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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 143 212
Rank change year-on-year +60 +69 -13
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,164 454 417
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.97% 1.86% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 2.05% 1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 814 319 311
10th Percentile £400 £400 £413
25th Percentile £450 £461 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £688 £675
90th Percentile £750 £838 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 12 11
10th Percentile £53.45 £22.00 £30.37
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.38 £33.13
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.97 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +169.59% -25.81% -53.33%
75th Percentile £80.88 £35.94 £55.13
90th Percentile £89.00 £63.88 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £25.97 £35.00
% change year-on-year +169.59% -25.81% -1.41%

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 33,625 22,142 32,435
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.72% 90.94% 86.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,563 14,591 21,374
10th Percentile £313 £313 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,074 866 2,196
10th Percentile £15.41 £14.95 £12.96
25th Percentile £19.91 £18.92 £15.93
Median hourly rate £40.00 £32.03 £34.11
Median % change year-on-year +24.90% -6.10% -9.05%
75th Percentile £65.81 £64.52 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.85 £75.88 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £36.71 £31.04 £33.07
% change year-on-year +18.27% -6.12% -8.15%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 +58 742 £550 -4.35% 253
North of England -5 122 £475 -5.00% 110
Midlands +26 120 £517 +3.35% 51
West Midlands +14 95 £525 -2.78% 36
South West +17 71 £525 -16.00% 49
Yorkshire -15 54 £480 -16.52% 40
North West -11 48 £480 +1.05% 59
South East -29 48 £550 +10.00% 111
East of England -23 23 £575 +54.08% 34
North East +3 22 £450 -5.26% 13
East Midlands -17 22 £447 -5.89% 15
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
1 173 (14.86%) Apache Spark
2 115 (9.88%) Apache Airflow
3 75 (6.44%) Apache
4 27 (2.32%) SAS
5 18 (1.55%) Palantir Foundry
6 11 (0.95%) Confluence
7 8 (0.69%) Appian
8 7 (0.60%) Apache Superset
9 5 (0.43%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.086%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.086%) Camunda
12 1 (0.086%) CICS
12 1 (0.086%) CMS
12 1 (0.086%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 22 (1.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.26%) Trello
7 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.43%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.34%) Aladdin
3 3 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.26%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.086%) Actimize
5 1 (0.086%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.086%) Maximo
5 1 (0.086%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.086%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 545 (46.82%) Azure
2 413 (35.48%) AWS
3 266 (22.85%) Power Platform
4 190 (16.32%) Azure Data Factory
5 163 (14.00%) GCP
6 140 (12.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 138 (11.86%) Snowflake
8 126 (10.82%) GitHub
9 125 (10.74%) Amazon S3
10 107 (9.19%) dbt
11 97 (8.33%) Azure DevOps
11 97 (8.33%) Serverless
12 79 (6.79%) AWS Lambda
13 76 (6.53%) GitHub Actions
14 47 (4.04%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (2.32%) AWS Step Functions
15 27 (2.32%) Dagster
16 26 (2.23%) Collibra
17 24 (2.06%) Amazon Kinesis
18 22 (1.89%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.43%) RTP
2 4 (0.34%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.34%) Kerberos
