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 13 July 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 111 99
Rank change year-on-year +57 -12 +20
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 1,712 670 840
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.82% 2.46% 2.29%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.13% 2.67% 2.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,180 497 633
10th Percentile £380 £363 £263
25th Percentile £425 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £523
Median % change year-on-year - -4.31% -5.00%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £625
90th Percentile £651 £700 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 11 35
10th Percentile £19.34 £18.22 £37.50
25th Percentile £34.84 £46.75 £49.25
Median hourly rate £43.75 £52.50 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% -30.00% -3.23%
75th Percentile £68.88 £78.10 £80.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.00 -
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £75.00
% change year-on-year -4.76% -30.00% -3.23%

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 41,444 25,115 34,097
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.43% 92.03% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,363 16,356 22,299
10th Percentile £325 £290 £300
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £638
90th Percentile £738 £740 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,982 1,217 2,452
10th Percentile £16.01 £13.77 £13.00
25th Percentile £22.20 £17.98 £17.25
Median hourly rate £45.56 £28.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.84% -28.75% -6.98%
75th Percentile £68.00 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £74.54
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £26.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +64.87% -33.75% -5.88%

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 13 July 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 13 July 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 13 July 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 +40 856 £525 +0.96% 213
Midlands +57 369 £460 +2.22% 64
West Midlands +48 327 £459 -0.22% 44
North of England +21 224 £475 - 102
North West +14 135 £500 +5.26% 57
South East +9 126 £475 +11.76% 98
South West +19 92 £525 +5.00% 67
Yorkshire -14 67 £465 -2.11% 22
East Midlands +13 42 £525 +26.51% 20
East of England -8 26 £543 +70.60% 21
North East -19 22 £510 +16.57% 23
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 13 July 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.

1 892 (52.10%) SQL
2 744 (43.46%) Python
3 727 (42.46%) Data Pipeline
4 642 (37.50%) Analytics
5 632 (36.92%) Data Engineering
6 621 (36.27%) ETL
7 579 (33.82%) Data Modelling
8 540 (31.54%) Azure
9 497 (29.03%) AWS
10 467 (27.28%) Security Cleared
11 418 (24.42%) Data Quality
12 414 (24.18%) CI/CD
13 409 (23.89%) SC Cleared
14 334 (19.51%) Databricks
15 329 (19.22%) Business Intelligence
16 297 (17.35%) Agile
17 288 (16.82%) DevOps
18 280 (16.36%) Data Warehouse
19 261 (15.25%) Power Platform
20 257 (15.01%) Migration
21 249 (14.54%) Power BI
22 233 (13.61%) Data Governance
23 232 (13.55%) PySpark
24 218 (12.73%) Azure Data Factory
25 214 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
26 208 (12.15%) Microsoft
27 200 (11.68%) AI
28 196 (11.45%) Validation
29 184 (10.75%) Data Integration
30 183 (10.69%) 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
1 156 (9.11%) Apache Airflow
2 138 (8.06%) Apache Spark
3 98 (5.72%) Apache
4 74 (4.32%) SAS
5 39 (2.28%) Confluence
6 11 (0.64%) SharePoint
7 10 (0.58%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.47%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.23%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.12%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.058%) Appian
11 1 (0.058%) Camunda
11 1 (0.058%) Liferay
11 1 (0.058%) Luigi
11 1 (0.058%) R Markdown
Applications
1 16 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.29%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.12%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.058%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 10 (0.58%) Aladdin
2 8 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.29%) Infor LN
3 5 (0.29%) NetSuite
3 5 (0.29%) Sage X3
4 3 (0.18%) SAP BPC
4 3 (0.18%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.18%) SimCorp Dimension
5 2 (0.12%) BambooHR
5 2 (0.12%) Maximo
6 1 (0.058%) Elite 3E
6 1 (0.058%) iTrent
6 1 (0.058%) Oracle 11i
6 1 (0.058%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.058%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.058%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.058%) Raiser’s Edge
6 1 (0.058%) SAP Business ByDesign
6 1 (0.058%) SAP CAR
6 1 (0.058%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 540 (31.54%) Azure
2 497 (29.03%) AWS
3 261 (15.25%) Power Platform
4 218 (12.73%) Azure Data Factory
5 181 (10.57%) Snowflake
6 176 (10.28%) dbt
7 155 (9.05%) Amazon S3
8 145 (8.47%) GCP
9 144 (8.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 133 (7.77%) Azure DevOps
11 105 (6.13%) GitHub
12 104 (6.07%) Serverless
13 90 (5.26%) AWS Lambda
14 49 (2.86%) GitHub Actions
15 37 (2.16%) Amazon EMR
16 31 (1.81%) Matillion
17 27 (1.58%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 25 (1.46%) Amazon Kinesis
19 24 (1.40%) AWS CloudFormation
19 24 (1.40%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 35 (2.04%) DNS
1 35 (2.04%) VPN
2 34 (1.99%) BGP
2 34 (1.99%) DMZ
2 34 (1.99%) Multicast
3 10 (0.58%) Structured Cabling
4 6 (0.35%) Firewall
5 5 (0.29%) PuTTY
5 5 (0.29%) WinSCP
6 4 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (0.23%) Wireless
7 2 (0.12%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (0.058%) 4G
8 1 (0.058%) 5G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 280 (16.36%) Data Warehouse
2 249 (14.54%) Power BI
3 156 (9.11%) Data Lake
4 102 (5.96%) Amazon Redshift
5 93 (5.43%) SQL Server
6 91 (5.32%) BigQuery
7 89 (5.20%) Delta Lake
8 87 (5.08%) Pentaho
9 86 (5.02%) Metadata
10 77 (4.50%) Tableau
11 64 (3.74%) PostgreSQL
12 63 (3.68%) Amazon Athena
13 62 (3.62%) Big Data
14 61 (3.56%) Snowflake Schema
15 54 (3.15%) Azure SQL Database
16 49 (2.86%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 47 (2.75%) NoSQL
18 42 (2.45%) Relational Database
19 37 (2.16%) Data Vault
20 36 (2.10%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 153 (8.94%) Git
2 86 (5.02%) GitLab
3 75 (4.38%) JIRA
4 45 (2.63%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.41%) Postman
6 5 (0.29%) Artifactory
6 5 (0.29%) Bitbucket
6 5 (0.29%) MLflow
7 3 (0.18%) Newman
7 3 (0.18%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.12%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 2 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 2 (0.12%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.12%) Yeoman
9 1 (0.058%) ERwin
9 1 (0.058%) JUnit
9 1 (0.058%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.058%) Selenium
General
1 293 (17.11%) Finance
2 271 (15.83%) Social Skills
3 188 (10.98%) Analytical Skills
4 148 (8.64%) Public Sector
5 96 (5.61%) Banking
6 36 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 28 (1.64%) Retail
8 25 (1.46%) Telecoms
9 23 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
10 21 (1.23%) Marketing
11 20 (1.17%) Investment Banking
12 19 (1.11%) Manufacturing
13 17 (0.99%) Pharmaceutical
14 16 (0.93%) Automotive
15 13 (0.76%) Aerospace
15 13 (0.76%) Front Office
16 11 (0.64%) Publishing
17 9 (0.53%) Billing
17 9 (0.53%) Legal
18 8 (0.47%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 232 (13.55%) PySpark
2 128 (7.48%) Kafka
3 38 (2.22%) Pandas
4 33 (1.93%) JSON
5 25 (1.46%) REST
6 23 (1.34%) Spring
6 23 (1.34%) Spring Boot
7 22 (1.29%) Great Expectations
7 22 (1.29%) XML
8 18 (1.05%) YAML
9 15 (0.88%) Apache Beam
10 13 (0.76%) Apache Avro
11 11 (0.64%) React
12 10 (0.58%) Microsoft Graph
12 10 (0.58%) scikit-learn
13 9 (0.53%) GeoJSON
13 9 (0.53%) Matplotlib
13 9 (0.53%) Node.js
13 9 (0.53%) pytest
13 9 (0.53%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 135 (7.89%) Cloud Native
2 65 (3.80%) Legacy Systems
3 45 (2.63%) Data Structures
4 28 (1.64%) Onboarding
5 27 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
