Data Engineer vs Data Scientist Salary in the UK (October 2026)
Data engineers and data scientists have the same median advertised salary in the UK: £75k. The difference is in how pay moves with seniority, how much London adds, and how many employers show a figure at all. The numbers below come from live UK job ads checked on 22 October 2026.
The headline numbers
| Data engineer | Data scientist | |
|---|---|---|
| Median advertised salary | £75k | £75k |
| Middle half of ads | £62k to £85k | £60k to £86k |
| Full range | £30k to £200k | £25k to £250k |
| Ads that show a salary | 97 (53%) | 55 (31%) |
| Open roles | 183 | 180 |
| Companies hiring | 102 | 58 |
Open roles are almost equal, but data engineering is spread across nearly twice as many employers. Data engineer ads are also much more likely to show a salary: 53% against 31%. That makes the data engineer figures the sturdier of the two.
Pay by seniority
| Level | Data engineer | Ads | Data scientist | Ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid-level | £65k | 53 | £60k | 29 |
| Senior | £72k | 21 | £80k | 14 |
| Lead / Staff | £85k | 20 | £114k | 6 |
| Head / Director | £135k | 3 | £130k | 3 |
At mid-level, data engineers are advertised £5k higher. By senior level the order flips: data scientist ads median £80k against £72k. The step from mid-level to senior is about £7k for data engineers (11%) and £20k for data scientists (33%).
The Lead / Staff gap is larger, £114k against £85k, but only six data scientist ads at that level show pay. The Head / Director rows rest on three ads each, so treat them as a rough indication only.
London against the rest of the UK
| Data engineer | Data scientist | |
|---|---|---|
| London median | £81k | £80k |
| Rest of the UK median | £70k | £59k |
| Gap | £11k | £21k |
London pays about the same for both roles. Outside London, data scientist ads fall further, to £59k against £70k for data engineers. In current ads, the London premium is almost twice as big for data science.
What the top ads look like
Several of the highest data engineer ads come through agencies, for example a data engineer role at £150k to £200k and a VP role at £150k. Agency ads often quote wide bands, so direct employers are a better guide to a typical offer. Among direct employers advertising data science roles, Monzo lists a Staff Data Scientist at £124k to £165k, and GoCardless a Data Science Manager at £99k to £149k.
What this means if you are choosing
- Early career: data engineering is advertised slightly higher at mid-level, and more employers show a salary, so it is easier to compare offers.
- Mid-career to senior: data science pay climbs faster in the ads we see, though from a lower start and with fewer priced ads.
- Outside London: data engineering holds up better. The gap to London is about half the size.
These are advertised salaries from current ads, not offers or surveys. Sample sizes at senior levels are small, and job titles overlap between the two roles, so a "data scientist" ad can describe engineering work and the reverse.
Live numbers and open roles
Both salary guides update every morning: data engineer salary and data scientist salary. To see the roles themselves, browse data engineer jobs or data scientist jobs, or check the UK tech job market dashboard. For how openly different employers publish pay, see which UK tech employers show the salary.