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

6 months to
25 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 164 205
Rank change year-on-year +77 +41 +3
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,570 586 488
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.96% 1.79% 1.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.48% 1.98% 1.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,086 378 358
10th Percentile £381 £363 £386
25th Percentile £438 £442 £464
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% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 28 7 14
10th Percentile £21.25 £27.00 £30.63
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 45,072 29,587 34,698
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.08% 90.43% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,942 18,578 22,301
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
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 2,665 1,596 2,086
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £13.50
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.33 £17.31
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.80 £68.75 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £24.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +83.17% -40.00% -1.45%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +70 1,393 £525 - 592
London +53 819 £550 - 362
UK excluding London +78 590 £500 +5.26% 310
Work from Home +66 511 £525 - 248
North of England +24 178 £475 -2.56% 112
Midlands +40 155 £475 +3.49% 33
West Midlands +40 130 £469 +8.82% 25
South West +31 85 £503 -7.59% 36
Yorkshire +10 84 £475 +2.70% 33
South East -31 83 £525 +11.70% 99
Scotland +18 60 £450 -5.26% 12
North West -23 56 £500 +5.26% 52
North East -10 40 £425 -15.00% 28
East of England -3 30 £575 +35.29% 10
East Midlands -5 22 £525 +13.94% 8
Wales -9 8 £450 +82.58% 7
Northern Ireland - 4 £334 - 5

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
1 204 (12.99%) Apache Spark
2 178 (11.34%) Apache Airflow
3 132 (8.41%) Apache
4 46 (2.93%) SAS
5 44 (2.80%) Confluence
6 23 (1.46%) Jupyter
7 22 (1.40%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.70%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.51%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.19%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Solr
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Synapse
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.064%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 1 (0.064%) CICS
13 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.064%) IBM HTTP Server
13 1 (0.064%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 23 (1.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 13 (0.83%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.32%) BambooHR
4 4 (0.25%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.25%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.25%) 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
1 659 (41.97%) Azure
2 592 (37.71%) AWS
3 325 (20.70%) Power Platform
4 238 (15.16%) Snowflake
5 218 (13.89%) GCP
6 194 (12.36%) dbt
7 183 (11.66%) Amazon S3
8 175 (11.15%) Azure Data Factory
9 149 (9.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 135 (8.60%) Serverless
11 130 (8.28%) Azure DevOps
12 120 (7.64%) GitHub
13 114 (7.26%) AWS Lambda
14 67 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
15 61 (3.89%) Amazon EMR
16 37 (2.36%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 37 (2.36%) AWS CloudFormation
17 31 (1.97%) Amazon SageMaker
17 31 (1.97%) AWS Step Functions
17 31 (1.97%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
1 5 (0.32%) RTP
2 2 (0.13%) Network Security
3 1 (0.064%) 4G
3 1 (0.064%) 5G
3 1 (0.064%) Broadband
3 1 (0.064%) MIMO
3 1 (0.064%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 304 (19.36%) Data Warehouse
1 304 (19.36%) Power BI
2 221 (14.08%) Data Lake
3 158 (10.06%) Metadata
4 112 (7.13%) Big Data
5 111 (7.07%) Amazon Redshift
6 100 (6.37%) BigQuery
7 96 (6.11%) Delta Lake
8 92 (5.86%) Tableau
9 81 (5.16%) SQL Server
10 79 (5.03%) Amazon Athena
11 70 (4.46%) NoSQL
12 64 (4.08%) Snowflake Schema
13 60 (3.82%) PostgreSQL
13 60 (3.82%) Relational Database
14 48 (3.06%) Azure SQL Database
15 46 (2.93%) Hadoop
16 37 (2.36%) Star Schema
17 35 (2.23%) Looker
17 35 (2.23%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 176 (11.21%) Git
2 75 (4.78%) JIRA
3 72 (4.59%) GitLab
4 32 (2.04%) MLflow
5 20 (1.27%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.38%) ERwin
6 6 (0.38%) 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%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.064%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.064%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 379 (24.14%) Social Skills
2 362 (23.06%) Finance
3 257 (16.37%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (10.76%) Public Sector
5 124 (7.90%) Banking
6 41 (2.61%) Marketing
7 36 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 33 (2.10%) Retail
10 25 (1.59%) Front Office
11 24 (1.53%) Telecoms
12 21 (1.34%) Investment Banking
