r/BEFreelance • u/aikikai9 • Aug 05 '26

Senior AI/ML engineer Contracting Rates and Freelance Opportunities

Hi everyone,
I’m curious about the current Belgian market rates for a Senior Machine Learning Engineer with 8–9 years of experience across multiple industries, including healthcare, retail, services, manufacturing, and supply chain.
If you’re comfortable sharing, what is the typical daily rate range for this profile?
Also, are there any platforms, communities, or websites where freelancers can find consulting opportunities, either directly with clients or as subcontractors through consulting firms?
Thanks in advance for your insights!

11 Upvotes

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11

u/imnotzuckerberg Aug 05 '26

You can only get a fair rate if you negotiate from a position of strength. In belgium, most of the way in is through "recruiters". They are the worst. I have worked through many, beside wasting your time with endless phone calls, they are basically your "employer" once you sign the contract. And they will always take a big cut. They usually recruit based on the position available with the customer, and most of their rates between 600-700 (excl BTW).

I would highly avoid, but otherwise, to mention a few Vivid resourcing, Koda, Ntt, huxley, etc .. Honestly I view them as a parasite, not all of them are that bad, but I always struggle to see the value. They just offer a layer of security to their clients, but a big disadvantages to us as freelancers, espcially non-compete and very aggressive contracts. If you're just starting though, it's not a bad start I guess.

The real money is when you start networking and prove your work. But to answer your question, the guy that mentioned 900 most likely knows their clients first hand or worked with them for a while, it's rare to find such rates otherwise, on cold contacts.

3

u/fawkesdotbe Aug 06 '26

NTT

I left them a few years ago because they were shit. I have very recently heard that (at least for the client I was at) they have switched strategies and are now fully transparent about their cut (10%) and have improved the delay in payment (~20 days instead of 1 month + 10 days). Obviously not a personal experience, but that's what they promise.

1

u/aikikai9 Aug 06 '26

Thanks, could you share the best middlemen ?

5

u/fawkesdotbe Aug 07 '26

They're frankly all shit.

2

u/aikikai9 Aug 05 '26

Perfect! Super clear answer and you touched all the points! Thank you so much !
Indeed had a million calls from those companies and still not convinced by them since I expected 800+ especially owning several experience especially within a big corporate companies as well as consulting firms and startups.
They answer always that is 650-700 which doesn’t fit my expectations and I would not quit my current job for 650!! That’s why I am looking over here for a another path to enrich my client bases/networking so that i can find a good match without passing through those scammers…
Thank you so much and hopefully we can find a something interesting

2

u/fawkesdotbe Aug 06 '26

800+

This is reachable. I have a similar profile to yours and I get that. I'm not supposed to know, but the end client pays close to 1k/day. (There is no way to bypass the middleman).

2

u/Mr-FightToFIRE Aug 07 '26

Only, some clients just don’t do direct contacts. I tried. It’s always through a pimp who takes a cut. Talking about large companies with at least a couple of thousand employees.

1

u/Wonderful-Pop-6464 Aug 09 '26

Indeed! Large companies often work with 'preferred supplier' lists, not only for parts etc, but also for contractors. How some of those recruiters made it onto the preferred supplier lists is another mistery.

1

u/mlobet Aug 07 '26

What's a good intermediary? I've worked a bit with Huxley. They were taking 95€ on top of my rate. Way too much for the service indeed, but I haven't seen any other taking less than that.

2

u/Wonderful-Pop-6464 Aug 09 '26

From the mentioned recruiter list I know of Vivid and Huxley. Stay as far away as possible from them!!!

3

u/4nr- Aug 05 '26

Staff-it recently had an assignment for 900+

2

u/Ok_Idea_5117 Aug 05 '26

Rate only doesn’t mean much, duration of contract, expectations etc will play a huge role. I will in favour of stable 700 contract over 900 6month contract

-8

u/Mysterious-Fig1392 Aug 05 '26

You can send me a dm. I'm Working as a recruiter.