Lead Data Scientist Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Lead Data Scientist
UK > UK excluding London

The median Lead Data Scientist salary in the UK excluding London is £80,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 4 October 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 612 544 599
Rank change year-on-year -68 +55 -34
Permanent jobs requiring a Lead Data Scientist 71 5 14
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.082% 0.014% 0.027%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.088% 0.016% 0.028%
Number of salaries quoted 38 5 10
10th Percentile £74,250 £80,500 £49,396
25th Percentile £75,000 - £49,577
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £85,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% +41.67% -35.33%
75th Percentile £100,000 - £73,750
90th Percentile - - £80,000
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
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies in the UK excluding London. 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 excluding London with a recognized job title 80,453 31,096 49,968
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 89.47% 95.32%
Number of salaries quoted 55,617 17,341 28,040
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,125 £39,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £46,750 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +17.65% -6.50% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,396 £54,987 £55,000
% change year-on-year +6.20% -0.02% -8.33%

Lead Data Scientist
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

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 the UK excluding London.

Lead Data Scientist job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Lead Data Scientist
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for Lead Data Scientist job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Salary distribution trend for Lead Data Scientist job vacancies in the UK excluding London

Lead Data Scientist
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Lead Data Scientist in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 4 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Lead Data Scientist in the UK excluding London

Lead Data Scientist
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 4 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
Midlands - 25 £75,026 - 11
East Midlands - 23 £80,000 - 5
North of England -47 17 £83,774 +1.54% 12
South East - 13 £75,000 - 11
Yorkshire - 12 £91,887 - 4
Wales - 8 £100,000 - 2
North West -18 4 £72,513 -12.11% 8
Northern Ireland - 4 £100,000 - 3
South West -71 2 £75,000 -11.76% 5
West Midlands - 2 £75,013 - 6
Scotland - 2 £75,013 - 2
North East - 1 £83,774 -
Lead Data Scientist
UK

Lead Data Scientist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 4 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 UK excluding London region featuring Lead Data Scientist in the job title.

1 71 (100.00%) Data Science
2 61 (85.92%) Machine Learning
3 35 (49.30%) AI
4 31 (43.66%) Mentoring
5 30 (42.25%) Python
6 26 (36.62%) PyTorch
6 26 (36.62%) TensorFlow
7 25 (35.21%) Statistics
8 24 (33.80%) Deep Learning
8 24 (33.80%) Roadmaps
8 24 (33.80%) Software Engineering
9 23 (32.39%) Actionable Insight
9 23 (32.39%) Hugging Face
9 23 (32.39%) Project Management
10 21 (29.58%) SQL
11 19 (26.76%) Analytics
12 15 (21.13%) Customer Insight
12 15 (21.13%) Generative AI
12 15 (21.13%) Neural Network
13 11 (15.49%) LLM
14 10 (14.08%) MLOps
15 9 (12.68%) Decision-Making
16 8 (11.27%) Security Cleared
17 7 (9.86%) Continuous Improvement
18 6 (8.45%) B2B
18 6 (8.45%) Customer Experience
18 6 (8.45%) SaaS
18 6 (8.45%) Stakeholder Management
19 5 (7.04%) AWS
19 5 (7.04%) Coaching

Lead Data Scientist Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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:

Cloud Services
1 6 (8.45%) SaaS
2 5 (7.04%) AWS
3 3 (4.23%) Amazon SageMaker
4 2 (2.82%) Azure
4 2 (2.82%) Power Platform
5 1 (1.41%) Amazon S3
5 1 (1.41%) Anthropic Claude
5 1 (1.41%) AWS Lambda
5 1 (1.41%) Google Gemini
5 1 (1.41%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (2.82%) Data Lake
1 2 (2.82%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (2.82%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
1 2 (2.82%) Power BI
1 2 (2.82%) Tableau
2 1 (1.41%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 1 (1.41%) Git
General
1 40 (56.34%) Finance
2 12 (16.90%) Public Sector
3 8 (11.27%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (5.63%) Banking
5 3 (4.23%) Social Skills
6 1 (1.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 1 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (1.41%) Marketing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (36.62%) PyTorch
1 26 (36.62%) TensorFlow
2 23 (32.39%) Hugging Face
3 3 (4.23%) scikit-learn
4 2 (2.82%) Pandas
5 1 (1.41%) NumPy
5 1 (1.41%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 1 (1.41%) AI Agents
1 1 (1.41%) Cloud Native
1 1 (1.41%) Credit Risk
Processes & Methodologies
1 71 (100.00%) Data Science
2 61 (85.92%) Machine Learning
3 35 (49.30%) AI
4 31 (43.66%) Mentoring
5 25 (35.21%) Statistics
6 24 (33.80%) Deep Learning
6 24 (33.80%) Roadmaps
6 24 (33.80%) Software Engineering
7 23 (32.39%) Actionable Insight
7 23 (32.39%) Project Management
8 19 (26.76%) Analytics
9 15 (21.13%) Customer Insight
9 15 (21.13%) Generative AI
9 15 (21.13%) Neural Network
10 11 (15.49%) LLM
11 10 (14.08%) MLOps
12 9 (12.68%) Decision-Making
13 7 (9.86%) Continuous Improvement
14 6 (8.45%) B2B
14 6 (8.45%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 30 (42.25%) Python
2 21 (29.58%) SQL
3 2 (2.82%) R
Qualifications
1 8 (11.27%) Security Cleared
2 5 (7.04%) Degree
3 4 (5.63%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.41%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (5.63%) Data Quality
2 1 (1.41%) ISO/IEC 42001
Vendors
1 4 (5.63%) Workday
2 2 (2.82%) Databricks
3 1 (1.41%) Microsoft