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 26 December 2025.

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

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 499 447 450
Rank change year-on-year -52 +3 +75
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 155 274 270
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.49% 0.53%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.52% 0.55%
Number of salaries quoted 98 116 181
10th Percentile £45,000 £37,769 £45,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £62,879 £70,576
Median % change year-on-year +7.35% -10.91% +8.58%
75th Percentile £85,000 £77,500 £93,750
90th Percentile £96,125 £93,000 £111,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £59,000 £66,250
% change year-on-year +5.93% -10.94% +12.10%

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 54,223 52,219 48,884
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.45% 93.42% 95.22%
Number of salaries quoted 33,503 27,758 37,761
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,174 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,000 £78,656
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,918
% change year-on-year -4.76% +3.11% -3.01%

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 26 December 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 26 December 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 -11 147 £65,000 +3.37% 445
London +51 97 £75,000 +7.14% 146
UK excluding London -45 56 £62,500 +5.93% 343
Work from Home +3 42 £60,000 -4.58% 149
North of England -26 16 £62,500 -0.60% 65
North West +11 12 £67,500 +7.35% 36
South West +12 10 £60,000 -9.43% 45
Midlands +4 10 £58,750 +30.56% 60
South East +18 9 £60,000 +1.69% 107
East Midlands -2 6 £53,945 -6.99% 27
East of England +24 5 £85,000 +46.55% 43
Scotland -17 5 £100,000 - 17
West Midlands +8 4 £70,000 +55.56% 29
North East +5 2 £62,500 +21.66% 5
Yorkshire -37 2 £62,500 -0.60% 24
Northern Ireland -9 1 £40,000 - 4

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

For the 6 months to 26 December 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.

1 152 (98.06%) Data Science
2 102 (65.81%) Python
3 97 (62.58%) Machine Learning
4 72 (46.45%) Analytics
5 66 (42.58%) AI
6 53 (34.19%) SQL
7 49 (31.61%) Degree
8 44 (28.39%) Visualisation
9 36 (23.23%) PhD
10 35 (22.58%) Problem-Solving
11 31 (20.00%) AWS
11 31 (20.00%) Azure
11 31 (20.00%) Decision-Making
11 31 (20.00%) Mathematics
12 30 (19.35%) Master's Degree
13 29 (18.71%) Predictive Modelling
14 26 (16.77%) Statistics
15 24 (15.48%) MLOps
15 24 (15.48%) Natural Language Processing
16 23 (14.84%) LLM
17 22 (14.19%) Business Intelligence
17 22 (14.19%) Power BI
17 22 (14.19%) Power Platform
18 20 (12.90%) DevOps
19 19 (12.26%) Mentoring
20 17 (10.97%) GCP
20 17 (10.97%) PyTorch
20 17 (10.97%) Statistical Analysis
20 17 (10.97%) Storytelling
21 16 (10.32%) Data Engineering

