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 12 January 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 102 83 118
Rank change year-on-year -19 +35 +12
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 814 760 748
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.62% 2.85% 2.05%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.87% 3.06% 2.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 579 538 568
10th Percentile £360 £360 £400
25th Percentile £413 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.30% +0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £594 £638 £638
90th Percentile £700 £738 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 8 18
10th Percentile £25.83 £36.75 £35.00
25th Percentile £33.75 £59.06 £42.20
Median hourly rate £43.50 £78.75 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.76% +30.17% -13.57%
75th Percentile £79.00 £97.50 £66.88
90th Percentile £110.00 - £69.35
UK median hourly rate £54.00 £53.75 £60.50
% change year-on-year +0.47% -11.16% -9.02%

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 28,385 24,808 33,927
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.53% 92.87% 93.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 18,098 15,356 23,077
10th Percentile £300 £300 £275
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.24% - -4.55%
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 1,734 749 1,544
10th Percentile £14.45 £15.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £18.45 £21.25 £19.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £35.00 £43.42
Median % change year-on-year -21.43% -19.38% +24.04%
75th Percentile £61.25 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £74.77 £76.25
UK median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -18.46% -23.53% +28.79%

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 12 January 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 12 January 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 12 January 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 -1 521 £525 -8.70% 162
North of England -42 94 £463 - 112
Midlands -24 85 £525 +7.14% 78
West Midlands -20 72 £531 +6.20% 34
North West -30 49 £405 -10.00% 49
South West -4 42 £550 +22.22% 80
Yorkshire -32 32 £500 -2.44% 41
South East -55 32 £475 -11.63% 207
North East -7 13 £450 -1.64% 24
East Midlands -13 13 £450 +26.40% 44
East of England -29 6 £625 +96.54% 78
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 12 January 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.

1 476 (58.48%) Python
2 471 (57.86%) SQL
3 361 (44.35%) Azure
4 353 (43.37%) Data Pipeline
5 337 (41.40%) ETL
6 331 (40.66%) Data Engineering
7 282 (34.64%) Data Modelling
8 274 (33.66%) Databricks
9 273 (33.54%) Analytics
10 250 (30.71%) AWS
11 240 (29.48%) CI/CD
12 224 (27.52%) Data Quality
13 202 (24.82%) Security Cleared
14 200 (24.57%) Business Intelligence
15 183 (22.48%) DevOps
16 175 (21.50%) SC Cleared
17 167 (20.52%) Data Warehouse
18 163 (20.02%) Power Platform
19 162 (19.90%) Azure Data Factory
20 159 (19.53%) Power BI
21 150 (18.43%) PySpark
22 147 (18.06%) Agile
23 126 (15.48%) Data Science
24 122 (14.99%) Problem-Solving
25 118 (14.50%) Data Governance
26 115 (14.13%) Git
27 110 (13.51%) Microsoft
28 109 (13.39%) Snowflake
29 107 (13.14%) Apache Airflow
29 107 (13.14%) Data Architecture

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
1 107 (13.14%) Apache Airflow
2 98 (12.04%) Apache Spark
3 61 (7.49%) Apache
4 20 (2.46%) Confluence
5 19 (2.33%) SAS
6 6 (0.74%) Apache Pig
6 6 (0.74%) Oracle Application Server
7 5 (0.61%) IIS
8 4 (0.49%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.25%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.25%) Luigi
9 2 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 2 (0.25%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.12%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 8 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.25%) Chatbot
