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 27 March 2026.

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

6 months to
27 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 437 397 428
Rank change year-on-year -40 +31 +97
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 264 248 486
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.34% 0.61% 0.55%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.37% 0.68% 0.58%
Number of salaries quoted 190 110 248
10th Percentile £46,250 £39,775 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £49,375 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +12.90% -11.43% +7.69%
75th Percentile £82,500 £77,500 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,125 £99,500
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 71,448 36,544 83,806
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.09% 90.03% 94.60%
Number of salaries quoted 45,655 22,888 63,388
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,574 £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 £72,433
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 27 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 27 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 -18 251 £70,000 +16.67% 149
UK excluding London -71 131 £60,000 +3.45% 77
London +41 127 £75,000 - 98
Work from Home -27 75 £60,000 -6.25% 55
North of England -41 34 £62,500 +13.64% 22
South West -65 31 £60,000 -16.66% 7
Midlands -26 30 £55,000 +22.22% 9
North West -10 26 £61,418 +11.67% 14
East Midlands -32 16 £62,500 +7.76% 4
South East -39 16 £40,000 -32.20% 32
West Midlands -20 14 £55,000 +22.22% 5
East of England -13 12 £86,725 +49.53% 4
Scotland -38 5 £100,000 +42.86% 2
Yorkshire -62 5 £62,500 -2.34% 4
North East -27 3 £62,500 - 5
Northern Ireland -33 3 - - 1

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

For the 6 months to 27 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.

1 252 (95.45%) Data Science
2 124 (46.97%) Machine Learning
3 120 (45.45%) Python
4 109 (41.29%) AI
5 90 (34.09%) Analytics
6 71 (26.89%) SQL
7 60 (22.73%) Visualisation
8 55 (20.83%) Degree
9 50 (18.94%) Decision-Making
10 43 (16.29%) Power BI
10 43 (16.29%) Power Platform
11 39 (14.77%) Business Intelligence
11 39 (14.77%) Security Cleared
12 37 (14.02%) Predictive Modelling
13 35 (13.26%) Mathematics
14 33 (12.50%) DV Cleared
14 33 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
15 31 (11.74%) Azure
15 31 (11.74%) Data Visualisation
16 30 (11.36%) R
16 30 (11.36%) Statistics
17 27 (10.23%) LLM
18 26 (9.85%) Actionable Insight
18 26 (9.85%) AWS
19 25 (9.47%) Tableau
20 24 (9.09%) Data Analysis
21 23 (8.71%) PhD
21 23 (8.71%) PyTorch
21 23 (8.71%) Storytelling
22 22 (8.33%) Data Modelling

