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 November 2025.

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

6 months to
24 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 509 474 485
Rank change year-on-year -35 +11 +55
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 140 284 231
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.26% 0.42% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.29% 0.44% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 92 129 162
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,454 £42,500
25th Percentile £54,094 £51,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £62,879 £68,750
Median % change year-on-year +11.32% -8.54% +5.77%
75th Percentile £85,000 £77,500 £87,500
90th Percentile £94,500 £93,550 £100,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £58,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +7.76% -10.77% +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 47,921 63,941 49,281
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.18% 94.47% 95.33%
Number of salaries quoted 30,174 35,998 38,349
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £35,750 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £53,750 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.52% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £73,750 £76,250 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £51,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year -7.77% -1.90% -

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 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 24 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 -11 130 £70,000 +11.32% 95
London +33 84 £75,000 +7.14% 61
UK excluding London -18 53 £62,500 +7.76% 54
Work from Home +13 34 £67,500 +7.35% 60
North of England -10 19 £62,500 -0.60% 6
North West +34 14 £60,000 -6.16% 4
Midlands +50 9 £62,500 +31.58% 9
South East +18 9 £42,500 -21.55% 28
East Midlands +33 6 £71,250 +22.84% 6
South West +23 6 £85,000 +25.93% 2
Scotland -4 6 £100,000 - 6
West Midlands +39 3 £59,250 +48.13% 2
East of England +32 3 £58,750 +1.29%
Yorkshire -10 3 £62,500 -0.60% 2
North East +8 2 £62,500 +21.66%
Northern Ireland +2 1 £40,000 - 3

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

For the 6 months to 24 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.

1 139 (99.29%) Data Science
2 106 (75.71%) Python
3 98 (70.00%) Machine Learning
4 68 (48.57%) Analytics
5 63 (45.00%) SQL
6 60 (42.86%) AI
7 50 (35.71%) Degree
8 45 (32.14%) Visualisation
9 41 (29.29%) Problem-Solving
10 35 (25.00%) Decision-Making
10 35 (25.00%) PhD
11 34 (24.29%) Master's Degree
12 33 (23.57%) AWS
12 33 (23.57%) Azure
12 33 (23.57%) Mathematics
13 31 (22.14%) Statistics
14 28 (20.00%) MLOps
15 27 (19.29%) Predictive Modelling
16 26 (18.57%) Natural Language Processing
17 25 (17.86%) LLM
18 22 (15.71%) DevOps
19 21 (15.00%) Statistical Analysis
19 21 (15.00%) Statistical Modelling
20 19 (13.57%) Data Pipeline
20 19 (13.57%) Mentoring
21 18 (12.86%) GCP
21 18 (12.86%) scikit-learn
22 17 (12.14%) CI/CD
23 16 (11.43%) Business Intelligence
23 16 (11.43%) Pandas

