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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 273 439
Rank change year-on-year +171 +166 +23
Permanent jobs citing PhD 423 138 102
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 2.50% 1.02% 0.34%
As % of the Qualifications category 8.98% 3.49% 1.27%
Number of salaries quoted 18 84 74
10th Percentile £41,250 £40,750 £34,125
25th Percentile £52,500 - £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £45,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +50.00% -21.74% -24.59%
75th Percentile £95,000 £63,708 £98,125
90th Percentile £106,000 £120,250 £131,250
UK median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year - - -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 4,708 3,957 8,034
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 27.87% 29.15% 26.77%
Number of salaries quoted 2,620 2,439 5,836
10th Percentile £30,987 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £46,000 £43,750 £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 £73,012
90th Percentile £92,500 £87,750 £88,000
UK median annual salary £55,117 £58,033 £55,000
% change year-on-year -5.03% +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 17 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 (0.47%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 385 (91.02%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 15 (3.55%) AWS
2 5 (1.18%) Azure
3 3 (0.71%) GCP
4 2 (0.47%) AWS Lambda
4 2 (0.47%) Power Automate
4 2 (0.47%) SaaS
4 2 (0.47%) Serverless
4 2 (0.47%) Zapier
5 1 (0.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 1 (0.24%) Amazon ECS
5 1 (0.24%) Amazon S3
5 1 (0.24%) AWS CloudFormation
5 1 (0.24%) Azure Machine Learning
5 1 (0.24%) Canva
5 1 (0.24%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (0.24%) Google Workspace
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.42%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.47%) Hadoop
2 1 (0.24%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (0.24%) Apache Hive
2 1 (0.24%) Data Mining
2 1 (0.24%) SQL Server
General
1 220 (52.01%) Analytical Skills
2 12 (2.84%) Finance
3 10 (2.36%) Agriculture
3 10 (2.36%) Social Skills
4 9 (2.13%) Games
5 7 (1.65%) Aerospace
6 3 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (0.47%) Manufacturing
7 2 (0.47%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (0.47%) Retail
8 1 (0.24%) Automotive
8 1 (0.24%) Banking
8 1 (0.24%) Front Office
8 1 (0.24%) Health Technology
8 1 (0.24%) iGaming
8 1 (0.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.24%) Legal
8 1 (0.24%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 383 (90.54%) Trainer
2 75 (17.73%) Research Scientist
3 18 (4.26%) Biostatistician
4 17 (4.02%) Biologist
5 15 (3.55%) Senior
6 11 (2.60%) Software Engineer
7 9 (2.13%) Senior Software Engineer
8 7 (1.65%) Lecturer
8 7 (1.65%) Physicist
9 6 (1.42%) Developer
10 4 (0.95%) Data Scientist
11 3 (0.71%) C# Developer
11 3 (0.71%) Lead
11 3 (0.71%) Systems Engineer
12 2 (0.47%) Computer Scientist
12 2 (0.47%) Image Processing Scientist
12 2 (0.47%) Integration Developer
12 2 (0.47%) Machine Learning Scientist
12 2 (0.47%) Robotics Engineer
12 2 (0.47%) Senior Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (2.60%) PyTorch
2 9 (2.13%) TensorFlow
3 7 (1.65%) scikit-learn
4 4 (0.95%) XGBoost
5 3 (0.71%) .NET
5 3 (0.71%) Keras
5 3 (0.71%) OpenCV
5 3 (0.71%) REST
6 2 (0.47%) ASP.NET Web API
6 2 (0.47%) OpenAPI
6 2 (0.47%) Swagger
7 1 (0.24%) Flask
7 1 (0.24%) Java Concurrency
7 1 (0.24%) LangChain
7 1 (0.24%) LangGraph
7 1 (0.24%) Node.js
7 1 (0.24%) NumPy
7 1 (0.24%) Pandas
7 1 (0.24%) React
7 1 (0.24%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 89 (21.04%) Molecular Biology
2 9 (2.13%) Algorithms
2 9 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
3 8 (1.89%) Sports Betting
4 3 (0.71%) Robotics
5 2 (0.47%) 3D Graphics
5 2 (0.47%) CUDA
5 2 (0.47%) Embedded Systems
5 2 (0.47%) IoT
5 2 (0.47%) Lidar
5 2 (0.47%) Life Science
5 2 (0.47%) Self-Driving Car
5 2 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.24%) Autonomous Agent
6 1 (0.24%) Derivative
6 1 (0.24%) Distributed Computing
6 1 (0.24%) Genomics
6 1 (0.24%) Interest Rate Derivative
6 1 (0.24%) Omics
6 1 (0.24%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 9 (2.13%) Linux
2 2 (0.47%) Robot Operating System
3 1 (0.24%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 402 (95.04%) AI
2 389 (91.96%) Conversational UI
3 225 (53.19%) Chemistry
4 93 (21.99%) Physics
5 91 (21.51%) Data Interpretation
6 89 (21.04%) Biochemistry
6 89 (21.04%) Biology
6 89 (21.04%) Biotechnology
6 89 (21.04%) Experimental Design
7 80 (18.91%) Mathematics
8 26 (6.15%) Computer Science
9 20 (4.73%) Machine Learning
10 18 (4.26%) Biostatistics
11 16 (3.78%) Software Engineering
12 13 (3.07%) Analytics
13 11 (2.60%) CI/CD
14 10 (2.36%) DevOps
14 10 (2.36%) Economics
14 10 (2.36%) Generative AI
14 10 (2.36%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 20 (4.73%) Python
2 14 (3.31%) C++
3 12 (2.84%) C#
4 11 (2.60%) Java
5 8 (1.89%) Go
5 8 (1.89%) Rust
6 3 (0.71%) C
7 2 (0.47%) R
7 2 (0.47%) SQL
8 1 (0.24%) Bash
8 1 (0.24%) Fortran
8 1 (0.24%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.24%) Scala
8 1 (0.24%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 422 (99.76%) Degree
2 408 (96.45%) Master's Degree
3 1 (0.24%) AWS Certification
3 1 (0.24%) Azure Certification
3 1 (0.24%) DBS Check
3 1 (0.24%) Numerate Degree
3 1 (0.24%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.95%) GDPR
2 1 (0.24%) DO-254
2 1 (0.24%) HAZOP
2 1 (0.24%) IEC 61508
2 1 (0.24%) ISO 13485
2 1 (0.24%) ISO 26262
Vendors
1 383 (90.54%) PayPal
2 3 (0.71%) Google
3 1 (0.24%) IBM
3 1 (0.24%) Microsoft