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

6 months to
6 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 148 211
Rank change year-on-year +63 +63 -10
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,153 454 411
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.98% 1.86% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 2.05% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 807 319 308
10th Percentile £400 £400 £413
25th Percentile £450 £461 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £560
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £625 £688 £675
90th Percentile £750 £838 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 12 11
10th Percentile £53.45 £22.00 £30.37
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.38 £33.13
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.97 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +169.59% -25.81% -53.33%
75th Percentile £80.88 £35.94 £55.13
90th Percentile £89.00 £63.88 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £25.97 £35.00
% change year-on-year +169.59% -25.81% -36.36%

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 33,181 22,150 32,359
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.82% 90.86% 86.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,274 14,593 21,355
10th Percentile £313 £311 £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 £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 2,050 865 2,166
10th Percentile £15.49 £14.99 £12.89
25th Percentile £19.48 £19.00 £15.85
Median hourly rate £37.50 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.38% -1.52% -13.95%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £58.69
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.95 £70.44
UK median hourly rate £35.91 £31.58 £32.50
% change year-on-year +13.71% -2.83% -13.33%

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 6 April 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 6 April 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 6 April 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 +62 741 £550 -5.25% 253
Midlands +25 117 £519 +3.70% 51
North of England -11 116 £475 -5.00% 110
West Midlands +19 92 £528 -2.31% 36
South West +24 71 £525 -16.00% 49
North West -20 48 £471 -0.79% 59
Yorkshire -20 48 £480 -16.52% 40
South East -35 47 £538 +7.50% 111
East of England -19 23 £575 +35.29% 34
East Midlands -17 22 £447 -5.89% 15
North East +4 20 £450 -5.26% 13
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
1 175 (15.18%) Apache Spark
2 116 (10.06%) Apache Airflow
3 77 (6.68%) Apache
4 26 (2.25%) SAS
5 19 (1.65%) Palantir Foundry
6 11 (0.95%) Confluence
7 8 (0.69%) Appian
8 7 (0.61%) Apache Superset
9 4 (0.35%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
10 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.087%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.087%) Camunda
11 1 (0.087%) CMS
11 1 (0.087%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 23 (1.99%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.87%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.35%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.26%) Trello
7 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (0.35%) Aladdin
1 4 (0.35%) BambooHR
2 3 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
2 3 (0.26%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.087%) Actimize
4 1 (0.087%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.087%) Maximo
4 1 (0.087%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.087%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 543 (47.09%) Azure
2 406 (35.21%) AWS
3 265 (22.98%) Power Platform
4 191 (16.57%) Azure Data Factory
5 163 (14.14%) GCP
6 140 (12.14%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 138 (11.97%) Snowflake
8 125 (10.84%) GitHub
9 123 (10.67%) Amazon S3
10 107 (9.28%) dbt
11 96 (8.33%) Azure DevOps
11 96 (8.33%) Serverless
12 78 (6.76%) AWS Lambda
13 75 (6.50%) GitHub Actions
14 47 (4.08%) AWS CloudFormation
15 27 (2.34%) AWS Step Functions
16 26 (2.25%) Collibra
16 26 (2.25%) Dagster
17 25 (2.17%) Amazon Kinesis
18 22 (1.91%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.43%) RTP
2 4 (0.35%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.35%) Kerberos
2 4 (0.35%) Network Security
3 3 (0.26%) VPN
4 1 (0.087%) 4G
4 1 (0.087%) 5G
4 1 (0.087%) Firewall
4 1 (0.087%) SAN
4 1 (0.087%) SMS
4 1 (0.087%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 240 (20.82%) Power BI
2 226 (19.60%) Data Warehouse
3 181 (15.70%) Data Lake
4 106 (9.19%) Metadata
5 77 (6.68%) NoSQL
5 77 (6.68%) SQL Server
6 76 (6.59%) Big Data
6 76 (6.59%) Delta Lake
7 63 (5.46%) Amazon Redshift
7 63 (5.46%) Azure SQL Database
7 63 (5.46%) Tableau
8 61 (5.29%) Snowflake Schema
9 57 (4.94%) BigQuery
10 52 (4.51%) Relational Database
11 51 (4.42%) Amazon Athena
12 45 (3.90%) PostgreSQL
13 38 (3.30%) Hadoop
14 35 (3.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 33 (2.86%) Spark SQL
16 22 (1.91%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 148 (12.84%) Git
2 49 (4.25%) GitLab
3 41 (3.56%) MLflow
4 40 (3.47%) Jenkins
5 29 (2.52%) JIRA
6 7 (0.61%) Selenium
7 6 (0.52%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.26%) JUnit
8 3 (0.26%) Maven
8 3 (0.26%) Postman
8 3 (0.26%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.26%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.17%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.17%) Mockito
9 2 (0.17%) Snyk
9 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.087%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.087%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 285 (24.72%) Social Skills
2 284 (24.63%) Finance
3 178 (15.44%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 61 (5.29%) Banking
6 27 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (1.73%) Retail
8 17 (1.47%) Documentation Skills
8 17 (1.47%) Front Office
9 16 (1.39%) Marketing
10 15 (1.30%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.30%) Telecoms
11 14 (1.21%) Investment Banking
12 13 (1.13%) Legal
13 12 (1.04%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.69%) Pharmaceutical
15 6 (0.52%) Back Office
15 6 (0.52%) Law
15 6 (0.52%) Military
15 6 (0.52%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 555 (48.14%) Data Engineer
2 150 (13.01%) Senior
3 133 (11.54%) Lead
4 105 (9.11%) Architect
4 105 (9.11%) Senior Data Engineer
5 72 (6.24%) Azure Engineer
6 69 (5.98%) Developer
7 59 (5.12%) Azure Data Engineer
8 56 (4.86%) Analyst
9 55 (4.77%) Data Architect
9 55 (4.77%) Lead Data Engineer
10 47 (4.08%) AWS Engineer
11 46 (3.99%) Snowflake Engineer
12 43 (3.73%) Data Scientist
13 39 (3.38%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 35 (3.04%) Consultant
15 34 (2.95%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 33 (2.86%) AWS Data Engineer
17 32 (2.78%) Data Analyst
18 30 (2.60%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 184 (15.96%) PySpark
2 145 (12.58%) Kafka
3 56 (4.86%) Pandas
4 44 (3.82%) PyTorch
5 43 (3.73%) scikit-learn
6 37 (3.21%) NumPy
7 35 (3.04%) TensorFlow
8 29 (2.52%) JSON
9 24 (2.08%) REST
10 23 (1.99%) Spring
10 23 (1.99%) YAML
11 22 (1.91%) pytest
12 21 (1.82%) React
12 21 (1.82%) RESTful
13 20 (1.73%) FastAPI
13 20 (1.73%) LangChain
14 18 (1.56%) Flask
14 18 (1.56%) Great Expectations
15 16 (1.39%) Spring Boot
16 14 (1.21%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 146 (12.66%) Cloud Native
2 39 (3.38%) Product Ownership
3 38 (3.30%) Distributed Systems
4 35 (3.04%) Legacy Systems
5 29 (2.52%) Algorithms
6 28 (2.43%) Distributed Computing
7 27 (2.34%) Data Structures
8 22 (1.91%) Hybrid Cloud
9 21 (1.82%) Onboarding
10 20 (1.73%) Greenfield Project
11 19 (1.65%) AI Agents
12 18 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
14 15 (1.30%) Clustering
15 12 (1.04%) Fixed Income
15 12 (1.04%) NHS
