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 17 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 319 450
Rank change year-on-year +238 +131 +21
Permanent jobs citing PhD 537 120 97
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 3.30% 0.77% 0.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 10.91% 2.63% 1.29%
Number of salaries quoted 19 73 71
10th Percentile £41,003 £42,200 £35,000
25th Percentile £46,698 - £45,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £45,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% -18.18% -21.43%
75th Percentile £83,125 £63,652 £91,875
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £135,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £63,652 £62,500
% change year-on-year +2.12% +1.84% -

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 4,922 4,555 7,526
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 30.21% 29.31% 27.13%
Number of salaries quoted 2,615 2,388 5,502
10th Percentile £30,750 £32,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £42,598
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £78,750 £74,144 £73,750
90th Percentile £92,500 £88,750 £90,000
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -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 17 February 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 (0.37%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 503 (93.67%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 10 (1.86%) AWS
2 5 (0.93%) Azure
3 3 (0.56%) GCP
4 2 (0.37%) Power Automate
4 2 (0.37%) Zapier
5 1 (0.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (0.19%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (0.19%) Amazon S3
5 1 (0.19%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (0.19%) Azure Machine Learning
5 1 (0.19%) Canva
5 1 (0.19%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (0.19%) Google Workspace
5 1 (0.19%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.37%) Hadoop
2 1 (0.19%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (0.19%) Apache Hive
2 1 (0.19%) Data Mining
2 1 (0.19%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 1 (0.19%) Rational DOORS
General
1 338 (62.94%) Analytical Skills
2 10 (1.86%) Agriculture
2 10 (1.86%) Social Skills
3 9 (1.68%) Finance
4 6 (1.12%) Aerospace
4 6 (1.12%) Games
5 4 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
6 3 (0.56%) Manufacturing
7 2 (0.37%) Electronics
7 2 (0.37%) Retail
8 1 (0.19%) Banking
8 1 (0.19%) Digital Health
8 1 (0.19%) Front Office
8 1 (0.19%) Health Technology
8 1 (0.19%) Legal
8 1 (0.19%) Marketing
8 1 (0.19%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.19%) Pharmaceutical
8 1 (0.19%) Telecoms
8 1 (0.19%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 503 (93.67%) Trainer
2 76 (14.15%) Research Scientist
3 20 (3.72%) Biostatistician
4 17 (3.17%) Biologist
5 10 (1.86%) Software Engineer
6 9 (1.68%) Lecturer
6 9 (1.68%) Senior
7 8 (1.49%) Developer
8 7 (1.30%) Physicist
8 7 (1.30%) Senior Software Engineer
9 4 (0.74%) Lead
10 3 (0.56%) C# Developer
10 3 (0.56%) Java Developer
10 3 (0.56%) Java Quantitative Developer
10 3 (0.56%) Quantitative Developer
11 2 (0.37%) Computer Scientist
11 2 (0.37%) Data Scientist
11 2 (0.37%) Design Engineer
11 2 (0.37%) Instructor
11 2 (0.37%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.49%) TensorFlow
2 6 (1.12%) PyTorch
3 3 (0.56%) .NET
3 3 (0.56%) REST
4 2 (0.37%) ASP.NET Web API
4 2 (0.37%) Keras
4 2 (0.37%) OpenAPI
4 2 (0.37%) OpenCV
4 2 (0.37%) scikit-learn
4 2 (0.37%) Swagger
5 1 (0.19%) Java Concurrency
5 1 (0.19%) Lambda Expressions
5 1 (0.19%) LangChain
5 1 (0.19%) LangGraph
5 1 (0.19%) Node.js
5 1 (0.19%) React
Miscellaneous
1 91 (16.95%) Molecular Biology
2 11 (2.05%) Algorithms
3 6 (1.12%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (0.93%) Sports Betting
5 4 (0.74%) IoT
6 3 (0.56%) Robotics
7 2 (0.37%) 3D Graphics
7 2 (0.37%) ASIC
7 2 (0.37%) CUDA
7 2 (0.37%) Embedded Systems
7 2 (0.37%) Lidar
7 2 (0.37%) Life Science
7 2 (0.37%) Self-Driving Car
8 1 (0.19%) Acoustics
8 1 (0.19%) Analogue Electronics
8 1 (0.19%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.19%) Autonomous Agent
8 1 (0.19%) Greenfield Project
8 1 (0.19%) Omics
8 1 (0.19%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.49%) Linux
2 3 (0.56%) Unix
3 2 (0.37%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 512 (95.34%) AI
2 503 (93.67%) Conversational UI
3 343 (63.87%) Chemistry
4 93 (17.32%) Data Interpretation
5 91 (16.95%) Biochemistry
5 91 (16.95%) Biology
5 91 (16.95%) Biotechnology
5 91 (16.95%) Experimental Design
6 88 (16.39%) Physics
7 74 (13.78%) Mathematics
8 21 (3.91%) Computer Science
9 20 (3.72%) Biostatistics
10 15 (2.79%) Software Engineering
11 10 (1.86%) Economics
11 10 (1.86%) Machine Learning
12 8 (1.49%) CI/CD
13 7 (1.30%) Analytics
13 7 (1.30%) DevOps
14 6 (1.12%) Observability
15 5 (0.93%) Data Munging
Programming Languages
1 17 (3.17%) Python
2 14 (2.61%) C++
3 10 (1.86%) Java
4 9 (1.68%) C#
5 5 (0.93%) C
5 5 (0.93%) Go
5 5 (0.93%) Rust
6 3 (0.56%) Bash
6 3 (0.56%) Fortran
7 2 (0.37%) SQL
8 1 (0.19%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.19%) R
8 1 (0.19%) Scala
8 1 (0.19%) Tcl
8 1 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 536 (99.81%) Degree
2 522 (97.21%) Master's Degree
3 1 (0.19%) AWS Certification
3 1 (0.19%) Azure Certification
3 1 (0.19%) DBS Check
3 1 (0.19%) Numerate Degree
3 1 (0.19%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.74%) GDPR
2 1 (0.19%) ISO 13485
Vendors
1 503 (93.67%) PayPal
2 3 (0.56%) Google
3 1 (0.19%) Cadence
3 1 (0.19%) IBM
3 1 (0.19%) Microsoft