PhD Contract Job Trends in the East of England

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil, EngD, Doctorate)
England > East of England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the East of England with a requirement for PhD qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 8 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 93 82 111
Rank change year-on-year -11 +29 +1
Contract jobs citing PhD 6 7 9
As % of all contract jobs in the East of England 0.41% 0.54% 0.48%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.34% 1.93% 1.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2 1 3
10th Percentile £511 - £482
25th Percentile £524 £588 £489
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £565 £625 £507
Median % change year-on-year -9.60% +23.40% -28.41%
75th Percentile £624 £663 £537
90th Percentile £647 - £537
England median daily rate £613 £700 £725
% change year-on-year -12.50% -3.45% +3.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 0
10th Percentile £44.88 £29.85 -
25th Percentile £50.31 £37.88 -
Median hourly rate £63.75 £57.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +10.87% - -
75th Percentile £80.31 £63.75 -
90th Percentile £87.63 - -
England median hourly rate £29.61 £23.25 -
% change year-on-year +27.35% - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
East of England

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 East of England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 449 363 657
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the East of England 31.03% 27.77% 35.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 169 150 335
10th Percentile £197 £200 £274
25th Percentile £400 £308 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +5.60% -9.09% +10.00%
75th Percentile £580 £575 £675
90th Percentile £688 £615 £746
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 165 80 149
10th Percentile £15.50 £22.43 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.87 £38.40 £14.25
Median hourly rate £25.00 £65.00 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -61.54% +136.36% +30.95%
75th Percentile £56.00 £67.63 £58.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.85 £70.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £51.25 £52.50
% change year-on-year -50.93% -2.38% +16.67%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in the East of England

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

PhD job vacancy trend in the East of England

PhD
Daily Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing PhD.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing PhD

PhD
Hourly Rate Trend in the East of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing PhD.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the East of England citing PhD

PhD
Hourly Rate Histogram in the East of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing PhD in the East of England over the 6 months to 8 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for PhD in the East of England

PhD
Contract Job Locations in the East of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the East of England region over the 6 months to 8 November 2025. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Hertfordshire -6 4 £565 -9.60% 1
Cambridgeshire -7 1 - - 34
Bedfordshire - 1 - - 3
PhD
England

PhD
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the East of England 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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (33.33%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 3 (50.00%) AWS
1 3 (50.00%) Azure
2 1 (16.67%) GCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (33.33%) Big Data
1 2 (33.33%) Hadoop
1 2 (33.33%) Tableau
2 1 (16.67%) GIS
General
1 2 (33.33%) Analytical Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Agriculture
2 1 (16.67%) Agrochemical
2 1 (16.67%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 2 (33.33%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
1 2 (33.33%) Data Science Developer
1 2 (33.33%) Developer
2 1 (16.67%) Data Scientist
2 1 (16.67%) Firmware Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) FPGA Engineer
2 1 (16.67%) Hardware Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (50.00%) PyTorch
2 2 (33.33%) Matplotlib
2 2 (33.33%) scikit-learn
2 2 (33.33%) Seaborn
2 2 (33.33%) TensorFlow
3 1 (16.67%) NumPy
3 1 (16.67%) Pandas
Miscellaneous
1 3 (50.00%) Algorithms
2 1 (16.67%) Acoustics
2 1 (16.67%) FPGA
2 1 (16.67%) IoT
2 1 (16.67%) Verilog
2 1 (16.67%) VHDL
2 1 (16.67%) Video\Live Streaming
Processes & Methodologies
1 4 (66.67%) Data Science
1 4 (66.67%) Machine Learning
2 3 (50.00%) AI
2 3 (50.00%) Generative AI
2 3 (50.00%) LLM
2 3 (50.00%) Reinforcement Learning
2 3 (50.00%) Visualisation
3 2 (33.33%) Computer Science
3 2 (33.33%) Data Analysis
3 2 (33.33%) Data Munging
3 2 (33.33%) Feature Engineering
3 2 (33.33%) Predictive Modelling
3 2 (33.33%) Statistical Modelling
4 1 (16.67%) Analytics
4 1 (16.67%) Data Analytics
4 1 (16.67%) Data Collection
4 1 (16.67%) Test Planning
4 1 (16.67%) Time Series Analysis
4 1 (16.67%) Time Series Forecasting
4 1 (16.67%) UVM
Programming Languages
1 4 (66.67%) Python
2 3 (50.00%) R
3 1 (16.67%) C
3 1 (16.67%) C++
3 1 (16.67%) MATLAB
3 1 (16.67%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 6 (100.00%) Degree
1 6 (100.00%) Master's Degree
2 1 (16.67%) SC Cleared
2 1 (16.67%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (33.33%) Data Quality
System Software
1 1 (16.67%) Firmware