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 4 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 425 333 382
Rank change year-on-year -92 +49 +46
Contract jobs citing R 163 190 226
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.39% 0.63% 0.51%
As % of the Programming Languages category 1.30% 1.86% 1.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 101 110 159
10th Percentile £313 £292 £312
25th Percentile £413 £388 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £688 £777 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £461 £375
% change year-on-year +8.40% +23.00% -16.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 5 13
10th Percentile £23.32 £21.75 £25.36
25th Percentile £27.60 £22.50 £25.50
Median hourly rate £32.50 £52.50 £35.63
Median % change year-on-year -38.10% +47.35% +18.77%
75th Percentile £54.88 £58.75 £47.50
90th Percentile £60.33 £59.95 £51.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 - £23.55
% change year-on-year - - +6.25%

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 12,519 10,212 12,933
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 29.71% 33.99% 29.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,352 6,639 9,132
10th Percentile £352 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -6.25%
75th Percentile £604 £638 £650
90th Percentile £721 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £488 £496
% change year-on-year -2.00% -1.76% -1.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 483 237 506
10th Percentile £41.25 £21.25 £30.94
25th Percentile £53.88 £35.00 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.51%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £68.94
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £62.00
% change year-on-year +1.97% +2.81% -4.62%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -103 143 £525 +3.70% 325
London -53 79 £536 -2.55% 80
Work from Home +3 60 £531 +7.44% 49
UK excluding London -112 59 £500 +8.40% 309
South East -35 17 £600 +29.73% 65
Midlands -55 17 £395 +1.94% 54
North of England -56 13 £500 +9.89% 84
East Midlands -21 11 £385 +33.22% 35
North West -32 11 £513 +12.77% 31
East of England -31 6 £527 -18.96% 36
West Midlands -58 6 £438 +12.90% 17
Wales -5 3 £425 - 21
South West -35 3 - - 32
North East -16 1 £475 - 20
Yorkshire - 1 - - 37

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 (17.18%) Apache Spark
2 12 (7.36%) SAS
3 7 (4.29%) SharePoint
4 4 (2.45%) Apache
4 4 (2.45%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.61%) Apache Superset
5 1 (0.61%) Confluence
5 1 (0.61%) Jupyter
Applications
1 17 (10.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (3.07%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (2.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.61%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 1 (0.61%) Salesforce CRM
1 1 (0.61%) SAP IBP
1 1 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 60 (36.81%) Power Platform
2 48 (29.45%) AWS
3 46 (28.22%) Azure
4 22 (13.50%) GCP
5 9 (5.52%) Snowflake
6 8 (4.91%) Power Automate
6 8 (4.91%) PowerApps
7 5 (3.07%) Azure Data Factory
7 5 (3.07%) dbt
7 5 (3.07%) Microsoft Purview
8 4 (2.45%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (2.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 3 (1.84%) Amazon Bedrock
9 3 (1.84%) Azure Machine Learning
9 3 (1.84%) Copilot Studio
9 3 (1.84%) OpenShift
10 2 (1.23%) Amazon EMR
10 2 (1.23%) Amazon Kinesis
10 2 (1.23%) Amazon SageMaker
10 2 (1.23%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.23%) 2G
1 2 (1.23%) 5G
1 2 (1.23%) LTE
1 2 (1.23%) Mobile Backhaul
1 2 (1.23%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (36.81%) Power BI
2 45 (27.61%) Tableau
3 28 (17.18%) Big Data
4 22 (13.50%) Hadoop
5 19 (11.66%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (7.98%) Looker
7 8 (4.91%) Power Query
8 7 (4.29%) Data Lake
8 7 (4.29%) Data Mining
8 7 (4.29%) Delta Lake
8 7 (4.29%) Metadata
8 7 (4.29%) Mixpanel
9 6 (3.68%) NoSQL
9 6 (3.68%) Spark SQL
10 5 (3.07%) Amazon Redshift
10 5 (3.07%) Relational Database
11 4 (2.45%) SQL Server
12 3 (1.84%) BigQuery
13 2 (1.23%) Amazon Athena
13 2 (1.23%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 12 (7.36%) Git
2 6 (3.68%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.23%) GoCD
3 2 (1.23%) MLflow
3 2 (1.23%) RStudio
3 2 (1.23%) SonarQube
3 2 (1.23%) Sonatype Nexus
3 2 (1.23%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.61%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.61%) JIRA
4 1 (0.61%) Maven
General
1 55 (33.74%) Social Skills
2 49 (30.06%) Analytical Skills
3 41 (25.15%) Finance
4 28 (17.18%) Public Sector
5 14 (8.59%) Marketing
6 12 (7.36%) Pharmaceutical
7 10 (6.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (4.29%) Banking
