Data Engineer Contract Job Trends in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
UK > UK excluding London

The median Data Engineer daily rate in the UK excluding London is £469, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 July 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 138 131
Rank change year-on-year +74 -7 +30
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 860 259 340
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.25% 1.82% 1.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.54% 2.00% 1.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 563 184 253
10th Percentile £363 £315 £170
25th Percentile £413 £402 £200
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.50% +2.78% -14.29%
75th Percentile £544 £527 £538
90th Percentile £600 £621 £598
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 4 31
10th Percentile £19.34 £17.92 £37.50
25th Percentile £36.25 £18.11 £58.75
Median hourly rate £50.00 £48.46 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.18% -35.39% +53.06%
75th Percentile £68.00 £79.03 £80.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.61 -
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £66.25
% change year-on-year -4.76% -20.75% +3.52%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 24,324 12,973 19,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.01% 91.15% 92.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,863 8,067 11,719
10th Percentile £303 £220 £213
25th Percentile £406 £363 £373
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £494
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -3.85% -1.20%
75th Percentile £600 £575 £595
90th Percentile £688 £650 £675
UK median daily rate £520 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,829 1,046 2,431
10th Percentile £15.00 £13.50 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.51 £16.84 £16.19
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% +1.01%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £63.75
90th Percentile £78.75 £74.38 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £43.00 £26.50 £37.75
% change year-on-year +62.26% -29.80% -12.21%

Data Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding 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 the UK excluding London.

Data Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies 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 4 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineer in the UK excluding London

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK excluding London.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies 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 4 July 2026.

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 4 July 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
Midlands +52 352 £463 +2.78% 72
West Midlands +44 315 £459 -0.22% 39
North of England +20 217 £475 - 114
North West +22 133 £500 +5.26% 61
South East +25 127 £475 +11.76% 103
South West +18 91 £520 +4.00% 46
Scotland +24 68 £425 -9.33% 10
Yorkshire -17 64 £475 - 29
East Midlands +8 37 £525 +28.05% 34
East of England -18 24 £543 +70.60% 17
Wales +3 22 £450 +3.45% 11
North East -22 20 £480 +9.71% 27
Northern Ireland +2 3 £410 -18.00% 7
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 4 July 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 UK excluding London region featuring Data Engineer in the job title.

1 411 (47.79%) SQL
2 319 (37.09%) Data Pipeline
3 307 (35.70%) Analytics
4 297 (34.53%) ETL
5 282 (32.79%) Data Engineering
6 272 (31.63%) Security Cleared
7 269 (31.28%) Python
8 255 (29.65%) Data Modelling
9 223 (25.93%) SC Cleared
10 200 (23.26%) Azure
11 183 (21.28%) AWS
12 179 (20.81%) Data Quality
13 172 (20.00%) Business Intelligence
14 169 (19.65%) CI/CD
15 146 (16.98%) Agile
16 142 (16.51%) Data Integration
17 136 (15.81%) Databricks
18 127 (14.77%) Problem-Solving
19 117 (13.60%) Oracle
20 111 (12.91%) Migration
21 110 (12.79%) Power Platform
22 108 (12.56%) Talend
23 107 (12.44%) Data Warehouse
23 107 (12.44%) Power BI
24 104 (12.09%) DevOps
25 101 (11.74%) PySpark
26 91 (10.58%) Git
27 90 (10.47%) Data Governance
27 90 (10.47%) Microsoft
28 85 (9.88%) Validation

