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 14 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 156 198
Rank change year-on-year +65 +42 +13
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,554 570 461
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.91% 1.73% 1.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.43% 1.91% 1.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,066 355 342
10th Percentile £389 £363 £400
25th Percentile £445 £434 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £647 £688
90th Percentile £741 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -13.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 7 13
10th Percentile £21.25 £32.38 £30.55
25th Percentile £35.00 £45.11 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% +50.00% -55.13%
75th Percentile £78.00 £76.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.00 £96.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.75 £31.98 £60.00
% change year-on-year +89.96% -46.70% -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 45,278 29,786 33,285
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 90.49% 85.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,840 18,586 21,275
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £423 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,823 1,710 1,832
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £14.05
25th Percentile £18.50 £17.31 £18.46
Median hourly rate £42.30 £25.15 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +68.19% -39.40% -2.35%
75th Percentile £68.00 £48.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £81.25 £68.00 £74.83
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +91.13% -45.88% +13.33%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 1,398 £525 - 873
London +53 829 £550 - 559
UK excluding London +89 571 £500 +5.26% 434
Work from Home +72 505 £525 +5.00% 358
North of England +34 181 £475 -5.00% 134
Midlands +55 151 £486 +7.98% 41
West Midlands +40 126 £475 +10.21% 32
South East -17 93 £525 +11.94% 130
Yorkshire +22 87 £475 +11.76% 31
South West +12 76 £505 -16.70% 60
North West -10 58 £500 - 82
Scotland +11 44 £500 +6.38% 36
North East -10 38 £425 -20.93% 22
East of England -3 28 £575 -4.17% 11
East Midlands -7 22 £525 +15.01% 9
Wales - 7 £450 - 8
Northern Ireland +9 4 £334 - 15

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
1 185 (11.90%) Apache Spark
2 180 (11.58%) Apache Airflow
3 127 (8.17%) Apache
4 47 (3.02%) SAS
5 36 (2.32%) Confluence
6 23 (1.48%) Jupyter
7 18 (1.16%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.71%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.45%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.32%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.32%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.19%) PowerExchange
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.064%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.064%) CICS
13 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.064%) GeoServer
13 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.064%) nginx
Applications
1 19 (1.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.32%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 13 (0.84%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.32%) BambooHR
4 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.26%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.13%) Endur
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.13%) SAP BPC
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.064%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.064%) MIS ActiveH
7 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
7 1 (0.064%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 646 (41.57%) Azure
2 581 (37.39%) AWS
3 315 (20.27%) Power Platform
4 252 (16.22%) Snowflake
