoo
6 1 (0.023%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.023%) SAP EWM
6 1 (0.023%) SAP LE
6 1 (0.023%) SAP PLM
6 1 (0.023%) SAP QM
6 1 (0.023%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 3,054 (69.79%) Cloud Computing
2 474 (10.83%) Azure
3 461 (10.53%) AWS
4 212 (4.84%) GCP
5 138 (3.15%) Power Platform
6 84 (1.92%) Vertex AI
7 70 (1.60%) Serverless
8 65 (1.49%) SaaS
9 62 (1.42%) Azure AI
10 56 (1.28%) Amazon S3
11 54 (1.23%) GitHub
12 49 (1.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 47 (1.07%) Amazon SageMaker
14 46 (1.05%) Amazon Bedrock
15 45 (1.03%) Azure Machine Learning
16 41 (0.94%) Azure Data Factory
17 39 (0.89%) Amazon EKS
17 39 (0.89%) Microsoft 365
17 39 (0.89%) Snowflake
18 37 (0.85%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3,044 (69.56%) Internet
2 10 (0.23%) Network Security
3 6 (0.14%) Firewall
3 6 (0.14%) VLAN
4 5 (0.11%) Bluetooth
4 5 (0.11%) Modbus
5 4 (0.091%) Broadband
5 4 (0.091%) InfiniBand
5 4 (0.091%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (0.091%) Kerberos
5 4 (0.091%) TCP/IP
5 4 (0.091%) Wireless
5 4 (0.091%) Wireshark
5 4 (0.091%) ZigBee
6 3 (0.069%) 802.11
6 3 (0.069%) LAN
6 3 (0.069%) VoIP
6 3 (0.069%) WAN
6 3 (0.069%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (0.069%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 123 (2.81%) Power BI
2 102 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
3 82 (1.87%) Metadata
4 80 (1.83%) NoSQL
5 68 (1.55%) Data Lake
6 62 (1.42%) Big Data
7 49 (1.12%) SQL Server
8 45 (1.03%) Tableau
9 39 (0.89%) Amazon Redshift
10 36 (0.82%) Data Mining
11 35 (0.80%) Hadoop
12 33 (0.75%) PostgreSQL
13 31 (0.71%) DynamoDB
14 26 (0.59%) Delta Lake
15 25 (0.57%) MySQL
16 23 (0.53%) Spark SQL
17 21 (0.48%) MongoDB
18 18 (0.41%) BigQuery
19 15 (0.34%) Relational Database
20 14 (0.32%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 54 (1.23%) Git
2 51 (1.17%) MLflow
3 25 (0.57%) Jenkins
4 24 (0.55%) JIRA
5 9 (0.21%) GitLab
6 8 (0.18%) Selenium
7 6 (0.14%) Maven
7 6 (0.14%) Visual Studio
7 6 (0.14%) WebDriver
8 5 (0.11%) Vite
9 4 (0.091%) Burp Suite
9 4 (0.091%) Metasploit
10 3 (0.069%) Browser DevTools
10 3 (0.069%) Charles Proxy
10 3 (0.069%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.069%) Fiddler
10 3 (0.069%) Postman
10 3 (0.069%) TestNG
10 3 (0.069%) TestRail
10 3 (0.069%) Zephyr
General
1 3,483 (79.59%) Social Skills
2 3,141 (71.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 3,134 (71.62%) Banking
4 456 (10.42%) Finance
5 229 (5.23%) Analytical Skills
6 193 (4.41%) Law
7 165 (3.77%) Marketing
8 91 (2.08%) Retail
9 88 (2.01%) Public Sector
10 86 (1.97%) Manufacturing
11 69 (1.58%) Legal
12 55 (1.26%) Pharmaceutical
13 44 (1.01%) Telecoms
14 35 (0.80%) Games
15 33 (0.75%) Electronics
16 28 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
17 23 (0.53%) Financial Institution
18 20 (0.46%) German Language
