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 20 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 164 201
Rank change year-on-year +72 +37 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,546 569 458
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.89% 1.73% 1.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.41% 1.92% 1.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,066 353 338
10th Percentile £400 £363 £386
25th Percentile £449 £425 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -10.87% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £676
90th Percentile £741 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £516
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.86% -10.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 7 13
10th Percentile - £32.38 £30.55
25th Percentile £21.25 £45.11 £31.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £52.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.81% +50.00% -55.13%
75th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £87.50 £96.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £31.98 £60.00
% change year-on-year +39.15% -46.70% -23.08%

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 45,331 29,700 33,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.72% 90.46% 85.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,838 18,524 21,130
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.58%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,836 1,729 1,767
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.31 £17.33 £18.14
Median hourly rate £41.63 £25.15 £40.94
Median % change year-on-year +65.54% -38.57% -0.24%
75th Percentile £67.99 £49.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £68.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +83.17% -43.53% +17.65%

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 20 August 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 20 August 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 20 August 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 +64 1,391 £525 - 648
London +52 838 £550 - 383
UK excluding London +77 557 £500 +5.26% 380
Work from Home +70 498 £525 +5.00% 286
North of England +45 180 £469 -1.32% 111
Midlands +38 142 £486 +7.93% 32
West Midlands +31 117 £475 +1.28% 25
South East -6 92 £525 +11.94% 123
Yorkshire +25 90 £475 +11.76% 30
South West +18 73 £523 -3.91% 53
North West -7 55 £500 - 56
Scotland +2 44 £500 +7.53% 27
North East -7 37 £425 -20.93% 26
East of England -3 28 £575 -4.17% 22
East Midlands -3 22 £525 +16.54% 7
Wales - 7 £450 - 5
Northern Ireland +9 4 £334 - 8

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
1 183 (11.84%) Apache Airflow
2 178 (11.51%) Apache Spark
3 123 (7.96%) Apache
4 40 (2.59%) SAS
5 37 (2.39%) Confluence
6 22 (1.42%) Jupyter
7 19 (1.23%) Palantir Foundry
8 13 (0.84%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.45%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.32%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.32%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.19%) PowerExchange
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.065%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.065%) CICS
13 1 (0.065%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.065%) GeoServer
13 1 (0.065%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.065%) nginx
Applications
1 19 (1.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.32%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.065%) Notion
Business Applications
1 12 (0.78%) 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 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.13%) Endur
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.065%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.065%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.065%) MIS ActiveH
7 1 (0.065%) R3 Corda
7 1 (0.065%) SAP BPC
7 1 (0.065%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 650 (42.04%) Azure
2 571 (36.93%) AWS
3 309 (19.99%) Power Platform