2 2 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.12%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.12%) SPSS
3 1 (0.12%) Stata
Business Applications
1 2 (0.25%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.25%) Maximo
1 2 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
1 2 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.12%) Actimize
2 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 361 (44.35%) Azure
2 250 (30.71%) AWS
3 163 (20.02%) Power Platform
4 162 (19.90%) Azure Data Factory
5 109 (13.39%) Snowflake
6 98 (12.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 93 (11.43%) Amazon S3
8 91 (11.18%) GCP
9 86 (10.57%) dbt
10 83 (10.20%) GitHub
11 74 (9.09%) Serverless
12 59 (7.25%) Azure DevOps
13 49 (6.02%) AWS Lambda
14 45 (5.53%) GitHub Actions
15 27 (3.32%) AWS CloudFormation
16 22 (2.70%) SaaS
17 18 (2.21%) Amazon Kinesis
18 17 (2.09%) AWS Step Functions
19 13 (1.60%) Amazon EMR
19 13 (1.60%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.49%) DNS
1 4 (0.49%) Firewall
2 3 (0.37%) BGP
2 3 (0.37%) DMZ
2 3 (0.37%) Multicast
2 3 (0.37%) SAN
2 3 (0.37%) VPN
3 2 (0.25%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.25%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.12%) Internet
4 1 (0.12%) Network Security
4 1 (0.12%) Software-Defined Networking
4 1 (0.12%) SSH
4 1 (0.12%) SSL
4 1 (0.12%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (20.52%) Data Warehouse
2 159 (19.53%) Power BI
3 101 (12.41%) Data Lake
4 75 (9.21%) SQL Server
5 60 (7.37%) Azure SQL Database
6 57 (7.00%) Big Data
7 51 (6.27%) Amazon Redshift
8 49 (6.02%) PostgreSQL
9 48 (5.90%) Delta Lake
9 48 (5.90%) NoSQL
10 43 (5.28%) BigQuery
11 41 (5.04%) Metadata
12 38 (4.67%) Hadoop
12 38 (4.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 30 (3.69%) Tableau
14 29 (3.56%) Relational Database
15 28 (3.44%) Amazon Athena
16 26 (3.19%) Snowflake Schema
16 26 (3.19%) Star Schema
17 25 (3.07%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 115 (14.13%) Git
2 59 (7.25%) Jenkins
3 38 (4.67%) JIRA
4 28 (3.44%) GitLab
5 22 (2.70%) MLflow
6 6 (0.74%) DBeaver
7 4 (0.49%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.37%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.37%) Poetry
9 2 (0.25%) PyCharm
9 2 (0.25%) Selenium
9 2 (0.25%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.25%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.12%) Deequ
10 1 (0.12%) ERwin
10 1 (0.12%) GoCD
10 1 (0.12%) Jaeger
10 1 (0.12%) JUnit
10 1 (0.12%) Maven
10 1 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 147 (18.06%) Social Skills
2 127 (15.60%) Finance
3 83 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (7.25%) Public Sector
5 36 (4.42%) Banking
6 26 (3.19%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (1.72%) Investment Banking
8 13 (1.60%) Front Office
8 13 (1.60%) Pharmaceutical
9 10 (1.23%) Retail
10 9 (1.11%) Marketing
11 6 (0.74%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.61%) Military
13 4 (0.49%) Back Office
13 4 (0.49%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.49%) Law
13 4 (0.49%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.37%) Health Technology
14 3 (0.37%) Legal
14 3 (0.37%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 150 (18.43%) PySpark
2 86 (10.57%) Kafka
3 25 (3.07%) Pandas
4 19 (2.33%) REST
5 16 (1.97%) Apache NiFi
6 15 (1.84%) XML
7 14 (1.72%) NumPy
7 14 (1.72%) RESTful
7 14 (1.72%) YAML
8 13 (1.60%) JSON
9 12 (1.47%) Keycloak
9 12 (1.47%) PyTorch
10 10 (1.23%) Flask
10 10 (1.23%) Node.js
11 9 (1.11%) HTML
11 9 (1.11%) Middleware
11 9 (1.11%) RabbitMQ
11 9 (1.11%) TensorFlow
12 8 (0.98%) pytest
13 7 (0.86%) Great Expectations
Miscellaneous
1 50 (6.14%) Cloud Native
2 25 (3.07%) Data Structures
