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 26 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 409 253 270
Rank change year-on-year -156 +17 +54
Contract jobs citing Algorithms 285 338 346
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.52% 1.02% 0.90%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.52% 2.86% 2.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 223 228
10th Percentile £203 £358 £371
25th Percentile £409 £439 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £700 £693 £725
90th Percentile £842 £850 £857
UK excluding London median daily rate £378 £525 £490
% change year-on-year -28.07% +7.14% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 23 15
10th Percentile - £22.21 £25.60
25th Percentile £65.00 £61.25 £37.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.48% +34.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile £77.00 £75.00 £56.25
90th Percentile £88.75 £83.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £69.50 £48.75
% change year-on-year +0.72% +42.56% +39.29%

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 18,746 11,804 11,695
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 34.17% 35.69% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 11,222 7,232 7,078
10th Percentile £320 £294 £285
25th Percentile £425 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -3.26% -2.27%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
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 1,233 599 447
10th Percentile £14.01 £15.10 £15.22
25th Percentile £17.85 £18.87 £22.50
Median hourly rate £37.50 £29.33 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.86% -41.34% +12.36%
75th Percentile £67.50 £52.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.34 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £30.00 £57.35
% change year-on-year +27.50% -47.69% +17.04%

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 26 September 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 26 September 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 26 September 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 -119 263 £600 +9.09% 1,645
London -81 162 £675 +17.39% 1,013
UK excluding London -133 107 £378 -28.07% 715
Work from Home -53 75 £650 +27.08% 551
South East -69 31 £465 -7.00% 181
East of England -51 23 £200 -61.17% 154
South West -24 20 - - 105
North of England -75 17 £415 -29.21% 110
North West -36 12 £415 -12.63% 67
Scotland -39 9 £556 +23.44% 69
Midlands -57 7 £196 -62.22% 73
Yorkshire -52 5 £215 -66.23% 29
East Midlands -13 4 £180 -63.41% 29
West Midlands -59 3 £306 -43.02% 44

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 9 (3.16%) Apache Spark
2 8 (2.81%) Confluence
3 6 (2.11%) Apache Airflow
4 5 (1.75%) Apache
4 5 (1.75%) CMS
5 3 (1.05%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.35%) IIS
6 1 (0.35%) SAS
Applications
1 8 (2.81%) Simulink
2 6 (2.11%) CPLEX
3 3 (1.05%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.70%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.35%) Adobe Premiere
5 1 (0.35%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (2.81%) SAP IBP
2 5 (1.75%) ProductWriter
3 2 (0.70%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
4 1 (0.35%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.35%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 46 (16.14%) Azure
2 41 (14.39%) GCP
3 37 (12.98%) AWS
4 18 (6.32%) GitHub
5 9 (3.16%) Cloud Computing
6 7 (2.46%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (2.46%) Serverless
7 6 (2.11%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (2.11%) Azure DevOps
8 5 (1.75%) Google Gemini
8 5 (1.75%) Power Platform
9 4 (1.40%) Amazon MSK
9 4 (1.40%) Amazon S3
9 4 (1.40%) Anthropic Claude
9 4 (1.40%) AWS Direct Connect
9 4 (1.40%) Azure Key Vault
9 4 (1.40%) Cloudflare
9 4 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
9 4 (1.40%) Kong
9 4 (1.40%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 14 (4.91%) HTTP
2 6 (2.11%) Firewall
3 5 (1.75%) DNS
4 4 (1.40%) H.323
4 4 (1.40%) WebEx
5 3 (1.05%) Multicast
5 3 (1.05%) SSL
6 2 (0.70%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.70%) VPN
6 2 (0.70%) X.509
7 1 (0.35%) BIG-IP
7 1 (0.35%) DMZ
7 1 (0.35%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
7 1 (0.35%) NetScaler
7 1 (0.35%) Network Security
7 1 (0.35%) Radio Access Network
7 1 (0.35%) Reverse Proxy
7 1 (0.35%) S/MIME
7 1 (0.35%) SAN
7 1 (0.35%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (7.02%) NoSQL
2 17 (5.96%) MongoDB
3 16 (5.61%) PostgreSQL
4 12 (4.21%) Relational Database
4 12 (4.21%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.75%) Big Data
5 5 (1.75%) BigQuery
5 5 (1.75%) KDB
5 5 (1.75%) Power BI
5 5 (1.75%) RDBMS
6 4 (1.40%) Data Mining
6 4 (1.40%) DuckDB
7 3 (1.05%) Kdb+
7 3 (1.05%) MySQL
7 3 (1.05%) Neo4j
7 3 (1.05%) Spark SQL
8 2 (0.70%) Apache Iceberg
8 2 (0.70%) Data Lake
8 2 (0.70%) Metadata
8 2 (0.70%) TigerGraph
Development Applications
1 35 (12.28%) Git
2 17 (5.96%) GitLab
3 12 (4.21%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.46%) Claude Code
5 4 (1.40%) Bitbucket
6 3 (1.05%) JIRA
6 3 (1.05%) MLflow
7 2 (0.70%) QUnit
8 1 (0.35%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.35%) Gradle
8 1 (0.35%) JMeter
8 1 (0.35%) Maven
8 1 (0.35%) Postman
8 1 (0.35%) SonarQube
8 1 (0.35%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.35%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 64 (22.46%) Finance
2 51 (17.89%) Social Skills
3 46 (16.14%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (12.28%) Banking
5 15 (5.26%) Public Sector
6 12 (4.21%) Investment Banking
7 9 (3.16%) Aerospace
7 9 (3.16%) Front Office
8 8 (2.81%) Manufacturing
8 8 (2.81%) Telecoms
9 6 (2.11%) Automotive
10 5 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (1.40%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.40%) Law
11 4 (1.40%) Publishing
12 3 (1.05%) Electronics
12 3 (1.05%) Military
12 3 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.70%) Documentation Skills
13 2 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 62 (21.75%) Developer
2 47 (16.49%) Senior
3 30 (10.53%) Data Scientist
4 26 (9.12%) Software Engineer
5 16 (5.61%) Architect
5 16 (5.61%) Lead
6 15 (5.26%) Data Engineer
7 14 (4.91%) Python Developer
8 13 (4.56%) Java Developer
9 12 (4.21%) C++ Software Engineer
9 12 (4.21%) Senior Developer
10 11 (3.86%) Algorithm Engineer
10 11 (3.86%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 11 (3.86%) Consultant
11 9 (3.16%) Engineering Manager
11 9 (3.16%) Software Engineering Manager
11 9 (3.16%) Software Manager
11 9 (3.16%) Systems Engineer
12 8 (2.81%) Quantitative Developer
12 8 (2.81%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (9.12%) Kafka
2 23 (8.07%) React
3 18 (6.32%) JSON
3 18 (6.32%) Pandas
4 15 (5.26%) NumPy
5 13 (4.56%) PySpark
5 13 (4.56%) PyTorch
6 11 (3.86%) FIX Protocol
6 11 (3.86%) RESTful
6 11 (3.86%) WebSockets
7 10 (3.51%) AngularJS
8 9 (3.16%) FastAPI
8 9 (3.16%) LangChain
8 9 (3.16%) Redux
9 8 (2.81%) Hugging Face
9 8 (2.81%) RabbitMQ
9 8 (2.81%) Vue
9 8 (2.81%) XGBoost
10 7 (2.46%) Backbone.js
10 7 (2.46%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 76 (26.67%) Data Structures
2 46 (16.14%) Distributed Systems
3 18 (6.32%) AI Agents
4 17 (5.96%) Cloud Native
5 15 (5.26%) Derivative
