Data Engineer Contract Job Trends

Data Engineer
UK

The median Data Engineer daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 4 May 2026.

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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 64 82 100
Rank change year-on-year +18 +18 +14
Contract jobs requiring a Data Engineer 1,676 859 961
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 3.55% 2.93% 2.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 3.85% 3.17% 2.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,171 640 750
10th Percentile £375 £358 £263
25th Percentile £415 £423 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.09%
75th Percentile £580 £600 £600
90th Percentile £650 £700 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £463 £460
% change year-on-year +2.70% +0.54% -10.51%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 12 45
10th Percentile £19.34 £25.36 £31.25
25th Percentile £41.28 £37.52 £49.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £58.75 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.64% -9.62% +1.56%
75th Percentile £75.00 £77.80 £80.00
90th Percentile £78.20 £92.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.25 £26.93 £75.00
% change year-on-year +90.34% -64.10% +72.41%

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. 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 with a recognized job title 43,538 27,092 40,027
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.28% 92.49% 92.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,804 17,695 26,061
10th Percentile £315 £300 £280
25th Percentile £413 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.31% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +3.58% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,808 1,048 2,666
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.18 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.50 £16.30
Median hourly rate £44.00 £29.00 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.72% -20.55% -18.89%
75th Percentile £66.06 £62.50 £61.29
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.46 £28.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +62.36% -30.00% -5.35%

Data Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Data Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Data Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Data Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineer over the 6 months to 4 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineer in the UK

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Data Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineer over the 6 months to 4 May 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineer in the UK

Data Engineer
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

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 over the 6 months to 4 May 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
England +22 1,470 £500 - 437
London +21 807 £525 - 178
UK excluding London +26 679 £475 +2.70% 324
Work from Home +17 486 £500 - 234
Midlands +33 289 £469 +1.68% 68
West Midlands +33 271 £469 -1.26% 48
North of England -14 185 £473 +2.16% 95
North West -1 118 £500 +8.11% 55
South East -5 87 £500 +5.26% 90
South West -6 64 £503 +1.77% 32
Scotland +5 57 £430 -4.44% 13
Yorkshire -22 52 £465 +3.33% 18
Wales +3 20 £475 +130.23% 14
East Midlands -26 18 £498 +21.34% 20
East of England -34 17 £565 +79.37% 14
North East -22 15 £463 +8.82% 23
Northern Ireland +3 3 £410 -18.00%

Data Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 May 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 featuring Data Engineer in the job title.

1 907 (54.12%) SQL
2 783 (46.72%) Python
3 701 (41.83%) Data Pipeline
4 645 (38.48%) ETL
5 638 (38.07%) Analytics
6 612 (36.52%) Data Engineering
7 591 (35.26%) Azure
8 570 (34.01%) Data Modelling
9 500 (29.83%) Security Cleared
10 446 (26.61%) SC Cleared
11 436 (26.01%) AWS
12 435 (25.95%) Data Quality
13 416 (24.82%) CI/CD
13 416 (24.82%) Databricks
14 367 (21.90%) Business Intelligence
15 325 (19.39%) Agile
16 308 (18.38%) DevOps
17 291 (17.36%) Data Warehouse
17 291 (17.36%) Power Platform
18 275 (16.41%) Power BI
19 269 (16.05%) PySpark
20 243 (14.50%) Data Governance
21 239 (14.26%) Azure Data Factory
22 234 (13.96%) Problem-Solving
23 222 (13.25%) Microsoft
24 203 (12.11%) Migration
25 200 (11.93%) Git
26 196 (11.69%) AI
27 189 (11.28%) Data Integration
28 183 (10.92%) Data Lake

