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

6 months to
1 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 149 203
Rank change year-on-year +61 +54 -11
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,173 455 427
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.91% 1.87% 1.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.42% 2.05% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 825 326 314
10th Percentile £400 £400 £400
25th Percentile £450 £451 £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 14 12 12
10th Percentile £52.90 £22.00 £30.46
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.38 £34.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £26.47 £38.65
Median % change year-on-year +164.50% -31.53% -47.05%
75th Percentile £82.31 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.25 £63.88 -
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 34,314 22,202 32,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.00% 91.20% 86.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,947 14,537 21,107
10th Percentile £318 £310 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £617 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,131 918 2,248
10th Percentile £15.38 £14.69 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.38 £18.50 £16.02
Median hourly rate £45.46 £30.00 £36.00
Median % change year-on-year +51.53% -16.67% -4.00%
75th Percentile £67.50 £63.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £79.50 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £29.00 £35.65
% change year-on-year +43.29% -18.65% -4.42%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +60 731 £550 -4.35% 210
Midlands +15 126 £500 +2.56% 50
North of England +2 121 £480 -4.00% 90
West Midlands +19 101 £500 - 36
South West +24 76 £516 -15.84% 37
South East -27 58 £550 +10.00% 73
Yorkshire -11 56 £480 -12.73% 23
North West -23 47 £500 +2.56% 47
East of England -15 23 £575 +54.08% 9
East Midlands -14 22 £450 -5.26% 14
North East -1 20 £475 - 20
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
1 176 (15.00%) Apache Spark
2 111 (9.46%) Apache Airflow
3 74 (6.31%) Apache
4 30 (2.56%) SAS
5 16 (1.36%) Palantir Foundry
6 13 (1.11%) Confluence
7 8 (0.68%) Appian
8 7 (0.60%) Apache Superset
9 6 (0.51%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
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
Applications
1 24 (2.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.34%) Chatbot
6 3 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.26%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.26%) Trello
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
1 538 (45.87%) Azure
2 414 (35.29%) AWS
3 267 (22.76%) Power Platform
4 182 (15.52%) Azure Data Factory
5 176 (15.00%) GCP
6 139 (11.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 134 (11.42%) Snowflake
8 122 (10.40%) GitHub
9 118 (10.06%) Amazon S3
10 107 (9.12%) dbt
11 97 (8.27%) Azure DevOps
12 93 (7.93%) Serverless
13 75 (6.39%) AWS Lambda
14 74 (6.31%) GitHub Actions
15 43 (3.67%) AWS CloudFormation
16 27 (2.30%) AWS Step Functions
17 25 (2.13%) Collibra
17 25 (2.13%) Dagster
18 23 (1.96%) Amazon SageMaker
19 22 (1.88%) Amazon Kinesis
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%) VPN
4 1 (0.085%) 4G
4 1 (0.085%) 5G
4 1 (0.085%) MIMO
4 1 (0.085%) Network Security
4 1 (0.085%) SAN
4 1 (0.085%) SMS
4 1 (0.085%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 245 (20.89%) Power BI
2 226 (19.27%) Data Warehouse
3 194 (16.54%) Data Lake
4 107 (9.12%) Metadata
5 82 (6.99%) Big Data
5 82 (6.99%) SQL Server
6 77 (6.56%) Delta Lake
7 74 (6.31%) NoSQL
8 70 (5.97%) Tableau
9 66 (5.63%) BigQuery
10 64 (5.46%) Amazon Redshift
10 64 (5.46%) Azure SQL Database
11 59 (5.03%) Snowflake Schema
12 53 (4.52%) Relational Database
13 50 (4.26%) Amazon Athena
14 44 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
15 41 (3.50%) Hadoop
16 38 (3.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 35 (2.98%) Spark SQL
18 26 (2.22%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 138 (11.76%) Git
2 48 (4.09%) GitLab
3 40 (3.41%) MLflow
4 37 (3.15%) JIRA
5 32 (2.73%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.51%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.43%) Selenium
8 3 (0.26%) Postman
8 3 (0.26%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.26%) 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 (26.34%) Finance
2 269 (22.93%) Social Skills
3 181 (15.43%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (8.35%) Public Sector
5 65 (5.54%) Banking
6 24 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 23 (1.96%) Retail
8 21 (1.79%) Marketing
9 17 (1.45%) Documentation Skills
10 16 (1.36%) Front Office
11 15 (1.28%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.19%) Legal
13 13 (1.11%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (1.02%) Financial Institution
15 11 (0.94%) Investment Banking
16 7 (0.60%) Military
