Data Engineering Job Trends

Data Engineering
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs requiring Data Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 152 143
Rank change year-on-year +25 -9 +56
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering 1,638 1,069 1,392
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.45% 2.15% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.98% 2.43% 2.20%
Number of salaries quoted 1,165 461 665
10th Percentile £46,217 £46,000 £44,738
25th Percentile £55,500 £55,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £70,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +14.29% - -6.67%
75th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £92,500
90th Percentile £115,000 £112,500 £105,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £63,950
% change year-on-year +7.69% +1.64% -1.62%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Data Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 82,520 44,009 63,385
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.04% 88.59% 80.80%
Number of salaries quoted 57,449 24,888 36,814
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,500 £31,875
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,500
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £76,250
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,288 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -2.78%

Data Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing Data Engineering relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised.

Data Engineering job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Engineering
Salary Trend

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Engineering.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Engineering

Data Engineering
Salary Histogram

Salary distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Top 17 Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing Data Engineering within the UK over the 6 months to 10 September 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
England +18 1,526 £80,000 +14.29% 865
UK excluding London -17 809 £70,000 +7.69% 470
London +28 726 £90,000 +5.88% 566
Work from Home +10 514 £80,000 +13.07% 370
North of England -1 364 £77,500 +14.81% 104
North West -23 172 £80,000 +37.93% 66
South East -40 155 £70,000 +7.69% 141
Midlands +5 111 £72,500 +7.41% 47
Yorkshire -6 102 £80,000 +14.29% 22
North East +18 90 £65,000 +36.84% 16
South West -27 83 £61,250 +2.08% 59
West Midlands +5 76 £72,500 +20.83% 29
East of England -7 50 £70,000 +40.00% 28
East Midlands -8 35 £63,750 -6.25% 18
Wales -51 25 £63,500 +26.69% 10
Scotland -15 24 £95,000 +31.03% 56
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 26

