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 13 July 2026.

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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 51 91 80
Rank change year-on-year +40 -11 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 856 413 505
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.33% 3.03% 2.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.66% 3.25% 3.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 631 304 394
10th Percentile £388 £400 £361
25th Percentile £453 £450 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -5.45% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £602 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £750
England median daily rate £500 £500 £523
% change year-on-year - -4.31% -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 7 4
10th Percentile £26.80 £47.65 £47.50
25th Percentile £30.00 £51.25 £48.63
Median hourly rate £34.84 £52.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -33.64% +3.96% -30.34%
75th Percentile £46.75 £70.00 £51.75
90th Percentile £61.15 £84.00 -
England median hourly rate £43.75 £52.50 £75.00
% change year-on-year -16.67% -30.00% -3.23%

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 18,372 12,697 16,357
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.89% 93.28% 94.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,076 8,582 11,668
10th Percentile £359 £332 £330
25th Percentile £442 £425 £445
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% - -4.35%
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £763 £788 £800
England median daily rate £525 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 323 196 295
10th Percentile £17.69 £18.47 £16.25
25th Percentile £22.87 £22.98 £20.50
Median hourly rate £37.50 £31.75 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.11% +13.39% -25.33%
75th Percentile £60.75 £50.50 £48.75
90th Percentile £79.75 £63.75 £68.75
England median hourly rate £45.56 £28.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +59.84% -28.75% -6.98%

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 July 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 July 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 July 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 +24 120 £555 +11.00% 41
West London -3 20 £603 +9.15% 5
South London -9 7 £500 +5.26% 2
East London +5 4 £450 - 4
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 13 July 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.

1 488 (57.01%) Python
2 481 (56.19%) SQL
3 406 (47.43%) Data Pipeline
4 354 (41.36%) Data Engineering
5 333 (38.90%) Analytics
6 323 (37.73%) Azure
7 317 (37.03%) ETL
8 305 (35.63%) Data Modelling
9 301 (35.16%) AWS
10 239 (27.92%) Data Quality
11 230 (26.87%) CI/CD
12 201 (23.48%) Databricks
13 188 (21.96%) Security Cleared
14 181 (21.14%) DevOps
15 175 (20.44%) SC Cleared
16 160 (18.69%) Data Warehouse
17 157 (18.34%) Business Intelligence
18 150 (17.52%) Agile
18 150 (17.52%) Power Platform
19 141 (16.47%) Migration
20 140 (16.36%) Power BI
21 139 (16.24%) Data Governance
22 138 (16.12%) PySpark
23 128 (14.95%) dbt
24 126 (14.72%) AI
24 126 (14.72%) Azure Data Factory
25 125 (14.60%) Terraform
26 122 (14.25%) Apache Airflow
27 121 (14.14%) Snowflake
28 114 (13.32%) Microsoft

