Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in London

Data Engineer
England > London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in London is £520, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 February 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 60 66 77
Rank change year-on-year +6 +11 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 641 475 531
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.20% 3.49% 2.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.54% 3.73% 3.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 452 354 419
10th Percentile £363 £397 £375
25th Percentile £425 £463 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £625 £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 4 9 11
10th Percentile £28.19 £60.25 £35.63
25th Percentile £32.73 £65.00 £48.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £92.50 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -51.35% +76.19% +50.00%
75th Percentile £69.31 £97.50 £63.14
90th Percentile £93.73 - £68.00
England median hourly rate £46.00 £83.75 £56.50
% change year-on-year -45.07% +48.23% -14.72%

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 14,124 12,736 17,136
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.64% 93.66% 93.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,398 8,197 12,382
10th Percentile £350 £332 £325
25th Percentile £425 £438 £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 £775
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 222 140 331
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.19 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.03 £24.66 £19.03
Median hourly rate £34.14 £37.81 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -9.71% +32.65% -15.73%
75th Percentile £59.93 £55.25 £48.92
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.95 £65.75
England median hourly rate £31.46 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.11% - -7.03%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 +16 76 £513 -4.65% 37
West London -1 26 £603 +5.93% 6
South London -7 9 £500 +1.27% 4
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 13 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.

1 394 (61.47%) Python
2 392 (61.15%) SQL
3 300 (46.80%) Azure
4 285 (44.46%) Data Pipeline
5 274 (42.75%) Data Engineering
6 268 (41.81%) ETL
7 241 (37.60%) Databricks
8 238 (37.13%) Data Modelling
9 229 (35.73%) Analytics
10 224 (34.95%) AWS
11 193 (30.11%) Data Quality
12 185 (28.86%) CI/CD
13 166 (25.90%) Security Cleared
14 161 (25.12%) Business Intelligence
15 149 (23.24%) SC Cleared
16 140 (21.84%) Power Platform
17 136 (21.22%) Power BI
18 135 (21.06%) Data Warehouse
19 131 (20.44%) DevOps
20 122 (19.03%) PySpark
21 120 (18.72%) Agile
22 119 (18.56%) Azure Data Factory
23 113 (17.63%) Data Governance
24 109 (17.00%) Data Science
25 103 (16.07%) Terraform
26 100 (15.60%) AI
27 94 (14.66%) Infrastructure as Code
27 94 (14.66%) Snowflake
28 93 (14.51%) Data Lake
29 92 (14.35%) Amazon S3

