Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £66,720 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 4 March 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 452 420 405
Rank change year-on-year -32 -15 +119
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 232 277 481
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.33% 0.61% 0.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.36% 0.67% 0.65%
Number of salaries quoted 166 105 246
10th Percentile £46,250 £37,765 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £66,720 £60,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +11.20% -14.29% +7.69%
75th Percentile £82,500 £75,000 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £98,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £57,500 £65,000
% change year-on-year +4.35% -11.54% +9.99%

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 65,273 41,513 74,477
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.58% 91.10% 94.66%
Number of salaries quoted 41,213 22,694 57,615
10th Percentile £29,520 £32,500 £28,500
25th Percentile £38,000 £45,000 £39,085
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -8.33%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £73,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -5.21%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -42 218 £65,860 +13.55% 171
London +70 121 £80,000 +6.67% 96
UK excluding London -84 104 £60,000 +4.35% 88
Work from Home -29 72 £60,000 - 79
North of England -51 28 £61,418 +11.67% 14
Midlands -19 24 £58,750 +30.56% 12
South West -52 23 £60,000 -14.29% 17
North West -7 20 £61,418 +11.67% 9
South East -22 16 £40,000 -32.20% 30
West Midlands -7 12 £55,000 +22.22% 10
East Midlands -19 12 £62,500 +7.76% 2
East of England +7 5 £100,000 +72.41% 9
Scotland -21 5 £100,000 +42.86% 1
Yorkshire -51 5 £62,500 -2.34% 2
North East -19 3 £62,500 +56.78% 3
Northern Ireland -26 3 £40,000 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 4 March 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.

1 220 (94.83%) Data Science
2 113 (48.71%) Python
3 112 (48.28%) Machine Learning
4 103 (44.40%) AI
5 84 (36.21%) Analytics
6 57 (24.57%) Degree
7 56 (24.14%) SQL
8 48 (20.69%) Visualisation
9 47 (20.26%) Decision-Making
10 37 (15.95%) Predictive Modelling
11 34 (14.66%) Azure
11 34 (14.66%) Power BI
11 34 (14.66%) Power Platform
11 34 (14.66%) Security Cleared
12 33 (14.22%) Business Intelligence
12 33 (14.22%) Mathematics
13 32 (13.79%) Problem-Solving
14 30 (12.93%) PhD
15 29 (12.50%) Actionable Insight
16 28 (12.07%) DV Cleared
17 27 (11.64%) LLM
18 25 (10.78%) Data Visualisation
18 25 (10.78%) Storytelling
19 24 (10.34%) R
20 23 (9.91%) Generative AI
20 23 (9.91%) Natural Language Processing
20 23 (9.91%) Statistics
21 22 (9.48%) AWS
21 22 (9.48%) Data Analysis
22 20 (8.62%) Tableau

