Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil, EngD, Doctorate)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for PhD qualifications. Included is a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months to 10 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
10 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 447 418 441
Rank change year-on-year -29 +23 +18
Permanent jobs citing PhD 540 769 1,283
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.54% 0.76% 0.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.96% 2.33% 3.03%
Number of salaries quoted 343 270 405
10th Percentile £37,600 £42,019 £42,500
25th Percentile £49,000 £51,875 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £62,500 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +7.14% +7.69%
75th Percentile £87,500 £99,375 £105,000
90th Percentile £111,000 £123,250 £137,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year +4.35% - +15.00%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

PhD is in the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies with a requirement for academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 27,489 32,962 42,407
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 27.71% 32.63% 26.96%
Number of salaries quoted 17,297 14,888 18,855
10th Percentile £28,500 £31,250 £31,000
25th Percentile £38,500 £41,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,000 £59,250 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.86% +7.73% -
75th Percentile £71,000 £77,500 £73,750
90th Percentile £87,500 £95,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £51,276 £50,000
% change year-on-year -2.49% +2.55% +0.50%

PhD
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing PhD as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for PhD in the UK

PhD
Salary Trend

3-month moving average salary quoted in jobs citing PhD.

Salary trend for PhD in the UK

PhD
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing PhD over the 6 months to 10 May 2024.

Salary histogram for PhD in the UK

PhD
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing PhD within the UK over the 6 months to 10 May 2024. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England -8 448 £62,500 -16.67% 424
UK excluding London -91 384 £60,000 +4.35% 247
South East -8 165 £58,000 -3.33% 76
London +82 149 £87,500 +6.06% 191
Work from Home +14 136 £60,000 -27.27% 168
Scotland -44 74 £85,000 -15.00% 16
East of England -49 64 £70,000 -12.50% 63
North of England +33 33 £80,000 -8.57% 34
North West +21 22 £80,000 -8.57% 26
Midlands -9 18 £52,500 -8.70% 37
South West -52 16 £68,750 +50.27% 19
West Midlands +8 12 £55,000 - 22
Northern Ireland - 12 - - 3
Yorkshire +50 6 £37,500 - 6
East Midlands -17 6 £36,250 -36.96% 15
North East - 5 £55,000 - 2
Wales -37 2 £100,000 +100.00% 9

