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 2 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 409 251 265
Rank change year-on-year -158 +14 +43
Contract jobs citing Algorithms 291 346 341
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.53% 1.04% 0.90%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.54% 2.91% 2.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 224 223
10th Percentile £297 £365 £375
25th Percentile £435 £439 £457
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +13.64% -8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £737 £688 £725
90th Percentile £825 £850 £854
UK excluding London median daily rate £374 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -28.71% +7.25% -11.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 25 16
10th Percentile £62.54 £22.37 £25.60
25th Percentile £65.00 £31.25 £41.63
Median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.48% +34.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile £75.00 £75.00 £60.31
90th Percentile £88.75 £82.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.25 £67.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -1.12% +34.00% +42.86%

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 18,893 11,906 11,626
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.41% 35.95% 30.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,282 7,295 6,998
10th Percentile £322 £300 £275
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £535
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -2.71% -2.82%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £672
90th Percentile £750 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,283 609 426
10th Percentile £14.01 £14.78 £15.28
25th Percentile £17.85 £18.87 £22.50
Median hourly rate £36.00 £28.13 £49.75
Median % change year-on-year +28.00% -43.47% +10.56%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.05 £72.50 £75.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £29.27 £57.35
% change year-on-year +28.12% -48.96% +14.70%

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 2 October 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 2 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Algorithms in the UK

Algorithms
Top 14 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 2 October 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 -129 270 £625 +13.64% 1,712
London -73 174 £684 +18.91% 1,054
UK excluding London -146 102 £374 -28.71% 758
Work from Home -71 79 £650 +30.00% 572
South East -70 26 £465 -7.00% 183
South West -17 23 - - 103
East of England -44 22 £225 -57.14% 161
North of England -76 17 £378 -35.59% 109
North West -43 11 £398 -16.21% 69
Scotland -42 9 £556 +23.44% 85
Yorkshire -43 6 £270 -57.62% 27
Midlands -66 6 £180 -65.35% 85
East Midlands -12 4 £180 -63.41% 35
West Midlands -55 2 £400 -25.58% 50

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 16 (5.50%) Apache Spark
2 11 (3.78%) Apache
3 8 (2.75%) Confluence
4 7 (2.41%) Apache Airflow
5 5 (1.72%) CMS
6 4 (1.37%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.34%) IIS
7 1 (0.34%) SAS
Applications
1 8 (2.75%) Simulink
2 6 (2.06%) CPLEX
3 3 (1.03%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.34%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.34%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (1.72%) ProductWriter
1 5 (1.72%) SAP IBP
2 2 (0.69%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
3 1 (0.34%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 46 (15.81%) Azure
2 44 (15.12%) GCP
3 40 (13.75%) AWS
4 18 (6.19%) GitHub
5 9 (3.09%) Amazon S3
5 9 (3.09%) Cloud Computing
6 8 (2.75%) AWS Lambda
6 8 (2.75%) OpenShift
6 8 (2.75%) Serverless
