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 30 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 159 203
Rank change year-on-year +71 +44 +16
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,494 543 506
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.91% 1.77% 1.17%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.43% 1.95% 1.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,029 361 376
10th Percentile £381 £367 £369
25th Percentile £438 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £631 £663 £675
90th Percentile £740 £825 £756
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £510
% change year-on-year +5.26% -6.86% -11.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 7 15
10th Percentile £45.85 £24.75 £30.72
25th Percentile £55.88 £28.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.44 £38.96 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.23% +11.31% -52.05%
75th Percentile £76.50 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.50 £58.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £28.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +140.00% -52.08% +11.11%

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 43,613 27,816 36,814
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.98% 90.91% 85.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,139 17,565 23,448
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £414 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.18% -4.00% -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,612 1,364 2,554
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.49 £16.06
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -32.93% +4.17%
75th Percentile £68.00 £53.95 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.00 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.00% -34.42% +8.91%

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 30 June 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 30 June 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 30 June 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 +70 1,328 £525 -1.50% 411
London +52 789 £550 - 250
UK excluding London +75 557 £500 +5.26% 273
Work from Home +69 483 £525 - 203
North of England +25 171 £475 -5.00% 69
Midlands +29 138 £486 +5.14% 36
West Midlands +30 115 £472 -18.62% 22
South West +29 81 £500 -11.11% 29
South East -20 79 £525 +5.00% 109
Yorkshire +2 75 £480 +3.78% 13
North West -11 60 £496 -0.80% 41
Scotland +19 58 £475 - 10
North East -1 38 £425 -15.00% 15
East of England -15 26 £575 +71.29% 10
East Midlands -7 20 £525 +13.51% 14
Wales -6 10 £450 +75.14% 6
Northern Ireland - 5 £334 - 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
1 196 (13.12%) Apache Spark
2 173 (11.58%) Apache Airflow
3 114 (7.63%) Apache
4 46 (3.08%) SAS
5 38 (2.54%) Confluence
6 23 (1.54%) Jupyter
7 18 (1.20%) Palantir Foundry
8 12 (0.80%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.47%) Apache Superset
10 6 (0.40%) Appian
11 5 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
12 3 (0.20%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.13%) Apache Synapse
14 1 (0.067%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 1 (0.067%) Camunda
14 1 (0.067%) CICS
14 1 (0.067%) IBM HTTP Server
14 1 (0.067%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 26 (1.74%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.54%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.20%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.067%) Notion
7 1 (0.067%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.47%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.40%) Salesforce CRM
3 5 (0.33%) BambooHR
3 5 (0.33%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.27%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.27%) Sage X3
5 2 (0.13%) Endur
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.067%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.067%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.067%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.067%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.067%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 644 (43.11%) Azure
