UK AI salaries at a glance.
National median base salary, annual, in GBP. Reconciled from ONS ASHE Table 14 (SOC 2020). UK figures are national today; city-level is on the roadmap (ASHE Table 15).
| Role | Median (national) |
|---|---|
| Data Scientist | £60,642 |
| Data Engineer | £60,642 |
| AI Research Scientist | £60,642 |
| AI Solutions Architect | £60,642 |
| AI Infrastructure Engineer | £60,642 |
| NLP Engineer | £56,264 |
| Prompt Engineer | £56,264 |
| Computer Vision Engineer | £56,264 |
| LLM Engineer | £56,264 |
| Generative AI Developer | £56,264 |
| Software Engineer | £56,264 |
| Backend Developer | £56,264 |
Sourcing.
UK figures today come from ONS ASHE alone. The reconciliation is designed for three sources at locked weights; HMRC PAYE RTI and the Skilled Worker visa going rates are built but not yet ingested, so they carry no weight in the current numbers.
| Source | Status | Design weight |
|---|---|---|
| ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) | Live | 0.60 |
| HMRC PAYE Real Time Information | Planned | 0.20 |
| Skilled Worker Visa going rates (Home Office) | Planned | 0.20 |
Design weights sum to 1.0 per RFC-006 §8.3 and activate as each source is ingested. Read the full methodology.
12 cities. One contract.
London.
United Kingdom · pop. 9M · E12000007
The UK's financial capital and largest tech hub. Anchors UK AI compensation at the high end of the European market.
Manchester.
United Kingdom · pop. 2.8M · E12000002
Northern England's tech anchor. Strong AI and data engineering presence; lower cost-of-living than London with comparable senior salaries.
Edinburgh.
Scotland · pop. 0.55M · S12000036
Scotland's tech capital. Strong AI research presence anchored by University of Edinburgh; fintech and biotech secondary clusters.
Bristol.
United Kingdom · pop. 0.7M · E12000009
South West UK's tech hub. Strong AI and aerospace engineering; remote-friendly culture pulls senior talent from London.
Cambridge.
United Kingdom · pop. 0.13M · E07000008
AI research density per capita is the highest in the UK. Anchored by University of Cambridge, DeepMind alumni networks, and biotech cluster.
Oxford.
United Kingdom · pop. 0.15M · E06000044
Sibling to Cambridge in AI research density. Oxford alumni networks anchor several UK AI labs; biotech and deep-tech secondary clusters.
Leeds.
United Kingdom · pop. 0.8M · E08000035
Northern England's data engineering hub. Fintech presence anchored by financial services back-office relocations from London.
Glasgow.
Scotland · pop. 0.6M · S12000049
Scotland's largest city. Mixed tech market with strong fintech presence and growing AI engineering footprint.
Birmingham.
United Kingdom · pop. 1.15M · E08000025
England's second-largest city. Diversified tech market with notable software engineering and data analytics presence.
Belfast.
Northern Ireland · pop. 0.34M · N09000003
Northern Ireland's tech capital. Cybersecurity cluster anchored by Queen's University; growing AI engineering presence.
Cardiff.
Wales · pop. 0.36M · W06000015
Wales's tech capital. Diversified mid-market software engineering with growing AI tooling presence.
Reading.
United Kingdom · pop. 0.16M · E06000038
South East England's commuter-belt tech hub. Strong enterprise software presence anchored by Microsoft and Oracle UK campuses.
What we're confident about. What we're honest about.
Today every UK figure comes from one source: ONS ASHE Table 14, which publishes the gross weekly pay distribution per SOC 2020 occupation with real sample sizes. Orbyt maps each role to its SOC code, reads the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile, and annualizes. Currency normalization runs through the daily published GBP rate, captured at the as_of date of every estimate.
The honest disclosure: UK figures are national (ASHE Table 14 carries no geography dimension) and single-source today. HMRC PAYE RTI would add a monthly geographic median and the Skilled Worker visa schedule a sponsored-role floor; both connectors are built but not yet ingested, so neither contributes to the current numbers. When they do, sample_size_attribution will flag which subset is survey-grade.
UK data status.
UK national figures are ingested for the seeded AI and engineering roles via ONS ASHE Table 14 (national). Per-city UK data (ONS ASHE Table 15, region by occupation), live serving through `?country=GB`, and the HMRC RTI + Skilled Worker visa secondary sources are on the roadmap; they activate without any API contract change.