Data Science Leader Job Trends

Data Science Lead
UK

The median Data Science Lead salary in the UK is £72,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 30 December 2025.

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

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 641 658 705
Rank change year-on-year +17 +47 +313
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Science Leader 6 56 8
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.010% 0.10% 0.016%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.011% 0.11% 0.016%
Number of salaries quoted 5 2 5
10th Percentile £65,450 £78,750 £65,250
25th Percentile £68,000 £88,125 £71,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £107,500 £83,500
Median % change year-on-year -32.56% +28.74% -13.70%
75th Percentile £90,000 £128,125 £87,750
90th Percentile £120,000 £138,250 £89,100
UK excluding London median annual salary £64,500 - £78,000
% change year-on-year - - -30.01%

All Permanent IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 53,639 51,608 49,016
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.46% 93.39% 95.25%
Number of salaries quoted 33,031 27,303 37,879
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,173 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,250 £44,671 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% - -
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,715
90th Percentile £93,750 £97,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Data Science Leader
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Data Science Leader' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Data Science Leader job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Science Leader
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Data Science Leader job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Data Science Leader job vacancies in the UK

Data Science Leader
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Science Leader over the 6 months to 30 December 2025.

Salary histogram for Data Science Leader in the UK

Data Science Leader
Top 7 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Science Leader within the UK over the 6 months to 30 December 2025. 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
England +18 6 £72,500 -32.56% 11
London +54 4 £78,750 -43.75% 8
UK excluding London +12 2 £64,500 - 3
Work from Home +27 1 £71,000 -49.29% 2
West Midlands +22 1 £64,500 -
Midlands +21 1 £64,500 -
South East -1 1 - - 3

Data Science Leader Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 30 December 2025, Data Science Leader 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 featuring Data Science Leader in the job title.

1 6 (100.00%) Data Science
1 6 (100.00%) Machine Learning
1 6 (100.00%) Python
2 4 (66.67%) Analytics
2 4 (66.67%) Mentoring
3 3 (50.00%) AI
3 3 (50.00%) AWS
3 3 (50.00%) Azure
3 3 (50.00%) GCP
3 3 (50.00%) SQL
4 2 (33.33%) Actionable Insight
4 2 (33.33%) Data Engineering
4 2 (33.33%) Data Governance
4 2 (33.33%) Data-Driven Decision Making
4 2 (33.33%) Decision-Making
4 2 (33.33%) Mathematics
4 2 (33.33%) Roadmaps
4 2 (33.33%) Technical Leadership
4 2 (33.33%) Visualisation
5 1 (16.67%) A/B Testing
5 1 (16.67%) Ansible
5 1 (16.67%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
5 1 (16.67%) Azure Machine Learning
5 1 (16.67%) Bayesian Methods
5 1 (16.67%) Business Intelligence
5 1 (16.67%) C++
5 1 (16.67%) CI/CD
5 1 (16.67%) Computer Science
5 1 (16.67%) Containerisation
5 1 (16.67%) Data Analysis

Data Science Leader Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 3 (50.00%) AWS
1 3 (50.00%) Azure
1 3 (50.00%) GCP
2 1 (16.67%) Azure Machine Learning
2 1 (16.67%) Power Platform
2 1 (16.67%) SaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1 (16.67%) Power BI
Development Applications
1 1 (16.67%) MLflow
General
1 2 (33.33%) Analytical Skills
1 2 (33.33%) Finance
1 2 (33.33%) Public Sector
2 1 (16.67%) Influencing Skills
2 1 (16.67%) Law
2 1 (16.67%) Legal
2 1 (16.67%) Marketing
2 1 (16.67%) Pharmaceutical
2 1 (16.67%) Social Skills
Miscellaneous
1 1 (16.67%) Algorithms
1 1 (16.67%) Clustering
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (100.00%) Data Science
1 6 (100.00%) Machine Learning
2 4 (66.67%) Analytics
2 4 (66.67%) Mentoring
3 3 (50.00%) AI
4 2 (33.33%) Actionable Insight
4 2 (33.33%) Data Engineering
4 2 (33.33%) Data Governance
4 2 (33.33%) Data-Driven Decision Making
4 2 (33.33%) Decision-Making
4 2 (33.33%) Mathematics
4 2 (33.33%) Roadmaps
4 2 (33.33%) Technical Leadership
4 2 (33.33%) Visualisation
5 1 (16.67%) Artificial Intelligence Engineering
5 1 (16.67%) Infrastructure as Code
5 1 (16.67%) Intelligent Automation
5 1 (16.67%) LLM
5 1 (16.67%) Prototyping
5 1 (16.67%) Strategic Roadmap
Programming Languages
1 6 (100.00%) Python
2 3 (50.00%) SQL
3 1 (16.67%) C++
3 1 (16.67%) Java
3 1 (16.67%) R
Qualifications
1 1 (16.67%) Degree
1 1 (16.67%) DV Cleared
1 1 (16.67%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (16.67%) Data Quality
1 1 (16.67%) GDPR
System Software
1 1 (16.67%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (16.67%) Ansible
1 1 (16.67%) Kubernetes