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 13 April 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 421 411 439
Rank change year-on-year -10 +28 +96
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 306 233 502
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.36% 0.57% 0.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.39% 0.63% 0.57%
Number of salaries quoted 218 110 253
10th Percentile £46,250 £41,125 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,250 £52,500
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 £79,688 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £91,500 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £61,959 £58,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +6.83% -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 78,459 36,925 87,815
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 89.59% 94.53%
Number of salaries quoted 50,370 23,318 65,715
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +11.11% -10.00%
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 13 April 2026.

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 13 April 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 -5 290 £70,000 +9.38% 128
UK excluding London -68 156 £61,959 +6.83% 72
London +53 141 £80,000 - 81
Work from Home -22 90 £65,000 +1.56% 60
North of England -35 48 £66,720 +21.31% 17
North West -5 37 £70,000 +40.00% 11
Midlands -28 37 £62,500 +38.89% 9
South West -68 33 £60,000 -16.66% 8
East Midlands -28 20 £62,500 +7.76% 6
South East -36 18 £40,000 -33.33% 30
West Midlands -16 17 £55,000 +22.22% 3
East of England -19 12 £86,725 +49.53% 4
Yorkshire -59 7 £66,720 +4.25% 3
Scotland -19 5 £100,000 +42.86% 4
North East - 4 £64,610 - 4
Northern Ireland - 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 13 April 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.

1 294 (96.08%) Data Science
2 139 (45.42%) Machine Learning
3 125 (40.85%) Python
4 118 (38.56%) AI
5 92 (30.07%) Analytics
6 76 (24.84%) SQL
7 60 (19.61%) Visualisation
8 59 (19.28%) Degree
9 50 (16.34%) Decision-Making
10 44 (14.38%) Power BI
10 44 (14.38%) Power Platform
11 43 (14.05%) Security Cleared
12 39 (12.75%) Business Intelligence
13 38 (12.42%) Mathematics
14 36 (11.76%) Predictive Modelling
15 35 (11.44%) Azure
16 33 (10.78%) Data Visualisation
16 33 (10.78%) DV Cleared
16 33 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
17 32 (10.46%) AWS
17 32 (10.46%) R
17 32 (10.46%) Statistics
18 29 (9.48%) LLM
19 26 (8.50%) PyTorch
20 25 (8.17%) Actionable Insight
20 25 (8.17%) Tableau
21 24 (7.84%) Computer Science
21 24 (7.84%) Data Analysis
21 24 (7.84%) E-Commerce
21 24 (7.84%) Mentoring

