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

6 months to
20 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 82 147 198
Rank change year-on-year +65 +51 -9
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,364 519 441
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.04% 1.89% 1.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.56% 2.09% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 963 344 324
10th Percentile £380 £369 £380
25th Percentile £446 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £584
Median % change year-on-year - -10.10% -6.56%
75th Percentile £638 £658 £700
90th Percentile £750 £800 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £560
% change year-on-year - -6.25% -6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 7 13
10th Percentile £21.25 £24.75 £30.55
25th Percentile £54.00 £28.13 £35.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £38.96 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.67% -19.67% -37.82%
75th Percentile £76.50 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £58.25 -
UK median hourly rate £69.00 £38.96 £35.00
% change year-on-year +77.10% +11.31% -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 38,301 24,864 30,650
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.33% 90.66% 85.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,041 15,953 19,995
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £421 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £645
90th Percentile £735 £745 £750
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.02%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,379 1,324 2,046
10th Percentile £15.33 £14.23 £13.22
25th Percentile £21.00 £17.88 £16.90
Median hourly rate £47.50 £25.15 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +88.87% -36.33% -7.06%
75th Percentile £69.10 £53.75 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £71.39 £73.75
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -10.31%

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 20 July 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 20 July 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 20 July 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 +55 794 £550 - 300
North of England +28 178 £475 -5.00% 84
Midlands +49 154 £475 +2.70% 32
West Midlands +32 130 £469 +8.82% 22
South West +28 86 £500 -8.05% 27
Yorkshire +7 81 £478 +3.24% 22
South East -34 80 £525 +11.70% 83
North West -16 59 £525 +7.69% 38
North East -4 40 £425 -15.00% 24
East of England +2 30 £575 +39.39% 8
East Midlands -3 21 £525 +13.51% 10
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
1 171 (12.54%) Apache Spark
2 156 (11.44%) Apache Airflow
3 108 (7.92%) Apache
4 41 (3.01%) SAS
5 29 (2.13%) Confluence
6 23 (1.69%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.25%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.81%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.59%) Apache Superset
10 3 (0.22%) Appian
11 2 (0.15%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.15%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.073%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.073%) Camunda
12 1 (0.073%) CICS
12 1 (0.073%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.073%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 20 (1.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.22%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.15%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.073%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.81%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.37%) BambooHR
3 5 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.29%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.29%) Sage X3
5 2 (0.15%) Endur
5 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.15%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.15%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.073%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.073%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.073%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.073%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.073%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 577 (42.30%) Azure
