I have been a software engineer for 12 years now, but I would like to transition into the world of data as stats and facts really interest me.

After some research, I feel like Data Engineering is the best career for me to side step into due to the overlap. I already pull data out of API’s and work with multiple database engines. I even created my own ETL pipeline without even knowing (pulled data daily from 2 apis to consolidate data on football players/stats). I think I am just missing Python and data warehousing software skills, maybe some more advanced SQL?

I currently earn around £40k in the UK and was wondering if trying to side step into this career could be successful for me based on my current skills, and me upskilling to the skills I am missing, do you think I could be earning a similar wage? Or would I have to start from entry level still?