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 22 October 2026.
The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.
| 6 months to 22 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 67 | 133 | 99 |
| Rank change year-on-year | +66 | -34 | +32 |
| Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer | 1,656 | 631 | 765 |
| As % of all contract jobs in England | 3.55% | 2.22% | 2.41% |
| As % of the Job Titles category | 3.86% | 2.44% | 2.59% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 1,081 | 451 | 528 |
| 10th Percentile | £375 | £363 | £370 |
| 25th Percentile | £425 | £423 | £454 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £500 | £513 | £550 |
| Median % change year-on-year | -2.44% | -6.82% | - |
| 75th Percentile | £600 | £600 | £638 |
| 90th Percentile | £675 | £695 | £700 |
| UK median daily rate | £500 | £500 | £538 |
| % change year-on-year | - | -6.98% | -2.27% |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 60 | 12 | 6 |
| 10th Percentile | £21.25 | £25.25 | £37.75 |
| 25th Percentile | £30.96 | £32.94 | £51.94 |
| Median hourly rate | £45.00 | £48.00 | £77.50 |
| Median % change year-on-year | -6.25% | -38.06% | +23.02% |
| 75th Percentile | £68.00 | £66.88 | £97.50 |
| 90th Percentile | £70.00 | £107.00 | - |
| UK median hourly rate | £45.00 | £52.50 | £55.25 |
| % change year-on-year | -14.29% | -4.98% | -12.30% |
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.
| 6 months to 22 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract vacancies in England with a recognized job title | 42,884 | 25,887 | 29,550 |
| % of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title | 91.82% | 91.13% | 93.05% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 25,270 | 16,652 | 18,058 |
| 10th Percentile | £325 | £281 | £300 |
| 25th Percentile | £425 | £404 | £413 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £525 | £513 | £525 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +2.44% | -2.38% | -2.78% |
| 75th Percentile | £638 | £625 | £638 |
| 90th Percentile | £738 | £725 | £750 |
| UK median daily rate | £525 | £500 | £525 |
| % change year-on-year | +5.00% | -4.76% | - |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 3,815 | 1,469 | 1,195 |
| 10th Percentile | £14.37 | £13.83 | £15.10 |
| 25th Percentile | £20.00 | £17.30 | £21.25 |
| Median hourly rate | £41.71 | £25.15 | £42.50 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +65.84% | -40.82% | -7.61% |
| 75th Percentile | £68.00 | £50.00 | £67.50 |
| 90th Percentile | £80.00 | £70.00 | £75.00 |
| UK median hourly rate | £41.06 | £25.15 | £40.00 |
| % change year-on-year | +63.25% | -37.13% | -10.11% |
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 Daily Rate Trend 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 22 October 2026.
Data Engineer Hourly Rate Trend 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 22 October 2026.
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 22 October 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 | +38 | 842 | £525 | - | 675 |
| Midlands | +73 | 316 | £469 | -6.20% | 107 |
| West Midlands | +57 | 231 | £469 | -8.71% | 72 |
| North of England | +28 | 198 | £525 | +17.32% | 245 |
| South East | +25 | 123 | £459 | -3.37% | 116 |
| South West | +32 | 121 | £525 | -1.18% | 76 |
| North West | +11 | 99 | £525 | +23.53% | 126 |
| East Midlands | +39 | 85 | £388 | -15.76% | 35 |
| Yorkshire | +12 | 82 | £512 | -0.17% | 60 |
| East of England | +8 | 36 | £525 | -16.00% | 31 |
| North East | -30 | 18 | £473 | +13.51% | 59 |
| Data Engineer UK |
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Data Engineer Skill Set Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England
For the 6 months to 22 October 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.
| Rank | Skill | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SQL | 51.3% | 850 |
| 2 | Python | 45.3% | 750 |
| 3 | Data Pipeline | 44.7% | 741 |
| 4 | Data Engineering | 42.4% | 702 |
| 5 | ETL | 36.0% | 596 |
| 6 | Data Modelling | 35.9% | 594 |
| 7 | Analytics | 33.5% | 555 |
| 8 | AWS | 32.9% | 544 |
| 9 | Azure | 30.6% | 507 |
| 10 | Data Quality | 28.0% | 463 |
| 11 | CI/CD | 26.6% | 441 |
| 12 | Security Cleared | 26.4% | 438 |
| 13 | SC Cleared | 22.3% | 370 |
| 14 | Databricks | 21.5% | 356 |
| 15 | Agile | 18.1% | 299 |
| 16 | AI | 17.5% | 290 |
| 16 | DevOps | 17.5% | 290 |
| 18 | Migration | 16.9% | 280 |
| 19 | Data Warehouse | 16.4% | 272 |
| 20 | Data Transformation | 15.3% | 253 |
| 21 | Validation | 15.2% | 252 |
| 22 | Data Governance | 14.6% | 242 |
| 23 | Business Intelligence | 14.3% | 237 |
| 24 | PySpark | 13.9% | 231 |
| 25 | Data Integration | 13.5% | 223 |
| 26 | Microsoft | 13.0% | 216 |
| 27 | dbt | 12.8% | 212 |
| 27 | Snowflake | 12.8% | 212 |
| 29 | GCP | 11.4% | 189 |
| 30 | Power Platform | 11.3% | 187 |
Data Engineer Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category
The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.
Job Titles
| Rank | Job Title | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senior Data Engineer | 21.2% | 351 |
| 2 | AWS Engineer | 8.3% | 137 |
| 3 | AWS Data Engineer | 7.4% | 122 |
| 4 | Azure Engineer | 5.9% | 98 |
| 5 | Azure Data Engineer | 5.5% | 91 |
| 6 | Databricks Data Engineer | 5.4% | 90 |
| 7 | Platform Engineer | 5.0% | 83 |
| 7 | Snowflake Engineer | 5.0% | 83 |
| 9 | Snowflake Data Engineer | 5.0% | 82 |
| 10 | Lead Data Engineer | 4.8% | 80 |
| 11 | Python Engineer | 4.0% | 66 |
| 12 | GCP Engineer | 3.4% | 57 |
| 13 | Python Data Engineer | 3.3% | 55 |
| 14 | GCP Data Engineer | 3.2% | 53 |
| 15 | Migration Engineer | 2.8% | 47 |
| 16 | Data Migration Engineer | 2.7% | 44 |
| 17 | Security Engineer | 1.9% | 32 |
| 18 | Data Analytics Engineer | 1.7% | 28 |
| 19 | Artificial Intelligence Engineer | 1.6% | 27 |
| 20 | Senior Platform Engineer | 1.5% | 25 |