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 3 (1.14%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.76%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 5 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 10 (3.79%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 43 (16.29%) Power Platform
2 31 (11.74%) Azure
3 26 (9.85%) AWS
4 12 (4.55%) dbt
5 9 (3.41%) GCP
6 8 (3.03%) Snowflake
7 6 (2.27%) Azure Machine Learning
7 6 (2.27%) Dataform
8 4 (1.52%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.52%) Smartsheet
9 3 (1.14%) Amazon S3
9 3 (1.14%) Amazon SageMaker
9 3 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
9 3 (1.14%) Serverless
10 2 (0.76%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (0.76%) Dagster
11 1 (0.38%) Azure DevOps
11 1 (0.38%) Google Analytics
11 1 (0.38%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.89%) Broadband
2 3 (1.14%) Software-Defined Radio
3 1 (0.38%) Internet
3 1 (0.38%) LTE
3 1 (0.38%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.38%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (16.29%) Power BI
2 25 (9.47%) Tableau
3 10 (3.79%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (3.03%) SQL Server
5 6 (2.27%) Looker
5 6 (2.27%) Metabase
6 5 (1.89%) Big Data
7 4 (1.52%) Data Mining
7 4 (1.52%) NoSQL
8 3 (1.14%) QGIS
9 2 (0.76%) Amazon Athena
9 2 (0.76%) GIS
9 2 (0.76%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.76%) Spatial Data
10 1 (0.38%) Amazon Redshift
10 1 (0.38%) Geospatial Data
10 1 (0.38%) MongoDB
10 1 (0.38%) PostgreSQL
10 1 (0.38%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 9 (3.41%) MLflow
2 8 (3.03%) Git
General
1 51 (19.32%) Analytical Skills
2 45 (17.05%) Social Skills
3 35 (13.26%) Finance
4 33 (12.50%) Retail
5 20 (7.58%) Marketing
6 18 (6.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (5.68%) Public Sector
8 10 (3.79%) Publishing
9 8 (3.03%) Manufacturing
10 7 (2.65%) Law
11 5 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.52%) Pharmaceutical
13 3 (1.14%) Games
13 3 (1.14%) Legal
14 2 (0.76%) Aerospace
14 2 (0.76%) Banking
14 2 (0.76%) Social Housing
15 1 (0.38%) Billing
15 1 (0.38%) Digital Economy
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (8.71%) PyTorch
2 18 (6.82%) TensorFlow
3 15 (5.68%) scikit-learn
4 9 (3.41%) EDI
5 7 (2.65%) Pandas
6 6 (2.27%) XGBoost
7 4 (1.52%) Google JAX
7 4 (1.52%) JAX
7 4 (1.52%) NumPy
8 3 (1.14%) LangChain
8 3 (1.14%) PySpark
9 2 (0.76%) Kafka
9 2 (0.76%) NetworkX
9 2 (0.76%) Streamlit
10 1 (0.38%) Django
10 1 (0.38%) Flask
10 1 (0.38%) GeoPandas
10 1 (0.38%) PostGIS
10 1 (0.38%) SciPy
10 1 (0.38%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 13 (4.92%) Algorithms
2 11 (4.17%) Data Structures
3 10 (3.79%) FMCG
3 10 (3.79%) Greenfield Project
4 5 (1.89%) Product Ownership
5 2 (0.76%) AI Agents
5 2 (0.76%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (0.76%) Contract for Difference
5 2 (0.76%) Credit Risk
5 2 (0.76%) Fixed Income
6 1 (0.38%) Cloud Native
6 1 (0.38%) Clustering
6 1 (0.38%) Educational Technology
6 1 (0.38%) FPGA
6 1 (0.38%) Genomics
6 1 (0.38%) Omics
6 1 (0.38%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.38%) Social Network
6 1 (0.38%) Tandem
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (95.45%) Data Science
2 124 (46.97%) Machine Learning
3 109 (41.29%) AI
4 90 (34.09%) Analytics
5 60 (22.73%) Visualisation
6 50 (18.94%) Decision-Making
7 39 (14.77%) Business Intelligence
8 37 (14.02%) Predictive Modelling
9 35 (13.26%) Mathematics
10 33 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
11 31 (11.74%) Data Visualisation
12 30 (11.36%) Statistics
13 27 (10.23%) LLM
14 26 (9.85%) Actionable Insight
15 24 (9.09%) Data Analysis
16 23 (8.71%) Storytelling
17 22 (8.33%) Data Modelling
18 21 (7.95%) Computer Science
18 21 (7.95%) E-Commerce
18 21 (7.95%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 120 (45.45%) Python
2 71 (26.89%) SQL
3 30 (11.36%) R
4 6 (2.27%) Julia
5 4 (1.52%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 4 (1.52%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.38%) C++
6 1 (0.38%) Scala
Qualifications
1 55 (20.83%) Degree
2 39 (14.77%) Security Cleared
3 33 (12.50%) DV Cleared
4 23 (8.71%) PhD
5 17 (6.44%) DBS Check
6 10 (3.79%) ACCA
6 10 (3.79%) CIMA
6 10 (3.79%) SC Cleared
7 6 (2.27%) Master's Degree
8 3 (1.14%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.14%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.38%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 15 (5.68%) Data Quality
2 3 (1.14%) GDPR
3 2 (0.76%) QA
4 1 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.38%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.38%) ISO 13485
4 1 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 5 (1.89%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (1.52%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.76%) Kubeflow
2 2 (0.76%) Terraform
3 1 (0.38%) Argo
Vendors
1 14 (5.30%) Microsoft
2 13 (4.92%) Databricks
3 11 (4.17%) Salesforce
4 6 (2.27%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.89%) Google
6 2 (0.76%) Civica
6 2 (0.76%) Northgate
6 2 (0.76%) Orchard
7 1 (0.38%) Facebook
7 1 (0.38%) Mapbox
7 1 (0.38%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.38%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud