Data Engineering Contract Job Trends in the North of England

Data Engineering
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring Data Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 20 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 20 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	91	127	125
Rank change year-on-year	+36	-2	+31
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering	208	66	44
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England	2.70%	1.57%	1.09%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	3.22%	1.76%	1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted	124	43	28
10^th Percentile	£363	£273	£419
25^th Percentile	£400	£350	£466
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£463	£435	£525
Median % change year-on-year	+6.32%	-17.14%	-8.70%
75^th Percentile	£545	£538	£586
90^th Percentile	£688	£600	£643
England median daily rate	£525	£525	£575
% change year-on-year	-	-8.70%	-4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted	2	0	1
10^th Percentile	£70.27	-	-
25^th Percentile	£70.67	-	-
Median hourly rate	£71.33	-	£26.50
75^th Percentile	£72.00	-	-
90^th Percentile	£72.39	-	-
England median hourly rate	£62.40	£52.50	£43.25
% change year-on-year	+18.86%	+21.39%	-44.55%

All Process & Methodology Skills
North of England

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 the North of England.

	6 months to 20 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills	6,450	3,749	3,407
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England	83.77%	89.09%	84.27%
Number of daily rates quoted	3,718	2,464	1,852
10^th Percentile	£313	£250	£294
25^th Percentile	£406	£369	£400
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£500	£469	£488
Median % change year-on-year	+6.61%	-3.79%	-2.50%
75^th Percentile	£588	£563	£575
90^th Percentile	£675	£671	£655
England median daily rate	£525	£510	£525
% change year-on-year	+2.94%	-2.86%	-4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted	592	222	178
10^th Percentile	£13.69	£14.50	£14.28
25^th Percentile	£17.69	£17.55	£18.13
Median hourly rate	£43.96	£24.38	£35.00
Median % change year-on-year	+80.31%	-30.34%	+20.69%
75^th Percentile	£69.81	£41.46	£51.90
90^th Percentile	£78.63	£64.88	£70.00
England median hourly rate	£37.87	£25.15	£41.50
% change year-on-year	+50.56%	-39.40%	-6.74%

Data Engineering Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

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

Data Engineering Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Data Engineering.

Data Engineering Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering in the North of England over the 6 months to 20 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineering in the North of England

Data Engineering Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing Data Engineering.

Data Engineering Contract Job Locations in the North of England

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 North of England region over the 6 months to 20 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
Yorkshire	+37	100	£500	+5.26%	59
North West	-11	72	£463	+8.82%	141
North East	-15	36	£425	-	39
Data Engineering England

Data Engineering Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England

For the 6 months to 20 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 North of England region with a requirement for Data Engineering.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Python	63.5%	132
2	SQL	56.3%	117
3	Analytics	48.1%	100
4	Data Pipeline	47.1%	98
5	Azure	43.3%	90
5	CI/CD	43.3%	90
7	Data Quality	40.9%	85
8	AWS	38.0%	79
9	Data Modelling	37.5%	78
10	ETL	31.7%	66
11	AI	30.3%	63
12	Databricks	28.8%	60
13	DevOps	28.4%	59
14	GCP	24.5%	51
15	Infrastructure as Code	24.0%	50
16	Agile	23.6%	49
16	Data Integration	23.6%	49
18	Business Intelligence	22.6%	47
18	Data Governance	22.6%	47
20	Power Platform	22.1%	46
20	Terraform	22.1%	46
22	Apache Spark	21.2%	44
22	Validation	21.2%	44
24	Security Cleared	20.2%	42
25	Machine Learning	19.7%	41
26	Metadata	19.2%	40
26	Power BI	19.2%	40
28	Microsoft	17.8%	37
28	SC Cleared	17.8%	37
30	Apache	17.3%	36

Data Engineering Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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	Analytics	48.1%	100
2	Data Pipeline	47.1%	98
3	CI/CD	43.3%	90
4	Data Modelling	37.5%	78
5	ETL	31.7%	66
6	AI	30.3%	63
7	DevOps	28.4%	59
8	Infrastructure as Code	24.0%	50
9	Agile	23.6%	49
9	Data Integration	23.6%	49
11	Business Intelligence	22.6%	47
11	Data Governance	22.6%	47
13	Validation	21.2%	44
14	Machine Learning	19.7%	41
15	Observability	17.3%	36
16	Problem-Solving	15.9%	33
16	Stakeholder Management	15.9%	33
16	Technical Leadership	15.9%	33
19	Migration	15.4%	32
20	Data Transformation	14.9%	31