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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 156 193
Rank change year-on-year +64 +37 +23
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,593 624 494
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.90% 1.89% 1.29%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 2.09% 1.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,099 388 359
10th Percentile £400 £342 £400
25th Percentile £446 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £518 £570
Median % change year-on-year +1.45% -9.21% -5.00%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £663
90th Percentile £725 £741 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £463 £513
% change year-on-year +8.11% -9.76% -6.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 19 6 7
10th Percentile - £37.11 £23.72
25th Percentile £21.25 £42.03 £25.93
Median hourly rate £65.00 £58.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.64% -2.08% -17.81%
75th Percentile £74.38 £81.88 -
90th Percentile £83.94 £98.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £48.50 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +24.49% -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 46,295 29,870 32,935
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.37% 90.52% 85.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,040 18,573 20,019
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £425 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £627 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,185 1,844 1,407
10th Percentile £13.72 £14.33 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.25 £17.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -40.82% -
75th Percentile £67.25 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £65.25 £74.60
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.03 £22.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year +77.91% -47.67% +1.18%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +54 1,416 £525 - 1,972
London +44 867 £550 - 1,253
UK excluding London +74 565 £500 +8.11% 897
Work from Home +68 514 £521 +4.25% 848
North of England +39 187 £475 +7.34% 273
Midlands +25 125 £475 +2.70% 116
West Midlands +30 102 £475 -9.52% 89
Yorkshire +30 95 £500 +5.26% 71
South East -18 91 £525 +19.32% 214
South West +33 86 £525 -3.45% 96
North West -30 58 £513 +19.19% 163
Scotland -7 51 £500 +7.82% 84
North East -11 36 £425 -17.07% 41
East of England -21 26 £563 +25.00% 51
East Midlands +1 22 £503 +15.57% 27
Wales -7 8 £450 -9.09% 15
Northern Ireland +6 4 £334 - 51

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 (11.93%) Apache Airflow
2 173 (10.86%) Apache Spark
3 140 (8.79%) Apache
4 41 (2.57%) Confluence
5 34 (2.13%) SAS
6 22 (1.38%) Jupyter
7 16 (1.00%) Palantir Foundry
8 15 (0.94%) SharePoint
9 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
10 5 (0.31%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.31%) Apache Superset
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%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.063%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.063%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.063%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 11 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.38%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.063%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.063%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.69%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.25%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.25%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.19%) 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%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.063%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.063%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.063%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 662 (41.56%) Azure
2 593 (37.23%) AWS
3 302 (18.96%) Power Platform
4 273 (17.14%) Snowflake
5 238 (14.94%) dbt
