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 £61,418 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 19 February 2026.

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

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 506 480 572
Rank change year-on-year -26 +92 +136
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Data Scientist 28 64 83
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 0.058% 0.20% 0.17%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.063% 0.22% 0.17%
Number of salaries quoted 25 16 49
10th Percentile £40,000 £56,875 £50,000
25th Percentile £56,554 £62,000 £61,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £61,418 £70,996 £75,000
Median % change year-on-year -13.49% -5.34% +15.38%
75th Percentile £85,000 £76,250 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £87,625 £96,539
UK median annual salary £80,000 £71,991 £80,000
% change year-on-year +11.13% -10.01% +14.29%

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 44,359 29,277 47,561
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.24% 91.38% 94.98%
Number of salaries quoted 27,794 14,439 36,845
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £26,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,250 £35,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £65,000 £69,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £80,000 £82,966 £77,500
UK median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -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 19 February 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 19 February 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 -33 8 £61,418 -4.03% 2
South East +13 7 £40,000 -54.29% 10
South West -29 5 £58,497 -18.74% 2
North West - 5 £61,418 - 2
East of England +16 4 £100,000 -
Midlands -7 3 £70,000 +21.74% 4
West Midlands +9 2 £75,860 +31.93% 1
Yorkshire -41 2 £66,720 +4.25%
North East -10 1 £66,720 -
East Midlands - 1 £70,000 - 3
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 2
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 19 February 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 28 (100.00%) Data Science
2 15 (53.57%) Python
3 13 (46.43%) Machine Learning
4 12 (42.86%) AI
5 8 (28.57%) Analytics
6 7 (25.00%) Git
6 7 (25.00%) Natural Language Processing
6 7 (25.00%) SQL
7 6 (21.43%) Azure
7 6 (21.43%) Data Analysis
7 6 (21.43%) Degree
7 6 (21.43%) Generative AI
7 6 (21.43%) LLM
7 6 (21.43%) Mathematics
7 6 (21.43%) Mentoring
7 6 (21.43%) Microsoft
7 6 (21.43%) Open Source
7 6 (21.43%) Problem-Solving
7 6 (21.43%) Visualisation
8 5 (17.86%) Business Strategy
8 5 (17.86%) Creative Problem-Solving
8 5 (17.86%) Data Analytics
8 5 (17.86%) Data Privacy
8 5 (17.86%) Data Protection
8 5 (17.86%) Data Strategy
8 5 (17.86%) Data Visualisation
8 5 (17.86%) EDI
8 5 (17.86%) Exploratory Data Analysis
8 5 (17.86%) Operations Research
8 5 (17.86%) Stakeholder Engagement

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 1 (3.57%) Apache Airflow
Cloud Services
1 6 (21.43%) Azure
2 1 (3.57%) AWS
2 1 (3.57%) dbt
2 1 (3.57%) GCP
2 1 (3.57%) Power Platform
2 1 (3.57%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.57%) LTE
1 1 (3.57%) Software-Defined Radio
1 1 (3.57%) Wi-Fi
1 1 (3.57%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (3.57%) Power BI
1 1 (3.57%) QGIS
Development Applications
1 7 (25.00%) Git
2 1 (3.57%) MLflow
General
1 7 (25.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
2 6 (21.43%) Analytical Skills
3 5 (17.86%) Retail
4 4 (14.29%) Public Sector
5 2 (7.14%) Finance
5 2 (7.14%) Influencing Skills
5 2 (7.14%) Social Skills
6 1 (3.57%) Advertising
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (17.86%) EDI
2 3 (10.71%) PyTorch
3 2 (7.14%) TensorFlow
4 1 (3.57%) GeoPandas
4 1 (3.57%) Hugging Face
4 1 (3.57%) LangChain
4 1 (3.57%) MapLibre
4 1 (3.57%) NetworkX
4 1 (3.57%) NumPy
4 1 (3.57%) PostGIS
4 1 (3.57%) PySpark
4 1 (3.57%) scikit-learn
4 1 (3.57%) SciPy
4 1 (3.57%) Streamlit
4 1 (3.57%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 5 (17.86%) Product Ownership
2 1 (3.57%) Algorithms
2 1 (3.57%) FPGA
Processes & Methodologies
1 28 (100.00%) Data Science
2 13 (46.43%) Machine Learning
3 12 (42.86%) AI
4 8 (28.57%) Analytics
5 7 (25.00%) Natural Language Processing
6 6 (21.43%) Data Analysis
6 6 (21.43%) Generative AI
6 6 (21.43%) LLM
6 6 (21.43%) Mathematics
6 6 (21.43%) Mentoring
6 6 (21.43%) Open Source
6 6 (21.43%) Problem-Solving
6 6 (21.43%) Visualisation
7 5 (17.86%) Business Strategy
7 5 (17.86%) Creative Problem-Solving
7 5 (17.86%) Data Protection
7 5 (17.86%) Data Strategy
7 5 (17.86%) Exploratory Data Analysis
7 5 (17.86%) Statistical Analysis
7 5 (17.86%) Statistics
Programming Languages
1 15 (53.57%) Python
2 7 (25.00%) SQL
3 4 (14.29%) R
4 1 (3.57%) C++
4 1 (3.57%) Scala
Qualifications
1 6 (21.43%) Degree
2 4 (14.29%) DV Cleared
2 4 (14.29%) Security Cleared
3 2 (7.14%) PhD
3 2 (7.14%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (3.57%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 1 (3.57%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (3.57%) Argo
1 1 (3.57%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 6 (21.43%) Microsoft
2 1 (3.57%) Databricks
2 1 (3.57%) Mapbox