Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £67,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 27 November 2025.

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

6 months to
27 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 513 486 485
Rank change year-on-year -27 -1 +55
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 148 282 227
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.27% 0.42% 0.45%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.30% 0.45% 0.47%
Number of salaries quoted 98 127 158
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,287 £42,850
25th Percentile £52,500 £51,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £67,500 £62,879 £70,288
Median % change year-on-year +7.35% -10.54% +8.14%
75th Percentile £85,000 £77,500 £89,375
90th Percentile £91,500 £92,900 £100,375
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £58,000 £67,500
% change year-on-year +7.76% -14.07% +17.39%

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 48,668 63,346 48,348
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.27% 94.33% 95.32%
Number of salaries quoted 30,738 35,437 37,585
10th Percentile £28,250 £32,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £36,000 £42,500 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £57,500 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.17% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £77,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £92,500 £95,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £52,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -8.65% -0.95% -

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 27 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 27 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 -9 138 £65,000 +3.37% 131
London +39 89 £75,000 +8.15% 83
UK excluding London -18 56 £62,500 +7.76% 82
Work from Home +18 37 £57,500 -8.55% 87
North of England +9 19 £62,500 -0.60% 9
North West +40 14 £60,000 -6.16% 7
Midlands +30 11 £62,500 +31.58% 20
South East +33 10 £48,750 -15.22% 38
East Midlands +30 8 £62,500 +7.76% 16
South West +17 6 £85,000 +25.93% 5
Scotland -5 6 £100,000 - 8
West Midlands +43 3 £59,250 +48.13% 3
East of England +32 3 £58,750 +1.29%
Yorkshire -18 3 £62,500 -0.60% 2
North East +9 2 £62,500 +21.66%
Northern Ireland +3 1 £40,000 - 2

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

For the 6 months to 27 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.

1 146 (98.65%) Data Science
2 111 (75.00%) Python
3 103 (69.59%) Machine Learning
4 71 (47.97%) Analytics
5 65 (43.92%) SQL
6 62 (41.89%) AI
7 53 (35.81%) Degree
8 47 (31.76%) Visualisation
9 41 (27.70%) Problem-Solving
10 37 (25.00%) PhD
11 36 (24.32%) Decision-Making
12 35 (23.65%) Master's Degree
12 35 (23.65%) Mathematics
13 34 (22.97%) AWS
13 34 (22.97%) Azure
14 33 (22.30%) Statistics
15 29 (19.59%) Predictive Modelling
16 28 (18.92%) MLOps
17 26 (17.57%) Natural Language Processing
18 25 (16.89%) LLM
19 23 (15.54%) DevOps
20 22 (14.86%) Statistical Analysis
20 22 (14.86%) Statistical Modelling
21 19 (12.84%) Data Pipeline
21 19 (12.84%) Mentoring
21 19 (12.84%) scikit-learn
22 18 (12.16%) Business Intelligence
22 18 (12.16%) GCP
22 18 (12.16%) Power BI
22 18 (12.16%) Power Platform

