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 20 December 2025.

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

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 86 77 80
Rank change year-on-year -9 +3 +32
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 474 487 516
As % of all contract jobs in London 3.30% 3.24% 2.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.57% 3.46% 2.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 342 347 393
10th Percentile £380 £400 £400
25th Percentile £431 £475 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% +4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £753 £725
England median daily rate £513 £530 £543
% change year-on-year -3.21% -2.40% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 8 11
10th Percentile £31.22 £46.85 £35.00
25th Percentile £38.75 £61.06 £42.44
Median hourly rate £43.50 £78.75 £60.50
Median % change year-on-year -44.76% +30.17% +4.31%
75th Percentile £86.25 £97.50 £64.77
90th Percentile £110.00 - £68.00
England median hourly rate £43.50 £65.00 £60.50
% change year-on-year -33.08% +7.44% +0.83%

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 13,276 14,056 17,631
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 93.53% 93.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,790 9,097 12,749
10th Percentile £345 £338 £330
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £563
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -2.22% -3.02%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £681
90th Percentile £760 £800 £788
England median daily rate £508 £525 £533
% change year-on-year -3.24% -1.50% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 231 153 209
10th Percentile £17.50 £18.47 £17.65
25th Percentile £22.25 £23.80 £21.50
Median hourly rate £29.65 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.30% - -
75th Percentile £56.98 £53.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.75 £72.50
England median hourly rate £26.30 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -24.86% -22.22% +40.63%

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 December 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 20 December 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 20 December 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 +14 63 £525 -8.70% 19
West London -14 10 £603 +9.55% 9
South London -6 4 £500 -13.13% 7
East London +4 1 - - 2
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 20 December 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.

1 302 (63.71%) Python
2 292 (61.60%) SQL
3 232 (48.95%) Data Pipeline
4 228 (48.10%) Azure
5 201 (42.41%) Data Engineering
6 198 (41.77%) Databricks
7 182 (38.40%) ETL
8 167 (35.23%) Data Modelling
9 164 (34.60%) AWS
10 146 (30.80%) CI/CD
11 143 (30.17%) Analytics
12 129 (27.22%) Data Quality
13 122 (25.74%) Security Cleared
14 112 (23.63%) Data Warehouse
15 110 (23.21%) Business Intelligence
15 110 (23.21%) DevOps
16 108 (22.78%) SC Cleared
17 99 (20.89%) Agile
18 97 (20.46%) PySpark
19 96 (20.25%) Azure Data Factory
20 89 (18.78%) Data Science
20 89 (18.78%) Power Platform
21 88 (18.57%) Power BI
22 87 (18.35%) Data Governance
23 78 (16.46%) Apache Airflow
24 74 (15.61%) Snowflake
25 71 (14.98%) Apache Spark
26 70 (14.77%) Infrastructure as Code
26 70 (14.77%) Terraform
27 68 (14.35%) Git

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 78 (16.46%) Apache Airflow
2 71 (14.98%) Apache Spark
3 42 (8.86%) Apache
4 14 (2.95%) Confluence
5 4 (0.84%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 3 (0.63%) SAS
7 2 (0.42%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.21%) Apache Pig
8 1 (0.21%) IIS
8 1 (0.21%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.21%) Luigi
8 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 8 (1.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.21%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.21%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.21%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.63%) Oracle BPM
2 2 (0.42%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.21%) Actimize
3 1 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.21%) Maximo
3 1 (0.21%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 228 (48.10%) Azure
2 164 (34.60%) AWS
3 96 (20.25%) Azure Data Factory
4 89 (18.78%) Power Platform
5 74 (15.61%) Snowflake
6 64 (13.50%) Amazon S3
7 61 (12.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 59 (12.45%) dbt
9 58 (12.24%) GCP
10 55 (11.60%) GitHub
11 45 (9.49%) Serverless
12 40 (8.44%) Azure DevOps
13 34 (7.17%) GitHub Actions
14 28 (5.91%) AWS Lambda
15 17 (3.59%) SaaS
16 16 (3.38%) AWS CloudFormation
17 15 (3.16%) Amazon Kinesis
18 12 (2.53%) Amazon EMR
19 9 (1.90%) AWS Step Functions
20 8 (1.69%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.84%) Firewall
2 3 (0.63%) SAN
3 2 (0.42%) Internet
4 1 (0.21%) Network Security
4 1 (0.21%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 112 (23.63%) Data Warehouse
2 88 (18.57%) Power BI
3 64 (13.50%) Data Lake
4 42 (8.86%) SQL Server
5 37 (7.81%) Big Data
6 31 (6.54%) Azure SQL Database
7 30 (6.33%) BigQuery
7 30 (6.33%) Delta Lake
8 28 (5.91%) Metadata
8 28 (5.91%) NoSQL
9 27 (5.70%) Amazon Redshift
9 27 (5.70%) PostgreSQL
10 24 (5.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 23 (4.85%) Relational Database
12 22 (4.64%) Hadoop
13 21 (4.43%) Star Schema
13 21 (4.43%) Tableau
14 19 (4.01%) Amazon Athena
14 19 (4.01%) Amazon QuickSight
15 12 (2.53%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 68 (14.35%) Git
2 22 (4.64%) Jenkins
3 16 (3.38%) MLflow
4 15 (3.16%) JIRA
5 9 (1.90%) GitLab
6 3 (0.63%) Bitbucket
7 1 (0.21%) DBeaver
7 1 (0.21%) ERwin
7 1 (0.21%) GoCD
7 1 (0.21%) Gradle
7 1 (0.21%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.21%) Poetry
7 1 (0.21%) Selenium
7 1 (0.21%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.21%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.21%) Visual Studio
General
1 96 (20.25%) Finance
2 85 (17.93%) Social Skills
3 56 (11.81%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (6.54%) Public Sector
5 22 (4.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 20 (4.22%) Banking
7 13 (2.74%) Front Office
8 11 (2.32%) Investment Banking
8 11 (2.32%) Pharmaceutical
9 7 (1.48%) Marketing
9 7 (1.48%) Retail
10 4 (0.84%) Back Office
10 4 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
11 3 (0.63%) Law
11 3 (0.63%) Telecoms
12 2 (0.42%) Corporate Banking
12 2 (0.42%) International Banking
12 2 (0.42%) Legal
12 2 (0.42%) Military
12 2 (0.42%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (20.46%) PySpark
2 52 (10.97%) Kafka
3 13 (2.74%) YAML
4 12 (2.53%) Pandas
5 11 (2.32%) Apache NiFi
6 10 (2.11%) RabbitMQ
6 10 (2.11%) XML
7 8 (1.69%) Jinja
7 8 (1.69%) PyTorch
8 7 (1.48%) NumPy
9 6 (1.27%) REST
9 6 (1.27%) RESTful
9 6 (1.27%) TensorFlow
10 5 (1.05%) Great Expectations
10 5 (1.05%) JSON
10 5 (1.05%) pytest
11 4 (0.84%) GraphQL
11 4 (0.84%) Node.js
11 4 (0.84%) OAuth
11 4 (0.84%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 28 (5.91%) Cloud Native
2 16 (3.38%) Data Structures
3 14 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (2.11%) Onboarding
5 9 (1.90%) Product Ownership
6 6 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
6 6 (1.27%) Life Science
6 6 (1.27%) Replication
7 5 (1.05%) Algorithms
7 5 (1.05%) Genomics
7 5 (1.05%) Linux Command Line
7 5 (1.05%) Reinsurance
7 5 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
8 4 (0.84%) AI Agents
8 4 (0.84%) Credit Risk
8 4 (0.84%) Derivative
8 4 (0.84%) Distributed Computing
8 4 (0.84%) Equities
8 4 (0.84%) Virtual Team
9 3 (0.63%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.90%) Linux
2 3 (0.63%) Unix
3 1 (0.21%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 232 (48.95%) Data Pipeline
2 201 (42.41%) Data Engineering
3 182 (38.40%) ETL
4 167 (35.23%) Data Modelling
5 146 (30.80%) CI/CD
6 143 (30.17%) Analytics
7 110 (23.21%) Business Intelligence
7 110 (23.21%) DevOps
8 99 (20.89%) Agile
9 89 (18.78%) Data Science
10 87 (18.35%) Data Governance
11 70 (14.77%) Infrastructure as Code
12 64 (13.50%) AI
12 64 (13.50%) Problem-Solving
13 63 (13.29%) Machine Learning
14 61 (12.87%) Data Architecture
15 60 (12.66%) Data Integration
16 54 (11.39%) Migration
17 47 (9.92%) Data Transformation
18 40 (8.44%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 302 (63.71%) Python
2 292 (61.60%) SQL
3 58 (12.24%) Scala
4 36 (7.59%) Java
5 13 (2.74%) Bash
6 10 (2.11%) C#
6 10 (2.11%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 10 (2.11%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.69%) PowerShell
8 7 (1.48%) R
8 7 (1.48%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.27%) PL/SQL
10 4 (0.84%) Go
10 4 (0.84%) Shell Script
10 4 (0.84%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.63%) Bicep
11 3 (0.63%) Korn
12 1 (0.21%) C
12 1 (0.21%) C++
12 1 (0.21%) HiveQL
Qualifications
1 122 (25.74%) Security Cleared
2 108 (22.78%) SC Cleared
3 18 (3.80%) Degree
3 18 (3.80%) DV Cleared
4 13 (2.74%) Azure Certification
5 12 (2.53%) AWS Certification
6 10 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (1.05%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.84%) DBS Check
9 3 (0.63%) BPSS Clearance
10 2 (0.42%) CTC Cleared
10 2 (0.42%) SnowPro
11 1 (0.21%) MCP
11 1 (0.21%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 129 (27.22%) Data Quality
2 28 (5.91%) GDPR
3 7 (1.48%) QA
4 6 (1.27%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.84%) HIPAA
6 3 (0.63%) MiFID
6 3 (0.63%) SLA
7 2 (0.42%) Dodd-Frank
7 2 (0.42%) EMIR
7 2 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 20000
7 2 (0.42%) NIST
8 1 (0.21%) EU AI Act
8 1 (0.21%) HL7
8 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 25 (5.27%) Docker
2 5 (1.05%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (1.05%) zsh
3 1 (0.21%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.21%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 70 (14.77%) Terraform
2 27 (5.70%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.84%) Grafana
3 4 (0.84%) Puppet
4 3 (0.63%) Ambari
4 3 (0.63%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.63%) ZABBIX
5 2 (0.42%) Ansible
5 2 (0.42%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.42%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.42%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.21%) Argo
6 1 (0.21%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 198 (41.77%) Databricks
2 53 (11.18%) Microsoft
3 23 (4.85%) Google
4 20 (4.22%) Foundry
4 20 (4.22%) Oracle
5 19 (4.01%) Palantir
6 12 (2.53%) Cloudera
7 7 (1.48%) SAP
8 6 (1.27%) IBM
8 6 (1.27%) Informatica
9 5 (1.05%) Virgin Media
10 4 (0.84%) Denodo
10 4 (0.84%) ServiceNow
11 3 (0.63%) Cisco
11 3 (0.63%) EMC
11 3 (0.63%) Isilon
11 3 (0.63%) OpenAI
11 3 (0.63%) Salesforce
11 3 (0.63%) Splunk
12 2 (0.42%) Workday