PhD Job Trends in the UK excluding London

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

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London 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 12 397 416
Rank change year-on-year +385 +19 -149
Permanent jobs citing PhD 4,281 169 146
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 10.20% 0.46% 0.45%
As % of the Qualifications category 30.35% 1.23% 1.44%
Number of salaries quoted 33 86 75
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,000 £36,200
25th Percentile £52,145 £45,000 £47,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £48,250 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +65.80% -12.27% -8.33%
75th Percentile £100,000 £63,726 £72,500
90th Percentile £106,000 £85,000 £85,000
UK median annual salary £85,000 £60,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year +41.67% -4.00% -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 14,106 13,783 10,140
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 33.62% 37.69% 31.45%
Number of salaries quoted 5,097 5,301 6,668
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £28,000
25th Percentile £31,250 £42,123 £37,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £48,122 £55,000 £51,589
Median % change year-on-year -12.51% +6.61% +3.18%
75th Percentile £65,000 £70,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £81,250 £81,250 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £59,430 £57,500
% change year-on-year -7.45% +3.36% -

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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

PhD job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

PhD
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

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

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing PhD

PhD
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

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

Salary histogram for PhD in the UK excluding London

PhD
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 PhD within the UK excluding London 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 - - 46
West Midlands +178 997 - - 23
South East +217 695 £80,000 +41.57% 85
East of England +154 404 £70,000 +16.67% 56
Yorkshire +108 278 - - 22
East Midlands +103 182 - - 20
South West +87 87 - - 28
North East - 50 - - 4
Wales +33 37 - - 8
Scotland +9 30 £99,800 +121.78% 12
Channel Islands - 8 - -
PhD
UK

