Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 October 2025.

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

6 months to
1 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 530 469 490
Rank change year-on-year -61 +21 +37
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 142 322 268
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.29% 0.43% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.32% 0.45% 0.48%
Number of salaries quoted 83 130 218
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,620 £43,745
25th Percentile £52,500 £49,577 £46,570
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,879 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +11.32% +0.61% -2.94%
75th Percentile £87,500 £79,688 £80,938
90th Percentile £95,000 £111,625 £96,539
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year -4.35% -8.00% +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 44,421 71,252 55,490
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.78% 95.29% 95.29%
Number of salaries quoted 25,594 41,365 43,010
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,750 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -
75th Percentile £74,258 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £93,750 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -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 1 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 1 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 -55 125 £70,000 +11.32% 112
London +12 80 £80,000 +14.29% 77
UK excluding London -29 49 £55,000 -4.35% 70
Work from Home -55 39 £70,000 +11.32% 99
North of England -19 20 £55,000 -10.48% 9
North West -9 18 £55,000 -8.33% 8
Midlands +31 8 £69,625 +13.32% 5
South West +42 7 £70,000 +27.27% 2
South East +29 6 £42,500 -13.96% 36
East Midlands +21 5 £80,000 +77.78% 3
Scotland +5 4 £45,000 - 6
West Midlands +34 3 £59,250 -15.36% 2
East of England +5 3 £58,750 -11.32% 1
Northern Ireland +19 1 £40,000 - 3
North East +8 1 £52,000 +1.22%
Yorkshire -13 1 £55,000 -12.53% 1

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

For the 6 months to 1 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.

1 142 (100.00%) Data Science
2 121 (85.21%) Python
3 102 (71.83%) Machine Learning
4 82 (57.75%) Analytics
5 70 (49.30%) SQL
6 67 (47.18%) Degree
7 54 (38.03%) Artificial Intelligence
8 49 (34.51%) Master's Degree
9 47 (33.10%) Mathematics
10 46 (32.39%) Statistics
11 42 (29.58%) Visualisation
11 42 (29.58%) Azure
12 41 (28.87%) PhD
12 41 (28.87%) Problem-Solving
13 39 (27.46%) AWS
14 35 (24.65%) Finance
14 35 (24.65%) Social Skills
15 33 (23.24%) Analytical Skills
16 32 (22.54%) Decision-Making
16 32 (22.54%) MLOps
17 27 (19.01%) Algorithms
18 25 (17.61%) DevOps
18 25 (17.61%) Natural Language Processing
18 25 (17.61%) Computer Science
19 23 (16.20%) Marketing
19 23 (16.20%) scikit-learn
20 22 (15.49%) Pandas
20 22 (15.49%) Statistical Modelling
21 21 (14.79%) GCP
21 21 (14.79%) Data Pipeline

