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 £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 September 2026.

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

6 months to
6 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 73 172 133
Rank change year-on-year +99 -39 +37
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 860 227 298
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.09% 1.48% 1.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.38% 1.65% 1.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 514 152 203
10th Percentile £356 £350 £199
25th Percentile £413 £412 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £529 £575
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 69 4 8
10th Percentile £19.34 £20.25 £68.75
25th Percentile £30.96 £23.95 £78.13
Median hourly rate £41.56 £52.85 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -21.37% -33.94% +63.27%
75th Percentile £70.00 £79.03 -
90th Percentile £71.50 £79.61 -
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £52.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -19.05% -34.38% +23.08%

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 25,477 13,760 16,495
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.56% 89.95% 92.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,263 8,425 9,771
10th Percentile £304 £213 £225
25th Percentile £413 £363 £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% -1.69%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,144 1,238 1,522
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.27 £14.16
25th Percentile £20.25 £16.17 £19.25
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +12.50%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.75 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £71.80 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%

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 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 6 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 6 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 +72 350 £469 +2.79% 60
West Midlands +67 287 £469 -0.21% 32
North of England +25 210 £500 +5.26% 96
South East +24 131 £459 -4.62% 120
North West +17 118 £525 +10.53% 54
South West +12 92 £525 +5.00% 59
Yorkshire +2 73 £475 - 24
East Midlands +27 63 £450 +1.98% 28
Scotland -5 59 £440 -4.86% 47
East of England +10 38 £450 -40.00% 22
North East -25 20 £515 +21.89% 18
Wales -5 15 £488 +9.55% 14
Northern Ireland +4 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 6 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.

1 366 (42.56%) SQL
2 316 (36.74%) Data Pipeline
3 266 (30.93%) Analytics
4 258 (30.00%) Data Engineering
5 255 (29.65%) ETL
6 250 (29.07%) Python
7 244 (28.37%) Security Cleared
8 241 (28.02%) Data Modelling
9 214 (24.88%) AWS
10 211 (24.53%) Azure
11 206 (23.95%) SC Cleared
12 169 (19.65%) Data Quality
13 151 (17.56%) Data Integration
14 146 (16.98%) CI/CD
15 144 (16.74%) Business Intelligence
16 141 (16.40%) Databricks
17 140 (16.28%) Migration
18 121 (14.07%) Agile
19 114 (13.26%) Problem-Solving
20 104 (12.09%) DevOps
21 102 (11.86%) Data Warehouse
22 101 (11.74%) Microsoft
22 101 (11.74%) Power Platform
23 97 (11.28%) Power BI
24 94 (10.93%) Oracle
25 92 (10.70%) Validation
26 91 (10.58%) Data Governance
27 89 (10.35%) AI
28 79 (9.19%) PySpark
29 76 (8.84%) Data Transformation

