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 28 August 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 71 173 123
Rank change year-on-year +102 -50 +48
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 875 226 314
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.16% 1.48% 1.73%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.45% 1.64% 1.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 526 151 219
10th Percentile £356 £350 £170
25th Percentile £413 £413 £324
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.22% - -9.52%
75th Percentile £538 £530 £550
90th Percentile £600 £613 £625
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 4 16
10th Percentile £19.72 £20.25 £63.13
25th Percentile £30.96 £23.95 £72.50
Median hourly rate £44.50 £52.85 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.80% -33.94% +63.27%
75th Percentile £70.00 £79.03 -
90th Percentile £71.50 £79.61 -
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £52.50 £75.00
% change year-on-year -15.24% -30.00% +5.26%

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 25,337 13,789 16,764
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.63% 90.06% 92.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,237 8,433 10,035
10th Percentile £303 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £361 £375
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% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,078 1,261 1,626
10th Percentile £14.54 £13.46 £13.85
25th Percentile £20.31 £16.32 £18.17
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +7.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.01 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £72.50 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -0.73%

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 28 August 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 28 August 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 28 August 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 +75 361 £467 +0.97% 68
West Midlands +61 302 £469 -6.20% 42
North of England +33 222 £490 +3.16% 134
South East +32 130 £459 -3.87% 135
North West +34 126 £525 +10.53% 64
South West +18 89 £525 +5.00% 50
Yorkshire -2 76 £465 -2.11% 30
East Midlands +23 59 £450 +1.98% 26
Scotland +15 58 £440 -2.22% 43
East of England +11 37 £450 - 25
North East -25 21 £515 +21.89% 41
Wales -5 16 £488 +9.55% 13
Northern Ireland +5 3 £410 -18.00% 15
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 28 August 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.

