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 6 June 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 129 136
Rank change year-on-year +57 +7 +25
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 753 257 326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.99% 1.97% 1.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.26% 2.15% 1.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 521 194 243
10th Percentile £368 £303 £164
25th Percentile £413 £400 £199
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% +2.78% -14.29%
75th Percentile £538 £513 £538
90th Percentile £600 £625 £588
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 4 33
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% -0.66%
75th Percentile £65.63 £79.03 £80.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £79.61 -
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £67.50
% change year-on-year - -22.22% -10.60%

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 23,124 11,954 19,293
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.87% 91.75% 92.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 13,303 7,572 11,580
10th Percentile £300 £213 £213
25th Percentile £403 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £594
90th Percentile £681 £650 £688
UK median daily rate £513 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,666 882 2,443
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.51 £12.50
25th Percentile £20.25 £16.95 £15.85
Median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.39% -36.94% -5.88%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £28.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +60.71% -25.33% -16.67%

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 6 June 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 6 June 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 6 June 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 +53 306 £469 +4.22% 38
West Midlands +45 288 £469 +1.96% 32
North of England +5 202 £465 -2.11% 87
North West +11 126 £480 +1.05% 46
South East +9 104 £475 +14.87% 100
South West +17 79 £503 +4.42% 30
Scotland +16 61 £430 -5.75% 10
Yorkshire -29 58 £465 +3.33% 22
Wales +2 22 £450 +1.12% 12
East of England -20 19 £520 +63.52% 8
North East -17 18 £450 -5.26% 20
East Midlands -20 18 £525 +28.05% 6
Northern Ireland +7 3 £410 -18.00% 17
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 June 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.

1 385 (51.13%) SQL
2 285 (37.85%) Data Pipeline
3 278 (36.92%) Analytics
4 273 (36.25%) ETL
5 256 (34.00%) Security Cleared
6 255 (33.86%) Data Engineering
7 239 (31.74%) Data Modelling
8 235 (31.21%) Python
9 214 (28.42%) SC Cleared
10 180 (23.90%) Azure
11 167 (22.18%) Business Intelligence
12 160 (21.25%) Data Quality
13 150 (19.92%) CI/CD
14 148 (19.65%) AWS
15 137 (18.19%) Agile
16 130 (17.26%) Data Integration
17 128 (17.00%) Databricks
18 119 (15.80%) Problem-Solving
19 112 (14.87%) Power Platform
20 110 (14.61%) Oracle
21 107 (14.21%) Power BI
22 105 (13.94%) Talend
23 101 (13.41%) DevOps
24 94 (12.48%) Migration
25 93 (12.35%) Data Warehouse
26 90 (11.95%) Git
27 88 (11.69%) PySpark
28 81 (10.76%) Pentaho
29 79 (10.49%) Microsoft
30 78 (10.36%) Azure Data Factory

