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 27 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 160 134 98
Rank change year-on-year -26 -36 -29
Permanent jobs citing Data Science 900 1,160 1,978
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.43% 2.22% 2.89%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.78% 2.43% 3.26%
Number of salaries quoted 483 507 1,281
10th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £42,439
25th Percentile £53,750 £53,750 £50,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £70,000 £70,000 £67,500
Median % change year-on-year - +3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £90,000 £88,750 £87,500
90th Percentile £115,000 £115,000 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,000 £63,652 £57,500
% change year-on-year -5.74% +10.70% -7.51%

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 50,453 47,821 60,729
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.27% 91.48% 88.85%
Number of salaries quoted 29,778 22,900 47,030
10th Percentile £28,697 £35,000 £30,000
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £76,000
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £95,000
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 27 January 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 27 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 -24 852 £70,000 - 1,216
London +24 466 £80,939 +7.92% 414
UK excluding London -62 388 £60,000 -5.74% 1,060
Work from Home -38 277 £67,000 +3.08% 512
South East -16 152 £53,750 -14.00% 390
North of England -36 92 £61,418 -3.85% 189
North West +13 62 £62,500 -2.63% 90
South West -11 60 £60,000 -14.29% 134
Midlands -33 48 £57,500 - 122
East Midlands -12 26 £40,000 -51.52% 90
Yorkshire -45 26 £57,500 -10.85% 71
West Midlands -14 22 £65,250 +45.00% 29
East of England +12 17 £80,000 +37.93% 145
Scotland -59 10 £100,000 +100.00% 48
Wales +7 9 £40,000 -50.00% 43
North East -17 4 £62,500 - 30
Northern Ireland -17 1 £40,000 -52.94% 14

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 71 (7.89%) Apache Spark
2 32 (3.56%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (2.89%) SharePoint
4 18 (2.00%) Apache
5 13 (1.44%) Jupyter
6 6 (0.67%) IIS
6 6 (0.67%) SAS
7 5 (0.56%) Confluence
8 3 (0.33%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.22%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.22%) CMS
9 2 (0.22%) Luigi
10 1 (0.11%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.11%) WordPress
Applications
1 70 (7.78%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.78%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.22%) Stata
6 1 (0.11%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.67%) Salesforce CRM
1 6 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.44%) Elite 3E
3 2 (0.22%) 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
1 269 (29.89%) Azure
2 230 (25.56%) AWS
3 138 (15.33%) Power Platform
4 135 (15.00%) GCP
5 45 (5.00%) Snowflake
6 39 (4.33%) Azure AI
7 38 (4.22%) Azure Machine Learning
8 31 (3.44%) Amazon SageMaker
9 30 (3.33%) Vertex AI
10 29 (3.22%) Azure Data Factory
10 29 (3.22%) SaaS
11 25 (2.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 24 (2.67%) Azure DevOps
12 24 (2.67%) GitHub
13 22 (2.44%) dbt
14 21 (2.33%) Microsoft 365
14 21 (2.33%) Serverless
15 18 (2.00%) AWS Lambda
16 15 (1.67%) PowerApps