9 4 (2.45%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.84%) Manufacturing
10 3 (1.84%) Telecoms
11 2 (1.23%) Financial Institution
11 2 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (1.23%) Retail
11 2 (1.23%) Social Science
12 1 (0.61%) Agriculture
12 1 (0.61%) Agrochemical
12 1 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
12 1 (0.61%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 52 (31.90%) Data Scientist
2 31 (19.02%) Analyst
3 25 (15.34%) Senior
4 24 (14.72%) Data Analyst
5 18 (11.04%) Data Engineer
6 16 (9.82%) Senior Data Scientist
7 13 (7.98%) Architect
8 12 (7.36%) Developer
9 10 (6.13%) Lead
10 6 (3.68%) Business Intelligence Developer
10 6 (3.68%) Software Engineer
11 5 (3.07%) Azure Engineer
11 5 (3.07%) Business Analyst
11 5 (3.07%) Lead Data Scientist
11 5 (3.07%) Power BI Developer
12 4 (2.45%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 4 (2.45%) Consultant
12 4 (2.45%) Data Analytics Engineer
13 3 (1.84%) Senior Analyst
13 3 (1.84%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (8.59%) TensorFlow
2 11 (6.75%) PyTorch
2 11 (6.75%) scikit-learn
3 9 (5.52%) Pandas
4 8 (4.91%) PySpark
5 6 (3.68%) Keras
6 5 (3.07%) Kafka
6 5 (3.07%) YAML
7 4 (2.45%) LangChain
7 4 (2.45%) Shiny
8 3 (1.84%) FastAPI
8 3 (1.84%) Hugging Face
8 3 (1.84%) JSON
8 3 (1.84%) Matplotlib
8 3 (1.84%) Seaborn
9 2 (1.23%) NumPy
9 2 (1.23%) REST
9 2 (1.23%) SciPy
9 2 (1.23%) XGBoost
9 2 (1.23%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (9.20%) Algorithms
2 10 (6.13%) Credit Risk
3 8 (4.91%) Cloud Native
4 7 (4.29%) Data Structures
5 6 (3.68%) Product Ownership
6 5 (3.07%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (1.84%) CRISPR
7 3 (1.84%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.84%) IoT
7 3 (1.84%) Management Information System
7 3 (1.84%) Multi-touch
8 2 (1.23%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.23%) Mobile App
8 2 (1.23%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.61%) Data Fabric
9 1 (0.61%) Distributed Computing
9 1 (0.61%) Genomics
9 1 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
9 1 (0.61%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 2 (1.23%) Linux
2 1 (0.61%) Unix
2 1 (0.61%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (56.44%) Data Science
2 91 (55.83%) Analytics
3 73 (44.79%) Machine Learning
4 68 (41.72%) Visualisation
5 57 (34.97%) Business Intelligence
6 46 (28.22%) Decision-Making
7 40 (24.54%) Data Analysis
8 37 (22.70%) Statistical Modelling
9 36 (22.09%) Data Modelling
10 35 (21.47%) Data Visualisation
10 35 (21.47%) Problem-Solving
11 34 (20.86%) Actionable Insight
12 33 (20.25%) Agile
13 31 (19.02%) Data Governance
14 30 (18.40%) Data Pipeline
15 29 (17.79%) AI
16 25 (15.34%) Data Analytics
17 24 (14.72%) Dashboard Development
17 24 (14.72%) Validation
18 21 (12.88%) Statistics
Programming Languages
1 154 (94.48%) Python
2 116 (71.17%) SQL
3 10 (6.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
3 10 (6.13%) Java
4 7 (4.29%) Scala
5 6 (3.68%) C++
5 6 (3.68%) JavaScript
6 3 (1.84%) C#
6 3 (1.84%) TypeScript
7 2 (1.23%) Ada
7 2 (1.23%) Go
7 2 (1.23%) Rust
7 2 (1.23%) VBA
8 1 (0.61%) Bash
8 1 (0.61%) LookML
8 1 (0.61%) PL/SQL
8 1 (0.61%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 36 (22.09%) Security Cleared
2 31 (19.02%) Degree
3 29 (17.79%) SC Cleared
4 7 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
4 7 (4.29%) Master's Degree
5 6 (3.68%) PhD
6 5 (3.07%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (2.45%) BPSS Clearance
8 3 (1.84%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.61%) CIMA
9 1 (0.61%) CTC Cleared
9 1 (0.61%) DBS Check
9 1 (0.61%) GIAC
9 1 (0.61%) Numerate Degree
9 1 (0.61%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (14.72%) Data Quality
2 11 (6.75%) Actionable Recommendations
3 7 (4.29%) GDPR
4 6 (3.68%) QA
5 2 (1.23%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.23%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.61%) MiFID
6 1 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.61%) WCAG
System Software
1 8 (4.91%) Docker
2 2 (1.23%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 12 (7.36%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.84%) Terraform
3 2 (1.23%) rkt
4 1 (0.61%) Ansible
4 1 (0.61%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 21 (12.88%) Databricks
2 16 (9.82%) Microsoft
3 7 (4.29%) Amplitude
3 7 (4.29%) Pega
4 4 (2.45%) OpenAI
4 4 (2.45%) Oracle
4 4 (2.45%) ServiceNow
5 3 (1.84%) Informatica
5 3 (1.84%) Red Hat
5 3 (1.84%) SAP
5 3 (1.84%) Splunk
6 2 (1.23%) Cognos
6 2 (1.23%) Dynatrace
6 2 (1.23%) Google
6 2 (1.23%) TIBCO
7 1 (0.61%) Adobe
7 1 (0.61%) Arqiva
7 1 (0.61%) Autodesk
7 1 (0.61%) Facebook
7 1 (0.61%) Salesforce