Data Engineer Contracts in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £460, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 29 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 115 147 155
Rank change year-on-year +32 +8 +8
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 273 320 365
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 2.12% 1.55% 1.60%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.31% 1.68% 1.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 210 236 286
10th Percentile £262 £163 £405
25th Percentile £381 £196 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.22% -14.29% +2.44%
75th Percentile £513 £538 £614
90th Percentile £625 £588 £688
UK median daily rate £490 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -2.00% -9.09% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 33 1
10th Percentile £17.92 £37.50 -
25th Percentile £18.11 £58.75 £75.25
Median hourly rate £48.46 £75.00 £75.50
Median % change year-on-year -35.39% -0.66% +67.78%
75th Percentile £79.03 £80.00 £75.75
90th Percentile £79.61 - -
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £66.25 £75.50
% change year-on-year -20.75% -12.25% +61.39%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK excluding London

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the UK excluding 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 the UK excluding London with a recognized job title 11,802 19,038 21,534
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.73% 92.39% 94.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,509 11,591 14,985
10th Percentile £213 £213 £225
25th Percentile £363 £363 £394
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £488 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.56% -2.50% +5.26%
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £650 £688 £688
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.81% -2.78% +2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 844 2,364 1,082
10th Percentile £13.76 £12.50 £13.41
25th Percentile £16.95 £15.75 £17.81
Median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -37.13% -5.88% +112.50%
75th Percentile £62.24 £62.14 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £73.75 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £27.97 £37.18 £45.00
% change year-on-year -24.78% -17.38% +87.50%

Data Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings that featured Data Engineer in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for Data Engineer in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Data Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for Data Engineer in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineer in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Data Engineer in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for Data Engineer in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineer in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 29 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineer in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding 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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 29 May 2025. 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
North of England +21 97 £469 +1.35% 700
North West +18 63 £475 +11.76% 330
Midlands +23 51 £450 +5.88% 549
Scotland +19 42 £450 -0.66% 153
West Midlands +22 35 £460 -3.16% 292
South West +13 35 £494 -1.25% 356
South East +32 34 £425 -4.23% 852
Yorkshire +3 24 £450 -5.26% 271
East Midlands +9 14 £410 +2.50% 221
East of England +7 13 £318 +71.89% 419
North East - 11 £475 - 102
Wales -3 5 £206 -48.42% 79
Northern Ireland -15 1 £500 +185.71% 36
Data Engineer
UK

Data Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London

For the 6 months to 29 May 2025, Data Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the UK excluding London region featuring Data Engineer in the job title.

1 141 (51.65%) SQL
2 128 (46.89%) Python
3 102 (37.36%) ETL
4 94 (34.43%) Data Pipeline
5 91 (33.33%) AWS
6 78 (28.57%) Azure
7 72 (26.37%) Data Modelling
7 72 (26.37%) Data Engineering
8 71 (26.01%) Problem-Solving
9 69 (25.27%) Analytics
10 68 (24.91%) Data Warehouse
11 58 (21.25%) Security Cleared
12 57 (20.88%) Social Skills
13 53 (19.41%) Data Quality
14 52 (19.05%) Databricks
15 50 (18.32%) Snowflake
16 47 (17.22%) CI/CD
17 42 (15.38%) Data Integration
18 41 (15.02%) SC Cleared
18 41 (15.02%) Finance
19 38 (13.92%) Migration
20 36 (13.19%) PySpark
21 35 (12.82%) Docker
21 35 (12.82%) Agile
22 32 (11.72%) Business Intelligence
22 32 (11.72%) Data Governance
22 32 (11.72%) Visualisation
22 32 (11.72%) GCP
23 31 (11.36%) Data Migration
23 31 (11.36%) Apache