PhD
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 1 (0.023%) Adobe Experience Manager
1 1 (0.023%) Apache Spark
1 1 (0.023%) CMS
1 1 (0.023%) Jupyter
1 1 (0.023%) PowerFactory
Applications
1 543 (12.68%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.023%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.023%) Microsoft Project
2 1 (0.023%) Trello
Cloud Services
1 3,649 (85.24%) Cloud Computing
2 3 (0.070%) Azure
3 2 (0.047%) AWS
3 2 (0.047%) Power Automate
3 2 (0.047%) Zapier
4 1 (0.023%) Adobe Analytics
4 1 (0.023%) ChatGPT
Communications & Networking
1 3,649 (85.24%) Internet
2 2 (0.047%) Network Security
3 1 (0.023%) SSH
3 1 (0.023%) TCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (0.23%) Data Lake
1 10 (0.23%) Metadata
2 2 (0.047%) GIS
3 1 (0.023%) Data Mining
3 1 (0.023%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 7 (0.16%) Git
2 3 (0.070%) JIRA
3 2 (0.047%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.047%) Subversion
3 2 (0.047%) TestRail
4 1 (0.023%) JUnit
4 1 (0.023%) LabVIEW
4 1 (0.023%) Maven
4 1 (0.023%) Rational DOORS
4 1 (0.023%) Selenium
General
1 3,670 (85.73%) Social Skills
2 3,649 (85.24%) Banking
2 3,649 (85.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 362 (8.46%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (0.93%) Finance
5 30 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
6 14 (0.33%) Agriculture
7 9 (0.21%) Aerospace
8 4 (0.093%) Electronics
8 4 (0.093%) Manufacturing
9 3 (0.070%) Law
9 3 (0.070%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.047%) Humanities
10 2 (0.047%) Military
10 2 (0.047%) Social Science
10 2 (0.047%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.023%) Automotive
11 1 (0.023%) Legal
11 1 (0.023%) Publishing
11 1 (0.023%) Retail
Job Titles
1 2,827 (66.04%) Lecturer
2 543 (12.68%) Trainer
3 79 (1.85%) Research Scientist
4 40 (0.93%) Lead
5 24 (0.56%) Biostatistician
6 15 (0.35%) Biologist
7 13 (0.30%) Senior
8 11 (0.26%) Software Engineer
9 7 (0.16%) C++ Software Engineer
9 7 (0.16%) Developer
10 4 (0.093%) Physicist
11 3 (0.070%) Python Engineer
11 3 (0.070%) Python Software Engineer
11 3 (0.070%) Senior Software Engineer
12 2 (0.047%) C# Developer
12 2 (0.047%) Design Engineer
12 2 (0.047%) Instructor
12 2 (0.047%) Lead Developer
12 2 (0.047%) Software Developer
12 2 (0.047%) Statistician
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (0.23%) FHIR
2 4 (0.093%) Qt
3 3 (0.070%) HTML
3 3 (0.070%) REST
3 3 (0.070%) TensorFlow
4 2 (0.047%) .NET
4 2 (0.047%) ASP.NET Web API
4 2 (0.047%) Keras
4 2 (0.047%) OpenAPI
4 2 (0.047%) Swagger
4 2 (0.047%) WPF
5 1 (0.023%) CSS
5 1 (0.023%) JSR 170
5 1 (0.023%) OSGi
5 1 (0.023%) Pandas
5 1 (0.023%) PyTorch
5 1 (0.023%) React
5 1 (0.023%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 3,653 (85.33%) IoT
2 89 (2.08%) Molecular Biology
3 42 (0.98%) Life Science
4 22 (0.51%) Algorithms
5 12 (0.28%) Omics
6 6 (0.14%) 3D Graphics
7 5 (0.12%) Management Information System
8 4 (0.093%) LIMS
9 3 (0.070%) Linux Command Line
10 2 (0.047%) ASIC
10 2 (0.047%) Data Structures
10 2 (0.047%) NHS
10 2 (0.047%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.047%) Robotics
11 1 (0.023%) Analogue Electronics
11 1 (0.023%) Biopharmaceutical
11 1 (0.023%) Credit Risk
11 1 (0.023%) Distributed Computing
11 1 (0.023%) FPGA
11 1 (0.023%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 7 (0.16%) Linux
2 6 (0.14%) Unix
3 4 (0.093%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 4,240 (99.04%) AI
2 3,700 (86.43%) Machine Learning
3 3,653 (85.33%) Cybersecurity
4 3,651 (85.28%) User Experience
5 3,650 (85.26%) Web Development
6 543 (12.68%) Conversational UI
7 374 (8.74%) Chemistry
8 94 (2.20%) Physics
9 92 (2.15%) Data Interpretation
9 92 (2.15%) Experimental Design
10 91 (2.13%) Biology
11 90 (2.10%) Biotechnology
12 89 (2.08%) Biochemistry
13 88 (2.06%) Mathematics
14 55 (1.28%) Computer Science
15 41 (0.96%) Analytics
15 41 (0.96%) Data Science
16 37 (0.86%) Hematology
16 37 (0.86%) Immunology
17 31 (0.72%) Agile
Programming Languages
1 22 (0.51%) Python
2 19 (0.44%) C++
3 12 (0.28%) C
4 8 (0.19%) C#
5 6 (0.14%) Bash
6 5 (0.12%) Java
6 5 (0.12%) R
7 4 (0.093%) Fortran
7 4 (0.093%) JavaScript
7 4 (0.093%) Julia
8 3 (0.070%) MATLAB
9 2 (0.047%) SQL
9 2 (0.047%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.023%) Tcl
Qualifications
1 4,280 (99.98%) Degree
2 4,247 (99.21%) Master's Degree
3 3,649 (85.24%) Postgraduate
4 7 (0.16%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (0.093%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (0.070%) Security Cleared
7 2 (0.047%) MBA
8 1 (0.023%) Chartered Engineer
8 1 (0.023%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.023%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.023%) PMP
8 1 (0.023%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (0.84%) GxP
2 11 (0.26%) Accessibility
3 10 (0.23%) CDISC
3 10 (0.23%) HL7
4 7 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 15288
5 4 (0.093%) GLP
6 3 (0.070%) GDPR
System Software
1 3 (0.070%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (0.023%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 543 (12.68%) PayPal
2 2 (0.047%) Google
3 1 (0.023%) Adobe
3 1 (0.023%) ANSYS
3 1 (0.023%) Cadence
3 1 (0.023%) Microsoft
3 1 (0.023%) YouTube