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 9 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 158 200
Rank change year-on-year +68 +42 +8
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,594 596 463
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.93% 1.82% 1.22%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 2.01% 1.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,107 369 341
10th Percentile £400 £350 £375
25th Percentile £450 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -10.87% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £738 £752 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £463 £531
% change year-on-year +8.11% -12.94% -4.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 7 8
10th Percentile £21.25 £37.48 £24.13
25th Percentile £28.25 £45.11 £26.22
Median hourly rate £69.00 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +31.43% -12.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £76.50 £76.25 -
90th Percentile £87.05 £96.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +73.25% -35.07% -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 46,106 29,609 32,588
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.64% 90.43% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,135 18,363 20,196
10th Percentile £325 £300 £313
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,994 1,772 1,501
10th Percentile £14.00 £14.23 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.60 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £40.03 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.17% -41.51% +1.96%
75th Percentile £67.84 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.86 £22.60 £43.00
% change year-on-year +85.18% -47.44% +7.50%

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 9 September 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 9 September 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 9 September 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 +69 1,425 £525 +0.96% 1,560
London +52 885 £550 - 1,062
UK excluding London +69 549 £500 +8.11% 743
Work from Home +72 518 £525 +5.00% 664
North of England +18 176 £475 - 199
Midlands +31 135 £484 +7.33% 72
West Midlands +35 111 £475 -6.31% 50
South East -15 92 £500 +15.61% 179
Yorkshire +25 85 £475 - 37
South West +14 74 £525 -8.70% 81
North West -29 57 £513 +7.89% 136
Scotland -10 47 £513 +10.51% 93
North East -15 36 £425 -20.93% 26
East of England -9 27 £575 +27.78% 55
East Midlands -5 21 £525 +20.62% 22
Wales - 6 £450 - 16
Northern Ireland +6 4 £334 - 49

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
1 190 (11.92%) Apache Airflow
2 172 (10.79%) Apache Spark
3 133 (8.34%) Apache
4 41 (2.57%) Confluence
5 39 (2.45%) SAS
6 21 (1.32%) Jupyter
7 18 (1.13%) Palantir Foundry
8 14 (0.88%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.44%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.31%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.31%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.19%) nginx
11 3 (0.19%) PowerExchange
12 1 (0.063%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.063%) CICS
12 1 (0.063%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.063%) GeoServer
12 1 (0.063%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.063%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.063%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 18 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.31%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.063%) Notion
Business Applications
1 9 (0.56%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.25%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.25%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.13%) BambooHR
5 2 (0.13%) Endur
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.063%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.063%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.063%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.063%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.063%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 676 (42.41%) Azure
2 592 (37.14%) AWS
3 313 (19.64%) Power Platform
4 263 (16.50%) Snowflake
5 218 (13.68%) GCP
