Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil, EngD, Doctorate)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for PhD qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months to 2 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
2 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 445 430 447
Rank change year-on-year -15 +17 -5
Permanent jobs citing PhD 563 698 1,378
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.53% 0.74% 0.81%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.01% 2.18% 3.01%
Number of salaries quoted 334 258 414
10th Percentile £37,650 £42,500 £41,347
25th Percentile £50,000 £53,750 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.33% +7.14% +12.00%
75th Percentile £88,750 £100,000 £104,688
90th Percentile £115,000 £130,000 £137,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year - +9.09% +10.00%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

PhD is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 27,942 32,039 45,768
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 26.55% 33.80% 27.07%
Number of salaries quoted 17,249 14,523 19,205
10th Percentile £28,668 £32,000 £30,932
25th Percentile £38,524 £42,500 £40,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,818 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.30% +9.09% -
75th Percentile £71,000 £77,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £95,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing PhD as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for PhD in the UK

PhD
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing PhD.

Salary trend for PhD in the UK

PhD
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing PhD over the 6 months to 2 June 2024.

Salary histogram for PhD in the UK

PhD
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the UK over the 6 months to 2 June 2024. 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 +8 468 £63,750 -15.00% 429
UK excluding London -79 395 £60,000 - 233
South East -18 175 £58,000 -3.33% 76
London +92 161 £90,000 +9.09% 215
Work from Home +37 142 £60,000 -27.27% 159
Scotland -52 73 £70,000 -30.00% 12
East of England -60 61 £70,000 -6.67% 55
North of England +27 35 £80,000 -8.57% 34
North West +6 22 £80,000 -8.57% 28
South West -56 17 £77,500 +69.40% 27
Midlands -4 16 £55,000 +22.22% 26
Northern Ireland - 16 - - 3
West Midlands -2 12 £55,000 - 16
Yorkshire +32 8 £37,500 - 4
North East - 5 £55,000 - 2
East Midlands -16 4 £32,500 -27.78% 10
Wales -38 2 £100,000 +100.00% 9

