UK TALENT REPORT

2021 MACHINE LEARNING

& AI GUIDE
 OVERVIEW
We're living in a rapidly changing world as a result of Covid-19. As in previous years,
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning skills have been in constant demand with
LinkedIn reporting a growth of 40% in global hires in 2020.

We've seen lots of projects being won across a spectrum of industries including
Automotive, Retail, Logistics, Transportation, Voice Recognition, and Healthcare.
Overall, there are a lot of positive signs of growth that will see this technology come
into its own in 2021.

40% 21% 1.2

increase in AI hires made in of professionals with skills years is the median tenure
2020 according to LinkedIn's in Machine Learning on after which ML
latest Jobs on the Rise LinkedIn in the UK are professionals are most
report. female, 79% male. likely to switch companies.

We've invested heavily in data insight sources that give us access to privileged
market information that is in real-time. This means we can offer our clients
tailored market insight, giving them a competitive advantage to find the very best
AI & ML professionals.

The information in this report is based on data from our placements, an extensive
questionnaire filled out by a highly relevant pool of candidates and from salary
ranges provided by our current partners that include some of the best
technology-driven businesses across the UK. We hope you find it useful!
 WHICH INDUSTRIES
ARE BENEFITING
MOST FROM AI?
According to a poll, we ran on LinkedIn recently, Software and Tech Organisations
could stand the most to gain by investing in AI.

Healthcare

Multimedia

Software / Tech Organisations

Finance

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Other areas that are evolving in this space include Healthcare, Medical Research,
Finance, Multimedia, Chip Design, Market Research, and many more. As a result of
this, we are witnessing a lot of new jobs becoming available for experts in AI and
Machine Learning, such as Machine Learning Engineer and Researcher, to name a
few.

According to IT Jobs Watch, in the last 6 months leading up to the 14th January 2021,
a total of 149 AI jobs were listed in the UK alone. This is particularly exciting for the
domain, as new jobs have historically slowed down over the last quarter of the year.

There has also been a 30% increase year on year for new jobs with the title of
Machine Learning Engineer. This exponential growth translates over to the Machine
Learning Researcher jobs available. New jobs for Machine Learning Researchers
make up 0.005% of all permanent jobs in the UK (again, with in the last 6 months up
to the 14th January 2021). While that may seem a low figure for those outside the
industry, it demonstrates that this is an area that continues to develop in businesses
rather than solely in academia posts.
MACHINE LEARNING
OVERVIEW

where is this talent

located?
TOP LOCATIONS PROFESSIONALS
London 37,436
Cambridge 3,054
Edinburgh 2,515
Manchester 2,475
Oxford 2,250

who is employing this

talent?
TOP 10 COMPANIES WITH THE LARGEST NUMBER
OF MACHINE LEARNING PROFESSIONALS:

Imperial College London - 754 Google - 541

University College London - 713 Uni of Cambridge - 525

Amazon - 634 Uni of Edinburgh - 412

Facebook - 610 Microsoft - 385

University of Oxford - 545 IBM - 357

MACHINE LEARNING
ENGINEER
According to LinkedIn data covering 12
months from November 2019, London
has the highest number of Machine
Learning Engineers with 468
professionals.

Manchester (named the fastest-growing

tech city in Europe) and Leeds has seen
an increase in Machine Learning
Engineers by 133%.

133%
increase in Machine
Learning Engineers in
Manchester and Leeds.

TOP LOCATIONS PROFESSIONALS

London 468
Greater Cambridge Area 64
Greater Bristol Area 36
Greater Edinburgh Area 22
Manchester Area 21
 TOP 10 COMPANIES WITH THE LARGEST NUMBER
OF MACHINE LEARNING ENGINEERS:

Facebook - 34 BenevolentAI - 10

Apple - 24 Twitter - 10

Kubrick Group - 24 QuantumBlack - 10

IQVIA - 10 Secondmind - 9

Omdena - 10 Bloomberg LP

WHICH INDUSTRIES ARE EMPLOYING THIS

TALENT?