PhD
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 10 (1.85%) Apache Spark
2 8 (1.48%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (0.93%) SAS
4 3 (0.56%) Apache
5 1 (0.19%) Confluence
5 1 (0.19%) Luigi
Applications
1 11 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.11%) Simulink
2 6 (1.11%) Stateflow
3 4 (0.74%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.19%) Blender
4 1 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.37%) Oracle Payroll
Cloud Services
1 43 (7.96%) AWS
2 32 (5.93%) Figma
2 32 (5.93%) SurveyMonkey
3 28 (5.19%) Azure
4 20 (3.70%) Cloud Computing
4 20 (3.70%) GCP
5 11 (2.04%) Power Platform
6 7 (1.30%) GitHub
7 4 (0.74%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (0.74%) Dagster
7 4 (0.74%) SaaS
8 3 (0.56%) Serverless
9 2 (0.37%) Amazon S3
9 2 (0.37%) Azure Machine Learning
9 2 (0.37%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 2 (0.37%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (0.37%) OCI
9 2 (0.37%) Snowflake
9 2 (0.37%) WhatsApp
10 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.22%) TCP/IP
2 7 (1.30%) HTTP
2 7 (1.30%) MQTT
3 3 (0.56%) Software-Defined Radio
3 3 (0.56%) Wireless
4 2 (0.37%) Internet
4 2 (0.37%) RS-485
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.15%) Big Data
2 15 (2.78%) Tableau
3 13 (2.41%) NoSQL
4 11 (2.04%) Power BI
5 10 (1.85%) SQL Server
6 9 (1.67%) Hadoop
7 7 (1.30%) Neo4j
8 5 (0.93%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (0.93%) Elasticsearch
9 4 (0.74%) Data Mining
9 4 (0.74%) PostgreSQL
10 3 (0.56%) Amazon Redshift
10 3 (0.56%) BigQuery
11 2 (0.37%) Amazon Athena
11 2 (0.37%) MongoDB
11 2 (0.37%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.37%) Text Mining
12 1 (0.19%) CouchDB
12 1 (0.19%) Metadata
12 1 (0.19%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 33 (6.11%) Git
2 9 (1.67%) GitLab
2 9 (1.67%) Jenkins
3 6 (1.11%) JUnit
4 5 (0.93%) Team Foundation Server
5 4 (0.74%) CMake
5 4 (0.74%) IntelliJ
5 4 (0.74%) JIRA
5 4 (0.74%) Mockito
5 4 (0.74%) Snakemake
6 3 (0.56%) TestRail
7 2 (0.37%) GDB
7 2 (0.37%) MLflow
7 2 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
7 2 (0.37%) TensorBoard
8 1 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 1 (0.19%) CircleCI
General
1 166 (30.74%) Social Skills
2 105 (19.44%) Finance
3 88 (16.30%) Analytical Skills
4 75 (13.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 68 (12.59%) Marketing
6 61 (11.30%) Law
7 50 (9.26%) Pharmaceutical
8 32 (5.93%) Social Science
9 25 (4.63%) Electronics
10 13 (2.41%) Legal
11 12 (2.22%) Health Technology
12 10 (1.85%) Aerospace
12 10 (1.85%) Retail
13 9 (1.67%) Banking
13 9 (1.67%) Games
13 9 (1.67%) Manufacturing
14 8 (1.48%) Telecoms
15 7 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
16 6 (1.11%) Front Office
17 4 (0.74%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 105 (19.44%) Senior
2 77 (14.26%) Data Scientist
2 77 (14.26%) Software Engineer
3 61 (11.30%) Developer
4 55 (10.19%) Lead
5 48 (8.89%) Senior Data Scientist
6 35 (6.48%) Graduate
7 32 (5.93%) Analyst
8 25 (4.63%) Software Developer
9 19 (3.52%) Architect
10 18 (3.33%) Junior
11 16 (2.96%) Senior Software Engineer
12 15 (2.78%) Lead Data Scientist
13 14 (2.59%) Senior Developer
14 13 (2.41%) Business Manager
14 13 (2.41%) Quantitative Developer
14 13 (2.41%) User Experience Researcher
15 12 (2.22%) Business Development Manager
15 12 (2.22%) Development Manager
15 12 (2.22%) Physicist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (10.37%) PyTorch
2 49 (9.07%) TensorFlow
3 23 (4.26%) OpenMP
4 20 (3.70%) scikit-learn
