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 4 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 156 178
Rank change year-on-year +21 +22 -58
Permanent jobs citing Data Engineering 1,275 886 1,576
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK 1.41% 2.06% 1.64%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.89% 2.22% 1.92%
Number of salaries quoted 850 560 900
10th Percentile £46,225 £45,000 £41,492
25th Percentile £58,144 £53,750 £55,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £75,000 £80,000 £70,000
Median % change year-on-year -6.25% +14.29% -6.67%
75th Percentile £97,500 £115,000 £88,750
90th Percentile £118,750 £135,000 £107,460
UK excluding London median annual salary £70,000 £65,000 £65,000
% change year-on-year +7.69% - +7.89%

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 67,342 39,928 81,978
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK 74.57% 92.95% 85.54%
Number of salaries quoted 41,961 22,681 59,568
10th Percentile £30,000 £30,625 £29,000
25th Percentile £40,000 £42,500 £39,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £59,000 £60,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -1.67% +9.09% -10.57%
75th Percentile £78,500 £80,000 £72,500
90th Percentile £100,000 £102,500 £92,500
UK excluding London median annual salary £51,000 £52,500 £50,000
% change year-on-year -2.86% +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 4 May 2026.

Salary histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Top 16 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 4 May 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 +22 1,140 £75,000 -6.25% 493
London +54 582 £85,000 -12.82% 257
UK excluding London -16 577 £70,000 +7.69% 291
Work from Home +18 454 £80,000 -5.88% 248
North of England -32 186 £80,000 +28.00% 98
South East -64 122 £71,250 +1.79% 79
Midlands +12 108 £65,000 +13.04% 51
North West -22 99 £90,000 +33.33% 48
West Midlands +26 77 £62,500 +13.64% 37
Yorkshire -41 70 £67,500 +8.00% 25
East of England +16 63 £63,750 +27.50% 8
South West -33 49 £51,250 -47.93% 30
Scotland -9 42 £83,750 +45.65% 19
East Midlands -34 29 £75,000 +15.38% 14
North East -29 17 £70,000 +33.33% 25
Wales -30 7 £65,000 -18.75% 7

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
1 187 (14.67%) Apache Airflow
2 132 (10.35%) Apache Spark
3 78 (6.12%) Apache
4 33 (2.59%) Palantir Foundry
5 22 (1.73%) SAS
6 16 (1.25%) SharePoint
7 12 (0.94%) Appian
8 9 (0.71%) Confluence
9 7 (0.55%) Moodle
10 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.16%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.078%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.078%) Camunda
12 1 (0.078%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.078%) Luigi
12 1 (0.078%) WordPress
Applications
1 22 (1.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.63%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.078%) Notion
Business Applications
1 3 (0.24%) Markit EDM
1 3 (0.24%) SAP SD
2 2 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.16%) Unit4 Business World
3 1 (0.078%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.078%) Infor M3
3 1 (0.078%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.078%) Primavera
3 1 (0.078%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 632 (49.57%) Azure
2 402 (31.53%) AWS
3 254 (19.92%) Snowflake
4 228 (17.88%) Power Platform
5 219 (17.18%) GCP
6 168 (13.18%) Azure Data Factory
7 156 (12.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 120 (9.41%) dbt
9 85 (6.67%) Azure Machine Learning
10 78 (6.12%) Azure AI
11 76 (5.96%) Amazon S3
12 65 (5.10%) Azure DevOps
13 64 (5.02%) Serverless
14 53 (4.16%) GitHub
15 37 (2.90%) SaaS
16 32 (2.51%) AWS Lambda
17 28 (2.20%) GitHub Actions
17 28 (2.20%) Power Automate
18 26 (2.04%) Amazon Kinesis
19 25 (1.96%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 19 (1.49%) Broadband
2 4 (0.31%) HTTP
3 2 (0.16%) 4G
3 2 (0.16%) 5G
3 2 (0.16%) DAB
3 2 (0.16%) DHCP
3 2 (0.16%) DNS
3 2 (0.16%) Firewall
3 2 (0.16%) MQTT
4 1 (0.078%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.078%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 297 (23.29%) Data Warehouse
2 217 (17.02%) Power BI
3 210 (16.47%) Data Lake
4 151 (11.84%) SQL Server
5 108 (8.47%) Tableau
6 101 (7.92%) BigQuery
7 86 (6.75%) Metadata
8 85 (6.67%) Amazon Redshift
9 59 (4.63%) Relational Database
10 50 (3.92%) Delta Lake
11 46 (3.61%) Looker
11 46 (3.61%) PostgreSQL
12 45 (3.53%) Elasticsearch
13 44 (3.45%) NoSQL
13 44 (3.45%) Spark SQL
14 41 (3.22%) Azure SQL Database
14 41 (3.22%) Semantic Layer
14 41 (3.22%) Snowflake Schema
15 40 (3.14%) Big Data
16 35 (2.75%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 87 (6.82%) Git
2 63 (4.94%) MLflow
3 20 (1.57%) Jenkins
4 18 (1.41%) JIRA
5 12 (0.94%) GitLab
5 12 (0.94%) IBM UrbanCode
6 7 (0.55%) Selenium
7 3 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.16%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.078%) Bitbucket
9 1 (0.078%) CMake
9 1 (0.078%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.078%) Deequ
9 1 (0.078%) JMeter
9 1 (0.078%) RStudio
9 1 (0.078%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.078%) Yeoman
9 1 (0.078%) Zephyr
General
1 312 (24.47%) Finance
2 236 (18.51%) Social Skills
3 192 (15.06%) Analytical Skills
4 74 (5.80%) Public Sector
5 69 (5.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 68 (5.33%) Banking
7 54 (4.24%) Retail
8 36 (2.82%) Law
9 35 (2.75%) Influencing Skills
10 33 (2.59%) Marketing
11 32 (2.51%) Legal
12 16 (1.25%) Advertising
12 16 (1.25%) Manufacturing
13 15 (1.18%) Investment Banking
14 12 (0.94%) Financial Institution
15 11 (0.86%) Automotive
15 11 (0.86%) Front Office
15 11 (0.86%) Games
16 8 (0.63%) Documentation Skills
17 7 (0.55%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 507 (39.76%) Data Engineer
2 233 (18.27%) Senior
3 219 (17.18%) Lead
4 121 (9.49%) Senior Data Engineer
5 119 (9.33%) Architect
6 104 (8.16%) Data Manager
7 100 (7.84%) Data Architect
7 100 (7.84%) Lead Data Engineer
8 68 (5.33%) Engineering Manager
9 62 (4.86%) Consultant
10 43 (3.37%) Data Consultant
10 43 (3.37%) Developer
11 41 (3.22%) Platform Engineer
12 39 (3.06%) Analyst
13 38 (2.98%) Azure Engineer
13 38 (2.98%) Principal Engineer
14 36 (2.82%) AWS Engineer
15 33 (2.59%) Finance Manager
16 30 (2.35%) AWS Data Engineer
16 30 (2.35%) Technical Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (10.59%) PySpark
2 105 (8.24%) Kafka
3 65 (5.10%) PyTorch
3 65 (5.10%) TensorFlow
4 47 (3.69%) scikit-learn
5 42 (3.29%) LangChain
6 39 (3.06%) REST
7 35 (2.75%) Pandas
8 27 (2.12%) pgvector
9 25 (1.96%) LlamaIndex
10 23 (1.80%) RESTful
11 21 (1.65%) Faiss
12 20 (1.57%) HTML
13 17 (1.33%) Node.js
14 16 (1.25%) .NET
14 16 (1.25%) CSS
14 16 (1.25%) FastAPI
14 16 (1.25%) pytest
14 16 (1.25%) React
15 15 (1.18%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 114 (8.94%) Cloud Native
2 50 (3.92%) Product Ownership
3 44 (3.45%) Distributed Systems
4 37 (2.90%) Data Structures
5 35 (2.75%) Legacy Systems
6 33 (2.59%) Low-Code
7 27 (2.12%) Public Cloud
8 23 (1.80%) Clustering
8 23 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
9 21 (1.65%) e-Learning
10 19 (1.49%) Management Information System
11 16 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
12 15 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (1.18%) Onboarding
13 13 (1.02%) AI Agents
13 13 (1.02%) NHS
13 13 (1.02%) Social Media
14 10 (0.78%) Algorithms
14 10 (0.78%) Hybrid Cloud
15 9 (0.71%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 6 (0.47%) Linux
2 5 (0.39%) Windows
3 2 (0.16%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.078%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 627 (49.18%) Analytics
2 524 (41.10%) Data Pipeline
3 459 (36.00%) Data Modelling
4 449 (35.22%) AI
5 421 (33.02%) ETL
6 374 (29.33%) Data Governance
7 330 (25.88%) Business Intelligence
8 323 (25.33%) CI/CD
9 318 (24.94%) Agile
10 311 (24.39%) Data Architecture
11 291 (22.82%) Machine Learning
12 237 (18.59%) Data Science
13 227 (17.80%) DevOps
14 221 (17.33%) Decision-Making
15 209 (16.39%) Problem-Solving
16 200 (15.69%) Mentoring
17 185 (14.51%) Roadmaps
18 167 (13.10%) Data Integration
19 140 (10.98%) Continuous Improvement
20 131 (10.27%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 646 (50.67%) Python
2 641 (50.27%) SQL
3 109 (8.55%) Java
4 55 (4.31%) Scala
5 36 (2.82%) Bash
6 34 (2.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 33 (2.59%) JavaScript
8 28 (2.20%) R
9 24 (1.88%) Go
10 23 (1.80%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.41%) C#
12 17 (1.33%) T-SQL
13 12 (0.94%) TypeScript
14 11 (0.86%) C++
15 7 (0.55%) Bicep
15 7 (0.55%) PHP
16 6 (0.47%) Julia
17 4 (0.31%) VBA
18 3 (0.24%) Groovy
18 3 (0.24%) Rust
Qualifications
1 145 (11.37%) Degree
2 85 (6.67%) Security Cleared
3 57 (4.47%) Computer Science Degree
4 52 (4.08%) SC Cleared
5 39 (3.06%) Master's Degree
6 33 (2.59%) DBS Check
7 29 (2.27%) Azure Certification
8 20 (1.57%) DV Cleared
9 15 (1.18%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.02%) AWS Certification
11 7 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (0.47%) PhD
13 5 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (0.31%) CISSP
15 2 (0.16%) CompTIA Security+
15 2 (0.16%) GIAC
15 2 (0.16%) SANS
15 2 (0.16%) SnowPro
16 1 (0.078%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
16 1 (0.078%) CEH
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 355 (27.84%) Data Quality
2 98 (7.69%) GDPR
3 52 (4.08%) Accessibility
4 37 (2.90%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 22 (1.73%) GRC
5 22 (1.73%) QA
6 18 (1.41%) HIPAA
7 14 (1.10%) SLA
8 10 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 7 (0.55%) NIST
9 7 (0.55%) PERC
10 5 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.31%) Solvency II
12 1 (0.078%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.078%) GMP
12 1 (0.078%) NCSC
12 1 (0.078%) PMO
System Software
1 97 (7.61%) Docker
2 56 (4.39%) Virtual Machines
3 11 (0.86%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.078%) Apache Flume
Systems Management
1 94 (7.37%) Terraform
2 78 (6.12%) Kubernetes
3 15 (1.18%) Grafana
4 12 (0.94%) Prometheus
5 11 (0.86%) Argo
6 9 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.55%) Ansible
8 6 (0.47%) Control-M
9 5 (0.39%) Microsoft Intune
9 5 (0.39%) SCCM
10 2 (0.16%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.16%) Computer Emergency Response Teams
10 2 (0.16%) Computer Incident Response Team
11 1 (0.078%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 413 (32.39%) Databricks
2 251 (19.69%) Microsoft
3 64 (5.02%) Informatica
4 54 (4.24%) Google
5 52 (4.08%) Dell
6 51 (4.00%) Palantir
7 50 (3.92%) Oracle
8 39 (3.06%) Foundry
8 39 (3.06%) OpenAI
9 33 (2.59%) Cloudera
10 29 (2.27%) Talend
11 25 (1.96%) Denodo
11 25 (1.96%) Teradata
12 19 (1.49%) Salesforce
13 15 (1.18%) Red Hat
14 13 (1.02%) Automation Anywhere
14 13 (1.02%) UiPath
15 8 (0.63%) SAP
16 7 (0.55%) MuleSoft
17 5 (0.39%) Confluent