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 23 March 2026.

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

6 months to
23 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 70 77 101
Rank change year-on-year +7 +24 +15
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 1,249 772 842
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.34% 3.13% 2.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.63% 3.36% 2.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 890 576 658
10th Percentile £363 £350 £301
25th Percentile £415 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year - -1.96% -7.27%
75th Percentile £588 £619 £623
90th Percentile £668 £725 £689
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 11 40
10th Percentile £19.34 £26.25 £36.88
25th Percentile £33.75 £46.25 £49.25
Median hourly rate £69.00 £65.00 £66.25
Median % change year-on-year +6.15% -1.89% -1.12%
75th Percentile £75.00 £86.23 £80.00
90th Percentile £85.60 £93.75 -
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £63.75
% change year-on-year +4.76% -17.65% -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 34,420 22,977 34,988
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.07% 93.06% 92.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,721 15,223 23,383
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £409 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,262 800 2,288
10th Percentile £15.50 £15.00 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.50 £21.24 £16.25
Median hourly rate £38.63 £35.00 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.37% +7.69% -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £76.58 £77.22 £71.90
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year +10.77% - -23.85%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 +11 721 £522 -2.52% 157
Midlands +15 219 £470 -1.05% 62
West Midlands +8 200 £484 +1.52% 48
North of England -18 161 £459 +1.94% 80
North West +2 100 £450 -2.70% 49
South East -40 62 £500 - 106
South West -5 52 £525 +5.00% 40
Yorkshire -43 45 £470 +4.44% 22
East Midlands -29 19 £450 +20.00% 14
North East -12 16 £475 - 10
East of England -36 12 £565 +77.67% 18
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 23 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.

1 715 (57.25%) SQL
2 633 (50.68%) Python
3 537 (42.99%) ETL
4 534 (42.75%) Data Pipeline
5 524 (41.95%) Data Engineering
6 497 (39.79%) Azure
7 494 (39.55%) Analytics
8 456 (36.51%) Data Modelling
9 360 (28.82%) Data Quality
10 355 (28.42%) Databricks
11 352 (28.18%) AWS
12 342 (27.38%) Security Cleared
13 338 (27.06%) CI/CD
14 309 (24.74%) SC Cleared
15 300 (24.02%) Business Intelligence
16 254 (20.34%) DevOps
17 238 (19.06%) Power Platform
18 237 (18.98%) Data Warehouse
19 236 (18.90%) Agile
20 223 (17.85%) Power BI
21 214 (17.13%) Azure Data Factory
22 205 (16.41%) Data Governance
23 195 (15.61%) PySpark
24 192 (15.37%) Problem-Solving
25 172 (13.77%) Microsoft
26 165 (13.21%) Git
27 159 (12.73%) Data Science
28 154 (12.33%) Snowflake
29 148 (11.85%) AI
30 147 (11.77%) Data Lake

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
1 133 (10.65%) Apache Spark
2 115 (9.21%) Apache Airflow
3 81 (6.49%) Apache
4 55 (4.40%) SAS
5 17 (1.36%) Confluence
6 10 (0.80%) Palantir Foundry
7 5 (0.40%) Jupyter
7 5 (0.40%) Microsoft Exchange
8 4 (0.32%) Oracle Application Server
9 3 (0.24%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.080%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.080%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.080%) Appian
10 1 (0.080%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.080%) Camunda
10 1 (0.080%) Luigi
Applications
