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 2 April 2026.

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

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 66 78
Rank change year-on-year +15 +12 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 759 462 511
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.48% 3.67% 2.83%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.84% 3.92% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 344 413
10th Percentile £388 £400 £354
25th Percentile £457 £450 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £528 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.47% +0.48% -8.70%
75th Percentile £614 £650 £638
90th Percentile £738 £800 £700
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 £64.50 £65.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year -0.77% -3.70% +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 15,687 11,799 16,821
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.63% 93.63% 93.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 10,507 8,081 12,144
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 241 148 337
10th Percentile £18.07 £21.15 £16.00
25th Percentile £22.00 £24.66 £19.57
Median hourly rate £35.71 £35.00 £27.81
Median % change year-on-year +2.03% +25.85% -21.66%
75th Percentile £60.25 £50.86 £46.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £65.00 £64.06
England median hourly rate £41.94 £34.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +23.35% +4.62% -24.14%

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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 +35 106 £525 +5.00% 52
West London +7 31 £603 -10.74% 6
South London -9 9 £500 +2.56%
East London 0 1 £400 -20.00% 2
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 2 April 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.

1 452 (59.55%) SQL
2 440 (57.97%) Python
3 350 (46.11%) Data Pipeline
4 344 (45.32%) Azure
5 329 (43.35%) Data Engineering
6 315 (41.50%) ETL
7 288 (37.94%) Analytics
8 282 (37.15%) Data Modelling
9 253 (33.33%) Databricks
10 249 (32.81%) AWS
11 234 (30.83%) Data Quality
12 214 (28.19%) CI/CD
13 187 (24.64%) Security Cleared
14 174 (22.92%) SC Cleared
15 172 (22.66%) Business Intelligence
16 166 (21.87%) Data Warehouse
16 166 (21.87%) DevOps
17 156 (20.55%) Power Platform
18 149 (19.63%) Data Governance
19 146 (19.24%) Power BI
20 135 (17.79%) PySpark
21 132 (17.39%) Agile
21 132 (17.39%) Azure Data Factory
22 125 (16.47%) Terraform
23 122 (16.07%) Data Science
24 116 (15.28%) AI
25 114 (15.02%) Data Lake
26 113 (14.89%) Microsoft
27 111 (14.62%) Snowflake
28 102 (13.44%) 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 97 (12.78%) Apache Spark
2 96 (12.65%) Apache Airflow
3 60 (7.91%) Apache
4 10 (1.32%) Palantir Foundry
5 8 (1.05%) Confluence
6 5 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.40%) SAS
8 2 (0.26%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.26%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.13%) Appian
9 1 (0.13%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.13%) Camunda
9 1 (0.13%) Luigi
9 1 (0.13%) R Markdown
Applications
1 12 (1.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.40%) Spreadsheet
3 2 (0.26%) Chatbot
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (0.26%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.26%) SAP BPC
2 1 (0.13%) Actimize
2 1 (0.13%) BambooHR
2 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.13%) iTrent
2 1 (0.13%) Maximo
2 1 (0.13%) SAP Business ByDesign
2 1 (0.13%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 344 (45.32%) Azure
2 249 (32.81%) AWS
3 156 (20.55%) Power Platform
4 132 (17.39%) Azure Data Factory
5 111 (14.62%) Snowflake
6 102 (13.44%) Amazon S3
7 96 (12.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 95 (12.52%) GCP
9 86 (11.33%) GitHub
10 83 (10.94%) Azure DevOps
10 83 (10.94%) dbt
11 67 (8.83%) Serverless
12 53 (6.98%) AWS Lambda
13 41 (5.40%) GitHub Actions
14 31 (4.08%) AWS CloudFormation
15 22 (2.90%) Amazon Kinesis
16 21 (2.77%) Dagster
17 19 (2.50%) AWS Step Functions
18 18 (2.37%) Amazon SQS
19 17 (2.24%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.53%) Firewall
2 3 (0.40%) SAN
3 2 (0.26%) Structured Cabling
4 1 (0.13%) 4G
4 1 (0.13%) 5G
4 1 (0.13%) Network Security
4 1 (0.13%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (21.87%) Data Warehouse
2 146 (19.24%) Power BI
3 114 (15.02%) Data Lake
4 75 (9.88%) SQL Server
5 61 (8.04%) Azure SQL Database
5 61 (8.04%) BigQuery
6 57 (7.51%) Delta Lake
6 57 (7.51%) Metadata
7 43 (5.67%) Amazon Redshift
8 42 (5.53%) Tableau
9 40 (5.27%) Amazon Athena
10 38 (5.01%) NoSQL
11 37 (4.87%) Snowflake Schema
11 37 (4.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 33 (4.35%) Big Data
13 30 (3.95%) PostgreSQL
14 24 (3.16%) Star Schema
15 23 (3.03%) Relational Database
16 20 (2.64%) Mixpanel
17 19 (2.50%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 86 (11.33%) Git
2 24 (3.16%) JIRA
3 22 (2.90%) GitLab
4 18 (2.37%) MLflow
5 17 (2.24%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.26%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
7 1 (0.13%) Jaeger
