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 24 October 2026.
The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.
| 6 months to 24 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 85 | 166 | 125 |
| Rank change year-on-year | +81 | -41 | +60 |
| Contract Data Engineer jobs | 835 | 259 | 307 |
| As % of all contract jobs in the UK excluding London | 2.94% | 1.59% | 1.81% |
| As % of the Job Titles category | 3.25% | 1.77% | 1.96% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 487 | 182 | 198 |
| 10th Percentile | £361 | £338 | £319 |
| 25th Percentile | £413 | £402 | £420 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £475 | £475 | £500 |
| Median % change year-on-year | - | -5.00% | -4.76% |
| 75th Percentile | £564 | £539 | £579 |
| 90th Percentile | £638 | £625 | £632 |
| UK median daily rate | £500 | £500 | £538 |
| % change year-on-year | - | -6.98% | -2.27% |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 53 | 4 | 3 |
| 10th Percentile | £21.25 | £20.25 | £25.37 |
| 25th Percentile | £30.96 | £23.95 | £25.80 |
| Median hourly rate | £52.50 | £45.75 | £26.50 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +14.75% | +72.64% | -53.51% |
| 75th Percentile | £68.00 | £71.94 | £43.25 |
| 90th Percentile | £70.00 | £76.78 | £53.30 |
| UK median hourly rate | £45.00 | £52.50 | £55.25 |
| % change year-on-year | -14.29% | -4.98% | -12.30% |
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 adverts in the UK excluding London matching a recognised job title. The table also shows what proportion of all contract IT job adverts they make up.
| 6 months to 24 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract job adverts in the UK excluding London matching a recognised job title | 25,717 | 14,597 | 15,672 |
| % of contract job adverts matching a recognised job title | 90.66% | 89.51% | 92.18% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 13,820 | 9,007 | 8,944 |
| 10th Percentile | £300 | £210 | £220 |
| 25th Percentile | £411 | £363 | £375 |
| 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 | 3,635 | 1,385 | 1,135 |
| 10th Percentile | £14.11 | £13.60 | £14.73 |
| 25th Percentile | £18.31 | £16.50 | £19.50 |
| Median hourly rate | £40.00 | £25.00 | £40.00 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +60.00% | -37.50% | -8.88% |
| 75th Percentile | £68.00 | £50.00 | £65.00 |
| 90th Percentile | £79.00 | £70.00 | £73.75 |
| UK median hourly rate | £41.00 | £25.15 | £40.00 |
| % change year-on-year | +63.02% | -37.13% | -10.11% |
Data Engineer Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London
Historical trend showing the proportion of contract Data Engineer job postings 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 Data Engineer jobs in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 24 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 for Data Engineer jobs in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 24 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 Data Engineer jobs within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 24 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 |
Job Ads Past 6 Months |
Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months |
Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year |
Live Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Midlands | +70 | 315 | £469 | -6.20% | 111 |
| West Midlands | +51 | 230 | £469 | -8.93% | 75 |
| North of England | +26 | 196 | £525 | +17.98% | 251 |
| South East | +20 | 123 | £459 | -3.37% | 119 |
| South West | +30 | 118 | £540 | +1.65% | 77 |
| North West | +12 | 98 | £525 | +26.51% | 124 |
| East Midlands | +39 | 85 | £388 | -15.76% | 36 |
| Yorkshire | +8 | 82 | £512 | -0.17% | 66 |
| Scotland | -7 | 66 | £525 | +20.00% | 52 |
| East of England | +7 | 35 | £525 | -16.00% | 34 |
| North East | -29 | 17 | £520 | +24.92% | 61 |
| Wales | 0 | 16 | £550 | +19.57% | 18 |
| Northern Ireland | +3 | 1 | - | - | 26 |
| Channel Islands | - | 1 | - | - | |
| 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 24 October 2026, Data Engineer contract job ads cited 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 Data Engineer job ads across the UK excluding London region.
| Rank | Skill | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SQL | 45.5% | 380 |
| 2 | Data Pipeline | 38.1% | 318 |
| 3 | Python | 35.3% | 295 |
| 4 | Data Engineering | 34.9% | 291 |
| 5 | ETL | 33.1% | 276 |
| 6 | Data Modelling | 32.3% | 270 |
| 7 | Analytics | 32.2% | 269 |
| 8 | AWS | 28.9% | 241 |
| 9 | Security Cleared | 26.2% | 219 |
| 10 | Azure | 24.1% | 201 |
| 11 | Data Quality | 22.3% | 186 |
| 12 | SC Cleared | 21.2% | 177 |
| 13 | CI/CD | 18.8% | 157 |
| 14 | Data Integration | 18.0% | 150 |
| 15 | Databricks | 17.4% | 145 |
| 16 | Migration | 16.8% | 140 |
| 17 | DevOps | 15.9% | 133 |
| 18 | Agile | 15.0% | 125 |
| 19 | Validation | 14.9% | 124 |
| 20 | Business Intelligence | 14.6% | 122 |
| 21 | AI | 13.9% | 116 |
| 22 | Problem-Solving | 13.2% | 110 |
| 23 | Data Governance | 12.6% | 105 |
| 24 | Data Transformation | 12.3% | 103 |
| 25 | Data Warehouse | 11.5% | 96 |
| 25 | Microsoft | 11.5% | 96 |
| 27 | Power Platform | 11.4% | 95 |
| 28 | Power BI | 10.9% | 91 |
| 29 | PySpark | 9.6% | 80 |
| 30 | Data Migration | 9.1% | 76 |
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 | 19.6% | 164 |
| 2 | AWS Engineer | 8.5% | 71 |
| 3 | AWS Data Engineer | 6.9% | 58 |
| 4 | Platform Engineer | 6.8% | 57 |
| 5 | Snowflake Engineer | 4.7% | 39 |
| 6 | Snowflake Data Engineer | 4.3% | 36 |
| 7 | Azure Engineer | 3.4% | 28 |
| 7 | Security Engineer | 3.4% | 28 |
| 9 | Azure Data Engineer | 3.0% | 25 |
| 9 | Databricks Data Engineer | 3.0% | 25 |
| 11 | Senior Platform Engineer | 2.8% | 23 |
| 12 | Data Science Engineer | 2.4% | 20 |
| 13 | Cisco Network Engineer | 2.2% | 18 |
| 13 | Cisco Security Engineer | 2.2% | 18 |
| 13 | Data Network Engineer | 2.2% | 18 |
| 13 | Network Security Engineer | 2.2% | 18 |
| 13 | Python Engineer | 2.2% | 18 |
| 18 | Data Migration Engineer | 2.0% | 17 |
| 19 | GCP Engineer | 1.9% | 16 |
| 20 | GCP Data Engineer | 1.8% | 15 |