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 15 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 93 157 197
Rank change year-on-year +64 +40 +16
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,578 593 475
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.90% 1.83% 1.25%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.43% 2.02% 1.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,095 365 350
10th Percentile £400 £350 £399
25th Percentile £446 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £507 £575
Median % change year-on-year +3.55% -11.83% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £738 £749 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £463 £531
% change year-on-year +8.11% -12.94% -3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 7 7
10th Percentile - £37.48 £23.72
25th Percentile £21.25 £45.11 £25.93
Median hourly rate £66.25 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.19% -12.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £75.75 £76.25 -
90th Percentile £85.48 £96.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.75% -35.07% -23.08%

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 45,945 29,375 32,666
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.44% 90.50% 85.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,954 18,237 20,159
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,063 1,777 1,475
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.84
25th Percentile £17.42 £17.30 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.47 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £66.70 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.08 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +78.13% -47.67% +6.17%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +62 1,405 £525 +0.96% 2,440
London +54 870 £550 - 1,593
UK excluding London +68 554 £500 +8.11% 1,090
Work from Home +62 516 £525 +5.00% 1,030
North of England +23 181 £475 - 313
Midlands +28 126 £486 +7.93% 129
West Midlands +25 103 £475 -6.31% 104
South East -15 91 £500 +13.64% 232
Yorkshire +31 90 £500 +5.26% 80
South West +18 79 £525 -3.45% 117
North West -22 58 £513 +8.47% 192
Scotland +2 50 £500 +7.82% 125
North East -8 35 £425 -20.93% 42
East of England -16 27 £550 +22.22% 77
East Midlands 0 21 £525 +20.62% 25
Wales - 8 £450 - 19
Northern Ireland +7 4 £334 - 78

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
1 186 (11.79%) Apache Airflow
2 166 (10.52%) Apache Spark
3 131 (8.30%) Apache
4 42 (2.66%) Confluence
5 37 (2.34%) SAS
6 20 (1.27%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.08%) Palantir Foundry
8 15 (0.95%) SharePoint
9 6 (0.38%) Apache Superset
9 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
10 5 (0.32%) Apache Solr
11 3 (0.19%) nginx
11 3 (0.19%) PowerExchange
12 1 (0.063%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.063%) CICS
12 1 (0.063%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.063%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.063%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.063%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.063%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 16 (1.01%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
3 5 (0.32%) Chatbot
3 5 (0.32%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.19%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.063%) Notion
Business Applications
1 9 (0.57%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.25%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.25%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.13%) BambooHR
5 2 (0.13%) Endur
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.063%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.063%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.063%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.063%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.063%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.063%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 660 (41.83%) Azure
2 587 (37.20%) AWS
3 304 (19.26%) Power Platform
4 264 (16.73%) Snowflake
5 228 (14.45%) GCP
