Senior Data Scientist Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Senior Data Scientist
UK > UK excluding London

The median Senior Data Scientist salary in the UK excluding London is £83,774 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 2 October 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 500 532 554
Rank change year-on-year +32 +22 -13
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Data Scientist 172 6 70
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.20% 0.017% 0.13%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.21% 0.019% 0.14%
Number of salaries quoted 89 5 32
10th Percentile £69,750 £80,500 £49,396
25th Percentile £75,000 - £56,984
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £83,774 £85,000 £62,879
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% +35.18% -13.98%
75th Percentile £95,000 - £80,000
90th Percentile £100,000 - £81,125
UK median annual salary £90,000 £85,000 £70,000
% change year-on-year +5.88% +21.43% -12.50%

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 80,372 30,974 50,542
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.94% 89.50% 95.28%
Number of salaries quoted 55,674 17,230 28,439
10th Percentile £30,000 £26,750 £30,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £32,500 £38,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70,000 £63,750 £65,000
90th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £58,600 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +6.55% - -8.33%

Senior Data Scientist
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Senior Data Scientist' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Senior Data Scientist job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Senior Data Scientist
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

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

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

Senior Data Scientist
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Data Scientist in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 2 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Data Scientist in the UK excluding London

Senior 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 Senior Data Scientist within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 2 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
North of England -2 65 £90,000 +9.09% 28
South East -8 42 £90,000 - 35
Midlands - 37 £75,000 - 21
North West +1 36 £90,000 +9.09% 16
East Midlands - 32 £75,000 - 8
Yorkshire - 25 £90,000 - 11
South West -61 12 £75,000 -11.76% 28
Wales - 8 £100,000 - 8
West Midlands - 5 £75,000 - 13
Northern Ireland - 5 £90,000 - 7
North East - 4 £91,887 - 1
Scotland - 2 £75,013 - 5
East of England - 1 £65,000 - 10
Senior Data Scientist
UK

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

For the 6 months to 2 October 2026, Senior 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 Senior Data Scientist in the job title.

1 172 (100.00%) Data Science
2 92 (53.49%) Machine Learning
3 52 (30.23%) Python
4 50 (29.07%) AI
5 38 (22.09%) SQL
6 36 (20.93%) Mentoring
7 32 (18.60%) Roadmaps
8 31 (18.02%) Analytics
9 30 (17.44%) Software Engineering
10 29 (16.86%) Actionable Insight
10 29 (16.86%) Statistics
11 28 (16.28%) PyTorch
12 27 (15.70%) TensorFlow
13 24 (13.95%) Deep Learning
13 24 (13.95%) Hugging Face
14 23 (13.37%) Project Management
15 17 (9.88%) Decision-Making
16 16 (9.30%) Generative AI
17 15 (8.72%) Customer Insight
17 15 (8.72%) Degree
17 15 (8.72%) Neural Network
18 14 (8.14%) Agile
18 14 (8.14%) Continuous Improvement
19 12 (6.98%) LLM
19 12 (6.98%) MLOps
20 11 (6.40%) Customer Requirements
20 11 (6.40%) SaaS
21 10 (5.81%) Azure
21 10 (5.81%) Coaching
21 10 (5.81%) Predictive Modelling

Senior 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:

Application Platforms
1 2 (1.16%) SAS
Applications
1 2 (1.16%) SPSS
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 11 (6.40%) SaaS
2 10 (5.81%) Azure
3 8 (4.65%) Azure Machine Learning
4 5 (2.91%) AWS
5 4 (2.33%) Azure Databricks
6 3 (1.74%) Amazon SageMaker
7 2 (1.16%) Power Platform
8 1 (0.58%) Amazon S3
8 1 (0.58%) Anthropic Claude
8 1 (0.58%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.58%) GitHub
8 1 (0.58%) GitHub Actions
8 1 (0.58%) Google Gemini
8 1 (0.58%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (1.16%) Data Lake
1 2 (1.16%) Data Warehouse
1 2 (1.16%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
1 2 (1.16%) Power BI
1 2 (1.16%) Tableau
2 1 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 8 (4.65%) Git
2 1 (0.58%) MLflow
General
1 48 (27.91%) Finance
2 14 (8.14%) Analytical Skills
2 14 (8.14%) Public Sector
3 9 (5.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
3 9 (5.23%) Social Skills
4 6 (3.49%) Wearables
5 5 (2.91%) Automotive
6 4 (2.33%) Banking
7 3 (1.74%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.74%) Retail
8 2 (1.16%) Games
9 1 (0.58%) Marketing
9 1 (0.58%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (16.28%) PyTorch
2 27 (15.70%) TensorFlow
3 24 (13.95%) Hugging Face
4 7 (4.07%) PySpark
5 3 (1.74%) scikit-learn
6 2 (1.16%) Pandas
6 2 (1.16%) XGBoost
7 1 (0.58%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 5 (2.91%) Algorithms
2 2 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
3 1 (0.58%) AI Agents
3 1 (0.58%) Cloud Native
3 1 (0.58%) Credit Risk
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (100.00%) Data Science
2 92 (53.49%) Machine Learning
3 50 (29.07%) AI
4 36 (20.93%) Mentoring
5 32 (18.60%) Roadmaps
6 31 (18.02%) Analytics
7 30 (17.44%) Software Engineering
8 29 (16.86%) Actionable Insight
8 29 (16.86%) Statistics
9 24 (13.95%) Deep Learning
10 23 (13.37%) Project Management
11 17 (9.88%) Decision-Making
12 16 (9.30%) Generative AI
13 15 (8.72%) Customer Insight
13 15 (8.72%) Neural Network
14 14 (8.14%) Agile
14 14 (8.14%) Continuous Improvement
15 12 (6.98%) LLM
15 12 (6.98%) MLOps
16 11 (6.40%) Customer Requirements
Programming Languages
1 52 (30.23%) Python
2 38 (22.09%) SQL
3 7 (4.07%) R
Qualifications
1 15 (8.72%) Degree
2 8 (4.65%) Security Cleared
3 4 (2.33%) DV Cleared
3 4 (2.33%) Master's Degree
4 3 (1.74%) Numerate Degree
5 1 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
5 1 (0.58%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.07%) Data Quality
2 1 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
2 1 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 42001
2 1 (0.58%) QA
System Software
1 1 (0.58%) Docker
Vendors
1 6 (3.49%) Databricks
2 5 (2.91%) Workday
3 3 (1.74%) Microsoft