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 30 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 122 168 217
Rank change year-on-year +46 +49 +13
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 859 497 489
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.32% 1.49% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.64% 1.69% 1.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 572 348 368
10th Percentile £363 £386 £400
25th Percentile £413 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.59% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £747 £788 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 13 10
10th Percentile £41.15 £21.25 £35.00
25th Percentile £50.00 £22.00 £36.68
Median hourly rate £74.26 £25.43 £53.65
Median % change year-on-year +192.02% -52.60% -28.46%
75th Percentile £87.50 £28.15 £74.75
90th Percentile £101.00 £57.63 £78.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.13 £25.43 £78.00
% change year-on-year +144.32% -67.40% +56.00%

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 32,589 29,397 38,047
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.09% 88.30% 88.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,542 17,920 25,365
10th Percentile £300 £308 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £724 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,036 949 1,516
10th Percentile £14.61 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £19.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -26.05% +25.57%
75th Percentile £52.52 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.00 £74.77 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.58 £30.62 £45.00
% change year-on-year -23.00% -31.97% +42.45%

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025.

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 30 December 2025. 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 +60 758 £520 -8.77% 2,545
London +67 525 £550 -4.35% 509
Work from Home +21 259 £550 -3.51% 1,508
UK excluding London +10 240 £475 -5.00% 2,252
North of England -22 73 £450 -18.18% 520
Midlands -5 61 £542 +8.30% 384
North West -2 46 £440 -10.66% 269
West Midlands -4 43 £550 +11.11% 209
Scotland +22 37 £402 -8.11% 108
South East +2 35 £480 -11.93% 598
South West +1 30 £550 -17.60% 241
East Midlands -4 18 £429 -25.43% 152
Yorkshire -42 15 £500 -9.09% 211
East of England -11 13 £500 +29.87% 343
North East +1 12 £425 -28.87% 40
Wales -14 2 £495 -1.00% 59
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 32

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
1 127 (14.78%) Apache Spark
2 110 (12.81%) Apache Airflow
3 67 (7.80%) Apache
4 13 (1.51%) Confluence
5 4 (0.47%) SAS
6 2 (0.23%) Appian
6 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Pig
7 1 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.12%) CMS
7 1 (0.12%) Luigi
7 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
Applications
1 19 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.70%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.23%) Trello
6 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 7 (0.81%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.47%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.23%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.23%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.12%) Actimize
4 1 (0.12%) Maximo
4 1 (0.12%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.12%) SAP BPC
4 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 392 (45.63%) Azure
2 297 (34.58%) AWS
3 152 (17.69%) Power Platform
4 149 (17.35%) Azure Data Factory
5 124 (14.44%) GCP
6 121 (14.09%) Snowflake
7 102 (11.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 100 (11.64%) Amazon S3
9 91 (10.59%) Serverless
10 88 (10.24%) GitHub
11 81 (9.43%) Azure DevOps
12 79 (9.20%) dbt
13 69 (8.03%) AWS Lambda
