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 1 June 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 59 92 101
Rank change year-on-year +33 +9 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 1,559 668 819
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.73% 2.76% 2.22%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.04% 2.98% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,106 513 629
10th Percentile £375 £356 £258
25th Percentile £425 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £600
90th Percentile £663 £723 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £491 £500
% change year-on-year +1.94% -1.90% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 9 41
10th Percentile £19.34 £18.13 £37.50
25th Percentile £35.00 £51.25 £49.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £67.50
Median % change year-on-year - -22.22% -10.60%
75th Percentile £71.50 £78.70 £80.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.75 -
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -22.22% -10.60%

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 38,608 22,392 34,167
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.37% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,868 14,803 22,535
10th Percentile £322 £290 £285
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -1.43% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £513 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +1.49% -3.81% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,710 937 2,560
10th Percentile £15.75 £14.00 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.20 £16.30
Median hourly rate £45.00 £29.80 £37.63
Median % change year-on-year +51.01% -20.80% -16.39%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £79.55 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%

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 1 June 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 1 June 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 1 June 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 +34 851 £525 - 102
Midlands +49 300 £469 +4.22% 30
West Midlands +45 283 £469 +1.96% 20
North of England +2 199 £465 -2.11% 73
North West +4 124 £480 +1.05% 28
South East +5 101 £488 +17.90% 72
South West +9 73 £500 +1.27% 26
Yorkshire -26 57 £465 +3.33% 23
East of England -26 19 £520 +63.52% 3
North East -19 18 £450 -5.26% 23
East Midlands -24 17 £525 +28.05% 10
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 1 June 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.

1 855 (54.84%) SQL
2 692 (44.39%) Python
3 650 (41.69%) Data Pipeline
4 598 (38.36%) ETL
5 595 (38.17%) Analytics
6 584 (37.46%) Data Engineering
7 541 (34.70%) Data Modelling
8 527 (33.80%) Azure
9 456 (29.25%) Security Cleared
10 436 (27.97%) AWS
11 408 (26.17%) SC Cleared
12 389 (24.95%) Data Quality
13 376 (24.12%) CI/CD
14 352 (22.58%) Databricks
15 333 (21.36%) Business Intelligence
16 280 (17.96%) DevOps
17 276 (17.70%) Agile
18 271 (17.38%) Power Platform
19 257 (16.48%) Power BI
20 255 (16.36%) Data Warehouse
21 231 (14.82%) Azure Data Factory
22 223 (14.30%) PySpark
23 212 (13.60%) Data Governance
24 207 (13.28%) Microsoft
24 207 (13.28%) Problem-Solving
25 197 (12.64%) Migration
26 180 (11.55%) AI
27 168 (10.78%) Data Lake
28 166 (10.65%) Data Integration
28 166 (10.65%) Terraform

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
1 151 (9.69%) Apache Airflow
2 143 (9.17%) Apache Spark
3 93 (5.97%) Apache
4 71 (4.55%) SAS
5 29 (1.86%) Confluence
6 9 (0.58%) Jupyter
6 9 (0.58%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.26%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.13%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.064%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.064%) Appian
9 1 (0.064%) Camunda
9 1 (0.064%) Luigi
9 1 (0.064%) R Markdown
Applications
