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 11 March 2026.

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

6 months to
11 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 446 412 431
Rank change year-on-year -34 +19 +99
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 237 265 478
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.32% 0.60% 0.57%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.35% 0.67% 0.60%
Number of salaries quoted 171 107 243
10th Percentile £46,250 £37,773 £45,000
25th Percentile £55,000 £46,500 £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 £82,349 £75,000 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £105,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £58,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +3.45% -10.77% +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 66,980 39,779 79,178
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 91.76% 90.72% 94.60%
Number of salaries quoted 42,499 22,997 60,965
10th Percentile £30,000 £32,000 £28,500
25th Percentile £39,000 £43,750 £38,750
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 £72,500
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% -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 11 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 11 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 -39 224 £65,860 +13.55% 140
London +57 122 £75,000 - 55
UK excluding London -91 109 £60,000 +3.45% 76
Work from Home -23 72 £60,000 - 49
North of England -50 29 £61,418 +11.67% 9
South West -49 26 £60,000 -15.49% 12
Midlands -21 24 £58,750 +30.56% 15
North West -13 21 £61,418 +11.67% 6
South East -14 16 £40,000 -32.20% 34
East Midlands -22 12 £62,500 +7.76% 9
West Midlands -22 12 £55,000 +22.22% 6
East of England +1 6 £93,363 +60.97% 4
Scotland -29 5 £100,000 +42.86%
Yorkshire -50 5 £62,500 -2.34% 1
North East -20 3 £62,500 +56.78% 2
Northern Ireland -23 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 11 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.

1 225 (94.94%) Data Science
2 108 (45.57%) Machine Learning
3 107 (45.15%) Python
4 102 (43.04%) AI
5 84 (35.44%) Analytics
6 56 (23.63%) SQL
7 53 (22.36%) Degree
8 50 (21.10%) Decision-Making
9 49 (20.68%) Visualisation
10 36 (15.19%) Predictive Modelling
10 36 (15.19%) Security Cleared
11 35 (14.77%) Power BI
11 35 (14.77%) Power Platform
12 34 (14.35%) Business Intelligence
13 31 (13.08%) Azure
13 31 (13.08%) Mathematics
13 31 (13.08%) Problem-Solving
14 30 (12.66%) DV Cleared
15 29 (12.24%) Actionable Insight
16 27 (11.39%) PhD
17 26 (10.97%) LLM
18 25 (10.55%) Data Visualisation
18 25 (10.55%) R
19 24 (10.13%) Storytelling
20 22 (9.28%) AWS
20 22 (9.28%) Generative AI
20 22 (9.28%) Statistics
21 20 (8.44%) Data Analysis
21 20 (8.44%) Data Modelling
21 20 (8.44%) Natural Language Processing

