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 £473, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 12 September 2026.

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

6 months to
12 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 168 136
Rank change year-on-year +90 -32 +33
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 857 234 307
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.05% 1.51% 1.71%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.33% 1.68% 1.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 509 159 206
10th Percentile £356 £350 £256
25th Percentile £413 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.53% -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £575
90th Percentile £600 £625 £625
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 4 6
10th Percentile £19.34 £20.25 £70.00
25th Percentile £30.96 £23.95 -
Median hourly rate £41.56 £52.85 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.37% -33.94% +63.27%
75th Percentile £68.00 £79.03 -
90th Percentile £70.00 £79.61 -
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £52.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -20.85% -34.38% +25.00%

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 25,732 13,910 16,582
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 89.89% 92.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,336 8,535 9,693
10th Percentile £304 £213 £225
25th Percentile £413 £361 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £650 £685
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,235 1,257 1,484
10th Percentile £14.23 £13.43 £14.32
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.17 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.59
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.83% +12.32%
75th Percentile £67.84 £52.50 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.47 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.00% -41.51% -

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 12 September 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 12 September 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 12 September 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 +76 346 £469 +2.79% 87
West Midlands +64 280 £469 -0.21% 52
North of England +22 208 £500 +5.26% 132
South East +33 131 £459 -4.62% 153
North West +23 115 £525 +10.53% 69
South West +9 94 £525 +5.00% 58
Yorkshire +2 76 £475 -6.17% 40
East Midlands +29 66 £450 +1.98% 35
Scotland -3 61 £428 -7.57% 64
East of England +12 38 £450 -40.00% 41
North East -33 18 £510 +20.71% 23
Wales -6 15 £494 -1.25% 10
Northern Ireland +4 3 £410 -18.00% 20
Channel Islands - 1 - -
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 12 September 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.

1 371 (43.29%) SQL
2 319 (37.22%) Data Pipeline
3 266 (31.04%) Analytics
4 259 (30.22%) Python
5 257 (29.99%) Data Engineering
5 257 (29.99%) ETL
6 245 (28.59%) Data Modelling
7 241 (28.12%) Security Cleared
8 212 (24.74%) AWS
9 205 (23.92%) Azure
10 202 (23.57%) SC Cleared
11 176 (20.54%) Data Quality
12 150 (17.50%) Data Integration
13 147 (17.15%) CI/CD
14 142 (16.57%) Business Intelligence
14 142 (16.57%) Databricks
15 139 (16.22%) Migration
16 121 (14.12%) Agile
17 115 (13.42%) Problem-Solving
18 109 (12.72%) DevOps
19 103 (12.02%) Data Warehouse
20 100 (11.67%) Microsoft
20 100 (11.67%) Power Platform
21 97 (11.32%) AI
22 96 (11.20%) Power BI
23 92 (10.74%) Data Governance
23 92 (10.74%) Oracle
24 90 (10.50%) Validation
25 80 (9.33%) PySpark
26 78 (9.10%) Decision-Making

