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 8 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 157 211
Rank change year-on-year +66 +54 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,287 524 487
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.81% 1.79% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.29% 1.98% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 891 368 367
10th Percentile £393 £375 £400
25th Percentile £450 £446 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £838 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £550
% change year-on-year +4.22% -12.77% +2.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 14 13
10th Percentile £51.25 £21.48 £30.55
25th Percentile £58.56 £22.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.97 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +169.59% -25.81% -1.41%
75th Percentile £77.25 £29.69 £50.25
90th Percentile £89.75 £61.63 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £25.43 £60.00
% change year-on-year +173.06% -57.62% +116.33%

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 39,061 26,469 37,905
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.38% 90.57% 86.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,736 17,183 24,573
10th Percentile £314 £308 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £636 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.51% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,329 996 2,365
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.00 £12.77
25th Percentile £19.10 £19.99 £16.00
Median hourly rate £36.00 £31.51 £33.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.25% -4.52% -11.17%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.38 £70.23
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £30.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +20.00% -7.69% -10.34%

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 8 April 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 8 April 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 8 April 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 +66 1,160 £525 -4.55% 542
London +57 743 £550 -4.35% 253
UK excluding London +48 420 £500 +4.22% 383
Work from Home +51 369 £550 -4.76% 229
North of England +2 119 £475 -5.00% 110
Midlands +30 118 £517 +3.35% 51
West Midlands +12 93 £525 -2.78% 36
South West +16 71 £525 -16.00% 49
North West -9 50 £480 +1.05% 59
Yorkshire -18 49 £478 -16.96% 40
Scotland +22 48 £440 -7.37% 21
South East -24 47 £538 +7.50% 111
East of England -20 23 £575 +35.29% 34
East Midlands -14 22 £447 -5.89% 15
North East +1 20 £450 -5.26% 13
Wales -14 5 £665 +181.78% 11
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 1

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
1 198 (15.38%) Apache Spark
2 132 (10.26%) Apache Airflow
3 89 (6.92%) Apache
4 32 (2.49%) SAS
5 21 (1.63%) Palantir Foundry
6 18 (1.40%) Confluence
7 8 (0.62%) Appian
8 7 (0.54%) Apache Superset
9 4 (0.31%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.16%) Apache Synapse
10 2 (0.16%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.078%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.078%) Camunda
11 1 (0.078%) CMS
11 1 (0.078%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 29 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.31%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.23%) Trello
8 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 4 (0.31%) Aladdin
1 4 (0.31%) BambooHR
2 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
2 3 (0.23%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.078%) Actimize
4 1 (0.078%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.078%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.078%) Maximo
4 1 (0.078%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.078%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 595 (46.23%) Azure
2 458 (35.59%) AWS
3 287 (22.30%) Power Platform
4 202 (15.70%) Azure Data Factory
5 173 (13.44%) GCP
6 166 (12.90%) Snowflake
7 154 (11.97%) Amazon S3
8 147 (11.42%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 134 (10.41%) GitHub
