Data science and machine learning salary, by level
A senior data scientist or machine learning engineer in London earns a base salary of £90k to £130k, with a cash bonus target in the low tens of a percent, so about £125k in cash. The top of the ladder reaches around £190k. Equity is not in these numbers and is most of a senior offer at a large firm.
Research and applied scientist titles pay above engineer titles at the same seniority, and the gap widens where the work is closer to a model that ships. The ladder itself is the technology ladder: the same Google, Meta and Amazon levels apply.
Every level
London, large employers. The salary survey quotes data scientist and machine learning engineer as a single £70,000 to £150,000 London range; the rungs below split it using the national quartiles underneath.
| Level | Base | Bonus | Total (mid) | Reached at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | £45k to £65k | 5% to 10% | £60k | On joining |
| Mid | £65k to £95k | 5% to 15% | £90k | 2y |
| Senior | £90k to £130k | 10% to 20% | £125k | 4y |
| Staff / lead | £120k to £170k | 10% to 20% | £165k | 7y |
| Principal / head of | £135k to £185k | 15% to 25% | £190k | 11y |
Figures describe 2025. Bonus comes from the official earnings survey rather than from a recruiter: median incentive pay for programmers and software development professionals is £3,946 against median pay of £56,914, which is about 7%. That is the honest middle of these bands, and the upper end describes the firms that pay a target bonus at all.
What the cash figures leave out
Equity is missing, and in London it matters at the scale-ups and the US firms’ London offices rather than everywhere. The wider point the national data makes: the UK-wide median for data analysts is £38,572 and for programmers £56,914, so the London bands below describe a market well above the national one, not the country.
Where these numbers come from
Robert Walters UK Salary Survey 20262026
London permanent salary ranges by role and employer size, in data, transformation and commerce and industry.
ONS, Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 2025 (provisional)Published 23 October 2025, describing April 2025
UK full-time gross annual pay and incentive pay percentiles by four-digit occupation. Used for the national floor under the London ranges, and for what share of pay a bonus actually is.
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0
Built from 12,000-odd 2025 filings across data scientist, machine learning engineer, applied scientist and research scientist titles, with the senior, staff and principal rungs taken from the filings that carry those words in the title.
| Level | Base | Bonus | Total (mid) | Reached at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EntryGoogle L3 · Meta E3 · Amazon L4 | $95k to $125k | 5% to 15% | $120k | On joining |
| MidGoogle L4 · Meta E4 · Amazon L5 | $125k to $170k | 10% to 20% | $170k | 2y |
| SeniorGoogle L5 · Meta E5 · Amazon L6 | $145k to $185k | 10% to 20% | $190k | 4y |
| StaffGoogle L6 · Meta E6 · Amazon L7 | $170k to $220k | 15% to 25% | $235k | 7y |
| PrincipalGoogle L7 · Meta E7 · Amazon L8 | $175k to $240k | 15% to 30% | $255k | 11y |
Figures describe 2025. Base is measured: percentiles computed from every 2025 visa disclosure filing for the job titles on this ladder. The bonus column is a target range typical of the sector rather than a measured distribution, and is the softer half of this table.
What the cash figures leave out
Equity is absent and is most of a senior offer at a large firm or a frontier lab. Two more things the base numbers hide: research and applied scientist titles pay above engineer titles at the same seniority, and the filings measure committed base, which flattens the top of the ladder where firms shift the offer into stock.
Where these numbers come from
US Department of Labor, H-1B Labor Condition Application disclosure data2025 filings
Offered annual base wage by employer, job title and worksite. Percentiles below are computed from those rows, not taken from anyone else’s summary.
Licence: US public domain
Ranges, not offers. Compare every track.
Other tracks
For what these jobs involve day to day and how people get into them, see the career track map. For live application windows, the opportunity tracker.
Getting to the next rung
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