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 21 September 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 66 131 98
Rank change year-on-year +65 -33 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 1,659 610 777
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.60% 2.21% 2.37%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.90% 2.42% 2.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,103 442 549
10th Percentile £380 £363 £375
25th Percentile £425 £425 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% -8.36% -
75th Percentile £588 £599 £638
90th Percentile £675 £700 £714
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 12 9
10th Percentile £21.25 £25.25 £49.25
25th Percentile £30.96 £32.94 £60.00
Median hourly rate £41.56 £48.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.43% -40.00% +29.55%
75th Percentile £68.00 £66.88 -
90th Percentile £70.00 £107.00 £97.50
UK median hourly rate £42.03 £52.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -19.95% -34.38% +29.55%

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 42,534 25,192 30,524
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.25% 91.35% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,278 16,220 19,013
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £401 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.67%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,509 1,371 1,458
10th Percentile £14.87 £13.75 £14.56
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.30 £21.25
Median hourly rate £44.46 £25.15 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +76.76% -45.54% +2.62%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.99 £67.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £71.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -3.37%

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 21 September 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 21 September 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 21 September 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 +32 820 £525 - 878
Midlands +80 339 £469 +2.79% 120
West Midlands +67 267 £469 +6.59% 77
North of England +34 206 £505 +6.32% 240
South East +31 129 £459 -4.62% 183
North West +20 109 £525 +10.53% 143
South West +20 102 £525 +5.00% 90
Yorkshire +10 78 £500 - 61
East Midlands +34 72 £419 -9.46% 43
East of England +8 40 £475 -36.67% 55
North East -27 20 £450 +7.14% 36
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 21 September 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.

1 845 (50.93%) SQL
2 731 (44.06%) Data Pipeline
3 700 (42.19%) Python
4 646 (38.94%) Data Engineering
5 582 (35.08%) Data Modelling
6 577 (34.78%) ETL
7 572 (34.48%) Analytics
8 528 (31.83%) AWS
9 507 (30.56%) Azure
10 433 (26.10%) Data Quality
11 430 (25.92%) Security Cleared
12 411 (24.77%) CI/CD
13 371 (22.36%) SC Cleared
14 328 (19.77%) Databricks
15 292 (17.60%) Agile
16 278 (16.76%) Data Warehouse
17 274 (16.52%) DevOps
18 273 (16.46%) Migration
19 261 (15.73%) Business Intelligence
20 253 (15.25%) AI
21 231 (13.92%) Data Governance
22 228 (13.74%) PySpark
23 219 (13.20%) Data Transformation
24 214 (12.90%) Microsoft
25 208 (12.54%) dbt
26 207 (12.48%) Power Platform
26 207 (12.48%) Validation
27 205 (12.36%) Snowflake
28 204 (12.30%) Data Integration
28 204 (12.30%) Power BI

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
1 185 (11.15%) Apache Airflow
2 139 (8.38%) Apache Spark
3 114 (6.87%) Apache
4 47 (2.83%) SAS
5 34 (2.05%) Confluence
6 18 (1.08%) Palantir Foundry
7 14 (0.84%) SharePoint
8 11 (0.66%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.12%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.060%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.060%) Liferay
10 1 (0.060%) Luigi
10 1 (0.060%) nginx
10 1 (0.060%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.060%) PowerExchange
10 1 (0.060%) R Markdown
Applications
1 23 (1.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.30%) Notepad++
