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 27 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 164 212
Rank change year-on-year +76 +48 +2
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,350 502 478
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.77% 1.76% 1.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.28% 1.93% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 932 346 356
10th Percentile £400 £388 £375
25th Percentile £450 £450 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £651
90th Percentile £749 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £533
% change year-on-year +5.26% -10.80% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 11 15
10th Percentile £51.25 £22.00 £30.72
25th Percentile £56.75 £22.61 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +154.55% -21.43% -52.05%
75th Percentile £78.00 £46.36 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £53.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £25.43 £60.00
% change year-on-year +172.20% -57.62% +71.43%

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 41,181 26,010 36,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.50% 91.03% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,765 16,696 23,578
10th Percentile £325 £303 £300
25th Percentile £413 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.14% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,462 1,066 2,486
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.92 £16.00
Median hourly rate £41.94 £27.45 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +52.79% -23.80% -2.64%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.05 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.69 £25.15 £37.75
% change year-on-year +69.72% -33.38% +7.86%

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 27 May 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 27 May 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 27 May 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 1,215 £535 -2.73% 498
London +60 756 £550 -4.35% 273
UK excluding London +60 479 £500 +5.26% 304
Work from Home +52 396 £550 +4.76% 251
North of England +8 131 £480 -4.00% 109
Midlands +10 125 £500 +8.11% 32
West Midlands +18 103 £500 -1.09% 21
South West +25 76 £500 -16.67% 28
South East -20 66 £550 +15.79% 89
Scotland +30 58 £450 -5.26% 18
Yorkshire -9 58 £478 -13.18% 24
North West -15 52 £500 - 61
North East -4 23 £450 -5.26% 25
East of England -20 22 £575 +54.08% 15
East Midlands -21 19 £525 +13.51% 11
Wales -14 9 £450 +100.61% 11
Northern Ireland - 3 £430 - 5

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
1 189 (14.00%) Apache Spark
2 144 (10.67%) Apache Airflow
3 93 (6.89%) Apache
4 38 (2.81%) SAS
5 23 (1.70%) Confluence
6 16 (1.19%) Palantir Foundry
7 10 (0.74%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.59%) Appian
9 7 (0.52%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.30%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.15%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.074%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.074%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.074%) Camunda
12 1 (0.074%) CICS
12 1 (0.074%) CMS
12 1 (0.074%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.074%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 30 (2.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (0.59%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
3 7 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.22%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.22%) Trello
5 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 6 (0.44%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.37%) BambooHR
3 4 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.22%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.074%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.074%) Endur
6 1 (0.074%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.074%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 599 (44.37%) Azure
2 492 (36.44%) AWS
3 307 (22.74%) Power Platform
4 191 (14.15%) Azure Data Factory
5 189 (14.00%) GCP
6 187 (13.85%) Snowflake
7 148 (10.96%) Amazon S3
