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

6 months to
15 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 153 218
Rank change year-on-year +64 +65 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,067 458 415
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.89% 1.84% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.34% 2.03% 1.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 743 326 312
10th Percentile £393 £400 £413
25th Percentile £450 £463 £473
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £676 £688
90th Percentile £738 £838 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 11 10
10th Percentile £56.75 £22.00 £29.51
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.25 £32.19
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.43 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +175.27% -27.34% -
75th Percentile £79.38 £29.38 £48.56
90th Percentile £90.00 £65.00 £60.88
UK median hourly rate £69.44 £25.43 £35.00
% change year-on-year +173.06% -27.34% -

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 31,916 22,554 32,925
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.52% 90.61% 86.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,413 14,598 21,798
10th Percentile £313 £310 £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 £639 £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 1,990 810 2,146
10th Percentile £15.31 £15.22 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.50 £34.06 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.44% +4.78% -12.16%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%

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 15 March 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 15 March 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 15 March 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 +54 699 £550 -4.35% 258
Midlands +23 108 £513 +2.50% 48
North of England 0 108 £458 -8.50% 98
West Midlands +7 87 £523 +4.50% 36
South West +6 62 £550 -15.38% 41
North West -1 51 £450 -2.70% 45
South East -36 43 £550 +10.00% 128
Yorkshire -34 36 £475 -20.83% 42
North East +8 21 £450 -10.00% 12
East Midlands -17 20 £447 -12.78% 12
East of England -28 14 £575 +79.69% 19
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 (15.93%) Apache Spark
2 108 (10.12%) Apache Airflow
3 75 (7.03%) Apache
4 19 (1.78%) Palantir Foundry
4 19 (1.78%) SAS
5 9 (0.84%) Confluence
6 8 (0.75%) Appian
7 4 (0.37%) Apache Superset
7 4 (0.37%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.19%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.094%) Apache Synapse
9 1 (0.094%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.094%) Camunda
9 1 (0.094%) CMS
9 1 (0.094%) IBM HTTP Server
9 1 (0.094%) Luigi
Applications
1 20 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.37%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.37%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.28%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.66%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.28%) BambooHR
2 3 (0.28%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.094%) Actimize
4 1 (0.094%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.094%) Maximo
4 1 (0.094%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.094%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.094%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 504 (47.24%) Azure
2 376 (35.24%) AWS
3 240 (22.49%) Power Platform
4 192 (17.99%) Azure Data Factory
5 152 (14.25%) GCP
6 132 (12.37%) Snowflake
7 120 (11.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 120 (11.25%) GitHub
8 113 (10.59%) Amazon S3
9 100 (9.37%) Serverless
10 97 (9.09%) dbt
11 93 (8.72%) Azure DevOps
12 80 (7.50%) AWS Lambda
13 75 (7.03%) GitHub Actions
14 45 (4.22%) AWS CloudFormation
15 28 (2.62%) AWS Step Functions
16 25 (2.34%) Azure Machine Learning
17 23 (2.16%) Collibra
18 22 (2.06%) Amazon EMR