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
1 122 (14.25%) Apache Airflow
2 87 (10.16%) Apache Spark
3 64 (7.48%) Apache
4 15 (1.75%) Confluence
5 9 (1.05%) SharePoint
6 8 (0.93%) Palantir Foundry
7 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.47%) SAS
8 3 (0.35%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.12%) Appian
9 1 (0.12%) Camunda
9 1 (0.12%) Luigi
9 1 (0.12%) R Markdown
Applications
1 11 (1.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 9 (1.05%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.35%) SAP BPC
2 3 (0.35%) SimCorp Dimension
3 2 (0.23%) BambooHR
3 2 (0.23%) Maximo
4 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.12%) iTrent
4 1 (0.12%) NetSuite
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
4 1 (0.12%) Sage X3
4 1 (0.12%) SAP Business ByDesign
4 1 (0.12%) SAP CAR
4 1 (0.12%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 323 (37.73%) Azure
2 301 (35.16%) AWS
3 150 (17.52%) Power Platform
4 128 (14.95%) dbt
5 126 (14.72%) Azure Data Factory
6 121 (14.14%) Snowflake
7 112 (13.08%) Amazon S3
8 104 (12.15%) Azure DevOps
9 95 (11.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 94 (10.98%) GCP
11 76 (8.88%) GitHub
12 65 (7.59%) Serverless
13 64 (7.48%) AWS Lambda
14 34 (3.97%) GitHub Actions
15 24 (2.80%) Amazon EMR
16 21 (2.45%) Dagster
17 19 (2.22%) Amazon Kinesis
18 18 (2.10%) AWS CloudFormation
19 17 (1.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
20 15 (1.75%) Amazon SQS
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.23%) Structured Cabling
2 1 (0.12%) 4G
2 1 (0.12%) 5G
2 1 (0.12%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (18.69%) Data Warehouse
2 140 (16.36%) Power BI
3 106 (12.38%) Data Lake
4 69 (8.06%) BigQuery
5 61 (7.13%) SQL Server
6 60 (7.01%) Delta Lake
7 57 (6.66%) Metadata
8 53 (6.19%) Amazon Redshift
9 52 (6.07%) Tableau
10 46 (5.37%) PostgreSQL
10 46 (5.37%) Snowflake Schema
11 43 (5.02%) Amazon Athena
12 39 (4.56%) Big Data
13 34 (3.97%) Azure SQL Database
14 33 (3.86%) NoSQL
15 27 (3.15%) Relational Database
16 24 (2.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 24 (2.80%) Star Schema
17 23 (2.69%) MongoDB
17 23 (2.69%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 72 (8.41%) Git
2 31 (3.62%) JIRA
3 26 (3.04%) GitLab
4 10 (1.17%) Jenkins
5 3 (0.35%) Bitbucket
5 3 (0.35%) MLflow
5 3 (0.35%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
6 2 (0.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.23%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.12%) Claude Code
7 1 (0.12%) Octopus Deploy
7 1 (0.12%) Selenium
General
1 231 (26.99%) Finance
2 137 (16.00%) Social Skills
3 110 (12.85%) Analytical Skills
4 61 (7.13%) Banking
4 61 (7.13%) Public Sector
5 25 (2.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 15 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
6 15 (1.75%) Retail
7 11 (1.29%) Front Office
7 11 (1.29%) Marketing
8 10 (1.17%) Publishing
9 9 (1.05%) Telecoms
10 7 (0.82%) Documentation Skills
11 5 (0.58%) Back Office
11 5 (0.58%) Manufacturing
12 4 (0.47%) Billing
12 4 (0.47%) Financial Institution
12 4 (0.47%) Games
12 4 (0.47%) Legal
13 3 (0.35%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 138 (16.12%) PySpark
2 77 (9.00%) Kafka
3 25 (2.92%) Pandas
4 21 (2.45%) Spring
4 21 (2.45%) Spring Boot
5 17 (1.99%) Great Expectations
6 16 (1.87%) REST
7 13 (1.52%) YAML
8 10 (1.17%) JSON
8 10 (1.17%) Microsoft Graph
8 10 (1.17%) scikit-learn
9 9 (1.05%) Apache Beam
9 9 (1.05%) GeoJSON
9 9 (1.05%) Matplotlib
9 9 (1.05%) Polars
9 9 (1.05%) XML
10 6 (0.70%) HTML
10 6 (0.70%) PyTorch
10 6 (0.70%) React
11 5 (0.58%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 102 (11.92%) Cloud Native
2 42 (4.91%) Legacy Systems
3 28 (3.27%) Data Structures