1 17 (1.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.32%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.13%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.064%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (0.38%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.19%) SAP BPC
2 3 (0.19%) SimCorp Dimension
3 2 (0.13%) BambooHR
3 2 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.13%) Infor LN
3 2 (0.13%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.064%) Elite 3E
4 1 (0.064%) iTrent
4 1 (0.064%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.064%) Raiser’s Edge
4 1 (0.064%) SAP Business ByDesign
4 1 (0.064%) SAP CAR
4 1 (0.064%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 527 (33.80%) Azure
2 436 (27.97%) AWS
3 271 (17.38%) Power Platform
4 231 (14.82%) Azure Data Factory
5 157 (10.07%) Snowflake
6 153 (9.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 142 (9.11%) dbt
8 140 (8.98%) Amazon S3
9 137 (8.79%) GCP
10 136 (8.72%) Azure DevOps
11 112 (7.18%) GitHub
12 91 (5.84%) Serverless
13 77 (4.94%) AWS Lambda
14 55 (3.53%) GitHub Actions
15 32 (2.05%) Matillion
16 28 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
17 26 (1.67%) Amazon Kinesis
18 24 (1.54%) Amazon EMR
18 24 (1.54%) OpenShift
19 21 (1.35%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 33 (2.12%) DNS
1 33 (2.12%) VPN
2 32 (2.05%) BGP
2 32 (2.05%) DMZ
2 32 (2.05%) Multicast
3 10 (0.64%) Structured Cabling
4 5 (0.32%) PuTTY
4 5 (0.32%) WinSCP
5 4 (0.26%) Firewall
5 4 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (0.26%) Wireless
6 1 (0.064%) 4G
6 1 (0.064%) 5G
6 1 (0.064%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 257 (16.48%) Power BI
2 255 (16.36%) Data Warehouse
3 168 (10.78%) Data Lake
4 120 (7.70%) SQL Server
5 98 (6.29%) Delta Lake
6 82 (5.26%) Amazon Redshift
7 81 (5.20%) BigQuery
8 80 (5.13%) Metadata
9 79 (5.07%) Pentaho
10 77 (4.94%) Azure SQL Database
11 72 (4.62%) Tableau
12 65 (4.17%) Snowflake Schema
13 62 (3.98%) PostgreSQL
14 59 (3.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 58 (3.72%) Big Data
16 56 (3.59%) NoSQL
17 54 (3.46%) Amazon Athena
18 39 (2.50%) Relational Database
19 37 (2.37%) Data Vault
20 35 (2.25%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 153 (9.81%) Git
2 75 (4.81%) GitLab
3 72 (4.62%) JIRA
4 45 (2.89%) Jenkins
5 9 (0.58%) MLflow
6 6 (0.38%) Postman
7 5 (0.32%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.19%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.19%) Newman
8 3 (0.19%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.13%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.064%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.064%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.064%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.064%) ERwin
10 1 (0.064%) JUnit
10 1 (0.064%) Selenium
General
1 269 (17.25%) Finance
2 237 (15.20%) Social Skills
3 164 (10.52%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (8.21%) Public Sector
5 83 (5.32%) Banking
6 29 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 25 (1.60%) Retail
8 21 (1.35%) Investment Banking
8 21 (1.35%) Marketing
9 19 (1.22%) Telecoms
10 18 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
11 17 (1.09%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.03%) Pharmaceutical
13 14 (0.90%) Aerospace
14 11 (0.71%) Front Office
14 11 (0.71%) Publishing
15 7 (0.45%) Military
16 5 (0.32%) Law
16 5 (0.32%) Legal
16 5 (0.32%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 223 (14.30%) PySpark
2 134 (8.60%) Kafka
3 48 (3.08%) Pandas
4 30 (1.92%) JSON
5 25 (1.60%) Great Expectations
5 25 (1.60%) REST
6 22 (1.41%) Spring
6 22 (1.41%) Spring Boot
7 21 (1.35%) YAML
8 18 (1.15%) XML
9 14 (0.90%) Apache Beam
10 13 (0.83%) Apache Avro
11 12 (0.77%) React
11 12 (0.77%) scikit-learn
12 11 (0.71%) Matplotlib
12 11 (0.71%) PyTorch
13 10 (0.64%) Node.js
14 9 (0.58%) GeoJSON
14 9 (0.58%) Polars
14 9 (0.58%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 121 (7.76%) Cloud Native
2 46 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
3 38 (2.44%) Data Structures
