Quick Answer — MLOps Engineer Salary UK 2026-27

The median MLOps Engineer salary in the UK is £80,000 in 2026-27, one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure roles. After income tax, National Insurance and a 5% pension contribution, take-home pay is £54,557/year (£4,546/month). Senior and lead MLOps engineers earn £90,000–£115,000+. MLOps specialists command premium contractor day rates of £700–£950/day.

MLOps Engineer Salary UK 2026-27

MLOps Engineer Salary UK 2026-27

MEDIAN SALARY
£80,000
TAKE-HOME / YEAR
£54,557
TAKE-HOME / MONTH
£4,546

5% pension, England, 2026-27 HMRC rates. Source: Adzuna · LinkedIn Salary · Hays Tech April 2026.

Tax Breakdown — £80,000

5% pension · England · Tax code 1257L · 2026-27

Gross salary£80,000
Pension (5%)−£4,000
Income tax−£17,832
National Insurance−£3,611
Take-home (annual)£54,557
Take-home (monthly)£4,546
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At a Glance

Higher rate taxpayer?Yes — £25,730 at 40%
Portion above £50,270 taxed at 40%
Effective tax rate (IT+NI)~27%
On gross before pension
Net monthly pension pot£333/month
£4,000/year employer + employee
UK salary percentileTop 7%
Median UK salary is £37,430
Job growth (2024–2026)+35.1%
Fastest growing ML role (Adzuna)
Automation risk~5%
Very low — builds AI infrastructure

MLOps Engineer Salary by Level — UK 2026-27

5% pension, England, 2026-27 HMRC rates. Sources: Adzuna, LinkedIn Salary, Hays Tech.

LevelRoleGross SalaryTake-Home/yrTake-Home/moPension (5%)
Entry-levelJunior MLOps Engineer£50,000£37,520£3,127£2,500
Mid-levelMLOps Engineer£65,000£46,307£3,859£3,250
SeniorSenior MLOps Engineer (median)median£80,000£54,557£4,546£4,000
LeadLead / Staff MLOps Engineer£95,000£62,807£5,234£4,750
PrincipalPrincipal MLOps / Head of ML Platform£115,000£73,807£6,151£5,750

Skills That Command a Premium 2026

Above the median £80,000, specific technical skills command significant salary premiums in the UK MLOps market.

Kubernetes / Docker (ML serving)Core requirement
MLflow / Kubeflow / Weights & Biases+£6,000–£12,000
AWS SageMaker / GCP Vertex AI+£8,000–£15,000
LLM deployment (vLLM, TGI, Triton)+£15,000–£25,000
Feature store design (Feast, Tecton)+£8,000–£12,000
CI/CD for ML (GitOps, model registry)+£5,000–£10,000
Thinking about contracting as an MLOps Engineer?
MLOps Engineers are among the most in-demand AI contractors. Typical day rates: £700–£950/day. At £800/day outside IR35 you take home approximately £124,000/year.
AI Contractor Rates →IR35 Calculator →

Frequently Asked Questions