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 11 January 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 471 451 359
Rank change year-on-year -20 -92 +159
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 174 266 417
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.29% 0.50% 0.75%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.32% 0.53% 0.78%
Number of salaries quoted 112 101 200
10th Percentile £44,276 £37,750 £45,750
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,250 £53,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £70,576
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -14.98% +8.58%
75th Percentile £87,500 £75,000 £90,938
90th Percentile £100,000 £91,250 £107,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,709 £57,500 £67,500
% change year-on-year +5.58% -14.81% +14.22%

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 53,748 49,914 53,281
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.60% 92.93% 95.28%
Number of salaries quoted 33,232 25,949 41,098
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,500 £30,125
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +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 11 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 11 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 +18 166 £65,000 +8.33% 163
London +47 101 £76,250 +8.93% 66
UK excluding London -33 71 £60,709 +5.58% 126
Work from Home +42 55 £60,000 - 71
North of England -24 18 £62,500 +13.64% 14
South West +8 17 £60,000 -16.66% 17
North West +9 14 £63,209 +9.93% 7
South East +26 13 £46,250 -20.26% 55
Midlands +2 10 £58,750 +30.56% 12
East of England +21 7 £90,000 +55.17% 18
East Midlands -2 6 £53,945 -6.99% 8
Scotland -18 5 £100,000 - 8
West Midlands +10 4 £70,000 +55.56% 4
North East -1 2 £62,500 +56.78% 2
Yorkshire -36 2 £62,500 -6.37% 5
Northern Ireland -9 1 £40,000 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 168 (96.55%) Data Science
2 100 (57.47%) Machine Learning
2 100 (57.47%) Python
3 71 (40.80%) AI
3 71 (40.80%) Analytics
4 52 (29.89%) Degree
5 51 (29.31%) SQL
6 42 (24.14%) Visualisation
7 37 (21.26%) Problem-Solving
8 36 (20.69%) PhD
9 35 (20.11%) Predictive Modelling
10 33 (18.97%) Decision-Making
11 32 (18.39%) Azure
12 29 (16.67%) Mathematics
13 28 (16.09%) AWS
14 27 (15.52%) Master's Degree
14 27 (15.52%) Power BI
14 27 (15.52%) Power Platform
15 26 (14.94%) Business Intelligence
15 26 (14.94%) Statistics
16 24 (13.79%) Natural Language Processing
17 23 (13.22%) Storytelling
18 22 (12.64%) LLM
19 21 (12.07%) MLOps
20 19 (10.92%) Security Cleared
21 18 (10.34%) Actionable Insight
21 18 (10.34%) DevOps
21 18 (10.34%) PyTorch
22 17 (9.77%) Statistical Analysis
23 16 (9.20%) 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 10 (5.75%) Apache Spark
2 4 (2.30%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.72%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 6 (3.45%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 32 (18.39%) Azure
2 28 (16.09%) AWS
3 27 (15.52%) Power Platform
4 15 (8.62%) GCP
5 7 (4.02%) Snowflake
6 6 (3.45%) dbt
7 5 (2.87%) Dagster
8 3 (1.72%) Google Analytics
9 2 (1.15%) Prefect
9 2 (1.15%) SaaS
10 1 (0.57%) Adobe Analytics
10 1 (0.57%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.57%) Amazon SageMaker
10 1 (0.57%) Azure AI
10 1 (0.57%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.57%) Azure Machine Learning
10 1 (0.57%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.57%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.57%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.30%) Broadband
2 1 (0.57%) Internet
2 1 (0.57%) LTE
2 1 (0.57%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.57%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.57%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (15.52%) Power BI
2 15 (8.62%) Tableau
3 7 (4.02%) Amazon Redshift
3 7 (4.02%) SQL Server
4 5 (2.87%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (2.30%) Big Data
6 3 (1.72%) Relational Database
7 2 (1.15%) Data Mining
7 2 (1.15%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.57%) ClickHouse
