PhD Job Trends in England

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil, EngD, Doctorate)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for PhD qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 5 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 420 414
Rank change year-on-year +404 -6 -12
Permanent jobs citing PhD 4,765 272 266
As % of all permanent jobs in England 9.15% 0.56% 0.57%
As % of the Qualifications category 27.38% 1.52% 1.87%
Number of salaries quoted 79 119 164
10th Percentile £41,250 £43,000 £43,250
25th Percentile £57,375 £45,000 £51,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £82,500 £63,652 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +29.61% +1.84% -4.04%
75th Percentile £113,750 £86,250 £92,500
90th Percentile £122,000 £130,000 £137,500
UK median annual salary £85,000 £60,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year +41.67% -4.00% -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

PhD falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in England.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 17,406 17,842 14,235
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in England 33.42% 36.62% 30.40%
Number of salaries quoted 7,007 7,056 9,694
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £35,927 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £91,250 £93,250 £93,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,430 £57,500
% change year-on-year -7.45% +3.36% -

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing PhD relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

PhD job vacancy trend in England

PhD
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing PhD.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in England citing PhD

PhD
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing PhD in England over the 6 months to 5 January 2026.

Salary histogram for PhD in England

PhD
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the England region over the 6 months to 5 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England +243 1,896 £68,000 +51.11% 44
North West +181 1,568 £68,000 +23.64% 18
Midlands +221 1,167 - - 47
West Midlands +178 997 - - 23
South East +217 695 £80,000 +41.57% 84
London +216 537 £85,000 -5.56% 78
East of England +154 404 £70,000 +16.67% 57
Yorkshire +108 278 - - 23
East Midlands +103 182 - - 21
South West +87 87 - - 29
North East - 50 - - 3
PhD
UK

