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 24 March 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 449 410 433
Rank change year-on-year -39 +23 +94
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 255 251 483
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.61% 0.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.36% 0.67% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 183 111 245
10th Percentile £46,250 £40,000 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £50,000 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £64,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -8.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £100,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £58,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +3.45% -10.77% +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 70,665 37,313 82,697
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.05% 90.19% 94.59%
Number of salaries quoted 45,086 23,014 62,767
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £39,500 £42,809 £38,750
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 £72,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £91,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -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 March 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 March 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 -34 242 £68,360 +13.93% 134
UK excluding London -88 126 £60,000 +3.45% 66
London +47 123 £75,000 - 93
Work from Home -30 74 £60,000 -6.25% 47
North of England -40 32 £62,500 +13.64% 14
South West -54 31 £60,000 -16.66% 7
Midlands -26 29 £55,000 +22.22% 7
North West -13 24 £61,418 +11.67% 10
South East -29 16 £40,000 -32.20% 30
East Midlands -25 15 £62,500 +7.76% 5
West Midlands -16 14 £55,000 +22.22% 2
East of England -11 10 £86,725 +49.53% 4
Scotland -36 5 £100,000 +42.86% 2
Yorkshire -51 5 £62,500 -2.34% 2
North East -20 3 £62,500 - 3
Northern Ireland -32 3 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 24 March 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.

1 243 (95.29%) Data Science
2 119 (46.67%) Machine Learning
3 115 (45.10%) Python
4 108 (42.35%) AI
5 88 (34.51%) Analytics
6 65 (25.49%) SQL
7 58 (22.75%) Visualisation
8 55 (21.57%) Degree
9 51 (20.00%) Decision-Making
10 41 (16.08%) Power BI
10 41 (16.08%) Power Platform
11 39 (15.29%) Security Cleared
12 38 (14.90%) Business Intelligence
13 36 (14.12%) Predictive Modelling
14 35 (13.73%) Mathematics
15 33 (12.94%) DV Cleared
15 33 (12.94%) Problem-Solving
16 31 (12.16%) Azure
17 30 (11.76%) Data Visualisation
17 30 (11.76%) R
18 28 (10.98%) Statistics
19 27 (10.59%) Actionable Insight
20 26 (10.20%) LLM
21 25 (9.80%) AWS
22 24 (9.41%) Data Analysis
22 24 (9.41%) PhD
23 23 (9.02%) Storytelling
23 23 (9.02%) Tableau
24 22 (8.63%) Data Modelling
24 22 (8.63%) PyTorch

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 4 (1.57%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.78%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 5 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 10 (3.92%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 41 (16.08%) Power Platform
2 31 (12.16%) Azure
3 25 (9.80%) AWS
4 11 (4.31%) dbt
5 9 (3.53%) GCP
6 8 (3.14%) Snowflake
7 6 (2.35%) Azure Machine Learning
8 5 (1.96%) Dataform
9 4 (1.57%) Dynamics 365
9 4 (1.57%) Smartsheet
10 2 (0.78%) Amazon S3
10 2 (0.78%) Amazon SageMaker
10 2 (0.78%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (0.78%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (0.78%) Dagster
10 2 (0.78%) Serverless
11 1 (0.39%) Azure DevOps
11 1 (0.39%) Google Analytics
11 1 (0.39%) Microsoft 365
11 1 (0.39%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.96%) Broadband
2 2 (0.78%) Software-Defined Radio
3 1 (0.39%) Internet
3 1 (0.39%) LTE
3 1 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.39%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (16.08%) Power BI
2 23 (9.02%) Tableau
3 9 (3.53%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (3.14%) SQL Server
5 5 (1.96%) Big Data
5 5 (1.96%) Looker
5 5 (1.96%) Metabase
6 3 (1.18%) Data Mining
