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

6 months to
14 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 393 323 425
Rank change year-on-year -70 +102 -33
Contract jobs citing R 174 246 217
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.49% 0.67% 0.47%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.52% 2.09% 1.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 134 155
10th Percentile £308 £286 £303
25th Percentile £413 £333 £393
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £488 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.56% -7.14% -11.76%
75th Percentile £600 £612 £650
90th Percentile £688 £684 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £506 £513
% change year-on-year +1.23% -1.22% +3.54%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 18 15
10th Percentile £24.55 £20.08 £24.99
25th Percentile £27.19 £20.12 £25.44
Median hourly rate £31.25 £21.50 £35.63
Median % change year-on-year +45.35% -39.66% +37.04%
75th Percentile £37.50 £27.88 £48.75
90th Percentile £51.25 £53.75 £59.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £20.24 £47.50
% change year-on-year +48.26% -57.40% +110.97%

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 11,781 14,546
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 32.24% 32.11% 31.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,545 7,594 10,368
10th Percentile £348 £350 £363
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 £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 337 285 446
10th Percentile £29.00 £22.00 £31.75
25th Percentile £45.75 £37.55 £47.50
Median hourly rate £62.50 £61.50 £60.11
Median % change year-on-year +1.63% +2.32% +0.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £76.25 £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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -75 154 £500 +5.26% 589
London -24 78 £500 +5.26% 249
UK excluding London -50 74 £513 +1.23% 447
Work from Home +6 62 £550 +10.00% 119
South East -3 26 £525 +2.44% 124
East of England -7 15 £575 -8.00% 58
North of England -42 12 £465 +24.00% 106
North West -14 11 £479 +34.41% 56
Midlands -36 10 £538 +50.98% 76
Wales -3 6 £366 - 23
East Midlands -17 5 £375 +10.29% 31
West Midlands -35 4 £575 -6.05% 44
Scotland -10 3 £550 -12.00% 28
South West -13 2 £513 -29.31% 29
Yorkshire -37 1 £450 -2.70% 36

