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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 161 130 106
Rank change year-on-year -31 -24 -39
Permanent jobs citing Data Science 973 1,100 2,124
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.39% 2.35% 2.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.76% 2.53% 3.08%
Number of salaries quoted 509 501 1,306
10th Percentile £42,000 £42,500 £42,250
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 £87,500
90th Percentile £102,500 £111,250 £115,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £60,709 £62,500 £57,500
% change year-on-year -2.87% +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 55,161 43,489 68,939
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 78.71% 93.04% 88.07%
Number of salaries quoted 33,069 21,992 52,917
10th Percentile £29,000 £33,000 £29,440
25th Percentile £38,750 £45,000 £40,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -12.00%
75th Percentile £76,250 £81,250 £75,000
90th Percentile £97,500 £102,500 £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 1 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 1 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 -26 900 £70,000 - 1,091
London +23 476 £80,000 - 470
UK excluding London -75 430 £60,709 -2.87% 839
Work from Home -56 307 £67,110 +3.25% 549
South East -25 158 £60,000 -0.83% 294
North of England -53 93 £62,500 -2.25% 168
South West -37 73 £60,000 -14.29% 99
Midlands -27 68 £55,000 +12.82% 120
North West +1 64 £62,500 -3.85% 81
West Midlands -11 34 £65,000 +44.44% 45
East Midlands -26 34 £40,000 -44.83% 73
Yorkshire -71 24 £60,000 -6.25% 59
East of England -9 15 £81,850 +33.09% 99
Wales -4 11 £39,756 -51.81% 25
Scotland -58 10 £95,000 +90.00% 38
North East -17 5 £62,500 +25.00% 29
Northern Ireland -28 3 £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 69 (7.09%) Apache Spark
2 46 (4.73%) Apache Airflow
3 26 (2.67%) SharePoint
4 22 (2.26%) ArcGIS
5 20 (2.06%) Apache
6 10 (1.03%) Jupyter
7 7 (0.72%) SAS
8 6 (0.62%) Confluence
8 6 (0.62%) IIS
9 3 (0.31%) Apache Superset
9 3 (0.31%) CMS
10 1 (0.10%) GeoServer
10 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.10%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.10%) WordPress
Applications
1 70 (7.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.51%) Chatbot
2 5 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.31%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (0.62%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.21%) 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
1 282 (28.98%) Azure
2 272 (27.95%) AWS
3 165 (16.96%) GCP
4 138 (14.18%) Power Platform
5 57 (5.86%) Snowflake
6 42 (4.32%) Azure Machine Learning
7 39 (4.01%) Azure AI
8 34 (3.49%) Amazon SageMaker
9 32 (3.29%) dbt
10 31 (3.19%) Vertex AI
11 29 (2.98%) Azure Data Factory
12 28 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
13 27 (2.77%) GitHub
14 24 (2.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 24 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
15 23 (2.36%) SaaS
16 20 (2.06%) Dagster
17 19 (1.95%) PowerApps
18 16 (1.64%) Serverless
19 15 (1.54%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 59 (6.06%) Broadband
2 11 (1.13%) 4G
2 11 (1.13%) BGP
2 11 (1.13%) Cisco IOS
2 11 (1.13%) Ethernet VPN
2 11 (1.13%) IOS XR
2 11 (1.13%) MPLS
3 7 (0.72%) TCP/IP
4 5 (0.51%) Firewall