PhD
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 14 (0.29%) Apache Spark
2 6 (0.13%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (0.084%) Jupyter
4 1 (0.021%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (0.021%) CMS
4 1 (0.021%) Kinematics
4 1 (0.021%) PowerFactory
4 1 (0.021%) SharePoint
Applications
1 544 (11.42%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.021%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.021%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.021%) Trello
Business Applications
1 4 (0.084%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 4,005 (84.05%) Cloud Computing
2 25 (0.52%) Azure
3 23 (0.48%) AWS
4 21 (0.44%) GCP
5 6 (0.13%) Azure Machine Learning
6 5 (0.10%) dbt
6 5 (0.10%) Snowflake
7 4 (0.084%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (0.084%) GitHub
8 3 (0.063%) OpenShift
8 3 (0.063%) Power Platform
9 2 (0.042%) Power Automate
9 2 (0.042%) Zapier
10 1 (0.021%) Adobe Analytics
10 1 (0.021%) Amazon SageMaker
10 1 (0.021%) ChatGPT
10 1 (0.021%) Dynamics 365
10 1 (0.021%) Google Compute Engine
10 1 (0.021%) Prefect
10 1 (0.021%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4,003 (84.01%) Internet
2 6 (0.13%) Network Security
3 1 (0.021%) SSH
3 1 (0.021%) TCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (0.23%) Data Lake
2 10 (0.21%) Metadata
3 7 (0.15%) Amazon Redshift
4 5 (0.10%) Hadoop
5 2 (0.042%) Data Mining
5 2 (0.042%) GIS
5 2 (0.042%) Power BI
5 2 (0.042%) Tableau
6 1 (0.021%) Apache Hive
6 1 (0.021%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.021%) Mixpanel
6 1 (0.021%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.021%) Pinecone
6 1 (0.021%) Semantic Layer
6 1 (0.021%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 8 (0.17%) Git
2 5 (0.10%) MLflow
3 3 (0.063%) JIRA
3 3 (0.063%) LabVIEW
4 2 (0.042%) Jenkins
4 2 (0.042%) Subversion
4 2 (0.042%) TestRail
5 1 (0.021%) JUnit
5 1 (0.021%) Maven
5 1 (0.021%) Rational DOORS
5 1 (0.021%) Selenium
General
1 4,074 (85.50%) Social Skills
2 4,019 (84.34%) Banking
3 4,011 (84.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 374 (7.85%) Analytical Skills
5 98 (2.06%) Finance
6 32 (0.67%) Law
7 30 (0.63%) Pharmaceutical
8 29 (0.61%) Games
9 25 (0.52%) Aerospace
10 23 (0.48%) Electronics
11 16 (0.34%) Automotive
12 15 (0.31%) Agriculture
13 13 (0.27%) Financial Institution
14 10 (0.21%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (0.19%) Manufacturing
16 7 (0.15%) Front Office
16 7 (0.15%) Retail
17 6 (0.13%) Organisational Skills
18 3 (0.063%) Marketing
19 2 (0.042%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 3,120 (65.48%) Lecturer
2 544 (11.42%) Trainer
3 83 (1.74%) Research Scientist
4 44 (0.92%) Lead
5 38 (0.80%) Senior
6 35 (0.73%) Data Scientist
7 29 (0.61%) Developer
8 24 (0.50%) Biostatistician
9 23 (0.48%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 16 (0.34%) Senior Data Scientist
10 16 (0.34%) Software Engineer
11 15 (0.31%) Biologist
11 15 (0.31%) Quantitative Developer
12 13 (0.27%) Java Developer
12 13 (0.27%) Java Quantitative Developer
13 8 (0.17%) Algorithmic Trading Developer
14 7 (0.15%) C++ Software Engineer
14 7 (0.15%) Java Developer - Algorithmic Trading
15 5 (0.10%) Architect
15 5 (0.10%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (0.40%) PyTorch
2 14 (0.29%) TensorFlow
3 10 (0.21%) FHIR
4 8 (0.17%) scikit-learn
5 7 (0.15%) Kafka
5 7 (0.15%) SpaCy
6 6 (0.13%) Pandas
7 4 (0.084%) Google JAX
7 4 (0.084%) JAX
7 4 (0.084%) NumPy
7 4 (0.084%) PySpark
7 4 (0.084%) Qt
7 4 (0.084%) REST
8 3 (0.063%) HTML
9 2 (0.042%) .NET
9 2 (0.042%) EDI
9 2 (0.042%) Hugging Face
9 2 (0.042%) Node.js
9 2 (0.042%) OpenAPI
9 2 (0.042%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 4,007 (84.09%) IoT
2 85 (1.78%) Molecular Biology
3 81 (1.70%) Algorithms
4 57 (1.20%) Life Science
5 20 (0.42%) Distributed Systems
6 17 (0.36%) Equities
7 15 (0.31%) Management Information System
8 13 (0.27%) Omics
9 7 (0.15%) Data Structures
9 7 (0.15%) e-Learning
10 6 (0.13%) 3D Graphics
11 4 (0.084%) Blockchain
11 4 (0.084%) Derivative
11 4 (0.084%) LIMS
11 4 (0.084%) Robotics
11 4 (0.084%) VHDL
12 3 (0.063%) Driving Licence
12 3 (0.063%) Linux Command Line
12 3 (0.063%) Onboarding
12 3 (0.063%) Verilog
Operating Systems
1 12 (0.25%) Linux
2 8 (0.17%) Unix
3 4 (0.084%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,656 (97.71%) AI
2 4,114 (86.34%) Machine Learning
3 4,012 (84.20%) Cybersecurity
4 4,005 (84.05%) User Experience
5 4,004 (84.03%) Web Development
6 545 (11.44%) Conversational UI
7 376 (7.89%) Chemistry
8 127 (2.67%) Mathematics
9 124 (2.60%) Computer Science
10 116 (2.43%) Physics
11 94 (1.97%) Analytics
12 89 (1.87%) Biotechnology
13 88 (1.85%) Data Interpretation
13 88 (1.85%) Experimental Design
14 87 (1.83%) Biology
15 85 (1.78%) Biochemistry
15 85 (1.78%) Data Science
16 73 (1.53%) Statistics
17 55 (1.15%) Thought Leadership
18 54 (1.13%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 118 (2.48%) Python
2 27 (0.57%) Java
3 22 (0.46%) C++
4 13 (0.27%) SQL
5 12 (0.25%) C
6 9 (0.19%) Bash
7 8 (0.17%) C#
8 6 (0.13%) R
9 5 (0.10%) JavaScript
9 5 (0.10%) MATLAB
10 4 (0.084%) Fortran
10 4 (0.084%) Julia
10 4 (0.084%) Scala
11 3 (0.063%) F#
11 3 (0.063%) Haskell
11 3 (0.063%) OCaml
11 3 (0.063%) Tcl
11 3 (0.063%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.042%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.021%) Go
Qualifications
1 4,760 (99.90%) Degree
2 4,707 (98.78%) Master's Degree
3 4,007 (84.09%) Postgraduate
4 15 (0.31%) Security Cleared
5 14 (0.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (0.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (0.15%) SC Cleared
8 4 (0.084%) DV Cleared
9 3 (0.063%) MBA
10 2 (0.042%) Numerate Degree
11 1 (0.021%) Chartered Engineer
11 1 (0.021%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.021%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.021%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.021%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (0.76%) GxP
2 12 (0.25%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.21%) CDISC
3 10 (0.21%) HL7
4 6 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 4 (0.084%) GDPR
5 4 (0.084%) GLP
6 1 (0.021%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.021%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 8 (0.17%) Docker
2 1 (0.021%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 6 (0.13%) Kubernetes
2 5 (0.10%) Terraform
3 1 (0.021%) Ansible
3 1 (0.021%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 544 (11.42%) PayPal
2 5 (0.10%) Databricks
2 5 (0.10%) Google
3 3 (0.063%) Microsoft
4 1 (0.021%) Adobe
4 1 (0.021%) Amplitude
4 1 (0.021%) ANSYS
4 1 (0.021%) Cadence
4 1 (0.021%) YouTube