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 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 85 161 207
Rank change year-on-year +76 +46 +8
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,558 587 479
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.95% 1.78% 1.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.47% 1.97% 1.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,079 378 353
10th Percentile £384 £363 £400
25th Percentile £438 £442 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £644 £688
90th Percentile £738 £800 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -14.89%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 7 13
10th Percentile £21.25 £27.00 £30.55
25th Percentile £49.56 £34.48 £31.25
Median hourly rate £67.00 £52.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.62% +50.00% -52.05%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.25 £83.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £30.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +113.33% -50.00% -17.81%

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 44,856 29,798 34,328
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.96% 90.42% 85.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,798 18,719 22,071
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,670 1,616 2,026
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.56
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.33 £17.55
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.38 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.38 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.82 £40.00
% change year-on-year +84.59% -40.46% -

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 +69 1,383 £525 - 604
London +56 813 £550 - 368
UK excluding London +75 584 £500 +5.26% 318
Work from Home +67 510 £525 - 261
North of England +26 178 £475 -2.56% 117
Midlands +42 151 £475 +3.49% 34
West Midlands +40 126 £469 +8.82% 26
South West +25 85 £503 -7.59% 38
Yorkshire +10 83 £475 +2.70% 36
South East -32 83 £525 +11.70% 101
Scotland +30 58 £475 - 13
North West -18 57 £500 +5.26% 56
North East -7 40 £425 -15.00% 26
East of England -4 30 £575 +35.29% 9
East Midlands -3 22 £525 +13.94% 8
Wales -7 8 £450 +82.58% 6
Northern Ireland - 4 £334 - 4

