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 31 October 2026.
The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.
| 6 months to 31 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | 77 | 124 | 94 |
| Rank change year-on-year | +47 | -30 | +33 |
| Contract Data Engineer jobs | 1,867 | 793 | 903 |
| As % of all contract jobs in the UK | 3.43% | 2.31% | 2.47% |
| As % of the Job Titles category | 3.74% | 2.54% | 2.66% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 1,255 | 570 | 623 |
| 10th Percentile | £369 | £360 | £363 |
| 25th Percentile | £425 | £413 | £450 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £500 | £500 | £538 |
| Median % change year-on-year | - | -6.98% | -0.46% |
| 75th Percentile | £600 | £598 | £625 |
| 90th Percentile | £675 | £694 | £688 |
| UK excluding London median daily rate | £475 | £475 | £500 |
| % change year-on-year | - | -5.00% | -4.76% |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 55 | 13 | 8 |
| 10th Percentile | £21.25 | £25.34 | £25.90 |
| 25th Percentile | £30.96 | £35.25 | £26.44 |
| Median hourly rate | £45.00 | £52.50 | £55.25 |
| Median % change year-on-year | -14.29% | -4.98% | -12.30% |
| 75th Percentile | £68.38 | £80.00 | £97.50 |
| 90th Percentile | £70.00 | £105.50 | - |
| UK excluding London median hourly rate | £58.50 | £45.75 | £26.50 |
| % change year-on-year | +27.87% | +72.64% | -53.51% |
All Contract IT Job Roles
UK
For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job adverts matching a recognised job title. The table also shows what proportion of all contract IT job adverts they make up.
| 6 months to 31 Oct 2026 |
Same period 2025 | Same period 2024 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contract job adverts in the UK matching a recognised job title | 49,938 | 31,221 | 33,983 |
| % of contract job adverts matching a recognised job title | 91.64% | 90.95% | 92.91% |
| Number of daily rates quoted | 29,355 | 19,779 | 20,508 |
| 10th Percentile | £328 | £279 | £300 |
| 25th Percentile | £425 | £401 | £412 |
| Median daily rate (50th Percentile) | £525 | £500 | £525 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +5.00% | -4.76% | - |
| 75th Percentile | £638 | £619 | £638 |
| 90th Percentile | £738 | £725 | £738 |
| UK excluding London median daily rate | £500 | £475 | £490 |
| % change year-on-year | +5.26% | -3.06% | -2.00% |
| Number of hourly rates quoted | 4,233 | 1,754 | 1,296 |
| 10th Percentile | £14.22 | £14.00 | £15.08 |
| 25th Percentile | £18.50 | £17.50 | £20.28 |
| Median hourly rate | £40.00 | £25.15 | £38.14 |
| Median % change year-on-year | +59.05% | -34.05% | -15.26% |
| 75th Percentile | £68.00 | £51.02 | £65.00 |
| 90th Percentile | £81.25 | £69.65 | £73.75 |
| UK excluding London median hourly rate | £40.00 | £25.13 | £37.50 |
| % change year-on-year | +59.19% | -32.99% | -15.73% |
Data Engineer Job Vacancy Trend
Historical trend showing the proportion of contract Data Engineer job postings relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.
Data Engineer Daily Rate Trend
Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK.
Data Engineer Daily Rate Histogram
Daily rate distribution for Data Engineer jobs over the 6 months to 31 October 2026.
Data Engineer Hourly Rate Trend
Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Data Engineer job vacancies in the UK.
Data Engineer Hourly Rate Histogram
Hourly rate distribution for Data Engineer jobs over the 6 months to 31 October 2026.