2 572 (38.29%) AWS
3 336 (22.49%) Power Platform
4 220 (14.73%) Snowflake
5 204 (13.65%) GCP
6 179 (11.98%) Amazon S3
7 171 (11.45%) Azure Data Factory
8 169 (11.31%) dbt
9 136 (9.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 129 (8.63%) GitHub
11 127 (8.50%) Serverless
12 121 (8.10%) Azure DevOps
13 110 (7.36%) AWS Lambda
14 74 (4.95%) GitHub Actions
15 59 (3.95%) Amazon EMR
16 41 (2.74%) AWS CloudFormation
17 35 (2.34%) Azure AI
18 32 (2.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 30 (2.01%) Amazon SageMaker
20 29 (1.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.33%) Firewall
1 5 (0.33%) RTP
2 2 (0.13%) Network Security
3 1 (0.067%) 4G
3 1 (0.067%) 5G
3 1 (0.067%) MIMO
3 1 (0.067%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 309 (20.68%) Power BI
2 283 (18.94%) Data Warehouse
3 221 (14.79%) Data Lake
4 146 (9.77%) Metadata
5 116 (7.76%) Big Data
6 109 (7.30%) Amazon Redshift
7 91 (6.09%) Delta Lake
8 89 (5.96%) BigQuery
9 87 (5.82%) SQL Server
10 85 (5.69%) Tableau
11 79 (5.29%) Amazon Athena
12 72 (4.82%) Snowflake Schema
13 71 (4.75%) NoSQL
14 61 (4.08%) Relational Database
15 58 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
16 50 (3.35%) Azure SQL Database
16 50 (3.35%) Hadoop
17 35 (2.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 34 (2.28%) Star Schema
19 29 (1.94%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 175 (11.71%) Git
2 80 (5.35%) GitLab
3 69 (4.62%) JIRA
4 35 (2.34%) MLflow
5 20 (1.34%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.40%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.27%) Postman
7 4 (0.27%) Selenium
8 3 (0.20%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.20%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.20%) Snyk
8 3 (0.20%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.13%) ERwin
9 2 (0.13%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.13%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.067%) Ant
10 1 (0.067%) Deequ
10 1 (0.067%) Maven
10 1 (0.067%) REST Assured
General
1 377 (25.23%) Social Skills
2 354 (23.69%) Finance
3 228 (15.26%) Analytical Skills
4 160 (10.71%) Public Sector
5 109 (7.30%) Banking
6 40 (2.68%) Marketing
7 36 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
7 36 (2.41%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 33 (2.21%) Retail
9 20 (1.34%) Telecoms
10 18 (1.20%) Front Office
10 18 (1.20%) Investment Banking
11 14 (0.94%) Financial Institution
12 12 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (0.80%) Law
12 12 (0.80%) Manufacturing
13 11 (0.74%) Legal
14 8 (0.54%) Billing
14 8 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
15 5 (0.33%) Military
Job Titles
1 690 (46.18%) Data Engineer
2 217 (14.52%) Senior
3 171 (11.45%) Architect
4 164 (10.98%) Lead
5 127 (8.50%) Senior Data Engineer
6 93 (6.22%) Data Architect
7 85 (5.69%) Developer
8 77 (5.15%) AWS Engineer
9 67 (4.48%) Analyst
10 64 (4.28%) Lead Data Engineer
11 60 (4.02%) AWS Data Engineer
12 55 (3.68%) Snowflake Engineer
13 51 (3.41%) Azure Engineer
14 48 (3.21%) Data Scientist
15 47 (3.15%) Solutions Architect
16 45 (3.01%) Azure Data Engineer
17 44 (2.95%) Snowflake Data Engineer
18 43 (2.88%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
18 43 (2.88%) Consultant
18 43 (2.88%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 225 (15.06%) PySpark
2 144 (9.64%) Kafka
3 44 (2.95%) Pandas
4 43 (2.88%) REST
5 34 (2.28%) scikit-learn
6 32 (2.14%) JSON
6 32 (2.14%) PyTorch
7 28 (1.87%) NumPy
8 26 (1.74%) Spring
9 25 (1.67%) TensorFlow
10 24 (1.61%) React
11 19 (1.27%) Spring Boot
12 17 (1.14%) RESTful
13 16 (1.07%) .NET
13 16 (1.07%) FastAPI
14 15 (1.00%) OpenTelemetry
14 15 (1.00%) YAML
15 14 (0.94%) XML
16 13 (0.87%) LangChain
16 13 (0.87%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 203 (13.59%) Cloud Native
2 62 (4.15%) Data Structures
3 60 (4.02%) Distributed Systems
4 57 (3.82%) Legacy Systems
5 50 (3.35%) Product Ownership
6 37 (2.48%) AI Agents
6 37 (2.48%) Onboarding
7 27 (1.81%) Distributed Computing
8 25 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.47%) Algorithms
