Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in England

Data Engineer
UK > England

The median Data Engineer daily rate in England is £513, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 25 November 2025.

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

6 months to
25 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 127 88 124
Rank change year-on-year -39 +36 +8
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 697 803 804
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.29% 2.60% 2.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.51% 2.80% 2.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 496 559 614
10th Percentile £363 £375 £400
25th Percentile £417 £453 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% - -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £642
90th Percentile £695 £700 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £530 £525
% change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 8 14
10th Percentile £25.92 £36.75 £35.19
25th Percentile £34.13 £47.25 £41.29
Median hourly rate £43.50 £65.00 £61.75
Median % change year-on-year -33.08% +5.26% +14.35%
75th Percentile £67.56 £97.50 £67.25
90th Percentile £110.00 - £78.75
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £46.50 £61.75
% change year-on-year -6.45% -24.70% +14.35%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 27,811 28,713 36,554
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.27% 92.94% 93.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,793 17,552 25,219
10th Percentile £283 £300 £288
25th Percentile £404 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,690 1,076 1,408
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.33
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.17 £20.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £45.88
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -12.82% +41.17%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.55 £75.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +50.00%

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025.

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 25 November 2025. 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 -21 427 £525 -8.70% 149
Midlands -20 81 £515 +5.10% 41
North of England -40 80 £463 -2.63% 34
West Midlands -18 67 £519 +3.85% 35
North West -16 37 £415 -7.78% 19
South West +4 36 £550 +22.22% 18
Yorkshire -29 35 £500 +3.09% 9
South East -42 35 £478 -13.18% 104
East Midlands -6 14 £450 +26.40% 6
North East -6 8 £425 +13.64% 6
East of England -28 6 £625 +95.31% 13
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 25 November 2025, 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.

1 440 (63.13%) Python
2 434 (62.27%) SQL
3 330 (47.35%) Data Pipeline
4 300 (43.04%) Azure
5 291 (41.75%) ETL
6 278 (39.89%) Data Engineering
7 250 (35.87%) AWS
8 248 (35.58%) Data Modelling
9 225 (32.28%) CI/CD
10 224 (32.14%) Analytics
11 218 (31.28%) Databricks
12 180 (25.82%) Data Quality
13 167 (23.96%) Business Intelligence
14 162 (23.24%) DevOps
15 155 (22.24%) Data Warehouse
16 153 (21.95%) Security Cleared
17 143 (20.52%) Agile
18 134 (19.23%) Azure Data Factory
19 133 (19.08%) Power Platform
20 130 (18.65%) Power BI
21 129 (18.51%) SC Cleared
22 121 (17.36%) Apache Airflow
23 119 (17.07%) Data Science
24 118 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
24 118 (16.93%) PySpark
25 113 (16.21%) Snowflake
26 100 (14.35%) Git
27 97 (13.92%) Machine Learning
28 92 (13.20%) GCP
29 89 (12.77%) Apache Spark