Data Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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
1 165 (9.84%) Apache Spark
2 153 (9.13%) Apache Airflow
3 97 (5.79%) Apache
4 77 (4.59%) SAS
5 32 (1.91%) Confluence
6 11 (0.66%) Palantir Foundry
7 9 (0.54%) Jupyter
8 5 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
9 4 (0.24%) SharePoint
10 2 (0.12%) Luigi
11 1 (0.060%) Apache Superset
11 1 (0.060%) Appian
11 1 (0.060%) Camunda
11 1 (0.060%) R Markdown
Applications
1 22 (1.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.42%) Notepad++
3 4 (0.24%) Chatbot
3 4 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.060%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.12%) Aladdin
1 2 (0.12%) BambooHR
1 2 (0.12%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.12%) SAP BPC
1 2 (0.12%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.060%) Actimize
2 1 (0.060%) Elite 3E
2 1 (0.060%) iTrent
2 1 (0.060%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.060%) Oracle 11i
2 1 (0.060%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.060%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.060%) SAP Business ByDesign
2 1 (0.060%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 591 (35.26%) Azure
2 436 (26.01%) AWS
3 291 (17.36%) Power Platform
4 239 (14.26%) Azure Data Factory
5 169 (10.08%) Snowflake
6 168 (10.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 154 (9.19%) GCP
8 151 (9.01%) Amazon S3
9 140 (8.35%) dbt
10 128 (7.64%) Azure DevOps
11 118 (7.04%) GitHub
12 108 (6.44%) Serverless
13 85 (5.07%) AWS Lambda
14 51 (3.04%) GitHub Actions
15 40 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
16 33 (1.97%) Amazon EMR
17 28 (1.67%) Amazon Kinesis
17 28 (1.67%) Matillion
18 25 (1.49%) AWS Step Functions
19 24 (1.43%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 31 (1.85%) DNS
1 31 (1.85%) VPN
2 30 (1.79%) BGP
2 30 (1.79%) DMZ
2 30 (1.79%) Multicast
3 10 (0.60%) Structured Cabling
4 7 (0.42%) PuTTY
4 7 (0.42%) WinSCP
5 5 (0.30%) Firewall
6 3 (0.18%) SAN
7 2 (0.12%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.12%) Wireless
8 1 (0.060%) 4G
8 1 (0.060%) 5G
8 1 (0.060%) MQTT
8 1 (0.060%) Network Security
8 1 (0.060%) Software-Defined Networking
Database & Business Intelligence
1 291 (17.36%) Data Warehouse
2 275 (16.41%) Power BI
3 183 (10.92%) Data Lake
4 122 (7.28%) SQL Server
5 102 (6.09%) Delta Lake
6 95 (5.67%) Metadata
7 93 (5.55%) BigQuery
8 91 (5.43%) Big Data
9 90 (5.37%) Amazon Redshift
10 85 (5.07%) Azure SQL Database
11 82 (4.89%) Pentaho
12 71 (4.24%) Tableau
13 69 (4.12%) PostgreSQL
14 67 (4.00%) NoSQL
15 62 (3.70%) Snowflake Schema
16 60 (3.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 58 (3.46%) Amazon Athena
18 51 (3.04%) Relational Database
19 43 (2.57%) Hadoop
20 36 (2.15%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 200 (11.93%) Git
2 84 (5.01%) JIRA
3 74 (4.42%) GitLab
4 63 (3.76%) Jenkins
5 19 (1.13%) MLflow
6 4 (0.24%) Bitbucket
7 2 (0.12%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.12%) Sonatype Nexus
7 2 (0.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.12%) Visual Studio
8 1 (0.060%) ER Studio
8 1 (0.060%) ERwin
8 1 (0.060%) Jaeger
8 1 (0.060%) JUnit
8 1 (0.060%) Poetry
8 1 (0.060%) Selenium
8 1 (0.060%) Team Foundation Server
8 1 (0.060%) Terragrunt
General
1 268 (15.99%) Finance
2 256 (15.27%) Social Skills
3 185 (11.04%) Analytical Skills
4 136 (8.11%) Public Sector
5 87 (5.19%) Banking
6 32 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 25 (1.49%) Investment Banking
8 23 (1.37%) Documentation Skills
9 21 (1.25%) Telecoms
10 19 (1.13%) Marketing
11 18 (1.07%) Retail
12 15 (0.89%) Manufacturing
13 13 (0.78%) Aerospace
13 13 (0.78%) Front Office
14 12 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
15 11 (0.66%) Publishing
16 8 (0.48%) Law
16 8 (0.48%) Military
17 6 (0.36%) Legal
18 5 (0.30%) Games
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 269 (16.05%) PySpark
2 154 (9.19%) Kafka
3 57 (3.40%) Pandas
4 32 (1.91%) REST
5 31 (1.85%) JSON
6 29 (1.73%) YAML
7 25 (1.49%) Great Expectations
8 21 (1.25%) Spring
8 21 (1.25%) Spring Boot
9 16 (0.95%) scikit-learn
10 15 (0.89%) Apache Beam
10 15 (0.89%) NumPy
11 14 (0.84%) Matplotlib
11 14 (0.84%) Node.js
11 14 (0.84%) PyTorch
12 13 (0.78%) Apache Avro
13 12 (0.72%) React
13 12 (0.72%) XML
14 10 (0.60%) pytest
