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 23 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 88 107
Rank change year-on-year +34 +19 +31
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 77 32 29
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 3.95% 1.75% 1.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 4.45% 1.91% 1.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 54 17 21
10th Percentile £363 £413 £413
25th Percentile £416 £425 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -14.77%
75th Percentile £688 £650 £704
90th Percentile £868 £743 £775
Central London median daily rate £575 £550 £613
% change year-on-year +4.55% -10.20% +5.06%
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 1,731 1,675 2,129
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 88.91% 91.68% 89.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,197 1,022 1,511
10th Percentile £356 £363 £350
25th Percentile £430 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.96% - -4.17%
75th Percentile £663 £688 £688
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
Central London median daily rate £546 £575 £563
% change year-on-year -5.00% +2.22% -4.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 9 13
10th Percentile £18.75 £22.00 £17.00
25th Percentile £20.18 £31.00 £18.93
Median hourly rate £28.00 £38.50 £25.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.27% +54.00% -28.57%
75th Percentile £45.08 £48.75 £41.84
90th Percentile £54.94 £112.00 £49.55
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 23 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 (12.99%) Apache Spark
2 9 (11.69%) Apache Airflow
3 5 (6.49%) Apache
4 2 (2.60%) Palantir Foundry
5 1 (1.30%) Confluence
5 1 (1.30%) SharePoint
Applications
1 4 (5.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.30%) MS Visio
2 1 (1.30%) Spreadsheet
Cloud Services
1 34 (44.16%) Azure
2 28 (36.36%) AWS
3 24 (31.17%) Power Platform
4 16 (20.78%) Snowflake
5 12 (15.58%) Azure Data Factory
5 12 (15.58%) GCP
6 7 (9.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 6 (7.79%) Amazon SageMaker
7 6 (7.79%) dbt
7 6 (7.79%) Serverless
8 4 (5.19%) Azure DevOps
8 4 (5.19%) GitHub
8 4 (5.19%) Microsoft Purview
9 3 (3.90%) AWS Control Tower
9 3 (3.90%) Azure Functions
9 3 (3.90%) Power Automate
9 3 (3.90%) SaaS
10 2 (2.60%) Amazon S3
10 2 (2.60%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 2 (2.60%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 1 (1.30%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 22 (28.57%) Power BI
2 13 (16.88%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (11.69%) Snowflake Schema
3 9 (11.69%) Tableau
4 7 (9.09%) Data Lake
4 7 (9.09%) Metadata
5 6 (7.79%) Big Data
6 4 (5.19%) NoSQL
7 3 (3.90%) Delta Lake
8 2 (2.60%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (2.60%) Geospatial Data
8 2 (2.60%) SQL Server
9 1 (1.30%) Hadoop
9 1 (1.30%) KDB
9 1 (1.30%) Kdb+
9 1 (1.30%) Metadata Repository
9 1 (1.30%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 1 (1.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 1 (1.30%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 1 (1.30%) ThoughtSpot
Development Applications
1 14 (18.18%) Git
2 4 (5.19%) Jenkins
3 2 (2.60%) GitLab
4 1 (1.30%) ERwin
4 1 (1.30%) JIRA
4 1 (1.30%) Postman
4 1 (1.30%) Robot Framework
4 1 (1.30%) Selenium
General
1 32 (41.56%) Finance
2 15 (19.48%) Analytical Skills
3 13 (16.88%) Banking
4 11 (14.29%) Social Skills
5 5 (6.49%) Front Office
5 5 (6.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (5.19%) Back Office
7 2 (2.60%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (2.60%) Investment Banking
7 2 (2.60%) Marketing
7 2 (2.60%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.30%) Financial Institution
8 1 (1.30%) Manufacturing
8 1 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (1.30%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 25 (32.47%) Data Engineer
2 14 (18.18%) Architect
3 9 (11.69%) Lead
4 7 (9.09%) Developer
5 6 (7.79%) Artificial Intelligence Architect
5 6 (7.79%) Snowflake Data Engineer
5 6 (7.79%) Snowflake Engineer
6 5 (6.49%) Analyst
6 5 (6.49%) Machine Learning Engineer
6 5 (6.49%) Solutions Architect
7 4 (5.19%) Business Intelligence Developer
7 4 (5.19%) Consultant
8 3 (3.90%) Azure Data Engineer
8 3 (3.90%) Azure Engineer
8 3 (3.90%) Data Analyst
8 3 (3.90%) Data Scientist
8 3 (3.90%) Lead Data Engineer
8 3 (3.90%) Senior
8 3 (3.90%) Technical Leader
9 2 (2.60%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 10 (12.99%) PySpark
2 9 (11.69%) PyTorch
2 9 (11.69%) TensorFlow
3 8 (10.39%) scikit-learn
4 7 (9.09%) Kafka
5 5 (6.49%) Middleware
6 3 (3.90%) Dask
6 3 (3.90%) Google JAX
6 3 (3.90%) JAX
6 3 (3.90%) LightGBM
6 3 (3.90%) Vert.x
6 3 (3.90%) XGBoost
7 2 (2.60%) JSON
7 2 (2.60%) Microsoft Graph
7 2 (2.60%) NumPy
7 2 (2.60%) OpenTelemetry
7 2 (2.60%) Pandas
7 2 (2.60%) XML
7 2 (2.60%) YAML
8 1 (1.30%) HTML
Miscellaneous
1 13 (16.88%) Cloud Native
2 8 (10.39%) Algorithms
2 8 (10.39%) Distributed Systems
2 8 (10.39%) Product Ownership
3 5 (6.49%) Derivative
4 4 (5.19%) Analytical Mindset
4 4 (5.19%) Equities
5 3 (3.90%) Security Posture
6 2 (2.60%) AI Agents
6 2 (2.60%) Clustering
6 2 (2.60%) Distributed Computing
6 2 (2.60%) Fixed Income
6 2 (2.60%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 2 (2.60%) Taxonomies
7 1 (1.30%) Data Structures
7 1 (1.30%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.30%) Management Information System
7 1 (1.30%) Public Cloud
7 1 (1.30%) Replication
7 1 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.30%) Linux
1 1 (1.30%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 35 (45.45%) Data Pipeline
2 32 (41.56%) AI
2 32 (41.56%) Analytics
3 24 (31.17%) CI/CD
4 23 (29.87%) Business Intelligence
5 22 (28.57%) Machine Learning
6 21 (27.27%) Data Modelling
6 21 (27.27%) ETL
7 17 (22.08%) Data Governance
8 16 (20.78%) Agile
9 15 (19.48%) Data Science
10 13 (16.88%) Generative AI
10 13 (16.88%) Validation
11 12 (15.58%) DevOps
12 11 (14.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 11 (14.29%) Use Case
13 10 (12.99%) Performance Tuning
14 9 (11.69%) Decision-Making
14 9 (11.69%) MLOps
14 9 (11.69%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 41 (53.25%) Python
2 38 (49.35%) SQL
3 5 (6.49%) Java
3 5 (6.49%) Scala
4 3 (3.90%) C#
4 3 (3.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 3 (3.90%) Korn
4 3 (3.90%) T-SQL
5 2 (2.60%) JavaScript
5 2 (2.60%) R
6 1 (1.30%) Bicep
6 1 (1.30%) C++
6 1 (1.30%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 6 (7.79%) Degree
2 4 (5.19%) Security Cleared
3 3 (3.90%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (3.90%) SC Cleared
4 2 (2.60%) DBS Check
5 1 (1.30%) BPSS Clearance
5 1 (1.30%) DV Cleared
5 1 (1.30%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 19 (24.68%) Data Quality
2 9 (11.69%) GDPR
3 3 (3.90%) QA
4 2 (2.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (1.30%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.30%) HIPAA
5 1 (1.30%) NIST
5 1 (1.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 1 (1.30%) Docker
1 1 (1.30%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 8 (10.39%) Terraform
2 1 (1.30%) Kubernetes
Vendors
1 23 (29.87%) Databricks
2 14 (18.18%) Microsoft
3 3 (3.90%) Google
4 2 (2.60%) Foundry
4 2 (2.60%) Palantir
4 2 (2.60%) Salesforce
4 2 (2.60%) SimCorp
4 2 (2.60%) Vermilion
5 1 (1.30%) Alteryx
5 1 (1.30%) Dataiku
5 1 (1.30%) Guidewire
5 1 (1.30%) OpenAI
5 1 (1.30%) Workday