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 19 October 2026.
The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.
| 6 months to 19 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 69 | 100 | 84 |
| Rank change year-on-year | +31 | -16 | +13 |
| Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer | 823 | 385 | 469 |
| As % of all contract jobs in London | 4.04% | 2.90% | 2.94% |
| As % of the Job Titles category | 4.35% | 3.13% | 3.12% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 599 | 281 | 334 |
| 10th Percentile | £363 | £380 | £413 |
| 25th Percentile | £431 | £450 | £495 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £525 | £525 | £575 |
| Median % change year-on-year | - | -8.70% | +4.55% |
| 75th Percentile | £638 | £625 | £650 |
| 90th Percentile | £725 | £700 | £751 |
| England median daily rate | £500 | £500 | £550 |
| % change year-on-year | -0.05% | -9.05% | - |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 5 | 9 | 4 |
| 10th Percentile | - | £33.23 | £62.23 |
| 25th Percentile | £30.00 | £42.25 | £81.69 |
| Median hourly rate | £34.84 | £52.50 | £95.00 |
| Median % change year-on-year | -33.64% | -44.74% | +53.85% |
| 75th Percentile | - | £62.50 | £97.50 |
| 90th Percentile | £58.19 | £110.00 | - |
| England median hourly rate | £45.00 | £48.00 | £77.50 |
| % change year-on-year | -6.25% | -38.06% | +23.02% |
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.
| 6 months to 19 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract vacancies in London with a recognized job title | 18,910 | 12,299 | 15,017 |
| % of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title | 92.88% | 92.53% | 94.07% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 12,249 | 8,185 | 9,750 |
| 10th Percentile | £363 | £335 | £349 |
| 25th Percentile | £450 | £425 | £450 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £550 | £550 | £550 |
| Median % change year-on-year | - | - | -4.35% |
| 75th Percentile | £663 | £664 | £675 |
| 90th Percentile | £775 | £775 | £800 |
| England median daily rate | £525 | £512 | £525 |
| % change year-on-year | +2.54% | -2.48% | -2.78% |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 426 | 212 | 170 |
| 10th Percentile | £16.72 | £17.00 | £17.25 |
| 25th Percentile | £21.93 | £22.38 | £23.80 |
| Median hourly rate | £41.00 | £26.54 | £37.50 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +54.51% | -29.24% | -6.64% |
| 75th Percentile | £64.81 | £48.38 | £59.69 |
| 90th Percentile | £83.13 | £67.31 | £80.08 |
| England median hourly rate | £41.71 | £25.15 | £43.00 |
| % change year-on-year | +65.84% | -41.51% | -6.89% |
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 Daily Rate Trend 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 19 October 2026.
Data Engineer Hourly Rate Trend 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 19 October 2026.
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 19 October 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 | +15 | 99 | £555 | +5.71% | 90 |
| West London | -5 | 16 | £485 | -2.27% | 15 |
| South London | -8 | 5 | £500 | +4.49% | 3 |
| East London | +6 | 3 | £470 | - | 10 |
| Data Engineer England |
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Data Engineer Skill Set Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London
For the 6 months to 19 October 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.
| Rank | Skill | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Python | 55.4% | 456 |
| 2 | SQL | 54.9% | 452 |
| 3 | Data Engineering | 48.8% | 402 |
| 4 | Data Pipeline | 48.0% | 395 |
| 5 | Data Modelling | 37.2% | 306 |
| 6 | ETL | 36.9% | 304 |
| 7 | Analytics | 36.2% | 298 |
| 8 | Azure | 35.4% | 291 |
| 9 | AWS | 35.0% | 288 |
| 10 | Data Quality | 32.4% | 267 |
| 11 | CI/CD | 31.6% | 260 |
| 12 | Databricks | 25.4% | 209 |
| 13 | Security Cleared | 24.3% | 200 |
| 14 | SC Cleared | 21.3% | 175 |
| 15 | AI | 21.0% | 173 |
| 16 | Agile | 20.7% | 170 |
| 17 | Data Warehouse | 20.5% | 169 |
| 18 | DevOps | 18.8% | 155 |
| 19 | PySpark | 18.5% | 152 |
| 20 | dbt | 18.3% | 151 |
| 21 | Apache Airflow | 17.1% | 141 |
| 22 | Migration | 17.0% | 140 |
| 23 | Snowflake | 16.9% | 139 |
| 24 | Data Transformation | 16.6% | 137 |
| 25 | Data Governance | 16.5% | 136 |
| 26 | Validation | 14.6% | 120 |
| 27 | Business Intelligence | 14.5% | 119 |
| 27 | Machine Learning | 14.5% | 119 |
| 29 | GCP | 14.3% | 118 |
| 30 | Microsoft | 14.0% | 115 |
Data Engineer Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London by Category
The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.
Job Titles
| Rank | Job Title | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senior Data Engineer | 21.3% | 175 |
| 2 | AWS Engineer | 7.9% | 65 |
| 3 | Azure Engineer | 7.8% | 64 |
| 3 | Databricks Data Engineer | 7.8% | 64 |
| 5 | AWS Data Engineer | 7.7% | 63 |
| 6 | Azure Data Engineer | 7.3% | 60 |
| 7 | Snowflake Engineer | 7.2% | 59 |
| 8 | Snowflake Data Engineer | 7.0% | 58 |
| 9 | Lead Data Engineer | 6.9% | 57 |
| 10 | Python Engineer | 6.4% | 53 |
| 11 | Python Data Engineer | 5.5% | 45 |
| 12 | GCP Engineer | 5.1% | 42 |
| 13 | GCP Data Engineer | 4.9% | 40 |
| 14 | Platform Engineer | 3.3% | 27 |
| 15 | Migration Engineer | 3.2% | 26 |
| 16 | Data Migration Engineer | 2.8% | 23 |
| 17 | Artificial Intelligence Engineer | 2.1% | 17 |
| 18 | Informatica Engineer | 1.8% | 15 |
| 18 | Senior Databricks Data Engineer | 1.8% | 15 |
| 20 | Analyst | 1.7% | 14 |