8 142 (10.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 138 (10.22%) dbt
10 129 (9.56%) GitHub
11 115 (8.52%) Azure DevOps
12 107 (7.93%) Serverless
13 86 (6.37%) AWS Lambda
14 76 (5.63%) GitHub Actions
15 48 (3.56%) AWS CloudFormation
16 38 (2.81%) Amazon EMR
17 31 (2.30%) AWS Step Functions
18 27 (2.00%) Azure AI
18 27 (2.00%) Collibra
19 26 (1.93%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.37%) RTP
2 4 (0.30%) Firewall
3 2 (0.15%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.074%) 4G
4 1 (0.074%) 5G
4 1 (0.074%) MIMO
4 1 (0.074%) Network Security
4 1 (0.074%) SAN
4 1 (0.074%) SMS
4 1 (0.074%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.074%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 285 (21.11%) Power BI
2 254 (18.81%) Data Warehouse
3 209 (15.48%) Data Lake
4 125 (9.26%) Metadata
5 106 (7.85%) Big Data
6 95 (7.04%) SQL Server
7 88 (6.52%) Delta Lake
8 77 (5.70%) BigQuery
8 77 (5.70%) Tableau
9 76 (5.63%) NoSQL
10 74 (5.48%) Snowflake Schema
11 72 (5.33%) Amazon Redshift
12 64 (4.74%) Azure SQL Database
13 61 (4.52%) Amazon Athena
14 57 (4.22%) Relational Database
15 54 (4.00%) PostgreSQL
16 51 (3.78%) Hadoop
17 38 (2.81%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 37 (2.74%) Spark SQL
19 29 (2.15%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 171 (12.67%) Git
2 64 (4.74%) GitLab
3 54 (4.00%) JIRA
4 39 (2.89%) MLflow
5 26 (1.93%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.52%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.37%) Selenium
8 4 (0.30%) Postman
9 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.22%) Robot Framework
9 3 (0.22%) Snyk
9 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.15%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.15%) ERwin
10 2 (0.15%) Terragrunt
11 1 (0.074%) Deequ
11 1 (0.074%) git-flow
11 1 (0.074%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.074%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.074%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 334 (24.74%) Finance
2 317 (23.48%) Social Skills
3 198 (14.67%) Analytical Skills
4 112 (8.30%) Public Sector
5 85 (6.30%) Banking
6 30 (2.22%) Marketing
7 28 (2.07%) Retail
8 27 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
9 26 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 20 (1.48%) Front Office
11 18 (1.33%) Investment Banking
12 15 (1.11%) Telecoms
13 14 (1.04%) Financial Institution
14 13 (0.96%) Influencing Skills
15 10 (0.74%) Legal
16 8 (0.59%) Law
17 6 (0.44%) Back Office
17 6 (0.44%) Military
18 4 (0.30%) Manufacturing
18 4 (0.30%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 647 (47.93%) Data Engineer
2 181 (13.41%) Senior
3 144 (10.67%) Lead
4 138 (10.22%) Architect
5 115 (8.52%) Senior Data Engineer
6 78 (5.78%) Developer
7 71 (5.26%) Data Architect
8 65 (4.81%) AWS Engineer
9 58 (4.30%) Lead Data Engineer
10 56 (4.15%) Analyst
11 54 (4.00%) Azure Engineer
12 53 (3.93%) Snowflake Engineer
13 50 (3.70%) AWS Data Engineer
14 47 (3.48%) Azure Data Engineer
15 46 (3.41%) Data Scientist
16 44 (3.26%) Solutions Architect
17 42 (3.11%) Snowflake Data Engineer
18 39 (2.89%) Consultant
19 37 (2.74%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
20 34 (2.52%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 210 (15.56%) PySpark
2 148 (10.96%) Kafka
3 59 (4.37%) Pandas
4 42 (3.11%) PyTorch
5 41 (3.04%) scikit-learn
6 36 (2.67%) NumPy
7 34 (2.52%) REST
8 33 (2.44%) TensorFlow
9 28 (2.07%) JSON
10 24 (1.78%) Spring
11 23 (1.70%) React
12 20 (1.48%) LangChain
13 19 (1.41%) RESTful
13 19 (1.41%) YAML
14 17 (1.26%) FastAPI
14 17 (1.26%) Great Expectations
14 17 (1.26%) Spring Boot
15 16 (1.19%) pytest
16 14 (1.04%) Flask
17 13 (0.96%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 179 (13.26%) Cloud Native
2 50 (3.70%) Distributed Systems
3 48 (3.56%) Product Ownership
4 46 (3.41%) Data Structures
5 44 (3.26%) Legacy Systems
6 31 (2.30%) AI Agents
7 29 (2.15%) Distributed Computing
7 29 (2.15%) Onboarding
8 26 (1.93%) Algorithms
9 23 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
10 21 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
11 18 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
