Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in London

Data Engineer
England > London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in London is £513, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 February 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 61 63 81
Rank change year-on-year +2 +18 +22
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 664 478 534
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.25% 3.53% 2.91%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.58% 3.77% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 472 354 424
10th Percentile £363 £400 £375
25th Percentile £425 £463 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £614 £650 £638
90th Percentile £725 £800 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 8 11
10th Percentile £38.85 £57.88 £35.63
25th Percentile £44.25 £65.00 £48.00
Median hourly rate £54.50 £83.75 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -34.93% +59.52% -17.97%
75th Percentile £82.88 £94.69 £63.14
90th Percentile £99.15 £97.50 £68.00
England median hourly rate £64.50 £70.00 £60.50
% change year-on-year -7.86% +15.70% -5.47%

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 14,488 12,681 17,113
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.65% 93.61% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,661 8,214 12,339
10th Percentile £350 £337 £325
25th Percentile £425 £437 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -5.17%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £785
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 144 336
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.54 £16.00
25th Percentile £23.75 £24.62 £19.04
Median hourly rate £35.00 £36.75 £28.88
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +27.27% -17.50%
75th Percentile £60.00 £53.75 £49.28
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.65 £66.50
England median hourly rate £33.09 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -5.47% - -12.50%

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 20 February 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 20 February 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 20 February 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 +19 82 £513 -2.38% 41
West London -3 27 £603 +5.93% 4
South London -10 10 £500 +1.27% 2
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 20 February 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.

1 396 (59.64%) SQL
2 395 (59.49%) Python
3 312 (46.99%) Azure
4 296 (44.58%) Data Pipeline
5 280 (42.17%) ETL
6 275 (41.42%) Data Engineering
7 245 (36.90%) Databricks
8 243 (36.60%) Analytics
9 241 (36.30%) Data Modelling
10 218 (32.83%) AWS
11 199 (29.97%) Data Quality
12 182 (27.41%) CI/CD
13 168 (25.30%) Security Cleared
14 163 (24.55%) Business Intelligence
15 150 (22.59%) SC Cleared
16 144 (21.69%) Data Warehouse
17 142 (21.39%) Power Platform
18 136 (20.48%) Power BI
19 134 (20.18%) DevOps
20 123 (18.52%) PySpark
21 121 (18.22%) Agile
21 121 (18.22%) Azure Data Factory
21 121 (18.22%) Data Governance
22 117 (17.62%) Data Science
23 108 (16.27%) Terraform
24 97 (14.61%) AI
25 95 (14.31%) Data Lake
25 95 (14.31%) Snowflake
26 94 (14.16%) Infrastructure as Code
27 93 (14.01%) Problem-Solving

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 86 (12.95%) Apache Spark
2 73 (10.99%) Apache Airflow
3 52 (7.83%) Apache
4 13 (1.96%) Palantir Foundry
5 11 (1.66%) Confluence
6 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.45%) SAS
8 2 (0.30%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.30%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.30%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.15%) Apache Pig
9 1 (0.15%) Appian
9 1 (0.15%) Camunda
9 1 (0.15%) IIS
9 1 (0.15%) Luigi
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle Application Server
9 1 (0.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 8 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.15%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.15%) Actimize
2 1 (0.15%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.15%) iTrent
2 1 (0.15%) Maximo
2 1 (0.15%) Oracle BPM
2 1 (0.15%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.15%) SAP Business ByDesign
2 1 (0.15%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 312 (46.99%) Azure
2 218 (32.83%) AWS
3 142 (21.39%) Power Platform
4 121 (18.22%) Azure Data Factory
5 95 (14.31%) Snowflake
6 84 (12.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 83 (12.50%) GCP
8 82 (12.35%) Amazon S3
9 65 (9.79%) Serverless
10 64 (9.64%) GitHub
11 63 (9.49%) dbt
12 60 (9.04%) Azure DevOps
13 49 (7.38%) AWS Lambda
14 34 (5.12%) GitHub Actions
15 26 (3.92%) AWS CloudFormation
16 19 (2.86%) Amazon Kinesis
16 19 (2.86%) AWS Step Functions
17 15 (2.26%) SaaS
18 14 (2.11%) Amazon SQS
18 14 (2.11%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.60%) Firewall
2 3 (0.45%) SAN
3 1 (0.15%) 4G
3 1 (0.15%) 5G
3 1 (0.15%) Network Security
3 1 (0.15%) Software-Defined Networking
3 1 (0.15%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 144 (21.69%) Data Warehouse
2 136 (20.48%) Power BI
3 95 (14.31%) Data Lake
4 84 (12.65%) SQL Server
5 51 (7.68%) Delta Lake
6 49 (7.38%) BigQuery
7 47 (7.08%) Azure SQL Database
7 47 (7.08%) Metadata
8 42 (6.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 39 (5.87%) Amazon Redshift
10 37 (5.57%) NoSQL
11 33 (4.97%) Amazon Athena
11 33 (4.97%) Tableau
12 32 (4.82%) Big Data
12 32 (4.82%) PostgreSQL
13 25 (3.77%) Snowflake Schema
14 23 (3.46%) Relational Database
15 17 (2.56%) Mixpanel
16 16 (2.41%) Data Vault
17 15 (2.26%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 81 (12.20%) Git
2 20 (3.01%) JIRA
3 19 (2.86%) Jenkins
4 17 (2.56%) GitLab
4 17 (2.56%) MLflow
5 2 (0.30%) Selenium
6 1 (0.15%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.15%) DBeaver
6 1 (0.15%) Gradle
6 1 (0.15%) Jaeger
6 1 (0.15%) Poetry
6 1 (0.15%) SonarQube
6 1 (0.15%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.15%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.15%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.15%) Visual Studio
General
1 133 (20.03%) Finance
2 115 (17.32%) Social Skills
3 70 (10.54%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (6.17%) Public Sector
5 35 (5.27%) Banking
6 26 (3.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 13 (1.96%) Front Office
8 11 (1.66%) Pharmaceutical
8 11 (1.66%) Retail
9 10 (1.51%) Investment Banking
10 8 (1.20%) Marketing
10 8 (1.20%) Telecoms
11 6 (0.90%) Publishing
12 4 (0.60%) Back Office
12 4 (0.60%) Corporate Banking
13 3 (0.45%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (0.45%) Law
13 3 (0.45%) Military
13 3 (0.45%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.30%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 123 (18.52%) PySpark
2 74 (11.14%) Kafka
3 29 (4.37%) Pandas
4 18 (2.71%) YAML
5 13 (1.96%) Great Expectations
6 12 (1.81%) REST
7 11 (1.66%) NumPy
7 11 (1.66%) PyTorch
8 10 (1.51%) Matplotlib
8 10 (1.51%) scikit-learn
9 9 (1.36%) XML
10 8 (1.20%) Apache NiFi
11 7 (1.05%) JSON
11 7 (1.05%) RabbitMQ
11 7 (1.05%) TensorFlow
12 6 (0.90%) GeoJSON
12 6 (0.90%) Polars
13 5 (0.75%) Middleware
13 5 (0.75%) pytest
13 5 (0.75%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 57 (8.58%) Cloud Native
2 22 (3.31%) Data Structures
3 17 (2.56%) Legacy Systems
4 13 (1.96%) Onboarding
5 12 (1.81%) Product Ownership
5 12 (1.81%) Reinsurance
6 9 (1.36%) Greenfield Project
7 6 (0.90%) Distributed Computing
7 6 (0.90%) Life Science
7 6 (0.90%) Public Cloud
7 6 (0.90%) Replication
8 5 (0.75%) Algorithms
8 5 (0.75%) Linux Command Line
9 4 (0.60%) Credit Risk
9 4 (0.60%) Derivative
9 4 (0.60%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (0.60%) Equities
9 4 (0.60%) Genomics
9 4 (0.60%) Virtual Team
9 4 (0.60%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 10 (1.51%) Linux
2 1 (0.15%) Unix
2 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 296 (44.58%) Data Pipeline
2 280 (42.17%) ETL
3 275 (41.42%) Data Engineering
4 243 (36.60%) Analytics
5 241 (36.30%) Data Modelling
6 182 (27.41%) CI/CD
7 163 (24.55%) Business Intelligence
8 134 (20.18%) DevOps
9 121 (18.22%) Agile
9 121 (18.22%) Data Governance
10 117 (17.62%) Data Science
11 97 (14.61%) AI
12 94 (14.16%) Infrastructure as Code
13 93 (14.01%) Problem-Solving
14 92 (13.86%) Data Architecture
15 84 (12.65%) Machine Learning
16 77 (11.60%) Migration
17 72 (10.84%) Data Integration
18 70 (10.54%) Data Transformation
19 60 (9.04%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 396 (59.64%) SQL
2 395 (59.49%) Python
3 73 (10.99%) Scala
4 40 (6.02%) Java
5 22 (3.31%) C#
6 18 (2.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 16 (2.41%) T-SQL
8 12 (1.81%) Bash
8 12 (1.81%) Bicep
9 10 (1.51%) JavaScript
9 10 (1.51%) R
10 9 (1.36%) PL/SQL
10 9 (1.36%) PowerShell
11 5 (0.75%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.45%) Korn
13 2 (0.30%) C
13 2 (0.30%) C++
13 2 (0.30%) Ruby
13 2 (0.30%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.30%) VB
Qualifications
1 168 (25.30%) Security Cleared
2 150 (22.59%) SC Cleared
3 21 (3.16%) Degree
4 20 (3.01%) Azure Certification
5 14 (2.11%) DV Cleared
6 13 (1.96%) BPSS Clearance
7 12 (1.81%) AWS Certification
8 11 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (0.75%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.60%) Master's Degree
11 3 (0.45%) CTC Cleared
11 3 (0.45%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.30%) SnowPro
13 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (29.97%) Data Quality
2 36 (5.42%) GDPR
3 18 (2.71%) QA
4 7 (1.05%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.45%) HIPAA
5 3 (0.45%) MiFID
6 2 (0.30%) Dodd-Frank
6 2 (0.30%) EMIR
6 2 (0.30%) GMP
6 2 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.15%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.15%) GRC
7 1 (0.15%) NIST
7 1 (0.15%) PMO
7 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.15%) SLA
7 1 (0.15%) SOC 2
System Software
1 34 (5.12%) Docker
2 5 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (0.75%) zsh
3 1 (0.15%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.15%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 108 (16.27%) Terraform
2 32 (4.82%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.60%) Grafana
4 3 (0.45%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.45%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.30%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.30%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.15%) Ambari
6 1 (0.15%) Argo
6 1 (0.15%) Puppet
6 1 (0.15%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 245 (36.90%) Databricks
2 91 (13.70%) Microsoft
3 36 (5.42%) Google
4 30 (4.52%) Oracle
5 21 (3.16%) Informatica
6 15 (2.26%) Foundry
7 14 (2.11%) Palantir
7 14 (2.11%) SAP
8 11 (1.66%) ServiceNow
9 9 (1.36%) Talend
10 8 (1.20%) Cloudera
10 8 (1.20%) IBM
11 5 (0.75%) Virgin Media
12 4 (0.60%) Alteryx
12 4 (0.60%) Denodo
12 4 (0.60%) MuleSoft
13 3 (0.45%) EMC
13 3 (0.45%) Isilon
13 3 (0.45%) OpenAI
13 3 (0.45%) Splunk