Data Engineer

Well paid and mostly employed. Candidates who start looking usually move quickly.

AI-assisted summary of published DOU and Djinni analytics

Salary from $3,193 Posted estimate · last 3 months
Salary to $4,933 Posted estimate · last 3 months
Jobs 964 Last 3 months
Applications per job 8.26 JobNote category match
01

Salary

Data Engineer
Bar chart of June 2026 net monthly data compensation: Analytics Engineer $2,065, pooled Data Science, Data Engineering, AI and ML $3,275, Data Engineer $3,780, experienced pooled data and AI roles about $4,500, and Team Lead Data Engineer upper quartile $6,750.
$3,780 Data Engineer median
$3,275 Pooled data + AI median
$6,750 Team Lead Data Engineer · Q3
+$1,225 DefTech premium · pooled group

Hiring Set the range by level and sector; a single blended data benchmark hides a wide spread.

Candidate Compare exact role, level, and sector—not the pooled data-and-AI median alone.

Data Monthly net USD for people in Ukraine or planning to return. The DefTech premium is for the pooled DS / AI / ML / Data Engineering group, not exact Data Engineers.

02

Candidate market

Data + AI roles
92% Currently employed
65% Contacted by recruiters often

Hiring Most candidates already have a job. Show salary and responsibilities early.

Candidate Check whether the role is pipelines, platform, or analytics.

Data DOU combines Data Engineering with AI, ML, and Data Science here.

03

Changing jobs

Data + AI roles
~5 weeks median search duration
~8 median applications
+$900 average pay increase
+37% average percentage increase

Hiring Active candidates often move within five weeks. Keep the process short.

Candidate Pay increases apply only to people who changed jobs and earned more.

Data Data + AI roles combined. Pay increase is not guaranteed.

04

Competition

Data Engineer
~8 Applications per vacancy
~30% Share of data vacancies
~40% Roles requiring 5+ years

Hiring Use direct outreach. Screen for real pipeline and platform ownership.

Candidate Python and SQL are the core signals; show production-scale data work.

Data Djinni figures cover its data vacancies in May or mid-June 2026.

Independent salary benchmark

DOU salary survey

Source data
June 2026 · 187 respondents
Role family
Lower quartile$2650
Median$4000
Upper quartile$5950
Year over year +4.1%

Salary range history

Lower quartile Median Upper quartile

Data and big-data engineers · monthly net base salary in USD; bonuses excluded; all locations in the published CSV.

Derived from the shortened public salary-survey data published by DOU. Jobnote and DOU vacancy salaries are separate datasets.

Most wanted skills

Counts of active jobs now and salaries.

SQL 215 $2571–$3948 Python 204 $2969–$4699 ETL 97 $3076–$4486 AWS 86 $3640–$5305 Data Engineering 71 $3836–$5726 Data Modeling 69 $3178–$4782 Azure 60 $2847–$4650 CI/CD 54 $2875–$4760 Kubernetes 52 $3635–$5439 PostgreSQL 52 $3074–$4627 Docker 48 $2695–$4541 Git 48 $1948–$3603 Data Warehousing 46 $3109–$4629 Linux 40 $1983–$3871

Where to hire

Sources

  1. Data salaries — summer 2026 Salary ·
  2. DefTech salaries — summer 2026 Salary ·
  3. More searching, less optimism: the IT labour market Candidate market ·
  4. More searching, less optimism: recruiter outreach Candidate market ·
  5. How IT specialists search for work in 2026 Changing jobs ·
  6. Interactive job-search widget Changing jobs ·
  7. How much IT salaries grow after changing jobs Changing jobs ·
  8. Data Analyst, Scientist, and Engineer market Competition ·
  9. Data Engineer vacancy seniority Competition ·
  10. Data Engineer recruiter outreach Competition ·