Lead Data Scientist Job Trends in England

Lead Data Scientist
UK > England

The median Lead Data Scientist salary in England is £100,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 October 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 671 631 710
Rank change year-on-year -40 +79 -17
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Data Scientist 88 6 26
As % of all permanent jobs in England 0.085% 0.014% 0.039%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.091% 0.015% 0.041%
Number of salaries quoted 51 6 18
10th Percentile £75,000 £81,250 £49,396
25th Percentile £75,026 - £52,970
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £100,000 £85,000 £72,500
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% +17.24% -14.71%
75th Percentile - - £92,500
90th Percentile £113,750 £90,000 £127,000
UK median annual salary £100,000 £85,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +17.65% +30.77% -23.53%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 96,512 39,065 63,578
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.96% 90.52% 95.21%
Number of salaries quoted 67,878 23,017 36,945
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,250 £30,750
25th Percentile £41,000 £36,250 £41,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £77,500 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £95,000
UK median annual salary £59,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +7.27% - -8.33%

Lead Data Scientist
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Lead Data Scientist' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in England.

Lead Data Scientist job vacancy trend in England

Lead Data Scientist
Salary Trend in England

Salary distribution trend for Lead Data Scientist job vacancies in England.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Data Scientist job vacancies in England

Lead Data Scientist
Salary Histogram in England

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Data Scientist in England over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead Data Scientist in England

Lead Data Scientist
Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Lead Data Scientist within the England region over the 6 months to 1 October 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
London -28 32 £100,000 +11.11% 53
Midlands - 24 £75,013 - 7
East Midlands - 22 - - 4
North of England -59 17 £83,774 +1.54% 8
South East - 12 £75,000 - 7
Yorkshire - 12 £91,887 - 2
North West -28 4 £72,513 -12.11% 6
South West -77 2 £75,000 -11.76% 5
West Midlands - 2 £75,013 - 3
North East - 1 £83,774 -
Lead Data Scientist
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 October 2026, Lead 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 across the England region featuring Lead Data Scientist in the job title.

1 88 (100.00%) Data Science
2 55 (62.50%) Machine Learning
3 43 (48.86%) AI
4 36 (40.91%) Python
5 31 (35.23%) Mentoring
6 29 (32.95%) Roadmaps
7 25 (28.41%) Analytics
7 25 (28.41%) SQL
8 24 (27.27%) Statistics
9 23 (26.14%) Actionable Insight
9 23 (26.14%) Deep Learning
9 23 (26.14%) Hugging Face
9 23 (26.14%) Project Management
9 23 (26.14%) PyTorch
9 23 (26.14%) Software Engineering
9 23 (26.14%) TensorFlow
10 15 (17.05%) Customer Insight
10 15 (17.05%) Neural Network
11 14 (15.91%) Decision-Making
12 13 (14.77%) Generative AI
13 9 (10.23%) Data Quality
13 9 (10.23%) Validation
14 8 (9.09%) Data Pipeline
14 8 (9.09%) LLM
14 8 (9.09%) Predictive Modelling
14 8 (9.09%) Product Strategy
15 7 (7.95%) Continuous Improvement
15 7 (7.95%) Data Warehouse
15 7 (7.95%) Feature Engineering
15 7 (7.95%) Mathematics

Lead Data Scientist Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 (3.41%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 2 (2.27%) AWS
1 2 (2.27%) Azure
1 2 (2.27%) Power Platform
2 1 (1.14%) Amazon S3
2 1 (1.14%) Amazon SageMaker
2 1 (1.14%) AWS Lambda
2 1 (1.14%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (7.95%) Data Warehouse
2 5 (5.68%) Data Lake
3 3 (3.41%) Apache Iceberg
3 3 (3.41%) Flink
3 3 (3.41%) Redis
4 2 (2.27%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
4 2 (2.27%) Power BI
4 2 (2.27%) Tableau
5 1 (1.14%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 6 (6.82%) Git
General
1 45 (51.14%) Finance
2 10 (11.36%) Banking
3 8 (9.09%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (9.09%) Public Sector
4 5 (5.68%) Retail Banking
5 3 (3.41%) Retail
5 3 (3.41%) Social Skills
6 2 (2.27%) Law
7 1 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.14%) Legal
7 1 (1.14%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (26.14%) Hugging Face
1 23 (26.14%) PyTorch
1 23 (26.14%) TensorFlow
2 7 (7.95%) Pandas
2 7 (7.95%) scikit-learn
3 6 (6.82%) NumPy
4 5 (5.68%) XGBoost
5 3 (3.41%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 6 (6.82%) Credit Risk
2 3 (3.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 1 (1.14%) AI Agents
3 1 (1.14%) FMCG
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (100.00%) Data Science
2 55 (62.50%) Machine Learning
3 43 (48.86%) AI
4 31 (35.23%) Mentoring
5 29 (32.95%) Roadmaps
6 25 (28.41%) Analytics
7 24 (27.27%) Statistics
8 23 (26.14%) Actionable Insight
8 23 (26.14%) Deep Learning
8 23 (26.14%) Project Management
8 23 (26.14%) Software Engineering
9 15 (17.05%) Customer Insight
9 15 (17.05%) Neural Network
10 14 (15.91%) Decision-Making
11 13 (14.77%) Generative AI
12 9 (10.23%) Validation
13 8 (9.09%) Data Pipeline
13 8 (9.09%) LLM
13 8 (9.09%) Predictive Modelling
13 8 (9.09%) Product Strategy
Programming Languages
1 36 (40.91%) Python
2 25 (28.41%) SQL
3 2 (2.27%) R
Qualifications
1 6 (6.82%) Security Cleared
2 5 (5.68%) Degree
3 4 (4.55%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.14%) Master's Degree
4 1 (1.14%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (10.23%) Data Quality
2 5 (5.68%) EU AI Act
2 5 (5.68%) GDPR
Vendors
1 4 (4.55%) Databricks