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 20 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 150 210
Rank change year-on-year +56 +60 +15
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 969 462 423
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.78% 1.78% 1.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.18% 1.98% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 665 326 317
10th Percentile £363 £400 £413
25th Percentile £431 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £676 £675
90th Percentile £738 £838 £740
UK median daily rate £520 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -5.45% - -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 11 9
10th Percentile £50.30 £22.00 £32.35
25th Percentile £62.94 £22.36 £35.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £26.50 £42.31
Median % change year-on-year +164.15% -37.36% -14.96%
75th Percentile £77.19 £29.38 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.63 £65.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £66.50 £25.97 £42.31
% change year-on-year +156.11% -38.62% +20.87%

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 30,443 23,357 32,953
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 87.38% 90.01% 87.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,446 14,532 21,897
10th Percentile £313 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,911 750 2,006
10th Percentile £15.22 £15.62 £13.41
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £26.61 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -23.99% - -
75th Percentile £62.29 £64.73 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.28 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £25.64 £32.50 £34.77
% change year-on-year -21.12% -6.52% -0.67%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 20 February 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 +56 648 £550 -4.35% 306
North of England -9 97 £450 -10.00% 112
Midlands +11 88 £511 +2.25% 56
West Midlands +5 68 £519 +3.85% 44
North West +4 55 £445 +0.28% 62
South West +7 52 £550 -15.38% 36
South East -17 41 £538 -0.46% 97
Yorkshire -52 23 £500 -16.67% 40
East Midlands -12 20 £445 -13.10% 12
North East 0 19 £450 -23.08% 11
East of England -24 15 £551 +72.45% 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
1 145 (14.96%) Apache Spark
2 103 (10.63%) Apache Airflow
3 67 (6.91%) Apache
4 19 (1.96%) Palantir Foundry
5 12 (1.24%) SAS
6 11 (1.14%) Confluence
7 8 (0.83%) Appian
8 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.21%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.21%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.21%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Pig
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.10%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.10%) Camunda
10 1 (0.10%) CMS
10 1 (0.10%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.10%) Luigi
Applications
1 18 (1.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.62%) Chatbot
4 5 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.41%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.31%) Trello
7 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
8 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 4 (0.41%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.21%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.10%) Actimize
3 1 (0.10%) Markit EDM
3 1 (0.10%) Maximo
3 1 (0.10%) Misys Midas
3 1 (0.10%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.10%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 461 (47.57%) Azure
2 344 (35.50%) AWS
3 216 (22.29%) Power Platform
4 183 (18.89%) Azure Data Factory
5 145 (14.96%) GCP
6 120 (12.38%) Snowflake
7 107 (11.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 104 (10.73%) Amazon S3
9 102 (10.53%) GitHub
10 92 (9.49%) Serverless
11 90 (9.29%) dbt
12 81 (8.36%) Azure DevOps
13 76 (7.84%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (7.12%) GitHub Actions