10 117 (9.09%) Serverless
11 114 (8.86%) dbt
12 105 (8.16%) Azure DevOps
13 94 (7.30%) AWS Lambda
14 81 (6.29%) GitHub Actions
15 64 (4.97%) AWS CloudFormation
16 38 (2.95%) AWS Step Functions
17 34 (2.64%) Amazon EMR
18 31 (2.41%) Collibra
19 29 (2.25%) Amazon SageMaker
20 28 (2.18%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.39%) RTP
2 4 (0.31%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.31%) Kerberos
2 4 (0.31%) Network Security
3 3 (0.23%) VPN
4 1 (0.078%) 4G
4 1 (0.078%) 5G
4 1 (0.078%) Firewall
4 1 (0.078%) MQTT
4 1 (0.078%) SAN
4 1 (0.078%) SMS
4 1 (0.078%) SSL
4 1 (0.078%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 261 (20.28%) Power BI
2 256 (19.89%) Data Warehouse
3 193 (15.00%) Data Lake
4 124 (9.63%) Metadata
5 91 (7.07%) Big Data
6 89 (6.92%) SQL Server
7 84 (6.53%) Delta Lake
7 84 (6.53%) NoSQL
8 69 (5.36%) Amazon Athena
8 69 (5.36%) Amazon Redshift
9 68 (5.28%) Tableau
10 66 (5.13%) Azure SQL Database
11 65 (5.05%) Snowflake Schema
12 60 (4.66%) BigQuery
13 58 (4.51%) Relational Database
14 56 (4.35%) PostgreSQL
15 49 (3.81%) Hadoop
16 38 (2.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 35 (2.72%) Spark SQL
18 24 (1.86%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 171 (13.29%) Git
2 64 (4.97%) GitLab
3 48 (3.73%) MLflow
4 42 (3.26%) Jenkins
5 38 (2.95%) JIRA
6 7 (0.54%) Selenium
7 6 (0.47%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.23%) JUnit
8 3 (0.23%) Maven
8 3 (0.23%) Postman
8 3 (0.23%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.23%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.16%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.16%) Mockito
9 2 (0.16%) Snyk
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.078%) git-flow
10 1 (0.078%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 325 (25.25%) Social Skills
2 308 (23.93%) Finance
3 191 (14.84%) Analytical Skills
4 107 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 72 (5.59%) Banking
6 27 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 24 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
8 21 (1.63%) Retail
9 17 (1.32%) Front Office
9 17 (1.32%) Marketing
10 15 (1.17%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.17%) Telecoms
11 14 (1.09%) Investment Banking
12 13 (1.01%) Legal
13 12 (0.93%) Financial Institution
14 9 (0.70%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.54%) Law
16 6 (0.47%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.47%) Military
16 6 (0.47%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 598 (46.46%) Data Engineer
2 167 (12.98%) Senior
3 147 (11.42%) Lead
4 119 (9.25%) Architect
5 110 (8.55%) Senior Data Engineer
6 81 (6.29%) Developer
7 75 (5.83%) Azure Engineer
8 63 (4.90%) Data Architect
9 62 (4.82%) AWS Engineer
9 62 (4.82%) Azure Data Engineer
10 60 (4.66%) Analyst
11 59 (4.58%) Lead Data Engineer
12 48 (3.73%) Snowflake Engineer
13 45 (3.50%) Data Scientist
14 44 (3.42%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 41 (3.19%) AWS Data Engineer
15 41 (3.19%) Consultant
15 41 (3.19%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 36 (2.80%) Data Analyst
17 32 (2.49%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 219 (17.02%) PySpark
2 155 (12.04%) Kafka
3 65 (5.05%) Pandas
4 53 (4.12%) PyTorch
5 44 (3.42%) scikit-learn
5 44 (3.42%) TensorFlow
6 41 (3.19%) NumPy
7 30 (2.33%) JSON
8 29 (2.25%) REST
9 25 (1.94%) YAML
10 23 (1.79%) Spring
11 22 (1.71%) FastAPI
11 22 (1.71%) pytest
11 22 (1.71%) RESTful
12 21 (1.63%) LangChain
12 21 (1.63%) React
13 19 (1.48%) Flask
14 18 (1.40%) Great Expectations
15 16 (1.24%) OAuth
15 16 (1.24%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 169 (13.13%) Cloud Native
2 46 (3.57%) Product Ownership
3 45 (3.50%) Distributed Systems
4 43 (3.34%) Algorithms
5 38 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
6 31 (2.41%) Data Structures
7 29 (2.25%) Distributed Computing
7 29 (2.25%) Onboarding
8 22 (1.71%) AI Agents
8 22 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
9 21 (1.63%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
10 19 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