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 16 (11.27%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.63%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (3.52%) Apache
4 4 (2.82%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (2.82%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 42 (29.58%) Azure
2 39 (27.46%) AWS
3 21 (14.79%) GCP
4 15 (10.56%) Power Platform
5 8 (5.63%) Google Analytics
6 7 (4.93%) Adobe Analytics
7 5 (3.52%) Amazon SageMaker
7 5 (3.52%) Azure Machine Learning
8 4 (2.82%) Azure Data Factory
9 3 (2.11%) Dagster
9 3 (2.11%) dbt
9 3 (2.11%) GitHub
9 3 (2.11%) Snowflake
10 2 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.41%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.41%) Prefect
10 2 (1.41%) SaaS
10 2 (1.41%) Serverless
11 1 (0.70%) Anthropic Claude
11 1 (0.70%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.70%) Broadband
1 1 (0.70%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (10.56%) Power BI
1 15 (10.56%) Tableau
2 9 (6.34%) Relational Database
3 7 (4.93%) Amazon Redshift
4 5 (3.52%) GIS
5 4 (2.82%) Big Data
5 4 (2.82%) Data Mining
5 4 (2.82%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (2.82%) QGIS
5 4 (2.82%) Spatial Data
5 4 (2.82%) SQL Server
6 3 (2.11%) Neo4j
7 2 (1.41%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.41%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (1.41%) Electronic Patient Records
7 2 (1.41%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.70%) ClickHouse
8 1 (0.70%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.70%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.70%) TigerGraph
Development Applications
1 13 (9.15%) Git
2 3 (2.11%) MLflow
General
1 35 (24.65%) Finance
1 35 (24.65%) Social Skills
2 33 (23.24%) Analytical Skills
3 23 (16.20%) Marketing
4 19 (13.38%) Law
5 13 (9.15%) Games
6 10 (7.04%) Retail
7 9 (6.34%) Banking
7 9 (6.34%) Manufacturing
8 8 (5.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 8 (5.63%) Public Sector
9 7 (4.93%) Financial Institution
10 5 (3.52%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (2.82%) Legal
12 3 (2.11%) Electronics
12 3 (2.11%) Telecoms
13 2 (1.41%) Advertising
13 2 (1.41%) Front Office
14 1 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
14 1 (0.70%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (16.20%) scikit-learn
2 22 (15.49%) Pandas
3 15 (10.56%) PyTorch
4 14 (9.86%) TensorFlow
5 13 (9.15%) PySpark
6 11 (7.75%) NumPy
7 8 (5.63%) SpaCy
7 8 (5.63%) XGBoost
8 6 (4.23%) LangChain
9 4 (2.82%) PostGIS
10 3 (2.11%) Hugging Face
11 2 (1.41%) CSS
11 2 (1.41%) Django
11 2 (1.41%) LightGBM
11 2 (1.41%) Plotly
11 2 (1.41%) PyMC3
11 2 (1.41%) pytest
11 2 (1.41%) Shiny
11 2 (1.41%) Smart Contracts
11 2 (1.41%) Statsmodels
Miscellaneous
1 27 (19.01%) Algorithms
2 8 (5.63%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (4.93%) e-Learning
3 7 (4.93%) Reinsurance
4 4 (2.82%) Biopharmaceutical
4 4 (2.82%) Credit Risk
4 4 (2.82%) Life Science
5 3 (2.11%) AI Agents
5 3 (2.11%) Cloud Native
5 3 (2.11%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.11%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.41%) Blockchain
6 2 (1.41%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.41%) Renewable Energy
6 2 (1.41%) Sports Betting
7 1 (0.70%) Educational Technology
7 1 (0.70%) FMCG
7 1 (0.70%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.70%) Semantic Web
7 1 (0.70%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.70%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (100.00%) Data Science
2 102 (71.83%) Machine Learning
3 82 (57.75%) Analytics
4 54 (38.03%) Artificial Intelligence
5 47 (33.10%) Mathematics
6 46 (32.39%) Statistics
7 42 (29.58%) Visualisation
8 41 (28.87%) Problem-Solving
9 32 (22.54%) Decision-Making
9 32 (22.54%) MLOps
10 25 (17.61%) Computer Science
10 25 (17.61%) DevOps
10 25 (17.61%) Natural Language Processing
11 22 (15.49%) Statistical Modelling
12 21 (14.79%) Data Pipeline
13 20 (14.08%) LLM
13 20 (14.08%) Predictive Modelling
14 19 (13.38%) Data Analysis
14 19 (13.38%) Mentoring
14 19 (13.38%) Statistical Analysis
Programming Languages
1 121 (85.21%) Python
2 70 (49.30%) SQL
3 19 (13.38%) R
4 7 (4.93%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.11%) T-SQL
6 2 (1.41%) C++
7 1 (0.70%) Java
7 1 (0.70%) Julia
7 1 (0.70%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 67 (47.18%) Degree
2 49 (34.51%) Master's Degree
3 41 (28.87%) PhD
4 8 (5.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (4.23%) DBS Check
6 2 (1.41%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.41%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.70%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.70%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.70%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (9.15%) Data Quality
2 4 (2.82%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.70%) GDPR
System Software
1 12 (8.45%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (2.11%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.70%) Terraform
Vendors
1 17 (11.97%) Databricks
2 8 (5.63%) Google
3 7 (4.93%) Adobe
3 7 (4.93%) Marketo
3 7 (4.93%) Salesforce
3 7 (4.93%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
4 4 (2.82%) Mapinfo
5 3 (2.11%) SAP
6 2 (1.41%) Microsoft
7 1 (0.70%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.70%) Amplitude
7 1 (0.70%) Cognos
7 1 (0.70%) Foundry
7 1 (0.70%) PayPal