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

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 326 427
Rank change year-on-year +265 +101 +33
Permanent jobs citing PhD 602 114 91
As % of all permanent jobs with remote/hybrid work options 3.85% 0.70% 0.35%
As % of the Qualifications category 11.93% 2.45% 1.31%
Number of salaries quoted 23 67 63
10th Percentile £40,262 £42,000 £35,420
25th Percentile £46,698 - £45,625
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £45,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +44.44% -21.74% -17.86%
75th Percentile £98,650 £60,000 £82,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £78,500 £122,500
UK median annual salary £70,000 £56,509 £62,500
% change year-on-year +23.88% -9.59% -3.85%

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 5,048 4,653 6,972
As % of all permanent jobs with a WFH option 32.28% 28.65% 27.00%
Number of salaries quoted 2,548 2,412 5,100
10th Percentile £30,500 £35,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £46,250 £43,470
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £62,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -4.00% +8.70% -4.17%
75th Percentile £78,312 £75,000 £74,063
90th Percentile £92,500 £90,000 £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 27 January 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 (0.33%) Apache Spark
2 1 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 563 (93.52%) Chatbot
Cloud Services
1 9 (1.50%) AWS
2 6 (1.00%) Azure
3 4 (0.66%) GCP
4 2 (0.33%) Power Automate
4 2 (0.33%) Zapier
5 1 (0.17%) Azure Machine Learning
5 1 (0.17%) Canva
5 1 (0.17%) Cloud Computing
5 1 (0.17%) dbt
5 1 (0.17%) Google Analytics
5 1 (0.17%) Google Workspace
5 1 (0.17%) Power Platform
5 1 (0.17%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (0.33%) Hadoop
2 1 (0.17%) Apache Hive
2 1 (0.17%) Data Mining
2 1 (0.17%) Mixpanel
2 1 (0.17%) Power BI
2 1 (0.17%) SQL Server
2 1 (0.17%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 1 (0.17%) Rational DOORS
General
1 385 (63.95%) Analytical Skills
2 12 (1.99%) Social Skills
3 10 (1.66%) Agriculture
4 8 (1.33%) Finance
5 6 (1.00%) Aerospace
6 4 (0.66%) Games
6 4 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (0.50%) Manufacturing
7 3 (0.50%) Retail
8 2 (0.33%) Electronics
8 2 (0.33%) Marketing
8 2 (0.33%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.17%) Banking
9 1 (0.17%) Digital Health
9 1 (0.17%) Front Office
9 1 (0.17%) Health Technology
9 1 (0.17%) Legal
9 1 (0.17%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.17%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.17%) Wearables
Job Titles
1 563 (93.52%) Trainer
2 76 (12.62%) Research Scientist
3 26 (4.32%) Biostatistician
4 17 (2.82%) Biologist
5 12 (1.99%) Lecturer
6 10 (1.66%) Software Engineer
7 8 (1.33%) Senior
8 7 (1.16%) Developer
8 7 (1.16%) Physicist
9 6 (1.00%) Senior Software Engineer
10 4 (0.66%) Data Scientist
10 4 (0.66%) Lead
11 3 (0.50%) Java Developer
11 3 (0.50%) Java Quantitative Developer
11 3 (0.50%) Mathematician
11 3 (0.50%) Quantitative Developer
12 2 (0.33%) Computer Scientist
12 2 (0.33%) Design Engineer
12 2 (0.33%) Instructor
12 2 (0.33%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 8 (1.33%) TensorFlow
2 6 (1.00%) PyTorch
3 3 (0.50%) REST
3 3 (0.50%) scikit-learn
4 2 (0.33%) .NET
4 2 (0.33%) ASP.NET Web API
4 2 (0.33%) Keras
4 2 (0.33%) OpenAPI
4 2 (0.33%) OpenCV
4 2 (0.33%) Swagger
5 1 (0.17%) Java Concurrency
5 1 (0.17%) LangChain
5 1 (0.17%) LangGraph
5 1 (0.17%) LightGBM
5 1 (0.17%) Node.js
5 1 (0.17%) Pandas
5 1 (0.17%) React
5 1 (0.17%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 97 (16.11%) Molecular Biology
2 12 (1.99%) Algorithms
3 5 (0.83%) Distributed Systems
4 4 (0.66%) IoT
4 4 (0.66%) Sports Betting
5 3 (0.50%) Robotics
6 2 (0.33%) 3D Graphics
6 2 (0.33%) ASIC
6 2 (0.33%) CUDA
6 2 (0.33%) Embedded Systems
6 2 (0.33%) Lidar
6 2 (0.33%) Life Science
6 2 (0.33%) Self-Driving Car
7 1 (0.17%) Autonomous Agent
7 1 (0.17%) Biopharmaceutical
7 1 (0.17%) Derivative
7 1 (0.17%) FPGA
7 1 (0.17%) Interest Rate Derivative
7 1 (0.17%) Verilog
7 1 (0.17%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 8 (1.33%) Linux
2 4 (0.66%) Unix
3 2 (0.33%) Robot Operating System
Processes & Methodologies
1 573 (95.18%) AI
2 563 (93.52%) Conversational UI
3 390 (64.78%) Chemistry
4 99 (16.45%) Data Interpretation
5 97 (16.11%) Biochemistry
5 97 (16.11%) Biology
5 97 (16.11%) Biotechnology
5 97 (16.11%) Experimental Design
6 88 (14.62%) Physics
7 82 (13.62%) Mathematics
8 29 (4.82%) Computer Science
9 26 (4.32%) Biostatistics
10 15 (2.49%) Software Engineering
11 13 (2.16%) Statistics
12 11 (1.83%) Machine Learning
13 10 (1.66%) Economics
14 8 (1.33%) Analytics
15 7 (1.16%) CI/CD
16 6 (1.00%) Data Science
16 6 (1.00%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 20 (3.32%) Python
2 14 (2.33%) C++
3 8 (1.33%) Java
4 7 (1.16%) C#
5 6 (1.00%) C
6 4 (0.66%) Bash
6 4 (0.66%) Fortran
6 4 (0.66%) Go
6 4 (0.66%) Rust
6 4 (0.66%) SQL
7 2 (0.33%) R
8 1 (0.17%) JavaScript
8 1 (0.17%) Scala
8 1 (0.17%) Tcl
8 1 (0.17%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 601 (99.83%) Degree
2 587 (97.51%) Master's Degree
3 3 (0.50%) BPSS Clearance
4 2 (0.33%) DBS Check
5 1 (0.17%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.17%) Azure Certification
5 1 (0.17%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.17%) Numerate Degree
5 1 (0.17%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.66%) GDPR
2 3 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 15288
3 1 (0.17%) ISO 13485
Vendors
1 563 (93.52%) PayPal
2 4 (0.66%) Google
3 1 (0.17%) Amplitude
3 1 (0.17%) Cadence
3 1 (0.17%) IBM
3 1 (0.17%) Microsoft