Data Engineering Contract Job Trends in England

Data Engineering
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Data Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 10 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 151 198
Rank change year-on-year +67 +47 -2
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,419 533 417
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.06% 1.92% 1.27%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.61% 2.11% 1.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 991 336 305
10th Percentile £400 £362 £394
25th Percentile £450 £425 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £645 £688
90th Percentile £750 £763 £778
UK median daily rate £525 £513 £575
% change year-on-year +2.44% -10.87% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 6 7
10th Percentile - £37.11 £24.40
25th Percentile £21.25 £42.03 £43.25
Median hourly rate £69.50 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.38% -12.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £75.75 £62.19 -
90th Percentile £85.48 £87.50 -
UK median hourly rate £69.00 £52.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +31.43% -12.50% -23.08%

All Process & Methodology Skills
England

Data Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 39,304 25,245 28,138
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.88% 90.83% 85.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,151 16,024 17,695
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.95% -2.87% -4.55%
75th Percentile £636 £625 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,693 1,483 1,349
10th Percentile £14.01 £14.31 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.87 £20.22
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £66.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +2.87%

Data Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Data Engineering job vacancy trend in England

Data Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Engineering

Data Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering in England over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineering in England

Data Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Data Engineering

Data Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineering in England over the 6 months to 10 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineering in England

Data Engineering
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 Engineering within the England region over the 6 months to 10 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 +50 880 £550 - 577
North of England +18 177 £475 - 109
Midlands +27 133 £481 +6.77% 51
West Midlands +35 109 £475 -6.31% 31
South East -13 92 £500 +15.61% 149
Yorkshire +21 88 £500 +5.26% 23
South West +17 74 £525 -8.70% 60
North West -34 56 £500 +5.26% 68
North East -15 35 £425 -20.93% 18
East of England -15 27 £550 +22.22% 28
East Midlands -7 21 £525 +20.62% 20
Data Engineering
UK

