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

6 months to
28 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 157 206
Rank change year-on-year +73 +49 -13
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,218 444 418
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.92% 1.86% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 2.04% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 856 305 310
10th Percentile £400 £400 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £528 £550 £561
Median % change year-on-year -4.09% -2.00% -10.20%
75th Percentile £625 £688 £684
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 14 10 13
10th Percentile £52.90 £22.45 £30.55
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.72 £35.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £28.75 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year +143.48% -40.72% -35.33%
75th Percentile £82.31 £50.05 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.25 £54.88 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £28.75 £35.00
% change year-on-year +143.48% -17.86% -52.05%

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 35,433 21,759 31,490
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.85% 91.31% 85.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,494 14,185 20,632
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £411 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.25% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £512 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.19% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,215 937 2,283
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.20 £12.84
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £16.00
Median hourly rate £46.43 £28.18 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.76% -22.79% -2.46%
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.28 £27.52 £36.00
% change year-on-year +53.64% -23.57% -1.09%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +61 755 £550 -4.35% 303
North of England +10 136 £478 -4.50% 111
Midlands +17 126 £500 +8.11% 41
West Midlands +19 104 £500 -1.09% 27
South West +28 75 £500 -16.67% 30
South East -17 66 £550 +15.79% 88
Yorkshire -10 63 £478 -13.18% 25
North West -14 51 £506 +1.25% 63
North East -7 24 £450 -5.26% 24
East of England -20 22 £575 +54.08% 16
East Midlands -17 19 £525 +13.51% 14
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
1 170 (13.96%) Apache Spark
2 129 (10.59%) Apache Airflow
3 83 (6.81%) Apache
4 33 (2.71%) SAS
5 16 (1.31%) Confluence
6 15 (1.23%) Palantir Foundry
7 11 (0.90%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.66%) Appian
9 7 (0.57%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.33%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.16%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.082%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.082%) Camunda
12 1 (0.082%) CICS
12 1 (0.082%) CMS
12 1 (0.082%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.082%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 24 (1.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.25%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.25%) Trello
5 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.41%) Aladdin
1 5 (0.41%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.25%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.082%) Endur
5 1 (0.082%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.082%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 544 (44.66%) Azure
2 446 (36.62%) AWS
3 282 (23.15%) Power Platform
4 179 (14.70%) Azure Data Factory
5 176 (14.45%) GCP
6 159 (13.05%) Snowflake
7 135 (11.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 132 (10.84%) dbt
9 125 (10.26%) Amazon S3
10 120 (9.85%) GitHub
11 113 (9.28%) Azure DevOps
12 92 (7.55%) Serverless
13 74 (6.08%) AWS Lambda
14 72 (5.91%) GitHub Actions
15 36 (2.96%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (2.13%) AWS Step Functions
17 25 (2.05%) Azure AI
17 25 (2.05%) Dagster
