Information Retrieval Contract Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Information Retrieval
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring Information Retrieval skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 - -
Rank change year-on-year - - -
Contract jobs citing Information Retrieval 2 0 0
As % of all contract jobs in the Thames Valley 0.084% - -
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.099% - -
Number of daily rates quoted 0 0 0
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) - - -
South East median daily rate £425 - -

All Process & Methodology Skills
Thames Valley

Information Retrieval falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the Thames Valley.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,020 1,544 2,447
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 85.34% 92.40% 89.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,321 902 1,468
10th Percentile £270 £263 £213
25th Percentile £393 £401 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
75th Percentile £588 £619 £600
90th Percentile £650 £663 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £500 £500
Number of hourly rates quoted 142 42 152
10th Percentile £15.77 £24.79 £16.25
25th Percentile £18.90 £42.60 £20.17
Median hourly rate £29.61 £60.25 £46.36
Median % change year-on-year -50.85% +29.97% +30.87%
75th Percentile £81.00 £64.73 £63.00
90th Percentile £97.50 £79.72 £82.78
South East median hourly rate £25.15 £43.94 £47.50
% change year-on-year -42.76% -7.49% +5.56%

Information Retrieval
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Information Retrieval relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the Thames Valley.

Information Retrieval job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

Information Retrieval
Daily Rate Trend in the Thames Valley

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Information Retrieval.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing Information Retrieval

Information Retrieval
Contract Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Information Retrieval within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 19 February 2026. 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
Berkshire - 2 - - 1
Information Retrieval
South East

Information Retrieval
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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:

Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (50.00%) Data Mining
1 1 (50.00%) Metadata
General
1 1 (50.00%) Pharmaceutical
1 1 (50.00%) Social Skills
Job Titles
1 1 (50.00%) Information Scientist
Miscellaneous
1 1 (50.00%) Algorithms
1 1 (50.00%) Data Protection Act
1 1 (50.00%) Management Information System
1 1 (50.00%) Synthetic Data
Processes & Methodologies
1 2 (100.00%) AI
1 2 (100.00%) LLM
1 2 (100.00%) Machine Learning
1 2 (100.00%) Natural Language Processing
1 2 (100.00%) Prompt Engineering
2 1 (50.00%) Benchmarking
2 1 (50.00%) Computer Science
2 1 (50.00%) Data Governance
2 1 (50.00%) Data Protection
2 1 (50.00%) Data Visualisation
2 1 (50.00%) Knowledge Management
2 1 (50.00%) Natural Language Understanding
2 1 (50.00%) Ontologies
2 1 (50.00%) Predictive Modelling
2 1 (50.00%) Retrieval-Augmented Generation
2 1 (50.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
2 1 (50.00%) Statistical Analysis
2 1 (50.00%) Text Analytics
2 1 (50.00%) Trend Analysis
2 1 (50.00%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 1 (50.00%) Python
Qualifications
1 1 (50.00%) Degree
1 1 (50.00%) PhD