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 21 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 163 129 111
Rank change year-on-year -34 -18 -44
Permanent jobs citing Data Science 1,028 998 2,209
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.35% 2.36% 2.58%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.74% 2.53% 2.96%
Number of salaries quoted 535 512 1,285
10th Percentile £44,500 £44,590 £41,550
25th Percentile £55,000 £53,750 £47,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £70,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year - +3.70% -5.09%
75th Percentile £90,000 £91,438 £88,750
90th Percentile £103,250 £115,000 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £62,500 £62,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year - +8.70% -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 58,981 39,507 74,640
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 77.68% 93.49% 87.04%
Number of salaries quoted 35,808 22,230 56,250
10th Percentile £29,750 £31,750 £29,079
25th Percentile £40,000 £43,887 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -11.29%
75th Percentile £77,500 £80,000 £73,750
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,410 £93,750
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 21 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 21 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 -26 953 £70,000 - 780
London +25 505 £80,000 - 415
UK excluding London -69 451 £62,500 - 524
Work from Home -28 322 £69,479 +7.72% 301
South East -5 158 £65,000 +8.33% 198
North of England -67 93 £62,500 -1.81% 109
South West -45 76 £60,000 -14.29% 68
Midlands -26 74 £55,000 -2.22% 73
North West -5 64 £65,000 +0.87% 52
West Midlands -20 39 £62,500 +38.89% 28
East Midlands -37 35 £45,000 -37.93% 45
East of England -12 26 £86,725 +49.53% 48
Yorkshire -68 24 £60,000 -5.74% 38
Scotland -53 13 £90,000 +63.64% 24
Wales -20 8 £39,756 -51.81% 14
North East -27 5 £62,500 - 21
Northern Ireland -35 3 - - 7

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 78 (7.59%) Apache Spark
2 66 (6.42%) Apache Airflow
3 22 (2.14%) ArcGIS
3 22 (2.14%) SharePoint
4 19 (1.85%) Apache
5 10 (0.97%) Jupyter
6 7 (0.68%) SAS
7 6 (0.58%) Confluence
8 5 (0.49%) IIS
9 4 (0.39%) GeoServer
10 3 (0.29%) Apache Superset
10 3 (0.29%) CMS
11 1 (0.097%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.097%) WordPress
Applications
1 59 (5.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.39%) Chatbot
3 4 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.58%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.19%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.097%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.097%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.097%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.097%) Odoo
3 1 (0.097%) SAP PLM
3 1 (0.097%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 311 (30.25%) AWS
2 304 (29.57%) Azure
3 186 (18.09%) GCP
4 151 (14.69%) Power Platform
5 82 (7.98%) Snowflake
6 50 (4.86%) dbt
7 44 (4.28%) Azure Machine Learning
8 38 (3.70%) Azure AI
8 38 (3.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 36 (3.50%) Amazon SageMaker
10 32 (3.11%) Vertex AI
11 31 (3.02%) Azure Data Factory
12 28 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
13 25 (2.43%) GitHub
14 24 (2.33%) SaaS
15 20 (1.95%) Microsoft 365
16 19 (1.85%) Dagster
17 18 (1.75%) Serverless
18 17 (1.65%) Amazon S3
19 16 (1.56%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 72 (7.00%) Broadband
