Data Scientist Job Trends

Data Scientist
UK

The median Data Scientist salary in the UK is £72,500 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 15 September 2025.

The table below provides salary benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 522 491 501
Rank change year-on-year -31 +10 +24
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 148 313 282
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 0.30% 0.40% 0.46%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.34% 0.42% 0.49%
Number of salaries quoted 86 140 234
10th Percentile £42,500 £38,620 £43,734
25th Percentile £52,500 £49,396 £46,570
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £72,500 £62,879 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year +15.30% +4.80% -7.69%
75th Percentile £87,500 £80,000 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,875 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £60,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -8.33% - +5.15%

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 44,026 73,874 58,090
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 89.61% 95.25% 93.95%
Number of salaries quoted 25,758 44,964 44,983
10th Percentile £28,250 £30,000 £32,500
25th Percentile £36,250 £40,000 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £55,000 £60,000
Median % change year-on-year - -8.33% -
75th Percentile £75,000 £73,750 £80,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £92,500 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £47,500 £50,000 £52,500
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -

Data Scientist
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured Data Scientist in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Data Scientist 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 -29 126 £72,500 +15.30% 306
London +19 83 £80,000 +14.29% 217
UK excluding London -2 48 £55,000 -8.33% 162
Work from Home -37 43 £70,000 +11.32% 139
North of England -10 17 £55,000 -12.53% 32
North West +1 15 £60,000 - 28
Midlands +35 9 £65,000 -2.17% 6
South West +54 7 £70,000 +19.15% 4
South East +19 6 £42,500 -13.96% 91
Scotland +50 5 £57,500 - 13
East Midlands +25 5 £80,000 +77.78% 3
West Midlands +39 4 £62,125 -22.34% 3
East of England -5 3 £43,750 -33.96% 8
North East +7 1 £52,000 -17.30%
Yorkshire +1 1 £55,000 -12.53% 4
Northern Ireland - 1 £40,000 - 5

Data Scientist Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 September 2025, Data Scientist job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads featuring Data Scientist in the job title.

1 148 (100.00%) Data Science
2 128 (86.49%) Python
3 106 (71.62%) Machine Learning
4 85 (57.43%) Analytics
5 77 (52.03%) SQL
6 71 (47.97%) Degree
7 57 (38.51%) Artificial Intelligence
8 54 (36.49%) Master's Degree
9 53 (35.81%) Mathematics
10 52 (35.14%) Statistics
11 45 (30.41%) Visualisation
12 42 (28.38%) Azure
12 42 (28.38%) AWS
13 41 (27.70%) PhD
14 39 (26.35%) Problem-Solving
15 36 (24.32%) Social Skills
15 36 (24.32%) MLOps
15 36 (24.32%) Finance
16 35 (23.65%) Analytical Skills
17 32 (21.62%) Decision-Making
18 30 (20.27%) Computer Science
19 28 (18.92%) Algorithms
19 28 (18.92%) DevOps
20 26 (17.57%) Marketing
21 24 (16.22%) Law
21 24 (16.22%) scikit-learn
22 22 (14.86%) Pandas
22 22 (14.86%) Statistical Modelling
22 22 (14.86%) Data Analysis
23 21 (14.19%) Natural Language Processing