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 85 (13.26%) Apache Spark
2 78 (12.17%) Apache Airflow
3 50 (7.80%) Apache
4 13 (2.03%) Palantir Foundry
5 9 (1.40%) Confluence
6 4 (0.62%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.47%) SAS
8 2 (0.31%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.31%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.31%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.16%) Apache Pig
9 1 (0.16%) Appian
9 1 (0.16%) Camunda
9 1 (0.16%) IIS
9 1 (0.16%) Luigi
9 1 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
9 1 (0.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 8 (1.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.16%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Actimize
1 1 (0.16%) Aladdin
1 1 (0.16%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.16%) Maximo
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle BPM
1 1 (0.16%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 300 (46.80%) Azure
2 224 (34.95%) AWS
3 140 (21.84%) Power Platform
4 119 (18.56%) Azure Data Factory
5 94 (14.66%) Snowflake
6 92 (14.35%) Amazon S3
7 81 (12.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 73 (11.39%) GCP
8 73 (11.39%) GitHub
9 70 (10.92%) dbt
10 63 (9.83%) Serverless
11 59 (9.20%) Azure DevOps
12 47 (7.33%) AWS Lambda
13 41 (6.40%) GitHub Actions
14 26 (4.06%) AWS CloudFormation
15 20 (3.12%) Amazon Kinesis
16 17 (2.65%) AWS Step Functions
17 16 (2.50%) SaaS
18 13 (2.03%) Amazon SQS
18 13 (2.03%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.62%) Firewall
2 3 (0.47%) SAN
3 1 (0.16%) Network Security
3 1 (0.16%) Software-Defined Networking
3 1 (0.16%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 136 (21.22%) Power BI
2 135 (21.06%) Data Warehouse
3 93 (14.51%) Data Lake
4 83 (12.95%) SQL Server
5 47 (7.33%) Delta Lake
6 46 (7.18%) Azure SQL Database
6 46 (7.18%) Metadata
7 44 (6.86%) BigQuery
8 39 (6.08%) Amazon Redshift
8 39 (6.08%) NoSQL
8 39 (6.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 34 (5.30%) PostgreSQL
10 33 (5.15%) Big Data
10 33 (5.15%) Tableau
11 31 (4.84%) Amazon Athena
12 24 (3.74%) Star Schema
13 23 (3.59%) Relational Database
14 22 (3.43%) Snowflake Schema
15 16 (2.50%) Hadoop
15 16 (2.50%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 86 (13.42%) Git
2 19 (2.96%) Jenkins
3 18 (2.81%) JIRA
4 16 (2.50%) GitLab
4 16 (2.50%) MLflow
5 2 (0.31%) Selenium
6 1 (0.16%) Bitbucket
6 1 (0.16%) DBeaver
6 1 (0.16%) Gradle
6 1 (0.16%) Jaeger
6 1 (0.16%) Poetry
6 1 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
6 1 (0.16%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.16%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.16%) Visual Studio
General
1 127 (19.81%) Finance
2 111 (17.32%) Social Skills
3 67 (10.45%) Analytical Skills
4 36 (5.62%) Public Sector
5 33 (5.15%) Banking
6 26 (4.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (1.87%) Front Office
8 11 (1.72%) Retail
9 10 (1.56%) Investment Banking
9 10 (1.56%) Pharmaceutical
10 8 (1.25%) Marketing
11 7 (1.09%) Telecoms
12 4 (0.62%) Back Office
12 4 (0.62%) Corporate Banking
12 4 (0.62%) Military
12 4 (0.62%) Publishing
13 3 (0.47%) Law
13 3 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.31%) Financial Institution
14 2 (0.31%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (19.03%) PySpark
2 73 (11.39%) Kafka
3 28 (4.37%) Pandas
4 18 (2.81%) YAML
5 12 (1.87%) NumPy
5 12 (1.87%) REST
6 11 (1.72%) Great Expectations
6 11 (1.72%) PyTorch
7 9 (1.40%) XML
8 8 (1.25%) Apache NiFi
8 8 (1.25%) Matplotlib
8 8 (1.25%) scikit-learn
9 7 (1.09%) JSON
9 7 (1.09%) RabbitMQ
10 6 (0.94%) TensorFlow
11 5 (0.78%) Middleware
11 5 (0.78%) RESTful
12 4 (0.62%) Node.js
12 4 (0.62%) OAuth
12 4 (0.62%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 56 (8.74%) Cloud Native
2 19 (2.96%) Data Structures
3 15 (2.34%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.18%) Onboarding
5 12 (1.87%) Reinsurance
6 10 (1.56%) Product Ownership
7 9 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (0.94%) Distributed Computing
8 6 (0.94%) Life Science
8 6 (0.94%) Public Cloud
8 6 (0.94%) Replication
9 5 (0.78%) Algorithms
9 5 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
10 4 (0.62%) Credit Risk
10 4 (0.62%) Derivative
10 4 (0.62%) Equities
10 4 (0.62%) Genomics
10 4 (0.62%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.47%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.47%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.40%) Linux
2 1 (0.16%) Unix
2 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 285 (44.46%) Data Pipeline
2 274 (42.75%) Data Engineering
3 268 (41.81%) ETL
4 238 (37.13%) Data Modelling
5 229 (35.73%) Analytics
6 185 (28.86%) CI/CD
7 161 (25.12%) Business Intelligence
8 131 (20.44%) DevOps
9 120 (18.72%) Agile
10 113 (17.63%) Data Governance
11 109 (17.00%) Data Science
12 100 (15.60%) AI
13 94 (14.66%) Infrastructure as Code
14 88 (13.73%) Data Architecture
15 85 (13.26%) Problem-Solving
16 79 (12.32%) Machine Learning
17 73 (11.39%) Data Integration
18 68 (10.61%) Migration
19 63 (9.83%) Data Transformation
20 58 (9.05%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 394 (61.47%) Python
2 392 (61.15%) SQL
3 73 (11.39%) Scala
4 38 (5.93%) Java
5 21 (3.28%) C#
6 17 (2.65%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (2.34%) T-SQL
8 12 (1.87%) Bicep
9 11 (1.72%) Bash
10 10 (1.56%) JavaScript
10 10 (1.56%) PowerShell
10 10 (1.56%) R
11 9 (1.40%) PL/SQL
12 5 (0.78%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.47%) Go
13 3 (0.47%) Korn
13 3 (0.47%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.31%) C
14 2 (0.31%) C++
14 2 (0.31%) VB
Qualifications
1 166 (25.90%) Security Cleared
2 149 (23.24%) SC Cleared
3 21 (3.28%) Azure Certification
4 20 (3.12%) Degree
5 14 (2.18%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.87%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
8 9 (1.40%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (0.78%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.62%) Master's Degree
11 3 (0.47%) CTC Cleared
11 3 (0.47%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.31%) SnowPro
13 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 193 (30.11%) Data Quality
2 36 (5.62%) GDPR
3 14 (2.18%) QA
4 7 (1.09%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.47%) HIPAA
5 3 (0.47%) MiFID
6 2 (0.31%) Dodd-Frank
6 2 (0.31%) EMIR
6 2 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.16%) EU AI Act
7 1 (0.16%) GRC
7 1 (0.16%) NIST
7 1 (0.16%) PMO
7 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.16%) SLA
7 1 (0.16%) SOC 2
System Software
1 32 (4.99%) Docker
2 5 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (0.78%) zsh
3 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.16%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 103 (16.07%) Terraform
2 34 (5.30%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.78%) Grafana
4 3 (0.47%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.47%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.31%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.16%) Ambari
6 1 (0.16%) Argo
6 1 (0.16%) Puppet
6 1 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 241 (37.60%) Databricks
2 85 (13.26%) Microsoft
3 31 (4.84%) Google
4 26 (4.06%) Oracle
5 18 (2.81%) Informatica
6 15 (2.34%) Foundry
7 14 (2.18%) Palantir
8 11 (1.72%) ServiceNow
9 9 (1.40%) SAP
10 8 (1.25%) Cloudera
10 8 (1.25%) IBM
11 6 (0.94%) Talend
12 5 (0.78%) Virgin Media
13 4 (0.62%) Alteryx
13 4 (0.62%) Denodo
13 4 (0.62%) Salesforce
14 3 (0.47%) Cisco
14 3 (0.47%) EMC
14 3 (0.47%) Isilon
14 3 (0.47%) Splunk