18 22 (2.06%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.37%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.37%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.37%) Network Security
1 4 (0.37%) RTP
2 3 (0.28%) VPN
3 1 (0.094%) 4G
3 1 (0.094%) 5G
3 1 (0.094%) Firewall
3 1 (0.094%) SAN
3 1 (0.094%) SMS
3 1 (0.094%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 219 (20.52%) Power BI
2 212 (19.87%) Data Warehouse
3 159 (14.90%) Data Lake
4 97 (9.09%) Metadata
5 77 (7.22%) NoSQL
6 76 (7.12%) Big Data
6 76 (7.12%) SQL Server
7 71 (6.65%) Delta Lake
8 58 (5.44%) Amazon Redshift
8 58 (5.44%) Snowflake Schema
9 55 (5.15%) Azure SQL Database
9 55 (5.15%) Relational Database
10 52 (4.87%) BigQuery
11 51 (4.78%) Tableau
12 46 (4.31%) PostgreSQL
13 45 (4.22%) Amazon Athena
14 42 (3.94%) Hadoop
15 34 (3.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 30 (2.81%) Spark SQL
17 22 (2.06%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 147 (13.78%) Git
2 47 (4.40%) GitLab
3 42 (3.94%) Jenkins
4 41 (3.84%) MLflow
5 20 (1.87%) JIRA
6 6 (0.56%) Selenium
7 4 (0.37%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.37%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.28%) JUnit
8 3 (0.28%) Maven
8 3 (0.28%) Postman
8 3 (0.28%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.28%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.19%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.19%) ERwin
9 2 (0.19%) Mockito
9 2 (0.19%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.094%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.094%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.094%) TeamCity
General
1 285 (26.71%) Social Skills
2 261 (24.46%) Finance
3 165 (15.46%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (8.43%) Public Sector
5 63 (5.90%) Banking
6 28 (2.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 19 (1.78%) Front Office
7 19 (1.78%) Investment Banking
7 19 (1.78%) Retail
8 17 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (1.50%) Marketing
10 14 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
11 12 (1.12%) Legal
12 11 (1.03%) Telecoms
13 10 (0.94%) Financial Institution
13 10 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
14 9 (0.84%) Publishing
15 6 (0.56%) Back Office
15 6 (0.56%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.56%) Military
Job Titles
1 505 (47.33%) Data Engineer
2 144 (13.50%) Lead
3 134 (12.56%) Senior
4 95 (8.90%) Senior Data Engineer
5 89 (8.34%) Architect
6 73 (6.84%) Azure Engineer
7 68 (6.37%) Developer
8 59 (5.53%) Azure Data Engineer
9 52 (4.87%) Lead Data Engineer
10 49 (4.59%) Analyst
11 45 (4.22%) Data Architect
11 45 (4.22%) Snowflake Engineer
12 43 (4.03%) Data Scientist
13 42 (3.94%) AWS Engineer
14 38 (3.56%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 35 (3.28%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 30 (2.81%) Consultant
17 29 (2.72%) Principal Engineer
18 28 (2.62%) AWS Data Engineer
18 28 (2.62%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 185 (17.34%) PySpark
2 139 (13.03%) Kafka
3 59 (5.53%) Pandas
4 49 (4.59%) PyTorch
5 46 (4.31%) scikit-learn
6 42 (3.94%) NumPy
7 38 (3.56%) TensorFlow
8 30 (2.81%) JSON
9 28 (2.62%) FastAPI
9 28 (2.62%) RESTful
10 25 (2.34%) pytest
10 25 (2.34%) YAML
11 24 (2.25%) Flask
12 23 (2.16%) React
13 22 (2.06%) LangChain
14 20 (1.87%) REST
15 18 (1.69%) Spring
16 17 (1.59%) Great Expectations
17 15 (1.41%) Hugging Face
18 14 (1.31%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 140 (13.12%) Cloud Native
2 40 (3.75%) Product Ownership
3 35 (3.28%) Distributed Systems
4 34 (3.19%) Algorithms
5 30 (2.81%) Legacy Systems
6 29 (2.72%) Distributed Computing
7 24 (2.25%) Data Structures
8 23 (2.16%) Hybrid Cloud
9 19 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
10 17 (1.59%) Onboarding
11 16 (1.50%) AI Agents
11 16 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (1.31%) Fixed Income
14 12 (1.12%) Clustering
15 11 (1.03%) Derivative
15 11 (1.03%) Management Information System
