Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 24 February 2026.

The table below compares current salary benchmarking and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 477 410 391
Rank change year-on-year -67 -19 +128
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 222 293 488
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.32% 0.62% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.35% 0.68% 0.68%
Number of salaries quoted 158 104 254
10th Percentile £45,875 £37,762 £44,338
25th Percentile £55,000 £48,750 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -14.29% +7.47%
75th Percentile £82,500 £75,250 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% -11.54% +9.99%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of permanent jobs in our overall sample.

Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 63,267 43,239 71,576
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 91.36% 94.78%
Number of salaries quoted 39,857 22,950 55,756
10th Percentile £29,250 £32,750 £28,500
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £39,420
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%

Data Scientist
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Data Scientist' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Data Scientist job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Scientist
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Data Scientist job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Data Scientist job vacancies in the UK

Data Scientist
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Scientist over the 6 months to 24 February 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Scientist in the UK

Data Scientist
Top 16 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Scientist within the UK over the 6 months to 24 February 2026. 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 -30 209 £65,000 +10.17% 110
London +59 118 £80,000 +6.67% 74
UK excluding London -100 97 £60,000 +4.35% 66
Work from Home -26 67 £60,000 -6.25% 46
North of England -50 28 £61,418 +11.67% 10
South West -53 21 £60,000 -14.29% 7
North West -3 20 £61,418 +11.67% 9
Midlands -17 20 £55,000 +22.22% 14
South East -11 16 £40,000 -32.20% 29
East Midlands -13 11 £62,500 +7.76% 7
West Midlands -14 9 £55,000 +22.22% 7
East of England +10 5 £100,000 +72.41% 1
Scotland -34 5 £100,000 - 1
Yorkshire -51 5 £62,500 -2.34%
North East -14 3 £62,500 +56.78% 1
Northern Ireland -28 2 £40,000 - 2

Data Scientist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 February 2026, Data Scientist job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Data Scientist in the job title.

1 210 (94.59%) Data Science
2 115 (51.80%) Python
3 111 (50.00%) Machine Learning
4 99 (44.59%) AI
5 81 (36.49%) Analytics
6 59 (26.58%) Degree
7 56 (25.23%) SQL
8 48 (21.62%) Visualisation
9 42 (18.92%) Decision-Making
10 37 (16.67%) Predictive Modelling
11 35 (15.77%) Azure
12 34 (15.32%) Mathematics
12 34 (15.32%) Power BI
12 34 (15.32%) Power Platform
12 34 (15.32%) Problem-Solving
12 34 (15.32%) Security Cleared
13 33 (14.86%) Business Intelligence
14 31 (13.96%) PhD
15 28 (12.61%) Actionable Insight
15 28 (12.61%) DV Cleared
16 27 (12.16%) LLM
17 25 (11.26%) Data Visualisation
17 25 (11.26%) Natural Language Processing
17 25 (11.26%) Storytelling
18 24 (10.81%) R
19 23 (10.36%) Generative AI
19 23 (10.36%) Statistics
20 22 (9.91%) AWS
20 22 (9.91%) Data Analysis
21 20 (9.01%) Computer Science

