Industry Overview of Data Engineers in India – 2025
Data engineers play a pivotal role in enabling data-driven decision-making by building and maintaining scalable, cloud-based data pipelines. With exponential data growth from IoT, transactions, and digital platforms, organizations are increasingly relying on data engineers to ensure the availability, integrity, and usability of large datasets. The report opens give an industry overview that highlights salary trends across cities, experience levels, and sectors. It notes a strong rebound in 2025 following a slowdown in 2024, particularly in mid-to-senior-level roles. BFSI, retail, and telecom remained dominant sectors for data engineering talent, while demand in traditional sectors like power and entertainment declined. The report also offers a detailed look at job openings segmented by sector, company size, work models, and salary bands. Bengaluru and Hyderabad continued to lead in demand, supported by the concentration of established companies and digital-first enterprises. Skill trends show a transition from core programming and data management at junior levels to cloud architecture, real-time processing, and project leadership at senior levels.
The report also offers a detailed look at job openings segmented by sector, company size, work models, and salary bands. Bengaluru and Hyderabad continued to lead in demand, supported by the concentration of established companies and digital-first enterprises. Skill trends show a transition from core programming and data management at junior levels to cloud architecture, real-time processing, and project leadership at senior levels.
Attrition analysis highlights high turnover in fast-growing sectors such as e-commerce and fintech, while industries like pharma and manufacturing showed stronger retention. The report concludes with a distribution of roles across the data engineering function, illustrating a shift toward more strategic, high-impact positions.
Key Highlights:
1. The global data engineering market is set to grow from USD 29.1 billion in 2023 to USD 175.0 billion by 2030, driven by AI, cloud computing, and big data adoption. India is benefiting from government initiatives including, Digital India and IndiaAI, which are boosting demand for skilled data engineers.
2. BFSI remained the dominant employer, with the distribution of data engineers in the sector rising to 57% in 2025 from 49% in 2024, a 9.6% increase. This growth reflects the sector’s sustained push for advanced analytics in digital banking, fraud detection, and financial automation.
3. Pharma and healthcare sectors have seen a significant rise in demand, growing from 15% in 2023 to 27.1% in 2025, driven by advancements in drug discovery, telemedicine, and AI-driven health analytics.
4. Bengaluru and Hyderabad continue to dominate with high job openings, especially Bengaluru with 6,288 positions, benefiting from a growing tech ecosystem and the expansion of Global Capability Centers (GCCs).
5. Salaries for entry-level data engineers rose from around INR 6.2 lakh in 2023 to around INR 10.3 lakh in 2025. However, mid-to-senior level salaries dipped in 2024 due to economic slowdowns, followed by a recovery in 2025, especially for senior roles like Data Architects.
6. E-commerce and fintech sectors faced high attrition due to competitive salaries and dynamic career opportunities. In contrast, sectors like pharmaceuticals and power showed more stable retention rates.
7. India hosts around 140,000 data engineers, highlighting its position as a key hub for data engineering talent. The demand for data engineers is increasingly driven by AI-driven solutions. AI is automating tasks like data cleaning, feature engineering, and ETL processes, enabling engineers to focus on building scalable AI/ML pipelines and optimizing real-time data systems.
Table of Contents:
1. Executive Summary
2. Key Highlights
3. Market
- Market projection
- % distribution of data engineers by sectors
- % distribution of data engineers by years of experience
4. Jobs
- Open jobs for data engineers by sector
- % of Open jobs for data engineers by salary bracket
5. Salary Trends for Data Engineers
- Annual median salary of data engineer by years of experience
- Annual median salary of data engineer by sectors
- Annual median salary of data engineers by cities
6. Attrition
- Attrition rate of data engineers
- Attrition rate of data engineers by sector
7. Data Engineers by Job Roles and Skills
- Distribution of data engineers in India by job roles
- Skill proficiency of data engineers across experience levels
- Job openings for data engineers across major cities in India
- Supply vs demand analysis of data engineers in India across major cities in India