Data Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding 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 66 (7.67%) SAS
2 51 (5.93%) Apache Spark
3 36 (4.19%) Apache Airflow
4 35 (4.07%) Apache
5 24 (2.79%) Confluence
6 5 (0.58%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.23%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.58%) Notepad++
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (0.58%) Infor LN
2 4 (0.47%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.47%) Sage X3
3 3 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.12%) Elite 3E
4 1 (0.12%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 1 (0.12%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.12%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 200 (23.26%) Azure
2 183 (21.28%) AWS
3 110 (12.79%) Power Platform
4 83 (9.65%) Azure Data Factory
5 72 (8.37%) Snowflake
6 48 (5.58%) GCP
7 45 (5.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 44 (5.12%) dbt
9 42 (4.88%) Amazon S3
10 35 (4.07%) Serverless
11 28 (3.26%) Azure DevOps
11 28 (3.26%) GitHub
12 25 (2.91%) AWS Lambda
13 19 (2.21%) Matillion
14 18 (2.09%) OpenShift
15 15 (1.74%) GitHub Actions
16 14 (1.63%) Amazon EMR
17 11 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 10 (1.16%) Azure Functions
19 9 (1.05%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 35 (4.07%) DNS
1 35 (4.07%) VPN
2 34 (3.95%) BGP
2 34 (3.95%) DMZ
2 34 (3.95%) Multicast
3 8 (0.93%) Structured Cabling
4 5 (0.58%) Firewall
4 5 (0.58%) PuTTY
4 5 (0.58%) WinSCP
5 4 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (0.47%) Wireless
6 2 (0.23%) Intrusion Detection
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (12.44%) Data Warehouse
1 107 (12.44%) Power BI
2 84 (9.77%) Pentaho
3 45 (5.23%) Amazon Redshift
4 44 (5.12%) Data Lake
5 34 (3.95%) SQL Server
6 33 (3.84%) Big Data
7 27 (3.14%) MySQL
7 27 (3.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 26 (3.02%) Metadata
9 25 (2.91%) Hadoop
9 25 (2.91%) Relational Database
10 24 (2.79%) Delta Lake
11 22 (2.56%) Amazon Athena
12 19 (2.21%) Azure SQL Database
12 19 (2.21%) Tableau
13 18 (2.09%) NoSQL
13 18 (2.09%) Snowflake Schema
14 17 (1.98%) BigQuery
14 17 (1.98%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 91 (10.58%) Git
2 58 (6.74%) GitLab
3 46 (5.35%) JIRA
4 33 (3.84%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.81%) Postman
6 5 (0.58%) Artifactory
7 4 (0.47%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.35%) Newman
9 2 (0.23%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.23%) Yeoman
10 1 (0.12%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.12%) ERwin
10 1 (0.12%) JUnit
10 1 (0.12%) MLflow
General
1 141 (16.40%) Social Skills
2 87 (10.12%) Analytical Skills
3 81 (9.42%) Public Sector
4 62 (7.21%) Finance
5 42 (4.88%) Banking
6 22 (2.56%) Investment Banking
7 20 (2.33%) Marketing
8 19 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
9 15 (1.74%) Telecoms
10 14 (1.63%) Automotive
10 14 (1.63%) Manufacturing
11 13 (1.51%) Aerospace
11 13 (1.51%) Retail
12 12 (1.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.58%) Billing
13 5 (0.58%) Legal
14 4 (0.47%) Local Government
14 4 (0.47%) Police
15 3 (0.35%) Front Office
15 3 (0.35%) Law
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 101 (11.74%) PySpark
2 63 (7.33%) Kafka
3 23 (2.67%) JSON
4 13 (1.51%) XML
5 12 (1.40%) Pandas
6 10 (1.16%) Streamlit
7 8 (0.93%) Apache Avro
7 8 (0.93%) Protocol Buffers
7 8 (0.93%) REST
8 7 (0.81%) Apache Beam
9 6 (0.70%) Node.js
9 6 (0.70%) OpenTelemetry
9 6 (0.70%) RESTful
10 5 (0.58%) Apache NiFi
10 5 (0.58%) Great Expectations
10 5 (0.58%) pytest
10 5 (0.58%) YAML
11 4 (0.47%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.47%) React
12 3 (0.35%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 31 (3.60%) Cloud Native
2 23 (2.67%) Data Structures
