Data Science Contracts

Data Science
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for Data Science skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited Data Science over the 6 months to 18 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
18 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 170 205 178
Rank change year-on-year +35 -27 -7
Contract jobs citing Data Science 570 730 1,416
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.34% 1.28% 1.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.55% 1.43% 1.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 400 442 924
10th Percentile £352 £413 £408
25th Percentile £450 £488 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £575 £590
Median % change year-on-year -6.09% -2.54% +7.27%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £669
90th Percentile £750 £788 £763
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -10.00% - +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 23 37
10th Percentile £19.54 - £25.30
25th Percentile £21.25 £19.00 £31.00
Median hourly rate £30.50 £35.00 £42.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.86% -16.67% +55.79%
75th Percentile £48.13 £52.87 £56.25
90th Percentile £68.75 £62.50 £68.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.50 £22.16 £42.00
% change year-on-year +1.53% -47.24% +71.43%

All Process and Methodology Skills
UK

Data Science is in the Processes and Methodologies category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 36,673 51,121 79,325
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.13% 89.77% 90.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,631 35,432 55,673
10th Percentile £300 £325 £344
25th Percentile £413 £438 £430
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% +7.07%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £638
90th Percentile £750 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £480
% change year-on-year - +4.17% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,440 1,683 1,892
10th Percentile £12.75 £10.63 £12.50
25th Percentile £15.99 £16.01 £15.50
Median hourly rate £36.05 £36.00 £25.68
Median % change year-on-year +0.13% +40.19% +7.00%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.00 £49.54
90th Percentile £72.50 £75.00 £65.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £20.00
% change year-on-year +7.14% +75.00% -4.99%

Data Science
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Data Science as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Data Science in the UK

Data Science
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Data Science.

Daily rate trend for Data Science in the UK

Data Science
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Science over the 6 months to 18 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for Data Science in the UK

Data Science
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Data Science.

Hourly rate trend for Data Science in the UK

Data Science
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Science over the 6 months to 18 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Science in the UK

Data Science
Top 16 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Science within the UK over the 6 months to 18 May 2024. 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +31 494 £550 -4.35% 740
London +40 332 £550 -8.33% 460
Work from Home +54 216 £542 -1.55% 337
UK excluding London -3 151 £495 -10.00% 360
North of England +22 40 £490 -18.33% 64
South East +11 35 £475 -13.64% 126
Midlands +5 27 £488 -9.72% 40
North West +28 25 £488 -15.22% 33
East of England +12 25 £538 +19.44% 28
West Midlands +4 20 £519 -3.58% 25
Yorkshire -3 14 £525 -14.29% 24
South West -13 13 £525 - 62
Wales +23 9 £412 -28.35% 13
Scotland +28 7 £488 -2.50% 19
East Midlands +15 7 £375 -37.50% 15
North East +9 1 - - 7

Data Science
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 33 (5.79%) Apache Spark
2 26 (4.56%) Apache Airflow
3 11 (1.93%) Apache
4 8 (1.40%) Jupyter
5 7 (1.23%) Confluence
6 6 (1.05%) SAS
7 3 (0.53%) CMS
8 2 (0.35%) SharePoint
Applications
1 12 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.93%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.05%) Chatbot
3 6 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.70%) CPLEX
5 4 (0.70%) SPSS
6 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.35%) Simulink
8 1 (0.18%) Stata
Business Applications
1 7 (1.23%) Distributed Ledger
2 3 (0.53%) SAP BPC
2 3 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (0.53%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.35%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 130 (22.81%) Azure
2 101 (17.72%) AWS
3 94 (16.49%) GCP
4 93 (16.32%) Power Platform
5 25 (4.39%) Serverless
6 23 (4.04%) Azure Data Factory
6 23 (4.04%) Vertex AI
7 22 (3.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 21 (3.68%) Amazon S3
9 20 (3.51%) Snowflake
10 15 (2.63%) Azure Machine Learning
10 15 (2.63%) GitHub
11 14 (2.46%) AWS Lambda
12 13 (2.28%) Cloud Computing
13 10 (1.75%) Google Compute Engine
14 9 (1.58%) Amazon EMR
14 9 (1.58%) Amazon SageMaker
14 9 (1.58%) dbt
15 8 (1.40%) Azure DevOps
15 8 (1.40%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 6 (1.05%) Internet
2 5 (0.88%) LAN
2 5 (0.88%) WAN
3 3 (0.53%) Network Security
4 1 (0.18%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (15.79%) Power BI
2 78 (13.68%) Data Warehouse
3 64 (11.23%) Big Data
4 63 (11.05%) Tableau
5 40 (7.02%) Data Lake
6 38 (6.67%) BigQuery
7 25 (4.39%) Hadoop
8 21 (3.68%) Amazon Redshift
9 20 (3.51%) Data Mining
10 16 (2.81%) Metadata
11 15 (2.63%) SQL Server
12 13 (2.28%) BusinessObjects
13 11 (1.93%) Relational Database
14 10 (1.75%) Azure SQL Database
14 10 (1.75%) NoSQL
15 9 (1.58%) Looker
16 7 (1.23%) Presto
17 6 (1.05%) MySQL
17 6 (1.05%) PostgreSQL
17 6 (1.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 37 (6.49%) Git
2 27 (4.74%) JIRA
3 13 (2.28%) Jenkins
4 10 (1.75%) GitLab
5 7 (1.23%) MLflow
6 6 (1.05%) Selenium
7 4 (0.70%) Robot Framework
7 4 (0.70%) RStudio
8 3 (0.53%) ERwin
9 2 (0.35%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.35%) kappa
9 2 (0.35%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.18%) CMake
10 1 (0.18%) LabVIEW
10 1 (0.18%) Poetry
10 1 (0.18%) Xcode
General
1 158 (27.72%) Social Skills
2 123 (21.58%) Analytical Skills
3 103 (18.07%) Finance
4 44 (7.72%) Public Sector
5 35 (6.14%) Marketing
6 22 (3.86%) Banking
7 21 (3.68%) Pharmaceutical
8 19 (3.33%) Influencing Skills
8 19 (3.33%) Retail
9 13 (2.28%) Legal
9 13 (2.28%) Presentation Skills
10 12 (2.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 10 (1.75%) Telecoms
12 7 (1.23%) Advertising
12 7 (1.23%) Manufacturing
13 6 (1.05%) Financial Institution
14 5 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
14 5 (0.88%) Police
14 5 (0.88%) Publishing
15 4 (0.70%) Law
Job Titles
1 143 (25.09%) Data Scientist
2 66 (11.58%) Analyst
3 63 (11.05%) Data Engineer
4 61 (10.70%) Senior
5 51 (8.95%) Architect
5 51 (8.95%) Developer
6 44 (7.72%) Data Analyst
7 37 (6.49%) Lead
8 22 (3.86%) Senior Data Scientist
9 21 (3.68%) Solutions Architect
10 20 (3.51%) Machine Learning Engineer
11 19 (3.33%) Data Manager
12 17 (2.98%) GCP Engineer
13 15 (2.63%) Data Architect
14 13 (2.28%) Azure Engineer
14 13 (2.28%) Consultant
14 13 (2.28%) Senior Data Engineer
15 12 (2.11%) Python Developer
16 11 (1.93%) AWS Engineer
17 10 (1.75%) Full Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (6.84%) PySpark
2 36 (6.32%) Pandas
2 36 (6.32%) scikit-learn
3 32 (5.61%) TensorFlow
4 23 (4.04%) PyTorch
5 20 (3.51%) NumPy
6 16 (2.81%) HTML
6 16 (2.81%) React
7 15 (2.63%) Kafka
8 14 (2.46%) CSS
9 12 (2.11%) AngularJS
10 10 (1.75%) Django
11 9 (1.58%) .NET
12 7 (1.23%) Matplotlib
13 6 (1.05%) Flask
13 6 (1.05%) Middleware
13 6 (1.05%) Plotly
13 6 (1.05%) pytest
14 5 (0.88%) XML
14 5 (0.88%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 80 (14.04%) Algorithms
2 26 (4.56%) Management Information System
3 25 (4.39%) Data Structures
4 23 (4.04%) Product Ownership
5 11 (1.93%) Reference Data
5 11 (1.93%) Self-Motivation
5 11 (1.93%) Team-Oriented Environment
6 9 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
6 9 (1.58%) IoT
7 8 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
8 7 (1.23%) Blockchain
8 7 (1.23%) Credit Risk
8 7 (1.23%) NHS
9 6 (1.05%) Data Centre
9 6 (1.05%) Distributed Computing
9 6 (1.05%) FMCG
9 6 (1.05%) Greenfield Project
9 6 (1.05%) Life Science
9 6 (1.05%) Onboarding
10 5 (0.88%) Multi-touch
Operating Systems
1 13 (2.28%) Windows
2 12 (2.11%) Linux
3 5 (0.88%) Unix
4 2 (0.35%) Android
5 1 (0.18%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 219 (38.42%) Machine Learning
2 201 (35.26%) Analytics
3 131 (22.98%) Agile
4 127 (22.28%) Computer Science
5 123 (21.58%) Artificial Intelligence
6 122 (21.40%) Data Analysis
7 120 (21.05%) Data Modelling
8 119 (20.88%) Visualisation
9 104 (18.25%) Business Intelligence
10 98 (17.19%) Problem-Solving
11 93 (16.32%) ETL
12 88 (15.44%) DevOps
13 86 (15.09%) Data Pipeline
14 80 (14.04%) Data Visualisation
15 71 (12.46%) Data Engineering
16 66 (11.58%) CI/CD
17 65 (11.40%) Mathematics
17 65 (11.40%) Statistics
18 58 (10.18%) Data Management
19 57 (10.00%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 308 (54.04%) Python
2 204 (35.79%) SQL
3 61 (10.70%) R
4 32 (5.61%) Java
5 18 (3.16%) Bash
5 18 (3.16%) JavaScript
6 17 (2.98%) Scala
7 12 (2.11%) C#
8 7 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 7 (1.23%) MATLAB
8 7 (1.23%) TypeScript
9 6 (1.05%) C++
10 5 (0.88%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.70%) PowerShell
12 3 (0.53%) Bicep
12 3 (0.53%) VBA
13 2 (0.35%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.18%) C
14 1 (0.18%) PL/SQL
14 1 (0.18%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 151 (26.49%) Degree
2 75 (13.16%) Computer Science Degree
3 65 (11.40%) Security Cleared
4 51 (8.95%) SC Cleared
5 38 (6.67%) Master's Degree
6 15 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
6 15 (2.63%) PhD
7 12 (2.11%) DV Cleared
8 9 (1.58%) PMI Certification
8 9 (1.58%) PMP
9 7 (1.23%) Numerate Degree
10 5 (0.88%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.88%) CISSP
11 4 (0.70%) Postgraduate
12 3 (0.53%) CFA
12 3 (0.53%) MBA
12 3 (0.53%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.35%) AWS Certification
14 1 (0.18%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 1 (0.18%) CSSLP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (9.65%) Data Quality
2 21 (3.68%) QA
3 13 (2.28%) Accessibility
4 11 (1.93%) GDPR
5 10 (1.75%) Actionable Recommendations
6 6 (1.05%) NCSC
7 5 (0.88%) GxP
7 5 (0.88%) SLA
7 5 (0.88%) WCAG
8 4 (0.70%) PMO
9 3 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.18%) NIST
System Software
1 22 (3.86%) Docker
2 4 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
3 2 (0.35%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 40 (7.02%) Terraform
2 29 (5.09%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.05%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.53%) SysTrack
5 1 (0.18%) Argo
Vendors
1 65 (11.40%) Databricks
2 47 (8.25%) Microsoft
3 26 (4.56%) Google
4 15 (2.63%) Oracle
5 12 (2.11%) SAP
6 10 (1.75%) Foundry
6 10 (1.75%) Palantir
7 9 (1.58%) Alteryx
8 8 (1.40%) ServiceNow
9 6 (1.05%) OpenAI
10 5 (0.88%) Ab Initio
10 5 (0.88%) Informatica
11 3 (0.53%) Citrix
11 3 (0.53%) Cloudera
11 3 (0.53%) Hyperion
11 3 (0.53%) New Relic
11 3 (0.53%) Sparx
11 3 (0.53%) Splunk
11 3 (0.53%) Teradata
12 2 (0.35%) CA