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

6 months to
13 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 157 200
Rank change year-on-year +72 +43 -11
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,389 503 410
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.05% 1.82% 1.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.58% 2.00% 1.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 972 321 301
10th Percentile £400 £363 £400
25th Percentile £450 £450 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -8.70% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £700
90th Percentile £750 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £575
% change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 6 12
10th Percentile £21.25 £30.73 £22.59
25th Percentile £24.69 £42.03 £31.03
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% +10.53% -39.10%
75th Percentile £77.25 £62.19 £60.00
90th Percentile £87.13 £87.50 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year +33.33% +50.00% -53.64%

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 38,759 25,103 28,648
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.06% 90.80% 85.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,089 16,021 18,628
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £756
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,530 1,424 1,656
10th Percentile £14.55 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £19.50 £17.87 £18.50
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +3.24%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.50
% change year-on-year +68.99% -39.40% -1.55%

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 13 August 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 13 August 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 13 August 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 +47 822 £550 - 944
North of England +38 181 £469 -6.25% 216
Midlands +46 151 £486 +7.98% 62
West Midlands +47 126 £475 -0.63% 48
South East -16 90 £525 +11.94% 176
Yorkshire +20 86 £475 +11.76% 47
South West +20 77 £505 -16.70% 83
North West -12 58 £500 - 136
North East -8 39 £425 -20.93% 35
East of England -4 28 £575 -4.17% 37
East Midlands -4 22 £525 +16.54% 14
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 (12.38%) Apache Spark
2 164 (11.81%) Apache Airflow
3 114 (8.21%) Apache
4 42 (3.02%) SAS
5 27 (1.94%) Confluence
6 23 (1.66%) Jupyter
7 18 (1.30%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.79%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.50%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.36%) Apache Solr
11 4 (0.29%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.072%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.072%) CICS
13 1 (0.072%) nginx
13 1 (0.072%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 16 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.36%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.072%) Notion
Business Applications
1 12 (0.86%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.43%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.36%) BambooHR
4 4 (0.29%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.29%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.29%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.14%) Endur
5 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.14%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.14%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.14%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.072%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.072%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.072%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.072%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 580 (41.76%) Azure
2 524 (37.72%) AWS
3 275 (19.80%) Power Platform
4 215 (15.48%) Snowflake
5 188 (13.53%) GCP
6 177 (12.74%) dbt
7 156 (11.23%) Azure Data Factory
8 144 (10.37%) Amazon S3
9 135 (9.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 130 (9.36%) Azure DevOps
11 112 (8.06%) GitHub
12 111 (7.99%) Serverless
13 94 (6.77%) AWS Lambda
14 60 (4.32%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (2.45%) Amazon EMR
16 30 (2.16%) Amazon Bedrock
17 27 (1.94%) Azure AI
18 26 (1.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 26 (1.87%) AWS Step Functions
19 25 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) Firewall
2 2 (0.14%) DNS
2 2 (0.14%) Network Security
2 2 (0.14%) RTP
3 1 (0.072%) 4G
3 1 (0.072%) 5G
3 1 (0.072%) Internet
3 1 (0.072%) MIMO
3 1 (0.072%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 277 (19.94%) Data Warehouse
2 259 (18.65%) Power BI
3 191 (13.75%) Data Lake
4 143 (10.30%) Metadata
5 98 (7.06%) BigQuery
6 94 (6.77%) Delta Lake
7 92 (6.62%) Amazon Redshift
8 87 (6.26%) Big Data
9 76 (5.47%) Tableau
10 63 (4.54%) SQL Server
11 60 (4.32%) Amazon Athena
12 58 (4.18%) NoSQL
13 54 (3.89%) Snowflake Schema
14 49 (3.53%) PostgreSQL
15 48 (3.46%) Relational Database
16 39 (2.81%) Azure SQL Database
17 36 (2.59%) Looker
18 34 (2.45%) Star Schema
19 32 (2.30%) Data Vault
19 32 (2.30%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 133 (9.58%) Git
2 75 (5.40%) GitLab
3 55 (3.96%) JIRA
4 24 (1.73%) Jenkins
5 22 (1.58%) MLflow
6 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.43%) Bitbucket
8 5 (0.36%) ERwin
9 4 (0.29%) Selenium
9 4 (0.29%) Terragrunt
10 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.22%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.22%) Postman
10 3 (0.22%) Snyk
10 3 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.14%) Claude Code
11 2 (0.14%) Yeoman
12 1 (0.072%) Deequ
12 1 (0.072%) Robot Framework
12 1 (0.072%) RStudio
General
1 335 (24.12%) Social Skills
2 321 (23.11%) Finance
3 225 (16.20%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (10.58%) Public Sector
5 103 (7.42%) Banking
6 41 (2.95%) Marketing
7 35 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (2.30%) Retail
9 25 (1.80%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.51%) Documentation Skills