1 11 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.24%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.080%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.080%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.080%) Spreadsheet
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 (0.080%) Actimize
3 1 (0.080%) BambooHR
3 1 (0.080%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.080%) iTrent
3 1 (0.080%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.080%) Oracle 11i
3 1 (0.080%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.080%) SAP Business ByDesign
3 1 (0.080%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 497 (39.79%) Azure
2 352 (28.18%) AWS
3 238 (19.06%) Power Platform
4 214 (17.13%) Azure Data Factory
5 154 (12.33%) Snowflake
6 138 (11.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 131 (10.49%) GCP
8 119 (9.53%) Amazon S3
8 119 (9.53%) dbt
9 111 (8.89%) GitHub
10 98 (7.85%) Azure DevOps
11 90 (7.21%) Serverless
12 65 (5.20%) AWS Lambda
13 49 (3.92%) GitHub Actions
14 38 (3.04%) AWS CloudFormation
15 28 (2.24%) Matillion
16 23 (1.84%) Amazon Kinesis
16 23 (1.84%) AWS Step Functions
17 19 (1.52%) Amazon SQS
18 18 (1.44%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.84%) DNS
1 23 (1.84%) VPN
2 22 (1.76%) BGP
2 22 (1.76%) DMZ
2 22 (1.76%) Multicast
3 9 (0.72%) Structured Cabling
4 4 (0.32%) Firewall
5 3 (0.24%) SAN
6 1 (0.080%) 4G
6 1 (0.080%) 5G
6 1 (0.080%) Network Security
6 1 (0.080%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 237 (18.98%) Data Warehouse
2 223 (17.85%) Power BI
3 147 (11.77%) Data Lake
4 98 (7.85%) SQL Server
5 79 (6.33%) Azure SQL Database
6 77 (6.16%) Amazon Redshift
6 77 (6.16%) Delta Lake
7 70 (5.60%) BigQuery
8 67 (5.36%) Metadata
9 66 (5.28%) Pentaho
10 64 (5.12%) PostgreSQL
11 56 (4.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 55 (4.40%) Big Data
13 50 (4.00%) NoSQL
14 49 (3.92%) Tableau
15 48 (3.84%) Snowflake Schema
16 40 (3.20%) Amazon Athena
17 39 (3.12%) Hadoop
18 38 (3.04%) Relational Database
19 32 (2.56%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 165 (13.21%) Git
2 63 (5.04%) Jenkins
3 57 (4.56%) JIRA
4 50 (4.00%) GitLab
5 19 (1.52%) MLflow
6 4 (0.32%) DBeaver
6 4 (0.32%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.16%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.16%) JUnit
7 2 (0.16%) Selenium
7 2 (0.16%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.080%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.080%) Deequ
8 1 (0.080%) Gradle
8 1 (0.080%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.080%) Mockito
8 1 (0.080%) Poetry
8 1 (0.080%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.080%) Terragrunt
General
1 213 (17.05%) Social Skills
2 200 (16.01%) Finance
3 130 (10.41%) Analytical Skills
4 111 (8.89%) Public Sector
5 63 (5.04%) Banking
6 35 (2.80%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (1.60%) Investment Banking
8 16 (1.28%) Front Office
9 13 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
9 13 (1.04%) Pharmaceutical
9 13 (1.04%) Telecoms
10 12 (0.96%) Marketing
10 12 (0.96%) Retail
11 11 (0.88%) Manufacturing
11 11 (0.88%) Publishing
12 6 (0.48%) Military
13 5 (0.40%) Law
14 4 (0.32%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.32%) Corporate Banking
14 4 (0.32%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (15.61%) PySpark
2 136 (10.89%) Kafka
3 44 (3.52%) Pandas
4 29 (2.32%) JSON
5 27 (2.16%) YAML
6 21 (1.68%) REST
7 20 (1.60%) Great Expectations
8 18 (1.44%) XML
9 16 (1.28%) Node.js
9 16 (1.28%) scikit-learn
10 14 (1.12%) PyTorch
11 13 (1.04%) Matplotlib
12 12 (0.96%) Keycloak
12 12 (0.96%) NumPy
13 11 (0.88%) Apache NiFi
13 11 (0.88%) pytest
13 11 (0.88%) React
14 10 (0.80%) TensorFlow
15 9 (0.72%) Apache Beam
15 9 (0.72%) GeoJSON
Miscellaneous