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 65 (8.63%) SAS
2 46 (6.11%) Apache Spark
3 40 (5.31%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (4.52%) Apache
5 24 (3.19%) Confluence
6 5 (0.66%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.27%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.13%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (0.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (0.66%) Notepad++
3 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (0.40%) Infor LN
2 2 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.13%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.13%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.13%) FIS Private Capital Suite
3 1 (0.13%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle 11i
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.13%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 180 (23.90%) Azure
2 148 (19.65%) AWS
3 112 (14.87%) Power Platform
4 78 (10.36%) Azure Data Factory
5 64 (8.50%) Snowflake
6 43 (5.71%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 39 (5.18%) dbt
8 37 (4.91%) GCP
9 36 (4.78%) Amazon S3
10 30 (3.98%) Azure DevOps
11 26 (3.45%) Serverless
12 25 (3.32%) GitHub
13 19 (2.52%) AWS Lambda
14 18 (2.39%) OpenShift
15 17 (2.26%) Matillion
16 13 (1.73%) Amazon EMR
17 12 (1.59%) GitHub Actions
18 10 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 9 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
20 8 (1.06%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 33 (4.38%) DNS
1 33 (4.38%) VPN
2 32 (4.25%) BGP
2 32 (4.25%) DMZ
2 32 (4.25%) Multicast
3 8 (1.06%) Structured Cabling
4 5 (0.66%) PuTTY
4 5 (0.66%) WinSCP
5 4 (0.53%) Wi-Fi
5 4 (0.53%) Wireless
6 3 (0.40%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 107 (14.21%) Power BI
2 93 (12.35%) Data Warehouse
3 81 (10.76%) Pentaho
4 44 (5.84%) Data Lake
5 36 (4.78%) Amazon Redshift
6 35 (4.65%) SQL Server
7 34 (4.52%) Big Data
8 27 (3.59%) MySQL
9 25 (3.32%) Delta Lake
9 25 (3.32%) Hadoop
9 25 (3.32%) Metadata
9 25 (3.32%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 23 (3.05%) Azure SQL Database
10 23 (3.05%) Relational Database
11 19 (2.52%) NoSQL
11 19 (2.52%) Snowflake Schema
11 19 (2.52%) Tableau
12 17 (2.26%) Amazon Athena
13 16 (2.12%) PostgreSQL
14 15 (1.99%) BusinessObjects
Development Applications
1 90 (11.95%) Git
2 57 (7.57%) GitLab
3 47 (6.24%) JIRA
4 34 (4.52%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.93%) Postman
6 5 (0.66%) Artifactory
7 4 (0.53%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.40%) Newman
9 2 (0.27%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.13%) ER Studio
10 1 (0.13%) ERwin
10 1 (0.13%) JUnit
General
1 118 (15.67%) Social Skills
2 79 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
3 73 (9.69%) Public Sector
4 62 (8.23%) Finance
5 40 (5.31%) Banking
6 22 (2.92%) Investment Banking
7 15 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (1.86%) Aerospace
8 14 (1.86%) Marketing
9 12 (1.59%) Manufacturing
9 12 (1.59%) Retail
10 8 (1.06%) Telecoms
11 5 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 4 (0.53%) Automotive
12 4 (0.53%) Legal
12 4 (0.53%) Local Government
13 3 (0.40%) Front Office
13 3 (0.40%) Law
14 2 (0.27%) Advertising
14 2 (0.27%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 88 (11.69%) PySpark
2 62 (8.23%) Kafka
3 23 (3.05%) JSON
4 13 (1.73%) Pandas
4 13 (1.73%) XML
5 11 (1.46%) REST
6 8 (1.06%) Apache Avro
6 8 (1.06%) Protocol Buffers
7 7 (0.93%) Apache Beam
7 7 (0.93%) Streamlit
8 6 (0.80%) Apache NiFi
8 6 (0.80%) Node.js
8 6 (0.80%) OpenTelemetry
8 6 (0.80%) RESTful
9 5 (0.66%) Great Expectations
9 5 (0.66%) pytest
9 5 (0.66%) YAML
10 4 (0.53%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.53%) React
11 3 (0.40%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.25%) Cloud Native
2 22 (2.92%) Data Structures
3 19 (2.52%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
5 13 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
6 11 (1.46%) Clustering
7 10 (1.33%) Product Ownership
8 9 (1.20%) Driving Licence
9 8 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
9 8 (1.06%) NHS
10 6 (0.80%) Data Centre
10 6 (0.80%) Linux Command Line
10 6 (0.80%) Onboarding
11 5 (0.66%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.53%) Data Fabric
12 4 (0.53%) iPad
12 4 (0.53%) Life Science
12 4 (0.53%) Management Information System
12 4 (0.53%) Public Cloud
12 4 (0.53%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 41 (5.44%) Unix
2 13 (1.73%) Linux
3 2 (0.27%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.13%) VMS
4 1 (0.13%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 285 (37.85%) Data Pipeline
2 278 (36.92%) Analytics
3 273 (36.25%) ETL
4 255 (33.86%) Data Engineering
5 239 (31.74%) Data Modelling
6 167 (22.18%) Business Intelligence
7 150 (19.92%) CI/CD
8 137 (18.19%) Agile
9 130 (17.26%) Data Integration
10 119 (15.80%) Problem-Solving
11 101 (13.41%) DevOps
12 94 (12.48%) Migration
13 75 (9.96%) Data Governance
14 72 (9.56%) Validation
15 67 (8.90%) Scrum
16 64 (8.50%) AI
16 64 (8.50%) Test Automation
17 56 (7.44%) Decision-Making
18 52 (6.91%) Continuous Improvement
18 52 (6.91%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 385 (51.13%) SQL
2 235 (31.21%) Python
3 35 (4.65%) PL/SQL
4 32 (4.25%) Java
5 17 (2.26%) Shell Script
6 16 (2.12%) Bash
7 12 (1.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 10 (1.33%) PowerShell
9 9 (1.20%) T-SQL
10 6 (0.80%) C#
10 6 (0.80%) Scala
11 5 (0.66%) Bicep
12 3 (0.40%) Go
13 2 (0.27%) HiveQL
13 2 (0.27%) JavaScript
14 1 (0.13%) C++
14 1 (0.13%) COBOL
14 1 (0.13%) Perl
14 1 (0.13%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 256 (34.00%) Security Cleared
2 214 (28.42%) SC Cleared
3 18 (2.39%) Degree
4 16 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (1.59%) DV Cleared
6 8 (1.06%) City & Guilds
7 5 (0.66%) Computer Science Degree
7 5 (0.66%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.53%) BICSI Certification
9 3 (0.40%) Azure Certification
9 3 (0.40%) IBM Certification
9 3 (0.40%) SnowPro
10 1 (0.13%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.13%) CCIE
10 1 (0.13%) CCNP
10 1 (0.13%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.13%) CISM
10 1 (0.13%) CISSP
10 1 (0.13%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.13%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 160 (21.25%) Data Quality
2 18 (2.39%) QA
3 12 (1.59%) GDPR
4 9 (1.20%) SLA
5 8 (1.06%) FATCA
6 3 (0.40%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.27%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.13%) Basel III
8 1 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.13%) Disclosure Scotland
8 1 (0.13%) GMP
8 1 (0.13%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.13%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.13%) NIST
8 1 (0.13%) SNOMED CT
8 1 (0.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 41 (5.44%) Docker
2 3 (0.40%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.27%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 44 (5.84%) Kubernetes
2 39 (5.18%) Terraform
3 38 (5.05%) Grafana
4 11 (1.46%) Prometheus
5 9 (1.20%) Ansible
6 3 (0.40%) Rancher
7 2 (0.27%) Apache Ranger
7 2 (0.27%) Control-M
7 2 (0.27%) Kibana
7 2 (0.27%) logstash
Vendors
1 128 (17.00%) Databricks
2 110 (14.61%) Oracle
3 105 (13.94%) Talend
4 79 (10.49%) Microsoft
5 72 (9.56%) Informatica
6 53 (7.04%) Denodo
7 34 (4.52%) Cisco
7 34 (4.52%) F5
8 16 (2.12%) Splunk
9 15 (1.99%) SAP
9 15 (1.99%) ServiceNow
10 12 (1.59%) Cloudera
10 12 (1.59%) Google
11 8 (1.06%) Alteryx
12 6 (0.80%) Dynatrace
12 6 (0.80%) InterSystems
13 5 (0.66%) Sage
14 4 (0.53%) IBM
14 4 (0.53%) Infor
14 4 (0.53%) Salesforce