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 28 March 2026.

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

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 101 100 148
Rank change year-on-year -1 +48 +9
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 547 324 309
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.45% 2.57% 1.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.67% 2.78% 1.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 395 235 230
10th Percentile £363 £270 £163
25th Percentile £410 £375 £225
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £460 £452
Median % change year-on-year +3.26% +1.88% -12.33%
75th Percentile £542 £538 £550
90th Percentile £588 £642 £650
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 6 30
10th Percentile £19.34 £21.66 £36.79
25th Percentile £38.14 £25.13 £54.06
Median hourly rate £52.50 £26.50 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.11% -64.67% +72.41%
75th Percentile £75.00 £28.22 £80.00
90th Percentile £83.40 £53.54 -
UK median hourly rate £58.50 £47.50 £63.75
% change year-on-year +23.16% -25.49% -0.39%

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 20,487 11,640 19,510
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 92.47% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,155 7,603 12,115
10th Percentile £261 £213 £212
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £488
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -2.56% -2.50%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £595
90th Percentile £675 £660 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £525
% change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,218 734 2,103
10th Percentile £14.50 £14.99 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.00 £20.00 £15.50
Median hourly rate £38.63 £32.50 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.86% -1.52% -18.70%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.25 £72.33
UK median hourly rate £37.54 £32.50 £33.00
% change year-on-year +15.51% -1.52% -23.26%

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 March 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 March 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 March 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 +9 225 £470 -1.05% 59
West Midlands +12 206 £484 +1.52% 45
North of England -15 163 £464 +1.64% 87
North West 0 99 £450 -2.70% 56
South East -31 66 £500 - 91
South West -5 53 £536 +7.10% 38
Yorkshire -31 49 £470 +4.44% 19
Scotland -8 41 £402 -8.11% 10
East Midlands -28 19 £450 +18.03% 14
Wales -9 17 £410 -22.27% 8
North East -9 15 £488 +2.63% 13
East of England -36 14 £565 +77.67% 17
Northern Ireland -1 3 £410 -18.00%
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 28 March 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.

1 282 (51.55%) SQL
2 239 (43.69%) ETL
3 223 (40.77%) Analytics
4 218 (39.85%) Data Pipeline
5 215 (39.31%) Data Engineering
6 204 (37.29%) Python
7 187 (34.19%) Data Modelling
8 172 (31.44%) Security Cleared
9 153 (27.97%) Azure
10 149 (27.24%) SC Cleared
11 139 (25.41%) Data Quality
12 134 (24.50%) Business Intelligence
13 131 (23.95%) CI/CD
14 116 (21.21%) AWS
15 113 (20.66%) Agile
16 109 (19.93%) Problem-Solving
17 100 (18.28%) Databricks
17 100 (18.28%) DevOps
18 88 (16.09%) Git
19 86 (15.72%) Data Integration
20 83 (15.17%) Talend
21 82 (14.99%) Power Platform
22 78 (14.26%) Data Warehouse
23 77 (14.08%) Power BI
24 73 (13.35%) Oracle
25 72 (13.16%) PySpark
26 69 (12.61%) Pentaho
27 67 (12.25%) Azure Data Factory
28 66 (12.07%) Data Governance
29 64 (11.70%) Kubernetes

