R Contract Job Trends

R
UK

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

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 411 321 374
Rank change year-on-year -90 +53 +19
Contract jobs citing R 185 244 240
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.51% 0.68% 0.53%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.61% 2.09% 1.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 138 172
10th Percentile £304 £307 £319
25th Percentile £413 £356 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £602 £612 £628
90th Percentile £688 £729 £761
UK excluding London median daily rate £509 £500 £513
% change year-on-year +1.75% -2.44% +4.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 12 15
10th Percentile £21.90 - £24.99
25th Percentile £24.02 £20.12 £25.44
Median hourly rate £27.50 £23.25 £35.63
Median % change year-on-year +18.28% -34.75% +37.04%
75th Percentile £31.88 £53.75 £48.75
90th Percentile £45.75 - £51.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.42 £20.24 £37.00
% change year-on-year +25.60% -45.31% +80.75%

All Programming Languages
UK

R falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 11,469 11,649 13,970
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 31.46% 32.37% 30.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,571 7,464 9,944
10th Percentile £347 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £435
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £754 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -3.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 344 285 430
10th Percentile £30.08 £22.00 £31.48
25th Percentile £48.44 £40.58 £47.50
Median hourly rate £63.75 £63.00 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.19% +4.13% -3.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.00 £78.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.00

R
Job Vacancy Trend

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

R job vacancy trend in the UK

R
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing R

R
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing R over the 6 months to 6 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for R in the UK

R
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing R

R
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing R over the 6 months to 6 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for R in the UK

R
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 R within the UK over the 6 months to 6 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
England -50 163 £500 - 418
London -34 86 £510 +2.00% 150
UK excluding London -65 77 £509 +1.75% 363
Work from Home -2 64 £550 +7.32% 400
South East -4 22 £588 +14.63% 101
Midlands -38 16 £475 +22.58% 63
North of England -43 15 £465 +30.62% 85
North West -17 14 £479 +34.41% 50
East of England -6 12 £608 -6.46% 46
East Midlands -15 9 £375 +10.29% 30
West Midlands -28 7 £475 -12.60% 32
Wales -3 6 £366 - 19
Scotland -8 3 £550 -6.38% 17
South West -13 3 £513 -29.31% 32
Yorkshire -35 1 £450 +20.00% 27

