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 9 February 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 77 114
Rank change year-on-year -11 +37 +15
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 965 781 806
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.90% 3.00% 2.11%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.16% 3.23% 2.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 695 563 630
10th Percentile £359 £357 £368
25th Percentile £413 £441 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £638
90th Percentile £691 £738 £700
UK median daily rate £500 £524 £525
% change year-on-year -4.58% -0.19% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 10 23
10th Percentile £28.36 £39.75 £36.00
25th Percentile £32.12 £65.00 £38.67
Median hourly rate £37.50 £83.75 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year -55.22% +38.43% -8.68%
75th Percentile £74.13 £96.56 £66.25
90th Percentile £91.40 £97.50 £67.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £65.00 £60.50
% change year-on-year -19.23% +7.44% -3.20%

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 30,503 24,211 35,590
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.64% 93.07% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,396 14,990 23,931
10th Percentile £300 £300 £270
25th Percentile £406 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £640
90th Percentile £725 £750 £745
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,952 719 2,136
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.91 £13.23
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.36 £16.75
Median hourly rate £30.50 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -12.87% - -5.74%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.61 £60.61
90th Percentile £72.45 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £34.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -11.76% -2.86% -

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 9 February 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 9 February 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 9 February 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 +1 612 £522 -5.09% 176
Midlands -6 120 £500 +4.82% 45
North of England -36 107 £466 +0.81% 86
West Midlands -18 105 £513 +4.59% 33
North West -13 62 £415 -5.14% 50
South East -40 48 £496 -5.48% 108
South West -8 45 £525 +5.00% 35
Yorkshire -45 32 £494 -3.66% 28
East Midlands -21 15 £450 +20.40% 12
North East -15 13 £463 -11.90% 10
East of England -33 5 £510 +60.26% 15
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 9 February 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.

1 555 (57.51%) SQL
2 542 (56.17%) Python
3 413 (42.80%) Azure
4 409 (42.38%) Data Pipeline
5 407 (42.18%) ETL
6 402 (41.66%) Data Engineering
7 359 (37.20%) Analytics
8 344 (35.65%) Data Modelling
9 313 (32.44%) Databricks
10 292 (30.26%) AWS
11 274 (28.39%) CI/CD
12 272 (28.19%) Data Quality
13 250 (25.91%) Security Cleared
14 238 (24.66%) Business Intelligence
15 222 (23.01%) SC Cleared
16 200 (20.73%) Power Platform
17 196 (20.31%) DevOps
18 194 (20.10%) Power BI
19 177 (18.34%) Azure Data Factory
20 175 (18.13%) Data Warehouse
21 172 (17.82%) Agile
22 170 (17.62%) PySpark
23 150 (15.54%) Problem-Solving
24 148 (15.34%) Data Governance
25 147 (15.23%) Data Science
26 129 (13.37%) Git
26 129 (13.37%) Snowflake
26 129 (13.37%) Terraform
27 128 (13.26%) Microsoft
28 124 (12.85%) AI

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
1 114 (11.81%) Apache Airflow
2 108 (11.19%) Apache Spark
3 76 (7.88%) Apache
4 21 (2.18%) SAS
5 14 (1.45%) Palantir Foundry
6 12 (1.24%) Confluence
7 6 (0.62%) Apache Pig
7 6 (0.62%) Oracle Application Server
8 5 (0.52%) IIS
9 4 (0.41%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.21%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.21%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.10%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.10%) Appian
