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

6 months to
17 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 147 206
Rank change year-on-year +63 +59 -21
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,182 464 422
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.88% 1.90% 1.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.40% 2.08% 1.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 831 317 312
10th Percentile £400 £400 £391
25th Percentile £450 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £625 £688 £678
90th Percentile £749 £838 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 14 11
10th Percentile £52.90 £22.00 £30.37
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.55 £33.13
Median hourly rate £70.00 £28.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +143.48% -17.86% -53.33%
75th Percentile £82.31 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.25 £65.00 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +154.55% -21.43% -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 34,813 22,315 31,454
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 91.22% 86.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,200 14,600 20,590
10th Percentile £320 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,148 942 2,247
10th Percentile £15.33 £14.42 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £15.93
Median hourly rate £47.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.07% -20.55% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £62.50 £60.13
90th Percentile £80.02 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.30 £28.30 £36.05
% change year-on-year +49.50% -21.50% +1.11%

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 17 May 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 17 May 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 17 May 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 +54 737 £550 -4.35% 231
North of England 0 123 £480 -4.00% 97
Midlands +16 122 £500 +8.11% 41
West Midlands +19 101 £500 +16.01% 32
South West +23 78 £506 -15.75% 31
South East -24 62 £550 +12.02% 81
Yorkshire -16 55 £478 -13.18% 24
North West -18 49 £500 +2.56% 46
East of England -18 22 £575 +54.08% 11
North East -2 21 £463 -2.63% 28
East Midlands -14 18 £475 +1.33% 9
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
1 172 (14.55%) Apache Spark
2 115 (9.73%) Apache Airflow
3 75 (6.35%) Apache
4 31 (2.62%) SAS
5 15 (1.27%) Palantir Foundry
6 13 (1.10%) Confluence
7 8 (0.68%) Appian
7 8 (0.68%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.59%) Apache Superset
9 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
10 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.085%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.085%) Camunda
11 1 (0.085%) CICS
11 1 (0.085%) CMS
11 1 (0.085%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 24 (2.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.25%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.25%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.25%) Trello
Business Applications
1 5 (0.42%) Aladdin
1 5 (0.42%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.25%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.085%) Actimize
5 1 (0.085%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.085%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.085%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 534 (45.18%) Azure
2 429 (36.29%) AWS
3 270 (22.84%) Power Platform
4 176 (14.89%) Azure Data Factory
4 176 (14.89%) GCP
5 142 (12.01%) Snowflake
6 139 (11.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 123 (10.41%) Amazon S3
8 122 (10.32%) GitHub
9 119 (10.07%) dbt
10 98 (8.29%) Azure DevOps
11 93 (7.87%) Serverless
12 75 (6.35%) AWS Lambda
13 74 (6.26%) GitHub Actions
14 40 (3.38%) AWS CloudFormation
15 29 (2.45%) AWS Step Functions
16 25 (2.12%) Collibra
16 25 (2.12%) Dagster
17 24 (2.03%) Amazon SQS
17 24 (2.03%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.42%) RTP
2 4 (0.34%) Firewall
3 3 (0.25%) Kerberos
4 2 (0.17%) VPN
5 1 (0.085%) 4G
5 1 (0.085%) 5G
5 1 (0.085%) MIMO
5 1 (0.085%) Network Security
5 1 (0.085%) SAN
5 1 (0.085%) SMS
5 1 (0.085%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 248 (20.98%) Power BI
2 226 (19.12%) Data Warehouse
3 193 (16.33%) Data Lake
4 106 (8.97%) Metadata
5 82 (6.94%) SQL Server
6 81 (6.85%) Big Data
7 79 (6.68%) Delta Lake
8 70 (5.92%) BigQuery
8 70 (5.92%) NoSQL
8 70 (5.92%) Tableau
9 66 (5.58%) Amazon Redshift
10 62 (5.25%) Azure SQL Database
10 62 (5.25%) Snowflake Schema
11 52 (4.40%) Relational Database
12 51 (4.31%) Amazon Athena
13 43 (3.64%) PostgreSQL
14 39 (3.30%) Hadoop
15 35 (2.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 34 (2.88%) Spark SQL
17 28 (2.37%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 133 (11.25%) Git
2 50 (4.23%) GitLab
3 39 (3.30%) MLflow
4 38 (3.21%) JIRA
5 30 (2.54%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.51%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.42%) Selenium
8 3 (0.25%) Postman
8 3 (0.25%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.25%) Snyk
9 2 (0.17%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.17%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.085%) Ant
10 1 (0.085%) ERwin
10 1 (0.085%) JUnit
10 1 (0.085%) Maven
10 1 (0.085%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.085%) SoapUI
General
1 309 (26.14%) Finance
2 261 (22.08%) Social Skills
3 176 (14.89%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (8.38%) Public Sector
5 65 (5.50%) Banking
6 25 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 25 (2.12%) Retail
7 21 (1.78%) Marketing