8 1 (0.57%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.57%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.57%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.57%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.57%) Parquet
8 1 (0.57%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.57%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.57%) QGIS
8 1 (0.57%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 8 (4.60%) Git
2 4 (2.30%) MLflow
General
1 41 (23.56%) Finance
2 37 (21.26%) Social Skills
3 35 (20.11%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (10.34%) Marketing
5 17 (9.77%) Retail
6 9 (5.17%) Banking
6 9 (5.17%) Games
7 8 (4.60%) Financial Institution
7 8 (4.60%) Law
8 6 (3.45%) Pharmaceutical
8 6 (3.45%) Publishing
9 5 (2.87%) Manufacturing
10 4 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (2.30%) Legal
10 4 (2.30%) Presentation Skills
10 4 (2.30%) Public Sector
11 1 (0.57%) Billing
11 1 (0.57%) Digital Healthcare
11 1 (0.57%) Health Technology
11 1 (0.57%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (10.34%) PyTorch
2 15 (8.62%) TensorFlow
3 14 (8.05%) scikit-learn
4 13 (7.47%) Pandas
5 12 (6.90%) PySpark
6 8 (4.60%) NumPy
7 7 (4.02%) SpaCy
8 5 (2.87%) LangChain
8 5 (2.87%) XGBoost
9 4 (2.30%) EDI
10 3 (1.72%) Google JAX
10 3 (1.72%) JAX
10 3 (1.72%) Kafka
11 2 (1.15%) Hugging Face
11 2 (1.15%) LightGBM
11 2 (1.15%) NetworkX
11 2 (1.15%) pydantic
11 2 (1.15%) Streamlit
12 1 (0.57%) Faiss
12 1 (0.57%) Semantic Kernel
Miscellaneous
1 19 (10.92%) Algorithms
2 7 (4.02%) Data Structures
2 7 (4.02%) e-Learning
2 7 (4.02%) Greenfield Project
3 6 (3.45%) FMCG
4 5 (2.87%) Reinsurance
5 4 (2.30%) Cloud Native
5 4 (2.30%) Life Science
6 3 (1.72%) Credit Risk
6 3 (1.72%) Fixed Income
7 2 (1.15%) AI Agents
7 2 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.15%) Educational Technology
7 2 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.57%) Biopharmaceutical
8 1 (0.57%) Driving Licence
8 1 (0.57%) Genomics
8 1 (0.57%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.57%) Omics
8 1 (0.57%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.57%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (96.55%) Data Science
2 100 (57.47%) Machine Learning
3 71 (40.80%) AI
3 71 (40.80%) Analytics
4 42 (24.14%) Visualisation
5 37 (21.26%) Problem-Solving
6 35 (20.11%) Predictive Modelling
7 33 (18.97%) Decision-Making
8 29 (16.67%) Mathematics
9 26 (14.94%) Business Intelligence
9 26 (14.94%) Statistics
10 24 (13.79%) Natural Language Processing
11 23 (13.22%) Storytelling
12 22 (12.64%) LLM
13 21 (12.07%) MLOps
14 18 (10.34%) Actionable Insight
14 18 (10.34%) DevOps
15 17 (9.77%) Statistical Analysis
16 16 (9.20%) Data Visualisation
16 16 (9.20%) Statistical Modelling
Programming Languages
1 100 (57.47%) Python
2 51 (29.31%) SQL
3 14 (8.05%) R
4 1 (0.57%) C++
4 1 (0.57%) Scala
4 1 (0.57%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 52 (29.89%) Degree
2 36 (20.69%) PhD
3 27 (15.52%) Master's Degree
4 19 (10.92%) Security Cleared
5 15 (8.62%) DV Cleared
6 10 (5.75%) DBS Check
7 9 (5.17%) SC Cleared
8 6 (3.45%) ACCA
8 6 (3.45%) CIMA
9 3 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.57%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.57%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.57%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (6.32%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.15%) Accessibility
2 2 (1.15%) GDPR
2 2 (1.15%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.57%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.57%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.57%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 12 (6.90%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (1.72%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.57%) Argo
Vendors
1 8 (4.60%) Databricks
1 8 (4.60%) Salesforce
2 6 (3.45%) Microsoft
3 3 (1.72%) Google
4 2 (1.15%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
5 1 (0.57%) Adobe
5 1 (0.57%) Alteryx
5 1 (0.57%) Amplitude
5 1 (0.57%) Civica
5 1 (0.57%) Cognos
5 1 (0.57%) Facebook
5 1 (0.57%) Foundry
5 1 (0.57%) Mapbox
5 1 (0.57%) Marketo
5 1 (0.57%) Northgate
5 1 (0.57%) Orchard