6 217 (13.61%) dbt
7 177 (11.10%) Azure Data Factory
8 172 (10.79%) Amazon S3
9 144 (9.03%) Azure DevOps
10 139 (8.72%) Serverless
11 136 (8.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 132 (8.28%) GitHub
13 114 (7.15%) AWS Lambda
14 83 (5.21%) Azure Databricks
15 68 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
16 52 (3.26%) Amazon EMR
17 36 (2.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 33 (2.07%) Amazon Bedrock
19 32 (2.01%) Microsoft Purview
20 30 (1.88%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.31%) Firewall
2 4 (0.25%) Broadband
2 4 (0.25%) DNS
2 4 (0.25%) Network Security
3 2 (0.13%) RTP
4 1 (0.063%) Internet
4 1 (0.063%) MIMO
4 1 (0.063%) MQTT
4 1 (0.063%) SMS
4 1 (0.063%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 327 (20.51%) Data Warehouse
2 299 (18.76%) Power BI
3 220 (13.80%) Data Lake
4 181 (11.36%) Metadata
5 114 (7.15%) BigQuery
6 107 (6.71%) Delta Lake
7 105 (6.59%) Amazon Redshift
8 96 (6.02%) Big Data
9 77 (4.83%) Tableau
10 75 (4.71%) Amazon Athena
11 67 (4.20%) SQL Server
12 64 (4.02%) Snowflake Schema
13 58 (3.64%) Relational Database
14 50 (3.14%) NoSQL
15 48 (3.01%) PostgreSQL
16 46 (2.89%) Azure SQL Database
17 40 (2.51%) Looker
18 35 (2.20%) Data Vault
19 34 (2.13%) Star Schema
20 29 (1.82%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 170 (10.66%) Git
2 88 (5.52%) GitLab
3 75 (4.71%) JIRA
4 29 (1.82%) MLflow
5 27 (1.69%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.50%) ERwin
6 8 (0.50%) RStudio
6 8 (0.50%) Terragrunt
7 7 (0.44%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.38%) Selenium
9 5 (0.31%) Claude Code
9 5 (0.31%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.25%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 3 (0.19%) Snyk
11 3 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.13%) Postman
12 2 (0.13%) TeamCity
12 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 397 (24.91%) Social Skills
2 365 (22.90%) Finance
3 262 (16.44%) Analytical Skills
4 165 (10.35%) Public Sector
5 125 (7.84%) Banking
6 54 (3.39%) Marketing
7 37 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 35 (2.20%) Retail
9 26 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (1.44%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.38%) Front Office
12 19 (1.19%) Law
12 19 (1.19%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.07%) Manufacturing
14 15 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
15 13 (0.82%) Financial Institution
16 12 (0.75%) Billing
16 12 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
16 12 (0.75%) Police
17 11 (0.69%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 745 (46.74%) Data Engineer
2 244 (15.31%) Senior
3 178 (11.17%) Architect
4 174 (10.92%) Lead
5 150 (9.41%) Senior Data Engineer
6 99 (6.21%) Data Architect
7 95 (5.96%) Developer
8 75 (4.71%) AWS Engineer
9 70 (4.39%) Databricks Engineer
10 68 (4.27%) Analyst
11 66 (4.14%) Snowflake Engineer
12 65 (4.08%) AWS Data Engineer
13 64 (4.02%) Azure Engineer
14 54 (3.39%) Databricks Data Engineer
14 54 (3.39%) Lead Data Engineer
15 49 (3.07%) Python Engineer
16 48 (3.01%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 47 (2.95%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 47 (2.95%) Consultant
18 46 (2.89%) Azure Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 237 (14.87%) PySpark
2 218 (13.68%) Terraform
3 121 (7.59%) Kafka
4 63 (3.95%) REST
5 36 (2.26%) JSON
6 33 (2.07%) React
7 27 (1.69%) .NET
8 26 (1.63%) Pandas
9 19 (1.19%) PyTorch
10 18 (1.13%) scikit-learn
11 17 (1.07%) TensorFlow
12 16 (1.00%) NumPy
12 16 (1.00%) Spring
12 16 (1.00%) XML
13 15 (0.94%) FastAPI
13 15 (0.94%) LangChain
14 14 (0.88%) pytest
15 11 (0.69%) Great Expectations
15 11 (0.69%) Spring Boot
15 11 (0.69%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 208 (13.05%) Cloud Native
2 79 (4.96%) Data Structures
3 65 (4.08%) Onboarding
4 63 (3.95%) Legacy Systems
5 61 (3.83%) Product Ownership
6 54 (3.39%) Distributed Systems
7 47 (2.95%) AI Agents
8 23 (1.44%) Data Protection Act
9 21 (1.32%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.19%) Distributed Computing
11 18 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.07%) NHS
13 16 (1.00%) Algorithms