5 4 (0.41%) Bluetooth
5 4 (0.41%) HTTP
5 4 (0.41%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (0.41%) Kerberos
5 4 (0.41%) Modbus
5 4 (0.41%) Network Security
5 4 (0.41%) VLAN
5 4 (0.41%) Wireshark
5 4 (0.41%) ZigBee
6 3 (0.31%) MQTT
7 2 (0.21%) Tactical Data Link
Database & Business Intelligence
1 132 (13.57%) Power BI
2 110 (11.31%) Data Warehouse
3 100 (10.28%) Tableau
4 75 (7.71%) Data Lake
5 53 (5.45%) Metadata
6 48 (4.93%) BigQuery
7 42 (4.32%) NoSQL
8 39 (4.01%) Big Data
9 36 (3.70%) Amazon Redshift
10 34 (3.49%) SQL Server
11 30 (3.08%) MongoDB
12 28 (2.88%) Data Mining
13 27 (2.77%) Elasticsearch
14 26 (2.67%) GIS
14 26 (2.67%) Hadoop
15 24 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
15 24 (2.47%) QGIS
16 23 (2.36%) Delta Lake
16 23 (2.36%) Looker
17 22 (2.26%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 62 (6.37%) Git
2 34 (3.49%) MLflow
3 14 (1.44%) ERwin
3 14 (1.44%) GitLab
4 9 (0.92%) JIRA
5 7 (0.72%) PowerDesigner
6 5 (0.51%) Burp Suite
7 4 (0.41%) ER Studio
7 4 (0.41%) Metasploit
8 3 (0.31%) Jenkins
8 3 (0.31%) Selenium
9 1 (0.10%) MSBuild
9 1 (0.10%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.10%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 289 (29.70%) Finance
2 278 (28.57%) Social Skills
3 209 (21.48%) Analytical Skills
4 88 (9.04%) Banking
5 87 (8.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 80 (8.22%) Marketing
7 64 (6.58%) Pharmaceutical
8 56 (5.76%) Retail
9 44 (4.52%) Law
10 43 (4.42%) Financial Institution
11 34 (3.49%) Public Sector
12 24 (2.47%) Manufacturing
13 22 (2.26%) Legal
14 21 (2.16%) Organisational Skills
15 14 (1.44%) Telecoms
16 12 (1.23%) Advertising
16 12 (1.23%) Documentation Skills
17 11 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.92%) Aerospace
18 9 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 218 (22.40%) Data Scientist
2 198 (20.35%) Senior
3 150 (15.42%) Data Engineer
4 143 (14.70%) Lead
5 95 (9.76%) Analyst
6 86 (8.84%) Senior Data Scientist
7 72 (7.40%) Consultant
7 72 (7.40%) Data Analyst
8 56 (5.76%) Software Engineer
9 51 (5.24%) Senior Data Engineer
10 44 (4.52%) Developer
11 34 (3.49%) Architect
11 34 (3.49%) Artificial Intelligence Consultant
12 24 (2.47%) Data Consultant
13 22 (2.26%) Python Engineer
14 21 (2.16%) Data Architect
14 21 (2.16%) Machine Learning Consultant
14 21 (2.16%) Senior Analyst
15 20 (2.06%) Spatial Consultant
16 19 (1.95%) Senior Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (10.28%) PyTorch
2 74 (7.61%) TensorFlow
3 37 (3.80%) PySpark
4 36 (3.70%) scikit-learn
5 30 (3.08%) LangChain
6 29 (2.98%) gRPC
6 29 (2.98%) React
7 24 (2.47%) Kafka
8 23 (2.36%) Pandas
9 19 (1.95%) HTML
10 18 (1.85%) RESTful
11 15 (1.54%) Django
12 14 (1.44%) CSS
13 13 (1.34%) Hugging Face
14 11 (1.13%) .NET
14 11 (1.13%) FastAPI
14 11 (1.13%) Jinja
14 11 (1.13%) NETCONF
14 11 (1.13%) YANG
15 10 (1.03%) Faiss
Miscellaneous
1 99 (10.17%) Algorithms
2 90 (9.25%) Life Science
3 56 (5.76%) Distributed Systems
4 51 (5.24%) Product Ownership
5 39 (4.01%) Video\Live Streaming
6 36 (3.70%) Self-Motivation
7 31 (3.19%) Management Information System
8 30 (3.08%) Data Structures
8 30 (3.08%) Over-the-Top Content
9 24 (2.47%) AI Agents
10 23 (2.36%) Cloud Native
11 21 (2.16%) Pharmacovigilance
12 18 (1.85%) Social Media
13 16 (1.64%) Onboarding
14 15 (1.54%) Greenfield Project
15 12 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
