Data Science Job Trends in Scotland

Data Science
UK > Scotland

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in Scotland requiring Data Science skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 24 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 111 111 152
Rank change year-on-year 0 +41 -54
Permanent jobs citing Data Science 29 37 75
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 0.80% 1.46% 1.50%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.15% 1.63% 1.74%
Number of salaries quoted 14 14 25
10th Percentile £59,686 £48,500 £50,500
25th Percentile £72,500 £70,000 £55,163
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,013 £76,869 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -2.41% +9.81% +0.33%
75th Percentile £87,500 £86,560 £74,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £93,746 £98,050
UK median annual salary £75,000 £72,500 £68,850
% change year-on-year +3.45% +5.30% -4.11%

All Process & Methodology Skills
Scotland

Data Science falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in Scotland.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,521 2,276 4,319
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 69.70% 90.03% 86.54%
Number of salaries quoted 1,445 1,006 1,921
10th Percentile £28,000 £26,929 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £32,851 £42,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £43,250 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.61% -21.36% -
75th Percentile £67,500 £65,000 £68,750
90th Percentile £81,250 £82,500 £80,000
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.33%

Data Science
Job Vacancy Trend in Scotland

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Data Science relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in Scotland.

Data Science job vacancy trend in Scotland

Data Science
Salary Trend in Scotland

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Data Science.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in Scotland citing Data Science

Data Science
Salary Histogram in Scotland

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Science in Scotland over the 6 months to 24 August 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Science in Scotland

Data Science
Job Locations in Scotland

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Science within the Scotland region over the 6 months to 24 August 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
Glasgow +20 14 £75,000 - 6
Edinburgh -20 10 £100,000 +19.42% 14
Moray - 4 £75,000 -
West Lothian - 1 - -
Data Science
UK

Data Science
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Scotland 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 2 (6.90%) Apache Airflow
2 1 (3.45%) Apache Spark
Cloud Services
1 10 (34.48%) Azure
2 7 (24.14%) AWS
3 3 (10.34%) GCP
4 2 (6.90%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (6.90%) dbt
4 2 (6.90%) SaaS
4 2 (6.90%) Snowflake
5 1 (3.45%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (3.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 1 (3.45%) Dagster
5 1 (3.45%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.45%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 9 (31.03%) Data Lake
2 7 (24.14%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (17.24%) Azure SQL Database
4 4 (13.79%) SQL Server
5 2 (6.90%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (3.45%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (3.45%) BigQuery
6 1 (3.45%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 1 (3.45%) Git
General
1 12 (41.38%) Finance
2 8 (27.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 8 (27.59%) Law
2 8 (27.59%) Social Skills
3 7 (24.14%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (17.24%) Banking
4 5 (17.24%) Influencing Skills
4 5 (17.24%) Marketing
5 4 (13.79%) Private Banking
6 3 (10.34%) Public Sector
7 2 (6.90%) Digital Health
7 2 (6.90%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (3.45%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 8 (27.59%) Data Engineer
1 8 (27.59%) Lead
2 4 (13.79%) Data Scientist
2 4 (13.79%) Senior
3 3 (10.34%) Azure Data Engineer
3 3 (10.34%) Azure Engineer
3 3 (10.34%) Head of AI
3 3 (10.34%) Head of Data Science
4 2 (6.90%) Applications Engineer
4 2 (6.90%) Applications Manager
4 2 (6.90%) Fraud Analyst
4 2 (6.90%) Junior Data Scientist
4 2 (6.90%) Lead Software Engineer
4 2 (6.90%) Product Manager
4 2 (6.90%) Release Manager
4 2 (6.90%) Senior Analyst
4 2 (6.90%) Senior Data Scientist
4 2 (6.90%) Senior Strategy Analyst
4 2 (6.90%) Software Manager
4 2 (6.90%) Software Release Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (13.79%) Hugging Face
1 4 (13.79%) PyTorch
2 2 (6.90%) FHIR
3 1 (3.45%) Kafka
3 1 (3.45%) PySpark
3 1 (3.45%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 9 (31.03%) AI Agents
2 5 (17.24%) Algorithms
3 3 (10.34%) Product Ownership
4 2 (6.90%) Cloud Native
4 2 (6.90%) Credit Risk
4 2 (6.90%) PACS
5 1 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (3.45%) Data Structures
5 1 (3.45%) IoT
5 1 (3.45%) Onboarding
5 1 (3.45%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.45%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 18 (62.07%) AI
2 17 (58.62%) Machine Learning
3 13 (44.83%) Analytics
3 13 (44.83%) Continuous Improvement
4 10 (34.48%) LLM
5 9 (31.03%) Data Pipeline
6 8 (27.59%) Prompt Engineering
6 8 (27.59%) Validation
7 7 (24.14%) Agile
7 7 (24.14%) Data Architecture
7 7 (24.14%) Decision-Making
7 7 (24.14%) Problem-Solving
8 6 (20.69%) Generative AI
8 6 (20.69%) Workflow
9 5 (17.24%) Data Analysis
9 5 (17.24%) Natural Language Processing
10 4 (13.79%) Data Acquisition
10 4 (13.79%) Data Engineering
10 4 (13.79%) Deep Learning
10 4 (13.79%) Investment Management
Programming Languages
1 13 (44.83%) Python
2 9 (31.03%) SQL
3 2 (6.90%) Java
4 1 (3.45%) Bicep
4 1 (3.45%) C
4 1 (3.45%) C#
4 1 (3.45%) C++
4 1 (3.45%) R
Qualifications
1 11 (37.93%) Degree
2 4 (13.79%) PhD
3 2 (6.90%) Master's Degree
4 1 (3.45%) Azure Certification
4 1 (3.45%) CSPO
4 1 (3.45%) DV Cleared
4 1 (3.45%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (6.90%) Data Quality
1 2 (6.90%) DICOM
1 2 (6.90%) HL7
2 1 (3.45%) QA
Vendors
1 9 (31.03%) Databricks
2 6 (20.69%) Microsoft
3 1 (3.45%) Google
3 1 (3.45%) OpenAI