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 £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 December 2025.

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

6 months to
6 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 165 115 189
Rank change year-on-year -50 +74 -15
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 298 337 259
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 1.66% 2.11% 1.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.85% 2.28% 1.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 217 208
10th Percentile £352 £348 £398
25th Percentile £406 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year - -3.85% -0.95%
75th Percentile £563 £575 £617
90th Percentile £625 £643 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £527 £525
% change year-on-year -5.12% +0.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 3
10th Percentile £27.55 £25.14 £31.33
25th Percentile £29.88 £25.21 £36.69
Median hourly rate £37.50 £26.50 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year +41.51% -45.92% -18.33%
75th Percentile £55.25 £27.91 £58.69
90th Percentile £63.65 £28.19 £62.48
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £50.50 £61.43
% change year-on-year -13.86% -17.79% +2.38%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 16,143 14,762 18,876
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.02% 92.34% 93.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,973 8,622 12,382
10th Percentile £210 £213 £214
25th Percentile £363 £369 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £594 £600
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,588 938 1,248
10th Percentile £13.80 £15.22 £14.36
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.12 £18.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%
75th Percentile £56.69 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.16 £72.50 £77.15
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £43.90
% change year-on-year -28.14% -20.27% +39.88%

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025.

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 December 2025. 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
North of England -44 84 £456 +1.39% 85
Midlands -26 83 £519 +5.82% 49
West Midlands -23 69 £523 +4.50% 35
Scotland +21 52 £450 +2.86% 26
North West -22 41 £415 -7.78% 58
South West +8 38 £550 +15.79% 31
Yorkshire -32 35 £506 +4.38% 18
South East -47 35 £478 -13.18% 125
East Midlands -8 14 £455 +27.81% 14
Wales -15 12 £425 -15.00% 10
North East -5 8 £425 +13.64% 9
East of England -23 6 £625 +95.31% 22
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 6
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 6 December 2025, 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.

1 181 (60.74%) Python
2 169 (56.71%) SQL
3 130 (43.62%) ETL
4 120 (40.27%) Data Pipeline
5 109 (36.58%) Data Engineering
6 100 (33.56%) CI/CD
7 99 (33.22%) Azure
8 97 (32.55%) Analytics
9 95 (31.88%) AWS
10 88 (29.53%) Data Modelling
11 74 (24.83%) Databricks
11 74 (24.83%) DevOps
12 70 (23.49%) Data Warehouse
13 68 (22.82%) Agile
14 67 (22.48%) Business Intelligence
15 63 (21.14%) Data Quality
16 61 (20.47%) Problem-Solving
17 54 (18.12%) PySpark
18 52 (17.45%) Security Cleared
19 50 (16.78%) Power Platform
20 48 (16.11%) Apache Airflow
20 48 (16.11%) Power BI
21 47 (15.77%) Snowflake
22 45 (15.10%) Jenkins
22 45 (15.10%) Kubernetes
22 45 (15.10%) SC Cleared
22 45 (15.10%) Test Automation
23 44 (14.77%) Azure Data Factory
23 44 (14.77%) Docker
24 42 (14.09%) Git

