Data Engineering Contracts

Data Engineering
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring Data Engineering skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Data Engineering over the 6 months leading up to 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 160 208 204
Rank change year-on-year +48 -4 +8
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 523 502 774
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 1.79% 1.15% 1.30%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.97% 1.33% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 369 372 520
10th Percentile £400 £375 £453
25th Percentile £450 £463 £512
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% +4.35%
75th Percentile £675 £663 £725
90th Percentile £838 £749 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £550 £538
% change year-on-year -12.82% +2.23% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 14 22
10th Percentile £21.40 £30.63 £19.00
25th Percentile £22.00 £31.25 £19.37
Median hourly rate £25.43 £35.00 £54.25
Median % change year-on-year -27.34% -35.48% -3.98%
75th Percentile £53.75 £57.56 £75.69
90th Percentile £62.75 £60.00 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.43 £60.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -57.62% +71.43% -38.05%

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 26,551 37,621 53,662
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 90.82% 86.30% 89.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,137 24,254 37,244
10th Percentile £308 £300 £325
25th Percentile £413 £413 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £521 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% -4.55% +4.76%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £744 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.80% - +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,071 2,437 1,746
10th Percentile £14.70 £12.75 £11.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £29.00 £35.50 £37.30
Median % change year-on-year -18.31% -4.83% +49.20%
75th Percentile £62.00 £59.95 £65.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.94 £36.50 £36.00
% change year-on-year -23.45% +1.39% +80.00%

Data Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing Data Engineering as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing Data Engineering.

Daily rate trend for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing Data Engineering.

Hourly rate trend for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Data Engineering over the 6 months to 30 April 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Data Engineering in the UK

Data Engineering
Top 16 Contract 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 April 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 +54 456 £550 -1.79% 684
London +54 309 £575 -1.71% 434
Work from Home +38 201 £580 +5.45% 362
UK excluding London +50 156 £480 -12.82% 269
North of England +30 45 £500 -6.10% 79
South East +26 29 £500 -9.09% 72
North West +19 28 £475 -6.86% 48
Scotland +21 27 £475 +4.86% 23
South West +55 19 £613 +24.68% 37
Midlands +2 19 £488 -13.95% 32
Yorkshire +9 15 £550 -8.33% 25
West Midlands +4 13 £500 -22.10% 20
East of England +37 11 £373 -28.92% 18
Wales +12 8 £236 -62.24% 5
East Midlands 0 6 £475 -13.64% 11
North East 0 2 £475 +12.29% 6

