Physics Contracts

Physics
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Physics skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Physics over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 486 529 595
Rank change year-on-year +43 +66 +88
Contract jobs citing Physics 34 53 123
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.12% 0.12% 0.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.13% 0.14% 0.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 21 37 59
10th Percentile £363 £312 £146
25th Percentile £401 £400 £592
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £675 £700 £700
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% - +10.67%
75th Percentile £874 £887 £825
90th Percentile £963 £950 £978
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £380 £148
% change year-on-year +38.16% +157.63% -41.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 6 26
10th Percentile £28.24 - £19.00
25th Percentile £49.14 £54.75 £20.47
Median hourly rate £74.75 £59.75 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +25.10% +11.16% +169.96%
75th Percentile £88.00 £67.81 £65.00
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.75 £59.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +25.63% +8.18% +181.76%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Physics 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 26,594 37,597 53,655
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.84% 86.31% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,149 24,227 37,238
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £743 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.50% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,443 1,746
10th Percentile £14.41 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.21 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.65 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.65% -4.42% +49.20%
75th Percentile £60.38 £59.98 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £37.34 £36.00
% change year-on-year -26.35% +3.72% +80.00%

Physics
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Physics as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Physics in the UK

Physics
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Physics.

Daily rate trend for Physics in the UK

Physics
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Physics over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Physics in the UK

Physics
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Physics.

Hourly rate trend for Physics in the UK

Physics
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Physics over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Physics in the UK

Physics
Top 9 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Physics within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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
England +37 32 £675 -3.57% 854
London +31 21 £700 -17.65% 302
UK excluding London +50 10 £525 +38.16% 636
Work from Home +25 6 £525 -36.36% 388
South East +42 4 £625 +76.06% 214
East of England +27 3 - - 129
South West +47 2 £525 -25.00% 59
Midlands +16 1 £75 -76.56% 97
East Midlands - 1 £75 - 40

