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 23 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 145 217
Rank change year-on-year +56 +72 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,227 531 489
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.80% 1.80% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.26% 1.99% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 849 374 369
10th Percentile £386 £364 £400
25th Percentile £449 £436 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £663 £675
90th Percentile £750 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 14 12
10th Percentile £50.88 £21.48 £30.46
25th Percentile £58.56 £22.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.72 £25.97 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +168.52% -25.81% -
75th Percentile £75.00 £29.69 £45.19
90th Percentile £88.25 £61.63 £59.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £25.43 £45.19
% change year-on-year +173.06% -43.72% +120.74%

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 37,591 26,736 38,298
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.89% 90.46% 86.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,832 17,220 24,877
10th Percentile £313 £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 £610 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.54% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,217 938 2,335
10th Percentile £14.99 £15.21 £12.85
25th Percentile £18.50 £20.94 £16.00
Median hourly rate £31.50 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.08% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.51 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.28 £71.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.31 £31.76 £31.13
% change year-on-year -7.73% +2.04% -12.14%

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 23 March 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 23 March 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 23 March 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 +60 1,094 £525 -4.55% 562
London +61 713 £550 -4.35% 267
UK excluding London +47 388 £500 +5.26% 407
Work from Home +40 367 £550 -4.35% 244
Midlands +25 112 £513 +2.50% 52
North of England -7 108 £463 -7.50% 115
West Midlands +16 89 £523 -3.24% 39
South West +16 65 £550 -12.87% 44
North West -4 50 £463 -2.63% 64
Scotland +27 49 £440 -6.98% 24
South East -39 45 £550 +10.00% 130
Yorkshire -42 36 £475 -17.39% 42
North East +6 22 £450 -5.26% 11
East Midlands -20 21 £447 -5.89% 13
East of England -25 17 £575 +79.69% 33
Wales -12 5 £665 +169.82% 14
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
1 191 (15.57%) Apache Spark
2 125 (10.19%) Apache Airflow
3 91 (7.42%) Apache
4 24 (1.96%) SAS
5 20 (1.63%) Palantir Foundry
6 18 (1.47%) Confluence
7 8 (0.65%) Appian
8 5 (0.41%) Apache Superset
9 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
10 3 (0.24%) Jupyter
11 2 (0.16%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.081%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.081%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.081%) Camunda
12 1 (0.081%) CMS
12 1 (0.081%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 25 (2.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.90%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (0.73%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 3 (0.24%) Trello
7 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 6 (0.49%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.24%) BambooHR
2 3 (0.24%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.16%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.081%) Actimize
4 1 (0.081%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.081%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.081%) Maximo
4 1 (0.081%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.081%) SAP ECC
4 1 (0.081%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 574 (46.78%) Azure
2 445 (36.27%) AWS
3 270 (22.00%) Power Platform
4 202 (16.46%) Azure Data Factory
5 169 (13.77%) GCP
6 162 (13.20%) Snowflake
7 147 (11.98%) Amazon S3