5 207 (13.32%) GCP
6 198 (12.74%) dbt
7 170 (10.94%) Azure Data Factory
8 169 (10.88%) Amazon S3
9 143 (9.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 139 (8.94%) Azure DevOps
11 130 (8.37%) GitHub
12 125 (8.04%) Serverless
13 107 (6.89%) AWS Lambda
14 68 (4.38%) GitHub Actions
15 56 (3.60%) Amazon EMR
16 33 (2.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 31 (1.99%) Amazon Bedrock
18 29 (1.87%) AWS CloudFormation
18 29 (1.87%) AWS Step Functions
19 28 (1.80%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
2 3 (0.19%) DNS
3 2 (0.13%) Broadband
3 2 (0.13%) Network Security
3 2 (0.13%) RTP
4 1 (0.064%) 4G
4 1 (0.064%) 5G
4 1 (0.064%) Internet
4 1 (0.064%) MIMO
4 1 (0.064%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 306 (19.69%) Data Warehouse
2 298 (19.18%) Power BI
3 212 (13.64%) Data Lake
4 157 (10.10%) Metadata
5 107 (6.89%) Amazon Redshift
5 107 (6.89%) BigQuery
6 101 (6.50%) Big Data
7 98 (6.31%) Delta Lake
8 83 (5.34%) Tableau
9 78 (5.02%) Amazon Athena
10 69 (4.44%) SQL Server
11 64 (4.12%) Snowflake Schema
12 63 (4.05%) NoSQL
13 55 (3.54%) Relational Database
14 53 (3.41%) PostgreSQL
15 48 (3.09%) Azure SQL Database
16 40 (2.57%) Looker
17 37 (2.38%) Star Schema
18 36 (2.32%) Data Vault
19 35 (2.25%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 164 (10.55%) Git
2 84 (5.41%) GitLab
3 66 (4.25%) JIRA
4 29 (1.87%) Jenkins
5 24 (1.54%) MLflow
6 7 (0.45%) ERwin
6 7 (0.45%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.39%) Bitbucket
8 5 (0.32%) Selenium
8 5 (0.32%) Terragrunt
9 4 (0.26%) Claude Code
10 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.19%) Postman
10 3 (0.19%) Snyk
10 3 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
12 1 (0.064%) Octopus Deploy
12 1 (0.064%) Robot Framework
12 1 (0.064%) RStudio
General
1 379 (24.39%) Social Skills
2 358 (23.04%) Finance
3 247 (15.89%) Analytical Skills
4 159 (10.23%) Public Sector
5 120 (7.72%) Banking
6 45 (2.90%) Marketing
7 37 (2.38%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 34 (2.19%) Retail
9 27 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
10 25 (1.61%) Telecoms
11 23 (1.48%) Front Office
11 23 (1.48%) Investment Banking
12 16 (1.03%) Manufacturing
13 14 (0.90%) Law
13 14 (0.90%) Pharmaceutical
14 13 (0.84%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
16 10 (0.64%) Legal
17 9 (0.58%) Billing
17 9 (0.58%) Military
Job Titles
1 723 (46.53%) Data Engineer
2 218 (14.03%) Senior
3 184 (11.84%) Lead
4 172 (11.07%) Architect
5 130 (8.37%) Senior Data Engineer
6 95 (6.11%) Data Architect
6 95 (6.11%) Developer
7 84 (5.41%) AWS Engineer
8 70 (4.50%) AWS Data Engineer
9 68 (4.38%) Analyst
10 64 (4.12%) Snowflake Engineer
11 62 (3.99%) Azure Engineer
11 62 (3.99%) Lead Data Engineer
12 51 (3.28%) Python Engineer
13 50 (3.22%) Azure Data Engineer
14 48 (3.09%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 46 (2.96%) Consultant
16 44 (2.83%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 44 (2.83%) Solutions Architect
17 40 (2.57%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 229 (14.74%) PySpark
2 127 (8.17%) Kafka
3 46 (2.96%) REST
4 30 (1.93%) JSON
5 29 (1.87%) React
6 28 (1.80%) Pandas
7 23 (1.48%) PyTorch
8 22 (1.42%) .NET
9 21 (1.35%) scikit-learn
10 19 (1.22%) TensorFlow
11 18 (1.16%) Spring
12 16 (1.03%) NumPy
13 14 (0.90%) pytest
14 12 (0.77%) RESTful
14 12 (0.77%) Spring Boot
15 11 (0.71%) FastAPI
15 11 (0.71%) Microsoft Graph
16 10 (0.64%) Great Expectations
16 10 (0.64%) LangChain
16 10 (0.64%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 206 (13.26%) Cloud Native
2 74 (4.76%) Data Structures
3 63 (4.05%) Legacy Systems
4 59 (3.80%) Distributed Systems
5 58 (3.73%) Product Ownership
6 46 (2.96%) Onboarding
7 36 (2.32%) AI Agents
8 25 (1.61%) Data Protection Act
9 23 (1.48%) Greenfield Project
10 19 (1.22%) Algorithms
