Data Engineering Contract Job Trends

Data Engineering
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Data Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 29 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 106 164 209
Rank change year-on-year +58 +45 +15
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 932 528 482
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.42% 1.68% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.77% 1.88% 1.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 630 369 361
10th Percentile £363 £375 £369
25th Percentile £428 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £641
90th Percentile £750 £815 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £498 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -0.50% -9.09% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 14 10
10th Percentile £45.58 £21.25 £35.00
25th Percentile £50.94 £22.00 £35.16
Median hourly rate £59.50 £25.43 £42.25
Median % change year-on-year +133.98% -39.81% -43.67%
75th Percentile £70.32 £28.15 £61.31
90th Percentile £78.23 £54.13 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.50 £25.43 £78.00
% change year-on-year +133.98% -67.40% +281.05%

All Process & Methodology Skills
UK

Data Engineering falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 33,625 28,045 38,284
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.37% 89.09% 87.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,290 17,011 25,209
10th Percentile £305 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £640
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -3.86% -0.15% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,022 880 1,958
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.62 £13.50
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.85
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.96
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -9.62% +10.65%
75th Percentile £58.00 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £24.71 £30.45 £37.18
% change year-on-year -18.85% -18.10% +39.38%

Data Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Engineering relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Data Engineering job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Engineering
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Engineering

Data Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering over the 6 months to 29 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Engineering

Data Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineering over the 6 months to 29 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
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 Engineering within the UK over the 6 months to 29 January 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 +46 824 £525 -7.89% 634
London +56 574 £550 -4.35% 243
Work from Home +16 266 £550 - 378
UK excluding London +11 264 £498 -0.50% 529
North of England -20 81 £450 -19.64% 92
Midlands -3 73 £525 +5.00% 56
West Midlands 0 54 £542 +8.30% 31
North West +5 51 £450 -10.00% 47
Scotland +17 42 £402 -15.01% 30
South West -10 34 £550 -17.60% 58
South East -23 30 £513 - 216
East Midlands -9 19 £447 -22.26% 25
Yorkshire -49 16 £500 -14.89% 32
North East -5 14 £425 -28.87% 14
East of England -14 10 £500 +56.25% 62
Wales -13 6 £563 +12.50% 17
Northern Ireland - 3 £430 - 8