4 3 (0.18%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.060%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.060%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 12 (0.72%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.36%) NetSuite
4 5 (0.30%) Infor LN
4 5 (0.30%) Sage X3
4 5 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.18%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.12%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 2 (0.12%) Maximo
6 2 (0.12%) SAP BPC
6 2 (0.12%) SAP Oil and Gas
6 2 (0.12%) SimCorp Dimension
7 1 (0.060%) BambooHR
7 1 (0.060%) Dynamics NAV
7 1 (0.060%) Markit EDM
7 1 (0.060%) Oracle EBS
7 1 (0.060%) Oracle Retail
7 1 (0.060%) Raiser’s Edge
7 1 (0.060%) SAP CAR
7 1 (0.060%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 528 (31.83%) AWS
2 507 (30.56%) Azure
3 208 (12.54%) dbt
4 207 (12.48%) Power Platform
5 205 (12.36%) Snowflake
6 194 (11.69%) Azure Data Factory
7 171 (10.31%) GCP
8 151 (9.10%) Amazon S3
9 114 (6.87%) Azure DevOps
9 114 (6.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 114 (6.87%) Serverless
10 101 (6.09%) AWS Lambda
11 99 (5.97%) GitHub
12 54 (3.25%) Azure Databricks
13 45 (2.71%) GitHub Actions
14 44 (2.65%) Amazon EMR
15 36 (2.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 29 (1.75%) AWS Step Functions
17 26 (1.57%) Microsoft Purview
18 24 (1.45%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 23 (1.39%) BGP
1 23 (1.39%) DMZ
1 23 (1.39%) DNS
1 23 (1.39%) Multicast
1 23 (1.39%) VPN
2 6 (0.36%) Firewall
3 5 (0.30%) PuTTY
3 5 (0.30%) Structured Cabling
3 5 (0.30%) WinSCP
4 4 (0.24%) Wi-Fi
4 4 (0.24%) Wireless
5 3 (0.18%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 278 (16.76%) Data Warehouse
2 204 (12.30%) Power BI
3 135 (8.14%) Data Lake
4 118 (7.11%) Metadata
5 106 (6.39%) BigQuery
6 83 (5.00%) Amazon Redshift
7 78 (4.70%) Delta Lake
8 74 (4.46%) Amazon Athena
9 71 (4.28%) SQL Server
10 61 (3.68%) Pentaho
11 58 (3.50%) PostgreSQL
12 57 (3.44%) Big Data
13 56 (3.38%) Tableau
14 49 (2.95%) Relational Database
15 48 (2.89%) Snowflake Schema
16 46 (2.77%) NoSQL
17 40 (2.41%) Oracle Database
18 37 (2.23%) Amazon RDS
19 35 (2.11%) Azure SQL Database
20 33 (1.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 147 (8.86%) Git
2 77 (4.64%) GitLab
3 50 (3.01%) JIRA
4 28 (1.69%) Jenkins
5 15 (0.90%) MLflow
6 8 (0.48%) Bitbucket
6 8 (0.48%) Postman
7 6 (0.36%) Selenium
8 5 (0.30%) Artifactory
8 5 (0.30%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.24%) ERwin
10 3 (0.18%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (0.18%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.18%) Newman
10 3 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 2 (0.12%) ER Studio
11 2 (0.12%) RStudio
11 2 (0.12%) Terragrunt
11 2 (0.12%) Yeoman
12 1 (0.060%) Toad
General
1 273 (16.46%) Social Skills
2 263 (15.85%) Finance
3 188 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
4 146 (8.80%) Public Sector
5 105 (6.33%) Banking
6 27 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 26 (1.57%) Retail
8 22 (1.33%) Telecoms
9 21 (1.27%) Automotive
10 19 (1.15%) Aerospace
11 18 (1.08%) Manufacturing
11 18 (1.08%) Marketing
12 17 (1.02%) Front Office
12 17 (1.02%) Investment Banking
13 15 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
14 14 (0.84%) Documentation Skills
15 11 (0.66%) Law
15 11 (0.66%) Military
16 10 (0.60%) Back Office
16 10 (0.60%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 228 (13.74%) PySpark
2 181 (10.91%) Terraform
3 101 (6.09%) Kafka
4 25 (1.51%) Pandas
5 24 (1.45%) REST
6 23 (1.39%) JSON
7 22 (1.33%) Spring
7 22 (1.33%) Spring Boot
8 18 (1.08%) Great Expectations
9 16 (0.96%) Apache Beam
9 16 (0.96%) XML
10 13 (0.78%) pytest
11 12 (0.72%) React
11 12 (0.72%) RESTful
12 11 (0.66%) LangChain
12 11 (0.66%) PyTorch
13 10 (0.60%) .NET
13 10 (0.60%) Microsoft Graph
14 9 (0.54%) Apache Avro
15 8 (0.48%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 134 (8.08%) Cloud Native
2 59 (3.56%) Legacy Systems
3 51 (3.07%) Data Structures
4 38 (2.29%) Onboarding