14 61 (7.10%) GitHub Actions
15 36 (4.19%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (3.38%) AWS Step Functions
17 27 (3.14%) Amazon SageMaker
17 27 (3.14%) Azure Machine Learning
18 22 (2.56%) Cloud Computing
19 21 (2.44%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.47%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.47%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.47%) Network Security
1 4 (0.47%) SSL
1 4 (0.47%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.35%) Firewall
2 3 (0.35%) SSH
2 3 (0.35%) VPN
3 2 (0.23%) DNS
4 1 (0.12%) MQTT
4 1 (0.12%) SAN
4 1 (0.12%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (19.32%) Data Warehouse
2 147 (17.11%) Power BI
3 113 (13.15%) Data Lake
4 69 (8.03%) Metadata
5 62 (7.22%) Big Data
6 56 (6.52%) NoSQL
7 52 (6.05%) Delta Lake
8 51 (5.94%) Relational Database
9 49 (5.70%) Azure SQL Database
10 46 (5.36%) SQL Server
11 45 (5.24%) BigQuery
12 41 (4.77%) PostgreSQL
13 39 (4.54%) Amazon Athena
13 39 (4.54%) Amazon Redshift
14 38 (4.42%) Snowflake Schema
15 37 (4.31%) Tableau
16 34 (3.96%) Hadoop
17 23 (2.68%) RDBMS
18 18 (2.10%) Amazon RDS
19 17 (1.98%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 137 (15.95%) Git
2 49 (5.70%) Jenkins
3 44 (5.12%) GitLab
4 33 (3.84%) MLflow
5 27 (3.14%) JIRA
6 9 (1.05%) Visual Studio Code
7 7 (0.81%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.47%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.47%) Poetry
9 3 (0.35%) JMeter
9 3 (0.35%) Selenium
10 2 (0.23%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.23%) ERwin
10 2 (0.23%) JUnit
10 2 (0.23%) Maven
10 2 (0.23%) Mockito
10 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.23%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.23%) TestRail
10 2 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 244 (28.41%) Social Skills
2 196 (22.82%) Finance
3 114 (13.27%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (6.98%) Public Sector
5 58 (6.75%) Banking
6 25 (2.91%) Investment Banking
7 21 (2.44%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (1.86%) Front Office
8 16 (1.86%) Retail
9 15 (1.75%) Marketing
9 15 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
10 13 (1.51%) Influencing Skills
11 11 (1.28%) Legal
12 10 (1.16%) Telecoms
13 9 (1.05%) Publishing
14 7 (0.81%) Documentation Skills
14 7 (0.81%) Military
14 7 (0.81%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.58%) Back Office
15 5 (0.58%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 359 (41.79%) Data Engineer
2 109 (12.69%) Senior
3 85 (9.90%) Lead
4 75 (8.73%) Azure Engineer
5 69 (8.03%) Senior Data Engineer
6 68 (7.92%) Developer
7 64 (7.45%) Architect
8 52 (6.05%) Azure Data Engineer
9 43 (5.01%) Analyst
9 43 (5.01%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 40 (4.66%) Python Engineer
11 39 (4.54%) AWS Engineer
12 34 (3.96%) Snowflake Engineer
13 33 (3.84%) Data Scientist
14 31 (3.61%) Data Architect
15 26 (3.03%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 25 (2.91%) AWS Data Engineer
16 25 (2.91%) DevOps Engineer
16 25 (2.91%) Python Data Engineer
17 23 (2.68%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 159 (18.51%) PySpark
2 94 (10.94%) Kafka
3 64 (7.45%) Pandas
4 51 (5.94%) PyTorch
5 50 (5.82%) NumPy
6 43 (5.01%) TensorFlow
7 42 (4.89%) FastAPI
8 35 (4.07%) Flask
9 34 (3.96%) scikit-learn
10 31 (3.61%) RESTful
11 26 (3.03%) React
12 23 (2.68%) LangChain
13 21 (2.44%) JSON
14 19 (2.21%) pytest
15 17 (1.98%) Hugging Face
16 15 (1.75%) REST
17 14 (1.63%) Polars
17 14 (1.63%) Spark Streaming
17 14 (1.63%) Vue
17 14 (1.63%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 82 (9.55%) Cloud Native
2 45 (5.24%) Algorithms
3 25 (2.91%) Distributed Computing
4 21 (2.44%) Data Structures
5 20 (2.33%) Product Ownership
6 19 (2.21%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
