Hybrid/Remote PhD Job Trends

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil, EngD, Doctorate)
UK > Work from Home

The table below provides summary statistics for remote or hybrid work with a requirement for PhD qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 26 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 179 257 448
Rank change year-on-year +78 +191 +22
Permanent jobs citing PhD 240 135 103
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 1.42% 1.04% 0.34%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.38% 3.58% 1.26%
Number of salaries quoted 16 86 73
10th Percentile £41,250 £40,750 £33,750
25th Percentile £52,500 - £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £45,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% -25.00% -25.00%
75th Percentile £90,625 £63,820 £100,000
90th Percentile £110,000 £152,500 £122,500
UK median annual salary £63,750 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year -1.92% - -7.14%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Work from Home

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 with remote or hybrid options requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 4,459 3,773 8,158
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 26.44% 29.20% 26.54%
Number of salaries quoted 2,652 2,458 5,905
10th Percentile £31,250 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £46,250 £43,762 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year - +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £78,750 £72,500 £72,500
90th Percentile £92,500 £88,750 £87,500
UK median annual salary £57,500 £58,033 £55,000
% change year-on-year -0.92% +5.51% -4.35%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing PhD and offering remote or hybrid work options relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

PhD job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid jobs

PhD
Salary Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing PhD.

Salary distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing PhD

PhD
Salary Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Salary distribution for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing PhD over the 6 months to 26 March 2026.

PhD salary histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid work options

PhD
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs 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 2 (0.83%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 201 (83.75%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 16 (6.67%) AWS
2 5 (2.08%) Azure
3 3 (1.25%) AWS Lambda
3 3 (1.25%) GCP
3 3 (1.25%) Serverless
4 2 (0.83%) Power Automate
4 2 (0.83%) SaaS
4 2 (0.83%) Zapier
5 1 (0.42%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (0.42%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (0.42%) Amazon S3
5 1 (0.42%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (0.42%) Azure Machine Learning
5 1 (0.42%) Canva
5 1 (0.42%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (0.42%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 7 (2.92%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.83%) Hadoop
2 1 (0.42%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (0.42%) Apache Hive
2 1 (0.42%) Data Mining
2 1 (0.42%) SQL Server
General
1 130 (54.17%) Analytical Skills
2 12 (5.00%) Finance
3 11 (4.58%) Social Skills
4 10 (4.17%) Agriculture
5 9 (3.75%) Games
6 5 (2.08%) Aerospace
6 5 (2.08%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (0.83%) Automotive
7 2 (0.83%) Manufacturing
7 2 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (0.83%) Retail
8 1 (0.42%) Banking
8 1 (0.42%) Electronics
8 1 (0.42%) Front Office
8 1 (0.42%) Health Technology
8 1 (0.42%) iGaming
8 1 (0.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.42%) Legal
8 1 (0.42%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 198 (82.50%) Trainer
2 55 (22.92%) Research Scientist
3 15 (6.25%) Senior
4 14 (5.83%) Biologist
5 10 (4.17%) Software Engineer
6 8 (3.33%) Senior Software Engineer
7 6 (2.50%) Biostatistician
7 6 (2.50%) Developer
7 6 (2.50%) Lecturer
8 5 (2.08%) Systems Engineer
9 3 (1.25%) C# Developer
9 3 (1.25%) Data Scientist
9 3 (1.25%) Physicist
9 3 (1.25%) Senior Systems Engineer
10 2 (0.83%) Image Processing Scientist
10 2 (0.83%) Integration Developer
10 2 (0.83%) Lead
10 2 (0.83%) Safety Engineer
10 2 (0.83%) Senior Data Scientist
10 2 (0.83%) Systems Safety Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (4.17%) PyTorch
2 8 (3.33%) TensorFlow
3 6 (2.50%) scikit-learn
4 4 (1.67%) XGBoost
5 3 (1.25%) .NET
5 3 (1.25%) Keras
5 3 (1.25%) OpenCV
5 3 (1.25%) REST
6 2 (0.83%) ASP.NET Web API
6 2 (0.83%) OpenAPI
6 2 (0.83%) Swagger
7 1 (0.42%) Flask
7 1 (0.42%) Java Concurrency
7 1 (0.42%) Lambda Expressions
7 1 (0.42%) LangChain
7 1 (0.42%) LangGraph
7 1 (0.42%) Matplotlib
7 1 (0.42%) Node.js
7 1 (0.42%) Pandas
7 1 (0.42%) React
Miscellaneous
1 51 (21.25%) Molecular Biology
2 9 (3.75%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (3.33%) Sports Betting
4 7 (2.92%) Algorithms
5 4 (1.67%) Robotics
6 3 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
7 2 (0.83%) 3D Graphics
7 2 (0.83%) CUDA
7 2 (0.83%) Embedded Systems
7 2 (0.83%) IoT
7 2 (0.83%) Lidar
7 2 (0.83%) Life Science
7 2 (0.83%) Self-Driving Car
8 1 (0.42%) Autonomous Agent
8 1 (0.42%) Derivative
8 1 (0.42%) Distributed Computing
8 1 (0.42%) Genomics
8 1 (0.42%) Interest Rate Derivative
8 1 (0.42%) Omics
8 1 (0.42%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 8 (3.33%) Linux
2 2 (0.83%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (91.25%) AI
2 205 (85.42%) Conversational UI
3 134 (55.83%) Chemistry
4 53 (22.08%) Data Interpretation
5 51 (21.25%) Biochemistry
5 51 (21.25%) Biology
5 51 (21.25%) Biotechnology
5 51 (21.25%) Experimental Design
6 37 (15.42%) Physics
7 26 (10.83%) Computer Science
7 26 (10.83%) Mathematics
8 21 (8.75%) Machine Learning
9 15 (6.25%) Software Engineering
10 13 (5.42%) Analytics
11 11 (4.58%) CI/CD
12 10 (4.17%) DevOps
12 10 (4.17%) Economics
12 10 (4.17%) Generative AI
12 10 (4.17%) LLM
13 9 (3.75%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 19 (7.92%) Python
2 13 (5.42%) C++
3 12 (5.00%) C#
4 11 (4.58%) Java
5 8 (3.33%) Go
5 8 (3.33%) Rust
6 2 (0.83%) C
6 2 (0.83%) R
6 2 (0.83%) SQL
7 1 (0.42%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.42%) Scala
7 1 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 239 (99.58%) Degree
2 226 (94.17%) Master's Degree
3 1 (0.42%) AWS Certification
3 1 (0.42%) Azure Certification
3 1 (0.42%) DBS Check
3 1 (0.42%) Numerate Degree
3 1 (0.42%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (1.67%) GDPR
2 2 (0.83%) DO-254
2 2 (0.83%) HAZOP
2 2 (0.83%) IEC 61508
2 2 (0.83%) ISO 26262
3 1 (0.42%) ISO 13485
Vendors
1 198 (82.50%) PayPal
2 3 (1.25%) Google
3 1 (0.42%) IBM
3 1 (0.42%) Microsoft