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
1 121 (17.36%) Apache Airflow
2 89 (12.77%) Apache Spark
3 56 (8.03%) Apache
4 22 (3.16%) Confluence
5 17 (2.44%) SAS
6 8 (1.15%) Oracle Application Server
7 6 (0.86%) Apache Pig
7 6 (0.86%) SharePoint
8 5 (0.72%) IIS
9 4 (0.57%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.43%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 2 (0.29%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.29%) Documentum
11 2 (0.29%) Luigi
12 1 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.14%) nginx
Applications
1 9 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.29%) Windchill
4 1 (0.14%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.14%) SPSS
4 1 (0.14%) Stata
Business Applications
1 3 (0.43%) Oracle BPM
2 2 (0.29%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.29%) Maximo
2 2 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.14%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 300 (43.04%) Azure
2 250 (35.87%) AWS
3 134 (19.23%) Azure Data Factory
4 133 (19.08%) Power Platform
5 113 (16.21%) Snowflake
6 92 (13.20%) GCP
7 88 (12.63%) dbt
8 82 (11.76%) Amazon S3
9 77 (11.05%) GitHub
10 75 (10.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 60 (8.61%) Serverless
12 47 (6.74%) Azure DevOps
13 41 (5.88%) GitHub Actions
14 40 (5.74%) AWS Lambda
15 23 (3.30%) AWS CloudFormation
16 20 (2.87%) SaaS
17 17 (2.44%) Amazon EMR
18 16 (2.30%) Amazon Kinesis
19 11 (1.58%) AWS Step Functions
20 9 (1.29%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.57%) Firewall
1 4 (0.57%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.43%) SAN
2 3 (0.43%) SSH
3 2 (0.29%) DNS
3 2 (0.29%) Internet
3 2 (0.29%) SSL
3 2 (0.29%) Structured Cabling
4 1 (0.14%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (22.24%) Data Warehouse
2 130 (18.65%) Power BI
3 83 (11.91%) Data Lake
4 61 (8.75%) Big Data
5 52 (7.46%) PostgreSQL
6 51 (7.32%) SQL Server
7 48 (6.89%) Hadoop
8 46 (6.60%) Amazon Redshift
9 42 (6.03%) Delta Lake
10 40 (5.74%) NoSQL
11 38 (5.45%) Azure SQL Database
12 35 (5.02%) BigQuery
13 34 (4.88%) Tableau
14 31 (4.45%) Relational Database
15 28 (4.02%) Star Schema
16 27 (3.87%) Metadata
17 25 (3.59%) Pentaho
17 25 (3.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 22 (3.16%) Amazon QuickSight
19 20 (2.87%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 100 (14.35%) Git
2 56 (8.03%) Jenkins
3 38 (5.45%) JIRA
4 25 (3.59%) GitLab
5 19 (2.73%) MLflow
6 8 (1.15%) DBeaver
7 5 (0.72%) Visual Studio Code
8 4 (0.57%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.57%) Poetry
8 4 (0.57%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.43%) PyCharm
9 3 (0.43%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.43%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.29%) Selenium
11 1 (0.14%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.14%) ERwin
11 1 (0.14%) JUnit
11 1 (0.14%) Maven
11 1 (0.14%) Mockito
11 1 (0.14%) TeamCity
General
1 145 (20.80%) Social Skills
2 122 (17.50%) Finance
3 91 (13.06%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (7.46%) Public Sector
5 28 (4.02%) Banking
6 20 (2.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (1.87%) Pharmaceutical
8 12 (1.72%) Retail
9 11 (1.58%) Investment Banking
10 10 (1.43%) Front Office
11 9 (1.29%) Marketing
12 8 (1.15%) Telecoms
13 5 (0.72%) Documentation Skills
14 4 (0.57%) Legal
14 4 (0.57%) Manufacturing
15 3 (0.43%) Corporate Banking
15 3 (0.43%) Law
15 3 (0.43%) Military
15 3 (0.43%) Retail Banking
15 3 (0.43%) Tech for Good
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (16.93%) PySpark
2 72 (10.33%) Kafka
3 17 (2.44%) XML
4 16 (2.30%) Apache NiFi
4 16 (2.30%) Pandas
5 14 (2.01%) RESTful
6 12 (1.72%) Flask
6 12 (1.72%) HTML
6 12 (1.72%) JSON
6 12 (1.72%) NumPy
7 11 (1.58%) YAML
8 10 (1.43%) RabbitMQ
8 10 (1.43%) REST
9 9 (1.29%) Keycloak
9 9 (1.29%) Node.js
9 9 (1.29%) pytest
10 8 (1.15%) Jinja
10 8 (1.15%) Oracle GoldenGate
10 8 (1.15%) PyTorch
11 7 (1.00%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 43 (6.17%) Cloud Native