Data Engineer Skill Set
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 31 (11.36%) Apache
2 28 (10.26%) Apache Airflow
3 25 (9.16%) Apache Spark
4 5 (1.83%) Confluence
4 5 (1.83%) SharePoint
5 2 (0.73%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.73%) R Markdown
5 2 (0.73%) SAS
6 1 (0.37%) IBM Notes
6 1 (0.37%) Luigi
6 1 (0.37%) Oracle Application Server
Applications
1 2 (0.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.37%) Adobe Captivate
2 1 (0.37%) AutoCAD
2 1 (0.37%) CATIA
2 1 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 7 (2.56%) Oracle EBS
2 3 (1.10%) Payment Gateway
3 1 (0.37%) NetSuite
3 1 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 91 (33.33%) AWS
2 78 (28.57%) Azure
3 50 (18.32%) Snowflake
4 32 (11.72%) GCP
5 29 (10.62%) Amazon S3
5 29 (10.62%) Power Platform
6 26 (9.52%) Azure Data Factory
7 16 (5.86%) AWS Lambda
7 16 (5.86%) Serverless
8 14 (5.13%) dbt
9 13 (4.76%) Matillion
10 12 (4.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 9 (3.30%) Amazon EC2
11 9 (3.30%) AWS CloudFormation
12 8 (2.93%) Amazon EKS
12 8 (2.93%) Cloud Computing
12 8 (2.93%) GitHub
13 7 (2.56%) Amazon EMR
13 7 (2.56%) AWS CodePipeline
14 6 (2.20%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 11 (4.03%) Structured Cabling
2 2 (0.73%) BGP
2 2 (0.73%) LAN
2 2 (0.73%) SMS
2 2 (0.73%) WAN
2 2 (0.73%) Wi-Fi
2 2 (0.73%) Wireless
3 1 (0.37%) 802.11
3 1 (0.37%) DHCP
3 1 (0.37%) DMZ
3 1 (0.37%) DNS
3 1 (0.37%) EIGRP
3 1 (0.37%) Ethernet
3 1 (0.37%) Firewall
3 1 (0.37%) Internet
3 1 (0.37%) Network Security
3 1 (0.37%) OSPF
3 1 (0.37%) SAN
3 1 (0.37%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.37%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (24.91%) Data Warehouse
2 28 (10.26%) Power BI
3 23 (8.42%) PostgreSQL
4 22 (8.06%) SQL Server
5 20 (7.33%) Amazon Redshift
6 18 (6.59%) Relational Database
7 16 (5.86%) Metadata
8 15 (5.49%) Big Data
9 14 (5.13%) Data Lake
9 14 (5.13%) Hadoop
10 11 (4.03%) Azure SQL Database
10 11 (4.03%) NoSQL
10 11 (4.03%) Oracle Database
11 10 (3.66%) BigQuery
11 10 (3.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 9 (3.30%) Delta Lake
12 9 (3.30%) MySQL
13 8 (2.93%) Amazon RDS
13 8 (2.93%) Elasticsearch
14 7 (2.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 19 (6.96%) Git
2 17 (6.23%) GitLab
3 10 (3.66%) Jenkins
4 6 (2.20%) JIRA
5 4 (1.47%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (1.47%) Visual Studio
6 3 (1.10%) Atlassian Bamboo
6 3 (1.10%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.73%) Flyway
8 1 (0.37%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.37%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.37%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.37%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.37%) Vagrant
General
1 57 (20.88%) Social Skills
2 41 (15.02%) Finance
3 29 (10.62%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (7.69%) Banking
5 19 (6.96%) Public Sector
6 8 (2.93%) Financial Institution
7 7 (2.56%) Investment Banking
8 5 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.83%) Tech for Good
9 4 (1.47%) Automotive
9 4 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Marketing
10 3 (1.10%) Organisational Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Presentation Skills
10 3 (1.10%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.73%) Legal
11 2 (0.73%) Local Government
11 2 (0.73%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.73%) Retail Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (13.19%) PySpark
2 24 (8.79%) Kafka
3 12 (4.40%) REST
4 11 (4.03%) Apache NiFi
5 7 (2.56%) AWS CDK
6 5 (1.83%) Elastic Stack
6 5 (1.83%) Pandas
7 3 (1.10%) .NET
7 3 (1.10%) AngularJS
7 3 (1.10%) JDBC
7 3 (1.10%) Keycloak
7 3 (1.10%) PostGIS