Data Scientist Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 19 (12.84%) Apache Spark
2 11 (7.43%) Apache Airflow
3 8 (5.41%) Apache
4 4 (2.70%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 4 (2.70%) Chatbot
2 3 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
Cloud Services
1 42 (28.38%) AWS
1 42 (28.38%) Azure
2 19 (12.84%) GCP
3 12 (8.11%) Power Platform
4 11 (7.43%) Google Analytics
5 10 (6.76%) Adobe Analytics
6 5 (3.38%) Amazon SageMaker
6 5 (3.38%) Azure Machine Learning
7 4 (2.70%) Azure Data Factory
8 3 (2.03%) GitHub
9 2 (1.35%) AWS Lambda
9 2 (1.35%) Azure DevOps
9 2 (1.35%) Dagster
9 2 (1.35%) dbt
9 2 (1.35%) Prefect
9 2 (1.35%) Serverless
10 1 (0.68%) Anthropic Claude
10 1 (0.68%) ChatGPT
10 1 (0.68%) GitHub Copilot
10 1 (0.68%) Vertex AI
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.68%) Broadband
1 1 (0.68%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (11.49%) Tableau
2 12 (8.11%) Power BI
3 8 (5.41%) Relational Database
4 7 (4.73%) Amazon Redshift
5 5 (3.38%) Big Data
5 5 (3.38%) GIS
6 4 (2.70%) Data Mining
6 4 (2.70%) Geospatial Data
6 4 (2.70%) QGIS
6 4 (2.70%) Spatial Data
6 4 (2.70%) SQL Server
7 3 (2.03%) Hadoop
7 3 (2.03%) Neo4j
8 2 (1.35%) Apache Hive
8 2 (1.35%) Data Lake
8 2 (1.35%) Electronic Patient Records
8 2 (1.35%) NoSQL
9 1 (0.68%) Mixpanel
9 1 (0.68%) MongoDB
9 1 (0.68%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 14 (9.46%) Git
2 3 (2.03%) MLflow
3 1 (0.68%) JIRA
General
1 36 (24.32%) Finance
1 36 (24.32%) Social Skills
2 35 (23.65%) Analytical Skills
3 26 (17.57%) Marketing
4 24 (16.22%) Law
5 16 (10.81%) Games
6 13 (8.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (7.43%) Retail
8 9 (6.08%) Banking
8 9 (6.08%) Manufacturing
9 8 (5.41%) Public Sector
10 7 (4.73%) Financial Institution
11 4 (2.70%) Legal
11 4 (2.70%) Pharmaceutical
12 3 (2.03%) Electronics
12 3 (2.03%) Telecoms
13 2 (1.35%) Advertising
13 2 (1.35%) Front Office
13 2 (1.35%) Retail Banking
14 1 (0.68%) Automotive
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (16.22%) scikit-learn
2 22 (14.86%) Pandas
3 17 (11.49%) TensorFlow
4 16 (10.81%) PyTorch
5 13 (8.78%) NumPy
5 13 (8.78%) PySpark
6 8 (5.41%) SpaCy
6 8 (5.41%) XGBoost
7 6 (4.05%) LangChain
8 4 (2.70%) PostGIS
9 3 (2.03%) Hugging Face
9 3 (2.03%) Keras
10 2 (1.35%) LightGBM
10 2 (1.35%) Plotly
10 2 (1.35%) PyMC3
10 2 (1.35%) pytest
10 2 (1.35%) SciPy
10 2 (1.35%) Shiny
10 2 (1.35%) Smart Contracts
10 2 (1.35%) Statsmodels
Miscellaneous
1 28 (18.92%) Algorithms
2 11 (7.43%) Self-Motivation
3 7 (4.73%) Reinsurance
4 5 (3.38%) Biopharmaceutical
4 5 (3.38%) e-Learning
5 4 (2.70%) Credit Risk
6 3 (2.03%) AI Agents
6 3 (2.03%) Cloud Native
6 3 (2.03%) Driving Licence
6 3 (2.03%) Greenfield Project
6 3 (2.03%) Life Science
7 2 (1.35%) Blockchain
7 2 (1.35%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (1.35%) Renewable Energy
7 2 (1.35%) Sports Betting
8 1 (0.68%) Blog
8 1 (0.68%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.68%) Digital Media
8 1 (0.68%) IoT
8 1 (0.68%) Semantic Web
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (100.00%) Data Science
2 106 (71.62%) Machine Learning
3 85 (57.43%) Analytics
4 57 (38.51%) Artificial Intelligence
5 53 (35.81%) Mathematics
6 52 (35.14%) Statistics
7 45 (30.41%) Visualisation
8 39 (26.35%) Problem-Solving
9 36 (24.32%) MLOps
10 32 (21.62%) Decision-Making
11 30 (20.27%) Computer Science
12 28 (18.92%) DevOps
13 22 (14.86%) Data Analysis
13 22 (14.86%) Statistical Modelling
14 21 (14.19%) Natural Language Processing
15 20 (13.51%) LLM
15 20 (13.51%) Predictive Modelling
16 19 (12.84%) Data Pipeline
16 19 (12.84%) Statistical Analysis
17 18 (12.16%) Data Analytics
Programming Languages
1 128 (86.49%) Python
2 77 (52.03%) SQL
3 21 (14.19%) R
4 7 (4.73%) JavaScript
5 3 (2.03%) T-SQL
6 2 (1.35%) C++
7 1 (0.68%) Java
7 1 (0.68%) Julia
7 1 (0.68%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 71 (47.97%) Degree
2 54 (36.49%) Master's Degree
3 41 (27.70%) PhD
4 8 (5.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (2.70%) DBS Check
6 3 (2.03%) Numerate Degree
6 3 (2.03%) Postgraduate
7 2 (1.35%) Security Cleared
8 1 (0.68%) AWS Certification
8 1 (0.68%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.68%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (8.11%) Data Quality
2 3 (2.03%) Accessibility
3 2 (1.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.68%) GDPR
System Software
1 13 (8.78%) Docker
Systems Management
1 3 (2.03%) Kubernetes
2 1 (0.68%) Terraform
Vendors
1 18 (12.16%) Databricks
2 11 (7.43%) Google
3 10 (6.76%) Adobe
3 10 (6.76%) Marketo
3 10 (6.76%) Salesforce
3 10 (6.76%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
4 4 (2.70%) Mapinfo
5 3 (2.03%) SAP
6 2 (1.35%) Microsoft
7 1 (0.68%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.68%) Amplitude
7 1 (0.68%) Foundry
7 1 (0.68%) PayPal