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 55 (10.05%) SAS
2 43 (7.86%) Apache Spark
3 38 (6.95%) Apache Airflow
4 29 (5.30%) Apache
5 9 (1.65%) Confluence
6 3 (0.55%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.37%) Oracle Application Server
8 1 (0.18%) Apache Superset
8 1 (0.18%) Apache Synapse
8 1 (0.18%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (0.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.18%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.18%) Elite 3E
1 1 (0.18%) NEC Housing
1 1 (0.18%) Oracle 11i
1 1 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 153 (27.97%) Azure
2 116 (21.21%) AWS
3 82 (14.99%) Power Platform
4 67 (12.25%) Azure Data Factory
5 54 (9.87%) Snowflake
6 42 (7.68%) dbt
7 35 (6.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 33 (6.03%) GCP
9 31 (5.67%) Amazon S3
10 30 (5.48%) GitHub
11 26 (4.75%) Serverless
12 19 (3.47%) OpenShift
13 18 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
14 17 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
15 13 (2.38%) Matillion
16 10 (1.83%) AWS CloudFormation
17 9 (1.65%) GitHub Actions
18 8 (1.46%) AWS Step Functions
18 8 (1.46%) Power Automate
19 7 (1.28%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 23 (4.20%) DNS
1 23 (4.20%) VPN
2 22 (4.02%) BGP
2 22 (4.02%) DMZ
2 22 (4.02%) Multicast
3 8 (1.46%) Structured Cabling
Database & Business Intelligence
1 78 (14.26%) Data Warehouse
2 77 (14.08%) Power BI
3 69 (12.61%) Pentaho
4 39 (7.13%) Data Lake
5 32 (5.85%) Amazon Redshift
5 32 (5.85%) PostgreSQL
6 28 (5.12%) Big Data
7 27 (4.94%) SQL Server
8 26 (4.75%) Hadoop
9 22 (4.02%) MySQL
10 21 (3.84%) Delta Lake
11 20 (3.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (3.47%) NoSQL
12 19 (3.47%) Relational Database
13 14 (2.56%) BigQuery
13 14 (2.56%) Elasticsearch
14 13 (2.38%) Amazon RDS
14 13 (2.38%) Azure SQL Database
15 12 (2.19%) Metadata
16 11 (2.01%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 88 (16.09%) Git
2 46 (8.41%) Jenkins
3 37 (6.76%) JIRA
4 34 (6.22%) GitLab
5 4 (0.73%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.55%) Visual Studio
7 2 (0.37%) DBeaver
7 2 (0.37%) JUnit
8 1 (0.18%) Cucumber
8 1 (0.18%) Deequ
8 1 (0.18%) Maven
8 1 (0.18%) MLflow
8 1 (0.18%) Mockito
8 1 (0.18%) Selenium
8 1 (0.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 94 (17.18%) Social Skills
2 62 (11.33%) Analytical Skills
3 55 (10.05%) Finance
4 53 (9.69%) Public Sector
5 27 (4.94%) Banking
6 13 (2.38%) Investment Banking
7 10 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
8 8 (1.46%) Manufacturing
9 5 (0.91%) Retail
9 5 (0.91%) Telecoms
10 4 (0.73%) Aerospace
10 4 (0.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (0.73%) Local Government
10 4 (0.73%) Marketing
11 3 (0.55%) Law
11 3 (0.55%) Legal
12 2 (0.37%) Advertising
12 2 (0.37%) Health Technology
12 2 (0.37%) Military
12 2 (0.37%) Presentation Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 72 (13.16%) PySpark
2 61 (11.15%) Kafka
3 17 (3.11%) JSON
4 15 (2.74%) REST
5 12 (2.19%) Keycloak
6 10 (1.83%) Node.js
6 10 (1.83%) Pandas
7 7 (1.28%) XML
8 6 (1.10%) Apache Avro
8 6 (1.10%) Apache Beam
8 6 (1.10%) OpenTelemetry
8 6 (1.10%) Protocol Buffers
9 5 (0.91%) Apache NiFi
9 5 (0.91%) NumPy
9 5 (0.91%) React
9 5 (0.91%) YAML
10 4 (0.73%) AngularJS
10 4 (0.73%) pytest
10 4 (0.73%) Streamlit
11 3 (0.55%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 28 (5.12%) Cloud Native
2 16 (2.93%) Hybrid Cloud
2 16 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
