Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in London

Data Engineer
England > London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in London is £536, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 November 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 98 76 91
Rank change year-on-year -22 +15 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 429 499 524
As % of all contract jobs in London 3.03% 3.16% 2.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.28% 3.37% 2.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 308 355 385
10th Percentile £380 £400 £400
25th Percentile £445 £475 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £536 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.74% +4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £638 £656 £655
90th Percentile £725 £754 £725
England median daily rate £513 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -6.82% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 5 9
10th Percentile £31.22 £44.45 £35.00
25th Percentile £38.75 £49.25 £35.63
Median hourly rate £43.50 £95.00 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year -54.21% +57.02% +56.13%
75th Percentile £86.25 £97.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £110.00 - £71.40
England median hourly rate £43.50 £72.75 £61.75
% change year-on-year -40.21% +17.81% +14.35%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in London. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in London with a recognized job title 13,086 14,820 18,801
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.45% 93.71% 93.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,679 9,611 13,623
10th Percentile £333 £338 £338
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £550 £564
Median % change year-on-year -2.27% -2.48% -1.91%
75th Percentile £653 £675 £688
90th Percentile £775 £790 £792
England median daily rate £508 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -3.33% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 237 160 225
10th Percentile £17.50 £17.25 £18.23
25th Percentile £21.00 £23.80 £22.00
Median hourly rate £26.57 £37.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.48% -0.93% +7.14%
75th Percentile £49.50 £58.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.20 £80.79 £73.71
England median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £45.88
% change year-on-year -37.13% -12.82% +43.38%

Data Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Data Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Data Engineer job vacancy trend in London

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in London

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineer in London over the 6 months to 22 November 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineer in London

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in London

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineer in London over the 6 months to 22 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineer in London

Data Engineer
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Engineer within the London region over the 6 months to 22 November 2025. 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
Central London +3 56 £538 -6.52% 154
West London -12 6 £575 +4.55% 9
South London -7 3 £479 -18.55% 2
East London +5 1 - - 3
Data Engineer
England

Data Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 22 November 2025, Data Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the London region featuring Data Engineer in the job title.

1 288 (67.13%) Python
2 274 (63.87%) SQL
3 218 (50.82%) Data Pipeline
4 202 (47.09%) Azure
5 180 (41.96%) Data Engineering
6 167 (38.93%) AWS
6 167 (38.93%) ETL
7 161 (37.53%) Data Modelling
8 157 (36.60%) Databricks
9 132 (30.77%) Analytics
10 128 (29.84%) CI/CD
11 109 (25.41%) Data Quality
12 104 (24.24%) Data Warehouse
13 100 (23.31%) Business Intelligence
14 97 (22.61%) Security Cleared
15 94 (21.91%) DevOps
16 93 (21.68%) Agile
17 90 (20.98%) Data Science
18 87 (20.28%) Azure Data Factory
19 84 (19.58%) Power Platform
19 84 (19.58%) SC Cleared
20 83 (19.35%) Power BI
21 79 (18.41%) Apache Airflow
22 78 (18.18%) PySpark
23 75 (17.48%) Snowflake
24 69 (16.08%) Data Governance
25 65 (15.15%) Terraform
26 64 (14.92%) Apache Spark
26 64 (14.92%) Problem-Solving
27 62 (14.45%) Data Lake