18 24 (1.97%) Azure Cosmos DB
19 23 (1.89%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.41%) RTP
2 4 (0.33%) Firewall
3 2 (0.16%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.082%) 4G
4 1 (0.082%) 5G
4 1 (0.082%) MIMO
4 1 (0.082%) Network Security
4 1 (0.082%) SAN
4 1 (0.082%) SMS
4 1 (0.082%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.082%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 260 (21.35%) Power BI
2 229 (18.80%) Data Warehouse
3 200 (16.42%) Data Lake
4 106 (8.70%) Metadata
5 86 (7.06%) SQL Server
6 83 (6.81%) Big Data
7 82 (6.73%) Delta Lake
8 75 (6.16%) BigQuery
8 75 (6.16%) Tableau
9 70 (5.75%) NoSQL
10 66 (5.42%) Amazon Redshift
11 65 (5.34%) Snowflake Schema
12 60 (4.93%) Azure SQL Database
13 50 (4.11%) Relational Database
14 48 (3.94%) Amazon Athena
15 42 (3.45%) PostgreSQL
16 40 (3.28%) Hadoop
17 38 (3.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 33 (2.71%) Spark SQL
19 28 (2.30%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 138 (11.33%) Git
2 57 (4.68%) GitLab
3 44 (3.61%) JIRA
4 36 (2.96%) MLflow
5 26 (2.13%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.57%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.41%) Selenium
8 4 (0.33%) Postman
9 3 (0.25%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.25%) Robot Framework
9 3 (0.25%) Snyk
9 3 (0.25%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.16%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.16%) ERwin
10 2 (0.16%) Terragrunt
11 1 (0.082%) Deequ
11 1 (0.082%) git-flow
11 1 (0.082%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.082%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.082%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 315 (25.86%) Finance
2 278 (22.82%) Social Skills
3 180 (14.78%) Analytical Skills
4 102 (8.37%) Public Sector
5 75 (6.16%) Banking
6 29 (2.38%) Marketing
7 27 (2.22%) Retail
8 26 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 20 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
10 18 (1.48%) Front Office
11 15 (1.23%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.15%) Financial Institution
12 14 (1.15%) Investment Banking
13 11 (0.90%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (0.82%) Legal
15 6 (0.49%) Back Office
15 6 (0.49%) Law
15 6 (0.49%) Military
16 4 (0.33%) Pharmaceutical
17 3 (0.25%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 587 (48.19%) Data Engineer
2 170 (13.96%) Senior
3 132 (10.84%) Lead
4 126 (10.34%) Architect
5 110 (9.03%) Senior Data Engineer
6 64 (5.25%) Data Architect
6 64 (5.25%) Developer
7 54 (4.43%) Lead Data Engineer
8 53 (4.35%) Analyst
9 50 (4.11%) AWS Engineer
10 48 (3.94%) Azure Engineer
11 45 (3.69%) Snowflake Engineer
12 44 (3.61%) Data Scientist
13 43 (3.53%) AWS Data Engineer
14 42 (3.45%) Azure Data Engineer
14 42 (3.45%) Solutions Architect
15 39 (3.20%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 35 (2.87%) Consultant
17 30 (2.46%) Data Analyst
18 29 (2.38%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 173 (14.20%) PySpark
2 125 (10.26%) Kafka
3 51 (4.19%) Pandas
4 38 (3.12%) scikit-learn
5 35 (2.87%) PyTorch
6 32 (2.63%) REST
7 31 (2.55%) NumPy
8 26 (2.13%) JSON
8 26 (2.13%) TensorFlow
9 23 (1.89%) React
9 23 (1.89%) Spring
10 17 (1.40%) Great Expectations
10 17 (1.40%) LangChain
10 17 (1.40%) YAML
11 16 (1.31%) pytest
11 16 (1.31%) RESTful
11 16 (1.31%) Spring Boot
12 14 (1.15%) FastAPI
13 12 (0.99%) Flask
13 12 (0.99%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 157 (12.89%) Cloud Native
2 43 (3.53%) Distributed Systems
3 42 (3.45%) Legacy Systems
4 40 (3.28%) Product Ownership
5 37 (3.04%) Data Structures
6 29 (2.38%) AI Agents
7 28 (2.30%) Distributed Computing
8 22 (1.81%) Onboarding
9 21 (1.72%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
11 17 (1.40%) Algorithms
11 17 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (1.07%) Fixed Income
13 12 (0.99%) Clustering
13 12 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
14 11 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
14 11 (0.90%) NHS
