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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 157 211
Rank change year-on-year +68 +54 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,225 524 492
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.82% 1.79% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.28% 1.98% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 848 369 372
10th Percentile £379 £373 £378
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 £675 £675
90th Percentile £749 £838 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 13 12
10th Percentile £50.75 £21.40 £30.46
25th Percentile £56.75 £22.00 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.44 £25.43 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +173.06% -27.34% -
75th Percentile £75.00 £28.75 £45.19
90th Percentile £86.25 £58.00 £59.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £25.43 £45.19
% change year-on-year +172.20% -43.72% +123.80%

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 37,403 26,465 38,354
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.99% 90.45% 86.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,742 17,048 24,949
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 £611 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £743 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -1.54% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,201 924 2,323
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.25 £12.99
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.00
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.41 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £31.64 £31.13
% change year-on-year -11.50% +1.65% -11.14%

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 +67 1,093 £525 -4.55% 555
London +57 714 £550 -4.35% 283
UK excluding London +58 387 £500 +5.26% 382
Work from Home +42 366 £550 -4.35% 252
Midlands +24 111 £513 +2.50% 47
North of England -8 108 £461 -7.75% 116
West Midlands +13 89 £523 -3.24% 37
South West +13 65 £550 -12.87% 36
Scotland +28 49 £440 -6.98% 23
North West -9 49 £456 -3.95% 61
South East -39 45 £550 +10.00% 128
Yorkshire -37 37 £475 -17.39% 45
North East +7 22 £450 -10.00% 12
East Midlands -21 21 £447 -5.89% 10
East of England -20 16 £575 +79.69% 28
Wales -14 6 £563 +128.23% 10
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 -

