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

6 months to
12 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 146 216
Rank change year-on-year +58 +70 +4
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,045 458 415
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.87% 1.86% 1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.32% 2.05% 1.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 728 328 309
10th Percentile £387 £400 £413
25th Percentile £450 £463 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
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 11
10th Percentile £56.75 £22.00 £30.37
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.25 £33.13
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.43 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +175.27% -27.34% -
75th Percentile £79.38 £29.38 £46.88
90th Percentile £90.00 £65.00 £65.00
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 31,521 22,327 33,048
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 86.53% 90.61% 86.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,160 14,432 21,853
10th Percentile £313 £308 £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 £615 £638 £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 1,961 797 2,159
10th Percentile £15.25 £15.25 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £34.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +6.15% -9.72%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.63 £70.53
UK median hourly rate £29.61 £32.50 £32.50
% change year-on-year -8.89% - -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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +57 685 £550 -4.35% 298
North of England +2 107 £460 -8.00% 138
Midlands +17 105 £514 +2.75% 72
West Midlands +3 85 £525 +5.00% 48
South West +14 61 £550 -15.38% 59
North West -8 51 £450 -2.70% 64
South East -31 41 £550 +10.00% 170
Yorkshire -41 35 £478 -20.42% 61
North East +7 21 £450 -10.00% 13
East Midlands -19 20 £447 -12.78% 23
East of England -27 14 £575 +79.69% 50
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
1 166 (15.89%) Apache Spark
2 100 (9.57%) Apache Airflow
3 71 (6.79%) Apache
4 19 (1.82%) Palantir Foundry
4 19 (1.82%) SAS
5 9 (0.86%) Confluence
6 8 (0.77%) Appian
7 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.29%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.29%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.19%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.096%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.096%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.096%) Camunda
10 1 (0.096%) CMS
10 1 (0.096%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.096%) Luigi
Applications
1 18 (1.72%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.38%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.38%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.29%) Trello
6 2 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (0.67%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.29%) BambooHR
2 3 (0.29%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.096%) Actimize
4 1 (0.096%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.096%) Maximo
4 1 (0.096%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.096%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.096%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 491 (46.99%) Azure
2 369 (35.31%) AWS
3 238 (22.78%) Power Platform
4 186 (17.80%) Azure Data Factory
5 151 (14.45%) GCP
6 131 (12.54%) Snowflake
7 116 (11.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 112 (10.72%) Amazon S3
8 112 (10.72%) GitHub
9 98 (9.38%) Serverless
10 95 (9.09%) dbt
11 88 (8.42%) Azure DevOps
12 79 (7.56%) AWS Lambda
13 69 (6.60%) GitHub Actions
14 45 (4.31%) AWS CloudFormation
15 28 (2.68%) AWS Step Functions
16 25 (2.39%) Azure Machine Learning
17 23 (2.20%) Collibra
18 22 (2.11%) Amazon EMR
18 22 (2.11%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.38%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.38%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.38%) Network Security
1 4 (0.38%) RTP
2 3 (0.29%) VPN
3 1 (0.096%) 4G
3 1 (0.096%) 5G
3 1 (0.096%) SAN
3 1 (0.096%) SMS
3 1 (0.096%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 217 (20.77%) Power BI
2 207 (19.81%) Data Warehouse
3 152 (14.55%) Data Lake
4 93 (8.90%) Metadata
5 76 (7.27%) NoSQL
6 74 (7.08%) Big Data
6 74 (7.08%) SQL Server
7 65 (6.22%) Delta Lake
8 58 (5.55%) Snowflake Schema
9 56 (5.36%) Amazon Redshift
10 54 (5.17%) Relational Database
11 53 (5.07%) Azure SQL Database
12 51 (4.88%) BigQuery
13 49 (4.69%) Tableau
14 45 (4.31%) Amazon Athena
15 44 (4.21%) PostgreSQL
16 42 (4.02%) Hadoop
17 34 (3.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 30 (2.87%) Spark SQL
19 22 (2.11%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 144 (13.78%) Git
2 46 (4.40%) GitLab
3 41 (3.92%) Jenkins
4 38 (3.64%) MLflow
5 19 (1.82%) JIRA
6 6 (0.57%) Selenium
7 4 (0.38%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.38%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.29%) JUnit
8 3 (0.29%) Maven
8 3 (0.29%) Postman
8 3 (0.29%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.29%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.19%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.19%) ERwin
9 2 (0.19%) Mockito
9 2 (0.19%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.096%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.096%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.096%) TeamCity
General
1 279 (26.70%) Social Skills
2 254 (24.31%) Finance
3 158 (15.12%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (8.71%) Public Sector
5 64 (6.12%) Banking
6 28 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 19 (1.82%) Investment Banking
7 19 (1.82%) Retail
8 18 (1.72%) Front Office
9 17 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.44%) Marketing
11 14 (1.34%) Documentation Skills
12 11 (1.05%) Legal
12 11 (1.05%) Telecoms
13 10 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 10 (0.96%) Pharmaceutical
14 9 (0.86%) Publishing
15 6 (0.57%) Back Office
15 6 (0.57%) Military
16 5 (0.48%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 493 (47.18%) Data Engineer
2 143 (13.68%) Lead
3 133 (12.73%) Senior
4 94 (9.00%) Senior Data Engineer
5 87 (8.33%) Architect
6 73 (6.99%) Azure Engineer
7 67 (6.41%) Developer
8 59 (5.65%) Azure Data Engineer
9 51 (4.88%) Lead Data Engineer
10 48 (4.59%) Analyst
11 45 (4.31%) Snowflake Engineer
12 44 (4.21%) Data Architect
13 42 (4.02%) AWS Engineer
14 41 (3.92%) Data Scientist
15 38 (3.64%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 36 (3.44%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 29 (2.78%) Principal Engineer
18 28 (2.68%) AWS Data Engineer
19 27 (2.58%) Consultant
19 27 (2.58%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 178 (17.03%) PySpark
2 135 (12.92%) Kafka
3 57 (5.45%) Pandas
4 49 (4.69%) PyTorch
5 44 (4.21%) scikit-learn
6 40 (3.83%) NumPy
7 38 (3.64%) TensorFlow
8 30 (2.87%) JSON
9 28 (2.68%) FastAPI
9 28 (2.68%) RESTful
10 25 (2.39%) pytest
10 25 (2.39%) YAML
11 24 (2.30%) Flask
12 22 (2.11%) LangChain
12 22 (2.11%) React
13 19 (1.82%) REST
14 18 (1.72%) Spring
15 17 (1.63%) Great Expectations
16 15 (1.44%) Hugging Face
17 13 (1.24%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 132 (12.63%) Cloud Native
2 40 (3.83%) Product Ownership
3 34 (3.25%) Distributed Systems
4 33 (3.16%) Algorithms
5 29 (2.78%) Distributed Computing
6 26 (2.49%) Legacy Systems
7 24 (2.30%) Data Structures
8 22 (2.11%) Hybrid Cloud
9 18 (1.72%) Data Protection Act
9 18 (1.72%) Onboarding
10 17 (1.63%) AI Agents
11 16 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
12 14 (1.34%) Fixed Income
