PhD Jobs in Scotland

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

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in Scotland with a requirement for PhD qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 30 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 113 208 160
Rank change year-on-year +95 -48 +100
Permanent jobs citing PhD 49 73 59
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 1.63% 1.07% 1.32%
As % of the Qualifications category 3.94% 6.04% 4.21%
Number of salaries quoted 4 15 9
10th Percentile - £54,250 £43,200
25th Percentile £45,000 £55,000 £43,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,363 £70,000 £100,000
Median % change year-on-year -20.91% -30.00% +61.94%
75th Percentile £66,795 £100,000 -
90th Percentile £68,718 - -
UK median annual salary £80,000 £65,000 £75,000
% change year-on-year +23.08% -13.33% +7.14%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Scotland

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 Scotland.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 1,245 1,209 1,402
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 41.47% 17.74% 31.32%
Number of salaries quoted 612 551 416
10th Percentile £37,574 £26,700 £28,875
25th Percentile £47,683 £34,000 £38,888
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,750 £48,500 £51,720
Median % change year-on-year +10.82% -6.22% +12.43%
75th Percentile £60,265 £63,750 £67,500
90th Percentile £63,000 £80,000 £77,715
UK median annual salary £55,000 £53,500 £60,000
% change year-on-year +2.80% -10.83% +9.09%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in Scotland

Job postings citing PhD as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in Scotland.

Job vacancy trend for PhD in Scotland

PhD
Salary Trend in Scotland

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing PhD in Scotland.

Salary trend for PhD in Scotland

PhD
Salary Histogram in Scotland

Salary distribution for jobs citing PhD in Scotland over the 6 months to 30 May 2025.

Salary histogram for PhD in Scotland

PhD
Job Locations in Scotland

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the Scotland region over the 6 months to 30 May 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Glasgow +128 23 - - 29
Edinburgh +24 17 £45,000 -55.00% 42
Aberdeen +35 3 £65,726 +62.29% 26
Highlands - 3 - -
Dundee - 2 - - 1
PhD
UK

PhD
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in Scotland by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Applications
1 33 (67.35%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 3 (6.12%) Amazon SageMaker
1 3 (6.12%) AWS
2 1 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
2 1 (2.04%) Amazon S3
2 1 (2.04%) AWS Lambda
2 1 (2.04%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (2.04%) MySQL
1 1 (2.04%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 2 (4.08%) Git
2 1 (2.04%) GitLab
2 1 (2.04%) Jenkins
General
1 29 (59.18%) Analytical Skills
2 15 (30.61%) Finance
3 12 (24.49%) Legal
4 10 (20.41%) Front Office
5 3 (6.12%) Social Skills
6 2 (4.08%) Banking
7 1 (2.04%) Electronics
7 1 (2.04%) Manufacturing
7 1 (2.04%) Marketing
7 1 (2.04%) Public Sector
7 1 (2.04%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 32 (65.31%) Trainer
2 5 (10.20%) Risk Officer
3 4 (8.16%) Data Scientist
4 3 (6.12%) Risk Manager
5 2 (4.08%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
5 2 (4.08%) Graduate
5 2 (4.08%) Mathematical Modeller
6 1 (2.04%) Computer Engineer
6 1 (2.04%) Computer Vision Engineer
6 1 (2.04%) Data Science Graduate
6 1 (2.04%) Statistician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.12%) PyTorch
1 3 (6.12%) scikit-learn
1 3 (6.12%) TensorFlow
2 2 (4.08%) Google JAX
2 2 (4.08%) JAX
2 2 (4.08%) NumPy
3 1 (2.04%) OpenCV
3 1 (2.04%) OpenVINO
3 1 (2.04%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 4 (8.16%) Algorithms
2 2 (4.08%) Learning Management System
3 1 (2.04%) Cloud Native
3 1 (2.04%) Credit Risk
3 1 (2.04%) Distributed Computing
3 1 (2.04%) Hackathon
3 1 (2.04%) IoT
3 1 (2.04%) Mobile App
3 1 (2.04%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.04%) Linux
1 1 (2.04%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 39 (79.59%) Artificial Intelligence
2 33 (67.35%) Conversational UI
3 27 (55.10%) Mathematics
4 23 (46.94%) Statistics
5 18 (36.73%) Chemistry
6 17 (34.69%) Computer Science
7 11 (22.45%) Problem-Solving
8 10 (20.41%) Model Validation
8 10 (20.41%) Project Management
8 10 (20.41%) Quantitative Analysis
8 10 (20.41%) Quantitative Finance
8 10 (20.41%) Validation
9 6 (12.24%) Data Science
10 5 (10.20%) Machine Learning
11 4 (8.16%) Physics
11 4 (8.16%) Software Engineering
12 3 (6.12%) Agile
12 3 (6.12%) Analytics
12 3 (6.12%) Data Analysis
12 3 (6.12%) Statistical Modelling
Programming Languages
1 16 (32.65%) Python
2 2 (4.08%) SQL
3 1 (2.04%) Bash
3 1 (2.04%) C#
3 1 (2.04%) C++
3 1 (2.04%) Java
3 1 (2.04%) JavaScript
3 1 (2.04%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 49 (100.00%) Degree
1 49 (100.00%) Master's Degree
2 1 (2.04%) Computer Science Degree
2 1 (2.04%) Security Cleared
System Software
1 1 (2.04%) Docker
Vendors
1 33 (67.35%) PayPal
2 1 (2.04%) Google
2 1 (2.04%) IBM
2 1 (2.04%) Microsoft
2 1 (2.04%) SAP