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 24 October 2025.

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

6 months to
24 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 541 464 496
Rank change year-on-year -77 +32 +14
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 130 306 247
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.44% 0.44%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.47% 0.46%
Number of salaries quoted 78 120 171
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,620 £43,000
25th Percentile £52,500 £50,968 £49,375
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,879 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year +11.32% -6.85% +8.00%
75th Percentile £86,875 £77,500 £85,000
90th Percentile £91,500 £95,000 £96,539
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £55,000 £62,500
% change year-on-year - -12.00% +8.70%

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 44,400 65,668 53,244
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.82% 95.30% 95.60%
Number of salaries quoted 26,262 37,426 41,234
10th Percentile £28,163 £31,250 £32,000
25th Percentile £35,000 £41,589 £43,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £56,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% -5.83% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £75,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £93,750 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £45,390 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -9.22% -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 24 October 2025.

Salary histogram for Data Scientist in the UK

Data Scientist
Top 15 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 24 October 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 -48 117 £70,000 +11.32% 265
London +11 78 £75,000 +7.14% 160
UK excluding London -53 45 £55,000 - 170
Work from Home -39 36 £70,000 +11.32% 118
North of England -38 18 £55,000 -12.53% 34
North West +1 17 £60,000 -4.58% 23
South West +39 7 £70,000 +27.27% 13
Midlands +26 7 £80,000 +45.45% 14
East Midlands +14 5 £80,000 +72.97% 8
Scotland -9 5 £45,000 - 10
South East +10 4 £42,500 -13.96% 93
East of England +18 3 £58,750 -11.32% 1
West Midlands +28 2 £69,625 +10.73% 6
Northern Ireland +10 1 £40,000 - 1
Yorkshire -7 1 £55,000 -12.53% 6

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

For the 6 months to 24 October 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
2 112 (86.15%) Python
3 93 (71.54%) Machine Learning
4 72 (55.38%) Analytics
5 64 (49.23%) SQL
6 61 (46.92%) Degree
7 51 (39.23%) AI
8 45 (34.62%) Master's Degree
9 43 (33.08%) Mathematics
10 42 (32.31%) PhD
10 42 (32.31%) Statistics
11 38 (29.23%) AWS
11 38 (29.23%) Problem-Solving
12 37 (28.46%) Visualisation
13 36 (27.69%) Azure
14 30 (23.08%) Decision-Making
15 29 (22.31%) MLOps
16 26 (20.00%) Natural Language Processing
17 23 (17.69%) DevOps
18 22 (16.92%) Computer Science
19 21 (16.15%) Predictive Modelling
20 20 (15.38%) Data Pipeline
20 20 (15.38%) GCP
21 19 (14.62%) LLM
21 19 (14.62%) scikit-learn
22 18 (13.85%) Data Analysis
22 18 (13.85%) Pandas
23 17 (13.08%) Mentoring
23 17 (13.08%) Project Management
24 16 (12.31%) Statistical Analysis

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 15 (11.54%) Apache Spark
2 8 (6.15%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (3.08%) Apache
3 4 (3.08%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (3.08%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.31%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 38 (29.23%) AWS
2 36 (27.69%) Azure
3 20 (15.38%) GCP
4 14 (10.77%) Power Platform
5 7 (5.38%) Google Analytics
6 5 (3.85%) Adobe Analytics
7 4 (3.08%) Amazon SageMaker
7 4 (3.08%) Azure Machine Learning
7 4 (3.08%) dbt
7 4 (3.08%) Snowflake
8 3 (2.31%) Dagster
8 3 (2.31%) GitHub
9 2 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.54%) Azure Data Factory
9 2 (1.54%) Prefect
9 2 (1.54%) SaaS
9 2 (1.54%) Serverless
10 1 (0.77%) Anthropic Claude
10 1 (0.77%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.77%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 2 (1.54%) Broadband
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (10.77%) Power BI
2 12 (9.23%) Tableau
3 7 (5.38%) Amazon Redshift
4 6 (4.62%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.85%) GIS
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%) Data Warehouse
8 2 (1.54%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (1.54%) Neo4j
8 2 (1.54%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.77%) ClickHouse
9 1 (0.77%) Mixpanel
9 1 (0.77%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.77%) Parquet
9 1 (0.77%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 10 (7.69%) Git
2 4 (3.08%) MLflow
General
1 34 (26.15%) Finance
2 33 (25.38%) Social Skills
3 30 (23.08%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (16.15%) Marketing
5 18 (13.85%) Law
6 14 (10.77%) Games
7 10 (7.69%) Retail
8 9 (6.92%) Banking
9 8 (6.15%) Manufacturing
10 7 (5.38%) Financial Institution
11 6 (4.62%) Legal
12 5 (3.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (3.85%) Public Sector
13 4 (3.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 2 (1.54%) Advertising
14 2 (1.54%) Electronics
14 2 (1.54%) Front Office
14 2 (1.54%) Telecoms
15 1 (0.77%) Health Technology
15 1 (0.77%) Tech for Good
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 12 (9.23%) 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%) Django
10 2 (1.54%) Kafka
10 2 (1.54%) LightGBM
10 2 (1.54%) pydantic
10 2 (1.54%) pytest
11 1 (0.77%) NLTK
11 1 (0.77%) Regular Expression
11 1 (0.77%) Smart Contracts
11 1 (0.77%) SQLAlchemy
Miscellaneous
1 22 (16.92%) Algorithms
2 7 (5.38%) e-Learning
2 7 (5.38%) Reinsurance
3 6 (4.62%) Self-Motivation
4 4 (3.08%) Cloud Native
4 4 (3.08%) Credit Risk
4 4 (3.08%) Life Science
5 3 (2.31%) AI Agents
5 3 (2.31%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.31%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (1.54%) Educational Technology
6 2 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.77%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.77%) Biopharmaceutical
7 1 (0.77%) Blog
7 1 (0.77%) Genomics
7 1 (0.77%) Omics
7 1 (0.77%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.77%) Renewable Energy
7 1 (0.77%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.77%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (100.00%) Data Science
2 93 (71.54%) Machine Learning
3 72 (55.38%) Analytics
4 51 (39.23%) AI
5 43 (33.08%) Mathematics
6 42 (32.31%) Statistics
7 38 (29.23%) Problem-Solving
8 37 (28.46%) Visualisation
9 30 (23.08%) Decision-Making
10 29 (22.31%) MLOps
11 26 (20.00%) Natural Language Processing
12 23 (17.69%) DevOps
13 22 (16.92%) Computer Science
14 21 (16.15%) Predictive Modelling
15 20 (15.38%) Data Pipeline
16 19 (14.62%) LLM
17 18 (13.85%) Data Analysis
18 17 (13.08%) Mentoring
18 17 (13.08%) Project Management
19 16 (12.31%) Statistical Modelling
Programming Languages
1 112 (86.15%) 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 61 (46.92%) Degree
2 45 (34.62%) Master's Degree
3 42 (32.31%) PhD
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 13 (10.00%) Databricks
2 6 (4.62%) Google
2 6 (4.62%) Salesforce
2 6 (4.62%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
3 5 (3.85%) Adobe
3 5 (3.85%) Marketo
4 4 (3.08%) Mapinfo
4 4 (3.08%) Microsoft
5 2 (1.54%) SAP
6 1 (0.77%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.77%) Amplitude
6 1 (0.77%) Cognos
6 1 (0.77%) Facebook
6 1 (0.77%) Foundry
6 1 (0.77%) PayPal