1 96 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 42 (3.36%) Legacy Systems
3 32 (2.56%) Data Structures
4 29 (2.32%) Product Ownership
5 20 (1.60%) Clustering
6 18 (1.44%) Onboarding
6 18 (1.44%) Replication
7 16 (1.28%) Data Protection Act
7 16 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
7 16 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
8 11 (0.88%) Public Cloud
8 11 (0.88%) Reinsurance
9 9 (0.72%) Distributed Computing
10 8 (0.64%) Life Science
10 8 (0.64%) Self-Motivation
11 7 (0.56%) Algorithms
11 7 (0.56%) Data Centre
11 7 (0.56%) Management Information System
11 7 (0.56%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 20 (1.60%) Unix
2 19 (1.52%) Linux
3 2 (0.16%) Windows
3 2 (0.16%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.080%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 537 (42.99%) ETL
2 534 (42.75%) Data Pipeline
3 524 (41.95%) Data Engineering
4 494 (39.55%) Analytics
5 456 (36.51%) Data Modelling
6 338 (27.06%) CI/CD
7 300 (24.02%) Business Intelligence
8 254 (20.34%) DevOps
9 236 (18.90%) Agile
10 205 (16.41%) Data Governance
11 192 (15.37%) Problem-Solving
12 159 (12.73%) Data Science
13 148 (11.85%) AI
14 144 (11.53%) Data Integration
15 140 (11.21%) Data Architecture
16 134 (10.73%) Migration
17 125 (10.01%) Data Transformation
18 117 (9.37%) Machine Learning
18 117 (9.37%) Validation
19 115 (9.21%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 715 (57.25%) SQL
2 633 (50.68%) Python
3 79 (6.33%) Scala
4 75 (6.00%) Java
5 35 (2.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 34 (2.72%) C#
7 24 (1.92%) Bash
7 24 (1.92%) PL/SQL
7 24 (1.92%) T-SQL
8 18 (1.44%) Bicep
8 18 (1.44%) PowerShell
9 17 (1.36%) Shell Script
10 15 (1.20%) Go
11 14 (1.12%) R
12 11 (0.88%) JavaScript
13 3 (0.24%) C
13 3 (0.24%) Korn
13 3 (0.24%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.16%) C++
14 2 (0.16%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 342 (27.38%) Security Cleared
2 309 (24.74%) SC Cleared
3 34 (2.72%) Azure Certification
4 33 (2.64%) Degree
5 22 (1.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (1.36%) AWS Certification
7 14 (1.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 12 (0.96%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.40%) BICSI Certification
9 5 (0.40%) City & Guilds
9 5 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.32%) CTC Cleared
10 4 (0.32%) DBS Check
10 4 (0.32%) Master's Degree
10 4 (0.32%) SnowPro
11 1 (0.080%) CCIE
11 1 (0.080%) CCNP
11 1 (0.080%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.080%) CISM
11 1 (0.080%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 360 (28.82%) Data Quality
2 49 (3.92%) GDPR
3 31 (2.48%) QA
4 10 (0.80%) 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%) NIST
8 1 (0.080%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.080%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.080%) GRC
8 1 (0.080%) ISO 13485
8 1 (0.080%) NCSC
8 1 (0.080%) PMO
8 1 (0.080%) SOC 2
System Software
1 85 (6.81%) Docker
2 8 (0.64%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.16%) HDFS
4 1 (0.080%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.080%) zsh
Systems Management
1 142 (11.37%) Terraform
2 96 (7.69%) Kubernetes
3 22 (1.76%) Grafana
4 11 (0.88%) Prometheus
5 8 (0.64%) 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 (0.080%) Control-M
Vendors
1 355 (28.42%) Databricks
2 172 (13.77%) Microsoft
3 98 (7.85%) Oracle
4 92 (7.37%) Talend
5 78 (6.24%) Informatica
6 55 (4.40%) Google
7 46 (3.68%) Denodo
8 27 (2.16%) Cisco
9 24 (1.92%) F5
10 20 (1.60%) ServiceNow
11 19 (1.52%) SAP
12 16 (1.28%) Cloudera
12 16 (1.28%) Splunk
13 14 (1.12%) Palantir
14 13 (1.04%) Foundry
14 13 (1.04%) IBM
15 10 (0.80%) Alteryx
16 8 (0.64%) MuleSoft
17 6 (0.48%) OpenAI
18 5 (0.40%) Virgin Media