11 16 (1.24%) NHS
12 15 (1.17%) Clustering
13 13 (1.01%) Management Information System
14 12 (0.93%) Fixed Income
14 12 (0.93%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (0.78%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.25%) Linux
2 16 (1.24%) Unix
3 8 (0.62%) VMS
4 3 (0.23%) Windows
5 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.16%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.078%) CentOS
6 1 (0.078%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 649 (50.43%) Analytics
2 589 (45.77%) Data Pipeline
3 506 (39.32%) ETL
4 498 (38.69%) Data Modelling
5 461 (35.82%) CI/CD
6 346 (26.88%) AI
7 331 (25.72%) Data Governance
8 325 (25.25%) Business Intelligence
9 323 (25.10%) DevOps
10 316 (24.55%) Agile
11 269 (20.90%) Machine Learning
12 256 (19.89%) Problem-Solving
13 248 (19.27%) Data Science
14 205 (15.93%) Data Architecture
15 158 (12.28%) Decision-Making
16 153 (11.89%) Infrastructure as Code
17 149 (11.58%) Validation
18 147 (11.42%) Migration
19 132 (10.26%) Data Transformation
20 126 (9.79%) Data Ingestion
Programming Languages
1 723 (56.18%) Python
2 689 (53.54%) SQL
3 104 (8.08%) Java
4 68 (5.28%) Scala
5 44 (3.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 43 (3.34%) C#
7 36 (2.80%) Bash
8 34 (2.64%) PowerShell
9 24 (1.86%) T-SQL
10 23 (1.79%) JavaScript
11 21 (1.63%) R
12 19 (1.48%) Bicep
13 14 (1.09%) Go
14 12 (0.93%) TypeScript
15 11 (0.85%) Shell Script
16 9 (0.70%) PL/SQL
17 6 (0.47%) Korn
18 5 (0.39%) C++
18 5 (0.39%) SAS Macro
19 3 (0.23%) Rust
Qualifications
1 263 (20.44%) Security Cleared
2 224 (17.40%) SC Cleared
3 106 (8.24%) Degree
4 47 (3.65%) Azure Certification
5 45 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 42 (3.26%) Master's Degree
7 20 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (1.40%) DV Cleared
9 17 (1.32%) AWS Certification
10 11 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
11 10 (0.78%) PhD
12 5 (0.39%) SnowPro
13 4 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.31%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 3 (0.23%) IBM Certification
15 2 (0.16%) Tableau Certification
16 1 (0.078%) ACCA
16 1 (0.078%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
16 1 (0.078%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 368 (28.59%) Data Quality
2 98 (7.61%) GDPR
3 44 (3.42%) QA
4 13 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 11 (0.85%) Accessibility
6 9 (0.70%) SLA
7 6 (0.47%) HIPAA
8 5 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.39%) PERC
8 5 (0.39%) SOC 2
9 4 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 4 (0.31%) Solvency II
10 3 (0.23%) GRC
10 3 (0.23%) WCAG
11 2 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.16%) HL7
11 2 (0.16%) MiFID
11 2 (0.16%) NIST
11 2 (0.16%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 142 (11.03%) Docker
2 6 (0.47%) HDFS
3 3 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.078%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.078%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.078%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 183 (14.22%) Terraform
2 130 (10.10%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.25%) Prometheus
4 20 (1.55%) Grafana
5 9 (0.70%) Ansible
6 5 (0.39%) Argo
7 4 (0.31%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.23%) Nagios
8 3 (0.23%) Rancher
9 2 (0.16%) Hadoop YARN
9 2 (0.16%) Kibana
9 2 (0.16%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.078%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.078%) Control-M
10 1 (0.078%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.078%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.078%) Oozie
Vendors
1 389 (30.23%) Databricks
2 204 (15.85%) Microsoft
3 61 (4.74%) Google
4 60 (4.66%) Informatica
5 42 (3.26%) Oracle
6 33 (2.56%) Talend
7 28 (2.18%) Foundry
8 23 (1.79%) Palantir
9 21 (1.63%) OpenAI
10 19 (1.48%) Splunk
11 18 (1.40%) SAP
12 15 (1.17%) Cloudera
13 11 (0.85%) Denodo
14 10 (0.78%) Salesforce
14 10 (0.78%) ServiceNow
15 9 (0.70%) IBM
15 9 (0.70%) UiPath
16 8 (0.62%) Automation Anywhere
17 7 (0.54%) MicroStrategy
18 5 (0.39%) Virgin Media