This article presents data related to the research article titled, ‘Emulsion templated scaffolds with tunable mechanical properties for bone tissue engineering’ (Owen et al., in press) [1]. This data article contains excel files with the results obtained during the mechanical characterisation of 20 acrylate-based PolyHIPE compositions, giving the Young’s modulus, ultimate tensile stress and strain at failure for each specimen tested. Also included are the measurements taken to determine the degree of openness (DOO) of each composition, and the data for the cell viability and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity on the emulsion templated scaffolds.