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 (8.78%) Apache Spark
2 6 (4.05%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (2.70%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.68%) Apache
Applications
1 3 (2.03%) Chatbot
1 3 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.35%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 34 (22.97%) AWS
1 34 (22.97%) Azure
2 18 (12.16%) GCP
2 18 (12.16%) Power Platform
3 8 (5.41%) Snowflake
4 6 (4.05%) dbt
5 5 (3.38%) Dagster
6 3 (2.03%) GitHub
6 3 (2.03%) Google Analytics
7 2 (1.35%) Amazon SageMaker
7 2 (1.35%) Azure Machine Learning
7 2 (1.35%) Prefect
7 2 (1.35%) SaaS
8 1 (0.68%) Anthropic Claude
8 1 (0.68%) AWS Lambda
8 1 (0.68%) Azure AI
8 1 (0.68%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (0.68%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (0.68%) GitHub Copilot
8 1 (0.68%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.03%) Broadband
2 1 (0.68%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (12.16%) Power BI
2 12 (8.11%) Tableau
3 7 (4.73%) Amazon Redshift
4 6 (4.05%) Relational Database
5 5 (3.38%) Big Data
5 5 (3.38%) Data Warehouse
5 5 (3.38%) Geospatial Data
5 5 (3.38%) GIS
5 5 (3.38%) QGIS
6 4 (2.70%) Data Mining
6 4 (2.70%) Spatial Data
6 4 (2.70%) SQL Server
7 3 (2.03%) NoSQL
8 2 (1.35%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (1.35%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.68%) Hadoop
9 1 (0.68%) Neo4j
9 1 (0.68%) Parquet
9 1 (0.68%) PostgreSQL
9 1 (0.68%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 9 (6.08%) Git
2 4 (2.70%) MLflow
General
1 40 (27.03%) Social Skills
2 38 (25.68%) Finance
3 30 (20.27%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (12.16%) Marketing
5 13 (8.78%) Games
5 13 (8.78%) Law
6 10 (6.76%) Retail
7 9 (6.08%) Banking
8 7 (4.73%) Financial Institution
8 7 (4.73%) Manufacturing
9 6 (4.05%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (2.70%) Legal
10 4 (2.70%) Public Sector
11 3 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
12 2 (1.35%) Advertising
12 2 (1.35%) Publishing
13 1 (0.68%) Billing
13 1 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
13 1 (0.68%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 19 (12.84%) scikit-learn
2 17 (11.49%) Pandas
3 15 (10.14%) PyTorch
4 14 (9.46%) TensorFlow
5 12 (8.11%) PySpark
6 9 (6.08%) NumPy
7 8 (5.41%) SpaCy
7 8 (5.41%) XGBoost
8 6 (4.05%) LangChain
9 5 (3.38%) PostGIS
10 3 (2.03%) Hugging Face
10 3 (2.03%) Streamlit
11 2 (1.35%) Django
11 2 (1.35%) Kafka
11 2 (1.35%) LightGBM
11 2 (1.35%) pydantic
11 2 (1.35%) pytest
12 1 (0.68%) SQLAlchemy
12 1 (0.68%) Unity (Game Engine)
12 1 (0.68%) Unreal Engine
Miscellaneous
1 22 (14.86%) Algorithms
2 7 (4.73%) e-Learning
3 6 (4.05%) Reinsurance
4 5 (3.38%) Greenfield Project
5 4 (2.70%) Cloud Native
5 4 (2.70%) Credit Risk
5 4 (2.70%) Life Science
6 3 (2.03%) AI Agents
6 3 (2.03%) Driving Licence
6 3 (2.03%) Fixed Income
6 3 (2.03%) FMCG
7 2 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.35%) Data Structures
7 2 (1.35%) Educational Technology
7 2 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.68%) Genomics
8 1 (0.68%) Omics
8 1 (0.68%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.68%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.68%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (98.65%) Data Science
2 103 (69.59%) Machine Learning
3 71 (47.97%) Analytics
4 62 (41.89%) AI
5 47 (31.76%) Visualisation
6 41 (27.70%) Problem-Solving
7 36 (24.32%) Decision-Making
8 35 (23.65%) Mathematics
9 33 (22.30%) Statistics
10 29 (19.59%) Predictive Modelling
11 28 (18.92%) MLOps
12 26 (17.57%) Natural Language Processing
13 25 (16.89%) LLM
14 23 (15.54%) DevOps
15 22 (14.86%) Statistical Analysis
15 22 (14.86%) Statistical Modelling
16 19 (12.84%) Data Pipeline
16 19 (12.84%) Mentoring
17 18 (12.16%) Business Intelligence
18 17 (11.49%) CI/CD
Programming Languages
1 111 (75.00%) Python
2 65 (43.92%) SQL
3 13 (8.78%) R
4 5 (3.38%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.03%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.68%) C++
6 1 (0.68%) Java
6 1 (0.68%) Julia
6 1 (0.68%) Scala
Qualifications
1 53 (35.81%) Degree
2 37 (25.00%) PhD
3 35 (23.65%) Master's Degree
4 9 (6.08%) DBS Check
5 4 (2.70%) Computer Science Degree
6 2 (1.35%) ACCA
6 2 (1.35%) CIMA
6 2 (1.35%) Numerate Degree
6 2 (1.35%) Postgraduate
6 2 (1.35%) Security Cleared
7 1 (0.68%) AWS Certification
7 1 (0.68%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.68%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.68%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (8.11%) Data Quality
2 3 (2.03%) GDPR
3 2 (1.35%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.68%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.68%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 13 (8.78%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (2.03%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.68%) Argo
Vendors
1 11 (7.43%) Databricks
2 5 (3.38%) Microsoft
3 4 (2.70%) Mapinfo
3 4 (2.70%) Salesforce
4 3 (2.03%) Google
5 2 (1.35%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6 1 (0.68%) Adobe
6 1 (0.68%) Alteryx
6 1 (0.68%) Amplitude
6 1 (0.68%) Civica
6 1 (0.68%) Cognos
6 1 (0.68%) Facebook
6 1 (0.68%) Foundry
6 1 (0.68%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.68%) Marketo
6 1 (0.68%) Northgate
6 1 (0.68%) Orchard
6 1 (0.68%) SAP