10 19 (1.22%) Distributed Computing
10 19 (1.22%) NHS
11 17 (1.09%) Clustering
12 16 (1.03%) Life Science
12 16 (1.03%) Virtual Team
13 15 (0.97%) Analytical Mindset
14 13 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (0.84%) Management Information System
14 13 (0.84%) Reference Data
15 10 (0.64%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 39 (2.51%) Linux
2 30 (1.93%) Unix
3 8 (0.51%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) VMS
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.064%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 766 (49.29%) Analytics
2 747 (48.07%) Data Pipeline
3 595 (38.29%) Data Modelling
4 544 (35.01%) CI/CD
5 537 (34.56%) ETL
6 444 (28.57%) AI
7 398 (25.61%) Agile
8 386 (24.84%) Business Intelligence
9 368 (23.68%) DevOps
10 354 (22.78%) Data Governance
11 276 (17.76%) Machine Learning
12 259 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
13 241 (15.51%) Data Science
14 232 (14.93%) Migration
15 224 (14.41%) Decision-Making
16 220 (14.16%) Data Architecture
17 219 (14.09%) Validation
18 218 (14.03%) Data Transformation
19 215 (13.84%) Stakeholder Management
20 196 (12.61%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 845 (54.38%) SQL
2 796 (51.22%) Python
3 118 (7.59%) Java
4 44 (2.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 43 (2.77%) Bash
5 43 (2.77%) Scala
6 35 (2.25%) PowerShell
7 33 (2.12%) C#
8 25 (1.61%) JavaScript
9 22 (1.42%) T-SQL
10 20 (1.29%) PL/SQL
10 20 (1.29%) R
11 15 (0.97%) Bicep
12 14 (0.90%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.77%) SAS Macro
14 11 (0.71%) TypeScript
15 8 (0.51%) Kusto Query Language
15 8 (0.51%) SPARQL
16 7 (0.45%) Cypher
17 5 (0.32%) Go
Qualifications
1 297 (19.11%) Security Cleared
2 255 (16.41%) SC Cleared
3 95 (6.11%) Degree
4 48 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (1.99%) Azure Certification
6 28 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
7 25 (1.61%) DV Cleared
8 23 (1.48%) Master's Degree
9 19 (1.22%) AWS Certification
10 13 (0.84%) DBS Check
11 11 (0.71%) SnowPro
12 9 (0.58%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.32%) CSPO
15 5 (0.32%) Tableau Certification
16 3 (0.19%) PhD
16 3 (0.19%) PMI Certification
17 2 (0.13%) PMP
18 1 (0.064%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 463 (29.79%) Data Quality
2 78 (5.02%) QA
3 77 (4.95%) GDPR
4 23 (1.48%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.77%) SLA
6 5 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
7 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.19%) GxP
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%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.13%) COPPA
9 2 (0.13%) EMIR
9 2 (0.13%) GRC
System Software
1 133 (8.56%) Docker
2 5 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.13%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 202 (13.00%) Terraform
2 108 (6.95%) Kubernetes
3 27 (1.74%) Grafana
4 21 (1.35%) Ansible
5 11 (0.71%) Prometheus
6 7 (0.45%) Control-M
7 5 (0.32%) Kibana
8 3 (0.19%) logstash
9 2 (0.13%) Argo
9 2 (0.13%) Puppet
9 2 (0.13%) Rancher
9 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.064%) Cilium
10 1 (0.064%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.064%) Kubeflow
10 1 (0.064%) Kustomize
10 1 (0.064%) Nagios
10 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.064%) QRadar
10 1 (0.064%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 408 (26.25%) Databricks
2 265 (17.05%) Microsoft
3 84 (5.41%) Informatica
4 71 (4.57%) Google
5 70 (4.50%) Oracle
6 35 (2.25%) SAP
7 33 (2.12%) Talend
8 29 (1.87%) Foundry
9 27 (1.74%) Palantir
10 25 (1.61%) Salesforce
11 20 (1.29%) Cloudera
12 17 (1.09%) OpenAI
13 15 (0.97%) Splunk
14 14 (0.90%) ServiceNow
15 12 (0.77%) Trend Micro
16 10 (0.64%) Teradata
17 9 (0.58%) Workday
18 8 (0.51%) Denodo
19 7 (0.45%) Hitachi
19 7 (0.45%) InterSystems