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

6 months to
4 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 393 267 268
Rank change year-on-year -126 +1 +43
Contract jobs citing Algorithms 315 309 343
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.59% 0.96% 0.90%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 1.74% 2.70% 2.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 185 192 225
10th Percentile £196 £400 £375
25th Percentile £400 £472 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% -8.33% -4.00%
75th Percentile £700 £700 £775
90th Percentile £833 £850 £853
UK excluding London median daily rate £364 £513 £490
% change year-on-year -28.98% +4.70% -0.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 25 23
10th Percentile £64.13 £22.37 £28.65
25th Percentile £65.00 £60.75 £32.25
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 £57.50
90th Percentile £88.75 £82.25 £73.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £72.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -6.25% +30.91% +57.14%

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 18,133 11,464 11,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 33.80% 35.48% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,964 7,035 7,217
10th Percentile £320 £300 £300
25th Percentile £423 £406 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £750 £763 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,085 567 526
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.13 £13.77
25th Percentile £18.50 £18.87 £20.56
Median hourly rate £38.53 £30.00 £46.21
Median % change year-on-year +28.42% -35.07% +7.14%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £30.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year +45.20% -45.45% +22.22%

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 4 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 4 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Algorithms in the UK

Algorithms
Top 15 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 4 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 -83 283 £575 +4.55% 1,276
London -73 170 £675 +12.50% 831
UK excluding London -95 121 £364 -28.98% 562
Work from Home -40 90 £625 +25.00% 465
South East -62 38 £465 -9.27% 151
South West -27 25 - - 88
North of England -71 20 £381 -32.27% 73
East of England -36 18 £185 -64.08% 117
North West -41 14 £398 -28.45% 41
Scotland -25 11 £556 +11.10% 69
Midlands -53 8 £213 -60.47% 55
Yorkshire -42 6 £215 -64.12% 20
East Midlands -19 4 £180 -63.41% 24
West Midlands -54 4 £213 -61.36% 31
Wales -16 1 £550 -18.52% 10