Data Engineer Top 18 Contract Job Locations
The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in Data Engineer jobs within the UK over the 6 months to 31 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | +57 | 1,623 | £500 | -2.44% | 259 |
| London | +27 | 829 | £528 | +0.48% | 84 |
| UK excluding London | +74 | 814 | £475 | - | 206 |
| Work from Home | +35 | 550 | £500 | - | 101 |
| Midlands | +58 | 303 | £469 | -6.90% | 39 |
| West Midlands | +49 | 218 | £470 | -9.38% | 31 |
| North of England | +23 | 199 | £525 | +17.98% | 69 |
| South East | +16 | 119 | £454 | -4.42% | 44 |
| South West | +28 | 113 | £550 | - | 34 |
| North West | +18 | 94 | £525 | +30.43% | 28 |
| Yorkshire | +7 | 89 | £510 | +0.74% | 24 |
| East Midlands | +43 | 85 | £388 | -15.76% | 8 |
| Scotland | -6 | 58 | £525 | +20.00% | 4 |
| East of England | +8 | 35 | £525 | -16.00% | 8 |
| North East | -25 | 17 | £520 | +24.92% | 17 |
| Wales | -4 | 15 | £550 | +29.41% | 3 |
| Northern Ireland | +3 | 1 | - | - | 6 |
| Channel Islands | - | 1 | - | - |
Data Engineer Skill Set Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities
For the 6 months to 31 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.
| Rank | Skill | Share | Job Ads |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SQL | 50.7% | 947 |
| 2 | Python | 46.4% | 867 |
| 3 | Data Pipeline | 44.0% | 822 |
| 4 | Data Engineering | 42.9% | 801 |
| 5 | ETL | 36.4% | 680 |
| 6 | Data Modelling | 35.2% | 657 |
| 7 | Analytics | 33.4% | 623 |
| 8 | AWS | 32.4% | 605 |
| 9 | Azure | 31.3% | 585 |
| 10 | Data Quality | 28.8% | 537 |
| 11 | CI/CD | 26.4% | 492 |
| 12 | Security Cleared | 25.8% | 481 |
| 13 | Databricks | 23.5% | 438 |
| 14 | SC Cleared | 22.0% | 411 |
| 15 | Agile | 18.1% | 338 |
| 16 | AI | 17.8% | 333 |
| 17 | DevOps | 16.8% | 313 |
| 18 | Data Warehouse | 16.4% | 306 |
| 19 | Migration | 16.1% | 301 |
| 20 | Data Transformation | 15.4% | 288 |
| 21 | Validation | 15.1% | 281 |
| 22 | Data Governance | 14.8% | 276 |
| 23 | PySpark | 14.4% | 269 |
| 24 | Data Integration | 14.1% | 263 |
| 25 | Business Intelligence | 13.8% | 257 |
| 26 | Microsoft | 13.3% | 248 |
| 27 | dbt | 12.5% | 234 |
| 28 | Snowflake | 12.1% | 226 |
| 29 | Problem-Solving | 11.2% | 210 |
| 30 | Azure Data Factory | 11.2% | 209 |
Data Engineer Skill Set Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 | 20.1% | 375 |
| 2 | AWS Engineer | 7.3% | 137 |
| 3 | Azure Engineer | 6.7% | 126 |
| 4 | AWS Data Engineer | 6.5% | 122 |
| 5 | Azure Data Engineer | 6.2% | 116 |
| 6 | Databricks Data Engineer | 6.1% | 114 |
| 7 | Lead Data Engineer | 5.5% | 102 |
| 8 | Snowflake Engineer | 5.4% | 101 |
| 9 | Snowflake Data Engineer | 5.1% | 96 |
| 10 | Python Engineer | 4.9% | 91 |
| 11 | Platform Engineer | 4.7% | 88 |
| 12 | Python Data Engineer | 4.0% | 75 |
| 13 | GCP Engineer | 3.3% | 62 |
| 14 | GCP Data Engineer | 3.1% | 58 |
| 15 | Migration Engineer | 2.2% | 42 |
| 16 | Data Migration Engineer | 2.1% | 39 |
| 17 | Security Engineer | 1.8% | 34 |
| 18 | Artificial Intelligence Engineer | 1.8% | 33 |
| 19 | Cloud Engineer | 1.6% | 29 |
| 19 | Data Analytics Engineer | 1.6% | 29 |