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 8 November 2025.

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

6 months to
8 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 531 471 517
Rank change year-on-year -60 +46 +24
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 134 287 221
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.42% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.45% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 86 115 154
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,620 £42,500
25th Percentile £52,500 £51,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,879 £68,750
Median % change year-on-year +3.37% -8.54% +7.84%
75th Percentile £85,000 £75,625 £89,375
90th Percentile £92,500 £93,650 £99,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,875 £57,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +5.87% -11.54% +13.04%

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 46,066 64,284 51,077
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.12% 95.03% 95.51%
Number of salaries quoted 28,668 36,353 39,628
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,238 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £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 8 November 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 8 November 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 -34 125 £65,000 +3.37% 491
London +35 79 £75,000 +8.15% 316
UK excluding London -23 52 £60,875 +5.87% 321
Work from Home -28 36 £70,000 +11.32% 231
North of England -27 20 £62,500 -0.60% 36
North West +5 17 £60,000 -4.58% 32
Midlands +51 10 £62,500 +13.64% 18
East Midlands +25 7 £62,500 +16.28% 13
South West +15 7 £70,000 +27.27% 8
South East +21 6 £42,500 -13.96% 225
Scotland -16 5 £100,000 - 21
East of England +27 3 £58,750 -21.67% 2
West Midlands +26 3 £59,250 +4.98% 4
Yorkshire -14 2 £58,750 -6.57% 2
North East +4 1 £62,500 +21.66% 2
Northern Ireland +1 1 £40,000 - 5

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

For the 6 months to 8 November 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.

1 134 (100.00%) Data Science
2 108 (80.60%) Python
3 97 (72.39%) Machine Learning
4 69 (51.49%) Analytics
5 65 (48.51%) SQL
6 57 (42.54%) AI
7 55 (41.04%) Degree
8 43 (32.09%) Visualisation
9 40 (29.85%) PhD
9 40 (29.85%) Problem-Solving
10 39 (29.10%) Master's Degree
11 37 (27.61%) AWS
11 37 (27.61%) Statistics
12 36 (26.87%) Mathematics
13 35 (26.12%) Azure
14 31 (23.13%) Decision-Making
15 30 (22.39%) MLOps
16 27 (20.15%) Natural Language Processing
17 25 (18.66%) Predictive Modelling
18 23 (17.16%) DevOps
18 23 (17.16%) LLM
19 21 (15.67%) Data Pipeline
20 20 (14.93%) GCP
20 20 (14.93%) Statistical Modelling
21 19 (14.18%) scikit-learn
21 19 (14.18%) Statistical Analysis
22 18 (13.43%) Computer Science
22 18 (13.43%) Pandas
23 17 (12.69%) Mentoring
24 16 (11.94%) Business Intelligence

