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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 159 202
Rank change year-on-year +73 +43 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,376 508 415
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.01% 1.84% 1.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.55% 2.03% 1.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 960 324 307
10th Percentile £400 £363 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -8.70% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £694
90th Percentile £750 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £525 £516 £575
% change year-on-year +1.69% -10.22% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 6 10
10th Percentile - £37.11 £29.46
25th Percentile £21.25 £42.03 £32.19
Median hourly rate £69.50 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.38% -12.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £75.75 £62.19 -
90th Percentile £85.48 £87.50 £60.88
UK median hourly rate £69.00 £52.50 £47.50
% change year-on-year +31.43% +10.53% -39.10%

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 38,747 25,016 28,488
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.82% 90.80% 85.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,944 15,923 18,325
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £404 £423
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £630 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £738 £753
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,579 1,477 1,517
10th Percentile £14.25 £14.23 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.80 £17.87 £18.13
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.05 £69.79 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
% change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +50 836 £550 - 543
North of England +28 175 £475 -2.56% 154
Midlands +39 138 £475 +4.05% 42
West Midlands +23 113 £475 -6.31% 36
South East -18 92 £525 +14.38% 76
Yorkshire +22 84 £475 +11.76% 33
South West +11 70 £525 -3.45% 76
North West -19 56 £525 +5.00% 92
North East -8 37 £425 -20.93% 30
East of England -8 28 £575 -4.17% 28
East Midlands -3 22 £525 +16.54% 6
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
1 167 (12.14%) Apache Airflow
2 155 (11.26%) Apache Spark
3 109 (7.92%) Apache
4 38 (2.76%) SAS
5 29 (2.11%) Confluence
6 22 (1.60%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.24%) Palantir Foundry
8 13 (0.94%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.51%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.36%) Apache Solr
11 4 (0.29%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
12 2 (0.15%) PowerExchange
13 1 (0.073%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.073%) CICS
13 1 (0.073%) nginx
Applications
1 16 (1.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.36%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.15%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.073%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.80%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.44%) 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 (0.15%) Endur
5 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.15%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.15%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.15%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.073%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.073%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.073%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.073%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 588 (42.73%) Azure
2 514 (37.35%) AWS
3 270 (19.62%) Power Platform
4 217 (15.77%) Snowflake
5 188 (13.66%) GCP
6 184 (13.37%) dbt
7 155 (11.26%) Azure Data Factory
8 145 (10.54%) Amazon S3
9 129 (9.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 125 (9.08%) Azure DevOps
11 115 (8.36%) Serverless
12 106 (7.70%) GitHub
13 96 (6.98%) AWS Lambda