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 11 (3.49%) Apache Spark
2 9 (2.86%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (2.54%) Confluence
4 5 (1.59%) Apache
5 4 (1.27%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.32%) CMS
6 1 (0.32%) Ethereum
6 1 (0.32%) IIS
6 1 (0.32%) SAS
6 1 (0.32%) Solana
Applications
1 9 (2.86%) CPLEX
2 6 (1.90%) Simulink
3 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.95%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.32%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 10 (3.17%) SAP IBP
2 5 (1.59%) ProductWriter
3 2 (0.63%) IBM Operational Decision Manager
4 1 (0.32%) SAP APO
4 1 (0.32%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 50 (15.87%) Azure
2 44 (13.97%) GCP
3 40 (12.70%) AWS
4 17 (5.40%) GitHub
5 10 (3.17%) Cloud Computing
6 7 (2.22%) AWS Lambda
6 7 (2.22%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (2.22%) Power Platform
6 7 (2.22%) Serverless
7 6 (1.90%) Amazon EKS
7 6 (1.90%) GitHub Actions
8 5 (1.59%) Google Gemini
8 5 (1.59%) Snowflake
9 4 (1.27%) Amazon MSK
9 4 (1.27%) Anthropic Claude
9 4 (1.27%) AWS Direct Connect
9 4 (1.27%) Azure Machine Learning
9 4 (1.27%) Cloudflare
9 4 (1.27%) Dagster
9 4 (1.27%) Kong
Communications & Networking
1 17 (5.40%) HTTP
2 7 (2.22%) DNS
2 7 (2.22%) Firewall
3 6 (1.90%) Multicast
4 4 (1.27%) HTTPS
4 4 (1.27%) SSL
5 3 (0.95%) BIG-IP
5 3 (0.95%) F5 BIG-IP LTM
5 3 (0.95%) Network Security
5 3 (0.95%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.32%) Broadband
6 1 (0.32%) DMZ
6 1 (0.32%) Ethernet
6 1 (0.32%) Reverse Proxy
6 1 (0.32%) S/MIME
6 1 (0.32%) SAN
6 1 (0.32%) VPN
6 1 (0.32%) X.509
Database & Business Intelligence
1 23 (7.30%) NoSQL
2 20 (6.35%) MongoDB
3 18 (5.71%) PostgreSQL
4 15 (4.76%) Relational Database
5 12 (3.81%) SQL Server
6 9 (2.86%) Big Data
7 8 (2.54%) KDB
8 7 (2.22%) Power BI
9 6 (1.90%) RDBMS
9 6 (1.90%) Tableau
10 5 (1.59%) Hadoop
11 4 (1.27%) BigQuery
11 4 (1.27%) Data Mining
11 4 (1.27%) DuckDB
12 3 (0.95%) Data Warehouse
12 3 (0.95%) Kdb+
12 3 (0.95%) MySQL
12 3 (0.95%) Neo4j
12 3 (0.95%) Spark SQL
13 2 (0.63%) Redis
Development Applications
1 35 (11.11%) Git
2 17 (5.40%) GitLab
3 12 (3.81%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.22%) Claude Code
5 5 (1.59%) MLflow
6 4 (1.27%) Bitbucket
7 3 (0.95%) JIRA
8 2 (0.63%) JMeter
8 2 (0.63%) Postman
9 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.32%) Gradle
9 1 (0.32%) Hardhat
9 1 (0.32%) Maven
9 1 (0.32%) Oracle Forms
9 1 (0.32%) QUnit
9 1 (0.32%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.32%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.32%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 64 (20.32%) Finance
2 60 (19.05%) Social Skills
3 56 (17.78%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (11.11%) Banking
5 17 (5.40%) Public Sector
6 16 (5.08%) Investment Banking
7 14 (4.44%) Front Office
8 10 (3.17%) Aerospace
9 9 (2.86%) Telecoms
10 8 (2.54%) Manufacturing
11 6 (1.90%) Automotive
12 5 (1.59%) Electronics
12 5 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 5 (1.59%) Law
13 4 (1.27%) Advertising
13 4 (1.27%) Financial Institution
13 4 (1.27%) Publishing
14 3 (0.95%) Aviation
14 3 (0.95%) Military
14 3 (0.95%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 78 (24.76%) Developer
2 46 (14.60%) Senior
3 34 (10.79%) Software Engineer
4 33 (10.48%) Data Scientist
5 20 (6.35%) Python Developer
6 18 (5.71%) Java Developer
7 16 (5.08%) Algorithm Engineer
7 16 (5.08%) Architect
7 16 (5.08%) Consultant
8 14 (4.44%) Data Engineer
9 13 (4.13%) C++ Software Engineer
9 13 (4.13%) Senior Developer
10 12 (3.81%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 12 (3.81%) Lead
11 10 (3.17%) Full-Stack Engineer
11 10 (3.17%) SAP Consultant
12 9 (2.86%) Engineering Manager
12 9 (2.86%) Quantitative Developer
12 9 (2.86%) Software Engineering Manager
12 9 (2.86%) Software Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (9.21%) Kafka
2 26 (8.25%) Pandas
3 25 (7.94%) React
4 22 (6.98%) NumPy
5 19 (6.03%) JSON
6 18 (5.71%) PyTorch
7 17 (5.40%) FIX Protocol