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 48 (16.11%) Apache Airflow
2 29 (9.73%) Apache Spark
3 28 (9.40%) Apache
4 15 (5.03%) SAS
5 8 (2.68%) Confluence
6 7 (2.35%) Oracle Application Server
7 5 (1.68%) Apache Pig
8 3 (1.01%) IIS
9 2 (0.67%) Documentum
9 2 (0.67%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.34%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.34%) Jupyter
Applications
1 2 (0.67%) Windchill
2 1 (0.34%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.34%) SPSS
2 1 (0.34%) Stata
Business Applications
1 2 (0.67%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.34%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 99 (33.22%) Azure
2 95 (31.88%) AWS
3 50 (16.78%) Power Platform
4 47 (15.77%) Snowflake
5 44 (14.77%) Azure Data Factory
6 34 (11.41%) GCP
7 27 (9.06%) Amazon S3
7 27 (9.06%) GitHub
8 25 (8.39%) Serverless
9 23 (7.72%) dbt
10 22 (7.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 18 (6.04%) AWS Lambda
12 13 (4.36%) AWS CloudFormation
13 11 (3.69%) GitHub Actions
14 10 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
15 8 (2.68%) Amazon SageMaker
16 7 (2.35%) Amazon EC2
16 7 (2.35%) Amazon ECS
16 7 (2.35%) AWS Step Functions
16 7 (2.35%) CloudBees
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.34%) TCP/IP
2 3 (1.01%) MQTT
2 3 (1.01%) SSH
2 3 (1.01%) Structured Cabling
3 2 (0.67%) DNS
3 2 (0.67%) SSL
3 2 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (0.34%) Internet
4 1 (0.34%) LAN
4 1 (0.34%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (23.49%) Data Warehouse
2 48 (16.11%) Power BI
3 33 (11.07%) PostgreSQL
4 31 (10.40%) Data Lake
5 30 (10.07%) Big Data
6 28 (9.40%) NoSQL
7 23 (7.72%) Hadoop
7 23 (7.72%) Pentaho
8 20 (6.71%) Amazon Redshift
8 20 (6.71%) Relational Database
9 18 (6.04%) Delta Lake
10 15 (5.03%) Elasticsearch
11 14 (4.70%) Amazon RDS
12 13 (4.36%) Data Mining
13 12 (4.03%) SQL Server
14 10 (3.36%) Tableau
15 9 (3.02%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (2.68%) MongoDB
16 8 (2.68%) RDBMS
16 8 (2.68%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 45 (15.10%) Jenkins
2 42 (14.09%) Git
3 27 (9.06%) GitLab
4 25 (8.39%) JIRA
5 8 (2.68%) MLflow
6 7 (2.35%) DBeaver
7 5 (1.68%) Visual Studio Code
8 4 (1.34%) SonarQube
9 3 (1.01%) Artifactory
9 3 (1.01%) Bitbucket
9 3 (1.01%) Cucumber
9 3 (1.01%) Poetry
9 3 (1.01%) PyCharm
9 3 (1.01%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.67%) JMeter
10 2 (0.67%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.67%) Zephyr
11 1 (0.34%) JUnit
11 1 (0.34%) Maven
11 1 (0.34%) Selenium
General
1 66 (22.15%) Social Skills
2 37 (12.42%) Analytical Skills
3 36 (12.08%) Finance
4 21 (7.05%) Public Sector
5 16 (5.37%) Banking
6 6 (2.01%) Documentation Skills
7 4 (1.34%) Telecoms
8 3 (1.01%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.01%) Legal
8 3 (1.01%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.01%) Tech for Good
9 2 (0.67%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.67%) Health Technology
9 2 (0.67%) Pharmaceutical
9 2 (0.67%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.67%) Retail
10 1 (0.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 1 (0.34%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.34%) Law
10 1 (0.34%) Local Government
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (18.12%) PySpark
2 28 (9.40%) Kafka
3 15 (5.03%) RESTful
4 14 (4.70%) REST
5 13 (4.36%) Flask
5 13 (4.36%) Pandas
6 12 (4.03%) NumPy
7 11 (3.69%) Keycloak
8 7 (2.35%) OpenTelemetry
8 7 (2.35%) Oracle GoldenGate
9 6 (2.01%) Elastic Stack
9 6 (2.01%) HTML
10 5 (1.68%) Apache NiFi
10 5 (1.68%) Node.js
10 5 (1.68%) OAuth