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 14 (10.45%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.97%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.99%) ArcGIS
4 3 (2.24%) Apache
Applications
1 4 (2.99%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 37 (27.61%) AWS
2 35 (26.12%) Azure
3 20 (14.93%) GCP
4 16 (11.94%) Power Platform
5 6 (4.48%) dbt
5 6 (4.48%) Snowflake
6 5 (3.73%) Dagster
7 4 (2.99%) Azure Machine Learning
8 3 (2.24%) Amazon SageMaker
8 3 (2.24%) GitHub
8 3 (2.24%) Google Analytics
9 2 (1.49%) Prefect
9 2 (1.49%) SaaS
10 1 (0.75%) Adobe Analytics
10 1 (0.75%) Anthropic Claude
10 1 (0.75%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.75%) Azure AI
10 1 (0.75%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.75%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.75%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.49%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (11.94%) Power BI
2 10 (7.46%) Tableau
3 7 (5.22%) Amazon Redshift
4 6 (4.48%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.73%) GIS
6 4 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (2.99%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (2.99%) QGIS
6 4 (2.99%) Spatial Data
6 4 (2.99%) SQL Server
7 3 (2.24%) Big Data
7 3 (2.24%) Data Mining
8 2 (1.49%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (1.49%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.75%) ClickHouse
9 1 (0.75%) Mixpanel
9 1 (0.75%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.75%) Parquet
9 1 (0.75%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.75%) TigerGraph
Development Applications
1 10 (7.46%) Git
2 4 (2.99%) MLflow
General
1 38 (28.36%) Social Skills
2 32 (23.88%) Finance
3 25 (18.66%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (11.94%) Marketing
5 14 (10.45%) Games
5 14 (10.45%) Law
6 10 (7.46%) Retail
7 9 (6.72%) Banking
8 7 (5.22%) Financial Institution
8 7 (5.22%) Manufacturing
9 5 (3.73%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (2.99%) Legal
10 4 (2.99%) Public Sector
11 2 (1.49%) Advertising
11 2 (1.49%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.75%) Electronics
12 1 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.75%) Tech for Good
12 1 (0.75%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (14.18%) scikit-learn
2 18 (13.43%) Pandas
3 15 (11.19%) PyTorch
4 14 (10.45%) TensorFlow
5 11 (8.21%) PySpark
6 8 (5.97%) NumPy
6 8 (5.97%) SpaCy
6 8 (5.97%) XGBoost
7 6 (4.48%) LangChain
8 4 (2.99%) PostGIS
9 3 (2.24%) Hugging Face
10 2 (1.49%) Kafka
10 2 (1.49%) LightGBM
10 2 (1.49%) pydantic
10 2 (1.49%) pytest
11 1 (0.75%) Keras
11 1 (0.75%) OpenCV
11 1 (0.75%) PyMC3
11 1 (0.75%) Seaborn
11 1 (0.75%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 22 (16.42%) Algorithms
2 7 (5.22%) e-Learning
2 7 (5.22%) Reinsurance
3 4 (2.99%) Cloud Native
3 4 (2.99%) Credit Risk
3 4 (2.99%) Life Science
4 3 (2.24%) AI Agents
4 3 (2.24%) Driving Licence
4 3 (2.24%) Fixed Income
4 3 (2.24%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.49%) Educational Technology
5 2 (1.49%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.75%) Biopharmaceutical
6 1 (0.75%) Blog
6 1 (0.75%) Clustering
6 1 (0.75%) Genomics
6 1 (0.75%) Omics
6 1 (0.75%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.75%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.75%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (100.00%) Data Science
2 97 (72.39%) Machine Learning
3 69 (51.49%) Analytics
4 57 (42.54%) AI
5 43 (32.09%) Visualisation
6 40 (29.85%) Problem-Solving
7 37 (27.61%) Statistics
8 36 (26.87%) Mathematics
9 31 (23.13%) Decision-Making
10 30 (22.39%) MLOps
11 27 (20.15%) Natural Language Processing
12 25 (18.66%) Predictive Modelling
13 23 (17.16%) DevOps
13 23 (17.16%) LLM
14 21 (15.67%) Data Pipeline
15 20 (14.93%) Statistical Modelling
16 19 (14.18%) Statistical Analysis
17 18 (13.43%) Computer Science
18 17 (12.69%) Mentoring
19 16 (11.94%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 108 (80.60%) Python
2 65 (48.51%) SQL
3 13 (9.70%) R
4 5 (3.73%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.24%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.75%) C++
6 1 (0.75%) Java
6 1 (0.75%) Julia
Qualifications
1 55 (41.04%) Degree
2 40 (29.85%) PhD
3 39 (29.10%) Master's Degree
4 7 (5.22%) DBS Check
5 6 (4.48%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.49%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.49%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.75%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.75%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.75%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (9.70%) Data Quality
2 3 (2.24%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.49%) GDPR
3 2 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.75%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.75%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 13 (9.70%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (2.99%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 11 (8.21%) Databricks
2 4 (2.99%) Mapinfo
2 4 (2.99%) Microsoft
3 2 (1.49%) Google
3 2 (1.49%) Salesforce
3 2 (1.49%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
4 1 (0.75%) Adobe
4 1 (0.75%) Alteryx
4 1 (0.75%) Amplitude
4 1 (0.75%) Cognos
4 1 (0.75%) Facebook
4 1 (0.75%) Foundry
4 1 (0.75%) Marketo
4 1 (0.75%) PayPal
4 1 (0.75%) SAP