R Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

R
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring R skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 330 268 344
Rank change year-on-year -62 +76 +8
Contract jobs citing R 74 84 61
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 0.40% 0.57% 0.31%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.58% 2.10% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 42 40 45
10th Percentile £308 £297 £184
25th Percentile £422 £356 £315
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £471 £475
Median % change year-on-year +6.10% -0.79% -2.56%
75th Percentile £620 £612 £553
90th Percentile £687 £675 £622
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 3
10th Percentile £21.44 £20.04 £29.54
25th Percentile £22.84 £20.09 £35.81
Median hourly rate £25.42 £21.37 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.94% -55.02% +122.85%
75th Percentile £30.00 £25.13 £49.38
90th Percentile £32.25 £27.60 £49.75
UK median hourly rate £26.46 £26.25 £35.63
% change year-on-year +0.79% -26.33% +37.04%

All Programming Languages
UK excluding London

R falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills in the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 4,670 3,997 4,979
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 25.36% 27.13% 25.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,019 2,406 3,418
10th Percentile £315 £335 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £477 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.26% -2.50% -3.85%
75th Percentile £569 £575 £600
90th Percentile £644 £663 £675
UK median daily rate £503 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.14% -4.55% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 308 188 324
10th Percentile £41.94 £21.25 £37.80
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.14 £48.38
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.97% -1.93% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £81.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -

R
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing R relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

R job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

R
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing R.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing R

R
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing R in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 27 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for R in the UK excluding London

R
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing R.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing R

R
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing R within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 27 December 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
South East -13 21 £588 +14.63% 71
Midlands -38 20 £435 +12.26% 38
North of England -43 16 £465 +30.62% 64
North West -11 14 £479 +34.41% 34
East Midlands -17 13 £385 +13.24% 17
East of England -21 8 £641 -1.38% 22
West Midlands -28 7 £475 -12.60% 21
Wales -1 5 £366 - 4
Scotland -4 2 £569 +21.66% 9
South West -15 2 - - 12
Yorkshire -40 2 £450 +20.00% 24
R
UK