2 4 (0.34%) Network Security
3 3 (0.26%) VPN
4 1 (0.086%) 4G
4 1 (0.086%) 5G
4 1 (0.086%) Firewall
4 1 (0.086%) MIMO
4 1 (0.086%) SAN
4 1 (0.086%) SMS
4 1 (0.086%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 241 (20.70%) Power BI
2 230 (19.76%) Data Warehouse
3 183 (15.72%) Data Lake
4 107 (9.19%) Metadata
5 79 (6.79%) SQL Server
6 77 (6.62%) NoSQL
7 76 (6.53%) Delta Lake
8 74 (6.36%) Big Data
9 66 (5.67%) Amazon Redshift
10 64 (5.50%) Azure SQL Database
10 64 (5.50%) Tableau
11 61 (5.24%) Snowflake Schema
12 60 (5.15%) BigQuery
13 54 (4.64%) Relational Database
14 52 (4.47%) Amazon Athena
15 45 (3.87%) PostgreSQL
16 38 (3.26%) Hadoop
16 38 (3.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 33 (2.84%) Spark SQL
18 22 (1.89%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 149 (12.80%) Git
2 48 (4.12%) GitLab
3 40 (3.44%) MLflow
4 36 (3.09%) Jenkins
5 34 (2.92%) JIRA
6 7 (0.60%) Selenium
6 7 (0.60%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.26%) JUnit
7 3 (0.26%) Maven
7 3 (0.26%) Postman
7 3 (0.26%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.26%) Snyk
7 3 (0.26%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.17%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.17%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.17%) Mockito
8 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.086%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 293 (25.17%) Finance
2 285 (24.48%) Social Skills
3 180 (15.46%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (8.51%) Public Sector
5 63 (5.41%) Banking
6 28 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 21 (1.80%) Retail
8 16 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (1.37%) Influencing Skills
8 16 (1.37%) Marketing
9 15 (1.29%) Front Office
9 15 (1.29%) Telecoms
10 14 (1.20%) Investment Banking
10 14 (1.20%) Legal
11 12 (1.03%) Financial Institution
12 8 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
13 6 (0.52%) Back Office
13 6 (0.52%) Law
13 6 (0.52%) Military
13 6 (0.52%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 554 (47.59%) Data Engineer
2 157 (13.49%) Senior
3 132 (11.34%) Lead
4 111 (9.54%) Architect
5 106 (9.11%) Senior Data Engineer
6 72 (6.19%) Azure Engineer
7 70 (6.01%) Developer
8 59 (5.07%) Azure Data Engineer
9 58 (4.98%) Data Architect
10 55 (4.73%) Analyst
11 54 (4.64%) Lead Data Engineer
12 47 (4.04%) AWS Engineer
13 46 (3.95%) Snowflake Engineer
14 43 (3.69%) Data Scientist
15 38 (3.26%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 35 (3.01%) Consultant
17 33 (2.84%) AWS Data Engineer
18 32 (2.75%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
18 32 (2.75%) Data Analyst
19 30 (2.58%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 183 (15.72%) PySpark
2 142 (12.20%) Kafka
3 56 (4.81%) Pandas
4 42 (3.61%) PyTorch
4 42 (3.61%) scikit-learn
5 37 (3.18%) NumPy
6 33 (2.84%) TensorFlow
7 29 (2.49%) JSON
8 24 (2.06%) REST
9 23 (1.98%) Spring
9 23 (1.98%) YAML
10 22 (1.89%) pytest
10 22 (1.89%) React
11 20 (1.72%) LangChain
11 20 (1.72%) RESTful
12 19 (1.63%) FastAPI
13 18 (1.55%) Great Expectations
14 17 (1.46%) Flask
15 16 (1.37%) Spring Boot
16 14 (1.20%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 150 (12.89%) Cloud Native
2 38 (3.26%) Distributed Systems
2 38 (3.26%) Product Ownership
3 36 (3.09%) Legacy Systems
4 31 (2.66%) Data Structures
5 28 (2.41%) Distributed Computing
6 26 (2.23%) Algorithms
7 22 (1.89%) Onboarding
8 21 (1.80%) AI Agents
8 21 (1.80%) Hybrid Cloud
9 20 (1.72%) Greenfield Project
10 17 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
10 17 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
11 15 (1.29%) Clustering
12 14 (1.20%) NHS
13 12 (1.03%) Fixed Income
14 10 (0.86%) Management Information System
14 10 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
15 8 (0.69%) Low-Code
