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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 145 201
Rank change year-on-year +57 +56 0
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,410 532 421
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.04% 1.91% 1.28%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.58% 2.10% 1.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 984 335 309
10th Percentile £400 £362 £398
25th Percentile £450 £425 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £647 £688
90th Percentile £749 £758 £776
UK median daily rate £525 £510 £575
% change year-on-year +2.99% -11.35% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 6 7
10th Percentile - £37.11 £24.40
25th Percentile £21.25 £42.03 £43.25
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 39,332 25,280 28,365
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.86% 90.86% 86.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,139 16,057 17,805
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 £650
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 2,708 1,495 1,348
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.36 £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% +0.58%
75th Percentile £68.00 £49.88 £66.53
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.65 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.92%

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 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 12 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 12 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 +51 877 £550 - 894
North of England +14 178 £475 - 145
Midlands +29 129 £486 +7.88% 68
West Midlands +25 105 £475 -6.31% 47
South East -10 92 £500 +13.64% 177
Yorkshire +20 89 £500 +5.26% 31
South West +21 75 £525 -3.45% 74
North West -25 56 £513 +8.47% 88
North East -14 35 £425 -20.93% 26
East of England -8 27 £550 +22.22% 55
East Midlands -6 21 £525 +20.62% 21
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
1 174 (12.34%) Apache Airflow
2 153 (10.85%) Apache Spark
3 119 (8.44%) Apache
4 35 (2.48%) SAS
5 32 (2.27%) Confluence
6 21 (1.49%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.21%) Palantir Foundry
8 15 (1.06%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.50%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.35%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.35%) 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 16 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.35%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 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
1 596 (42.27%) Azure
2 524 (37.16%) AWS
3 266 (18.87%) Power Platform
4 224 (15.89%) Snowflake
5 199 (14.11%) GCP
6 195 (13.83%) dbt
7 161 (11.42%) Azure Data Factory
8 151 (10.71%) Amazon S3
9 131 (9.29%) Azure DevOps
10 125 (8.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 124 (8.79%) Serverless
12 112 (7.94%) GitHub
13 100 (7.09%) AWS Lambda
14 70 (4.96%) Azure Databricks
15 59 (4.18%) GitHub Actions
16 34 (2.41%) Amazon EMR
17 33 (2.34%) Amazon Bedrock
18 31 (2.20%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 31 (2.20%) Microsoft Purview
19 29 (2.06%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.35%) Firewall
2 4 (0.28%) DNS
2 4 (0.28%) Network Security
3 1 (0.071%) Broadband
3 1 (0.071%) Internet
3 1 (0.071%) MIMO
3 1 (0.071%) MQTT
3 1 (0.071%) RTP
3 1 (0.071%) SMS
3 1 (0.071%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 286 (20.28%) Data Warehouse
2 252 (17.87%) Power BI
3 186 (13.19%) Data Lake
4 166 (11.77%) Metadata
5 111 (7.87%) BigQuery
6 102 (7.23%) Delta Lake
7 89 (6.31%) Amazon Redshift
8 77 (5.46%) Big Data
9 69 (4.89%) Tableau
10 61 (4.33%) Amazon Athena
11 59 (4.18%) SQL Server
12 49 (3.48%) Snowflake Schema
13 47 (3.33%) Relational Database
14 45 (3.19%) PostgreSQL
15 42 (2.98%) NoSQL
16 39 (2.77%) Azure SQL Database
17 36 (2.55%) Looker
18 31 (2.20%) Star Schema
19 29 (2.06%) Data Vault
20 27 (1.91%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 143 (10.14%) Git
2 79 (5.60%) GitLab
3 61 (4.33%) JIRA
4 25 (1.77%) MLflow
5 24 (1.70%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.57%) RStudio
6 8 (0.57%) Terragrunt
7 7 (0.50%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.43%) Claude Code
8 6 (0.43%) ERwin
8 6 (0.43%) Selenium
9 5 (0.35%) 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
1 352 (24.96%) Social Skills
2 326 (23.12%) Finance
3 231 (16.38%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (10.07%) Public Sector
5 116 (8.23%) Banking
6 46 (3.26%) Marketing
7 33 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 30 (2.13%) Retail
9 20 (1.42%) Front Office
10 19 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
10 19 (1.35%) Investment Banking
11 17 (1.21%) Manufacturing
12 16 (1.13%) Pharmaceutical
12 16 (1.13%) Telecoms
13 12 (0.85%) Billing
14 11 (0.78%) Financial Institution
14 11 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
14 11 (0.78%) Law
15 10 (0.71%) Legal
15 10 (0.71%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 648 (45.96%) Data Engineer
2 209 (14.82%) Senior
3 160 (11.35%) Lead
4 156 (11.06%) Architect
5 134 (9.50%) Senior Data Engineer
6 87 (6.17%) Data Architect
7 76 (5.39%) Developer
8 65 (4.61%) AWS Engineer
9 63 (4.47%) Analyst
10 56 (3.97%) AWS Data Engineer
11 54 (3.83%) Databricks Engineer
12 52 (3.69%) Snowflake Engineer
13 50 (3.55%) Lead Data Engineer
14 49 (3.48%) Azure Engineer
15 42 (2.98%) Databricks Data Engineer
16 41 (2.91%) Consultant
17 40 (2.84%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 40 (2.84%) Solutions Architect
18 35 (2.48%) Data Analyst
19 34 (2.41%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 208 (14.75%) Terraform
2 207 (14.68%) PySpark
3 90 (6.38%) Kafka
4 55 (3.90%) REST
5 33 (2.34%) React
6 27 (1.91%) .NET
6 27 (1.91%) JSON
7 23 (1.63%) Pandas
8 14 (0.99%) NumPy
8 14 (0.99%) scikit-learn
9 13 (0.92%) PyTorch
10 11 (0.78%) FastAPI
10 11 (0.78%) LangChain
10 11 (0.78%) Microsoft Graph
10 11 (0.78%) TensorFlow
11 10 (0.71%) Apache Avro
11 10 (0.71%) Great Expectations
11 10 (0.71%) pytest
12 9 (0.64%) RESTful
12 9 (0.64%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 182 (12.91%) Cloud Native
2 66 (4.68%) Data Structures
3 63 (4.47%) Onboarding
4 56 (3.97%) Product Ownership
5 52 (3.69%) Legacy Systems
6 41 (2.91%) AI Agents
6 41 (2.91%) Distributed Systems
7 19 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
7 19 (1.35%) Distributed Computing
7 19 (1.35%) Greenfield Project
8 18 (1.28%) NHS
9 17 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
9 17 (1.21%) Virtual Team
10 15 (1.06%) Life Science
10 15 (1.06%) Management Information System
11 14 (0.99%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (0.92%) Algorithms
12 13 (0.92%) Clustering
12 13 (0.92%) Data Fabric
13 12 (0.85%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 31 (2.20%) Linux
2 27 (1.91%) 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
1 695 (49.29%) Data Pipeline
2 674 (47.80%) Analytics
3 542 (38.44%) Data Modelling
4 505 (35.82%) CI/CD
5 489 (34.68%) ETL
6 425 (30.14%) AI
7 344 (24.40%) DevOps
8 340 (24.11%) Agile
9 337 (23.90%) Business Intelligence
10 322 (22.84%) Data Governance
11 243 (17.23%) Machine Learning
12 237 (16.81%) Stakeholder Management
13 232 (16.45%) Problem-Solving
14 229 (16.24%) Data Architecture
15 228 (16.17%) Data Transformation
16 225 (15.96%) Migration
17 217 (15.39%) Validation
18 207 (14.68%) Infrastructure as Code
19 202 (14.33%) Decision-Making
20 200 (14.18%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 763 (54.11%) SQL
2 718 (50.92%) Python
3 97 (6.88%) Java
4 42 (2.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 39 (2.77%) PowerShell
5 39 (2.77%) Scala
6 32 (2.27%) Bash
7 31 (2.20%) C#
8 28 (1.99%) JavaScript
9 22 (1.56%) R
10 21 (1.49%) T-SQL
11 17 (1.21%) PL/SQL
12 13 (0.92%) Bicep
12 13 (0.92%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.92%) TypeScript
13 11 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
14 9 (0.64%) SAS Macro
15 7 (0.50%) LookML
15 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
16 6 (0.43%) Korn
Qualifications
1 279 (19.79%) Security Cleared
2 235 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 75 (5.32%) Degree
4 36 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (2.34%) DV Cleared
6 31 (2.20%) Azure Certification
7 23 (1.63%) AWS Certification
7 23 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (1.42%) Master's Degree
9 14 (0.99%) 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 (0.35%) 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 (32.84%) Data Quality
2 74 (5.25%) QA
3 61 (4.33%) GDPR
4 26 (1.84%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.85%) SLA
6 5 (0.35%) 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
1 125 (8.87%) Docker
2 5 (0.35%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.071%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 97 (6.88%) Kubernetes
2 25 (1.77%) 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
1 377 (26.74%) Databricks
2 259 (18.37%) Microsoft
3 71 (5.04%) Google
4 67 (4.75%) Informatica
5 66 (4.68%) Oracle
6 29 (2.06%) SAP
7 28 (1.99%) Foundry
8 25 (1.77%) Palantir
9 24 (1.70%) Talend
10 22 (1.56%) Salesforce
11 16 (1.13%) OpenAI
12 15 (1.06%) Cloudera
13 13 (0.92%) ServiceNow
14 12 (0.85%) Teradata
14 12 (0.85%) Trend Micro
15 9 (0.64%) Adobe
16 7 (0.50%) Hitachi
16 7 (0.50%) InterSystems
16 7 (0.50%) Splunk
17 6 (0.43%) Alteryx