Physics
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 2 (5.88%) SAS
2 1 (2.94%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 6 (17.65%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (11.76%) Simulink
3 3 (8.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (5.88%) LightWave 3D
5 1 (2.94%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (8.82%) Bankmaster
Cloud Services
1 8 (23.53%) Azure
2 4 (11.76%) Power Platform
3 2 (5.88%) Azure DevOps
3 2 (5.88%) Power Automate
3 2 (5.88%) PowerApps
3 2 (5.88%) SaaS
4 1 (2.94%) AWS
4 1 (2.94%) Azure Data Factory
4 1 (2.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 1 (2.94%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 3 (8.82%) Ethernet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (11.76%) Power BI
1 4 (11.76%) Relational Database
2 2 (5.88%) Data Mining
2 2 (5.88%) PowerPivot
2 2 (5.88%) Tableau
3 1 (2.94%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 7 (20.59%) Visual Studio
2 3 (8.82%) Git
3 1 (2.94%) Eclipse
3 1 (2.94%) NetBeans
3 1 (2.94%) ReSharper
General
1 16 (47.06%) Finance
2 13 (38.24%) Social Skills
3 10 (29.41%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (26.47%) Banking
4 9 (26.47%) Front Office
5 8 (23.53%) Investment Banking
6 7 (20.59%) Electronics
7 3 (8.82%) Games
7 3 (8.82%) Marketing
8 2 (5.88%) Financial Institution
9 1 (2.94%) Legal
9 1 (2.94%) Local Government
9 1 (2.94%) Manufacturing
9 1 (2.94%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (2.94%) Public Sector
9 1 (2.94%) Retail
9 1 (2.94%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 13 (38.24%) Developer
2 6 (17.65%) Quantitative Developer
3 5 (14.71%) Analyst
3 5 (14.71%) Data Scientist
4 4 (11.76%) Qualitative Analyst
4 4 (11.76%) Quantitative Analyst
5 3 (8.82%) C# Developer
5 3 (8.82%) C# WPF Developer
5 3 (8.82%) Quantitative Risk Analyst
5 3 (8.82%) Risk Analyst
5 3 (8.82%) WPF Developer
6 2 (5.88%) C# GUI Developer
6 2 (5.88%) C++ Developer
6 2 (5.88%) C++ Quantitative Developer
6 2 (5.88%) Data Analyst
6 2 (5.88%) FPGA Engineer
6 2 (5.88%) GUI Developer
6 2 (5.88%) Power Platform Developer
6 2 (5.88%) Principal Engineer
6 2 (5.88%) Risk Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (11.76%) WPF
2 2 (5.88%) .NET
2 2 (5.88%) .NET Core
2 2 (5.88%) .NET Framework
2 2 (5.88%) WCF
3 1 (2.94%) Entity Framework
3 1 (2.94%) Managed Extensibility Framework
3 1 (2.94%) Pandas
3 1 (2.94%) POSIX
3 1 (2.94%) Protocol Buffers
3 1 (2.94%) React
3 1 (2.94%) RESTful
3 1 (2.94%) scikit-learn
3 1 (2.94%) Silverlight
3 1 (2.94%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 7 (20.59%) Derivative
2 5 (14.71%) Algorithms
3 4 (11.76%) Distributed Computing
3 4 (11.76%) Equity Derivative
4 3 (8.82%) FPGA
4 3 (8.82%) Grid Computing
4 3 (8.82%) PCIe
4 3 (8.82%) Verilog
5 2 (5.88%) Data Structures
5 2 (5.88%) Equities
5 2 (5.88%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (2.94%) Acoustics
6 1 (2.94%) Cloud Native
6 1 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
6 1 (2.94%) Fixed Income
6 1 (2.94%) Interest Rate Derivative
6 1 (2.94%) IoT
6 1 (2.94%) Management Information System
6 1 (2.94%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 3 (8.82%) Linux
2 1 (2.94%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (73.53%) Mathematics
2 16 (47.06%) Computer Science
3 10 (29.41%) Data Analysis
4 9 (26.47%) Software Engineering
5 8 (23.53%) Analytics
5 8 (23.53%) Quantitative Finance
6 7 (20.59%) Data Modelling
6 7 (20.59%) Data Science
6 7 (20.59%) Machine Learning
7 6 (17.65%) Agile
7 6 (17.65%) Artificial Intelligence
7 6 (17.65%) Business Intelligence
7 6 (17.65%) PnL Attribution
7 6 (17.65%) Problem-Solving
8 5 (14.71%) Economics
8 5 (14.71%) Numerical Analysis
8 5 (14.71%) Quantitative Analysis
8 5 (14.71%) Statistics
8 5 (14.71%) Unit Testing
8 5 (14.71%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 19 (55.88%) Python
2 12 (35.29%) SQL
3 11 (32.35%) C++
4 7 (20.59%) C#
5 5 (14.71%) MATLAB
6 3 (8.82%) SystemVerilog
6 3 (8.82%) Tcl
6 3 (8.82%) VBA
7 2 (5.88%) C
7 2 (5.88%) Java
7 2 (5.88%) R
8 1 (2.94%) JavaScript
8 1 (2.94%) PHP
8 1 (2.94%) T-SQL
8 1 (2.94%) XAML
Qualifications
1 28 (82.35%) Degree
2 14 (41.18%) Master's Degree
3 6 (17.65%) Numerate Degree
3 6 (17.65%) PhD
4 5 (14.71%) SC Cleared
4 5 (14.71%) Security Cleared
5 3 (8.82%) HNC
5 3 (8.82%) HND
6 2 (5.88%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (5.88%) MBA
7 1 (2.94%) CISA
7 1 (2.94%) CISM
7 1 (2.94%) CISSP
7 1 (2.94%) DV Cleared
7 1 (2.94%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (8.82%) DO-254
1 3 (8.82%) QA
2 1 (2.94%) GDPR
2 1 (2.94%) IEC 61508
2 1 (2.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 1 (2.94%) MISRA
2 1 (2.94%) MISRA C
2 1 (2.94%) PCI DSS
2 1 (2.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
2 1 (2.94%) SOC 2
2 1 (2.94%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 3 (8.82%) Firmware
Vendors
1 7 (20.59%) Microsoft
2 3 (8.82%) Actel
2 3 (8.82%) Altera
2 3 (8.82%) Intel
2 3 (8.82%) Microsemi
2 3 (8.82%) Xilinx
3 2 (5.88%) Databricks
4 1 (2.94%) Google
4 1 (2.94%) OpenAI
4 1 (2.94%) Oracle
4 1 (2.94%) QNX
4 1 (2.94%) Salesforce
4 1 (2.94%) SAP
4 1 (2.94%) Spotify