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

The table below provides summary statistics for permanent job vacancies with a requirement for PhD qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the salaries offered over the 6 months leading up to 11 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 334 433 431
Rank change year-on-year +99 -2 +3
Permanent jobs citing PhD 420 519 786
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.83% 0.55% 0.72%
As % of the Qualifications category 1.77% 1.97% 2.19%
Number of salaries quoted 183 333 260
10th Percentile £40,750 £39,500 £40,000
25th Percentile £45,000 £50,000 £48,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,799 £61,500 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year +6.99% -18.00% +7.14%
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £97,500
90th Percentile £140,000 £115,000 £120,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £60,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year -25.00% +4.35% -4.17%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
UK

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 requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications.

Permanent vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 23,704 26,328 35,951
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 46.61% 27.75% 32.81%
Number of salaries quoted 10,787 17,132 15,715
10th Percentile £32,500 £28,250 £31,250
25th Percentile £44,605 £38,503 £41,374
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £54,500 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% -5.22% +4.55%
75th Percentile £68,750 £71,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £86,250 £87,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £52,500 £50,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +5.00% - -

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 11 April 2025.

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 11 April 2025. 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 +106 378 £70,000 +15.23% 1,034
UK excluding London +109 251 £45,000 -25.00% 495
Work from Home +250 225 £45,000 -21.74% 586
London +114 161 £107,500 +30.30% 625
North of England +134 82 £45,000 -43.75% 110
South East +17 62 £55,565 -4.20% 85
Yorkshire +111 45 £45,000 +20.00% 31
Midlands +78 30 £35,500 -28.99% 69
North West +46 30 £45,000 -43.75% 61
Scotland +78 25 £45,000 -55.00% 74
South West +120 21 £45,000 -34.55% 38
East of England +18 20 £65,799 -6.00% 102
West Midlands +41 16 £31,000 -43.64% 39
East Midlands +58 14 £40,000 - 30
Wales +55 8 £42,000 -58.00% 12
North East +44 7 - - 18
Northern Ireland +38 4 - - 11