Data Engineering
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
1 175 (12.33%) Apache Airflow
2 159 (11.21%) Apache Spark
3 120 (8.46%) Apache
4 36 (2.54%) SAS
5 32 (2.26%) Confluence
6 21 (1.48%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.20%) Palantir Foundry
8 14 (0.99%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.49%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.35%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.35%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.21%) nginx
12 2 (0.14%) PowerExchange
13 1 (0.070%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.070%) CICS
13 1 (0.070%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.070%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 16 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.35%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.070%) Notion
Business Applications
1 8 (0.56%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.28%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.28%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.14%) BambooHR
4 2 (0.14%) Endur
4 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
4 2 (0.14%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.070%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.070%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.070%) SAP ECC
5 1 (0.070%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 602 (42.42%) Azure
2 531 (37.42%) AWS
3 271 (19.10%) Power Platform
4 227 (16.00%) Snowflake
5 197 (13.88%) GCP
6 194 (13.67%) dbt
7 162 (11.42%) Azure Data Factory
8 153 (10.78%) Amazon S3
9 133 (9.37%) Azure DevOps
10 125 (8.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 124 (8.74%) Serverless
12 112 (7.89%) GitHub
13 100 (7.05%) AWS Lambda
14 70 (4.93%) Azure Databricks
15 60 (4.23%) GitHub Actions
16 35 (2.47%) Amazon EMR
17 32 (2.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 31 (2.18%) Amazon Bedrock
18 31 (2.18%) Microsoft Purview
19 27 (1.90%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.35%) Firewall
2 4 (0.28%) DNS
2 4 (0.28%) Network Security
3 2 (0.14%) RTP
4 1 (0.070%) Broadband
4 1 (0.070%) Internet
4 1 (0.070%) MIMO
4 1 (0.070%) MQTT
4 1 (0.070%) SMS
4 1 (0.070%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 294 (20.72%) Data Warehouse
2 257 (18.11%) Power BI
3 187 (13.18%) Data Lake
4 165 (11.63%) Metadata
5 107 (7.54%) BigQuery
6 100 (7.05%) Delta Lake
7 91 (6.41%) Amazon Redshift
8 82 (5.78%) Big Data
9 72 (5.07%) Tableau
10 62 (4.37%) Amazon Athena
11 59 (4.16%) SQL Server
12 51 (3.59%) Snowflake Schema
13 48 (3.38%) Relational Database
14 45 (3.17%) NoSQL
14 45 (3.17%) PostgreSQL
15 39 (2.75%) Azure SQL Database
16 37 (2.61%) Looker
17 32 (2.26%) Data Vault
17 32 (2.26%) Star Schema
18 27 (1.90%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 138 (9.73%) Git
2 79 (5.57%) GitLab
3 61 (4.30%) JIRA
4 24 (1.69%) MLflow
5 23 (1.62%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.56%) RStudio
6 8 (0.56%) Terragrunt
7 7 (0.49%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.42%) ERwin
8 6 (0.42%) Selenium
9 5 (0.35%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.28%) Claude Code
10 4 (0.28%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.21%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 3 (0.21%) Snyk
12 2 (0.14%) Postman
12 2 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.14%) TeamCity
12 2 (0.14%) Yeoman
General
1 350 (24.67%) Social Skills
2 328 (23.11%) Finance
3 235 (16.56%) Analytical Skills
4 146 (10.29%) Public Sector
5 114 (8.03%) Banking
6 47 (3.31%) Marketing
7 33 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 30 (2.11%) Retail
9 21 (1.48%) Front Office
10 20 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
11 19 (1.34%) Investment Banking
11 19 (1.34%) Telecoms
12 17 (1.20%) Manufacturing
13 16 (1.13%) Pharmaceutical
14 13 (0.92%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.85%) Billing
16 11 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
16 11 (0.78%) Law
17 10 (0.70%) Legal
17 10 (0.70%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 654 (46.09%) Data Engineer
2 211 (14.87%) Senior
3 158 (11.13%) Lead
4 157 (11.06%) Architect
5 132 (9.30%) Senior Data Engineer
6 89 (6.27%) Data Architect
7 76 (5.36%) Developer
8 66 (4.65%) AWS Engineer
9 64 (4.51%) Analyst
10 56 (3.95%) AWS Data Engineer
11 53 (3.74%) Snowflake Engineer
12 52 (3.66%) Databricks Engineer
13 49 (3.45%) Azure Engineer
14 48 (3.38%) Lead Data Engineer
15 41 (2.89%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 40 (2.82%) Consultant
16 40 (2.82%) Databricks Data Engineer
17 39 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
18 36 (2.54%) Data Analyst
19 33 (2.33%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (14.59%) PySpark
2 206 (14.52%) Terraform
3 97 (6.84%) Kafka
4 55 (3.88%) REST
5 33 (2.33%) React
6 27 (1.90%) .NET
6 27 (1.90%) JSON
7 24 (1.69%) Pandas
8 15 (1.06%) NumPy
8 15 (1.06%) scikit-learn
