Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in London

Data Engineer
England > London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in London is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 March 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 54 68 79
Rank change year-on-year +14 +11 +19
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 731 465 518
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.38% 3.68% 2.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.74% 3.93% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 520 348 420
10th Percentile £390 £400 £359
25th Percentile £454 £450 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £536 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% +2.00% -8.70%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £800 £705
England median daily rate £500 £500 £510
% change year-on-year - -1.96% -7.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 7 9
10th Percentile £23.72 £47.25 £48.75
25th Percentile £30.30 £58.13 £49.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £65.00 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.62% +23.81% -17.97%
75th Percentile £49.75 £85.63 £64.53
90th Percentile £53.35 £93.75 £68.90
England median hourly rate £66.75 £65.00 £66.25
% change year-on-year +2.69% -1.89% +3.52%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 15,438 11,847 16,873
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.58% 93.67% 93.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,345 8,091 12,193
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £425 £428 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £788
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 147 335
10th Percentile £18.20 £21.13 £15.97
25th Percentile £22.00 £24.66 £19.52
Median hourly rate £35.71 £35.00 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +2.03% +25.00% -20.00%
75th Percentile £61.00 £52.88 £48.03
90th Percentile £76.58 £67.50 £65.00
England median hourly rate £40.00 £34.06 £32.70
% change year-on-year +17.46% +4.15% -23.68%

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 26 March 2026.

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 26 March 2026.

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 26 March 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
Central London +29 101 £525 +5.00% 52
West London +9 31 £603 -10.74% 6
South London -13 9 £500 +2.56%
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 26 March 2026, 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.

1 436 (59.64%) SQL
2 424 (58.00%) Python
3 336 (45.96%) Azure
4 333 (45.55%) Data Pipeline
5 317 (43.37%) Data Engineering
6 305 (41.72%) ETL
7 281 (38.44%) Analytics
8 275 (37.62%) Data Modelling
9 252 (34.47%) Databricks
10 238 (32.56%) AWS
11 224 (30.64%) Data Quality
12 212 (29.00%) CI/CD
13 179 (24.49%) Security Cleared
14 166 (22.71%) Business Intelligence
14 166 (22.71%) SC Cleared
15 164 (22.44%) DevOps
16 162 (22.16%) Data Warehouse
17 149 (20.38%) Power Platform
18 142 (19.43%) Data Governance
19 139 (19.02%) Power BI
20 132 (18.06%) Agile
21 131 (17.92%) PySpark
22 129 (17.65%) Azure Data Factory
23 120 (16.42%) Data Science
24 118 (16.14%) Terraform
25 116 (15.87%) AI
26 112 (15.32%) Data Lake
27 110 (15.05%) Microsoft
28 106 (14.50%) Snowflake
29 99 (13.54%) Data Architecture

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 93 (12.72%) Apache Spark
2 88 (12.04%) Apache Airflow
3 56 (7.66%) Apache
4 10 (1.37%) Palantir Foundry
5 8 (1.09%) Confluence
6 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.41%) SAS
8 2 (0.27%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.27%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.14%) Appian
9 1 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.14%) Camunda
9 1 (0.14%) Luigi
9 1 (0.14%) R Markdown
Applications
1 12 (1.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.27%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (0.41%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.27%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.14%) Actimize
3 1 (0.14%) BambooHR
3 1 (0.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.14%) iTrent
3 1 (0.14%) Maximo
3 1 (0.14%) SAP Business ByDesign
3 1 (0.14%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 336 (45.96%) Azure
2 238 (32.56%) AWS
3 149 (20.38%) Power Platform
4 129 (17.65%) Azure Data Factory
5 106 (14.50%) Snowflake
6 97 (13.27%) Amazon S3
7 94 (12.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 92 (12.59%) GCP
9 83 (11.35%) GitHub
10 79 (10.81%) Azure DevOps
11 78 (10.67%) dbt
12 69 (9.44%) Serverless
13 54 (7.39%) AWS Lambda
14 39 (5.34%) GitHub Actions
15 30 (4.10%) AWS CloudFormation
16 22 (3.01%) Amazon Kinesis
17 20 (2.74%) AWS Step Functions
18 18 (2.46%) Amazon SQS
19 17 (2.33%) Collibra
20 16 (2.19%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.55%) Firewall
2 3 (0.41%) SAN
3 2 (0.27%) Structured Cabling
4 1 (0.14%) 4G
4 1 (0.14%) 5G
4 1 (0.14%) Network Security
4 1 (0.14%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 162 (22.16%) Data Warehouse
2 139 (19.02%) Power BI
3 112 (15.32%) Data Lake
4 73 (9.99%) SQL Server
5 61 (8.34%) Azure SQL Database
6 59 (8.07%) BigQuery
7 57 (7.80%) Metadata
8 55 (7.52%) Delta Lake
9 43 (5.88%) Amazon Redshift
10 38 (5.20%) NoSQL
10 38 (5.20%) Tableau
11 37 (5.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 36 (4.92%) Snowflake Schema
13 35 (4.79%) Amazon Athena
14 31 (4.24%) PostgreSQL
15 30 (4.10%) Big Data
16 25 (3.42%) Relational Database
17 24 (3.28%) Star Schema
18 20 (2.74%) Mixpanel
19 18 (2.46%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 83 (11.35%) Git
2 23 (3.15%) JIRA
3 22 (3.01%) GitLab
4 18 (2.46%) Jenkins
5 17 (2.33%) MLflow
6 2 (0.27%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.27%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.14%) Gradle
7 1 (0.14%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.14%) Poetry
7 1 (0.14%) Selenium
7 1 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.14%) Terragrunt
General
1 162 (22.16%) Finance
2 114 (15.60%) Social Skills
3 82 (11.22%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (7.11%) Public Sector
5 38 (5.20%) Banking
6 29 (3.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 16 (2.19%) Front Office
8 12 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
9 11 (1.50%) Telecoms
10 9 (1.23%) Marketing
10 9 (1.23%) Publishing
10 9 (1.23%) Retail
11 7 (0.96%) Investment Banking
12 4 (0.55%) Back Office
12 4 (0.55%) Corporate Banking
12 4 (0.55%) Documentation Skills
12 4 (0.55%) Law
13 3 (0.41%) Financial Institution
13 3 (0.41%) Military
13 3 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (17.92%) PySpark
2 80 (10.94%) Kafka
3 34 (4.65%) Pandas
4 21 (2.87%) YAML
5 19 (2.60%) Great Expectations
6 14 (1.92%) scikit-learn
7 13 (1.78%) Matplotlib
7 13 (1.78%) REST
8 10 (1.37%) NumPy
8 10 (1.37%) PyTorch
9 9 (1.23%) GeoJSON
9 9 (1.23%) JSON
9 9 (1.23%) Polars
10 8 (1.09%) XML
11 7 (0.96%) pytest
12 6 (0.82%) React
12 6 (0.82%) Spark Streaming
12 6 (0.82%) TensorFlow
13 5 (0.68%) Apache NiFi
13 5 (0.68%) LangChain
Miscellaneous
1 73 (9.99%) Cloud Native
2 25 (3.42%) Legacy Systems
3 19 (2.60%) Data Structures
4 15 (2.05%) Product Ownership
5 12 (1.64%) Greenfield Project
5 12 (1.64%) Onboarding
6 11 (1.50%) Reinsurance
7 8 (1.09%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
8 7 (0.96%) Life Science
8 7 (0.96%) Public Cloud
8 7 (0.96%) Replication
9 6 (0.82%) Clustering
9 6 (0.82%) Distributed Computing
10 5 (0.68%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (0.68%) Derivative
10 5 (0.68%) Virtual Team
11 4 (0.55%) Equities
11 4 (0.55%) Fixed Income
11 4 (0.55%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 15 (2.05%) Linux
2 5 (0.68%) Unix
3 2 (0.27%) Windows
3 2 (0.27%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 333 (45.55%) Data Pipeline
2 317 (43.37%) Data Engineering
3 305 (41.72%) ETL
4 281 (38.44%) Analytics
5 275 (37.62%) Data Modelling
6 212 (29.00%) CI/CD
7 166 (22.71%) Business Intelligence
8 164 (22.44%) DevOps
9 142 (19.43%) Data Governance
10 132 (18.06%) Agile
11 120 (16.42%) Data Science
12 116 (15.87%) AI
13 99 (13.54%) Data Architecture
14 95 (13.00%) Infrastructure as Code
15 90 (12.31%) Machine Learning
16 86 (11.76%) Problem-Solving
17 85 (11.63%) Migration
18 77 (10.53%) Data Transformation
19 72 (9.85%) Data Integration
19 72 (9.85%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 436 (59.64%) SQL
2 424 (58.00%) Python
3 71 (9.71%) Scala
4 49 (6.70%) Java
5 27 (3.69%) C#
6 22 (3.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 13 (1.78%) T-SQL
8 12 (1.64%) Bicep
9 10 (1.37%) R
9 10 (1.37%) Shell Script
10 9 (1.23%) PL/SQL
11 8 (1.09%) Bash
11 8 (1.09%) JavaScript
11 8 (1.09%) PowerShell
12 4 (0.55%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.41%) C
13 3 (0.41%) Korn
14 2 (0.27%) LookML
14 2 (0.27%) Ruby
14 2 (0.27%) VB
Qualifications
1 179 (24.49%) Security Cleared
2 166 (22.71%) SC Cleared
3 22 (3.01%) Degree
4 20 (2.74%) Azure Certification
5 13 (1.78%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (1.64%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.50%) Computer Science Degree
8 8 (1.09%) DV Cleared
9 5 (0.68%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.55%) Master's Degree
10 4 (0.55%) SnowPro
11 3 (0.41%) CTC Cleared
11 3 (0.41%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.14%) BICSI Certification
12 1 (0.14%) City & Guilds
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 224 (30.64%) Data Quality
2 38 (5.20%) GDPR
3 24 (3.28%) QA
4 8 (1.09%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.41%) MiFID
6 2 (0.27%) Dodd-Frank
6 2 (0.27%) EMIR
6 2 (0.27%) GMP
6 2 (0.27%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.14%) GRC
7 1 (0.14%) GxP
7 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.14%) PMO
7 1 (0.14%) SLA
7 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (4.65%) Docker
2 6 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.14%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 118 (16.14%) Terraform
2 32 (4.38%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.55%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.41%) Grafana
5 2 (0.27%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.27%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.27%) Thomson Reuters DACS
5 2 (0.27%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.14%) Ansible
Vendors
1 252 (34.47%) Databricks
2 110 (15.05%) Microsoft
3 47 (6.43%) Google
4 34 (4.65%) Informatica
5 27 (3.69%) Oracle
6 12 (1.64%) Foundry
7 11 (1.50%) IBM
7 11 (1.50%) Palantir
7 11 (1.50%) SAP
8 10 (1.37%) ServiceNow
8 10 (1.37%) Talend
9 7 (0.96%) Cloudera
10 6 (0.82%) Denodo
10 6 (0.82%) MuleSoft
11 5 (0.68%) Virgin Media
12 4 (0.55%) Bloomberg
12 4 (0.55%) OpenAI
13 3 (0.41%) Cisco
13 3 (0.41%) EMC
13 3 (0.41%) Salesforce