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 18 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 134 185 232
Rank change year-on-year +51 +47 -1
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 756 490 503
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.14% 1.36% 1.08%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.38% 1.57% 1.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 486 351 370
10th Percentile £350 £400 £400
25th Percentile £413 £468 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £699
90th Percentile £750 £775 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -9.76% -6.82% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 7 14
10th Percentile £46.95 £23.72 £35.19
25th Percentile £64.51 £25.81 £40.16
Median hourly rate £79.63 £26.50 £71.50
Median % change year-on-year +200.49% -62.94% +43.00%
75th Percentile £93.13 £43.38 £78.00
90th Percentile £103.25 £60.00 £88.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £74.26 £26.50 £78.00
% change year-on-year +180.23% -66.03% +56.00%

All Process and 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 31,777 31,113 41,385
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 89.78% 86.30% 88.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,898 18,698 27,863
10th Percentile £300 £310 £308
25th Percentile £404 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,100 1,096 1,595
10th Percentile £14.50 £15.10 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.12 £19.03
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -20.45% +25.71%
75th Percentile £44.77 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £67.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.63 £33.93 £44.50
% change year-on-year -33.30% -23.75% +53.45%

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 18 November 2025.

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 18 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Top 18 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 18 November 2025. 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 +45 664 £525 -8.70% 864
London +62 444 £550 -4.35% 543
Work from Home +27 236 £525 -4.55% 469
UK excluding London +28 234 £463 -9.76% 401
North of England -1 75 £425 -15.00% 85
Midlands -16 53 £525 +5.00% 78
South East +16 41 £475 -11.63% 135
North West +1 39 £415 -14.43% 54
West Midlands -22 37 £550 +10.00% 61
Scotland +28 35 £402 +2.10% 43
Yorkshire -28 26 £488 -2.50% 22
South West -10 18 £563 -15.73% 32
East of England -10 17 £475 +15.85% 25
East Midlands -4 16 £447 -22.26% 17
North East -1 10 £400 -33.05% 9
Wales -8 2 £495 -5.71% 5
Northern Ireland - 1 - - 2
Channel Islands - 1 £760 -

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
1 122 (16.14%) Apache Airflow
2 96 (12.70%) Apache Spark
3 60 (7.94%) Apache
4 12 (1.59%) Confluence
5 5 (0.66%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.40%) SAS
7 2 (0.26%) ArcGIS
7 2 (0.26%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.26%) Luigi
8 1 (0.13%) Apache Pig
Applications
1 18 (2.38%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.06%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (0.66%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.26%) Maple
5 1 (0.13%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.13%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 10 (1.32%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.40%) Payment Gateway
4 2 (0.26%) Eagle PACE
4 2 (0.26%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.13%) Maximo
5 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.13%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.13%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 318 (42.06%) Azure
2 275 (36.38%) AWS
3 133 (17.59%) Power Platform
4 125 (16.53%) GCP
5 118 (15.61%) Azure Data Factory
6 117 (15.48%) Snowflake
7 84 (11.11%) Amazon S3
8 82 (10.85%) dbt
9 79 (10.45%) Azure DevOps
9 79 (10.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 77 (10.19%) GitHub
11 75 (9.92%) Serverless
12 59 (7.80%) AWS Lambda
13 48 (6.35%) GitHub Actions
14 27 (3.57%) Amazon EMR
15 26 (3.44%) Amazon SageMaker
15 26 (3.44%) Azure Machine Learning
15 26 (3.44%) Cloud Computing
16 23 (3.04%) AWS CloudFormation
17 18 (2.38%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.79%) TCP/IP
2 4 (0.53%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.53%) Firewall
2 4 (0.53%) Network Security
2 4 (0.53%) SAN
2 4 (0.53%) SSL
3 3 (0.40%) DNS
3 3 (0.40%) SSH
4 2 (0.26%) VPN
5 1 (0.13%) Intrusion Detection
5 1 (0.13%) Kerberos
5 1 (0.13%) MQTT
5 1 (0.13%) TETRA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (19.71%) Data Warehouse
2 128 (16.93%) Power BI
3 83 (10.98%) Data Lake
4 63 (8.33%) Big Data
5 56 (7.41%) Metadata
6 50 (6.61%) Relational Database
7 48 (6.35%) BigQuery
8 45 (5.95%) NoSQL
9 43 (5.69%) Tableau
10 40 (5.29%) Delta Lake
11 38 (5.03%) Amazon Redshift
12 36 (4.76%) Hadoop
13 30 (3.97%) SQL Server
14 29 (3.84%) PostgreSQL
15 28 (3.70%) Azure SQL Database
16 26 (3.44%) Snowflake Schema
17 23 (3.04%) RDBMS
18 22 (2.91%) Amazon Athena
19 15 (1.98%) Elasticsearch
20 14 (1.85%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 121 (16.01%) Git
2 44 (5.82%) Jenkins
3 27 (3.57%) JIRA
4 26 (3.44%) GitLab
5 23 (3.04%) MLflow
6 8 (1.06%) Visual Studio Code
7 6 (0.79%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.53%) Artifactory
8 4 (0.53%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.40%) JMeter
9 3 (0.40%) Poetry
10 2 (0.26%) ERwin
10 2 (0.26%) JUnit
10 2 (0.26%) Maven
10 2 (0.26%) Mockito
10 2 (0.26%) Pylint
10 2 (0.26%) Selenium
10 2 (0.26%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.26%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.26%) TestRail
General
1 225 (29.76%) Social Skills
2 165 (21.83%) Finance
3 106 (14.02%) Analytical Skills
4 63 (8.33%) Banking
5 54 (7.14%) Public Sector
6 34 (4.50%) Investment Banking
7 22 (2.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 18 (2.38%) Retail
9 16 (2.12%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.98%) Front Office
10 15 (1.98%) Marketing
11 14 (1.85%) Pharmaceutical
12 12 (1.59%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (1.46%) Legal
14 10 (1.32%) Presentation Skills
15 9 (1.19%) Documentation Skills
15 9 (1.19%) Publishing
16 6 (0.79%) Corporate Banking
17 5 (0.66%) Electronics
17 5 (0.66%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 313 (41.40%) Data Engineer
2 103 (13.62%) Senior
3 72 (9.52%) Lead
4 70 (9.26%) Architect
5 69 (9.13%) Developer
6 67 (8.86%) Azure Engineer
7 65 (8.60%) Senior Data Engineer
8 45 (5.95%) Azure Data Engineer
9 40 (5.29%) Python Engineer
10 39 (5.16%) Analyst
11 36 (4.76%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 36 (4.76%) Data Architect
12 35 (4.63%) AWS Engineer
13 31 (4.10%) Python Developer
14 30 (3.97%) Snowflake Engineer
15 29 (3.84%) Python Data Engineer
16 28 (3.70%) Data Scientist
17 25 (3.31%) AWS Data Engineer
18 24 (3.17%) Snowflake Data Engineer
19 23 (3.04%) Lead Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (13.76%) PySpark
2 79 (10.45%) Kafka
3 50 (6.61%) Pandas
4 45 (5.95%) NumPy
5 44 (5.82%) FastAPI
6 42 (5.56%) PyTorch
7 37 (4.89%) Flask
8 36 (4.76%) TensorFlow
9 31 (4.10%) RESTful
10 28 (3.70%) React
11 27 (3.57%) scikit-learn
12 18 (2.38%) JSON
12 18 (2.38%) LangChain
12 18 (2.38%) Vue
13 17 (2.25%) AngularJS
13 17 (2.25%) Polars
13 17 (2.25%) SciPy
14 14 (1.85%) Hugging Face
14 14 (1.85%) OAuth
14 14 (1.85%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 71 (9.39%) Cloud Native
2 41 (5.42%) Algorithms
3 25 (3.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 19 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
4 19 (2.51%) Hedge funds
5 18 (2.38%) Data Structures
5 18 (2.38%) Distributed Computing
6 17 (2.25%) Hybrid Cloud
6 17 (2.25%) Product Ownership
7 16 (2.12%) Onboarding
8 14 (1.85%) AI Agents
8 14 (1.85%) Fixed Income
9 12 (1.59%) Distributed Systems
10 11 (1.46%) Legacy Systems
10 11 (1.46%) Life Science
10 11 (1.46%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.32%) Greenfield Project
12 9 (1.19%) Equities
12 9 (1.19%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 39 (5.16%) Linux
2 7 (0.93%) Windows
3 4 (0.53%) Debian
3 4 (0.53%) Ubuntu
3 4 (0.53%) Unix
3 4 (0.53%) Windows Server
3 4 (0.53%) Windows Server 2016
4 3 (0.40%) Android
5 2 (0.26%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 315 (41.67%) Data Pipeline
2 293 (38.76%) CI/CD
3 279 (36.90%) ETL
4 264 (34.92%) Data Modelling
5 258 (34.13%) Analytics
6 192 (25.40%) DevOps
7 178 (23.54%) Agile
8 177 (23.41%) Machine Learning
9 172 (22.75%) Data Governance
10 165 (21.83%) AI
11 163 (21.56%) Business Intelligence
12 160 (21.16%) Data Science
13 157 (20.77%) Problem-Solving
14 107 (14.15%) Data Architecture
15 96 (12.70%) Infrastructure as Code
16 95 (12.57%) Containerisation
17 88 (11.64%) Visualisation
18 86 (11.38%) Data Integration
18 86 (11.38%) Decision-Making
19 76 (10.05%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 478 (63.23%) Python
2 376 (49.74%) SQL
3 59 (7.80%) Java
4 48 (6.35%) Scala
5 35 (4.63%) C#
6 32 (4.23%) JavaScript
7 29 (3.84%) C++
8 23 (3.04%) PowerShell
9 19 (2.51%) Bash
10 18 (2.38%) Bicep
10 18 (2.38%) Rust
11 15 (1.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 15 (1.98%) TypeScript
12 14 (1.85%) PL/SQL
12 14 (1.85%) R
13 13 (1.72%) T-SQL
14 11 (1.46%) Shell Script
15 9 (1.19%) Go
16 6 (0.79%) Korn
17 5 (0.66%) VBA
Qualifications
1 117 (15.48%) Security Cleared
2 99 (13.10%) SC Cleared
3 77 (10.19%) Degree
4 46 (6.08%) Azure Certification
5 36 (4.76%) Master's Degree
6 32 (4.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (2.91%) AWS Certification
8 18 (2.38%) DV Cleared
9 8 (1.06%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
9 8 (1.06%) PhD
10 6 (0.79%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.53%) MCP
11 4 (0.53%) SnowPro
12 3 (0.40%) Tableau Certification
13 2 (0.26%) CBAP
13 2 (0.26%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.26%) ISTQB
14 1 (0.13%) APMG
14 1 (0.13%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 171 (22.62%) Data Quality
2 53 (7.01%) GDPR
3 31 (4.10%) QA
4 19 (2.51%) Accessibility
5 8 (1.06%) HIPAA
6 6 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (0.79%) NIST
7 5 (0.66%) PERC
8 4 (0.53%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.40%) WCAG
10 2 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.26%) HL7
10 2 (0.26%) NCSC
10 2 (0.26%) PMO
10 2 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.13%) EMIR
11 1 (0.13%) ISO 19650
11 1 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 20000
11 1 (0.13%) Solvency II
System Software
1 121 (16.01%) Docker
2 12 (1.59%) HDFS
3 5 (0.66%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.13%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 118 (15.61%) Terraform
2 103 (13.62%) Kubernetes
3 16 (2.12%) Grafana
4 11 (1.46%) Prometheus
5 10 (1.32%) Hadoop YARN
6 9 (1.19%) Ansible
7 6 (0.79%) Control-M
8 5 (0.66%) Kibana
8 5 (0.66%) Kustomize
8 5 (0.66%) logstash
8 5 (0.66%) Puppet
9 4 (0.53%) Argo
9 4 (0.53%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.40%) Istio
10 3 (0.40%) Oozie
10 3 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.13%) Demisto
11 1 (0.13%) Fluentd
11 1 (0.13%) Kubeflow
11 1 (0.13%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 191 (25.26%) Databricks
2 100 (13.23%) Microsoft
3 51 (6.75%) Google
4 33 (4.37%) Oracle
5 23 (3.04%) Informatica
6 18 (2.38%) Talend
7 14 (1.85%) OpenAI
7 14 (1.85%) Palantir
8 12 (1.59%) Foundry
9 11 (1.46%) SAP
10 10 (1.32%) Cloudera
11 9 (1.19%) Salesforce
12 8 (1.06%) VMware
13 7 (0.93%) Virgin Media
14 6 (0.79%) Denodo
14 6 (0.79%) Murex
14 6 (0.79%) Red Hat
15 5 (0.66%) Guidewire
16 4 (0.53%) EMC
16 4 (0.53%) StreamSets