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 8 (3.45%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.86%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.43%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 10 (4.31%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 34 (14.66%) Azure
1 34 (14.66%) Power Platform
2 22 (9.48%) AWS
3 10 (4.31%) Snowflake
4 8 (3.45%) GCP
5 7 (3.02%) dbt
6 4 (1.72%) Azure Machine Learning
7 3 (1.29%) Dagster
8 2 (0.86%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.86%) Dynamics 365
8 2 (0.86%) Google Analytics
8 2 (0.86%) Smartsheet
9 1 (0.43%) Adobe Analytics
9 1 (0.43%) Amazon S3
9 1 (0.43%) Amazon SageMaker
9 1 (0.43%) AWS Lambda
9 1 (0.43%) Azure DevOps
9 1 (0.43%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.43%) SaaS
9 1 (0.43%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.72%) Broadband
2 1 (0.43%) Internet
2 1 (0.43%) LTE
2 1 (0.43%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.43%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.43%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (14.66%) Power BI
2 20 (8.62%) Tableau
3 8 (3.45%) SQL Server
4 6 (2.59%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (2.16%) Amazon Redshift
5 5 (2.16%) Big Data
6 3 (1.29%) Data Mining
6 3 (1.29%) QGIS
7 2 (0.86%) GIS
7 2 (0.86%) Hadoop
7 2 (0.86%) NoSQL
7 2 (0.86%) Spatial Data
8 1 (0.43%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.43%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.43%) Pinecone
8 1 (0.43%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.43%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.43%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 9 (3.88%) Git
2 8 (3.45%) MLflow
General
1 45 (19.40%) Social Skills
2 37 (15.95%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (15.52%) Finance
4 23 (9.91%) Retail
5 19 (8.19%) Marketing
6 16 (6.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (5.17%) Public Sector
8 10 (4.31%) Publishing
9 6 (2.59%) Law
10 5 (2.16%) Banking
10 5 (2.16%) Financial Institution
11 4 (1.72%) Games
11 4 (1.72%) Legal
11 4 (1.72%) Manufacturing
12 3 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.86%) Social Housing
14 1 (0.43%) Digital Healthcare
14 1 (0.43%) Health Technology
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (8.19%) PyTorch
1 19 (8.19%) TensorFlow
2 11 (4.74%) scikit-learn
3 9 (3.88%) EDI
4 6 (2.59%) LangChain
5 5 (2.16%) XGBoost
6 4 (1.72%) Google JAX
6 4 (1.72%) JAX
6 4 (1.72%) PySpark
6 4 (1.72%) SpaCy
7 3 (1.29%) Kafka
7 3 (1.29%) NumPy
7 3 (1.29%) Pandas
8 2 (0.86%) Hugging Face
8 2 (0.86%) NetworkX
8 2 (0.86%) pydantic
8 2 (0.86%) Streamlit
9 1 (0.43%) FastAPI
9 1 (0.43%) GeoPandas
9 1 (0.43%) Shiny
Miscellaneous
1 16 (6.90%) Algorithms
2 11 (4.74%) Data Structures
3 10 (4.31%) FMCG
3 10 (4.31%) Greenfield Project
4 5 (2.16%) Product Ownership
5 4 (1.72%) AI Agents
5 4 (1.72%) Cloud Native
5 4 (1.72%) e-Learning
6 3 (1.29%) Fixed Income
7 2 (0.86%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (0.86%) Contract for Difference
7 2 (0.86%) Educational Technology
7 2 (0.86%) Life Science
8 1 (0.43%) Credit Risk
8 1 (0.43%) FPGA
8 1 (0.43%) Genomics
8 1 (0.43%) Omics
8 1 (0.43%) Reinsurance
8 1 (0.43%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.43%) Social Network
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.43%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 220 (94.83%) Data Science
2 112 (48.28%) Machine Learning
3 103 (44.40%) AI
4 84 (36.21%) Analytics
5 48 (20.69%) Visualisation
6 47 (20.26%) Decision-Making
7 37 (15.95%) Predictive Modelling
8 33 (14.22%) Business Intelligence
8 33 (14.22%) Mathematics
9 32 (13.79%) Problem-Solving
10 29 (12.50%) Actionable Insight
11 27 (11.64%) LLM
12 25 (10.78%) Data Visualisation
12 25 (10.78%) Storytelling
13 23 (9.91%) Generative AI
13 23 (9.91%) Natural Language Processing
13 23 (9.91%) Statistics
14 22 (9.48%) Data Analysis
15 19 (8.19%) Computer Science
15 19 (8.19%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 113 (48.71%) Python
2 56 (24.14%) SQL
3 24 (10.34%) R
4 2 (0.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 2 (0.86%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.43%) C++
5 1 (0.43%) Scala
Qualifications
1 57 (24.57%) Degree
2 34 (14.66%) Security Cleared
3 30 (12.93%) PhD
4 28 (12.07%) DV Cleared
5 13 (5.60%) Master's Degree
6 11 (4.74%) DBS Check
7 10 (4.31%) ACCA
7 10 (4.31%) CIMA
7 10 (4.31%) SC Cleared
8 4 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
9 3 (1.29%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.43%) AWS Certification
11 1 (0.43%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (3.45%) Data Quality
2 3 (1.29%) GDPR
3 2 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.43%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.43%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.43%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.43%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 7 (3.02%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (2.16%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.43%) Argo
2 1 (0.43%) Terraform
Vendors
1 12 (5.17%) Microsoft
1 12 (5.17%) Salesforce
2 10 (4.31%) Databricks
3 6 (2.59%) ServiceNow
4 3 (1.29%) Google
5 2 (0.86%) Civica
5 2 (0.86%) Northgate
5 2 (0.86%) Orchard
5 2 (0.86%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6 1 (0.43%) Adobe
6 1 (0.43%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.43%) Cognos
6 1 (0.43%) Facebook
6 1 (0.43%) Foundry
6 1 (0.43%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.43%) Marketo
6 1 (0.43%) OpenAI