15 8 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.41%) Linux
2 16 (1.37%) Unix
3 8 (0.69%) VMS
4 3 (0.26%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.086%) CentOS
6 1 (0.086%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (50.86%) Analytics
2 525 (45.10%) Data Pipeline
3 465 (39.95%) ETL
4 457 (39.26%) Data Modelling
5 396 (34.02%) CI/CD
6 304 (26.12%) AI
7 301 (25.86%) Business Intelligence
8 297 (25.52%) DevOps
9 292 (25.09%) Agile
10 280 (24.05%) Data Governance
11 228 (19.59%) Machine Learning
12 222 (19.07%) Problem-Solving
13 217 (18.64%) Data Science
14 191 (16.41%) Data Architecture
15 146 (12.54%) Decision-Making
16 137 (11.77%) Infrastructure as Code
17 132 (11.34%) Validation
18 125 (10.74%) Data Transformation
19 122 (10.48%) Migration
20 111 (9.54%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 650 (55.84%) Python
2 625 (53.69%) SQL
3 101 (8.68%) Java
4 68 (5.84%) Scala
5 42 (3.61%) C#
6 39 (3.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 27 (2.32%) Bash
7 27 (2.32%) PowerShell
8 22 (1.89%) JavaScript
9 21 (1.80%) R
9 21 (1.80%) T-SQL
10 19 (1.63%) Bicep
11 14 (1.20%) Go
12 11 (0.95%) TypeScript
13 10 (0.86%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.77%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.52%) Korn
16 5 (0.43%) C++
16 5 (0.43%) SAS Macro
17 3 (0.26%) Rust
Qualifications
1 235 (20.19%) Security Cleared
2 203 (17.44%) SC Cleared
3 79 (6.79%) Degree
4 45 (3.87%) Azure Certification
5 38 (3.26%) Computer Science Degree
6 29 (2.49%) Master's Degree
7 16 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.29%) DV Cleared
9 12 (1.03%) AWS Certification
10 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.60%) PhD
12 4 (0.34%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.26%) SnowPro
14 2 (0.17%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
15 1 (0.086%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 1 (0.086%) CCSP
15 1 (0.086%) Cisco Certification
15 1 (0.086%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 323 (27.75%) Data Quality
2 91 (7.82%) GDPR
3 42 (3.61%) QA
4 13 (1.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 8 (0.69%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.43%) HIPAA
6 5 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.43%) PERC
7 4 (0.34%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 4 (0.34%) SLA
7 4 (0.34%) SOC 2
7 4 (0.34%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.26%) GRC
8 3 (0.26%) WCAG
9 2 (0.17%) HL7
9 2 (0.17%) MiFID
9 2 (0.17%) NIST
9 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.17%) PMO
10 1 (0.086%) FATCA
System Software
1 124 (10.65%) Docker
2 5 (0.43%) HDFS
3 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.086%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.086%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 167 (14.35%) Terraform
2 124 (10.65%) Kubernetes
3 26 (2.23%) Prometheus
4 14 (1.20%) Grafana
5 5 (0.43%) Ansible
5 5 (0.43%) Argo
6 4 (0.34%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.26%) Nagios
7 3 (0.26%) Rancher
8 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.17%) Kibana
8 2 (0.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.086%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.086%) Control-M
9 1 (0.086%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.086%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.086%) Oozie
Vendors
1 331 (28.44%) Databricks
2 178 (15.29%) Microsoft
3 60 (5.15%) Google
4 48 (4.12%) Informatica
5 35 (3.01%) Oracle
6 26 (2.23%) Talend
7 25 (2.15%) Foundry
8 21 (1.80%) OpenAI
9 20 (1.72%) Palantir
10 19 (1.63%) Splunk
11 17 (1.46%) SAP
12 15 (1.29%) Cloudera
13 14 (1.20%) ServiceNow
14 11 (0.95%) Denodo
15 9 (0.77%) Salesforce
15 9 (0.77%) UiPath
16 8 (0.69%) Automation Anywhere
17 6 (0.52%) MicroStrategy
18 5 (0.43%) IBM
18 5 (0.43%) Virgin Media