R
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 25 (13.51%) Apache Spark
2 21 (11.35%) SAS
3 8 (4.32%) SharePoint
4 5 (2.70%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (2.16%) Apache
5 4 (2.16%) Confluence
6 2 (1.08%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.54%) Luigi
Applications
1 26 (14.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (5.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 10 (5.41%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.54%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.54%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 2 (1.08%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.54%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.54%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.54%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.54%) SAP IBP
2 1 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.54%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 69 (37.30%) Power Platform
2 59 (31.89%) Azure
3 35 (18.92%) AWS
4 27 (14.59%) GCP
5 9 (4.86%) Power Automate
5 9 (4.86%) PowerApps
6 8 (4.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 8 (4.32%) Snowflake
7 7 (3.78%) Azure Machine Learning
8 6 (3.24%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (2.16%) Azure AKS
9 4 (2.16%) Azure DevOps
9 4 (2.16%) Microsoft Purview
10 3 (1.62%) Adobe Analytics
10 3 (1.62%) Copilot Studio
10 3 (1.62%) Google Analytics
11 2 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
11 2 (1.08%) Cloud Computing
11 2 (1.08%) dbt
11 2 (1.08%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.08%) 2G
1 2 (1.08%) 5G
1 2 (1.08%) LTE
1 2 (1.08%) Mobile Backhaul
1 2 (1.08%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (37.30%) Power BI
2 47 (25.41%) Tableau
3 22 (11.89%) Big Data
4 19 (10.27%) Data Warehouse
5 17 (9.19%) Hadoop
6 12 (6.49%) Data Lake
7 9 (4.86%) Data Mining
7 9 (4.86%) NoSQL
8 8 (4.32%) Looker
8 8 (4.32%) Power Query
9 6 (3.24%) Metadata
10 5 (2.70%) Delta Lake
10 5 (2.70%) Relational Database
11 4 (2.16%) Amazon Redshift
11 4 (2.16%) Mixpanel
11 4 (2.16%) Spark SQL
11 4 (2.16%) Spotfire
11 4 (2.16%) SQL Server
12 3 (1.62%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 3 (1.62%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 16 (8.65%) Git
2 5 (2.70%) Jenkins
2 5 (2.70%) JIRA
3 4 (2.16%) MLflow
4 2 (1.08%) GoCD
4 2 (1.08%) SonarQube
4 2 (1.08%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.08%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.54%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.54%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.54%) Maven
5 1 (0.54%) RStudio
General
1 69 (37.30%) Social Skills
2 61 (32.97%) Analytical Skills
3 50 (27.03%) Finance
4 24 (12.97%) Marketing
5 14 (7.57%) Pharmaceutical
6 13 (7.03%) Banking
6 13 (7.03%) Public Sector
7 6 (3.24%) Manufacturing
7 6 (3.24%) Organisational Skills
8 5 (2.70%) Legal
9 4 (2.16%) Local Government
10 3 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.62%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.08%) Digital Health
11 2 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (1.08%) Retail
12 1 (0.54%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.54%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 49 (26.49%) Data Scientist
2 36 (19.46%) Analyst
3 25 (13.51%) Data Analyst
4 22 (11.89%) Senior
5 20 (10.81%) Developer
6 19 (10.27%) Architect
7 18 (9.73%) Data Engineer
8 12 (6.49%) Senior Data Scientist
9 8 (4.32%) Lead
10 7 (3.78%) Power BI Developer
11 6 (3.24%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
11 6 (3.24%) Azure Engineer
11 6 (3.24%) Business Analyst
11 6 (3.24%) Business Intelligence Developer
11 6 (3.24%) Software Engineer
12 5 (2.70%) Security Architect
12 5 (2.70%) Senior Analyst
13 4 (2.16%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
13 4 (2.16%) Consultant
13 4 (2.16%) Data Analytics Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (9.73%) TensorFlow
2 16 (8.65%) PyTorch
2 16 (8.65%) scikit-learn
3 13 (7.03%) Pandas
4 6 (3.24%) Kafka
5 5 (2.70%) PySpark
6 4 (2.16%) Google JAX
6 4 (2.16%) JAX
6 4 (2.16%) Matplotlib
6 4 (2.16%) Seaborn
6 4 (2.16%) YAML
7 3 (1.62%) FastAPI
7 3 (1.62%) FHIR
7 3 (1.62%) JSON
7 3 (1.62%) NumPy
8 2 (1.08%) ATL
8 2 (1.08%) Hugging Face
8 2 (1.08%) REST
8 2 (1.08%) Shiny
8 2 (1.08%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 20 (10.81%) Algorithms
2 12 (6.49%) Credit Risk
3 8 (4.32%) Data Structures
4 7 (3.78%) Self-Motivation
5 6 (3.24%) Multi-touch
6 5 (2.70%) Cloud Native
6 5 (2.70%) Product Ownership
7 4 (2.16%) Analytical Mindset
7 4 (2.16%) NHS
8 3 (1.62%) IoT
8 3 (1.62%) Management Information System
9 2 (1.08%) Distributed Computing
9 2 (1.08%) Genomics
9 2 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
9 2 (1.08%) Legacy Systems
9 2 (1.08%) Life Science
9 2 (1.08%) Mobile App
9 2 (1.08%) Onboarding
9 2 (1.08%) Security Posture
9 2 (1.08%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 5 (2.70%) Linux
2 2 (1.08%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 95 (51.35%) Data Science
2 82 (44.32%) Analytics
2 82 (44.32%) Machine Learning
3 76 (41.08%) Business Intelligence
4 63 (34.05%) Visualisation
5 53 (28.65%) Data Analysis
6 49 (26.49%) Data Modelling
7 47 (25.41%) Decision-Making
8 44 (23.78%) Problem-Solving
9 43 (23.24%) Statistical Modelling
10 37 (20.00%) Data Visualisation
11 33 (17.84%) Actionable Insight
11 33 (17.84%) Data Governance
12 32 (17.30%) Agile
12 32 (17.30%) AI
12 32 (17.30%) Validation
13 26 (14.05%) CI/CD
14 25 (13.51%) Computer Science
14 25 (13.51%) Statistics
15 24 (12.97%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 177 (95.68%) Python
2 124 (67.03%) SQL
3 16 (8.65%) Java
4 13 (7.03%) C++
5 10 (5.41%) MATLAB
5 10 (5.41%) Scala
6 9 (4.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 5 (2.70%) JavaScript
8 4 (2.16%) C
8 4 (2.16%) PL/SQL
8 4 (2.16%) VBA
9 3 (1.62%) Go
10 2 (1.08%) Bash
10 2 (1.08%) Rust
11 1 (0.54%) Fortran
11 1 (0.54%) Korn
11 1 (0.54%) LookML
11 1 (0.54%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.54%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 40 (21.62%) Degree
2 22 (11.89%) Security Cleared
3 18 (9.73%) SC Cleared
4 12 (6.49%) Master's Degree
5 11 (5.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 10 (5.41%) PhD
7 8 (4.32%) BPSS Clearance
8 4 (2.16%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (1.08%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.08%) Tableau Certification
10 1 (0.54%) ACCA
10 1 (0.54%) CFA
10 1 (0.54%) CIMA
10 1 (0.54%) CTC Cleared
10 1 (0.54%) GIAC
10 1 (0.54%) Numerate Degree
10 1 (0.54%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (18.38%) Data Quality
2 9 (4.86%) GDPR
3 8 (4.32%) QA
4 4 (2.16%) EU AI Act
4 4 (2.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.08%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.08%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (1.08%) DICOM
5 2 (1.08%) NIST
5 2 (1.08%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.54%) HL7
6 1 (0.54%) IFRS
6 1 (0.54%) IFRS 9
6 1 (0.54%) LOINC
6 1 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.54%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 10 (5.41%) Docker
2 3 (1.62%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 1 (0.54%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 13 (7.03%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.08%) Ansible
2 2 (1.08%) rkt
2 2 (1.08%) Terraform
3 1 (0.54%) Packer
3 1 (0.54%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 24 (12.97%) Microsoft
2 20 (10.81%) Databricks
3 9 (4.86%) Oracle
4 7 (3.78%) Google
4 7 (3.78%) Pega
5 4 (2.16%) Amplitude
5 4 (2.16%) SAP
5 4 (2.16%) ServiceNow
5 4 (2.16%) TIBCO
6 3 (1.62%) Adobe
6 3 (1.62%) Cognos
6 3 (1.62%) Splunk
7 2 (1.08%) Alteryx
7 2 (1.08%) Bloomberg
7 2 (1.08%) Dynatrace
7 2 (1.08%) Refinitiv
8 1 (0.54%) Arqiva
8 1 (0.54%) Automation Anywhere
8 1 (0.54%) UiPath
8 1 (0.54%) Workday