2 26 (3.73%) Legacy Systems
3 22 (3.16%) Data Structures
4 20 (2.87%) Product Ownership
5 18 (2.58%) Algorithms
5 18 (2.58%) Replication
6 13 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
7 12 (1.72%) Onboarding
8 11 (1.58%) Hybrid Cloud
9 9 (1.29%) Distributed Computing
10 8 (1.15%) Life Science
11 7 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
11 7 (1.00%) IoT
11 7 (1.00%) NHS
11 7 (1.00%) Virtual Team
12 6 (0.86%) Clustering
12 6 (0.86%) Reinsurance
13 5 (0.72%) Distributed Systems
13 5 (0.72%) Genomics
13 5 (0.72%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 21 (3.01%) Linux
2 12 (1.72%) Unix
3 3 (0.43%) Windows
4 2 (0.29%) Windows Server
4 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 330 (47.35%) Data Pipeline
2 291 (41.75%) ETL
3 278 (39.89%) Data Engineering
4 248 (35.58%) Data Modelling
5 225 (32.28%) CI/CD
6 224 (32.14%) Analytics
7 167 (23.96%) Business Intelligence
8 162 (23.24%) DevOps
9 143 (20.52%) Agile
10 119 (17.07%) Data Science
11 118 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
12 97 (13.92%) Machine Learning
13 88 (12.63%) Data Governance
14 85 (12.20%) Infrastructure as Code
15 83 (11.91%) AI
16 82 (11.76%) Data Integration
17 75 (10.76%) Migration
18 74 (10.62%) Data Architecture
19 73 (10.47%) Data Transformation
20 69 (9.90%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 440 (63.13%) Python
2 434 (62.27%) SQL
3 66 (9.47%) Java
4 64 (9.18%) Scala
5 25 (3.59%) Bash
6 14 (2.01%) PL/SQL
6 14 (2.01%) R
7 13 (1.87%) JavaScript
8 12 (1.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 12 (1.72%) Go
9 9 (1.29%) PowerShell
9 9 (1.29%) Shell Script
10 8 (1.15%) C#
10 8 (1.15%) T-SQL
11 7 (1.00%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.57%) C++
12 4 (0.57%) Groovy
12 4 (0.57%) Korn
13 2 (0.29%) ABAP
14 1 (0.14%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 153 (21.95%) Security Cleared
2 129 (18.51%) SC Cleared
3 32 (4.59%) Degree
4 21 (3.01%) AWS Certification
4 21 (3.01%) Azure Certification
5 19 (2.73%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (1.29%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.86%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.43%) SnowPro
10 2 (0.29%) CTC Cleared
10 2 (0.29%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.29%) MCP
11 1 (0.14%) HND
11 1 (0.14%) PhD
11 1 (0.14%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 180 (25.82%) Data Quality
2 31 (4.45%) GDPR
3 12 (1.72%) QA
4 7 (1.00%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.57%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.57%) NIST
6 3 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 3 (0.43%) SLA
7 2 (0.29%) Dodd-Frank
7 2 (0.29%) EMIR
7 2 (0.29%) EU AI Act
7 2 (0.29%) MiFID
8 1 (0.14%) HL7
8 1 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.14%) NCSC
8 1 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 64 (9.18%) Docker
2 9 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.72%) zsh
4 2 (0.29%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.14%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 88 (12.63%) Terraform
2 65 (9.33%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.58%) Ansible
4 9 (1.29%) NetBackup
5 7 (1.00%) Grafana
6 5 (0.72%) Puppet
7 4 (0.57%) Argo
7 4 (0.57%) Kubeflow
7 4 (0.57%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.43%) Ambari
8 3 (0.43%) Istio
8 3 (0.43%) Kibana
8 3 (0.43%) ZABBIX
9 2 (0.29%) Control-M
9 2 (0.29%) EMC NetWorker
9 2 (0.29%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 1 (0.14%) logstash
Vendors
1 218 (31.28%) Databricks
2 83 (11.91%) Microsoft
3 58 (8.32%) Oracle
4 31 (4.45%) Talend
5 28 (4.02%) Google
6 27 (3.87%) Foundry
6 27 (3.87%) Palantir
7 20 (2.87%) Informatica
8 19 (2.73%) Denodo
9 15 (2.15%) Cloudera
10 12 (1.72%) IBM
10 12 (1.72%) Red Hat
11 11 (1.58%) SAP
12 9 (1.29%) Commvault
13 8 (1.15%) Splunk
13 8 (1.15%) Veritas
14 7 (1.00%) Confluent
14 7 (1.00%) Virgin Media
15 5 (0.72%) EMC
15 5 (0.72%) Salesforce