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 January 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 468 468 378
Rank change year-on-year 0 -90 +133
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 192 249 446
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.31% 0.47% 0.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.34% 0.51% 0.72%
Number of salaries quoted 126 97 224
10th Percentile £44,598 £37,650 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -14.29% +7.69%
75th Percentile £85,000 £73,886 £87,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £85,100 £102,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £61,418 £57,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +6.81% -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 56,751 49,013 62,355
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.76% 92.29% 95.20%
Number of salaries quoted 35,238 25,292 48,562
10th Percentile £28,750 £33,750 £29,750
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.41%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,750 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,050 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.75% +6.10% -5.66%

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 January 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 January 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 +40 181 £65,000 +10.17% 150
London +80 111 £80,000 +21.21% 54
UK excluding London -47 76 £61,418 +6.81% 123
Work from Home +40 57 £60,000 - 107
North of England -27 23 £61,959 +12.65% 17
North West +9 19 £61,418 +6.81% 11
South East +30 16 £40,000 -31.03% 51
South West +5 15 £60,000 -14.29% 13
Midlands -3 10 £58,750 +30.56% 9
East of England +27 6 £100,000 +72.41% 22
East Midlands +2 6 £53,945 -6.99% 6
Scotland -29 5 £100,000 - 5
West Midlands +13 4 £70,000 +64.71% 3
North East -6 2 £62,500 +56.78% 3
Yorkshire -41 2 £62,500 -2.34% 3
Northern Ireland -13 1 £40,000 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 24 January 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.

1 182 (94.79%) Data Science
2 105 (54.69%) Machine Learning
3 104 (54.17%) Python
4 83 (43.23%) AI
5 76 (39.58%) Analytics
6 54 (28.13%) Degree
7 46 (23.96%) SQL
8 45 (23.44%) Visualisation
9 39 (20.31%) PhD
9 39 (20.31%) Problem-Solving
10 34 (17.71%) Azure
10 34 (17.71%) Predictive Modelling
11 33 (17.19%) Decision-Making
12 29 (15.10%) Statistics
13 28 (14.58%) Mathematics
13 28 (14.58%) Power BI
13 28 (14.58%) Power Platform
14 27 (14.06%) Business Intelligence
15 26 (13.54%) AWS
15 26 (13.54%) Master's Degree
15 26 (13.54%) Natural Language Processing
16 25 (13.02%) Storytelling
17 24 (12.50%) Security Cleared
18 23 (11.98%) LLM
19 21 (10.94%) Actionable Insight
20 20 (10.42%) Business Strategy
20 20 (10.42%) MLOps
21 19 (9.90%) Data Visualisation
21 19 (9.90%) DV Cleared
21 19 (9.90%) Generative AI