9 22 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
9 22 (1.47%) NHS
10 20 (1.34%) Analytical Mindset
11 18 (1.20%) Virtual Team
12 16 (1.07%) Clustering
13 15 (1.00%) Management Information System
14 14 (0.94%) Fixed Income
15 13 (0.87%) Reference Data
15 13 (0.87%) Self-Motivation
16 11 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 29 (1.94%) Linux
2 25 (1.67%) Unix
3 5 (0.33%) VMS
4 3 (0.20%) Windows
5 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.067%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 783 (52.41%) Analytics
2 710 (47.52%) Data Pipeline
3 573 (38.35%) Data Modelling
4 543 (36.35%) CI/CD
5 528 (35.34%) ETL
6 451 (30.19%) AI
7 386 (25.84%) Business Intelligence
8 381 (25.50%) Agile
9 368 (24.63%) DevOps
10 326 (21.82%) Data Governance
11 291 (19.48%) Machine Learning
12 268 (17.94%) Problem-Solving
13 263 (17.60%) Data Science
14 212 (14.19%) Migration
15 211 (14.12%) Decision-Making
16 209 (13.99%) Data Architecture
17 206 (13.79%) Validation
18 184 (12.32%) Infrastructure as Code
19 178 (11.91%) Stakeholder Management
20 170 (11.38%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 816 (54.62%) SQL
2 795 (53.21%) Python
3 121 (8.10%) Java
4 46 (3.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 42 (2.81%) Scala
6 37 (2.48%) Bash
7 36 (2.41%) C#
8 25 (1.67%) T-SQL
9 24 (1.61%) PowerShell
10 22 (1.47%) R
11 21 (1.41%) JavaScript
12 18 (1.20%) Bicep
13 16 (1.07%) PL/SQL
14 13 (0.87%) Shell Script
14 13 (0.87%) TypeScript
15 12 (0.80%) SAS Macro
16 7 (0.47%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.40%) Cypher
18 5 (0.33%) Korn
18 5 (0.33%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 284 (19.01%) Security Cleared
2 250 (16.73%) SC Cleared
3 113 (7.56%) Degree
4 50 (3.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 38 (2.54%) Master's Degree
6 35 (2.34%) BPSS Clearance
7 31 (2.07%) Azure Certification
8 20 (1.34%) AWS Certification
9 14 (0.94%) DV Cleared
10 13 (0.87%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.60%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 9 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
11 9 (0.60%) SnowPro
12 6 (0.40%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.33%) CSPO
14 3 (0.20%) IBM Certification
14 3 (0.20%) PhD
15 2 (0.13%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.13%) Tableau Certification
16 1 (0.067%) Numerate Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 438 (29.32%) Data Quality
2 93 (6.22%) GDPR
3 69 (4.62%) QA
4 15 (1.00%) SLA
5 13 (0.87%) Accessibility
6 7 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 5 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
8 4 (0.27%) MiFID
8 4 (0.27%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.20%) GRC
9 3 (0.20%) GxP
9 3 (0.20%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.20%) NIST
10 2 (0.13%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 2 (0.13%) COPPA
10 2 (0.13%) PMO
System Software
1 137 (9.17%) Docker
2 3 (0.20%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.20%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.13%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 204 (13.65%) Terraform
2 114 (7.63%) Kubernetes
3 27 (1.81%) Grafana
4 26 (1.74%) Prometheus
5 9 (0.60%) Ansible
6 4 (0.27%) Kibana
7 3 (0.20%) Argo
7 3 (0.20%) Nagios
7 3 (0.20%) Rancher
8 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.13%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.067%) Control-M
9 1 (0.067%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.067%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.067%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.067%) Oozie
Vendors
1 392 (26.24%) Databricks
2 258 (17.27%) Microsoft
3 86 (5.76%) Informatica
4 60 (4.02%) Oracle
5 57 (3.82%) Google
6 32 (2.14%) Talend
7 29 (1.94%) Foundry
8 28 (1.87%) OpenAI
8 28 (1.87%) SAP
9 26 (1.74%) Palantir
9 26 (1.74%) Salesforce
10 22 (1.47%) Splunk
11 16 (1.07%) ServiceNow
12 15 (1.00%) Cloudera
13 12 (0.80%) Trend Micro
14 8 (0.54%) Denodo
15 7 (0.47%) InterSystems
15 7 (0.47%) UiPath
16 6 (0.40%) Adobe
16 6 (0.40%) Teradata