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 19 October 2025.

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

6 months to
19 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 514 460 500
Rank change year-on-year -54 +40 +8
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 136 305 252
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.28% 0.44% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.31% 0.46% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 81 120 190
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,620 £43,734
25th Percentile £52,500 £50,968 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,879 £64,500
Median % change year-on-year +11.32% -2.51% +3.20%
75th Percentile £85,000 £77,813 £85,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £95,625 £96,635
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year - -12.00% +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 43,882 66,228 53,833
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.80% 95.36% 95.61%
Number of salaries quoted 25,880 37,894 41,616
10th Percentile £28,000 £31,250 £32,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,250 £43,210
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £56,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% -6.67% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £93,750 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -10.00% -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 19 October 2025.

Salary histogram for Data Scientist in the UK

Data Scientist
Top 15 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 19 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 -47 122 £70,000 +11.32% 216
London +23 80 £75,000 +7.14% 135
UK excluding London -43 47 £55,000 - 150
Work from Home -51 36 £67,500 +7.35% 110
North of England -29 19 £55,000 -12.53% 22
North West +2 18 £55,000 -12.53% 16
Midlands +19 8 £69,625 +26.59% 10
South West +33 7 £70,000 +27.27% 13
East Midlands +13 5 £80,000 +72.97% 4
South East +12 5 £42,500 -13.96% 90
Scotland -13 4 £40,500 - 9
West Midlands +38 3 £59,250 -5.77% 6
East of England +6 3 £58,750 -11.32% 1
Northern Ireland +10 1 £40,000 - 1
Yorkshire -14 1 £55,000 -12.53% 4

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

For the 6 months to 19 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.