5 15 (5.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 11 (3.86%) Product Ownership
6 11 (3.86%) Robotics
7 6 (2.11%) Credit Risk
7 6 (2.11%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (2.11%) Fixed Income
7 6 (2.11%) IoT
7 6 (2.11%) Onboarding
8 4 (1.40%) Clustering
8 4 (1.40%) Embedded Systems
8 4 (1.40%) Equities
8 4 (1.40%) Exotic Derivative
8 4 (1.40%) OTC Derivatives
8 4 (1.40%) PKI
8 4 (1.40%) Video Conferencing
Operating Systems
1 8 (2.81%) Linux
2 6 (2.11%) Unix
3 3 (1.05%) Windows
4 2 (0.70%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.35%) Android
5 1 (0.35%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (34.04%) AI
2 92 (32.28%) Machine Learning
3 77 (27.02%) Software Engineering
4 68 (23.86%) Computer Science
5 57 (20.00%) CI/CD
6 54 (18.95%) Problem-Solving
7 53 (18.60%) Data Science
8 48 (16.84%) Analytics
9 39 (13.68%) Mathematics
10 38 (13.33%) Validation
11 37 (12.98%) Agile
12 32 (11.23%) Low Latency
13 29 (10.18%) Data Pipeline
13 29 (10.18%) Observability
14 28 (9.82%) Containerisation
15 26 (9.12%) Data Analysis
15 26 (9.12%) LLM
16 25 (8.77%) DevOps
16 25 (8.77%) Microservices
16 25 (8.77%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 123 (43.16%) Python
2 75 (26.32%) Java
3 56 (19.65%) SQL
4 41 (14.39%) C++
5 31 (10.88%) C#
6 30 (10.53%) JavaScript
7 23 (8.07%) TypeScript
8 16 (5.61%) PowerShell
9 14 (4.91%) MATLAB
9 14 (4.91%) Rust
10 10 (3.51%) R
11 9 (3.16%) C
12 6 (2.11%) Shell Script
13 5 (1.75%) Scala
14 3 (1.05%) Ada
14 3 (1.05%) Embedded C++
14 3 (1.05%) Go
14 3 (1.05%) Kotlin
14 3 (1.05%) SPARQL
15 1 (0.35%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 59 (20.70%) Degree
2 42 (14.74%) Security Cleared
3 32 (11.23%) SC Cleared
4 20 (7.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (6.67%) Master's Degree
6 14 (4.91%) PhD
7 10 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (3.16%) DBS Check
9 5 (1.75%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (1.40%) CCNP
10 4 (1.40%) CCNP Voice
10 4 (1.40%) CISSP
11 3 (1.05%) CISM
12 2 (0.70%) DV Cleared
12 2 (0.70%) Numerate Degree
13 1 (0.35%) (ISC)2 CCSP
13 1 (0.35%) AWS Certification
13 1 (0.35%) CEH
13 1 (0.35%) HNC
13 1 (0.35%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (7.37%) Data Quality
2 7 (2.46%) NIST
3 6 (2.11%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.75%) Basel III
4 5 (1.75%) QA
5 4 (1.40%) GDPR
5 4 (1.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (1.05%) Automotive SPICE
6 3 (1.05%) PCI DSS
7 2 (0.70%) Disclosure Scotland
7 2 (0.70%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.70%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
7 2 (0.70%) MISRA
7 2 (0.70%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.35%) DO-254
8 1 (0.35%) JSP 440
8 1 (0.35%) NCSC
System Software
1 23 (8.07%) Docker
2 4 (1.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 3 (1.05%) Active Directory
4 2 (0.70%) Apache ZooKeeper
5 1 (0.35%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 25 (8.77%) Kubernetes
2 9 (3.16%) Ansible
3 4 (1.40%) Argo
3 4 (1.40%) Cisco CUCM
4 3 (1.05%) Functional Safety
4 3 (1.05%) Grafana
4 3 (1.05%) Kubeflow
5 2 (0.70%) Istio
6 1 (0.35%) Kibana
6 1 (0.35%) logstash
6 1 (0.35%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 18 (6.32%) Microsoft
2 13 (4.56%) Databricks
3 9 (3.16%) SAP
4 8 (2.81%) Google
5 7 (2.46%) OpenAI
6 6 (2.11%) Solace
7 5 (1.75%) Dynatrace
7 5 (1.75%) IBM
7 5 (1.75%) Splunk
8 4 (1.40%) Cisco
8 4 (1.40%) ForgeRock
8 4 (1.40%) IFS
8 4 (1.40%) VMware
9 3 (1.05%) MathWorks
9 3 (1.05%) Oracle
9 3 (1.05%) Salesforce
10 2 (0.70%) Duck Creek
10 2 (0.70%) Guidewire
11 1 (0.35%) Hootsuite
11 1 (0.35%) Palo Alto