16 10 (0.87%) Management Information System
16 10 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
17 9 (0.78%) Derivative
18 8 (0.69%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.43%) Linux
2 16 (1.39%) Unix
3 8 (0.69%) VMS
4 3 (0.26%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.087%) CentOS
6 1 (0.087%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 586 (50.82%) Analytics
2 524 (45.45%) Data Pipeline
3 462 (40.07%) ETL
4 452 (39.20%) Data Modelling
5 394 (34.17%) CI/CD
6 301 (26.11%) AI
7 299 (25.93%) Business Intelligence
8 291 (25.24%) DevOps
9 283 (24.54%) Agile
10 281 (24.37%) Data Governance
11 229 (19.86%) Machine Learning
12 220 (19.08%) Problem-Solving
13 214 (18.56%) Data Science
14 186 (16.13%) Data Architecture
15 142 (12.32%) Decision-Making
16 131 (11.36%) Infrastructure as Code
17 130 (11.27%) Validation
18 121 (10.49%) Data Transformation
19 117 (10.15%) Migration
20 112 (9.71%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 653 (56.63%) Python
2 621 (53.86%) SQL
3 97 (8.41%) Java
4 66 (5.72%) Scala
5 43 (3.73%) C#
6 38 (3.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 29 (2.52%) Bash
7 29 (2.52%) PowerShell
8 23 (1.99%) JavaScript
9 21 (1.82%) T-SQL
10 19 (1.65%) Bicep
10 19 (1.65%) R
11 15 (1.30%) Go
12 12 (1.04%) TypeScript
13 10 (0.87%) Shell Script
14 9 (0.78%) PL/SQL
15 6 (0.52%) Korn
16 5 (0.43%) C++
16 5 (0.43%) SAS Macro
17 3 (0.26%) Rust
Qualifications
1 237 (20.56%) Security Cleared
2 203 (17.61%) SC Cleared
3 81 (7.03%) Degree
4 46 (3.99%) Azure Certification
5 38 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
6 31 (2.69%) Master's Degree
7 18 (1.56%) DV Cleared
8 16 (1.39%) BPSS Clearance
9 12 (1.04%) AWS Certification
10 9 (0.78%) PhD
11 8 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (0.35%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.35%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.26%) SnowPro
14 2 (0.17%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
15 1 (0.087%) (ISC)2 CCSP
15 1 (0.087%) CCSP
15 1 (0.087%) OCP
15 1 (0.087%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 322 (27.93%) Data Quality
2 91 (7.89%) GDPR
3 41 (3.56%) QA
4 13 (1.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 8 (0.69%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.52%) HIPAA
7 5 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.43%) PERC
7 5 (0.43%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 4 (0.35%) SLA
8 4 (0.35%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.26%) GRC
9 3 (0.26%) WCAG
10 2 (0.17%) HL7
10 2 (0.17%) MiFID
10 2 (0.17%) NIST
10 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.17%) PMO
11 1 (0.087%) NCSC
System Software
1 127 (11.01%) Docker
2 5 (0.43%) HDFS
3 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.087%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.087%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 164 (14.22%) Terraform
2 128 (11.10%) Kubernetes
3 26 (2.25%) Prometheus
4 14 (1.21%) Grafana
5 5 (0.43%) Ansible
5 5 (0.43%) Argo
6 4 (0.35%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.26%) Nagios
7 3 (0.26%) Rancher
8 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.17%) Kibana
8 2 (0.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.087%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.087%) Control-M
9 1 (0.087%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.087%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.087%) Oozie
Vendors
1 333 (28.88%) Databricks
2 175 (15.18%) Microsoft
3 58 (5.03%) Google
4 47 (4.08%) Informatica
5 33 (2.86%) Oracle
6 27 (2.34%) Talend
7 26 (2.25%) Foundry
8 22 (1.91%) OpenAI
9 21 (1.82%) Palantir
10 19 (1.65%) Splunk
11 17 (1.47%) SAP
12 15 (1.30%) Cloudera
13 11 (0.95%) Denodo
14 10 (0.87%) ServiceNow
15 9 (0.78%) Salesforce
15 9 (0.78%) UiPath
16 8 (0.69%) Automation Anywhere
17 6 (0.52%) MicroStrategy
18 5 (0.43%) IBM
18 5 (0.43%) Virgin Media