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 24 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 151 204
Rank change year-on-year +66 +53 -13
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,377 517 415
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.01% 1.86% 1.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.55% 2.05% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 963 329 307
10th Percentile £400 £363 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -8.70% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £694
90th Percentile £750 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £513 £575
% change year-on-year +2.44% -10.87% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 7 10
10th Percentile - £30.15 £29.46
25th Percentile £21.25 £37.11 £32.19
Median hourly rate £69.00 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.43% -12.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.38 -
90th Percentile £84.39 £83.00 £60.88
UK median hourly rate £67.00 £52.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +27.62% +10.53% -39.10%

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 38,743 25,202 28,504
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.81% 90.84% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,962 16,051 18,351
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £424
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £627 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £751
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,572 1,476 1,524
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.25 £14.05
25th Percentile £19.17 £17.87 £18.08
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £40.94
% change year-on-year +67.00% -38.57% -3.67%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 +47 833 £550 - 211
North of England +33 176 £469 -3.85% 90
Midlands +42 140 £484 +5.91% 25
West Midlands +37 116 £475 -6.31% 22
South East -17 91 £525 +12.18% 119
Yorkshire +27 85 £475 +11.76% 22
South West +12 71 £524 -3.68% 45
North West -16 56 £525 +5.00% 45
North East -8 37 £425 -20.93% 25
East of England -8 28 £575 -4.17% 11
East Midlands -1 21 £525 +16.54% 3
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
1 165 (11.98%) Apache Airflow
2 158 (11.47%) Apache Spark
3 108 (7.84%) Apache
4 39 (2.83%) SAS
5 29 (2.11%) Confluence
6 22 (1.60%) Jupyter
7 18 (1.31%) Palantir Foundry
8 13 (0.94%) SharePoint
9 6 (0.44%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.36%) Apache Solr
11 4 (0.29%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.15%) PowerExchange
13 1 (0.073%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.073%) CICS
13 1 (0.073%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.36%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.073%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.80%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.36%) BambooHR
4 4 (0.29%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.29%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.15%) Endur
5 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.15%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.15%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.073%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.073%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.073%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.073%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 587 (42.63%) Azure
2 513 (37.25%) AWS
3 270 (19.61%) Power Platform
4 214 (15.54%) Snowflake
5 189 (13.73%) GCP
6 182 (13.22%) dbt
7 154 (11.18%) Azure Data Factory
8 146 (10.60%) Amazon S3
9 129 (9.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 128 (9.30%) Azure DevOps
11 116 (8.42%) Serverless
12 106 (7.70%) GitHub
13 96 (6.97%) AWS Lambda
14 55 (3.99%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (2.47%) Amazon EMR
16 30 (2.18%) Amazon Bedrock
17 28 (2.03%) Azure AI
18 27 (1.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 27 (1.96%) Microsoft Purview
19 23 (1.67%) Amazon SageMaker
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) Firewall
2 3 (0.22%) DNS
2 3 (0.22%) Network Security
3 2 (0.15%) RTP
4 1 (0.073%) Internet
4 1 (0.073%) MIMO
4 1 (0.073%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 279 (20.26%) Data Warehouse
2 256 (18.59%) Power BI
3 187 (13.58%) Data Lake
4 153 (11.11%) Metadata
5 104 (7.55%) BigQuery
6 95 (6.90%) Amazon Redshift
7 93 (6.75%) Delta Lake
8 82 (5.95%) Big Data
9 76 (5.52%) Tableau
10 62 (4.50%) Amazon Athena
11 61 (4.43%) SQL Server
12 55 (3.99%) NoSQL
13 51 (3.70%) Snowflake Schema
14 48 (3.49%) PostgreSQL
14 48 (3.49%) Relational Database
15 39 (2.83%) Azure SQL Database
16 34 (2.47%) Looker
16 34 (2.47%) Star Schema
17 31 (2.25%) Data Vault
18 28 (2.03%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 130 (9.44%) Git
2 76 (5.52%) GitLab
3 59 (4.28%) JIRA
4 22 (1.60%) Jenkins
4 22 (1.60%) MLflow
5 6 (0.44%) Bitbucket
5 6 (0.44%) RStudio
5 6 (0.44%) Terragrunt
6 5 (0.36%) ERwin
6 5 (0.36%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.29%) Claude Code
7 4 (0.29%) Selenium
8 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.22%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.22%) Snyk
8 3 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.15%) Postman
9 2 (0.15%) Yeoman
10 1 (0.073%) Deequ
General
1 334 (24.26%) Social Skills
2 317 (23.02%) Finance
3 221 (16.05%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (10.46%) Public Sector
5 105 (7.63%) Banking
6 44 (3.20%) Marketing
7 38 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 31 (2.25%) Retail
9 22 (1.60%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.53%) Documentation Skills
10 21 (1.53%) Front Office
11 20 (1.45%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.09%) Manufacturing
13 14 (1.02%) Pharmaceutical
14 13 (0.94%) Financial Institution
15 11 (0.80%) Billing
