Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 October 2025.

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

6 months to
15 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 516 462 499
Rank change year-on-year -54 +37 +36
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 140 313 250
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.44% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.32% 0.46% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 82 125 198
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,620 £43,745
25th Percentile £51,938 £50,120 £46,570
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £62,879 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +7.35% +0.61% -
75th Percentile £85,000 £78,750 £82,500
90th Percentile £90,000 £107,250 £96,539
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year - -12.00% +8.70%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 44,157 67,663 53,621
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.76% 95.35% 95.58%
Number of salaries quoted 25,771 38,844 41,467
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £32,000
25th Percentile £35,500 £41,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,500 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.00% -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 15 October 2025.

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 15 October 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 -36 124 £70,000 +11.32% 175
London +12 81 £75,000 +7.14% 104
UK excluding London -15 49 £55,000 - 112
Work from Home -59 36 £65,000 +3.37% 96
North of England -30 20 £55,000 -12.53% 18
North West -10 18 £55,000 -8.33% 12
Midlands +23 8 £69,625 +26.59% 9
South West +28 7 £70,000 +27.27% 10
East Midlands +16 5 £80,000 +77.78% 4
South East +9 5 £42,500 -13.96% 65
Scotland -20 5 £40,500 - 5
West Midlands +29 3 £59,250 -5.77% 5
East of England +7 3 £58,750 -11.32% 1
Northern Ireland +6 1 £40,000 - 2
North East +2 1 £52,000 +1.22% 2
Yorkshire -5 1 £55,000 -12.53% 4

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

For the 6 months to 15 October 2025, 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.

1 140 (100.00%) Data Science
2 120 (85.71%) Python
3 101 (72.14%) Machine Learning
4 80 (57.14%) Analytics
5 71 (50.71%) SQL
6 65 (46.43%) Degree
7 54 (38.57%) AI
8 48 (34.29%) Mathematics
8 48 (34.29%) Master's Degree
9 46 (32.86%) Statistics
10 42 (30.00%) PhD
11 41 (29.29%) Visualisation
12 40 (28.57%) Problem-Solving
13 39 (27.86%) Azure
13 39 (27.86%) AWS
14 34 (24.29%) Finance
14 34 (24.29%) Decision-Making
14 34 (24.29%) Analytical Skills
14 34 (24.29%) Social Skills
15 31 (22.14%) MLOps
16 26 (18.57%) Algorithms
16 26 (18.57%) Natural Language Processing
17 24 (17.14%) DevOps
18 23 (16.43%) Marketing
18 23 (16.43%) Computer Science
19 22 (15.71%) Predictive Modelling
19 22 (15.71%) scikit-learn
20 21 (15.00%) Pandas
20 21 (15.00%) Data Pipeline
21 20 (14.29%) LLM