Data Engineering
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
1 137 (14.70%) Apache Spark
2 115 (12.34%) Apache Airflow
3 73 (7.83%) Apache
4 15 (1.61%) Confluence
5 6 (0.64%) Appian
6 5 (0.54%) SAS
7 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Exchange
8 2 (0.21%) Jupyter
8 2 (0.21%) SharePoint
9 1 (0.11%) Apache Pig
9 1 (0.11%) Apache Synapse
9 1 (0.11%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.11%) Camunda
9 1 (0.11%) CMS
9 1 (0.11%) Luigi
Applications
1 19 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.64%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.64%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.32%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.32%) Trello
6 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.11%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (0.54%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.32%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.21%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.21%) Markit EDM
3 2 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.11%) Actimize
4 1 (0.11%) Maximo
4 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.11%) SAP BPC
4 1 (0.11%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.11%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 440 (47.21%) Azure
2 326 (34.98%) AWS
3 190 (20.39%) Power Platform
4 169 (18.13%) Azure Data Factory
5 132 (14.16%) GCP
6 129 (13.84%) Snowflake
7 107 (11.48%) Amazon S3
8 106 (11.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 96 (10.30%) GitHub
10 95 (10.19%) Serverless
11 83 (8.91%) dbt
12 79 (8.48%) Azure DevOps
13 72 (7.73%) AWS Lambda
14 67 (7.19%) GitHub Actions
15 44 (4.72%) AWS CloudFormation
16 28 (3.00%) AWS Step Functions
17 23 (2.47%) Cloud Computing
18 22 (2.36%) Amazon SageMaker
18 22 (2.36%) Azure Machine Learning
19 21 (2.25%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.54%) Network Security
2 4 (0.43%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.43%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.32%) Firewall
3 3 (0.32%) VPN
4 2 (0.21%) RTP
5 1 (0.11%) MQTT
5 1 (0.11%) SAN
5 1 (0.11%) SMS
5 1 (0.11%) SSL
5 1 (0.11%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 187 (20.06%) Data Warehouse
2 179 (19.21%) Power BI
3 132 (14.16%) Data Lake
4 80 (8.58%) Metadata
5 62 (6.65%) Big Data
6 61 (6.55%) NoSQL
7 59 (6.33%) SQL Server
8 49 (5.26%) Azure SQL Database
8 49 (5.26%) Delta Lake
8 49 (5.26%) Relational Database
9 48 (5.15%) Snowflake Schema
10 46 (4.94%) Amazon Redshift
11 45 (4.83%) BigQuery
12 42 (4.51%) Amazon Athena
13 40 (4.29%) PostgreSQL
14 35 (3.76%) Hadoop
15 31 (3.33%) Tableau
16 24 (2.58%) RDBMS
17 22 (2.36%) Elasticsearch
17 22 (2.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 138 (14.81%) Git
2 51 (5.47%) GitLab
3 41 (4.40%) Jenkins
4 36 (3.86%) MLflow
5 28 (3.00%) JIRA
6 7 (0.75%) Visual Studio Code
7 4 (0.43%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.43%) Selenium
7 4 (0.43%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.32%) JMeter
8 3 (0.32%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.21%) Gemini Tracker
9 2 (0.21%) Maven
9 2 (0.21%) Mockito
9 2 (0.21%) Poetry
9 2 (0.21%) Postman
9 2 (0.21%) Pylint
9 2 (0.21%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.21%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.21%) TestRail
General
1 261 (28.00%) Social Skills
2 214 (22.96%) Finance
3 124 (13.30%) Analytical Skills
4 71 (7.62%) Public Sector
5 59 (6.33%) Banking
6 23 (2.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (2.15%) Investment Banking
8 16 (1.72%) Front Office
9 15 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.50%) Retail
11 13 (1.39%) Marketing
12 12 (1.29%) Pharmaceutical
13 10 (1.07%) Documentation Skills
14 9 (0.97%) Legal
14 9 (0.97%) Publishing
15 8 (0.86%) Military
16 6 (0.64%) Back Office
16 6 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
17 5 (0.54%) Financial Institution
18 4 (0.43%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 409 (43.88%) Data Engineer
2 118 (12.66%) Senior
3 103 (11.05%) Lead
4 79 (8.48%) Senior Data Engineer
5 74 (7.94%) Azure Engineer
6 69 (7.40%) Architect
7 64 (6.87%) Developer
8 55 (5.90%) Azure Data Engineer
9 46 (4.94%) Analyst
10 42 (4.51%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 42 (4.51%) AWS Engineer
11 41 (4.40%) Snowflake Engineer
12 38 (4.08%) Data Architect
13 35 (3.76%) Data Scientist
13 35 (3.76%) Python Engineer
14 33 (3.54%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 29 (3.11%) Lead Data Engineer
16 28 (3.00%) AWS Data Engineer
17 24 (2.58%) Data Analyst
18 23 (2.47%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 173 (18.56%) PySpark
2 97 (10.41%) Kafka
3 61 (6.55%) Pandas
4 53 (5.69%) PyTorch
5 47 (5.04%) TensorFlow