Data Scientist Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 9 (4.05%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.90%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (0.90%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 3 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.90%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 10 (4.50%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 35 (15.77%) Azure
2 34 (15.32%) Power Platform
3 22 (9.91%) AWS
4 10 (4.50%) Snowflake
5 9 (4.05%) GCP
6 7 (3.15%) dbt
7 4 (1.80%) Azure Machine Learning
7 4 (1.80%) Dagster
8 2 (0.90%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.90%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.90%) Google Analytics
8 2 (0.90%) Smartsheet
9 1 (0.45%) Adobe Analytics
9 1 (0.45%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.45%) Amazon SageMaker
9 1 (0.45%) Azure AI
9 1 (0.45%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.45%) Prefect
9 1 (0.45%) SaaS
9 1 (0.45%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.80%) Broadband
2 1 (0.45%) Internet
2 1 (0.45%) LTE
2 1 (0.45%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.45%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.45%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (15.32%) Power BI
2 20 (9.01%) Tableau
3 8 (3.60%) SQL Server
4 6 (2.70%) Amazon Redshift
4 6 (2.70%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (2.25%) Big Data
6 3 (1.35%) Data Mining
6 3 (1.35%) QGIS
7 2 (0.90%) GIS
7 2 (0.90%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.90%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.90%) Spatial Data
8 1 (0.45%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.45%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.45%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.45%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.45%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.45%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 9 (4.05%) Git
2 8 (3.60%) MLflow
General
1 46 (20.72%) Social Skills
2 38 (17.12%) Analytical Skills
2 38 (17.12%) Finance
3 23 (10.36%) Retail
4 20 (9.01%) Marketing
5 16 (7.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 11 (4.95%) Public Sector
7 10 (4.50%) Publishing
8 6 (2.70%) Banking
8 6 (2.70%) Financial Institution
8 6 (2.70%) Law
9 4 (1.80%) Games
9 4 (1.80%) Legal
9 4 (1.80%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.80%) Pharmaceutical
10 3 (1.35%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.35%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.90%) Social Housing
12 1 (0.45%) Billing
12 1 (0.45%) Digital Economy
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (8.56%) PyTorch
1 19 (8.56%) TensorFlow
2 11 (4.95%) scikit-learn
3 9 (4.05%) EDI
4 6 (2.70%) LangChain
5 5 (2.25%) SpaCy
5 5 (2.25%) XGBoost
6 4 (1.80%) Google JAX
6 4 (1.80%) JAX
6 4 (1.80%) PySpark
7 3 (1.35%) Kafka
7 3 (1.35%) NumPy
7 3 (1.35%) Pandas
8 2 (0.90%) Hugging Face
8 2 (0.90%) NetworkX
8 2 (0.90%) pydantic
8 2 (0.90%) Streamlit
9 1 (0.45%) Faiss
9 1 (0.45%) LlamaIndex
9 1 (0.45%) Semantic Kernel
Miscellaneous
1 16 (7.21%) Algorithms
2 11 (4.95%) Data Structures
2 11 (4.95%) Greenfield Project
3 10 (4.50%) FMCG
4 5 (2.25%) e-Learning
4 5 (2.25%) Product Ownership
5 4 (1.80%) AI Agents
5 4 (1.80%) Cloud Native
6 3 (1.35%) Fixed Income
6 3 (1.35%) Life Science
7 2 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (0.90%) Contract for Difference
7 2 (0.90%) Educational Technology
8 1 (0.45%) FPGA
8 1 (0.45%) Genomics
8 1 (0.45%) Omics
8 1 (0.45%) Reinsurance
8 1 (0.45%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.45%) Social Network
8 1 (0.45%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.45%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 210 (94.59%) Data Science
2 111 (50.00%) Machine Learning
3 99 (44.59%) AI
4 81 (36.49%) Analytics
5 48 (21.62%) Visualisation
6 42 (18.92%) Decision-Making
7 37 (16.67%) Predictive Modelling
8 34 (15.32%) Mathematics
8 34 (15.32%) Problem-Solving
9 33 (14.86%) Business Intelligence
10 28 (12.61%) Actionable Insight
11 27 (12.16%) LLM
12 25 (11.26%) Data Visualisation
12 25 (11.26%) Natural Language Processing
12 25 (11.26%) Storytelling
13 23 (10.36%) Generative AI
13 23 (10.36%) Statistics
14 22 (9.91%) Data Analysis
15 20 (9.01%) Computer Science
15 20 (9.01%) MLOps
Programming Languages
1 115 (51.80%) Python
2 56 (25.23%) SQL
3 24 (10.81%) R
4 2 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 2 (0.90%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.45%) C++
5 1 (0.45%) Scala
Qualifications
1 59 (26.58%) Degree
2 34 (15.32%) Security Cleared
3 31 (13.96%) PhD
4 28 (12.61%) DV Cleared
5 14 (6.31%) Master's Degree
6 11 (4.95%) DBS Check
7 10 (4.50%) ACCA
7 10 (4.50%) CIMA
7 10 (4.50%) SC Cleared
8 4 (1.80%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.35%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.45%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.45%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (3.60%) Data Quality
2 3 (1.35%) GDPR
3 2 (0.90%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.45%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.45%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 8 (3.60%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (2.25%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.45%) Argo
2 1 (0.45%) Terraform
Vendors
1 12 (5.41%) Microsoft
1 12 (5.41%) Salesforce
2 10 (4.50%) Databricks
3 4 (1.80%) ServiceNow
4 3 (1.35%) Google
5 2 (0.90%) Civica
5 2 (0.90%) Northgate
5 2 (0.90%) Orchard
5 2 (0.90%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6 1 (0.45%) Adobe
6 1 (0.45%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.45%) Cognos
6 1 (0.45%) Facebook
6 1 (0.45%) Foundry
6 1 (0.45%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.45%) Marketo
6 1 (0.45%) OpenAI