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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 152 145
Rank change year-on-year +27 -7 +59
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering 1,636 1,069 1,393
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.44% 2.15% 1.77%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 2.43% 2.19%
Number of salaries quoted 1,160 461 669
10th Percentile £46,217 £46,000 £44,738
25th Percentile £55,350 £55,000 £56,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £79,750 £70,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +13.93% - -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 82,871 44,018 63,575
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.00% 88.61% 80.87%
Number of salaries quoted 57,674 24,857 36,941
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 £96,250 £95,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £55,000 £47,500 £52,500
% change year-on-year +15.79% -9.52% -3.67%

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 11 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 11 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 1,523 £80,000 +14.29% 928
UK excluding London -15 808 £70,000 +7.69% 519
London +32 724 £88,750 +4.41% 583
Work from Home +20 518 £80,000 +12.68% 407
North of England -4 364 £75,000 +11.11% 120
North West -25 172 £80,000 +37.93% 74
South East -58 155 £70,000 +7.69% 157
Midlands +6 111 £72,500 +7.41% 53
Yorkshire -8 101 £77,500 +10.71% 25
North East +20 91 £65,903 +38.74% 21
South West -23 84 £61,250 +2.08% 63
West Midlands +7 76 £72,500 +20.83% 32
East of England -12 47 £70,000 +40.00% 39
East Midlands -16 35 £63,750 -6.25% 21
Scotland -12 25 £100,000 +37.93% 59
Wales -44 25 £63,500 +26.69% 12
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 17

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 (10.57%) Apache Spark
2 144 (8.80%) Apache Airflow
3 130 (7.95%) Apache
4 24 (1.47%) Palantir Foundry
5 20 (1.22%) Jupyter
6 15 (0.92%) SAS
7 11 (0.67%) SharePoint
8 9 (0.55%) Confluence
9 4 (0.24%) Luigi
10 3 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
11 2 (0.12%) Moodle
11 2 (0.12%) Tornado
12 1 (0.061%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.061%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.061%) CMS
12 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 3 (0.18%) 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
1 683 (41.75%) Azure
2 483 (29.52%) AWS
3 287 (17.54%) Power Platform
4 268 (16.38%) GCP
5 211 (12.90%) Snowflake
6 181 (11.06%) Azure Data Factory
7 151 (9.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 135 (8.25%) dbt
9 102 (6.23%) Serverless
10 96 (5.87%) Amazon S3
11 93 (5.68%) Azure DevOps
12 81 (4.95%) Azure Machine Learning
13 67 (4.10%) Azure AI
14 65 (3.97%) AWS Lambda
14 65 (3.97%) GitHub
15 60 (3.67%) SaaS
16 52 (3.18%) Amazon EMR
17 49 (3.00%) Azure Databricks
18 45 (2.75%) Microsoft Purview
19 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
1 300 (18.34%) Data Warehouse
2 275 (16.81%) Power BI
3 228 (13.94%) Data Lake
4 135 (8.25%) SQL Server
5 116 (7.09%) BigQuery
6 110 (6.72%) Amazon Redshift
7 108 (6.60%) Tableau
8 97 (5.93%) Metadata
9 88 (5.38%) Big Data
10 65 (3.97%) Azure SQL Database
11 64 (3.91%) NoSQL
12 59 (3.61%) Semantic Layer
13 58 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
13 58 (3.55%) Relational Database
13 58 (3.55%) Star Schema
14 56 (3.42%) Delta Lake
15 51 (3.12%) Spark SQL
16 47 (2.87%) Amazon Athena
17 45 (2.75%) Looker
18 41 (2.51%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 115 (7.03%) 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
1 432 (26.41%) Finance
2 405 (24.76%) Social Skills
3 282 (17.24%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (8.44%) Public Sector
5 110 (6.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 70 (4.28%) Banking
7 58 (3.55%) Retail
8 54 (3.30%) Marketing
9 43 (2.63%) Legal
10 38 (2.32%) Law
11 37 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
12 30 (1.83%) Financial Institution
13 26 (1.59%) Manufacturing
14 24 (1.47%) 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 (38.57%) Data Engineer
2 360 (22.00%) Senior
3 301 (18.40%) Lead
4 180 (11.00%) Senior Data Engineer
5 140 (8.56%) Architect
6 115 (7.03%) Data Manager
7 98 (5.99%) Data Architect
7 98 (5.99%) Lead Data Engineer
8 73 (4.46%) Engineering Manager
9 72 (4.40%) Principal Engineer
10 71 (4.34%) Analyst
11 69 (4.22%) Developer
12 63 (3.85%) Consultant
13 60 (3.67%) Databricks Engineer
14 49 (3.00%) Software Engineer
15 48 (2.93%) Head of Engineering
16 47 (2.87%) Databricks Data Engineer
17 44 (2.69%) Data Scientist
17 44 (2.69%) Principal Data Engineer
18 42 (2.57%) Data Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 178 (10.88%) PySpark
2 125 (7.64%) Terraform
3 92 (5.62%) Kafka
4 41 (2.51%) LangChain
5 40 (2.44%) REST
6 39 (2.38%) .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 26 (1.59%) Pandas
12 22 (1.34%) JSON
12 22 (1.34%) SpaCy
13 21 (1.28%) pgvector
14 17 (1.04%) Apache NiFi
15 14 (0.86%) RESTful
16 11 (0.67%) ARM Templates
16 11 (0.67%) FastAPI
16 11 (0.67%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 182 (11.12%) Cloud Native
2 67 (4.10%) Data Structures
3 66 (4.03%) Product Ownership
4 53 (3.24%) Distributed Systems
5 44 (2.69%) Onboarding
6 34 (2.08%) AI Agents
7 26 (1.59%) e-Learning
8 21 (1.28%) Distributed Computing
9 20 (1.22%) Low-Code
10 19 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.16%) Management Information System
10 19 (1.16%) Public Cloud
10 19 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
11 18 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
12 17 (1.04%) Clustering
12 17 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (0.86%) Distributed Architecture
13 14 (0.86%) Hedge funds
13 14 (0.86%) 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
1 775 (47.37%) Analytics
2 621 (37.96%) AI
3 573 (35.02%) Data Pipeline
4 512 (31.30%) Data Modelling
5 468 (28.61%) ETL
6 421 (25.73%) CI/CD
7 417 (25.49%) Business Intelligence
8 414 (25.31%) Data Governance
9 399 (24.39%) Machine Learning
10 390 (23.84%) Agile
11 388 (23.72%) Decision-Making
12 356 (21.76%) Data Architecture
13 312 (19.07%) Mentoring
14 303 (18.52%) DevOps
15 278 (16.99%) Data Science
16 261 (15.95%) Problem-Solving
17 244 (14.91%) Roadmaps
18 210 (12.84%) Lakehouse
19 195 (11.92%) Technical Leadership
20 188 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 832 (50.86%) SQL
2 811 (49.57%) Python
3 126 (7.70%) Java
4 70 (4.28%) Scala
5 58 (3.55%) JavaScript
6 53 (3.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 34 (2.08%) C#
8 29 (1.77%) C++
9 27 (1.65%) R
9 27 (1.65%) TypeScript
10 19 (1.16%) Bash
11 16 (0.98%) Go
11 16 (0.98%) T-SQL
12 14 (0.86%) PowerShell
13 8 (0.49%) Groovy
14 7 (0.43%) Bicep
15 5 (0.31%) Julia
15 5 (0.31%) PL/SQL
15 5 (0.31%) VBA
16 4 (0.24%) Rust
Qualifications
1 172 (10.51%) Degree
2 162 (9.90%) Security Cleared
3 104 (6.36%) SC Cleared
4 58 (3.55%) Master's Degree
5 54 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 42 (2.57%) Azure Certification
7 40 (2.44%) DV Cleared
8 33 (2.02%) DBS Check
9 27 (1.65%) 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 7 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
16 4 (0.24%) CCA
17 3 (0.18%) CBAP
17 3 (0.18%) CISSP
17 3 (0.18%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 464 (28.36%) Data Quality
2 78 (4.77%) GDPR
3 56 (3.42%) Accessibility
4 39 (2.38%) QA
5 15 (0.92%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 13 (0.79%) GRC
7 9 (0.55%) Actionable Recommendations
8 7 (0.43%) PERC
9 6 (0.37%) NCSC
10 5 (0.31%) SLA
11 4 (0.24%) PMO
11 4 (0.24%) Solvency II
12 3 (0.18%) EU AI Act
12 3 (0.18%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.18%) PSD2
13 2 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
14 1 (0.061%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 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 61 (3.73%) Kubernetes
2 14 (0.86%) 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 (26.71%) Databricks
2 312 (19.07%) Microsoft
3 90 (5.50%) Google
4 37 (2.26%) Palantir
5 33 (2.02%) Foundry
5 33 (2.02%) Oracle
6 32 (1.96%) Informatica
7 29 (1.77%) Dell
7 29 (1.77%) SAP
8 25 (1.53%) OpenAI
9 23 (1.41%) 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