14 10 (0.60%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 118 (7.04%) Cloud Native
2 44 (2.63%) Legacy Systems
3 41 (2.45%) Data Structures
4 33 (1.97%) Product Ownership
5 28 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
6 25 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
7 21 (1.25%) Clustering
8 20 (1.19%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (1.13%) Onboarding
10 15 (0.89%) NHS
10 15 (0.89%) Reinsurance
11 14 (0.84%) Replication
12 13 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
13 12 (0.72%) Public Cloud
14 10 (0.60%) Hybrid Cloud
15 9 (0.54%) AI Agents
15 9 (0.54%) Distributed Computing
16 8 (0.48%) Algorithms
16 8 (0.48%) Analytical Mindset
16 8 (0.48%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 48 (2.86%) Unix
2 36 (2.15%) Linux
3 4 (0.24%) Windows
4 2 (0.12%) VMS
4 2 (0.12%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.060%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 701 (41.83%) Data Pipeline
2 645 (38.48%) ETL
3 638 (38.07%) Analytics
4 612 (36.52%) Data Engineering
5 570 (34.01%) Data Modelling
6 416 (24.82%) CI/CD
7 367 (21.90%) Business Intelligence
8 325 (19.39%) Agile
9 308 (18.38%) DevOps
10 243 (14.50%) Data Governance
11 234 (13.96%) Problem-Solving
12 203 (12.11%) Migration
13 196 (11.69%) AI
14 189 (11.28%) Data Integration
15 181 (10.80%) Data Science
16 168 (10.02%) Validation
17 140 (8.35%) Data Architecture
18 139 (8.29%) Data Transformation
19 138 (8.23%) Decision-Making
20 137 (8.17%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 907 (54.12%) SQL
2 783 (46.72%) Python
3 116 (6.92%) Java
4 85 (5.07%) Scala
5 39 (2.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 37 (2.21%) C#
7 35 (2.09%) PL/SQL
8 34 (2.03%) T-SQL
9 29 (1.73%) Shell Script
10 27 (1.61%) Bash
11 21 (1.25%) Bicep
12 19 (1.13%) PowerShell
12 19 (1.13%) R
13 18 (1.07%) JavaScript
14 9 (0.54%) Go
15 7 (0.42%) TypeScript
16 3 (0.18%) C
17 2 (0.12%) C++
17 2 (0.12%) Perl
17 2 (0.12%) VB
Qualifications
1 500 (29.83%) Security Cleared
2 446 (26.61%) SC Cleared
3 43 (2.57%) Degree
4 34 (2.03%) BPSS Clearance
5 33 (1.97%) Azure Certification
6 16 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (0.95%) DV Cleared
7 12 (0.72%) AWS Certification
8 8 (0.48%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.42%) City & Guilds
9 7 (0.42%) DBS Check
10 6 (0.36%) Microsoft Certification
10 6 (0.36%) SnowPro
11 5 (0.30%) BICSI Certification
12 3 (0.18%) CISSP
12 3 (0.18%) CTC Cleared
12 3 (0.18%) IBM Certification
13 2 (0.12%) CISM
14 1 (0.060%) CISA
14 1 (0.060%) Cisco Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 435 (25.95%) Data Quality
2 53 (3.16%) GDPR
3 48 (2.86%) QA
4 17 (1.01%) Accessibility
5 9 (0.54%) FATCA
5 9 (0.54%) SLA
6 5 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.30%) MiFID
7 3 (0.18%) GMP
7 3 (0.18%) HIPAA
7 3 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.18%) WCAG
8 2 (0.12%) EMIR
8 2 (0.12%) GRC
8 2 (0.12%) SNOMED CT
9 1 (0.060%) Basel III
9 1 (0.060%) Disclosure Scotland
9 1 (0.060%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.060%) ISO 13485
9 1 (0.060%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 116 (6.92%) Docker
2 6 (0.36%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.12%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.12%) HDFS
4 1 (0.060%) RACF
Systems Management
1 182 (10.86%) Terraform
2 101 (6.03%) Kubernetes
3 52 (3.10%) Grafana
4 14 (0.84%) Prometheus
5 13 (0.78%) Ansible
6 10 (0.60%) Kibana
7 4 (0.24%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.18%) logstash
8 3 (0.18%) Rancher
9 2 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
9 2 (0.12%) EMC NetWorker
9 2 (0.12%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 2 (0.12%) Tivoli Storage Manager
10 1 (0.060%) Control-M
10 1 (0.060%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.060%) NetBackup
10 1 (0.060%) Puppet
10 1 (0.060%) QRadar
Vendors
1 416 (24.82%) Databricks
2 222 (13.25%) Microsoft
3 136 (8.11%) Oracle
4 113 (6.74%) Informatica
5 109 (6.50%) Talend
6 64 (3.82%) Denodo
7 62 (3.70%) Google
8 35 (2.09%) Cisco
9 32 (1.91%) F5
10 26 (1.55%) Splunk
11 25 (1.49%) SAP
12 22 (1.31%) ServiceNow
13 18 (1.07%) IBM
14 16 (0.95%) Cloudera
15 14 (0.84%) Foundry
16 12 (0.72%) Palantir
17 11 (0.66%) Alteryx
18 9 (0.54%) Dynatrace
19 8 (0.48%) InterSystems
19 8 (0.48%) MuleSoft