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 11 (7.10%) Apache Spark
2 5 (3.23%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.65%) Apache
3 1 (0.65%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 3 (1.94%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 3 (1.94%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 31 (20.00%) AWS
1 31 (20.00%) Azure
2 22 (14.19%) Power Platform
3 17 (10.97%) GCP
4 7 (4.52%) Snowflake
5 6 (3.87%) dbt
6 5 (3.23%) Dagster
7 3 (1.94%) Google Analytics
8 2 (1.29%) Amazon SageMaker
8 2 (1.29%) Prefect
8 2 (1.29%) SaaS
9 1 (0.65%) Adobe Analytics
9 1 (0.65%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.65%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.65%) Azure AI
9 1 (0.65%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.65%) Azure Machine Learning
9 1 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
9 1 (0.65%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.65%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.58%) Broadband
2 1 (0.65%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (14.19%) Power BI
2 12 (7.74%) Tableau
3 7 (4.52%) Amazon Redshift
4 5 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (3.23%) SQL Server
5 4 (2.58%) Big Data
5 4 (2.58%) Relational Database
6 2 (1.29%) Data Mining
6 2 (1.29%) Geospatial Data
6 2 (1.29%) NoSQL
6 2 (1.29%) QGIS
7 1 (0.65%) ClickHouse
7 1 (0.65%) GIS
7 1 (0.65%) Hadoop
7 1 (0.65%) Mixpanel
7 1 (0.65%) MongoDB
7 1 (0.65%) Pinecone
7 1 (0.65%) PostgreSQL
7 1 (0.65%) Snowflake Schema
7 1 (0.65%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 7 (4.52%) Git
2 4 (2.58%) MLflow
General
1 39 (25.16%) Finance
2 32 (20.65%) Analytical Skills
3 31 (20.00%) Social Skills
4 18 (11.61%) Marketing
5 11 (7.10%) Games
5 11 (7.10%) Retail
6 10 (6.45%) Law
7 9 (5.81%) Banking
8 8 (5.16%) Financial Institution
9 7 (4.52%) Manufacturing
10 6 (3.87%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (3.23%) Public Sector
12 4 (2.58%) Legal
12 4 (2.58%) Presentation Skills
13 3 (1.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (1.94%) Publishing
14 1 (0.65%) Advertising
14 1 (0.65%) Digital Economy
14 1 (0.65%) Electronics
14 1 (0.65%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (10.97%) PyTorch
2 16 (10.32%) scikit-learn
3 15 (9.68%) TensorFlow
4 14 (9.03%) Pandas
5 12 (7.74%) PySpark
6 8 (5.16%) NumPy
7 7 (4.52%) SpaCy
8 5 (3.23%) LangChain
8 5 (3.23%) XGBoost
9 3 (1.94%) Kafka
10 2 (1.29%) Django
10 2 (1.29%) EDI
10 2 (1.29%) Google JAX
10 2 (1.29%) Hugging Face
10 2 (1.29%) JAX
10 2 (1.29%) LightGBM
10 2 (1.29%) NetworkX
10 2 (1.29%) PostGIS
10 2 (1.29%) pydantic
10 2 (1.29%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 22 (14.19%) Algorithms
2 7 (4.52%) e-Learning
3 5 (3.23%) Reinsurance
4 4 (2.58%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.58%) Data Structures
4 4 (2.58%) FMCG
4 4 (2.58%) Greenfield Project
4 4 (2.58%) Life Science
5 3 (1.94%) Credit Risk
5 3 (1.94%) Fixed Income
6 2 (1.29%) AI Agents
6 2 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.29%) Educational Technology
6 2 (1.29%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.65%) Biopharmaceutical
7 1 (0.65%) Driving Licence
7 1 (0.65%) Genomics
7 1 (0.65%) Omics
7 1 (0.65%) Social Network
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.65%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (98.06%) Data Science
2 97 (62.58%) Machine Learning
3 72 (46.45%) Analytics
4 66 (42.58%) AI
5 44 (28.39%) Visualisation
6 35 (22.58%) Problem-Solving
7 31 (20.00%) Decision-Making
7 31 (20.00%) Mathematics
8 29 (18.71%) Predictive Modelling
9 26 (16.77%) Statistics
10 24 (15.48%) MLOps
10 24 (15.48%) Natural Language Processing
11 23 (14.84%) LLM
12 22 (14.19%) Business Intelligence
13 20 (12.90%) DevOps
14 19 (12.26%) Mentoring
15 17 (10.97%) Statistical Analysis
15 17 (10.97%) Storytelling
16 16 (10.32%) Data Pipeline
16 16 (10.32%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 102 (65.81%) Python
2 53 (34.19%) SQL
3 11 (7.10%) R
4 1 (0.65%) JavaScript
4 1 (0.65%) Scala
4 1 (0.65%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 49 (31.61%) Degree
2 36 (23.23%) PhD
3 30 (19.35%) Master's Degree
4 10 (6.45%) DBS Check
4 10 (6.45%) Security Cleared
5 7 (4.52%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.94%) ACCA
6 3 (1.94%) CIMA
6 3 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.94%) SC Cleared
7 2 (1.29%) Numerate Degree
8 1 (0.65%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.65%) Azure Certification
8 1 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.10%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.29%) Accessibility
2 2 (1.29%) GDPR
2 2 (1.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.65%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.65%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 12 (7.74%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (1.94%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.65%) Argo
Vendors
1 9 (5.81%) Databricks
2 5 (3.23%) Microsoft
2 5 (3.23%) Salesforce
3 3 (1.94%) Google
4 2 (1.29%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
5 1 (0.65%) Adobe
5 1 (0.65%) Alteryx
5 1 (0.65%) Amplitude
5 1 (0.65%) Civica
5 1 (0.65%) Cognos
5 1 (0.65%) Facebook
5 1 (0.65%) Foundry
5 1 (0.65%) Mapbox
5 1 (0.65%) Mapinfo
5 1 (0.65%) Marketo
5 1 (0.65%) Northgate
5 1 (0.65%) Orchard
5 1 (0.65%) SAP