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 17 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 115 126 145
Rank change year-on-year +11 +19 +30
Contract jobs citing PhD 6 3 14
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the City of London 0.34% 0.14% 0.46%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.38% 0.60% 2.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 4 2 11
10th Percentile £512 £601 £325
25th Percentile £545 £602 £750
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £663 £606 £825
Median % change year-on-year +9.28% -26.52% +83.33%
75th Percentile £763 £614 £875
90th Percentile - £617 £950
Central London median daily rate £663 £606 £825
% change year-on-year +9.28% -26.52% +83.33%

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 436 499 616
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 24.74% 24.00% 20.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 295 308 369
10th Percentile £328 £379 £338
25th Percentile £450 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £563 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% +2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £663 £671 £688
90th Percentile £738 £764 £825
Central London median daily rate £550 £553 £550
% change year-on-year -0.45% +0.45% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 3
10th Percentile £22.28 £20.31 £16.89
25th Percentile £26.00 £20.43 £17.31
Median hourly rate £28.15 £24.00 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.29% +33.33% -58.26%
75th Percentile £64.66 £27.00 £47.75
90th Percentile £79.34 - £65.60
Central London median hourly rate £34.48 £24.00 £18.00
% change year-on-year +43.67% +33.33% -58.26%

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
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
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 17 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PhD in the City of London

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 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 4 (66.67%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 1 (16.67%) Azure
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (33.33%) Apache Hive
1 2 (33.33%) Hadoop
2 1 (16.67%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 1 (16.67%) Bitbucket
1 1 (16.67%) Git
1 1 (16.67%) JIRA
1 1 (16.67%) MLflow
1 1 (16.67%) TeamCity
General
1 4 (66.67%) Finance
2 3 (50.00%) Financial Institution
3 2 (33.33%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (33.33%) Banking
4 1 (16.67%) Front Office
4 1 (16.67%) Marketing
4 1 (16.67%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 2 (33.33%) Data Scientist
2 1 (16.67%) Developer
2 1 (16.67%) Gen AI Specialist
2 1 (16.67%) Java Developer
2 1 (16.67%) Lead
2 1 (16.67%) Lead Data Scientist
2 1 (16.67%) Low Latency Java Developer
2 1 (16.67%) Machine Learning Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Quantitative Specialist
2 1 (16.67%) Senior
2 1 (16.67%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (50.00%) TensorFlow
2 2 (33.33%) Pandas
2 2 (33.33%) PySpark
2 2 (33.33%) REST
3 1 (16.67%) FIX Protocol
3 1 (16.67%) Protocol Buffers
3 1 (16.67%) PyTorch
3 1 (16.67%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 3 (50.00%) Algorithms
2 2 (33.33%) Credit Risk
2 2 (33.33%) Distributed Computing
3 1 (16.67%) Data Structures
3 1 (16.67%) Derivative
3 1 (16.67%) Distributed Architecture
3 1 (16.67%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (16.67%) Equity Derivative
3 1 (16.67%) Exotic Derivative
3 1 (16.67%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 1 (16.67%) Multi-touch
Processes & Methodologies
1 5 (83.33%) Computer Science
1 5 (83.33%) Mathematics
2 4 (66.67%) Machine Learning
3 3 (50.00%) Data Extraction
3 3 (50.00%) Data Science
3 3 (50.00%) Risk Management
4 2 (33.33%) Analytics
4 2 (33.33%) Artificial Intelligence
4 2 (33.33%) Credit Risk Management
4 2 (33.33%) Data Analytics
4 2 (33.33%) Generative AI
4 2 (33.33%) LLM
4 2 (33.33%) Model Validation
4 2 (33.33%) Statistical Modelling
4 2 (33.33%) Validation
5 1 (16.67%) Deep Learning
5 1 (16.67%) Low Latency
5 1 (16.67%) Natural Language Processing
5 1 (16.67%) Open Source
5 1 (16.67%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 5 (83.33%) Python
2 4 (66.67%) SQL
3 1 (16.67%) C++
3 1 (16.67%) Java
3 1 (16.67%) R
Qualifications
1 6 (100.00%) Degree
2 4 (66.67%) Master's Degree
3 1 (16.67%) Computer Science Degree
System Software
1 2 (33.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (16.67%) Kubeflow
1 1 (16.67%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 1 (16.67%) Microsoft