7 1 (0.13%) Poetry
7 1 (0.13%) Selenium
7 1 (0.13%) Team Foundation Server
7 1 (0.13%) Terragrunt
General
1 166 (21.87%) Finance
2 118 (15.55%) Social Skills
3 89 (11.73%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (7.38%) Public Sector
5 42 (5.53%) Banking
6 27 (3.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 14 (1.84%) Front Office
8 13 (1.71%) Pharmaceutical
8 13 (1.71%) Telecoms
9 10 (1.32%) Retail
10 9 (1.19%) Marketing
10 9 (1.19%) Publishing
11 7 (0.92%) Investment Banking
12 5 (0.66%) Documentation Skills
13 4 (0.53%) Back Office
13 4 (0.53%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.53%) Law
14 3 (0.40%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.40%) Military
14 3 (0.40%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 135 (17.79%) PySpark
2 86 (11.33%) Kafka
3 35 (4.61%) Pandas
4 22 (2.90%) YAML
5 21 (2.77%) Great Expectations
6 14 (1.84%) scikit-learn
7 13 (1.71%) Matplotlib
7 13 (1.71%) REST
8 10 (1.32%) NumPy
8 10 (1.32%) PyTorch
9 9 (1.19%) GeoJSON
9 9 (1.19%) JSON
9 9 (1.19%) Polars
10 8 (1.05%) XML
11 7 (0.92%) pytest
11 7 (0.92%) React
11 7 (0.92%) Spark Streaming
12 6 (0.79%) Spring
12 6 (0.79%) Spring Boot
12 6 (0.79%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 73 (9.62%) Cloud Native
2 24 (3.16%) Legacy Systems
3 19 (2.50%) Data Structures
4 16 (2.11%) Product Ownership
5 13 (1.71%) Onboarding
6 12 (1.58%) Greenfield Project
7 11 (1.45%) Reinsurance
8 10 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
9 8 (1.05%) Life Science
9 8 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
10 7 (0.92%) Public Cloud
10 7 (0.92%) Replication
11 6 (0.79%) Clustering
12 5 (0.66%) Data Protection Act
12 5 (0.66%) Distributed Computing
12 5 (0.66%) NHS
12 5 (0.66%) Reference Data
12 5 (0.66%) Virtual Team
13 4 (0.53%) AI Agents
13 4 (0.53%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 16 (2.11%) Linux
2 6 (0.79%) Unix
3 3 (0.40%) Windows
4 2 (0.26%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.13%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 350 (46.11%) Data Pipeline
2 329 (43.35%) Data Engineering
3 315 (41.50%) ETL
4 288 (37.94%) Analytics
5 282 (37.15%) Data Modelling
6 214 (28.19%) CI/CD
7 172 (22.66%) Business Intelligence
8 166 (21.87%) DevOps
9 149 (19.63%) Data Governance
10 132 (17.39%) Agile
11 122 (16.07%) Data Science
12 116 (15.28%) AI
13 102 (13.44%) Data Architecture
14 100 (13.18%) Infrastructure as Code
15 91 (11.99%) Machine Learning
16 89 (11.73%) Problem-Solving
17 86 (11.33%) Migration
18 77 (10.14%) Data Transformation
18 77 (10.14%) Validation
19 73 (9.62%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 452 (59.55%) SQL
2 440 (57.97%) Python
3 71 (9.35%) Scala
4 56 (7.38%) Java
5 29 (3.82%) C#
6 22 (2.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 14 (1.84%) T-SQL
8 13 (1.71%) Bicep
9 12 (1.58%) R
10 10 (1.32%) Bash
10 10 (1.32%) Shell Script
11 9 (1.19%) PL/SQL
11 9 (1.19%) PowerShell
12 7 (0.92%) JavaScript
13 5 (0.66%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.40%) C
14 3 (0.40%) Korn
15 2 (0.26%) LookML
15 2 (0.26%) Ruby
15 2 (0.26%) VB
Qualifications
1 187 (24.64%) Security Cleared
2 174 (22.92%) SC Cleared
3 24 (3.16%) Degree
4 20 (2.64%) Azure Certification
5 14 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
6 12 (1.58%) AWS Certification
6 12 (1.58%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.05%) DV Cleared
8 6 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.53%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.53%) SnowPro
10 3 (0.40%) CTC Cleared
10 3 (0.40%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.13%) BICSI Certification
11 1 (0.13%) CISA
11 1 (0.13%) CISM
11 1 (0.13%) CISSP
11 1 (0.13%) City & Guilds
11 1 (0.13%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 234 (30.83%) Data Quality
2 39 (5.14%) GDPR
3 24 (3.16%) QA
4 8 (1.05%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.40%) MiFID
5 3 (0.40%) SLA
6 2 (0.26%) Dodd-Frank
6 2 (0.26%) EMIR
6 2 (0.26%) GMP
6 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.13%) GRC
7 1 (0.13%) GxP
7 1 (0.13%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.13%) PMO
7 1 (0.13%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 40 (5.27%) Docker
2 7 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.13%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.13%) RACF
Systems Management
1 125 (16.47%) Terraform
2 34 (4.48%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.66%) Grafana
4 4 (0.53%) Kubeflow
5 2 (0.26%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.26%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.26%) Thomson Reuters DACS
5 2 (0.26%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.13%) Ansible
Vendors
1 253 (33.33%) Databricks
2 113 (14.89%) Microsoft
3 47 (6.19%) Google
4 34 (4.48%) Informatica
5 28 (3.69%) Oracle
6 13 (1.71%) Foundry
7 12 (1.58%) IBM
8 11 (1.45%) Palantir
8 11 (1.45%) SAP
8 11 (1.45%) ServiceNow
9 10 (1.32%) Talend
10 7 (0.92%) Cloudera
10 7 (0.92%) Denodo
11 6 (0.79%) MuleSoft
12 5 (0.66%) Virgin Media
13 4 (0.53%) Bloomberg
13 4 (0.53%) OpenAI
14 3 (0.40%) Cisco
14 3 (0.40%) EMC
14 3 (0.40%) Salesforce