17 6 (0.51%) Back Office
17 6 (0.51%) Law
18 5 (0.43%) Pharmaceutical
19 4 (0.34%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 557 (47.49%) Data Engineer
2 160 (13.64%) Senior
3 129 (11.00%) Lead
4 118 (10.06%) Architect
5 107 (9.12%) Senior Data Engineer
6 68 (5.80%) Developer
7 60 (5.12%) Data Architect
8 57 (4.86%) Azure Engineer
9 51 (4.35%) Analyst
10 49 (4.18%) Azure Data Engineer
10 49 (4.18%) Lead Data Engineer
11 44 (3.75%) AWS Engineer
12 43 (3.67%) Data Scientist
13 40 (3.41%) Snowflake Engineer
14 37 (3.15%) Consultant
14 37 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
15 34 (2.90%) AWS Data Engineer
15 34 (2.90%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 31 (2.64%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 28 (2.39%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 181 (15.43%) PySpark
2 135 (11.51%) Kafka
3 50 (4.26%) Pandas
4 41 (3.50%) scikit-learn
5 40 (3.41%) PyTorch
6 33 (2.81%) NumPy
7 31 (2.64%) TensorFlow
8 26 (2.22%) JSON
9 25 (2.13%) REST
10 23 (1.96%) Spring
10 23 (1.96%) YAML
11 22 (1.88%) React
12 21 (1.79%) pytest
13 20 (1.71%) LangChain
14 19 (1.62%) RESTful
15 18 (1.53%) Great Expectations
16 16 (1.36%) FastAPI
16 16 (1.36%) Spring Boot
17 14 (1.19%) Flask
18 13 (1.11%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 155 (13.21%) Cloud Native
2 41 (3.50%) Distributed Systems
3 40 (3.41%) Product Ownership
4 37 (3.15%) Legacy Systems
5 35 (2.98%) Data Structures
6 29 (2.47%) Distributed Computing
7 27 (2.30%) AI Agents
8 21 (1.79%) Algorithms
8 21 (1.79%) Greenfield Project
9 20 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
10 18 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
10 18 (1.53%) Onboarding
11 15 (1.28%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (1.28%) NHS
12 14 (1.19%) Fixed Income
13 13 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (1.02%) Clustering
15 10 (0.85%) Equities
15 10 (0.85%) Management Information System
16 8 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 27 (2.30%) Linux
2 20 (1.71%) Unix
3 7 (0.60%) 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
1 596 (50.81%) Analytics
2 534 (45.52%) Data Pipeline
3 462 (39.39%) Data Modelling
4 458 (39.05%) ETL
5 393 (33.50%) CI/CD
6 324 (27.62%) AI
7 306 (26.09%) Agile
7 306 (26.09%) Business Intelligence
8 290 (24.72%) DevOps
9 270 (23.02%) Data Governance
10 227 (19.35%) Machine Learning
11 211 (17.99%) Problem-Solving
12 199 (16.97%) Data Science
13 174 (14.83%) Data Architecture
14 156 (13.30%) Decision-Making
15 140 (11.94%) Validation
16 138 (11.76%) Migration
17 129 (11.00%) Infrastructure as Code
18 122 (10.40%) Data Transformation
19 112 (9.55%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 640 (54.56%) SQL
2 624 (53.20%) Python
3 99 (8.44%) Java
4 62 (5.29%) Scala
5 41 (3.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 36 (3.07%) C#
7 24 (2.05%) Bash
8 22 (1.88%) JavaScript
8 22 (1.88%) R
8 22 (1.88%) T-SQL
9 21 (1.79%) PowerShell
10 16 (1.36%) Bicep
11 11 (0.94%) Go
11 11 (0.94%) Shell Script
12 10 (0.85%) PL/SQL
12 10 (0.85%) TypeScript
13 7 (0.60%) SAS Macro
14 4 (0.34%) Korn
15 2 (0.17%) C++
16 1 (0.085%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 235 (20.03%) Security Cleared
2 205 (17.48%) SC Cleared
3 81 (6.91%) Degree
4 40 (3.41%) Azure Certification
5 35 (2.98%) Computer Science Degree
6 28 (2.39%) Master's Degree
7 16 (1.36%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.28%) DV Cleared
9 12 (1.02%) AWS Certification
10 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
11 5 (0.43%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.43%) PhD
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
1 326 (27.79%) Data Quality
2 88 (7.50%) GDPR
3 50 (4.26%) QA
4 13 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 6 (0.51%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.43%) MiFID
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
9 2 (0.17%) EMIR
9 2 (0.17%) HL7
9 2 (0.17%) NIST
9 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.17%) PMO
10 1 (0.085%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.085%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 118 (10.06%) 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
1 157 (13.38%) Terraform
2 118 (10.06%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.05%) Prometheus
4 11 (0.94%) Grafana
5 8 (0.68%) Ansible
6 5 (0.43%) Argo
7 4 (0.34%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.26%) Kibana
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
1 311 (26.51%) Databricks
2 190 (16.20%) Microsoft
3 61 (5.20%) Google
4 55 (4.69%) Informatica
5 38 (3.24%) Oracle
6 28 (2.39%) Talend
7 23 (1.96%) Foundry
8 22 (1.88%) OpenAI
9 20 (1.71%) SAP
10 19 (1.62%) Splunk
11 18 (1.53%) Palantir
12 16 (1.36%) Cloudera
13 12 (1.02%) ServiceNow
14 11 (0.94%) Salesforce
15 9 (0.77%) UiPath
16 8 (0.68%) Automation Anywhere
17 7 (0.60%) InterSystems
18 6 (0.51%) Denodo
18 6 (0.51%) IBM
19 5 (0.43%) Workday