6 234 (14.69%) GCP
7 183 (11.49%) Amazon S3
8 178 (11.17%) Azure Data Factory
9 145 (9.10%) Serverless
10 134 (8.41%) Azure DevOps
11 125 (7.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 121 (7.60%) AWS Lambda
13 120 (7.53%) GitHub
14 80 (5.02%) Azure Databricks
15 63 (3.95%) GitHub Actions
16 56 (3.52%) Amazon EMR
17 42 (2.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 39 (2.45%) Amazon Bedrock
19 33 (2.07%) Azure AI
19 33 (2.07%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.31%) Broadband
1 5 (0.31%) DNS
2 4 (0.25%) Firewall
2 4 (0.25%) Network Security
3 1 (0.063%) Internet
3 1 (0.063%) MIMO
3 1 (0.063%) MQTT
3 1 (0.063%) Radio Access Network
3 1 (0.063%) SMS
3 1 (0.063%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 328 (20.59%) Data Warehouse
2 288 (18.08%) Power BI
3 211 (13.25%) Data Lake
4 183 (11.49%) Metadata
5 125 (7.85%) BigQuery
6 109 (6.84%) Amazon Redshift
7 104 (6.53%) Delta Lake
8 90 (5.65%) Big Data
9 80 (5.02%) Amazon Athena
10 74 (4.65%) Tableau
11 61 (3.83%) Snowflake Schema
12 58 (3.64%) SQL Server
13 51 (3.20%) Relational Database
14 49 (3.08%) PostgreSQL
15 44 (2.76%) NoSQL
16 41 (2.57%) Looker
17 36 (2.26%) Azure SQL Database
18 34 (2.13%) Data Vault
19 31 (1.95%) Amazon RDS
20 27 (1.69%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 178 (11.17%) Git
2 93 (5.84%) GitLab
3 71 (4.46%) JIRA
4 27 (1.69%) Jenkins
5 26 (1.63%) MLflow
6 8 (0.50%) Bitbucket
6 8 (0.50%) Claude Code
6 8 (0.50%) ERwin
6 8 (0.50%) RStudio
6 8 (0.50%) Terragrunt
7 7 (0.44%) Selenium
8 5 (0.31%) SonarQube
9 4 (0.25%) ER Studio
10 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
10 3 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 3 (0.19%) Postman
10 3 (0.19%) Snyk
11 2 (0.13%) Cucumber
11 2 (0.13%) TeamCity
11 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 406 (25.49%) Social Skills
2 361 (22.66%) Finance
3 254 (15.94%) Analytical Skills
4 164 (10.30%) Public Sector
5 142 (8.91%) Banking
6 53 (3.33%) Marketing
7 37 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 34 (2.13%) Retail
9 25 (1.57%) Investment Banking
10 23 (1.44%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (1.44%) Front Office
11 20 (1.26%) Law
12 19 (1.19%) Pharmaceutical
13 18 (1.13%) Manufacturing
14 16 (1.00%) Telecoms
15 14 (0.88%) Publishing
16 13 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
16 13 (0.82%) Police
17 12 (0.75%) Back Office
17 12 (0.75%) Billing
Job Titles
1 742 (46.58%) Data Engineer
2 251 (15.76%) Senior
3 179 (11.24%) Lead
4 173 (10.86%) Architect
5 157 (9.86%) Senior Data Engineer
6 98 (6.15%) Developer
7 94 (5.90%) Data Architect
8 76 (4.77%) Databricks Engineer
9 75 (4.71%) AWS Engineer
10 70 (4.39%) Snowflake Engineer
11 68 (4.27%) Azure Engineer
12 67 (4.21%) Analyst
13 65 (4.08%) AWS Data Engineer
14 59 (3.70%) Databricks Data Engineer
15 52 (3.26%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 51 (3.20%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 51 (3.20%) Lead Data Engineer
17 48 (3.01%) Python Engineer
18 47 (2.95%) Azure Data Engineer
19 41 (2.57%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 234 (14.69%) Terraform
2 231 (14.50%) PySpark
3 113 (7.09%) Kafka
4 60 (3.77%) REST
5 34 (2.13%) JSON
6 32 (2.01%) React
7 28 (1.76%) .NET
8 22 (1.38%) Pandas
9 18 (1.13%) LangChain
10 15 (0.94%) FastAPI
10 15 (0.94%) pytest
10 15 (0.94%) PyTorch
11 14 (0.88%) XML
12 13 (0.82%) LangGraph
12 13 (0.82%) RESTful
13 12 (0.75%) NumPy
13 12 (0.75%) scikit-learn
13 12 (0.75%) Streamlit
13 12 (0.75%) TensorFlow
14 11 (0.69%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 211 (13.25%) Cloud Native
2 86 (5.40%) Data Structures
3 78 (4.90%) Onboarding
4 64 (4.02%) Product Ownership
5 55 (3.45%) Legacy Systems
6 54 (3.39%) AI Agents
7 50 (3.14%) Distributed Systems
8 24 (1.51%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.38%) Enterprise Software
10 20 (1.26%) Distributed Computing
11 18 (1.13%) Management Information System
11 18 (1.13%) NHS
11 18 (1.13%) Virtual Team
12 17 (1.07%) Life Science
