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 15 September 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 78 170 127
Rank change year-on-year +92 -43 +48
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 856 229 309
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.05% 1.50% 1.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.33% 1.67% 1.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 507 156 208
10th Percentile £361 £351 £296
25th Percentile £413 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £575
90th Percentile £600 £625 £625
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 3 5
10th Percentile £19.34 £19.43 £68.00
25th Percentile £30.96 £21.90 -
Median hourly rate £41.56 £27.00 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.91% -66.25% +40.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £54.00 -
90th Percentile £70.00 £69.60 -
UK median hourly rate £41.56 £52.50 £80.00
% change year-on-year -20.85% -34.38% +25.00%

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 25,683 13,685 16,403
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.45% 89.83% 92.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,271 8,409 9,580
10th Percentile £304 £213 £220
25th Percentile £413 £361 £378
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 £653 £681
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,261 1,240 1,451
10th Percentile £14.25 £13.27 £14.41
25th Percentile £20.00 £16.17 £19.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +6.95%
75th Percentile £67.84 £51.65 £66.61
90th Percentile £78.75 £70.24 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £42.15 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +67.59% -41.51% -1.96%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +78 343 £469 +4.22% 129
West Midlands +66 273 £469 +6.59% 87
North of England +24 202 £500 +5.26% 293
South East +25 129 £459 -4.62% 196
North West +22 112 £525 +10.53% 162
South West +8 99 £525 +5.00% 96
Yorkshire +10 73 £475 -6.17% 90
East Midlands +33 70 £450 +1.98% 42
Scotland +4 62 £425 -8.11% 92
East of England +4 38 £450 -40.00% 76
North East -26 18 £510 +20.71% 41
Wales -1 17 £513 +8.47% 14
Northern Ireland +5 3 £410 -18.00% 51
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 15 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.

1 377 (44.04%) SQL
2 321 (37.50%) Data Pipeline
3 268 (31.31%) Analytics
4 262 (30.61%) Python
5 261 (30.49%) Data Engineering
6 259 (30.26%) ETL
7 249 (29.09%) Data Modelling
8 239 (27.92%) Security Cleared
9 215 (25.12%) AWS
10 204 (23.83%) Azure
11 200 (23.36%) SC Cleared
12 179 (20.91%) Data Quality
13 149 (17.41%) Data Integration
14 147 (17.17%) CI/CD
15 141 (16.47%) Business Intelligence
15 141 (16.47%) Databricks
16 139 (16.24%) Migration
17 123 (14.37%) Agile
18 113 (13.20%) Problem-Solving
19 112 (13.08%) DevOps
20 102 (11.92%) Data Warehouse
21 100 (11.68%) AI
21 100 (11.68%) Power Platform
22 99 (11.57%) Microsoft
23 96 (11.21%) Power BI
24 92 (10.75%) Data Governance
25 91 (10.63%) Oracle
25 91 (10.63%) Validation
26 80 (9.35%) Data Transformation
27 79 (9.23%) PySpark

