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

The following table provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for PhD qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months to 29 November 2023 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
29 Nov 2023
Same period 2022 Same period 2021
Rank 486 378 465
Rank change year-on-year -108 +87 -35
Permanent jobs citing PhD 255 1,125 882
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.47% 0.89% 0.68%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.45% 3.03% 2.76%
Number of salaries quoted 172 288 308
10th Percentile £42,500 £40,371 £40,260
25th Percentile £50,000 £51,250 £51,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £62,500 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year - -10.71% -
75th Percentile £100,313 £85,000 £92,813
90th Percentile £137,500 £97,875 £130,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,297 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -12.84% - -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

PhD is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 17,632 37,186 31,972
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 32.59% 29.55% 24.77%
Number of salaries quoted 10,990 17,220 17,757
10th Percentile £31,250 £31,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £42,000 £41,250 £40,838
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £57,074 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +0.75% +3.77% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £76,250 £72,500
90th Percentile £92,500 £93,750 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £49,500
% change year-on-year +5.00% +1.01% +1.02%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Job vacancy trend for PhD in the UK

PhD
Salary Trend

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

Salary trend for PhD in the UK

PhD
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing PhD over the 6 months to 29 November 2023.

Salary histogram for PhD in the UK

PhD
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the UK over the 6 months to 29 November 2023. 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
England -71 242 £70,438 +8.14% 565
London +196 126 £80,000 -3.03% 253
UK excluding London -189 122 £52,297 -12.84% 349
South East -13 52 £55,000 +4.76% 109
Work from Home +37 51 £60,000 -14.29% 187
East of England -24 34 £75,500 +7.86% 130
North of England +22 13 £51,500 -26.43% 45
North West +93 10 £51,500 -17.60% 32
Midlands +78 10 £47,500 -20.83% 29
West Midlands +105 5 £47,500 - 20
South West +31 5 £30,000 -25.74% 15
East Midlands +11 5 £44,995 -25.01% 9
Scotland -24 5 £100,000 +81.82% 20
Yorkshire +1 3 - - 8
Northern Ireland - 2 £35,000 - 1
Wales -60 1 £65,000 +4.17% 1

PhD
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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:

Application Platforms
1 8 (3.14%) SAS
2 2 (0.78%) Confluence
3 1 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.39%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 4 (1.57%) Microsoft Office
2 3 (1.18%) Simulink
3 2 (0.78%) CATIA
4 1 (0.39%) Stateflow
Cloud Services
1 42 (16.47%) AWS
2 25 (9.80%) Azure
3 11 (4.31%) GCP
4 4 (1.57%) Power Platform
5 3 (1.18%) Cloud Computing
6 2 (0.78%) GitHub
7 1 (0.39%) Adobe Analytics
7 1 (0.39%) Azure Cognitive Services
7 1 (0.39%) Azure Machine Learning
7 1 (0.39%) ChatGPT
7 1 (0.39%) Google Analytics
7 1 (0.39%) Google Kubernetes Engine
7 1 (0.39%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 20 (7.84%) Internet
2 18 (7.06%) Wireless
3 10 (3.92%) Software-Defined Radio
4 3 (1.18%) 3GPP
4 3 (1.18%) 5G
4 3 (1.18%) 5G NR
4 3 (1.18%) LTE
4 3 (1.18%) MIMO
5 1 (0.39%) Ethernet
5 1 (0.39%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (3.53%) Big Data
2 7 (2.75%) Tableau
3 4 (1.57%) Power BI
3 4 (1.57%) SQL Server
4 3 (1.18%) KDB
4 3 (1.18%) Kdb+
4 3 (1.18%) Neo4j
5 2 (0.78%) Elasticsearch
5 2 (0.78%) MySQL
6 1 (0.39%) BigQuery
6 1 (0.39%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.39%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (0.39%) RDBMS
6 1 (0.39%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 11 (4.31%) Git
2 6 (2.35%) git-flow
3 2 (0.78%) CMake
3 2 (0.78%) Snakemake
4 1 (0.39%) GitLab
General
1 57 (22.35%) Social Skills
2 42 (16.47%) Analytical Skills
2 42 (16.47%) Finance
3 37 (14.51%) Electronics
4 23 (9.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 20 (7.84%) Automotive
6 18 (7.06%) Marketing
6 18 (7.06%) Multimedia
7 17 (6.67%) Front Office
8 12 (4.71%) Telecoms
9 9 (3.53%) Manufacturing
10 8 (3.14%) Law
10 8 (3.14%) Pharmaceutical
10 8 (3.14%) Public Sector
11 7 (2.75%) Banking
11 7 (2.75%) Games
12 6 (2.35%) Aerospace
13 4 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
14 3 (1.18%) Back Office
14 3 (1.18%) Retail
Job Titles
1 43 (16.86%) Developer
2 36 (14.12%) Analyst
3 31 (12.16%) Senior
4 30 (11.76%) Qualitative Analyst
4 30 (11.76%) Quantitative Analyst
5 27 (10.59%) Junior
6 26 (10.20%) Data Scientist
7 24 (9.41%) Junior Analyst
7 24 (9.41%) Junior Quantitative Analyst
8 23 (9.02%) Software Engineer
9 19 (7.45%) Quantitative Developer
10 16 (6.27%) Graduate
11 14 (5.49%) Research Engineer
12 12 (4.71%) Lead
12 12 (4.71%) Senior Data Scientist
13 11 (4.31%) Graphics Engineer
13 11 (4.31%) Performance Engineer
14 10 (3.92%) Software Developer
15 9 (3.53%) Machine Learning Engineer
16 7 (2.75%) Software Performance Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (7.06%) Direct3D
1 18 (7.06%) OpenGL
1 18 (7.06%) OpenGL ES
1 18 (7.06%) Vulkan
2 17 (6.67%) TensorFlow
3 15 (5.88%) PyTorch
4 11 (4.31%) OpenMP
5 9 (3.53%) EDI
5 9 (3.53%) NumPy
6 7 (2.75%) .NET
6 7 (2.75%) scikit-learn
7 6 (2.35%) HTML
8 5 (1.96%) .NET Core
9 4 (1.57%) CSS
9 4 (1.57%) HTML5
9 4 (1.57%) Hugging Face
9 4 (1.57%) OpenACC
9 4 (1.57%) Pandas
9 4 (1.57%) Web Services
10 3 (1.18%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 57 (22.35%) Algorithms
2 23 (9.02%) IoT
3 18 (7.06%) 3D Graphics
3 18 (7.06%) Mali
3 18 (7.06%) Smartphone
4 15 (5.88%) FPGA
4 15 (5.88%) VHDL
5 14 (5.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 13 (5.10%) Hedge funds
7 10 (3.92%) Embedded Systems
8 9 (3.53%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (3.14%) Distributed Systems
10 7 (2.75%) CUDA
11 6 (2.35%) Grid Computing
12 5 (1.96%) Analogue Electronics
13 4 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
13 4 (1.57%) Arduino
13 4 (1.57%) Equities
13 4 (1.57%) Management Information System
13 4 (1.57%) Raspberry Pi
Operating Systems
1 27 (10.59%) Linux
2 18 (7.06%) Android
3 14 (5.49%) Unix
4 4 (1.57%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 143 (56.08%) Computer Science
2 115 (45.10%) Mathematics
3 97 (38.04%) Physics
4 81 (31.76%) Machine Learning
5 77 (30.20%) Problem-Solving
6 76 (29.80%) Data Science
7 66 (25.88%) Statistics
8 53 (20.78%) Software Engineering
9 45 (17.65%) Artificial Intelligence
10 37 (14.51%) Analytics
11 31 (12.16%) Statistical Modelling
12 30 (11.76%) Kalman Filter
12 30 (11.76%) Performance Analysis
13 28 (10.98%) OO
14 25 (9.80%) OOP
15 23 (9.02%) Natural Language Processing
15 23 (9.02%) Signal Processing
16 21 (8.24%) Agile
16 21 (8.24%) Parallel Programming
16 21 (8.24%) Prototyping
Programming Languages
1 173 (67.84%) Python
2 155 (60.78%) C++
3 62 (24.31%) C#
4 60 (23.53%) C
5 39 (15.29%) Java
6 32 (12.55%) MATLAB
7 28 (10.98%) SQL
8 27 (10.59%) R
9 19 (7.45%) Fortran
10 11 (4.31%) Bash
11 6 (2.35%) Gremlin
11 6 (2.35%) SPARQL
12 5 (1.96%) Embedded C
12 5 (1.96%) Rust
13 4 (1.57%) JavaScript
14 3 (1.18%) Julia
14 3 (1.18%) Perl
15 1 (0.39%) Go
15 1 (0.39%) PHP
15 1 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 246 (96.47%) Degree
2 178 (69.80%) Master's Degree
3 35 (13.73%) Security Cleared
4 12 (4.71%) SC Cleared
5 7 (2.75%) DV Cleared
6 6 (2.35%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 6 (2.35%) DBS Check
7 3 (1.18%) Numerate Degree
7 3 (1.18%) Postgraduate
8 2 (0.78%) MBA
8 2 (0.78%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.39%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (1.96%) QA
2 3 (1.18%) ISO 13485
3 1 (0.39%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.39%) Dodd-Frank
3 1 (0.39%) EMIR
3 1 (0.39%) MiFID
3 1 (0.39%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 18 (7.06%) Docker
2 3 (1.18%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 11 (4.31%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.39%) Argo
2 1 (0.39%) Kubeflow
2 1 (0.39%) Terraform
Vendors
1 8 (3.14%) ANSYS
2 6 (2.35%) SAP
3 5 (1.96%) Microsoft
3 5 (1.96%) OpenAI
4 4 (1.57%) Google
5 3 (1.18%) Cognizant
5 3 (1.18%) Sun
6 2 (0.78%) Minitab
7 1 (0.39%) Ab Initio
7 1 (0.39%) Adobe
7 1 (0.39%) Murex
7 1 (0.39%) QAD