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 25 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 420 342 401
Rank change year-on-year -78 +59 -8
Contract jobs citing R 171 238 225
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.66% 0.49%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.49% 2.05% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 134 156
10th Percentile £304 £303 £310
25th Percentile £413 £350 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -4.76% -11.02%
75th Percentile £600 £612 £641
90th Percentile £688 £721 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £506 £513
% change year-on-year +3.70% -1.22% +4.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 12 16
10th Percentile £24.55 £20.01 £25.06
25th Percentile £27.19 £20.12 £25.47
Median hourly rate £31.25 £22.00 £40.32
Median % change year-on-year +42.05% -45.43% +55.06%
75th Percentile £37.50 £35.38 £49.06
90th Percentile £51.25 £53.75 £58.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £20.24 £47.50
% change year-on-year +48.26% -57.40% +133.36%

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 11,456 11,631 14,256
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.00% 32.03% 30.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,559 7,427 10,147
10th Percentile £350 £350 £360
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £621 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £756 £753
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 339 298 437
10th Percentile £29.87 £22.00 £32.19
25th Percentile £48.75 £40.19 £47.50
Median hourly rate £63.50 £62.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% +4.58% -
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.25 £75.00 £78.00
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 25 November 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 25 November 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 25 November 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 -63 150 £500 - 502
London -30 81 £500 - 176
UK excluding London -52 69 £525 +3.70% 440
Work from Home +9 60 £550 +10.00% 82
South East -4 23 £575 +12.20% 128
North of England -42 14 £465 +27.22% 97
North West -12 13 £479 +34.41% 59
East of England -10 12 £608 -4.63% 56
Midlands -42 9 £525 +34.44% 76
Wales -1 6 £366 - 22
East Midlands -17 5 £375 +10.29% 33
West Midlands -27 4 £575 -6.05% 42
Scotland -9 3 £550 -6.38% 25
South West -14 2 £513 -29.31% 37
Yorkshire -32 1 £450 +20.00% 29

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 23 (13.45%) Apache Spark
2 22 (12.87%) SAS
3 5 (2.92%) Apache Airflow
4 4 (2.34%) Apache
4 4 (2.34%) Confluence
4 4 (2.34%) SharePoint
5 2 (1.17%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.58%) Luigi
Applications
1 23 (13.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (6.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (4.68%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.58%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.58%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 2 (1.17%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.58%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.58%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.58%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.58%) SAP IBP
2 1 (0.58%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 57 (33.33%) Power Platform
2 55 (32.16%) Azure
3 33 (19.30%) AWS
4 25 (14.62%) GCP
5 8 (4.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 8 (4.68%) Snowflake
6 7 (4.09%) Azure Machine Learning
7 6 (3.51%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (2.34%) Azure AKS
8 4 (2.34%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.75%) GitHub
9 3 (1.75%) Google Analytics
9 3 (1.75%) Power Automate
10 2 (1.17%) Adobe Analytics
10 2 (1.17%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.17%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.17%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.17%) dbt
10 2 (1.17%) PowerApps
10 2 (1.17%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.17%) 2G
1 2 (1.17%) 5G
1 2 (1.17%) LTE
1 2 (1.17%) Mobile Backhaul
1 2 (1.17%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (33.33%) Power BI
2 40 (23.39%) Tableau
3 20 (11.70%) Data Warehouse
4 18 (10.53%) Big Data
5 15 (8.77%) Hadoop
6 11 (6.43%) Data Lake
7 10 (5.85%) Data Mining
7 10 (5.85%) NoSQL
8 8 (4.68%) Metadata
9 5 (2.92%) Looker
10 4 (2.34%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (2.34%) Relational Database
10 4 (2.34%) Spotfire
10 4 (2.34%) SQL Server
11 3 (1.75%) Amazon QuickSight
11 3 (1.75%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 3 (1.75%) Impala
12 2 (1.17%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
12 2 (1.17%) MongoDB
12 2 (1.17%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 11 (6.43%) Git
2 5 (2.92%) Jenkins
2 5 (2.92%) JIRA
3 4 (2.34%) MLflow
4 2 (1.17%) GoCD
4 2 (1.17%) SonarQube
4 2 (1.17%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.17%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.58%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.58%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.58%) Maven
5 1 (0.58%) RStudio
General
1 63 (36.84%) Social Skills
2 59 (34.50%) Analytical Skills
3 46 (26.90%) Finance