2 11 (1.07%) 4G
2 11 (1.07%) BGP
2 11 (1.07%) Cisco IOS
2 11 (1.07%) Ethernet VPN
2 11 (1.07%) IOS XR
2 11 (1.07%) MPLS
3 4 (0.39%) Kerberos
3 4 (0.39%) TCP/IP
4 3 (0.29%) HTTP
4 3 (0.29%) MQTT
5 2 (0.19%) Internet
5 2 (0.19%) Tactical Data Link
6 1 (0.097%) Bluetooth
6 1 (0.097%) Firewall
6 1 (0.097%) LTE
6 1 (0.097%) Modbus
6 1 (0.097%) Network Security
6 1 (0.097%) Software-Defined Radio
6 1 (0.097%) TCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (13.91%) Power BI
2 135 (13.13%) Data Warehouse
3 111 (10.80%) Tableau
4 92 (8.95%) Data Lake
5 66 (6.42%) BigQuery
6 51 (4.96%) Metadata
7 48 (4.67%) Amazon Redshift
7 48 (4.67%) Elasticsearch
8 47 (4.57%) NoSQL
9 39 (3.79%) Looker
10 36 (3.50%) Big Data
11 34 (3.31%) MongoDB
12 32 (3.11%) PostgreSQL
13 31 (3.02%) GIS
13 31 (3.02%) SQL Server
14 27 (2.63%) Data Mining
14 27 (2.63%) QGIS
15 25 (2.43%) Hadoop
16 23 (2.24%) Delta Lake
17 22 (2.14%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 67 (6.52%) Git
2 49 (4.77%) MLflow
3 15 (1.46%) GitLab
4 9 (0.88%) JIRA
5 7 (0.68%) ERwin
5 7 (0.68%) PowerDesigner
6 6 (0.58%) Jenkins
7 4 (0.39%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.29%) Selenium
9 2 (0.19%) Burp Suite
10 1 (0.097%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.097%) Metasploit
10 1 (0.097%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.097%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 273 (26.56%) Finance
2 263 (25.58%) Social Skills
3 225 (21.89%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (9.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 88 (8.56%) Banking
6 82 (7.98%) Marketing
7 58 (5.64%) Retail
8 54 (5.25%) Pharmaceutical
9 45 (4.38%) Public Sector
10 41 (3.99%) Law
11 39 (3.79%) Financial Institution
12 24 (2.33%) Legal
13 20 (1.95%) Manufacturing
14 18 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
15 16 (1.56%) Advertising
16 14 (1.36%) Influencing Skills
16 14 (1.36%) Telecoms
17 11 (1.07%) Documentation Skills
18 10 (0.97%) Investment Banking
19 6 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 237 (23.05%) Data Scientist
2 217 (21.11%) Senior
3 152 (14.79%) Data Engineer
4 141 (13.72%) Lead
5 98 (9.53%) Senior Data Scientist
6 83 (8.07%) Analyst
7 74 (7.20%) Consultant
8 67 (6.52%) Data Analyst
9 62 (6.03%) Software Engineer
10 53 (5.16%) Developer
11 50 (4.86%) Senior Data Engineer
12 33 (3.21%) Artificial Intelligence Consultant
13 29 (2.82%) Architect
14 28 (2.72%) Python Engineer
15 27 (2.63%) Data Consultant
16 25 (2.43%) Lead Data Scientist
17 24 (2.33%) Scala Engineer
18 22 (2.14%) Principal Data Scientist
18 22 (2.14%) Systems Engineer
19 21 (2.04%) Machine Learning Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (11.48%) PyTorch
2 87 (8.46%) TensorFlow
3 52 (5.06%) scikit-learn
4 42 (4.09%) LangChain
5 39 (3.79%) Kafka
6 38 (3.70%) gRPC
7 32 (3.11%) PySpark
8 31 (3.02%) React
9 21 (2.04%) Pandas
10 20 (1.95%) HTML
10 20 (1.95%) RESTful
11 18 (1.75%) Django
12 16 (1.56%) LlamaIndex
13 15 (1.46%) CSS
13 15 (1.46%) pgvector
14 13 (1.26%) .NET
14 13 (1.26%) Node.js
15 12 (1.17%) FastAPI
15 12 (1.17%) REST
15 12 (1.17%) XGBoost
Miscellaneous
1 96 (9.34%) Algorithms
2 84 (8.17%) Life Science
3 62 (6.03%) Distributed Systems
4 50 (4.86%) Product Ownership
5 49 (4.77%) Video\Live Streaming
6 40 (3.89%) Over-the-Top Content
7 38 (3.70%) Management Information System
8 37 (3.60%) Cloud Native
9 32 (3.11%) Self-Motivation
10 27 (2.63%) Data Structures
11 23 (2.24%) AI Agents