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 7 (2.95%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.84%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.42%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 3 (1.27%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 10 (4.22%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 35 (14.77%) Power Platform
2 31 (13.08%) Azure
3 22 (9.28%) AWS
4 10 (4.22%) Snowflake
5 8 (3.38%) dbt
6 7 (2.95%) GCP
7 4 (1.69%) Azure Machine Learning
8 3 (1.27%) Dagster
9 2 (0.84%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (0.84%) Dynamics 365
9 2 (0.84%) Smartsheet
10 1 (0.42%) Amazon S3
10 1 (0.42%) Amazon SageMaker
10 1 (0.42%) AWS Lambda
10 1 (0.42%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.42%) Dataform
10 1 (0.42%) Google Analytics
10 1 (0.42%) Microsoft 365
10 1 (0.42%) SaaS
10 1 (0.42%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.27%) Broadband
2 1 (0.42%) Internet
2 1 (0.42%) LTE
2 1 (0.42%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.42%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.42%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (14.77%) Power BI
2 20 (8.44%) Tableau
3 8 (3.38%) SQL Server
4 7 (2.95%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (2.11%) Big Data
6 4 (1.69%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (1.27%) Data Mining
7 3 (1.27%) QGIS
8 2 (0.84%) GIS
8 2 (0.84%) Hadoop
8 2 (0.84%) NoSQL
8 2 (0.84%) Spatial Data
9 1 (0.42%) Geospatial Data
9 1 (0.42%) Looker
9 1 (0.42%) Metabase
9 1 (0.42%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.42%) Pinecone
9 1 (0.42%) PostgreSQL
9 1 (0.42%) Relational Database
9 1 (0.42%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 8 (3.38%) Git
1 8 (3.38%) MLflow
General
1 44 (18.57%) Social Skills
2 36 (15.19%) Analytical Skills
3 31 (13.08%) Finance
4 25 (10.55%) Retail
5 18 (7.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 17 (7.17%) Marketing
7 13 (5.49%) Public Sector
8 10 (4.22%) Publishing
9 5 (2.11%) Law
10 4 (1.69%) Banking
10 4 (1.69%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.69%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.69%) Manufacturing
11 3 (1.27%) Games
11 3 (1.27%) Legal
11 3 (1.27%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
12 2 (0.84%) Social Housing
13 1 (0.42%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.42%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (8.02%) PyTorch
1 19 (8.02%) TensorFlow
2 10 (4.22%) scikit-learn
3 9 (3.80%) EDI
4 5 (2.11%) LangChain
4 5 (2.11%) XGBoost
5 4 (1.69%) Google JAX
5 4 (1.69%) JAX
5 4 (1.69%) PySpark
6 3 (1.27%) Kafka
6 3 (1.27%) SpaCy
7 2 (0.84%) Hugging Face
7 2 (0.84%) NetworkX
7 2 (0.84%) NumPy
7 2 (0.84%) Pandas
7 2 (0.84%) pydantic
7 2 (0.84%) Streamlit
8 1 (0.42%) FastAPI
8 1 (0.42%) GeoPandas
8 1 (0.42%) Shiny
Miscellaneous
1 13 (5.49%) Algorithms
2 11 (4.64%) Data Structures
3 10 (4.22%) FMCG
3 10 (4.22%) Greenfield Project
4 5 (2.11%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.27%) AI Agents
5 3 (1.27%) e-Learning
5 3 (1.27%) Fixed Income
6 2 (0.84%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (0.84%) Cloud Native
6 2 (0.84%) Contract for Difference
6 2 (0.84%) Educational Technology
7 1 (0.42%) Credit Risk
7 1 (0.42%) FPGA
7 1 (0.42%) Genomics
7 1 (0.42%) Life Science
7 1 (0.42%) Omics
7 1 (0.42%) Reinsurance
7 1 (0.42%) Social Network
7 1 (0.42%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.42%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (94.94%) Data Science
2 108 (45.57%) Machine Learning
3 102 (43.04%) AI
4 84 (35.44%) Analytics
5 50 (21.10%) Decision-Making
6 49 (20.68%) Visualisation
7 36 (15.19%) Predictive Modelling
8 34 (14.35%) Business Intelligence
9 31 (13.08%) Mathematics
9 31 (13.08%) Problem-Solving
10 29 (12.24%) Actionable Insight
11 26 (10.97%) LLM
12 25 (10.55%) Data Visualisation
13 24 (10.13%) Storytelling
14 22 (9.28%) Generative AI
14 22 (9.28%) Statistics
15 20 (8.44%) Data Analysis
15 20 (8.44%) Data Modelling
15 20 (8.44%) Natural Language Processing
16 19 (8.02%) Business Strategy
Programming Languages
1 107 (45.15%) Python
2 56 (23.63%) SQL
3 25 (10.55%) R
4 2 (0.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 2 (0.84%) T-SQL
5 1 (0.42%) C++
5 1 (0.42%) Julia
5 1 (0.42%) Scala
Qualifications
1 53 (22.36%) Degree
2 36 (15.19%) Security Cleared
3 30 (12.66%) DV Cleared
4 27 (11.39%) PhD
5 11 (4.64%) DBS Check
6 10 (4.22%) ACCA
6 10 (4.22%) CIMA
6 10 (4.22%) SC Cleared
7 8 (3.38%) Master's Degree
8 3 (1.27%) Azure Certification
9 2 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.42%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.80%) Data Quality
2 3 (1.27%) GDPR
3 2 (0.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.42%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.42%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.42%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 5 (2.11%) Docker
Systems Management
1 4 (1.69%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.42%) Argo
2 1 (0.42%) Terraform
Vendors
1 12 (5.06%) Microsoft
2 11 (4.64%) Salesforce
3 10 (4.22%) Databricks
4 6 (2.53%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.84%) Civica
5 2 (0.84%) Google
5 2 (0.84%) Northgate
5 2 (0.84%) Orchard
6 1 (0.42%) Cognos
6 1 (0.42%) Facebook
6 1 (0.42%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.42%) OpenAI
6 1 (0.42%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud