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 16 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 159 133 100
Rank change year-on-year -26 -33 -35
Permanent jobs citing Data Science 939 1,145 2,093
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.40% 2.32% 2.79%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.76% 2.51% 3.16%
Number of salaries quoted 498 509 1,319
10th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £42,439
25th Percentile £55,000 £52,500 £47,750
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 £87,500
90th Percentile £102,875 £106,500 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £61,418 £63,652 £57,500
% change year-on-year -3.51% +10.70% -8.00%

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 53,402 45,552 66,177
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 79.39% 92.32% 88.33%
Number of salaries quoted 31,913 22,134 51,281
10th Percentile £29,000 £34,934 £29,490
25th Percentile £38,000 £46,250 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,350 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.86% +9.73% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,000 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £96,250 £102,500 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -8.90%

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 16 February 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 16 February 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 -21 878 £70,000 - 651
London +19 467 £80,470 +0.59% 257
UK excluding London -64 412 £61,418 -3.51% 525
Work from Home -45 297 £67,250 +3.46% 236
South East -14 158 £57,500 -6.88% 190
North of England -59 97 £62,500 -2.34% 128
North West -1 65 £62,500 -3.85% 67
South West -43 63 £60,000 -11.11% 57
Midlands -27 56 £60,000 +20.00% 76
East Midlands -5 34 £40,000 -44.83% 48
Yorkshire -65 27 £57,500 -10.16% 40
West Midlands -25 22 £66,110 +46.91% 28
East of England +12 16 £81,850 +33.09% 33
Wales +3 11 £39,756 -50.31% 11
Scotland -62 11 £95,000 +100.00% 34
North East -12 5 £62,500 +25.00% 21
Northern Ireland -23 1 £40,000 -52.94% 6

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 69 (7.35%) Apache Spark
2 38 (4.05%) Apache Airflow
3 27 (2.88%) SharePoint
4 19 (2.02%) Apache
5 12 (1.28%) ArcGIS
5 12 (1.28%) Jupyter
6 8 (0.85%) SAS
7 6 (0.64%) Confluence
7 6 (0.64%) IIS
8 3 (0.32%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.32%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
9 1 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 73 (7.77%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (0.64%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.53%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
6 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.11%) Stata
Business Applications
1 6 (0.64%) Salesforce CRM
2 3 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.21%) Elite 3E
3 2 (0.21%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.11%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.11%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.11%) Odoo
4 1 (0.11%) SAP PLM
4 1 (0.11%) Sprinklr
4 1 (0.11%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 280 (29.82%) Azure
2 249 (26.52%) AWS
3 152 (16.19%) GCP
4 142 (15.12%) Power Platform
5 52 (5.54%) Snowflake
6 43 (4.58%) Azure Machine Learning
7 39 (4.15%) Azure AI
8 34 (3.62%) Amazon SageMaker
9 32 (3.41%) Vertex AI
10 31 (3.30%) Azure Data Factory
11 28 (2.98%) Azure DevOps
12 27 (2.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 27 (2.88%) dbt
12 27 (2.88%) GitHub
12 27 (2.88%) SaaS
