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 28 September 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 65 99 84
Rank change year-on-year +34 -15 +11
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 825 395 465
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.10% 2.96% 2.86%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.40% 3.19% 3.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 613 296 335
10th Percentile £369 £380 £413
25th Percentile £440 £450 £484
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -8.70% -
75th Percentile £625 £620 £663
90th Percentile £713 £700 £751
England median daily rate £500 £510 £550
% change year-on-year -1.96% -7.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 9 5
10th Percentile - £33.23 -
25th Percentile £30.00 £42.25 £49.25
Median hourly rate £34.84 £52.50 £95.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.64% -44.74% +57.02%
75th Percentile - £62.50 £97.50
90th Percentile £58.19 £110.00 -
England median hourly rate £41.56 £48.00 £80.00
% change year-on-year -13.43% -40.00% +29.55%

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 18,767 12,400 15,283
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.23% 92.79% 93.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,145 8,291 10,065
10th Percentile £360 £330 £340
25th Percentile £450 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.92% -0.91% -4.35%
75th Percentile £659 £668 £675
90th Percentile £775 £775 £800
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 400 198 179
10th Percentile £17.03 £17.00 £17.45
25th Percentile £21.93 £22.75 £23.80
Median hourly rate £40.00 £28.14 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.16% -19.61% -6.67%
75th Percentile £63.75 £49.00 £58.13
90th Percentile £81.25 £65.17 £76.75
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% -1.13%

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 28 September 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 28 September 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 28 September 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 +20 105 £565 +7.62% 101
West London -12 15 £473 -10.00% 18
East London +7 5 £450 - 5
South London -8 4 £475 +3.83% 4
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 28 September 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.

1 456 (55.27%) SQL
2 453 (54.91%) Python
3 389 (47.15%) Data Pipeline
4 385 (46.67%) Data Engineering
5 303 (36.73%) ETL
6 302 (36.61%) Data Modelling
7 300 (36.36%) AWS
8 298 (36.12%) Analytics
9 287 (34.79%) Azure
10 251 (30.42%) Data Quality
11 249 (30.18%) CI/CD
12 199 (24.12%) Databricks
13 183 (22.18%) Security Cleared
14 170 (20.61%) Data Warehouse
15 166 (20.12%) Agile
16 165 (20.00%) AI
17 161 (19.52%) SC Cleared
18 160 (19.39%) dbt
19 154 (18.67%) DevOps
20 148 (17.94%) PySpark
20 148 (17.94%) Snowflake
21 147 (17.82%) Apache Airflow
22 132 (16.00%) Migration
23 130 (15.76%) Data Governance
24 128 (15.52%) Data Transformation
25 124 (15.03%) Business Intelligence
26 115 (13.94%) Power Platform
27 114 (13.82%) Azure Data Factory
27 114 (13.82%) GCP
27 114 (13.82%) 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
1 147 (17.82%) Apache Airflow
2 101 (12.24%) Apache Spark
3 82 (9.94%) Apache
4 13 (1.58%) Confluence
5 10 (1.21%) Palantir Foundry
5 10 (1.21%) SharePoint
6 7 (0.85%) SAS
7 6 (0.73%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.12%) Luigi
9 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.12%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 7 (0.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.24%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (1.33%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.24%) Maximo
