Data Engineering Contract Job Trends in London

Data Engineering
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring Data Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 17 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	59	95	161
Rank change year-on-year	+36	+66	+18
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering	879	415	259
As % of all contract jobs in London	4.29%	3.10%	1.62%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	4.82%	3.35%	1.81%
Number of daily rates quoted	616	257	197
10^th Percentile	£400	£382	£413
25^th Percentile	£450	£475	£500
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£550	£550	£575
Median % change year-on-year	-	-4.35%	-8.00%
75^th Percentile	£675	£688	£700
90^th Percentile	£775	£780	£825
England median daily rate	£525	£525	£575
% change year-on-year	-	-8.70%	-4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted	2	4	0
Median hourly rate	£57.00	£58.75	-
Median % change year-on-year	-2.98%	-	-
England median hourly rate	£62.45	£52.50	£60.00
% change year-on-year	+18.95%	-12.50%	-23.08%

All Process & Methodology Skills
London

Data Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in London.

	6 months to 17 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills	18,254	12,397	14,280
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London	89.10%	92.51%	89.26%
Number of daily rates quoted	11,962	8,181	9,249
10^th Percentile	£358	£335	£350
25^th Percentile	£450	£425	£450
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£550	£540	£550
Median % change year-on-year	+1.85%	-1.82%	-4.35%
75^th Percentile	£665	£664	£675
90^th Percentile	£775	£775	£800
England median daily rate	£525	£510	£525
% change year-on-year	+2.94%	-2.86%	-4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted	355	241	175
10^th Percentile	£15.86	£18.25	£17.70
25^th Percentile	£18.63	£25.04	£24.17
Median hourly rate	£32.50	£30.50	£37.50
Median % change year-on-year	+6.56%	-18.67%	-6.25%
75^th Percentile	£57.50	£48.00	£58.13
90^th Percentile	£81.25	£65.00	£78.75
England median hourly rate	£38.00	£25.15	£42.50
% change year-on-year	+51.09%	-40.82%	-5.56%

Data Engineering Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

Data Engineering Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Data Engineering.

Data Engineering Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering in London over the 6 months to 17 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineering in London

Data Engineering Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing Data Engineering.

Data Engineering 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 Engineering within the London region over the 6 months to 17 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	+30	117	£600	+9.09%	122
West London	+1	24	£520	-4.81%	13
South London	-5	5	£450	-9.91%	5
East London	-	3	£470	-	11
Data Engineering England

Data Engineering Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London

For the 6 months to 17 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Data Engineering also mentioned 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 with a requirement for Data Engineering.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	SQL	56.7%	498
2	Python	56.4%	496
3	Data Pipeline	50.7%	446
4	Analytics	46.3%	407
5	Azure	42.8%	376
6	CI/CD	41.9%	368
7	AWS	38.6%	339
8	Data Modelling	36.3%	319
9	Data Quality	35.5%	312
10	ETL	34.8%	306
11	AI	33.8%	297
12	Databricks	29.7%	261
13	Agile	26.3%	231
14	DevOps	25.3%	222
15	Data Warehouse	22.8%	200
16	Data Governance	21.8%	192
17	Business Intelligence	21.4%	188
18	Stakeholder Management	20.0%	176
19	Machine Learning	19.5%	171
20	Snowflake	18.9%	166
21	PySpark	17.7%	156
22	Microsoft	17.5%	154
23	dbt	17.4%	153
24	Data Transformation	16.6%	146
25	Data Architecture	15.9%	140
25	Infrastructure as Code	15.9%	140
27	Apache Airflow	15.7%	138
28	Power Platform	15.5%	136
29	GCP	15.2%	134
30	Terraform	15.1%	133

Data Engineering 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.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Data Pipeline	50.7%	446
2	Analytics	46.3%	407
3	CI/CD	41.9%	368
4	Data Modelling	36.3%	319
5	ETL	34.8%	306
6	AI	33.8%	297
7	Agile	26.3%	231
8	DevOps	25.3%	222
9	Data Governance	21.8%	192
10	Business Intelligence	21.4%	188
11	Stakeholder Management	20.0%	176
12	Machine Learning	19.5%	171
13	Data Transformation	16.6%	146
14	Data Architecture	15.9%	140
14	Infrastructure as Code	15.9%	140
16	Validation	15.1%	133
17	Problem-Solving	14.9%	131
18	Data Science	14.4%	127
19	Decision-Making	14.3%	126
20	Migration	14.1%	124