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 13 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 147 156
Rank change year-on-year +19 +9 +49
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering 1,633 1,071 1,314
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.44% 2.16% 1.68%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 2.44% 2.07%
Number of salaries quoted 1,152 464 662
10th Percentile £46,217 £46,000 £44,738
25th Percentile £55,463 £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 £111,250 £105,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £72,500 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +11.54% - -

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 82,691 43,965 63,361
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 72.84% 88.66% 80.94%
Number of salaries quoted 57,506 24,819 36,681
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,000
25th Percentile £41,500 £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 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -3.23%

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 13 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 13 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 +20 1,513 £80,000 +14.29% 1,460
UK excluding London -11 809 £72,500 +11.54% 690
London +33 722 £90,000 +5.88% 959
Work from Home +17 519 £80,000 +13.48% 840
North of England 0 366 £75,000 +11.11% 160
North West -25 174 £80,000 +37.93% 96
South East -58 154 £70,000 +7.69% 198
Midlands -4 109 £75,000 +11.11% 74
Yorkshire -4 100 £75,000 +7.14% 37
North East +16 92 £66,805 +40.64% 27
South West -17 83 £60,000 - 79
West Midlands -2 75 £75,000 +25.00% 49
East of England -16 44 £70,000 +40.00% 52
East Midlands -18 34 £75,000 +10.29% 25
Scotland -7 31 £100,000 +37.93% 75
Wales -50 25 £63,500 +26.69% 20
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 34

