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 30 September 2026.

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

6 months to
30 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 76 162 130
Rank change year-on-year +86 -32 +49
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 864 235 310
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 3.05% 1.51% 1.78%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.34% 1.69% 1.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 509 163 207
10th Percentile £362 £345 £313
25th Percentile £413 £405 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £575
90th Percentile £613 £625 £625
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 3 3
10th Percentile £21.25 £19.43 £64.00
25th Percentile £30.96 £21.90 £70.00
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% +29.55%

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 25,831 13,907 16,028
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.18% 89.61% 92.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 14,107 8,568 9,105
10th Percentile £303 £210 £220
25th Percentile £413 £360 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £600 £575 £590
90th Percentile £688 £665 £675
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,411 1,296 1,310
10th Percentile £14.22 £13.50 £14.69
25th Percentile £19.34 £16.30 £19.87
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.08 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +66.44% -41.69% -2.16%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £66.90
90th Percentile £78.50 £69.83 £74.76
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +65.84% -41.51% -3.37%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +80 338 £469 +1.41% 103
West Midlands +67 260 £469 -6.20% 73
North of England +23 208 £520 +9.47% 253
South East +30 126 £459 +2.00% 145
North West +23 112 £525 +17.98% 136
South West +22 108 £525 +5.00% 78
East Midlands +34 78 £388 -16.22% 30
Yorkshire +2 77 £500 - 74
Scotland +2 67 £440 -3.56% 70
East of England +6 37 £488 -18.75% 53
North East -26 20 £450 +9.09% 44
Wales -2 18 £513 +3.54% 15
Northern Ireland +3 1 - - 33
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 30 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.

1 388 (44.91%) SQL
2 322 (37.27%) Data Pipeline
3 274 (31.71%) Python
4 271 (31.37%) Analytics
5 266 (30.79%) Data Engineering
6 265 (30.67%) ETL
7 261 (30.21%) Data Modelling
8 234 (27.08%) Security Cleared
9 226 (26.16%) AWS
10 204 (23.61%) Azure
11 196 (22.69%) SC Cleared
12 175 (20.25%) Data Quality
13 147 (17.01%) Data Integration
13 147 (17.01%) Databricks
14 143 (16.55%) CI/CD
15 142 (16.44%) Migration
16 136 (15.74%) Business Intelligence
17 123 (14.24%) Agile
18 116 (13.43%) DevOps
19 111 (12.85%) AI
20 107 (12.38%) Problem-Solving
21 100 (11.57%) Data Warehouse
21 100 (11.57%) Power Platform
22 97 (11.23%) Microsoft
23 96 (11.11%) Power BI
23 96 (11.11%) Validation
24 93 (10.76%) Data Governance
25 92 (10.65%) Oracle
26 84 (9.72%) Data Transformation
27 80 (9.26%) Decision-Making