7 3 (1.10%) React
8 2 (0.73%) ADO
8 2 (0.73%) NumPy
8 2 (0.73%) Shiny
8 2 (0.73%) Spark Streaming
8 2 (0.73%) Spring
8 2 (0.73%) Spring Boot
9 1 (0.37%) Lightning Web Components
Miscellaneous
1 15 (5.49%) Onboarding
2 14 (5.13%) Legacy Systems
3 11 (4.03%) Fibre Optics
4 9 (3.30%) Data Protection Act
5 7 (2.56%) Cloud Native
5 7 (2.56%) Data Structures
6 5 (1.83%) Hybrid Cloud
6 5 (1.83%) Renewable Energy
6 5 (1.83%) Replication
7 4 (1.47%) Data Centre
7 4 (1.47%) Management Information System
8 3 (1.10%) Product Ownership
9 2 (0.73%) Algorithms
9 2 (0.73%) Data Fabric
9 2 (0.73%) Distributed Computing
9 2 (0.73%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.73%) Greenfield Project
9 2 (0.73%) IoT
10 1 (0.37%) Taxonomies
10 1 (0.37%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 7 (2.56%) Linux
2 5 (1.83%) Unix
3 1 (0.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.37%) Windows
3 1 (0.37%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (37.36%) ETL
2 94 (34.43%) Data Pipeline
3 72 (26.37%) Data Engineering
3 72 (26.37%) Data Modelling
4 71 (26.01%) Problem-Solving
5 69 (25.27%) Analytics
6 47 (17.22%) CI/CD
7 42 (15.38%) Data Integration
8 38 (13.92%) Migration
9 35 (12.82%) Agile
10 32 (11.72%) Business Intelligence
10 32 (11.72%) Data Governance
10 32 (11.72%) Visualisation
11 31 (11.36%) Data Migration
12 30 (10.99%) Data Transformation
13 29 (10.62%) Data Protection
13 29 (10.62%) Decision-Making
14 28 (10.26%) Containerisation
14 28 (10.26%) DevOps
15 27 (9.89%) Data Security
Programming Languages
1 141 (51.65%) SQL
2 128 (46.89%) Python
3 21 (7.69%) Java
4 17 (6.23%) PL/SQL
5 8 (2.93%) Shell Script
5 8 (2.93%) T-SQL
6 6 (2.20%) Scala
7 4 (1.47%) Bash
7 4 (1.47%) JavaScript
7 4 (1.47%) SPARQL
8 3 (1.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 3 (1.10%) R
8 3 (1.10%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.73%) C#
9 2 (0.73%) PowerShell
10 1 (0.37%) C++
10 1 (0.37%) Ruby
10 1 (0.37%) VB.NET
10 1 (0.37%) VBA
Qualifications
1 58 (21.25%) Security Cleared
2 41 (15.02%) SC Cleared
3 17 (6.23%) Degree
3 17 (6.23%) DV Cleared
4 10 (3.66%) Computer Science Degree
5 8 (2.93%) AWS Certification
6 7 (2.56%) Azure Certification
6 7 (2.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 4 (1.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (1.10%) CTC Cleared
8 3 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
8 3 (1.10%) SnowPro
9 2 (0.73%) Master's Degree
10 1 (0.37%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.37%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (19.41%) Data Quality
2 12 (4.40%) GDPR
3 11 (4.03%) Accessibility
4 6 (2.20%) QA
5 4 (1.47%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (1.10%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.73%) WCAG
8 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.37%) PMO
8 1 (0.37%) SLA
System Software
1 35 (12.82%) Docker
2 1 (0.37%) Veritas Cluster Server
2 1 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (0.37%) VirtualBox
Systems Management
1 29 (10.62%) Kubernetes
2 14 (5.13%) Terraform
3 6 (2.20%) Ansible
4 5 (1.83%) Grafana
4 5 (1.83%) Kibana
4 5 (1.83%) logstash
5 2 (0.73%) NetBackup
5 2 (0.73%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.73%) Puppet
6 1 (0.37%) FortiGate
6 1 (0.37%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 52 (19.05%) Databricks
2 28 (10.26%) Oracle
3 21 (7.69%) Microsoft
4 14 (5.13%) Google
5 9 (3.30%) Commvault
5 9 (3.30%) Informatica
6 7 (2.56%) Virgin Media
7 5 (1.83%) IBM
7 5 (1.83%) Talend
8 4 (1.47%) Cisco
8 4 (1.47%) Cloudera
9 3 (1.10%) Atlassian
9 3 (1.10%) Denodo
9 3 (1.10%) Foundry
9 3 (1.10%) Palantir
10 2 (0.73%) SAP
10 2 (0.73%) ServiceNow
10 2 (0.73%) Teradata
10 2 (0.73%) Veritas
11 1 (0.37%) Cognos