Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £70,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 1 May 2026.

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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 395 422 456
Rank change year-on-year +27 +34 +78
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 370 242 499
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.57% 0.52%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.44% 0.64% 0.55%
Number of salaries quoted 253 113 259
10th Percentile £46,250 £42,500 £42,500
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,250 £51,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £64,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -8.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £90,000 £80,000 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £93,250 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £61,418 £58,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +5.89% -10.77% +13.04%

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 83,558 37,679 90,605
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 89.07% 94.54%
Number of salaries quoted 53,734 23,343 66,736
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £41,625 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £59,800 £53,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.03% +12.83% -11.67%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -4.76%

Data Scientist
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Data Scientist job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Scientist
Salary Trend

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

Salary distribution trend for Data Scientist job vacancies in the UK

Data Scientist
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Scientist over the 6 months to 1 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Scientist in the UK

Data Scientist
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Scientist within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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
England +51 352 £70,000 +12.90% 139
UK excluding London -22 191 £61,418 +5.89% 73
London +55 167 £80,000 - 89
Work from Home +2 113 £65,000 +4.84% 82
North of England -22 62 £66,720 +21.31% 17
North West +8 49 £72,500 +61.11% 13
Midlands -15 46 £63,750 +41.67% 12
South West -71 39 £60,000 -16.66% 9
East Midlands -16 30 £63,750 +9.91% 9
South East -23 23 £40,000 -32.20% 27
West Midlands -35 16 £60,860 +35.24% 3
East of England -13 14 £86,725 +49.53% 2
Yorkshire -57 9 £66,720 +4.25% 3
North East -33 4 £64,610 +24.25% 1
Scotland -38 3 £100,000 +42.86% 3
Northern Ireland - 3 - -
Wales -28 1 £40,000 -52.94% 3

Data Scientist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2026, 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 featuring Data Scientist in the job title.

1 357 (96.49%) Data Science
2 174 (47.03%) Machine Learning
3 146 (39.46%) Python
4 138 (37.30%) AI
5 105 (28.38%) Analytics
6 83 (22.43%) SQL
7 61 (16.49%) Degree
8 58 (15.68%) Visualisation
9 52 (14.05%) Decision-Making
10 47 (12.70%) Security Cleared
11 42 (11.35%) Mathematics
11 42 (11.35%) Power BI
11 42 (11.35%) Power Platform
12 41 (11.08%) Azure
12 41 (11.08%) Statistics
13 39 (10.54%) Actionable Insight
14 38 (10.27%) Business Intelligence
15 37 (10.00%) LLM
15 37 (10.00%) Mentoring
15 37 (10.00%) Predictive Modelling
16 35 (9.46%) AWS
17 34 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
18 33 (8.92%) Data Visualisation
18 33 (8.92%) DV Cleared
18 33 (8.92%) R
19 32 (8.65%) PyTorch
20 28 (7.57%) MLOps
21 26 (7.03%) E-Commerce
22 25 (6.76%) Data Analysis
22 25 (6.76%) Storytelling

Data Scientist 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:

Application Platforms
1 9 (2.43%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.54%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.27%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.27%) Jupyter
Applications
1 6 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.08%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.27%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (2.70%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 42 (11.35%) Power Platform
2 41 (11.08%) Azure
3 35 (9.46%) AWS
4 20 (5.41%) GCP
5 12 (3.24%) dbt
6 7 (1.89%) Azure Machine Learning
7 6 (1.62%) Dataform
7 6 (1.62%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.08%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.08%) Amazon SageMaker
8 4 (1.08%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (1.08%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.08%) SaaS
8 4 (1.08%) Serverless
8 4 (1.08%) Smartsheet
9 2 (0.54%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (0.54%) Cloud Computing
10 1 (0.27%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.27%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.35%) Software-Defined Radio
2 4 (1.08%) Broadband
3 2 (0.54%) Firewall
4 1 (0.27%) Internet
4 1 (0.27%) LTE
4 1 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (0.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (11.35%) Power BI
2 25 (6.76%) Tableau
3 9 (2.43%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.16%) Looker
4 8 (2.16%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.62%) Big Data
5 6 (1.62%) Metabase
6 5 (1.35%) Amazon Redshift
7 4 (1.08%) Data Mining
7 4 (1.08%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.81%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.81%) QGIS
9 2 (0.54%) Delta Lake
9 2 (0.54%) GIS
9 2 (0.54%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.54%) Spatial Data
10 1 (0.27%) Data Lake
10 1 (0.27%) Geospatial Data
10 1 (0.27%) MongoDB
10 1 (0.27%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 10 (2.70%) Git
2 8 (2.16%) MLflow
3 1 (0.27%) JIRA
3 1 (0.27%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 59 (15.95%) Finance
2 58 (15.68%) Analytical Skills
3 46 (12.43%) Social Skills
4 45 (12.16%) Retail
5 25 (6.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 24 (6.49%) Marketing
7 18 (4.86%) Public Sector
8 12 (3.24%) Banking
9 10 (2.70%) Publishing
10 8 (2.16%) Games
10 8 (2.16%) Manufacturing
11 7 (1.89%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (1.35%) Automotive
12 5 (1.35%) Financial Institution
12 5 (1.35%) Law
13 4 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (1.08%) Legal
13 4 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
14 2 (0.54%) Aerospace
14 2 (0.54%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (8.65%) PyTorch
2 23 (6.22%) TensorFlow
3 18 (4.86%) scikit-learn
4 12 (3.24%) Pandas
5 9 (2.43%) EDI
6 8 (2.16%) Hugging Face
7 7 (1.89%) PySpark
8 6 (1.62%) NumPy
8 6 (1.62%) XGBoost
9 5 (1.35%) LangChain
10 4 (1.08%) Google JAX
10 4 (1.08%) JAX
10 4 (1.08%) SpaCy
11 3 (0.81%) LlamaIndex
12 2 (0.54%) NetworkX
12 2 (0.54%) Streamlit
13 1 (0.27%) FastAPI
13 1 (0.27%) GeoPandas
13 1 (0.27%) Kafka
13 1 (0.27%) Shiny
Miscellaneous
1 16 (4.32%) Algorithms
2 13 (3.51%) Data Structures
3 10 (2.70%) FMCG
3 10 (2.70%) Greenfield Project
4 6 (1.62%) Product Ownership
5 4 (1.08%) Cloud Native
5 4 (1.08%) e-Learning
6 3 (0.81%) AI Agents
6 3 (0.81%) Cyber Threat
7 2 (0.54%) Contract for Difference
7 2 (0.54%) Credit Risk
7 2 (0.54%) Insider Threat
7 2 (0.54%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.27%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.27%) Cyber Defence
8 1 (0.27%) Distributed Computing
8 1 (0.27%) Legacy Systems
8 1 (0.27%) Life Science
8 1 (0.27%) Reinsurance
8 1 (0.27%) Security Posture
Processes & Methodologies
1 357 (96.49%) Data Science
2 174 (47.03%) Machine Learning
3 138 (37.30%) AI
4 105 (28.38%) Analytics
5 58 (15.68%) Visualisation
6 52 (14.05%) Decision-Making
7 42 (11.35%) Mathematics
8 41 (11.08%) Statistics
9 39 (10.54%) Actionable Insight
10 38 (10.27%) Business Intelligence
11 37 (10.00%) LLM
11 37 (10.00%) Mentoring
11 37 (10.00%) Predictive Modelling
12 34 (9.19%) Problem-Solving
13 33 (8.92%) Data Visualisation
14 28 (7.57%) MLOps
15 26 (7.03%) E-Commerce
16 25 (6.76%) Data Analysis
16 25 (6.76%) Storytelling
17 23 (6.22%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 146 (39.46%) Python
2 83 (22.43%) SQL
3 33 (8.92%) R
4 6 (1.62%) Julia
5 4 (1.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 4 (1.08%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.27%) C++
6 1 (0.27%) Scala
6 1 (0.27%) VBA
Qualifications
1 61 (16.49%) Degree
2 47 (12.70%) Security Cleared
3 33 (8.92%) DV Cleared
4 24 (6.49%) PhD
5 19 (5.14%) DBS Check
6 14 (3.78%) SC Cleared
7 10 (2.70%) ACCA
7 10 (2.70%) CIMA
8 7 (1.89%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.81%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.81%) CISSP
9 3 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.54%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (0.54%) GIAC
10 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.54%) SANS
11 1 (0.27%) CEH
11 1 (0.27%) CISM
11 1 (0.27%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (5.14%) Data Quality
2 4 (1.08%) QA
3 2 (0.54%) GDPR
4 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 11 (2.97%) Docker
Systems Management
1 10 (2.70%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.54%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
2 2 (0.54%) Computer Incident Response Team
2 2 (0.54%) Kubeflow
2 2 (0.54%) Terraform
3 1 (0.27%) Argo
Vendors
1 18 (4.86%) Databricks
2 12 (3.24%) Google
2 12 (3.24%) Microsoft
3 10 (2.70%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.62%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.54%) Civica
5 2 (0.54%) Northgate
5 2 (0.54%) Orchard
6 1 (0.27%) Cognizant
6 1 (0.27%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.27%) OpenAI