PhD Contracts in London

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

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in London with a requirement for PhD qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 22 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 318 347 406
Rank change year-on-year +29 +59 +118
Contract jobs citing PhD 33 45 84
As % of all contract jobs advertised in London 0.27% 0.26% 0.33%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.05% 1.09% 1.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 29 58
10th Percentile £499 £340 £418
25th Percentile £526 £413 £706
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £600 £900
Median % change year-on-year -4.17% -33.33% +50.00%
75th Percentile £763 £725 £984
90th Percentile £850 £825 £1,300
England median daily rate £638 £595 £795
% change year-on-year +7.14% -25.16% +32.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £78.75 £76.25 -
Median hourly rate £82.50 £77.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +6.45% - -
75th Percentile £86.25 £78.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £83.75 £65.00 £20.47
% change year-on-year +28.85% +217.54% -59.47%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
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 London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 3,150 4,121 5,629
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 25.74% 23.63% 21.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,114 2,801 3,828
10th Percentile £356 £325 £363
25th Percentile £445 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £538 £575
Median % change year-on-year -1.40% -6.52% +4.55%
75th Percentile £663 £650 £688
90th Percentile £763 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% +4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 108 80
10th Percentile £19.20 £14.19 £19.32
25th Percentile £24.06 £19.98 £21.24
Median hourly rate £28.60 £25.00 £42.25
Median % change year-on-year +14.40% -40.83% -5.06%
75th Percentile £55.25 £41.63 £64.63
90th Percentile £67.63 £68.23 £87.50
England median hourly rate £37.25 £40.00 £53.61
% change year-on-year -6.88% -25.39% +29.63%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in London

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

Job vacancy trend for PhD in London

PhD
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in London

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

Daily rate trend for PhD in London

PhD
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing PhD in London over the 6 months to 22 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for PhD in London

PhD
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in London

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

Hourly rate trend for PhD in London

PhD
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the London region over the 6 months to 22 May 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
Central London +9 7 £750 -14.29% 14
PhD
England

PhD
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in 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 23 (69.70%) Apache Spark
2 2 (6.06%) Apache
3 1 (3.03%) Ethereum
3 1 (3.03%) Hyperledger
3 1 (3.03%) MetaMask
Business Applications
1 1 (3.03%) R3 Corda
Cloud Services
1 10 (30.30%) AWS
2 7 (21.21%) Azure
3 1 (3.03%) Azure Machine Learning
3 1 (3.03%) GCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (27.27%) Hadoop
2 6 (18.18%) Apache Hive
3 5 (15.15%) Big Data
4 3 (9.09%) Data Mining
4 3 (9.09%) MySQL
5 1 (3.03%) MongoDB
5 1 (3.03%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 1 (3.03%) Bitbucket
1 1 (3.03%) Git
1 1 (3.03%) Hardhat
1 1 (3.03%) JIRA
1 1 (3.03%) MLflow
1 1 (3.03%) TeamCity
General
1 11 (33.33%) Finance
2 8 (24.24%) Banking
3 6 (18.18%) Analytical Skills
3 6 (18.18%) Marketing
4 4 (12.12%) Digital Health
4 4 (12.12%) Financial Institution
5 2 (6.06%) Electronics
5 2 (6.06%) Manufacturing
5 2 (6.06%) Public Sector
5 2 (6.06%) Social Skills
5 2 (6.06%) Telecoms
6 1 (3.03%) Front Office
6 1 (3.03%) Investment Banking
6 1 (3.03%) Retail
Job Titles
1 11 (33.33%) Machine Learning Engineer
2 9 (27.27%) Senior
3 7 (21.21%) Data Scientist
4 6 (18.18%) AWS Engineer
5 4 (12.12%) Gen AI Specialist
5 4 (12.12%) Senior Data Scientist
5 4 (12.12%) Senior User Experience Researcher
5 4 (12.12%) User Experience Researcher
6 3 (9.09%) Developer
6 3 (9.09%) Java Engineer
7 2 (6.06%) Artificial Intelligence Specialist
7 2 (6.06%) Big Data Engineer
7 2 (6.06%) FPGA Engineer
8 1 (3.03%) Blockchain Engineer
8 1 (3.03%) Data Science Developer
8 1 (3.03%) Econometrician
8 1 (3.03%) Firmware Engineer
8 1 (3.03%) Low Latency Java Developer
8 1 (3.03%) Marketing Specialist
8 1 (3.03%) Research Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (30.30%) TensorFlow
2 8 (24.24%) PySpark
3 6 (18.18%) Pandas
4 4 (12.12%) PyTorch
4 4 (12.12%) scikit-learn
5 2 (6.06%) REST
6 1 (3.03%) AngularJS
6 1 (3.03%) FIX Protocol
6 1 (3.03%) Protocol Buffers
6 1 (3.03%) Ray
6 1 (3.03%) React
6 1 (3.03%) Smart Contracts
6 1 (3.03%) Truffle
6 1 (3.03%) Vue
6 1 (3.03%) web3js
Miscellaneous
1 12 (36.36%) Distributed Computing
2 5 (15.15%) Algorithms
2 5 (15.15%) Credit Risk
3 4 (12.12%) Distributed Systems
3 4 (12.12%) Life Science
4 3 (9.09%) Multi-touch
5 2 (6.06%) FPGA
5 2 (6.06%) Verilog
5 2 (6.06%) VHDL
6 1 (3.03%) Blockchain
6 1 (3.03%) Data Structures
6 1 (3.03%) Derivative
6 1 (3.03%) Distributed Architecture
6 1 (3.03%) FMCG
6 1 (3.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (3.03%) Interest Rate Derivative
Processes & Methodologies
1 24 (72.73%) Computer Science
1 24 (72.73%) Machine Learning
2 16 (48.48%) Deep Learning
3 14 (42.42%) Data Science
4 13 (39.39%) Mathematics
5 11 (33.33%) Artificial Intelligence
6 8 (24.24%) LLM
6 8 (24.24%) Statistics
7 7 (21.21%) Generative AI
7 7 (21.21%) Risk Management
8 6 (18.18%) Data Analysis
8 6 (18.18%) Data Extraction
8 6 (18.18%) Model Validation
8 6 (18.18%) Validation
9 5 (15.15%) Credit Risk Management
9 5 (15.15%) Low Latency
9 5 (15.15%) Parallel Computing
9 5 (15.15%) Statistical Modelling
10 4 (12.12%) Ergonomics
10 4 (12.12%) Psychology
Programming Languages
1 24 (72.73%) Python
2 12 (36.36%) C++
2 12 (36.36%) SQL
3 11 (33.33%) Java
4 9 (27.27%) C
5 6 (18.18%) Shell Script
6 4 (12.12%) R
7 2 (6.06%) SystemVerilog
8 1 (3.03%) Go
8 1 (3.03%) Rust
8 1 (3.03%) Solidity
Qualifications
1 33 (100.00%) Degree
2 27 (81.82%) Master's Degree
3 7 (21.21%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (3.03%) Numerate Degree
System Software
1 4 (12.12%) Docker
2 2 (6.06%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 3 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 1 (3.03%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 2 (6.06%) SAP
2 1 (3.03%) Databricks
2 1 (3.03%) Microsoft
2 1 (3.03%) Oracle