7 6 (2.06%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (2.06%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (1.72%) Google Gemini
8 5 (1.72%) Power Platform
9 4 (1.37%) Amazon ECS
9 4 (1.37%) Amazon MSK
9 4 (1.37%) Anthropic Claude
9 4 (1.37%) AWS Direct Connect
9 4 (1.37%) Cloudflare
9 4 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (1.37%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.81%) HTTP
2 5 (1.72%) Firewall
3 4 (1.37%) DNS
3 4 (1.37%) H.323
3 4 (1.37%) WebEx
4 3 (1.03%) Multicast
5 2 (0.69%) VPN
5 2 (0.69%) X.509
6 1 (0.34%) Broadband
6 1 (0.34%) DMZ
6 1 (0.34%) Ethernet
6 1 (0.34%) HTTPS
6 1 (0.34%) NetScaler
6 1 (0.34%) Radio Access Network
6 1 (0.34%) Reverse Proxy
6 1 (0.34%) S/MIME
6 1 (0.34%) SAN
6 1 (0.34%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (6.87%) NoSQL
2 17 (5.84%) MongoDB
2 17 (5.84%) PostgreSQL
3 13 (4.47%) Relational Database
3 13 (4.47%) SQL Server
4 11 (3.78%) Big Data
5 8 (2.75%) Hadoop
6 6 (2.06%) Metadata
7 5 (1.72%) BigQuery
7 5 (1.72%) Power BI
7 5 (1.72%) RDBMS
8 4 (1.37%) Data Mining
8 4 (1.37%) DuckDB
8 4 (1.37%) KDB
8 4 (1.37%) Parquet
9 3 (1.03%) Kdb+
9 3 (1.03%) MySQL
9 3 (1.03%) Neo4j
9 3 (1.03%) Spark SQL
10 2 (0.69%) Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 36 (12.37%) Git
2 21 (7.22%) GitLab
3 13 (4.47%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.41%) Claude Code
5 4 (1.37%) Bitbucket
5 4 (1.37%) JIRA
6 3 (1.03%) MLflow
7 2 (0.69%) Gradle
7 2 (0.69%) Maven
7 2 (0.69%) QUnit
8 1 (0.34%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.34%) JMeter
8 1 (0.34%) Postman
8 1 (0.34%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.34%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.34%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 65 (22.34%) Finance
2 57 (19.59%) Social Skills
3 48 (16.49%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (12.37%) Banking
5 15 (5.15%) Public Sector
6 14 (4.81%) Investment Banking
7 11 (3.78%) Aerospace
8 9 (3.09%) Front Office
8 9 (3.09%) Telecoms
9 7 (2.41%) Manufacturing
10 6 (2.06%) Automotive
11 5 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (1.37%) Financial Institution
12 4 (1.37%) Law
12 4 (1.37%) Publishing
13 3 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (1.03%) Electronics
13 3 (1.03%) Marketing
13 3 (1.03%) Military
13 3 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 59 (20.27%) Developer
2 50 (17.18%) Senior
3 30 (10.31%) Data Scientist
4 25 (8.59%) Software Engineer
5 19 (6.53%) Data Engineer
6 16 (5.50%) Machine Learning Engineer
7 15 (5.15%) Architect
7 15 (5.15%) Lead
8 13 (4.47%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
8 13 (4.47%) C++ Software Engineer
8 13 (4.47%) Java Developer
9 12 (4.12%) Python Developer
9 12 (4.12%) Senior Developer
10 11 (3.78%) Senior Data Engineer
11 10 (3.44%) Algorithm Engineer
12 9 (3.09%) Engineering Manager
12 9 (3.09%) Software Engineering Manager
12 9 (3.09%) Software Manager
12 9 (3.09%) Systems Engineer
13 8 (2.75%) Quantitative Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (8.59%) Kafka
2 22 (7.56%) React
3 19 (6.53%) Pandas
4 17 (5.84%) JSON
4 17 (5.84%) PyTorch
5 15 (5.15%) NumPy
5 15 (5.15%) PySpark
6 12 (4.12%) RESTful
6 12 (4.12%) TensorFlow
6 12 (4.12%) WebSockets
7 11 (3.78%) AngularJS
7 11 (3.78%) FIX Protocol
7 11 (3.78%) XGBoost
8 10 (3.44%) LangChain
8 10 (3.44%) REST
8 10 (3.44%) scikit-learn
9 9 (3.09%) FastAPI
9 9 (3.09%) Hugging Face
9 9 (3.09%) Redux
10 8 (2.75%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 79 (27.15%) Data Structures
2 45 (15.46%) Distributed Systems
3 17 (5.84%) AI Agents
3 17 (5.84%) Cloud Native
3 17 (5.84%) Derivative
4 13 (4.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 10 (3.44%) Product Ownership
5 10 (3.44%) Robotics
6 6 (2.06%) Credit Risk
