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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 134 150 149
Rank change year-on-year +16 -1 +62
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering 1,636 1,044 1,316
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.40% 2.11% 1.71%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.91% 2.38% 2.10%
Number of salaries quoted 1,159 479 646
10th Percentile £46,124 £46,000 £42,500
25th Percentile £55,529 £55,000 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £77,500 £70,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year +10.71% - -6.67%
75th Percentile £100,000 £94,375 £92,500
90th Percentile £112,500 £112,500 £105,000
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £61,250
% change year-on-year +7.69% +6.12% -5.77%

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 85,591 43,838 62,686
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 73.02% 88.74% 81.52%
Number of salaries quoted 59,105 24,621 34,654
10th Percentile £31,250 £28,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £41,750 £36,250 £42,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £60,000 £55,000 £57,560
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -4.45% -4.07%
75th Percentile £80,000 £75,000 £77,500
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% -2.78%

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 25 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 25 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 +16 1,509 £80,000 +14.29% 1,972
UK excluding London -20 817 £70,000 +7.69% 899
London +23 717 £87,500 +2.94% 1,251
Work from Home +8 508 £80,000 +13.48% 848
North of England 0 380 £75,000 +11.11% 274
North West -27 179 £80,000 +37.93% 164
South East -41 150 £65,000 - 214
Midlands +3 106 £75,000 +11.11% 116
North East +17 105 £66,805 +40.64% 41
Yorkshire -6 96 £75,000 +7.14% 71
South West -14 90 £62,500 +4.17% 97
West Midlands -12 73 £75,000 +25.00% 89
Scotland -2 34 £100,000 +37.93% 84
East Midlands -19 33 £75,000 +10.29% 27
East of England -18 32 £70,000 +40.00% 51
Wales -42 28 £63,500 +26.69% 15
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 51

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
1 162 (9.90%) Apache Spark
2 131 (8.01%) Apache Airflow
3 129 (7.89%) Apache
4 22 (1.34%) Jupyter
5 21 (1.28%) Palantir Foundry
6 11 (0.67%) Confluence
7 10 (0.61%) SAS
8 9 (0.55%) Oracle Workflow
8 9 (0.55%) SharePoint
9 4 (0.24%) Luigi
10 2 (0.12%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
10 2 (0.12%) Tornado
11 1 (0.061%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.061%) CMS
11 1 (0.061%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.061%) Moodle
Applications
1 20 (1.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.37%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.061%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.061%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.061%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 5 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (0.31%) IBM Planning Analytics
2 2 (0.12%) SAP Business One
3 1 (0.061%) Academy Revenues and Benefits
3 1 (0.061%) FastStats
3 1 (0.061%) Infor M3
3 1 (0.061%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.061%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.061%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.061%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.061%) SAP SD
Cloud Services
1 664 (40.59%) Azure
2 468 (28.61%) AWS
3 275 (16.81%) Power Platform
4 265 (16.20%) GCP
5 184 (11.25%) Azure Data Factory
6 177 (10.82%) Snowflake
7 124 (7.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 124 (7.58%) dbt
8 103 (6.30%) Azure DevOps
9 100 (6.11%) Amazon S3
10 94 (5.75%) Serverless
11 68 (4.16%) Azure Machine Learning
12 66 (4.03%) AWS Lambda
13 65 (3.97%) GitHub
14 63 (3.85%) SaaS
15 52 (3.18%) Azure AI
16 51 (3.12%) Amazon EMR
17 50 (3.06%) Azure Databricks
18 44 (2.69%) Microsoft Purview
19 41 (2.51%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 17 (1.04%) 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
5 1 (0.061%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 279 (17.05%) Data Warehouse
2 266 (16.26%) Power BI
3 197 (12.04%) Data Lake
4 115 (7.03%) SQL Server
5 105 (6.42%) Metadata
6 102 (6.23%) BigQuery
7 98 (5.99%) Amazon Redshift
8 93 (5.68%) Tableau
9 82 (5.01%) Big Data
10 71 (4.34%) Azure SQL Database
11 63 (3.85%) NoSQL
12 60 (3.67%) Semantic Layer
13 57 (3.48%) Star Schema
14 56 (3.42%) Delta Lake
14 56 (3.42%) Relational Database
15 51 (3.12%) PostgreSQL
16 50 (3.06%) Amazon Athena
17 46 (2.81%) Spark SQL
18 35 (2.14%) Data Vault
19 34 (2.08%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 128 (7.82%) Git
2 36 (2.20%) Jenkins
3 29 (1.77%) GitLab
4 23 (1.41%) JIRA
5 10 (0.61%) Claude Code
6 5 (0.31%) MLflow
6 5 (0.31%) Poetry
7 4 (0.24%) Octopus Deploy
7 4 (0.24%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.18%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.18%) Selenium
9 2 (0.12%) ERwin
9 2 (0.12%) VSS/SourceSafe
10 1 (0.061%) kappa
10 1 (0.061%) RStudio
10 1 (0.061%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.061%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.061%) Yeoman
General
1 425 (25.98%) Finance
2 421 (25.73%) Social Skills
3 265 (16.20%) Analytical Skills
4 148 (9.05%) Public Sector
5 109 (6.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 74 (4.52%) Banking
7 57 (3.48%) Retail
8 54 (3.30%) Marketing
9 47 (2.87%) Legal
10 38 (2.32%) Law
11 36 (2.20%) Influencing Skills
12 33 (2.02%) Financial Institution
13 25 (1.53%) Manufacturing
14 22 (1.34%) Advertising
15 14 (0.86%) Games
15 14 (0.86%) Presentation Skills
16 12 (0.73%) Aerospace
16 12 (0.73%) Documentation Skills
16 12 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
17 10 (0.61%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 652 (39.85%) Data Engineer
2 362 (22.13%) Senior
3 299 (18.28%) Lead
4 192 (11.74%) Senior Data Engineer
5 138 (8.44%) Architect
6 104 (6.36%) Data Manager
7 96 (5.87%) Data Architect
7 96 (5.87%) Lead Data Engineer
8 76 (4.65%) Analyst
9 73 (4.46%) Developer
9 73 (4.46%) Principal Engineer
10 67 (4.10%) Software Engineer
11 64 (3.91%) Consultant
12 61 (3.73%) Engineering Manager
13 52 (3.18%) Databricks Engineer
14 46 (2.81%) Head of Engineering
15 45 (2.75%) Principal Data Engineer
16 44 (2.69%) Data Consultant
17 43 (2.63%) Data Scientist
18 42 (2.57%) Databricks Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (11.25%) PySpark
2 132 (8.07%) Terraform
3 75 (4.58%) Kafka
4 41 (2.51%) .NET
5 35 (2.14%) REST
6 31 (1.89%) LangChain
6 31 (1.89%) Pandas
7 27 (1.65%) Node.js
8 24 (1.47%) LlamaIndex
8 24 (1.47%) SpaCy
9 22 (1.34%) JSON
9 22 (1.34%) scikit-learn
10 21 (1.28%) PyTorch
10 21 (1.28%) TensorFlow
11 15 (0.92%) Apache NiFi
12 14 (0.86%) RESTful
13 12 (0.73%) NumPy
13 12 (0.73%) React
13 12 (0.73%) YAML
14 11 (0.67%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 174 (10.64%) Cloud Native
2 66 (4.03%) Data Structures
3 58 (3.55%) Product Ownership
4 55 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
5 49 (3.00%) Onboarding
6 36 (2.20%) AI Agents
7 25 (1.53%) e-Learning
8 21 (1.28%) Self-Motivation
9 18 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
9 18 (1.10%) Distributed Computing
9 18 (1.10%) Legacy Systems
10 17 (1.04%) Hedge funds
11 16 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
12 15 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (0.92%) Management Information System
13 14 (0.86%) Distributed Architecture
13 14 (0.86%) IoT
13 14 (0.86%) Low-Code
14 11 (0.67%) Blog
14 11 (0.67%) Sports Betting
Operating Systems
1 7 (0.43%) Windows
2 4 (0.24%) Linux
3 1 (0.061%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (46.82%) Analytics
2 578 (35.33%) AI
3 574 (35.09%) Data Pipeline
4 500 (30.56%) Data Modelling
5 464 (28.36%) ETL
6 442 (27.02%) CI/CD
7 401 (24.51%) Business Intelligence
8 387 (23.66%) Agile
9 383 (23.41%) Decision-Making
10 378 (23.11%) Data Governance
11 361 (22.07%) Machine Learning
12 345 (21.09%) Data Architecture
13 313 (19.13%) DevOps
14 306 (18.70%) Mentoring
15 272 (16.63%) Problem-Solving
16 251 (15.34%) Data Science
17 223 (13.63%) Roadmaps
18 213 (13.02%) Technical Leadership
19 188 (11.49%) Continuous Improvement
20 186 (11.37%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 821 (50.18%) SQL
2 811 (49.57%) Python
3 122 (7.46%) Java
4 73 (4.46%) Scala
5 59 (3.61%) JavaScript
6 51 (3.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 35 (2.14%) C#
8 33 (2.02%) C++
9 32 (1.96%) TypeScript
10 27 (1.65%) R
11 19 (1.16%) Bash
12 16 (0.98%) T-SQL
13 14 (0.86%) PowerShell
14 10 (0.61%) Go
15 9 (0.55%) Bicep
16 6 (0.37%) Groovy
17 5 (0.31%) PL/SQL
17 5 (0.31%) VBA
18 4 (0.24%) Rust
19 2 (0.12%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 181 (11.06%) Security Cleared
2 158 (9.66%) Degree
3 124 (7.58%) SC Cleared
4 55 (3.36%) Master's Degree
5 47 (2.87%) Azure Certification
6 46 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
7 41 (2.51%) DV Cleared
8 31 (1.89%) BPSS Clearance
9 29 (1.77%) AWS Certification
10 28 (1.71%) PhD
11 25 (1.53%) DBS Check
12 16 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
13 15 (0.92%) ACCA
13 15 (0.92%) CIMA
14 6 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 6 (0.37%) Numerate Degree
15 5 (0.31%) CBAP
16 4 (0.24%) CCA
17 3 (0.18%) CISSP
17 3 (0.18%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 466 (28.48%) Data Quality
2 58 (3.55%) Accessibility
3 54 (3.30%) GDPR
4 36 (2.20%) QA
5 10 (0.61%) Actionable Recommendations
6 9 (0.55%) GRC
6 9 (0.55%) NCSC
7 4 (0.24%) SLA
8 3 (0.18%) EU AI Act
8 3 (0.18%) PCI DSS
8 3 (0.18%) PERC
8 3 (0.18%) PMO
8 3 (0.18%) PSD2
9 2 (0.12%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 1 (0.061%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.061%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 1 (0.061%) IASME
10 1 (0.061%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.061%) NIST
10 1 (0.061%) Solvency II
System Software
1 99 (6.05%) Docker
2 41 (2.51%) Virtual Machines
3 7 (0.43%) Active Directory
4 3 (0.18%) NDS
4 3 (0.18%) VMware Infrastructure
5 1 (0.061%) Embedded Firmware
5 1 (0.061%) Firmware
Systems Management
1 67 (4.10%) Kubernetes
2 13 (0.79%) 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
1 382 (23.35%) Databricks
2 312 (19.07%) Microsoft
3 97 (5.93%) Google
4 38 (2.32%) Oracle
5 32 (1.96%) Palantir
6 31 (1.89%) Salesforce
7 29 (1.77%) Foundry
7 29 (1.77%) SAP
8 24 (1.47%) OpenAI
9 18 (1.10%) Informatica
10 11 (0.67%) Sage
11 9 (0.55%) Alteryx
12 7 (0.43%) YouTube
13 5 (0.31%) IBM
13 5 (0.31%) MicroStrategy
14 4 (0.24%) Cloudera
14 4 (0.24%) Cognos
14 4 (0.24%) Talend
15 3 (0.18%) LexisNexis
15 3 (0.18%) Okta