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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 83 153 196
Rank change year-on-year +70 +43 -8
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,180 457 423
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.88% 1.88% 1.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.40% 2.06% 1.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 830 313 313
10th Percentile £400 £400 £392
25th Percentile £450 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £688
90th Percentile £749 £838 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 14 11
10th Percentile £52.90 £22.00 £30.37
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.55 £33.13
Median hourly rate £70.00 £28.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +143.48% -17.86% -52.05%
75th Percentile £82.31 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.25 £65.00 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +154.55% -21.43% -35.48%

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 34,728 22,194 31,472
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.62% 91.24% 86.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,149 14,504 20,626
10th Percentile £322 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £507 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.65% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,129 949 2,251
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.38 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.22 £15.97
Median hourly rate £45.78 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +57.86% -20.55% +0.29%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.40 £28.18 £36.02
% change year-on-year +50.46% -21.77% +0.06%

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 19 May 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 19 May 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 19 May 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 +56 733 £550 -4.35% 241
North of England +5 124 £480 -4.00% 98
Midlands +20 122 £500 +8.11% 42
West Midlands +23 101 £500 +16.01% 34
South West +29 78 £506 -15.75% 33
South East -24 63 £550 +12.02% 88
Yorkshire -11 55 £478 -13.18% 25
North West -19 49 £500 +2.56% 46
North East -2 22 £450 -5.26% 28
East of England -19 22 £575 +54.08% 11
East Midlands -20 18 £475 +1.33% 8
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
1 174 (14.75%) Apache Spark
2 118 (10.00%) Apache Airflow
3 76 (6.44%) Apache
4 31 (2.63%) SAS
5 15 (1.27%) Palantir Foundry
6 14 (1.19%) Confluence
7 9 (0.76%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.68%) Appian
9 7 (0.59%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.085%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.085%) Camunda
12 1 (0.085%) CICS
12 1 (0.085%) CMS
12 1 (0.085%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 24 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.25%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.25%) Trello
5 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.42%) Aladdin
1 5 (0.42%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.25%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.085%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.085%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.085%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 531 (45.00%) Azure
2 428 (36.27%) AWS
3 269 (22.80%) Power Platform
4 176 (14.92%) GCP
5 175 (14.83%) Azure Data Factory
6 140 (11.86%) Snowflake
7 137 (11.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 122 (10.34%) Amazon S3
9 120 (10.17%) GitHub
10 119 (10.08%) dbt
11 99 (8.39%) Azure DevOps
12 92 (7.80%) Serverless
13 74 (6.27%) AWS Lambda
14 72 (6.10%) GitHub Actions
15 39 (3.31%) AWS CloudFormation
16 28 (2.37%) AWS Step Functions
17 25 (2.12%) Dagster
18 24 (2.03%) Amazon SQS
18 24 (2.03%) Azure AI
18 24 (2.03%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.42%) RTP
2 4 (0.34%) Firewall
3 2 (0.17%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.085%) 4G
4 1 (0.085%) 5G
4 1 (0.085%) MIMO
4 1 (0.085%) Network Security
4 1 (0.085%) SAN
4 1 (0.085%) SMS
4 1 (0.085%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.085%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 247 (20.93%) Power BI
2 226 (19.15%) Data Warehouse
3 191 (16.19%) Data Lake
4 105 (8.90%) Metadata
5 82 (6.95%) SQL Server
6 80 (6.78%) Big Data
6 80 (6.78%) Delta Lake
7 71 (6.02%) BigQuery
7 71 (6.02%) NoSQL
8 70 (5.93%) Tableau
9 66 (5.59%) Amazon Redshift
10 62 (5.25%) Azure SQL Database
10 62 (5.25%) Snowflake Schema
11 52 (4.41%) Relational Database
12 51 (4.32%) Amazon Athena
13 43 (3.64%) PostgreSQL
14 38 (3.22%) Hadoop
15 35 (2.97%) Spark SQL
15 35 (2.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 28 (2.37%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 135 (11.44%) Git
2 50 (4.24%) GitLab
3 39 (3.31%) JIRA
3 39 (3.31%) MLflow
4 27 (2.29%) Jenkins
5 6 (0.51%) SonarQube
6 5 (0.42%) Selenium
7 3 (0.25%) Postman
7 3 (0.25%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.25%) Snyk
8 2 (0.17%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.17%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.085%) Ant
9 1 (0.085%) ERwin
9 1 (0.085%) JUnit
9 1 (0.085%) Maven
9 1 (0.085%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.085%) SoapUI
General
1 306 (25.93%) Finance
2 263 (22.29%) Social Skills
3 175 (14.83%) Analytical Skills
4 100 (8.47%) Public Sector
5 64 (5.42%) Banking
6 25 (2.12%) Retail
7 24 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 21 (1.78%) Marketing
9 17 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
9 17 (1.44%) Front Office
10 15 (1.27%) Telecoms
11 14 (1.19%) Financial Institution
12 13 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
