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 18 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 436 334 381
Rank change year-on-year -102 +47 +33
Contract jobs citing R 166 198 224
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.65% 0.50%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.36% 1.92% 1.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 107 159
10th Percentile £312 £289 £312
25th Percentile £413 £381 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.25% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £688 £800 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £468 £390
% change year-on-year +6.95% +19.87% -15.68%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 5 14
10th Percentile £23.32 £21.75 £25.37
25th Percentile £27.60 £22.50 £25.69
Median hourly rate £32.50 £52.50 £39.07
Median % change year-on-year -38.10% +34.39% +30.22%
75th Percentile £54.88 £58.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £60.33 £59.95 £51.38
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 - £25.36
% change year-on-year - - +14.44%

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 12,225 10,313 13,082
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 30.14% 33.62% 29.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,132 6,584 9,223
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -5.07%
75th Percentile £612 £638 £650
90th Percentile £715 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £479 £484 £500
% change year-on-year -1.03% -3.20% -2.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 468 231 509
10th Percentile £40.00 £21.25 £36.25
25th Percentile £52.50 £36.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +3.31% -6.92%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +1.97% +1.99% -3.85%

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 18 February 2026.

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 18 February 2026.

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 18 February 2026. 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 -98 145 £525 +2.44% 234
London -49 76 £543 -1.27% 74
UK excluding London -94 63 £500 +6.95% 220
Work from Home -11 57 £536 +4.59% 55
South East -28 19 £600 +18.52% 60
Midlands -51 17 £395 +10.96% 35
North of England -53 13 £500 +32.28% 54
East Midlands -18 11 £385 +20.88% 22
North West -23 11 £513 +35.75% 26
East of England -32 7 £641 -1.38% 23
West Midlands -49 6 £438 +12.90% 12
Wales -3 4 £366 - 8
South West -32 3 - - 26
North East -15 1 £475 - 10
Yorkshire - 1 - - 19