15 40 (4.13%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (2.68%) AWS Step Functions
16 26 (2.68%) Azure Machine Learning
17 23 (2.37%) Amazon SageMaker
18 22 (2.27%) Amazon EMR
18 22 (2.27%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.52%) Network Security
2 4 (0.41%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.41%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.31%) RTP
3 3 (0.31%) VPN
4 1 (0.10%) 4G
4 1 (0.10%) 5G
4 1 (0.10%) Firewall
4 1 (0.10%) SAN
4 1 (0.10%) SMS
4 1 (0.10%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (20.43%) Power BI
2 190 (19.61%) Data Warehouse
3 137 (14.14%) Data Lake
4 82 (8.46%) Metadata
5 68 (7.02%) SQL Server
6 65 (6.71%) Big Data
7 59 (6.09%) Delta Lake
7 59 (6.09%) NoSQL
8 53 (5.47%) Azure SQL Database
8 53 (5.47%) Snowflake Schema
9 51 (5.26%) Amazon Redshift
9 51 (5.26%) Relational Database
10 45 (4.64%) BigQuery
11 39 (4.02%) Tableau
12 38 (3.92%) PostgreSQL
13 37 (3.82%) Amazon Athena
14 32 (3.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 31 (3.20%) Hadoop
16 26 (2.68%) Spark SQL
17 23 (2.37%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 138 (14.24%) Git
2 45 (4.64%) GitLab
3 39 (4.02%) Jenkins
3 39 (4.02%) MLflow
4 21 (2.17%) JIRA
5 6 (0.62%) Visual Studio Code
6 5 (0.52%) Selenium
7 4 (0.41%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.31%) JUnit
8 3 (0.31%) Maven
8 3 (0.31%) Postman
8 3 (0.31%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.31%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.21%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.21%) ERwin
9 2 (0.21%) Mockito
9 2 (0.21%) Poetry
9 2 (0.21%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.21%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.10%) SoapUI
General
1 268 (27.66%) Social Skills
2 225 (23.22%) Finance
3 139 (14.34%) Analytical Skills
4 83 (8.57%) Public Sector
5 62 (6.40%) Banking
6 23 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 18 (1.86%) Investment Banking
8 17 (1.75%) Retail
9 16 (1.65%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.44%) Front Office
11 13 (1.34%) Marketing
12 11 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
13 10 (1.03%) Publishing
14 9 (0.93%) Legal
14 9 (0.93%) Pharmaceutical
15 8 (0.83%) Financial Institution
16 6 (0.62%) Back Office
16 6 (0.62%) Military
16 6 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.62%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 444 (45.82%) Data Engineer
2 123 (12.69%) Lead
3 121 (12.49%) Senior
4 85 (8.77%) Senior Data Engineer
5 71 (7.33%) Architect
5 71 (7.33%) Azure Engineer
6 64 (6.60%) Developer
7 55 (5.68%) Azure Data Engineer
8 50 (5.16%) Analyst
9 43 (4.44%) Snowflake Engineer
10 41 (4.23%) Data Scientist
11 40 (4.13%) Lead Data Engineer
12 38 (3.92%) AWS Engineer
13 36 (3.72%) Data Architect
14 35 (3.61%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 34 (3.51%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 28 (2.89%) Data Analyst
17 26 (2.68%) Python Engineer
18 25 (2.58%) AWS Data Engineer
19 24 (2.48%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 162 (16.72%) PySpark
2 125 (12.90%) Kafka
3 54 (5.57%) Pandas
4 52 (5.37%) PyTorch
5 44 (4.54%) scikit-learn
6 42 (4.33%) NumPy
7 41 (4.23%) TensorFlow
8 32 (3.30%) FastAPI
9 30 (3.10%) RESTful
10 29 (2.99%) Flask
10 29 (2.99%) JSON
11 26 (2.68%) pytest
12 24 (2.48%) React
12 24 (2.48%) YAML
13 22 (2.27%) LangChain
14 19 (1.96%) REST
15 16 (1.65%) Hugging Face
16 15 (1.55%) Django
16 15 (1.55%) Great Expectations
17 13 (1.34%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 110 (11.35%) Cloud Native
2 33 (3.41%) Algorithms
2 33 (3.41%) Product Ownership
3 29 (2.99%) Distributed Computing
4 27 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
5 23 (2.37%) Data Structures
6 21 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
7 19 (1.96%) Data Protection Act
7 19 (1.96%) Legacy Systems
8 17 (1.75%) AI Agents
8 17 (1.75%) Onboarding