PROFESSIONALS HIRING DEMAND

Information Technology & Services 224 Moderate
Computer Software 192 High
Internet 94 High
Financial Services 56 Very high
Research 45 Moderate
Consumer Electronics 35 Moderate
Biotechnology 28 High
Higher Education 25 Low
Hospital & Health Care 24 Very high
Medical Device 24 Moderate
WHICH UNIVERSITIES ARE PRODUCING THIS
TALENT?
NUMBER OF
PROFESSIONALS

UCL 93

University of Cambridge 84

Imperial College London 82

The University of Edinburgh 66

University of Oxford 37

University of Bristol 34

The University of Manchester 32

Queen Mary University of London 27

University of Bath 23

University of Warwick 23
DEEP DELVE -
GROWTH AREAS
Let’s delve deeper into Machine Learning and AI and understand what areas have
been growing in the last 12 months.*

NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

One of the areas that stood out in terms of continual growth in

22K
2020 was Natural Language Processing.

This talent mainly sits within

London, with 6,606 professionals
in this space of AI.
However, there are 638
professionals in Edinburgh and
626 in Manchester, both growing
tech hubs for Machine Learning,
and particularly NLP.
38%
professionals on LinkedIn
with skills in Natural
Language Processing in
the UK.
increase in professionals with
Natural Language
Processing on LinkedIn
in the UK.

TOP 5 COMPANIES TOP 3 UNIVERSITIES

EMPLOYING THIS TALENT: PRODUCING THIS TALENT:

Amazon University of Edinburgh

Facebook University College London

Google University of Cambridge

University of Edinburgh

DeepMind

*Source: LinkedIn Insights

DEEP LEARNING
Deep Learning also seems a very niche skill that is frequently in demand for
employers, as demonstrated below in the data from the last 12 months.

51% 10.9K
increase in professionals with
Deep Learning skills on
LinkedIn in the UK.
professionals on LinkedIn
with skills in Deep Learning
in the UK.

Currently, there are 10,925 candidates on LinkedIn with skills in Deep Learning, so a
much smaller candidate pool than NLP, for example.

TOP 5 COMPANIES TOP 3 UNIVERSITIES

EMPLOYING THIS TALENT: PRODUCING THIS TALENT:

Imperial College London Imperial College London

DeepMind University College London

University College London University of Cambridge

Amazon

Facebook

We gather that there are more candidates keen to maintain a career in academia
rather than transition over to industry. However, professionals with NLP skills have
shown more of a willingness to do so. This could indicate that it is harder to pull
candidates away from academia in Deep Learning and so, it is a more competitive
market for these particular candidates. However, we will see whether this changes in
2021 with rising salary bandings for this skill within industry.
DATA SCIENCE

And finally, a huge area of growth in the space of AI is Data Science. This area not
only continues to increase in jobs available but is becoming crucial for every
company to have a team in DS, as the results show.

The industries predominantly employing this talent are IT and Services, Financial
Services and Computer Software.

9% 830
increase in Data Science
professionals with 8,313 in job posts for Data
this space on LinkedIn Scientists in the last 12
in the UK. months on
LinkedIn alone.

MOST COMMON SKILLS IN THE UK:

Python (6,068)
Data Analysis (5,510)
Machine Learning (5,408)
Data Mining (5,326)

TOP 5 COMPANIES TOP 3 UNIVERSITIES

EMPLOYING THIS TALENT: PRODUCING THIS TALENT:

Facebook Imperial College London

Lloyds Banking Group University College London

Aviva University of Cambridge

First Derivatives

Office for National Statistics

benefits
WHAT BENEFITS DO ML & AI PROFESSIONALS EXPECT?
Company benefits, as an extension from a base salary, are hugely changing in the
technology industry and we can see this from a few surveys that we sent out to
our Machine Learning and AI network throughout the year. For example, in H1 of
2020, we launched a survey that gave an overview of what benefits were most
important to candidates in their role.

TOP VOTES:

Job Security – due to the pandemic, we saw that this was a massive theme for
candidates who were worried about the economic impact of Coronavirus and
would potentially stall their job search until the economy had recovered

Working hours and flexibility with their role – working from home definitely
influenced this as although people were made to ‘stay at home’ on a full-time
basis, candidates did see the positive benefits of being able to work hours that
suited their situation more

Being able to experiment with ideas and try ‘new things’ in their role

Working from home – A demand that we believe will continue post-pandemic

Gym membership, food on-site and ‘nice offices’

Health insurance – we saw this and again, this could attain to the anxiety
surrounding the pandemic and people putting more importance on the state of
their health and medical needs

Pension schemes
benefits
OTHER POPULAR BENEFITS INCLUDE:

Flexible and fully remote working

Gym membership

Medical Insurance

Life Insurance

Free food whilst in the office e.g. Paid Breakfast, Lunch

Pension and Retirement Contributions

Shopping discounts e.g. Grocery discounts

Free conferences to attend

It's essential to draw attention to the ever-evolving benefit of remote

working/working from home. We discussed this in the survey with candidates and
the overwhelming majority stated that they would not accept a job without their
prospect employer offering flexi-time or remote working.

