PhD Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil, EngD, Doctorate)
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the City of London with a requirement for PhD qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 2 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 122 119 125
Rank change year-on-year -3 +6 +46
Contract jobs citing PhD 1 2 6
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 0.054% 0.10% 0.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 0.20% 0.39% 1.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1 2 5
10th Percentile - £601 -
25th Percentile £625 £602 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £650 £606 £725
Median % change year-on-year +7.22% -16.38% +17.17%
75th Percentile £675 £614 £800
90th Percentile - £617 -
Central London median daily rate £650 £606 £725
% change year-on-year +7.22% -16.38% +17.17%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
City of London

PhD falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the City of London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 503 512 495
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 27.38% 25.63% 19.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 383 301 313
10th Percentile £356 £350 £327
25th Percentile £425 £456 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -4.79%
75th Percentile £644 £638 £684
90th Percentile £738 £744 £788
Central London median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 3
10th Percentile £26.30 £24.78 £29.39
25th Percentile £26.38 £28.94 £45.09
Median hourly rate £28.00 £72.25 £72.50
Median % change year-on-year -61.25% -0.34% +68.60%
75th Percentile £47.25 £112.00 £75.63
90th Percentile £57.90 - £76.75
Central London median hourly rate £26.49 £72.25 £60.00
% change year-on-year -63.34% +20.42% +39.53%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing PhD relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

PhD job vacancy trend in the City of London

PhD
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing PhD.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing PhD

PhD
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing PhD.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing PhD

PhD
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Cloud Services
1 1 (100.00%) SuccessFactors
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (100.00%) Pinecone
1 1 (100.00%) Weaviate
General
1 1 (100.00%) Law
1 1 (100.00%) Legal
1 1 (100.00%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 1 (100.00%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
1 1 (100.00%) Gen AI Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 1 (100.00%) Faiss
1 1 (100.00%) LangChain
1 1 (100.00%) LangGraph
1 1 (100.00%) PyTorch
1 1 (100.00%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 1 (100.00%) Onboarding
Processes & Methodologies
1 1 (100.00%) AI
1 1 (100.00%) Computer Science
1 1 (100.00%) Data Governance
1 1 (100.00%) Data Science
1 1 (100.00%) Dialogue System
1 1 (100.00%) Generative AI
1 1 (100.00%) LLM
1 1 (100.00%) Machine Learning
1 1 (100.00%) Natural Language Processing
1 1 (100.00%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Programming Languages
1 1 (100.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 1 (100.00%) Degree
1 1 (100.00%) Master's Degree
Vendors
1 1 (100.00%) SAP
1 1 (100.00%) Workday