Data Engineering
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 94 (17.97%) Apache Spark
2 80 (15.30%) Apache Airflow
3 76 (14.53%) Apache
4 12 (2.29%) Confluence
5 4 (0.76%) Cloud Foundry
5 4 (0.76%) SharePoint
6 3 (0.57%) Jupyter
6 3 (0.57%) nginx
7 2 (0.38%) Luigi
8 1 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
8 1 (0.19%) CMS
8 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 18 (3.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.19%) CATIA
5 1 (0.19%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
1 2 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.19%) Adobe Campaign
2 1 (0.19%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.19%) Endur
2 1 (0.19%) SAP Oil and Gas
2 1 (0.19%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 226 (43.21%) AWS
2 225 (43.02%) Azure
3 106 (20.27%) GCP
4 93 (17.78%) Power Platform
5 81 (15.49%) Serverless
6 78 (14.91%) dbt
7 64 (12.24%) AWS Lambda
7 64 (12.24%) Azure Data Factory
8 55 (10.52%) Snowflake
9 41 (7.84%) Amazon S3
9 41 (7.84%) GitHub
10 40 (7.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 39 (7.46%) Azure DevOps
12 37 (7.07%) OpenShift
13 30 (5.74%) Amazon ECS
14 22 (4.21%) GitHub Actions
15 19 (3.63%) AWS CloudFormation
16 14 (2.68%) PaaS
16 14 (2.68%) SaaS
17 12 (2.29%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.76%) Firewall
1 4 (0.76%) VPN
2 2 (0.38%) SAN
2 2 (0.38%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.19%) Kerberos
3 1 (0.19%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (21.22%) Data Warehouse
2 90 (17.21%) Power BI
3 84 (16.06%) Data Lake
4 71 (13.58%) Big Data
5 57 (10.90%) Amazon Athena
6 42 (8.03%) Dremio
6 42 (8.03%) Metadata
7 40 (7.65%) Apache Iceberg
8 38 (7.27%) Amazon Redshift
8 38 (7.27%) NoSQL
8 38 (7.27%) Tableau
9 35 (6.69%) BigQuery
10 28 (5.35%) Apache Arrow
10 28 (5.35%) Apache Ignite
11 27 (5.16%) Hadoop
12 25 (4.78%) Relational Database
12 25 (4.78%) SQL Server
13 24 (4.59%) PostgreSQL
14 23 (4.40%) Amazon RDS
15 21 (4.02%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 34 (6.50%) Git
2 29 (5.54%) Artifactory
3 19 (3.63%) JIRA
4 10 (1.91%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.72%) MLflow
6 8 (1.53%) GitLab
7 6 (1.15%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.57%) Atlassian Bamboo
8 3 (0.57%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 3 (0.57%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.38%) Bitbucket
10 1 (0.19%) ERwin
10 1 (0.19%) IBM UrbanCode
10 1 (0.19%) PyCharm
10 1 (0.19%) Robot Framework
10 1 (0.19%) SonarQube
General
1 151 (28.87%) Finance
2 126 (24.09%) Social Skills
3 76 (14.53%) Analytical Skills
4 56 (10.71%) Banking
5 50 (9.56%) Front Office
6 48 (9.18%) Public Sector
7 24 (4.59%) Investment Banking
8 18 (3.44%) Retail
9 15 (2.87%) Marketing
10 12 (2.29%) Presentation Skills
11 10 (1.91%) Retail Banking
12 8 (1.53%) Telecoms
13 7 (1.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.96%) Corporate Banking
14 5 (0.96%) Tech for Good
15 4 (0.76%) Automotive
15 4 (0.76%) Financial Institution
15 4 (0.76%) Manufacturing
15 4 (0.76%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 276 (52.77%) Data Engineer
2 59 (11.28%) Python Engineer
3 58 (11.09%) Senior
4 56 (10.71%) AWS Engineer
5 51 (9.75%) Lead
6 45 (8.60%) Architect
6 45 (8.60%) DevOps Engineer
7 40 (7.65%) Developer
8 39 (7.46%) Senior Data Engineer
9 35 (6.69%) Azure Engineer
10 33 (6.31%) AWS DevOps
10 33 (6.31%) AWS DevOps Engineer
11 26 (4.97%) Azure Data Engineer
12 25 (4.78%) AWS Data Engineer
13 24 (4.59%) Data Architect
13 24 (4.59%) Lead Data Engineer
14 23 (4.40%) Python Data Engineer
15 21 (4.02%) Python Developer
16 20 (3.82%) Data Scientist
17 17 (3.25%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 97 (18.55%) PySpark
2 81 (15.49%) Kafka
3 35 (6.69%) Pandas
4 33 (6.31%) NumPy
5 28 (5.35%) J2EE
6 23 (4.40%) SciPy
7 22 (4.21%) React
8 18 (3.44%) FastAPI
9 15 (2.87%) AngularJS
9 15 (2.87%) TensorFlow
10 12 (2.29%) PyTorch
