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 18 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 158 168 182
Rank change year-on-year +10 +14 -48
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering 907 917 1,036
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.49% 1.72% 1.74%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.84% 1.89% 1.95%
Number of salaries quoted 578 582 686
10th Percentile £46,175 £42,500 £42,439
25th Percentile £57,500 £53,000 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £71,000 £75,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -5.33% +7.14% -6.67%
75th Percentile £87,586 £97,500 £92,500
90th Percentile £109,125 £115,000 £108,750
UK excluding London median annual salary £65,000 £62,500 £65,066
% change year-on-year +4.00% -3.94% -3.61%

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 49,245 48,425 53,180
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 80.71% 90.86% 89.54%
Number of salaries quoted 28,981 23,503 40,689
10th Percentile £28,500 £35,000 £31,250
25th Percentile £37,500 £45,000 £42,200
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £55,000 £60,000 £58,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +3.45% -7.20%
75th Percentile £75,000 £80,000 £77,500
90th Percentile £95,000 £100,000 £97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £50,000 £55,000 £50,000
% change year-on-year -9.09% +10.00% -9.09%

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 18 January 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Top 16 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 18 January 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 +12 811 £70,000 -6.67% 779
London +50 451 £75,000 -18.92% 215
UK excluding London -10 381 £65,000 +4.00% 699
Work from Home +7 354 £75,000 -1.03% 340
North of England -29 110 £67,500 +28.57% 128
South East +11 93 £75,000 +7.14% 247
Midlands +46 84 £65,000 +18.18% 92
West Midlands +47 63 £60,000 +26.32% 36
Yorkshire -8 60 £68,000 +36.00% 53
North West -23 43 £65,000 +18.18% 55
Scotland -3 40 £72,500 +14.85% 28
East of England +43 30 £52,500 -16.00% 93
South West -40 23 £50,000 -33.33% 83
East Midlands -9 19 £75,000 +15.38% 53
North East -14 7 £67,500 +8.00% 20
Wales +6 5 £65,000 -18.75% 30

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 96 (10.58%) Apache Airflow
2 95 (10.47%) Apache Spark
3 54 (5.95%) Apache
4 14 (1.54%) SAS
5 12 (1.32%) Confluence
5 12 (1.32%) SharePoint
6 10 (1.10%) Appian
7 5 (0.55%) WordPress
8 3 (0.33%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.33%) Moodle
9 1 (0.11%) Apache Solr
9 1 (0.11%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.11%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.11%) GeoServer
9 1 (0.11%) Luigi
Applications
1 31 (3.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.99%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.22%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
4 1 (0.11%) Notion
Business Applications
1 7 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.22%) Markit EDM
2 2 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
3 1 (0.11%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.11%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.11%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 440 (48.51%) Azure
2 277 (30.54%) AWS
3 209 (23.04%) Power Platform
4 156 (17.20%) Snowflake
5 139 (15.33%) GCP
6 137 (15.10%) Azure Data Factory
7 86 (9.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 72 (7.94%) dbt
9 52 (5.73%) Azure DevOps
