Operations Research Contract Job Trends

Operations Research (or Operational Research)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Operations Research skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 13 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 570 534 599
Rank change year-on-year -36 +65 +196
Contract jobs citing Operations Research 12 9 9
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.033% 0.025% 0.020%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.037% 0.029% 0.022%
Number of daily rates quoted 7 6 5
10th Percentile £385 £488 £468
25th Percentile £463 £530 £513
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £650 £550
Median % change year-on-year -23.08% +18.18% +8.16%
75th Percentile £509 £822 £624
90th Percentile £561 £881 £640
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £545 £525
% change year-on-year -8.26% +3.81% +16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 0
10th Percentile £24.27 - -
25th Percentile £26.42 - -
Median hourly rate £30.00 - -
75th Percentile £31.88 - -
90th Percentile £33.00 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 - -

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Operations Research falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 32,247 31,236 40,271
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.88% 87.47% 88.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,285 18,990 26,947
10th Percentile £300 £308 £310
25th Percentile £405 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.50% -3.09%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,090 1,084 1,559
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.25 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.19 £18.94
Median hourly rate £25.13 £33.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.86% -22.35% +21.43%
75th Percentile £45.46 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.50 £74.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -30.37% -23.53% +30.77%

Operations Research
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Operations Research job vacancy trend in the UK

Operations Research
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Operations Research

Operations Research
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Operations Research over the 6 months to 13 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Operations Research in the UK

Operations Research
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Operations Research

Operations Research
Top 7 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Operations Research within the UK over the 6 months to 13 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
UK excluding London -32 8 £500 -8.26% 13
England -38 7 £500 -23.08% 17
London -7 4 £450 -40.00% 7
Wales - 4 - -
South East - 3 £500 - 6
Work from Home -4 2 £500 -30.80% 8
Scotland - 1 £600 - 1

Operations Research
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:

Applications
1 5 (41.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (33.33%) Microsoft Office
2 4 (33.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (16.67%) CPLEX
Cloud Services
1 5 (41.67%) Power Platform
2 1 (8.33%) Amazon Bedrock
2 1 (8.33%) Amazon SageMaker
2 1 (8.33%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (8.33%) SD-WAN
1 1 (8.33%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (41.67%) Power BI
2 4 (33.33%) Spotfire
2 4 (33.33%) Tableau
3 1 (8.33%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 1 (8.33%) Git
General
1 7 (58.33%) Analytical Skills
1 7 (58.33%) Social Skills
2 4 (33.33%) Manufacturing
3 1 (8.33%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 5 (41.67%) Analyst
2 4 (33.33%) Data Analyst
3 2 (16.67%) Consultant
4 1 (8.33%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
4 1 (8.33%) Business Analyst
4 1 (8.33%) Data Scientist
4 1 (8.33%) Gen AI Engineer
4 1 (8.33%) Infrastructure Business Analyst
4 1 (8.33%) Operations Analyst
4 1 (8.33%) Research Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (16.67%) NumPy
1 2 (16.67%) Pandas
1 2 (16.67%) SciPy
2 1 (8.33%) LangChain
2 1 (8.33%) Plotly
Miscellaneous
1 8 (66.67%) Algorithms
2 1 (8.33%) Analytical Mindset
2 1 (8.33%) Cloud Native
2 1 (8.33%) Data Protection Act
2 1 (8.33%) Reference Data
Processes & Methodologies
1 7 (58.33%) Data Science
2 6 (50.00%) Analytics
2 6 (50.00%) Machine Learning
2 6 (50.00%) Mathematics
3 5 (41.67%) Actionable Insight
3 5 (41.67%) Data Visualisation
3 5 (41.67%) Problem-Solving
3 5 (41.67%) Visualisation
4 4 (33.33%) Agile
4 4 (33.33%) Data Analysis
4 4 (33.33%) Data-Driven Decision Making
4 4 (33.33%) Predictive Analytics
4 4 (33.33%) Prescriptive Analytics
4 4 (33.33%) Statistical Modelling
4 4 (33.33%) Statistics
4 4 (33.33%) Supply Chain Planning
5 3 (25.00%) Data Modelling
6 2 (16.67%) Impact Analysis
6 2 (16.67%) Linear Programming
6 2 (16.67%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 11 (91.67%) Python
2 6 (50.00%) SQL
3 4 (33.33%) R
4 1 (8.33%) VBA
Qualifications
1 7 (58.33%) Degree
1 7 (58.33%) Master's Degree
2 3 (25.00%) PhD
3 1 (8.33%) SC Cleared
3 1 (8.33%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (16.67%) QA
Vendors
1 4 (33.33%) Microsoft
1 4 (33.33%) TIBCO
2 1 (8.33%) VMware