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 21 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 111 126 132
Rank change year-on-year +15 +6 -39
Permanent jobs citing Data Science 31 30 59
As % of all permanent jobs in Scotland 0.76% 1.19% 1.44%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.12% 1.32% 1.69%
Number of salaries quoted 17 8 13
10th Percentile £56,478 £48,875 £49,000
25th Percentile £72,500 £75,313 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,026 £83,738 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.40% +39.56% -14.98%
75th Percentile £100,000 £89,375 £73,886
90th Percentile - £95,000 £82,500
UK median annual salary £75,000 £72,500 £67,500
% change year-on-year +3.45% +7.41% -4.36%

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 2,764 2,267 3,491
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in Scotland 68.18% 89.96% 85.21%
Number of salaries quoted 1,634 993 1,570
10th Percentile £28,150 £26,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,000 £32,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £54,194 £38,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +42.62% -30.91% +4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £61,250 £70,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £77,500 £82,500
UK median annual salary £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
% change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%

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 21 September 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 21 September 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 +16 14 £62,000 - 70
Edinburgh +1 12 £100,000 +19.42% 58
Moray - 4 £75,000 -
West Lothian - 1 - - 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 1 (3.23%) Apache Airflow
Cloud Services
1 9 (29.03%) Azure
2 4 (12.90%) AWS
3 3 (9.68%) Azure DevOps
4 2 (6.45%) GCP
4 2 (6.45%) SaaS
4 2 (6.45%) Snowflake
5 1 (3.23%) Azure Data Factory
5 1 (3.23%) Azure Databricks
5 1 (3.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 1 (3.23%) Dagster
5 1 (3.23%) dbt
5 1 (3.23%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.23%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (32.26%) Data Lake
2 6 (19.35%) Data Warehouse
3 5 (16.13%) Azure SQL Database
4 4 (12.90%) SQL Server
5 2 (6.45%) Electronic Patient Records
6 1 (3.23%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (3.23%) BigQuery
6 1 (3.23%) Data Mining
6 1 (3.23%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 1 (3.23%) Git
General
1 10 (32.26%) Finance
2 8 (25.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 8 (25.81%) Law
3 7 (22.58%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (22.58%) Social Skills
4 4 (12.90%) Banking
4 4 (12.90%) Marketing
4 4 (12.90%) Private Banking
5 3 (9.68%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (6.45%) Digital Health
6 2 (6.45%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (6.45%) Public Sector
Job Titles
1 8 (25.81%) Data Engineer
1 8 (25.81%) Lead
2 6 (19.35%) Head of AI
2 6 (19.35%) Head of Data Science
3 4 (12.90%) Azure Data Engineer
3 4 (12.90%) Azure Engineer
3 4 (12.90%) Data Scientist
4 3 (9.68%) Analyst
4 3 (9.68%) Fraud Analyst
4 3 (9.68%) Senior
5 2 (6.45%) Junior
5 2 (6.45%) Junior Data Scientist
5 2 (6.45%) Lead Data Scientist
5 2 (6.45%) Principal Data Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) Principal Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) Product Manager
5 2 (6.45%) Release Manager
5 2 (6.45%) Senior Analyst
5 2 (6.45%) Software Engineer
5 2 (6.45%) Strategy Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (12.90%) Hugging Face
1 4 (12.90%) PyTorch
2 2 (6.45%) FHIR
2 2 (6.45%) Terraform
3 1 (3.23%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 12 (38.71%) AI Agents
2 5 (16.13%) Algorithms
3 2 (6.45%) Cloud Native
3 2 (6.45%) Credit Risk
3 2 (6.45%) IoT
3 2 (6.45%) PACS
3 2 (6.45%) Product Ownership
4 1 (3.23%) Clustering
4 1 (3.23%) Cybercrime
4 1 (3.23%) Data Structures
4 1 (3.23%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.23%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (64.52%) AI
2 14 (45.16%) Machine Learning
3 13 (41.94%) Analytics
4 12 (38.71%) Continuous Improvement
5 11 (35.48%) LLM
6 9 (29.03%) Data Pipeline
7 8 (25.81%) Validation
8 7 (22.58%) Data Architecture
8 7 (22.58%) Decision-Making
9 6 (19.35%) Data Analysis
9 6 (19.35%) Prompt Engineering
9 6 (19.35%) Workflow
10 5 (16.13%) Agile
10 5 (16.13%) CI/CD
10 5 (16.13%) Data Governance
10 5 (16.13%) Generative AI
10 5 (16.13%) Problem-Solving
11 4 (12.90%) Decision Tree
11 4 (12.90%) Personalization
11 4 (12.90%) Semantic Search
Programming Languages
1 13 (41.94%) Python
2 10 (32.26%) SQL
3 2 (6.45%) Bicep
3 2 (6.45%) Java
4 1 (3.23%) C
4 1 (3.23%) C#
4 1 (3.23%) C++
4 1 (3.23%) Kusto Query Language
4 1 (3.23%) R
Qualifications
1 12 (38.71%) Degree
2 4 (12.90%) PhD
3 2 (6.45%) Azure Certification
3 2 (6.45%) DV Cleared
3 2 (6.45%) Master's Degree
3 2 (6.45%) Security Cleared
4 1 (3.23%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (6.45%) DICOM
1 2 (6.45%) HL7
1 2 (6.45%) QA
2 1 (3.23%) Data Quality
Vendors
1 9 (29.03%) Databricks
2 7 (22.58%) Microsoft
3 1 (3.23%) YouTube