11 11 (2.10%) Flask
11 11 (2.10%) Polars
11 11 (2.10%) scikit-learn
12 10 (1.91%) Plotly
13 9 (1.72%) .NET
13 9 (1.72%) REST
13 9 (1.72%) Vue
14 7 (1.34%) pytest
14 7 (1.34%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 32 (6.12%) Cloud Native
2 24 (4.59%) Algorithms
3 19 (3.63%) Data Structures
4 12 (2.29%) Renewable Energy
5 9 (1.72%) Hedge funds
5 9 (1.72%) Management Information System
5 9 (1.72%) Onboarding
6 8 (1.53%) Greenfield Project
6 8 (1.53%) Product Ownership
7 7 (1.34%) Data Protection Act
7 7 (1.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 7 (1.34%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (0.96%) Distributed Computing
8 5 (0.96%) Replication
9 4 (0.76%) Marketing Technology
9 4 (0.76%) NHS
9 4 (0.76%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.57%) Enterprise Cloud
10 3 (0.57%) FMCG
10 3 (0.57%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 25 (4.78%) Linux
2 5 (0.96%) Unix
3 2 (0.38%) Debian
3 2 (0.38%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.19%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 201 (38.43%) Analytics
2 193 (36.90%) Data Pipeline
3 186 (35.56%) ETL
4 157 (30.02%) CI/CD
5 149 (28.49%) Agile
6 138 (26.39%) Data Modelling
7 134 (25.62%) DevOps
8 116 (22.18%) Business Intelligence
9 112 (21.41%) Data Science
10 103 (19.69%) Machine Learning
11 95 (18.16%) Problem-Solving
12 94 (17.97%) Data Governance
13 86 (16.44%) Software Engineering
14 83 (15.87%) Artificial Intelligence
15 78 (14.91%) Data Integration
15 78 (14.91%) Visualisation
16 67 (12.81%) Decision-Making
17 52 (9.94%) Migration
18 51 (9.75%) Data Visualisation
19 49 (9.37%) Data Architecture
Programming Languages
1 331 (63.29%) Python
2 267 (51.05%) SQL
3 93 (17.78%) Java
4 56 (10.71%) Scala
5 29 (5.54%) Go
6 24 (4.59%) JavaScript
7 15 (2.87%) C#
7 15 (2.87%) R
7 15 (2.87%) T-SQL
8 13 (2.49%) C++
9 9 (1.72%) Rust
9 9 (1.72%) TypeScript
10 6 (1.15%) Bicep
11 5 (0.96%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (0.96%) PL/SQL
12 3 (0.57%) ANSI SQL
12 3 (0.57%) PowerShell
13 2 (0.38%) Bash
14 1 (0.19%) PROC SQL
14 1 (0.19%) VBA
Qualifications
1 70 (13.38%) Security Cleared
2 53 (10.13%) Degree
3 49 (9.37%) SC Cleared
4 28 (5.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (3.63%) Azure Certification
6 18 (3.44%) AWS Certification
7 15 (2.87%) DV Cleared
8 14 (2.68%) Master's Degree
9 9 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (1.53%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.76%) PMI Certification
11 4 (0.76%) PMP
12 2 (0.38%) MBA
13 1 (0.19%) CTC Cleared
13 1 (0.19%) IBM Certification
13 1 (0.19%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.19%) PhD
13 1 (0.19%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 110 (21.03%) Data Quality
2 23 (4.40%) Accessibility
3 18 (3.44%) GDPR
4 16 (3.06%) QA
5 4 (0.76%) Disclosure Scotland
6 3 (0.57%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.38%) PMO
System Software
1 89 (17.02%) Docker
2 4 (0.76%) HDFS
3 2 (0.38%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.38%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.19%) Tivoli Workload Scheduler
Systems Management
1 99 (18.93%) Terraform
2 86 (16.44%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.72%) Grafana
4 5 (0.96%) Ansible
5 4 (0.76%) Prometheus
6 3 (0.57%) HAProxy
6 3 (0.57%) Kubeflow
7 2 (0.38%) Kibana
7 2 (0.38%) logstash
7 2 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.19%) Apache Ranger
8 1 (0.19%) Hadoop YARN
8 1 (0.19%) Oozie
8 1 (0.19%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 141 (26.96%) Databricks
2 70 (13.38%) Microsoft
3 50 (9.56%) Google
4 23 (4.40%) Oracle
5 10 (1.91%) SAP
6 9 (1.72%) Cloudera
6 9 (1.72%) Palantir
7 7 (1.34%) Salesforce
8 6 (1.15%) Foundry
8 6 (1.15%) Informatica
8 6 (1.15%) Red Hat
9 5 (0.96%) IBM
10 4 (0.76%) Splunk
10 4 (0.76%) Virgin Media
11 3 (0.57%) Adobe
11 3 (0.57%) Alteryx
11 3 (0.57%) MicroStrategy
11 3 (0.57%) ServiceNow
12 2 (0.38%) Hitachi
12 2 (0.38%) Remedy