2 527 (38.64%) AWS
3 276 (20.23%) Power Platform
4 197 (14.44%) Snowflake
5 190 (13.93%) GCP
6 165 (12.10%) dbt
7 161 (11.80%) Azure Data Factory
8 154 (11.29%) Amazon S3
9 136 (9.97%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 119 (8.72%) Azure DevOps
11 118 (8.65%) Serverless
12 107 (7.84%) GitHub
13 100 (7.33%) AWS Lambda
14 63 (4.62%) GitHub Actions
15 39 (2.86%) Amazon EMR
16 29 (2.13%) Azure AI
17 28 (2.05%) Amazon Bedrock
17 28 (2.05%) Amazon SageMaker
17 28 (2.05%) Azure Cosmos DB
18 27 (1.98%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.37%) Firewall
1 5 (0.37%) RTP
2 1 (0.073%) 4G
2 1 (0.073%) 5G
2 1 (0.073%) MIMO
2 1 (0.073%) MQTT
2 1 (0.073%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 267 (19.57%) Data Warehouse
2 253 (18.55%) Power BI
3 194 (14.22%) Data Lake
4 129 (9.46%) Metadata
5 95 (6.96%) Amazon Redshift
6 88 (6.45%) BigQuery
7 85 (6.23%) Delta Lake
8 84 (6.16%) Big Data
9 80 (5.87%) Tableau
10 70 (5.13%) SQL Server
11 63 (4.62%) NoSQL
12 60 (4.40%) Amazon Athena
13 57 (4.18%) Snowflake Schema
14 51 (3.74%) Relational Database
15 49 (3.59%) PostgreSQL
16 41 (3.01%) Azure SQL Database
17 36 (2.64%) Hadoop
18 34 (2.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 32 (2.35%) Star Schema
20 28 (2.05%) Looker
Development Applications
1 143 (10.48%) Git
2 64 (4.69%) GitLab
3 58 (4.25%) JIRA
4 32 (2.35%) MLflow
5 18 (1.32%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.44%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.37%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.22%) ERwin
8 3 (0.22%) Postman
8 3 (0.22%) Selenium
8 3 (0.22%) Snyk
8 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.15%) Yeoman
10 1 (0.073%) Ant
10 1 (0.073%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.073%) git-flow
10 1 (0.073%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.073%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.073%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 327 (23.97%) Social Skills
2 317 (23.24%) Finance
3 229 (16.79%) Analytical Skills
4 155 (11.36%) Public Sector
5 96 (7.04%) Banking
6 35 (2.57%) Marketing
7 34 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 30 (2.20%) Retail
9 28 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
10 22 (1.61%) Telecoms
11 20 (1.47%) Front Office
12 16 (1.17%) Investment Banking
13 14 (1.03%) Financial Institution
14 13 (0.95%) Manufacturing
15 11 (0.81%) Law
15 11 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
16 10 (0.73%) Influencing Skills
16 10 (0.73%) Legal
17 8 (0.59%) Billing
18 6 (0.44%) Police
Job Titles
1 629 (46.11%) Data Engineer
2 195 (14.30%) Senior
3 160 (11.73%) Architect
4 152 (11.14%) Lead
5 113 (8.28%) Senior Data Engineer
6 86 (6.30%) Data Architect
7 80 (5.87%) Developer
8 67 (4.91%) AWS Engineer
9 64 (4.69%) Analyst
10 61 (4.47%) Lead Data Engineer
11 55 (4.03%) AWS Data Engineer
12 51 (3.74%) Snowflake Engineer
13 49 (3.59%) Azure Engineer
14 47 (3.45%) Data Scientist
15 46 (3.37%) Solutions Architect
16 44 (3.23%) Azure Data Engineer
17 43 (3.15%) Snowflake Data Engineer
18 41 (3.01%) Consultant
19 37 (2.71%) Data Analyst
20 32 (2.35%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 185 (13.56%) PySpark
2 121 (8.87%) Kafka
3 40 (2.93%) REST
4 33 (2.42%) JSON
4 33 (2.42%) Pandas
5 27 (1.98%) React
5 27 (1.98%) scikit-learn
6 22 (1.61%) PyTorch
6 22 (1.61%) Spring
7 20 (1.47%) NumPy
8 18 (1.32%) .NET
9 16 (1.17%) TensorFlow
10 15 (1.10%) OpenTelemetry
10 15 (1.10%) RESTful
10 15 (1.10%) Spring Boot
11 13 (0.95%) Apache Avro
11 13 (0.95%) Microsoft Graph
12 12 (0.88%) Great Expectations
12 12 (0.88%) Node.js
12 12 (0.88%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 181 (13.27%) Cloud Native
2 56 (4.11%) Data Structures
2 56 (4.11%) Legacy Systems
3 52 (3.81%) Distributed Systems
4 43 (3.15%) Product Ownership
5 36 (2.64%) Onboarding
6 34 (2.49%) AI Agents
7 26 (1.91%) Distributed Computing
