Big Data Engineer Salary: Your 2025 Pay Guide

Big data has become integrated and needed in many of the products, services, and systems found in our society today. This leads to opportunities to earn a high-paying salary as a big data engineer. 

Typically, a big data engineer is not an entry-level position, so getting experience in other data professions is a good idea before pursuing this role. Read on to look at big data engineer salaries and job market expectations.

What is big data engineering?

Big data engineers are professionals responsible for developing, maintaining, testing, analyzing, and evaluating a company’s data. “Big data” refers to the sweeping amount of data sets that companies collect in everyday business operations. A big data engineer interacts with data processing systems and databases to extract data and transform it into workable sets that can ultimately be used to improve an organization’s efficiency, profitability, and scalability. 

Data engineer vs. data analyst vs. data scientist: What’s the difference?

Data engineers, data analysts, and data scientists all work with data in different ways, but here's how they differ: data engineers build and maintain the systems that collect and extract data, while data analysts analyze this cleaned-up data to generate meaningful insights and solve business problems. Data scientists, meanwhile, are the ones who build new algorithms to make predictions about the future.

Read more: What Is Big Data Analytics? Definition, Benefits, and More

How much do big data engineers make?

The average annual salary for big data engineers in Canada ranges from $86,015 CAD to $150,492 CAD. However, a range of factors can affect salaries, including location, industry, and experience. Below are additional salary estimates from popular job boards  [1, 2, 3, 4]:

Big data engineer salaries by location

Where you live (or where your company is based) can impact how much you'll make as a big data engineer. Typically, working from bigger cities like Toronto or Vancouver means a higher salary, to accommodate higher living costs. But, as companies continue to shift toward a more remote workforce, some may offer location-based salaries, while others remain commensurate with experience levels.

Here’s a sampling of big data engineer salaries in large- and medium-sized cities across Canada, according to the Job Bank [5]:

Remote work vs. digital nomad

Salaries may also differ depending on your nationality and the country you choose to work from. While digital nomadism is on the rise, many tech companies in the US still do not allow employees to work permanently from another country.

It may be attractive to work in Portugal, Thailand, or Costa Rica, but you may need to be comfortable taking a pay cut if you are employed by a company based in any of these countries.

Big data engineer salaries by industry

Nearly every industry today uses big data. However, not every industry pays the same. Knowing which ones pay more can be beneficial for your career.

Tech companies are popular to work for because they tend to pay well. Meta, for example, pays between 156,000 and 204,000 USD for big data engineer base salaries, while Google pays between 132,000 and $192,000 USD [6, 7]. 

Big data engineer salaries by experience

One of the factors that can influence your salary is your experience level. Generally, the more years of experience you gain as a big data engineer, the more you’ll earn. Here’s how experience can impact your base salary, according to Glassdoor [1]:

• 1–3 years: $90,735 CAD

• 4–6 years: $97,020 CAD

• 7–9 years: $102,563 CAD

• 10–14 years: $103,839 CAD

• 15+ years: $108,263 CAD

In many of the roles above, “Senior” can be tacked onto the front of the job title and usually indicates a higher salary, typically of a few thousand extra dollars.

Many big data engineers start off in other entry-level positions, such as software engineers, business analysts, or data analysts. As you advance in your career, you might move into managerial positions or become a big data engineer, and then progress as you gain experience.

Salaries for other big data and engineering professionals

Before and after you step into a role as big data engineer, there are plenty of opportunities to work in big data and engineering. Read about a few of their expected salaries, according to Glassdoor:

• Data analyst: $63,757 CAD

• Business intelligence analyst: $73,032 CAD

• Business analyst: $69,662 CAD

• Database administrator: $71,705 CAD

• Data engineer: $90,706 CAD

• Software engineer: $89,738 CAD

• Data scientist: $90,190 CAD

• Machine learning engineer: $99,508 CAD

• Data architect: $111,097 CAD

*The base salary data above is sourced from Glassdoor Canada.

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Job outlook for big data engineers

Big data is used across all industries, including manufacturing, government, and agriculture, to inform business decisions. The Canadian Government believes that data positions like this may see labor shortages through 2031 [8]. Additionally, 75 percent of companies surveyed in the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2023 said they’d be using big data, cloud computing, and AI by 2027 [9]. In the same report, data engineer is ranked 14th for jobs with increasing demand across industries [9].

Dive into big data engineering with Coursera

Big data engineers play key roles on technical teams and see high-paying salaries as a result. Get started on a potentially lucrative and fulfilling career in big data engineering.

Take a look at IBM’s Data Engineering Professional Certificate to master job-ready skills like SQL, ETL, big data, and Spark, all at your own pace. Upon completion, gain a shareable certificate to include in your resume, CV, or LinkedIn profile.