13 12 (1.02%) Investment Banking
14 10 (0.85%) Legal
15 8 (0.68%) Military
16 6 (0.51%) Back Office
16 6 (0.51%) Law
17 4 (0.34%) Pharmaceutical
18 3 (0.25%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 579 (49.07%) Data Engineer
2 159 (13.47%) Senior
3 128 (10.85%) Lead
4 120 (10.17%) Architect
5 110 (9.32%) Senior Data Engineer
6 66 (5.59%) Developer
7 61 (5.17%) Data Architect
8 57 (4.83%) Azure Engineer
9 51 (4.32%) Analyst
9 51 (4.32%) Lead Data Engineer
10 50 (4.24%) Azure Data Engineer
11 49 (4.15%) AWS Engineer
12 44 (3.73%) Snowflake Engineer
13 41 (3.47%) Data Scientist
14 40 (3.39%) Solutions Architect
15 39 (3.31%) AWS Data Engineer
15 39 (3.31%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 33 (2.80%) Consultant
17 29 (2.46%) Data Analyst
18 28 (2.37%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 180 (15.25%) PySpark
2 130 (11.02%) Kafka
3 50 (4.24%) Pandas
4 37 (3.14%) scikit-learn
5 36 (3.05%) PyTorch
6 32 (2.71%) NumPy
7 26 (2.20%) TensorFlow
8 25 (2.12%) REST
9 23 (1.95%) JSON
9 23 (1.95%) Spring
10 22 (1.86%) React
11 19 (1.61%) LangChain
11 19 (1.61%) YAML
12 18 (1.53%) Great Expectations
12 18 (1.53%) pytest
12 18 (1.53%) RESTful
13 16 (1.36%) Spring Boot
14 15 (1.27%) FastAPI
15 14 (1.19%) Flask
16 13 (1.10%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 151 (12.80%) Cloud Native
2 40 (3.39%) Distributed Systems
3 39 (3.31%) Legacy Systems
4 38 (3.22%) Product Ownership
5 34 (2.88%) Data Structures
6 30 (2.54%) Distributed Computing
7 27 (2.29%) AI Agents
8 21 (1.78%) Greenfield Project
9 20 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
9 20 (1.69%) Onboarding
10 19 (1.61%) Algorithms
11 17 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
12 14 (1.19%) Fixed Income
13 12 (1.02%) Clustering
13 12 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
13 12 (1.02%) NHS
13 12 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
14 10 (0.85%) Equities
15 8 (0.68%) Derivative
15 8 (0.68%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.37%) Linux
2 22 (1.86%) Unix
3 6 (0.51%) VMS
4 3 (0.25%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.085%) CentOS
6 1 (0.085%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 602 (51.02%) Analytics
2 539 (45.68%) Data Pipeline
3 470 (39.83%) Data Modelling
4 449 (38.05%) ETL
5 392 (33.22%) CI/CD
6 328 (27.80%) AI
7 306 (25.93%) Business Intelligence
8 293 (24.83%) Agile
9 288 (24.41%) DevOps
10 259 (21.95%) Data Governance
11 221 (18.73%) Machine Learning
12 199 (16.86%) Problem-Solving
13 198 (16.78%) Data Science
14 168 (14.24%) Data Architecture
15 155 (13.14%) Decision-Making
16 144 (12.20%) Migration
17 142 (12.03%) Validation
18 127 (10.76%) Infrastructure as Code
19 124 (10.51%) Data Transformation
20 112 (9.49%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 651 (55.17%) SQL
2 624 (52.88%) Python
3 96 (8.14%) Java
4 60 (5.08%) Scala
5 40 (3.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 36 (3.05%) C#
7 27 (2.29%) Bash
8 23 (1.95%) T-SQL
9 22 (1.86%) JavaScript
10 20 (1.69%) PowerShell
10 20 (1.69%) R
11 15 (1.27%) Bicep
12 13 (1.10%) PL/SQL
13 11 (0.93%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.93%) TypeScript
14 8 (0.68%) Go
15 7 (0.59%) SAS Macro
16 4 (0.34%) Korn
17 2 (0.17%) C++
17 2 (0.17%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 228 (19.32%) Security Cleared
2 199 (16.86%) SC Cleared
3 78 (6.61%) Degree
4 34 (2.88%) Azure Certification
5 33 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
6 28 (2.37%) Master's Degree
7 16 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.19%) DV Cleared
9 11 (0.93%) AWS Certification
10 9 (0.76%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.51%) PhD
13 4 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 4 (0.34%) SnowPro
14 2 (0.17%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
15 1 (0.085%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 1 (0.085%) OCP
15 1 (0.085%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 331 (28.05%) Data Quality
2 82 (6.95%) GDPR
3 54 (4.58%) QA
4 12 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 6 (0.51%) Accessibility
5 6 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.42%) SLA
7 4 (0.34%) HIPAA
7 4 (0.34%) MiFID
7 4 (0.34%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.25%) GRC
8 3 (0.25%) PMO
9 2 (0.17%) EMIR
9 2 (0.17%) NIST
9 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.085%) FATCA
10 1 (0.085%) HL7
10 1 (0.085%) SNOMED CT
10 1 (0.085%) WCAG
System Software
1 114 (9.66%) Docker
2 4 (0.34%) HDFS
3 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.085%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.085%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 151 (12.80%) Terraform
2 111 (9.41%) Kubernetes
3 23 (1.95%) Prometheus
4 10 (0.85%) Grafana
5 8 (0.68%) Ansible
6 5 (0.42%) Argo
7 4 (0.34%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.25%) Kibana
8 3 (0.25%) Nagios
8 3 (0.25%) Rancher
9 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
9 2 (0.17%) logstash
9 2 (0.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.085%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.085%) Control-M
10 1 (0.085%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.085%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.085%) Oozie
Vendors
1 307 (26.02%) Databricks
2 193 (16.36%) Microsoft
3 60 (5.08%) Google
4 52 (4.41%) Informatica
5 38 (3.22%) Oracle
6 23 (1.95%) Talend
7 22 (1.86%) Foundry
7 22 (1.86%) OpenAI
8 21 (1.78%) SAP
9 19 (1.61%) Splunk
10 16 (1.36%) Palantir
11 15 (1.27%) Cloudera
12 12 (1.02%) ServiceNow
13 10 (0.85%) Salesforce
14 9 (0.76%) UiPath
15 8 (0.68%) Automation Anywhere
16 7 (0.59%) InterSystems
17 6 (0.51%) Denodo
18 5 (0.42%) Workday
19 4 (0.34%) MicroStrategy