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 12 January 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 581 598 608
Rank change year-on-year +17 +10 +194
Permanent jobs requiring a Senior Data Scientist 61 109 127
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 0.10% 0.20% 0.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.11% 0.22% 0.24%
Number of salaries quoted 32 30 77
10th Percentile £59,655 £59,375 £67,731
25th Percentile £65,000 £63,125 £68,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £90,000 £70,996 £90,000
Median % change year-on-year +26.77% -21.12% +28.57%
75th Percentile £100,000 £85,000 £97,500
90th Percentile - £95,375 £117,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £85,000 £70,996 £92,778
% change year-on-year +19.73% -23.48% +42.73%

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 53,744 49,685 53,403
% of permanent jobs with a recognized job title 90.63% 92.91% 95.27%
Number of salaries quoted 33,208 25,763 41,197
10th Percentile £28,500 £33,500 £30,000
25th Percentile £36,250 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £75,000 £78,750 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £97,500 £96,250
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -4.76% +5.00% -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 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Senior Data Scientist in the UK

Senior Data Scientist
Top 11 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 12 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 +49 60 £90,000 +25.02% 42
London +52 47 £90,000 +20.00% 28
Work from Home +34 17 £100,000 +38.91% 23
UK excluding London +12 13 £85,000 +19.73% 24
South East +29 4 £40,000 -54.29% 14
East of England +26 4 £100,000 - 4
South West +9 3 £100,000 +38.91% 1
North West +29 1 £61,418 -
West Midlands +16 1 £85,000 +33.33% 1
Midlands +13 1 £85,000 +33.33% 2
North of England -6 1 £61,418 -26.45%

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

For the 6 months to 12 January 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.

1 61 (100.00%) Data Science
2 36 (59.02%) Machine Learning
3 31 (50.82%) Python
4 23 (37.70%) AI
5 22 (36.07%) Analytics
6 19 (31.15%) Degree
7 17 (27.87%) PhD
8 14 (22.95%) AWS
8 14 (22.95%) Azure
8 14 (22.95%) CI/CD
8 14 (22.95%) MLOps
9 13 (21.31%) Master's Degree
9 13 (21.31%) Mentoring
9 13 (21.31%) Natural Language Processing
9 13 (21.31%) SQL
10 12 (19.67%) GCP
10 12 (19.67%) Mathematics
10 12 (19.67%) Statistics
11 11 (18.03%) Security Cleared
12 10 (16.39%) DV Cleared
13 9 (14.75%) Data Engineering
13 9 (14.75%) Problem-Solving
14 8 (13.11%) Collaborative Culture
14 8 (13.11%) DevOps
14 8 (13.11%) Visualisation
15 7 (11.48%) Amazon Redshift
15 7 (11.48%) Apache Spark
15 7 (11.48%) Computer Science
15 7 (11.48%) Data Analysis
15 7 (11.48%) Decision-Making

Senior 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 7 (11.48%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.64%) Apache Airflow
Cloud Services
1 14 (22.95%) AWS
1 14 (22.95%) Azure
2 12 (19.67%) GCP
3 2 (3.28%) Power Platform
4 1 (1.64%) Adobe Analytics
4 1 (1.64%) Amazon S3
4 1 (1.64%) Azure Machine Learning
4 1 (1.64%) dbt
4 1 (1.64%) Google Analytics
4 1 (1.64%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 4 (6.56%) Broadband
2 1 (1.64%) LTE
2 1 (1.64%) Software-Defined Radio
2 1 (1.64%) Wi-Fi
2 1 (1.64%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (11.48%) Amazon Redshift
2 3 (4.92%) Big Data
3 2 (3.28%) Power BI
4 1 (1.64%) MongoDB
4 1 (1.64%) NoSQL
4 1 (1.64%) Pinecone
4 1 (1.64%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (1.64%) QGIS
4 1 (1.64%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 3 (4.92%) Git
2 1 (1.64%) MLflow
General
1 15 (24.59%) Finance
2 11 (18.03%) Analytical Skills
2 11 (18.03%) Social Skills
3 8 (13.11%) Banking
3 8 (13.11%) Financial Institution
4 5 (8.20%) Marketing
4 5 (8.20%) Retail
5 4 (6.56%) Manufacturing
6 2 (3.28%) Games
7 1 (1.64%) Advertising
7 1 (1.64%) Digital Economy
7 1 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 1 (1.64%) Law
7 1 (1.64%) Legal
7 1 (1.64%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.64%) Public Sector
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (11.48%) PyTorch
1 7 (11.48%) SpaCy
2 6 (9.84%) scikit-learn
3 5 (8.20%) NumPy
3 5 (8.20%) Pandas
3 5 (8.20%) TensorFlow
4 4 (6.56%) PySpark
5 2 (3.28%) NetworkX
5 2 (3.28%) Streamlit
5 2 (3.28%) XGBoost
6 1 (1.64%) Faiss
6 1 (1.64%) FastAPI
6 1 (1.64%) GeoPandas
6 1 (1.64%) Hugging Face
6 1 (1.64%) Kafka
6 1 (1.64%) LangChain
6 1 (1.64%) LightGBM
6 1 (1.64%) MapLibre
6 1 (1.64%) PostGIS
6 1 (1.64%) ZeroMQ
Miscellaneous
1 7 (11.48%) e-Learning
2 5 (8.20%) Algorithms
3 2 (3.28%) AI Agents
4 1 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (1.64%) Cloud Native
4 1 (1.64%) Clustering
4 1 (1.64%) Credit Risk
4 1 (1.64%) Data Structures
4 1 (1.64%) Digital Media
4 1 (1.64%) FPGA
4 1 (1.64%) Mobile Games
4 1 (1.64%) Product Ownership
4 1 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
4 1 (1.64%) Social Network
Processes & Methodologies
1 61 (100.00%) Data Science
2 36 (59.02%) Machine Learning
3 23 (37.70%) AI
4 22 (36.07%) Analytics
5 14 (22.95%) CI/CD
5 14 (22.95%) MLOps
6 13 (21.31%) Mentoring
6 13 (21.31%) Natural Language Processing
7 12 (19.67%) Mathematics
7 12 (19.67%) Statistics
8 9 (14.75%) Data Engineering
8 9 (14.75%) Problem-Solving
9 8 (13.11%) Collaborative Culture
9 8 (13.11%) DevOps
9 8 (13.11%) Visualisation
10 7 (11.48%) Computer Science
10 7 (11.48%) Data Analysis
10 7 (11.48%) Decision-Making
11 6 (9.84%) Containerisation
11 6 (9.84%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 31 (50.82%) Python
2 13 (21.31%) SQL
3 1 (1.64%) C++
3 1 (1.64%) Scala
Qualifications
1 19 (31.15%) Degree
2 17 (27.87%) PhD
3 13 (21.31%) Master's Degree
4 11 (18.03%) Security Cleared
5 10 (16.39%) DV Cleared
6 6 (9.84%) SC Cleared
7 1 (1.64%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (1.64%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 7 (11.48%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (1.64%) Argo
1 1 (1.64%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 2 (3.28%) Microsoft
2 1 (1.64%) Adobe
2 1 (1.64%) Google
2 1 (1.64%) Mapbox
2 1 (1.64%) Marketo
2 1 (1.64%) Salesforce
2 1 (1.64%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud