Free Access No Registration Updated: 2026-05-28

Data Engineer Career Market Report 2026

4,222 active jobs. 1,324 companies. Median salary $131K. Data from Greenhouse, Lever, Workday, Ashby, SmartRecruiters, Workable, and 14 additional ATS sources. Last computed: 2026-05-28.

4,222
Active Job Openings
1,324
Companies Hiring
$131K
Median Salary (US)
60%
With Salary Data

About This Report

Data Engineer sits at the intersection of software and data — SQL and Python are near-equal requirements at 66% and 69%.

Greenhouse Lever Workday Ashby SmartRecruiters Workable + 14 more ATS sources

Salary: Extracted via NLP. Only USD $5K-$3M included. Skills: Named entity recognition, noise-filtered (generic soft skills excluded). Experience: Inferred from title + description. Coverage: 60% of positions include salary data.

Key Findings

Median salary: $131K in the US

Middle 50% of salaries range from $99K to $190K.

Remote roles pay 19% above the US national median

Remote-first employers competing nationally for talent. The premium reflects company quality (remote-first firms tend to be well-funded), not a work-mode bonus.

Python is the most-demanded skill at 69%

DevOps demand rose +16.5pp — fastest-growing skill

Pwc leads hiring with 76 open positions

Biggest salary jump: Mid-Level → Senior (+$38K, +37%)

Salary increase: +$38K · Sample: Mid-Level → Senior

AI automation risk: low (score 30/100)

Score: 30/100 · AI/LLM demand: 112% of postings

Week-over-week changes reflect dataset expansion, not market surge

Recent growth in tracked postings is from adding new data sources, not a one-week hiring boom. Interpret trend data with this in mind.

Salary by Experience Level

LevelJobsP25MedianP90
Senior209$106K$139K$179K
Mid-Level70$78K$102K$180K
Lead68$131K$150K$161K
Junior49$78K$80K$160K
Staff41$145K$169K$228K
Manager29$115K$157K$446K
Director12$160K$182K$250K

What jumps out

Mid-Level → Senior: +$38K (37%) — the biggest single-step increase. The salary curve is back-loaded: the largest raises come at transitions where scope changes from executing tasks to owning outcomes, or from owning outcomes to shaping architecture across teams.

Salary by Country

CountryJobsMedianCurrency
United States247$130KUSD
Remote55$155KUSD
India19$10KUSD
United Kingdom3$80KGBP

Work Mode

ModeShare
On-Site1.4%
Remote14.1%
Hybrid3.7%

~80% of postings do not specify work mode. Figures show only positions where it is explicitly stated.

Top Skills in Demand

Python
69%
SQL
66%
Data Pipeline
52%
AWS
50%
AI/LLM
43%
Spark
39%
Azure
34%
CI/CD
28%
Airflow
27%
Databricks
25%
Snowflake
25%
GCP
23%

Skills on the Rise

DevOps ↑+16.5ppData Analysis ↑+16.1ppJava ↑+15.0ppTerraform ↑+14.5ppScala ↑+13.7pp

Declining in Demand

Journalism ↓-23.8ppAgile ↓-15.8pp

Top Companies Hiring

CompanyOpeningsShare
Pwc761.8%
Jobgether731.7%
Amazon651.5%
Amgen621.5%
Barclays501.2%
Bah441.0%
Capitalone441.0%
Devoteam431.0%

Top Countries by Job Volume

CountryJobs
United States990
India643
Remote294
United Kingdom164
France126
Poland102
Canada84
Germany55

Education Requirements

LevelSharePositions
Associate Degree53.6%1,356
Master's Degree17.5%443
Bachelor's Degree11.3%286
PhD / Doctorate0.8%20

Certifications

AWS Certified (2%)Azure Certified (1%)Databricks Certified (1%)

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