6 3 (1.18%) NoSQL
6 3 (1.18%) QGIS
7 2 (0.78%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (0.78%) GIS
7 2 (0.78%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.78%) Spatial Data
8 1 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
8 1 (0.39%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.39%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.39%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.39%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 9 (3.53%) MLflow
2 8 (3.14%) Git
General
1 46 (18.04%) Analytical Skills
2 45 (17.65%) Social Skills
3 32 (12.55%) Finance
4 31 (12.16%) Retail
5 19 (7.45%) Marketing
6 18 (7.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (5.88%) Public Sector
8 10 (3.92%) Publishing
9 7 (2.75%) Law
9 7 (2.75%) Manufacturing
10 4 (1.57%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
11 3 (1.18%) Games
11 3 (1.18%) Legal
11 3 (1.18%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.78%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.78%) Banking
12 2 (0.78%) Financial Institution
12 2 (0.78%) Social Housing
13 1 (0.39%) Digital Economy
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (8.63%) PyTorch
2 18 (7.06%) TensorFlow
3 13 (5.10%) scikit-learn
4 9 (3.53%) EDI
5 6 (2.35%) XGBoost
6 5 (1.96%) Pandas
7 4 (1.57%) Google JAX
7 4 (1.57%) JAX
8 3 (1.18%) LangChain
8 3 (1.18%) NumPy
8 3 (1.18%) PySpark
9 2 (0.78%) Kafka
9 2 (0.78%) NetworkX
9 2 (0.78%) Streamlit
10 1 (0.39%) Django
10 1 (0.39%) Flask
10 1 (0.39%) PostGIS
10 1 (0.39%) SciPy
10 1 (0.39%) SpaCy
10 1 (0.39%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 12 (4.71%) Algorithms
2 11 (4.31%) Data Structures
3 10 (3.92%) FMCG
3 10 (3.92%) Greenfield Project
4 5 (1.96%) Product Ownership
5 2 (0.78%) AI Agents
5 2 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (0.78%) Contract for Difference
5 2 (0.78%) Fixed Income
6 1 (0.39%) Cloud Native
6 1 (0.39%) Clustering
6 1 (0.39%) Credit Risk
6 1 (0.39%) Educational Technology
6 1 (0.39%) e-Learning
6 1 (0.39%) FPGA
6 1 (0.39%) Genomics
6 1 (0.39%) Omics
6 1 (0.39%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.39%) Social Network
6 1 (0.39%) Tandem
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (95.29%) Data Science
2 119 (46.67%) Machine Learning
3 108 (42.35%) AI
4 88 (34.51%) Analytics
5 58 (22.75%) Visualisation
6 51 (20.00%) Decision-Making
7 38 (14.90%) Business Intelligence
8 36 (14.12%) Predictive Modelling
9 35 (13.73%) Mathematics
10 33 (12.94%) Problem-Solving
11 30 (11.76%) Data Visualisation
12 28 (10.98%) Statistics
13 27 (10.59%) Actionable Insight
14 26 (10.20%) LLM
15 24 (9.41%) Data Analysis
16 23 (9.02%) Storytelling
17 22 (8.63%) Data Modelling
18 21 (8.24%) Generative AI
19 20 (7.84%) E-Commerce
19 20 (7.84%) Statistical Analysis
Programming Languages
1 115 (45.10%) Python
2 65 (25.49%) SQL
3 30 (11.76%) R
4 5 (1.96%) Julia
5 4 (1.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 4 (1.57%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.39%) C++
6 1 (0.39%) Scala
Qualifications
1 55 (21.57%) Degree
2 39 (15.29%) Security Cleared
3 33 (12.94%) DV Cleared
4 24 (9.41%) PhD
5 15 (5.88%) DBS Check
6 10 (3.92%) ACCA
6 10 (3.92%) CIMA
6 10 (3.92%) SC Cleared
7 7 (2.75%) Master's Degree
8 3 (1.18%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.39%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (5.49%) Data Quality
2 3 (1.18%) GDPR
3 1 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.39%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.39%) ISO 13485
3 1 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.39%) QA
System Software
1 5 (1.96%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (1.57%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.78%) Kubeflow
2 2 (0.78%) Terraform
3 1 (0.39%) Argo
Vendors
1 13 (5.10%) Microsoft
2 12 (4.71%) Databricks
3 11 (4.31%) Salesforce
4 6 (2.35%) ServiceNow
5 4 (1.57%) Google
6 2 (0.78%) Civica
6 2 (0.78%) Northgate
6 2 (0.78%) Orchard
7 1 (0.39%) Facebook
7 1 (0.39%) Mapbox
7 1 (0.39%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.39%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud