Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Data Engineer
UK > England

The median Data Engineer daily rate in England is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 March 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 75 102
Rank change year-on-year +4 +27 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 1,263 768 845
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.36% 3.16% 2.24%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.65% 3.40% 2.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 901 581 662
10th Percentile £368 £354 £302
25th Percentile £415 £419 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -7.27%
75th Percentile £588 £619 £625
90th Percentile £675 £725 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 10 40
10th Percentile £19.34 £25.45 £36.88
25th Percentile £34.06 £43.75 £49.25
Median hourly rate £66.75 £65.00 £66.25
Median % change year-on-year +2.69% -1.89% +3.52%
75th Percentile £75.00 £78.40 £80.00
90th Percentile £84.50 £93.75 -
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £47.50 £63.75
% change year-on-year +15.79% -25.49% -0.39%

All Contract IT Job Roles
England

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in England. 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 England with a recognized job title 34,605 22,569 34,968
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.14% 93.01% 92.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,827 15,098 23,383
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £408 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,272 812 2,294
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.62 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £34.06 £32.70
Median % change year-on-year +17.46% +4.15% -23.68%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.00 £76.25 £72.33
UK median hourly rate £37.20 £32.50 £32.95
% change year-on-year +14.46% -1.36% -24.26%

Data Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in England

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 England.

Data Engineer job vacancy trend in England

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in England

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

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

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineer in England over the 6 months to 26 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineer in England

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in England

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

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

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineer in England over the 6 months to 26 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineer in England

Data Engineer
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Engineer within the England region over the 6 months to 26 March 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London +14 731 £525 -1.96% 158
Midlands +15 220 £469 -1.26% 59
West Midlands +13 201 £475 -0.42% 45
North of England -16 159 £455 -0.27% 87
North West -2 98 £450 -2.70% 56
South East -31 64 £500 - 91
South West -6 53 £536 +7.10% 38
Yorkshire -32 46 £465 +3.33% 19
East Midlands -28 19 £450 +18.03% 14
North East -11 15 £488 +2.63% 13
East of England -37 13 £565 +77.67% 17
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 26 March 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 England region featuring Data Engineer in the job title.

1 719 (56.93%) SQL
2 635 (50.28%) Python
3 541 (42.83%) ETL
4 540 (42.76%) Data Pipeline
5 532 (42.12%) Data Engineering
6 498 (39.43%) Analytics
6 498 (39.43%) Azure
7 465 (36.82%) Data Modelling
8 361 (28.58%) Data Quality
9 356 (28.19%) Databricks
10 353 (27.95%) AWS
11 348 (27.55%) Security Cleared
12 339 (26.84%) CI/CD
13 314 (24.86%) SC Cleared
14 298 (23.59%) Business Intelligence
15 260 (20.59%) DevOps
16 237 (18.76%) Data Warehouse
17 236 (18.69%) Agile
18 235 (18.61%) Power Platform
19 220 (17.42%) Power BI
20 210 (16.63%) Azure Data Factory
21 207 (16.39%) Data Governance
22 195 (15.44%) PySpark
23 191 (15.12%) Problem-Solving
24 171 (13.54%) Microsoft
25 166 (13.14%) Git
26 158 (12.51%) Data Science
27 153 (12.11%) Snowflake
28 148 (11.72%) AI
29 147 (11.64%) Data Integration

Data Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 132 (10.45%) Apache Spark
2 122 (9.66%) Apache Airflow
3 84 (6.65%) Apache
4 56 (4.43%) SAS
5 17 (1.35%) Confluence
6 10 (0.79%) Palantir Foundry
7 5 (0.40%) Jupyter
7 5 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.24%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
10 1 (0.079%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.079%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.079%) Appian
10 1 (0.079%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.079%) Camunda
10 1 (0.079%) Luigi
10 1 (0.079%) R Markdown
Applications
1 14 (1.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.24%) Chatbot
2 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.079%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.079%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.24%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.16%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.16%) Maximo
2 2 (0.16%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.079%) Actimize
3 1 (0.079%) BambooHR
3 1 (0.079%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.079%) iTrent
3 1 (0.079%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.079%) Oracle 11i
3 1 (0.079%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.079%) SAP Business ByDesign
3 1 (0.079%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 498 (39.43%) Azure
2 353 (27.95%) AWS
3 235 (18.61%) Power Platform
4 210 (16.63%) Azure Data Factory
5 153 (12.11%) Snowflake
6 139 (11.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 135 (10.69%) GCP
8 125 (9.90%) dbt
9 123 (9.74%) Amazon S3
10 113 (8.95%) GitHub
11 98 (7.76%) Azure DevOps
12 90 (7.13%) Serverless
13 66 (5.23%) AWS Lambda
14 49 (3.88%) GitHub Actions
15 37 (2.93%) AWS CloudFormation
16 27 (2.14%) Matillion
17 24 (1.90%) Amazon Kinesis
18 23 (1.82%) AWS Step Functions
19 19 (1.50%) Amazon SQS
19 19 (1.50%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.82%) DNS
1 23 (1.82%) VPN
2 22 (1.74%) BGP
2 22 (1.74%) DMZ
2 22 (1.74%) Multicast
3 9 (0.71%) Structured Cabling
4 4 (0.32%) Firewall
5 3 (0.24%) SAN
6 1 (0.079%) 4G
6 1 (0.079%) 5G
6 1 (0.079%) Network Security
6 1 (0.079%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 237 (18.76%) Data Warehouse
2 220 (17.42%) Power BI
3 147 (11.64%) Data Lake
4 96 (7.60%) SQL Server
5 81 (6.41%) Azure SQL Database
6 78 (6.18%) BigQuery
6 78 (6.18%) Delta Lake
7 77 (6.10%) Amazon Redshift
8 69 (5.46%) Metadata
9 67 (5.30%) Pentaho
10 62 (4.91%) PostgreSQL
11 55 (4.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 52 (4.12%) Big Data
12 52 (4.12%) NoSQL
13 49 (3.88%) Snowflake Schema
13 49 (3.88%) Tableau
14 41 (3.25%) Amazon Athena
15 36 (2.85%) Hadoop
15 36 (2.85%) Relational Database
16 34 (2.69%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 166 (13.14%) Git
2 63 (4.99%) Jenkins
3 57 (4.51%) JIRA
4 51 (4.04%) GitLab
5 18 (1.43%) MLflow
6 3 (0.24%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.16%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.16%) DBeaver
7 2 (0.16%) JUnit
7 2 (0.16%) Selenium
7 2 (0.16%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.079%) Deequ
8 1 (0.079%) Gradle
8 1 (0.079%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.079%) Mockito
8 1 (0.079%) Poetry
8 1 (0.079%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 1 (0.079%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.079%) Terragrunt
General
1 213 (16.86%) Social Skills
2 209 (16.55%) Finance
3 134 (10.61%) Analytical Skills
4 111 (8.79%) Public Sector
5 63 (4.99%) Banking
6 35 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 19 (1.50%) Investment Banking
8 16 (1.27%) Front Office
9 15 (1.19%) Telecoms
10 14 (1.11%) Retail
11 13 (1.03%) Documentation Skills
11 13 (1.03%) Marketing
11 13 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
12 11 (0.87%) Publishing
13 10 (0.79%) Manufacturing
14 6 (0.48%) Law
14 6 (0.48%) Military
15 4 (0.32%) Aerospace
15 4 (0.32%) Corporate Banking
15 4 (0.32%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (15.44%) PySpark
2 138 (10.93%) Kafka
3 43 (3.40%) Pandas
4 30 (2.38%) JSON
5 27 (2.14%) YAML
6 23 (1.82%) REST
7 20 (1.58%) Great Expectations
8 17 (1.35%) XML
9 16 (1.27%) Node.js
10 15 (1.19%) scikit-learn
11 13 (1.03%) Matplotlib
11 13 (1.03%) PyTorch
12 12 (0.95%) Keycloak
12 12 (0.95%) NumPy
12 12 (0.95%) React
13 11 (0.87%) Apache Beam
13 11 (0.87%) Apache NiFi
13 11 (0.87%) pytest
14 9 (0.71%) GeoJSON
14 9 (0.71%) Polars
Miscellaneous
1 97 (7.68%) Cloud Native
2 43 (3.40%) Legacy Systems
3 32 (2.53%) Data Structures
4 29 (2.30%) Product Ownership
5 21 (1.66%) Clustering
6 18 (1.43%) Greenfield Project
6 18 (1.43%) Onboarding
7 16 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
7 16 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.27%) Hybrid Cloud
7 16 (1.27%) Replication
8 12 (0.95%) Reinsurance
9 11 (0.87%) Public Cloud
10 9 (0.71%) Distributed Computing
11 8 (0.63%) Life Science
11 8 (0.63%) NHS
11 8 (0.63%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (0.55%) Data Centre
12 7 (0.55%) Management Information System
13 6 (0.48%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 20 (1.58%) Unix
2 18 (1.43%) Linux
3 2 (0.16%) Windows
3 2 (0.16%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.079%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 541 (42.83%) ETL
2 540 (42.76%) Data Pipeline
3 532 (42.12%) Data Engineering
4 498 (39.43%) Analytics
5 465 (36.82%) Data Modelling
6 339 (26.84%) CI/CD
7 298 (23.59%) Business Intelligence
8 260 (20.59%) DevOps
9 236 (18.69%) Agile
10 207 (16.39%) Data Governance
11 191 (15.12%) Problem-Solving
12 158 (12.51%) Data Science
13 148 (11.72%) AI
14 147 (11.64%) Data Integration
15 139 (11.01%) Data Architecture
16 135 (10.69%) Migration
17 124 (9.82%) Data Transformation
18 121 (9.58%) Validation
19 118 (9.34%) Performance Tuning
20 116 (9.18%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 719 (56.93%) SQL
2 635 (50.28%) Python
3 79 (6.25%) Java
3 79 (6.25%) Scala
4 36 (2.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 34 (2.69%) C#
6 24 (1.90%) PL/SQL
6 24 (1.90%) T-SQL
7 23 (1.82%) Bash
8 18 (1.43%) Bicep
8 18 (1.43%) PowerShell
9 17 (1.35%) Shell Script
10 15 (1.19%) Go
11 14 (1.11%) R
12 11 (0.87%) JavaScript
13 5 (0.40%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.24%) C
14 3 (0.24%) Korn
15 2 (0.16%) Ruby
15 2 (0.16%) VB
Qualifications
1 348 (27.55%) Security Cleared
2 314 (24.86%) SC Cleared
3 34 (2.69%) Azure Certification
3 34 (2.69%) Degree
4 22 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (1.27%) AWS Certification
6 15 (1.19%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (0.95%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.40%) BICSI Certification
8 5 (0.40%) City & Guilds
8 5 (0.40%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.32%) CTC Cleared
9 4 (0.32%) DBS Check
9 4 (0.32%) SnowPro
10 1 (0.079%) CCIE
10 1 (0.079%) CCNP
10 1 (0.079%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.079%) CISM
10 1 (0.079%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 361 (28.58%) Data Quality
2 49 (3.88%) GDPR
3 32 (2.53%) QA
4 11 (0.87%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.32%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (0.32%) SLA
6 3 (0.24%) FATCA
6 3 (0.24%) GMP
6 3 (0.24%) MiFID
7 2 (0.16%) Dodd-Frank
7 2 (0.16%) EMIR
7 2 (0.16%) WCAG
8 1 (0.079%) Basel III
8 1 (0.079%) GRC
8 1 (0.079%) GxP
8 1 (0.079%) NCSC
8 1 (0.079%) NIST
8 1 (0.079%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.079%) SOC 2
System Software
1 88 (6.97%) Docker
2 8 (0.63%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.16%) HDFS
4 1 (0.079%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 143 (11.32%) Terraform
2 97 (7.68%) Kubernetes
3 25 (1.98%) Grafana
4 13 (1.03%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.71%) Ansible
6 4 (0.32%) Kubeflow
6 4 (0.32%) NetBackup
7 3 (0.24%) Kibana
7 3 (0.24%) Rancher
8 2 (0.16%) Apache Ranger
8 2 (0.16%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.16%) logstash
8 2 (0.16%) Puppet
8 2 (0.16%) Thomson Reuters DACS
8 2 (0.16%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 1 (0.079%) Control-M
Vendors
1 356 (28.19%) Databricks
2 171 (13.54%) Microsoft
3 96 (7.60%) Oracle
4 94 (7.44%) Talend
5 82 (6.49%) Informatica
6 58 (4.59%) Google
7 48 (3.80%) Denodo
8 27 (2.14%) Cisco
9 24 (1.90%) F5
10 20 (1.58%) ServiceNow
11 19 (1.50%) SAP
12 16 (1.27%) Cloudera
12 16 (1.27%) Splunk
13 14 (1.11%) Palantir
14 13 (1.03%) IBM
15 12 (0.95%) Foundry
16 10 (0.79%) Alteryx
17 8 (0.63%) MuleSoft
18 6 (0.48%) OpenAI
19 5 (0.40%) Virgin Media