6 24 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
6 24 (1.40%) Reinsurance
7 22 (1.29%) NHS
8 21 (1.23%) Product Ownership
9 18 (1.05%) Clustering
10 16 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
11 11 (0.64%) Life Science
11 11 (0.64%) Virtual Team
12 9 (0.53%) Distributed Computing
12 9 (0.53%) Driving Licence
12 9 (0.53%) Public Cloud
12 9 (0.53%) Reference Data
12 9 (0.53%) Replication
12 9 (0.53%) Self-Motivation
13 8 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 57 (3.33%) Unix
2 37 (2.16%) Linux
3 4 (0.23%) Windows
4 2 (0.12%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.12%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.058%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 727 (42.46%) Data Pipeline
2 642 (37.50%) Analytics
3 632 (36.92%) Data Engineering
4 621 (36.27%) ETL
5 579 (33.82%) Data Modelling
6 414 (24.18%) CI/CD
7 329 (19.22%) Business Intelligence
8 297 (17.35%) Agile
9 288 (16.82%) DevOps
10 257 (15.01%) Migration
11 233 (13.61%) Data Governance
12 214 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
13 200 (11.68%) AI
14 196 (11.45%) Validation
15 184 (10.75%) Data Integration
16 174 (10.16%) Data Transformation
17 168 (9.81%) Decision-Making
18 160 (9.35%) Data Science
19 143 (8.35%) Infrastructure as Code
20 135 (7.89%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 892 (52.10%) SQL
2 744 (43.46%) Python
3 106 (6.19%) Java
4 58 (3.39%) Scala
5 47 (2.75%) PL/SQL
6 30 (1.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 29 (1.69%) T-SQL
8 28 (1.64%) C#
8 28 (1.64%) Shell Script
9 27 (1.58%) Bash
10 22 (1.29%) PowerShell
11 14 (0.82%) R
12 12 (0.70%) Bicep
13 10 (0.58%) JavaScript
14 7 (0.41%) Go
14 7 (0.41%) TypeScript
15 2 (0.12%) Korn
15 2 (0.12%) LookML
15 2 (0.12%) Ruby
15 2 (0.12%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 467 (27.28%) Security Cleared
2 409 (23.89%) SC Cleared
3 44 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
4 41 (2.39%) Degree
5 28 (1.64%) Azure Certification
6 20 (1.17%) DV Cleared
7 19 (1.11%) Computer Science Degree
8 11 (0.64%) AWS Certification
9 9 (0.53%) City & Guilds
9 9 (0.53%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.35%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 6 (0.35%) SnowPro
11 5 (0.29%) BICSI Certification
12 4 (0.23%) CISM
12 4 (0.23%) CISSP
12 4 (0.23%) Master's Degree
12 4 (0.23%) Microsoft Certification
13 2 (0.12%) CEH
14 1 (0.058%) CISA
14 1 (0.058%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 418 (24.42%) Data Quality
2 54 (3.15%) QA
3 48 (2.80%) GDPR
4 16 (0.93%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.70%) SLA
6 9 (0.53%) FATCA
7 5 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 4 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.23%) MiFID
9 3 (0.18%) GMP
9 3 (0.18%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.12%) EMIR
10 2 (0.12%) PMO
10 2 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
10 2 (0.12%) WCAG
11 1 (0.058%) GxP
11 1 (0.058%) IFRS 17
11 1 (0.058%) NIST
11 1 (0.058%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 96 (5.61%) Docker
2 5 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.12%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.12%) HDFS
4 1 (0.058%) RACF
Systems Management
1 183 (10.69%) Terraform
2 78 (4.56%) Kubernetes
3 36 (2.10%) Grafana
4 13 (0.76%) Ansible
5 10 (0.58%) Prometheus
6 6 (0.35%) Kibana
7 3 (0.18%) Rancher
8 2 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
8 2 (0.12%) Control-M
8 2 (0.12%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.058%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.058%) logstash
9 1 (0.058%) NetBackup
9 1 (0.058%) Puppet
Vendors
1 334 (19.51%) Databricks
2 208 (12.15%) Microsoft
3 158 (9.23%) Oracle
4 129 (7.54%) Informatica
5 121 (7.07%) Talend
6 63 (3.68%) Denodo
7 57 (3.33%) Google
8 36 (2.10%) Cisco
8 36 (2.10%) F5
9 31 (1.81%) SAP
10 25 (1.46%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.17%) Splunk
12 18 (1.05%) Cloudera
13 17 (0.99%) Palantir
14 16 (0.93%) ServiceNow
15 14 (0.82%) Alteryx
16 13 (0.76%) Foundry
17 12 (0.70%) Sage
18 9 (0.53%) Bloomberg
18 9 (0.53%) IBM