6 222 (14.07%) dbt
7 174 (11.03%) Amazon S3
8 170 (10.77%) Azure Data Factory
9 142 (9.00%) Serverless
10 135 (8.56%) Azure DevOps
11 129 (8.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 124 (7.86%) GitHub
13 117 (7.41%) AWS Lambda
14 80 (5.07%) Azure Databricks
15 62 (3.93%) GitHub Actions
16 51 (3.23%) Amazon EMR
17 36 (2.28%) Amazon Bedrock
17 36 (2.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 32 (2.03%) Azure AI
18 32 (2.03%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Broadband
1 5 (0.32%) DNS
2 4 (0.25%) Firewall
2 4 (0.25%) Network Security
3 1 (0.063%) Internet
3 1 (0.063%) MIMO
3 1 (0.063%) MQTT
3 1 (0.063%) RTP
3 1 (0.063%) SMS
3 1 (0.063%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 320 (20.28%) Data Warehouse
2 290 (18.38%) Power BI
3 212 (13.43%) Data Lake
4 181 (11.47%) Metadata
5 121 (7.67%) BigQuery
6 103 (6.53%) Delta Lake
7 101 (6.40%) Amazon Redshift
8 91 (5.77%) Big Data
9 76 (4.82%) Amazon Athena
10 74 (4.69%) Tableau
11 63 (3.99%) Snowflake Schema
11 63 (3.99%) SQL Server
12 56 (3.55%) Relational Database
13 47 (2.98%) PostgreSQL
14 44 (2.79%) Azure SQL Database
15 42 (2.66%) NoSQL
16 40 (2.53%) Looker
17 32 (2.03%) Data Vault
18 31 (1.96%) Star Schema
19 30 (1.90%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 172 (10.90%) Git
2 90 (5.70%) GitLab
3 74 (4.69%) JIRA
4 26 (1.65%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.65%) MLflow
5 8 (0.51%) Bitbucket
5 8 (0.51%) Claude Code
5 8 (0.51%) ERwin
5 8 (0.51%) RStudio
5 8 (0.51%) Terragrunt
6 6 (0.38%) Selenium
7 5 (0.32%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.25%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (0.19%) Snyk
10 2 (0.13%) Postman
10 2 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.13%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 392 (24.84%) Social Skills
2 360 (22.81%) Finance
3 253 (16.03%) Analytical Skills
4 161 (10.20%) Public Sector
5 132 (8.37%) Banking
6 52 (3.30%) Marketing
7 36 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 35 (2.22%) Retail
9 24 (1.52%) Documentation Skills
9 24 (1.52%) Investment Banking
10 21 (1.33%) Front Office
11 19 (1.20%) Law
12 18 (1.14%) Manufacturing
12 18 (1.14%) Pharmaceutical
13 16 (1.01%) Telecoms
14 14 (0.89%) Publishing
15 13 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
15 13 (0.82%) Police
16 12 (0.76%) Billing
17 11 (0.70%) Financial Institution
Job Titles
1 740 (46.89%) Data Engineer
2 244 (15.46%) Senior
3 175 (11.09%) Lead
4 171 (10.84%) Architect
5 153 (9.70%) Senior Data Engineer
6 97 (6.15%) Data Architect
7 94 (5.96%) Developer
8 74 (4.69%) AWS Engineer
9 72 (4.56%) Databricks Engineer
10 67 (4.25%) Analyst
10 67 (4.25%) Snowflake Engineer
11 65 (4.12%) AWS Data Engineer
12 64 (4.06%) Azure Engineer
13 56 (3.55%) Databricks Data Engineer
14 52 (3.30%) Lead Data Engineer
15 49 (3.11%) Python Engineer
15 49 (3.11%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 46 (2.92%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 45 (2.85%) Azure Data Engineer
18 43 (2.72%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (14.64%) PySpark
2 218 (13.81%) Terraform
3 113 (7.16%) Kafka
4 64 (4.06%) REST
5 36 (2.28%) JSON
6 33 (2.09%) React
7 28 (1.77%) .NET
8 23 (1.46%) Pandas
9 16 (1.01%) LangChain
9 16 (1.01%) XML
10 15 (0.95%) FastAPI
10 15 (0.95%) PyTorch
11 14 (0.89%) pytest
11 14 (0.89%) scikit-learn
12 13 (0.82%) NumPy
12 13 (0.82%) TensorFlow
13 12 (0.76%) RESTful
14 11 (0.70%) LangGraph
14 11 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
14 11 (0.70%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 202 (12.80%) Cloud Native
2 82 (5.20%) Data Structures
3 69 (4.37%) Onboarding
4 63 (3.99%) Product Ownership
5 54 (3.42%) Legacy Systems
6 49 (3.11%) AI Agents
7 48 (3.04%) Distributed Systems
8 21 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
9 20 (1.27%) Distributed Computing
9 20 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
10 19 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
11 18 (1.14%) NHS
11 18 (1.14%) Virtual Team
12 17 (1.08%) Life Science
13 15 (0.95%) Data Fabric
13 15 (0.95%) Management Information System