10 50 (5.51%) Amazon S3
11 45 (4.96%) SaaS
12 40 (4.41%) Serverless
13 36 (3.97%) GitHub
14 35 (3.86%) AWS Lambda
15 27 (2.98%) Fivetran
16 23 (2.54%) Amazon Kinesis
17 21 (2.32%) Azure Machine Learning
18 20 (2.21%) Amazon SageMaker
19 19 (2.09%) Amazon EMR
19 19 (2.09%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.33%) DHCP
1 3 (0.33%) DNS
2 2 (0.22%) Kerberos
3 1 (0.11%) Broadband
3 1 (0.11%) DAB
Database & Business Intelligence
1 282 (31.09%) Data Warehouse
2 198 (21.83%) Power BI
3 131 (14.44%) Data Lake
4 127 (14.00%) SQL Server
5 77 (8.49%) Metadata
6 72 (7.94%) Tableau
7 55 (6.06%) Amazon Redshift
8 54 (5.95%) Big Data
9 47 (5.18%) NoSQL
10 42 (4.63%) Hadoop
11 41 (4.52%) PostgreSQL
12 38 (4.19%) BigQuery
12 38 (4.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 36 (3.97%) Delta Lake
13 36 (3.97%) Relational Database
14 35 (3.86%) Looker
14 35 (3.86%) MySQL
15 30 (3.31%) MongoDB
16 28 (3.09%) SQL Server Reporting Services
17 21 (2.32%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 51 (5.62%) Git
2 31 (3.42%) MLflow
3 18 (1.98%) JIRA
4 11 (1.21%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.77%) GitLab
6 3 (0.33%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.11%) CMake
7 1 (0.11%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.11%) Deequ
7 1 (0.11%) JMeter
7 1 (0.11%) Selenium
7 1 (0.11%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.11%) Zephyr
General
1 290 (31.97%) Finance
2 238 (26.24%) Social Skills
3 121 (13.34%) Analytical Skills
4 76 (8.38%) Law
5 56 (6.17%) Banking
6 50 (5.51%) Public Sector
7 44 (4.85%) Marketing
8 38 (4.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 32 (3.53%) Retail
10 26 (2.87%) Financial Institution
11 24 (2.65%) Manufacturing
12 21 (2.32%) Legal
13 20 (2.21%) Advertising
14 14 (1.54%) French Language
15 13 (1.43%) Automotive
16 10 (1.10%) Front Office
17 8 (0.88%) Documentation Skills
18 7 (0.77%) Organisational Skills
18 7 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
18 7 (0.77%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 406 (44.76%) Data Engineer
2 174 (19.18%) Senior
3 133 (14.66%) Lead
4 110 (12.13%) Senior Data Engineer
5 79 (8.71%) Architect
6 70 (7.72%) Lead Data Engineer
7 62 (6.84%) Data Architect
8 53 (5.84%) Data Manager
9 49 (5.40%) Developer
10 43 (4.74%) Analyst
11 39 (4.30%) Azure Engineer
12 36 (3.97%) Consultant
13 33 (3.64%) Azure Data Engineer
14 28 (3.09%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 28 (3.09%) Engineering Manager
14 28 (3.09%) Principal Engineer
15 26 (2.87%) AWS Engineer
16 23 (2.54%) AWS Data Engineer
17 20 (2.21%) Data Consultant
17 20 (2.21%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 91 (10.03%) PySpark
2 74 (8.16%) Kafka
3 44 (4.85%) PyTorch
3 44 (4.85%) TensorFlow
4 42 (4.63%) Pandas
5 23 (2.54%) REST
5 23 (2.54%) RESTful
5 23 (2.54%) scikit-learn
6 22 (2.43%) LangChain
7 18 (1.98%) pytest
7 18 (1.98%) React
8 17 (1.87%) FastAPI
8 17 (1.87%) NumPy
9 16 (1.76%) Faiss
10 15 (1.65%) Flask
11 14 (1.54%) HTML
11 14 (1.54%) Spring
11 14 (1.54%) XML
12 13 (1.43%) Spring Boot
13 12 (1.32%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 54 (5.95%) Cloud Native
2 46 (5.07%) Product Ownership
3 43 (4.74%) Legacy Systems
4 38 (4.19%) Distributed Systems
5 31 (3.42%) Management Information System
6 22 (2.43%) Data Structures
6 22 (2.43%) Low-Code
7 21 (2.32%) e-Learning
8 19 (2.09%) Greenfield Project
9 17 (1.87%) Hybrid Cloud
10 16 (1.76%) Data Centre
11 15 (1.65%) Onboarding
12 14 (1.54%) Analytical Mindset
13 13 (1.43%) AI Agents