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 40 (4.67%) Apache Airflow
1 40 (4.67%) Apache Spark
2 37 (4.32%) Apache
3 36 (4.20%) SAS
4 23 (2.68%) Confluence
5 6 (0.70%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.47%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.35%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.23%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 12 (1.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.58%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.12%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (0.58%) Infor LN
1 5 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.47%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.47%) Sage X3
3 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.12%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.12%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.12%) Oracle Assets
Cloud Services
1 212 (24.74%) AWS
2 205 (23.92%) Azure
3 100 (11.67%) Power Platform
4 73 (8.52%) Azure Data Factory
5 63 (7.35%) Snowflake
6 53 (6.18%) GCP
7 41 (4.78%) Amazon S3
8 40 (4.67%) Serverless
9 39 (4.55%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 38 (4.43%) dbt
11 32 (3.73%) AWS Lambda
12 28 (3.27%) Azure DevOps
13 27 (3.15%) GitHub
14 16 (1.87%) Azure Databricks
15 15 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
16 13 (1.52%) GitHub Actions
17 12 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 12 (1.40%) Amazon EMR
17 12 (1.40%) AWS Step Functions
18 10 (1.17%) Matillion
Communications & Networking
1 27 (3.15%) BGP
1 27 (3.15%) DMZ
1 27 (3.15%) DNS
1 27 (3.15%) Multicast
1 27 (3.15%) VPN
2 10 (1.17%) Structured Cabling
3 6 (0.70%) Firewall
4 5 (0.58%) PuTTY
4 5 (0.58%) WinSCP
5 4 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (0.47%) Wireless
6 3 (0.35%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.12%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (12.02%) Data Warehouse
2 96 (11.20%) Power BI
3 61 (7.12%) Pentaho
4 51 (5.95%) Metadata
5 46 (5.37%) Data Lake
6 34 (3.97%) Amazon Redshift
7 33 (3.85%) SQL Server
8 25 (2.92%) Amazon Athena
9 24 (2.80%) Relational Database
10 23 (2.68%) Big Data
10 23 (2.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 21 (2.45%) BigQuery
12 20 (2.33%) Delta Lake
13 17 (1.98%) Azure SQL Database
13 17 (1.98%) Oracle Database
14 16 (1.87%) Tableau
15 15 (1.75%) BusinessObjects
16 14 (1.63%) Hadoop
16 14 (1.63%) Snowflake Schema
17 13 (1.52%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 64 (7.47%) Git
2 51 (5.95%) GitLab
3 39 (4.55%) JIRA
4 21 (2.45%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.82%) Postman
6 5 (0.58%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.35%) Newman
8 2 (0.23%) RStudio
8 2 (0.23%) Yeoman
9 1 (0.12%) ER Studio
9 1 (0.12%) ERwin
9 1 (0.12%) MLflow
9 1 (0.12%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.12%) Toad
General
1 143 (16.69%) Social Skills
2 94 (10.97%) Analytical Skills
3 86 (10.04%) Public Sector
4 52 (6.07%) Finance
5 38 (4.43%) Banking
6 19 (2.22%) Automotive
6 19 (2.22%) Investment Banking
7 18 (2.10%) Marketing
8 15 (1.75%) Aerospace
8 15 (1.75%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.28%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.17%) Retail
12 9 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (0.82%) Law
14 6 (0.70%) Military
15 5 (0.58%) Front Office
15 5 (0.58%) Police
16 4 (0.47%) Legal
16 4 (0.47%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 80 (9.33%) PySpark
2 57 (6.65%) Terraform
3 42 (4.90%) Kafka
4 17 (1.98%) JSON
5 10 (1.17%) REST
6 9 (1.05%) Pandas
6 9 (1.05%) Streamlit
6 9 (1.05%) XML
7 7 (0.82%) RESTful
8 6 (0.70%) Apache NiFi
9 5 (0.58%) Great Expectations
10 4 (0.47%) Apache Avro
10 4 (0.47%) AWS CDK
10 4 (0.47%) Elastic Stack
10 4 (0.47%) Spring
10 4 (0.47%) Spring Boot
11 3 (0.35%) .NET
11 3 (0.35%) pytest
11 3 (0.35%) XML Schema
12 2 (0.23%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 38 (4.43%) Cloud Native
2 26 (3.03%) Data Structures
2 26 (3.03%) Legacy Systems
3 12 (1.40%) Management Information System
4 11 (1.28%) NHS
4 11 (1.28%) Reference Data
5 8 (0.93%) Driving Licence
5 8 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
5 8 (0.93%) Onboarding
6 6 (0.70%) Data Fabric
6 6 (0.70%) Distributed Systems
6 6 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
6 6 (0.70%) Product Ownership
7 5 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (0.47%) Data Centre
8 4 (0.47%) Fibre Optics
8 4 (0.47%) iPad
9 3 (0.35%) Enterprise Software
9 3 (0.35%) Self-Motivation
9 3 (0.35%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 34 (3.97%) Unix
2 15 (1.75%) Linux
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.12%) VMS
4 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 319 (37.22%) Data Pipeline
2 266 (31.04%) Analytics
3 257 (29.99%) Data Engineering
3 257 (29.99%) ETL
4 245 (28.59%) Data Modelling
5 150 (17.50%) Data Integration
6 147 (17.15%) CI/CD
7 142 (16.57%) Business Intelligence
8 139 (16.22%) Migration
9 121 (14.12%) Agile
10 115 (13.42%) Problem-Solving
11 109 (12.72%) DevOps
12 97 (11.32%) AI
13 92 (10.74%) Data Governance
14 90 (10.50%) Validation
15 78 (9.10%) Decision-Making
16 77 (8.98%) Data Transformation
17 69 (8.05%) Data Migration
18 64 (7.47%) Test Automation
19 61 (7.12%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 371 (43.29%) SQL
2 259 (30.22%) Python
3 30 (3.50%) PL/SQL
4 24 (2.80%) Java
5 16 (1.87%) Bash
6 13 (1.52%) T-SQL
7 12 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 12 (1.40%) Shell Script
8 6 (0.70%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.70%) Scala
9 2 (0.23%) Bicep
9 2 (0.23%) JavaScript
9 2 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
9 2 (0.23%) R
10 1 (0.12%) C++
10 1 (0.12%) COBOL
10 1 (0.12%) Go
10 1 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 241 (28.12%) Security Cleared
2 202 (23.57%) SC Cleared
3 19 (2.22%) Degree
4 18 (2.10%) DV Cleared
5 16 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (0.93%) City & Guilds
8 5 (0.58%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.47%) BICSI Certification
9 4 (0.47%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.47%) SnowPro
10 3 (0.35%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.35%) CEH
10 3 (0.35%) CISM
10 3 (0.35%) CISSP
11 1 (0.12%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 176 (20.54%) Data Quality
2 27 (3.15%) QA
3 12 (1.40%) GDPR
4 7 (0.82%) SLA
5 6 (0.70%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.58%) FATCA
7 4 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 30 (3.50%) Docker
2 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (3.27%) Kubernetes
2 26 (3.03%) Grafana
3 10 (1.17%) Ansible
4 4 (0.47%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.23%) Apache Ranger
5 2 (0.23%) Control-M
5 2 (0.23%) logstash
6 1 (0.12%) Kibana
6 1 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 142 (16.57%) Databricks
2 100 (11.67%) Microsoft
3 92 (10.74%) Oracle
4 70 (8.17%) Talend
5 47 (5.48%) Informatica
6 35 (4.08%) Denodo
7 27 (3.15%) Cisco
7 27 (3.15%) F5
8 21 (2.45%) Google
9 18 (2.10%) SAP
10 17 (1.98%) Salesforce
11 7 (0.82%) Cloudera
11 7 (0.82%) Sage
12 6 (0.70%) InterSystems
12 6 (0.70%) Palantir
12 6 (0.70%) SYSPRO
13 5 (0.58%) Dynatrace
13 5 (0.58%) Infor
13 5 (0.58%) ServiceNow
14 4 (0.47%) PagerDuty