Algorithms Contract Job Trends

Algorithms
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Algorithms in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Algorithms over the 6 months leading up to 30 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 290 241 285
Rank change year-on-year -49 +44 +21
Contract jobs citing Algorithms 343 320 361
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.89% 1.02% 0.81%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 2.60% 3.13% 2.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 200 185 244
10th Percentile £335 £375 £400
25th Percentile £440 £448 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £588
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +2.13% -16.07%
75th Percentile £741 £676 £701
90th Percentile £1,050 £820 £846
UK excluding London median daily rate £508 £545 £575
% change year-on-year -6.88% -5.22% -14.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 15 40
10th Percentile £44.10 £23.77 £40.68
25th Percentile £61.88 £30.19 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £45.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% -18.18% -3.27%
75th Percentile - £61.25 £58.75
90th Percentile £76.16 £73.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £45.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +44.44% -18.18% -3.27%

All Generic Skills
UK

Algorithms falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 13,190 10,227 13,656
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.12% 32.51% 30.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,325 6,066 8,898
10th Percentile £275 £263 £253
25th Percentile £404 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -3.78%
75th Percentile £625 £656 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 626 310 767
10th Percentile £15.00 £19.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.26 £23.89 £17.24
Median hourly rate £28.11 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.69% - +55.66%
75th Percentile £62.27 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.90 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £35.65
% change year-on-year -15.38% -8.84% +72.18%

Algorithms
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Algorithms relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Algorithms job vacancy trend in the UK

Algorithms
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Algorithms.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Algorithms

Algorithms
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Algorithms over the 6 months to 30 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Algorithms in the UK

Algorithms
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Algorithms.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Algorithms

Algorithms
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Algorithms over the 6 months to 30 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Algorithms in the UK

Algorithms
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Algorithms within the UK over the 6 months to 30 January 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
England -22 294 £570 -8.80% 317
London -6 167 £650 +4.00% 116
UK excluding London -44 142 £508 -6.88% 264
Work from Home -27 79 £605 +27.37% 89
North of England -49 34 £575 +16.16% 48
East of England -10 28 £345 -44.80% 30
Yorkshire -30 27 £675 - 14
South West -18 23 £500 -25.09% 41
South East -20 22 £593 +14.22% 92
Scotland +2 19 £418 -1.76% 18
West Midlands -30 14 £525 +31.25% 9
Midlands -45 14 £525 +31.25% 28
North West -33 6 £180 -63.64% 27
Wales -12 3 £400 -31.57% 11
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 3
North East -12 1 £400 -36.00% 7