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 4 (1.31%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.65%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 5 (1.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.65%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.33%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (3.27%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 44 (14.38%) Power Platform
2 35 (11.44%) Azure
3 32 (10.46%) AWS
4 15 (4.90%) GCP
5 12 (3.92%) dbt
6 7 (2.29%) Snowflake
7 6 (1.96%) Azure Machine Learning
7 6 (1.96%) Dataform
8 4 (1.31%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.31%) Amazon SageMaker
8 4 (1.31%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (1.31%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.31%) Serverless
8 4 (1.31%) Smartsheet
9 2 (0.65%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (0.65%) Dagster
10 1 (0.33%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (0.33%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.33%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.33%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.31%) Broadband
2 3 (0.98%) Software-Defined Radio
3 1 (0.33%) Internet
3 1 (0.33%) LTE
3 1 (0.33%) Wi-Fi
3 1 (0.33%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 44 (14.38%) Power BI
2 25 (8.17%) Tableau
3 10 (3.27%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.61%) SQL Server
5 7 (2.29%) Looker
6 6 (1.96%) Metabase
7 5 (1.63%) Big Data
8 4 (1.31%) Data Mining
8 4 (1.31%) NoSQL
9 3 (0.98%) Amazon Athena
9 3 (0.98%) QGIS
10 2 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
10 2 (0.65%) GIS
10 2 (0.65%) Hadoop
10 2 (0.65%) Spatial Data
11 1 (0.33%) Geospatial Data
11 1 (0.33%) MongoDB
11 1 (0.33%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (2.94%) Git
2 8 (2.61%) MLflow
3 1 (0.33%) JIRA
General
1 56 (18.30%) Analytical Skills
2 44 (14.38%) Social Skills
3 41 (13.40%) Finance
4 40 (13.07%) Retail
5 19 (6.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 19 (6.21%) Marketing
6 18 (5.88%) Public Sector
7 10 (3.27%) Publishing
8 8 (2.61%) Manufacturing
9 7 (2.29%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.63%) Law
10 5 (1.63%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.98%) Banking
12 3 (0.98%) Games
13 2 (0.65%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.65%) Automotive
13 2 (0.65%) Financial Institution
13 2 (0.65%) Legal
13 2 (0.65%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (8.50%) PyTorch
2 19 (6.21%) scikit-learn
3 17 (5.56%) TensorFlow
4 12 (3.92%) Pandas
5 9 (2.94%) EDI
6 6 (1.96%) NumPy
6 6 (1.96%) PySpark
7 5 (1.63%) XGBoost
8 4 (1.31%) Google JAX
8 4 (1.31%) JAX
9 3 (0.98%) LangChain
10 2 (0.65%) NetworkX
10 2 (0.65%) Streamlit
11 1 (0.33%) FastAPI
11 1 (0.33%) GeoPandas
11 1 (0.33%) Hugging Face
11 1 (0.33%) LlamaIndex
11 1 (0.33%) MapLibre
11 1 (0.33%) Shiny
11 1 (0.33%) SpaCy
Miscellaneous
1 12 (3.92%) Algorithms
2 11 (3.59%) Data Structures
3 10 (3.27%) FMCG
3 10 (3.27%) Greenfield Project
4 6 (1.96%) Product Ownership
5 3 (0.98%) AI Agents
6 2 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (0.65%) Cloud Native
6 2 (0.65%) Contract for Difference
6 2 (0.65%) Credit Risk
6 2 (0.65%) Fixed Income
7 1 (0.33%) e-Learning
7 1 (0.33%) FPGA
7 1 (0.33%) Genomics
7 1 (0.33%) Life Science
7 1 (0.33%) Omics
7 1 (0.33%) Reinsurance
7 1 (0.33%) Social Network
7 1 (0.33%) Tandem
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (96.08%) Data Science
2 139 (45.42%) Machine Learning
3 118 (38.56%) AI
4 92 (30.07%) Analytics
5 60 (19.61%) Visualisation
6 50 (16.34%) Decision-Making
7 39 (12.75%) Business Intelligence
8 38 (12.42%) Mathematics
9 36 (11.76%) Predictive Modelling
10 33 (10.78%) Data Visualisation
10 33 (10.78%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (10.46%) Statistics
12 29 (9.48%) LLM
13 25 (8.17%) Actionable Insight
14 24 (7.84%) Computer Science
14 24 (7.84%) Data Analysis
14 24 (7.84%) E-Commerce
14 24 (7.84%) Mentoring
14 24 (7.84%) Storytelling
15 23 (7.52%) MLOps
Programming Languages
1 125 (40.85%) Python
2 76 (24.84%) SQL
3 32 (10.46%) R
4 6 (1.96%) Julia
5 4 (1.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 4 (1.31%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.33%) C++
6 1 (0.33%) Scala
Qualifications
1 59 (19.28%) Degree
2 43 (14.05%) Security Cleared
3 33 (10.78%) DV Cleared
4 22 (7.19%) PhD
5 19 (6.21%) DBS Check
6 10 (3.27%) ACCA
6 10 (3.27%) CIMA
6 10 (3.27%) SC Cleared
7 5 (1.63%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.98%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.98%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.33%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.56%) Data Quality
2 3 (0.98%) GDPR
3 2 (0.65%) QA
4 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.33%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 7 (2.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (1.96%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.65%) Kubeflow
2 2 (0.65%) Terraform
3 1 (0.33%) Argo
Vendors
1 15 (4.90%) Databricks
2 14 (4.58%) Microsoft
3 10 (3.27%) Google
3 10 (3.27%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.96%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.65%) Civica
5 2 (0.65%) Northgate
5 2 (0.65%) Orchard
6 1 (0.33%) Cognizant
6 1 (0.33%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.33%) OpenAI