12 14 (1.04%) Fixed Income
12 14 (1.04%) NHS
13 13 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (0.89%) Clustering
14 12 (0.89%) Reference Data
15 11 (0.81%) Data Fabric
15 11 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
16 10 (0.74%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.15%) Linux
2 24 (1.78%) Unix
3 6 (0.44%) VMS
4 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.22%) Windows
5 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.074%) CentOS
6 1 (0.074%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 696 (51.56%) Analytics
2 629 (46.59%) Data Pipeline
3 529 (39.19%) Data Modelling
4 501 (37.11%) ETL
5 466 (34.52%) CI/CD
6 405 (30.00%) AI
7 346 (25.63%) Business Intelligence
8 340 (25.19%) Agile
9 337 (24.96%) DevOps
10 309 (22.89%) Data Governance
11 265 (19.63%) Machine Learning
12 239 (17.70%) Problem-Solving
13 234 (17.33%) Data Science
14 189 (14.00%) Data Architecture
15 180 (13.33%) Migration
16 177 (13.11%) Decision-Making
17 167 (12.37%) Validation
18 142 (10.52%) Infrastructure as Code
19 139 (10.30%) Data Integration
20 136 (10.07%) Use Case
Programming Languages
1 750 (55.56%) SQL
2 710 (52.59%) Python
3 110 (8.15%) Java
4 54 (4.00%) Scala
5 45 (3.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 37 (2.74%) C#
7 35 (2.59%) Bash
8 26 (1.93%) T-SQL
9 21 (1.56%) PowerShell
10 20 (1.48%) JavaScript
10 20 (1.48%) R
11 15 (1.11%) Bicep
11 15 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 11 (0.81%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.74%) TypeScript
14 7 (0.52%) Go
14 7 (0.52%) SAS Macro
15 4 (0.30%) Korn
16 2 (0.15%) C++
16 2 (0.15%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 257 (19.04%) Security Cleared
2 226 (16.74%) SC Cleared
3 102 (7.56%) Degree
4 41 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
5 38 (2.81%) Master's Degree
6 37 (2.74%) Azure Certification
7 22 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.04%) DBS Check
9 12 (0.89%) AWS Certification
9 12 (0.89%) DV Cleared
10 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.52%) SnowPro
12 6 (0.44%) PhD
13 5 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (0.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 3 (0.22%) IBM Certification
16 2 (0.15%) PMI Certification
16 2 (0.15%) Tableau Certification
17 1 (0.074%) ACCA
17 1 (0.074%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 381 (28.22%) Data Quality
2 89 (6.59%) GDPR
3 64 (4.74%) QA
4 13 (0.96%) SLA
5 12 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (0.52%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.30%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.30%) MiFID
8 4 (0.30%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.22%) GRC
9 3 (0.22%) PMO
10 2 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.15%) EMIR
10 2 (0.15%) NIST
10 2 (0.15%) SNOMED CT
11 1 (0.074%) HL7
11 1 (0.074%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 124 (9.19%) Docker
2 5 (0.37%) HDFS
3 4 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.074%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.074%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 166 (12.30%) Terraform
2 113 (8.37%) Kubernetes
3 26 (1.93%) Prometheus
4 24 (1.78%) Grafana
5 11 (0.81%) Ansible
6 5 (0.37%) Argo
7 3 (0.22%) Kibana
7 3 (0.22%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.22%) Nagios
7 3 (0.22%) Rancher
8 2 (0.15%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.15%) logstash
8 2 (0.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.074%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.074%) Control-M
9 1 (0.074%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.074%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.074%) Oozie
Vendors
1 367 (27.19%) Databricks
2 221 (16.37%) Microsoft
3 67 (4.96%) Informatica
4 61 (4.52%) Google
5 53 (3.93%) Oracle
6 32 (2.37%) Talend
7 26 (1.93%) OpenAI
8 24 (1.78%) SAP
9 23 (1.70%) Foundry
10 19 (1.41%) Splunk
11 18 (1.33%) Palantir
12 16 (1.19%) Cloudera
13 13 (0.96%) ServiceNow
14 11 (0.81%) Salesforce
15 9 (0.67%) UiPath
16 8 (0.59%) Automation Anywhere
17 7 (0.52%) Denodo
17 7 (0.52%) IBM
17 7 (0.52%) InterSystems
18 6 (0.44%) Teradata