Data Engineering
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 172 (10.50%) Apache Spark
2 145 (8.85%) Apache Airflow
3 130 (7.94%) Apache
4 27 (1.65%) Palantir Foundry
5 20 (1.22%) Jupyter
6 16 (0.98%) SAS
7 11 (0.67%) SharePoint
8 9 (0.55%) Confluence
9 4 (0.24%) Luigi
10 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
10 2 (0.12%) Moodle
10 2 (0.12%) Tornado
11 1 (0.061%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.061%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.061%) CMS
11 1 (0.061%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.061%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 19 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.12%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.061%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.061%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (0.31%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 3 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.12%) SAP Business One
4 1 (0.061%) FastStats
4 1 (0.061%) Infor M3
4 1 (0.061%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.061%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.061%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.061%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.061%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 683 (41.70%) Azure
2 481 (29.37%) AWS
3 285 (17.40%) Power Platform
4 269 (16.42%) GCP
5 212 (12.94%) Snowflake
6 181 (11.05%) Azure Data Factory
7 151 (9.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 135 (8.24%) dbt
9 101 (6.17%) Serverless
10 93 (5.68%) Amazon S3
10 93 (5.68%) Azure DevOps
11 81 (4.95%) Azure Machine Learning
12 67 (4.09%) Azure AI
13 65 (3.97%) GitHub
14 62 (3.79%) AWS Lambda
15 60 (3.66%) SaaS
16 50 (3.05%) Amazon EMR
17 49 (2.99%) Azure Databricks
18 46 (2.81%) Microsoft Purview
19 40 (2.44%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.40%) Broadband
2 7 (0.43%) Internet
3 4 (0.24%) 5G
4 2 (0.12%) Firewall
4 2 (0.12%) HTTP
4 2 (0.12%) MQTT
5 1 (0.061%) 4G
5 1 (0.061%) ATM
5 1 (0.061%) DAB
Database & Business Intelligence
1 297 (18.13%) Data Warehouse
2 273 (16.67%) Power BI
3 225 (13.74%) Data Lake
4 136 (8.30%) SQL Server
5 116 (7.08%) BigQuery
6 107 (6.53%) Tableau
7 106 (6.47%) Amazon Redshift
8 97 (5.92%) Metadata
9 88 (5.37%) Big Data
10 66 (4.03%) Azure SQL Database
11 62 (3.79%) NoSQL
12 59 (3.60%) Relational Database
12 59 (3.60%) Semantic Layer
13 58 (3.54%) Star Schema
14 57 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
15 56 (3.42%) Delta Lake
16 53 (3.24%) Spark SQL
17 46 (2.81%) Looker
18 45 (2.75%) Amazon Athena
19 41 (2.50%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 112 (6.84%) Git
2 34 (2.08%) Jenkins
3 22 (1.34%) GitLab
4 20 (1.22%) JIRA
4 20 (1.22%) MLflow
5 10 (0.61%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.31%) Poetry
7 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
7 4 (0.24%) Selenium
7 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.12%) ERwin
8 2 (0.12%) Octopus Deploy
8 2 (0.12%) VSS/SourceSafe
9 1 (0.061%) kappa
9 1 (0.061%) RStudio
9 1 (0.061%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.061%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.061%) Yeoman
General
1 431 (26.31%) Finance
2 405 (24.73%) Social Skills
3 283 (17.28%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (8.42%) Public Sector
5 110 (6.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 70 (4.27%) Banking
7 57 (3.48%) Retail
8 55 (3.36%) Marketing
9 44 (2.69%) Legal
10 38 (2.32%) Law
11 37 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (1.83%) Financial Institution
13 26 (1.59%) Manufacturing
14 25 (1.53%) Advertising
15 18 (1.10%) Games
16 12 (0.73%) Aerospace
16 12 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
17 11 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
18 10 (0.61%) Police
19 9 (0.55%) Front Office
Job Titles
1 628 (38.34%) Data Engineer
2 360 (21.98%) Senior
3 302 (18.44%) Lead
4 178 (10.87%) Senior Data Engineer
5 140 (8.55%) Architect
6 115 (7.02%) Data Manager
7 98 (5.98%) Data Architect
7 98 (5.98%) Lead Data Engineer
8 73 (4.46%) Analyst
8 73 (4.46%) Engineering Manager
9 71 (4.33%) Principal Engineer
10 68 (4.15%) Developer
11 66 (4.03%) Consultant
12 60 (3.66%) Databricks Engineer
13 48 (2.93%) Head of Engineering
13 48 (2.93%) Software Engineer
14 47 (2.87%) Databricks Data Engineer
15 45 (2.75%) Data Consultant
15 45 (2.75%) Data Scientist
16 44 (2.69%) Principal Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (10.81%) PySpark
2 123 (7.51%) Terraform
3 91 (5.56%) Kafka
4 41 (2.50%) LangChain