14 55 (4.00%) GitHub Actions
15 33 (2.40%) Amazon EMR
16 30 (2.18%) Amazon Bedrock
17 27 (1.96%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 27 (1.96%) Microsoft Purview
18 26 (1.89%) Azure AI
19 23 (1.67%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) Firewall
2 3 (0.22%) DNS
2 3 (0.22%) Network Security
3 2 (0.15%) RTP
4 1 (0.073%) Internet
4 1 (0.073%) MIMO
4 1 (0.073%) MQTT
4 1 (0.073%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 280 (20.35%) Data Warehouse
2 256 (18.60%) Power BI
3 188 (13.66%) Data Lake
4 153 (11.12%) Metadata
5 103 (7.49%) BigQuery
6 96 (6.98%) Amazon Redshift
7 95 (6.90%) Delta Lake
8 79 (5.74%) Big Data
9 76 (5.52%) Tableau
10 61 (4.43%) Amazon Athena
11 60 (4.36%) SQL Server
12 52 (3.78%) NoSQL
13 49 (3.56%) Snowflake Schema
14 48 (3.49%) Relational Database
15 47 (3.42%) PostgreSQL
16 39 (2.83%) Azure SQL Database
17 34 (2.47%) Looker
18 33 (2.40%) Star Schema
19 31 (2.25%) Data Vault
20 28 (2.03%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 128 (9.30%) Git
2 76 (5.52%) GitLab
3 59 (4.29%) JIRA
4 23 (1.67%) MLflow
5 22 (1.60%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.44%) Bitbucket
6 6 (0.44%) ERwin
6 6 (0.44%) RStudio
6 6 (0.44%) Terragrunt
7 5 (0.36%) Selenium
7 5 (0.36%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.29%) Claude Code
8 4 (0.29%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.22%) Snyk
9 3 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.15%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 2 (0.15%) Postman
10 2 (0.15%) Yeoman
11 1 (0.073%) Deequ
General
1 337 (24.49%) Social Skills
2 313 (22.75%) Finance
3 224 (16.28%) Analytical Skills
4 143 (10.39%) Public Sector
5 103 (7.49%) Banking
6 46 (3.34%) Marketing
7 36 (2.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 29 (2.11%) Retail
9 22 (1.60%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.53%) Front Office
11 20 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
12 19 (1.38%) Investment Banking
13 15 (1.09%) Manufacturing
14 14 (1.02%) Pharmaceutical
15 13 (0.94%) Financial Institution
16 11 (0.80%) Billing
16 11 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
17 9 (0.65%) Law
17 9 (0.65%) Legal
17 9 (0.65%) Military
Job Titles
1 632 (45.93%) Data Engineer
2 202 (14.68%) Senior
3 163 (11.85%) Architect
4 153 (11.12%) Lead
5 125 (9.08%) Senior Data Engineer
6 89 (6.47%) Data Architect
7 73 (5.31%) Developer
8 65 (4.72%) AWS Engineer
9 64 (4.65%) Analyst
10 55 (4.00%) AWS Data Engineer
11 52 (3.78%) Snowflake Engineer
12 51 (3.71%) Lead Data Engineer
13 45 (3.27%) Azure Engineer
14 42 (3.05%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 41 (2.98%) Solutions Architect
16 40 (2.91%) Consultant
17 36 (2.62%) Data Analyst
18 34 (2.47%) Azure Data Engineer
19 33 (2.40%) Data Scientist
20 32 (2.33%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (14.75%) PySpark
2 190 (13.81%) Terraform
3 100 (7.27%) Kafka
4 49 (3.56%) REST
5 30 (2.18%) React
6 25 (1.82%) Pandas
7 24 (1.74%) JSON
8 22 (1.60%) .NET
9 16 (1.16%) scikit-learn
10 15 (1.09%) NumPy
10 15 (1.09%) PyTorch
10 15 (1.09%) Spring
11 13 (0.94%) TensorFlow
12 11 (0.80%) Microsoft Graph
13 10 (0.73%) Great Expectations
14 9 (0.65%) FastAPI
14 9 (0.65%) LangChain
14 9 (0.65%) pytest
14 9 (0.65%) Spring Boot
15 8 (0.58%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 179 (13.01%) Cloud Native
2 58 (4.22%) Legacy Systems
3 57 (4.14%) Data Structures
4 54 (3.92%) Product Ownership
5 53 (3.85%) Onboarding
6 47 (3.42%) Distributed Systems
7 36 (2.62%) AI Agents
8 23 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
9 21 (1.53%) Greenfield Project
10 18 (1.31%) Distributed Computing
11 17 (1.24%) NHS
12 16 (1.16%) Virtual Team
13 15 (1.09%) Clustering
14 14 (1.02%) Life Science
15 13 (0.94%) Algorithms
15 13 (0.94%) Analytical Mindset
15 13 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
15 13 (0.94%) Management Information System
16 12 (0.87%) Reference Data