12 14 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
13 12 (1.15%) Clustering
14 11 (1.05%) Derivative
15 10 (0.96%) Equities
15 10 (0.96%) Management Information System
15 10 (0.96%) NHS
16 9 (0.86%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 25 (2.39%) Linux
2 9 (0.86%) Unix
3 7 (0.67%) VMS
4 3 (0.29%) Windows
5 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.19%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.096%) CentOS
6 1 (0.096%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 500 (47.85%) Analytics
2 472 (45.17%) Data Pipeline
3 428 (40.96%) ETL
4 418 (40.00%) Data Modelling
5 363 (34.74%) CI/CD
6 275 (26.32%) AI
7 274 (26.22%) Agile
8 268 (25.65%) Business Intelligence
9 267 (25.55%) DevOps
10 265 (25.36%) Data Governance
11 221 (21.15%) Machine Learning
12 209 (20.00%) Problem-Solving
13 201 (19.23%) Data Science
14 165 (15.79%) Data Architecture
15 124 (11.87%) Infrastructure as Code
16 121 (11.58%) Decision-Making
17 107 (10.24%) Validation
18 102 (9.76%) LLM
18 102 (9.76%) Performance Tuning
19 100 (9.57%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 626 (59.90%) Python
2 576 (55.12%) SQL
3 82 (7.85%) Java
4 64 (6.12%) Scala
5 45 (4.31%) C#
6 33 (3.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 29 (2.78%) Bash
8 28 (2.68%) JavaScript
8 28 (2.68%) PowerShell
9 22 (2.11%) Bicep
10 18 (1.72%) T-SQL
11 17 (1.63%) TypeScript
12 16 (1.53%) Go
13 15 (1.44%) R
14 11 (1.05%) C++
15 8 (0.77%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.57%) Korn
16 6 (0.57%) Rust
16 6 (0.57%) Shell Script
17 3 (0.29%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 208 (19.90%) Security Cleared
2 171 (16.36%) SC Cleared
3 86 (8.23%) Degree
4 46 (4.40%) Azure Certification
5 41 (3.92%) Computer Science Degree
6 36 (3.44%) Master's Degree
7 22 (2.11%) DV Cleared
8 15 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.34%) AWS Certification
10 11 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
11 10 (0.96%) PhD
12 4 (0.38%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (0.19%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 1 (0.096%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 1 (0.096%) CCSP
14 1 (0.096%) Cisco Certification
14 1 (0.096%) CISSP
14 1 (0.096%) SnowPro
14 1 (0.096%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 292 (27.94%) Data Quality
2 87 (8.33%) GDPR
3 35 (3.35%) QA
4 11 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (0.96%) Accessibility
6 8 (0.77%) HIPAA
7 6 (0.57%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 5 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.48%) PERC
8 5 (0.48%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.29%) GRC
9 3 (0.29%) SLA
9 3 (0.29%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.29%) WCAG
10 2 (0.19%) HL7
10 2 (0.19%) MiFID
10 2 (0.19%) NIST
10 2 (0.19%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.096%) FATCA
11 1 (0.096%) GxP
System Software
1 130 (12.44%) Docker
2 5 (0.48%) HDFS
3 3 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.096%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 159 (15.22%) Terraform
2 135 (12.92%) Kubernetes
3 25 (2.39%) Prometheus
4 13 (1.24%) Grafana
5 4 (0.38%) Argo
6 3 (0.29%) Ansible
6 3 (0.29%) Kubeflow
6 3 (0.29%) 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 (0.096%) Apache Ranger
8 1 (0.096%) Control-M
8 1 (0.096%) HP Fortify
8 1 (0.096%) Oozie
Vendors
1 302 (28.90%) Databricks
2 144 (13.78%) Microsoft
3 57 (5.45%) Google
4 33 (3.16%) Informatica
5 29 (2.78%) Oracle
6 25 (2.39%) Foundry
6 25 (2.39%) Talend
7 23 (2.20%) Palantir
8 22 (2.11%) OpenAI
9 17 (1.63%) Splunk
10 14 (1.34%) SAP
11 12 (1.15%) Cloudera
12 11 (1.05%) Salesforce
13 10 (0.96%) Denodo
14 9 (0.86%) UiPath
15 8 (0.77%) Automation Anywhere
16 7 (0.67%) ServiceNow
17 6 (0.57%) Guidewire
17 6 (0.57%) MicroStrategy
17 6 (0.57%) Virgin Media