Data Engineering Contract Job Trends in the City of London

Data Engineering
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring Data Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 19 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 56 83 97
Rank change year-on-year +27 +14 +39
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 74 32 31
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 3.79% 1.76% 1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.26% 1.92% 1.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 52 16 23
10th Percentile £363 £413 £414
25th Percentile £413 £422 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% -2.60%
75th Percentile £688 £672 £702
90th Percentile £873 £744 £773
Central London median daily rate £575 £550 £625
% change year-on-year +4.55% -12.00% +7.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £46.75
Median hourly rate - £22.00 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year - -54.64% -
75th Percentile - - £50.25
90th Percentile - - -
Central London median hourly rate - £22.00 £48.50
% change year-on-year - -54.64% -

All Process & Methodology Skills
City of London

Data Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 1,737 1,669 2,108
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 88.99% 91.55% 89.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,203 1,016 1,499
10th Percentile £356 £363 £350
25th Percentile £430 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.52% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £668 £682 £688
90th Percentile £775 £778 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £563
% change year-on-year -4.35% +2.22% -4.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 8 14
10th Percentile £18.75 £22.00 £17.00
25th Percentile £20.50 £28.94 £19.18
Median hourly rate £34.00 £40.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -16.05% +24.62% -7.14%
75th Percentile £45.08 £64.56 £45.52
90th Percentile £54.94 £112.00 £66.70
Central London median hourly rate £26.11 £35.00 £27.81
% change year-on-year -25.40% +25.85% -20.54%

Data Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London.

Data Engineering job vacancy trend in the City of London

Data Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Data Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Data Engineering

Data Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering in the City of London over the 6 months to 19 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineering in the City of London

Data Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Data Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing Data Engineering