Algorithms
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 19 (5.54%) Apache Spark
2 15 (4.37%) Apache
3 13 (3.79%) Jupyter
4 9 (2.62%) Apache Airflow
5 8 (2.33%) Apache Pig
6 5 (1.46%) Confluence
7 3 (0.87%) IIS
Applications
1 17 (4.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (2.33%) Chatbot
3 7 (2.04%) Simulink
4 4 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.87%) LaTeX
5 3 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.87%) ProductWriter
2 2 (0.58%) Bloomberg AIM
2 2 (0.58%) Fidessa
3 1 (0.29%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 68 (19.83%) Azure
2 67 (19.53%) AWS
3 32 (9.33%) Power Platform
4 25 (7.29%) GCP
5 22 (6.41%) GitHub
6 21 (6.12%) Serverless
7 19 (5.54%) Cloud Computing
8 18 (5.25%) Amazon SageMaker
9 13 (3.79%) Azure AKS
10 12 (3.50%) Amazon S3
10 12 (3.50%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (3.50%) GitHub Copilot
10 12 (3.50%) PaaS
11 10 (2.92%) Amazon ECS
11 10 (2.92%) Amazon EKS
12 9 (2.62%) Azure Functions
13 8 (2.33%) AWS CloudFormation
13 8 (2.33%) Azure Machine Learning
14 7 (2.04%) Snowflake
14 7 (2.04%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.75%) Ethernet
2 5 (1.46%) VPN
3 4 (1.17%) HTTP
3 4 (1.17%) Internet
3 4 (1.17%) S/MIME
4 3 (0.87%) Network Security
4 3 (0.87%) SSL
5 2 (0.58%) 2G
5 2 (0.58%) BGP
5 2 (0.58%) BIG-IP
5 2 (0.58%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 2 (0.58%) Firewall
5 2 (0.58%) IPsec
5 2 (0.58%) LTE
5 2 (0.58%) MPLS
5 2 (0.58%) OSPF
5 2 (0.58%) Reverse Proxy
5 2 (0.58%) SNMP
5 2 (0.58%) SSH
5 2 (0.58%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (8.75%) Power BI
2 21 (6.12%) NoSQL
3 18 (5.25%) Hadoop
4 15 (4.37%) Relational Database
5 14 (4.08%) KDB
5 14 (4.08%) Kdb+
6 13 (3.79%) Big Data
6 13 (3.79%) Tableau
7 11 (3.21%) Data Mining
8 10 (2.92%) PostgreSQL
9 9 (2.62%) Apache Hive
10 7 (2.04%) Data Lake
10 7 (2.04%) Data Warehouse
10 7 (2.04%) Elasticsearch
10 7 (2.04%) RDBMS
11 5 (1.46%) MySQL
12 3 (0.87%) Amazon Athena
12 3 (0.87%) Delta Lake
12 3 (0.87%) OLTP
13 2 (0.58%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 29 (8.45%) Git
2 11 (3.21%) Jenkins
2 11 (3.21%) MLflow
3 8 (2.33%) GitLab
4 5 (1.46%) JIRA
4 5 (1.46%) PyCharm
4 5 (1.46%) QUnit
5 4 (1.17%) Gradle
5 4 (1.17%) Maven
6 3 (0.87%) JUnit
6 3 (0.87%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.58%) Cucumber
7 2 (0.58%) Cypress.io
7 2 (0.58%) Eclipse
7 2 (0.58%) IntelliJ
7 2 (0.58%) Log4j
7 2 (0.58%) Mockito
7 2 (0.58%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.58%) Subversion
7 2 (0.58%) TeamCity
General
1 94 (27.41%) Social Skills
2 65 (18.95%) Finance
3 47 (13.70%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (11.66%) Front Office
5 33 (9.62%) Banking
6 18 (5.25%) Public Sector
7 9 (2.62%) Investment Banking
8 8 (2.33%) Electronics
8 8 (2.33%) Retail
9 7 (2.04%) Legal
10 6 (1.75%) Games
10 6 (1.75%) Manufacturing
11 5 (1.46%) Telecoms
12 4 (1.17%) Financial Institution
12 4 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.17%) Marketing
12 4 (1.17%) Publishing
13 3 (0.87%) Aerospace
13 3 (0.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (0.87%) Law
Job Titles
1 100 (29.15%) Developer
2 45 (13.12%) Data Scientist
3 43 (12.54%) Senior
4 34 (9.91%) Software Engineer
5 26 (7.58%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 26 (7.58%) Lead
6 22 (6.41%) Python Developer
7 21 (6.12%) Quantitative Developer
8 20 (5.83%) C++ Developer
8 20 (5.83%) Data Engineer
9 19 (5.54%) Java Developer
9 19 (5.54%) Senior Developer
10 14 (4.08%) Architect
11 12 (3.50%) Algorithm Engineer
11 12 (3.50%) C++ Quantitative Developer
11 12 (3.50%) Linux Developer
11 12 (3.50%) Low Latency C++ Developer
12 11 (3.21%) Analyst
12 11 (3.21%) Machine Learning Engineer
13 9 (2.62%) Robotics Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (13.70%) PyTorch
1 47 (13.70%) TensorFlow
2 36 (10.50%) Pandas
3 35 (10.20%) scikit-learn
4 30 (8.75%) NumPy
5 22 (6.41%) FIX Protocol
6 16 (4.66%) RESTful
7 14 (4.08%) .NET
8 13 (3.79%) A2A Protocol
8 13 (3.79%) Model Context Protocol
8 13 (3.79%) REST
8 13 (3.79%) Semantic Kernel
9 11 (3.21%) Matplotlib
