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 7 June 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
7 Jun 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 480 522 548
Rank change year-on-year +42 +26 +133
Contract jobs citing Physics 41 68 131
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.14% 0.16% 0.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.15% 0.18% 0.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 22 43 72
10th Percentile £363 £383 £278
25th Percentile £561 £475 £514
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £700 £800 £700
Median % change year-on-year -12.50% +14.29% +3.70%
75th Percentile £875 £913 £825
90th Percentile £961 £950 £1,021
UK excluding London median daily rate £350 £550 £148
% change year-on-year -36.36% +272.88% -67.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 12 23
10th Percentile £56.11 £20.12 £19.00
25th Percentile £62.50 £20.97 £19.74
Median hourly rate £80.50 £40.68 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year +97.89% -22.51% +166.29%
75th Percentile £88.00 £64.44 £65.00
90th Percentile - £68.38 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.50 £59.50 £53.75
% change year-on-year +35.29% +10.70% +175.36%

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 26,635 37,061 50,135
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.97% 85.39% 89.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 16,897 23,729 34,705
10th Percentile £300 £300 £325
25th Percentile £406 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% +2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,158 2,551 1,672
10th Percentile £14.20 £12.75 £10.63
25th Percentile £17.82 £16.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £27.52 £36.50 £35.90
Median % change year-on-year -24.62% +1.67% +39.80%
75th Percentile £56.00 £60.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.75 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £38.12 £35.00
% change year-on-year -34.02% +8.91% +75.00%

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 7 June 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 7 June 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Physics in the UK

Physics
Top 11 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 7 June 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 +51 39 £700 -12.50% 1,020
London +35 22 £745 -12.35% 438
UK excluding London +34 16 £350 -36.36% 663
East of England +26 9 - - 110
Work from Home +28 5 £625 -19.35% 393
South East +41 4 £625 +76.06% 296
South West +42 1 - - 86
North of England +13 1 - - 89
North West +12 1 - - 50
Midlands +8 1 £75 -86.36% 56
East Midlands - 1 £75 - 24