5 40 (2.44%) REST
6 38 (2.32%) .NET
7 36 (2.20%) PyTorch
7 36 (2.20%) TensorFlow
8 35 (2.14%) scikit-learn
9 34 (2.08%) LlamaIndex
10 27 (1.65%) Node.js
11 24 (1.47%) Pandas
12 22 (1.34%) SpaCy
13 21 (1.28%) JSON
13 21 (1.28%) pgvector
14 17 (1.04%) Apache NiFi
15 14 (0.85%) RESTful
16 11 (0.67%) ARM Templates
16 11 (0.67%) FastAPI
16 11 (0.67%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 179 (10.93%) Cloud Native
2 69 (4.21%) Data Structures
3 66 (4.03%) Product Ownership
4 53 (3.24%) Distributed Systems
5 44 (2.69%) Onboarding
6 33 (2.01%) AI Agents
7 26 (1.59%) e-Learning
8 21 (1.28%) Distributed Computing
9 20 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
9 20 (1.22%) Low-Code
10 19 (1.16%) Legacy Systems
10 19 (1.16%) Management Information System
10 19 (1.16%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
11 17 (1.04%) Clustering
12 16 (0.98%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (0.85%) Distributed Architecture
13 14 (0.85%) Hedge funds
14 13 (0.79%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (0.79%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 7 (0.43%) Windows
2 5 (0.31%) Linux
3 1 (0.061%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 772 (47.13%) Analytics
2 621 (37.91%) AI
3 570 (34.80%) Data Pipeline
4 512 (31.26%) Data Modelling
5 463 (28.27%) ETL
6 422 (25.76%) CI/CD
7 414 (25.27%) Business Intelligence
7 414 (25.27%) Data Governance
8 399 (24.36%) Machine Learning
9 386 (23.57%) Agile
9 386 (23.57%) Decision-Making
10 361 (22.04%) Data Architecture
11 313 (19.11%) Mentoring
12 305 (18.62%) DevOps
13 279 (17.03%) Data Science
14 262 (16.00%) Problem-Solving
15 246 (15.02%) Roadmaps
16 211 (12.88%) Lakehouse
17 190 (11.60%) Technical Leadership
18 187 (11.42%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 832 (50.79%) SQL
2 811 (49.51%) Python
3 127 (7.75%) Java
4 70 (4.27%) Scala
5 58 (3.54%) JavaScript
6 53 (3.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 33 (2.01%) C#
8 29 (1.77%) C++
9 28 (1.71%) R
10 25 (1.53%) TypeScript
11 19 (1.16%) Bash
12 16 (0.98%) Go
12 16 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.85%) PowerShell
14 8 (0.49%) Groovy
15 7 (0.43%) Bicep
16 6 (0.37%) Julia
17 5 (0.31%) PL/SQL
17 5 (0.31%) VBA
18 4 (0.24%) Rust
Qualifications
1 173 (10.56%) Degree
2 157 (9.58%) Security Cleared
3 100 (6.11%) SC Cleared
4 58 (3.54%) Master's Degree
5 54 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 42 (2.56%) Azure Certification
6 42 (2.56%) DV Cleared
7 35 (2.14%) DBS Check
8 27 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
9 24 (1.47%) AWS Certification
10 23 (1.40%) PhD
11 15 (0.92%) ACCA
11 15 (0.92%) CIMA
12 12 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
13 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 6 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
15 4 (0.24%) CCA
16 3 (0.18%) CBAP
16 3 (0.18%) CISSP
16 3 (0.18%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 464 (28.33%) Data Quality
2 77 (4.70%) GDPR
3 57 (3.48%) Accessibility
4 39 (2.38%) QA
5 15 (0.92%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 15 (0.92%) GRC
6 9 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
7 7 (0.43%) PERC
8 6 (0.37%) NCSC
8 6 (0.37%) SLA
9 4 (0.24%) PMO
9 4 (0.24%) Solvency II
10 3 (0.18%) EU AI Act
10 3 (0.18%) PCI DSS
10 3 (0.18%) PSD2
11 2 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
12 1 (0.061%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 1 (0.061%) NIST
System Software
1 92 (5.62%) Docker
2 56 (3.42%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.43%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.18%) NDS
4 3 (0.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.061%) Apache Flume
5 1 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.061%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 60 (3.66%) Kubernetes
2 14 (0.85%) Grafana
3 5 (0.31%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.24%) Argo
5 3 (0.18%) Ansible
5 3 (0.18%) Kibana
5 3 (0.18%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.18%) SCCM
6 2 (0.12%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 2 (0.12%) Computer Incident Response Team
7 1 (0.061%) CASB
Vendors
1 437 (26.68%) Databricks
2 310 (18.93%) Microsoft
3 90 (5.49%) Google
4 40 (2.44%) Palantir
5 36 (2.20%) Foundry
6 32 (1.95%) Informatica
6 32 (1.95%) Oracle
7 29 (1.77%) Dell
7 29 (1.77%) SAP
8 25 (1.53%) OpenAI
9 23 (1.40%) Salesforce
10 19 (1.16%) Cloudera
11 15 (0.92%) Teradata
12 12 (0.73%) Denodo
13 11 (0.67%) Sage
14 9 (0.55%) Alteryx
15 5 (0.31%) IBM
15 5 (0.31%) MicroStrategy
16 4 (0.24%) Cognos
16 4 (0.24%) Talend