5 24 (1.45%) Product Ownership
6 20 (1.21%) AI Agents
6 20 (1.21%) Distributed Systems
6 20 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
6 20 (1.21%) NHS
7 17 (1.02%) Reference Data
8 16 (0.96%) Management Information System
8 16 (0.96%) Reinsurance
9 13 (0.78%) Algorithms
10 11 (0.66%) Virtual Team
11 9 (0.54%) Data Fabric
12 8 (0.48%) Data Protection Act
12 8 (0.48%) Distributed Computing
12 8 (0.48%) Enterprise Software
12 8 (0.48%) Life Science
12 8 (0.48%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 53 (3.19%) Unix
2 39 (2.35%) Linux
3 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.12%) Windows
4 1 (0.060%) Robot Operating System
4 1 (0.060%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 731 (44.06%) Data Pipeline
2 646 (38.94%) Data Engineering
3 582 (35.08%) Data Modelling
4 577 (34.78%) ETL
5 572 (34.48%) Analytics
6 411 (24.77%) CI/CD
7 292 (17.60%) Agile
8 274 (16.52%) DevOps
9 273 (16.46%) Migration
10 261 (15.73%) Business Intelligence
11 253 (15.25%) AI
12 231 (13.92%) Data Governance
13 219 (13.20%) Data Transformation
14 207 (12.48%) Validation
15 204 (12.30%) Data Integration
16 178 (10.73%) Problem-Solving
17 156 (9.40%) Lakehouse
18 155 (9.34%) Decision-Making
18 155 (9.34%) Infrastructure as Code
19 144 (8.68%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 845 (50.93%) SQL
2 700 (42.19%) Python
3 91 (5.49%) Java
4 64 (3.86%) Scala
5 43 (2.59%) PL/SQL
6 30 (1.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 27 (1.63%) T-SQL
8 26 (1.57%) Shell Script
9 22 (1.33%) Bash
10 20 (1.21%) PowerShell
11 18 (1.08%) JavaScript
12 12 (0.72%) R
13 10 (0.60%) C#
14 9 (0.54%) Bicep
14 9 (0.54%) TypeScript
15 8 (0.48%) Go
16 5 (0.30%) Korn
17 3 (0.18%) Kusto Query Language
17 3 (0.18%) LookML
18 2 (0.12%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 430 (25.92%) Security Cleared
2 371 (22.36%) SC Cleared
3 39 (2.35%) Degree
4 37 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 27 (1.63%) DV Cleared
6 23 (1.39%) Azure Certification
7 20 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 13 (0.78%) AWS Certification
9 8 (0.48%) DBS Check
9 8 (0.48%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.42%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 6 (0.36%) SnowPro
12 4 (0.24%) CISM
12 4 (0.24%) CISSP
12 4 (0.24%) City & Guilds
12 4 (0.24%) Microsoft Certification
13 3 (0.18%) CEH
14 1 (0.060%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.060%) PMP
14 1 (0.060%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 433 (26.10%) Data Quality
2 65 (3.92%) QA
3 33 (1.99%) GDPR
4 15 (0.90%) Accessibility
5 9 (0.54%) SLA
6 6 (0.36%) FATCA
7 5 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 4 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
8 4 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.18%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.18%) MiFID
10 2 (0.12%) EMIR
10 2 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.12%) WCAG
11 1 (0.060%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.060%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.060%) IFRS
11 1 (0.060%) IFRS 17
11 1 (0.060%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.060%) PMO
System Software
1 106 (6.39%) Docker
2 3 (0.18%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.060%) HDFS
4 1 (0.060%) RACF
Systems Management
1 77 (4.64%) Kubernetes
2 24 (1.45%) Grafana
3 16 (0.96%) Ansible
4 11 (0.66%) Control-M
5 9 (0.54%) Kibana
6 5 (0.30%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.12%) Puppet
8 1 (0.060%) logstash
8 1 (0.060%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 328 (19.77%) Databricks
2 214 (12.90%) Microsoft
3 140 (8.44%) Oracle
4 90 (5.42%) Informatica
5 80 (4.82%) Talend
6 74 (4.46%) Google
7 42 (2.53%) Denodo
8 29 (1.75%) Salesforce
9 28 (1.69%) Palantir
10 26 (1.57%) Foundry
11 24 (1.45%) SAP
12 23 (1.39%) Cisco
12 23 (1.39%) F5
13 12 (0.72%) Splunk
14 9 (0.54%) Bloomberg
15 8 (0.48%) Cloudera
15 8 (0.48%) OpenAI
15 8 (0.48%) Sage
16 7 (0.42%) Alteryx
16 7 (0.42%) IBM