3 14 (2.56%) Clustering
3 14 (2.56%) Product Ownership
4 13 (2.38%) Data Protection Act
4 13 (2.38%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (2.19%) Data Structures
6 8 (1.46%) Data Centre
6 8 (1.46%) Replication
7 6 (1.10%) Fibre Optics
7 6 (1.10%) Onboarding
8 5 (0.91%) Driving Licence
8 5 (0.91%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (0.91%) NHS
9 4 (0.73%) Management Information System
9 4 (0.73%) Public Cloud
10 3 (0.55%) Distributed Computing
10 3 (0.55%) Virtual Team
11 2 (0.37%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 19 (3.47%) Unix
2 7 (1.28%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 239 (43.69%) ETL
2 223 (40.77%) Analytics
3 218 (39.85%) Data Pipeline
4 215 (39.31%) Data Engineering
5 187 (34.19%) Data Modelling
6 134 (24.50%) Business Intelligence
7 131 (23.95%) CI/CD
8 113 (20.66%) Agile
9 109 (19.93%) Problem-Solving
10 100 (18.28%) DevOps
11 86 (15.72%) Data Integration
12 66 (12.07%) Data Governance
13 60 (10.97%) Scrum
14 55 (10.05%) Test Automation
15 54 (9.87%) Continuous Improvement
16 52 (9.51%) Migration
17 49 (8.96%) Validation
18 45 (8.23%) Data Analytics
18 45 (8.23%) Performance Tuning
19 42 (7.68%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 282 (51.55%) SQL
2 204 (37.29%) Python
3 35 (6.40%) Java
4 18 (3.29%) PL/SQL
5 14 (2.56%) Go
6 13 (2.38%) Bash
7 10 (1.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 10 (1.83%) Shell Script
8 9 (1.65%) PowerShell
9 7 (1.28%) Scala
9 7 (1.28%) T-SQL
10 6 (1.10%) Bicep
10 6 (1.10%) C#
11 4 (0.73%) R
12 3 (0.55%) JavaScript
13 2 (0.37%) HiveQL
14 1 (0.18%) Groovy
14 1 (0.18%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 172 (31.44%) Security Cleared
2 149 (27.24%) SC Cleared
3 14 (2.56%) Azure Certification
3 14 (2.56%) Degree
4 8 (1.46%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (0.91%) AWS Certification
5 5 (0.91%) DV Cleared
6 4 (0.73%) BICSI Certification
6 4 (0.73%) City & Guilds
6 4 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (0.73%) Master's Degree
7 3 (0.55%) IBM Certification
8 1 (0.18%) CCIE
8 1 (0.18%) CCNP
8 1 (0.18%) Cisco Certification
8 1 (0.18%) CISM
8 1 (0.18%) CISSP
8 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.18%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 139 (25.41%) Data Quality
2 12 (2.19%) GDPR
3 9 (1.65%) QA
4 4 (0.73%) Accessibility
5 3 (0.55%) FATCA
5 3 (0.55%) SLA
6 2 (0.37%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.18%) Basel III
7 1 (0.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.18%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.18%) GMP
7 1 (0.18%) NCSC
7 1 (0.18%) NIST
7 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.18%) WCAG
System Software
1 56 (10.24%) Docker
2 2 (0.37%) HDFS
2 2 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 64 (11.70%) Kubernetes
2 26 (4.75%) Grafana
3 25 (4.57%) Terraform
4 13 (2.38%) Prometheus
5 8 (1.46%) Ansible
6 3 (0.55%) Kibana
6 3 (0.55%) NetBackup
6 3 (0.55%) Rancher
7 2 (0.37%) Apache Ranger
7 2 (0.37%) logstash
8 1 (0.18%) Control-M
8 1 (0.18%) Puppet
Vendors
1 100 (18.28%) Databricks
2 83 (15.17%) Talend
3 73 (13.35%) Oracle
4 59 (10.79%) Microsoft
5 47 (8.59%) Informatica
6 44 (8.04%) Denodo
7 24 (4.39%) Cisco
7 24 (4.39%) F5
8 15 (2.74%) Splunk
9 14 (2.56%) ServiceNow
10 11 (2.01%) Google
11 10 (1.83%) Cloudera
12 7 (1.28%) Alteryx
12 7 (1.28%) SAP
13 5 (0.91%) IBM
14 4 (0.73%) Dataiku
14 4 (0.73%) Sage
15 3 (0.55%) Commvault
15 3 (0.55%) Red Hat
16 2 (0.37%) Brio