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 42 (4.91%) Apache Airflow
1 42 (4.91%) Apache Spark
2 39 (4.56%) Apache
3 36 (4.21%) SAS
4 23 (2.69%) Confluence
5 5 (0.58%) Jupyter
6 4 (0.47%) Palantir Foundry
7 3 (0.35%) SharePoint
8 2 (0.23%) Apache Superset
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
1 5 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
2 4 (0.47%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.47%) Sage X3
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
1 215 (25.12%) AWS
2 204 (23.83%) Azure
3 100 (11.68%) Power Platform
4 73 (8.53%) Azure Data Factory
5 65 (7.59%) Snowflake
6 55 (6.43%) GCP
7 44 (5.14%) dbt
8 42 (4.91%) Amazon S3
9 41 (4.79%) Serverless
10 38 (4.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 32 (3.74%) AWS Lambda
12 29 (3.39%) Azure DevOps
13 28 (3.27%) GitHub
14 16 (1.87%) Azure Databricks
15 15 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
16 13 (1.52%) Amazon EMR
16 13 (1.52%) GitHub Actions
17 12 (1.40%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 12 (1.40%) AWS Step Functions
18 10 (1.17%) Matillion
Communications & Networking
1 25 (2.92%) BGP
1 25 (2.92%) DMZ
1 25 (2.92%) DNS
1 25 (2.92%) Multicast
1 25 (2.92%) VPN
2 9 (1.05%) 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 (11.92%) Data Warehouse
2 96 (11.21%) Power BI
3 59 (6.89%) Pentaho
4 53 (6.19%) Metadata
5 45 (5.26%) Data Lake
6 32 (3.74%) Amazon Redshift
6 32 (3.74%) SQL Server
7 25 (2.92%) Amazon Athena
8 24 (2.80%) Relational Database
9 23 (2.69%) Big Data
9 23 (2.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 22 (2.57%) BigQuery
11 19 (2.22%) Delta Lake
12 17 (1.99%) Azure SQL Database
12 17 (1.99%) Oracle Database
12 17 (1.99%) Tableau
13 15 (1.75%) BusinessObjects
14 14 (1.64%) Hadoop
14 14 (1.64%) Snowflake Schema
15 12 (1.40%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 63 (7.36%) Git
2 52 (6.07%) GitLab
3 39 (4.56%) JIRA
4 20 (2.34%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.82%) 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
1 143 (16.71%) Social Skills
2 93 (10.86%) Analytical Skills
3 87 (10.16%) Public Sector
4 52 (6.07%) Finance
5 37 (4.32%) Banking
6 19 (2.22%) Automotive
6 19 (2.22%) Investment Banking
7 18 (2.10%) Marketing
8 15 (1.75%) Aerospace
9 14 (1.64%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.64%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.17%) Manufacturing
10 10 (1.17%) Retail
11 9 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (0.82%) Law
13 6 (0.70%) Military
14 5 (0.58%) Front Office
14 5 (0.58%) Police
15 4 (0.47%) Legal
15 4 (0.47%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (9.23%) PySpark
2 58 (6.78%) Terraform
3 39 (4.56%) Kafka
4 17 (1.99%) JSON
5 10 (1.17%) REST
6 9 (1.05%) Pandas
6 9 (1.05%) Streamlit
6 9 (1.05%) XML
7 7 (0.82%) RESTful
8 6 (0.70%) Apache NiFi
9 5 (0.58%) Great Expectations
10 4 (0.47%) Apache Avro
10 4 (0.47%) AWS CDK
10 4 (0.47%) Elastic Stack
10 4 (0.47%) Spring
10 4 (0.47%) Spring Boot
11 3 (0.35%) .NET
11 3 (0.35%) pytest
11 3 (0.35%) XML Schema
12 2 (0.23%) XSD
Miscellaneous
1 39 (4.56%) Cloud Native
2 26 (3.04%) Data Structures
3 25 (2.92%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (1.40%) Management Information System
5 11 (1.29%) NHS
5 11 (1.29%) Reference Data
6 8 (0.93%) Greenfield Project
6 8 (0.93%) Onboarding
7 7 (0.82%) Driving Licence
8 6 (0.70%) Data Fabric
8 6 (0.70%) Distributed Systems
8 6 (0.70%) Linux Command Line
8 6 (0.70%) Product Ownership
9 5 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
10 4 (0.47%) Data Centre
10 4 (0.47%) Fibre Optics
10 4 (0.47%) iPad
11 3 (0.35%) Enterprise Software
11 3 (0.35%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.35%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 34 (3.97%) Unix
2 15 (1.75%) Linux
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.12%) VMS
4 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 321 (37.50%) Data Pipeline
2 268 (31.31%) Analytics
3 261 (30.49%) Data Engineering
4 259 (30.26%) ETL
5 249 (29.09%) Data Modelling
6 149 (17.41%) Data Integration
7 147 (17.17%) CI/CD
8 141 (16.47%) Business Intelligence
9 139 (16.24%) Migration
10 123 (14.37%) Agile
11 113 (13.20%) Problem-Solving
12 112 (13.08%) DevOps
13 100 (11.68%) AI
14 92 (10.75%) Data Governance
15 91 (10.63%) Validation
16 80 (9.35%) Data Transformation
17 78 (9.11%) Decision-Making
18 69 (8.06%) Data Migration
19 64 (7.48%) Test Automation
20 62 (7.24%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 377 (44.04%) SQL
2 262 (30.61%) Python
3 30 (3.50%) PL/SQL
4 23 (2.69%) Java
5 15 (1.75%) Bash
6 13 (1.52%) T-SQL
7 12 (1.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 12 (1.40%) Shell Script
8 6 (0.70%) Scala
9 5 (0.58%) PowerShell
10 3 (0.35%) R
11 2 (0.23%) Bicep
11 2 (0.23%) JavaScript
11 2 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
12 1 (0.12%) C++
12 1 (0.12%) COBOL
12 1 (0.12%) Go
12 1 (0.12%) Perl
Qualifications
1 239 (27.92%) Security Cleared
2 200 (23.36%) SC Cleared
3 19 (2.22%) Degree
4 18 (2.10%) DV Cleared
5 16 (1.87%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (1.17%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (0.93%) City & Guilds
8 5 (0.58%) Azure Certification
9 4 (0.47%) BICSI Certification
9 4 (0.47%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.47%) SnowPro
10 3 (0.35%) AWS Certification
10 3 (0.35%) CEH
10 3 (0.35%) CISM
10 3 (0.35%) CISSP
11 1 (0.12%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 179 (20.91%) Data Quality
2 27 (3.15%) QA
3 12 (1.40%) GDPR
4 7 (0.82%) SLA
5 6 (0.70%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.58%) FATCA
7 4 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
9 1 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 32 (3.74%) Docker
2 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 29 (3.39%) Kubernetes
2 25 (2.92%) Grafana
3 10 (1.17%) Ansible
4 4 (0.47%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.23%) Apache Ranger
5 2 (0.23%) Control-M
5 2 (0.23%) logstash
6 1 (0.12%) Kibana
6 1 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 141 (16.47%) Databricks
2 99 (11.57%) Microsoft
3 91 (10.63%) Oracle
4 68 (7.94%) Talend
5 46 (5.37%) Informatica
6 34 (3.97%) Denodo
7 25 (2.92%) Cisco
7 25 (2.92%) F5
8 24 (2.80%) Google
9 18 (2.10%) SAP
10 17 (1.99%) Salesforce
11 7 (0.82%) Cloudera
11 7 (0.82%) Sage
12 6 (0.70%) InterSystems
12 6 (0.70%) Palantir
12 6 (0.70%) SYSPRO
13 5 (0.58%) Dynatrace
13 5 (0.58%) Infor
14 4 (0.47%) PagerDuty
14 4 (0.47%) ServiceNow