Data Engineer · South East England · 2026
Data Engineer salary in South East England
Data engineers build the pipelines and warehouses that move and organise a company's data before anyone can analyse it. UK demand has grown sharply as firms modernise onto cloud data stacks. Across South East England, hiring concentrates in Reading, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton and Milton Keynes. This guide also covers Analytics Engineer roles — titles UK official statistics class within the same occupation.
The ladder
| Level | Range | Lower end | Median | Upper end |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Junior | £29,500 | £34,500 | £52,000 | |
| Mid | £47,000 | £55,500 | £83,500 | |
| Senior | £62,000 | £73,000 | £109,500 | |
| Lead | £81,000 | £95,500 | £143,500 |
About these figures: the medians are ONS ASHE 2025 figures for South East England, aligned to the “Programmers and software development professionals” occupation (SOC 2134), with the role's occupation-level pay differential applied. The lower and upper ends, and the junior-to-lead steps, are modelled from those medians with fixed ratios rather than measured separately. Inside Morganson, the salary check also blends in live salaries from employers' own job ads.
By region vs the UK median
| London | £66,000 | +29% |
|---|---|---|
| South East England | £55,500 | +9% |
| North West England | £50,000 | −2% |
| Yorkshire | £47,000 | −8% |
| Scotland | £49,000 | −4% |
South East England's mid-level median of £55,500 sits 9% above the UK-wide £51,000. The senior median is 2.1× the junior one, and the top of the ladder reaches £143,500 — a level about one in ten lead roles passes.
Data Engineer pay across the UK →
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