16 11 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
17 10 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
18 9 (0.92%) Hybrid Cloud
18 9 (0.92%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 14 (1.44%) Linux
2 5 (0.51%) Unix
3 4 (0.41%) Android
3 4 (0.41%) Kali Linux
3 4 (0.41%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.31%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 506 (52.00%) AI
2 492 (50.57%) Analytics
3 480 (49.33%) Machine Learning
4 235 (24.15%) Problem-Solving
5 222 (22.82%) Computer Science
6 219 (22.51%) Agile
7 208 (21.38%) Decision-Making
8 198 (20.35%) Business Intelligence
9 178 (18.29%) Data Engineering
10 177 (18.19%) CI/CD
11 172 (17.68%) Data Analysis
12 169 (17.37%) Data Pipeline
13 164 (16.86%) Data Modelling
14 153 (15.72%) Visualisation
15 142 (14.59%) Mentoring
16 139 (14.29%) Mathematics
17 137 (14.08%) Data Governance
18 136 (13.98%) Statistics
19 134 (13.77%) ETL
20 129 (13.26%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 558 (57.35%) Python
2 296 (30.42%) SQL
3 73 (7.50%) Scala
4 71 (7.30%) R
5 67 (6.89%) Java
6 41 (4.21%) Go
7 27 (2.77%) JavaScript
8 22 (2.26%) VBA
9 19 (1.95%) C++
10 14 (1.44%) C#
11 11 (1.13%) Rust
11 11 (1.13%) TypeScript
12 10 (1.03%) Bash
13 7 (0.72%) ANSI SQL
13 7 (0.72%) PHP
14 6 (0.62%) C
14 6 (0.62%) T-SQL
15 5 (0.51%) MATLAB
15 5 (0.51%) PowerShell
16 4 (0.41%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 362 (37.20%) Degree
2 147 (15.11%) Master's Degree
3 106 (10.89%) Security Cleared
4 89 (9.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 79 (8.12%) PhD
6 70 (7.19%) SC Cleared
7 40 (4.11%) Numerate Degree
8 39 (4.01%) DV Cleared
9 24 (2.47%) MBA
10 21 (2.16%) DBS Check
11 16 (1.64%) Azure Certification
12 13 (1.34%) APMP
13 10 (1.03%) BPSS Clearance
14 9 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
15 8 (0.82%) AWS Certification
15 8 (0.82%) PMI Certification
16 7 (0.72%) PMP
17 3 (0.31%) SAP Certification
18 1 (0.10%) CCNA
18 1 (0.10%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 164 (16.86%) Data Quality
2 56 (5.76%) GDPR
3 53 (5.45%) Accessibility
4 37 (3.80%) GxP
5 32 (3.29%) QA
6 22 (2.26%) Solvency II
7 21 (2.16%) EU AI Act
7 21 (2.16%) HIPAA
7 21 (2.16%) PSD2
8 9 (0.92%) Actionable Recommendations
9 7 (0.72%) CDISC
9 7 (0.72%) HL7
10 5 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.31%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 3 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.31%) PERC
12 2 (0.21%) ISO 9001
12 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.10%) GAAP
13 1 (0.10%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 96 (9.87%) Docker
2 4 (0.41%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 59 (6.06%) Kubernetes
2 36 (3.70%) Terraform
3 6 (0.62%) Ansible
4 4 (0.41%) Nessus
4 4 (0.41%) Nmap
5 3 (0.31%) Kubeflow
6 2 (0.21%) Argo
7 1 (0.10%) Nagios
Vendors
1 114 (11.72%) Databricks
2 83 (8.53%) Microsoft
3 75 (7.71%) Google
4 31 (3.19%) Alteryx
4 31 (3.19%) Bloomberg
5 29 (2.98%) Salesforce
6 27 (2.77%) Typelevel
7 25 (2.57%) OpenAI
8 24 (2.47%) Oracle
9 23 (2.36%) Cisco
10 17 (1.75%) Informatica
11 14 (1.44%) Palantir
12 12 (1.23%) SAP
13 9 (0.92%) Foundry
13 9 (0.92%) Talend
14 8 (0.82%) Dell
15 7 (0.72%) ServiceNow
16 5 (0.51%) BT
16 5 (0.51%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
17 4 (0.41%) Teradata