19 18 (0.41%) Investment Banking
19 18 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 2,304 (52.65%) Lecturer
2 253 (5.78%) Senior
3 232 (5.30%) Lead
4 133 (3.04%) Software Engineer
5 132 (3.02%) Architect
6 103 (2.35%) Data Engineer
7 99 (2.26%) Developer
8 97 (2.22%) Data Scientist
9 65 (1.49%) Consultant
10 55 (1.26%) Data Architect
11 51 (1.17%) Analyst
12 50 (1.14%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 50 (1.14%) Machine Learning Engineer
13 36 (0.82%) Solutions Architect
14 32 (0.73%) Java Engineer
14 32 (0.73%) Operations Engineer
15 31 (0.71%) Java Software Engineer
15 31 (0.71%) Product Manager
16 30 (0.69%) Python Engineer
17 28 (0.64%) Senior Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 140 (3.20%) PyTorch
2 126 (2.88%) TensorFlow
3 85 (1.94%) scikit-learn
4 80 (1.83%) React
5 75 (1.71%) Kafka
6 70 (1.60%) Pandas
7 63 (1.44%) REST
8 60 (1.37%) LangChain
8 60 (1.37%) PySpark
9 51 (1.17%) NumPy
10 47 (1.07%) Node.js
11 40 (0.91%) Spring
12 39 (0.89%) Hugging Face
13 38 (0.87%) FastAPI
13 38 (0.87%) RESTful
14 37 (0.85%) Keras
15 34 (0.78%) AngularJS
16 32 (0.73%) .NET
17 31 (0.71%) Django
18 25 (0.57%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 3,062 (69.97%) IoT
2 145 (3.31%) Algorithms
3 134 (3.06%) Cloud Native
4 105 (2.40%) Product Ownership
5 79 (1.81%) AI Agents
6 67 (1.53%) Life Science
7 61 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
8 53 (1.21%) Management Information System
9 43 (0.98%) Legacy Systems
10 37 (0.85%) Onboarding
11 34 (0.78%) FMCG
12 28 (0.64%) Low-Code
13 26 (0.59%) Data Structures
14 22 (0.50%) Linux Command Line
15 21 (0.48%) Pharmacovigilance
16 20 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
17 18 (0.41%) Enterprise Software
17 18 (0.41%) Greenfield Project
18 17 (0.39%) Data Centre
19 15 (0.34%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 40 (0.91%) Linux
2 36 (0.82%) Unix
3 33 (0.75%) Windows
4 22 (0.50%) Android
5 14 (0.32%) Apple iOS
6 10 (0.23%) Windows Server
7 8 (0.18%) Ubuntu
8 5 (0.11%) Kali Linux
9 2 (0.046%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.046%) Robot Operating System
9 2 (0.046%) zOS
10 1 (0.023%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,091 (93.49%) AI
2 3,127 (71.46%) User Experience
3 3,124 (71.39%) Cybersecurity
4 3,054 (69.79%) Web Development
5 491 (11.22%) Data Science
6 480 (10.97%) Analytics
7 376 (8.59%) Agile
8 295 (6.74%) CI/CD
9 270 (6.17%) Computer Science
9 270 (6.17%) DevOps
10 257 (5.87%) Problem-Solving
11 256 (5.85%) Roadmaps
12 245 (5.60%) Decision-Making
13 239 (5.46%) Generative AI
14 236 (5.39%) LLM
15 232 (5.30%) Software Engineering
16 217 (4.96%) Data Engineering
17 200 (4.57%) MLOps
18 198 (4.52%) Data Pipeline
19 180 (4.11%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 601 (13.73%) Python
2 316 (7.22%) SQL
3 135 (3.09%) Java
4 64 (1.46%) JavaScript
5 62 (1.42%) C++
6 61 (1.39%) Bash
6 61 (1.39%) R
