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 £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 16 April 2026.

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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 81 96 137
Rank change year-on-year +15 +41 +17
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 616 317 326
As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London 2.65% 2.50% 1.56%
As % of the Job Titles category 2.89% 2.70% 1.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 438 233 245
10th Percentile £365 £231 £164
25th Percentile £410 £390 £206
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £463 £453
Median % change year-on-year +1.56% +2.10% -11.61%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £544
90th Percentile £588 £638 £630
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 37 5 33
10th Percentile £26.03 £21.03 £37.50
25th Percentile £41.28 £25.25 £58.75
Median hourly rate £52.50 £26.50 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +98.11% -64.67% +72.41%
75th Percentile £71.50 £28.38 £80.00
90th Percentile £80.90 £58.57 -
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £52.50 £66.25
% change year-on-year +1.90% -20.75% +3.52%

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 21,338 11,722 19,305
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.95% 92.28% 92.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 12,624 7,599 11,926
10th Percentile £270 £213 £213
25th Percentile £400 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £490
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
75th Percentile £588 £582 £599
90th Percentile £675 £656 £688
UK median daily rate £500 £517 £525
% change year-on-year -3.29% -1.52% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,338 783 2,164
10th Percentile £14.40 £14.20 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.73 £18.30 £15.50
Median hourly rate £42.69 £30.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +42.28% -14.29% -17.38%
75th Percentile £65.25 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.45 £72.90
UK median hourly rate £41.94 £30.79 £35.00
% change year-on-year +36.20% -12.02% -22.22%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 +20 267 £469 -1.26% 47
West Midlands +22 247 £469 -1.68% 42
North of England -11 177 £465 +0.54% 95
North West +2 110 £450 -2.70% 63
South East -15 79 £500 - 79
South West -10 52 £520 +5.32% 30
Yorkshire -30 52 £465 +3.33% 25
Scotland -2 41 £401 -10.89% 8
East Midlands -25 20 £455 +14.11% 5
Wales -5 19 £425 -15.42% 6
East of England -35 16 £565 +79.37% 22
North East -17 15 £488 +8.33% 11
Northern Ireland +1 3 £410 -18.00% 1
Data Engineer
UK

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

For the 6 months to 16 April 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.

1 321 (52.11%) SQL
2 253 (41.07%) ETL
3 244 (39.61%) Analytics
4 242 (39.29%) Data Pipeline
5 220 (35.71%) Data Engineering
6 211 (34.25%) Python
7 209 (33.93%) Security Cleared
8 207 (33.60%) Data Modelling
9 180 (29.22%) SC Cleared
10 154 (25.00%) Azure
11 150 (24.35%) Data Quality
12 145 (23.54%) Business Intelligence
13 139 (22.56%) CI/CD
14 130 (21.10%) Agile
15 122 (19.81%) AWS
16 114 (18.51%) Problem-Solving
17 106 (17.21%) Databricks
18 97 (15.75%) Data Integration
18 97 (15.75%) Talend
19 96 (15.58%) DevOps
20 92 (14.94%) Git
20 92 (14.94%) Oracle
21 87 (14.12%) Power Platform
22 83 (13.47%) Data Warehouse
23 82 (13.31%) Power BI
24 77 (12.50%) PySpark
25 76 (12.34%) Pentaho
26 70 (11.36%) Azure Data Factory
27 68 (11.04%) Migration
28 67 (10.88%) Data Governance

