Data Engineering Contract Job Trends

Data Engineering
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs citing Data Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 November 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 9 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	89	137	188
Rank change year-on-year	+48	+51	+55
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering	1,716	737	491
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	3.12%	2.12%	1.35%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	3.64%	2.35%	1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted	1,180	468	353
10^th Percentile	£400	£350	£400
25^th Percentile	£449	£413	£468
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£530	£525	£550
Median % change year-on-year	+0.95%	-4.55%	-5.78%
75^th Percentile	£650	£638	£650
90^th Percentile	£750	£750	£775
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£465	£531
% change year-on-year	+7.53%	-12.47%	-3.41%
Number of hourly rates quoted	26	5	7
10^th Percentile	£21.25	£36.73	£23.72
25^th Percentile	£37.56	£38.96	£25.81
Median hourly rate	£59.95	£74.26	£26.50
Median % change year-on-year	-19.27%	+180.23%	-66.03%
75^th Percentile	£71.13	£87.50	£43.38
90^th Percentile	£78.81	£101.00	£60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£62.45	£56.61	£26.50
% change year-on-year	+10.32%	+113.62%	-66.03%

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 citing process or methodology skills.

	6 months to 9 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing process or methodology skills	47,088	31,333	31,443
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	85.51%	90.02%	86.16%
Number of daily rates quoted	28,106	19,604	18,932
10^th Percentile	£325	£297	£310
25^th Percentile	£425	£404	£413
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£525	£500	£525
Median % change year-on-year	+5.00%	-4.76%	-1.69%
75^th Percentile	£638	£625	£638
90^th Percentile	£738	£725	£738
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£475	£500
% change year-on-year	+5.26%	-5.00%	-
Number of hourly rates quoted	3,793	2,040	1,109
10^th Percentile	£13.50	£14.38	£15.09
25^th Percentile	£16.46	£17.30	£20.12
Median hourly rate	£35.00	£25.15	£35.00
Median % change year-on-year	+39.17%	-28.14%	-19.54%
75^th Percentile	£65.00	£43.75	£63.75
90^th Percentile	£80.00	£67.00	£73.51
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£34.00	£22.50	£33.93
% change year-on-year	+51.11%	-33.69%	-22.71%

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 Daily Rate Trend

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 9 November 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.

Data Engineering Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution for jobs citing Data Engineering over the 6 months to 9 November 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 9 November 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	Job Ads Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate Past 6 Months	Median Daily Rate % Change on Same Period Last Year	Live Jobs
England	+42	1,516	£535	+1.90%	1,671
London	+42	925	£563	+2.27%	1,082
UK excluding London	+68	608	£500	+7.53%	641
Work from Home	+44	550	£525	-	758
North of England	+39	220	£463	+8.82%	210
Midlands	+31	133	£475	-12.28%	91
West Midlands	+36	113	£475	-13.64%	68
Yorkshire	+42	105	£500	+5.26%	54
South East	-4	101	£538	+13.16%	133
South West	+27	84	£530	-7.83%	61
North West	-10	83	£450	+11.11%	124
Scotland	-8	49	£538	+46.76%	63
North East	-13	32	£425	-	32
East of England	-18	21	£550	+15.79%	42
East Midlands	-1	20	£463	+4.76%	23
Wales	-3	8	£450	-9.09%	10
Northern Ireland	+7	5	£467	-	37

Data Engineering Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 November 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Data Engineering also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads citing Data Engineering.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Python	55.6%	954
2	SQL	55.5%	952
3	Data Pipeline	49.6%	851
4	Analytics	46.0%	789
5	Azure	42.4%	728
6	Data Modelling	40.0%	686
7	CI/CD	39.7%	681
8	AWS	37.2%	638
9	Data Quality	36.5%	626
10	ETL	35.8%	614
11	AI	31.9%	547
12	Databricks	30.7%	527
13	Agile	26.2%	450
14	DevOps	25.1%	431
15	Business Intelligence	23.9%	410
15	Data Governance	23.9%	410
17	Security Cleared	20.4%	350
18	Data Warehouse	20.2%	347
19	Stakeholder Management	19.2%	329
20	Power Platform	18.6%	319
21	Machine Learning	18.4%	315
21	Microsoft	18.4%	315
23	Power BI	17.9%	307
24	Validation	17.5%	300
25	Data Transformation	17.2%	295
26	SC Cleared	16.6%	285
27	Snowflake	16.3%	280
28	Problem-Solving	16.3%	279
29	Data Integration	16.1%	276
30	Migration	15.9%	273

Data Engineering Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Processes & Methodologies

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Data Pipeline	49.6%	851
2	Analytics	46.0%	789
3	Data Modelling	40.0%	686
4	CI/CD	39.7%	681
5	ETL	35.8%	614
6	AI	31.9%	547
7	Agile	26.2%	450
8	DevOps	25.1%	431
9	Business Intelligence	23.9%	410
9	Data Governance	23.9%	410
11	Stakeholder Management	19.2%	329
12	Machine Learning	18.4%	315
13	Validation	17.5%	300
14	Data Transformation	17.2%	295
15	Problem-Solving	16.3%	279
16	Data Integration	16.1%	276
17	Migration	15.9%	273
18	Infrastructure as Code	15.3%	263
19	Data Architecture	14.3%	246
20	Decision-Making	13.6%	234