Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in London

Data Engineer
England > London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in London is £514, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 February 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 57 68 78
Rank change year-on-year +11 +10 +28
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 632 476 537
As % of all contract jobs in London 4.14% 3.51% 2.90%
As % of the Job Titles category 4.47% 3.74% 3.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 446 353 426
10th Percentile £363 £400 £372
25th Percentile £425 £463 £451
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.59% +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £614 £650 £638
90th Percentile £725 £800 £700
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% -17.97%
75th Percentile £69.31 £97.50 £63.14
90th Percentile £93.73 - £68.00
England median hourly rate £54.50 £75.00 £60.50
% change year-on-year -27.33% +23.97% -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 14,143 12,712 17,275
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.66% 93.62% 93.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,424 8,189 12,471
10th Percentile £350 £331 £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 £780
England median daily rate £501 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.67% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 230 140 336
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.98 £16.00
25th Percentile £24.03 £24.66 £19.05
Median hourly rate £34.14 £36.75 £28.88
Median % change year-on-year -7.12% +27.27% -16.91%
75th Percentile £59.72 £53.75 £49.28
90th Percentile £76.58 £78.95 £65.88
England median hourly rate £31.49 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -10.03% - -9.09%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +18 78 £513 -2.38% 32
West London -1 26 £603 +5.93% 6
South London -6 9 £500 +1.27% 4
Data Engineer
England

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

For the 6 months to 15 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.

1 383 (60.60%) Python
2 381 (60.28%) SQL
3 305 (48.26%) Azure
4 278 (43.99%) Data Pipeline
5 268 (42.41%) Data Engineering
5 268 (42.41%) ETL
6 240 (37.97%) Databricks
7 229 (36.23%) Analytics
7 229 (36.23%) Data Modelling
8 209 (33.07%) AWS
9 188 (29.75%) Data Quality
10 176 (27.85%) CI/CD
11 161 (25.47%) Security Cleared
12 160 (25.32%) Business Intelligence
13 144 (22.78%) SC Cleared
14 139 (21.99%) Power Platform
15 136 (21.52%) Data Warehouse
16 135 (21.36%) Power BI
17 132 (20.89%) DevOps
18 123 (19.46%) PySpark
19 121 (19.15%) Azure Data Factory
20 119 (18.83%) Agile
21 114 (18.04%) Data Governance
22 109 (17.25%) Data Science
23 103 (16.30%) Terraform
24 94 (14.87%) Snowflake
25 92 (14.56%) AI
25 92 (14.56%) Data Lake
25 92 (14.56%) Infrastructure as Code
26 88 (13.92%) Data Architecture