17 14 (1.56%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.89%) Broadband
2 11 (1.22%) 4G
2 11 (1.22%) BGP
2 11 (1.22%) Cisco IOS
2 11 (1.22%) Ethernet VPN
2 11 (1.22%) IOS XR
2 11 (1.22%) MPLS
3 7 (0.78%) TCP/IP
4 5 (0.56%) Firewall
5 4 (0.44%) Bluetooth
5 4 (0.44%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (0.44%) Modbus
5 4 (0.44%) Network Security
5 4 (0.44%) VLAN
5 4 (0.44%) Wireshark
5 4 (0.44%) ZigBee
6 3 (0.33%) HTTP
6 3 (0.33%) Kerberos
6 3 (0.33%) MQTT
7 2 (0.22%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 131 (14.56%) Power BI
2 111 (12.33%) Data Warehouse
3 103 (11.44%) Tableau
4 79 (8.78%) Data Lake
5 43 (4.78%) Big Data
5 43 (4.78%) NoSQL
6 41 (4.56%) Metadata
7 36 (4.00%) SQL Server
8 33 (3.67%) Amazon Redshift
8 33 (3.67%) BigQuery
9 30 (3.33%) Hadoop
10 28 (3.11%) Data Mining
11 26 (2.89%) MongoDB
12 24 (2.67%) Elasticsearch
13 23 (2.56%) MySQL
14 22 (2.44%) DynamoDB
14 22 (2.44%) PostgreSQL
15 21 (2.33%) Delta Lake
16 20 (2.22%) Relational Database
17 15 (1.67%) Looker
Development Applications
1 59 (6.56%) Git
2 33 (3.67%) MLflow
3 18 (2.00%) ERwin
4 15 (1.67%) GitLab
5 8 (0.89%) JIRA
6 7 (0.78%) PowerDesigner
7 5 (0.56%) Burp Suite
8 4 (0.44%) ER Studio
8 4 (0.44%) Metasploit
9 3 (0.33%) Selenium
10 1 (0.11%) 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
1 328 (36.44%) Finance
2 271 (30.11%) Social Skills
3 193 (21.44%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (10.00%) Banking
5 86 (9.56%) Marketing
6 82 (9.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 69 (7.67%) Pharmaceutical
8 59 (6.56%) Retail
9 48 (5.33%) Financial Institution
10 43 (4.78%) Law
11 32 (3.56%) Manufacturing
12 26 (2.89%) Public Sector
13 25 (2.78%) Legal
14 23 (2.56%) Organisational Skills
15 15 (1.67%) Telecoms
16 13 (1.44%) Influencing Skills
17 12 (1.33%) Advertising
18 11 (1.22%) Publishing
19 10 (1.11%) Health Technology
20 9 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 198 (22.00%) Senior
2 182 (20.22%) Data Scientist
3 147 (16.33%) Lead
4 132 (14.67%) Data Engineer
5 87 (9.67%) Analyst
6 73 (8.11%) Senior Data Scientist
7 68 (7.56%) Data Analyst
8 58 (6.44%) Developer
9 43 (4.78%) Consultant
9 43 (4.78%) Senior Data Engineer
9 43 (4.78%) Software Engineer
10 32 (3.56%) Architect
11 25 (2.78%) Data Architect
12 19 (2.11%) Senior Analyst
12 19 (2.11%) Senior Developer
13 18 (2.00%) Data Consultant
13 18 (2.00%) Python Engineer
13 18 (2.00%) Senior Manager
14 17 (1.89%) Data Science Engineer
14 17 (1.89%) Senior Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 74 (8.22%) PyTorch
2 62 (6.89%) TensorFlow
3 45 (5.00%) PySpark
4 43 (4.78%) scikit-learn
5 38 (4.22%) React
6 36 (4.00%) Pandas
7 32 (3.56%) LangChain
8 23 (2.56%) RESTful
9 19 (2.11%) Kafka
9 19 (2.11%) NumPy
10 16 (1.78%) HTML
11 15 (1.67%) FastAPI
12 14 (1.56%) Hugging Face
13 12 (1.33%) CSS
13 12 (1.33%) Django
13 12 (1.33%) REST
14 11 (1.22%) Jinja
14 11 (1.22%) NETCONF
14 11 (1.22%) YANG
15 10 (1.11%) FHIR
Miscellaneous
1 95 (10.56%) Life Science
2 82 (9.11%) Algorithms
3 53 (5.89%) Product Ownership
4 44 (4.89%) Self-Motivation
5 35 (3.89%) Distributed Systems
5 35 (3.89%) Management Information System
6 28 (3.11%) Cloud Native
7 27 (3.00%) Data Structures
8 23 (2.56%) Onboarding
9 21 (2.33%) Pharmacovigilance
10 16 (1.78%) AI Agents
11 14 (1.56%) Reinsurance
12 13 (1.44%) Legacy Systems
12 13 (1.44%) Omics