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 63 (10.23%) SAS
2 47 (7.63%) Apache Spark
3 40 (6.49%) Apache Airflow
4 30 (4.87%) Apache
5 6 (0.97%) Confluence
6 3 (0.49%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.16%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.16%) Apache Synapse
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
7 1 (0.16%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (0.81%) Notepad++
2 1 (0.16%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.16%) Elite 3E
1 1 (0.16%) NEC Housing
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle 11i
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 154 (25.00%) Azure
2 122 (19.81%) AWS
3 87 (14.12%) Power Platform
4 70 (11.36%) Azure Data Factory
5 52 (8.44%) Snowflake
6 42 (6.82%) dbt
7 39 (6.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 34 (5.52%) GCP
9 32 (5.19%) Amazon S3
10 27 (4.38%) GitHub
11 25 (4.06%) Serverless
12 19 (3.08%) Azure DevOps
12 19 (3.08%) OpenShift
13 18 (2.92%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (2.27%) Matillion
15 11 (1.79%) GitHub Actions
16 10 (1.62%) AWS CloudFormation
17 9 (1.46%) AWS Step Functions
17 9 (1.46%) Power Automate
18 7 (1.14%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 27 (4.38%) DNS
1 27 (4.38%) VPN
2 26 (4.22%) BGP
2 26 (4.22%) DMZ
2 26 (4.22%) Multicast
3 10 (1.62%) Structured Cabling
4 5 (0.81%) PuTTY
4 5 (0.81%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 83 (13.47%) Data Warehouse
2 82 (13.31%) Power BI
3 76 (12.34%) Pentaho
4 41 (6.66%) Data Lake
5 35 (5.68%) Amazon Redshift
6 29 (4.71%) Big Data
7 28 (4.55%) SQL Server
8 27 (4.38%) Hadoop
9 26 (4.22%) PostgreSQL
10 25 (4.06%) MySQL
11 24 (3.90%) Delta Lake
12 22 (3.57%) Relational Database
13 19 (3.08%) Metadata
13 19 (3.08%) NoSQL
13 19 (3.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 15 (2.44%) BigQuery
14 15 (2.44%) Snowflake Schema
14 15 (2.44%) Tableau
15 13 (2.11%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (2.11%) Azure SQL Database
Development Applications
1 92 (14.94%) Git
2 44 (7.14%) Jenkins
3 39 (6.33%) GitLab
4 38 (6.17%) JIRA
5 4 (0.65%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.32%) JUnit
6 2 (0.32%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.16%) Cucumber
7 1 (0.16%) DBeaver
7 1 (0.16%) ER Studio
7 1 (0.16%) ERwin
7 1 (0.16%) Maven
7 1 (0.16%) Mockito
7 1 (0.16%) Selenium
General
1 103 (16.72%) Social Skills
2 62 (10.06%) Analytical Skills
2 62 (10.06%) Public Sector
3 61 (9.90%) Finance
4 32 (5.19%) Banking
5 15 (2.44%) Investment Banking
6 12 (1.95%) Manufacturing
7 11 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (1.62%) Aerospace
9 8 (1.30%) Telecoms
10 6 (0.97%) Retail
11 4 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 4 (0.65%) Legal
11 4 (0.65%) Local Government
11 4 (0.65%) Marketing
12 3 (0.49%) Law
13 2 (0.32%) Advertising
13 2 (0.32%) Military
13 2 (0.32%) Presentation Skills
13 2 (0.32%) Publishing
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 77 (12.50%) PySpark
2 60 (9.74%) Kafka
3 19 (3.08%) JSON
4 15 (2.44%) REST
5 11 (1.79%) Pandas
6 9 (1.46%) Keycloak
6 9 (1.46%) Node.js
7 8 (1.30%) Apache Avro
7 8 (1.30%) Apache Beam
7 8 (1.30%) Protocol Buffers
8 7 (1.14%) XML
9 6 (0.97%) OpenTelemetry
10 5 (0.81%) Apache NiFi
10 5 (0.81%) React
10 5 (0.81%) YAML
11 4 (0.65%) AngularJS
11 4 (0.65%) NumPy
11 4 (0.65%) pytest
11 4 (0.65%) Streamlit
12 3 (0.49%) AWS CDK
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.06%) Cloud Native
2 18 (2.92%) Legacy Systems
3 14 (2.27%) Clustering