16 10 (0.94%) Equities
16 10 (0.94%) NHS
17 9 (0.84%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.62%) Linux
2 12 (1.12%) Unix
3 7 (0.66%) VMS
4 3 (0.28%) Windows
5 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.19%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.094%) CentOS
6 1 (0.094%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 512 (47.99%) Analytics
2 482 (45.17%) Data Pipeline
3 439 (41.14%) ETL
4 428 (40.11%) Data Modelling
5 376 (35.24%) CI/CD
6 281 (26.34%) Agile
7 276 (25.87%) AI
8 275 (25.77%) DevOps
9 272 (25.49%) Business Intelligence
9 272 (25.49%) Data Governance
10 222 (20.81%) Machine Learning
11 216 (20.24%) Problem-Solving
12 204 (19.12%) Data Science
13 173 (16.21%) Data Architecture
14 127 (11.90%) Infrastructure as Code
15 123 (11.53%) Decision-Making
16 111 (10.40%) Validation
17 105 (9.84%) Performance Tuning
18 104 (9.75%) Data Integration
18 104 (9.75%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 637 (59.70%) Python
2 591 (55.39%) SQL
3 83 (7.78%) Java
4 67 (6.28%) Scala
5 45 (4.22%) C#
6 33 (3.09%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 30 (2.81%) Bash
8 29 (2.72%) PowerShell
9 28 (2.62%) JavaScript
10 22 (2.06%) Bicep
11 18 (1.69%) T-SQL
11 18 (1.69%) TypeScript
12 16 (1.50%) Go
12 16 (1.50%) R
13 11 (1.03%) C++
14 9 (0.84%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.75%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.56%) Korn
16 6 (0.56%) Rust
17 3 (0.28%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 213 (19.96%) Security Cleared
2 176 (16.49%) SC Cleared
3 90 (8.43%) Degree
4 48 (4.50%) Azure Certification
5 42 (3.94%) Computer Science Degree
6 38 (3.56%) Master's Degree
7 23 (2.16%) DV Cleared
8 15 (1.41%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.31%) AWS Certification
10 11 (1.03%) Microsoft Certification
11 10 (0.94%) PhD
12 4 (0.37%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.37%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (0.19%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 1 (0.094%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 1 (0.094%) CCSP
14 1 (0.094%) OCP
14 1 (0.094%) Oracle Certification
14 1 (0.094%) SnowPro
14 1 (0.094%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 300 (28.12%) Data Quality
2 88 (8.25%) GDPR
3 36 (3.37%) QA
4 11 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (0.94%) Accessibility
6 8 (0.75%) HIPAA
7 6 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 5 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.47%) PERC
8 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.28%) GRC
9 3 (0.28%) SLA
9 3 (0.28%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.28%) WCAG
10 2 (0.19%) HL7
10 2 (0.19%) MiFID
10 2 (0.19%) NIST
10 2 (0.19%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.094%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.094%) NCSC
System Software
1 132 (12.37%) Docker
2 5 (0.47%) HDFS
3 3 (0.28%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.094%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 163 (15.28%) Terraform
2 135 (12.65%) Kubernetes
3 25 (2.34%) Prometheus
4 13 (1.22%) Grafana
5 4 (0.37%) Ansible
5 4 (0.37%) Argo
6 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
6 3 (0.28%) Rancher
7 2 (0.19%) Hadoop YARN
7 2 (0.19%) Kibana
7 2 (0.19%) Nagios
7 2 (0.19%) Thomson Reuters DACS
8 1 (0.094%) Apache Ranger
8 1 (0.094%) Control-M
8 1 (0.094%) HP Fortify
8 1 (0.094%) Oozie
Vendors
1 312 (29.24%) Databricks
2 149 (13.96%) Microsoft
3 57 (5.34%) Google
4 35 (3.28%) Informatica
5 31 (2.91%) Oracle
6 25 (2.34%) Foundry
6 25 (2.34%) Talend
7 23 (2.16%) Palantir
8 22 (2.06%) OpenAI
9 17 (1.59%) Splunk
10 15 (1.41%) SAP
11 14 (1.31%) Cloudera
12 10 (0.94%) Denodo
12 10 (0.94%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.84%) UiPath
14 8 (0.75%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.75%) ServiceNow
15 6 (0.56%) MicroStrategy
16 5 (0.47%) Charles River
16 5 (0.47%) Murex