Data Science Job Trends

Data Science
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Data Science skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 138 111
Rank change year-on-year -21 -27 -48
Permanent jobs citing Data Science 995 987 2,151
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.38% 2.24% 2.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.77% 2.39% 2.94%
Number of salaries quoted 510 502 1,312
10th Percentile £42,500 £42,500 £41,250
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £70,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year - +3.70% -6.90%
75th Percentile £90,000 £90,000 £88,750
90th Percentile £103,750 £114,750 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £61,418 £62,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year -1.73% +8.70% -10.20%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Data Science falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 56,331 41,289 73,115
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.05% 93.69% 87.56%
Number of salaries quoted 33,961 22,320 55,807
10th Percentile £29,750 £32,500 £29,000
25th Percentile £39,750 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.78%
75th Percentile £76,299 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £94,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

Data Science
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Data Science relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Data Science job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Science
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Science.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Science

Data Science
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Science over the 6 months to 9 March 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Science in the UK

Data Science
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Science within the UK over the 6 months to 9 March 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 -6 921 £70,000 - 947
London +35 484 £80,000 - 364
UK excluding London -51 445 £61,418 -1.73% 697
Work from Home -34 306 £66,720 +3.44% 409
South East +4 161 £60,000 - 260
North of England -54 96 £62,500 -1.81% 137
South West -34 77 £60,000 -14.29% 86
Midlands -21 69 £55,000 +18.92% 94
North West 0 68 £62,500 -2.15% 59
West Midlands -14 35 £65,000 +44.44% 34
East Midlands -15 34 £40,000 -45.76% 59
Yorkshire -71 23 £60,000 -6.25% 54
East of England -11 17 £81,850 +34.18% 84
Scotland -48 12 £95,000 +85.37% 33
Wales -1 11 £39,756 -51.81% 15
North East -24 5 £62,500 +25.00% 25
Northern Ireland -31 3 £40,000 -52.94% 4

Data Science
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 77 (7.74%) Apache Spark
2 57 (5.73%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (2.61%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.21%) ArcGIS
5 21 (2.11%) Apache
6 10 (1.01%) Jupyter
7 7 (0.70%) SAS
8 6 (0.60%) Confluence
8 6 (0.60%) IIS
9 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.30%) CMS
9 3 (0.30%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 66 (6.63%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.40%) Chatbot
3 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.30%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.10%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.10%) Odoo
3 1 (0.10%) SAP PLM
3 1 (0.10%) Sprinklr
3 1 (0.10%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 292 (29.35%) Azure
2 288 (28.94%) AWS
3 171 (17.19%) GCP
4 148 (14.87%) Power Platform
5 71 (7.14%) Snowflake
6 42 (4.22%) Azure Machine Learning
7 41 (4.12%) dbt
8 38 (3.82%) Azure AI
9 34 (3.42%) Amazon SageMaker
10 31 (3.12%) Vertex AI
11 30 (3.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 29 (2.91%) Azure DevOps
13 28 (2.81%) Azure Data Factory
14 26 (2.61%) GitHub
15 24 (2.41%) Microsoft 365
16 23 (2.31%) SaaS
17 20 (2.01%) Dagster
18 19 (1.91%) PowerApps
19 18 (1.81%) Serverless
20 17 (1.71%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 59 (5.93%) Broadband
2 11 (1.11%) 4G
2 11 (1.11%) BGP
2 11 (1.11%) Cisco IOS
2 11 (1.11%) Ethernet VPN
2 11 (1.11%) IOS XR
2 11 (1.11%) MPLS
3 7 (0.70%) TCP/IP
4 4 (0.40%) Bluetooth
4 4 (0.40%) Firewall
4 4 (0.40%) HTTP
4 4 (0.40%) Intrusion Detection
4 4 (0.40%) Kerberos
4 4 (0.40%) Modbus
4 4 (0.40%) Network Security
4 4 (0.40%) VLAN
4 4 (0.40%) Wireshark
4 4 (0.40%) ZigBee
5 3 (0.30%) Internet
5 3 (0.30%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 140 (14.07%) Power BI
2 125 (12.56%) Data Warehouse
3 104 (10.45%) Tableau
4 87 (8.74%) Data Lake
5 59 (5.93%) BigQuery
6 52 (5.23%) Metadata
7 48 (4.82%) Amazon Redshift
8 44 (4.42%) NoSQL
9 38 (3.82%) Big Data
10 37 (3.72%) Elasticsearch
11 34 (3.42%) MongoDB
12 31 (3.12%) SQL Server
13 30 (3.02%) GIS
13 30 (3.02%) Looker
14 27 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
15 26 (2.61%) Data Mining
15 26 (2.61%) QGIS
16 25 (2.51%) Hadoop
17 24 (2.41%) Delta Lake
18 22 (2.21%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 66 (6.63%) Git
2 42 (4.22%) MLflow
3 14 (1.41%) GitLab
4 8 (0.80%) JIRA
5 7 (0.70%) ERwin
5 7 (0.70%) PowerDesigner
6 5 (0.50%) Burp Suite
6 5 (0.50%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.40%) ER Studio
7 4 (0.40%) Metasploit
8 3 (0.30%) Selenium
9 1 (0.10%) MSBuild
9 1 (0.10%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 277 (27.84%) Finance
2 270 (27.14%) Social Skills
3 214 (21.51%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (9.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 89 (8.94%) Banking
6 79 (7.94%) Marketing
7 58 (5.83%) Retail
8 57 (5.73%) Pharmaceutical
9 42 (4.22%) Financial Institution
9 42 (4.22%) Law
10 40 (4.02%) Public Sector
11 25 (2.51%) Manufacturing
12 21 (2.11%) Legal
12 21 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.41%) Telecoms
14 13 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
15 11 (1.11%) Advertising
15 11 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
16 10 (1.01%) Aerospace
16 10 (1.01%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 224 (22.51%) Data Scientist
2 206 (20.70%) Senior
3 150 (15.08%) Data Engineer
4 133 (13.37%) Lead
5 92 (9.25%) Analyst
6 85 (8.54%) Senior Data Scientist
7 73 (7.34%) Consultant
8 71 (7.14%) Data Analyst
9 57 (5.73%) Software Engineer
10 51 (5.13%) Senior Data Engineer
11 46 (4.62%) Developer
12 33 (3.32%) Artificial Intelligence Consultant
13 27 (2.71%) Architect
13 27 (2.71%) Data Consultant
14 24 (2.41%) Python Engineer
15 21 (2.11%) Machine Learning Consultant
16 20 (2.01%) Senior Analyst
16 20 (2.01%) Senior Consultant
16 20 (2.01%) Spatial Consultant
17 19 (1.91%) Lead Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 108 (10.85%) PyTorch
2 82 (8.24%) TensorFlow
3 42 (4.22%) scikit-learn
4 36 (3.62%) LangChain
4 36 (3.62%) PySpark
5 32 (3.22%) Kafka
6 29 (2.91%) gRPC
7 28 (2.81%) React
8 21 (2.11%) Pandas
9 20 (2.01%) HTML
10 18 (1.81%) RESTful
11 15 (1.51%) CSS
11 15 (1.51%) Django
12 14 (1.41%) .NET
13 11 (1.11%) FastAPI
13 11 (1.11%) Hugging Face
13 11 (1.11%) Jinja
13 11 (1.11%) NETCONF
13 11 (1.11%) YANG
14 10 (1.01%) Faiss
Miscellaneous
1 99 (9.95%) Algorithms
2 88 (8.84%) Life Science
3 53 (5.33%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (5.13%) Product Ownership
5 40 (4.02%) Video\Live Streaming
6 37 (3.72%) Management Information System
7 36 (3.62%) Self-Motivation
8 31 (3.12%) Over-the-Top Content
9 30 (3.02%) Cloud Native
10 24 (2.41%) AI Agents
10 24 (2.41%) Data Structures
11 21 (2.11%) Pharmacovigilance
12 18 (1.81%) Social Media
13 16 (1.61%) Greenfield Project
13 16 (1.61%) Onboarding
14 11 (1.11%) Analytical Mindset
14 11 (1.11%) Clustering
14 11 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
15 10 (1.01%) IoT
15 10 (1.01%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 14 (1.41%) Linux
2 5 (0.50%) Unix
3 4 (0.40%) Android
3 4 (0.40%) Kali Linux
3 4 (0.40%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.30%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 524 (52.66%) AI
2 500 (50.25%) Analytics
3 488 (49.05%) Machine Learning
4 234 (23.52%) Problem-Solving
5 221 (22.21%) Decision-Making
6 218 (21.91%) Agile
7 213 (21.41%) Business Intelligence
7 213 (21.41%) Computer Science
8 188 (18.89%) Data Engineering
9 178 (17.89%) Data Pipeline
10 176 (17.69%) CI/CD
11 166 (16.68%) Data Modelling
12 159 (15.98%) Data Analysis
13 152 (15.28%) Visualisation
14 142 (14.27%) ETL
15 140 (14.07%) Mentoring
16 137 (13.77%) Data Governance
17 136 (13.67%) Mathematics
18 134 (13.47%) Statistics
19 132 (13.27%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 569 (57.19%) Python
2 298 (29.95%) SQL
3 73 (7.34%) Scala
4 70 (7.04%) R
5 66 (6.63%) Java
6 40 (4.02%) Go
7 31 (3.12%) JavaScript
8 22 (2.21%) VBA
9 19 (1.91%) C++
10 15 (1.51%) C#
11 12 (1.21%) Bash
12 11 (1.11%) Rust
12 11 (1.11%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.70%) ANSI SQL
13 7 (0.70%) PHP
14 6 (0.60%) C
14 6 (0.60%) T-SQL
15 5 (0.50%) Bicep
15 5 (0.50%) MATLAB
15 5 (0.50%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 366 (36.78%) Degree
2 139 (13.97%) Master's Degree
3 108 (10.85%) Security Cleared
4 85 (8.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 70 (7.04%) PhD
5 70 (7.04%) SC Cleared
6 41 (4.12%) DV Cleared
7 39 (3.92%) Numerate Degree
8 24 (2.41%) MBA
9 21 (2.11%) DBS Check
10 17 (1.71%) Azure Certification
11 14 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
12 13 (1.31%) APMP
13 9 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
14 8 (0.80%) PMI Certification
15 7 (0.70%) PMP
16 5 (0.50%) AWS Certification
17 3 (0.30%) SAP Certification
18 2 (0.20%) Postgraduate
19 1 (0.10%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (16.58%) Data Quality
2 58 (5.83%) Accessibility
3 56 (5.63%) GDPR
4 32 (3.22%) QA
5 30 (3.02%) GxP
6 22 (2.21%) Solvency II
7 21 (2.11%) EU AI Act
7 21 (2.11%) HIPAA
7 21 (2.11%) PSD2
8 11 (1.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 9 (0.90%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.60%) CDISC
10 6 (0.60%) HL7
11 4 (0.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 3 (0.30%) 21 CFR Part 11
12 3 (0.30%) PERC
13 2 (0.20%) ISO 9001
14 1 (0.10%) Disclosure Scotland
14 1 (0.10%) FINRA
14 1 (0.10%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 95 (9.55%) Docker
2 5 (0.50%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 58 (5.83%) Kubernetes
2 39 (3.92%) Terraform
3 6 (0.60%) Ansible
4 4 (0.40%) Kubeflow
4 4 (0.40%) Nessus
4 4 (0.40%) Nmap
5 2 (0.20%) Argo
6 1 (0.10%) Nagios
Vendors
1 129 (12.96%) Databricks
2 85 (8.54%) Microsoft
3 77 (7.74%) Google
4 31 (3.12%) Bloomberg
5 30 (3.02%) Alteryx
6 27 (2.71%) Salesforce
6 27 (2.71%) Typelevel
7 25 (2.51%) OpenAI
8 24 (2.41%) Dell
8 24 (2.41%) Informatica
9 23 (2.31%) Cisco
10 22 (2.21%) Oracle
11 14 (1.41%) Palantir
12 12 (1.21%) Denodo
12 12 (1.21%) SAP
12 12 (1.21%) Teradata
13 8 (0.80%) Cloudera
13 8 (0.80%) Foundry
13 8 (0.80%) Talend
14 7 (0.70%) ServiceNow