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 17 (12.14%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.71%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (3.57%) Apache
4 4 (2.86%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (2.86%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 39 (27.86%) AWS
1 39 (27.86%) Azure
2 20 (14.29%) GCP
3 17 (12.14%) Power Platform
4 9 (6.43%) Google Analytics
5 7 (5.00%) Adobe Analytics
6 5 (3.57%) Amazon SageMaker
6 5 (3.57%) Azure Machine Learning
7 4 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
7 4 (2.86%) dbt
7 4 (2.86%) Snowflake
8 3 (2.14%) Dagster
8 3 (2.14%) GitHub
9 2 (1.43%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.43%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.43%) Prefect
9 2 (1.43%) SaaS
9 2 (1.43%) Serverless
10 1 (0.71%) Anthropic Claude
10 1 (0.71%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.43%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (12.14%) Power BI
2 15 (10.71%) Tableau
3 7 (5.00%) Amazon Redshift
3 7 (5.00%) Relational Database
4 5 (3.57%) Big Data
4 5 (3.57%) GIS
5 4 (2.86%) Data Mining
5 4 (2.86%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (2.86%) QGIS
5 4 (2.86%) Spatial Data
5 4 (2.86%) SQL Server
6 3 (2.14%) Neo4j
7 2 (1.43%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (1.43%) Electronic Patient Records
7 2 (1.43%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.71%) ClickHouse
8 1 (0.71%) Parquet
8 1 (0.71%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.71%) Snowflake Schema
8 1 (0.71%) TigerGraph
Development Applications
1 12 (8.57%) Git
2 4 (2.86%) MLflow
General
1 34 (24.29%) Analytical Skills
1 34 (24.29%) Finance
1 34 (24.29%) Social Skills
2 23 (16.43%) Marketing
3 20 (14.29%) Law
4 14 (10.00%) Games
5 11 (7.86%) Retail
6 9 (6.43%) Banking
7 8 (5.71%) Manufacturing
8 7 (5.00%) Financial Institution
8 7 (5.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 6 (4.29%) Public Sector
10 5 (3.57%) Legal
10 5 (3.57%) Pharmaceutical
11 2 (1.43%) Advertising
11 2 (1.43%) Electronics
11 2 (1.43%) Front Office
11 2 (1.43%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.71%) Billing
12 1 (0.71%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (15.71%) scikit-learn
2 21 (15.00%) Pandas
3 16 (11.43%) PyTorch
4 15 (10.71%) TensorFlow
5 12 (8.57%) PySpark
6 10 (7.14%) NumPy
7 8 (5.71%) SpaCy
7 8 (5.71%) XGBoost
8 7 (5.00%) LangChain
9 4 (2.86%) PostGIS
10 3 (2.14%) Hugging Face
11 2 (1.43%) Django
11 2 (1.43%) Kafka
11 2 (1.43%) LightGBM
11 2 (1.43%) pydantic
11 2 (1.43%) pytest
12 1 (0.71%) Keras
12 1 (0.71%) PyMC3
12 1 (0.71%) Seaborn
12 1 (0.71%) Smart Contracts
Miscellaneous
1 26 (18.57%) Algorithms
2 8 (5.71%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (5.00%) e-Learning
3 7 (5.00%) Reinsurance
4 4 (2.86%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.86%) Credit Risk
4 4 (2.86%) Life Science
5 3 (2.14%) AI Agents
5 3 (2.14%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.14%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.43%) Biopharmaceutical
6 2 (1.43%) Educational Technology
6 2 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.71%) Blockchain
7 1 (0.71%) FMCG
7 1 (0.71%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.71%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.71%) Social Media
7 1 (0.71%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.71%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 140 (100.00%) Data Science
2 101 (72.14%) Machine Learning
3 80 (57.14%) Analytics
4 54 (38.57%) AI
5 48 (34.29%) Mathematics
6 46 (32.86%) Statistics
7 41 (29.29%) Visualisation
8 40 (28.57%) Problem-Solving
9 34 (24.29%) Decision-Making
10 31 (22.14%) MLOps
11 26 (18.57%) Natural Language Processing
12 24 (17.14%) DevOps
13 23 (16.43%) Computer Science
14 22 (15.71%) Predictive Modelling
15 21 (15.00%) Data Pipeline
16 20 (14.29%) Data Analysis
16 20 (14.29%) LLM
17 19 (13.57%) Statistical Analysis
17 19 (13.57%) Statistical Modelling
18 18 (12.86%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 120 (85.71%) Python
2 71 (50.71%) SQL
3 16 (11.43%) R
4 6 (4.29%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.14%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.71%) C++
6 1 (0.71%) Java
6 1 (0.71%) Julia
Qualifications
1 65 (46.43%) Degree
2 48 (34.29%) Master's Degree
3 42 (30.00%) PhD
4 7 (5.00%) DBS Check
5 6 (4.29%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.43%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.43%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.71%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.71%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.71%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (10.00%) Data Quality
2 4 (2.86%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.71%) GDPR
System Software
1 13 (9.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (2.86%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.71%) Terraform
Vendors
1 15 (10.71%) Databricks
2 8 (5.71%) Google
2 8 (5.71%) Salesforce
2 8 (5.71%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
3 7 (5.00%) Adobe
3 7 (5.00%) Marketo
4 4 (2.86%) Mapinfo
5 3 (2.14%) Microsoft
6 2 (1.43%) SAP
7 1 (0.71%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.71%) Amplitude
7 1 (0.71%) Cognos
7 1 (0.71%) Facebook
7 1 (0.71%) Foundry
7 1 (0.71%) PayPal