4 26 (15.20%) Marketing
5 17 (9.94%) Pharmaceutical
6 13 (7.60%) Banking
7 10 (5.85%) Public Sector
8 6 (3.51%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (3.51%) Manufacturing
8 6 (3.51%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (2.92%) Legal
10 3 (1.75%) Local Government
10 3 (1.75%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.17%) Digital Health
11 2 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.17%) Retail
12 1 (0.58%) Advertising
12 1 (0.58%) Corporate Banking
12 1 (0.58%) Investment Banking
12 1 (0.58%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 46 (26.90%) Data Scientist
2 33 (19.30%) Analyst
3 23 (13.45%) Data Analyst
4 17 (9.94%) Architect
4 17 (9.94%) Developer
5 16 (9.36%) Data Engineer
5 16 (9.36%) Senior
6 8 (4.68%) Senior Data Scientist
7 7 (4.09%) Lead
8 6 (3.51%) Business Analyst
8 6 (3.51%) Software Engineer
9 5 (2.92%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
9 5 (2.92%) Security Architect
10 4 (2.34%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
10 4 (2.34%) Azure Engineer
10 4 (2.34%) Consultant
10 4 (2.34%) Data Analytics Engineer
10 4 (2.34%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 4 (2.34%) Power BI Developer
10 4 (2.34%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (9.36%) TensorFlow
2 15 (8.77%) PyTorch
3 14 (8.19%) Pandas
3 14 (8.19%) scikit-learn
4 6 (3.51%) Kafka
5 4 (2.34%) Google JAX
5 4 (2.34%) JAX
5 4 (2.34%) Matplotlib
5 4 (2.34%) Seaborn
6 3 (1.75%) FastAPI
6 3 (1.75%) FHIR
6 3 (1.75%) NumPy
6 3 (1.75%) PySpark
7 2 (1.17%) ATL
7 2 (1.17%) Hugging Face
7 2 (1.17%) JSON
7 2 (1.17%) REST
7 2 (1.17%) XML
7 2 (1.17%) YAML
8 1 (0.58%) ODBC
Miscellaneous
1 19 (11.11%) Algorithms
2 12 (7.02%) Credit Risk
3 8 (4.68%) Multi-touch
4 6 (3.51%) Data Structures
4 6 (3.51%) Self-Motivation
5 5 (2.92%) Cloud Native
5 5 (2.92%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.34%) NHS
7 3 (1.75%) IoT
7 3 (1.75%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.17%) Distributed Computing
8 2 (1.17%) Genomics
8 2 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.17%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.17%) Life Science
8 2 (1.17%) Mobile App
8 2 (1.17%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.17%) Social Media
8 2 (1.17%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 5 (2.92%) Linux
2 2 (1.17%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (51.46%) Data Science
2 78 (45.61%) Machine Learning
3 67 (39.18%) Analytics
4 65 (38.01%) Business Intelligence
5 52 (30.41%) Data Analysis
6 51 (29.82%) Visualisation
7 44 (25.73%) Data Modelling
8 42 (24.56%) Statistical Modelling
9 41 (23.98%) Problem-Solving
10 37 (21.64%) Decision-Making
11 31 (18.13%) AI
11 31 (18.13%) Validation
12 29 (16.96%) Actionable Insight
13 28 (16.37%) Data Governance
13 28 (16.37%) Data Visualisation
14 26 (15.20%) Statistics
15 25 (14.62%) Agile
15 25 (14.62%) Computer Science
16 24 (14.04%) Mathematics
17 20 (11.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 159 (92.98%) Python
2 109 (63.74%) SQL
3 15 (8.77%) Java
4 13 (7.60%) C++
5 11 (6.43%) MATLAB
6 7 (4.09%) Scala
7 5 (2.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (2.34%) C
8 4 (2.34%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.75%) Go
9 3 (1.75%) JavaScript
10 2 (1.17%) Bash
10 2 (1.17%) Rust
10 2 (1.17%) VBA
11 1 (0.58%) Fortran
11 1 (0.58%) Korn
11 1 (0.58%) PowerShell
11 1 (0.58%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 39 (22.81%) Degree
2 17 (9.94%) Security Cleared
3 14 (8.19%) SC Cleared
4 12 (7.02%) Master's Degree
4 12 (7.02%) PhD
5 9 (5.26%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (4.09%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.17%) Azure Certification
7 2 (1.17%) Tableau Certification
8 1 (0.58%) ACCA
8 1 (0.58%) CFA
8 1 (0.58%) CIMA
8 1 (0.58%) CTC Cleared
8 1 (0.58%) GIAC
8 1 (0.58%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.58%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (16.96%) Data Quality
2 9 (5.26%) QA
3 8 (4.68%) GDPR
4 4 (2.34%) EU AI Act
4 4 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.17%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.17%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (1.17%) DICOM
5 2 (1.17%) NIST
6 1 (0.58%) HL7
6 1 (0.58%) IFRS
6 1 (0.58%) IFRS 9
6 1 (0.58%) LOINC
6 1 (0.58%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.58%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 10 (5.85%) Docker
2 3 (1.75%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 1 (0.58%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 13 (7.60%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.17%) Ansible
2 2 (1.17%) rkt
2 2 (1.17%) Terraform
3 1 (0.58%) Packer
3 1 (0.58%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 16 (9.36%) Databricks
1 16 (9.36%) Microsoft
2 9 (5.26%) Oracle
3 7 (4.09%) Google
3 7 (4.09%) Pega
4 4 (2.34%) SAP
4 4 (2.34%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.34%) TIBCO
5 3 (1.75%) Splunk
6 2 (1.17%) Adobe
6 2 (1.17%) Amplitude
6 2 (1.17%) Bloomberg
6 2 (1.17%) Cognos
6 2 (1.17%) Dynatrace
6 2 (1.17%) Refinitiv
7 1 (0.58%) Arqiva
7 1 (0.58%) Cribl.io
7 1 (0.58%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.58%) TikTok
7 1 (0.58%) Workday