PhD
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 11 (1.95%) Apache Spark
2 7 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (0.53%) Apache
3 3 (0.53%) SAS
4 1 (0.18%) Confluence
4 1 (0.18%) Luigi
Applications
1 11 (1.95%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.07%) Simulink
2 6 (1.07%) Stateflow
3 4 (0.71%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.18%) Blender
4 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.36%) Oracle Payroll
1 2 (0.36%) Ripple
Cloud Services
1 47 (8.35%) AWS
2 32 (5.68%) Azure
2 32 (5.68%) Figma
2 32 (5.68%) SurveyMonkey
3 24 (4.26%) Cloud Computing
4 16 (2.84%) GCP
5 12 (2.13%) Power Platform
6 6 (1.07%) GitHub
7 4 (0.71%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (0.71%) Dagster
7 4 (0.71%) SaaS
8 2 (0.36%) Amazon S3
8 2 (0.36%) Azure Machine Learning
8 2 (0.36%) Microsoft 365
8 2 (0.36%) OCI
8 2 (0.36%) Serverless
8 2 (0.36%) Snowflake
8 2 (0.36%) WhatsApp
9 1 (0.18%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 1 (0.18%) Pulumi
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.84%) TCP/IP
2 11 (1.95%) HTTP
2 11 (1.95%) MQTT
3 4 (0.71%) Internet
4 3 (0.53%) Software-Defined Radio
4 3 (0.53%) Wireless
5 2 (0.36%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.37%) Big Data
2 17 (3.02%) NoSQL
3 13 (2.31%) Tableau
4 12 (2.13%) Power BI
5 10 (1.78%) Hadoop
5 10 (1.78%) SQL Server
6 5 (0.89%) Elasticsearch
7 4 (0.71%) Data Mining
7 4 (0.71%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
8 3 (0.53%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.53%) Neo4j
9 2 (0.36%) Amazon Athena
9 2 (0.36%) BigQuery
9 2 (0.36%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.36%) Relational Database
9 2 (0.36%) Text Mining
10 1 (0.18%) Bigtable
10 1 (0.18%) CouchDB
10 1 (0.18%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 32 (5.68%) Git
2 9 (1.60%) Jenkins
3 8 (1.42%) GitLab
4 6 (1.07%) JUnit
5 5 (0.89%) JIRA
5 5 (0.89%) Team Foundation Server
6 4 (0.71%) IntelliJ
6 4 (0.71%) Mockito
6 4 (0.71%) Snakemake
7 3 (0.53%) CMake
7 3 (0.53%) TestRail
8 2 (0.36%) GDB
8 2 (0.36%) MLflow
8 2 (0.36%) Rational DOORS
8 2 (0.36%) TensorBoard
9 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.18%) CircleCI
General
1 175 (31.08%) Social Skills
2 110 (19.54%) Finance
3 101 (17.94%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (13.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 71 (12.61%) Law
6 68 (12.08%) Marketing
7 53 (9.41%) Pharmaceutical
8 40 (7.10%) Social Science
9 24 (4.26%) Electronics
10 15 (2.66%) Legal
11 11 (1.95%) Aerospace
11 11 (1.95%) Health Technology
12 10 (1.78%) Banking
13 9 (1.60%) Retail
14 8 (1.42%) Humanities
14 8 (1.42%) Telecoms
15 7 (1.24%) Games
15 7 (1.24%) Manufacturing
15 7 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
16 6 (1.07%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 116 (20.60%) Senior
2 86 (15.28%) Software Engineer
3 75 (13.32%) Data Scientist
4 67 (11.90%) Developer
5 54 (9.59%) Lead
6 51 (9.06%) Senior Data Scientist
7 35 (6.22%) Analyst
8 34 (6.04%) Graduate
9 27 (4.80%) Software Developer
10 24 (4.26%) Architect
11 21 (3.73%) Senior Software Engineer
12 18 (3.20%) Development Manager
13 16 (2.84%) Quantitative Developer
14 15 (2.66%) Senior Developer
15 14 (2.49%) Junior
15 14 (2.49%) Lead Data Scientist
16 13 (2.31%) User Experience Researcher
17 12 (2.13%) Physicist
18 11 (1.95%) Principal Data Scientist
18 11 (1.95%) Qualitative Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (9.41%) PyTorch
2 47 (8.35%) TensorFlow
3 22 (3.91%) OpenMP
4 20 (3.55%) Kafka
5 18 (3.20%) scikit-learn
6 16 (2.84%) Web Services
7 15 (2.66%) NumPy
8 14 (2.49%) .NET
8 14 (2.49%) AngularJS
8 14 (2.49%) OpenACC
8 14 (2.49%) RESTful
9 12 (2.13%) Node.js
10 11 (1.95%) OpenCV
10 11 (1.95%) RabbitMQ
10 11 (1.95%) REST
11 9 (1.60%) Keras
12 7 (1.24%) OpenCL
12 7 (1.24%) Pandas
13 6 (1.07%) Vulkan
14 5 (0.89%) FFmpeg
Miscellaneous
1 208 (36.94%) Algorithms
2 58 (10.30%) Life Science
3 34 (6.04%) CUDA
4 33 (5.86%) Data Structures
5 29 (5.15%) Analytical Mindset
6 27 (4.80%) Market Risk
7 22 (3.91%) FPGA
8 18 (3.20%) Self-Motivation
8 18 (3.20%) VHDL
9 16 (2.84%) Client/Server
10 15 (2.66%) Greenfield Project
10 15 (2.66%) IoT
11 13 (2.31%) Embedded Systems
12 12 (2.13%) Analogue Electronics
12 12 (2.13%) Biopharmaceutical
12 12 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
12 12 (2.13%) Product Ownership
13 11 (1.95%) Hedge funds
14 9 (1.60%) Distributed Computing
14 9 (1.60%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 78 (13.85%) Linux
2 42 (7.46%) Unix
3 5 (0.89%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (0.71%) Windows
5 2 (0.36%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 266 (47.25%) Computer Science
2 223 (39.61%) Mathematics
3 166 (29.48%) Machine Learning
4 153 (27.18%) Physics
5 146 (25.93%) Software Engineering
6 138 (24.51%) Data Science
7 133 (23.62%) Problem-Solving
8 132 (23.45%) Artificial Intelligence
9 88 (15.63%) Statistics
10 78 (13.85%) Analytics
11 61 (10.83%) Deep Learning
11 61 (10.83%) Fintech
11 61 (10.83%) Parallel Programming
12 55 (9.77%) Agile
12 55 (9.77%) Decision-Making
13 54 (9.59%) Psychology
14 49 (8.70%) Data Analysis
15 48 (8.53%) Actionable Insight
16 46 (8.17%) User Experience
17 45 (7.99%) Anthropology
Programming Languages
1 300 (53.29%) Python
2 121 (21.49%) C++
3 112 (19.89%) C
4 90 (15.99%) R
5 86 (15.28%) SQL
6 85 (15.10%) Java
7 71 (12.61%) Fortran
8 54 (9.59%) C#
9 36 (6.39%) Bash
10 31 (5.51%) MATLAB
11 18 (3.20%) JavaScript
12 14 (2.49%) Rust
13 7 (1.24%) Go
14 6 (1.07%) Haskell
14 6 (1.07%) Perl
15 4 (0.71%) AWK
15 4 (0.71%) sed
15 4 (0.71%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.71%) VB
16 3 (0.53%) C-shell
Qualifications
1 551 (97.87%) Degree
2 386 (68.56%) Master's Degree
3 68 (12.08%) Security Cleared
4 51 (9.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (4.09%) SC Cleared
6 19 (3.37%) MBA
7 14 (2.49%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.78%) CFA
8 10 (1.78%) CIMA
9 6 (1.07%) Numerate Degree
10 5 (0.89%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.36%) CREST Certified
11 2 (0.36%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.36%) OSCE
11 2 (0.36%) OSCP
12 1 (0.18%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.18%) RIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (4.62%) QA
2 11 (1.95%) Accessibility
2 11 (1.95%) Data Quality
3 10 (1.78%) GDPR
4 9 (1.60%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 2 (0.36%) ECSS
5 2 (0.36%) GLP
5 2 (0.36%) Good Clinical Practice
System Software
1 31 (5.51%) Docker
2 6 (1.07%) Firmware
3 2 (0.36%) IAG
4 1 (0.18%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (6.39%) Kubernetes
2 8 (1.42%) Terraform
3 7 (1.24%) Kubeflow
4 4 (0.71%) Ansible
4 4 (0.71%) Argo
5 2 (0.36%) Core Impact
Vendors
1 38 (6.75%) Microsoft
2 32 (5.68%) Qualtrics
3 18 (3.20%) Google
4 10 (1.78%) OpenAI
5 8 (1.42%) ANSYS
6 6 (1.07%) NVIDIA
7 4 (0.71%) Databricks
8 2 (0.36%) Oracle
8 2 (0.36%) SAP
9 1 (0.18%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.18%) Interwoven
9 1 (0.18%) Keysight
9 1 (0.18%) Qubit
9 1 (0.18%) Samsung
9 1 (0.18%) Thales
9 1 (0.18%) YouTube