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 21 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 152 144
Rank change year-on-year +24 -8 +52
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering 1,600 1,056 1,463
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.49% 2.12% 1.76%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.03% 2.38% 2.18%
Number of salaries quoted 1,124 454 731
10th Percentile £45,137 £46,075 £42,500
25th Percentile £56,000 £55,237 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £80,000 £70,250 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.88% +0.36% -6.67%
75th Percentile £100,000 £95,000 £90,411
90th Percentile £115,000 £112,500 £105,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £73,750 £67,500 £62,500
% change year-on-year +9.26% +8.00% -

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 78,861 44,450 67,204
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.27% 89.12% 80.81%
Number of salaries quoted 54,468 25,168 42,663
10th Percentile £31,000 £28,500 £31,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £36,750 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% - -8.71%
75th Percentile £78,750 £75,000 £75,000
90th Percentile £100,000 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year +15.79% -5.00% -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 21 August 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 21 August 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 +31 1,505 £80,000 +13.88% 441
UK excluding London -19 771 £73,750 +9.26% 312
London +40 737 £90,000 +3.15% 228
Work from Home +5 478 £82,500 +10.00% 226
North of England -1 341 £78,500 +16.30% 96
North West -29 169 £80,000 +33.33% 46
South East -43 156 £67,500 +3.85% 116
Midlands +6 100 £72,500 +7.41% 24
Yorkshire -7 98 £80,000 +15.94% 27
South West -27 77 £60,000 -14.29% 45
North East +5 74 £67,500 +42.11% 25
West Midlands -2 67 £75,000 +25.00% 20
East of England +10 59 £70,000 +40.00% 11
East Midlands -6 33 £52,500 -22.79% 4
Scotland -11 21 £100,000 +90.48% 14
Wales -42 18 £61,750 -10.51% 4
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 5

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
1 186 (11.63%) Apache Spark
2 169 (10.56%) Apache Airflow
3 132 (8.25%) Apache
4 24 (1.50%) Palantir Foundry
5 20 (1.25%) Jupyter
6 18 (1.13%) SAS
7 11 (0.69%) SharePoint
8 9 (0.56%) Confluence
9 4 (0.25%) Luigi
9 4 (0.25%) Moodle
10 2 (0.13%) Apache Superset
10 2 (0.13%) Tornado
11 1 (0.063%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.063%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.063%) GeoServer
Applications
1 20 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.063%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 3 (0.19%) SAP SD
2 2 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.13%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 2 (0.13%) SAP Business One
2 2 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.063%) FastStats
3 1 (0.063%) Infor M3
3 1 (0.063%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.063%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.063%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.063%) Unit4 Business World
Cloud Services
1 677 (42.31%) Azure
2 484 (30.25%) AWS
3 284 (17.75%) Power Platform
4 271 (16.94%) GCP
5 241 (15.06%) Snowflake
6 166 (10.38%) Azure Data Factory
7 155 (9.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 144 (9.00%) dbt
9 94 (5.88%) Amazon S3
10 86 (5.38%) Azure DevOps
11 85 (5.31%) Azure Machine Learning
12 84 (5.25%) Serverless
13 69 (4.31%) Azure AI
14 59 (3.69%) SaaS
15 58 (3.63%) GitHub
16 45 (2.81%) Microsoft Purview