10 21 (1.51%) Front Office
11 19 (1.37%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.08%) Manufacturing
13 14 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
14 13 (0.94%) Financial Institution
15 11 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
16 9 (0.65%) Law
16 9 (0.65%) Legal
16 9 (0.65%) Military
17 8 (0.58%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 642 (46.22%) Data Engineer
2 192 (13.82%) Senior
3 167 (12.02%) Lead
4 158 (11.38%) Architect
5 117 (8.42%) Senior Data Engineer
6 86 (6.19%) Data Architect
7 78 (5.62%) Developer
8 71 (5.11%) AWS Engineer
9 63 (4.54%) Analyst
10 60 (4.32%) AWS Data Engineer
11 56 (4.03%) Lead Data Engineer
12 51 (3.67%) Snowflake Engineer
13 50 (3.60%) Azure Engineer
14 43 (3.10%) Solutions Architect
15 41 (2.95%) Azure Data Engineer
15 41 (2.95%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 39 (2.81%) Consultant
17 37 (2.66%) Data Analyst
18 36 (2.59%) Data Scientist
19 34 (2.45%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 194 (13.97%) PySpark
2 105 (7.56%) Kafka
3 42 (3.02%) REST
4 27 (1.94%) React
5 26 (1.87%) Pandas
6 23 (1.66%) JSON
7 22 (1.58%) .NET
8 17 (1.22%) scikit-learn
8 17 (1.22%) Spring
9 15 (1.08%) NumPy
9 15 (1.08%) PyTorch
10 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Graph
10 11 (0.79%) pytest
10 11 (0.79%) RESTful
10 11 (0.79%) Spring Boot
10 11 (0.79%) TensorFlow
11 9 (0.65%) FastAPI
11 9 (0.65%) Great Expectations
11 9 (0.65%) LangChain
11 9 (0.65%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 184 (13.25%) Cloud Native
2 60 (4.32%) Data Structures
3 57 (4.10%) Legacy Systems
4 54 (3.89%) Product Ownership
5 51 (3.67%) Distributed Systems
6 44 (3.17%) Onboarding
7 33 (2.38%) AI Agents
8 23 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.58%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.37%) Distributed Computing
11 18 (1.30%) NHS
12 16 (1.15%) Clustering
12 16 (1.15%) Virtual Team
13 15 (1.08%) Life Science
14 14 (1.01%) Algorithms
14 14 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
15 12 (0.86%) Management Information System
15 12 (0.86%) Reference Data
16 11 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
17 10 (0.72%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 37 (2.66%) Linux
2 29 (2.09%) Unix
3 8 (0.58%) Windows
4 2 (0.14%) VMS
4 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.072%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.072%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.072%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 689 (49.60%) Analytics
2 670 (48.24%) Data Pipeline
3 530 (38.16%) Data Modelling
4 486 (34.99%) CI/CD
5 478 (34.41%) ETL
6 393 (28.29%) AI
7 357 (25.70%) Agile
8 338 (24.33%) Business Intelligence
9 333 (23.97%) DevOps
10 307 (22.10%) Data Governance
11 243 (17.49%) Machine Learning
12 235 (16.92%) Problem-Solving
13 211 (15.19%) Data Science
14 205 (14.76%) Data Architecture
15 203 (14.61%) Decision-Making
16 202 (14.54%) Validation
17 201 (14.47%) Migration
18 196 (14.11%) Data Transformation
19 194 (13.97%) Stakeholder Management
20 173 (12.46%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 750 (54.00%) SQL
2 699 (50.32%) Python
3 110 (7.92%) Java
4 40 (2.88%) Bash
4 40 (2.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 38 (2.74%) Scala
6 33 (2.38%) PowerShell
7 30 (2.16%) C#
8 23 (1.66%) JavaScript
9 21 (1.51%) T-SQL
10 17 (1.22%) R
11 16 (1.15%) PL/SQL
12 14 (1.01%) Shell Script
13 13 (0.94%) Bicep
14 12 (0.86%) SAS Macro
15 10 (0.72%) TypeScript
16 8 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
17 7 (0.50%) SPARQL
18 6 (0.43%) Cypher
19 5 (0.36%) Korn
Qualifications
1 274 (19.73%) Security Cleared
2 235 (16.92%) SC Cleared
3 84 (6.05%) Degree
4 41 (2.95%) Computer Science Degree
5 26 (1.87%) Azure Certification
5 26 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
6 25 (1.80%) DV Cleared
7 22 (1.58%) Master's Degree
8 16 (1.15%) AWS Certification
9 13 (0.94%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.50%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 7 (0.50%) SnowPro
12 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (0.36%) Tableau Certification
13 3 (0.22%) PhD
13 3 (0.22%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.14%) CSPO
14 2 (0.14%) PMP
15 1 (0.072%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 414 (29.81%) Data Quality
2 73 (5.26%) QA
3 71 (5.11%) GDPR
4 22 (1.58%) Accessibility
5 10 (0.72%) SLA
6 5 (0.36%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.29%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.22%) GxP
8 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.22%) MiFID
8 3 (0.22%) NIST
8 3 (0.22%) PMO
9 2 (0.14%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.14%) EMIR
9 2 (0.14%) GRC
9 2 (0.14%) IFRS
9 2 (0.14%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 118 (8.50%) Docker
2 5 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.14%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 187 (13.46%) Terraform
2 99 (7.13%) Kubernetes
3 20 (1.44%) Ansible
4 15 (1.08%) Grafana
5 10 (0.72%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.36%) Control-M
6 5 (0.36%) Kibana
7 3 (0.22%) logstash
8 2 (0.14%) Argo
8 2 (0.14%) Puppet
8 2 (0.14%) Rancher
8 2 (0.14%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.072%) Cilium
9 1 (0.072%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.072%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.072%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.072%) Nagios
9 1 (0.072%) QRadar
Vendors
1 342 (24.62%) Databricks
2 243 (17.49%) Microsoft
3 73 (5.26%) Informatica
4 63 (4.54%) Google
5 62 (4.46%) Oracle
6 31 (2.23%) SAP
7 30 (2.16%) Talend
8 29 (2.09%) Foundry
9 27 (1.94%) Palantir
10 20 (1.44%) Cloudera
10 20 (1.44%) Salesforce
11 14 (1.01%) OpenAI
11 14 (1.01%) Splunk
12 13 (0.94%) ServiceNow
13 12 (0.86%) Trend Micro
14 8 (0.58%) Denodo
14 8 (0.58%) Teradata
14 8 (0.58%) Workday
15 7 (0.50%) Hitachi
15 7 (0.50%) InterSystems