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

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 150 203
Rank change year-on-year +70 +53 -17
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,184 446 417
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.87% 1.86% 1.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.39% 2.04% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 839 306 310
10th Percentile £400 £400 £389
25th Percentile £450 £454 £466
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £569
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -3.30% -9.00%
75th Percentile £625 £688 £675
90th Percentile £749 £838 £750
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 13 12
10th Percentile £52.90 £22.10 £30.46
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.72 £34.06
Median hourly rate £70.00 £30.00 £41.75
Median % change year-on-year +133.33% -28.14% -42.81%
75th Percentile £82.31 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.25 £65.00 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £28.75 £35.00
% change year-on-year +143.48% -17.86% -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 34,973 21,894 31,367
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.68% 91.30% 86.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,266 14,295 20,565
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £510 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,148 929 2,246
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.42 £12.92
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.50 £16.00
Median hourly rate £46.11 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.98% -20.55% -0.73%
75th Percentile £68.00 £62.24 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.44 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £28.18 £36.05
% change year-on-year +50.82% -21.82% +0.13%

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 22 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 22 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 22 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 +61 737 £550 -4.35% 232
North of England +6 127 £480 -4.00% 92
Midlands +15 120 £500 +6.67% 33
West Midlands +22 101 £500 -1.09% 26
South West +29 77 £506 -15.75% 30
South East -18 63 £550 +14.11% 110
Yorkshire -8 56 £478 -15.11% 23
North West -20 50 £500 - 48
North East -8 23 £450 -5.26% 23
East of England -19 22 £575 +54.08% 24
East Midlands -16 16 £500 +6.67% 7
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
1 171 (14.44%) Apache Spark
2 122 (10.30%) Apache Airflow
3 79 (6.67%) Apache
4 31 (2.62%) SAS
5 15 (1.27%) Confluence
6 12 (1.01%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.76%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.68%) Appian
9 7 (0.59%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.084%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.084%) Camunda
12 1 (0.084%) CICS
12 1 (0.084%) CMS
12 1 (0.084%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.084%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 25 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.25%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.25%) Trello
5 2 (0.17%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.42%) Aladdin
1 5 (0.42%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.25%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.17%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.084%) Endur
5 1 (0.084%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.084%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 531 (44.85%) Azure
2 432 (36.49%) AWS
3 270 (22.80%) Power Platform
4 175 (14.78%) GCP
5 173 (14.61%) Azure Data Factory
6 143 (12.08%) Snowflake
7 136 (11.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 124 (10.47%) Amazon S3
9 123 (10.39%) dbt
10 116 (9.80%) GitHub
11 101 (8.53%) Azure DevOps
12 93 (7.85%) Serverless
13 75 (6.33%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (5.83%) GitHub Actions
15 39 (3.29%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (2.45%) AWS Step Functions
17 25 (2.11%) Azure AI
17 25 (2.11%) Dagster
18 24 (2.03%) Amazon SQS
18 24 (2.03%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.42%) RTP
2 4 (0.34%) Firewall
3 2 (0.17%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.084%) 4G
4 1 (0.084%) 5G
4 1 (0.084%) MIMO
4 1 (0.084%) Network Security
4 1 (0.084%) SAN
4 1 (0.084%) SMS
4 1 (0.084%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.084%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 248 (20.95%) Power BI
2 225 (19.00%) Data Warehouse
3 191 (16.13%) Data Lake
4 106 (8.95%) Metadata
5 82 (6.93%) SQL Server
6 81 (6.84%) Big Data
6 81 (6.84%) Delta Lake
7 70 (5.91%) BigQuery
7 70 (5.91%) Tableau
8 69 (5.83%) NoSQL
9 65 (5.49%) Amazon Redshift
10 63 (5.32%) Snowflake Schema
11 59 (4.98%) Azure SQL Database
12 52 (4.39%) Relational Database
13 50 (4.22%) Amazon Athena
14 42 (3.55%) PostgreSQL
15 39 (3.29%) Hadoop
16 35 (2.96%) Spark SQL
16 35 (2.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 28 (2.36%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 138 (11.66%) Git
2 49 (4.14%) GitLab
3 40 (3.38%) JIRA
4 38 (3.21%) MLflow
5 24 (2.03%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.51%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.42%) Selenium
8 4 (0.34%) Postman
9 3 (0.25%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.25%) Robot Framework
9 3 (0.25%) Snyk
10 2 (0.17%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.17%) ERwin
10 2 (0.17%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.084%) Ant
11 1 (0.084%) JUnit
11 1 (0.084%) Maven
11 1 (0.084%) Octopus Deploy
11 1 (0.084%) SoapUI
General
1 307 (25.93%) Finance
2 263 (22.21%) Social Skills
3 172 (14.53%) Analytical Skills
4 101 (8.53%) Public Sector
5 68 (5.74%) Banking
6 25 (2.11%) Retail
7 24 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 22 (1.86%) Marketing
9 17 (1.44%) Front Office
10 16 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
11 15 (1.27%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.18%) Financial Institution
13 13 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (1.01%) Investment Banking
15 10 (0.84%) Legal
16 6 (0.51%) Back Office
16 6 (0.51%) Law
16 6 (0.51%) Military
17 4 (0.34%) Pharmaceutical
18 3 (0.25%) Billing
Job Titles
1 574 (48.48%) Data Engineer
2 159 (13.43%) Senior
3 130 (10.98%) Lead
4 123 (10.39%) Architect
5 108 (9.12%) Senior Data Engineer
6 65 (5.49%) Developer
7 63 (5.32%) Data Architect
8 54 (4.56%) Azure Engineer
9 52 (4.39%) Lead Data Engineer
10 50 (4.22%) Analyst
11 47 (3.97%) AWS Engineer
11 47 (3.97%) Azure Data Engineer
12 43 (3.63%) Snowflake Engineer
13 42 (3.55%) Data Scientist
13 42 (3.55%) Solutions Architect
14 38 (3.21%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 37 (3.13%) AWS Data Engineer
16 34 (2.87%) Consultant
17 30 (2.53%) Data Analyst
18 28 (2.36%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (14.95%) PySpark
2 128 (10.81%) Kafka
3 50 (4.22%) Pandas
4 37 (3.13%) scikit-learn
5 35 (2.96%) PyTorch
6 31 (2.62%) NumPy
7 28 (2.36%) REST
8 25 (2.11%) TensorFlow
9 24 (2.03%) JSON
10 23 (1.94%) React
10 23 (1.94%) Spring
11 19 (1.60%) LangChain
12 18 (1.52%) Great Expectations
12 18 (1.52%) YAML
13 17 (1.44%) RESTful
14 16 (1.35%) pytest
14 16 (1.35%) Spring Boot
15 15 (1.27%) FastAPI
16 14 (1.18%) Flask
17 13 (1.10%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 152 (12.84%) Cloud Native
2 41 (3.46%) Legacy Systems
3 39 (3.29%) Distributed Systems
3 39 (3.29%) Product Ownership
4 35 (2.96%) Data Structures
5 30 (2.53%) Distributed Computing
6 27 (2.28%) AI Agents
7 21 (1.77%) Greenfield Project
7 21 (1.77%) Onboarding
8 19 (1.60%) Algorithms
8 19 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
9 16 (1.35%) Analytical Mindset
10 14 (1.18%) Fixed Income
11 12 (1.01%) Clustering
11 12 (1.01%) NHS
11 12 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
