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

6 months to
3 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 147 201
Rank change year-on-year +65 +54 -5
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,406 519 417
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.10% 1.87% 1.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.64% 2.06% 1.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 992 335 305
10th Percentile £390 £363 £394
25th Percentile £449 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £585
Median % change year-on-year - -10.26% -6.40%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £713
90th Percentile £750 £800 £778
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £575
% change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 6 12
10th Percentile £21.25 £30.73 £22.59
25th Percentile £35.00 £42.03 £31.03
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% +10.53% -39.10%
75th Percentile £75.00 £62.19 £60.00
90th Percentile £87.50 £87.50 -
UK median hourly rate £69.72 £52.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +32.80% +50.00% -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 38,664 25,206 28,667
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.24% 90.74% 85.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,131 16,135 18,803
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £757
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,474 1,396 1,685
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £20.69 £17.87 £18.16
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £68.75 £51.14 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.85 £70.08 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.33
% change year-on-year +74.79% -37.63% -5.12%

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 3 August 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 3 August 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 3 August 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 +59 841 £550 - 504
North of England +28 179 £463 -5.13% 128
Midlands +42 146 £487 +6.07% 36
West Midlands +34 121 £475 -0.63% 27
South East -26 86 £525 +11.94% 119
Yorkshire +12 84 £475 +2.70% 42
South West +30 83 £505 -7.13% 50
North West -21 58 £500 +5.26% 63
North East -5 39 £425 -15.00% 24
East of England -1 29 £575 +35.29% 19
East Midlands -5 22 £525 +14.38% 9
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
1 179 (12.73%) Apache Spark
2 162 (11.52%) Apache Airflow
3 114 (8.11%) Apache
4 42 (2.99%) SAS
5 29 (2.06%) Confluence
6 23 (1.64%) Jupyter
7 20 (1.42%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.78%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.57%) Apache Superset
10 3 (0.21%) Apache Solr
10 3 (0.21%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.071%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.071%) Appian
12 1 (0.071%) CICS
12 1 (0.071%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.071%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 18 (1.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.28%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.071%) Notion
Business Applications
1 12 (0.85%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.36%) BambooHR
4 4 (0.28%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.28%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.14%) Endur
5 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.14%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.14%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.071%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.071%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.071%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.071%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.071%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 593 (42.18%) Azure
2 537 (38.19%) AWS
3 285 (20.27%) Power Platform
4 213 (15.15%) Snowflake
