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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 147 191
Rank change year-on-year +62 +44 +3
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,405 526 424
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.04% 1.92% 1.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.59% 2.12% 1.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 982 331 312
10th Percentile £400 £363 £400
25th Percentile £450 £419 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
75th Percentile £643 £644 £676
90th Percentile £750 £750 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £507 £575
% change year-on-year +3.55% -11.83% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 6 6
10th Percentile - £37.11 £23.88
25th Percentile £21.25 £42.03 £34.88
Median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% -12.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £75.00 £62.19 -
90th Percentile £84.27 £87.50 -
UK median hourly rate £66.25 £52.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +26.19% -12.50% -23.08%

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 39,157 24,863 28,050
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.69% 90.87% 86.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,010 15,784 17,561
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £638 £625 £648
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,714 1,478 1,320
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.29 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.85 £17.79 £20.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% -1.81%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.74 £66.53
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 +54 870 £550 - 1,529
North of England +23 181 £475 - 294
Midlands +28 126 £486 +7.93% 119
West Midlands +25 103 £475 -6.31% 94
South East -15 91 £500 +13.64% 226
Yorkshire +31 90 £500 +5.26% 72
South West +18 79 £525 -3.45% 115
North West -22 58 £513 +8.47% 185
North East -8 35 £425 -20.93% 38
East of England -16 27 £550 +22.22% 74
East Midlands 0 21 £525 +20.62% 25
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
1 168 (11.96%) Apache Airflow
2 151 (10.75%) Apache Spark
3 116 (8.26%) Apache
4 35 (2.49%) SAS
5 32 (2.28%) Confluence
6 20 (1.42%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.21%) Palantir Foundry
8 15 (1.07%) SharePoint
9 6 (0.43%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.36%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.36%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.21%) nginx
12 2 (0.14%) PowerExchange
13 1 (0.071%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.071%) CICS
13 1 (0.071%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.071%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 14 (1.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.36%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.071%) Notion
Business Applications
1 8 (0.57%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.28%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.28%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.14%) BambooHR
4 2 (0.14%) Endur
4 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
4 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
4 2 (0.14%) Workday HCM
5 1 (0.071%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.071%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.071%) SAP ECC
5 1 (0.071%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 1 (0.071%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 588 (41.85%) Azure
2 526 (37.44%) AWS
3 264 (18.79%) Power Platform
4 229 (16.30%) Snowflake
5 205 (14.59%) GCP
6 199 (14.16%) dbt
7 156 (11.10%) Azure Data Factory
8 154 (10.96%) Amazon S3
9 126 (8.97%) Azure DevOps
9 126 (8.97%) Serverless
10 121 (8.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 106 (7.54%) GitHub
12 102 (7.26%) AWS Lambda
13 66 (4.70%) Azure Databricks
14 54 (3.84%) GitHub Actions
15 35 (2.49%) Amazon EMR
16 33 (2.35%) Amazon Bedrock
