Data Engineer: salary 2026 at a glance
Salary at a glance: this is what Data Engineer earn in Germany – from 280 job ads with a stated salary and 63 salary data sets.
Median, gross
€63,398
€43,000 lower 10 %
€88,255 upper 10 %
How salaries are distributed
Each column = number of salary figures per €5,000 band · basis 343
You
- Between lower and upper 10 % (€43,000 – €88,255)
- Edges
Salary rises with experience
Median and middle 50 % per level · jobs + data sets
€51,000
Junior
44,500 – 52,500
23 values
€63,500
Mid-level
55,000 – 69,000
+25 % · 237 values
€68,500
Senior
60,000 – 78,500
+34 % · 68 values
€68,500
Lead/Principal
62,500 – 74,500
+34 % · 14 values
Salary by federal state
Median of the salary data sets for Data Engineer per federal state. The samples are small here – read the figures as a trend, not a guarantee.
- North Rhine-Westphalia €68,000 n = 5
- Bavaria €64,000 n = 8
- Hesse €63,500 n = 6
- Baden-Württemberg €63,000 n = 4
- Hamburg €62,000 n = 4
- Saarland €59,500 n = 6
- Schleswig-Holstein €59,000 n = 4
- Lower Saxony €55,000 n = 4
- Rhineland-Palatinate €54,000 n = 4
- Berlin €53,500 n = 5
- Brandenburg €53,000 n = 4
- Thuringia €52,000 n = 4
- Saxony €48,000 n = 5
What a skill is worth
Median of jobs with the technology compared with jobs without – both groups at least 20 jobs
- Terraform +13.3 % €72,500 n = 35
- Python +0.8 % €65,000 n = 196
- Git +0.8 % €65,000 n = 24
- Azure −2.3 % €63,500 n = 61
- GCP −2.3 % €63,500 n = 25
- Power BI −4.6 % €62,000 n = 29
- Kafka −6.9 % €60,500 n = 33
- Docker −6.9 % €60,500 n = 27
- Kubernetes −7.7 % €60,000 n = 21
- Java −7.7 % €60,000 n = 37
Centre = same salary as jobs without the technology · bars up to ±13 %
Open positions as Data Engineer
All in the job search
Senior Data Engineer - Procurement Analytics & AI (d/m/f/x)
Salary not stated
Senior Data Engineer (m/w/d) - Data Platform & Integration
€57,000 – €81,000
above median
Principal Data Engineer (m/w/d)
€105,000 – €115,000
above median
(Senior) Data Engineer / ETL Entwickler (m/w/d)
Salary not stated
Senior Data Engineer (m/w/d) IT Data Management
Salary not stated
(Senior) Data Engineer (m/w/d) - Cloud Analytics
€45,000 – €65,000
below median
Data Engineer: job profile and outlook
Data engineers build and operate the data infrastructure that enables companies to efficiently collect and process large amounts of data and make it available for analyses. They design data pipelines, create data warehouses and ensure that data reaches data scientists and analysts reliably, consistently and in the right form. The technical requirements for data engineers include knowledge of SQL and Python, experience with ETL/ELT processes and tools such as Apache Spark, Airflow, dbt and Kafka. Cloud-based data solutions such as BigQuery, Redshift, Snowflake or Databricks are just as much a part of the toolbox as knowledge of data modelling and data governance. An understanding of distributed systems and streaming architectures is increasingly important. Salaries for data engineers are above average and continue to rise with the increasing importance of data-driven business models. Technology companies, financial service providers and companies that rely on real-time data processing offer particularly attractive salaries. Demand clearly exceeds supply, with career paths leading from Junior Data Engineer to Senior Data Engineer to Lead Data Engineer, Data Architect or Head of Data. Specialisations in real-time streaming, machine learning engineering or data platform architecture open up further development opportunities with high income potential.
Similarly paid roles
Same axis – directly comparable
- Data Engineer this role €63,398
- Software Engineer €63,543 Compare with Software Engineer
- IT Project Manager €64,113 Compare with IT Project Manager
- Machine Learning Engineer €62,494 Compare with Machine Learning Engineer
- Cloud Engineer €62,308 Compare with Cloud Engineer
- Agile Coach €64,507 Compare with Agile Coach
- Data Scientist €64,528 Compare with Data Scientist
€40,000 – €100,000 · bar = lower to upper 10 %, line = median
How we calculate
- Sources: job ads with a stated salary that are assigned to a role, plus recorded salary data sets. Currently 6,380 active IT jobs state their salary.
- Range: lower 10 % to upper 10 % (P10–P90), so that individual outliers do not shift the limits. The median splits the values into two equal halves.
- Plausible: only gross annual salaries between €15,000 and €250,000; placeholders and monthly values are excluded.
- Calculator: role median × experience factor × federal state factor. The factors come from 4,290 salary data sets – each as a ratio to the median of its role, so the mix of roles does not distort them.
- Minimum size: breakdowns by skill, city and work model only appear from 20 values; every figure states its basis.
Earning more starts with the right job.
Open positions as Data Engineer – with salary at a glance.