Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Data Engineer
Central London > City of London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in the City of London is £555, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 June 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 38 60 69
Rank change year-on-year +22 +9 +13
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 109 63 53
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 4.49% 3.64% 2.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.77% 3.88% 2.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 79 39 43
10th Percentile £369 £391 £413
25th Percentile £436 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £555 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +11.00% -4.76% -7.89%
75th Percentile £606 £565 £619
90th Percentile £675 £649 £734
Central London median daily rate £553 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +10.50% -4.76% -8.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £46.75
Median hourly rate £19.34 - £48.50
75th Percentile - - £50.25
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median hourly rate £19.34 - £48.50

All Contract IT Job Roles
City of London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the City of London. 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 the City of London with a recognized job title 2,287 1,623 2,043
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 94.12% 93.71% 95.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,525 1,024 1,410
10th Percentile £356 £350 £350
25th Percentile £453 £450 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £566
Median % change year-on-year - -2.87% -5.63%
75th Percentile £668 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £793
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £550
% change year-on-year - - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 18 16
10th Percentile £17.60 £20.35 £16.33
25th Percentile £18.75 £24.66 £20.22
Median hourly rate £23.16 £32.83 £22.75
Median % change year-on-year -29.44% +44.29% -35.00%
75th Percentile £42.83 £63.75 £32.03
90th Percentile £59.72 £92.13 £45.13
Central London median hourly rate £27.25 £30.04 £27.00
% change year-on-year -9.27% +11.24% -22.86%

Data Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

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 the City of London.

Data Engineer job vacancy trend in the City of London

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineer in the City of London over the 6 months to 24 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineer in the City of London

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the City of London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the City of London

Data Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London

For the 6 months to 24 June 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 City of London region featuring Data Engineer in the job title.

1 52 (47.71%) SQL
2 51 (46.79%) Python
3 49 (44.95%) Data Pipeline
4 48 (44.04%) Analytics
5 44 (40.37%) Data Engineering
6 35 (32.11%) Data Modelling
6 35 (32.11%) ETL
7 34 (31.19%) Azure
8 26 (23.85%) Data Quality
9 24 (22.02%) Data Warehouse
9 24 (22.02%) Power Platform
10 23 (21.10%) CI/CD
11 22 (20.18%) AWS
12 21 (19.27%) Apache Airflow
12 21 (19.27%) Business Intelligence
12 21 (19.27%) Data Science
12 21 (19.27%) Power BI
13 19 (17.43%) Snowflake
13 19 (17.43%) Tableau
14 18 (16.51%) Databricks
15 17 (15.60%) DevOps
16 16 (14.68%) Azure Data Factory
16 16 (14.68%) dbt
17 15 (13.76%) Decision-Making
17 15 (13.76%) Microsoft
18 14 (12.84%) AI
18 14 (12.84%) GCP
18 14 (12.84%) Migration
18 14 (12.84%) PySpark
18 14 (12.84%) Security Cleared

Data Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of London 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 21 (19.27%) Apache Airflow
2 7 (6.42%) Apache Spark
3 6 (5.50%) Apache
4 1 (0.92%) Confluence
4 1 (0.92%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (0.92%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 2 (1.83%) BambooHR
2 1 (0.92%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.92%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 34 (31.19%) Azure
2 24 (22.02%) Power Platform
3 22 (20.18%) AWS
4 19 (17.43%) Snowflake
5 16 (14.68%) Azure Data Factory
5 16 (14.68%) dbt
6 14 (12.84%) GCP
7 9 (8.26%) Amazon S3
7 9 (8.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 7 (6.42%) AWS Lambda
8 7 (6.42%) Serverless
9 6 (5.50%) Prefect
10 4 (3.67%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (3.67%) Matillion
11 3 (2.75%) Amazon Kinesis
11 3 (2.75%) Dagster
11 3 (2.75%) Fivetran
12 2 (1.83%) Amazon EMR
12 2 (1.83%) GitHub
12 2 (1.83%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.92%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (22.02%) Data Warehouse
2 21 (19.27%) Power BI
3 19 (17.43%) Tableau
4 11 (10.09%) BigQuery
5 10 (9.17%) SQL Server
6 8 (7.34%) Snowflake Schema
7 7 (6.42%) Amazon Redshift
8 5 (4.59%) Data Lake
8 5 (4.59%) Looker
8 5 (4.59%) Metadata
9 4 (3.67%) Azure SQL Database
9 4 (3.67%) Delta Lake
9 4 (3.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 3 (2.75%) Big Data
10 3 (2.75%) Data Mart
10 3 (2.75%) Geospatial Data
10 3 (2.75%) Oracle Database
11 2 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (1.83%) Spark SQL
11 2 (1.83%) Spatial Data
Development Applications
1 7 (6.42%) Git
2 2 (1.83%) JIRA
2 2 (1.83%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 1 (0.92%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 1 (0.92%) Bitbucket
General
1 34 (31.19%) Finance
2 11 (10.09%) Analytical Skills
2 11 (10.09%) Social Skills
3 9 (8.26%) Banking
4 3 (2.75%) Front Office
4 3 (2.75%) Public Sector
4 3 (2.75%) Publishing
4 3 (2.75%) Telecoms
5 2 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 2 (1.83%) Legal
5 2 (1.83%) Pharmaceutical
6 1 (0.92%) Back Office
6 1 (0.92%) Billing
6 1 (0.92%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (0.92%) Financial Institution
6 1 (0.92%) General Ledger
6 1 (0.92%) Investment Banking
6 1 (0.92%) Law
6 1 (0.92%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (12.84%) PySpark
2 9 (8.26%) Kafka
3 4 (3.67%) Spring
3 4 (3.67%) Spring Boot
4 3 (2.75%) GeoJSON
4 3 (2.75%) JSON
4 3 (2.75%) Matplotlib
4 3 (2.75%) Pandas
4 3 (2.75%) Polars
4 3 (2.75%) scikit-learn
5 2 (1.83%) XML
6 1 (0.92%) EDI
6 1 (0.92%) FastAPI
6 1 (0.92%) Jinja
6 1 (0.92%) Node.js
6 1 (0.92%) pytest
6 1 (0.92%) React
6 1 (0.92%) REST
6 1 (0.92%) XSLT
6 1 (0.92%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 12 (11.01%) Cloud Native
2 6 (5.50%) Clustering
3 5 (4.59%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (2.75%) Data Structures
4 3 (2.75%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.83%) Algorithms
5 2 (1.83%) Fixed Income
5 2 (1.83%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (1.83%) Life Science
5 2 (1.83%) Reinsurance
6 1 (0.92%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.92%) Derivative
6 1 (0.92%) Equities
6 1 (0.92%) Fibre Optics
6 1 (0.92%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (0.92%) Management Information System
6 1 (0.92%) NHS
6 1 (0.92%) Public Cloud
6 1 (0.92%) Smart Meter
6 1 (0.92%) Virtual Team
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (44.95%) Data Pipeline
2 48 (44.04%) Analytics
3 44 (40.37%) Data Engineering
4 35 (32.11%) Data Modelling
4 35 (32.11%) ETL
5 23 (21.10%) CI/CD
6 21 (19.27%) Business Intelligence
6 21 (19.27%) Data Science
7 17 (15.60%) DevOps
8 15 (13.76%) Decision-Making
9 14 (12.84%) AI
9 14 (12.84%) Migration
9 14 (12.84%) Validation
10 13 (11.93%) Data Governance
11 12 (11.01%) Performance Optimisation
11 12 (11.01%) Performance Tuning
12 10 (9.17%) Data Analytics
13 9 (8.26%) Agile
13 9 (8.26%) Data Transformation
14 8 (7.34%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 52 (47.71%) SQL
2 51 (46.79%) Python
3 8 (7.34%) Java
4 6 (5.50%) Scala
5 4 (3.67%) C#
6 3 (2.75%) T-SQL
7 2 (1.83%) R
8 1 (0.92%) Bicep
8 1 (0.92%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 1 (0.92%) Korn
8 1 (0.92%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 14 (12.84%) Security Cleared
2 11 (10.09%) SC Cleared
3 5 (4.59%) DBS Check
4 3 (2.75%) BPSS Clearance
4 3 (2.75%) SnowPro
5 1 (0.92%) AWS Certification
5 1 (0.92%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
5 1 (0.92%) BICSI Certification
5 1 (0.92%) City & Guilds
5 1 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (23.85%) Data Quality
2 6 (5.50%) GDPR
3 2 (1.83%) EMIR
3 2 (1.83%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 2 (1.83%) MiFID
4 1 (0.92%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.92%) GxP
4 1 (0.92%) QA
System Software
1 5 (4.59%) Docker
Systems Management
1 5 (4.59%) Kubernetes
2 2 (1.83%) Terraform
Vendors
1 18 (16.51%) Databricks
2 15 (13.76%) Microsoft
3 7 (6.42%) Informatica
4 5 (4.59%) Oracle
5 3 (2.75%) Google
6 2 (1.83%) Amplitude
6 2 (1.83%) Palantir
6 2 (1.83%) Salesforce
6 2 (1.83%) SAP
6 2 (1.83%) Workday
7 1 (0.92%) Cribl.io
7 1 (0.92%) HubSpot
7 1 (0.92%) IBM
7 1 (0.92%) MuleSoft
7 1 (0.92%) OpenAI
7 1 (0.92%) Talend