15 11 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.65%) Law
16 9 (0.65%) Legal
16 9 (0.65%) Military
Job Titles
1 635 (46.11%) Data Engineer
2 200 (14.52%) Senior
3 165 (11.98%) Architect
4 155 (11.26%) Lead
5 123 (8.93%) Senior Data Engineer
6 90 (6.54%) Data Architect
7 72 (5.23%) Developer
8 65 (4.72%) AWS Engineer
9 64 (4.65%) Analyst
10 55 (3.99%) AWS Data Engineer
11 53 (3.85%) Lead Data Engineer
12 52 (3.78%) Snowflake Engineer
13 48 (3.49%) Azure Engineer
14 42 (3.05%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 42 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
15 40 (2.90%) Consultant
16 37 (2.69%) Azure Data Engineer
17 36 (2.61%) Data Analyst
18 33 (2.40%) Data Scientist
19 32 (2.32%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (15.03%) PySpark
2 190 (13.80%) Terraform
3 100 (7.26%) Kafka
4 47 (3.41%) REST
5 30 (2.18%) React
6 25 (1.82%) Pandas
7 24 (1.74%) JSON
8 21 (1.53%) .NET
9 16 (1.16%) scikit-learn
10 15 (1.09%) NumPy
10 15 (1.09%) PyTorch
10 15 (1.09%) Spring
11 13 (0.94%) TensorFlow
12 11 (0.80%) Microsoft Graph
13 10 (0.73%) Great Expectations
14 9 (0.65%) FastAPI
14 9 (0.65%) pytest
14 9 (0.65%) Spring Boot
15 8 (0.58%) Node.js
15 8 (0.58%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 181 (13.14%) Cloud Native
2 58 (4.21%) Legacy Systems
3 56 (4.07%) Data Structures
4 52 (3.78%) Onboarding
4 52 (3.78%) Product Ownership
5 48 (3.49%) Distributed Systems
6 35 (2.54%) AI Agents
7 23 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
8 21 (1.53%) Greenfield Project
9 19 (1.38%) Distributed Computing
10 17 (1.23%) NHS
11 16 (1.16%) Virtual Team
12 15 (1.09%) Clustering
12 15 (1.09%) Life Science
13 13 (0.94%) Algorithms
13 13 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
13 13 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (0.94%) Management Information System
14 11 (0.80%) Reference Data
15 10 (0.73%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 35 (2.54%) Linux
2 30 (2.18%) Unix
3 8 (0.58%) Windows
4 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.073%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.073%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.073%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.073%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 677 (49.16%) Analytics
2 663 (48.15%) Data Pipeline
3 520 (37.76%) Data Modelling
4 477 (34.64%) CI/CD
5 470 (34.13%) ETL
6 405 (29.41%) AI
7 342 (24.84%) Agile
8 339 (24.62%) Business Intelligence
9 326 (23.67%) DevOps
10 308 (22.37%) Data Governance
11 238 (17.28%) Machine Learning
12 229 (16.63%) Problem-Solving
13 211 (15.32%) Data Architecture
13 211 (15.32%) Migration
14 210 (15.25%) Data Transformation
15 206 (14.96%) Validation
16 204 (14.81%) Stakeholder Management
17 203 (14.74%) Decision-Making
18 202 (14.67%) Data Science
19 179 (13.00%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 744 (54.03%) SQL
2 687 (49.89%) Python
3 103 (7.48%) Java
4 40 (2.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 35 (2.54%) Bash
5 35 (2.54%) Scala
6 34 (2.47%) PowerShell
7 28 (2.03%) C#
8 24 (1.74%) JavaScript
9 21 (1.53%) R
10 20 (1.45%) T-SQL
11 17 (1.23%) PL/SQL
12 16 (1.16%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.94%) Bicep
14 10 (0.73%) SAS Macro
14 10 (0.73%) TypeScript
15 8 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.51%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.44%) Cypher
18 5 (0.36%) Go
Qualifications
1 264 (19.17%) Security Cleared
2 227 (16.49%) SC Cleared
3 80 (5.81%) Degree
4 41 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (2.03%) Azure Certification
6 25 (1.82%) DV Cleared
7 24 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.53%) Master's Degree
9 18 (1.31%) AWS Certification
10 14 (1.02%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.65%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
12 8 (0.58%) SnowPro
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.36%) Tableau Certification
14 3 (0.22%) PhD
14 3 (0.22%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.15%) CSPO
15 2 (0.15%) PMP
16 1 (0.073%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 427 (31.01%) Data Quality
2 70 (5.08%) GDPR
2 70 (5.08%) QA
3 25 (1.82%) Accessibility
4 13 (0.94%) SLA
5 4 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 3 (0.22%) GxP
6 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
6 3 (0.22%) MiFID
6 3 (0.22%) NIST
6 3 (0.22%) PMO
6 3 (0.22%) Solvency II
7 2 (0.15%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 2 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
7 2 (0.15%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 2 (0.15%) EMIR
7 2 (0.15%) GRC
7 2 (0.15%) IFRS
7 2 (0.15%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 117 (8.50%) Docker
2 5 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.15%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 95 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 20 (1.45%) Ansible
3 15 (1.09%) Grafana
4 7 (0.51%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.44%) Control-M
6 5 (0.36%) Kibana
7 3 (0.22%) logstash
8 2 (0.15%) Argo
8 2 (0.15%) Puppet
8 2 (0.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.073%) Cilium
9 1 (0.073%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.073%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.073%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.073%) Nagios
9 1 (0.073%) QRadar
9 1 (0.073%) Rancher
9 1 (0.073%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 351 (25.49%) Databricks
2 250 (18.16%) Microsoft
3 71 (5.16%) Informatica
4 63 (4.58%) Google
5 62 (4.50%) Oracle
6 29 (2.11%) SAP
7 28 (2.03%) Foundry
8 26 (1.89%) Palantir
8 26 (1.89%) Talend
9 21 (1.53%) Salesforce
10 16 (1.16%) Cloudera
11 13 (0.94%) OpenAI
11 13 (0.94%) ServiceNow
12 12 (0.87%) Trend Micro
13 11 (0.80%) Teradata
14 9 (0.65%) Splunk
15 8 (0.58%) Adobe
15 8 (0.58%) Denodo
15 8 (0.58%) Workday
16 7 (0.51%) Hitachi