9 14 (0.99%) PyTorch
10 12 (0.85%) TensorFlow
11 11 (0.78%) FastAPI
11 11 (0.78%) LangChain
11 11 (0.78%) Microsoft Graph
11 11 (0.78%) Spring
12 10 (0.70%) Apache Avro
12 10 (0.70%) Great Expectations
12 10 (0.70%) pytest
13 9 (0.63%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 182 (12.83%) Cloud Native
2 63 (4.44%) Data Structures
3 62 (4.37%) Onboarding
4 55 (3.88%) Legacy Systems
4 55 (3.88%) Product Ownership
5 43 (3.03%) Distributed Systems
6 40 (2.82%) AI Agents
7 20 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
8 19 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (1.34%) Distributed Computing
9 18 (1.27%) NHS
10 17 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
10 17 (1.20%) Virtual Team
11 16 (1.13%) Management Information System
12 15 (1.06%) Life Science
13 14 (0.99%) Algorithms
13 14 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
13 14 (0.99%) Clustering
14 12 (0.85%) Data Fabric
14 12 (0.85%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 34 (2.40%) Linux
2 29 (2.04%) Unix
3 8 (0.56%) Windows
4 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.070%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.070%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.070%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.070%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 696 (49.05%) Data Pipeline
2 680 (47.92%) Analytics
3 546 (38.48%) Data Modelling
4 508 (35.80%) CI/CD
5 487 (34.32%) ETL
6 415 (29.25%) AI
7 347 (24.45%) Agile
8 345 (24.31%) DevOps
9 342 (24.10%) Business Intelligence
10 321 (22.62%) Data Governance
11 243 (17.12%) Machine Learning
12 232 (16.35%) Problem-Solving
13 230 (16.21%) Stakeholder Management
14 227 (16.00%) Data Architecture
14 227 (16.00%) Data Transformation
14 227 (16.00%) Migration
15 215 (15.15%) Validation
16 204 (14.38%) Data Science
16 204 (14.38%) Infrastructure as Code
17 203 (14.31%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 769 (54.19%) SQL
2 719 (50.67%) Python
3 99 (6.98%) Java
4 44 (3.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 40 (2.82%) Scala
6 39 (2.75%) PowerShell
7 36 (2.54%) Bash
8 31 (2.18%) C#
9 27 (1.90%) JavaScript
10 23 (1.62%) R
11 21 (1.48%) T-SQL
12 17 (1.20%) PL/SQL
13 15 (1.06%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.92%) Bicep
14 13 (0.92%) TypeScript
15 11 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
16 9 (0.63%) SAS Macro
17 7 (0.49%) LookML
17 7 (0.49%) SPARQL
18 6 (0.42%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 278 (19.59%) Security Cleared
2 235 (16.56%) SC Cleared
3 75 (5.29%) Degree
4 36 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (2.26%) DV Cleared
6 29 (2.04%) Azure Certification
7 23 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
8 22 (1.55%) AWS Certification
8 22 (1.55%) Master's Degree
9 14 (0.99%) DBS Check
10 11 (0.78%) SnowPro
11 9 (0.63%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Certification
13 6 (0.42%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.35%) PMP
14 5 (0.35%) Tableau Certification
15 4 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 3 (0.21%) PhD
16 3 (0.21%) TOGAF Certification
17 2 (0.14%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 465 (32.77%) Data Quality
2 71 (5.00%) QA
3 65 (4.58%) GDPR
4 25 (1.76%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.85%) SLA
6 5 (0.35%) PMO
7 4 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.21%) GRC
8 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.21%) MiFID
8 3 (0.21%) NIST
9 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.14%) EMIR
9 2 (0.14%) IFRS
9 2 (0.14%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.14%) NCSC
9 2 (0.14%) Solvency II
System Software
1 124 (8.74%) Docker
2 5 (0.35%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.070%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 97 (6.84%) Kubernetes
2 25 (1.76%) Ansible
3 19 (1.34%) Grafana
4 10 (0.70%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.49%) Control-M
6 6 (0.42%) Kibana
7 3 (0.21%) logstash
8 2 (0.14%) Argo
8 2 (0.14%) Puppet
9 1 (0.070%) Cilium
9 1 (0.070%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.070%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.070%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.070%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.070%) Nagios
9 1 (0.070%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.070%) QRadar
9 1 (0.070%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.070%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 374 (26.36%) Databricks
2 259 (18.25%) Microsoft
3 69 (4.86%) Informatica
4 67 (4.72%) Google
4 67 (4.72%) Oracle
5 28 (1.97%) SAP
6 27 (1.90%) Foundry
7 26 (1.83%) Talend
8 25 (1.76%) Palantir
9 22 (1.55%) Salesforce
10 17 (1.20%) Cloudera
11 14 (0.99%) OpenAI
12 13 (0.92%) ServiceNow
13 12 (0.85%) Teradata
13 12 (0.85%) Trend Micro
14 9 (0.63%) Adobe
15 7 (0.49%) Bloomberg
15 7 (0.49%) Hitachi
15 7 (0.49%) InterSystems
15 7 (0.49%) Splunk