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 9 October 2025.

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

6 months to
9 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 539 477 501
Rank change year-on-year -62 +24 +37
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 141 313 256
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.43% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.32% 0.45% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 83 127 205
10th Percentile £42,500 £39,448 £43,740
25th Percentile £52,500 £51,250 £46,570
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,879 £62,500
Median % change year-on-year +11.32% +0.61% -
75th Percentile £87,500 £79,375 £82,500
90th Percentile £94,000 £112,750 £96,539
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £56,250 £62,500
% change year-on-year -2.22% -10.00% +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 44,694 69,181 54,198
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.81% 95.36% 95.63%
Number of salaries quoted 25,839 39,770 41,990
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £32,000
25th Percentile £35,500 £41,250 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,688 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.39% -8.33% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.00% -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 9 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 9 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 -54 125 £70,000 +11.32% 164
London +3 81 £75,000 +7.14% 112
UK excluding London -37 48 £55,000 -2.22% 101
Work from Home -62 37 £70,000 +11.32% 100
North of England -25 20 £55,000 -12.53% 12
North West -18 18 £55,000 -8.33% 10
Midlands +24 8 £69,625 +16.04% 6
South West +34 7 £70,000 +27.27% 8
East Midlands +23 5 £80,000 +77.78% 3
South East +13 5 £42,500 -13.96% 59
Scotland -8 4 £45,000 - 9
West Midlands +24 3 £59,250 -10.82% 3
East of England +12 3 £58,750 -11.32%
Northern Ireland +12 1 £40,000 - 4
North East +2 1 £52,000 +1.22%
Yorkshire -2 1 £55,000 -12.53% 2

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

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 141 (100.00%) Data Science
2 121 (85.82%) Python
3 101 (71.63%) Machine Learning
4 81 (57.45%) Analytics
5 71 (50.35%) SQL
6 66 (46.81%) Degree
7 53 (37.59%) AI
8 49 (34.75%) Master's Degree
9 47 (33.33%) Mathematics
10 46 (32.62%) Statistics
11 42 (29.79%) PhD
12 41 (29.08%) Visualisation
13 40 (28.37%) Azure
14 39 (27.66%) AWS
14 39 (27.66%) Problem-Solving
15 34 (24.11%) Finance
16 33 (23.40%) Social Skills
17 32 (22.70%) Decision-Making
17 32 (22.70%) Analytical Skills
18 31 (21.99%) MLOps
19 27 (19.15%) Algorithms
20 25 (17.73%) DevOps
20 25 (17.73%) Natural Language Processing
21 24 (17.02%) Computer Science
22 23 (16.31%) Marketing
23 21 (14.89%) Predictive Modelling
23 21 (14.89%) Pandas
23 21 (14.89%) scikit-learn
23 21 (14.89%) Data Pipeline
24 20 (14.18%) LLM

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 (11.35%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.67%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (3.55%) Apache
4 4 (2.84%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (2.84%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 40 (28.37%) Azure
2 39 (27.66%) AWS
3 20 (14.18%) GCP
4 16 (11.35%) Power Platform
5 9 (6.38%) Google Analytics
6 7 (4.96%) Adobe Analytics
7 5 (3.55%) Amazon SageMaker
7 5 (3.55%) Azure Machine Learning
8 4 (2.84%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (2.84%) dbt
8 4 (2.84%) Snowflake
9 3 (2.13%) Dagster
9 3 (2.13%) GitHub
10 2 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.42%) Azure DevOps
10 2 (1.42%) Prefect
10 2 (1.42%) SaaS
10 2 (1.42%) Serverless
11 1 (0.71%) ChatGPT
11 1 (0.71%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.71%) Broadband
1 1 (0.71%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (11.35%) Power BI
1 16 (11.35%) Tableau
2 8 (5.67%) Relational Database
3 7 (4.96%) Amazon Redshift
4 5 (3.55%) GIS
5 4 (2.84%) Big Data
5 4 (2.84%) Data Mining
5 4 (2.84%) Geospatial Data
5 4 (2.84%) QGIS
5 4 (2.84%) Spatial Data
5 4 (2.84%) SQL Server
6 3 (2.13%) Neo4j
7 2 (1.42%) Data Lake
7 2 (1.42%) Data Warehouse
7 2 (1.42%) Electronic Patient Records
7 2 (1.42%) NoSQL
8 1 (0.71%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.71%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.71%) Parquet
8 1 (0.71%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 12 (8.51%) Git
2 3 (2.13%) MLflow
General
1 34 (24.11%) Finance
2 33 (23.40%) Social Skills
3 32 (22.70%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (16.31%) Marketing
5 20 (14.18%) Law
6 14 (9.93%) Games
7 10 (7.09%) Retail
8 9 (6.38%) Banking
9 8 (5.67%) Manufacturing
10 7 (4.96%) Financial Institution
10 7 (4.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 7 (4.96%) Public Sector
11 5 (3.55%) Legal
11 5 (3.55%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (1.42%) Advertising
12 2 (1.42%) Electronics
12 2 (1.42%) Front Office
12 2 (1.42%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.71%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (14.89%) Pandas
1 21 (14.89%) scikit-learn
2 15 (10.64%) PyTorch
3 13 (9.22%) PySpark
3 13 (9.22%) TensorFlow
4 10 (7.09%) NumPy
5 8 (5.67%) SpaCy
6 7 (4.96%) XGBoost
7 6 (4.26%) LangChain
8 4 (2.84%) PostGIS
9 3 (2.13%) Hugging Face
10 2 (1.42%) CSS
10 2 (1.42%) Django
10 2 (1.42%) LightGBM
10 2 (1.42%) Plotly
10 2 (1.42%) pytest
10 2 (1.42%) Shiny
10 2 (1.42%) Smart Contracts
11 1 (0.71%) NLTK
11 1 (0.71%) PyMC3
Miscellaneous
1 27 (19.15%) Algorithms
2 8 (5.67%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (4.96%) e-Learning
3 7 (4.96%) Reinsurance
4 4 (2.84%) Credit Risk
4 4 (2.84%) Life Science
5 3 (2.13%) AI Agents
5 3 (2.13%) Biopharmaceutical
5 3 (2.13%) Cloud Native
5 3 (2.13%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.13%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.42%) Blockchain
6 2 (1.42%) Educational Technology
6 2 (1.42%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.71%) Blog
7 1 (0.71%) FMCG
7 1 (0.71%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.71%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.71%) Semantic Web
7 1 (0.71%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.71%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (100.00%) Data Science
2 101 (71.63%) Machine Learning
3 81 (57.45%) Analytics
4 53 (37.59%) AI
5 47 (33.33%) Mathematics
6 46 (32.62%) Statistics
7 41 (29.08%) Visualisation
8 39 (27.66%) Problem-Solving
9 32 (22.70%) Decision-Making
10 31 (21.99%) MLOps
11 25 (17.73%) DevOps
11 25 (17.73%) Natural Language Processing
12 24 (17.02%) Computer Science
13 21 (14.89%) Data Pipeline
13 21 (14.89%) Predictive Modelling
14 20 (14.18%) LLM
14 20 (14.18%) Statistical Modelling
15 19 (13.48%) Data Analysis
15 19 (13.48%) Statistical Analysis
16 18 (12.77%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 121 (85.82%) Python
2 71 (50.35%) SQL
3 17 (12.06%) R
4 7 (4.96%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.13%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.71%) C++
6 1 (0.71%) Java
6 1 (0.71%) Julia
6 1 (0.71%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 66 (46.81%) Degree
2 49 (34.75%) Master's Degree
3 42 (29.79%) PhD
4 7 (4.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 6 (4.26%) DBS Check
6 2 (1.42%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.42%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.71%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.71%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.71%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (9.22%) Data Quality
2 4 (2.84%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.71%) GDPR
3 1 (0.71%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 12 (8.51%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (2.13%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.71%) Terraform
Vendors
1 16 (11.35%) Databricks
2 8 (5.67%) Google
2 8 (5.67%) Salesforce
2 8 (5.67%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
3 7 (4.96%) Adobe
3 7 (4.96%) Marketo
4 4 (2.84%) Mapinfo
5 2 (1.42%) Microsoft
5 2 (1.42%) SAP
6 1 (0.71%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.71%) Amplitude
6 1 (0.71%) Cognos
6 1 (0.71%) Facebook
6 1 (0.71%) Foundry
6 1 (0.71%) PayPal