2 25 (3.07%) Product Ownership
3 22 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
4 20 (2.46%) Replication
5 16 (1.97%) Algorithms
6 14 (1.72%) Greenfield Project
6 14 (1.72%) Onboarding
7 11 (1.35%) Hybrid Cloud
8 10 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
9 8 (0.98%) Clustering
9 8 (0.98%) Life Science
10 7 (0.86%) Distributed Computing
11 6 (0.74%) Management Information System
11 6 (0.74%) NHS
11 6 (0.74%) Reinsurance
12 5 (0.61%) Distributed Systems
12 5 (0.61%) Genomics
12 5 (0.61%) IoT
12 5 (0.61%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 20 (2.46%) Linux
2 9 (1.11%) Unix
3 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 353 (43.37%) Data Pipeline
2 337 (41.40%) ETL
3 331 (40.66%) Data Engineering
4 282 (34.64%) Data Modelling
5 273 (33.54%) Analytics
6 240 (29.48%) CI/CD
7 200 (24.57%) Business Intelligence
8 183 (22.48%) DevOps
9 147 (18.06%) Agile
10 126 (15.48%) Data Science
11 122 (14.99%) Problem-Solving
12 118 (14.50%) Data Governance
13 107 (13.14%) Data Architecture
14 106 (13.02%) Machine Learning
15 103 (12.65%) AI
16 102 (12.53%) Data Integration
17 86 (10.57%) Infrastructure as Code
18 72 (8.85%) Migration
19 70 (8.60%) Data Transformation
19 70 (8.60%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 476 (58.48%) Python
2 471 (57.86%) SQL
3 82 (10.07%) Scala
4 63 (7.74%) Java
5 22 (2.70%) Bash
6 20 (2.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 20 (2.46%) PL/SQL
7 16 (1.97%) Go
7 16 (1.97%) T-SQL
8 15 (1.84%) C#
8 15 (1.84%) R
9 12 (1.47%) JavaScript
10 11 (1.35%) Bicep
11 9 (1.11%) PowerShell
11 9 (1.11%) Shell Script
12 7 (0.86%) TypeScript
13 4 (0.49%) Korn
14 3 (0.37%) C++
14 3 (0.37%) Groovy
15 2 (0.25%) VB
Qualifications
1 202 (24.82%) Security Cleared
2 175 (21.50%) SC Cleared
3 27 (3.32%) Azure Certification
4 23 (2.83%) Degree
5 21 (2.58%) AWS Certification
6 18 (2.21%) DV Cleared
7 13 (1.60%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (0.74%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (0.61%) Master's Degree
10 4 (0.49%) CTC Cleared
10 4 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.37%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.25%) MCP
12 2 (0.25%) SnowPro
13 1 (0.12%) HND
13 1 (0.12%) PhD
13 1 (0.12%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (27.52%) Data Quality
2 41 (5.04%) GDPR
3 11 (1.35%) QA
4 6 (0.74%) Accessibility
5 5 (0.61%) HIPAA
6 3 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.37%) MiFID
7 2 (0.25%) Dodd-Frank
7 2 (0.25%) EMIR
7 2 (0.25%) EU AI Act
7 2 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 2 (0.25%) NIST
7 2 (0.25%) SLA
8 1 (0.12%) Basel III
8 1 (0.12%) HL7
8 1 (0.12%) NCSC
8 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.12%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 69 (8.48%) Docker
2 9 (1.11%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.61%) zsh
4 3 (0.37%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.12%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 97 (11.92%) Terraform
2 69 (8.48%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.35%) Ansible
4 9 (1.11%) NetBackup
5 8 (0.98%) Grafana
6 5 (0.61%) Prometheus
7 4 (0.49%) Kibana
7 4 (0.49%) Puppet
8 3 (0.37%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.25%) Ambari
9 2 (0.25%) Argo
9 2 (0.25%) Control-M
9 2 (0.25%) EMC NetWorker
9 2 (0.25%) logstash
9 2 (0.25%) Tivoli Storage Manager
9 2 (0.25%) ZABBIX
10 1 (0.12%) Istio
Vendors
1 274 (33.66%) Databricks
2 110 (13.51%) Microsoft
3 57 (7.00%) Oracle
4 33 (4.05%) Google
5 29 (3.56%) Talend
6 21 (2.58%) Foundry
6 21 (2.58%) Palantir
7 20 (2.46%) Denodo
8 17 (2.09%) Informatica
9 15 (1.84%) IBM
10 13 (1.60%) SAP
11 11 (1.35%) Cloudera
11 11 (1.35%) Red Hat
12 10 (1.23%) ServiceNow
12 10 (1.23%) Splunk
13 9 (1.11%) Commvault
13 9 (1.11%) Veritas
14 7 (0.86%) Confluent
14 7 (0.86%) Virgin Media
15 6 (0.74%) Cisco