10 5 (1.68%) OAuth2
11 4 (1.34%) FastAPI
11 4 (1.34%) JSON
11 4 (1.34%) pytest
11 4 (1.34%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 24 (8.05%) Cloud Native
2 15 (5.03%) Replication
3 14 (4.70%) Hybrid Cloud
4 13 (4.36%) Algorithms
4 13 (4.36%) Product Ownership
5 10 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
6 9 (3.02%) Data Protection Act
7 6 (2.01%) Clustering
7 6 (2.01%) Data Structures
7 6 (2.01%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.01%) NHS
8 4 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
8 4 (1.34%) IoT
9 3 (1.01%) AI Agents
9 3 (1.01%) Driving Licence
9 3 (1.01%) Fibre Optics
9 3 (1.01%) Management Information System
9 3 (1.01%) Private Cloud
10 2 (0.67%) Distributed Architecture
10 2 (0.67%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 20 (6.71%) Linux
2 11 (3.69%) Unix
3 2 (0.67%) Windows
3 2 (0.67%) Windows Server
3 2 (0.67%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 130 (43.62%) ETL
2 120 (40.27%) Data Pipeline
3 109 (36.58%) Data Engineering
4 100 (33.56%) CI/CD
5 97 (32.55%) Analytics
6 88 (29.53%) Data Modelling
7 74 (24.83%) DevOps
8 68 (22.82%) Agile
9 67 (22.48%) Business Intelligence
10 61 (20.47%) Problem-Solving
11 45 (15.10%) Test Automation
12 39 (13.09%) Data Integration
12 39 (13.09%) Machine Learning
13 36 (12.08%) Visualisation
14 31 (10.40%) Data Science
14 31 (10.40%) Performance Tuning
14 31 (10.40%) Scrum
15 28 (9.40%) Data Governance
15 28 (9.40%) Data Transformation
16 27 (9.06%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 181 (60.74%) Python
2 169 (56.71%) SQL
3 29 (9.73%) Java
4 19 (6.38%) Scala
5 12 (4.03%) Bash
5 12 (4.03%) PL/SQL
6 11 (3.69%) Go
7 6 (2.01%) R
8 5 (1.68%) Groovy
8 5 (1.68%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.34%) JavaScript
9 4 (1.34%) T-SQL
10 3 (1.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (1.01%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.67%) ABAP
12 1 (0.34%) Bicep
12 1 (0.34%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 52 (17.45%) Security Cleared
2 45 (15.10%) SC Cleared
3 12 (4.03%) Azure Certification
3 12 (4.03%) Degree
4 11 (3.69%) AWS Certification
5 8 (2.68%) Master's Degree
6 4 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.34%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 1 (0.34%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.34%) HND
7 1 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (0.34%) MCP
7 1 (0.34%) SnowPro
7 1 (0.34%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (21.14%) Data Quality
2 8 (2.68%) GDPR
3 7 (2.35%) QA
4 4 (1.34%) Accessibility
5 2 (0.67%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.34%) EU AI Act
6 1 (0.34%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.34%) NCSC
6 1 (0.34%) NIST
6 1 (0.34%) WCAG
System Software
1 44 (14.77%) Docker
2 3 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.67%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 45 (15.10%) Kubernetes
2 27 (9.06%) Terraform
3 11 (3.69%) Ansible
3 11 (3.69%) Grafana
4 8 (2.68%) NetBackup
5 6 (2.01%) Prometheus
6 5 (1.68%) Kibana
7 3 (1.01%) Argo
7 3 (1.01%) Istio
7 3 (1.01%) Kustomize
7 3 (1.01%) logstash
8 2 (0.67%) Control-M
9 1 (0.34%) Puppet
Vendors
1 74 (24.83%) Databricks
2 39 (13.09%) Oracle
3 35 (11.74%) Microsoft
4 27 (9.06%) Talend
5 15 (5.03%) Denodo
5 15 (5.03%) Informatica
6 11 (3.69%) Red Hat
7 9 (3.02%) Google
8 8 (2.68%) Commvault
9 7 (2.35%) IBM
9 7 (2.35%) Veritas
10 6 (2.01%) Cloudera
10 6 (2.01%) Confluent
10 6 (2.01%) ServiceNow
11 5 (1.68%) Splunk
12 3 (1.01%) Salesforce
12 3 (1.01%) SAP
13 2 (0.67%) EMC
13 2 (0.67%) McAfee
13 2 (0.67%) Sophos