Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in London

Data Engineer
England > London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in London is £523, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 February 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 67 73
Rank change year-on-year +2 +6 +29
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 623 466 531
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.15% 3.46% 2.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.48% 3.70% 3.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 441 344 418
10th Percentile £363 £386 £375
25th Percentile £425 £463 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £638
90th Percentile £735 £800 £701
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 13,893 12,599 17,277
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.62% 93.62% 93.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,248 8,064 12,487
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 £776
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 138 334
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.24 £16.00
25th Percentile £23.65 £24.68 £19.01
Median hourly rate £32.50 £37.81 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.03% +32.65% -15.73%
75th Percentile £60.75 £54.88 £48.70
90th Percentile £76.58 £79.35 £65.53
England median hourly rate £31.18 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.93% - -6.67%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +14 72 £513 -4.65% 46
West London +2 26 £603 +9.55% 7
South London -7 7 £500 +1.27% 4
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 382 (61.32%) Python
2 378 (60.67%) SQL
3 292 (46.87%) Azure
4 276 (44.30%) Data Pipeline
5 263 (42.22%) Data Engineering
6 261 (41.89%) ETL
7 239 (38.36%) Databricks
8 233 (37.40%) Data Modelling
9 222 (35.63%) Analytics
10 216 (34.67%) AWS
11 189 (30.34%) Data Quality
12 182 (29.21%) CI/CD
13 161 (25.84%) Security Cleared
14 152 (24.40%) Business Intelligence
15 144 (23.11%) SC Cleared
16 132 (21.19%) Power Platform
17 130 (20.87%) Power BI
18 128 (20.55%) Data Warehouse
18 128 (20.55%) DevOps
19 120 (19.26%) PySpark
20 117 (18.78%) Azure Data Factory
21 114 (18.30%) Agile
22 113 (18.14%) Data Governance
23 103 (16.53%) Data Science
24 101 (16.21%) Terraform
25 97 (15.57%) AI
26 94 (15.09%) Snowflake
27 92 (14.77%) Infrastructure as Code
28 91 (14.61%) Amazon S3
29 90 (14.45%) Data Lake

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 (13.64%) Apache Spark
2 78 (12.52%) Apache Airflow
3 50 (8.03%) Apache
4 13 (2.09%) Palantir Foundry
5 7 (1.12%) Confluence
6 4 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.48%) SAS
8 2 (0.32%) ArcGIS
8 2 (0.32%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.32%) 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 (1.28%) 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
1 292 (46.87%) Azure
2 216 (34.67%) AWS
3 132 (21.19%) Power Platform
4 117 (18.78%) Azure Data Factory
5 94 (15.09%) Snowflake
6 91 (14.61%) Amazon S3
7 77 (12.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 73 (11.72%) GitHub
9 71 (11.40%) GCP
10 68 (10.91%) dbt
11 62 (9.95%) Serverless
12 59 (9.47%) Azure DevOps
13 46 (7.38%) AWS Lambda
14 41 (6.58%) GitHub Actions
15 26 (4.17%) AWS CloudFormation
16 20 (3.21%) Amazon Kinesis
17 17 (2.73%) AWS Step Functions
18 16 (2.57%) SaaS
19 13 (2.09%) Amazon SQS
19 13 (2.09%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.64%) Firewall
2 3 (0.48%) SAN
3 1 (0.16%) Network Security
3 1 (0.16%) Software-Defined Networking
3 1 (0.16%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (20.87%) Power BI
2 128 (20.55%) Data Warehouse
3 90 (14.45%) Data Lake
4 78 (12.52%) SQL Server
5 45 (7.22%) Azure SQL Database
5 45 (7.22%) Metadata
6 44 (7.06%) Delta Lake
7 42 (6.74%) BigQuery
8 39 (6.26%) NoSQL
9 38 (6.10%) Amazon Redshift
10 35 (5.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 33 (5.30%) Big Data
11 33 (5.30%) PostgreSQL
12 32 (5.14%) Tableau
13 31 (4.98%) Amazon Athena
14 24 (3.85%) Star Schema
15 23 (3.69%) Relational Database
16 22 (3.53%) Snowflake Schema
17 16 (2.57%) Hadoop
17 16 (2.57%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 81 (13.00%) Git
2 19 (3.05%) Jenkins
3 16 (2.57%) JIRA
3 16 (2.57%) MLflow
4 14 (2.25%) GitLab
5 2 (0.32%) 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
1 121 (19.42%) Finance
2 104 (16.69%) Social Skills
3 62 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (5.30%) Public Sector
5 32 (5.14%) Banking
6 26 (4.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (1.93%) Front Office
