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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 153 205
Rank change year-on-year +69 +52 -17
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,204 443 413
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.90% 1.86% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.42% 2.04% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 848 305 304
10th Percentile £400 £400 £380
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -8.00%
75th Percentile £625 £688 £688
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 11 13
10th Percentile £52.90 £22.00 £30.55
25th Percentile £65.00 £22.61 £35.00
Median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year +154.55% -43.30% -35.33%
75th Percentile £82.31 £46.36 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.25 £53.75 -
UK median hourly rate £70.00 £26.47 £35.00
% change year-on-year +164.50% -24.39% -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 35,194 21,730 31,440
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 84.78% 91.29% 86.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 22,373 14,199 20,591
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £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 2,179 923 2,284
10th Percentile £15.25 £14.22 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.50 £18.13 £15.99
Median hourly rate £45.59 £28.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +62.80% -23.29% -2.67%
75th Percentile £68.00 £60.00 £61.11
90th Percentile £81.01 £75.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £42.28 £27.45 £36.00
% change year-on-year +54.01% -23.75% -3.49%

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 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 26 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 26 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 +57 747 £550 -4.35% 264
North of England +9 132 £478 -4.50% 103
Midlands +17 124 £500 +8.11% 30
West Midlands +17 102 £500 -1.09% 21
South West +24 77 £503 -16.25% 30
South East -26 64 £550 +15.79% 82
Yorkshire -10 58 £478 -15.11% 25
North West -11 52 £500 - 54
North East -1 24 £450 -5.26% 26
East of England -27 22 £575 +54.08% 15
East Midlands -19 19 £525 +13.51% 9
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 (14.29%) Apache Spark
2 128 (10.63%) Apache Airflow
3 82 (6.81%) Apache
4 33 (2.74%) SAS
5 15 (1.25%) Confluence
6 14 (1.16%) Palantir Foundry
7 10 (0.83%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.66%) Appian
9 7 (0.58%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.33%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.083%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.083%) Camunda
12 1 (0.083%) CICS
12 1 (0.083%) CMS
12 1 (0.083%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.083%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 25 (2.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.50%) 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 (0.33%) 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 (0.083%) Endur
5 1 (0.083%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.083%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 541 (44.93%) Azure
2 444 (36.88%) AWS
3 277 (23.01%) Power Platform
4 178 (14.78%) Azure Data Factory
5 177 (14.70%) GCP
6 150 (12.46%) Snowflake
7 136 (11.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 128 (10.63%) dbt
9 126 (10.47%) Amazon S3
10 119 (9.88%) GitHub
11 107 (8.89%) Azure DevOps
12 92 (7.64%) Serverless
13 74 (6.15%) AWS Lambda
14 71 (5.90%) GitHub Actions
15 39 (3.24%) AWS CloudFormation
16 27 (2.24%) AWS Step Functions
17 25 (2.08%) Azure AI
17 25 (2.08%) Dagster
18 24 (1.99%) Amazon SQS
18 24 (1.99%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.42%) RTP
2 4 (0.33%) Firewall
3 2 (0.17%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.083%) 4G
4 1 (0.083%) 5G
4 1 (0.083%) MIMO
4 1 (0.083%) Network Security
4 1 (0.083%) SAN
4 1 (0.083%) SMS
4 1 (0.083%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.083%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 255 (21.18%) Power BI
2 227 (18.85%) Data Warehouse
3 198 (16.45%) Data Lake
4 108 (8.97%) Metadata
5 85 (7.06%) SQL Server
6 84 (6.98%) Delta Lake
7 82 (6.81%) Big Data
8 74 (6.15%) BigQuery
9 70 (5.81%) Tableau
10 69 (5.73%) NoSQL
11 65 (5.40%) Amazon Redshift
11 65 (5.40%) Snowflake Schema
12 60 (4.98%) Azure SQL Database
13 52 (4.32%) Relational Database
14 50 (4.15%) Amazon Athena
15 42 (3.49%) PostgreSQL
16 39 (3.24%) Hadoop
17 36 (2.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 35 (2.91%) Spark SQL
19 28 (2.33%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 137 (11.38%) Git
2 54 (4.49%) GitLab
3 43 (3.57%) JIRA
4 37 (3.07%) MLflow
5 24 (1.99%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.50%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.42%) Selenium
8 4 (0.33%) 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 (0.083%) Ant
11 1 (0.083%) JUnit
11 1 (0.083%) Maven
11 1 (0.083%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.083%) SoapUI
General
1 312 (25.91%) Finance
2 273 (22.67%) Social Skills
3 174 (14.45%) Analytical Skills
4 100 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 69 (5.73%) Banking
6 26 (2.16%) Retail
7 25 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 24 (1.99%) Marketing
9 20 (1.66%) Documentation Skills
10 17 (1.41%) Front Office
11 15 (1.25%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.16%) Financial Institution
13 13 (1.08%) Influencing Skills
14 12 (1.00%) Investment Banking
15 10 (0.83%) Legal
16 6 (0.50%) Back Office
16 6 (0.50%) Law
16 6 (0.50%) Military
17 4 (0.33%) Pharmaceutical
18 3 (0.25%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 585 (48.59%) Data Engineer
2 166 (13.79%) Senior
3 133 (11.05%) Lead
4 124 (10.30%) Architect
5 110 (9.14%) Senior Data Engineer
6 64 (5.32%) Developer
7 63 (5.23%) Data Architect
8 54 (4.49%) Lead Data Engineer
9 52 (4.32%) AWS Engineer
9 52 (4.32%) Azure Engineer
10 50 (4.15%) Analyst
11 45 (3.74%) Azure Data Engineer
12 44 (3.65%) Snowflake Engineer
13 43 (3.57%) Data Scientist
14 42 (3.49%) AWS Data Engineer
14 42 (3.49%) Solutions Architect
15 38 (3.16%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 34 (2.82%) Consultant
17 30 (2.49%) Data Analyst
18 28 (2.33%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 178 (14.78%) PySpark
2 129 (10.71%) Kafka
3 50 (4.15%) Pandas
4 38 (3.16%) scikit-learn
5 36 (2.99%) PyTorch
6 31 (2.57%) NumPy
7 30 (2.49%) REST
8 26 (2.16%) JSON
8 26 (2.16%) TensorFlow
9 23 (1.91%) React
9 23 (1.91%) Spring
10 19 (1.58%) LangChain
10 19 (1.58%) YAML
11 18 (1.50%) Great Expectations
12 17 (1.41%) RESTful
13 16 (1.33%) pytest
13 16 (1.33%) Spring Boot
14 15 (1.25%) FastAPI
15 13 (1.08%) Flask
15 13 (1.08%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 155 (12.87%) Cloud Native
2 42 (3.49%) Legacy Systems
3 41 (3.41%) Distributed Systems
3 41 (3.41%) Product Ownership
4 36 (2.99%) Data Structures
5 30 (2.49%) Distributed Computing
6 29 (2.41%) AI Agents
7 22 (1.83%) Onboarding
8 21 (1.74%) Greenfield Project
9 19 (1.58%) Algorithms
9 19 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
10 15 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (1.16%) Fixed Income
12 12 (1.00%) Clustering
12 12 (1.00%) NHS
12 12 (1.00%) Self-Motivation
13 11 (0.91%) Hybrid Cloud
14 10 (0.83%) Equities
15 9 (0.75%) Data Fabric
16 8 (0.66%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.33%) Linux
2 24 (1.99%) Unix
3 6 (0.50%) VMS
4 3 (0.25%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.25%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.083%) CentOS
6 1 (0.083%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 615 (51.08%) Analytics
2 551 (45.76%) Data Pipeline
3 475 (39.45%) Data Modelling
4 452 (37.54%) ETL
5 404 (33.55%) CI/CD
6 348 (28.90%) AI
7 311 (25.83%) Business Intelligence
8 304 (25.25%) Agile
9 300 (24.92%) DevOps
10 264 (21.93%) Data Governance
11 226 (18.77%) Machine Learning
12 199 (16.53%) Problem-Solving
13 198 (16.45%) Data Science
14 170 (14.12%) Data Architecture
15 161 (13.37%) Decision-Making
16 154 (12.79%) Migration
17 148 (12.29%) Validation
18 129 (10.71%) Infrastructure as Code
19 128 (10.63%) Data Transformation
20 114 (9.47%) LLM
Programming Languages
1 664 (55.15%) SQL
2 631 (52.41%) Python
3 98 (8.14%) Java
4 55 (4.57%) Scala
5 40 (3.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 36 (2.99%) C#
7 29 (2.41%) Bash
8 23 (1.91%) T-SQL
9 20 (1.66%) JavaScript
9 20 (1.66%) PowerShell
10 19 (1.58%) R
11 15 (1.25%) Bicep
11 15 (1.25%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.91%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.83%) TypeScript
14 7 (0.58%) Go
14 7 (0.58%) SAS Macro
15 4 (0.33%) Korn
16 2 (0.17%) C++
16 2 (0.17%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 227 (18.85%) Security Cleared
2 201 (16.69%) SC Cleared
3 79 (6.56%) Degree
4 34 (2.82%) Azure Certification
4 34 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
5 28 (2.33%) Master's Degree
6 18 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
7 14 (1.16%) DBS Check
8 12 (1.00%) DV Cleared
9 11 (0.91%) AWS Certification
10 8 (0.66%) Microsoft Certification
11 6 (0.50%) PhD
12 4 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 4 (0.33%) SnowPro
13 2 (0.17%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.083%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 1 (0.083%) OCP
14 1 (0.083%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 335 (27.82%) Data Quality
2 84 (6.98%) GDPR
3 59 (4.90%) QA
4 12 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 8 (0.66%) SLA
6 6 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.42%) Accessibility
8 4 (0.33%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.33%) MiFID
8 4 (0.33%) 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 (0.083%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.083%) IFRS
11 1 (0.083%) IFRS 9
11 1 (0.083%) ISO 13485
11 1 (0.083%) SOC 2
System Software
1 111 (9.22%) Docker
2 4 (0.33%) HDFS
2 4 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.083%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.083%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 154 (12.79%) Terraform
2 107 (8.89%) Kubernetes
3 23 (1.91%) Prometheus
4 10 (0.83%) Grafana
5 9 (0.75%) Ansible
6 5 (0.42%) Argo
7 3 (0.25%) Kibana
7 3 (0.25%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.25%) Nagios
7 3 (0.25%) Rancher
8 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.17%) logstash
8 2 (0.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.083%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.083%) Control-M
9 1 (0.083%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.083%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.083%) Oozie
Vendors
1 310 (25.75%) Databricks
2 199 (16.53%) Microsoft
3 59 (4.90%) Google
4 56 (4.65%) Informatica
5 45 (3.74%) Oracle
6 26 (2.16%) Talend
7 24 (1.99%) OpenAI
8 21 (1.74%) Foundry
8 21 (1.74%) SAP
9 19 (1.58%) Splunk
10 16 (1.33%) Cloudera
10 16 (1.33%) Palantir
11 12 (1.00%) ServiceNow
12 10 (0.83%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.75%) UiPath
14 8 (0.66%) Automation Anywhere
15 7 (0.58%) Denodo
15 7 (0.58%) InterSystems
16 5 (0.42%) Workday
17 4 (0.33%) Alteryx