14 11 (1.21%) Distributed Architecture
14 11 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
15 10 (1.10%) FMCG
16 9 (0.99%) Algorithms
17 7 (0.77%) Enterprise Software
18 6 (0.66%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 6 (0.66%) Linux
2 4 (0.44%) Unix
2 4 (0.44%) Windows
3 3 (0.33%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 437 (48.18%) Data Pipeline
2 425 (46.86%) Analytics
3 385 (42.45%) ETL
4 336 (37.05%) Data Modelling
5 265 (29.22%) Business Intelligence
6 254 (28.00%) CI/CD
7 253 (27.89%) AI
8 236 (26.02%) Agile
8 236 (26.02%) Data Governance
9 198 (21.83%) DevOps
10 179 (19.74%) Machine Learning
11 178 (19.63%) Data Science
12 175 (19.29%) Data Integration
12 175 (19.29%) Mentoring
13 164 (18.08%) Problem-Solving
14 161 (17.75%) Data Architecture
15 155 (17.09%) Decision-Making
16 117 (12.90%) Continuous Improvement
17 108 (11.91%) Visualisation
18 103 (11.36%) Data Management
Programming Languages
1 507 (55.90%) Python
2 494 (54.47%) SQL
3 83 (9.15%) Java
4 57 (6.28%) Scala
5 31 (3.42%) T-SQL
6 29 (3.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 22 (2.43%) Bash
7 22 (2.43%) R
8 21 (2.32%) PowerShell
9 17 (1.87%) C#
9 17 (1.87%) JavaScript
10 10 (1.10%) Bicep
10 10 (1.10%) Go
11 7 (0.77%) PHP
11 7 (0.77%) TypeScript
12 6 (0.66%) C++
13 3 (0.33%) Groovy
13 3 (0.33%) Ruby
14 2 (0.22%) PL/SQL
15 1 (0.11%) Korn
Qualifications
1 111 (12.24%) Degree
2 68 (7.50%) Security Cleared
3 45 (4.96%) SC Cleared
4 42 (4.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (3.42%) Master's Degree
6 24 (2.65%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (2.09%) DV Cleared
8 17 (1.87%) AWS Certification
9 16 (1.76%) Azure Certification
10 13 (1.43%) MCSE
11 12 (1.32%) CISSP
11 12 (1.32%) OCP
11 12 (1.32%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.21%) PhD
13 6 (0.66%) DBS Check
13 6 (0.66%) SnowPro
14 5 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
14 5 (0.55%) CRISC
15 3 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 2 (0.22%) MCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 222 (24.48%) Data Quality
2 66 (7.28%) Accessibility
3 54 (5.95%) GDPR
4 18 (1.98%) QA
5 11 (1.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.55%) SLA
7 4 (0.44%) HIPAA
7 4 (0.44%) NIST
8 3 (0.33%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 1 (0.11%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.11%) GAAP
10 1 (0.11%) GMP
10 1 (0.11%) GRC
10 1 (0.11%) IFRS
10 1 (0.11%) IFRS 17
10 1 (0.11%) NCSC
10 1 (0.11%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
System Software
1 85 (9.37%) Docker
2 9 (0.99%) Active Directory
2 9 (0.99%) HDFS
3 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 71 (7.83%) Kubernetes
2 58 (6.39%) Terraform
3 8 (0.88%) Argo
4 6 (0.66%) Ansible
4 6 (0.66%) Grafana
4 6 (0.66%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.55%) Control-M
5 5 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.44%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.33%) SCCM
8 1 (0.11%) Istio
8 1 (0.11%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.11%) Puppet
Vendors
1 241 (26.57%) Databricks
2 201 (22.16%) Microsoft
3 49 (5.40%) Oracle
4 33 (3.64%) Informatica
5 30 (3.31%) Google
6 29 (3.20%) OpenAI
6 29 (3.20%) Palantir
7 28 (3.09%) Talend
8 23 (2.54%) Foundry
9 17 (1.87%) SAP
10 14 (1.54%) Dell
11 10 (1.10%) Automation Anywhere
11 10 (1.10%) NVIDIA
11 10 (1.10%) UiPath
12 7 (0.77%) Salesforce
13 6 (0.66%) Cloudera
13 6 (0.66%) MuleSoft
14 5 (0.55%) Dataiku
14 5 (0.55%) Netezza
15 4 (0.44%) CrowdStrike