Updated 2026-06 · 117759 job postings
AI & data engineer daily rates — live benchmark
What senior AI, ML, and data engineers earn per working day across six markets. Daily rate = annual salary ÷ 220 working days.
| Role | Canada | Germany | Poland | Romania | UK | USA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI Engineer | €380 €330–€437 | €386 €336–€432 | €264 €228–€360 | €108 €60–€168 | €304 €230–€403 | €436 €356–€533 |
| AI Research Scientist | €302 €243–€376 | €295 €236–€344 | — | — | €227 €192–€269 | €602 €505–€718 |
| Data Architect | €385 €328–€452 | €391 €327–€464 | €276 €192–€372 | — | €425 €345–€523 | €655 €525–€818 |
| Data Engineer | €335 €290–€388 | €364 €327–€409 | €264 €228–€312 | €144 €120–€168 | €355 €298–€422 | €554 €457–€672 |
| Data Scientist | €337 €291–€391 | €366 €339–€409 | €240 €192–€288 | €204 €108–€300 | €362 €300–€436 | €645 €553–€753 |
| ML Engineer | €381 €327–€443 | €405 €345–€455 | €252 €228–€324 | €180 €156–€204 | €444 €376–€526 | €620 €507–€760 |
| MLOps Engineer | €323 €276–€378 | €295 €275–€357 | — | — | €373 €294–€473 | €618 €517–€738 |
| NLP Engineer | €382 €328–€446 | €295 €236–€300 | €132 €108–€168 | — | €435 €362–€522 | €677 €543–€845 |
| Python Developer | €306 €255–€367 | €309 €273–€348 | €192 €168–€252 | €156 €132–€204 | €327 €264–€404 | €462 €358–€597 |
Daily rate = annual salary ÷ 220 working days. Indicative gross salary only — not a billable T&M rate. Employer overhead, recruiting, and ramp add to the real cost.
How this data is collected
- Source: Public job postings aggregated monthly across major job boards and company career pages.
- Frequency: Updated the first week of every month. The current dataset reflects 2026-06.
- Quality gate: A cell is published only when we capture at least three distinct postings for that role, market, and seniority level.
Salary is 60–70% of the real cost of an in-house hire
Recruiting fees, ramp time, management overhead, employer taxes, and attrition risk all add substantial cost on top of the base salary. The number in the table is the starting point — not the fully-loaded figure.
See the fully-loaded T&M cost →Frequently asked questions
Why daily rate and not annual salary?
Engineering engagements are time & material. A daily rate makes it easy to scope and compare, and it matches how T&M contracts are priced. Annual figures are also available — toggle the unit filter above the table.
How is the data collected?
Our crawler scans public job postings monthly across multiple job boards and company career pages, normalises salary bands, and aggregates by role, market, and seniority level. We only publish a cell when we have at least three distinct postings.
What markets are covered?
USA, UK, Germany, Canada, Romania, and Poland. We focus on markets where we have enough postings to produce reliable data.
How often is the data updated?
The crawler runs the first week of every month. New data is published to the site as soon as the monthly run completes and passes validation.
What does “insufficient data” mean?
A cell shows a dash when we captured fewer than three distinct job postings for that role, market, and seniority combination in the current month. We prefer to show no data rather than a misleading average from one or two postings.