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 28 (16.87%) Apache Spark
2 15 (9.04%) SAS
3 8 (4.82%) SharePoint
4 6 (3.61%) Apache
5 5 (3.01%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.60%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.60%) Confluence
6 1 (0.60%) Jupyter
Applications
1 18 (10.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (3.01%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (3.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.60%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 1 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
1 1 (0.60%) SAP ERP
1 1 (0.60%) SAP IBP
1 1 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 61 (36.75%) Power Platform
2 45 (27.11%) Azure
3 43 (25.90%) AWS
4 21 (12.65%) GCP
5 9 (5.42%) Snowflake
6 8 (4.82%) Power Automate
6 8 (4.82%) PowerApps
7 5 (3.01%) Azure Machine Learning
7 5 (3.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 5 (3.01%) Microsoft Purview
8 4 (2.41%) Azure AKS
8 4 (2.41%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (2.41%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (2.41%) dbt
9 3 (1.81%) Amazon Bedrock
9 3 (1.81%) Copilot Studio
10 2 (1.20%) Amazon EMR
10 2 (1.20%) Amazon Kinesis
10 2 (1.20%) Amazon SageMaker
10 2 (1.20%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.20%) 2G
1 2 (1.20%) 5G
1 2 (1.20%) LTE
1 2 (1.20%) Mobile Backhaul
1 2 (1.20%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (36.75%) Power BI
2 44 (26.51%) Tableau
3 27 (16.27%) Big Data
4 20 (12.05%) Hadoop
5 18 (10.84%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (7.83%) Looker
7 9 (5.42%) Data Lake
8 7 (4.22%) Data Mining
8 7 (4.22%) Delta Lake
8 7 (4.22%) Metadata
8 7 (4.22%) Mixpanel
8 7 (4.22%) NoSQL
8 7 (4.22%) Power Query
9 6 (3.61%) Relational Database
9 6 (3.61%) Spark SQL
10 5 (3.01%) Amazon Redshift
10 5 (3.01%) SQL Server
11 3 (1.81%) BigQuery
12 2 (1.20%) Amazon Athena
12 2 (1.20%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 12 (7.23%) Git
2 6 (3.61%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.81%) MLflow
4 2 (1.20%) GoCD
4 2 (1.20%) RStudio
4 2 (1.20%) SonarQube
4 2 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.20%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.60%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.60%) JIRA
5 1 (0.60%) Maven
General
1 59 (35.54%) Social Skills
2 51 (30.72%) Analytical Skills
3 43 (25.90%) Finance
4 24 (14.46%) Public Sector
5 14 (8.43%) Marketing
6 12 (7.23%) Pharmaceutical
7 9 (5.42%) Banking
7 9 (5.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 6 (3.61%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (2.41%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.81%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (1.20%) Social Science
12 1 (0.60%) Agrochemical
12 1 (0.60%) Local Government
12 1 (0.60%) Private Banking
12 1 (0.60%) Publishing
12 1 (0.60%) Retail
Job Titles
1 51 (30.72%) Data Scientist
2 32 (19.28%) Analyst
3 24 (14.46%) Data Analyst
4 23 (13.86%) Senior
5 18 (10.84%) Data Engineer
6 15 (9.04%) Developer
6 15 (9.04%) Senior Data Scientist
7 13 (7.83%) Architect
8 10 (6.02%) Lead
9 7 (4.22%) Business Intelligence Developer
9 7 (4.22%) Software Engineer
10 6 (3.61%) Business Analyst
10 6 (3.61%) Power BI Developer
11 5 (3.01%) Azure Engineer
11 5 (3.01%) Lead Data Scientist
12 4 (2.41%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 4 (2.41%) Consultant
12 4 (2.41%) Data Analytics Engineer
13 3 (1.81%) Senior Analyst
13 3 (1.81%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (8.43%) TensorFlow
2 12 (7.23%) scikit-learn
3 11 (6.63%) PyTorch
4 9 (5.42%) Pandas
5 8 (4.82%) PySpark
6 6 (3.61%) Kafka
7 5 (3.01%) Keras
7 5 (3.01%) YAML
8 4 (2.41%) LangChain
9 3 (1.81%) FastAPI
9 3 (1.81%) Hugging Face
9 3 (1.81%) JSON
9 3 (1.81%) Shiny
10 2 (1.20%) Matplotlib
10 2 (1.20%) NLTK
10 2 (1.20%) Node.js
10 2 (1.20%) NumPy
10 2 (1.20%) SciPy
10 2 (1.20%) Seaborn
10 2 (1.20%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 12 (7.23%) Algorithms
1 12 (7.23%) Credit Risk
2 7 (4.22%) Cloud Native
2 7 (4.22%) Data Structures
3 5 (3.01%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.01%) Self-Motivation
4 3 (1.81%) IoT
4 3 (1.81%) Management Information System
4 3 (1.81%) Multi-touch
4 3 (1.81%) NHS
5 2 (1.20%) AI Agents
5 2 (1.20%) CRISPR
5 2 (1.20%) Genomics
5 2 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
5 2 (1.20%) Mobile App
5 2 (1.20%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.60%) Data Fabric
6 1 (0.60%) Distributed Computing
6 1 (0.60%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (0.60%) Virtual Reality
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.20%) Linux
2 1 (0.60%) Unix
2 1 (0.60%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (55.42%) Data Science
2 89 (53.61%) Analytics
3 74 (44.58%) Machine Learning
4 67 (40.36%) Visualisation
5 58 (34.94%) Business Intelligence
6 46 (27.71%) Decision-Making
7 40 (24.10%) Data Analysis
8 37 (22.29%) Problem-Solving
9 35 (21.08%) Statistical Modelling
10 34 (20.48%) Data Modelling
11 33 (19.88%) Data Visualisation
12 32 (19.28%) Agile
13 31 (18.67%) Actionable Insight
13 31 (18.67%) Data Governance
14 28 (16.87%) Data Pipeline
15 27 (16.27%) AI
16 24 (14.46%) Data Analytics
16 24 (14.46%) Validation
17 23 (13.86%) Dashboard Development
18 21 (12.65%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 157 (94.58%) Python
2 119 (71.69%) SQL
3 13 (7.83%) Java
4 9 (5.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 8 (4.82%) Scala
6 7 (4.22%) C++
7 6 (3.61%) JavaScript
8 3 (1.81%) C#
9 2 (1.20%) Ada
9 2 (1.20%) Go
9 2 (1.20%) PL/SQL
9 2 (1.20%) Rust
9 2 (1.20%) TypeScript
9 2 (1.20%) VBA
10 1 (0.60%) Bash
10 1 (0.60%) LookML
10 1 (0.60%) MATLAB
10 1 (0.60%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 34 (20.48%) Security Cleared
2 31 (18.67%) Degree
3 27 (16.27%) SC Cleared
4 8 (4.82%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (3.61%) BPSS Clearance
5 6 (3.61%) Master's Degree
6 5 (3.01%) PhD
7 4 (2.41%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.81%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.60%) CIMA
9 1 (0.60%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.60%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.60%) GIAC
9 1 (0.60%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (13.25%) Data Quality
2 10 (6.02%) Actionable Recommendations
3 7 (4.22%) GDPR
3 7 (4.22%) QA
4 2 (1.20%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.60%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.60%) WCAG
System Software
1 10 (6.02%) Docker
2 2 (1.20%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 11 (6.63%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.20%) rkt
3 1 (0.60%) Ansible
3 1 (0.60%) Progress Chef
3 1 (0.60%) Terraform
Vendors
1 22 (13.25%) Databricks
2 16 (9.64%) Microsoft
3 7 (4.22%) Amplitude
3 7 (4.22%) Pega
4 6 (3.61%) Oracle
5 4 (2.41%) OpenAI
5 4 (2.41%) SAP
5 4 (2.41%) ServiceNow
5 4 (2.41%) Splunk
6 3 (1.81%) Cognos
6 3 (1.81%) Informatica
7 2 (1.20%) Dynatrace
7 2 (1.20%) Google
7 2 (1.20%) Red Hat
7 2 (1.20%) TIBCO
8 1 (0.60%) Arqiva
8 1 (0.60%) Cribl.io
8 1 (0.60%) Instagram
8 1 (0.60%) TikTok
8 1 (0.60%) UiPath