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 43 (4.98%) Apache Airflow
2 42 (4.86%) Apache
2 42 (4.86%) Apache Spark
3 32 (3.70%) SAS
4 23 (2.66%) Confluence
5 7 (0.81%) Palantir Foundry
6 5 (0.58%) Jupyter
7 3 (0.35%) Apache Superset
7 3 (0.35%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.12%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.12%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.12%) nginx
Applications
1 13 (1.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.81%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.58%) Notepad++
4 1 (0.12%) Chatbot
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 (0.46%) NetSuite
2 4 (0.46%) 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
1 226 (26.16%) AWS
2 204 (23.61%) Azure
3 100 (11.57%) Power Platform
4 74 (8.56%) Snowflake
5 73 (8.45%) Azure Data Factory
6 61 (7.06%) GCP
7 55 (6.37%) dbt
8 44 (5.09%) Amazon S3
9 40 (4.63%) Serverless
10 35 (4.05%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 32 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
12 29 (3.36%) Azure DevOps
13 28 (3.24%) GitHub
14 17 (1.97%) AWS CloudFormation
15 16 (1.85%) Amazon EMR
15 16 (1.85%) Azure Databricks
16 14 (1.62%) GitHub Actions
17 13 (1.50%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 12 (1.39%) AWS Step Functions
19 9 (1.04%) Matillion
Communications & Networking
1 23 (2.66%) BGP
1 23 (2.66%) DMZ
1 23 (2.66%) DNS
1 23 (2.66%) Multicast
1 23 (2.66%) VPN
2 6 (0.69%) Firewall
3 5 (0.58%) PuTTY
3 5 (0.58%) WinSCP
4 4 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
4 4 (0.46%) Wireless
5 3 (0.35%) Intrusion Detection
5 3 (0.35%) Structured Cabling
6 1 (0.12%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 100 (11.57%) Data Warehouse
2 96 (11.11%) Power BI
3 55 (6.37%) Pentaho
4 51 (5.90%) Metadata
5 49 (5.67%) Data Lake
6 30 (3.47%) Amazon Redshift
6 30 (3.47%) SQL Server
7 26 (3.01%) Amazon Athena
8 25 (2.89%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 24 (2.78%) Big Data
9 24 (2.78%) Relational Database
10 22 (2.55%) BigQuery
11 19 (2.20%) Delta Lake
12 18 (2.08%) Oracle Database
13 17 (1.97%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (1.74%) BusinessObjects
14 15 (1.74%) Snowflake Schema
14 15 (1.74%) Tableau
15 13 (1.50%) Hadoop
16 12 (1.39%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 55 (6.37%) Git
2 52 (6.02%) GitLab
3 35 (4.05%) JIRA
4 16 (1.85%) Jenkins
5 7 (0.81%) Postman
6 6 (0.69%) 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%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.12%) Toad
General
1 140 (16.20%) Social Skills
2 94 (10.88%) Public Sector
3 93 (10.76%) Analytical Skills
4 53 (6.13%) Finance
5 42 (4.86%) Banking
6 19 (2.20%) Automotive
7 18 (2.08%) Investment Banking
7 18 (2.08%) Marketing
8 14 (1.62%) Aerospace
9 13 (1.50%) Documentation Skills
10 11 (1.27%) Telecoms
11 10 (1.16%) Manufacturing
11 10 (1.16%) Retail
12 9 (1.04%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 8 (0.93%) Law
14 7 (0.81%) Military
15 5 (0.58%) Front Office
15 5 (0.58%) Police
16 4 (0.46%) Legal
16 4 (0.46%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 79 (9.14%) PySpark
2 60 (6.94%) Terraform
3 37 (4.28%) Kafka
4 17 (1.97%) JSON
5 11 (1.27%) Pandas
6 10 (1.16%) Streamlit
7 9 (1.04%) XML
8 8 (0.93%) REST
9 7 (0.81%) Apache NiFi
9 7 (0.81%) RESTful
10 5 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
10 5 (0.58%) Great Expectations
10 5 (0.58%) pytest
11 4 (0.46%) Apache Avro
12 3 (0.35%) .NET
12 3 (0.35%) Keycloak
12 3 (0.35%) Spring
12 3 (0.35%) Spring Boot
12 3 (0.35%) XML Schema
13 2 (0.23%) Apache Beam
Miscellaneous
1 38 (4.40%) Cloud Native
2 25 (2.89%) Data Structures
3 23 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
4 12 (1.39%) Management Information System
5 11 (1.27%) Onboarding
6 10 (1.16%) NHS
6 10 (1.16%) Reference Data
7 7 (0.81%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (0.81%) Greenfield Project
7 7 (0.81%) Product Ownership
8 6 (0.69%) Data Fabric
8 6 (0.69%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (0.58%) Driving Licence
10 4 (0.46%) Derivative
10 4 (0.46%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (0.46%) iPad
10 4 (0.46%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.35%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.35%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 32 (3.70%) Unix
2 16 (1.85%) Linux
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.12%) VMS
4 1 (0.12%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 322 (37.27%) Data Pipeline
2 271 (31.37%) Analytics
3 266 (30.79%) Data Engineering
4 265 (30.67%) ETL
5 261 (30.21%) Data Modelling
6 147 (17.01%) Data Integration
7 143 (16.55%) CI/CD
8 142 (16.44%) Migration
9 136 (15.74%) Business Intelligence
10 123 (14.24%) Agile
11 116 (13.43%) DevOps
12 111 (12.85%) AI
13 107 (12.38%) Problem-Solving
14 96 (11.11%) Validation
15 93 (10.76%) Data Governance
16 84 (9.72%) Data Transformation
17 80 (9.26%) Decision-Making
18 73 (8.45%) Data Migration
19 62 (7.18%) Test Automation
20 61 (7.06%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 388 (44.91%) SQL
2 274 (31.71%) Python
3 27 (3.13%) PL/SQL
4 24 (2.78%) Java
5 15 (1.74%) Bash
6 13 (1.50%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 13 (1.50%) T-SQL
7 10 (1.16%) Scala
7 10 (1.16%) Shell Script
8 7 (0.81%) PowerShell
9 3 (0.35%) Bicep
9 3 (0.35%) Go
9 3 (0.35%) R
10 2 (0.23%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.23%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.12%) C++
11 1 (0.12%) COBOL
11 1 (0.12%) Perl
11 1 (0.12%) PHP
Qualifications
1 234 (27.08%) Security Cleared
2 196 (22.69%) SC Cleared
3 20 (2.31%) DV Cleared
4 18 (2.08%) Degree
5 17 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (0.81%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.46%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.46%) CISM
8 4 (0.46%) CISSP
8 4 (0.46%) City & Guilds
9 3 (0.35%) CEH
9 3 (0.35%) Master's Degree
9 3 (0.35%) SnowPro
10 1 (0.12%) CISA
10 1 (0.12%) CRISC
10 1 (0.12%) ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
10 1 (0.12%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 1 (0.12%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 175 (20.25%) Data Quality
2 39 (4.51%) QA
3 12 (1.39%) GDPR
4 7 (0.81%) SLA
5 6 (0.69%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.58%) FATCA
6 5 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.12%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 1 (0.12%) COBIT
8 1 (0.12%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.12%) GRC
8 1 (0.12%) NIST
8 1 (0.12%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
8 1 (0.12%) WCAG
System Software
1 28 (3.24%) Docker
2 1 (0.12%) HDFS
2 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 24 (2.78%) Kubernetes
2 19 (2.20%) Grafana
3 9 (1.04%) Ansible
4 2 (0.23%) Control-M
4 2 (0.23%) Kibana
4 2 (0.23%) logstash
4 2 (0.23%) Prometheus
5 1 (0.12%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 147 (17.01%) Databricks
2 97 (11.23%) Microsoft
3 92 (10.65%) Oracle
4 63 (7.29%) Talend
5 47 (5.44%) Informatica
6 29 (3.36%) Denodo
7 27 (3.13%) Google
8 23 (2.66%) Cisco
8 23 (2.66%) F5
9 18 (2.08%) SAP
10 17 (1.97%) Salesforce
11 10 (1.16%) Palantir
12 7 (0.81%) Foundry
12 7 (0.81%) Sage
13 6 (0.69%) Cloudera
13 6 (0.69%) InterSystems
13 6 (0.69%) SYSPRO
14 5 (0.58%) Infor
15 4 (0.46%) Dynatrace
15 4 (0.46%) PagerDuty