Senior Data Scientist Job Trends

Senior Data Scientist
UK

The median Senior Data Scientist salary in the UK is £90,000 per year, according to job vacancies posted during the 6 months leading to 16 October 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 485 628 590
Rank change year-on-year +143 -38 +81
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Data Scientist 360 41 166
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.30% 0.084% 0.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.33% 0.093% 0.25%
Number of salaries quoted 192 14 56
10th Percentile £65,000 £75,750 £57,448
25th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £57,646
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £85,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +5.88% +21.43% -13.85%
75th Percentile £100,000 £90,000 £85,313
90th Percentile - £96,750 £108,125
UK excluding London median annual salary £90,000 £85,000 £62,879
% change year-on-year +5.88% +35.18% -22.61%

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.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 110,105 43,964 67,208
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 92.43% 89.90% 95.34%
Number of salaries quoted 74,779 25,831 38,509
10th Percentile £30,000 £28,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,000 £35,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £58,396 £53,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.15% -2.73% -8.33%
75th Percentile £76,250 £73,750 £75,000
90th Percentile £98,750 £95,000 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £46,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year +19.57% -8.00% -4.76%

Senior Data Scientist Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings featuring 'Senior Data Scientist' in the job title relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Senior Data Scientist job vacancy trend in the UK

Senior Data Scientist Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for Senior Data Scientist job vacancies in the UK.

Salary distribution trend for Senior Data Scientist job vacancies in the UK

Senior Data Scientist Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Senior Data Scientist over the 6 months to 16 October 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Data Scientist in the UK

Senior Data Scientist Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Senior Data Scientist within the UK over the 6 months to 16 October 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 +146 336 £90,000 +5.88% 303
London +74 183 £95,000 +11.76% 194
UK excluding London +30 167 £90,000 +5.88% 113
Work from Home +40 90 £75,026 -11.73% 157
North of England -13 55 £90,000 +9.09% 32
South East -11 45 £90,000 - 26
Midlands - 36 £75,000 - 19
East Midlands - 34 £75,000 - 7
North West -4 28 £90,000 +9.09% 18
Yorkshire - 24 £90,000 - 14
South West -58 13 £75,000 -11.76% 12
Wales - 8 £100,000 - 8
Northern Ireland - 7 £90,000 -
North East - 3 £100,000 -
Scotland - 2 £75,013 - 2
West Midlands - 2 £75,013 - 12
East of England - 1 £65,000 - 14

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

For the 6 months to 16 October 2026, Senior 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 Senior Data Scientist in the job title.

RankSkillShareJob Ads
1Data Science100.0%360
2Machine Learning50.8%183
3AI38.3%138
4Python33.9%122
5Analytics27.8%100
6Mentoring17.8%64
7SQL16.4%59
8MLOps15.3%55
9Degree15.0%54
10CI/CD13.1%47
11Actionable Insight12.8%46
12Roadmaps12.5%45
12Software Engineering12.5%45
14Azure11.4%41
15Decision-Making11.1%40
16Natural Language Processing10.8%39
17AWS9.7%35
17Master's Degree9.7%35
17Predictive Modelling9.7%35
20Data Engineering9.4%34
20Generative AI9.4%34
22Statistics9.2%33
23Apache Spark8.9%32
23PhD8.9%32
25Collaborative Culture8.6%31
25LLM8.6%31
27GCP8.3%30
27PyTorch8.3%30
29TensorFlow8.1%29
30Amazon Redshift7.5%27

Senior Data Scientist Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Job Titles

RankJob TitleShareJob Ads
1Lead Data Scientist31.4%113
2Principal Data Scientist10.6%38
3Research Scientist6.1%22
4Machine Learning Scientist3.9%14
5Lead Developer3.6%13
5Senior Data Engineer3.6%13
7Machine Learning Researcher2.8%10
8Artificial Intelligence Engineer2.5%9
9Senior Data Warehouse Specialist1.4%5
10Research Software Engineer1.1%4
10Senior Software Engineer1.1%4
12Statistician0.8%3
13Data Science Leader0.6%2
14Associate Director0.3%1
344 Senior Data Scientist jobs Nationwide