R
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 13 (17.57%) SAS
2 4 (5.41%) SharePoint
3 3 (4.05%) Apache Spark
4 1 (1.35%) Apache
4 1 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (1.35%) Confluence
Applications
1 11 (14.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (8.11%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (8.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (1.35%) Chatbot
3 1 (1.35%) ProjectWise
Cloud Services
1 32 (43.24%) Power Platform
2 21 (28.38%) Azure
3 17 (22.97%) AWS
4 13 (17.57%) GCP
5 6 (8.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 5 (6.76%) Azure Machine Learning
6 5 (6.76%) PowerApps
7 4 (5.41%) Azure AKS
7 4 (5.41%) Power Automate
8 3 (4.05%) Copilot Studio
9 2 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (1.35%) Azure Stack
10 1 (1.35%) Google Analytics
10 1 (1.35%) Google Data Studio
Communications & Networking
1 2 (2.70%) 2G
1 2 (2.70%) 5G
1 2 (2.70%) LTE
1 2 (2.70%) Mobile Backhaul
1 2 (2.70%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (43.24%) Power BI
2 14 (18.92%) Tableau
3 10 (13.51%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (10.81%) Big Data
4 8 (10.81%) Hadoop
5 7 (9.46%) Data Lake
6 5 (6.76%) Data Mining
6 5 (6.76%) Power Query
7 3 (4.05%) Impala
7 3 (4.05%) Spotfire
8 1 (1.35%) Base SAS
8 1 (1.35%) Delta Lake
8 1 (1.35%) EDMS
8 1 (1.35%) GIS
8 1 (1.35%) Oracle BI Publisher
8 1 (1.35%) Oracle Reports
8 1 (1.35%) QlikView
8 1 (1.35%) SAS Data Integration Studio
8 1 (1.35%) SAS Visual Analytics
Development Applications
1 9 (12.16%) Git
2 2 (2.70%) JIRA
3 1 (1.35%) Bitbucket
General
1 35 (47.30%) Social Skills
2 29 (39.19%) Analytical Skills
3 22 (29.73%) Finance
4 8 (10.81%) Banking
4 8 (10.81%) Public Sector
5 6 (8.11%) Marketing
5 6 (8.11%) Organisational Skills
6 5 (6.76%) Manufacturing
6 5 (6.76%) Pharmaceutical
7 2 (2.70%) Telecoms
8 1 (1.35%) Agriculture
8 1 (1.35%) Agrochemical
8 1 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
8 1 (1.35%) Investment Banking
8 1 (1.35%) Local Government
8 1 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (1.35%) Publishing
8 1 (1.35%) Retail
8 1 (1.35%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 19 (25.68%) Data Scientist
2 13 (17.57%) Analyst
3 12 (16.22%) Architect
4 9 (12.16%) Data Analyst
5 8 (10.81%) Developer
6 6 (8.11%) Data Engineer
7 5 (6.76%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
7 5 (6.76%) Software Engineer
8 4 (5.41%) Business Intelligence Developer
8 4 (5.41%) Power BI Developer
8 4 (5.41%) Security Architect
8 4 (5.41%) Senior
9 2 (2.70%) Business Analyst
9 2 (2.70%) Data Analytics Engineer
9 2 (2.70%) Lead
9 2 (2.70%) Pricing Analyst
9 2 (2.70%) SAS Developer
9 2 (2.70%) SQL Analyst
9 2 (2.70%) SQL Data Analyst
9 2 (2.70%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 12 (16.22%) scikit-learn
1 12 (16.22%) TensorFlow
2 9 (12.16%) PyTorch
3 4 (5.41%) Google JAX
3 4 (5.41%) JAX
4 3 (4.05%) Pandas
5 2 (2.70%) Shiny
6 1 (1.35%) CSS
6 1 (1.35%) JSON
6 1 (1.35%) Tidyverse
Miscellaneous
1 12 (16.22%) Credit Risk
2 11 (14.86%) Algorithms
3 5 (6.76%) Cloud Native
4 3 (4.05%) IoT
4 3 (4.05%) Self-Motivation
5 2 (2.70%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (2.70%) NHS
5 2 (2.70%) Product Ownership
5 2 (2.70%) Security Posture
6 1 (1.35%) CUDA
6 1 (1.35%) Data Structures
6 1 (1.35%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (1.35%) Onboarding
6 1 (1.35%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.35%) Linux
1 1 (1.35%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (52.70%) Analytics
2 37 (50.00%) Data Science
3 33 (44.59%) Machine Learning
4 29 (39.19%) Business Intelligence
5 25 (33.78%) Data Analysis
6 24 (32.43%) Decision-Making
6 24 (32.43%) Visualisation
7 21 (28.38%) Problem-Solving
7 21 (28.38%) Statistical Modelling
8 15 (20.27%) Actionable Insight
8 15 (20.27%) Data Visualisation
9 14 (18.92%) Analytical Modelling
10 13 (17.57%) Regulatory Compliance
10 13 (17.57%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 12 (16.22%) Data Modelling
12 11 (14.86%) Agile
12 11 (14.86%) CI/CD
13 9 (12.16%) Mathematics
14 8 (10.81%) Predictive Analytics
14 8 (10.81%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 70 (94.59%) Python
2 47 (63.51%) SQL
3 12 (16.22%) Java
4 6 (8.11%) C++
5 4 (5.41%) C
5 4 (5.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 2 (2.70%) Scala
7 1 (1.35%) Go
7 1 (1.35%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.35%) MATLAB
7 1 (1.35%) SAS Macro
7 1 (1.35%) VBA
Qualifications
1 12 (16.22%) Degree
2 9 (12.16%) Security Cleared
3 4 (5.41%) Computer Science Degree
3 4 (5.41%) Master's Degree
3 4 (5.41%) SC Cleared
4 2 (2.70%) Microsoft Certification
5 1 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (1.35%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (8.11%) GDPR
2 4 (5.41%) EU AI Act
2 4 (5.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 3 (4.05%) Data Quality
4 2 (2.70%) NIST
4 2 (2.70%) PCI DSS
5 1 (1.35%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.35%) QA
System Software
1 5 (6.76%) Docker
2 1 (1.35%) Lustre
2 1 (1.35%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 9 (12.16%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.35%) Ansible
2 1 (1.35%) Packer
2 1 (1.35%) Terraform
Vendors
1 11 (14.86%) Microsoft
2 7 (9.46%) Pega
3 6 (8.11%) Databricks
4 3 (4.05%) TIBCO
5 2 (2.70%) Cognos
6 1 (1.35%) Arqiva
6 1 (1.35%) Autodesk
6 1 (1.35%) Google
6 1 (1.35%) Oracle
6 1 (1.35%) ServiceNow
6 1 (1.35%) Splunk