1 136 (100.00%) Data Science
2 118 (86.76%) Python
3 98 (72.06%) Machine Learning
4 75 (55.15%) Analytics
5 69 (50.74%) SQL
6 64 (47.06%) Degree
7 50 (36.76%) AI
8 48 (35.29%) Master's Degree
9 46 (33.82%) Mathematics
9 46 (33.82%) Statistics
10 43 (31.62%) PhD
11 39 (28.68%) Problem-Solving
11 39 (28.68%) Visualisation
12 38 (27.94%) AWS
12 38 (27.94%) Azure
13 34 (25.00%) Decision-Making
14 31 (22.79%) MLOps
15 26 (19.12%) Natural Language Processing
16 24 (17.65%) Computer Science
16 24 (17.65%) DevOps
17 22 (16.18%) Predictive Modelling
18 21 (15.44%) Data Pipeline
18 21 (15.44%) scikit-learn
19 20 (14.71%) Data Analysis
19 20 (14.71%) GCP
20 19 (13.97%) LLM
20 19 (13.97%) Pandas
21 18 (13.24%) Statistical Analysis
22 17 (12.50%) Apache Spark
22 17 (12.50%) 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 17 (12.50%) Apache Spark
2 8 (5.88%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (3.68%) Apache
4 4 (2.94%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (2.94%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 38 (27.94%) AWS
1 38 (27.94%) Azure
2 20 (14.71%) GCP
3 16 (11.76%) Power Platform
4 9 (6.62%) Google Analytics
5 7 (5.15%) Adobe Analytics
6 5 (3.68%) Azure Machine Learning
7 4 (2.94%) Amazon SageMaker
7 4 (2.94%) Azure Data Factory
7 4 (2.94%) dbt
7 4 (2.94%) Snowflake
8 3 (2.21%) Dagster
8 3 (2.21%) GitHub
9 2 (1.47%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.47%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.47%) Prefect
9 2 (1.47%) SaaS
9 2 (1.47%) Serverless
10 1 (0.74%) Anthropic Claude
10 1 (0.74%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.47%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (11.76%) Power BI
2 14 (10.29%) Tableau
3 7 (5.15%) Amazon Redshift
4 6 (4.41%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.68%) GIS
6 4 (2.94%) Big Data
6 4 (2.94%) Data Mining
6 4 (2.94%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (2.94%) QGIS
6 4 (2.94%) Spatial Data
6 4 (2.94%) SQL Server
7 3 (2.21%) Neo4j
8 2 (1.47%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (1.47%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (1.47%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.74%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.74%) Mixpanel
9 1 (0.74%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.74%) Parquet
9 1 (0.74%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 11 (8.09%) Git
2 4 (2.94%) MLflow
General
1 34 (25.00%) Finance
2 33 (24.26%) Analytical Skills
2 33 (24.26%) Social Skills
3 23 (16.91%) Marketing
4 20 (14.71%) Law
5 14 (10.29%) Games
6 11 (8.09%) Retail
7 9 (6.62%) Banking
8 8 (5.88%) Manufacturing
9 7 (5.15%) Financial Institution
10 6 (4.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (3.68%) Legal
11 5 (3.68%) Pharmaceutical
11 5 (3.68%) Public Sector
12 2 (1.47%) Advertising
12 2 (1.47%) Electronics
12 2 (1.47%) Front Office
12 2 (1.47%) Telecoms
13 1 (0.74%) Billing
13 1 (0.74%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (15.44%) scikit-learn
2 19 (13.97%) Pandas
3 17 (12.50%) PyTorch
4 16 (11.76%) TensorFlow
5 12 (8.82%) PySpark
6 9 (6.62%) NumPy
7 8 (5.88%) SpaCy
7 8 (5.88%) XGBoost
8 6 (4.41%) LangChain
9 4 (2.94%) PostGIS
10 3 (2.21%) Hugging Face
11 2 (1.47%) Django
11 2 (1.47%) Kafka
11 2 (1.47%) LightGBM
11 2 (1.47%) pydantic
11 2 (1.47%) pytest
12 1 (0.74%) OpenCV
12 1 (0.74%) Regular Expression
12 1 (0.74%) SQLAlchemy
12 1 (0.74%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 24 (17.65%) Algorithms
2 8 (5.88%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (5.15%) e-Learning
3 7 (5.15%) Reinsurance
4 4 (2.94%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.94%) Credit Risk
4 4 (2.94%) Life Science
5 3 (2.21%) AI Agents
5 3 (2.21%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.21%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.47%) Educational Technology
6 2 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.74%) Biopharmaceutical
7 1 (0.74%) Blockchain
7 1 (0.74%) FMCG
7 1 (0.74%) Genomics
7 1 (0.74%) Omics
7 1 (0.74%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.74%) Social Media
7 1 (0.74%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.74%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (100.00%) Data Science
2 98 (72.06%) Machine Learning
3 75 (55.15%) Analytics
4 50 (36.76%) AI
5 46 (33.82%) Mathematics
5 46 (33.82%) Statistics
6 39 (28.68%) Problem-Solving
6 39 (28.68%) Visualisation
7 34 (25.00%) Decision-Making
8 31 (22.79%) MLOps
9 26 (19.12%) Natural Language Processing
10 24 (17.65%) Computer Science
10 24 (17.65%) DevOps
11 22 (16.18%) Predictive Modelling
12 21 (15.44%) Data Pipeline
13 20 (14.71%) Data Analysis
14 19 (13.97%) LLM
15 18 (13.24%) Statistical Analysis
16 17 (12.50%) Mentoring
16 17 (12.50%) Statistical Modelling
Programming Languages
1 118 (86.76%) Python
2 69 (50.74%) SQL
3 14 (10.29%) R
4 5 (3.68%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.21%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.74%) C++
6 1 (0.74%) Java
6 1 (0.74%) Julia
Qualifications
1 64 (47.06%) Degree
2 48 (35.29%) Master's Degree
3 43 (31.62%) PhD
4 7 (5.15%) DBS Check
5 6 (4.41%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.47%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.47%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.74%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.74%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.74%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (10.29%) Data Quality
2 4 (2.94%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.47%) GDPR
3 2 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.74%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.74%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 13 (9.56%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (2.94%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.74%) Terraform
Vendors
1 14 (10.29%) Databricks
2 8 (5.88%) Google
2 8 (5.88%) Salesforce
2 8 (5.88%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
3 7 (5.15%) Adobe
3 7 (5.15%) Marketo
4 4 (2.94%) Mapinfo
5 3 (2.21%) Microsoft
6 2 (1.47%) SAP
7 1 (0.74%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.74%) Amplitude
7 1 (0.74%) Cognos
7 1 (0.74%) Facebook
7 1 (0.74%) Foundry
7 1 (0.74%) PayPal