2 2 (0.24%) NetSuite
2 2 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.24%) SAP BPC
2 2 (0.24%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 2 (0.24%) SimCorp Dimension
2 2 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 1 (0.12%) BambooHR
3 1 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
3 1 (0.12%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.12%) Markit EDM
3 1 (0.12%) Oracle Retail
3 1 (0.12%) Raiser’s Edge
3 1 (0.12%) Sage X3
3 1 (0.12%) SAP CAR
3 1 (0.12%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 300 (36.36%) AWS
2 287 (34.79%) Azure
3 160 (19.39%) dbt
4 148 (17.94%) Snowflake
5 115 (13.94%) Power Platform
6 114 (13.82%) Azure Data Factory
6 114 (13.82%) GCP
7 107 (12.97%) Amazon S3
8 78 (9.45%) Azure DevOps
9 77 (9.33%) Serverless
10 72 (8.73%) AWS Lambda
10 72 (8.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 69 (8.36%) GitHub
12 36 (4.36%) Azure Databricks
13 31 (3.76%) GitHub Actions
14 29 (3.52%) Amazon EMR
15 22 (2.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 17 (2.06%) Amazon Kinesis
16 17 (2.06%) Microsoft Purview
17 16 (1.94%) Fivetran
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.12%) DNS
1 1 (0.12%) HTTP
1 1 (0.12%) HTTPS
1 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
1 1 (0.12%) tcpdump
1 1 (0.12%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 170 (20.61%) Data Warehouse
2 111 (13.45%) Power BI
3 83 (10.06%) Data Lake
4 78 (9.45%) BigQuery
5 61 (7.39%) Metadata
6 56 (6.79%) Delta Lake
7 52 (6.30%) Amazon Redshift
8 48 (5.82%) Amazon Athena
9 43 (5.21%) Big Data
9 43 (5.21%) PostgreSQL
10 40 (4.85%) NoSQL
10 40 (4.85%) SQL Server
11 38 (4.61%) Snowflake Schema
12 35 (4.24%) Tableau
13 29 (3.52%) Relational Database
14 25 (3.03%) Amazon RDS
15 23 (2.79%) Spark SQL
16 22 (2.67%) MongoDB
17 20 (2.42%) Apache Iceberg
17 20 (2.42%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 100 (12.12%) Git
2 27 (3.27%) GitLab
3 18 (2.18%) JIRA
4 12 (1.45%) MLflow
5 8 (0.97%) Bitbucket
5 8 (0.97%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.73%) Selenium
7 5 (0.61%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.36%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 3 (0.36%) Claude Code
8 3 (0.36%) ERwin
8 3 (0.36%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 2 (0.24%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.12%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.12%) GoCD
10 1 (0.12%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.12%) Postman
10 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 214 (25.94%) Finance
2 138 (16.73%) Social Skills
3 95 (11.52%) Analytical Skills
4 77 (9.33%) Banking
5 50 (6.06%) Public Sector
6 19 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 16 (1.94%) Front Office
8 15 (1.82%) Retail
9 13 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
10 11 (1.33%) Back Office
11 9 (1.09%) Marketing
12 6 (0.73%) Legal
12 6 (0.73%) Manufacturing
13 5 (0.61%) Financial Institution
13 5 (0.61%) Investment Banking
13 5 (0.61%) Local Government
14 4 (0.48%) Aerospace
14 4 (0.48%) Games
14 4 (0.48%) Military
14 4 (0.48%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 148 (17.94%) PySpark
2 113 (13.70%) Terraform
3 76 (9.21%) Kafka
4 17 (2.06%) REST
4 17 (2.06%) Spring
4 17 (2.06%) Spring Boot
5 15 (1.82%) Pandas
6 14 (1.70%) Apache Beam
7 12 (1.45%) Great Expectations
8 11 (1.33%) React
9 10 (1.21%) Microsoft Graph
10 9 (1.09%) pytest
10 9 (1.09%) PyTorch
11 8 (0.97%) JSON
11 8 (0.97%) YAML
12 7 (0.85%) .NET
12 7 (0.85%) NumPy
12 7 (0.85%) XML
13 6 (0.73%) HTML
13 6 (0.73%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 97 (11.76%) Cloud Native