8 138 (11.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 134 (10.92%) GitHub
10 124 (10.11%) Serverless
11 101 (8.23%) dbt
12 100 (8.15%) Azure DevOps
13 96 (7.82%) AWS Lambda
14 80 (6.52%) GitHub Actions
15 65 (5.30%) AWS CloudFormation
16 39 (3.18%) AWS Step Functions
17 36 (2.93%) Amazon EMR
18 30 (2.44%) Collibra
19 28 (2.28%) Amazon SageMaker
20 27 (2.20%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.41%) RTP
2 4 (0.33%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.33%) Kerberos
2 4 (0.33%) Network Security
3 3 (0.24%) Firewall
3 3 (0.24%) VPN
4 1 (0.081%) 4G
4 1 (0.081%) 5G
4 1 (0.081%) MQTT
4 1 (0.081%) SAN
4 1 (0.081%) SMS
4 1 (0.081%) SSL
4 1 (0.081%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 248 (20.21%) Data Warehouse
2 247 (20.13%) Power BI
3 178 (14.51%) Data Lake
4 116 (9.45%) Metadata
5 90 (7.33%) SQL Server
6 89 (7.25%) Big Data
7 82 (6.68%) NoSQL
8 79 (6.44%) Delta Lake
9 65 (5.30%) Relational Database
10 64 (5.22%) Amazon Redshift
11 63 (5.13%) Azure SQL Database
11 63 (5.13%) Snowflake Schema
12 62 (5.05%) Amazon Athena
13 60 (4.89%) Tableau
14 57 (4.65%) PostgreSQL
15 52 (4.24%) BigQuery
15 52 (4.24%) Hadoop
16 35 (2.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 33 (2.69%) Spark SQL
18 22 (1.79%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 177 (14.43%) Git
2 62 (5.05%) GitLab
3 49 (3.99%) MLflow
4 43 (3.50%) Jenkins
5 34 (2.77%) JIRA
6 6 (0.49%) Selenium
7 5 (0.41%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.24%) JUnit
8 3 (0.24%) Maven
8 3 (0.24%) Postman
8 3 (0.24%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.24%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.16%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.16%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.16%) ERwin
9 2 (0.16%) Gemini Tracker
9 2 (0.16%) Mockito
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.081%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 326 (26.57%) Social Skills
2 293 (23.88%) Finance
3 170 (13.85%) Analytical Skills
4 102 (8.31%) Public Sector
5 74 (6.03%) Banking
6 28 (2.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (1.63%) Front Office
8 19 (1.55%) Documentation Skills
8 19 (1.55%) Investment Banking
9 18 (1.47%) Retail
10 16 (1.30%) Marketing
11 15 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (0.98%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.90%) Legal
13 11 (0.90%) Telecoms
14 10 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.57%) Manufacturing
15 7 (0.57%) Publishing
16 6 (0.49%) Back Office
16 6 (0.49%) Military
Job Titles
1 565 (46.05%) Data Engineer
2 156 (12.71%) Lead
3 155 (12.63%) Senior
4 103 (8.39%) Senior Data Engineer
5 101 (8.23%) Architect
6 78 (6.36%) Developer
7 76 (6.19%) Azure Engineer
8 61 (4.97%) Azure Data Engineer
9 60 (4.89%) AWS Engineer
9 60 (4.89%) Lead Data Engineer
10 57 (4.65%) Analyst
11 54 (4.40%) Data Architect
12 50 (4.07%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
13 47 (3.83%) Data Scientist
13 47 (3.83%) Snowflake Engineer
14 41 (3.34%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 39 (3.18%) AWS Data Engineer
16 38 (3.10%) Consultant
17 34 (2.77%) Data Analyst
17 34 (2.77%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 221 (18.01%) PySpark
2 149 (12.14%) Kafka
3 69 (5.62%) Pandas
4 59 (4.81%) PyTorch
5 48 (3.91%) scikit-learn
5 48 (3.91%) TensorFlow
6 46 (3.75%) NumPy
7 30 (2.44%) FastAPI
7 30 (2.44%) JSON
8 27 (2.20%) REST
8 27 (2.20%) YAML
9 25 (2.04%) Flask
9 25 (2.04%) pytest
10 23 (1.87%) LangChain
10 23 (1.87%) React
10 23 (1.87%) RESTful
11 18 (1.47%) Great Expectations
11 18 (1.47%) Spring
12 15 (1.22%) OAuth
13 14 (1.14%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 163 (13.28%) Cloud Native
2 53 (4.32%) Algorithms
3 47 (3.83%) Product Ownership
4 44 (3.59%) Distributed Systems
5 34 (2.77%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (2.44%) Distributed Computing
7 28 (2.28%) Onboarding
8 24 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
9 22 (1.79%) Data Structures
10 20 (1.63%) AI Agents
10 20 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