5 17 (3.15%) Kafka
5 17 (3.15%) NumPy
6 15 (2.78%) OpenACC
7 13 (2.41%) .NET
8 12 (2.22%) Web Services
9 11 (2.04%) Keras
9 11 (2.04%) OpenCV
9 11 (2.04%) REST
10 10 (1.85%) AngularJS
10 10 (1.85%) RESTful
11 8 (1.48%) Node.js
11 8 (1.48%) Pandas
12 7 (1.30%) HTML
12 7 (1.30%) OpenCL
12 7 (1.30%) RabbitMQ
13 6 (1.11%) Vulkan
Miscellaneous
1 194 (35.93%) Algorithms
2 47 (8.70%) Life Science
3 34 (6.30%) CUDA
4 33 (6.11%) Data Structures
5 29 (5.37%) Analytical Mindset
6 27 (5.00%) Market Risk
7 23 (4.26%) FPGA
8 19 (3.52%) VHDL
9 16 (2.96%) Client/Server
10 15 (2.78%) Greenfield Project
11 14 (2.59%) Biopharmaceutical
11 14 (2.59%) Product Ownership
12 13 (2.41%) Analogue Electronics
13 12 (2.22%) Embedded Systems
14 11 (2.04%) Hedge funds
14 11 (2.04%) IoT
15 10 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
16 9 (1.67%) Distributed Computing
16 9 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
16 9 (1.67%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 68 (12.59%) Linux
2 33 (6.11%) Unix
3 5 (0.93%) Embedded Linux
4 4 (0.74%) Windows
5 2 (0.37%) Android
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (46.67%) Computer Science
2 204 (37.78%) Mathematics
3 172 (31.85%) Machine Learning
4 141 (26.11%) Physics
5 140 (25.93%) Data Science
6 134 (24.81%) Artificial Intelligence
7 126 (23.33%) Software Engineering
8 122 (22.59%) Problem-Solving
9 82 (15.19%) Statistics
10 67 (12.41%) Analytics
11 61 (11.30%) Deep Learning
11 61 (11.30%) Fintech
12 52 (9.63%) Agile
13 51 (9.44%) Parallel Programming
14 49 (9.07%) Actionable Insight
14 49 (9.07%) Decision-Making
15 48 (8.89%) Data Analysis
16 46 (8.52%) Psychology
17 45 (8.33%) Anthropology
17 45 (8.33%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 290 (53.70%) Python
2 116 (21.48%) C++
3 102 (18.89%) C
4 90 (16.67%) R
5 82 (15.19%) SQL
6 81 (15.00%) Java
7 62 (11.48%) Fortran
8 51 (9.44%) C#
9 30 (5.56%) MATLAB
10 26 (4.81%) Bash
11 17 (3.15%) JavaScript
12 15 (2.78%) Rust
13 7 (1.30%) Go
13 7 (1.30%) Haskell
14 6 (1.11%) Perl
15 4 (0.74%) AWK
15 4 (0.74%) sed
15 4 (0.74%) Shell Script
15 4 (0.74%) VB
16 3 (0.56%) C-shell
Qualifications
1 529 (97.96%) Degree
2 369 (68.33%) Master's Degree
3 59 (10.93%) Security Cleared
4 51 (9.44%) Computer Science Degree
5 23 (4.26%) SC Cleared
6 19 (3.52%) MBA
7 14 (2.59%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.85%) CFA
8 10 (1.85%) CIMA
9 6 (1.11%) Numerate Degree
10 5 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
11 2 (0.37%) CREST Certified
11 2 (0.37%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.37%) OSCE
11 2 (0.37%) OSCP
12 1 (0.19%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.19%) RIBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (4.07%) QA
2 11 (2.04%) Accessibility
2 11 (2.04%) Data Quality
3 10 (1.85%) GDPR
4 9 (1.67%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 2 (0.37%) ECSS
5 2 (0.37%) GLP
5 2 (0.37%) Good Clinical Practice
5 2 (0.37%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 34 (6.30%) Docker
2 5 (0.93%) Firmware
3 2 (0.37%) IAG
4 1 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 34 (6.30%) Kubernetes
2 9 (1.67%) Terraform
3 8 (1.48%) Kubeflow
4 5 (0.93%) Argo
5 4 (0.74%) Ansible
6 2 (0.37%) Core Impact
Vendors
1 32 (5.93%) Qualtrics
2 28 (5.19%) Microsoft
3 15 (2.78%) Google
4 10 (1.85%) OpenAI
5 7 (1.30%) ANSYS
6 6 (1.11%) NVIDIA
7 3 (0.56%) Databricks
8 2 (0.37%) Oracle
8 2 (0.37%) SAP
9 1 (0.19%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.19%) Interwoven
9 1 (0.19%) Keysight
9 1 (0.19%) Qubit
9 1 (0.19%) Samsung
9 1 (0.19%) Thales
9 1 (0.19%) YouTube