Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £65,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 21 January 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 445 467 372
Rank change year-on-year +22 -95 +150
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 194 250 443
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.32% 0.47% 0.70%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.35% 0.51% 0.74%
Number of salaries quoted 127 96 222
10th Percentile £42,500 £37,625 £45,000
25th Percentile £51,250 £51,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £65,000 £60,000 £70,288
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -14.64% +8.14%
75th Percentile £86,250 £74,164 £87,188
90th Percentile £100,000 £88,750 £102,375
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 55,891 49,062 59,885
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.82% 92.63% 95.21%
Number of salaries quoted 34,637 25,329 46,560
10th Percentile £28,697 £33,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,097
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +8.90% -8.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £98,474 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £53,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -5.66% +6.00% -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 21 January 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 21 January 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 +34 183 £65,000 +8.33% 120
London +80 112 £80,000 +18.52% 57
UK excluding London -25 77 £60,000 +4.35% 80
Work from Home +36 59 £60,000 - 60
North of England -25 21 £62,500 +13.64% 12
South West +13 17 £60,000 -14.29% 7
North West +9 17 £61,418 +6.81% 10
South East +22 16 £40,000 -31.03% 43
Midlands +6 10 £58,750 +38.24% 5
East of England +19 7 £90,000 +55.17% 9
East Midlands -2 6 £53,945 -6.99% 3
Scotland -22 5 £100,000 - 4
West Midlands +2 4 £70,000 +75.00% 2
North East 0 2 £62,500 +56.78% 1
Yorkshire -34 2 £62,500 -6.37% 1
Northern Ireland -8 1 £40,000 - 1

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

For the 6 months to 21 January 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.

1 185 (95.36%) Data Science
2 108 (55.67%) Python
3 106 (54.64%) Machine Learning
4 83 (42.78%) AI
5 76 (39.18%) Analytics
6 54 (27.84%) Degree
7 51 (26.29%) SQL
8 44 (22.68%) Visualisation
9 40 (20.62%) Problem-Solving
10 38 (19.59%) PhD
11 34 (17.53%) Azure
11 34 (17.53%) Predictive Modelling
12 33 (17.01%) Decision-Making
13 29 (14.95%) Statistics
14 28 (14.43%) AWS
14 28 (14.43%) Mathematics
14 28 (14.43%) Power BI
14 28 (14.43%) Power Platform
15 27 (13.92%) Business Intelligence
15 27 (13.92%) Natural Language Processing
16 26 (13.40%) Master's Degree
16 26 (13.40%) Storytelling
17 25 (12.89%) LLM
18 23 (11.86%) Security Cleared
19 21 (10.82%) Actionable Insight
19 21 (10.82%) MLOps
19 21 (10.82%) PyTorch
20 19 (9.79%) Business Strategy
20 19 (9.79%) Generative AI
21 18 (9.28%) Data Visualisation