14 14 (0.89%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (0.89%) Clustering
15 13 (0.82%) Algorithms
15 13 (0.82%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 30 (1.90%) Linux
2 26 (1.65%) Unix
3 7 (0.44%) Windows
4 1 (0.063%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
4 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.063%) VMS
4 1 (0.063%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 773 (48.99%) Data Pipeline
2 749 (47.47%) Analytics
3 609 (38.59%) Data Modelling
4 556 (35.23%) CI/CD
5 549 (34.79%) ETL
6 489 (30.99%) AI
7 388 (24.59%) Agile
8 376 (23.83%) Business Intelligence
9 374 (23.70%) DevOps
10 358 (22.69%) Data Governance
11 279 (17.68%) Machine Learning
12 264 (16.73%) Stakeholder Management
13 254 (16.10%) Data Transformation
14 251 (15.91%) Problem-Solving
15 249 (15.78%) Migration
16 244 (15.46%) Validation
17 237 (15.02%) Data Architecture
18 233 (14.77%) Infrastructure as Code
19 230 (14.58%) Decision-Making
20 228 (14.45%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 849 (53.80%) SQL
2 821 (52.03%) Python
3 110 (6.97%) Java
4 45 (2.85%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 42 (2.66%) Scala
6 41 (2.60%) PowerShell
7 36 (2.28%) C#
8 32 (2.03%) Bash
9 30 (1.90%) JavaScript
10 25 (1.58%) R
11 22 (1.39%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.27%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.95%) Bicep
14 14 (0.89%) TypeScript
15 11 (0.70%) Kusto Query Language
15 11 (0.70%) Shell Script
16 10 (0.63%) SPARQL
17 9 (0.57%) SAS Macro
18 8 (0.51%) Cypher
19 7 (0.44%) LookML
Qualifications
1 308 (19.52%) Security Cleared
2 259 (16.41%) SC Cleared
3 79 (5.01%) Degree
4 37 (2.34%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (2.03%) Azure Certification
5 32 (2.03%) DV Cleared
6 29 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
7 25 (1.58%) AWS Certification
8 20 (1.27%) Master's Degree
9 15 (0.95%) SnowPro
10 14 (0.89%) DBS Check
11 11 (0.70%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
13 6 (0.38%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.32%) CSPO
14 5 (0.32%) PMP
15 4 (0.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 4 (0.25%) Tableau Certification
16 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 3 (0.19%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 519 (32.89%) Data Quality
2 79 (5.01%) QA
3 66 (4.18%) GDPR
4 29 (1.84%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.76%) SLA
6 5 (0.32%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.32%) PMO
7 4 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.19%) GRC
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.19%) MiFID
8 3 (0.19%) NIST
9 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.13%) COPPA
9 2 (0.13%) EU AI Act
9 2 (0.13%) IFRS
9 2 (0.13%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.13%) NCSC
System Software
1 136 (8.62%) Docker
2 5 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.063%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 109 (6.91%) Kubernetes
2 30 (1.90%) Grafana
3 24 (1.52%) Ansible
4 11 (0.70%) Prometheus
5 8 (0.51%) Control-M
6 6 (0.38%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Argo
8 2 (0.13%) Puppet
8 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.063%) Cilium
9 1 (0.063%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.063%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.063%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.063%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.063%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.063%) Nagios
9 1 (0.063%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.063%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.063%) QRadar
Vendors
1 435 (27.57%) Databricks
2 277 (17.55%) Microsoft
3 83 (5.26%) Google
4 74 (4.69%) Informatica
5 70 (4.44%) Oracle
6 33 (2.09%) SAP
7 30 (1.90%) Salesforce
8 29 (1.84%) Foundry
9 27 (1.71%) Talend
10 25 (1.58%) Palantir
11 19 (1.20%) OpenAI
12 14 (0.89%) Teradata
13 13 (0.82%) Cloudera
13 13 (0.82%) ServiceNow
14 12 (0.76%) Trend Micro
15 10 (0.63%) Adobe
16 8 (0.51%) Splunk
17 7 (0.44%) Hitachi
18 6 (0.38%) InterSystems
18 6 (0.38%) MicroStrategy