15 10 (0.82%) Equities
16 9 (0.74%) Data Fabric
16 9 (0.74%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.38%) Linux
2 25 (2.05%) Unix
3 6 (0.49%) VMS
4 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.25%) Windows
5 2 (0.16%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.082%) CentOS
6 1 (0.082%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 618 (50.74%) Analytics
2 561 (46.06%) Data Pipeline
3 476 (39.08%) Data Modelling
4 456 (37.44%) ETL
5 411 (33.74%) CI/CD
6 353 (28.98%) AI
7 315 (25.86%) Business Intelligence
8 304 (24.96%) Agile
9 303 (24.88%) DevOps
10 262 (21.51%) Data Governance
11 229 (18.80%) Machine Learning
12 204 (16.75%) Problem-Solving
13 200 (16.42%) Data Science
14 169 (13.88%) Data Architecture
15 160 (13.14%) Decision-Making
16 154 (12.64%) Migration
16 154 (12.64%) Validation
17 127 (10.43%) Data Transformation
17 127 (10.43%) Infrastructure as Code
18 115 (9.44%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 671 (55.09%) SQL
2 634 (52.05%) Python
3 104 (8.54%) Java
4 51 (4.19%) Scala
5 40 (3.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 37 (3.04%) C#
7 29 (2.38%) Bash
8 24 (1.97%) T-SQL
9 20 (1.64%) PowerShell
10 18 (1.48%) JavaScript
11 17 (1.40%) R
12 16 (1.31%) PL/SQL
13 15 (1.23%) Bicep
14 12 (0.99%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.82%) TypeScript
16 7 (0.57%) Go
16 7 (0.57%) SAS Macro
17 4 (0.33%) Korn
18 3 (0.25%) Kusto Query Language
19 2 (0.16%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 229 (18.80%) Security Cleared
2 203 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 78 (6.40%) Degree
4 35 (2.87%) Azure Certification
5 34 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 27 (2.22%) Master's Degree
7 19 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.15%) DBS Check
9 12 (0.99%) DV Cleared
10 11 (0.90%) AWS Certification
11 8 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
12 5 (0.41%) PhD
13 4 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.33%) SnowPro
14 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.16%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.16%) Tableau Certification
16 1 (0.082%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 1 (0.082%) ACCA
16 1 (0.082%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 335 (27.50%) Data Quality
2 83 (6.81%) GDPR
3 62 (5.09%) QA
4 12 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 8 (0.66%) SLA
6 5 (0.41%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.33%) HIPAA
7 4 (0.33%) MiFID
7 4 (0.33%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.25%) GRC
8 3 (0.25%) PMO
9 2 (0.16%) EMIR
9 2 (0.16%) NIST
10 1 (0.082%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.082%) FATCA
10 1 (0.082%) IFRS
10 1 (0.082%) ISO 13485
10 1 (0.082%) SOC 2
System Software
1 111 (9.11%) Docker
2 4 (0.33%) HDFS
2 4 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.082%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.082%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 150 (12.32%) Terraform
2 106 (8.70%) Kubernetes
3 23 (1.89%) Prometheus
4 10 (0.82%) Grafana
5 9 (0.74%) Ansible
6 5 (0.41%) Argo
7 3 (0.25%) Kibana
7 3 (0.25%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.25%) Nagios
7 3 (0.25%) Rancher
8 2 (0.16%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.16%) logstash
8 2 (0.16%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.082%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.082%) Control-M
9 1 (0.082%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.082%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.082%) Oozie
Vendors
1 306 (25.12%) Databricks
2 202 (16.58%) Microsoft
3 58 (4.76%) Informatica
4 57 (4.68%) Google
5 46 (3.78%) Oracle
6 26 (2.13%) OpenAI
6 26 (2.13%) Talend
7 23 (1.89%) SAP
8 22 (1.81%) Foundry
9 19 (1.56%) Splunk
10 17 (1.40%) Palantir
11 16 (1.31%) Cloudera
12 12 (0.99%) ServiceNow
13 10 (0.82%) Salesforce
14 9 (0.74%) UiPath
15 8 (0.66%) Automation Anywhere
16 7 (0.57%) Denodo
16 7 (0.57%) InterSystems
17 5 (0.41%) Workday
18 4 (0.33%) Alteryx