5 193 (13.73%) GCP
6 181 (12.87%) dbt
7 163 (11.59%) Azure Data Factory
8 146 (10.38%) Amazon S3
9 141 (10.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 128 (9.10%) Azure DevOps
11 112 (7.97%) Serverless
12 110 (7.82%) GitHub
13 93 (6.61%) AWS Lambda
14 64 (4.55%) GitHub Actions
15 36 (2.56%) Amazon EMR
16 28 (1.99%) Amazon Bedrock
17 27 (1.92%) Amazon SageMaker
17 27 (1.92%) AWS Step Functions
17 27 (1.92%) Azure AI
17 27 (1.92%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) Firewall
2 2 (0.14%) Network Security
2 2 (0.14%) RTP
3 1 (0.071%) 4G
3 1 (0.071%) 5G
3 1 (0.071%) MIMO
3 1 (0.071%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 278 (19.77%) Data Warehouse
2 265 (18.85%) Power BI
3 195 (13.87%) Data Lake
4 136 (9.67%) Metadata
5 95 (6.76%) BigQuery
6 94 (6.69%) Delta Lake
7 92 (6.54%) Amazon Redshift
8 85 (6.05%) Big Data
9 83 (5.90%) Tableau
10 69 (4.91%) SQL Server
11 62 (4.41%) NoSQL
12 61 (4.34%) Amazon Athena
13 57 (4.05%) Snowflake Schema
14 51 (3.63%) Relational Database
15 48 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
16 39 (2.77%) Azure SQL Database
17 35 (2.49%) Hadoop
18 33 (2.35%) Looker
18 33 (2.35%) Star Schema
19 31 (2.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 141 (10.03%) Git
2 68 (4.84%) GitLab
3 57 (4.05%) JIRA
4 25 (1.78%) MLflow
5 23 (1.64%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.43%) Bitbucket
8 5 (0.36%) ERwin
9 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.21%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.21%) Postman
9 3 (0.21%) Selenium
9 3 (0.21%) Snyk
9 3 (0.21%) Sonatype Nexus
9 3 (0.21%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.14%) Yeoman
11 1 (0.071%) git-flow
11 1 (0.071%) Octopus Deploy
11 1 (0.071%) Robot Framework
11 1 (0.071%) RStudio
General
1 338 (24.04%) Social Skills
2 330 (23.47%) Finance
3 231 (16.43%) Analytical Skills
4 153 (10.88%) Public Sector
5 107 (7.61%) Banking
6 40 (2.84%) Marketing
7 34 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 33 (2.35%) Retail
9 26 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
10 25 (1.78%) Telecoms
11 24 (1.71%) Front Office
12 19 (1.35%) Investment Banking
13 16 (1.14%) Financial Institution
14 15 (1.07%) Manufacturing
15 14 (1.00%) Pharmaceutical
16 11 (0.78%) Law
17 10 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
18 9 (0.64%) Legal
19 8 (0.57%) Billing
19 8 (0.57%) Military
Job Titles
1 647 (46.02%) Data Engineer
2 198 (14.08%) Senior
3 170 (12.09%) Lead
4 164 (11.66%) Architect
5 120 (8.53%) Senior Data Engineer
6 87 (6.19%) Data Architect
7 81 (5.76%) Developer
8 69 (4.91%) AWS Engineer
9 67 (4.77%) Analyst
10 60 (4.27%) Lead Data Engineer
11 58 (4.13%) AWS Data Engineer
12 55 (3.91%) Azure Engineer
13 52 (3.70%) Snowflake Engineer
14 47 (3.34%) Azure Data Engineer
15 45 (3.20%) Solutions Architect
16 43 (3.06%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 41 (2.92%) Data Scientist
18 40 (2.84%) Consultant
18 40 (2.84%) Data Analyst
19 32 (2.28%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (14.01%) PySpark
2 117 (8.32%) Kafka
3 41 (2.92%) REST
4 33 (2.35%) Pandas
5 31 (2.20%) JSON
6 25 (1.78%) React
7 24 (1.71%) scikit-learn
8 21 (1.49%) Spring
9 19 (1.35%) .NET
9 19 (1.35%) NumPy
9 19 (1.35%) PyTorch
10 14 (1.00%) OpenTelemetry
10 14 (1.00%) Spring Boot
10 14 (1.00%) TensorFlow
11 13 (0.92%) RESTful
12 12 (0.85%) Apache Avro
13 11 (0.78%) Microsoft Graph
14 10 (0.71%) FastAPI
14 10 (0.71%) Node.js
14 10 (0.71%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 186 (13.23%) Cloud Native
2 59 (4.20%) Data Structures
2 59 (4.20%) Legacy Systems
3 56 (3.98%) Distributed Systems
4 53 (3.77%) Product Ownership
5 41 (2.92%) Onboarding
6 31 (2.20%) AI Agents
7 25 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
8 22 (1.56%) Distributed Computing
9 21 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.35%) NHS
11 17 (1.21%) Clustering
12 16 (1.14%) Algorithms
12 16 (1.14%) Virtual Team
13 15 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (1.00%) Life Science
15 13 (0.92%) Management Information System
16 12 (0.85%) Fixed Income
17 11 (0.78%) Reference Data
17 11 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.06%) Linux
2 26 (1.85%) Unix
3 7 (0.50%) Windows
4 3 (0.21%) VMS
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 710 (50.50%) Analytics
2 682 (48.51%) Data Pipeline
3 542 (38.55%) Data Modelling
4 489 (34.78%) CI/CD
5 478 (34.00%) ETL
6 389 (27.67%) AI
7 359 (25.53%) Agile
8 345 (24.54%) Business Intelligence
9 328 (23.33%) DevOps
10 303 (21.55%) Data Governance
11 253 (17.99%) Machine Learning
12 241 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
13 228 (16.22%) Data Science
14 206 (14.65%) Decision-Making
15 205 (14.58%) Migration
15 205 (14.58%) Validation
16 203 (14.44%) Data Architecture
17 190 (13.51%) Data Transformation
18 185 (13.16%) Stakeholder Management
19 175 (12.45%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 765 (54.41%) SQL
2 714 (50.78%) Python
3 114 (8.11%) Java
4 42 (2.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 35 (2.49%) Scala
6 34 (2.42%) C#
7 33 (2.35%) Bash
8 28 (1.99%) PowerShell
9 25 (1.78%) T-SQL
10 20 (1.42%) JavaScript
11 19 (1.35%) R
12 18 (1.28%) Bicep
13 16 (1.14%) PL/SQL
14 14 (1.00%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.85%) SAS Macro
16 10 (0.71%) TypeScript
17 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
18 6 (0.43%) Cypher
19 5 (0.36%) Korn
19 5 (0.36%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 275 (19.56%) Security Cleared
2 237 (16.86%) SC Cleared
3 88 (6.26%) Degree
4 41 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 30 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 28 (1.99%) Azure Certification
7 26 (1.85%) Master's Degree
8 25 (1.78%) DV Cleared
9 17 (1.21%) AWS Certification
10 13 (0.92%) DBS Check
11 7 (0.50%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.50%) SnowPro
12 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (0.36%) Tableau Certification
13 3 (0.21%) PhD
14 2 (0.14%) CSPO
14 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 2 (0.14%) PMI Certification
15 1 (0.071%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 410 (29.16%) Data Quality
2 76 (5.41%) QA
3 70 (4.98%) GDPR
4 22 (1.56%) Accessibility
5 10 (0.71%) SLA
6 4 (0.28%) NIST
6 4 (0.28%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.28%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.21%) GxP
7 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (0.21%) MiFID
7 3 (0.21%) PMO
8 2 (0.14%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.14%) EMIR
8 2 (0.14%) GRC
9 1 (0.071%) COPPA
9 1 (0.071%) IFRS 17
System Software
1 121 (8.61%) Docker
2 4 (0.28%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.14%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 184 (13.09%) Terraform
2 107 (7.61%) Kubernetes
3 18 (1.28%) Prometheus
4 15 (1.07%) Ansible
5 12 (0.85%) Grafana
6 5 (0.36%) Kibana
7 3 (0.21%) logstash
8 2 (0.14%) Argo
8 2 (0.14%) Control-M
8 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.14%) Rancher
8 2 (0.14%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.071%) Cilium
9 1 (0.071%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.071%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.071%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.071%) Nagios
9 1 (0.071%) Oozie
9 1 (0.071%) QRadar
Vendors
1 348 (24.75%) Databricks
2 241 (17.14%) Microsoft
3 73 (5.19%) Informatica
4 61 (4.34%) Oracle
5 60 (4.27%) Google
6 31 (2.20%) SAP
7 30 (2.13%) Foundry
7 30 (2.13%) Talend
8 29 (2.06%) Palantir
9 20 (1.42%) Splunk
10 18 (1.28%) OpenAI
10 18 (1.28%) Salesforce
11 17 (1.21%) Cloudera
12 14 (1.00%) ServiceNow
13 12 (0.85%) Trend Micro
14 8 (0.57%) Denodo
14 8 (0.57%) Workday
15 7 (0.50%) Adobe
15 7 (0.50%) InterSystems
16 6 (0.43%) Teradata