Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 7 November 2025.

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

6 months to
7 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 536 468 521
Rank change year-on-year -68 +53 -4
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 130 287 220
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.42% 0.41%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.28% 0.44% 0.43%
Number of salaries quoted 82 115 153
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,620 £42,500
25th Percentile £52,500 £51,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £62,879 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +3.37% -10.17% +12.00%
75th Percentile £85,000 £75,625 £90,000
90th Percentile £90,000 £93,650 £99,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £57,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year -4.35% -11.54% +13.04%

All Permanent IT Job Vacancies
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 45,700 64,689 50,755
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.10% 95.04% 95.50%
Number of salaries quoted 28,478 36,679 39,389
10th Percentile £28,250 £31,250 £31,500
25th Percentile £35,000 £42,219 £42,631
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £46,000 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.00% -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 7 November 2025.

Salary histogram for Data Scientist in the UK

Data Scientist
Top 16 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 7 November 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 -23 122 £65,000 +3.37% 493
London +9 78 £75,000 +8.15% 307
UK excluding London -49 49 £55,000 -4.35% 316
Work from Home -34 36 £70,000 +11.32% 223
North of England -30 20 £62,500 -0.60% 37
North West +10 17 £60,000 -4.58% 31
Midlands +36 9 £62,500 +13.64% 20
South West +26 7 £70,000 +27.27% 12
East Midlands +29 6 £71,250 +32.56% 16
South East +11 5 £42,500 -13.96% 214
Scotland -20 4 £72,500 - 23
East of England +34 3 £58,750 -21.67% 2
West Midlands +29 3 £59,250 +4.98% 4
Yorkshire -6 2 £58,750 -6.57% 4
Northern Ireland +1 1 £40,000 - 2
North East 0 1 £62,500 +21.66% 2

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

For the 6 months to 7 November 2025, 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.

1 130 (100.00%) Data Science
2 107 (82.31%) Python
3 95 (73.08%) Machine Learning
4 68 (52.31%) Analytics
5 64 (49.23%) SQL
6 55 (42.31%) AI
6 55 (42.31%) Degree
7 42 (32.31%) Visualisation
8 40 (30.77%) PhD
9 39 (30.00%) Master's Degree
9 39 (30.00%) Problem-Solving
10 37 (28.46%) AWS
10 37 (28.46%) Statistics
11 36 (27.69%) Mathematics
12 35 (26.92%) Azure
13 30 (23.08%) Decision-Making
13 30 (23.08%) MLOps
14 27 (20.77%) Natural Language Processing
15 24 (18.46%) Predictive Modelling
16 23 (17.69%) DevOps
17 21 (16.15%) Data Pipeline
17 21 (16.15%) LLM
18 20 (15.38%) GCP
19 19 (14.62%) scikit-learn
19 19 (14.62%) Statistical Modelling
20 18 (13.85%) Computer Science
20 18 (13.85%) Pandas
20 18 (13.85%) Statistical Analysis
21 17 (13.08%) Mentoring
22 16 (12.31%) Business Intelligence