We anticipate that this will be an area of development in 2021, as candidates have

proved their ability to do their job to the same standard, at home. Candidates have
also experienced huge benefits of being able to work remotely, such as spending
more time with their family and being able to take more time for self-care.

It’s more important than ever for companies to show flexibility here when hiring as it is
soon to become a make or break in candidates accepting their offers (as our results
continuously show).
Towards the end of 2020, we sent out another survey which questioned the
satisfaction of candidates in their current role. Overall, there wasn't a massive shift in
tone from our first survey to candidates in Half 1 of 2020 as candidates are
maintaining their demands and expectations for future employers.

We saw that when candidates were asked if they were compensated well or
underpaid, the majority voted underpaid – with those who were located outside of
London, or in academic posts influencing the vote here.

This brings about the question if working ‘fully remotely’ will impact the way in which
candidates are paid. Will postcode have the same influence on how you are
compensated in 2021? We believe this should be an area that Talent Teams and those
hiring in this space should pay close attention to.

We also asked about annual bonuses. Generally, the answer for this averaged at
15%-20%, with the next common answer being 10%. The least common was 5% as
the least competitive option for active candidates on the market.

The overwhelming majority of respondents

stated that they would not accept a job
without their prospect employer offering
flexi-time or remote working
salary guide
The demand for talent with AI & Machine Learning skills is extremely high and many
candidates will receive multiple offers giving them the luxury to pick the best one.

As a result, organisations are willing to pay above market rate to secure the best
talent in this space.

For candidates who have a PhD, we have seen salaries increase substantially (in
some cases by up to £10,000). Below you will find the latest salary data grouped by
job title.

EXAMPLE SALARIES

BASED ON UNDERSTANDING RECRUITMENT'S 2020 PLACEMENT DATA IN LONDON &

SURROUNDING HOME COUNTIES (EXCLUDING LARGE-SCALE FINANCIAL SERVICES
ORGANISATIONS).

Data Scientist
Graduate £45,000 - £50,000
1-2 year's experience £52,000 - £65,000
3-4 year's experience £70,000 - £75,000
5-6 year's experience £80,000 - £92,000
7+ year's experience £104,000

Research Scientist (NLP)

From PhD £70,000 - £80,000
PhD & 1-2 year's industry experience £95,000 - £105,000
PhD & 3+ year's industry experience £110,000+

Research Scientist (Deep Learning)

From PhD £65,000 - £70,000
PhD & 1-2 year's industry experience £90,000 - £100,000
PhD & 3+ year's industry experience £105,000+
Machine Learning Engineer / Research Engineer (without PhD -
Generally you can look to add up to £10,000 in your compensation to
salary with a PhD)

1-2 year's experience £55,000 - £60,000

3-4 year's experience £63,000 - £75,000
5-6 year's experience £80,000 - £100,000
7+ year's experience £120,000+

Robotics Engineer
Graduate £35,000 - £40,000
1-2 year's experience £42,000 - £47,000
3-4 year's experience £50,000 - £55,000
4+ year's experience £62,000+

Machine Learning Operations Developer

1-2 year's experience £60,000 - £67,000
3-4 year's experience £75,000
5-6 year's experience £87,000 - £89,000
7+ year's experience £102,000 - £111,000

Innovation Software Developer / Engineer

1-2 year's experience £55,000 - £57,000
3-4 year's experience £60,000 - £68,000
5-6 year's experience £73,000

Statistician
From PhD £62,000
1-2 year's experience £74,000 - £77,000
3-4 year's experience £83,000

Chief / Principal Data Scientist £135,000 - £145,000

Chief / Principal ML Engineer £147,000 - £151,000

Principal Researcher £148,000

LET'S STAY IN
TOUCH
ANNA HENEGHAN
HEAD OF MACHINE LEARNING
& AI RECRUITMENT

For any further information about the

statistics in this report or other information
about the Machine Learning & AI space,
including competitors, tech on the rise and
hiring processes, feel free to contact me for a
chat.

aheneghan@understandingrecruitment.co.uk
+44 (0)1727 809 403
Let's connect
Schedule a call with me
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www.understandingrecruitment.co.uk