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 13 (9.29%) Apache Spark
2 6 (4.29%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.86%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.71%) Apache
Applications
1 3 (2.14%) Chatbot
1 3 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.71%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 33 (23.57%) AWS
1 33 (23.57%) Azure
2 18 (12.86%) GCP
3 16 (11.43%) Power Platform
4 8 (5.71%) Snowflake
5 6 (4.29%) dbt
6 5 (3.57%) Dagster
7 3 (2.14%) GitHub
7 3 (2.14%) Google Analytics
8 2 (1.43%) Amazon SageMaker
8 2 (1.43%) Azure Machine Learning
8 2 (1.43%) Prefect
8 2 (1.43%) SaaS
9 1 (0.71%) Adobe Analytics
9 1 (0.71%) Anthropic Claude
9 1 (0.71%) Azure AI
9 1 (0.71%) ChatGPT
9 1 (0.71%) GitHub Copilot
9 1 (0.71%) Microsoft 365
9 1 (0.71%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.14%) Broadband
2 1 (0.71%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 16 (11.43%) Power BI
2 10 (7.14%) Tableau
3 7 (5.00%) Amazon Redshift
4 6 (4.29%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.57%) Big Data
5 5 (3.57%) Geospatial Data
5 5 (3.57%) GIS
5 5 (3.57%) QGIS
6 4 (2.86%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (2.86%) Spatial Data
6 4 (2.86%) SQL Server
7 3 (2.14%) Data Mining
7 3 (2.14%) NoSQL
8 2 (1.43%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (1.43%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.71%) ClickHouse
9 1 (0.71%) Parquet
9 1 (0.71%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.71%) PostgreSQL
9 1 (0.71%) TigerGraph
Development Applications
1 9 (6.43%) Git
2 4 (2.86%) MLflow
General
1 38 (27.14%) Social Skills
2 36 (25.71%) Finance
3 29 (20.71%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (12.14%) Marketing
5 12 (8.57%) Games
5 12 (8.57%) Law
6 9 (6.43%) Banking
6 9 (6.43%) Retail
7 7 (5.00%) Financial Institution
7 7 (5.00%) Manufacturing
8 6 (4.29%) Pharmaceutical
9 4 (2.86%) Legal
10 3 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (1.43%) Advertising
11 2 (1.43%) Public Sector
12 1 (0.71%) Billing
12 1 (0.71%) Electronics
12 1 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.71%) Publishing
12 1 (0.71%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (12.86%) scikit-learn
2 16 (11.43%) Pandas
3 14 (10.00%) PyTorch
3 14 (10.00%) TensorFlow
4 12 (8.57%) PySpark
5 8 (5.71%) NumPy
5 8 (5.71%) SpaCy
5 8 (5.71%) XGBoost
6 6 (4.29%) LangChain
7 5 (3.57%) PostGIS
8 3 (2.14%) Hugging Face
8 3 (2.14%) Streamlit
9 2 (1.43%) Django
9 2 (1.43%) Kafka
9 2 (1.43%) LightGBM
9 2 (1.43%) pydantic
9 2 (1.43%) pytest
10 1 (0.71%) OpenCV
10 1 (0.71%) Regular Expression
10 1 (0.71%) SQLAlchemy
Miscellaneous
1 21 (15.00%) Algorithms
2 7 (5.00%) e-Learning
3 6 (4.29%) Reinsurance
4 4 (2.86%) Cloud Native
4 4 (2.86%) Credit Risk
4 4 (2.86%) Greenfield Project
4 4 (2.86%) Life Science
5 3 (2.14%) AI Agents
5 3 (2.14%) Driving Licence
5 3 (2.14%) Fixed Income
6 2 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.43%) Educational Technology
6 2 (1.43%) FMCG
6 2 (1.43%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.43%) Self-Motivation
7 1 (0.71%) Clustering
7 1 (0.71%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.71%) Digital Media
7 1 (0.71%) IoT
7 1 (0.71%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.71%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (99.29%) Data Science
2 98 (70.00%) Machine Learning
3 68 (48.57%) Analytics
4 60 (42.86%) AI
5 45 (32.14%) Visualisation
6 41 (29.29%) Problem-Solving
7 35 (25.00%) Decision-Making
8 33 (23.57%) Mathematics
9 31 (22.14%) Statistics
10 28 (20.00%) MLOps
11 27 (19.29%) Predictive Modelling
12 26 (18.57%) Natural Language Processing
13 25 (17.86%) LLM
14 22 (15.71%) DevOps
15 21 (15.00%) Statistical Analysis
15 21 (15.00%) Statistical Modelling
16 19 (13.57%) Data Pipeline
16 19 (13.57%) Mentoring
17 17 (12.14%) CI/CD
18 16 (11.43%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 106 (75.71%) Python
2 63 (45.00%) SQL
3 12 (8.57%) R
4 5 (3.57%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.14%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.71%) C++
6 1 (0.71%) Java
6 1 (0.71%) Julia
6 1 (0.71%) Scala
Qualifications
1 50 (35.71%) Degree
2 35 (25.00%) PhD
3 34 (24.29%) Master's Degree
4 7 (5.00%) DBS Check
5 4 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.43%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.43%) Postgraduate
7 1 (0.71%) ACCA
7 1 (0.71%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.71%) CIMA
7 1 (0.71%) SC Cleared
7 1 (0.71%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (7.86%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.43%) Accessibility
2 2 (1.43%) GDPR
2 2 (1.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.71%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.71%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 13 (9.29%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (2.14%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.71%) Argo
Vendors
1 11 (7.86%) Databricks
2 4 (2.86%) Mapinfo
2 4 (2.86%) Microsoft
3 3 (2.14%) Salesforce
4 2 (1.43%) Google
4 2 (1.43%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
5 1 (0.71%) Adobe
5 1 (0.71%) Alteryx
5 1 (0.71%) Amplitude
5 1 (0.71%) Cognos
5 1 (0.71%) Facebook
5 1 (0.71%) Foundry
5 1 (0.71%) Mapbox
5 1 (0.71%) Marketo
5 1 (0.71%) SAP