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 16 April 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 434 405 453
Rank change year-on-year -29 +48 +62
Permanent jobs requiring a Data Scientist 314 235 505
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.37% 0.57% 0.54%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.40% 0.63% 0.57%
Number of salaries quoted 222 110 255
10th Percentile £46,250 £41,125 £44,996
25th Percentile £55,000 £51,250 £52,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £64,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.38% -8.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £90,000 £79,688 £85,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £91,500 £98,750
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 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 79,387 37,056 88,958
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.59% 89.35% 94.57%
Number of salaries quoted 50,792 23,295 66,136
10th Percentile £30,000 £31,250 £28,500
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £53,795
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +11.53% -10.34%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £71,250
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £90,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -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 16 April 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 16 April 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 -10 299 £70,000 +16.67% 130
UK excluding London -50 160 £62,500 +7.76% 75
London +60 145 £80,000 - 80
Work from Home -24 93 £66,720 +4.25% 59
North of England -29 50 £66,720 +21.31% 17
North West -3 39 £72,500 +45.00% 12
Midlands -26 39 £62,500 +38.89% 10
South West -80 33 £60,000 -16.66% 10
East Midlands -30 22 £63,750 +9.91% 7
South East -42 19 £40,000 -33.33% 32
West Midlands -19 17 £55,000 +22.22% 3
East of England -21 12 £86,725 +49.53% 3
Yorkshire -52 7 £66,720 +4.25% 4
Scotland -32 4 £100,000 +42.86% 3
North East - 4 £64,610 - 2
Northern Ireland - 3 - -

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

For the 6 months to 16 April 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.

1 302 (96.18%) Data Science
2 144 (45.86%) Machine Learning
3 128 (40.76%) Python
4 119 (37.90%) AI
5 93 (29.62%) Analytics
6 78 (24.84%) SQL
7 60 (19.11%) Degree
8 59 (18.79%) Visualisation
9 50 (15.92%) Decision-Making
10 43 (13.69%) Power BI
10 43 (13.69%) Power Platform
10 43 (13.69%) Security Cleared
11 39 (12.42%) Business Intelligence
12 38 (12.10%) Mathematics
13 37 (11.78%) Azure
13 37 (11.78%) Predictive Modelling
14 33 (10.51%) AWS
14 33 (10.51%) Data Visualisation
14 33 (10.51%) DV Cleared
14 33 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
15 32 (10.19%) R
15 32 (10.19%) Statistics
16 29 (9.24%) LLM
17 27 (8.60%) Mentoring
18 26 (8.28%) PyTorch
18 26 (8.28%) Tableau
19 25 (7.96%) Actionable Insight
20 24 (7.64%) Computer Science
20 24 (7.64%) Data Analysis
20 24 (7.64%) E-Commerce