8 11 (1.77%) Retail
9 10 (1.61%) Pharmaceutical
10 9 (1.44%) Investment Banking
11 8 (1.28%) Marketing
12 7 (1.12%) Telecoms
13 4 (0.64%) Corporate Banking
13 4 (0.64%) Military
14 3 (0.48%) Back Office
14 3 (0.48%) Law
14 3 (0.48%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.48%) Publishing
15 2 (0.32%) Financial Institution
15 2 (0.32%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 120 (19.26%) PySpark
2 73 (11.72%) Kafka
3 27 (4.33%) Pandas
4 16 (2.57%) YAML
5 12 (1.93%) NumPy
5 12 (1.93%) REST
6 11 (1.77%) Great Expectations
7 10 (1.61%) PyTorch
8 8 (1.28%) Apache NiFi
9 7 (1.12%) Matplotlib
9 7 (1.12%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (1.12%) scikit-learn
9 7 (1.12%) XML
10 6 (0.96%) TensorFlow
11 5 (0.80%) JSON
11 5 (0.80%) Middleware
11 5 (0.80%) RESTful
12 4 (0.64%) Node.js
12 4 (0.64%) OAuth
12 4 (0.64%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 55 (8.83%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.05%) Data Structures
3 15 (2.41%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.25%) Onboarding
5 11 (1.77%) Reinsurance
6 10 (1.61%) Product Ownership
7 8 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (0.96%) Distributed Computing
8 6 (0.96%) Life Science
8 6 (0.96%) Public Cloud
8 6 (0.96%) Replication
9 5 (0.80%) Algorithms
9 5 (0.80%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (0.80%) Virtual Team
10 4 (0.64%) Credit Risk
10 4 (0.64%) Genomics
11 3 (0.48%) Data Protection Act
11 3 (0.48%) Derivative
11 3 (0.48%) EMC VNX
11 3 (0.48%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.44%) Linux
2 1 (0.16%) Unix
2 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 276 (44.30%) Data Pipeline
2 263 (42.22%) Data Engineering
3 261 (41.89%) ETL
4 233 (37.40%) Data Modelling
5 222 (35.63%) Analytics
6 182 (29.21%) CI/CD
7 152 (24.40%) Business Intelligence
8 128 (20.55%) DevOps
9 114 (18.30%) Agile
10 113 (18.14%) Data Governance
11 103 (16.53%) Data Science
12 97 (15.57%) AI
13 92 (14.77%) Infrastructure as Code
14 87 (13.96%) Data Architecture
15 80 (12.84%) Problem-Solving
16 77 (12.36%) Machine Learning
17 73 (11.72%) Data Integration
18 66 (10.59%) Migration
19 60 (9.63%) Data Transformation
20 57 (9.15%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 382 (61.32%) Python
2 378 (60.67%) SQL
3 72 (11.56%) Scala
4 38 (6.10%) Java
5 19 (3.05%) C#
6 14 (2.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 11 (1.77%) Bash
7 11 (1.77%) T-SQL
8 10 (1.61%) Bicep
8 10 (1.61%) JavaScript
9 9 (1.44%) PL/SQL
9 9 (1.44%) R
10 8 (1.28%) PowerShell
11 5 (0.80%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.48%) Go
12 3 (0.48%) Korn
12 3 (0.48%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.32%) C
13 2 (0.32%) C++
13 2 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 161 (25.84%) Security Cleared
2 144 (23.11%) SC Cleared
3 20 (3.21%) Degree
4 19 (3.05%) Azure Certification
5 14 (2.25%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.93%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.77%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
9 5 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
10 4 (0.64%) Master's Degree
11 3 (0.48%) CTC Cleared
11 3 (0.48%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.32%) SnowPro
13 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 189 (30.34%) Data Quality
2 37 (5.94%) GDPR
3 11 (1.77%) QA
4 7 (1.12%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.48%) HIPAA
5 3 (0.48%) MiFID
6 2 (0.32%) Dodd-Frank
6 2 (0.32%) EMIR
6 2 (0.32%) 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 (5.14%) Docker
2 5 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (0.80%) zsh
3 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.16%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 101 (16.21%) Terraform
2 34 (5.46%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.80%) Grafana
4 3 (0.48%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.48%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
5 2 (0.32%) Tivoli Storage Manager
6 1 (0.16%) Ambari
6 1 (0.16%) Argo
6 1 (0.16%) Puppet
6 1 (0.16%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 239 (38.36%) Databricks
2 77 (12.36%) Microsoft
3 29 (4.65%) Google
4 26 (4.17%) Oracle
5 17 (2.73%) Informatica
6 15 (2.41%) Foundry
7 14 (2.25%) Palantir
8 11 (1.77%) ServiceNow
9 8 (1.28%) Cloudera
9 8 (1.28%) IBM
9 8 (1.28%) SAP
10 6 (0.96%) Talend
11 5 (0.80%) Virgin Media
12 4 (0.64%) Alteryx
12 4 (0.64%) Denodo
12 4 (0.64%) Salesforce
13 3 (0.48%) Cisco
13 3 (0.48%) EMC
13 3 (0.48%) Isilon
13 3 (0.48%) Splunk