8 25 (1.83%) Data Protection Act
9 20 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.39%) Algorithms
10 19 (1.39%) NHS
11 17 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (1.17%) Clustering
13 14 (1.03%) Virtual Team
14 12 (0.88%) Fixed Income
14 12 (0.88%) Life Science
14 12 (0.88%) Management Information System
15 11 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (0.73%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.20%) Linux
2 24 (1.76%) Unix
3 5 (0.37%) VMS
3 5 (0.37%) Windows
4 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.073%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 697 (51.10%) Analytics
2 657 (48.17%) Data Pipeline
3 528 (38.71%) Data Modelling
4 481 (35.26%) CI/CD
5 471 (34.53%) ETL
6 385 (28.23%) AI
7 351 (25.73%) Agile
8 331 (24.27%) Business Intelligence
9 322 (23.61%) DevOps
10 282 (20.67%) Data Governance
11 259 (18.99%) Machine Learning
12 237 (17.38%) Problem-Solving
13 230 (16.86%) Data Science
14 201 (14.74%) Validation
15 199 (14.59%) Migration
16 196 (14.37%) Data Architecture
17 188 (13.78%) Decision-Making
18 168 (12.32%) Infrastructure as Code
19 165 (12.10%) Data Transformation
20 164 (12.02%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 734 (53.81%) SQL
2 709 (51.98%) Python
3 121 (8.87%) Java
4 41 (3.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 37 (2.71%) Scala
6 34 (2.49%) C#
7 30 (2.20%) Bash
8 24 (1.76%) T-SQL
9 22 (1.61%) PowerShell
10 20 (1.47%) JavaScript
11 19 (1.39%) R
12 17 (1.25%) Bicep
13 16 (1.17%) PL/SQL
14 13 (0.95%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.95%) TypeScript
15 12 (0.88%) SAS Macro
16 7 (0.51%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.44%) Cypher
18 5 (0.37%) Kusto Query Language
19 4 (0.29%) Gremlin
Qualifications
1 272 (19.94%) Security Cleared
2 234 (17.16%) SC Cleared
3 89 (6.52%) Degree
4 41 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
6 27 (1.98%) Azure Certification
6 27 (1.98%) DV Cleared
6 27 (1.98%) Master's Degree
7 18 (1.32%) AWS Certification
8 13 (0.95%) DBS Check
9 7 (0.51%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 7 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (0.44%) SnowPro
11 5 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.22%) Tableau Certification
13 2 (0.15%) CSPO
13 2 (0.15%) PhD
13 2 (0.15%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.073%) CCSP
14 1 (0.073%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 392 (28.74%) Data Quality
2 78 (5.72%) GDPR
3 75 (5.50%) QA
4 22 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 10 (0.73%) SLA
6 5 (0.37%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.29%) NIST
7 4 (0.29%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.22%) GRC
8 3 (0.22%) GxP
8 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.22%) MiFID
8 3 (0.22%) PMO
9 2 (0.15%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.15%) EMIR
10 1 (0.073%) Basel II
System Software
1 121 (8.87%) Docker
2 3 (0.22%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.15%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 180 (13.20%) Terraform
2 106 (7.77%) Kubernetes
3 24 (1.76%) Prometheus
4 15 (1.10%) Grafana
5 12 (0.88%) Ansible
6 5 (0.37%) Kibana
7 3 (0.22%) Argo
7 3 (0.22%) logstash
7 3 (0.22%) Nagios
7 3 (0.22%) Rancher
8 2 (0.15%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.073%) Control-M
9 1 (0.073%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.073%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.073%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.073%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.073%) Oozie
9 1 (0.073%) QRadar
Vendors
1 321 (23.53%) Databricks
2 237 (17.38%) Microsoft
3 73 (5.35%) Informatica
4 58 (4.25%) Oracle
5 55 (4.03%) Google
6 29 (2.13%) Foundry
6 29 (2.13%) SAP
6 29 (2.13%) Talend
7 26 (1.91%) Palantir
8 23 (1.69%) Splunk
9 22 (1.61%) OpenAI
10 18 (1.32%) Salesforce
11 15 (1.10%) Cloudera
12 14 (1.03%) ServiceNow
13 12 (0.88%) Trend Micro
14 7 (0.51%) Adobe
14 7 (0.51%) Denodo
14 7 (0.51%) InterSystems
14 7 (0.51%) Workday
15 5 (0.37%) Amplitude