Data Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 79 (18.41%) Apache Airflow
2 64 (14.92%) Apache Spark
3 40 (9.32%) Apache
4 15 (3.50%) Confluence
5 4 (0.93%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.47%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.47%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.47%) Luigi
7 2 (0.47%) SAS
8 1 (0.23%) Apache Pig
8 1 (0.23%) IIS
8 1 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 9 (2.10%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.70%) Oracle BPM
2 2 (0.47%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.23%) Maximo
3 1 (0.23%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 202 (47.09%) Azure
2 167 (38.93%) AWS
3 87 (20.28%) Azure Data Factory
4 84 (19.58%) Power Platform
5 75 (17.48%) Snowflake
6 61 (14.22%) dbt
7 59 (13.75%) Amazon S3
7 59 (13.75%) GCP
8 53 (12.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 49 (11.42%) GitHub
10 40 (9.32%) Serverless
11 35 (8.16%) Azure DevOps
12 28 (6.53%) GitHub Actions
13 25 (5.83%) AWS Lambda
14 15 (3.50%) SaaS
15 14 (3.26%) Amazon EMR
15 14 (3.26%) Amazon Kinesis
15 14 (3.26%) AWS CloudFormation
16 7 (1.63%) AWS Step Functions
16 7 (1.63%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.93%) Firewall
2 3 (0.70%) SAN
3 2 (0.47%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (24.24%) Data Warehouse
2 83 (19.35%) Power BI
3 62 (14.45%) Data Lake
4 37 (8.62%) SQL Server
5 34 (7.93%) Big Data
6 29 (6.76%) BigQuery
6 29 (6.76%) Hadoop
7 27 (6.29%) PostgreSQL
8 26 (6.06%) Amazon Redshift
9 24 (5.59%) Delta Lake
10 22 (5.13%) Metadata
10 22 (5.13%) Relational Database
10 22 (5.13%) Tableau
11 21 (4.90%) Azure SQL Database
11 21 (4.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 20 (4.66%) Star Schema
13 19 (4.43%) Amazon QuickSight
14 18 (4.20%) NoSQL
15 14 (3.26%) Amazon Athena
16 11 (2.56%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 59 (13.75%) Git
2 16 (3.73%) JIRA
3 15 (3.50%) Jenkins
4 11 (2.56%) MLflow
5 7 (1.63%) GitLab
6 3 (0.70%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.23%) DBeaver
7 1 (0.23%) ERwin
7 1 (0.23%) GoCD
7 1 (0.23%) Gradle
7 1 (0.23%) Selenium
7 1 (0.23%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.23%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio
General
1 98 (22.84%) Finance
2 87 (20.28%) Social Skills
3 59 (13.75%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (7.23%) Public Sector
5 21 (4.90%) Banking
6 17 (3.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (2.80%) Investment Banking
8 11 (2.56%) Pharmaceutical
9 10 (2.33%) Front Office
10 8 (1.86%) Retail
11 6 (1.40%) Marketing
12 3 (0.70%) Corporate Banking
12 3 (0.70%) Retail Banking
12 3 (0.70%) Telecoms
13 2 (0.47%) Financial Institution
13 2 (0.47%) International Banking
13 2 (0.47%) Law
13 2 (0.47%) Legal
13 2 (0.47%) Military
13 2 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 78 (18.18%) PySpark
2 53 (12.35%) Kafka
3 12 (2.80%) Apache NiFi
3 12 (2.80%) XML
4 11 (2.56%) RabbitMQ
5 9 (2.10%) Pandas
6 8 (1.86%) Jinja
6 8 (1.86%) YAML
7 7 (1.63%) PyTorch
8 6 (1.40%) GraphQL
8 6 (1.40%) NumPy
8 6 (1.40%) RESTful
9 5 (1.17%) HTML
9 5 (1.17%) JSON
9 5 (1.17%) pytest
9 5 (1.17%) REST
9 5 (1.17%) TensorFlow
10 4 (0.93%) CSS
10 4 (0.93%) OAuth
10 4 (0.93%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 22 (5.13%) Cloud Native
2 16 (3.73%) Legacy Systems
3 14 (3.26%) Data Structures
4 10 (2.33%) Onboarding
5 8 (1.86%) Distributed Computing
5 8 (1.86%) Product Ownership
6 7 (1.63%) Algorithms