17 32 (2.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 31 (2.21%) Microsoft Purview
19 29 (2.06%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) DNS
2 4 (0.28%) Firewall
2 4 (0.28%) Network Security
3 2 (0.14%) Broadband
4 1 (0.071%) Internet
4 1 (0.071%) MIMO
4 1 (0.071%) MQTT
4 1 (0.071%) RTP
4 1 (0.071%) SMS
4 1 (0.071%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 284 (20.21%) Data Warehouse
2 250 (17.79%) Power BI
3 180 (12.81%) Data Lake
4 163 (11.60%) Metadata
5 112 (7.97%) BigQuery
6 95 (6.76%) Delta Lake
7 87 (6.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 77 (5.48%) Big Data
9 68 (4.84%) Tableau
10 62 (4.41%) Amazon Athena
11 57 (4.06%) SQL Server
12 50 (3.56%) Snowflake Schema
13 47 (3.35%) Relational Database
14 43 (3.06%) PostgreSQL
15 41 (2.92%) NoSQL
16 37 (2.63%) Azure SQL Database
17 36 (2.56%) Looker
18 29 (2.06%) Data Vault
18 29 (2.06%) Star Schema
19 28 (1.99%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 144 (10.25%) Git
2 79 (5.62%) GitLab
3 60 (4.27%) JIRA
4 23 (1.64%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.57%) MLflow
6 8 (0.57%) Bitbucket
6 8 (0.57%) RStudio
6 8 (0.57%) Terragrunt
7 7 (0.50%) Claude Code
8 6 (0.43%) ERwin
8 6 (0.43%) Selenium
9 5 (0.36%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.28%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.21%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 3 (0.21%) Snyk
12 2 (0.14%) Postman
12 2 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.14%) TeamCity
12 2 (0.14%) Yeoman
General
1 349 (24.84%) Social Skills
2 323 (22.99%) Finance
3 227 (16.16%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (10.11%) Public Sector
5 119 (8.47%) Banking
6 45 (3.20%) Marketing
7 33 (2.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 30 (2.14%) Retail
9 20 (1.42%) Front Office
9 20 (1.42%) Investment Banking
10 19 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
11 17 (1.21%) Pharmaceutical
12 16 (1.14%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.14%) Telecoms
13 12 (0.85%) Billing
13 12 (0.85%) Influencing Skills
14 11 (0.78%) Financial Institution
14 11 (0.78%) Law
15 10 (0.71%) Back Office
15 10 (0.71%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 647 (46.05%) Data Engineer
2 211 (15.02%) Senior
3 161 (11.46%) Lead
4 155 (11.03%) Architect
5 136 (9.68%) Senior Data Engineer
6 87 (6.19%) Data Architect
7 75 (5.34%) Developer
8 66 (4.70%) AWS Engineer
9 62 (4.41%) Analyst
10 57 (4.06%) AWS Data Engineer
11 54 (3.84%) Snowflake Engineer
12 53 (3.77%) Databricks Engineer
13 49 (3.49%) Azure Engineer
13 49 (3.49%) Lead Data Engineer
14 42 (2.99%) Databricks Data Engineer
14 42 (2.99%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 40 (2.85%) Solutions Architect
16 38 (2.70%) Consultant
17 34 (2.42%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 34 (2.42%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (14.73%) Terraform
2 199 (14.16%) PySpark
3 88 (6.26%) Kafka
4 56 (3.99%) REST
5 33 (2.35%) React
6 28 (1.99%) .NET
7 27 (1.92%) JSON
8 21 (1.49%) Pandas
9 13 (0.93%) PyTorch
10 12 (0.85%) LangChain
10 12 (0.85%) NumPy
10 12 (0.85%) scikit-learn
11 11 (0.78%) FastAPI
11 11 (0.78%) Microsoft Graph
11 11 (0.78%) TensorFlow
12 10 (0.71%) Apache Avro
12 10 (0.71%) Great Expectations
12 10 (0.71%) pytest
13 9 (0.64%) RabbitMQ
13 9 (0.64%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 182 (12.95%) Cloud Native
2 67 (4.77%) Data Structures
3 65 (4.63%) Onboarding
4 57 (4.06%) Product Ownership
5 48 (3.42%) Legacy Systems
6 42 (2.99%) AI Agents
7 40 (2.85%) Distributed Systems
8 20 (1.42%) Distributed Computing
9 19 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
10 18 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
10 18 (1.28%) NHS
10 18 (1.28%) Virtual Team
11 17 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
12 15 (1.07%) Life Science
13 14 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
13 14 (1.00%) Management Information System
14 13 (0.93%) Algorithms