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
1 199 (12.77%) Apache Spark
2 177 (11.36%) Apache Airflow
3 129 (8.28%) Apache
4 46 (2.95%) SAS
5 42 (2.70%) Confluence
6 23 (1.48%) Jupyter
7 22 (1.41%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.71%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.51%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.26%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.13%) Apache Solr
11 2 (0.13%) Appian
11 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.064%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.064%) Camunda
12 1 (0.064%) CICS
12 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.064%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 22 (1.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.19%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 13 (0.83%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.32%) BambooHR
4 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.26%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.13%) Endur
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.13%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.064%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.064%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.064%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.064%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.064%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 652 (41.85%) Azure
2 587 (37.68%) AWS
3 323 (20.73%) Power Platform
4 237 (15.21%) Snowflake
5 215 (13.80%) GCP
6 192 (12.32%) dbt
7 181 (11.62%) Amazon S3
8 174 (11.17%) Azure Data Factory
9 147 (9.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 135 (8.66%) Serverless
11 128 (8.22%) Azure DevOps
12 119 (7.64%) GitHub
13 114 (7.32%) AWS Lambda
14 66 (4.24%) GitHub Actions
15 61 (3.92%) Amazon EMR
16 37 (2.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 35 (2.25%) AWS CloudFormation
18 31 (1.99%) AWS Step Functions
19 30 (1.93%) Amazon SageMaker
19 30 (1.93%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
2 4 (0.26%) RTP
3 2 (0.13%) Network Security
4 1 (0.064%) 4G
4 1 (0.064%) 5G
4 1 (0.064%) Broadband
4 1 (0.064%) MIMO
4 1 (0.064%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 303 (19.45%) Data Warehouse
2 302 (19.38%) Power BI
3 219 (14.06%) Data Lake
4 155 (9.95%) Metadata
5 111 (7.12%) Amazon Redshift
6 109 (7.00%) Big Data
7 99 (6.35%) BigQuery
8 96 (6.16%) Delta Lake
9 92 (5.91%) Tableau
10 80 (5.13%) SQL Server
11 77 (4.94%) Amazon Athena
12 69 (4.43%) NoSQL
13 64 (4.11%) Snowflake Schema
14 60 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
14 60 (3.85%) Relational Database
15 48 (3.08%) Azure SQL Database
16 44 (2.82%) Hadoop
17 37 (2.37%) Star Schema
18 35 (2.25%) Looker
18 35 (2.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 173 (11.10%) Git
2 73 (4.69%) JIRA
3 72 (4.62%) GitLab
4 30 (1.93%) MLflow
5 20 (1.28%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.39%) ERwin
6 6 (0.39%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.32%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.19%) Postman
8 3 (0.19%) Selenium
8 3 (0.19%) Snyk
8 3 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
10 1 (0.064%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.064%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.064%) Robot Framework
General
1 377 (24.20%) Social Skills
2 359 (23.04%) Finance
3 256 (16.43%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (10.85%) Public Sector
5 121 (7.77%) Banking
6 41 (2.63%) Marketing
7 36 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 33 (2.12%) Retail
10 25 (1.60%) Front Office
11 24 (1.54%) Telecoms
12 21 (1.35%) Investment Banking
13 15 (0.96%) Financial Institution
13 15 (0.96%) Manufacturing
14 14 (0.90%) Law
15 12 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
15 12 (0.77%) Pharmaceutical
16 11 (0.71%) Legal
17 9 (0.58%) Billing
18 7 (0.45%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 722 (46.34%) Data Engineer
2 217 (13.93%) Senior
3 177 (11.36%) Architect
4 176 (11.30%) Lead
5 126 (8.09%) Senior Data Engineer
6 98 (6.29%) Data Architect
7 96 (6.16%) Developer
8 82 (5.26%) AWS Engineer
9 72 (4.62%) Analyst
10 65 (4.17%) Lead Data Engineer
11 64 (4.11%) AWS Data Engineer
12 62 (3.98%) Azure Engineer
12 62 (3.98%) Snowflake Engineer
13 55 (3.53%) Azure Data Engineer
14 48 (3.08%) Python Engineer
14 48 (3.08%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 47 (3.02%) Data Scientist
16 46 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
17 45 (2.89%) Consultant
18 44 (2.82%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (14.83%) PySpark
2 141 (9.05%) Kafka
3 41 (2.63%) REST
4 38 (2.44%) Pandas
5 36 (2.31%) JSON
6 28 (1.80%) PyTorch
6 28 (1.80%) scikit-learn
7 26 (1.67%) React
8 23 (1.48%) NumPy
8 23 (1.48%) Spring
9 22 (1.41%) TensorFlow
10 19 (1.22%) .NET
11 16 (1.03%) OpenTelemetry
11 16 (1.03%) RESTful
11 16 (1.03%) Spring Boot
12 14 (0.90%) Apache Avro
13 13 (0.83%) FastAPI
13 13 (0.83%) LangChain
14 12 (0.77%) Microsoft Graph
14 12 (0.77%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 204 (13.09%) Cloud Native
2 71 (4.56%) Data Structures
3 64 (4.11%) Distributed Systems
4 63 (4.04%) Legacy Systems
5 55 (3.53%) Product Ownership
6 43 (2.76%) Onboarding
7 36 (2.31%) AI Agents
8 28 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
9 26 (1.67%) Distributed Computing
10 24 (1.54%) Algorithms
11 22 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
11 22 (1.41%) NHS
12 18 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.09%) Clustering
13 17 (1.09%) Virtual Team
14 14 (0.90%) Life Science
14 14 (0.90%) Management Information System
14 14 (0.90%) Reference Data
15 12 (0.77%) Enterprise Software
15 12 (0.77%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 33 (2.12%) Linux
2 26 (1.67%) Unix
3 6 (0.39%) Windows
4 4 (0.26%) VMS
5 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 804 (51.60%) Analytics
2 757 (48.59%) Data Pipeline
3 610 (39.15%) Data Modelling
4 543 (34.85%) CI/CD
5 533 (34.21%) ETL
6 436 (27.98%) AI
7 395 (25.35%) Agile
8 388 (24.90%) Business Intelligence
9 360 (23.11%) DevOps
10 348 (22.34%) Data Governance
11 291 (18.68%) Machine Learning
12 273 (17.52%) Data Science
13 270 (17.33%) Problem-Solving
14 233 (14.96%) Migration
15 225 (14.44%) Validation
16 219 (14.06%) Data Architecture
17 218 (13.99%) Decision-Making
18 197 (12.64%) Data Transformation
19 191 (12.26%) Stakeholder Management
20 189 (12.13%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 856 (54.94%) SQL
2 816 (52.37%) Python
3 125 (8.02%) Java
4 46 (2.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 40 (2.57%) Scala
6 37 (2.37%) Bash
7 34 (2.18%) C#
8 25 (1.60%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.60%) T-SQL
9 21 (1.35%) R
10 19 (1.22%) Bicep
10 19 (1.22%) JavaScript
11 17 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 15 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.77%) SAS Macro
14 11 (0.71%) TypeScript
15 8 (0.51%) SPARQL
16 7 (0.45%) Cypher
17 5 (0.32%) Go
17 5 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 303 (19.45%) Security Cleared
2 258 (16.56%) SC Cleared
3 111 (7.12%) Degree
4 48 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
5 37 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 37 (2.37%) Master's Degree
6 32 (2.05%) Azure Certification
7 28 (1.80%) DV Cleared
8 20 (1.28%) AWS Certification
9 13 (0.83%) DBS Check
10 9 (0.58%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 9 (0.58%) SnowPro
11 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.32%) CSPO
13 5 (0.32%) Tableau Certification
14 3 (0.19%) IBM Certification
14 3 (0.19%) PhD
15 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.13%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 460 (29.53%) Data Quality
2 84 (5.39%) GDPR
3 79 (5.07%) QA
4 24 (1.54%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.96%) SLA
6 4 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.26%) NIST
6 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.19%) GxP
7 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (0.19%) MiFID
7 3 (0.19%) PMO
8 2 (0.13%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 2 (0.13%) EMIR
8 2 (0.13%) GRC
8 2 (0.13%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 133 (8.54%) Docker
2 4 (0.26%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.13%) HDFS
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 196 (12.58%) Terraform
2 114 (7.32%) Kubernetes
3 27 (1.73%) Grafana
4 25 (1.60%) Prometheus
5 13 (0.83%) Ansible
6 5 (0.32%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) Argo
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
7 3 (0.19%) Rancher
8 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.13%) Nagios
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.064%) Control-M
9 1 (0.064%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.064%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.064%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.064%) Oozie
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.064%) QRadar
Vendors
1 402 (25.80%) Databricks
2 264 (16.94%) Microsoft
3 85 (5.46%) Informatica
4 69 (4.43%) Google
4 69 (4.43%) Oracle
5 35 (2.25%) Talend
6 33 (2.12%) SAP
7 32 (2.05%) Foundry
8 31 (1.99%) Palantir
9 24 (1.54%) OpenAI
10 23 (1.48%) Splunk
11 22 (1.41%) Salesforce
12 15 (0.96%) Cloudera
12 15 (0.96%) ServiceNow
13 12 (0.77%) Trend Micro
14 8 (0.51%) Adobe
14 8 (0.51%) Workday
15 7 (0.45%) Denodo
15 7 (0.45%) InterSystems
16 6 (0.39%) Teradata