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 (4.88%) SAS
2 1 (2.44%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 9 (21.95%) Simulink
2 4 (9.76%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (7.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (4.88%) LightWave 3D
4 2 (4.88%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (7.32%) Bankmaster
Cloud Services
1 7 (17.07%) Azure
2 2 (4.88%) Azure DevOps
2 2 (4.88%) Power Automate
2 2 (4.88%) Power Platform
2 2 (4.88%) PowerApps
3 1 (2.44%) AWS
3 1 (2.44%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 7 (17.07%) Ethernet
2 4 (9.76%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (9.76%) NoSQL
1 4 (9.76%) Relational Database
2 2 (4.88%) Data Mining
2 2 (4.88%) Power BI
3 1 (2.44%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 5 (12.20%) Visual Studio
2 3 (7.32%) Git
3 1 (2.44%) Eclipse
3 1 (2.44%) NetBeans
3 1 (2.44%) ReSharper
General
1 18 (43.90%) Finance
1 18 (43.90%) Social Skills
2 13 (31.71%) Front Office
3 11 (26.83%) Electronics
4 9 (21.95%) Analytical Skills
5 7 (17.07%) Banking
6 6 (14.63%) Games
6 6 (14.63%) Investment Banking
7 4 (9.76%) Financial Institution
8 1 (2.44%) Aeronautics
8 1 (2.44%) Aerospace
8 1 (2.44%) Legal
8 1 (2.44%) Manufacturing
8 1 (2.44%) Marketing
8 1 (2.44%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (2.44%) Public Sector
8 1 (2.44%) Retail
8 1 (2.44%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 15 (36.59%) Developer
2 6 (14.63%) FPGA Engineer
3 5 (12.20%) Analyst
3 5 (12.20%) Python Developer
4 4 (9.76%) Principal Engineer
4 4 (9.76%) Qualitative Analyst
4 4 (9.76%) Quantitative Analyst
4 4 (9.76%) Quantitative Developer
5 3 (7.32%) C# Developer
5 3 (7.32%) C# WPF Developer
5 3 (7.32%) Data Scientist
5 3 (7.32%) Design Engineer
5 3 (7.32%) Quantitative Risk Analyst
5 3 (7.32%) Risk Analyst
5 3 (7.32%) WPF Developer
6 2 (4.88%) C++ Developer
6 2 (4.88%) Coordinator
6 2 (4.88%) Data Analyst
6 2 (4.88%) FPGA Design Engineer
6 2 (4.88%) GUI Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (9.76%) FIX Protocol
1 4 (9.76%) FpML
1 4 (9.76%) Middleware
1 4 (9.76%) WPF
2 2 (4.88%) .NET
2 2 (4.88%) .NET Core
2 2 (4.88%) .NET Framework
2 2 (4.88%) WCF
3 1 (2.44%) Entity Framework
3 1 (2.44%) Managed Extensibility Framework
3 1 (2.44%) Pandas
3 1 (2.44%) POSIX
3 1 (2.44%) Protocol Buffers
3 1 (2.44%) React
3 1 (2.44%) RESTful
3 1 (2.44%) scikit-learn
3 1 (2.44%) Silverlight
3 1 (2.44%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 12 (29.27%) Algorithms
2 9 (21.95%) Derivative
2 9 (21.95%) FPGA
3 7 (17.07%) PCIe
4 6 (14.63%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 6 (14.63%) Verilog
5 5 (12.20%) Fixed Income
6 4 (9.76%) Data Structures
7 3 (7.32%) Grid Computing
8 2 (4.88%) Distributed Computing
8 2 (4.88%) Equities
8 2 (4.88%) Equity Derivative
8 2 (4.88%) Life Science
8 2 (4.88%) VHDL
9 1 (2.44%) Acoustics
9 1 (2.44%) Cloud Native
9 1 (2.44%) Distributed Systems
9 1 (2.44%) IoT
9 1 (2.44%) Market Risk
9 1 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 3 (7.32%) Linux
2 1 (2.44%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 29 (70.73%) Mathematics
2 20 (48.78%) Computer Science
3 12 (29.27%) Problem-Solving
4 11 (26.83%) Agile
4 11 (26.83%) Software Engineering
5 10 (24.39%) Artificial Intelligence
5 10 (24.39%) Machine Learning
6 8 (19.51%) Data Analysis
7 6 (14.63%) Analytics
7 6 (14.63%) Cryptography
7 6 (14.63%) Customer Requirements
7 6 (14.63%) Design Patterns
7 6 (14.63%) PnL Attribution
7 6 (14.63%) Quantitative Finance
7 6 (14.63%) UVM
8 5 (12.20%) Data Science
8 5 (12.20%) Scrum
8 5 (12.20%) Unit Testing
8 5 (12.20%) Validation
9 4 (9.76%) OO
Programming Languages
1 19 (46.34%) Python
2 13 (31.71%) C++
2 13 (31.71%) SQL
3 11 (26.83%) C#
4 9 (21.95%) MATLAB
5 6 (14.63%) Java
5 6 (14.63%) SystemVerilog
5 6 (14.63%) Tcl
6 3 (7.32%) VBA
7 2 (4.88%) C
7 2 (4.88%) R
8 1 (2.44%) JavaScript
8 1 (2.44%) PHP
8 1 (2.44%) XAML
Qualifications
1 30 (73.17%) Degree
2 10 (24.39%) Master's Degree
3 8 (19.51%) SC Cleared
3 8 (19.51%) Security Cleared
4 7 (17.07%) HNC
4 7 (17.07%) HND
5 6 (14.63%) PhD
6 4 (9.76%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (9.76%) Numerate Degree
7 1 (2.44%) CISA
7 1 (2.44%) CISM
7 1 (2.44%) CISSP
7 1 (2.44%) DV Cleared
7 1 (2.44%) GCIH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (14.63%) DO-254
2 4 (9.76%) QA
3 1 (2.44%) GDPR
3 1 (2.44%) IEC 61508
3 1 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (2.44%) MISRA
3 1 (2.44%) MISRA C
3 1 (2.44%) PCI DSS
3 1 (2.44%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (2.44%) SOC 2
3 1 (2.44%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 6 (14.63%) Firmware
Vendors
1 6 (14.63%) Actel
1 6 (14.63%) Altera
1 6 (14.63%) Intel
1 6 (14.63%) Microsemi
1 6 (14.63%) Microsoft
1 6 (14.63%) Xilinx
2 2 (4.88%) Lattice Semiconductor
3 1 (2.44%) Google
3 1 (2.44%) MathWorks
3 1 (2.44%) OpenAI
3 1 (2.44%) Oracle
3 1 (2.44%) QNX
3 1 (2.44%) Salesforce
3 1 (2.44%) SAP
3 1 (2.44%) Spotify