Data Engineering Job Trends

Data Engineering
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs citing Data Engineering skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 November 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 9 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	128	161	149
Rank change year-on-year	+33	-12	+49
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering	1,752	897	1,199
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK	1.42%	1.75%	1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	1.93%	2.02%	2.14%
Number of salaries quoted	1,156	508	601
10^th Percentile	£46,217	£46,250	£42,500
25^th Percentile	£56,250	£57,188	£55,000
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£75,000	£70,500	£72,500
Median % change year-on-year	+6.38%	-2.76%	+0.69%
75^th Percentile	£95,000	£90,000	£92,500
90^th Percentile	£110,000	£112,500	£111,250
UK excluding London median annual salary	£70,863	£67,500	£60,500
% change year-on-year	+4.98%	+11.57%	-13.57%

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 citing process or methodology skills.

	6 months to 9 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Permanent vacancies citing process or methodology skills	90,556	44,497	55,977
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK	73.60%	86.71%	82.83%
Number of salaries quoted	60,165	26,640	29,240
10^th Percentile	£31,250	£28,250	£33,988
25^th Percentile	£41,750	£35,500	£45,000
Median annual salary (50^th Percentile)	£59,623	£53,750	£60,000
Median % change year-on-year	+10.93%	-10.42%	-
75^th Percentile	£77,500	£75,000	£78,750
90^th Percentile	£100,000	£95,000	£97,500
UK excluding London median annual salary	£55,000	£46,750	£54,000
% change year-on-year	+17.65%	-13.43%	+2.86%

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 Salary Trend

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 9 November 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 9 November 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Salary Past 6 Months	Median Salary % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
England	+34	1,607	£75,000	+7.14%	1,674
UK excluding London	+21	887	£70,863	+4.98%	644
London	+21	765	£85,000	-	1,082
Work from Home	+32	528	£75,664	+6.57%	760
North of England	+66	406	£75,000	+10.29%	212
North West	+32	168	£75,000	+25.00%	125
South East	-53	153	£65,000	-	133
North East	+28	129	£75,000	+57.89%	33
Midlands	-21	119	£75,000	+11.11%	93
Yorkshire	-6	109	£75,332	+7.62%	54
South West	-11	97	£70,000	+14.29%	60
West Midlands	-24	80	£72,500	+20.83%	70
Scotland	-5	49	£85,000	-	63
East Midlands	-35	39	£80,000	+15.94%	23
East of England	-53	37	£70,000	+5.66%	43
Wales	-43	29	£63,500	-36.54%	10
Northern Ireland	-	1	-	-	37

Data Engineering Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 November 2026, job vacancies citing Data Engineering also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all permanent job ads citing Data Engineering.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	SQL	50.2%	880
2	Python	49.7%	871
3	Analytics	47.3%	829
4	Azure	39.2%	686
5	Data Pipeline	39.0%	683
6	AI	34.9%	612
7	Data Modelling	33.4%	585
8	Data Quality	31.3%	548
9	AWS	29.1%	510
10	ETL	28.8%	505
11	CI/CD	27.7%	485
12	Business Intelligence	25.6%	448
13	Decision-Making	24.4%	427
14	Agile	21.8%	382
15	Data Governance	21.3%	373
16	Machine Learning	20.4%	358
17	Databricks	20.3%	355
18	Mentoring	19.1%	334
19	DevOps	18.9%	332
20	Microsoft	18.9%	331
21	Power Platform	17.6%	309
22	Data Architecture	17.6%	308
23	Problem-Solving	17.5%	307
24	Power BI	17.2%	301
25	Data Warehouse	16.9%	296
26	Data Science	15.8%	277
27	GCP	15.2%	267
28	Technical Leadership	15.1%	264
29	Security Cleared	13.6%	238
30	Software Engineering	13.3%	233

Data Engineering Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Analytics	47.3%	829
2	Data Pipeline	39.0%	683
3	AI	34.9%	612
4	Data Modelling	33.4%	585
5	ETL	28.8%	505
6	CI/CD	27.7%	485
7	Business Intelligence	25.6%	448
8	Decision-Making	24.4%	427
9	Agile	21.8%	382
10	Data Governance	21.3%	373
11	Machine Learning	20.4%	358
12	Mentoring	19.1%	334
13	DevOps	18.9%	332
14	Data Architecture	17.6%	308
15	Problem-Solving	17.5%	307
16	Data Science	15.8%	277
17	Technical Leadership	15.1%	264
18	Software Engineering	13.3%	233
19	Stakeholder Management	12.3%	215
20	Continuous Improvement	11.6%	203