Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in Bristol

Data Engineer
South West > Bristol

The median Data Engineer daily rate in Bristol is £505, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 45 48 58
Rank change year-on-year +3 +10 -2
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 41 20 21
As % of all contract jobs in Bristol 3.03% 2.82% 2.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.26% 3.05% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 27 12 15
10th Percentile £382 £414 £360
25th Percentile £431 £431 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £488 £450
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +8.33% -5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £547 £594
90th Percentile £579 £586 £635
South West median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 3 0
10th Percentile £12.98 £29.97 -
25th Percentile £28.99 £48.25 -
Median hourly rate £45.00 £78.70 -
Median % change year-on-year -42.82% - -
75th Percentile £68.00 £79.35 -
90th Percentile - £79.74 -
South West median hourly rate £37.50 £78.70 -
% change year-on-year -52.35% - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
Bristol

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in Bristol. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in Bristol with a recognized job title 1,256 655 874
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.76% 92.38% 95.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 630 337 474
10th Percentile £355 £250 £261
25th Percentile £450 £363 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £450 £488
Median % change year-on-year +16.67% -7.69% -7.14%
75th Percentile £600 £588 £590
90th Percentile £663 £695 £688
South West median daily rate £525 £500 £513
% change year-on-year +5.00% -2.44% -2.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 312 120 169
10th Percentile £22.75 £12.82 £17.50
25th Percentile £46.61 £18.20 £53.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £32.50 £70.00
Median % change year-on-year +100.00% -53.57% +7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £70.50 £78.00
South West median hourly rate £62.25 £25.15 £67.50
% change year-on-year +147.51% -62.74% +12.50%

Data Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in Bristol

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Data Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Bristol.

Data Engineer job vacancy trend in Bristol

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in Bristol

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in Bristol.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in Bristol

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in Bristol

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineer in Bristol over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineer in Bristol

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in Bristol

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in Bristol.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in Bristol

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in Bristol

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineer in Bristol over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineer in Bristol

Data Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Bristol

For the 6 months to 11 September 2026, Data Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the Bristol region featuring Data Engineer in the job title.

1 15 (36.59%) DevOps
2 14 (34.15%) dbt
3 13 (31.71%) AWS
3 13 (31.71%) Data Modelling
3 13 (31.71%) SQL
4 12 (29.27%) Data Engineering
5 11 (26.83%) Python
6 10 (24.39%) Data Pipeline
6 10 (24.39%) Platform Engineering
7 8 (19.51%) Security Cleared
8 7 (17.07%) Azure
9 6 (14.63%) AI
9 6 (14.63%) Analytics
9 6 (14.63%) Databricks
10 5 (12.20%) Agile
10 5 (12.20%) Decision-Making
10 5 (12.20%) Degree
11 4 (9.76%) Azure Data Factory
11 4 (9.76%) Azure Databricks
11 4 (9.76%) Business Intelligence
11 4 (9.76%) CI/CD
11 4 (9.76%) Data Architecture
11 4 (9.76%) Data Warehouse
11 4 (9.76%) ETL
11 4 (9.76%) GCP
11 4 (9.76%) Infrastructure as Code
11 4 (9.76%) Microsoft
11 4 (9.76%) Power BI
11 4 (9.76%) Power Platform
11 4 (9.76%) Snowflake

Data Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Bristol by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 3 (7.32%) Apache Airflow
2 2 (4.88%) Apache
2 2 (4.88%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 14 (34.15%) dbt
2 13 (31.71%) AWS
3 7 (17.07%) Azure
4 4 (9.76%) Azure Data Factory
4 4 (9.76%) Azure Databricks
4 4 (9.76%) GCP
4 4 (9.76%) Power Platform
4 4 (9.76%) Snowflake
5 3 (7.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 3 (7.32%) GitHub
6 1 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
6 1 (2.44%) Cloud Composer
6 1 (2.44%) GitHub Actions
6 1 (2.44%) Stackdriver
Communications & Networking
1 2 (4.88%) Wi-Fi
1 2 (4.88%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (9.76%) Data Warehouse
1 4 (9.76%) Power BI
2 1 (2.44%) Big Data
2 1 (2.44%) BigQuery
2 1 (2.44%) Data Lake
2 1 (2.44%) Data Vault
2 1 (2.44%) Delta Lake
2 1 (2.44%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
2 1 (2.44%) MongoDB
2 1 (2.44%) SQL Server
2 1 (2.44%) Star Schema
2 1 (2.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 1 (2.44%) Git
1 1 (2.44%) GitLab
1 1 (2.44%) Jenkins
General
1 5 (12.20%) Social Skills
2 2 (4.88%) Aerospace
2 2 (4.88%) Aviation
2 2 (4.88%) Finance
2 2 (4.88%) Marketing
2 2 (4.88%) Retail
3 1 (2.44%) Analytical Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (9.76%) Terraform
2 3 (7.32%) PySpark
3 2 (4.88%) Kafka
3 2 (4.88%) REST
4 1 (2.44%) Spring
4 1 (2.44%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 3 (7.32%) Cloud Native
2 2 (4.88%) Driving Licence
2 2 (4.88%) iPad
3 1 (2.44%) Product Ownership
Processes & Methodologies
1 15 (36.59%) DevOps
2 13 (31.71%) Data Modelling
3 12 (29.27%) Data Engineering
4 10 (24.39%) Data Pipeline
4 10 (24.39%) Platform Engineering
5 6 (14.63%) AI
5 6 (14.63%) Analytics
6 5 (12.20%) Agile
6 5 (12.20%) Decision-Making
7 4 (9.76%) Business Intelligence
7 4 (9.76%) CI/CD
7 4 (9.76%) Data Architecture
7 4 (9.76%) ETL
7 4 (9.76%) Infrastructure as Code
7 4 (9.76%) Validation
8 3 (7.32%) Data Validation
9 2 (4.88%) Computer Science
9 2 (4.88%) Continuous Improvement
9 2 (4.88%) Release Management
9 2 (4.88%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 13 (31.71%) SQL
2 11 (26.83%) Python
3 1 (2.44%) Java
Qualifications
1 8 (19.51%) Security Cleared
2 5 (12.20%) Degree
3 3 (7.32%) DV Cleared
3 3 (7.32%) SC Cleared
4 2 (4.88%) City & Guilds
4 2 (4.88%) Computer Science Degree
4 2 (4.88%) Master's Degree
5 1 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 3 (7.32%) Data Quality
1 3 (7.32%) QA
2 2 (4.88%) GDPR
3 1 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 1 (2.44%) Docker
Systems Management
1 1 (2.44%) Ansible
1 1 (2.44%) Grafana
1 1 (2.44%) Kubernetes
1 1 (2.44%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 6 (14.63%) Databricks
2 4 (9.76%) Microsoft
3 2 (4.88%) Google
4 1 (2.44%) Alteryx