13 12 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
13 12 (1.33%) Hybrid Cloud
13 12 (1.33%) Social Media
14 11 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
15 10 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
16 9 (1.00%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.11%) Linux
2 6 (0.67%) Unix
3 4 (0.44%) Android
3 4 (0.44%) Kali Linux
3 4 (0.44%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.22%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 473 (52.56%) AI
2 466 (51.78%) Analytics
3 447 (49.67%) Machine Learning
4 226 (25.11%) Problem-Solving
5 223 (24.78%) Computer Science
6 221 (24.56%) Agile
7 196 (21.78%) Decision-Making
8 191 (21.22%) Business Intelligence
9 171 (19.00%) Data Engineering
10 161 (17.89%) Data Modelling
11 155 (17.22%) Data Pipeline
12 152 (16.89%) Data Analysis
13 149 (16.56%) Data Governance
14 145 (16.11%) CI/CD
14 145 (16.11%) Visualisation
15 139 (15.44%) Statistics
16 137 (15.22%) ETL
17 129 (14.33%) Roadmaps
18 128 (14.22%) Mathematics
19 121 (13.44%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 501 (55.67%) Python
2 295 (32.78%) SQL
3 67 (7.44%) R
4 60 (6.67%) Java
5 46 (5.11%) Scala
6 23 (2.56%) JavaScript
7 19 (2.11%) TypeScript
8 17 (1.89%) VBA
9 16 (1.78%) C#
10 14 (1.56%) C++
11 12 (1.33%) Go
12 11 (1.22%) MATLAB
12 11 (1.22%) Rust
13 9 (1.00%) ANSI SQL
14 8 (0.89%) PHP
15 7 (0.78%) Bash
15 7 (0.78%) Bicep
16 5 (0.56%) C
16 5 (0.56%) PowerShell
17 3 (0.33%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 358 (39.78%) Degree
2 163 (18.11%) Master's Degree
3 97 (10.78%) PhD
4 93 (10.33%) Security Cleared
5 87 (9.67%) Computer Science Degree
6 69 (7.67%) SC Cleared
7 40 (4.44%) Numerate Degree
8 28 (3.11%) DV Cleared
9 20 (2.22%) MBA
10 16 (1.78%) DBS Check
11 11 (1.22%) Azure Certification
12 10 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
13 9 (1.00%) APMP
13 9 (1.00%) AWS Certification
14 8 (0.89%) PMI Certification
15 7 (0.78%) PMP
16 6 (0.67%) Microsoft Certification
17 3 (0.33%) CFA
17 3 (0.33%) SAP Certification
18 2 (0.22%) AWS Certified Developer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 146 (16.22%) Data Quality
2 54 (6.00%) GDPR
3 43 (4.78%) GxP
4 36 (4.00%) Accessibility
5 24 (2.67%) QA
6 23 (2.56%) EU AI Act
7 22 (2.44%) Solvency II
8 21 (2.33%) HIPAA
8 21 (2.33%) PSD2
9 10 (1.11%) CDISC
9 10 (1.11%) HL7
10 7 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 6 (0.67%) Actionable Recommendations
12 4 (0.44%) NIST
13 3 (0.33%) 21 CFR Part 11
13 3 (0.33%) SOC 2
14 2 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 2 (0.22%) ISO 9001
14 2 (0.22%) PCI DSS
15 1 (0.11%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 64 (7.11%) Docker
2 3 (0.33%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 49 (5.44%) Kubernetes
2 26 (2.89%) Terraform
3 7 (0.78%) Ansible
4 4 (0.44%) Kubeflow
4 4 (0.44%) Nessus
4 4 (0.44%) Nmap
5 2 (0.22%) Argo
5 2 (0.22%) Progress Chef
5 2 (0.22%) Puppet
6 1 (0.11%) Nagios
Vendors
1 116 (12.89%) Databricks
2 80 (8.89%) Microsoft
3 68 (7.56%) Google
4 31 (3.44%) Alteryx
4 31 (3.44%) Bloomberg
5 29 (3.22%) Oracle
6 26 (2.89%) OpenAI
6 26 (2.89%) Salesforce
7 21 (2.33%) Cisco
8 17 (1.89%) SAP
9 16 (1.78%) Informatica
10 13 (1.44%) Palantir
11 12 (1.33%) Talend
12 9 (1.00%) Foundry
13 5 (0.56%) BT
13 5 (0.56%) Red Hat
14 4 (0.44%) Fortinet
14 4 (0.44%) IBM
14 4 (0.44%) Palo Alto
14 4 (0.44%) Splunk