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
1 173 (10.59%) Apache Spark
2 143 (8.76%) Apache Airflow
3 128 (7.84%) Apache
4 23 (1.41%) Palantir Foundry
5 20 (1.22%) Jupyter
6 14 (0.86%) SAS
7 10 (0.61%) SharePoint
8 9 (0.55%) Confluence
9 4 (0.24%) Luigi
9 4 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
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
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 4 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.12%) SAP Business One
4 1 (0.061%) Academy Revenues and Benefits
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
1 680 (41.64%) Azure
2 482 (29.52%) AWS
3 283 (17.33%) Power Platform
4 264 (16.17%) GCP
5 210 (12.86%) Snowflake
6 179 (10.96%) Azure Data Factory
7 152 (9.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 134 (8.21%) dbt
9 99 (6.06%) Serverless
10 98 (6.00%) Amazon S3
11 93 (5.70%) Azure DevOps
12 81 (4.96%) Azure Machine Learning
13 67 (4.10%) Azure AI
14 66 (4.04%) AWS Lambda
15 64 (3.92%) GitHub
16 61 (3.74%) SaaS
17 51 (3.12%) Amazon EMR
18 46 (2.82%) Azure Databricks
19 45 (2.76%) Microsoft Purview
20 41 (2.51%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.41%) 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 (18.19%) Data Warehouse
2 273 (16.72%) Power BI
3 228 (13.96%) Data Lake
4 133 (8.14%) SQL Server
5 114 (6.98%) BigQuery
6 111 (6.80%) Amazon Redshift
7 108 (6.61%) Tableau
8 97 (5.94%) Metadata
9 87 (5.33%) Big Data
10 67 (4.10%) Azure SQL Database
11 63 (3.86%) NoSQL
12 59 (3.61%) Relational Database
12 59 (3.61%) Semantic Layer
13 57 (3.49%) PostgreSQL
14 56 (3.43%) Delta Lake
15 55 (3.37%) Star Schema
16 50 (3.06%) Amazon Athena
16 50 (3.06%) Spark SQL
17 44 (2.69%) Looker
18 41 (2.51%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 120 (7.35%) Git
2 34 (2.08%) Jenkins
3 22 (1.35%) GitLab
4 20 (1.22%) MLflow
5 19 (1.16%) JIRA
6 10 (0.61%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.31%) Poetry
8 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.24%) Selenium
8 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
9 3 (0.18%) Octopus Deploy
10 2 (0.12%) ERwin
10 2 (0.12%) RStudio
10 2 (0.12%) VSS/SourceSafe
11 1 (0.061%) kappa
11 1 (0.061%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.061%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.061%) Yeoman
General
1 431 (26.39%) Finance
2 406 (24.86%) Social Skills
3 282 (17.27%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (8.45%) Public Sector
5 111 (6.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 70 (4.29%) Banking
7 59 (3.61%) Retail
8 53 (3.25%) Marketing
9 43 (2.63%) Legal
10 38 (2.33%) Law
11 37 (2.27%) Influencing Skills
12 31 (1.90%) Financial Institution
13 26 (1.59%) Manufacturing
14 22 (1.35%) Advertising
15 18 (1.10%) Games
16 12 (0.73%) Aerospace
16 12 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
16 12 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
17 10 (0.61%) Police
18 9 (0.55%) Documentation Skills
Job Titles
1 631 (38.64%) Data Engineer
2 364 (22.29%) Senior
3 299 (18.31%) Lead
4 184 (11.27%) Senior Data Engineer
5 142 (8.70%) Architect
6 114 (6.98%) Data Manager
7 100 (6.12%) Data Architect
8 96 (5.88%) Lead Data Engineer
9 73 (4.47%) Principal Engineer
10 72 (4.41%) Engineering Manager
11 70 (4.29%) Analyst
12 69 (4.23%) Developer
13 61 (3.74%) Consultant
14 57 (3.49%) Databricks Engineer
15 53 (3.25%) Software Engineer
16 46 (2.82%) Databricks Data Engineer
16 46 (2.82%) Head of Engineering
17 45 (2.76%) Principal Data Engineer
18 43 (2.63%) Data Scientist
19 42 (2.57%) Data Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (10.84%) PySpark
2 122 (7.47%) Terraform
3 92 (5.63%) Kafka
4 42 (2.57%) LangChain
5 39 (2.39%) REST
6 38 (2.33%) .NET
7 36 (2.20%) PyTorch
7 36 (2.20%) TensorFlow
8 35 (2.14%) LlamaIndex
8 35 (2.14%) scikit-learn
9 26 (1.59%) Node.js
9 26 (1.59%) Pandas
10 23 (1.41%) JSON
11 22 (1.35%) SpaCy
12 21 (1.29%) pgvector
13 16 (0.98%) Apache NiFi
14 13 (0.80%) RESTful
15 12 (0.73%) YAML
16 11 (0.67%) ARM Templates
16 11 (0.67%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 183 (11.21%) Cloud Native
2 67 (4.10%) Data Structures
3 65 (3.98%) Product Ownership
4 52 (3.18%) Distributed Systems
5 45 (2.76%) Onboarding
6 34 (2.08%) AI Agents
7 26 (1.59%) e-Learning
8 20 (1.22%) Low-Code
9 19 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
9 19 (1.16%) Distributed Computing
9 19 (1.16%) Management Information System
9 19 (1.16%) Public Cloud
9 19 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
10 18 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
11 17 (1.04%) Clustering
12 16 (0.98%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (0.86%) Distributed Architecture
13 14 (0.86%) Hedge funds
13 14 (0.86%) Hybrid Cloud
13 14 (0.86%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 7 (0.43%) Windows
2 5 (0.31%) Linux
3 1 (0.061%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 765 (46.85%) Analytics
2 616 (37.72%) AI
3 572 (35.03%) Data Pipeline
4 504 (30.86%) Data Modelling
5 465 (28.48%) ETL
6 421 (25.78%) CI/CD
7 416 (25.47%) Business Intelligence
8 411 (25.17%) Data Governance
9 393 (24.07%) Machine Learning
10 392 (24.00%) Agile
11 389 (23.82%) Decision-Making
12 357 (21.86%) Data Architecture
13 309 (18.92%) Mentoring
14 299 (18.31%) DevOps
15 277 (16.96%) Data Science
16 263 (16.11%) Problem-Solving
17 241 (14.76%) Roadmaps
18 209 (12.80%) Lakehouse
19 197 (12.06%) Technical Leadership
20 186 (11.39%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 828 (50.70%) SQL
2 811 (49.66%) Python
3 127 (7.78%) Java
4 71 (4.35%) Scala
5 59 (3.61%) JavaScript
6 50 (3.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 33 (2.02%) C#
8 30 (1.84%) C++
9 28 (1.71%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.65%) R
11 19 (1.16%) Bash
12 16 (0.98%) Go
12 16 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 13 (0.80%) PowerShell
14 8 (0.49%) Bicep
15 7 (0.43%) Groovy
16 5 (0.31%) PL/SQL
16 5 (0.31%) VBA
17 4 (0.24%) Julia
17 4 (0.24%) Rust
Qualifications
1 168 (10.29%) Degree
2 165 (10.10%) Security Cleared
3 109 (6.67%) SC Cleared
4 55 (3.37%) Master's Degree
5 51 (3.12%) Computer Science Degree
6 45 (2.76%) Azure Certification
7 38 (2.33%) DV Cleared
8 31 (1.90%) DBS Check
9 28 (1.71%) BPSS Clearance
10 25 (1.53%) AWS Certification
11 23 (1.41%) PhD
12 15 (0.92%) ACCA
12 15 (0.92%) CIMA
13 12 (0.73%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (0.37%) 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
1 462 (28.29%) Data Quality
2 77 (4.72%) GDPR
3 58 (3.55%) Accessibility
4 39 (2.39%) QA
5 15 (0.92%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 12 (0.73%) GRC
7 9 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
8 7 (0.43%) NCSC
8 7 (0.43%) PERC
9 4 (0.24%) PMO
9 4 (0.24%) SLA
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
11 2 (0.12%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.061%) NIST
System Software
1 92 (5.63%) Docker
2 56 (3.43%) 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 61 (3.74%) Kubernetes
2 13 (0.80%) 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
1 433 (26.52%) Databricks
2 309 (18.92%) Microsoft
3 87 (5.33%) Google
4 35 (2.14%) Palantir
5 34 (2.08%) Oracle
6 32 (1.96%) Informatica
7 31 (1.90%) Foundry
8 29 (1.78%) Dell
8 29 (1.78%) SAP
9 25 (1.53%) OpenAI
10 23 (1.41%) Salesforce
11 19 (1.16%) Cloudera
12 15 (0.92%) Teradata
13 12 (0.73%) Denodo
14 11 (0.67%) Sage
15 9 (0.55%) Alteryx
16 5 (0.31%) IBM
16 5 (0.31%) MicroStrategy
17 4 (0.24%) Cognos
17 4 (0.24%) Talend