13 23 (2.45%) Microsoft 365
14 18 (1.92%) PowerApps
14 18 (1.92%) Serverless
15 15 (1.60%) AWS Lambda
16 14 (1.49%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 41 (4.37%) Broadband
2 11 (1.17%) 4G
2 11 (1.17%) BGP
2 11 (1.17%) Cisco IOS
2 11 (1.17%) Ethernet VPN
2 11 (1.17%) IOS XR
2 11 (1.17%) MPLS
3 7 (0.75%) TCP/IP
4 5 (0.53%) Firewall
5 4 (0.43%) Bluetooth
5 4 (0.43%) HTTP
5 4 (0.43%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (0.43%) Modbus
5 4 (0.43%) Network Security
5 4 (0.43%) VLAN
5 4 (0.43%) Wireshark
5 4 (0.43%) ZigBee
6 3 (0.32%) Kerberos
6 3 (0.32%) MQTT
7 2 (0.21%) Tactical Data Link
Database & Business Intelligence
1 135 (14.38%) Power BI
2 116 (12.35%) Data Warehouse
3 106 (11.29%) Tableau
4 78 (8.31%) Data Lake
5 46 (4.90%) Metadata
6 43 (4.58%) NoSQL
7 42 (4.47%) Big Data
7 42 (4.47%) BigQuery
8 39 (4.15%) Amazon Redshift
9 34 (3.62%) SQL Server
10 30 (3.19%) Data Mining
11 28 (2.98%) Hadoop
11 28 (2.98%) MongoDB
12 25 (2.66%) Elasticsearch
13 23 (2.45%) Delta Lake
14 22 (2.34%) Looker
14 22 (2.34%) MySQL
14 22 (2.34%) PostgreSQL
15 17 (1.81%) Relational Database
16 16 (1.70%) GIS
Development Applications
1 61 (6.50%) Git
2 35 (3.73%) MLflow
3 16 (1.70%) ERwin
4 13 (1.38%) GitLab
5 9 (0.96%) JIRA
6 7 (0.75%) PowerDesigner
7 5 (0.53%) Burp Suite
8 4 (0.43%) ER Studio
8 4 (0.43%) Metasploit
8 4 (0.43%) Selenium
9 2 (0.21%) Jenkins
10 1 (0.11%) JUnit
10 1 (0.11%) MSBuild
10 1 (0.11%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.11%) TestNG
10 1 (0.11%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 314 (33.44%) Finance
2 280 (29.82%) Social Skills
3 208 (22.15%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (9.69%) Banking
5 85 (9.05%) Marketing
6 84 (8.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 67 (7.14%) Pharmaceutical
8 54 (5.75%) Retail
9 47 (5.01%) Financial Institution
10 38 (4.05%) Law
11 34 (3.62%) Public Sector
12 25 (2.66%) Legal
12 25 (2.66%) Manufacturing
13 22 (2.34%) Organisational Skills
14 14 (1.49%) Telecoms
15 12 (1.28%) Advertising
16 11 (1.17%) Documentation Skills
16 11 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
17 10 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
18 9 (0.96%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 195 (20.77%) Data Scientist
1 195 (20.77%) Senior
2 144 (15.34%) Data Engineer
3 143 (15.23%) Lead
4 90 (9.58%) Analyst
5 78 (8.31%) Senior Data Scientist
6 72 (7.67%) Data Analyst
7 61 (6.50%) Consultant
8 52 (5.54%) Software Engineer
9 51 (5.43%) Developer
10 44 (4.69%) Senior Data Engineer
11 35 (3.73%) Architect
12 24 (2.56%) Artificial Intelligence Consultant
13 23 (2.45%) Data Architect
13 23 (2.45%) Data Consultant
14 20 (2.13%) Python Engineer
14 20 (2.13%) Senior Analyst
15 19 (2.02%) Senior Consultant
16 17 (1.81%) Data Science Engineer
16 17 (1.81%) Machine Learning Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 84 (8.95%) PyTorch
2 68 (7.24%) TensorFlow
3 40 (4.26%) PySpark
4 36 (3.83%) scikit-learn
5 32 (3.41%) LangChain
6 31 (3.30%) React
7 26 (2.77%) Pandas
8 21 (2.24%) gRPC
9 20 (2.13%) HTML
9 20 (2.13%) Kafka
10 17 (1.81%) RESTful
11 15 (1.60%) CSS
12 14 (1.49%) Hugging Face
13 13 (1.38%) FastAPI
14 12 (1.28%) .NET
14 12 (1.28%) Django
14 12 (1.28%) NumPy
15 11 (1.17%) Jinja
15 11 (1.17%) NETCONF
15 11 (1.17%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 92 (9.80%) Life Science
2 91 (9.69%) Algorithms
3 52 (5.54%) Distributed Systems
3 52 (5.54%) Product Ownership
4 40 (4.26%) Self-Motivation
5 31 (3.30%) Management Information System
6 26 (2.77%) Cloud Native
6 26 (2.77%) Video\Live Streaming