3 20 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
4 16 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
5 15 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
6 9 (1.05%) Clustering
6 9 (1.05%) Driving Licence
6 9 (1.05%) Product Ownership
7 8 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
7 8 (0.93%) NHS
8 6 (0.70%) Data Centre
8 6 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
8 6 (0.70%) Onboarding
9 5 (0.58%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (0.47%) Data Fabric
10 4 (0.47%) iPad
10 4 (0.47%) Life Science
10 4 (0.47%) Public Cloud
10 4 (0.47%) Renewable Energy
10 4 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 41 (4.77%) Unix
2 12 (1.40%) Linux
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.12%) VMS
4 1 (0.12%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (37.09%) Data Pipeline
2 307 (35.70%) Analytics
3 297 (34.53%) ETL
4 282 (32.79%) Data Engineering
5 255 (29.65%) Data Modelling
6 172 (20.00%) Business Intelligence
7 169 (19.65%) CI/CD
8 146 (16.98%) Agile
9 142 (16.51%) Data Integration
10 127 (14.77%) Problem-Solving
11 111 (12.91%) Migration
12 104 (12.09%) DevOps
13 90 (10.47%) Data Governance
14 85 (9.88%) Validation
15 81 (9.42%) AI
16 72 (8.37%) Decision-Making
17 71 (8.26%) Test Automation
18 69 (8.02%) Data Transformation
19 65 (7.56%) Scrum
20 63 (7.33%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 411 (47.79%) SQL
2 269 (31.28%) Python
3 38 (4.42%) Java
4 36 (4.19%) PL/SQL
5 17 (1.98%) Bash
5 17 (1.98%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 10 (1.16%) PowerShell
8 7 (0.81%) T-SQL
9 6 (0.70%) Scala
10 5 (0.58%) Bicep
10 5 (0.58%) C#
11 2 (0.23%) Go
11 2 (0.23%) HiveQL
11 2 (0.23%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.12%) C++
12 1 (0.12%) COBOL
12 1 (0.12%) Perl
12 1 (0.12%) R
12 1 (0.12%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 272 (31.63%) Security Cleared
2 223 (25.93%) SC Cleared
3 20 (2.33%) Degree
4 18 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
5 15 (1.74%) DV Cleared
6 8 (0.93%) City & Guilds
7 7 (0.81%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (0.58%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.47%) BICSI Certification
9 4 (0.47%) SnowPro
10 3 (0.35%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.35%) CISM
10 3 (0.35%) CISSP
10 3 (0.35%) IBM Certification
11 2 (0.23%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.23%) CEH
12 1 (0.12%) CCIE
12 1 (0.12%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.12%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.12%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 179 (20.81%) Data Quality
2 20 (2.33%) QA
3 15 (1.74%) GDPR
4 10 (1.16%) SLA
5 8 (0.93%) FATCA
6 4 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.35%) Accessibility
7 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.23%) Disclosure Scotland
8 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.12%) GMP
9 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.12%) NIST
9 1 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 43 (5.00%) Docker
2 3 (0.35%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.23%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 52 (6.05%) Terraform
2 46 (5.35%) Kubernetes
3 38 (4.42%) Grafana
4 11 (1.28%) Prometheus
5 9 (1.05%) Ansible
6 3 (0.35%) Rancher
7 2 (0.23%) Apache Ranger
7 2 (0.23%) Control-M
8 1 (0.12%) Kibana
8 1 (0.12%) logstash
Vendors
1 136 (15.81%) Databricks
2 117 (13.60%) Oracle
3 108 (12.56%) Talend
4 90 (10.47%) Microsoft
5 76 (8.84%) Informatica
6 53 (6.16%) Denodo
7 36 (4.19%) Cisco
7 36 (4.19%) F5
8 18 (2.09%) SAP
9 17 (1.98%) Salesforce
10 16 (1.86%) Splunk
11 15 (1.74%) ServiceNow
12 14 (1.63%) Cloudera
13 11 (1.28%) Google
14 9 (1.05%) Alteryx
14 9 (1.05%) Sage
15 6 (0.70%) Dynatrace
15 6 (0.70%) Infor
15 6 (0.70%) InterSystems
16 4 (0.47%) PagerDuty