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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 146 209
Rank change year-on-year +60 +63 -20
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,174 459 421
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.96% 1.87% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.48% 2.05% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 821 328 314
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £450 £455 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £560
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -1.79% -6.67%
75th Percentile £617 £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 11 11
10th Percentile £53.45 £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% -52.05%
75th Percentile £80.88 £41.88 £55.13
90th Percentile £89.00 £65.00 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £25.43 £35.00
% change year-on-year +175.27% -27.34% -35.48%

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 33,784 22,346 32,054
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.23% 91.09% 86.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,591 14,669 21,080
10th Percentile £315 £310 £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 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.89% -0.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,113 899 2,221
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.82 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £15.89
Median hourly rate £42.00 £31.64 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.74% -9.60% -9.09%
75th Percentile £67.25 £64.50 £58.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.10 £72.45
UK median hourly rate £39.00 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +30.00% -14.29% -6.67%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +58 741 £550 -4.35% 231
Midlands +27 124 £510 +2.00% 48
North of England +1 122 £480 -4.00% 90
West Midlands +20 99 £510 -5.56% 36
South West +13 73 £525 -14.29% 38
Yorkshire -16 55 £480 -12.73% 31
South East -27 55 £550 +10.00% 72
North West -20 50 £496 +4.42% 43
East Midlands -19 22 £450 -5.26% 12
East of England -20 22 £575 +54.08% 17
North East -2 19 £463 -2.63% 18
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
1 177 (15.08%) Apache Spark
2 116 (9.88%) Apache Airflow
3 78 (6.64%) Apache
4 28 (2.39%) SAS
5 17 (1.45%) Palantir Foundry
6 10 (0.85%) Confluence
7 8 (0.68%) Appian
8 7 (0.60%) Apache Superset
9 5 (0.43%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.085%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.085%) Camunda
12 1 (0.085%) CICS
12 1 (0.085%) CMS
12 1 (0.085%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.085%) SharePoint
Applications
1 23 (1.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.26%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.26%) Trello
6 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.43%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.34%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.26%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.085%) Actimize
5 1 (0.085%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.085%) Maximo
5 1 (0.085%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.085%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.085%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 548 (46.68%) Azure
2 422 (35.95%) AWS
3 269 (22.91%) Power Platform
4 189 (16.10%) Azure Data Factory
5 173 (14.74%) GCP
6 139 (11.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 135 (11.50%) Snowflake
8 123 (10.48%) Amazon S3
8 123 (10.48%) GitHub
9 107 (9.11%) dbt
10 98 (8.35%) Serverless
11 97 (8.26%) Azure DevOps
12 79 (6.73%) AWS Lambda
13 75 (6.39%) GitHub Actions
14 48 (4.09%) AWS CloudFormation
15 28 (2.39%) AWS Step Functions
16 27 (2.30%) Dagster
17 26 (2.21%) Collibra
18 24 (2.04%) Amazon SQS
19 23 (1.96%) Amazon SageMaker
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.43%) RTP
2 4 (0.34%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.34%) Firewall
2 4 (0.34%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.26%) Network Security
3 3 (0.26%) VPN
4 1 (0.085%) 4G
4 1 (0.085%) 5G
4 1 (0.085%) MIMO
4 1 (0.085%) SAN
4 1 (0.085%) SMS
4 1 (0.085%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 245 (20.87%) Power BI
2 233 (19.85%) Data Warehouse
3 188 (16.01%) Data Lake
4 109 (9.28%) Metadata
5 82 (6.98%) SQL Server
6 79 (6.73%) Delta Lake
7 78 (6.64%) NoSQL
8 77 (6.56%) Big Data
9 70 (5.96%) Tableau
10 67 (5.71%) Amazon Redshift
11 66 (5.62%) BigQuery
12 64 (5.45%) Azure SQL Database
13 61 (5.20%) Snowflake Schema
14 53 (4.51%) Relational Database
15 52 (4.43%) Amazon Athena
16 44 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
17 39 (3.32%) Hadoop
18 37 (3.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 34 (2.90%) Spark SQL
20 25 (2.13%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 144 (12.27%) Git
2 47 (4.00%) GitLab
3 41 (3.49%) MLflow
4 34 (2.90%) JIRA
5 33 (2.81%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.60%) Selenium
6 7 (0.60%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.26%) JUnit
7 3 (0.26%) Maven
7 3 (0.26%) Postman
7 3 (0.26%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.26%) Snyk
7 3 (0.26%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.17%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.17%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.17%) Mockito
8 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.085%) Ant
9 1 (0.085%) SoapUI
General
1 299 (25.47%) Finance
2 276 (23.51%) Social Skills
3 182 (15.50%) Analytical Skills
4 100 (8.52%) Public Sector
5 62 (5.28%) Banking
6 27 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 21 (1.79%) Retail
8 19 (1.62%) Marketing
9 16 (1.36%) Documentation Skills
9 16 (1.36%) Front Office
10 15 (1.28%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.28%) Telecoms
