Pay for IT, Cyber, Data and BI roles 2026

Dear Colleague,

Welcome to IDR's 2026 survey of pay for IT, Cyber, Data and BI roles.

This survey is being undertaken by Incomes Data Research (IDR), the independent pay research organisation. It aims to gather a comprehensive set of current salary levels for selected jobs within:

Development and Architecture (eg software development, AI Engineer, data engineering, architecture)

Cyber (eg cyber security)

Systems Maintenance (eg systems and networks engineering, support technicians)

Management (eg IT manager, AI product manager, function head, director)

Data Science (eg data scientist, Machine learning engineer, senior data scientist, lead data scientist)

Business Intelligence (eg BI engineer/analyst, manager, function head)

With recruitment and retention in these areas remaining a challenge the survey offers an excellent chance to assess the state of the labour market for the roles covered.

All participants will receive a free summary of the results, providing salary benchmarking data. 

The survey can be filled out in more than one sitting by clicking 'Save and Continue Later' at the bottom of any page. A link will be sent to you to allow you to edit your responses until the survey closes. If you wish, you can print your responses to review offline at the end of the survey by selecting 'print response'.

You can skip sections if they do not relate to relevant jobs at your organisation. 

The deadline for completing this survey is Thursday 19 February 2026 at 4pm

If you have any questions, or would like a hard copy of the survey, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards, 

Alyssa Withers
Researcher

alyssawithers@incomesdataresearch.com | +44 (0)1702 669549

Incomes Data Research | 71-75 Shelton Street London WC2H 9JQ | Company no. 0932755

• You are encouraged to complete the survey as fully as possible.
• Please use the ‘previous page’ and ‘next page’ buttons at the bottom of the page to navigate through the survey. We do not recommend use of the ‘back’ and ‘forward’ arrows in your browser as this may cause deletion of your response. 
• You can complete the survey in more than one session by clicking 'save and continue later' at the bottom of any page.
• You can also print your responses on the final page of the survey for your records.

Note: your details are only requested to enable us to deliver this service. IDR takes data protection seriously, and we never sell or share your data with other companies or external bodies. Our data storage and handling processes comply with the latest data protection regulations. If you would like to know more about how we use the data you provide, please contact our designated data protection lead by emailing louisawithers@incomesdataresearch.com