10 10 (2.92%) PySpark
10 10 (2.92%) React
10 10 (2.92%) SQLAlchemy
10 10 (2.92%) XGBoost
11 9 (2.62%) FastAPI
11 9 (2.62%) Hugging Face
12 8 (2.33%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 66 (19.24%) Data Structures
2 27 (7.87%) Equities
3 23 (6.71%) Cloud Native
3 23 (6.71%) Distributed Systems
4 22 (6.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 20 (5.83%) Derivative
6 19 (5.54%) Fixed Income
7 13 (3.79%) Robotics
8 12 (3.50%) FPGA
9 11 (3.21%) Equity Derivative
9 11 (3.21%) PKI
10 10 (2.92%) Distributed Computing
10 10 (2.92%) Product Ownership
11 9 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (2.33%) Clustering
13 6 (1.75%) PCIe
13 6 (1.75%) Verilog
13 6 (1.75%) VHDL
14 5 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
14 5 (1.46%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 30 (8.75%) Linux
2 13 (3.79%) Unix
3 3 (0.87%) Android
3 3 (0.87%) Apple iOS
3 3 (0.87%) Windows
4 2 (0.58%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.29%) Embedded Linux
5 1 (0.29%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.29%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (48.98%) Machine Learning
2 101 (29.45%) AI
3 97 (28.28%) Data Science
4 84 (24.49%) Computer Science
5 82 (23.91%) Problem-Solving
6 71 (20.70%) Agile
7 64 (18.66%) CI/CD
8 60 (17.49%) Software Engineering
9 58 (16.91%) Mathematics
10 57 (16.62%) Analytics
10 57 (16.62%) LLM
11 54 (15.74%) Data Pipeline
12 47 (13.70%) Statistics
13 45 (13.12%) Visualisation
14 44 (12.83%) Deep Learning
15 42 (12.24%) Data Engineering
16 38 (11.08%) Data Analysis
16 38 (11.08%) Decision-Making
17 37 (10.79%) Natural Language Processing
17 37 (10.79%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 196 (57.14%) Python
2 70 (20.41%) SQL
3 64 (18.66%) Java
4 42 (12.24%) C++
5 27 (7.87%) MATLAB
6 21 (6.12%) C#
7 16 (4.66%) PowerShell
7 16 (4.66%) Scala
8 13 (3.79%) Bash
8 13 (3.79%) TypeScript
9 12 (3.50%) R
10 9 (2.62%) Ada
10 9 (2.62%) JavaScript
11 6 (1.75%) SystemVerilog
11 6 (1.75%) Tcl
12 4 (1.17%) C
12 4 (1.17%) Go
12 4 (1.17%) Rust
13 2 (0.58%) Perl
13 2 (0.58%) VBA
Qualifications
1 78 (22.74%) Degree
2 44 (12.83%) Security Cleared
3 29 (8.45%) SC Cleared
4 25 (7.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (6.41%) Master's Degree
6 13 (3.79%) Microsoft Certified Professional
6 13 (3.79%) PhD
7 12 (3.50%) Numerate Degree
8 6 (1.75%) CISSP
8 6 (1.75%) DV Cleared
8 6 (1.75%) HNC
8 6 (1.75%) HND
9 5 (1.46%) GIAC
10 4 (1.17%) CISM
11 3 (0.87%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.87%) DBS Check
11 3 (0.87%) Postgraduate
12 2 (0.58%) CCDP
12 2 (0.58%) CCIE
12 2 (0.58%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (4.96%) NIST
2 14 (4.08%) QA
3 12 (3.50%) EU AI Act
4 9 (2.62%) Data Quality
5 7 (2.04%) Accessibility
6 6 (1.75%) DO-254
7 4 (1.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (1.17%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.87%) SLA
9 2 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.58%) EMIR
9 2 (0.58%) FIPS 140-2
9 2 (0.58%) JSP 440
9 2 (0.58%) NCSC
9 2 (0.58%) RMADS
System Software
1 34 (9.91%) Docker
2 9 (2.62%) Firmware
3 3 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.29%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
4 1 (0.29%) Squid
Systems Management
1 31 (9.04%) Kubernetes
2 20 (5.83%) Terraform
3 8 (2.33%) Grafana
4 6 (1.75%) Ansible
5 5 (1.46%) Kibana
5 5 (1.46%) logstash
6 4 (1.17%) ITRS Geneos
7 3 (0.87%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.58%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.58%) rkt
9 1 (0.29%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.29%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle ZFS
9 1 (0.29%) Rundeck
Vendors
1 39 (11.37%) Microsoft
2 16 (4.66%) Databricks
3 15 (4.37%) Splunk
4 13 (3.79%) Foundry
5 11 (3.21%) Xilinx
6 10 (2.92%) Google
7 8 (2.33%) IBM
7 8 (2.33%) Thales
8 6 (1.75%) Actel
8 6 (1.75%) Altera
8 6 (1.75%) Intel
8 6 (1.75%) Microsemi
8 6 (1.75%) TIBCO
9 5 (1.46%) MathWorks
9 5 (1.46%) Oracle
9 5 (1.46%) Solace
10 4 (1.17%) SAP
11 3 (0.87%) Cognos
11 3 (0.87%) ION Trading
11 3 (0.87%) Sage