12 21 (2.04%) Pharmacovigilance
13 20 (1.95%) Greenfield Project
13 20 (1.95%) Social Media
14 19 (1.85%) Onboarding
15 18 (1.75%) Clustering
16 17 (1.65%) Public Cloud
17 11 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
18 10 (0.97%) Hackathon
18 10 (0.97%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 11 (1.07%) Linux
2 5 (0.49%) Unix
3 2 (0.19%) Windows
4 1 (0.097%) Android
4 1 (0.097%) Kali Linux
4 1 (0.097%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 544 (52.92%) AI
2 512 (49.81%) Machine Learning
3 506 (49.22%) Analytics
4 245 (23.83%) Problem-Solving
5 218 (21.21%) Agile
5 218 (21.21%) Business Intelligence
6 212 (20.62%) Decision-Making
7 211 (20.53%) Computer Science
8 207 (20.14%) Data Engineering
9 191 (18.58%) CI/CD
10 179 (17.41%) Data Pipeline
11 178 (17.32%) Data Modelling
12 154 (14.98%) Data Analysis
13 151 (14.69%) ETL
14 148 (14.40%) Visualisation
15 146 (14.20%) Mentoring
16 145 (14.11%) Use Case
17 142 (13.81%) Generative AI
18 138 (13.42%) Mathematics
19 135 (13.13%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 581 (56.52%) Python
2 301 (29.28%) SQL
3 84 (8.17%) Scala
4 70 (6.81%) Java
4 70 (6.81%) R
5 51 (4.96%) Go
6 32 (3.11%) JavaScript
7 19 (1.85%) VBA
8 16 (1.56%) C++
9 15 (1.46%) C#
10 12 (1.17%) Bash
10 12 (1.17%) TypeScript
11 8 (0.78%) Rust
11 8 (0.78%) T-SQL
12 7 (0.68%) ANSI SQL
13 6 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 6 (0.58%) PHP
14 5 (0.49%) Bicep
15 4 (0.39%) Julia
15 4 (0.39%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 354 (34.44%) Degree
2 130 (12.65%) Master's Degree
3 102 (9.92%) Security Cleared
4 88 (8.56%) Computer Science Degree
5 65 (6.32%) PhD
6 58 (5.64%) SC Cleared
7 42 (4.09%) DV Cleared
8 37 (3.60%) Numerate Degree
9 23 (2.24%) DBS Check
10 20 (1.95%) MBA
11 17 (1.65%) Azure Certification
12 13 (1.26%) APMP
13 8 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
13 8 (0.78%) PMI Certification
14 7 (0.68%) PMP
15 5 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
16 3 (0.29%) AWS Certification
16 3 (0.29%) SAP Certification
17 2 (0.19%) Postgraduate
18 1 (0.097%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (16.44%) Data Quality
2 63 (6.13%) GDPR
3 57 (5.54%) Accessibility
4 32 (3.11%) QA
5 27 (2.63%) GxP
6 22 (2.14%) Solvency II
7 21 (2.04%) EU AI Act
7 21 (2.04%) HIPAA
7 21 (2.04%) PSD2
8 18 (1.75%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 9 (0.88%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.49%) CDISC
10 5 (0.49%) HL7
11 3 (0.29%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 3 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.29%) PERC
12 2 (0.19%) ISO 9001
13 1 (0.097%) Disclosure Scotland
13 1 (0.097%) FINRA
13 1 (0.097%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 104 (10.12%) Docker
2 5 (0.49%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.19%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 62 (6.03%) Kubernetes
2 46 (4.47%) Terraform
3 6 (0.58%) Ansible
4 5 (0.49%) Kubeflow
5 2 (0.19%) Argo
6 1 (0.097%) Nagios
6 1 (0.097%) Nessus
6 1 (0.097%) Nmap
Vendors
1 144 (14.01%) Databricks
2 87 (8.46%) Microsoft
3 71 (6.91%) Google
4 36 (3.50%) Typelevel
5 35 (3.40%) Dell
6 30 (2.92%) Alteryx
6 30 (2.92%) Bloomberg
7 28 (2.72%) Informatica
8 25 (2.43%) Salesforce
9 23 (2.24%) Oracle
10 21 (2.04%) OpenAI
11 20 (1.95%) Cisco
12 16 (1.56%) Denodo
12 16 (1.56%) Teradata
13 15 (1.46%) Cloudera
14 14 (1.36%) Palantir
15 12 (1.17%) SAP
16 8 (0.78%) Foundry
16 8 (0.78%) Talend
17 7 (0.68%) ServiceNow