Lead MLOps and platform, fractional

The work

Owns the pipelines, deployment, monitoring and cost of models in production.

Fractional means you carry a decision, not a backlog. Hirers who want a pair of hands are pointed at a project instead.

The bar

You have owned delivery and you have set the standard others worked to, including saying no to work that was already funded.

Why this one is hard to judge. The work is invisible when it is done well, so the evidence is in incidents and spend, not in features.

What we ask to see

• Infrastructure you own or owned, and what it costs to run
• An incident, the rollback, and what changed afterwards
• Something you deleted because it was not earning its keep

One solid item beats five vague ones. A referee we can actually call beats a link to a landing page.

What gets an application declined

• The only evidence offered is a certification, a course, or a job title
• Every piece of evidence is under an NDA and no sanitised version or referee is offered
• The work described is entirely a demonstration, a proof of concept, or a hackathon
• More than six disciplines are claimed, which we read as a signal that none has been assessed

If we decline you, the reason is written down and sent to you. The software refuses a decline without one.

What it pays

£450 to £790 a day. That is the tenth to ninetieth percentile of what UK employers advertised for the closest published titles over the six months to 8 August 2026.

Advertised UK contract day rates for MLOps, tenth to ninetieth percentile, six months to 8 August 2026. Advertised, not agreed, and set by the hirer rather than by us.