4 253 (16.36%) Snowflake
5 210 (13.58%) GCP
6 197 (12.74%) dbt
7 167 (10.80%) Amazon S3
7 167 (10.80%) Azure Data Factory
8 140 (9.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 138 (8.93%) Azure DevOps
10 127 (8.21%) Serverless
11 124 (8.02%) GitHub
12 105 (6.79%) AWS Lambda
13 64 (4.14%) GitHub Actions
14 51 (3.30%) Amazon EMR
15 33 (2.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 31 (2.01%) Amazon Bedrock
17 28 (1.81%) Azure AI
18 27 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
19 26 (1.68%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
2 3 (0.19%) DNS
2 3 (0.19%) Network Security
3 2 (0.13%) Broadband
3 2 (0.13%) RTP
4 1 (0.065%) Internet
4 1 (0.065%) MIMO
4 1 (0.065%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (19.73%) Data Warehouse
2 293 (18.95%) Power BI
3 212 (13.71%) Data Lake
4 162 (10.48%) Metadata
5 109 (7.05%) Amazon Redshift
5 109 (7.05%) BigQuery
6 98 (6.34%) Delta Lake
7 94 (6.08%) Big Data
8 83 (5.37%) Tableau
9 74 (4.79%) Amazon Athena
10 67 (4.33%) SQL Server
11 64 (4.14%) Snowflake Schema
12 62 (4.01%) NoSQL
13 56 (3.62%) Relational Database
14 54 (3.49%) PostgreSQL
15 47 (3.04%) Azure SQL Database
16 37 (2.39%) Looker
17 36 (2.33%) Star Schema
18 33 (2.13%) Data Vault
19 30 (1.94%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 163 (10.54%) Git
2 84 (5.43%) GitLab
3 69 (4.46%) JIRA
4 28 (1.81%) Jenkins
5 24 (1.55%) MLflow
6 7 (0.45%) ERwin
7 6 (0.39%) Bitbucket
7 6 (0.39%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.39%) Terragrunt
8 5 (0.32%) RStudio
9 4 (0.26%) Claude Code
9 4 (0.26%) Selenium
10 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.19%) Snyk
10 3 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 2 (0.13%) Postman
11 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
12 1 (0.065%) Deequ
General
1 384 (24.84%) Social Skills
2 357 (23.09%) Finance
3 249 (16.11%) Analytical Skills
4 159 (10.28%) Public Sector
5 119 (7.70%) Banking
6 47 (3.04%) Marketing
7 40 (2.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (2.07%) Retail
9 27 (1.75%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (1.49%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.42%) Front Office
11 22 (1.42%) Telecoms
12 16 (1.03%) Manufacturing
13 14 (0.91%) Law
13 14 (0.91%) Pharmaceutical
14 13 (0.84%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
16 11 (0.71%) Billing
17 10 (0.65%) Legal
18 9 (0.58%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 716 (46.31%) Data Engineer
2 224 (14.49%) Senior
3 178 (11.51%) Architect
4 176 (11.38%) Lead
5 135 (8.73%) Senior Data Engineer
6 98 (6.34%) Data Architect
7 92 (5.95%) Developer
8 80 (5.17%) AWS Engineer
9 67 (4.33%) Analyst
9 67 (4.33%) AWS Data Engineer
10 66 (4.27%) Snowflake Engineer
11 62 (4.01%) Azure Engineer
12 58 (3.75%) Lead Data Engineer
13 50 (3.23%) Python Engineer
13 50 (3.23%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 48 (3.10%) Azure Data Engineer
15 47 (3.04%) Consultant
16 43 (2.78%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 43 (2.78%) Solutions Architect
17 39 (2.52%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 234 (15.14%) PySpark
2 202 (13.07%) Terraform
3 126 (8.15%) Kafka
4 51 (3.30%) REST
5 31 (2.01%) JSON
6 30 (1.94%) React
7 28 (1.81%) Pandas
8 22 (1.42%) .NET
9 21 (1.36%) PyTorch
10 19 (1.23%) scikit-learn
10 19 (1.23%) TensorFlow
11 17 (1.10%) Spring
12 16 (1.03%) NumPy
13 13 (0.84%) FastAPI
14 12 (0.78%) pytest
14 12 (0.78%) RESTful
15 11 (0.71%) LangChain
15 11 (0.71%) Microsoft Graph
15 11 (0.71%) Spring Boot
15 11 (0.71%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 206 (13.32%) Cloud Native
2 71 (4.59%) Data Structures
3 64 (4.14%) Legacy Systems
4 59 (3.82%) Product Ownership
5 58 (3.75%) Distributed Systems
6 50 (3.23%) Onboarding
7 38 (2.46%) AI Agents
8 25 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
9 23 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
10 21 (1.36%) Distributed Computing
11 18 (1.16%) Algorithms
11 18 (1.16%) NHS
12 17 (1.10%) Clustering
12 17 (1.10%) Virtual Team