7 58 (1.33%) TypeScript
8 51 (1.17%) C#
9 42 (0.96%) Scala
10 33 (0.75%) PowerShell
11 26 (0.59%) Go
12 24 (0.55%) PHP
13 23 (0.53%) Kotlin
14 16 (0.37%) Bicep
14 16 (0.37%) Rust
15 14 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 13 (0.30%) T-SQL
17 10 (0.23%) C
18 7 (0.16%) ANSI SQL
Qualifications
1 3,462 (79.11%) Degree
2 3,219 (73.56%) Master's Degree
3 3,145 (71.87%) PhD
4 3,050 (69.70%) Postgraduate
5 143 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
6 105 (2.40%) Security Cleared
7 82 (1.87%) SC Cleared
8 31 (0.71%) DV Cleared
9 22 (0.50%) AWS Certification
10 21 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
11 19 (0.43%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (0.30%) Azure Certification
13 11 (0.25%) CISSP
13 11 (0.25%) PMI Certification
13 11 (0.25%) PMP
14 9 (0.21%) CISM
14 9 (0.21%) Numerate Degree
15 7 (0.16%) CISA
15 7 (0.16%) CRISC
15 7 (0.16%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (3.18%) Data Quality
2 67 (1.53%) GDPR
3 40 (0.91%) QA
4 31 (0.71%) GxP
5 27 (0.62%) Accessibility
5 27 (0.62%) EU AI Act
6 22 (0.50%) HIPAA
6 22 (0.50%) Solvency II
7 21 (0.48%) PSD2
8 20 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 15 (0.34%) SLA
10 12 (0.27%) HL7
11 11 (0.25%) CDISC
12 8 (0.18%) Cyber Essentials
13 7 (0.16%) ISO 13485
13 7 (0.16%) ISO 9001
13 7 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
14 4 (0.091%) NIST
15 3 (0.069%) Actionable Recommendations
15 3 (0.069%) SOC 2
System Software
1 154 (3.52%) Docker
2 18 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
3 15 (0.34%) Active Directory
4 11 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.091%) HDFS
5 4 (0.091%) Lustre
5 4 (0.091%) Slurm Workload Manager
6 2 (0.046%) Apache Flume
6 2 (0.046%) Ceph
6 2 (0.046%) GPFS
6 2 (0.046%) RACF
6 2 (0.046%) VMware Infrastructure
7 1 (0.023%) Firmware
7 1 (0.023%) Hyper-V
7 1 (0.023%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 154 (3.52%) Kubernetes
2 116 (2.65%) Terraform
3 35 (0.80%) Kubeflow
4 32 (0.73%) Ansible
5 19 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
6 10 (0.23%) Prometheus
7 8 (0.18%) SCCM
8 6 (0.14%) Grafana
9 5 (0.11%) Argo
10 4 (0.091%) Nessus
10 4 (0.091%) Nmap
11 2 (0.046%) Kibana
11 2 (0.046%) logstash
11 2 (0.046%) Microsoft Data Protection Manager
11 2 (0.046%) Oozie
11 2 (0.046%) Progress Chef
11 2 (0.046%) Puppet
11 2 (0.046%) SELinux
11 2 (0.046%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.023%) Istio
Vendors
1 180 (4.11%) Microsoft
2 150 (3.43%) Databricks
3 136 (3.11%) Google
4 71 (1.62%) OpenAI
5 52 (1.19%) SAP
6 32 (0.73%) Oracle
7 23 (0.53%) Foundry
8 21 (0.48%) Dell
9 20 (0.46%) NVIDIA
9 20 (0.46%) Salesforce
10 18 (0.41%) Palantir
11 12 (0.27%) Splunk
12 11 (0.25%) Palo Alto
13 10 (0.23%) Adobe
13 10 (0.23%) CrowdStrike
13 10 (0.23%) Fortinet
13 10 (0.23%) ServiceNow
14 8 (0.18%) Alteryx
15 7 (0.16%) Murex
16 6 (0.14%) Cisco