4 13 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
4 13 (2.11%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (1.95%) Data Structures
5 12 (1.95%) Hybrid Cloud
6 11 (1.79%) Product Ownership
7 8 (1.30%) Data Centre
8 7 (1.14%) Driving Licence
8 7 (1.14%) Greenfield Project
9 6 (0.97%) Fibre Optics
9 6 (0.97%) Linux Command Line
9 6 (0.97%) NHS
9 6 (0.97%) Onboarding
9 6 (0.97%) Replication
10 4 (0.65%) Management Information System
10 4 (0.65%) Public Cloud
11 3 (0.49%) Algorithms
11 3 (0.49%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 30 (4.87%) Unix
2 10 (1.62%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (41.07%) ETL
2 244 (39.61%) Analytics
3 242 (39.29%) Data Pipeline
4 220 (35.71%) Data Engineering
5 207 (33.60%) Data Modelling
6 145 (23.54%) Business Intelligence
7 139 (22.56%) CI/CD
8 130 (21.10%) Agile
9 114 (18.51%) Problem-Solving
10 97 (15.75%) Data Integration
11 96 (15.58%) DevOps
12 68 (11.04%) Migration
13 67 (10.88%) Data Governance
14 65 (10.55%) Scrum
15 56 (9.09%) Test Automation
16 55 (8.93%) Continuous Improvement
17 53 (8.60%) Validation
18 47 (7.63%) Performance Tuning
19 45 (7.31%) Data Analytics
19 45 (7.31%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 321 (52.11%) SQL
2 211 (34.25%) Python
3 37 (6.01%) Java
4 23 (3.73%) PL/SQL
5 16 (2.60%) Shell Script
6 12 (1.95%) Bash
7 11 (1.79%) Go
8 9 (1.46%) PowerShell
9 8 (1.30%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 8 (1.30%) T-SQL
10 7 (1.14%) Scala
11 6 (0.97%) C#
12 5 (0.81%) Bicep
13 3 (0.49%) JavaScript
13 3 (0.49%) R
14 2 (0.32%) HiveQL
15 1 (0.16%) C++
15 1 (0.16%) Groovy
15 1 (0.16%) Perl
15 1 (0.16%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 209 (33.93%) Security Cleared
2 180 (29.22%) SC Cleared
3 15 (2.44%) Degree
4 11 (1.79%) Azure Certification
5 10 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (0.97%) DV Cleared
7 4 (0.65%) BICSI Certification
7 4 (0.65%) City & Guilds
7 4 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (0.65%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.49%) AWS Certification
8 3 (0.49%) IBM Certification
9 2 (0.32%) SnowPro
10 1 (0.16%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.16%) CCIE
10 1 (0.16%) CCNP
10 1 (0.16%) Cisco Certification
10 1 (0.16%) CISM
10 1 (0.16%) CISSP
10 1 (0.16%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 150 (24.35%) Data Quality
2 13 (2.11%) GDPR
3 11 (1.79%) QA
4 5 (0.81%) Accessibility
4 5 (0.81%) SLA
5 4 (0.65%) FATCA
6 2 (0.32%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.32%) WCAG
7 1 (0.16%) Basel III
7 1 (0.16%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.16%) Disclosure Scotland
7 1 (0.16%) GMP
7 1 (0.16%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.16%) NCSC
7 1 (0.16%) NIST
7 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 57 (9.25%) Docker
2 2 (0.32%) HDFS
2 2 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 61 (9.90%) Kubernetes
2 30 (4.87%) Grafana
3 28 (4.55%) Terraform
4 13 (2.11%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.81%) Ansible
6 3 (0.49%) Kibana
6 3 (0.49%) Rancher
7 2 (0.32%) Apache Ranger
7 2 (0.32%) logstash
8 1 (0.16%) Control-M
Vendors
1 106 (17.21%) Databricks
2 97 (15.75%) Talend
3 92 (14.94%) Oracle
4 63 (10.23%) Microsoft
5 56 (9.09%) Informatica
6 50 (8.12%) Denodo
7 28 (4.55%) Cisco
7 28 (4.55%) F5
8 16 (2.60%) Splunk
9 14 (2.27%) ServiceNow
10 11 (1.79%) Google
11 10 (1.62%) Cloudera
11 10 (1.62%) SAP
12 7 (1.14%) Alteryx
13 4 (0.65%) Dataiku
13 4 (0.65%) IBM
13 4 (0.65%) Sage
14 2 (0.32%) Brio
14 2 (0.32%) Cognos
14 2 (0.32%) OpenAI