13 16 (1.00%) Virtual Team
14 15 (0.94%) Clustering
14 15 (0.94%) Life Science
14 15 (0.94%) Management Information System
15 14 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.88%) Marketing Technology
16 12 (0.75%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 36 (2.26%) Linux
2 31 (1.94%) Unix
3 8 (0.50%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.063%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.063%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 772 (48.43%) Data Pipeline
2 762 (47.80%) Analytics
3 612 (38.39%) Data Modelling
4 565 (35.45%) CI/CD
5 548 (34.38%) ETL
6 473 (29.67%) AI
7 394 (24.72%) Agile
8 389 (24.40%) Business Intelligence
9 381 (23.90%) DevOps
10 369 (23.15%) Data Governance
11 278 (17.44%) Machine Learning
12 260 (16.31%) Migration
13 259 (16.25%) Problem-Solving
14 255 (16.00%) Data Transformation
15 248 (15.56%) Stakeholder Management
16 241 (15.12%) Data Architecture
17 237 (14.87%) Validation
18 234 (14.68%) Data Science
19 226 (14.18%) Decision-Making
19 226 (14.18%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 859 (53.89%) SQL
2 820 (51.44%) Python
3 112 (7.03%) Java
4 48 (3.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 44 (2.76%) Scala
6 42 (2.63%) PowerShell
7 37 (2.32%) Bash
8 34 (2.13%) C#
9 27 (1.69%) JavaScript
10 25 (1.57%) R
11 22 (1.38%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.25%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.94%) Bicep
13 15 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 12 (0.75%) TypeScript
15 11 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
16 9 (0.56%) SAS Macro
16 9 (0.56%) SPARQL
17 7 (0.44%) Cypher
17 7 (0.44%) LookML
Qualifications
1 312 (19.57%) Security Cleared
2 265 (16.62%) SC Cleared
3 86 (5.40%) Degree
4 44 (2.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (2.01%) Azure Certification
6 31 (1.94%) DV Cleared
7 29 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
8 25 (1.57%) AWS Certification
9 23 (1.44%) Master's Degree
10 15 (0.94%) SnowPro
11 14 (0.88%) DBS Check
12 11 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
14 5 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.31%) CSPO
14 5 (0.31%) Tableau Certification
15 4 (0.25%) PMI Certification
16 3 (0.19%) PhD
16 3 (0.19%) PMP
16 3 (0.19%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 515 (32.31%) Data Quality
2 76 (4.77%) QA
3 72 (4.52%) GDPR
4 26 (1.63%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.75%) SLA
6 5 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
7 4 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.19%) GRC
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.19%) MiFID
8 3 (0.19%) NIST
8 3 (0.19%) PMO
9 2 (0.13%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.13%) COPPA
9 2 (0.13%) EMIR
9 2 (0.13%) IFRS
9 2 (0.13%) NCSC
9 2 (0.13%) Solvency II
System Software
1 135 (8.47%) Docker
2 5 (0.31%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.063%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 110 (6.90%) Kubernetes
2 29 (1.82%) Grafana
3 25 (1.57%) Ansible
4 10 (0.63%) Prometheus
5 8 (0.50%) Control-M
6 6 (0.38%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Argo
8 2 (0.13%) Puppet
8 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.063%) Cilium
9 1 (0.063%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.063%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.063%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.063%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.063%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.063%) Nagios
9 1 (0.063%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.063%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.063%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 440 (27.60%) Databricks
2 282 (17.69%) Microsoft
3 78 (4.89%) Informatica
4 76 (4.77%) Google
5 70 (4.39%) Oracle
6 32 (2.01%) SAP
7 30 (1.88%) Salesforce
8 29 (1.82%) Foundry
8 29 (1.82%) Talend
9 26 (1.63%) Palantir
10 17 (1.07%) Cloudera
10 17 (1.07%) OpenAI
11 14 (0.88%) ServiceNow
11 14 (0.88%) Teradata
12 12 (0.75%) Trend Micro
13 9 (0.56%) Adobe
14 8 (0.50%) Splunk
15 7 (0.44%) Bloomberg
15 7 (0.44%) Hitachi
15 7 (0.44%) InterSystems