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 39 (4.53%) SAS
2 38 (4.42%) Apache Spark
3 36 (4.19%) Apache Airflow
4 34 (3.95%) Apache
5 20 (2.33%) Confluence
6 6 (0.70%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.47%) Palantir Foundry
8 3 (0.35%) Apache Superset
8 3 (0.35%) SharePoint
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
2 4 (0.47%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.47%) Sage X3
2 4 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
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
1 214 (24.88%) AWS
2 211 (24.53%) Azure
3 101 (11.74%) Power Platform
4 71 (8.26%) Azure Data Factory
5 66 (7.67%) Snowflake
6 48 (5.58%) GCP
7 42 (4.88%) Amazon S3
8 41 (4.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 37 (4.30%) Serverless
10 36 (4.19%) dbt
11 29 (3.37%) AWS Lambda
11 29 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
12 27 (3.14%) GitHub
13 17 (1.98%) Azure Databricks
14 13 (1.51%) Amazon EMR
14 13 (1.51%) AWS CloudFormation
14 13 (1.51%) GitHub Actions
15 11 (1.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 11 (1.28%) Matillion
16 10 (1.16%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 27 (3.14%) BGP
1 27 (3.14%) DMZ
1 27 (3.14%) DNS
1 27 (3.14%) Multicast
1 27 (3.14%) VPN
2 10 (1.16%) 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
1 102 (11.86%) Data Warehouse
2 97 (11.28%) Power BI
3 64 (7.44%) Pentaho
4 46 (5.35%) Metadata
5 45 (5.23%) Data Lake
6 37 (4.30%) SQL Server
7 36 (4.19%) Amazon Redshift
8 25 (2.91%) Relational Database
9 24 (2.79%) Big Data
10 23 (2.67%) Amazon Athena
10 23 (2.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 19 (2.21%) Delta Lake
12 18 (2.09%) Azure SQL Database
13 17 (1.98%) Oracle Database
14 16 (1.86%) BigQuery
14 16 (1.86%) Tableau
15 15 (1.74%) BusinessObjects
15 15 (1.74%) Hadoop
16 14 (1.63%) MySQL
16 14 (1.63%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 67 (7.79%) Git
2 49 (5.70%) GitLab
3 35 (4.07%) JIRA
4 21 (2.44%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.81%) 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
1 139 (16.16%) Social Skills
2 95 (11.05%) Analytical Skills
3 91 (10.58%) Public Sector
4 54 (6.28%) Finance
5 37 (4.30%) Banking
6 19 (2.21%) Automotive
6 19 (2.21%) Investment Banking
7 18 (2.09%) Marketing
8 15 (1.74%) Aerospace
8 15 (1.74%) Telecoms
9 14 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.28%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 10 (1.16%) Retail
12 7 (0.81%) Law
13 5 (0.58%) Billing
13 5 (0.58%) Front Office
13 5 (0.58%) Military
13 5 (0.58%) Police
14 4 (0.47%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (9.19%) PySpark
2 56 (6.51%) Terraform
3 43 (5.00%) Kafka
4 18 (2.09%) JSON
5 10 (1.16%) XML
6 9 (1.05%) Pandas
6 9 (1.05%) REST
6 9 (1.05%) Streamlit
7 7 (0.81%) RESTful
8 5 (0.58%) Apache NiFi
8 5 (0.58%) Great Expectations
9 4 (0.47%) Apache Avro
9 4 (0.47%) AWS CDK
9 4 (0.47%) Spring
9 4 (0.47%) Spring Boot
10 3 (0.35%) .NET
10 3 (0.35%) Elastic Stack
10 3 (0.35%) pytest
10 3 (0.35%) XML Schema
11 2 (0.23%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 37 (4.30%) Cloud Native
2 30 (3.49%) Legacy Systems
3 27 (3.14%) Data Structures
4 12 (1.40%) Management Information System
5 11 (1.28%) Reference Data
6 10 (1.16%) NHS
7 8 (0.93%) Driving Licence
8 7 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
8 7 (0.81%) Onboarding
9 6 (0.70%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (0.70%) Distributed Systems
9 6 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (0.58%) Product Ownership
11 4 (0.47%) Data Centre
11 4 (0.47%) Data Fabric
11 4 (0.47%) Fibre Optics
11 4 (0.47%) iPad
12 3 (0.35%) Enterprise Software
12 3 (0.35%) SCADA
12 3 (0.35%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 34 (3.95%) Unix
2 15 (1.74%) Linux
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.12%) VMS
4 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 316 (36.74%) Data Pipeline
2 266 (30.93%) Analytics
3 258 (30.00%) Data Engineering
4 255 (29.65%) ETL
5 241 (28.02%) Data Modelling
6 151 (17.56%) Data Integration
7 146 (16.98%) CI/CD
8 144 (16.74%) Business Intelligence
9 140 (16.28%) Migration
10 121 (14.07%) Agile
11 114 (13.26%) Problem-Solving
12 104 (12.09%) DevOps
13 92 (10.70%) Validation
14 91 (10.58%) Data Governance
15 89 (10.35%) AI
16 76 (8.84%) Data Transformation
16 76 (8.84%) Decision-Making
17 72 (8.37%) Data Migration
18 63 (7.33%) Test Automation
19 62 (7.21%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 366 (42.56%) SQL
2 250 (29.07%) Python
3 30 (3.49%) PL/SQL
4 23 (2.67%) Java
5 16 (1.86%) Bash
6 12 (1.40%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.40%) T-SQL
7 11 (1.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 7 (0.81%) Scala
9 6 (0.70%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.23%) Bicep
10 2 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.23%) R
11 1 (0.12%) C++
11 1 (0.12%) COBOL
11 1 (0.12%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 244 (28.37%) Security Cleared
2 206 (23.95%) SC Cleared
3 19 (2.21%) Degree
4 16 (1.86%) BPSS Clearance
4 16 (1.86%) DV Cleared
5 10 (1.16%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (0.93%) City & Guilds
7 4 (0.47%) Azure Certification
7 4 (0.47%) BICSI Certification
7 4 (0.47%) Master's Degree
7 4 (0.47%) SnowPro
8 3 (0.35%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.35%) CEH
8 3 (0.35%) CISM
8 3 (0.35%) CISSP
9 1 (0.12%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 169 (19.65%) Data Quality
2 25 (2.91%) QA
3 14 (1.63%) GDPR
4 7 (0.81%) SLA
5 5 (0.58%) FATCA
6 4 (0.47%) Accessibility
6 4 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 30 (3.49%) Docker
2 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (3.26%) Grafana
1 28 (3.26%) Kubernetes
2 10 (1.16%) Ansible
3 4 (0.47%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.23%) Apache Ranger
4 2 (0.23%) Control-M
4 2 (0.23%) logstash
5 1 (0.12%) Kibana
5 1 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 141 (16.40%) Databricks
2 101 (11.74%) Microsoft
3 94 (10.93%) Oracle
4 73 (8.49%) Talend
5 49 (5.70%) Informatica
6 36 (4.19%) Denodo
7 27 (3.14%) Cisco
7 27 (3.14%) F5
8 17 (1.98%) Google
8 17 (1.98%) Salesforce
8 17 (1.98%) SAP
9 8 (0.93%) Cloudera
9 8 (0.93%) Sage
10 6 (0.70%) InterSystems
10 6 (0.70%) Palantir
10 6 (0.70%) ServiceNow
10 6 (0.70%) SYSPRO
11 5 (0.58%) Dynatrace
11 5 (0.58%) Infor
12 4 (0.47%) PagerDuty