13 16 (1.03%) Life Science
14 15 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
14 15 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
15 14 (0.91%) Management Information System
16 12 (0.78%) Reference Data
17 10 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 38 (2.46%) Linux
2 30 (1.94%) Unix
3 8 (0.52%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) VMS
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.065%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.065%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 764 (49.42%) Analytics
2 739 (47.80%) Data Pipeline
3 585 (37.84%) Data Modelling
4 537 (34.73%) CI/CD
5 530 (34.28%) ETL
6 453 (29.30%) AI
7 387 (25.03%) Business Intelligence
8 385 (24.90%) Agile
9 360 (23.29%) DevOps
10 351 (22.70%) Data Governance
11 273 (17.66%) Machine Learning
12 254 (16.43%) Problem-Solving
13 237 (15.33%) Data Science
14 234 (15.14%) Migration
15 226 (14.62%) Data Transformation
15 226 (14.62%) Decision-Making
16 224 (14.49%) Stakeholder Management
16 224 (14.49%) Validation
17 223 (14.42%) Data Architecture
18 199 (12.87%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 835 (54.01%) SQL
2 787 (50.91%) Python
3 115 (7.44%) Java
4 43 (2.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 42 (2.72%) Scala
6 39 (2.52%) Bash
7 36 (2.33%) PowerShell
8 32 (2.07%) C#
9 24 (1.55%) JavaScript
10 22 (1.42%) R
11 21 (1.36%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.29%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.97%) Bicep
14 14 (0.91%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.71%) SAS Macro
15 11 (0.71%) TypeScript
16 8 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
16 8 (0.52%) SPARQL
17 6 (0.39%) Cypher
17 6 (0.39%) Go
Qualifications
1 293 (18.95%) Security Cleared
2 248 (16.04%) SC Cleared
3 92 (5.95%) Degree
4 48 (3.10%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.01%) Azure Certification
6 28 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
7 26 (1.68%) DV Cleared
8 22 (1.42%) Master's Degree
9 19 (1.23%) AWS Certification
10 14 (0.91%) DBS Check
11 12 (0.78%) SnowPro
12 9 (0.58%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 8 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.32%) CSPO
15 5 (0.32%) Tableau Certification
16 3 (0.19%) PhD
16 3 (0.19%) PMI Certification
17 2 (0.13%) PMP
18 1 (0.065%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 471 (30.47%) Data Quality
2 77 (4.98%) GDPR
3 73 (4.72%) QA
4 26 (1.68%) Accessibility
5 14 (0.91%) SLA
6 4 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
6 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.19%) GxP
7 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (0.19%) MiFID
7 3 (0.19%) NIST
7 3 (0.19%) PMO
8 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.13%) COPPA
8 2 (0.13%) GRC
8 2 (0.13%) IFRS
8 2 (0.13%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 131 (8.47%) Docker
2 5 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 108 (6.99%) Kubernetes
2 28 (1.81%) Grafana
3 20 (1.29%) Ansible
4 10 (0.65%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.45%) Control-M
6 5 (0.32%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Argo
8 2 (0.13%) Puppet
8 2 (0.13%) Rancher
8 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.065%) Cilium
9 1 (0.065%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.065%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.065%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.065%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.065%) Nagios
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.065%) QRadar
Vendors
1 413 (26.71%) Databricks
2 274 (17.72%) Microsoft
3 78 (5.05%) Informatica
4 70 (4.53%) Google
5 67 (4.33%) Oracle
6 34 (2.20%) SAP
7 30 (1.94%) Foundry
8 29 (1.88%) Talend
9 27 (1.75%) Palantir
9 27 (1.75%) Salesforce
10 17 (1.10%) OpenAI
11 16 (1.03%) Cloudera
12 15 (0.97%) Splunk
13 14 (0.91%) ServiceNow
14 12 (0.78%) Trend Micro
15 11 (0.71%) Teradata
16 9 (0.58%) Denodo
16 9 (0.58%) Workday
17 8 (0.52%) Adobe
18 7 (0.45%) Hitachi