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 9 (2.14%) Apache Spark
2 3 (0.71%) Jupyter
2 3 (0.71%) SAS
3 2 (0.48%) Apache
3 2 (0.48%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.24%) Confluence
Applications
1 104 (24.76%) Chatbot
2 4 (0.95%) Maple
3 3 (0.71%) Simulink
4 1 (0.24%) Mingle
4 1 (0.24%) OrCAD
4 1 (0.24%) Photoshop
4 1 (0.24%) Pipeline Pilot
Business Applications
1 1 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 52 (12.38%) AWS
2 36 (8.57%) Azure
3 20 (4.76%) Amazon SageMaker
4 17 (4.05%) Amazon EC2
5 16 (3.81%) GCP
6 4 (0.95%) SaaS
6 4 (0.95%) Serverless
7 3 (0.71%) Amazon S3
8 2 (0.48%) AWS Lambda
8 2 (0.48%) Azure DevOps
8 2 (0.48%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.48%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.48%) GitHub
8 2 (0.48%) WhatsApp
9 1 (0.24%) Azure Event Grid
9 1 (0.24%) Azure Logic Apps
9 1 (0.24%) Azure Service Bus
9 1 (0.24%) GitHub Actions
9 1 (0.24%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.24%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.95%) DNS
1 4 (0.95%) Firewall
1 4 (0.95%) IPv6
1 4 (0.95%) Reverse Proxy
2 1 (0.24%) Ethernet
2 1 (0.24%) Network Security
2 1 (0.24%) TCP/IP
2 1 (0.24%) Wideband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (3.81%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (1.67%) Hadoop
3 4 (0.95%) Amazon Redshift
3 4 (0.95%) Apache Hive
3 4 (0.95%) Big Data
3 4 (0.95%) GIS
3 4 (0.95%) SQL Server
4 3 (0.71%) Relational Database
5 2 (0.48%) Metadata
5 2 (0.48%) QGIS
5 2 (0.48%) RDBMS
5 2 (0.48%) Spatial Data
6 1 (0.24%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.24%) Data Lake
6 1 (0.24%) DynamoDB
6 1 (0.24%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (0.24%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.24%) MySQL
6 1 (0.24%) NoSQL
6 1 (0.24%) Weaviate
Development Applications
1 22 (5.24%) Git
2 14 (3.33%) IntelliJ
3 4 (0.95%) GitLab
4 3 (0.71%) Subversion
5 2 (0.48%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.48%) LabVIEW
5 2 (0.48%) MLflow
6 1 (0.24%) JIRA
6 1 (0.24%) Qt Creator
6 1 (0.24%) TensorBoard
6 1 (0.24%) Visual Studio
General
1 116 (27.62%) Analytical Skills
2 90 (21.43%) Finance
3 84 (20.00%) Social Skills
4 46 (10.95%) Banking
5 44 (10.48%) Legal
6 28 (6.67%) Manufacturing
6 28 (6.67%) Pharmaceutical
7 20 (4.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 18 (4.29%) Law
9 17 (4.05%) Aerospace
10 13 (3.10%) Retail
11 12 (2.86%) Presentation Skills
11 12 (2.86%) Publishing
12 11 (2.62%) Automotive
13 10 (2.38%) Electronics
13 10 (2.38%) Games
14 8 (1.90%) Agriculture
15 7 (1.67%) Aeronautics
16 6 (1.43%) Front Office
17 4 (0.95%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 106 (25.24%) Trainer
2 48 (11.43%) Analyst
3 42 (10.00%) Senior
4 40 (9.52%) Graduate
5 35 (8.33%) Data Scientist
6 34 (8.10%) Developer
7 22 (5.24%) Qualitative Analyst
7 22 (5.24%) Quantitative Analyst
8 21 (5.00%) Lead
8 21 (5.00%) Software Engineer
9 16 (3.81%) Data Science Graduate
9 16 (3.81%) Java Engineer
10 14 (3.33%) Senior Java Engineer
11 13 (3.10%) Quantitative Developer
12 12 (2.86%) Senior Data Scientist
13 11 (2.62%) Machine Learning Engineer
13 11 (2.62%) Software Developer
14 9 (2.14%) Applications Support
14 9 (2.14%) Data Analyst
14 9 (2.14%) Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 58 (13.81%) PyTorch
2 51 (12.14%) NumPy
3 44 (10.48%) TensorFlow
4 32 (7.62%) scikit-learn
5 31 (7.38%) Pandas
6 24 (5.71%) SciPy
7 21 (5.00%) OpenCV
7 21 (5.00%) React
8 18 (4.29%) Keras
9 15 (3.57%) REST
10 12 (2.86%) AngularJS
11 11 (2.62%) Flask
12 9 (2.14%) Google JAX
12 9 (2.14%) JAX
13 8 (1.90%) HTML
14 7 (1.67%) Plotly
15 5 (1.19%) .NET
15 5 (1.19%) Node.js
15 5 (1.19%) Qt
15 5 (1.19%) SpaCy
Miscellaneous
1 123 (29.29%) Algorithms
2 43 (10.24%) Robotics
3 37 (8.81%) Learning Management System
4 19 (4.52%) Virtual Team
5 17 (4.05%) Hackathon
5 17 (4.05%) Life Science
5 17 (4.05%) Mobile App
5 17 (4.05%) Self-Motivation
6 16 (3.81%) Credit Risk
7 10 (2.38%) Molecular Biology
8 9 (2.14%) Manufacturing Execution System
9 6 (1.43%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (1.19%) Data Structures
10 5 (1.19%) Management Information System
10 5 (1.19%) Video\Live Streaming
11 4 (0.95%) Cloud Native
11 4 (0.95%) Embedded Systems
11 4 (0.95%) FPGA
11 4 (0.95%) Lidar
11 4 (0.95%) Renewable Energy
Operating Systems
1 40 (9.52%) Linux
2 10 (2.38%) Unix
3 6 (1.43%) Debian
4 5 (1.19%) Windows
5 2 (0.48%) Mac OS
6 1 (0.24%) Android
6 1 (0.24%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (59.76%) Artificial Intelligence
2 158 (37.62%) Computer Science
3 143 (34.05%) Mathematics
4 133 (31.67%) Data Science
5 118 (28.10%) Physics
6 117 (27.86%) Machine Learning
7 107 (25.48%) Analytics
8 105 (25.00%) Statistics
9 104 (24.76%) Conversational UI
10 88 (20.95%) Software Engineering
11 74 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
12 67 (15.95%) Agile
13 64 (15.24%) Visualisation
14 55 (13.10%) Data Visualisation
15 47 (11.19%) Containerisation
16 43 (10.24%) Chemistry
16 43 (10.24%) Statistical Modelling
17 38 (9.05%) LLM
18 37 (8.81%) Decision-Making
19 36 (8.57%) Open Source
Programming Languages
1 198 (47.14%) Python
2 65 (15.48%) C++
3 44 (10.48%) Java
4 40 (9.52%) C#
5 38 (9.05%) SQL
6 26 (6.19%) C
7 21 (5.00%) JavaScript
7 21 (5.00%) MATLAB
8 17 (4.05%) Kotlin
9 12 (2.86%) Fortran
10 11 (2.62%) Bash
11 9 (2.14%) C-shell
11 9 (2.14%) Korn
11 9 (2.14%) R
11 9 (2.14%) Shell Script
12 7 (1.67%) PL/SQL
12 7 (1.67%) TypeScript
13 5 (1.19%) Rust
14 3 (0.71%) Perl
15 2 (0.48%) Go
Qualifications
1 402 (95.71%) Degree
2 353 (84.05%) Master's Degree
3 22 (5.24%) Security Cleared
4 18 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (3.81%) SC Cleared
6 15 (3.57%) DV Cleared
7 9 (2.14%) Postgraduate
8 6 (1.43%) Numerate Degree
9 4 (0.95%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.48%) MPhil
11 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.24%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (0.24%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.24%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (0.95%) Data Quality
1 4 (0.95%) QA
2 2 (0.48%) GDPR
2 2 (0.48%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 31 (7.38%) Docker
2 3 (0.71%) Firmware
3 1 (0.24%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 31 (7.38%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.48%) Grafana
2 2 (0.48%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.24%) Bugsnag
3 1 (0.24%) Kubeflow
3 1 (0.24%) Terraform
Vendors
1 103 (24.52%) PayPal
2 24 (5.71%) Microsoft
3 22 (5.24%) Google
4 18 (4.29%) IBM
5 9 (2.14%) Oracle
6 5 (1.19%) Qubit
7 4 (0.95%) ANSYS
7 4 (0.95%) Lotus
7 4 (0.95%) Veracode
8 2 (0.48%) ESRI
8 2 (0.48%) SAP
8 2 (0.48%) Xilinx
9 1 (0.24%) Adobe
9 1 (0.24%) Capita
9 1 (0.24%) Databricks
9 1 (0.24%) Genesys
9 1 (0.24%) OpenAI