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 10 (5.21%) Apache Spark
2 4 (2.08%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.04%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 3 (1.56%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (4.17%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 34 (17.71%) Azure
2 28 (14.58%) Power Platform
3 26 (13.54%) AWS
4 14 (7.29%) GCP
5 8 (4.17%) dbt
6 7 (3.65%) Snowflake
7 5 (2.60%) Dagster
8 3 (1.56%) Google Analytics
9 2 (1.04%) Prefect
10 1 (0.52%) Adobe Analytics
10 1 (0.52%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.52%) Azure AI
10 1 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.52%) Azure Machine Learning
10 1 (0.52%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.52%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.52%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.08%) Broadband
2 1 (0.52%) Internet
2 1 (0.52%) LTE
2 1 (0.52%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.52%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (14.58%) Power BI
2 17 (8.85%) Tableau
3 7 (3.65%) Amazon Redshift
3 7 (3.65%) SQL Server
4 5 (2.60%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (2.08%) Big Data
6 3 (1.56%) QGIS
7 2 (1.04%) Data Mining
7 2 (1.04%) GIS
7 2 (1.04%) Spatial Data
8 1 (0.52%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.52%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.52%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.52%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.52%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.52%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.52%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 10 (5.21%) Git
2 3 (1.56%) MLflow
General
1 43 (22.40%) Social Skills
2 39 (20.31%) Finance
3 35 (18.23%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (12.50%) Retail
5 22 (11.46%) Marketing
6 9 (4.69%) Games
6 9 (4.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (4.17%) Banking
7 8 (4.17%) Financial Institution
7 8 (4.17%) Law
7 8 (4.17%) Publishing
8 6 (3.13%) Pharmaceutical
9 4 (2.08%) Legal
9 4 (2.08%) Manufacturing
9 4 (2.08%) Public Sector
10 3 (1.56%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.52%) Advertising
11 1 (0.52%) Billing
11 1 (0.52%) Digital Economy
11 1 (0.52%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (9.90%) PyTorch
2 14 (7.29%) TensorFlow
3 12 (6.25%) scikit-learn
4 10 (5.21%) Pandas
4 10 (5.21%) PySpark
5 9 (4.69%) EDI
6 7 (3.65%) NumPy
6 7 (3.65%) SpaCy
7 4 (2.08%) Google JAX
7 4 (2.08%) JAX
7 4 (2.08%) LangChain
7 4 (2.08%) XGBoost
8 3 (1.56%) Kafka
9 2 (1.04%) NetworkX
9 2 (1.04%) pydantic
9 2 (1.04%) Streamlit
10 1 (0.52%) Faiss
10 1 (0.52%) GeoPandas
10 1 (0.52%) MapLibre
10 1 (0.52%) Semantic Kernel
Miscellaneous
1 18 (9.38%) Algorithms
2 9 (4.69%) Data Structures
2 9 (4.69%) Greenfield Project
3 8 (4.17%) FMCG
4 7 (3.65%) e-Learning
5 5 (2.60%) Product Ownership
6 4 (2.08%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.08%) Life Science
7 3 (1.56%) Fixed Income
7 3 (1.56%) Reinsurance
8 2 (1.04%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.04%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.04%) Contract for Difference
8 2 (1.04%) Educational Technology
8 2 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.52%) Biopharmaceutical
9 1 (0.52%) FPGA
9 1 (0.52%) Genomics
9 1 (0.52%) Omics
9 1 (0.52%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.52%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (94.79%) Data Science
2 105 (54.69%) Machine Learning
3 83 (43.23%) AI
4 76 (39.58%) Analytics
5 45 (23.44%) Visualisation
6 39 (20.31%) Problem-Solving
7 34 (17.71%) Predictive Modelling
8 33 (17.19%) Decision-Making
9 29 (15.10%) Statistics
10 28 (14.58%) Mathematics
11 27 (14.06%) Business Intelligence
12 26 (13.54%) Natural Language Processing
13 25 (13.02%) Storytelling
14 23 (11.98%) LLM
15 21 (10.94%) Actionable Insight
16 20 (10.42%) Business Strategy
16 20 (10.42%) MLOps
17 19 (9.90%) Data Visualisation
17 19 (9.90%) Generative AI
18 18 (9.38%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 104 (54.17%) Python
2 46 (23.96%) SQL
3 13 (6.77%) R
4 1 (0.52%) C++
4 1 (0.52%) Scala
Qualifications
1 54 (28.13%) Degree
2 39 (20.31%) PhD
3 26 (13.54%) Master's Degree
4 24 (12.50%) Security Cleared
5 19 (9.90%) DV Cleared
6 10 (5.21%) DBS Check
6 10 (5.21%) SC Cleared
7 8 (4.17%) ACCA
7 8 (4.17%) CIMA
8 3 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.52%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.52%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.17%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.04%) GDPR
2 2 (1.04%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.52%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.52%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 11 (5.73%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (1.56%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.52%) Argo
Vendors
1 10 (5.21%) Salesforce
2 9 (4.69%) Microsoft
3 7 (3.65%) Databricks
4 3 (1.56%) Google
5 2 (1.04%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6 1 (0.52%) Adobe
6 1 (0.52%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.52%) Amplitude
6 1 (0.52%) Civica
6 1 (0.52%) Cognos
6 1 (0.52%) Facebook
6 1 (0.52%) Foundry
6 1 (0.52%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.52%) Marketo
6 1 (0.52%) Northgate
6 1 (0.52%) Orchard