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

6 months to
12 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 151 207
Rank change year-on-year +67 +56 -19
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,391 509 408
As % of all contract jobs in England 3.05% 1.84% 1.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.59% 2.03% 1.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 974 327 301
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% -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 38,794 25,132 28,630
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 85.10% 90.79% 85.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,129 16,058 18,629
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £405 £423
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 2,535 1,418 1,653
10th Percentile £14.56 £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% +3.61%
75th Percentile £68.75 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £41.08
% change year-on-year +68.99% -38.77% -1.96%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +45 826 £550 - 943
North of England +33 181 £463 -2.63% 222
Midlands +50 153 £486 +6.97% 63
West Midlands +46 128 £475 -0.63% 49
South East -20 89 £525 +11.94% 174
Yorkshire +20 85 £475 +11.76% 54
South West +17 75 £506 -16.62% 81
North West -13 59 £500 +2.56% 135
North East -8 39 £425 -20.93% 35
East of England -3 27 £575 -4.17% 37
East Midlands +4 22 £525 +15.45% 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 (12.37%) Apache Spark
2 166 (11.93%) Apache Airflow
3 114 (8.20%) Apache
4 42 (3.02%) SAS
5 28 (2.01%) Confluence
6 23 (1.65%) Jupyter
7 19 (1.37%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.79%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.50%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.29%) Apache Solr
10 4 (0.29%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.072%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.072%) CICS
12 1 (0.072%) nginx
12 1 (0.072%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 17 (1.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.36%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.36%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.14%) MS Visio
5 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
1 585 (42.06%) Azure
2 522 (37.53%) AWS
3 279 (20.06%) Power Platform
4 215 (15.46%) Snowflake
5 188 (13.52%) GCP
6 178 (12.80%) dbt
7 157 (11.29%) Azure Data Factory
8 142 (10.21%) Amazon S3
9 138 (9.92%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 132 (9.49%) Azure DevOps
11 117 (8.41%) GitHub
12 110 (7.91%) Serverless
13 92 (6.61%) AWS Lambda
14 62 (4.46%) GitHub Actions
15 34 (2.44%) Amazon EMR
16 28 (2.01%) Amazon Bedrock
17 27 (1.94%) Azure AI
18 26 (1.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 26 (1.87%) Azure Cosmos DB
18 26 (1.87%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) Firewall
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%) DNS
3 1 (0.072%) Internet
3 1 (0.072%) MIMO
3 1 (0.072%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 279 (20.06%) Data Warehouse
2 261 (18.76%) Power BI
3 191 (13.73%) Data Lake
4 142 (10.21%) Metadata
5 98 (7.05%) BigQuery
6 95 (6.83%) Delta Lake
7 92 (6.61%) Amazon Redshift
8 88 (6.33%) Big Data
9 76 (5.46%) Tableau
10 65 (4.67%) SQL Server
11 60 (4.31%) NoSQL
12 59 (4.24%) Amazon Athena
13 54 (3.88%) Snowflake Schema
14 49 (3.52%) Relational Database
15 46 (3.31%) PostgreSQL
16 38 (2.73%) Azure SQL Database
17 36 (2.59%) Looker
18 34 (2.44%) Star Schema
19 32 (2.30%) Hadoop
20 31 (2.23%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 141 (10.14%) Git
2 76 (5.46%) GitLab
3 56 (4.03%) JIRA
4 24 (1.73%) Jenkins
4 24 (1.73%) MLflow
5 7 (0.50%) SonarQube
6 6 (0.43%) Bitbucket
7 5 (0.36%) ERwin
8 4 (0.29%) Selenium
8 4 (0.29%) Terragrunt
9 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.22%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.22%) Postman
9 3 (0.22%) Snyk
9 3 (0.22%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.14%) Yeoman
11 1 (0.072%) git-flow
11 1 (0.072%) Octopus Deploy
11 1 (0.072%) Robot Framework
11 1 (0.072%) RStudio
General
1 340 (24.44%) Social Skills
2 322 (23.15%) Finance
3 228 (16.39%) Analytical Skills
4 148 (10.64%) Public Sector
5 103 (7.40%) Banking
6 41 (2.95%) Marketing
7 35 (2.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 33 (2.37%) Retail
9 25 (1.80%) Telecoms
10 22 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
11 21 (1.51%) Front Office
12 19 (1.37%) Investment Banking
13 15 (1.08%) Manufacturing
14 14 (1.01%) Pharmaceutical
15 13 (0.93%) Financial Institution
16 11 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
17 9 (0.65%) Law
17 9 (0.65%) Legal
17 9 (0.65%) Military
18 8 (0.58%) Aerospace
Job Titles
1 646 (46.44%) Data Engineer
2 192 (13.80%) Senior
3 169 (12.15%) Lead
4 159 (11.43%) Architect
5 117 (8.41%) Senior Data Engineer
6 86 (6.18%) Data Architect
7 78 (5.61%) Developer
8 70 (5.03%) AWS Engineer
9 63 (4.53%) Analyst
10 59 (4.24%) AWS Data Engineer
11 57 (4.10%) Lead Data Engineer
12 51 (3.67%) Azure Engineer
12 51 (3.67%) Snowflake Engineer
13 43 (3.09%) Solutions Architect
14 42 (3.02%) Azure Data Engineer
15 41 (2.95%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 39 (2.80%) Consultant
17 38 (2.73%) Data Scientist
18 37 (2.66%) Data Analyst
19 33 (2.37%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (14.09%) PySpark
2 104 (7.48%) Kafka
3 39 (2.80%) REST
4 28 (2.01%) Pandas
5 27 (1.94%) React
6 24 (1.73%) JSON
7 21 (1.51%) .NET
8 19 (1.37%) scikit-learn
9 18 (1.29%) Spring
10 17 (1.22%) NumPy
11 15 (1.08%) PyTorch
12 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Graph
12 11 (0.79%) RESTful
12 11 (0.79%) Spring Boot
12 11 (0.79%) TensorFlow
13 10 (0.72%) pytest
14 9 (0.65%) Great Expectations
14 9 (0.65%) Node.js
14 9 (0.65%) YAML
15 8 (0.58%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 184 (13.23%) Cloud Native
2 60 (4.31%) Data Structures
3 57 (4.10%) Legacy Systems
4 54 (3.88%) Product Ownership
5 51 (3.67%) Distributed Systems
6 44 (3.16%) Onboarding
7 30 (2.16%) AI Agents
8 23 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.58%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.37%) Distributed Computing
11 18 (1.29%) NHS
12 16 (1.15%) Clustering
12 16 (1.15%) Virtual Team
13 15 (1.08%) Algorithms
13 15 (1.08%) Life Science
14 14 (1.01%) Analytical Mindset
15 12 (0.86%) Management Information System
16 11 (0.79%) Enterprise Software
16 11 (0.79%) Reference Data
16 11 (0.79%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 36 (2.59%) Linux
2 29 (2.08%) Unix
3 7 (0.50%) 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
1 693 (49.82%) Analytics
2 676 (48.60%) Data Pipeline
3 535 (38.46%) Data Modelling
4 490 (35.23%) CI/CD
5 481 (34.58%) ETL
6 391 (28.11%) AI
7 360 (25.88%) Agile
8 340 (24.44%) Business Intelligence
9 338 (24.30%) DevOps
10 307 (22.07%) Data Governance
11 243 (17.47%) Machine Learning
12 237 (17.04%) Problem-Solving
13 215 (15.46%) Data Science
14 206 (14.81%) Decision-Making
15 205 (14.74%) Data Architecture
16 202 (14.52%) Validation
17 201 (14.45%) Migration
18 195 (14.02%) Data Transformation
19 194 (13.95%) Stakeholder Management
20 175 (12.58%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 754 (54.21%) SQL
2 701 (50.40%) Python
3 111 (7.98%) Java
4 42 (3.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 40 (2.88%) Bash
6 37 (2.66%) Scala
7 35 (2.52%) PowerShell
8 30 (2.16%) C#
9 24 (1.73%) T-SQL
10 22 (1.58%) JavaScript
11 17 (1.22%) R
12 15 (1.08%) Bicep
12 15 (1.08%) PL/SQL
13 14 (1.01%) Shell Script
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 (19.70%) Security Cleared
2 236 (16.97%) SC Cleared
3 86 (6.18%) Degree
4 42 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (2.01%) Azure Certification
6 27 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
7 25 (1.80%) DV Cleared
8 23 (1.65%) Master's Degree
9 16 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 13 (0.93%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Certification
12 7 (0.50%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 7 (0.50%) SnowPro
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.36%) Tableau Certification
14 3 (0.22%) PhD
14 3 (0.22%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.14%) CSPO
15 2 (0.14%) PMP
16 1 (0.072%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 414 (29.76%) Data Quality
2 76 (5.46%) QA
3 73 (5.25%) GDPR
4 21 (1.51%) 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
1 119 (8.55%) Docker
2 5 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.22%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 188 (13.52%) Terraform
2 100 (7.19%) Kubernetes
3 19 (1.37%) Ansible
4 15 (1.08%) Grafana
5 11 (0.79%) 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
1 343 (24.66%) Databricks
2 249 (17.90%) Microsoft
3 73 (5.25%) Informatica
4 63 (4.53%) Google
5 60 (4.31%) Oracle
6 31 (2.23%) SAP
7 30 (2.16%) Foundry
7 30 (2.16%) Talend
8 28 (2.01%) Palantir
9 20 (1.44%) Cloudera
9 20 (1.44%) Salesforce
10 15 (1.08%) OpenAI
10 15 (1.08%) Splunk
11 14 (1.01%) ServiceNow
12 12 (0.86%) Trend Micro
13 8 (0.58%) Denodo
13 8 (0.58%) Workday
14 7 (0.50%) Adobe
14 7 (0.50%) InterSystems
14 7 (0.50%) Teradata