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 10 (5.15%) Apache Spark
2 4 (2.06%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.03%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 3 (1.55%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 8 (4.12%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 34 (17.53%) Azure
2 28 (14.43%) AWS
2 28 (14.43%) Power Platform
3 15 (7.73%) GCP
4 7 (3.61%) dbt
4 7 (3.61%) Snowflake
5 5 (2.58%) Dagster
6 3 (1.55%) Google Analytics
7 2 (1.03%) Prefect
7 2 (1.03%) SaaS
8 1 (0.52%) Adobe Analytics
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon S3
8 1 (0.52%) Amazon SageMaker
8 1 (0.52%) Azure AI
8 1 (0.52%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (0.52%) Azure Machine Learning
8 1 (0.52%) Cloud Computing
8 1 (0.52%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (0.52%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.06%) Broadband
2 1 (0.52%) Internet
2 1 (0.52%) LTE
2 1 (0.52%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (0.52%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (0.52%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (14.43%) Power BI
2 17 (8.76%) Tableau
3 7 (3.61%) Amazon Redshift
3 7 (3.61%) SQL Server
4 5 (2.58%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (2.06%) Big Data
6 3 (1.55%) QGIS
7 2 (1.03%) Data Mining
7 2 (1.03%) GIS
7 2 (1.03%) NoSQL
7 2 (1.03%) Spatial Data
8 1 (0.52%) ClickHouse
8 1 (0.52%) Geospatial Data
8 1 (0.52%) Hadoop
8 1 (0.52%) Mixpanel
8 1 (0.52%) MongoDB
8 1 (0.52%) Parquet
8 1 (0.52%) PostgreSQL
8 1 (0.52%) Relational Database
8 1 (0.52%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 11 (5.67%) Git
2 4 (2.06%) MLflow
General
1 42 (21.65%) Finance
1 42 (21.65%) Social Skills
2 38 (19.59%) Analytical Skills
3 22 (11.34%) Retail
4 21 (10.82%) Marketing
5 9 (4.64%) Banking
5 9 (4.64%) Games
6 8 (4.12%) Financial Institution
6 8 (4.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 8 (4.12%) Law
6 8 (4.12%) Publishing
7 6 (3.09%) Pharmaceutical
8 5 (2.58%) Manufacturing
9 4 (2.06%) Legal
9 4 (2.06%) Public Sector
10 3 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.52%) Digital Healthcare
11 1 (0.52%) Health Technology
11 1 (0.52%) Social Housing
11 1 (0.52%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (10.82%) PyTorch
2 16 (8.25%) TensorFlow
3 13 (6.70%) scikit-learn
4 12 (6.19%) Pandas
4 12 (6.19%) PySpark
5 8 (4.12%) EDI
6 7 (3.61%) NumPy
6 7 (3.61%) SpaCy
7 5 (2.58%) LangChain
7 5 (2.58%) XGBoost
8 4 (2.06%) Google JAX
8 4 (2.06%) JAX
9 3 (1.55%) Kafka
10 2 (1.03%) Hugging Face
10 2 (1.03%) LightGBM
10 2 (1.03%) NetworkX
10 2 (1.03%) pydantic
10 2 (1.03%) Streamlit
11 1 (0.52%) Faiss
11 1 (0.52%) Semantic Kernel
Miscellaneous
1 20 (10.31%) Algorithms
2 9 (4.64%) Data Structures
2 9 (4.64%) Greenfield Project
3 8 (4.12%) FMCG
4 7 (3.61%) e-Learning
5 5 (2.58%) Reinsurance
6 4 (2.06%) Cloud Native
6 4 (2.06%) Life Science
6 4 (2.06%) Product Ownership
7 3 (1.55%) Fixed Income
8 2 (1.03%) AI Agents
8 2 (1.03%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (1.03%) Credit Risk
8 2 (1.03%) Educational Technology
8 2 (1.03%) Self-Motivation
9 1 (0.52%) Biopharmaceutical
9 1 (0.52%) Digital Media
9 1 (0.52%) Genomics
9 1 (0.52%) IoT
9 1 (0.52%) Omics
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.52%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 185 (95.36%) Data Science
2 106 (54.64%) Machine Learning
3 83 (42.78%) AI
4 76 (39.18%) Analytics
5 44 (22.68%) Visualisation
6 40 (20.62%) Problem-Solving
7 34 (17.53%) Predictive Modelling
8 33 (17.01%) Decision-Making
9 29 (14.95%) Statistics
10 28 (14.43%) Mathematics
11 27 (13.92%) Business Intelligence
11 27 (13.92%) Natural Language Processing
12 26 (13.40%) Storytelling
13 25 (12.89%) LLM
14 21 (10.82%) Actionable Insight
14 21 (10.82%) MLOps
15 19 (9.79%) Business Strategy
15 19 (9.79%) Generative AI
16 18 (9.28%) Data Visualisation
16 18 (9.28%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 108 (55.67%) Python
2 51 (26.29%) SQL
3 13 (6.70%) R
4 1 (0.52%) C++
4 1 (0.52%) Scala
Qualifications
1 54 (27.84%) Degree
2 38 (19.59%) PhD
3 26 (13.40%) Master's Degree
4 23 (11.86%) Security Cleared
5 18 (9.28%) DV Cleared
6 10 (5.15%) DBS Check
6 10 (5.15%) SC Cleared
7 8 (4.12%) ACCA
7 8 (4.12%) CIMA
8 3 (1.55%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.52%) AWS Certification
9 1 (0.52%) Azure Certification
9 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.15%) Data Quality
2 2 (1.03%) GDPR
2 2 (1.03%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 1 (0.52%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
3 1 (0.52%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 12 (6.19%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (1.55%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.52%) Argo
Vendors
1 10 (5.15%) Salesforce
2 9 (4.64%) Databricks
3 8 (4.12%) Microsoft
4 3 (1.55%) Google
5 2 (1.03%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6 1 (0.52%) Adobe
6 1 (0.52%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.52%) Amplitude
6 1 (0.52%) Civica
6 1 (0.52%) Cognos
6 1 (0.52%) Facebook
6 1 (0.52%) Foundry
6 1 (0.52%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.52%) Marketo
6 1 (0.52%) Northgate
6 1 (0.52%) Orchard