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 14 (10.77%) Apache Spark
2 8 (6.15%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (3.08%) ArcGIS
4 3 (2.31%) Apache
Applications
1 4 (3.08%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 37 (28.46%) AWS
2 35 (26.92%) Azure
3 20 (15.38%) GCP
4 16 (12.31%) Power Platform
5 6 (4.62%) dbt
5 6 (4.62%) Snowflake
6 5 (3.85%) Dagster
7 4 (3.08%) Azure Machine Learning
8 3 (2.31%) Amazon SageMaker
8 3 (2.31%) GitHub
8 3 (2.31%) Google Analytics
9 2 (1.54%) Prefect
9 2 (1.54%) SaaS
10 1 (0.77%) Adobe Analytics
10 1 (0.77%) Anthropic Claude
10 1 (0.77%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.77%) Azure AI
10 1 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.77%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.77%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.54%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (12.31%) Power BI
2 10 (7.69%) Tableau
3 7 (5.38%) Amazon Redshift
4 6 (4.62%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.85%) GIS
6 4 (3.08%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (3.08%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (3.08%) QGIS
6 4 (3.08%) Spatial Data
6 4 (3.08%) SQL Server
7 3 (2.31%) Big Data
7 3 (2.31%) Data Mining
8 2 (1.54%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (1.54%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.77%) ClickHouse
9 1 (0.77%) Mixpanel
9 1 (0.77%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.77%) Parquet
9 1 (0.77%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.77%) TigerGraph
Development Applications
1 10 (7.69%) Git
2 4 (3.08%) MLflow
General
1 37 (28.46%) Social Skills
2 32 (24.62%) Finance
3 25 (19.23%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (12.31%) Marketing
5 14 (10.77%) Games
5 14 (10.77%) Law
6 10 (7.69%) Retail
7 9 (6.92%) Banking
8 7 (5.38%) Financial Institution
8 7 (5.38%) Manufacturing
9 5 (3.85%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (3.08%) Legal
10 4 (3.08%) Public Sector
11 2 (1.54%) Advertising
11 2 (1.54%) Presentation Skills
12 1 (0.77%) Electronics
12 1 (0.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.77%) Tech for Good
12 1 (0.77%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (14.62%) scikit-learn
2 18 (13.85%) Pandas
3 15 (11.54%) PyTorch
4 14 (10.77%) TensorFlow
5 11 (8.46%) PySpark
6 8 (6.15%) NumPy
6 8 (6.15%) SpaCy
6 8 (6.15%) XGBoost
7 6 (4.62%) LangChain
8 4 (3.08%) PostGIS
9 3 (2.31%) Hugging Face
10 2 (1.54%) Kafka
10 2 (1.54%) LightGBM
10 2 (1.54%) pydantic
10 2 (1.54%) pytest
11 1 (0.77%) Keras
11 1 (0.77%) OpenCV
11 1 (0.77%) PyMC3
11 1 (0.77%) Seaborn
11 1 (0.77%) Unity (Game Engine)
Miscellaneous
1 22 (16.92%) Algorithms
2 7 (5.38%) e-Learning
2 7 (5.38%) Reinsurance
3 4 (3.08%) Cloud Native
3 4 (3.08%) Credit Risk
3 4 (3.08%) Life Science
4 3 (2.31%) AI Agents
4 3 (2.31%) Driving Licence
4 3 (2.31%) Fixed Income
4 3 (2.31%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.54%) Educational Technology
5 2 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.77%) Biopharmaceutical
6 1 (0.77%) Blog
6 1 (0.77%) Clustering
6 1 (0.77%) Genomics
6 1 (0.77%) Omics
6 1 (0.77%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.77%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.77%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (100.00%) Data Science
2 95 (73.08%) Machine Learning
3 68 (52.31%) Analytics
4 55 (42.31%) AI
5 42 (32.31%) Visualisation
6 39 (30.00%) Problem-Solving
7 37 (28.46%) Statistics
8 36 (27.69%) Mathematics
9 30 (23.08%) Decision-Making
9 30 (23.08%) MLOps
10 27 (20.77%) Natural Language Processing
11 24 (18.46%) Predictive Modelling
12 23 (17.69%) DevOps
13 21 (16.15%) Data Pipeline
13 21 (16.15%) LLM
14 19 (14.62%) Statistical Modelling
15 18 (13.85%) Computer Science
15 18 (13.85%) Statistical Analysis
16 17 (13.08%) Mentoring
17 16 (12.31%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 107 (82.31%) Python
2 64 (49.23%) SQL
3 13 (10.00%) R
4 5 (3.85%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.31%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.77%) C++
6 1 (0.77%) Java
6 1 (0.77%) Julia
Qualifications
1 55 (42.31%) Degree
2 40 (30.77%) PhD
3 39 (30.00%) Master's Degree
4 7 (5.38%) DBS Check
5 6 (4.62%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.54%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.54%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.77%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.77%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.77%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (10.00%) Data Quality
2 3 (2.31%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.54%) GDPR
3 2 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.77%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.77%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 13 (10.00%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (3.08%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.77%) Terraform
Vendors
1 11 (8.46%) Databricks
2 4 (3.08%) Mapinfo
2 4 (3.08%) Microsoft
3 2 (1.54%) Google
3 2 (1.54%) Salesforce
3 2 (1.54%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
4 1 (0.77%) Adobe
4 1 (0.77%) Alteryx
4 1 (0.77%) Amplitude
4 1 (0.77%) Cognos
4 1 (0.77%) Facebook
4 1 (0.77%) Foundry
4 1 (0.77%) Marketo
4 1 (0.77%) PayPal
4 1 (0.77%) SAP