Embodiments of this application provide a data transmission method and apparatus. The method includes: determining, by a network device 110 based on a service requirement or an application scenario of a terminal device, a data distribution manner used for performing data transmission with the terminal device, where the data distribution manner is used to indicate distribution of data of a same code block on at least one time-domain symbol; and performing, by the network device 110, data transmission with the terminal device based on the data distribution manner. According to the data transmission method and apparatus in the embodiments of this application, the data distribution manner used for data transmission between the network device 110 and the terminal device can be flexibly configured, so as to meet different service requirements.