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 22 (12.64%) Apache Spark
2 20 (11.49%) SAS
3 4 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.30%) Confluence
4 3 (1.72%) Apache
4 3 (1.72%) SharePoint
5 2 (1.15%) Jupyter
6 1 (0.57%) Luigi
Applications
1 20 (11.49%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (6.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (4.60%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.57%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.57%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 2 (1.15%) Distributed Ledger
2 1 (0.57%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle BPM
2 1 (0.57%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 1 (0.57%) SAP ERP
2 1 (0.57%) SAP IBP
2 1 (0.57%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 60 (34.48%) Azure
2 54 (31.03%) Power Platform
3 31 (17.82%) AWS
4 24 (13.79%) GCP
5 12 (6.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 8 (4.60%) Azure Data Factory
6 8 (4.60%) Azure Machine Learning
6 8 (4.60%) Snowflake
7 5 (2.87%) Azure AKS
8 4 (2.30%) GitHub
9 3 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
9 3 (1.72%) Google Analytics
9 3 (1.72%) Power Automate
10 2 (1.15%) Adobe Analytics
10 2 (1.15%) Amazon EC2
10 2 (1.15%) Amazon S3
10 2 (1.15%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.15%) dbt
10 2 (1.15%) PowerApps
10 2 (1.15%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.15%) 2G
1 2 (1.15%) 5G
1 2 (1.15%) LTE
1 2 (1.15%) Mobile Backhaul
1 2 (1.15%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 54 (31.03%) Power BI
2 40 (22.99%) Tableau
3 18 (10.34%) Big Data
4 17 (9.77%) Data Warehouse
5 15 (8.62%) Data Lake
6 14 (8.05%) Hadoop
7 9 (5.17%) Data Mining
7 9 (5.17%) NoSQL
8 7 (4.02%) Metadata
9 5 (2.87%) Looker
10 4 (2.30%) Amazon Redshift
10 4 (2.30%) Spotfire
11 3 (1.72%) Amazon QuickSight
11 3 (1.72%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 3 (1.72%) Impala
11 3 (1.72%) Relational Database
11 3 (1.72%) SQL Server
12 2 (1.15%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
12 2 (1.15%) Mixpanel
12 2 (1.15%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (5.17%) Git
2 5 (2.87%) Jenkins
2 5 (2.87%) JIRA
3 4 (2.30%) MLflow
4 2 (1.15%) GoCD
4 2 (1.15%) SonarQube
4 2 (1.15%) Sonatype Nexus
4 2 (1.15%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.57%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.57%) Eclipse
5 1 (0.57%) Maven
5 1 (0.57%) RStudio
General
1 58 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 56 (32.18%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (23.56%) Finance
4 26 (14.94%) Marketing
5 18 (10.34%) Pharmaceutical
6 12 (6.90%) Banking
7 9 (5.17%) Public Sector
8 6 (3.45%) Manufacturing
8 6 (3.45%) Organisational Skills
9 5 (2.87%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (2.87%) Legal
10 4 (2.30%) Local Government
11 3 (1.72%) Telecoms
12 2 (1.15%) Digital Health
12 2 (1.15%) Retail
13 1 (0.57%) Agriculture
13 1 (0.57%) Agrochemical
13 1 (0.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.57%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 47 (27.01%) Data Scientist
2 35 (20.11%) Analyst
3 25 (14.37%) Data Analyst
4 16 (9.20%) Architect
4 16 (9.20%) Developer
5 14 (8.05%) Senior
6 13 (7.47%) Data Engineer
7 9 (5.17%) Lead
8 7 (4.02%) Senior Data Scientist
9 6 (3.45%) Business Analyst
9 6 (3.45%) Software Engineer
10 5 (2.87%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
10 5 (2.87%) Security Architect
11 4 (2.30%) Artificial Intelligence Developer
11 4 (2.30%) Consultant
11 4 (2.30%) Data Science Developer
11 4 (2.30%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 4 (2.30%) Power BI Developer
11 4 (2.30%) Senior Analyst
11 4 (2.30%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (9.77%) TensorFlow
2 16 (9.20%) PyTorch
3 15 (8.62%) scikit-learn
4 14 (8.05%) Pandas
5 5 (2.87%) Kafka
6 4 (2.30%) Google JAX
6 4 (2.30%) JAX
6 4 (2.30%) Matplotlib
6 4 (2.30%) Seaborn
7 3 (1.72%) FastAPI
7 3 (1.72%) FHIR
7 3 (1.72%) JSON
7 3 (1.72%) NumPy
8 2 (1.15%) ATL
8 2 (1.15%) Hugging Face
8 2 (1.15%) PySpark
8 2 (1.15%) REST
8 2 (1.15%) Shiny
8 2 (1.15%) XML
9 1 (0.57%) Tidyverse
Miscellaneous
1 19 (10.92%) Algorithms
2 11 (6.32%) Credit Risk
3 8 (4.60%) Multi-touch
4 7 (4.02%) Data Structures
5 5 (2.87%) Product Ownership
5 5 (2.87%) Self-Motivation
6 4 (2.30%) Analytical Mindset
6 4 (2.30%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.30%) NHS
7 3 (1.72%) Genomics
7 3 (1.72%) IoT
7 3 (1.72%) Smart Meter
8 2 (1.15%) Distributed Computing
8 2 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
8 2 (1.15%) Legacy Systems
8 2 (1.15%) Life Science
8 2 (1.15%) Management Information System
8 2 (1.15%) Mobile App
8 2 (1.15%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.15%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 7 (4.02%) Linux
2 2 (1.15%) VMS
2 2 (1.15%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (50.00%) Data Science
2 80 (45.98%) Machine Learning
3 71 (40.80%) Analytics
4 63 (36.21%) Business Intelligence
5 54 (31.03%) Data Analysis
6 51 (29.31%) Visualisation
7 44 (25.29%) Data Modelling
8 41 (23.56%) Statistical Modelling
9 39 (22.41%) Problem-Solving
10 34 (19.54%) Decision-Making
11 32 (18.39%) AI
12 30 (17.24%) Data Visualisation
12 30 (17.24%) Validation
13 28 (16.09%) Actionable Insight
14 26 (14.94%) Agile
14 26 (14.94%) Data Governance
15 25 (14.37%) Statistics
16 24 (13.79%) Computer Science
17 22 (12.64%) Mathematics
18 20 (11.49%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 161 (92.53%) Python
2 110 (63.22%) SQL
3 16 (9.20%) Java
4 12 (6.90%) C++
5 11 (6.32%) MATLAB
6 6 (3.45%) Scala
7 5 (2.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 4 (2.30%) C
8 4 (2.30%) PL/SQL
9 3 (1.72%) Go
10 2 (1.15%) Bash
10 2 (1.15%) JavaScript
10 2 (1.15%) Rust
10 2 (1.15%) VBA
11 1 (0.57%) Fortran
11 1 (0.57%) Korn
11 1 (0.57%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 39 (22.41%) Degree
2 14 (8.05%) Security Cleared
3 12 (6.90%) Master's Degree
3 12 (6.90%) PhD
4 10 (5.75%) SC Cleared
5 8 (4.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (3.45%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.15%) Tableau Certification
8 1 (0.57%) ACCA
8 1 (0.57%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.57%) CFA
8 1 (0.57%) CIMA
8 1 (0.57%) GIAC
8 1 (0.57%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 29 (16.67%) Data Quality
2 8 (4.60%) GDPR
2 8 (4.60%) QA
3 5 (2.87%) Accessibility
4 4 (2.30%) EU AI Act
4 4 (2.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.15%) DICOM
5 2 (1.15%) NIST
6 1 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.57%) HL7
6 1 (0.57%) IFRS
6 1 (0.57%) IFRS 9
6 1 (0.57%) LOINC
6 1 (0.57%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.57%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 12 (6.90%) Docker
2 3 (1.72%) Slurm Workload Manager
3 1 (0.57%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 15 (8.62%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.15%) Ansible
2 2 (1.15%) rkt
2 2 (1.15%) Terraform
3 1 (0.57%) Packer
3 1 (0.57%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 20 (11.49%) Microsoft
2 17 (9.77%) Databricks
3 9 (5.17%) Oracle
4 7 (4.02%) Google
5 6 (3.45%) Pega
6 5 (2.87%) SAP
7 4 (2.30%) TIBCO
8 3 (1.72%) Splunk
9 2 (1.15%) Adobe
9 2 (1.15%) Amplitude
9 2 (1.15%) Bloomberg
9 2 (1.15%) Cognos
9 2 (1.15%) Dynatrace
9 2 (1.15%) Refinitiv
9 2 (1.15%) ServiceNow
10 1 (0.57%) Autodesk
10 1 (0.57%) Cribl.io
10 1 (0.57%) NEC
10 1 (0.57%) OpenAI
10 1 (0.57%) TikTok