8 14 (4.44%) RESTful
9 12 (3.81%) PySpark
9 12 (3.81%) scikit-learn
9 12 (3.81%) TensorFlow
9 12 (3.81%) WebSockets
10 11 (3.49%) FastAPI
11 10 (3.17%) AngularJS
11 10 (3.17%) LangChain
11 10 (3.17%) Redux
11 10 (3.17%) Spring
12 9 (2.86%) Hugging Face
12 9 (2.86%) RabbitMQ
12 9 (2.86%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 87 (27.62%) Data Structures
2 54 (17.14%) Distributed Systems
3 20 (6.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 17 (5.40%) Cloud Native
4 17 (5.40%) Derivative
5 16 (5.08%) AI Agents
6 13 (4.13%) Robotics
7 11 (3.49%) Product Ownership
8 8 (2.54%) Equities
8 8 (2.54%) IoT
9 6 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.90%) Fixed Income
10 4 (1.27%) Augmented Reality
10 4 (1.27%) Clustering
10 4 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (1.27%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
10 4 (1.27%) Embedded Systems
10 4 (1.27%) Exotic Derivative
10 4 (1.27%) Onboarding
10 4 (1.27%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 6 (1.90%) Linux
2 2 (0.63%) Unix
2 2 (0.63%) Windows
3 1 (0.32%) Android
3 1 (0.32%) Robot Operating System
3 1 (0.32%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (31.75%) Machine Learning
2 98 (31.11%) AI
3 89 (28.25%) Software Engineering
4 80 (25.40%) Computer Science
5 64 (20.32%) Problem-Solving
6 60 (19.05%) CI/CD
7 54 (17.14%) Data Science
8 48 (15.24%) Mathematics
9 47 (14.92%) Analytics
10 42 (13.33%) Agile
11 39 (12.38%) Low Latency
12 34 (10.79%) Containerisation
12 34 (10.79%) Multithreading
13 33 (10.48%) Validation
14 30 (9.52%) Observability
15 29 (9.21%) Data Pipeline
15 29 (9.21%) LLM
15 29 (9.21%) Microservices
16 27 (8.57%) Data Analysis
16 27 (8.57%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 139 (44.13%) Python
2 83 (26.35%) Java
3 62 (19.68%) SQL
4 43 (13.65%) C++
5 37 (11.75%) C#
6 30 (9.52%) JavaScript
7 25 (7.94%) TypeScript
8 18 (5.71%) PowerShell
9 15 (4.76%) MATLAB
10 14 (4.44%) Rust
11 12 (3.81%) R
12 8 (2.54%) C
13 6 (1.90%) Ada
14 5 (1.59%) Scala
15 4 (1.27%) Kotlin
16 3 (0.95%) Embedded C++
16 3 (0.95%) Go
16 3 (0.95%) SPARQL
17 2 (0.63%) Shell Script
18 1 (0.32%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 66 (20.95%) Degree
2 38 (12.06%) Security Cleared
3 26 (8.25%) Computer Science Degree
3 26 (8.25%) SC Cleared
4 18 (5.71%) Master's Degree
5 12 (3.81%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (3.81%) DBS Check
6 11 (3.49%) PhD
7 4 (1.27%) CISSP
7 4 (1.27%) Numerate Degree
8 3 (0.95%) CISM
9 2 (0.63%) DV Cleared
10 1 (0.32%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 1 (0.32%) CEH
10 1 (0.32%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.32%) HNC
10 1 (0.32%) HND
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (5.71%) Data Quality
2 7 (2.22%) Accessibility
2 7 (2.22%) NIST
3 5 (1.59%) QA
4 4 (1.27%) GDPR
4 4 (1.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (0.95%) Automotive SPICE
5 3 (0.95%) PCI DSS
6 2 (0.63%) Disclosure Scotland
6 2 (0.63%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
6 2 (0.63%) MISRA
6 2 (0.63%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.32%) Basel III
7 1 (0.32%) DO-254
7 1 (0.32%) JSP 440
7 1 (0.32%) NCSC
System Software
1 28 (8.89%) Docker
2 2 (0.63%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.63%) Apache ZooKeeper
3 1 (0.32%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 27 (8.57%) Kubernetes
2 9 (2.86%) Ansible
3 4 (1.27%) Argo
3 4 (1.27%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.95%) Functional Safety
4 3 (0.95%) Grafana
5 2 (0.63%) Istio
6 1 (0.32%) Kibana
6 1 (0.32%) logstash
6 1 (0.32%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 18 (5.71%) Microsoft
2 16 (5.08%) Databricks
3 11 (3.49%) SAP
4 10 (3.17%) Google
5 8 (2.54%) OpenAI
5 8 (2.54%) Solace
6 7 (2.22%) IBM
7 5 (1.59%) Dynatrace
7 5 (1.59%) MathWorks
7 5 (1.59%) Splunk
8 4 (1.27%) ForgeRock
8 4 (1.27%) IFS
8 4 (1.27%) Oracle
9 3 (0.95%) F5
9 3 (0.95%) Salesforce
10 2 (0.63%) Duck Creek
10 2 (0.63%) Guidewire
11 1 (0.32%) Automation Anywhere
11 1 (0.32%) Hootsuite
11 1 (0.32%) Microsemi