17 10 (0.73%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 34 (2.47%) Linux
2 30 (2.18%) Unix
3 8 (0.58%) Windows
4 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.073%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.073%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.073%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.073%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 675 (49.06%) Analytics
2 661 (48.04%) Data Pipeline
3 521 (37.86%) Data Modelling
4 477 (34.67%) CI/CD
5 471 (34.23%) ETL
6 403 (29.29%) AI
7 339 (24.64%) Agile
8 338 (24.56%) Business Intelligence
9 325 (23.62%) DevOps
10 309 (22.46%) Data Governance
11 238 (17.30%) Machine Learning
12 231 (16.79%) Problem-Solving
13 214 (15.55%) Data Transformation
14 212 (15.41%) Data Architecture
14 212 (15.41%) Migration
15 211 (15.33%) Stakeholder Management
16 208 (15.12%) Validation
17 201 (14.61%) Data Science
17 201 (14.61%) Decision-Making
18 181 (13.15%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 747 (54.29%) SQL
2 685 (49.78%) Python
3 102 (7.41%) Java
4 41 (2.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 36 (2.62%) Bash
5 36 (2.62%) Scala
6 35 (2.54%) PowerShell
7 28 (2.03%) C#
8 25 (1.82%) JavaScript
9 20 (1.45%) R
9 20 (1.45%) T-SQL
10 17 (1.24%) PL/SQL
11 16 (1.16%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.94%) Bicep
13 10 (0.73%) TypeScript
14 9 (0.65%) SAS Macro
15 8 (0.58%) Kusto Query Language
16 7 (0.51%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.44%) Cypher
18 5 (0.36%) Go
Qualifications
1 264 (19.19%) Security Cleared
2 227 (16.50%) SC Cleared
3 79 (5.74%) Degree
4 40 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (2.03%) Azure Certification
6 25 (1.82%) DV Cleared
7 24 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.53%) Master's Degree
9 18 (1.31%) AWS Certification
10 14 (1.02%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.65%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
12 8 (0.58%) SnowPro
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.36%) Tableau Certification
14 4 (0.29%) PMI Certification
15 3 (0.22%) PhD
15 3 (0.22%) PMP
16 2 (0.15%) CSPO
17 1 (0.073%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 425 (30.89%) Data Quality
2 70 (5.09%) GDPR
3 69 (5.01%) QA
4 25 (1.82%) Accessibility
5 13 (0.94%) SLA
6 4 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.22%) GxP
7 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (0.22%) MiFID
7 3 (0.22%) NIST
7 3 (0.22%) PMO
7 3 (0.22%) Solvency II
8 2 (0.15%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 2 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.15%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.15%) EMIR
8 2 (0.15%) GRC
8 2 (0.15%) IFRS
8 2 (0.15%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 118 (8.58%) Docker
2 5 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.073%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 96 (6.98%) Kubernetes
2 21 (1.53%) Ansible
3 16 (1.16%) Grafana
4 7 (0.51%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.44%) Control-M
6 5 (0.36%) Kibana
7 3 (0.22%) logstash
8 2 (0.15%) Argo
8 2 (0.15%) Puppet
8 2 (0.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.073%) Cilium
9 1 (0.073%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.073%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.073%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.073%) Nagios
9 1 (0.073%) QRadar
9 1 (0.073%) Rancher
9 1 (0.073%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 353 (25.65%) Databricks
2 251 (18.24%) Microsoft
3 71 (5.16%) Informatica
4 61 (4.43%) Google
5 60 (4.36%) Oracle
6 28 (2.03%) SAP
7 26 (1.89%) Foundry
7 26 (1.89%) Talend
8 25 (1.82%) Palantir
9 22 (1.60%) Salesforce
10 16 (1.16%) Cloudera
11 13 (0.94%) OpenAI
11 13 (0.94%) ServiceNow
12 12 (0.87%) Trend Micro
13 11 (0.80%) Teradata
14 8 (0.58%) Adobe
14 8 (0.58%) Splunk
14 8 (0.58%) Workday
15 7 (0.51%) Hitachi
15 7 (0.51%) InterSystems