4 28 (1.80%) Product Ownership
5 27 (1.73%) Greenfield Project
6 22 (1.41%) Onboarding
7 20 (1.28%) Reinsurance
8 19 (1.22%) Clustering
8 19 (1.22%) Distributed Systems
9 15 (0.96%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (0.83%) NHS
11 12 (0.77%) Replication
12 11 (0.71%) Distributed Computing
13 10 (0.64%) Life Science
13 10 (0.64%) Reference Data
13 10 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
14 9 (0.58%) Driving Licence
14 9 (0.58%) Public Cloud
15 8 (0.51%) Analytical Mindset
16 7 (0.45%) Data Fabric
Operating Systems
1 56 (3.59%) Unix
2 34 (2.18%) Linux
3 4 (0.26%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.064%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 650 (41.69%) Data Pipeline
2 598 (38.36%) ETL
3 595 (38.17%) Analytics
4 584 (37.46%) Data Engineering
5 541 (34.70%) Data Modelling
6 376 (24.12%) CI/CD
7 333 (21.36%) Business Intelligence
8 280 (17.96%) DevOps
9 276 (17.70%) Agile
10 212 (13.60%) Data Governance
11 207 (13.28%) Problem-Solving
12 197 (12.64%) Migration
13 180 (11.55%) AI
14 166 (10.65%) Data Integration
15 163 (10.46%) Validation
16 151 (9.69%) Data Science
17 137 (8.79%) Decision-Making
18 130 (8.34%) Data Transformation
19 124 (7.95%) Data Architecture
20 123 (7.89%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 855 (54.84%) SQL
2 692 (44.39%) Python
3 100 (6.41%) Java
4 73 (4.68%) Scala
5 49 (3.14%) PL/SQL
6 36 (2.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 34 (2.18%) C#
7 34 (2.18%) T-SQL
8 28 (1.80%) Shell Script
9 27 (1.73%) Bash
10 18 (1.15%) Bicep
10 18 (1.15%) PowerShell
11 12 (0.77%) R
12 10 (0.64%) JavaScript
13 7 (0.45%) Go
14 6 (0.38%) TypeScript
15 2 (0.13%) HiveQL
15 2 (0.13%) LookML
15 2 (0.13%) Ruby
15 2 (0.13%) VB
Qualifications
1 456 (29.25%) Security Cleared
2 408 (26.17%) SC Cleared
3 40 (2.57%) Degree
4 31 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
5 26 (1.67%) Azure Certification
6 16 (1.03%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (0.83%) DV Cleared
8 11 (0.71%) DBS Check
9 9 (0.58%) City & Guilds
10 6 (0.38%) AWS Certification
10 6 (0.38%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.32%) BICSI Certification
11 5 (0.32%) Master's Degree
12 3 (0.19%) SnowPro
13 2 (0.13%) CISM
13 2 (0.13%) CISSP
14 1 (0.064%) CISA
14 1 (0.064%) Cisco Certification
14 1 (0.064%) CTC Cleared
14 1 (0.064%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 389 (24.95%) Data Quality
2 50 (3.21%) QA
3 46 (2.95%) GDPR
4 11 (0.71%) SLA
5 10 (0.64%) Accessibility
6 9 (0.58%) FATCA
7 5 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.26%) MiFID
9 3 (0.19%) GMP
10 2 (0.13%) EMIR
10 2 (0.13%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.13%) WCAG
11 1 (0.064%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.064%) GRC
11 1 (0.064%) IFRS
11 1 (0.064%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.064%) ISO 13485
11 1 (0.064%) NIST
11 1 (0.064%) PMO
System Software
1 94 (6.03%) Docker
2 6 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.13%) HDFS
4 1 (0.064%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.064%) RACF
Systems Management
1 166 (10.65%) Terraform
2 75 (4.81%) Kubernetes
3 36 (2.31%) Grafana
4 12 (0.77%) Ansible
5 10 (0.64%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.45%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) Rancher
8 2 (0.13%) Apache Ranger
8 2 (0.13%) Control-M
8 2 (0.13%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.064%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.064%) NetBackup
9 1 (0.064%) Puppet
Vendors
1 352 (22.58%) Databricks
2 207 (13.28%) Microsoft
3 141 (9.04%) Oracle
4 113 (7.25%) Talend
5 111 (7.12%) Informatica
6 63 (4.04%) Denodo
7 56 (3.59%) Google
8 34 (2.18%) Cisco
8 34 (2.18%) F5
9 29 (1.86%) SAP
10 21 (1.35%) Splunk
11 19 (1.22%) ServiceNow
12 17 (1.09%) Cloudera
13 15 (0.96%) Alteryx
14 12 (0.77%) Foundry
15 10 (0.64%) IBM
15 10 (0.64%) Palantir
16 8 (0.51%) Dynatrace
16 8 (0.51%) MuleSoft
16 8 (0.51%) Salesforce