17 41 (2.56%) AWS Lambda
18 33 (2.06%) Amazon EMR
19 24 (1.50%) AWS CloudFormation
19 24 (1.50%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 24 (1.50%) Broadband
2 7 (0.44%) Internet
3 4 (0.25%) 5G
4 2 (0.13%) DAB
4 2 (0.13%) Firewall
4 2 (0.13%) HTTP
4 2 (0.13%) MQTT
5 1 (0.063%) 4G
5 1 (0.063%) ATM
5 1 (0.063%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (19.06%) Data Warehouse
2 272 (17.00%) Power BI
3 229 (14.31%) Data Lake
4 140 (8.75%) SQL Server
5 126 (7.88%) Tableau
6 122 (7.63%) BigQuery
7 110 (6.88%) Amazon Redshift
8 93 (5.81%) Metadata
9 84 (5.25%) Big Data
10 64 (4.00%) Relational Database
11 61 (3.81%) Azure SQL Database
11 61 (3.81%) NoSQL
12 58 (3.63%) PostgreSQL
13 57 (3.56%) Star Schema
14 56 (3.50%) Semantic Layer
15 54 (3.38%) Delta Lake
16 53 (3.31%) Looker
17 48 (3.00%) Elasticsearch
18 46 (2.88%) Snowflake Schema
18 46 (2.88%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 110 (6.88%) Git
2 33 (2.06%) Jenkins
3 30 (1.88%) MLflow
4 23 (1.44%) GitLab
5 20 (1.25%) JIRA
6 12 (0.75%) IBM UrbanCode
7 9 (0.56%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.25%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.25%) Selenium
9 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio Code
10 2 (0.13%) ERwin
10 2 (0.13%) VSS/SourceSafe
11 1 (0.063%) Poetry
11 1 (0.063%) RStudio
11 1 (0.063%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.063%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.063%) Yeoman
General
1 419 (26.19%) Finance
2 374 (23.38%) Social Skills
3 273 (17.06%) Analytical Skills
4 108 (6.75%) Public Sector
5 103 (6.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 76 (4.75%) Banking
7 57 (3.56%) Retail
8 52 (3.25%) Marketing
9 49 (3.06%) Legal
10 41 (2.56%) Influencing Skills
11 32 (2.00%) Law
12 27 (1.69%) Financial Institution
13 25 (1.56%) Advertising
13 25 (1.56%) Manufacturing
14 18 (1.13%) Games
15 14 (0.88%) Investment Banking
16 12 (0.75%) Aerospace
17 11 (0.69%) Presentation Skills
18 9 (0.56%) Front Office
19 7 (0.44%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 587 (36.69%) Data Engineer
2 344 (21.50%) Senior
3 287 (17.94%) Lead
4 159 (9.94%) Senior Data Engineer
5 141 (8.81%) Architect
6 112 (7.00%) Data Manager
7 99 (6.19%) Data Architect
8 95 (5.94%) Lead Data Engineer
9 82 (5.13%) Analyst
10 70 (4.38%) Consultant
10 70 (4.38%) Engineering Manager
11 69 (4.31%) Principal Engineer
12 59 (3.69%) Developer
13 49 (3.06%) Data Consultant
14 48 (3.00%) Head of Engineering
15 43 (2.69%) Software Engineer
16 42 (2.63%) Python Engineer
17 41 (2.56%) Data Scientist
17 41 (2.56%) Principal Data Engineer
18 35 (2.19%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 157 (9.81%) PySpark
2 123 (7.69%) Terraform
3 97 (6.06%) Kafka
4 45 (2.81%) LangChain
5 43 (2.69%) scikit-learn
6 42 (2.63%) PyTorch
6 42 (2.63%) TensorFlow
7 38 (2.38%) LlamaIndex
8 36 (2.25%) REST
9 29 (1.81%) pgvector
10 27 (1.69%) Node.js
11 25 (1.56%) Pandas
12 21 (1.31%) .NET
13 19 (1.19%) SpaCy
14 18 (1.13%) JSON
15 17 (1.06%) Apache NiFi
16 15 (0.94%) RESTful
17 11 (0.69%) ARM Templates
17 11 (0.69%) FastAPI
17 11 (0.69%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 181 (11.31%) Cloud Native
2 67 (4.19%) Data Structures
3 64 (4.00%) Product Ownership
4 56 (3.50%) Distributed Systems
5 34 (2.13%) Onboarding
6 28 (1.75%) AI Agents
7 27 (1.69%) e-Learning
8 26 (1.63%) Public Cloud
9 25 (1.56%) Clustering
10 22 (1.38%) Low-Code
11 21 (1.31%) Analytical Mindset
11 21 (1.31%) Distributed Computing
12 20 (1.25%) Management Information System
13 18 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
13 18 (1.13%) Legacy Systems
13 18 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
14 15 (0.94%) Distributed Architecture
15 13 (0.81%) IoT
16 12 (0.75%) Algorithms
16 12 (0.75%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 7 (0.44%) Windows
2 6 (0.38%) Linux
3 1 (0.063%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.063%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (47.88%) Analytics
2 627 (39.19%) AI
3 564 (35.25%) Data Pipeline
4 505 (31.56%) Data Modelling
5 440 (27.50%) ETL
6 433 (27.06%) Data Governance
7 408 (25.50%) Business Intelligence
8 394 (24.63%) Machine Learning
9 391 (24.44%) CI/CD
10 374 (23.38%) Agile
11 361 (22.56%) Decision-Making
12 360 (22.50%) Data Architecture
13 293 (18.31%) DevOps
14 281 (17.56%) Mentoring
15 271 (16.94%) Data Science
16 243 (15.19%) Problem-Solving
17 237 (14.81%) Roadmaps
18 191 (11.94%) Continuous Improvement
19 169 (10.56%) Technical Leadership
20 155 (9.69%) Data Strategy
Programming Languages
1 802 (50.13%) Python
1 802 (50.13%) SQL
2 110 (6.88%) Java
3 65 (4.06%) Scala
4 48 (3.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 40 (2.50%) JavaScript
6 27 (1.69%) R
7 21 (1.31%) TypeScript
8 19 (1.19%) Bash
9 17 (1.06%) Go
10 16 (1.00%) C#
10 16 (1.00%) T-SQL
11 14 (0.88%) PowerShell
12 11 (0.69%) C++
13 8 (0.50%) Bicep
13 8 (0.50%) Groovy
14 7 (0.44%) VBA
15 6 (0.38%) Julia
16 5 (0.31%) PL/SQL
17 4 (0.25%) Rust
Qualifications
1 181 (11.31%) Degree
2 145 (9.06%) Security Cleared
3 91 (5.69%) SC Cleared
4 56 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
5 54 (3.38%) Master's Degree
6 40 (2.50%) DV Cleared
7 39 (2.44%) Azure Certification
8 32 (2.00%) DBS Check
9 26 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
10 22 (1.38%) AWS Certification
11 20 (1.25%) PhD
12 13 (0.81%) Microsoft Certification
13 12 (0.75%) ACCA
13 12 (0.75%) CIMA
14 7 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.38%) Numerate Degree
16 4 (0.25%) CCA
17 3 (0.19%) CBAP
17 3 (0.19%) CISSP
17 3 (0.19%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 439 (27.44%) Data Quality
2 101 (6.31%) GDPR
3 53 (3.31%) Accessibility
4 41 (2.56%) QA
5 35 (2.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 15 (0.94%) GRC
7 12 (0.75%) HIPAA
8 9 (0.56%) Actionable Recommendations
9 7 (0.44%) PERC
10 6 (0.38%) SLA
11 4 (0.25%) NCSC
11 4 (0.25%) PMO
11 4 (0.25%) Solvency II
12 3 (0.19%) EU AI Act
12 3 (0.19%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.19%) PSD2
13 2 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 1 (0.063%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 1 (0.063%) NIST
System Software
1 92 (5.75%) Docker
2 56 (3.50%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.44%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.19%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.13%) NDS
6 1 (0.063%) Apache Flume
6 1 (0.063%) Embedded Firmware
6 1 (0.063%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 61 (3.81%) Kubernetes
2 15 (0.94%) Grafana
3 6 (0.38%) Ansible
3 6 (0.38%) Prometheus
4 4 (0.25%) Argo
5 3 (0.19%) Kibana
5 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Intune
5 3 (0.19%) SCCM
6 2 (0.13%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
6 2 (0.13%) Computer Incident Response Team
7 1 (0.063%) CASB
Vendors
1 462 (28.88%) Databricks
2 297 (18.56%) Microsoft
3 87 (5.44%) Google
4 50 (3.13%) Dell
5 49 (3.06%) Oracle
6 45 (2.81%) Informatica
7 37 (2.31%) Palantir
8 33 (2.06%) Foundry
9 32 (2.00%) SAP
10 27 (1.69%) Cloudera
10 27 (1.69%) OpenAI
11 26 (1.63%) Teradata
12 25 (1.56%) Salesforce
13 24 (1.50%) Denodo
14 12 (0.75%) Red Hat
15 10 (0.63%) Sage
16 9 (0.56%) Alteryx
17 6 (0.38%) MicroStrategy
18 5 (0.31%) Cognos
18 5 (0.31%) Talend