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 12 November 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 12 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	88	136	183
Rank change year-on-year	+48	+47	+54
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering	1,766	757	487
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	3.16%	2.15%	1.34%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	3.69%	2.39%	1.56%
Number of daily rates quoted	1,212	485	348
10^th Percentile	£400	£350	£400
25^th Percentile	£449	£413	£468
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£535	£520	£550
Median % change year-on-year	+2.88%	-5.45%	-4.76%
75^th Percentile	£650	£638	£663
90^th Percentile	£750	£750	£775
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£463	£538
% change year-on-year	+8.11%	-13.95%	-2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted	29	5	7
10^th Percentile	£21.25	£36.73	£23.72
25^th Percentile	£44.50	£38.96	£25.81
Median hourly rate	£62.50	£74.26	£26.50
Median % change year-on-year	-15.84%	+180.23%	-62.94%
75^th Percentile	£72.66	£87.50	£43.38
90^th Percentile	£78.72	£101.00	£60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£65.00	£56.61	£26.50
% change year-on-year	+14.82%	+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 12 Nov 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing process or methodology skills	47,836	31,674	31,229
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	85.65%	90.02%	86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted	28,616	19,843	18,785
10^th Percentile	£325	£298	£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%	-1.50%
75^th Percentile	£638	£623	£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	3,823	2,054	1,104
10^th Percentile	£13.50	£14.38	£15.10
25^th Percentile	£16.46	£17.46	£20.12
Median hourly rate	£35.00	£25.15	£35.00
Median % change year-on-year	+39.17%	-28.14%	-18.92%
75^th Percentile	£65.60	£43.75	£63.75
90^th Percentile	£80.00	£67.00	£73.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£34.28	£22.53	£33.00
% change year-on-year	+52.15%	-31.73%	-24.70%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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	+49	1,555	£535	+1.90%	1,605
London	+40	947	£566	+2.91%	1,023
UK excluding London	+73	627	£500	+8.11%	640
Work from Home	+46	564	£525	-	728
North of England	+46	226	£463	+8.82%	204
Midlands	+23	133	£475	-9.52%	93
West Midlands	+32	113	£475	-13.64%	65
Yorkshire	+43	107	£488	+2.63%	56
South East	+4	105	£537	+13.11%	130
South West	+37	87	£539	-6.35%	58
North West	+6	87	£450	+11.11%	119
Scotland	-18	52	£544	+35.26%	70
North East	-10	32	£425	-	29
East of England	-18	24	£550	+15.79%	45
East Midlands	-8	20	£463	+3.47%	28
Wales	-5	8	£450	-9.09%	9
Northern Ireland	+9	5	£467	-	38

Data Engineering Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 12 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	55.4%	978
2	SQL	55.0%	971
3	Data Pipeline	49.3%	871
4	Analytics	45.6%	806
5	Azure	42.5%	750
6	Data Modelling	39.9%	704
7	CI/CD	39.6%	699
8	Data Quality	37.0%	654
9	AWS	36.8%	650
10	ETL	36.0%	636
11	AI	31.9%	563
12	Databricks	30.9%	545
13	Agile	26.1%	461
14	DevOps	24.9%	439
15	Data Governance	24.4%	431
16	Business Intelligence	24.0%	424
17	Security Cleared	20.7%	365
18	Data Warehouse	20.2%	357
19	Stakeholder Management	19.5%	345
20	Power Platform	18.5%	327
21	Microsoft	18.5%	326
22	Machine Learning	18.3%	323
23	Power BI	17.8%	315
24	Data Transformation	17.6%	311
25	Validation	17.6%	310
26	SC Cleared	16.9%	299
27	Data Integration	16.3%	288
27	Problem-Solving	16.3%	288
27	Snowflake	16.3%	288
30	Migration	15.8%	279

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	49.3%	871
2	Analytics	45.6%	806
3	Data Modelling	39.9%	704
4	CI/CD	39.6%	699
5	ETL	36.0%	636
6	AI	31.9%	563
7	Agile	26.1%	461
8	DevOps	24.9%	439
9	Data Governance	24.4%	431
10	Business Intelligence	24.0%	424
11	Stakeholder Management	19.5%	345
12	Machine Learning	18.3%	323
13	Data Transformation	17.6%	311
14	Validation	17.6%	310
15	Data Integration	16.3%	288
15	Problem-Solving	16.3%	288
17	Migration	15.8%	279
18	Infrastructure as Code	15.3%	271
19	Data Architecture	14.4%	255
20	Lakehouse	13.7%	242