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

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 281 441
Rank change year-on-year +197 +160 +20
Permanent jobs citing PhD 514 135 100
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 3.11% 0.94% 0.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 10.66% 3.16% 1.30%
Number of salaries quoted 17 77 73
10th Percentile £41,250 £42,000 £34,000
25th Percentile £52,145 - £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £45,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% -25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £87,500 £63,876 £91,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £97,500 £132,500
UK median annual salary £65,000 £63,876 £62,500
% change year-on-year +1.76% +2.20% -4.04%

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 4,824 4,269 7,690
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 29.23% 29.59% 26.91%
Number of salaries quoted 2,604 2,360 5,601
10th Percentile £31,250 £32,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £45,000 £42,500
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 £73,886 £73,750
90th Percentile £92,500 £88,875 £88,750
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 3 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 (0.39%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 484 (94.16%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 12 (2.33%) AWS
2 5 (0.97%) Azure
3 3 (0.58%) GCP
4 2 (0.39%) Power Automate
4 2 (0.39%) SaaS
4 2 (0.39%) 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%) AWS Lambda
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%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.19%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.39%) 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
General
1 319 (62.06%) Analytical Skills
2 10 (1.95%) Agriculture
2 10 (1.95%) Finance
3 9 (1.75%) Social Skills
4 7 (1.36%) Games
5 6 (1.17%) Aerospace
6 3 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (0.39%) Manufacturing
7 2 (0.39%) Retail
8 1 (0.19%) Banking
8 1 (0.19%) Front Office
8 1 (0.19%) Health Technology
8 1 (0.19%) iGaming
8 1 (0.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (0.19%) Legal
8 1 (0.19%) Marketing
8 1 (0.19%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 483 (93.97%) Trainer
2 75 (14.59%) Research Scientist
3 18 (3.50%) Biostatistician
4 17 (3.31%) Biologist
5 10 (1.95%) Senior
5 10 (1.95%) Software Engineer
6 8 (1.56%) Lecturer
6 8 (1.56%) Senior Software Engineer
7 7 (1.36%) Developer
7 7 (1.36%) Physicist
8 3 (0.58%) C# Developer
8 3 (0.58%) Lead
9 2 (0.39%) Computer Scientist
9 2 (0.39%) Image Processing Scientist
9 2 (0.39%) Instructor
9 2 (0.39%) Integration Developer
9 2 (0.39%) Java Developer
9 2 (0.39%) Java Quantitative Developer
9 2 (0.39%) Quantitative Developer
9 2 (0.39%) Robotics Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (1.75%) TensorFlow
2 7 (1.36%) PyTorch
3 3 (0.58%) .NET
3 3 (0.58%) Keras
3 3 (0.58%) OpenCV
3 3 (0.58%) REST
3 3 (0.58%) scikit-learn
4 2 (0.39%) ASP.NET Web API
4 2 (0.39%) OpenAPI
4 2 (0.39%) Swagger
5 1 (0.19%) Flask
5 1 (0.19%) Lambda Expressions
5 1 (0.19%) LangChain
5 1 (0.19%) LangGraph
5 1 (0.19%) Matplotlib
5 1 (0.19%) Node.js
5 1 (0.19%) NumPy
5 1 (0.19%) Pandas
5 1 (0.19%) React
5 1 (0.19%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 89 (17.32%) Molecular Biology
2 10 (1.95%) Algorithms
3 7 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (1.17%) Sports Betting
5 2 (0.39%) 3D Graphics
5 2 (0.39%) CUDA
5 2 (0.39%) Embedded Systems
5 2 (0.39%) IoT
5 2 (0.39%) Lidar
5 2 (0.39%) Life Science
5 2 (0.39%) Robotics
5 2 (0.39%) Self-Driving Car
6 1 (0.19%) Autonomous Agent
6 1 (0.19%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.19%) Derivative
6 1 (0.19%) Distributed Computing
6 1 (0.19%) Genomics
6 1 (0.19%) Interest Rate Derivative
6 1 (0.19%) Omics
6 1 (0.19%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.56%) Linux
2 2 (0.39%) Robot Operating System
2 2 (0.39%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 493 (95.91%) AI
2 484 (94.16%) Conversational UI
3 325 (63.23%) Chemistry
4 91 (17.70%) Data Interpretation
5 89 (17.32%) Biochemistry
5 89 (17.32%) Biology
5 89 (17.32%) Biotechnology
5 89 (17.32%) Experimental Design
6 87 (16.93%) Physics
7 74 (14.40%) Mathematics
8 22 (4.28%) Computer Science
9 18 (3.50%) Biostatistics
10 15 (2.92%) Software Engineering
11 12 (2.33%) Machine Learning
12 10 (1.95%) Economics
13 9 (1.75%) Analytics
13 9 (1.75%) CI/CD
14 8 (1.56%) DevOps
15 7 (1.36%) Observability
16 6 (1.17%) Computer Vision
Programming Languages
1 16 (3.11%) Python
2 13 (2.53%) C++
3 10 (1.95%) C#
3 10 (1.95%) Java
4 6 (1.17%) Go
4 6 (1.17%) Rust
5 4 (0.78%) C
6 2 (0.39%) Bash
6 2 (0.39%) Fortran
6 2 (0.39%) SQL
7 1 (0.19%) JavaScript
7 1 (0.19%) R
7 1 (0.19%) Scala
7 1 (0.19%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 513 (99.81%) Degree
2 500 (97.28%) 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 (0.78%) GDPR
2 1 (0.19%) ISO 13485
Vendors
1 483 (93.97%) PayPal
2 3 (0.58%) Google
3 1 (0.19%) IBM
3 1 (0.19%) Microsoft