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 25 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 25 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	88	131	185
Rank change year-on-year	+43	+54	+51
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering	1,675	715	489
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	3.06%	2.13%	1.32%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category	3.58%	2.35%	1.53%
Number of daily rates quoted	1,150	447	351
10^th Percentile	£400	£349	£396
25^th Percentile	£445	£413	£468
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£529	£525	£550
Median % change year-on-year	+0.67%	-4.55%	-8.33%
75^th Percentile	£650	£638	£656
90^th Percentile	£738	£750	£775
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£463	£513
% change year-on-year	+8.11%	-9.76%	-10.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted	23	6	7
10^th Percentile	£21.25	£37.11	£23.72
25^th Percentile	£28.25	£45.47	£25.81
Median hourly rate	£57.50	£69.63	£26.50
Median % change year-on-year	-17.42%	+162.75%	-66.03%
75^th Percentile	£70.75	£84.19	£43.38
90^th Percentile	£81.64	£98.75	£60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£62.40	£56.61	£26.50
% change year-on-year	+10.23%	+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 25 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies citing process or methodology skills	46,766	30,415	31,858
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK	85.32%	90.43%	86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted	28,056	18,930	19,151
10^th Percentile	£325	£300	£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%	-2.33%
75^th Percentile	£638	£620	£638
90^th Percentile	£738	£725	£744
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£475	£500
% change year-on-year	+5.26%	-5.00%	-
Number of hourly rates quoted	3,564	1,948	1,167
10^th Percentile	£13.50	£14.38	£15.00
25^th Percentile	£16.62	£17.30	£20.12
Median hourly rate	£35.00	£25.15	£38.00
Median % change year-on-year	+39.19%	-33.83%	-11.63%
75^th Percentile	£65.00	£42.76	£65.00
90^th Percentile	£78.75	£66.65	£73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£35.00	£22.27	£37.50
% change year-on-year	+57.20%	-40.63%	-11.76%

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 25 October 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 25 October 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 25 October 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	+44	1,480	£530	+0.95%	1,589
London	+41	902	£550	-	961
UK excluding London	+69	597	£500	+8.11%	684
Work from Home	+45	537	£525	-	802
North of England	+27	205	£463	+8.82%	238
Midlands	+30	134	£475	-9.52%	94
West Midlands	+29	114	£475	-13.64%	68
South East	+2	101	£537	+22.10%	131
Yorkshire	+35	99	£500	+5.26%	56
South West	+32	87	£530	-18.46%	60
North West	-15	71	£446	+5.00%	135
Scotland	-4	52	£531	+28.21%	67
North East	-13	35	£425	-5.56%	47
East Midlands	-10	20	£478	+8.27%	26
East of England	-18	17	£525	+10.53%	43
Wales	-5	8	£450	-9.09%	18
Northern Ireland	+6	5	£467	-	34

Data Engineering Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 25 October 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	SQL	55.6%	932
2	Python	55.1%	923
3	Data Pipeline	50.1%	840
4	Analytics	45.9%	768
5	Azure	42.3%	708
6	Data Modelling	40.1%	672
7	CI/CD	39.2%	657
8	AWS	37.2%	623
9	ETL	35.6%	597
10	Data Quality	35.5%	595
11	AI	31.5%	527
12	Databricks	29.8%	499
13	Agile	26.3%	441
14	DevOps	25.6%	428
15	Business Intelligence	23.5%	394
16	Data Governance	23.2%	388
17	Data Warehouse	20.4%	341
17	Security Cleared	20.4%	341
19	Power Platform	18.7%	313
20	Stakeholder Management	18.2%	305
21	Microsoft	18.1%	303
22	Power BI	18.0%	301
23	Machine Learning	17.8%	298
24	Validation	17.5%	293
25	SC Cleared	16.7%	280
26	Snowflake	16.7%	279
27	Data Transformation	16.6%	278
28	Problem-Solving	16.3%	273
29	Data Integration	15.9%	267
29	Migration	15.9%	267

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	50.1%	840
2	Analytics	45.9%	768
3	Data Modelling	40.1%	672
4	CI/CD	39.2%	657
5	ETL	35.6%	597
6	AI	31.5%	527
7	Agile	26.3%	441
8	DevOps	25.6%	428
9	Business Intelligence	23.5%	394
10	Data Governance	23.2%	388
11	Stakeholder Management	18.2%	305
12	Machine Learning	17.8%	298
13	Validation	17.5%	293
14	Data Transformation	16.6%	278
15	Problem-Solving	16.3%	273
16	Data Integration	15.9%	267
16	Migration	15.9%	267
18	Infrastructure as Code	15.3%	256
19	Data Architecture	13.9%	233
20	Decision-Making	13.8%	231