1 376 (42.97%) SQL
2 321 (36.69%) Data Pipeline
3 278 (31.77%) Analytics
4 266 (30.40%) ETL
5 265 (30.29%) Data Engineering
6 252 (28.80%) Python
7 250 (28.57%) Data Modelling
8 247 (28.23%) Security Cleared
9 217 (24.80%) Azure
10 207 (23.66%) SC Cleared
11 204 (23.31%) AWS
12 176 (20.11%) Data Quality
13 154 (17.60%) Business Intelligence
14 152 (17.37%) Data Integration
15 145 (16.57%) CI/CD
16 142 (16.23%) Databricks
17 134 (15.31%) Migration
18 120 (13.71%) Agile
19 116 (13.26%) Problem-Solving
20 106 (12.11%) Data Warehouse
20 106 (12.11%) Power Platform
21 104 (11.89%) Microsoft
22 103 (11.77%) DevOps
23 102 (11.66%) Power BI
24 97 (11.09%) Validation
25 94 (10.74%) Oracle
26 91 (10.40%) Data Governance
27 86 (9.83%) AI
28 85 (9.71%) PySpark
29 78 (8.91%) 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 43 (4.91%) SAS
2 36 (4.11%) Apache Spark
3 32 (3.66%) Apache Airflow
4 31 (3.54%) Apache
5 19 (2.17%) Confluence
6 5 (0.57%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.46%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.34%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.34%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.11%) nginx
Applications
1 12 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.57%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
1 5 (0.57%) Infor LN
2 4 (0.46%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.46%) Sage X3
2 4 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.11%) Aladdin
3 1 (0.11%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.11%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle 11i
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.11%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 217 (24.80%) Azure
2 204 (23.31%) AWS
3 106 (12.11%) Power Platform
4 76 (8.69%) Azure Data Factory
5 68 (7.77%) Snowflake
6 47 (5.37%) GCP
7 42 (4.80%) Amazon S3
7 42 (4.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 36 (4.11%) Serverless
9 34 (3.89%) dbt
10 28 (3.20%) AWS Lambda
10 28 (3.20%) Azure DevOps
11 27 (3.09%) GitHub
12 13 (1.49%) Amazon EMR
12 13 (1.49%) AWS CloudFormation
12 13 (1.49%) Matillion
13 12 (1.37%) GitHub Actions
14 11 (1.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 10 (1.14%) AWS Step Functions
15 10 (1.14%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 30 (3.43%) VPN
2 29 (3.31%) BGP
2 29 (3.31%) DMZ
2 29 (3.31%) DNS
2 29 (3.31%) Multicast
3 10 (1.14%) Structured Cabling
4 6 (0.69%) Firewall
5 5 (0.57%) PuTTY
5 5 (0.57%) WinSCP
6 4 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
6 4 (0.46%) Wireless
7 3 (0.34%) Intrusion Detection
8 1 (0.11%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 106 (12.11%) Data Warehouse
2 102 (11.66%) Power BI
3 66 (7.54%) Pentaho
4 49 (5.60%) Data Lake
5 44 (5.03%) Amazon Redshift
5 44 (5.03%) Metadata
6 36 (4.11%) SQL Server
7 26 (2.97%) Relational Database
7 26 (2.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 25 (2.86%) Big Data
9 23 (2.63%) Amazon Athena
10 21 (2.40%) Azure SQL Database
11 20 (2.29%) Delta Lake
11 20 (2.29%) MySQL
12 16 (1.83%) BigQuery
12 16 (1.83%) Tableau
13 15 (1.71%) BusinessObjects
13 15 (1.71%) Hadoop
13 15 (1.71%) Oracle Database
14 14 (1.60%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 74 (8.46%) Git
2 49 (5.60%) GitLab
3 35 (4.00%) JIRA
4 23 (2.63%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.80%) Postman
6 5 (0.57%) Artifactory
7 3 (0.34%) Newman
8 2 (0.23%) Yeoman
9 1 (0.11%) ER Studio
9 1 (0.11%) ERwin
9 1 (0.11%) MLflow
9 1 (0.11%) SonarQube
9 1 (0.11%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.11%) Toad
General
1 141 (16.11%) Social Skills
2 98 (11.20%) Analytical Skills
3 88 (10.06%) Public Sector
4 60 (6.86%) Finance
5 39 (4.46%) Banking
6 20 (2.29%) Investment Banking
7 19 (2.17%) Automotive
7 19 (2.17%) Marketing
8 15 (1.71%) Aerospace
8 15 (1.71%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.60%) Documentation Skills
10 12 (1.37%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.14%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 10 (1.14%) Retail
12 7 (0.80%) Law
13 5 (0.57%) Billing
13 5 (0.57%) Front Office
13 5 (0.57%) Police
14 4 (0.46%) Legal
14 4 (0.46%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 85 (9.71%) PySpark
2 55 (6.29%) Terraform
3 47 (5.37%) Kafka
4 16 (1.83%) JSON
5 12 (1.37%) Pandas
6 10 (1.14%) XML
7 9 (1.03%) Streamlit
8 8 (0.91%) REST
9 7 (0.80%) RESTful
10 6 (0.69%) Apache NiFi
11 5 (0.57%) Great Expectations
12 4 (0.46%) Apache Avro
12 4 (0.46%) AWS CDK
12 4 (0.46%) Spring
12 4 (0.46%) Spring Boot
13 3 (0.34%) .NET
13 3 (0.34%) Elastic Stack
13 3 (0.34%) pytest
13 3 (0.34%) XML Schema
14 2 (0.23%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 34 (3.89%) Cloud Native
2 33 (3.77%) Legacy Systems
3 27 (3.09%) Data Structures
4 11 (1.26%) Management Information System
4 11 (1.26%) Reference Data
5 10 (1.14%) NHS
6 8 (0.91%) Data Protection Act
6 8 (0.91%) Driving Licence
6 8 (0.91%) Onboarding
7 7 (0.80%) Greenfield Project
8 6 (0.69%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
8 6 (0.69%) Product Ownership
9 4 (0.46%) Data Centre
9 4 (0.46%) Data Fabric
9 4 (0.46%) Fibre Optics
9 4 (0.46%) iPad
10 3 (0.34%) Derivative
10 3 (0.34%) Life Science
10 3 (0.34%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 34 (3.89%) Unix
2 15 (1.71%) Linux
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.11%) VMS
4 1 (0.11%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 321 (36.69%) Data Pipeline
2 278 (31.77%) Analytics
3 266 (30.40%) ETL
4 265 (30.29%) Data Engineering
5 250 (28.57%) Data Modelling
6 154 (17.60%) Business Intelligence
7 152 (17.37%) Data Integration
8 145 (16.57%) CI/CD
9 134 (15.31%) Migration
10 120 (13.71%) Agile
11 116 (13.26%) Problem-Solving
12 103 (11.77%) DevOps
13 97 (11.09%) Validation
14 91 (10.40%) Data Governance
15 86 (9.83%) AI
16 78 (8.91%) Decision-Making
17 76 (8.69%) Data Transformation
18 70 (8.00%) Data Migration
19 61 (6.97%) Test Automation
20 59 (6.74%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 376 (42.97%) SQL
2 252 (28.80%) Python
3 31 (3.54%) PL/SQL
4 23 (2.63%) Java
5 16 (1.83%) Bash
6 12 (1.37%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 12 (1.37%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.37%) T-SQL
7 9 (1.03%) Scala
8 6 (0.69%) PowerShell
9 2 (0.23%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.11%) Bicep
10 1 (0.11%) C++
10 1 (0.11%) COBOL
10 1 (0.11%) Kusto Query Language
10 1 (0.11%) Perl
10 1 (0.11%) R
Qualifications
1 247 (28.23%) Security Cleared
2 207 (23.66%) SC Cleared
3 17 (1.94%) BPSS Clearance
3 17 (1.94%) Degree
4 16 (1.83%) DV Cleared
5 8 (0.91%) City & Guilds
5 8 (0.91%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.46%) BICSI Certification
6 4 (0.46%) SnowPro
7 3 (0.34%) Azure Certification
7 3 (0.34%) CEH
7 3 (0.34%) CISM
7 3 (0.34%) CISSP
7 3 (0.34%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.23%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 176 (20.11%) Data Quality
2 24 (2.74%) QA
3 14 (1.60%) GDPR
4 9 (1.03%) SLA
5 5 (0.57%) FATCA
6 4 (0.46%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.34%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.11%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.11%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.11%) WCAG
System Software
1 31 (3.54%) Docker
2 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 32 (3.66%) Grafana
2 29 (3.31%) Kubernetes
3 10 (1.14%) Ansible
4 4 (0.46%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.23%) Apache Ranger
5 2 (0.23%) Control-M
5 2 (0.23%) logstash
6 1 (0.11%) Kibana
6 1 (0.11%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 142 (16.23%) Databricks
2 104 (11.89%) Microsoft
3 94 (10.74%) Oracle
4 78 (8.91%) Talend
5 52 (5.94%) Informatica
6 42 (4.80%) Denodo
7 30 (3.43%) Cisco
7 30 (3.43%) F5
8 19 (2.17%) SAP
9 17 (1.94%) Salesforce
10 15 (1.71%) Google
11 9 (1.03%) Cloudera
11 9 (1.03%) ServiceNow
12 8 (0.91%) Sage
13 6 (0.69%) InterSystems
13 6 (0.69%) Palantir
13 6 (0.69%) SYSPRO
14 5 (0.57%) Dynatrace
14 5 (0.57%) Infor
15 4 (0.46%) Foundry