8 17 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
8 17 (1.44%) Front Office
9 15 (1.27%) Financial Institution
9 15 (1.27%) Telecoms
10 13 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
11 11 (0.93%) Investment Banking
12 10 (0.85%) Legal
13 8 (0.68%) Military
14 6 (0.51%) Back Office
14 6 (0.51%) Law
15 4 (0.34%) Pharmaceutical
16 3 (0.25%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 578 (48.90%) Data Engineer
2 158 (13.37%) Senior
3 128 (10.83%) Lead
4 120 (10.15%) Architect
5 110 (9.31%) Senior Data Engineer
6 66 (5.58%) Developer
7 61 (5.16%) Data Architect
8 57 (4.82%) Azure Engineer
9 51 (4.31%) Analyst
9 51 (4.31%) Lead Data Engineer
10 50 (4.23%) Azure Data Engineer
11 48 (4.06%) AWS Engineer
12 46 (3.89%) Snowflake Engineer
13 41 (3.47%) Data Scientist
14 40 (3.38%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 40 (3.38%) Solutions Architect
15 38 (3.21%) AWS Data Engineer
16 34 (2.88%) Consultant
17 30 (2.54%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
18 29 (2.45%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 180 (15.23%) PySpark
2 130 (11.00%) Kafka
3 49 (4.15%) Pandas
4 37 (3.13%) scikit-learn
5 36 (3.05%) PyTorch
6 31 (2.62%) NumPy
7 26 (2.20%) TensorFlow
8 25 (2.12%) REST
9 24 (2.03%) JSON
10 23 (1.95%) Spring
11 22 (1.86%) React
12 20 (1.69%) YAML
13 19 (1.61%) LangChain
13 19 (1.61%) pytest
14 18 (1.52%) Great Expectations
14 18 (1.52%) RESTful
15 16 (1.35%) FastAPI
15 16 (1.35%) Spring Boot
16 14 (1.18%) Flask
17 13 (1.10%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 151 (12.77%) Cloud Native
2 41 (3.47%) Distributed Systems
3 39 (3.30%) Legacy Systems
4 37 (3.13%) Product Ownership
5 35 (2.96%) Data Structures
6 30 (2.54%) Distributed Computing
7 27 (2.28%) AI Agents
8 21 (1.78%) Greenfield Project
9 20 (1.69%) Algorithms
9 20 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
9 20 (1.69%) Onboarding
10 17 (1.44%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (1.18%) Fixed Income
12 12 (1.02%) Clustering
12 12 (1.02%) Hybrid Cloud
12 12 (1.02%) NHS
12 12 (1.02%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (0.85%) Equities
14 8 (0.68%) Data Fabric
14 8 (0.68%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.37%) Linux
2 22 (1.86%) Unix
3 6 (0.51%) VMS
4 3 (0.25%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.085%) CentOS
6 1 (0.085%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 603 (51.02%) Analytics
2 539 (45.60%) Data Pipeline
3 471 (39.85%) Data Modelling
4 452 (38.24%) ETL
5 393 (33.25%) CI/CD
6 332 (28.09%) AI
7 306 (25.89%) Business Intelligence
8 295 (24.96%) Agile
9 287 (24.28%) DevOps
10 261 (22.08%) Data Governance
11 223 (18.87%) Machine Learning
12 201 (17.01%) Problem-Solving
13 197 (16.67%) Data Science
14 168 (14.21%) Data Architecture
15 155 (13.11%) Decision-Making
16 146 (12.35%) Validation
17 144 (12.18%) Migration
18 128 (10.83%) Infrastructure as Code
19 123 (10.41%) Data Transformation
20 113 (9.56%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 651 (55.08%) SQL
2 626 (52.96%) Python
3 97 (8.21%) Java
4 60 (5.08%) Scala
5 40 (3.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 36 (3.05%) C#
7 27 (2.28%) Bash
8 23 (1.95%) T-SQL
9 22 (1.86%) JavaScript
10 21 (1.78%) PowerShell
11 20 (1.69%) R
12 15 (1.27%) Bicep
13 13 (1.10%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.93%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.93%) TypeScript
15 8 (0.68%) Go
16 7 (0.59%) SAS Macro
17 4 (0.34%) Korn
18 2 (0.17%) SPARQL
19 1 (0.085%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 227 (19.20%) Security Cleared
2 198 (16.75%) SC Cleared
3 78 (6.60%) Degree
4 34 (2.88%) Azure Certification
4 34 (2.88%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (2.37%) Master's Degree
6 16 (1.35%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.18%) DV Cleared
8 11 (0.93%) AWS Certification
9 9 (0.76%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.42%) PhD
12 4 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 4 (0.34%) SnowPro
13 2 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.085%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 1 (0.085%) CCSP
14 1 (0.085%) OCP
14 1 (0.085%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 333 (28.17%) Data Quality
2 83 (7.02%) GDPR
3 54 (4.57%) QA
4 12 (1.02%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 6 (0.51%) Accessibility
5 6 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.42%) MiFID
6 5 (0.42%) SLA
7 4 (0.34%) HIPAA
7 4 (0.34%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.25%) GRC
8 3 (0.25%) PMO
9 2 (0.17%) EMIR
9 2 (0.17%) NIST
9 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.085%) FATCA
10 1 (0.085%) HL7
10 1 (0.085%) SNOMED CT
10 1 (0.085%) WCAG
System Software
1 113 (9.56%) Docker
2 5 (0.42%) HDFS
3 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.085%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.085%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 152 (12.86%) Terraform
2 111 (9.39%) Kubernetes
3 23 (1.95%) Prometheus
4 10 (0.85%) Grafana
5 8 (0.68%) Ansible
6 5 (0.42%) Argo
7 4 (0.34%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.25%) Kibana
8 3 (0.25%) Nagios
8 3 (0.25%) 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
1 309 (26.14%) Databricks
2 195 (16.50%) Microsoft
3 60 (5.08%) Google
4 53 (4.48%) Informatica
5 38 (3.21%) Oracle
6 23 (1.95%) Talend
7 22 (1.86%) Foundry
7 22 (1.86%) OpenAI
7 22 (1.86%) SAP
8 19 (1.61%) Splunk
9 16 (1.35%) Cloudera
9 16 (1.35%) Palantir
10 12 (1.02%) ServiceNow
11 10 (0.85%) Salesforce
12 9 (0.76%) UiPath
13 8 (0.68%) Automation Anywhere
14 7 (0.59%) InterSystems
15 6 (0.51%) Denodo
16 5 (0.42%) Workday
17 4 (0.34%) MicroStrategy