PhD Jobs in the South East

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

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the South East 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 192 233 223
Rank change year-on-year +41 -10 +139
Permanent jobs citing PhD 125 175 185
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 1.30% 1.00% 1.32%
As % of the Qualifications category 2.25% 2.96% 3.31%
Number of salaries quoted 37 136 47
10th Percentile £40,000 £33,625 £35,250
25th Percentile £52,000 £40,000 £42,125
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,810 £58,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.47% -3.33% +33.33%
75th Percentile £80,000 £72,500 £81,250
90th Percentile - £85,000 £91,000
England median annual salary £80,000 £62,500 £75,000
% change year-on-year +28.00% -16.67% +7.14%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
South East

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 the South East.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 5,559 5,907 5,588
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 57.70% 33.68% 39.79%
Number of salaries quoted 2,498 3,633 2,495
10th Percentile £34,988 £30,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £38,125 £36,713
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £52,000 £51,350
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% +1.27% -1.25%
75th Percentile £70,600 £67,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £77,875 £82,500 £85,000
England median annual salary £54,897 £54,399 £60,000
% change year-on-year +0.92% -9.34% +9.09%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Job postings citing PhD as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the South East.

Job vacancy trend for PhD in the South East

PhD
Salary Trend in the South East

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing PhD in the South East.

Salary trend for PhD in the South East

PhD
Salary Histogram in the South East

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

Salary histogram for PhD in the South East

PhD
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the South East 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
Thames Valley +13 63 £52,000 -10.34% 245
Berkshire +32 35 £52,000 -10.34% 150
Surrey +40 27 £70,000 +40.00% 74
Buckinghamshire +28 15 - - 55
Hampshire +88 14 £52,500 -12.50% 87
Oxfordshire -16 13 £40,000 -27.27% 40
Isle of Wight - 12 £80,000 -
Middlesex - 6 - - 1
Kent +29 3 - - 52
PhD
England

PhD
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the South East 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 52 (41.60%) Chatbot
2 2 (1.60%) OrCAD
3 1 (0.80%) Pipeline Pilot
Cloud Services
1 25 (20.00%) AWS
1 25 (20.00%) AWS Lambda
1 25 (20.00%) Azure
1 25 (20.00%) GCP
1 25 (20.00%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 25 (20.00%) Broadband
2 2 (1.60%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.60%) Metadata
1 2 (1.60%) RDBMS
1 2 (1.60%) Relational Database
2 1 (0.80%) KNIME
2 1 (0.80%) Pinecone
2 1 (0.80%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 3 (2.40%) Subversion
2 1 (0.80%) Git
2 1 (0.80%) MLflow
2 1 (0.80%) Visual Studio
General
1 64 (51.20%) Analytical Skills
2 8 (6.40%) Aerospace
2 8 (6.40%) Automotive
3 7 (5.60%) Social Skills
4 6 (4.80%) Electronics
4 6 (4.80%) Presentation Skills
5 5 (4.00%) Aeronautics
5 5 (4.00%) Law
6 4 (3.20%) Finance
7 3 (2.40%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 52 (41.60%) Trainer
2 31 (24.80%) Senior
3 25 (20.00%) Machine Learning Engineer
4 14 (11.20%) Software Engineer
5 11 (8.80%) Developer
6 8 (6.40%) Software Developer
7 7 (5.60%) Lead
8 5 (4.00%) Performance Engineer
9 4 (3.20%) C++ Software Engineer
9 4 (3.20%) Lead Developer
9 4 (3.20%) Senior Software Engineer
10 3 (2.40%) Data Scientist
10 3 (2.40%) Lead Software Developer
11 2 (1.60%) C Developer
11 2 (1.60%) C# Software Engineer
11 2 (1.60%) C/C++ Developer
11 2 (1.60%) C++ Developer
11 2 (1.60%) Hardware Engineer
11 2 (1.60%) Qt Software Engineer
11 2 (1.60%) Senior Software Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (2.40%) HTML
2 2 (1.60%) Qt
2 2 (1.60%) WinForms
2 2 (1.60%) WPF
3 1 (0.80%) .NET
3 1 (0.80%) PyTorch
3 1 (0.80%) scikit-learn
3 1 (0.80%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 32 (25.60%) Self-Motivation
2 20 (16.00%) Algorithms
3 3 (2.40%) Device Driver
3 3 (2.40%) FPGA
3 3 (2.40%) Life Science
3 3 (2.40%) Linux Command Line
3 3 (2.40%) Molecular Biology
3 3 (2.40%) VHDL
4 2 (1.60%) 3D Graphics
4 2 (1.60%) Acoustics
4 2 (1.60%) Data Centre
5 1 (0.80%) IoT
5 1 (0.80%) Raspberry Pi
5 1 (0.80%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 22 (17.60%) Linux
2 10 (8.00%) Unix
3 4 (3.20%) Windows
4 3 (2.40%) Debian
5 2 (1.60%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 55 (44.00%) Artificial Intelligence
2 52 (41.60%) Conversational UI
3 39 (31.20%) Chemistry
4 34 (27.20%) Mentoring
5 33 (26.40%) Mathematics
6 32 (25.60%) Physics
7 31 (24.80%) Agile
7 31 (24.80%) Machine Learning
8 28 (22.40%) Creative Thinking
8 28 (22.40%) Data Science
8 28 (22.40%) Problem-Solving
9 25 (20.00%) CI/CD
9 25 (20.00%) Clean Code
9 25 (20.00%) Performance Metrics
9 25 (20.00%) Personalization
10 21 (16.80%) Computer Science
11 16 (12.80%) Software Engineering
12 12 (9.60%) Customer Requirements
12 12 (9.60%) Systems Engineering
12 12 (9.60%) Systems Thinking
Programming Languages
1 45 (36.00%) Python
2 27 (21.60%) TypeScript
3 24 (19.20%) C++
4 17 (13.60%) C
5 12 (9.60%) Fortran
6 10 (8.00%) Bash
7 4 (3.20%) MATLAB
7 4 (3.20%) R
8 3 (2.40%) C#
8 3 (2.40%) JavaScript
9 2 (1.60%) Embedded C
9 2 (1.60%) Embedded C++
9 2 (1.60%) Java
9 2 (1.60%) SQL
Qualifications
1 125 (100.00%) Degree
2 93 (74.40%) Master's Degree
3 14 (11.20%) Security Cleared
4 12 (9.60%) BPSS Clearance
4 12 (9.60%) DV Cleared
5 8 (6.40%) SC Cleared
6 6 (4.80%) Chartered Engineer
7 2 (1.60%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.80%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.80%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.80%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (9.60%) ISO/IEC 15288
System Software
1 3 (2.40%) Firmware
2 1 (0.80%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.80%) Kubeflow
1 1 (0.80%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 52 (41.60%) PayPal