6 19 (2.21%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 19 (2.21%) Hybrid Cloud
6 19 (2.21%) Onboarding
7 15 (1.75%) Hedge funds
8 13 (1.51%) Legacy Systems
9 12 (1.40%) AI Agents
10 11 (1.28%) Analytical Mindset
10 11 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
10 11 (1.28%) Life Science
11 10 (1.16%) Derivative
11 10 (1.16%) Enterprise Software
12 9 (1.05%) Clustering
12 9 (1.05%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 31 (3.61%) Linux
2 3 (0.35%) Android
2 3 (0.35%) VMS
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.12%) CentOS
4 1 (0.12%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 368 (42.84%) Data Pipeline
2 314 (36.55%) CI/CD
3 312 (36.32%) ETL
4 305 (35.51%) Analytics
5 294 (34.23%) Data Modelling
6 212 (24.68%) DevOps
7 209 (24.33%) AI
8 206 (23.98%) Data Governance
9 201 (23.40%) Machine Learning
10 196 (22.82%) Agile
11 179 (20.84%) Business Intelligence
12 175 (20.37%) Problem-Solving
13 174 (20.26%) Data Science
14 141 (16.41%) Data Architecture
15 106 (12.34%) Infrastructure as Code
16 96 (11.18%) Containerisation
17 94 (10.94%) Data Integration
18 84 (9.78%) LLM
19 83 (9.66%) Data Transformation
20 82 (9.55%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 542 (63.10%) Python
2 424 (49.36%) SQL
3 59 (6.87%) Scala
4 53 (6.17%) Java
5 38 (4.42%) C#
6 34 (3.96%) JavaScript
7 29 (3.38%) PowerShell
8 24 (2.79%) C++
9 22 (2.56%) Bash
10 20 (2.33%) Bicep
11 18 (2.10%) T-SQL
12 17 (1.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (1.86%) R
13 16 (1.86%) TypeScript
14 15 (1.75%) Go
14 15 (1.75%) PL/SQL
15 14 (1.63%) Rust
16 12 (1.40%) Shell Script
17 7 (0.81%) Korn
18 4 (0.47%) VBA
Qualifications
1 156 (18.16%) Security Cleared
2 128 (14.90%) SC Cleared
3 69 (8.03%) Degree
4 54 (6.29%) Azure Certification
5 33 (3.84%) Master's Degree
6 27 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (2.21%) AWS Certification
7 19 (2.21%) DV Cleared
8 13 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
9 12 (1.40%) PhD
10 7 (0.81%) BPSS Clearance
10 7 (0.81%) MCP
11 5 (0.58%) DBS Check
12 3 (0.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.35%) SnowPro
12 3 (0.35%) Tableau Certification
13 2 (0.23%) CBAP
13 2 (0.23%) ISTQB
14 1 (0.12%) APMG
14 1 (0.12%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 211 (24.56%) Data Quality
2 68 (7.92%) GDPR
3 27 (3.14%) QA
4 19 (2.21%) Accessibility
5 9 (1.05%) HIPAA
6 8 (0.93%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 7 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.58%) PERC
9 4 (0.47%) NIST
9 4 (0.47%) SOC 2
9 4 (0.47%) WCAG
10 3 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.23%) HL7
11 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.23%) PMO
12 1 (0.12%) Dodd-Frank
12 1 (0.12%) EMIR
12 1 (0.12%) NCSC
12 1 (0.12%) Solvency II
System Software
1 136 (15.83%) Docker
2 16 (1.86%) HDFS
3 3 (0.35%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.12%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 136 (15.83%) Terraform
2 114 (13.27%) Kubernetes
3 16 (1.86%) Grafana
4 14 (1.63%) Ansible
5 11 (1.28%) Hadoop YARN
6 10 (1.16%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.70%) Argo
8 5 (0.58%) Control-M
8 5 (0.58%) Puppet
9 3 (0.35%) Istio
9 3 (0.35%) Kibana
9 3 (0.35%) Kustomize
9 3 (0.35%) logstash
9 3 (0.35%) Oozie
9 3 (0.35%) vCenter Server
10 2 (0.23%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
11 1 (0.12%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 261 (30.38%) Databricks
2 110 (12.81%) Microsoft
3 49 (5.70%) Google
4 29 (3.38%) Oracle
5 19 (2.21%) Informatica
6 17 (1.98%) OpenAI
6 17 (1.98%) Palantir
7 15 (1.75%) Foundry
7 15 (1.75%) Talend
8 13 (1.51%) SAP
9 12 (1.40%) Cloudera
10 9 (1.05%) Salesforce
11 8 (0.93%) Virgin Media
12 6 (0.70%) Denodo
12 6 (0.70%) Guidewire
13 5 (0.58%) IBM
14 4 (0.47%) Red Hat
14 4 (0.47%) Sage
14 4 (0.47%) ServiceNow
14 4 (0.47%) VMware