11 13 (1.11%) Legal
12 12 (1.02%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.94%) Investment Banking
14 8 (0.68%) Pharmaceutical
15 6 (0.51%) Back Office
15 6 (0.51%) Law
15 6 (0.51%) Military
16 4 (0.34%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 555 (47.27%) Data Engineer
2 157 (13.37%) Senior
3 132 (11.24%) Lead
4 119 (10.14%) Architect
5 104 (8.86%) Senior Data Engineer
6 68 (5.79%) Developer
7 66 (5.62%) Azure Engineer
8 62 (5.28%) Data Architect
9 55 (4.68%) Azure Data Engineer
10 52 (4.43%) Analyst
11 50 (4.26%) Lead Data Engineer
12 45 (3.83%) AWS Engineer
13 43 (3.66%) Data Scientist
14 40 (3.41%) Snowflake Engineer
15 36 (3.07%) Consultant
15 36 (3.07%) Solutions Architect
16 34 (2.90%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 33 (2.81%) AWS Data Engineer
18 32 (2.73%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
19 30 (2.56%) Principal Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 187 (15.93%) PySpark
2 141 (12.01%) Kafka
3 51 (4.34%) Pandas
4 42 (3.58%) scikit-learn
5 41 (3.49%) PyTorch
6 34 (2.90%) NumPy
7 32 (2.73%) TensorFlow
8 29 (2.47%) JSON
9 25 (2.13%) REST
10 23 (1.96%) React
10 23 (1.96%) Spring
10 23 (1.96%) YAML
11 22 (1.87%) pytest
12 20 (1.70%) Great Expectations
12 20 (1.70%) LangChain
12 20 (1.70%) RESTful
13 17 (1.45%) FastAPI
14 16 (1.36%) Spring Boot
15 15 (1.28%) Flask
16 14 (1.19%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 151 (12.86%) Cloud Native
2 40 (3.41%) Distributed Systems
3 37 (3.15%) Product Ownership
4 36 (3.07%) Legacy Systems
5 31 (2.64%) Data Structures
6 28 (2.39%) Distributed Computing
7 25 (2.13%) Algorithms
8 23 (1.96%) AI Agents
9 22 (1.87%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.62%) Onboarding
11 18 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
11 18 (1.53%) Hybrid Cloud
12 17 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
13 15 (1.28%) NHS
14 14 (1.19%) Clustering
15 13 (1.11%) Fixed Income
15 13 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (0.85%) Management Information System
17 9 (0.77%) Data Fabric
17 9 (0.77%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 27 (2.30%) Linux
2 17 (1.45%) Unix
3 8 (0.68%) VMS
4 3 (0.26%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.085%) CentOS
6 1 (0.085%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 595 (50.68%) Analytics
2 535 (45.57%) Data Pipeline
3 463 (39.44%) Data Modelling
4 461 (39.27%) ETL
5 395 (33.65%) CI/CD
6 315 (26.83%) AI
7 306 (26.06%) Agile
8 304 (25.89%) Business Intelligence
9 291 (24.79%) DevOps
10 277 (23.59%) Data Governance
11 228 (19.42%) Machine Learning
12 220 (18.74%) Problem-Solving
13 210 (17.89%) Data Science
14 188 (16.01%) Data Architecture
15 155 (13.20%) Decision-Making
16 136 (11.58%) Infrastructure as Code
17 135 (11.50%) Migration
17 135 (11.50%) Validation
18 129 (10.99%) Data Transformation
19 117 (9.97%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 637 (54.26%) SQL
2 636 (54.17%) Python
3 99 (8.43%) Java
4 68 (5.79%) Scala
5 40 (3.41%) C#
6 39 (3.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 27 (2.30%) Bash
8 25 (2.13%) PowerShell
9 23 (1.96%) JavaScript
10 22 (1.87%) R
10 22 (1.87%) T-SQL
11 18 (1.53%) Bicep
12 12 (1.02%) Go
13 11 (0.94%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.94%) TypeScript
14 10 (0.85%) PL/SQL
15 7 (0.60%) SAS Macro
16 5 (0.43%) Korn
17 3 (0.26%) C++
18 1 (0.085%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 240 (20.44%) Security Cleared
2 210 (17.89%) SC Cleared
3 81 (6.90%) Degree
4 43 (3.66%) Azure Certification
5 38 (3.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 30 (2.56%) Master's Degree
7 16 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
7 16 (1.36%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.11%) AWS Certification
9 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (0.60%) PhD
11 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.26%) SnowPro
14 2 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
15 1 (0.085%) CCSP
15 1 (0.085%) CISSP
15 1 (0.085%) OCP
15 1 (0.085%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 331 (28.19%) Data Quality
2 88 (7.50%) GDPR
3 44 (3.75%) QA
4 13 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 8 (0.68%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.43%) SLA
7 4 (0.34%) HIPAA
7 4 (0.34%) PERC
7 4 (0.34%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.26%) GRC
8 3 (0.26%) SOC 2
8 3 (0.26%) WCAG
9 2 (0.17%) HL7
9 2 (0.17%) MiFID
9 2 (0.17%) NIST
9 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.17%) PMO
10 1 (0.085%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 119 (10.14%) Docker
2 5 (0.43%) HDFS
3 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.085%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.085%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 167 (14.22%) Terraform
2 123 (10.48%) Kubernetes
3 26 (2.21%) Prometheus
4 14 (1.19%) Grafana
5 8 (0.68%) Ansible
6 5 (0.43%) Argo
6 5 (0.43%) Kibana
7 4 (0.34%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.26%) Nagios
8 3 (0.26%) Rancher
9 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
9 2 (0.17%) logstash
9 2 (0.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.085%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.085%) Control-M
10 1 (0.085%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.085%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.085%) Oozie
Vendors
1 330 (28.11%) Databricks
2 183 (15.59%) Microsoft
3 62 (5.28%) Google
4 48 (4.09%) Informatica
5 37 (3.15%) Oracle
6 29 (2.47%) Talend
7 24 (2.04%) Foundry
8 22 (1.87%) OpenAI
9 20 (1.70%) SAP
10 19 (1.62%) Palantir
10 19 (1.62%) Splunk
11 16 (1.36%) Cloudera
12 13 (1.11%) ServiceNow
13 10 (0.85%) Salesforce
14 9 (0.77%) UiPath
15 8 (0.68%) Automation Anywhere
15 8 (0.68%) Denodo
16 6 (0.51%) IBM
17 5 (0.43%) InterSystems
17 5 (0.43%) MicroStrategy