6 7 (1.63%) Virtual Team
7 6 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (1.40%) Life Science
7 6 (1.40%) Reinsurance
8 5 (1.17%) Genomics
8 5 (1.17%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (0.93%) Credit Risk
9 4 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
10 3 (0.70%) Derivative
10 3 (0.70%) EMC VNX
10 3 (0.70%) Equities
10 3 (0.70%) Hedge funds
10 3 (0.70%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 7 (1.63%) Linux
2 4 (0.93%) Unix
3 1 (0.23%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 218 (50.82%) Data Pipeline
2 180 (41.96%) Data Engineering
3 167 (38.93%) ETL
4 161 (37.53%) Data Modelling
5 132 (30.77%) Analytics
6 128 (29.84%) CI/CD
7 100 (23.31%) Business Intelligence
8 94 (21.91%) DevOps
9 93 (21.68%) Agile
10 90 (20.98%) Data Science
11 69 (16.08%) Data Governance
12 64 (14.92%) Problem-Solving
13 62 (14.45%) Infrastructure as Code
13 62 (14.45%) Machine Learning
14 61 (14.22%) AI
15 54 (12.59%) Migration
16 49 (11.42%) Data Integration
17 48 (11.19%) Data Transformation
18 44 (10.26%) Data Architecture
19 42 (9.79%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 288 (67.13%) Python
2 274 (63.87%) SQL
3 42 (9.79%) Scala
4 39 (9.09%) Java
5 12 (2.80%) Bash
6 10 (2.33%) JavaScript
7 9 (2.10%) PowerShell
8 7 (1.63%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 6 (1.40%) PL/SQL
9 6 (1.40%) R
10 5 (1.17%) C#
10 5 (1.17%) T-SQL
11 4 (0.93%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.93%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.70%) Go
12 3 (0.70%) Korn
13 2 (0.47%) C++
14 1 (0.23%) C
14 1 (0.23%) HiveQL
Qualifications
1 97 (22.61%) Security Cleared
2 84 (19.58%) SC Cleared
3 24 (5.59%) Degree
4 19 (4.43%) DV Cleared
5 12 (2.80%) Azure Certification
6 11 (2.56%) AWS Certification
7 9 (2.10%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (0.93%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.47%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.47%) SnowPro
11 1 (0.23%) CTC Cleared
11 1 (0.23%) MCP
11 1 (0.23%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 109 (25.41%) Data Quality
2 23 (5.36%) GDPR
3 8 (1.86%) QA
4 6 (1.40%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.70%) HIPAA
5 3 (0.70%) NIST
5 3 (0.70%) SLA
6 2 (0.47%) Dodd-Frank
6 2 (0.47%) EMIR
6 2 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 20000
6 2 (0.47%) MiFID
7 1 (0.23%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.23%) HL7
7 1 (0.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.23%) SOC 2
System Software
1 20 (4.66%) Docker
2 5 (1.17%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (1.17%) zsh
3 1 (0.23%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 65 (15.15%) Terraform
2 23 (5.36%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.93%) Kubeflow
3 4 (0.93%) Puppet
4 3 (0.70%) Ambari
4 3 (0.70%) Grafana
4 3 (0.70%) ZABBIX
5 2 (0.47%) Ansible
5 2 (0.47%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.47%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.23%) Argo
6 1 (0.23%) NetBackup
6 1 (0.23%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 157 (36.60%) Databricks
2 50 (11.66%) Microsoft
3 26 (6.06%) Foundry
4 25 (5.83%) Palantir
5 20 (4.66%) Google
5 20 (4.66%) Oracle
6 13 (3.03%) Cloudera
7 8 (1.86%) SAP
8 7 (1.63%) Informatica
9 5 (1.17%) IBM
9 5 (1.17%) Virgin Media
10 4 (0.93%) Denodo
10 4 (0.93%) ServiceNow
11 3 (0.70%) EMC
11 3 (0.70%) Isilon
11 3 (0.70%) Teradata
12 2 (0.47%) Cisco
12 2 (0.47%) Salesforce
12 2 (0.47%) Splunk
12 2 (0.47%) Talend