11 18 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
11 18 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
12 14 (1.14%) Clustering
12 14 (1.14%) Fixed Income
13 13 (1.06%) Management Information System
14 12 (0.98%) Derivative
14 12 (0.98%) NHS
14 12 (0.98%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.44%) Linux
2 13 (1.06%) Unix
3 7 (0.57%) VMS
4 3 (0.24%) Windows
5 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.16%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.081%) CentOS
6 1 (0.081%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 596 (48.57%) Analytics
2 559 (45.56%) Data Pipeline
3 485 (39.53%) ETL
4 474 (38.63%) Data Modelling
5 456 (37.16%) CI/CD
6 329 (26.81%) AI
7 328 (26.73%) Data Governance
8 311 (25.35%) DevOps
9 308 (25.10%) Agile
10 305 (24.86%) Business Intelligence
11 264 (21.52%) Machine Learning
12 246 (20.05%) Problem-Solving
13 238 (19.40%) Data Science
14 194 (15.81%) Data Architecture
15 149 (12.14%) Infrastructure as Code
16 144 (11.74%) Decision-Making
17 143 (11.65%) Validation
18 131 (10.68%) Migration
19 124 (10.11%) LLM
20 123 (10.02%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 717 (58.44%) Python
2 666 (54.28%) SQL
3 93 (7.58%) Java
4 67 (5.46%) Scala
5 45 (3.67%) C#
6 41 (3.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 39 (3.18%) Bash
8 36 (2.93%) PowerShell
9 25 (2.04%) JavaScript
10 23 (1.87%) T-SQL
11 18 (1.47%) Bicep
12 16 (1.30%) Go
12 16 (1.30%) R
13 15 (1.22%) TypeScript
14 10 (0.81%) C++
14 10 (0.81%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.81%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.49%) Korn
16 5 (0.41%) Rust
17 3 (0.24%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 244 (19.89%) Security Cleared
2 205 (16.71%) SC Cleared
3 115 (9.37%) Degree
4 48 (3.91%) Azure Certification
5 47 (3.83%) Computer Science Degree
6 46 (3.75%) Master's Degree
7 21 (1.71%) DV Cleared
8 19 (1.55%) AWS Certification
8 19 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
9 12 (0.98%) PhD
10 11 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
11 4 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.33%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.24%) IBM Certification
12 3 (0.24%) SnowPro
13 1 (0.081%) ACCA
13 1 (0.081%) CIMA
13 1 (0.081%) CISM
13 1 (0.081%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 353 (28.77%) Data Quality
2 96 (7.82%) GDPR
3 43 (3.50%) QA
4 13 (1.06%) Accessibility
4 13 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 8 (0.65%) SLA
6 7 (0.57%) HIPAA
7 5 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.41%) PERC
7 5 (0.41%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 4 (0.33%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.24%) GRC
9 3 (0.24%) WCAG
10 2 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.16%) HL7
10 2 (0.16%) MiFID
10 2 (0.16%) NIST
10 2 (0.16%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 151 (12.31%) Docker
2 6 (0.49%) HDFS
3 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.081%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.081%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 178 (14.51%) Terraform
2 134 (10.92%) Kubernetes
3 27 (2.20%) Prometheus
4 17 (1.39%) Grafana
5 8 (0.65%) Ansible
6 4 (0.33%) Argo
7 3 (0.24%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.24%) Rancher
8 2 (0.16%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.16%) Kibana
8 2 (0.16%) Nagios
8 2 (0.16%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.081%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.081%) Control-M
9 1 (0.081%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.081%) Oozie
Vendors
1 369 (30.07%) Databricks
2 182 (14.83%) Microsoft
3 62 (5.05%) Google
4 51 (4.16%) Informatica
5 39 (3.18%) Oracle
6 29 (2.36%) Talend
7 25 (2.04%) Foundry
8 24 (1.96%) Palantir
9 22 (1.79%) OpenAI
10 18 (1.47%) Splunk
11 16 (1.30%) SAP
12 15 (1.22%) Cloudera
13 10 (0.81%) Denodo
13 10 (0.81%) Salesforce
13 10 (0.81%) ServiceNow
14 9 (0.73%) UiPath
15 8 (0.65%) Automation Anywhere
15 8 (0.65%) IBM
16 6 (0.49%) MicroStrategy
17 5 (0.41%) Charles River