13 10 (0.84%) Equities
14 9 (0.76%) Data Fabric
15 8 (0.68%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.45%) Linux
2 23 (1.94%) Unix
3 6 (0.51%) VMS
4 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.25%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.084%) CentOS
6 1 (0.084%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 600 (50.68%) Analytics
2 538 (45.44%) Data Pipeline
3 469 (39.61%) Data Modelling
4 447 (37.75%) ETL
5 399 (33.70%) CI/CD
6 335 (28.29%) AI
7 306 (25.84%) Business Intelligence
8 295 (24.92%) Agile
9 293 (24.75%) DevOps
10 258 (21.79%) Data Governance
11 221 (18.67%) Machine Learning
12 195 (16.47%) Problem-Solving
13 194 (16.39%) Data Science
14 170 (14.36%) Data Architecture
15 157 (13.26%) Decision-Making
16 154 (13.01%) Migration
17 142 (11.99%) Validation
18 127 (10.73%) Data Transformation
19 126 (10.64%) Infrastructure as Code
20 112 (9.46%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 651 (54.98%) SQL
2 622 (52.53%) Python
3 96 (8.11%) Java
4 57 (4.81%) Scala
5 40 (3.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 36 (3.04%) C#
7 28 (2.36%) Bash
8 23 (1.94%) T-SQL
9 20 (1.69%) JavaScript
10 19 (1.60%) PowerShell
10 19 (1.60%) R
11 15 (1.27%) Bicep
12 14 (1.18%) PL/SQL
13 11 (0.93%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.84%) TypeScript
15 7 (0.59%) Go
15 7 (0.59%) SAS Macro
16 4 (0.34%) Korn
17 2 (0.17%) C++
17 2 (0.17%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 223 (18.83%) Security Cleared
2 198 (16.72%) SC Cleared
3 78 (6.59%) Degree
4 34 (2.87%) Azure Certification
5 33 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 28 (2.36%) Master's Degree
7 17 (1.44%) BPSS Clearance
8 12 (1.01%) DV Cleared
9 11 (0.93%) AWS Certification
9 11 (0.93%) DBS Check
10 8 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (0.51%) PhD
12 4 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 4 (0.34%) SnowPro
13 2 (0.17%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.084%) ACCA
14 1 (0.084%) CIMA
14 1 (0.084%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 326 (27.53%) Data Quality
2 82 (6.93%) GDPR
3 57 (4.81%) QA
4 12 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 7 (0.59%) SLA
6 6 (0.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.42%) Accessibility
8 4 (0.34%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.34%) MiFID
8 4 (0.34%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.25%) GRC
9 3 (0.25%) PMO
10 2 (0.17%) EMIR
10 2 (0.17%) NIST
11 1 (0.084%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.084%) IFRS
11 1 (0.084%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.084%) ISO 13485
11 1 (0.084%) SOC 2
System Software
1 111 (9.38%) Docker
2 4 (0.34%) HDFS
2 4 (0.34%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.084%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.084%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 151 (12.75%) Terraform
2 108 (9.12%) Kubernetes
3 23 (1.94%) Prometheus
4 10 (0.84%) Grafana
5 9 (0.76%) Ansible
6 5 (0.42%) Argo
7 4 (0.34%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.25%) Kibana
8 3 (0.25%) Nagios
8 3 (0.25%) Rancher
9 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
9 2 (0.17%) logstash
9 2 (0.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.084%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.084%) Control-M
10 1 (0.084%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.084%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.084%) Oozie
Vendors
1 305 (25.76%) Databricks
2 194 (16.39%) Microsoft
3 59 (4.98%) Google
4 53 (4.48%) Informatica
5 43 (3.63%) Oracle
6 24 (2.03%) Talend
7 23 (1.94%) OpenAI
8 21 (1.77%) SAP
9 19 (1.60%) Foundry
9 19 (1.60%) Splunk
10 15 (1.27%) Cloudera
11 14 (1.18%) Palantir
12 12 (1.01%) ServiceNow
13 10 (0.84%) Salesforce
14 9 (0.76%) UiPath
15 8 (0.68%) Automation Anywhere
16 7 (0.59%) Denodo
16 7 (0.59%) InterSystems
17 5 (0.42%) Workday
18 4 (0.34%) Hortonworks