Operations Research Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Operations Research (or Operational Research)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring Operations Research skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 497 542 533
Rank change year-on-year +45 -9 +144
Permanent jobs citing Operations Research 9 9 27
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.021% 0.025% 0.078%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 0.027% 0.028% 0.088%
Number of salaries quoted 2 0 17
10th Percentile £61,830 - -
25th Percentile £65,150 - £50,172
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,459 - £51,528
Median % change year-on-year - - -10.39%
75th Percentile £79,742 - £52,884
90th Percentile £83,047 - -
UK median annual salary £72,459 £65,000 £51,528
% change year-on-year +11.48% +26.15% -10.39%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK excluding London

Operations Research falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 32,958 31,987 30,742
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 78.54% 88.93% 88.63%
Number of salaries quoted 18,919 14,386 22,914
10th Percentile £27,750 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £33,500 £41,250 £38,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £52,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +5.77% -5.45%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £66,250
90th Percentile £80,000 £83,750 £80,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -4.00%

Operations Research
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Operations Research relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Operations Research job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Operations Research
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Operations Research.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing Operations Research

Operations Research
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Operations Research in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Operations Research in the UK excluding London

Operations Research
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Operations Research within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 12 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
South East +32 6 - -
North of England +12 2 £72,459 -
North West +33 1 £61,418 -
Yorkshire - 1 £83,500 -
Wales - 1 - -
Operations Research
UK

Operations Research
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 5 (55.56%) IIS
Applications
1 1 (11.11%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (11.11%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (11.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Cloud Services
1 6 (66.67%) AWS
2 5 (55.56%) Snowflake
3 2 (22.22%) Azure
4 1 (11.11%) GCP
4 1 (11.11%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (66.67%) Tableau
2 5 (55.56%) Big Data
2 5 (55.56%) Data Mining
2 5 (55.56%) Hadoop
2 5 (55.56%) NoSQL
3 1 (11.11%) Power BI
3 1 (11.11%) Spotfire
Development Applications
1 1 (11.11%) Git
General
1 7 (77.78%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (66.67%) Marketing
2 6 (66.67%) Pharmaceutical
3 2 (22.22%) Social Skills
4 1 (11.11%) Finance
4 1 (11.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (11.11%) Manufacturing
4 1 (11.11%) Retail
Job Titles
1 5 (55.56%) Data Science Manager
1 5 (55.56%) Senior
1 5 (55.56%) Senior Manager
2 1 (11.11%) Analyst
2 1 (11.11%) Data Analyst
2 1 (11.11%) Data Science Director
2 1 (11.11%) Data Science Leader
2 1 (11.11%) Data Scientist
2 1 (11.11%) Lead
2 1 (11.11%) Principal Data Scientist
2 1 (11.11%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (55.56%) Play Framework
2 1 (11.11%) EDI
Miscellaneous
1 6 (66.67%) Algorithms
2 5 (55.56%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (11.11%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 9 (100.00%) Statistics
2 8 (88.89%) Analytics
2 8 (88.89%) Data Science
2 8 (88.89%) Machine Learning
3 7 (77.78%) Actionable Insight
3 7 (77.78%) Data Visualisation
3 7 (77.78%) Data-Driven Decision Making
3 7 (77.78%) Economics
3 7 (77.78%) Mathematics
3 7 (77.78%) Problem-Solving
3 7 (77.78%) Visualisation
4 6 (66.67%) AI
4 6 (66.67%) Computer Science
4 6 (66.67%) Decision-Making
4 6 (66.67%) Digital Transformation Strategy
4 6 (66.67%) LLM
4 6 (66.67%) Market Research
4 6 (66.67%) Roadmaps
4 6 (66.67%) Statistical Analysis
5 5 (55.56%) Business Analytics
Programming Languages
1 8 (88.89%) Python
2 7 (77.78%) R
2 7 (77.78%) SQL
3 5 (55.56%) Java
3 5 (55.56%) Scala
Qualifications
1 6 (66.67%) Degree
1 6 (66.67%) Master's Degree
2 5 (55.56%) MBA
3 1 (11.11%) SC Cleared
3 1 (11.11%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (55.56%) Actionable Recommendations
2 1 (11.11%) Data Quality
Vendors
1 5 (55.56%) BT
1 5 (55.56%) Databricks
2 2 (22.22%) Microsoft
3 1 (11.11%) TIBCO