7 25 (2.66%) Data Structures
8 21 (2.24%) AI Agents
8 21 (2.24%) Over-the-Top Content
8 21 (2.24%) Pharmacovigilance
9 19 (2.02%) Onboarding
10 14 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
11 13 (1.38%) Greenfield Project
11 13 (1.38%) Legacy Systems
11 13 (1.38%) Social Media
12 11 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
12 11 (1.17%) Omics
13 10 (1.06%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.06%) Linux
2 4 (0.43%) Android
2 4 (0.43%) Kali Linux
2 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
2 4 (0.43%) Unix
3 2 (0.21%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 483 (51.44%) AI
2 478 (50.91%) Analytics
3 470 (50.05%) Machine Learning
4 235 (25.03%) Problem-Solving
5 221 (23.54%) Agile
6 220 (23.43%) Computer Science
7 205 (21.83%) Decision-Making
8 200 (21.30%) Business Intelligence
9 177 (18.85%) Data Engineering
10 170 (18.10%) Data Modelling
11 167 (17.78%) CI/CD
11 167 (17.78%) Data Pipeline
12 165 (17.57%) Data Analysis
13 147 (15.65%) Visualisation
14 142 (15.12%) Data Governance
15 139 (14.80%) ETL
16 138 (14.70%) Mentoring
17 136 (14.48%) Statistics
18 134 (14.27%) Roadmaps
19 132 (14.06%) Mathematics
Programming Languages
1 537 (57.19%) Python
2 300 (31.95%) SQL
3 75 (7.99%) R
4 63 (6.71%) Java
4 63 (6.71%) Scala
5 32 (3.41%) Go
6 28 (2.98%) JavaScript
7 21 (2.24%) VBA
8 18 (1.92%) C#
9 16 (1.70%) C++
10 13 (1.38%) TypeScript
11 11 (1.17%) Rust
12 9 (0.96%) Bash
12 9 (0.96%) MATLAB
13 7 (0.75%) ANSI SQL
13 7 (0.75%) Bicep
13 7 (0.75%) C
13 7 (0.75%) PHP
14 5 (0.53%) PowerShell
15 4 (0.43%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 355 (37.81%) Degree
2 150 (15.97%) Master's Degree
3 100 (10.65%) Security Cleared
4 87 (9.27%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (8.95%) PhD
6 71 (7.56%) SC Cleared
7 41 (4.37%) Numerate Degree
8 32 (3.41%) DV Cleared
9 23 (2.45%) MBA
10 21 (2.24%) DBS Check
11 16 (1.70%) Azure Certification
12 12 (1.28%) APMP
13 10 (1.06%) BPSS Clearance
14 9 (0.96%) AWS Certification
14 9 (0.96%) Microsoft Certification
15 8 (0.85%) PMI Certification
16 7 (0.75%) PMP
17 3 (0.32%) SAP Certification
18 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Developer
18 2 (0.21%) CFA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 165 (17.57%) Data Quality
2 58 (6.18%) GDPR
3 42 (4.47%) Accessibility
4 41 (4.37%) GxP
5 26 (2.77%) QA
6 22 (2.34%) EU AI Act
6 22 (2.34%) Solvency II
7 21 (2.24%) HIPAA
7 21 (2.24%) PSD2
8 9 (0.96%) CDISC
8 9 (0.96%) HL7
9 8 (0.85%) Actionable Recommendations
10 6 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.32%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 3 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.32%) NIST
11 3 (0.32%) PERC
11 3 (0.32%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.21%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 82 (8.73%) Docker
2 3 (0.32%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 53 (5.64%) Kubernetes
2 34 (3.62%) Terraform
3 5 (0.53%) Ansible
4 4 (0.43%) Nessus
4 4 (0.43%) Nmap
5 3 (0.32%) Kubeflow
6 2 (0.21%) Argo
7 1 (0.11%) Nagios
Vendors
1 119 (12.67%) Databricks
2 86 (9.16%) Microsoft
3 74 (7.88%) Google
4 31 (3.30%) Alteryx
4 31 (3.30%) Bloomberg
5 30 (3.19%) Salesforce
6 26 (2.77%) OpenAI
7 25 (2.66%) Oracle
8 23 (2.45%) Cisco
9 18 (1.92%) Typelevel
10 15 (1.60%) Informatica
10 15 (1.60%) SAP
11 14 (1.49%) Palantir
12 11 (1.17%) Talend
13 9 (0.96%) Foundry
14 5 (0.53%) BT
14 5 (0.53%) Red Hat
14 5 (0.53%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
15 4 (0.43%) Palo Alto
15 4 (0.43%) Qualtrics