9 15 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
10 12 (1.24%) Clustering
11 11 (1.14%) Fixed Income
11 11 (1.14%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 10 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
12 10 (1.03%) Hedge funds
12 10 (1.03%) NHS
13 9 (0.93%) Derivative
13 9 (0.93%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 23 (2.37%) Linux
2 6 (0.62%) VMS
3 5 (0.52%) Unix
4 2 (0.21%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.10%) CentOS
5 1 (0.10%) Debian
5 1 (0.10%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 436 (44.99%) Data Pipeline
2 430 (44.38%) Analytics
3 385 (39.73%) ETL
4 378 (39.01%) Data Modelling
5 336 (34.67%) CI/CD
6 252 (26.01%) AI
7 250 (25.80%) Agile
8 248 (25.59%) DevOps
9 237 (24.46%) Data Governance
10 236 (24.36%) Business Intelligence
11 215 (22.19%) Machine Learning
12 202 (20.85%) Data Science
13 199 (20.54%) Problem-Solving
14 156 (16.10%) Data Architecture
15 121 (12.49%) Infrastructure as Code
16 105 (10.84%) Decision-Making
17 100 (10.32%) Visualisation
18 98 (10.11%) Validation
19 97 (10.01%) Data Integration
20 96 (9.91%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 594 (61.30%) Python
2 517 (53.35%) SQL
3 70 (7.22%) Java
4 62 (6.40%) Scala
5 44 (4.54%) C#
6 31 (3.20%) JavaScript
7 27 (2.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 26 (2.68%) PowerShell
9 24 (2.48%) Bicep
10 22 (2.27%) Bash
11 20 (2.06%) T-SQL
12 19 (1.96%) TypeScript
13 17 (1.75%) R
14 16 (1.65%) C++
15 15 (1.55%) Go
16 11 (1.14%) PL/SQL
17 9 (0.93%) Rust
18 8 (0.83%) Korn
19 6 (0.62%) Shell Script
20 1 (0.10%) VBA
Qualifications
1 197 (20.33%) Security Cleared
2 161 (16.62%) SC Cleared
3 78 (8.05%) Degree
4 49 (5.06%) Azure Certification
5 36 (3.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 36 (3.72%) Master's Degree
6 22 (2.27%) DV Cleared
7 13 (1.34%) AWS Certification
7 13 (1.34%) BPSS Clearance
8 11 (1.14%) Microsoft Certification
8 11 (1.14%) PhD
9 4 (0.41%) DBS Check
9 4 (0.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.21%) SnowPro
11 1 (0.10%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.10%) CCSP
11 1 (0.10%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.10%) CISSP
11 1 (0.10%) OCP
11 1 (0.10%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 267 (27.55%) Data Quality
2 81 (8.36%) GDPR
3 35 (3.61%) QA
4 13 (1.34%) Accessibility
5 12 (1.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 9 (0.93%) HIPAA
7 6 (0.62%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 6 (0.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.52%) PERC
8 5 (0.52%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.31%) GRC
9 3 (0.31%) WCAG
10 2 (0.21%) HL7
10 2 (0.21%) MiFID
10 2 (0.21%) NIST
10 2 (0.21%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.10%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.10%) ISO 13485
11 1 (0.10%) NCSC
11 1 (0.10%) PMO
System Software
1 139 (14.34%) Docker
2 9 (0.93%) HDFS
3 2 (0.21%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.10%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 160 (16.51%) Terraform
2 136 (14.04%) Kubernetes
3 24 (2.48%) Prometheus
4 12 (1.24%) Grafana
5 5 (0.52%) Ansible
5 5 (0.52%) Argo
5 5 (0.52%) Hadoop YARN
6 3 (0.31%) Control-M
6 3 (0.31%) Kubeflow
7 2 (0.21%) Kibana
7 2 (0.21%) logstash
7 2 (0.21%) Nagios
7 2 (0.21%) Oozie
7 2 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.10%) Apache Ranger
8 1 (0.10%) HP Fortify
8 1 (0.10%) Puppet
8 1 (0.10%) Rancher
Vendors
1 282 (29.10%) Databricks
2 127 (13.11%) Microsoft
3 48 (4.95%) Google
4 29 (2.99%) Informatica
4 29 (2.99%) Oracle
5 23 (2.37%) Palantir
6 22 (2.27%) Foundry
6 22 (2.27%) Talend
7 21 (2.17%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.44%) SAP
9 11 (1.14%) Salesforce
10 10 (1.03%) Cloudera
11 9 (0.93%) Splunk
12 8 (0.83%) Automation Anywhere
12 8 (0.83%) UiPath
12 8 (0.83%) Virgin Media
13 7 (0.72%) Denodo
14 6 (0.62%) MicroStrategy
14 6 (0.62%) ServiceNow
15 5 (0.52%) Guidewire