11 1 (0.10%) Camunda
11 1 (0.10%) Luigi
11 1 (0.10%) nginx
11 1 (0.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 10 (1.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.21%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.21%) Maximo
2 1 (0.10%) Actimize
2 1 (0.10%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.10%) Elite 3E
2 1 (0.10%) Oracle BPM
2 1 (0.10%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 413 (42.80%) Azure
2 292 (30.26%) AWS
3 200 (20.73%) Power Platform
4 177 (18.34%) Azure Data Factory
5 129 (13.37%) Snowflake
6 112 (11.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 105 (10.88%) Amazon S3
8 101 (10.47%) dbt
9 99 (10.26%) GCP
10 96 (9.95%) GitHub
11 87 (9.02%) Serverless
12 75 (7.77%) Azure DevOps
13 63 (6.53%) AWS Lambda
14 51 (5.28%) GitHub Actions
15 37 (3.83%) AWS CloudFormation
16 21 (2.18%) Amazon Kinesis
16 21 (2.18%) SaaS
17 20 (2.07%) AWS Step Functions
18 19 (1.97%) Matillion
19 15 (1.55%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 10 (1.04%) BGP
1 10 (1.04%) DMZ
1 10 (1.04%) DNS
1 10 (1.04%) Multicast
1 10 (1.04%) VPN
2 4 (0.41%) Firewall
3 3 (0.31%) SAN
4 2 (0.21%) Structured Cabling
5 1 (0.10%) Network Security
5 1 (0.10%) Software-Defined Networking
5 1 (0.10%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 194 (20.10%) Power BI
2 175 (18.13%) Data Warehouse
3 115 (11.92%) Data Lake
4 92 (9.53%) SQL Server
5 64 (6.63%) Azure SQL Database
6 60 (6.22%) Amazon Redshift
6 60 (6.22%) Delta Lake
6 60 (6.22%) PostgreSQL
7 55 (5.70%) BigQuery
8 54 (5.60%) Big Data
9 52 (5.39%) Metadata
9 52 (5.39%) NoSQL
10 47 (4.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 39 (4.04%) Tableau
12 36 (3.73%) Snowflake Schema
13 34 (3.52%) Amazon Athena
14 32 (3.32%) Hadoop
14 32 (3.32%) Star Schema
15 31 (3.21%) Pentaho
16 29 (3.01%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 129 (13.37%) Git
2 52 (5.39%) Jenkins
3 34 (3.52%) JIRA
4 32 (3.32%) GitLab
5 21 (2.18%) MLflow
6 6 (0.62%) DBeaver
7 4 (0.41%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.31%) Selenium
9 2 (0.21%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.21%) JUnit
9 2 (0.21%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.10%) Cucumber
10 1 (0.10%) Deequ
10 1 (0.10%) Gradle
10 1 (0.10%) Jaeger
10 1 (0.10%) Poetry
10 1 (0.10%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.10%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.10%) TeamCity
10 1 (0.10%) Terragrunt
General
1 172 (17.82%) Social Skills
2 150 (15.54%) Finance
3 99 (10.26%) Analytical Skills
4 68 (7.05%) Public Sector
5 48 (4.97%) Banking
6 31 (3.21%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 15 (1.55%) Investment Banking
8 12 (1.24%) Front Office
8 12 (1.24%) Retail
9 11 (1.14%) Marketing
9 11 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
10 8 (0.83%) Telecoms
11 6 (0.62%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (0.62%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.62%) Military
12 5 (0.52%) Law
13 4 (0.41%) Corporate Banking
14 3 (0.31%) Aerospace
14 3 (0.31%) Back Office
14 3 (0.31%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 170 (17.62%) PySpark
2 106 (10.98%) Kafka
3 30 (3.11%) Pandas
4 22 (2.28%) REST
5 20 (2.07%) JSON
5 20 (2.07%) YAML
6 16 (1.66%) XML
7 14 (1.45%) Apache NiFi
7 14 (1.45%) NumPy
7 14 (1.45%) PyTorch
8 12 (1.24%) Keycloak
8 12 (1.24%) Node.js
8 12 (1.24%) RESTful
9 11 (1.14%) Great Expectations
10 10 (1.04%) TensorFlow
11 9 (0.93%) HTML
11 9 (0.93%) Middleware
11 9 (0.93%) pytest
12 8 (0.83%) Apache Beam
12 8 (0.83%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 76 (7.88%) Cloud Native
2 27 (2.80%) Data Structures
3 24 (2.49%) Product Ownership
4 21 (2.18%) Legacy Systems
4 21 (2.18%) Replication
5 17 (1.76%) Algorithms
5 17 (1.76%) Onboarding
6 15 (1.55%) Clustering
7 13 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (1.35%) Greenfield Project
8 12 (1.24%) Distributed Systems
8 12 (1.24%) Hybrid Cloud
8 12 (1.24%) Reinsurance
9 10 (1.04%) Distributed Computing
9 10 (1.04%) Public Cloud
10 7 (0.73%) Life Science
10 7 (0.73%) Management Information System
11 5 (0.52%) Linux Command Line
11 5 (0.52%) Virtual Team
12 4 (0.41%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 19 (1.97%) Linux
2 15 (1.55%) Unix
3 1 (0.10%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 409 (42.38%) Data Pipeline
2 407 (42.18%) ETL
3 402 (41.66%) Data Engineering
4 359 (37.20%) Analytics
5 344 (35.65%) Data Modelling
6 274 (28.39%) CI/CD
7 238 (24.66%) Business Intelligence
8 196 (20.31%) DevOps
9 172 (17.82%) Agile
10 150 (15.54%) Problem-Solving
11 148 (15.34%) Data Governance
12 147 (15.23%) Data Science
13 124 (12.85%) AI
14 121 (12.54%) Data Architecture
15 113 (11.71%) Machine Learning
16 112 (11.61%) Data Integration
16 112 (11.61%) Infrastructure as Code
17 95 (9.84%) Data Transformation
18 90 (9.33%) Migration
19 88 (9.12%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 555 (57.51%) SQL
2 542 (56.17%) Python
3 87 (9.02%) Scala
4 71 (7.36%) Java
5 28 (2.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 23 (2.38%) C#
7 21 (2.18%) PL/SQL
7 21 (2.18%) T-SQL
8 16 (1.66%) Bash
8 16 (1.66%) Go
9 15 (1.55%) Bicep
10 14 (1.45%) R
11 13 (1.35%) Shell Script
12 12 (1.24%) JavaScript
13 11 (1.14%) PowerShell
14 5 (0.52%) TypeScript
15 4 (0.41%) C++
15 4 (0.41%) Korn
16 2 (0.21%) C
16 2 (0.21%) VB
Qualifications
1 250 (25.91%) Security Cleared
2 222 (23.01%) SC Cleared
3 32 (3.32%) Azure Certification
4 29 (3.01%) Degree
5 19 (1.97%) AWS Certification
6 16 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (1.66%) DV Cleared
7 9 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (0.52%) Master's Degree
8 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.41%) CTC Cleared
10 3 (0.31%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Certified Professional
11 2 (0.21%) SnowPro
12 1 (0.10%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 272 (28.19%) Data Quality
2 44 (4.56%) GDPR
3 18 (1.87%) QA
4 8 (0.83%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.41%) HIPAA
5 4 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.31%) FATCA
6 3 (0.31%) MiFID
7 2 (0.21%) Dodd-Frank
7 2 (0.21%) EMIR
7 2 (0.21%) EU AI Act
7 2 (0.21%) NIST
8 1 (0.10%) Basel III
8 1 (0.10%) GRC
8 1 (0.10%) ISO 13485
8 1 (0.10%) NCSC
8 1 (0.10%) PMO
8 1 (0.10%) SLA
8 1 (0.10%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.10%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (7.36%) Docker
2 11 (1.14%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (0.52%) zsh
4 1 (0.10%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.10%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 129 (13.37%) Terraform
2 75 (7.77%) Kubernetes
3 12 (1.24%) Grafana
4 7 (0.73%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.62%) Ansible
6 5 (0.52%) NetBackup
7 4 (0.41%) Kibana
8 3 (0.31%) Control-M
8 3 (0.31%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.21%) EMC NetWorker
9 2 (0.21%) logstash
9 2 (0.21%) Puppet
9 2 (0.21%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 1 (0.10%) Ambari
10 1 (0.10%) Argo
10 1 (0.10%) Rancher
10 1 (0.10%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 313 (32.44%) Databricks
2 128 (13.26%) Microsoft
3 71 (7.36%) Oracle
4 45 (4.66%) Talend
5 37 (3.83%) Informatica
6 34 (3.52%) Google
7 23 (2.38%) Denodo
8 17 (1.76%) Foundry
8 17 (1.76%) Palantir
9 15 (1.55%) IBM
10 13 (1.35%) Cisco
10 13 (1.35%) Splunk
11 11 (1.14%) Alteryx
11 11 (1.14%) ServiceNow
12 10 (1.04%) F5
12 10 (1.04%) SAP
13 8 (0.83%) Cloudera
14 7 (0.73%) Confluent
14 7 (0.73%) Virgin Media
15 6 (0.62%) Salesforce