6 46 (4.94%) NumPy
7 37 (3.97%) FastAPI
8 36 (3.86%) scikit-learn
9 31 (3.33%) Flask
10 25 (2.68%) RESTful
11 24 (2.58%) pytest
11 24 (2.58%) React
12 21 (2.25%) LangChain
12 21 (2.25%) YAML
13 20 (2.15%) REST
14 18 (1.93%) JSON
15 16 (1.72%) Hugging Face
16 15 (1.61%) Spark Streaming
17 14 (1.50%) OAuth
18 13 (1.39%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 100 (10.73%) Cloud Native
2 41 (4.40%) Algorithms
3 30 (3.22%) Product Ownership
4 25 (2.68%) Distributed Computing
5 24 (2.58%) Onboarding
6 22 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
7 20 (2.15%) Data Structures
8 19 (2.04%) Data Protection Act
9 18 (1.93%) Legacy Systems
10 16 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
11 15 (1.61%) AI Agents
12 14 (1.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 13 (1.39%) Analytical Mindset
14 12 (1.29%) Data Fabric
14 12 (1.29%) Hedge funds
15 11 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
15 11 (1.18%) Management Information System
16 10 (1.07%) Clustering
16 10 (1.07%) Fixed Income
16 10 (1.07%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 26 (2.79%) Linux
2 4 (0.43%) VMS
3 3 (0.32%) Unix
4 2 (0.21%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.11%) CentOS
5 1 (0.11%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 418 (44.85%) Data Pipeline
2 378 (40.56%) Analytics
3 361 (38.73%) ETL
4 338 (36.27%) Data Modelling
5 337 (36.16%) CI/CD
6 251 (26.93%) AI
7 242 (25.97%) Data Governance
8 223 (23.93%) Agile
8 223 (23.93%) DevOps
9 210 (22.53%) Machine Learning
10 207 (22.21%) Business Intelligence
11 191 (20.49%) Data Science
12 189 (20.28%) Problem-Solving
13 163 (17.49%) Data Architecture
14 115 (12.34%) Infrastructure as Code
15 98 (10.52%) Containerisation
15 98 (10.52%) Data Integration
16 94 (10.09%) Decision-Making
17 93 (9.98%) Data Transformation
18 92 (9.87%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 568 (60.94%) Python
2 462 (49.57%) SQL
3 62 (6.65%) Java
4 60 (6.44%) Scala
5 36 (3.86%) C#
6 35 (3.76%) JavaScript
7 28 (3.00%) PowerShell
8 21 (2.25%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 19 (2.04%) Bash
10 18 (1.93%) Bicep
10 18 (1.93%) C++
10 18 (1.93%) R
11 17 (1.82%) T-SQL
11 17 (1.82%) TypeScript
12 15 (1.61%) PL/SQL
13 14 (1.50%) Go
14 11 (1.18%) Rust
14 11 (1.18%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.86%) Korn
16 2 (0.21%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 188 (20.17%) Security Cleared
2 156 (16.74%) SC Cleared
3 82 (8.80%) Degree
4 51 (5.47%) Azure Certification
5 38 (4.08%) Master's Degree
6 34 (3.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 18 (1.93%) DV Cleared
8 16 (1.72%) AWS Certification
9 14 (1.50%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.39%) PhD
11 7 (0.75%) BPSS Clearance
12 6 (0.64%) MCP
13 4 (0.43%) DBS Check
14 3 (0.32%) IBM Certification
14 3 (0.32%) ISTQB
14 3 (0.32%) Tableau Certification
15 2 (0.21%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 2 (0.21%) CBAP
15 2 (0.21%) SnowPro
16 1 (0.11%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 253 (27.15%) Data Quality
2 81 (8.69%) GDPR
3 29 (3.11%) QA
4 18 (1.93%) Accessibility
5 11 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 10 (1.07%) HIPAA
7 6 (0.64%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 5 (0.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.54%) PERC
8 5 (0.54%) SOC 2
9 4 (0.43%) WCAG
10 3 (0.32%) GRC
11 2 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.21%) HL7
11 2 (0.21%) MiFID
11 2 (0.21%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.21%) PMO
12 1 (0.11%) EMIR
12 1 (0.11%) GMP
12 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
System Software
1 141 (15.13%) Docker
2 14 (1.50%) HDFS
3 2 (0.21%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.11%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 147 (15.77%) Terraform
2 118 (12.66%) Kubernetes
3 14 (1.50%) Grafana
4 12 (1.29%) Ansible
5 10 (1.07%) Prometheus
6 9 (0.97%) Hadoop YARN
7 5 (0.54%) Puppet
8 4 (0.43%) Argo
9 3 (0.32%) Kibana
9 3 (0.32%) logstash
10 2 (0.21%) Control-M
10 2 (0.21%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.21%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.11%) Apache Ranger
11 1 (0.11%) Kustomize
11 1 (0.11%) Nagios
11 1 (0.11%) Oozie
11 1 (0.11%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 280 (30.04%) Databricks
2 123 (13.20%) Microsoft
3 43 (4.61%) Google
4 29 (3.11%) Oracle
5 25 (2.68%) Informatica
6 18 (1.93%) Foundry
6 18 (1.93%) Palantir
6 18 (1.93%) Talend
7 15 (1.61%) OpenAI
8 14 (1.50%) SAP
9 12 (1.29%) Salesforce
10 8 (0.86%) Cloudera
10 8 (0.86%) Virgin Media
11 7 (0.75%) Denodo
11 7 (0.75%) IBM
12 6 (0.64%) Automation Anywhere
12 6 (0.64%) Guidewire
12 6 (0.64%) UiPath
13 5 (0.54%) MicroStrategy
13 5 (0.54%) ServiceNow