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 5 (1.59%) Apache Spark
2 2 (0.64%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.32%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 5 (1.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.64%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.32%) Trello
Business Applications
1 10 (3.18%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 43 (13.69%) Power Platform
2 37 (11.78%) Azure
3 33 (10.51%) AWS
4 16 (5.10%) GCP
5 13 (4.14%) dbt
6 7 (2.23%) Azure Machine Learning
6 7 (2.23%) Snowflake
7 6 (1.91%) Dataform
8 4 (1.27%) Amazon S3
8 4 (1.27%) Amazon SageMaker
8 4 (1.27%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (1.27%) Dynamics 365
8 4 (1.27%) Serverless
8 4 (1.27%) Smartsheet
9 2 (0.64%) Cloud Computing
9 2 (0.64%) Dagster
9 2 (0.64%) SaaS
10 1 (0.32%) Azure Data Factory
10 1 (0.32%) Azure DevOps
10 1 (0.32%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.27%) Broadband
2 3 (0.96%) Software-Defined Radio
3 2 (0.64%) Firewall
4 1 (0.32%) Internet
4 1 (0.32%) LTE
4 1 (0.32%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (0.32%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 43 (13.69%) Power BI
2 26 (8.28%) Tableau
3 10 (3.18%) Data Warehouse
4 8 (2.55%) Looker
4 8 (2.55%) SQL Server
5 6 (1.91%) Metabase
6 5 (1.59%) Big Data
7 4 (1.27%) Data Mining
7 4 (1.27%) NoSQL
8 3 (0.96%) Amazon Athena
8 3 (0.96%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (0.96%) QGIS
9 2 (0.64%) GIS
9 2 (0.64%) Hadoop
9 2 (0.64%) Spatial Data
10 1 (0.32%) Geospatial Data
10 1 (0.32%) MongoDB
10 1 (0.32%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 9 (2.87%) Git
2 8 (2.55%) MLflow
3 1 (0.32%) JIRA
General
1 56 (17.83%) Analytical Skills
2 46 (14.65%) Social Skills
3 44 (14.01%) Finance
4 39 (12.42%) Retail
5 19 (6.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 19 (6.05%) Marketing
6 18 (5.73%) Public Sector
7 10 (3.18%) Publishing
8 8 (2.55%) Manufacturing
9 7 (2.23%) Pharmaceutical
10 5 (1.59%) Law
10 5 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (1.27%) Banking
11 4 (1.27%) Influencing Skills
12 3 (0.96%) Automotive
12 3 (0.96%) Financial Institution
12 3 (0.96%) Games
13 2 (0.64%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.64%) Legal
13 2 (0.64%) Social Housing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (8.28%) PyTorch
2 19 (6.05%) scikit-learn
3 17 (5.41%) TensorFlow
4 12 (3.82%) Pandas
5 9 (2.87%) EDI
6 6 (1.91%) NumPy
6 6 (1.91%) PySpark
6 6 (1.91%) XGBoost
7 4 (1.27%) Google JAX
7 4 (1.27%) JAX
8 3 (0.96%) LangChain
9 2 (0.64%) NetworkX
9 2 (0.64%) SpaCy
9 2 (0.64%) Streamlit
10 1 (0.32%) FastAPI
10 1 (0.32%) Hugging Face
10 1 (0.32%) Kafka
10 1 (0.32%) PostGIS
10 1 (0.32%) Shiny
10 1 (0.32%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 12 (3.82%) Algorithms
2 11 (3.50%) Data Structures
3 10 (3.18%) FMCG
3 10 (3.18%) Greenfield Project
4 6 (1.91%) Product Ownership
5 3 (0.96%) AI Agents
6 2 (0.64%) Cloud Native
6 2 (0.64%) Contract for Difference
6 2 (0.64%) Credit Risk
6 2 (0.64%) Cyber Threat
6 2 (0.64%) e-Learning
6 2 (0.64%) Fixed Income
6 2 (0.64%) Insider Threat
7 1 (0.32%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.32%) FPGA
7 1 (0.32%) Life Science
7 1 (0.32%) Omics
7 1 (0.32%) Reinsurance
7 1 (0.32%) Social Network
7 1 (0.32%) Tandem
Processes & Methodologies
1 302 (96.18%) Data Science
2 144 (45.86%) Machine Learning
3 119 (37.90%) AI
4 93 (29.62%) Analytics
5 59 (18.79%) Visualisation
6 50 (15.92%) Decision-Making
7 39 (12.42%) Business Intelligence
8 38 (12.10%) Mathematics
9 37 (11.78%) Predictive Modelling
10 33 (10.51%) Data Visualisation
10 33 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (10.19%) Statistics
12 29 (9.24%) LLM
13 27 (8.60%) Mentoring
14 25 (7.96%) Actionable Insight
15 24 (7.64%) Computer Science
15 24 (7.64%) Data Analysis
15 24 (7.64%) E-Commerce
15 24 (7.64%) MLOps
15 24 (7.64%) Storytelling
Programming Languages
1 128 (40.76%) Python
2 78 (24.84%) SQL
3 32 (10.19%) R
4 6 (1.91%) Julia
5 4 (1.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 4 (1.27%) T-SQL
6 1 (0.32%) C++
6 1 (0.32%) Scala
Qualifications
1 60 (19.11%) Degree
2 43 (13.69%) Security Cleared
3 33 (10.51%) DV Cleared
4 23 (7.32%) PhD
5 19 (6.05%) DBS Check
6 10 (3.18%) ACCA
6 10 (3.18%) CIMA
6 10 (3.18%) SC Cleared
7 6 (1.91%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.96%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.96%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.64%) CISSP
9 2 (0.64%) CompTIA Security+
9 2 (0.64%) GIAC
9 2 (0.64%) Microsoft Certification
9 2 (0.64%) SANS
10 1 (0.32%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.41%) Data Quality
2 3 (0.96%) GDPR
3 2 (0.64%) QA
4 1 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.32%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 7 (2.23%) Docker
Systems Management
1 6 (1.91%) Kubernetes
2 2 (0.64%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
2 2 (0.64%) Computer Incident Response Team
2 2 (0.64%) Kubeflow
2 2 (0.64%) Terraform
3 1 (0.32%) Argo
Vendors
1 15 (4.78%) Databricks
2 13 (4.14%) Microsoft
3 10 (3.18%) Google
3 10 (3.18%) Salesforce
4 6 (1.91%) ServiceNow
5 2 (0.64%) Civica
5 2 (0.64%) Northgate
5 2 (0.64%) Orchard
6 1 (0.32%) Cognizant
6 1 (0.32%) Mapbox
6 1 (0.32%) OpenAI