4 24 (2.80%) Reinsurance
5 22 (2.57%) Onboarding
6 17 (1.99%) Distributed Systems
7 16 (1.87%) Greenfield Project
8 14 (1.64%) NHS
9 11 (1.29%) Product Ownership
10 9 (1.05%) Virtual Team
11 8 (0.93%) Clustering
11 8 (0.93%) Reference Data
12 7 (0.82%) Derivative
12 7 (0.82%) Life Science
13 6 (0.70%) Algorithms
13 6 (0.70%) Data Protection Act
13 6 (0.70%) Distributed Computing
13 6 (0.70%) Replication
13 6 (0.70%) Self-Motivation
14 5 (0.58%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 23 (2.69%) Linux
2 13 (1.52%) Unix
3 3 (0.35%) Windows
4 2 (0.23%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 406 (47.43%) Data Pipeline
2 354 (41.36%) Data Engineering
3 333 (38.90%) Analytics
4 317 (37.03%) ETL
5 305 (35.63%) Data Modelling
6 230 (26.87%) CI/CD
7 181 (21.14%) DevOps
8 157 (18.34%) Business Intelligence
9 150 (17.52%) Agile
10 141 (16.47%) Migration
11 139 (16.24%) Data Governance
12 126 (14.72%) AI
13 112 (13.08%) Data Science
14 103 (12.03%) Infrastructure as Code
15 98 (11.45%) Validation
16 93 (10.86%) Decision-Making
17 90 (10.51%) Problem-Solving
18 88 (10.28%) Data Architecture
19 87 (10.16%) Data Transformation
20 75 (8.76%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 488 (57.01%) Python
2 481 (56.19%) SQL
3 79 (9.23%) Java
4 51 (5.96%) Scala
5 23 (2.69%) C#
6 22 (2.57%) T-SQL
7 20 (2.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 12 (1.40%) PowerShell
8 12 (1.40%) R
9 11 (1.29%) Shell Script
10 10 (1.17%) PL/SQL
11 7 (0.82%) Bash
11 7 (0.82%) JavaScript
12 6 (0.70%) Bicep
12 6 (0.70%) TypeScript
13 5 (0.58%) Go
14 2 (0.23%) Korn
14 2 (0.23%) LookML
14 2 (0.23%) Ruby
14 2 (0.23%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 188 (21.96%) Security Cleared
2 175 (20.44%) SC Cleared
3 24 (2.80%) Azure Certification
3 24 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
3 24 (2.80%) Degree
4 12 (1.40%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (1.17%) AWS Certification
6 8 (0.93%) DBS Check
7 6 (0.70%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 4 (0.47%) DV Cleared
8 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (0.47%) SnowPro
9 2 (0.23%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.12%) BICSI Certification
10 1 (0.12%) CISA
10 1 (0.12%) CISM
10 1 (0.12%) CISSP
10 1 (0.12%) City & Guilds
10 1 (0.12%) Postgraduate
10 1 (0.12%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 239 (27.92%) Data Quality
2 33 (3.86%) QA
3 32 (3.74%) GDPR
4 12 (1.40%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.47%) MiFID
5 4 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (0.23%) EMIR
6 2 (0.23%) GMP
6 2 (0.23%) PMO
6 2 (0.23%) SLA
7 1 (0.12%) GRC
7 1 (0.12%) GxP
7 1 (0.12%) IFRS
7 1 (0.12%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.12%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.12%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
7 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 51 (5.96%) Docker
2 3 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.23%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.12%) RACF
Systems Management
1 125 (14.60%) Terraform
2 31 (3.62%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.05%) Grafana
4 4 (0.47%) Kibana
5 2 (0.23%) Ansible
5 2 (0.23%) Thomson Reuters DACS
6 1 (0.12%) Kubeflow
6 1 (0.12%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 201 (23.48%) Databricks
2 114 (13.32%) Microsoft
3 49 (5.72%) Informatica
4 44 (5.14%) Google
5 38 (4.44%) Oracle
6 14 (1.64%) Palantir
7 12 (1.40%) SAP
8 11 (1.29%) Foundry
9 10 (1.17%) Denodo
9 10 (1.17%) Talend
10 9 (1.05%) Bloomberg
10 9 (1.05%) Salesforce
11 8 (0.93%) IBM
12 7 (0.82%) Amplitude
13 6 (0.70%) MuleSoft
14 5 (0.58%) Alteryx
15 4 (0.47%) Cloudera
15 4 (0.47%) Hortonworks
15 4 (0.47%) Splunk
16 3 (0.35%) SimCorp