13 16 (1.00%) Analytical Mindset
13 16 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
14 15 (0.94%) Data Fabric
15 14 (0.88%) Clustering
15 14 (0.88%) Marketing Technology
16 13 (0.82%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 30 (1.88%) Linux
2 25 (1.57%) Unix
3 7 (0.44%) Windows
4 1 (0.063%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
4 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.063%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 781 (49.03%) Data Pipeline
2 748 (46.96%) Analytics
3 627 (39.36%) Data Modelling
4 571 (35.84%) CI/CD
5 555 (34.84%) ETL
6 504 (31.64%) AI
7 404 (25.36%) Agile
8 381 (23.92%) DevOps
9 372 (23.35%) Business Intelligence
10 355 (22.28%) Data Governance
11 283 (17.77%) Stakeholder Management
12 280 (17.58%) Machine Learning
13 253 (15.88%) Data Transformation
14 251 (15.76%) Migration
15 250 (15.69%) Infrastructure as Code
16 246 (15.44%) Problem-Solving
17 244 (15.32%) Validation
18 243 (15.25%) Data Architecture
19 234 (14.69%) Data Integration
20 230 (14.44%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 867 (54.43%) SQL
2 836 (52.48%) Python
3 108 (6.78%) Java
4 45 (2.82%) Scala
5 41 (2.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 41 (2.57%) PowerShell
6 37 (2.32%) C#
7 34 (2.13%) Bash
8 31 (1.95%) JavaScript
9 24 (1.51%) R
10 20 (1.26%) PL/SQL
10 20 (1.26%) T-SQL
11 16 (1.00%) Bicep
12 15 (0.94%) TypeScript
13 12 (0.75%) Kusto Query Language
14 11 (0.69%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.63%) SPARQL
16 9 (0.56%) Go
16 9 (0.56%) SAS Macro
17 8 (0.50%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 296 (18.58%) Security Cleared
2 249 (15.63%) SC Cleared
3 79 (4.96%) Degree
4 37 (2.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (2.07%) Azure Certification
5 33 (2.07%) DV Cleared
6 31 (1.95%) AWS Certification
7 30 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (1.26%) Master's Degree
9 14 (0.88%) DBS Check
10 13 (0.82%) SnowPro
11 11 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.31%) CSPO
13 5 (0.31%) PMI Certification
13 5 (0.31%) PMP
13 5 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
14 4 (0.25%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 4 (0.25%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 527 (33.08%) Data Quality
2 80 (5.02%) QA
3 63 (3.95%) GDPR
4 30 (1.88%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.75%) SLA
6 7 (0.44%) Disclosure Scotland
7 5 (0.31%) GRC
8 4 (0.25%) PMO
9 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.19%) EU AI Act
9 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.19%) MiFID
9 3 (0.19%) NCSC
9 3 (0.19%) NIST
10 2 (0.13%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 2 (0.13%) EMIR
10 2 (0.13%) GxP
10 2 (0.13%) IFRS
10 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 132 (8.29%) Docker
2 5 (0.31%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.063%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 107 (6.72%) Kubernetes
2 31 (1.95%) Grafana
3 23 (1.44%) Ansible
4 11 (0.69%) Prometheus
5 8 (0.50%) Control-M
5 8 (0.50%) Kibana
6 3 (0.19%) logstash
7 2 (0.13%) Argo
7 2 (0.13%) Puppet
7 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.063%) Cilium
8 1 (0.063%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.063%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.063%) IBM Guardium
8 1 (0.063%) Kustomize
8 1 (0.063%) Nagios
8 1 (0.063%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.063%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.063%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.063%) QRadar
Vendors
1 455 (28.56%) Databricks
2 274 (17.20%) Microsoft
3 93 (5.84%) Google
4 74 (4.65%) Oracle
5 62 (3.89%) Informatica
6 31 (1.95%) SAP
7 30 (1.88%) Salesforce
8 28 (1.76%) Foundry
8 28 (1.76%) Talend
9 24 (1.51%) Palantir
10 21 (1.32%) OpenAI
11 16 (1.00%) Teradata
12 13 (0.82%) Cloudera
13 12 (0.75%) Trend Micro
14 11 (0.69%) Adobe
14 11 (0.69%) ServiceNow
15 9 (0.56%) Splunk
16 8 (0.50%) Denodo
17 7 (0.44%) Hitachi
17 7 (0.44%) MicroStrategy