PhD Contracts 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 3 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 104 122 148
Rank change year-on-year +18 +26 +30
Contract jobs citing PhD 11 3 21
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the City of London 0.61% 0.14% 0.61%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.51% 0.64% 2.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 1 8
10th Percentile £534 - £750
25th Percentile £650 £813 £797
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £750 £875 £838
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% +4.48% +86.11%
75th Percentile £763 £938 £894
90th Percentile £858 - £961
Central London median daily rate £750 £875 £838
% change year-on-year -14.29% +4.48% +86.11%

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 438 470 703
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 24.37% 22.01% 20.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 295 299 414
10th Percentile £362 £380 £400
25th Percentile £463 £461 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £555 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -4.35% +4.55%
75th Percentile £676 £675 £700
90th Percentile £763 £775 £824
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 5 6
10th Percentile £21.41 - £17.31
25th Percentile £26.16 £20.22 £18.56
Median hourly rate £45.33 £21.00 £36.10
Median % change year-on-year +115.83% -41.83% -17.01%
75th Percentile £65.12 £27.00 £53.50
90th Percentile £82.79 - £68.75
Central London median hourly rate £34.48 £24.00 £36.10
% change year-on-year +43.67% -33.52% -17.01%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Job postings citing PhD as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Job vacancy trend for PhD in the City of London

PhD
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing PhD in the City of London.

Daily rate trend for PhD in the City of London

PhD
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PhD in the City of London over the 6 months to 3 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PhD in the City of London

PhD
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing PhD in the City of London.

Hourly rate trend for PhD in the City of London

PhD
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the City of London 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 8 (72.73%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 1 (9.09%) Azure
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (54.55%) Apache Hive
1 6 (54.55%) Hadoop
2 2 (18.18%) MySQL
3 1 (9.09%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 1 (9.09%) Bitbucket
1 1 (9.09%) Git
1 1 (9.09%) JIRA
1 1 (9.09%) MLflow
1 1 (9.09%) TeamCity
General
1 8 (72.73%) Finance
2 7 (63.64%) Banking
3 6 (54.55%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (45.45%) Financial Institution
5 2 (18.18%) Front Office
6 1 (9.09%) Marketing
6 1 (9.09%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 4 (36.36%) Gen AI Specialist
2 3 (27.27%) Developer
3 2 (18.18%) Data Scientist
4 1 (9.09%) Artificial Intelligence Specialist
4 1 (9.09%) Data Science Developer
4 1 (9.09%) Java Developer
4 1 (9.09%) Lead
4 1 (9.09%) Lead Data Scientist
4 1 (9.09%) Low Latency Java Developer
4 1 (9.09%) Machine Learning Engineer
4 1 (9.09%) Python Developer
4 1 (9.09%) Quantitative Specialist
4 1 (9.09%) Senior
4 1 (9.09%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (63.64%) TensorFlow
2 6 (54.55%) PySpark
3 2 (18.18%) Pandas
3 2 (18.18%) REST
4 1 (9.09%) FIX Protocol
4 1 (9.09%) Protocol Buffers
4 1 (9.09%) PyTorch
4 1 (9.09%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 5 (45.45%) Algorithms
1 5 (45.45%) Credit Risk
2 4 (36.36%) Distributed Computing
3 2 (18.18%) Derivative
4 1 (9.09%) Data Structures
4 1 (9.09%) Distributed Architecture
4 1 (9.09%) Distributed Systems
4 1 (9.09%) Equity Derivative
4 1 (9.09%) Exotic Derivative
4 1 (9.09%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 1 (9.09%) Interest Rate Derivative
4 1 (9.09%) Multi-touch
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (90.91%) Computer Science
1 10 (90.91%) Mathematics
2 8 (72.73%) Machine Learning
2 8 (72.73%) Risk Management
3 7 (63.64%) Data Science
4 6 (54.55%) Artificial Intelligence
4 6 (54.55%) Generative AI
4 6 (54.55%) LLM
5 5 (45.45%) Credit Risk Management
5 5 (45.45%) Data Extraction
6 4 (36.36%) Analytics
6 4 (36.36%) Deep Learning
7 3 (27.27%) Agile
7 3 (27.27%) Data Analytics
7 3 (27.27%) Statistics
8 2 (18.18%) Personalization
8 2 (18.18%) Physics
8 2 (18.18%) Software Engineering
8 2 (18.18%) Statistical Modelling
8 2 (18.18%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 10 (90.91%) Python
2 8 (72.73%) SQL
3 2 (18.18%) C++
4 1 (9.09%) Java
4 1 (9.09%) R
Qualifications
1 11 (100.00%) Degree
2 9 (81.82%) Master's Degree
3 3 (27.27%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (9.09%) Numerate Degree
System Software
1 2 (18.18%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (9.09%) Kubeflow
1 1 (9.09%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 1 (9.09%) Microsoft