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 £478, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 18 October 2026.
The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.
| 6 months to 18 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 78 | 162 | 131 |
| Rank change year-on-year | +84 | -31 | +47 |
| Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer | 854 | 254 | 307 |
| As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London | 3.02% | 1.58% | 1.78% |
| As % of the Job Titles category | 3.32% | 1.77% | 1.94% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 498 | 177 | 199 |
| 10th Percentile | £363 | £336 | £318 |
| 25th Percentile | £413 | £402 | £416 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £478 | £475 | £500 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +0.53% | -5.00% | -4.76% |
| 75th Percentile | £564 | £538 | £578 |
| 90th Percentile | £638 | £625 | £632 |
| UK median daily rate | £500 | £500 | £530 |
| % change year-on-year | - | -5.66% | -3.64% |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 55 | 3 | 2 |
| 10th Percentile | £21.25 | £19.43 | £28.58 |
| 25th Percentile | £30.96 | £21.90 | £33.82 |
| Median hourly rate | £45.00 | £27.00 | £42.59 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +66.67% | -36.60% | -25.28% |
| 75th Percentile | £68.00 | £54.00 | £51.32 |
| 90th Percentile | £70.00 | £69.60 | £56.53 |
| UK median hourly rate | £45.00 | £52.50 | £60.00 |
| % change year-on-year | -14.29% | -12.50% | -2.83% |
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.
| 6 months to 18 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract vacancies in the UK excluding London with a recognized job title | 25,719 | 14,384 | 15,862 |
| % of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title | 90.86% | 89.62% | 92.22% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 13,812 | 8,852 | 9,028 |
| 10th Percentile | £300 | £209 | £220 |
| 25th Percentile | £411 | £363 | £373 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £500 | £475 | £490 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +5.26% | -3.06% | -2.00% |
| 75th Percentile | £600 | £575 | £588 |
| 90th Percentile | £688 | £675 | £675 |
| UK median daily rate | £525 | £500 | £525 |
| % change year-on-year | +5.00% | -4.76% | - |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 3,614 | 1,371 | 1,184 |
| 10th Percentile | £14.22 | £13.57 | £14.73 |
| 25th Percentile | £18.50 | £16.50 | £19.59 |
| Median hourly rate | £40.32 | £24.62 | £41.27 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +63.77% | -40.34% | -7.27% |
| 75th Percentile | £67.88 | £50.00 | £66.61 |
| 90th Percentile | £78.75 | £69.65 | £73.75 |
| UK median hourly rate | £41.06 | £25.15 | £40.33 |
| % change year-on-year | +63.26% | -37.63% | -10.39% |
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 Daily Rate Trend 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 18 October 2026.
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.
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 18 October 2026.
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 18 October 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 | +69 | 318 | £469 | -1.26% | 109 |
| West Midlands | +55 | 232 | £469 | -6.90% | 71 |
| North of England | +36 | 202 | £525 | +17.32% | 242 |
| South East | +25 | 125 | £459 | -3.37% | 120 |
| South West | +28 | 121 | £525 | +1.20% | 71 |
| North West | +24 | 104 | £525 | +23.53% | 122 |
| East Midlands | +40 | 86 | £388 | -15.76% | 38 |
| Yorkshire | +15 | 81 | £513 | +0.15% | 62 |
| Scotland | -2 | 72 | £525 | +16.67% | 44 |
| East of England | +6 | 36 | £525 | -16.00% | 27 |
| North East | -31 | 18 | £473 | +14.55% | 58 |
| Wales | -6 | 16 | £550 | +23.60% | 16 |
| Northern Ireland | +4 | 1 | - | - | 22 |
| Channel Islands | - | 1 | - | - | 2 |
| Data Engineer UK |
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Data Engineer Skill Set Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London
For the 6 months to 18 October 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.
| Rank | Skill | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SQL | 44.6% | 381 |
| 2 | Data Pipeline | 38.4% | 328 |
| 3 | Data Engineering | 34.4% | 294 |
| 3 | Python | 34.4% | 294 |
| 5 | ETL | 32.8% | 280 |
| 6 | Analytics | 32.2% | 275 |
| 7 | Data Modelling | 32.1% | 274 |
| 8 | AWS | 28.2% | 241 |
| 9 | Security Cleared | 25.9% | 221 |
| 10 | Azure | 24.5% | 209 |
| 11 | Data Quality | 21.8% | 186 |
| 12 | SC Cleared | 21.2% | 181 |
| 13 | CI/CD | 18.0% | 154 |
| 14 | Data Integration | 17.7% | 151 |
| 15 | Databricks | 17.2% | 147 |
| 16 | Migration | 16.6% | 142 |
| 17 | DevOps | 16.0% | 137 |
| 18 | Agile | 15.0% | 128 |
| 19 | Business Intelligence | 14.9% | 127 |
| 20 | Validation | 13.9% | 119 |
| 21 | AI | 13.5% | 115 |
| 22 | Problem-Solving | 13.2% | 113 |
| 23 | Data Governance | 12.1% | 103 |
| 24 | Data Transformation | 11.6% | 99 |
| 24 | Microsoft | 11.6% | 99 |
| 24 | Power Platform | 11.6% | 99 |
| 27 | Data Warehouse | 11.2% | 96 |
| 28 | Power BI | 11.1% | 95 |
| 29 | Data Migration | 9.1% | 78 |
| 29 | PySpark | 9.1% | 78 |
Data Engineer Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category
The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.
Job Titles
| Rank | Job Title | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senior Data Engineer | 19.7% | 168 |
| 2 | AWS Engineer | 8.3% | 71 |
| 3 | AWS Data Engineer | 6.8% | 58 |
| 4 | Platform Engineer | 6.6% | 56 |
| 5 | Snowflake Engineer | 4.8% | 41 |
| 6 | Snowflake Data Engineer | 4.3% | 37 |
| 7 | Security Engineer | 3.5% | 30 |
| 8 | Azure Engineer | 3.4% | 29 |
| 9 | Azure Data Engineer | 3.0% | 26 |
| 10 | Databricks Data Engineer | 2.9% | 25 |
| 11 | Data Migration Engineer | 2.6% | 22 |
| 11 | Senior Platform Engineer | 2.6% | 22 |
| 13 | Cisco Network Engineer | 2.3% | 20 |
| 13 | Cisco Security Engineer | 2.3% | 20 |
| 13 | Data Network Engineer | 2.3% | 20 |
| 13 | Data Science Engineer | 2.3% | 20 |
| 13 | Network Security Engineer | 2.3% | 20 |
| 18 | Python Engineer | 2.2% | 19 |
| 19 | Data Integration Engineer | 1.8% | 15 |
| 19 | GCP Engineer | 1.8% | 15 |