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 84 (13.29%) Apache Spark
2 68 (10.76%) Apache Airflow
3 49 (7.75%) Apache
4 13 (2.06%) Palantir Foundry
5 10 (1.58%) Confluence
6 4 (0.63%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (0.47%) 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 (1.27%) 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
1 305 (48.26%) Azure
2 209 (33.07%) AWS
3 139 (21.99%) Power Platform
4 121 (19.15%) Azure Data Factory
5 94 (14.87%) Snowflake
6 82 (12.97%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 78 (12.34%) Amazon S3
8 73 (11.55%) GCP
9 63 (9.97%) Serverless
10 62 (9.81%) dbt
10 62 (9.81%) GitHub
11 60 (9.49%) Azure DevOps
12 47 (7.44%) AWS Lambda
13 33 (5.22%) GitHub Actions
14 24 (3.80%) AWS CloudFormation
15 17 (2.69%) Amazon Kinesis
15 17 (2.69%) AWS Step Functions
16 16 (2.53%) SaaS
17 13 (2.06%) Amazon SQS
17 13 (2.06%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.63%) Firewall
2 3 (0.47%) SAN
3 1 (0.16%) Network Security
3 1 (0.16%) Software-Defined Networking
3 1 (0.16%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 136 (21.52%) Data Warehouse
2 135 (21.36%) Power BI
3 92 (14.56%) Data Lake
4 83 (13.13%) SQL Server
5 49 (7.75%) Delta Lake
6 46 (7.28%) Azure SQL Database
6 46 (7.28%) Metadata
7 43 (6.80%) BigQuery
8 39 (6.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 37 (5.85%) Amazon Redshift
9 37 (5.85%) NoSQL
10 33 (5.22%) Tableau
11 32 (5.06%) Big Data
12 31 (4.91%) Amazon Athena
12 31 (4.91%) PostgreSQL
13 23 (3.64%) Relational Database
14 22 (3.48%) Snowflake Schema
15 16 (2.53%) Data Vault
15 16 (2.53%) Hadoop
15 16 (2.53%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 78 (12.34%) Git
2 19 (3.01%) Jenkins
2 19 (3.01%) JIRA
3 17 (2.69%) GitLab
4 16 (2.53%) MLflow
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
1 124 (19.62%) Finance
2 112 (17.72%) Social Skills
3 64 (10.13%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (5.54%) Public Sector
5 33 (5.22%) Banking
6 26 (4.11%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 12 (1.90%) Front Office
8 11 (1.74%) Retail
9 10 (1.58%) Investment Banking
9 10 (1.58%) Pharmaceutical
10 8 (1.27%) Marketing
11 7 (1.11%) Telecoms
12 5 (0.79%) Publishing
13 4 (0.63%) Back Office
13 4 (0.63%) Corporate Banking
14 3 (0.47%) Law
14 3 (0.47%) Military
14 3 (0.47%) Organisational Skills
15 2 (0.32%) Documentation Skills
15 2 (0.32%) Manufacturing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 123 (19.46%) PySpark
2 70 (11.08%) Kafka
3 29 (4.59%) Pandas
4 18 (2.85%) YAML
5 12 (1.90%) NumPy
5 12 (1.90%) REST
6 11 (1.74%) Great Expectations
6 11 (1.74%) PyTorch
7 9 (1.42%) Matplotlib
7 9 (1.42%) scikit-learn
7 9 (1.42%) XML
8 8 (1.27%) Apache NiFi
9 7 (1.11%) JSON
9 7 (1.11%) RabbitMQ
10 6 (0.95%) TensorFlow
11 5 (0.79%) GeoJSON
11 5 (0.79%) Middleware
11 5 (0.79%) Polars
11 5 (0.79%) RESTful
12 4 (0.63%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 53 (8.39%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.01%) Data Structures
3 15 (2.37%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.22%) Onboarding
5 12 (1.90%) Reinsurance
6 10 (1.58%) Product Ownership
7 9 (1.42%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (0.95%) Distributed Computing
8 6 (0.95%) Life Science
8 6 (0.95%) Public Cloud
8 6 (0.95%) Replication
9 5 (0.79%) Algorithms
9 5 (0.79%) Linux Command Line
10 4 (0.63%) Credit Risk
10 4 (0.63%) Derivative
10 4 (0.63%) Equities
10 4 (0.63%) Genomics
10 4 (0.63%) Virtual Team
11 3 (0.47%) Distributed Systems
11 3 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 9 (1.42%) Linux
2 1 (0.16%) Unix
2 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 278 (43.99%) Data Pipeline
2 268 (42.41%) Data Engineering
2 268 (42.41%) ETL
3 229 (36.23%) Analytics
3 229 (36.23%) Data Modelling
4 176 (27.85%) CI/CD
5 160 (25.32%) Business Intelligence
6 132 (20.89%) DevOps
7 119 (18.83%) Agile
8 114 (18.04%) Data Governance
9 109 (17.25%) Data Science
10 92 (14.56%) AI
10 92 (14.56%) Infrastructure as Code
11 88 (13.92%) Data Architecture
12 86 (13.61%) Problem-Solving
13 80 (12.66%) Machine Learning
14 73 (11.55%) Data Integration
15 70 (11.08%) Migration
16 64 (10.13%) Data Transformation
17 59 (9.34%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 383 (60.60%) Python
2 381 (60.28%) SQL
3 72 (11.39%) Scala
4 37 (5.85%) Java
5 21 (3.32%) C#
6 17 (2.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (2.37%) T-SQL
8 12 (1.90%) Bash
8 12 (1.90%) Bicep
9 10 (1.58%) JavaScript
9 10 (1.58%) R
10 9 (1.42%) PL/SQL
10 9 (1.42%) PowerShell
11 5 (0.79%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.47%) Korn
13 2 (0.32%) C
13 2 (0.32%) C++
13 2 (0.32%) TypeScript
13 2 (0.32%) VB
14 1 (0.16%) Go
Qualifications
1 161 (25.47%) Security Cleared
2 144 (22.78%) SC Cleared
3 21 (3.32%) Azure Certification
4 20 (3.16%) Degree
5 14 (2.22%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.90%) AWS Certification
7 11 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
7 11 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (0.79%) Microsoft Certification
9 4 (0.63%) Master's Degree
10 3 (0.47%) CTC Cleared
10 3 (0.47%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.32%) SnowPro
12 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (29.75%) Data Quality
2 36 (5.70%) GDPR
3 14 (2.22%) QA
4 7 (1.11%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.47%) HIPAA
5 3 (0.47%) 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 31 (4.91%) Docker
2 5 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
2 5 (0.79%) zsh
3 1 (0.16%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.16%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 103 (16.30%) Terraform
2 31 (4.91%) Kubernetes
3 5 (0.79%) Grafana
4 3 (0.47%) Kubeflow
4 3 (0.47%) 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
1 240 (37.97%) Databricks
2 86 (13.61%) Microsoft
3 31 (4.91%) Google
4 26 (4.11%) Oracle
5 18 (2.85%) Informatica
6 15 (2.37%) Foundry
7 14 (2.22%) Palantir
8 11 (1.74%) ServiceNow
9 9 (1.42%) SAP
10 8 (1.27%) Cloudera
10 8 (1.27%) IBM
11 6 (0.95%) Talend
12 5 (0.79%) Virgin Media
13 4 (0.63%) Alteryx
13 4 (0.63%) Denodo
13 4 (0.63%) Salesforce
14 3 (0.47%) Cisco
14 3 (0.47%) EMC
14 3 (0.47%) OpenAI
14 3 (0.47%) Splunk