13 16 (1.02%) Financial Institution
14 15 (0.96%) Manufacturing
15 14 (0.89%) Law
16 12 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
17 11 (0.70%) Legal
17 11 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
18 9 (0.57%) Billing
19 7 (0.45%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 726 (46.24%) Data Engineer
2 219 (13.95%) Senior
3 178 (11.34%) Architect
4 177 (11.27%) Lead
5 126 (8.03%) Senior Data Engineer
6 99 (6.31%) Data Architect
7 96 (6.11%) Developer
8 82 (5.22%) AWS Engineer
9 72 (4.59%) Analyst
10 66 (4.20%) Lead Data Engineer
11 64 (4.08%) AWS Data Engineer
12 63 (4.01%) Snowflake Engineer
13 62 (3.95%) Azure Engineer
14 55 (3.50%) Azure Data Engineer
15 49 (3.12%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 48 (3.06%) Data Scientist
16 48 (3.06%) Python Engineer
17 47 (2.99%) Solutions Architect
18 45 (2.87%) Consultant
19 44 (2.80%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 231 (14.71%) PySpark
2 143 (9.11%) Kafka
3 42 (2.68%) REST
4 40 (2.55%) Pandas
5 36 (2.29%) JSON
6 30 (1.91%) scikit-learn
7 28 (1.78%) PyTorch
8 26 (1.66%) React
9 25 (1.59%) NumPy
10 23 (1.46%) Spring
10 23 (1.46%) TensorFlow
11 19 (1.21%) .NET
12 17 (1.08%) RESTful
13 16 (1.02%) OpenTelemetry
13 16 (1.02%) Spring Boot
14 14 (0.89%) Apache Avro
14 14 (0.89%) FastAPI
15 13 (0.83%) LangChain
16 12 (0.76%) Great Expectations
16 12 (0.76%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 207 (13.18%) Cloud Native
2 71 (4.52%) Data Structures
3 64 (4.08%) Distributed Systems
3 64 (4.08%) Legacy Systems
4 57 (3.63%) Product Ownership
5 45 (2.87%) Onboarding
6 36 (2.29%) AI Agents
7 28 (1.78%) Data Protection Act
8 26 (1.66%) Distributed Computing
9 25 (1.59%) Algorithms
10 22 (1.40%) Greenfield Project
10 22 (1.40%) NHS
11 19 (1.21%) Virtual Team
12 18 (1.15%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.08%) Clustering
14 16 (1.02%) Reference Data
15 14 (0.89%) Management Information System
16 13 (0.83%) Life Science
17 12 (0.76%) Enterprise Software
17 12 (0.76%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 34 (2.17%) Linux
2 27 (1.72%) Unix
3 6 (0.38%) Windows
4 4 (0.25%) VMS
5 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 813 (51.78%) Analytics
2 759 (48.34%) Data Pipeline
3 618 (39.36%) Data Modelling
4 549 (34.97%) CI/CD
5 538 (34.27%) ETL
6 441 (28.09%) AI
7 397 (25.29%) Agile
8 390 (24.84%) Business Intelligence
9 365 (23.25%) DevOps
10 354 (22.55%) Data Governance
11 296 (18.85%) Machine Learning
12 277 (17.64%) Data Science
13 272 (17.32%) Problem-Solving
14 236 (15.03%) Migration
15 228 (14.52%) Validation
16 224 (14.27%) Data Architecture
17 220 (14.01%) Decision-Making
18 198 (12.61%) Data Transformation
19 195 (12.42%) Stakeholder Management
20 191 (12.17%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 861 (54.84%) SQL
2 821 (52.29%) Python
3 126 (8.03%) Java
4 46 (2.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 40 (2.55%) Scala
6 37 (2.36%) Bash
7 36 (2.29%) C#
8 25 (1.59%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.59%) T-SQL
9 22 (1.40%) R
10 19 (1.21%) Bicep
10 19 (1.21%) JavaScript
11 17 (1.08%) PL/SQL
12 15 (0.96%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.76%) SAS Macro
14 11 (0.70%) TypeScript
15 8 (0.51%) SPARQL
16 7 (0.45%) Cypher
17 5 (0.32%) Go
17 5 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 306 (19.49%) Security Cleared
2 261 (16.62%) SC Cleared
3 113 (7.20%) Degree
4 48 (3.06%) Computer Science Degree
5 37 (2.36%) BPSS Clearance
5 37 (2.36%) Master's Degree
6 32 (2.04%) Azure Certification
7 28 (1.78%) DV Cleared
8 20 (1.27%) AWS Certification
9 13 (0.83%) DBS Check
10 9 (0.57%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 9 (0.57%) SnowPro
11 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.38%) 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
1 465 (29.62%) Data Quality
2 89 (5.67%) GDPR
3 81 (5.16%) QA
4 24 (1.53%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.96%) SLA
6 4 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.25%) NIST
6 4 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.25%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.19%) GRC
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%) COPPA
8 2 (0.13%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 135 (8.60%) Docker
2 4 (0.25%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.13%) HDFS
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 198 (12.61%) Terraform
2 115 (7.32%) Kubernetes
3 27 (1.72%) Grafana
4 25 (1.59%) 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%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.064%) Oozie
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 404 (25.73%) Databricks
2 266 (16.94%) Microsoft
3 85 (5.41%) Informatica
4 71 (4.52%) Google
5 69 (4.39%) Oracle
6 35 (2.23%) Talend
7 33 (2.10%) SAP
8 32 (2.04%) Foundry
9 31 (1.97%) Palantir
10 25 (1.59%) OpenAI
11 23 (1.46%) Splunk
12 22 (1.40%) Salesforce
13 15 (0.96%) Cloudera
13 15 (0.96%) ServiceNow
14 12 (0.76%) Trend Micro
15 8 (0.51%) Adobe
15 8 (0.51%) Workday
16 7 (0.45%) Denodo
16 7 (0.45%) InterSystems
17 6 (0.38%) Teradata