2 36 (4.36%) Legacy Systems
3 35 (4.24%) Onboarding
4 30 (3.64%) Data Structures
5 17 (2.06%) AI Agents
6 16 (1.94%) Product Ownership
7 15 (1.82%) Reinsurance
8 14 (1.70%) Distributed Systems
9 11 (1.33%) Algorithms
9 11 (1.33%) NHS
10 10 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
11 8 (0.97%) Clustering
11 8 (0.97%) Virtual Team
12 7 (0.85%) Reference Data
12 7 (0.85%) Replication
13 6 (0.73%) Distributed Computing
14 5 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
14 5 (0.61%) Derivative
14 5 (0.61%) Enterprise Software
15 4 (0.48%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 21 (2.55%) Linux
2 14 (1.70%) Unix
3 1 (0.12%) Robot Operating System
3 1 (0.12%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 389 (47.15%) Data Pipeline
2 385 (46.67%) Data Engineering
3 303 (36.73%) ETL
4 302 (36.61%) Data Modelling
5 298 (36.12%) Analytics
6 249 (30.18%) CI/CD
7 166 (20.12%) Agile
8 165 (20.00%) AI
9 154 (18.67%) DevOps
10 132 (16.00%) Migration
11 130 (15.76%) Data Governance
12 128 (15.52%) Data Transformation
13 124 (15.03%) Business Intelligence
14 113 (13.70%) Validation
15 104 (12.61%) Machine Learning
16 97 (11.76%) Data Science
16 97 (11.76%) Infrastructure as Code
17 92 (11.15%) Lakehouse
18 90 (10.91%) Performance Optimisation
19 81 (9.82%) Data Architecture
Programming Languages
1 456 (55.27%) SQL
2 453 (54.91%) Python
3 65 (7.88%) Java
4 57 (6.91%) Scala
5 20 (2.42%) PowerShell
6 18 (2.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (1.82%) JavaScript
7 15 (1.82%) T-SQL
8 13 (1.58%) Shell Script
9 12 (1.45%) PL/SQL
10 8 (0.97%) C#
10 8 (0.97%) R
10 8 (0.97%) TypeScript
11 6 (0.73%) Go
12 5 (0.61%) Bash
12 5 (0.61%) Bicep
12 5 (0.61%) Korn
13 2 (0.24%) Cypher
14 1 (0.12%) LookML
14 1 (0.12%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 183 (22.18%) Security Cleared
2 161 (19.52%) SC Cleared
3 23 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
4 21 (2.55%) Degree
5 16 (1.94%) Azure Certification
6 11 (1.33%) Computer Science Degree
7 9 (1.09%) AWS Certification
7 9 (1.09%) DV Cleared
8 8 (0.97%) DBS Check
9 7 (0.85%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 5 (0.61%) Master's Degree
11 4 (0.48%) SnowPro
12 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
13 1 (0.12%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 1 (0.12%) CISA
13 1 (0.12%) CISM
13 1 (0.12%) Numerate Degree
13 1 (0.12%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.12%) PMP
13 1 (0.12%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 251 (30.42%) Data Quality
2 29 (3.52%) QA
3 17 (2.06%) GDPR
4 9 (1.09%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 3 (0.36%) MiFID
7 2 (0.24%) EMIR
7 2 (0.24%) SLA
8 1 (0.12%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.12%) IFRS
8 1 (0.12%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.12%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.12%) PMO
8 1 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 68 (8.24%) Docker
2 3 (0.36%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.12%) RACF
3 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 49 (5.94%) Kubernetes
2 9 (1.09%) Control-M
2 9 (1.09%) Grafana
3 7 (0.85%) Ansible
4 5 (0.61%) Kibana
5 2 (0.24%) Puppet
6 1 (0.12%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 199 (24.12%) Databricks
2 114 (13.82%) Microsoft
3 50 (6.06%) Google
4 46 (5.58%) Oracle
5 37 (4.48%) Informatica
6 18 (2.18%) Foundry
7 17 (2.06%) Palantir
8 13 (1.58%) Salesforce
9 11 (1.33%) Talend
10 10 (1.21%) Denodo
11 9 (1.09%) Bloomberg
11 9 (1.09%) Splunk
12 7 (0.85%) OpenAI
12 7 (0.85%) SAP
13 6 (0.73%) Amplitude
13 6 (0.73%) SnapLogic
14 5 (0.61%) Mistral
14 5 (0.61%) New Relic
15 4 (0.48%) Alteryx
15 4 (0.48%) IBM