14 13 (0.93%) Clustering
14 13 (0.93%) Data Fabric
15 12 (0.85%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 28 (1.99%) Linux
2 25 (1.78%) Unix
3 7 (0.50%) Windows
4 1 (0.071%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.071%) Robot Operating System
4 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.071%) VMS
4 1 (0.071%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 693 (49.32%) Data Pipeline
2 672 (47.83%) Analytics
3 540 (38.43%) Data Modelling
4 500 (35.59%) CI/CD
5 485 (34.52%) ETL
6 434 (30.89%) AI
7 339 (24.13%) Agile
7 339 (24.13%) DevOps
8 332 (23.63%) Business Intelligence
9 316 (22.49%) Data Governance
10 244 (17.37%) Machine Learning
11 239 (17.01%) Stakeholder Management
12 227 (16.16%) Data Transformation
12 227 (16.16%) Problem-Solving
13 222 (15.80%) Data Architecture
14 218 (15.52%) Validation
15 217 (15.44%) Migration
16 209 (14.88%) Infrastructure as Code
17 206 (14.66%) Decision-Making
18 199 (14.16%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 760 (54.09%) SQL
2 716 (50.96%) Python
3 99 (7.05%) Java
4 42 (2.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 38 (2.70%) PowerShell
6 37 (2.63%) Scala
7 33 (2.35%) C#
8 31 (2.21%) Bash
9 28 (1.99%) JavaScript
10 21 (1.49%) R
10 21 (1.49%) T-SQL
11 17 (1.21%) PL/SQL
12 13 (0.93%) Bicep
12 13 (0.93%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
13 11 (0.78%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.64%) SAS Macro
15 7 (0.50%) LookML
15 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
16 6 (0.43%) Korn
Qualifications
1 274 (19.50%) Security Cleared
2 230 (16.37%) SC Cleared
3 72 (5.12%) Degree
4 35 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (2.28%) DV Cleared
6 29 (2.06%) Azure Certification
7 23 (1.64%) AWS Certification
7 23 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (1.35%) Master's Degree
9 14 (1.00%) DBS Check
10 11 (0.78%) SnowPro
11 9 (0.64%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
13 6 (0.43%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.36%) PMP
15 4 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 4 (0.28%) Tableau Certification
16 3 (0.21%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 3 (0.21%) PhD
16 3 (0.21%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 463 (32.95%) Data Quality
2 73 (5.20%) QA
3 60 (4.27%) GDPR
4 26 (1.85%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.85%) SLA
6 5 (0.36%) PMO
7 4 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.21%) GRC
8 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.21%) MiFID
8 3 (0.21%) NIST
9 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
9 2 (0.14%) EU AI Act
9 2 (0.14%) IFRS
9 2 (0.14%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.14%) NCSC
9 2 (0.14%) Solvency II
System Software
1 124 (8.83%) Docker
2 5 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.071%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 97 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 24 (1.71%) Ansible
3 19 (1.35%) Grafana
4 10 (0.71%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.50%) Control-M
6 6 (0.43%) Kibana
7 3 (0.21%) logstash
8 2 (0.14%) Argo
8 2 (0.14%) Puppet
9 1 (0.071%) Cilium
9 1 (0.071%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.071%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.071%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.071%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.071%) Nagios
9 1 (0.071%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.071%) QRadar
9 1 (0.071%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 369 (26.26%) Databricks
2 256 (18.22%) Microsoft
3 74 (5.27%) Google
4 65 (4.63%) Informatica
5 64 (4.56%) Oracle
6 28 (1.99%) Foundry
6 28 (1.99%) SAP
7 25 (1.78%) Palantir
8 24 (1.71%) Talend
9 22 (1.57%) Salesforce
10 16 (1.14%) OpenAI
11 13 (0.93%) Cloudera
12 12 (0.85%) ServiceNow
12 12 (0.85%) Teradata
12 12 (0.85%) Trend Micro
13 10 (0.71%) Adobe
14 7 (0.50%) Hitachi
14 7 (0.50%) Splunk
15 6 (0.43%) Alteryx
15 6 (0.43%) SnapLogic