Northwind Research

The state of
data platform
operations 2026

48 pages Aug 2026

Free report

What 900 data teams told us about their week

An anonymous survey run in May and June, with the raw anonymised dataset published alongside it. No vendor scoring, no quadrants.

  • Median team spends 31% of the week on pipeline maintenance
  • Teams with a written on-call rota report half the burnout
  • Warehouse spend grew 42% while headcount stayed flat
  • Only 18% can name the owner of every production table

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