Data Engineering
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 10 (13.51%) Apache Spark
2 8 (10.81%) Apache Airflow
3 4 (5.41%) Apache
4 2 (2.70%) Palantir Foundry
5 1 (1.35%) Confluence
5 1 (1.35%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (5.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.35%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.35%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 31 (41.89%) Azure
2 26 (35.14%) AWS
3 22 (29.73%) Power Platform
4 15 (20.27%) Snowflake
5 11 (14.86%) Azure Data Factory
6 10 (13.51%) GCP
7 6 (8.11%) Amazon SageMaker
7 6 (8.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 6 (8.11%) dbt
7 6 (8.11%) Serverless
8 4 (5.41%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (5.41%) GitHub
8 4 (5.41%) Microsoft Purview
9 3 (4.05%) AWS Control Tower
9 3 (4.05%) Azure Functions
9 3 (4.05%) Power Automate
9 3 (4.05%) SaaS
10 2 (2.70%) Amazon S3
10 2 (2.70%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 2 (2.70%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.35%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (29.73%) Power BI
2 11 (14.86%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (12.16%) Tableau
4 8 (10.81%) Snowflake Schema
5 7 (9.46%) Metadata
6 6 (8.11%) Big Data
6 6 (8.11%) Data Lake
7 4 (5.41%) NoSQL
8 3 (4.05%) Delta Lake
9 2 (2.70%) Geospatial Data
9 2 (2.70%) SQL Server
10 1 (1.35%) BigQuery
10 1 (1.35%) KDB
10 1 (1.35%) Kdb+
10 1 (1.35%) Looker
10 1 (1.35%) Qlik Sense
10 1 (1.35%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 1 (1.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 1 (1.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 1 (1.35%) Tick Data
Development Applications
1 13 (17.57%) Git
2 4 (5.41%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.70%) GitLab
4 1 (1.35%) ERwin
4 1 (1.35%) JIRA
4 1 (1.35%) Postman
4 1 (1.35%) Robot Framework
4 1 (1.35%) Selenium
General
1 32 (43.24%) Finance
2 15 (20.27%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (17.57%) Banking
4 9 (12.16%) Social Skills
5 5 (6.76%) Front Office
5 5 (6.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (5.41%) Back Office
7 2 (2.70%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.70%) Investment Banking
7 2 (2.70%) Marketing
7 2 (2.70%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.35%) Financial Institution
8 1 (1.35%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.35%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.35%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 23 (31.08%) Data Engineer
2 14 (18.92%) Architect
3 9 (12.16%) Lead
4 7 (9.46%) Developer
5 6 (8.11%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
6 5 (6.76%) Analyst
6 5 (6.76%) Machine Learning Engineer
6 5 (6.76%) Snowflake Data Engineer
6 5 (6.76%) Snowflake Engineer
6 5 (6.76%) Solutions Architect
7 4 (5.41%) Business Intelligence Developer
7 4 (5.41%) Consultant
8 3 (4.05%) Data Analyst
8 3 (4.05%) Data Scientist
8 3 (4.05%) Lead Data Engineer
8 3 (4.05%) Senior
8 3 (4.05%) Technical Leader
9 2 (2.70%) Azure Data Engineer
9 2 (2.70%) Cloud Architect
9 2 (2.70%) Cloud Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (13.51%) PySpark
2 9 (12.16%) PyTorch
2 9 (12.16%) TensorFlow
3 8 (10.81%) scikit-learn
4 7 (9.46%) Kafka
5 5 (6.76%) Middleware
6 3 (4.05%) Dask
6 3 (4.05%) Google JAX
6 3 (4.05%) JAX
6 3 (4.05%) LightGBM
6 3 (4.05%) Vert.x
6 3 (4.05%) XGBoost
7 2 (2.70%) JSON
7 2 (2.70%) Microsoft Graph
7 2 (2.70%) NumPy
7 2 (2.70%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (2.70%) Pandas
7 2 (2.70%) XML
7 2 (2.70%) YAML
8 1 (1.35%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 12 (16.22%) Cloud Native
2 8 (10.81%) Algorithms
2 8 (10.81%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (9.46%) Product Ownership
4 5 (6.76%) Derivative
5 4 (5.41%) Analytical Mindset
5 4 (5.41%) Equities
6 3 (4.05%) Security Posture
7 2 (2.70%) AI Agents
7 2 (2.70%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (2.70%) Fixed Income
7 2 (2.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (2.70%) Taxonomies
8 1 (1.35%) Autonomous Agent
8 1 (1.35%) Clustering
8 1 (1.35%) Data Structures
8 1 (1.35%) Management Information System
8 1 (1.35%) Operational Technology
8 1 (1.35%) Public Cloud
8 1 (1.35%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.35%) Linux
1 1 (1.35%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 34 (45.95%) Data Pipeline
2 29 (39.19%) AI
2 29 (39.19%) Analytics
3 22 (29.73%) Business Intelligence
3 22 (29.73%) CI/CD
4 21 (28.38%) Machine Learning
5 19 (25.68%) Data Modelling
5 19 (25.68%) ETL
6 16 (21.62%) Data Governance
7 15 (20.27%) Agile
8 14 (18.92%) Data Science
9 13 (17.57%) Generative AI
10 12 (16.22%) Validation
11 11 (14.86%) DevOps
11 11 (14.86%) Use Case
12 9 (12.16%) MLOps
12 9 (12.16%) Performance Tuning
12 9 (12.16%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 9 (12.16%) Visualisation
13 8 (10.81%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 40 (54.05%) Python
2 36 (48.65%) SQL
3 5 (6.76%) Scala
4 4 (5.41%) Java
5 3 (4.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 3 (4.05%) Korn
5 3 (4.05%) T-SQL
6 2 (2.70%) C#
6 2 (2.70%) JavaScript
6 2 (2.70%) R
7 1 (1.35%) Bicep
7 1 (1.35%) C++
7 1 (1.35%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (8.11%) Degree
2 4 (5.41%) Security Cleared
3 3 (4.05%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (4.05%) SC Cleared
4 2 (2.70%) DBS Check
5 1 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (1.35%) DV Cleared
5 1 (1.35%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (24.32%) Data Quality
2 9 (12.16%) GDPR
3 3 (4.05%) QA
4 2 (2.70%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (1.35%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.35%) HIPAA
5 1 (1.35%) NIST
5 1 (1.35%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (1.35%) Docker
1 1 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (10.81%) Terraform
2 1 (1.35%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 23 (31.08%) Databricks
2 12 (16.22%) Microsoft
3 2 (2.70%) Foundry
3 2 (2.70%) Google
3 2 (2.70%) Palantir
3 2 (2.70%) Salesforce
3 2 (2.70%) SimCorp
3 2 (2.70%) Vermilion
4 1 (1.35%) Alteryx
4 1 (1.35%) Dataiku
4 1 (1.35%) Guidewire
4 1 (1.35%) OpenAI
4 1 (1.35%) Workday