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
1 192 (15.67%) Apache Spark
2 126 (10.29%) Apache Airflow
3 91 (7.43%) 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 (0.082%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.082%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.082%) Camunda
12 1 (0.082%) CMS
12 1 (0.082%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 26 (2.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (0.98%) 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
4 1 (0.082%) Actimize
4 1 (0.082%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.082%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.082%) Maximo
4 1 (0.082%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.082%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.082%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 575 (46.94%) Azure
2 439 (35.84%) AWS
3 269 (21.96%) Power Platform
4 201 (16.41%) Azure Data Factory
5 170 (13.88%) GCP
6 161 (13.14%) Snowflake
7 144 (11.76%) Amazon S3
8 136 (11.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 131 (10.69%) GitHub
10 122 (9.96%) Serverless
11 102 (8.33%) Azure DevOps
12 101 (8.24%) dbt
13 94 (7.67%) AWS Lambda
14 80 (6.53%) GitHub Actions
15 65 (5.31%) AWS CloudFormation
16 39 (3.18%) AWS Step Functions
17 34 (2.78%) Amazon EMR
18 30 (2.45%) Collibra
19 28 (2.29%) 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 (0.082%) 4G
4 1 (0.082%) 5G
4 1 (0.082%) MQTT
4 1 (0.082%) SAN
4 1 (0.082%) SMS
4 1 (0.082%) SSL
4 1 (0.082%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 246 (20.08%) Power BI
2 245 (20.00%) Data Warehouse
3 177 (14.45%) Data Lake
4 115 (9.39%) Metadata
5 90 (7.35%) Big Data
6 89 (7.27%) SQL Server
7 82 (6.69%) NoSQL
8 78 (6.37%) Delta Lake
9 64 (5.22%) Relational Database
10 63 (5.14%) Azure SQL Database
11 62 (5.06%) Amazon Athena
11 62 (5.06%) Amazon Redshift
11 62 (5.06%) Snowflake Schema
12 60 (4.90%) Tableau
13 57 (4.65%) PostgreSQL
14 53 (4.33%) BigQuery
15 52 (4.24%) Hadoop
16 34 (2.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 33 (2.69%) Spark SQL
18 22 (1.80%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 178 (14.53%) Git
2 60 (4.90%) GitLab
3 49 (4.00%) MLflow
4 44 (3.59%) Jenkins
5 35 (2.86%) JIRA
6 6 (0.49%) Selenium
7 5 (0.41%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.41%) Visual Studio Code
8 3 (0.24%) Cucumber
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%) ERwin
9 2 (0.16%) Gemini Tracker
9 2 (0.16%) Mockito
9 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.082%) REST Assured
General
1 328 (26.78%) Social Skills
2 294 (24.00%) Finance
3 171 (13.96%) Analytical Skills
4 102 (8.33%) Public Sector
5 74 (6.04%) Banking
6 28 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (1.63%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (1.63%) Front Office
8 19 (1.55%) Investment Banking
9 18 (1.47%) Retail
10 16 (1.31%) Influencing Skills
10 16 (1.31%) Marketing
11 12 (0.98%) Financial Institution
12 11 (0.90%) Legal
12 11 (0.90%) Telecoms
13 10 (0.82%) Pharmaceutical
14 8 (0.65%) Publishing
15 7 (0.57%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.49%) Back Office
16 6 (0.49%) Military
Job Titles
1 564 (46.04%) Data Engineer
2 157 (12.82%) Lead
3 156 (12.73%) Senior
4 104 (8.49%) Senior Data Engineer
5 99 (8.08%) Architect
6 80 (6.53%) Developer
7 76 (6.20%) Azure Engineer
8 61 (4.98%) Azure Data Engineer
9 60 (4.90%) Lead Data Engineer
10 58 (4.73%) Analyst
11 57 (4.65%) AWS Engineer
12 53 (4.33%) Data Architect
13 50 (4.08%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 47 (3.84%) Data Scientist
14 47 (3.84%) Snowflake Engineer
15 41 (3.35%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 37 (3.02%) Consultant
17 36 (2.94%) AWS Data Engineer
18 34 (2.78%) Data Analyst
18 34 (2.78%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 220 (17.96%) PySpark
2 149 (12.16%) Kafka
3 69 (5.63%) Pandas
4 59 (4.82%) PyTorch
5 48 (3.92%) scikit-learn
5 48 (3.92%) TensorFlow
6 46 (3.76%) NumPy
7 31 (2.53%) FastAPI
8 30 (2.45%) JSON
9 27 (2.20%) REST
9 27 (2.20%) YAML
10 26 (2.12%) Flask
11 25 (2.04%) pytest
12 24 (1.96%) RESTful
13 23 (1.88%) LangChain
13 23 (1.88%) React
14 18 (1.47%) Great Expectations
14 18 (1.47%) Spring
15 15 (1.22%) OAuth
16 14 (1.14%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 164 (13.39%) Cloud Native
2 53 (4.33%) Algorithms
3 47 (3.84%) Product Ownership
4 44 (3.59%) Distributed Systems
5 33 (2.69%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (2.45%) Distributed Computing
7 28 (2.29%) Onboarding
8 24 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
9 22 (1.80%) Data Structures
10 21 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
11 20 (1.63%) AI Agents
12 18 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (1.14%) Clustering
13 14 (1.14%) Fixed Income
14 13 (1.06%) Management Information System
15 12 (0.98%) Derivative
15 12 (0.98%) NHS
15 12 (0.98%) Virtual Team
16 11 (0.90%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 30 (2.45%) 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 (0.082%) CentOS
6 1 (0.082%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 592 (48.33%) Analytics
2 556 (45.39%) Data Pipeline
3 483 (39.43%) ETL
4 470 (38.37%) Data Modelling
5 455 (37.14%) CI/CD
6 330 (26.94%) AI
7 326 (26.61%) Data Governance
8 312 (25.47%) DevOps
9 309 (25.22%) Agile
10 304 (24.82%) Business Intelligence
11 267 (21.80%) Machine Learning
12 246 (20.08%) Problem-Solving
13 238 (19.43%) Data Science
14 192 (15.67%) Data Architecture
15 151 (12.33%) Infrastructure as Code
16 144 (11.76%) Decision-Making
17 143 (11.67%) Validation
18 127 (10.37%) Migration
19 124 (10.12%) LLM
20 120 (9.80%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 720 (58.78%) Python
2 664 (54.20%) SQL
3 93 (7.59%) Java
4 68 (5.55%) Scala
5 45 (3.67%) C#
6 40 (3.27%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 39 (3.18%) Bash
8 36 (2.94%) PowerShell
9 26 (2.12%) JavaScript
10 23 (1.88%) T-SQL
11 19 (1.55%) Bicep
12 16 (1.31%) Go
12 16 (1.31%) R
13 15 (1.22%) TypeScript
14 10 (0.82%) C++
14 10 (0.82%) PL/SQL
14 10 (0.82%) Shell Script
15 6 (0.49%) Korn
16 5 (0.41%) Rust
17 3 (0.24%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 242 (19.76%) Security Cleared
2 203 (16.57%) SC Cleared
3 114 (9.31%) Degree
4 48 (3.92%) Azure Certification
5 46 (3.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 46 (3.76%) Master's Degree
6 21 (1.71%) DV Cleared
7 19 (1.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (1.47%) AWS Certification
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 (0.082%) ACCA
13 1 (0.082%) CIMA
13 1 (0.082%) CISM
13 1 (0.082%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 350 (28.57%) Data Quality
2 95 (7.76%) GDPR
3 43 (3.51%) QA
4 13 (1.06%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.98%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (0.65%) SLA
7 7 (0.57%) HIPAA
8 5 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.41%) PERC
8 5 (0.41%) SOC 2
9 4 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 4 (0.33%) Solvency II
10 3 (0.24%) GRC
10 3 (0.24%) WCAG
11 2 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.16%) HL7
11 2 (0.16%) MiFID
11 2 (0.16%) NIST
11 2 (0.16%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 152 (12.41%) Docker
2 6 (0.49%) HDFS
3 3 (0.24%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.082%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.082%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 179 (14.61%) Terraform
2 135 (11.02%) Kubernetes
3 28 (2.29%) 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 (0.082%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.082%) Control-M
9 1 (0.082%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.082%) Oozie
Vendors
1 367 (29.96%) Databricks
2 184 (15.02%) Microsoft
3 62 (5.06%) Google
4 48 (3.92%) Informatica
5 40 (3.27%) Oracle
6 29 (2.37%) Talend
7 25 (2.04%) Foundry
8 24 (1.96%) Palantir
9 22 (1.80%) OpenAI
10 18 (1.47%) Splunk
11 15 (1.22%) Cloudera
11 15 (1.22%) SAP
12 10 (0.82%) Denodo
12 10 (0.82%) Salesforce
12 10 (0.82%) ServiceNow
13 9 (0.73%) UiPath
14 8 (0.65%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.65%) IBM
15 6 (0.49%) MicroStrategy
16 5 (0.41%) Charles River