6 6 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (2.06%) Fixed Income
6 6 (2.06%) IoT
6 6 (2.06%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.37%) Clustering
7 4 (1.37%) Distributed Architecture
7 4 (1.37%) Embedded Systems
7 4 (1.37%) Exotic Derivative
7 4 (1.37%) OTC Derivatives
7 4 (1.37%) Reference Data
7 4 (1.37%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 9 (3.09%) Linux
2 6 (2.06%) Unix
3 3 (1.03%) Windows
4 2 (0.69%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.34%) Android
5 1 (0.34%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 107 (36.77%) Machine Learning
2 103 (35.40%) AI
3 75 (25.77%) Software Engineering
4 67 (23.02%) Computer Science
5 63 (21.65%) CI/CD
6 60 (20.62%) Data Science
7 58 (19.93%) Problem-Solving
8 48 (16.49%) Analytics
9 47 (16.15%) Data Pipeline
10 42 (14.43%) Validation
11 38 (13.06%) Mathematics
12 37 (12.71%) Agile
13 32 (11.00%) Low Latency
14 29 (9.97%) DevOps
14 29 (9.97%) Observability
15 27 (9.28%) Containerisation
15 27 (9.28%) Continuous Improvement
15 27 (9.28%) LLM
16 25 (8.59%) Performance Optimisation
17 24 (8.25%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 126 (43.30%) Python
2 74 (25.43%) Java
3 65 (22.34%) SQL
4 43 (14.78%) C++
5 32 (11.00%) C#
6 31 (10.65%) JavaScript
7 22 (7.56%) TypeScript
8 16 (5.50%) PowerShell
9 14 (4.81%) Rust
10 13 (4.47%) MATLAB
11 8 (2.75%) C
11 8 (2.75%) R
12 6 (2.06%) Shell Script
13 5 (1.72%) Scala
14 3 (1.03%) Embedded C++
14 3 (1.03%) Go
14 3 (1.03%) Kotlin
14 3 (1.03%) SPARQL
15 2 (0.69%) Ada
16 1 (0.34%) PHP
Qualifications
1 64 (21.99%) Degree
2 45 (15.46%) Security Cleared
3 32 (11.00%) SC Cleared
4 21 (7.22%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (6.87%) Master's Degree
6 14 (4.81%) PhD
7 11 (3.78%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (3.09%) DBS Check
9 6 (2.06%) DV Cleared
10 4 (1.37%) CCNP
10 4 (1.37%) CCNP Voice
10 4 (1.37%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (1.03%) CISM
11 3 (1.03%) CISSP
12 2 (0.69%) Numerate Degree
13 1 (0.34%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 1 (0.34%) Azure Certification
13 1 (0.34%) HNC
13 1 (0.34%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (7.56%) Data Quality
2 6 (2.06%) NIST
3 5 (1.72%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.72%) Basel III
3 5 (1.72%) QA
4 4 (1.37%) GDPR
5 3 (1.03%) Automotive SPICE
5 3 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.69%) Disclosure Scotland
6 2 (0.69%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.69%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (0.69%) MISRA
6 2 (0.69%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.69%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.34%) DO-254
7 1 (0.34%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.34%) NCSC
System Software
1 28 (9.62%) Docker
2 4 (1.37%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.03%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.69%) Apache ZooKeeper
5 1 (0.34%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 32 (11.00%) Kubernetes
2 13 (4.47%) Ansible
3 4 (1.37%) Argo
3 4 (1.37%) Cisco CUCM
3 4 (1.37%) Kubeflow
4 3 (1.03%) Functional Safety
4 3 (1.03%) Grafana
5 2 (0.69%) Istio
6 1 (0.34%) Kibana
6 1 (0.34%) logstash
6 1 (0.34%) Podman
6 1 (0.34%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 19 (6.53%) Microsoft
2 11 (3.78%) Databricks
3 8 (2.75%) Google
4 7 (2.41%) OpenAI
5 6 (2.06%) SAP
6 5 (1.72%) Dynatrace
6 5 (1.72%) Solace
6 5 (1.72%) Splunk
7 4 (1.37%) Cisco
7 4 (1.37%) ForgeRock
7 4 (1.37%) IBM
7 4 (1.37%) IFS
7 4 (1.37%) VMware
8 3 (1.03%) Oracle
8 3 (1.03%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.69%) Duck Creek
9 2 (0.69%) Guidewire
9 2 (0.69%) MathWorks
10 1 (0.34%) Hootsuite
10 1 (0.34%) Microsemi