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 18 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 160 201
Rank change year-on-year +73 +41 +12
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,546 565 498
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.92% 1.74% 1.18%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.43% 1.92% 1.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,073 373 367
10th Percentile £380 £363 £375
25th Percentile £438 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £560
Median % change year-on-year - -6.25% -10.40%
75th Percentile £627 £650 £688
90th Percentile £738 £800 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 7 15
10th Percentile £29.50 £24.75 £30.72
25th Percentile £51.25 £28.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.00 £38.96 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +77.10% +11.31% -52.05%
75th Percentile £75.00 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.50 £58.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £28.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +122.61% -52.08% -17.81%

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 45,026 29,407 35,968
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.11% 90.34% 85.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,974 18,494 23,016
10th Percentile £325 £300 £301
25th Percentile £419 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £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 2,654 1,554 2,302
10th Percentile £14.87 £14.20 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.01 £17.37 £16.71
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £38.12
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -34.02% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.50 £51.55 £62.00
90th Percentile £82.46 £70.00 £73.48
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £24.33 £38.20
% change year-on-year +84.96% -36.30% -4.51%

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 18 July 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 18 July 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 18 July 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 1,372 £525 - 392
London +55 798 £550 - 235
UK excluding London +79 591 £500 +5.26% 218
Work from Home +74 504 £525 - 159
North of England +26 179 £475 -5.00% 74
Midlands +43 155 £475 +3.09% 31
West Midlands +36 131 £469 +12.61% 19
South West +26 87 £500 -8.05% 23
Yorkshire +16 82 £480 +3.78% 20
South East -21 80 £525 +11.70% 75
Scotland +26 59 £450 -5.26% 8
North West -21 59 £525 +7.69% 34
North East -1 40 £425 -15.00% 20
East of England -2 30 £575 +39.39% 7
East Midlands -2 21 £525 +13.51% 12
Wales -7 8 £450 +82.58% 2
Northern Ireland - 5 £334 - 1

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
1 193 (12.48%) Apache Spark
2 177 (11.45%) Apache Airflow
3 126 (8.15%) Apache
4 46 (2.98%) SAS
5 44 (2.85%) Confluence
6 23 (1.49%) Jupyter
7 18 (1.16%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.71%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.52%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.26%) Appian
11 3 (0.19%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Synapse
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.065%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 1 (0.065%) Apache Solr
13 1 (0.065%) Camunda
13 1 (0.065%) CICS
13 1 (0.065%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.065%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.065%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 25 (1.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
5 4 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.065%) Notion
Business Applications
1 12 (0.78%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.32%) BambooHR
3 5 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.26%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.13%) Endur
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.065%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.065%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.065%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.065%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.065%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.065%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.065%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.065%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 653 (42.24%) Azure
2 588 (38.03%) AWS
3 322 (20.83%) Power Platform
4 232 (15.01%) Snowflake
5 210 (13.58%) GCP
6 186 (12.03%) Amazon S3
7 184 (11.90%) dbt
8 176 (11.38%) Azure Data Factory
9 145 (9.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 136 (8.80%) Serverless
11 128 (8.28%) Azure DevOps
12 122 (7.89%) GitHub
13 116 (7.50%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (4.46%) GitHub Actions
15 63 (4.08%) Amazon EMR
16 37 (2.39%) AWS CloudFormation
17 35 (2.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 32 (2.07%) Azure AI
19 31 (2.01%) Amazon SageMaker
20 30 (1.94%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
1 5 (0.32%) RTP
2 1 (0.065%) 4G
2 1 (0.065%) 5G
2 1 (0.065%) MIMO
2 1 (0.065%) MQTT
2 1 (0.065%) Network Security
Database & Business Intelligence
1 302 (19.53%) Data Warehouse
2 298 (19.28%) Power BI
3 219 (14.17%) Data Lake
4 153 (9.90%) Metadata
5 110 (7.12%) Amazon Redshift
6 109 (7.05%) Big Data
7 95 (6.14%) BigQuery
8 91 (5.89%) Delta Lake
9 85 (5.50%) Tableau
10 80 (5.17%) Amazon Athena
10 80 (5.17%) SQL Server
11 68 (4.40%) NoSQL
12 67 (4.33%) Snowflake Schema
13 60 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
14 59 (3.82%) Relational Database
15 48 (3.10%) Azure SQL Database
16 47 (3.04%) Hadoop
17 37 (2.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 35 (2.26%) Star Schema
19 31 (2.01%) Looker
Development Applications
1 177 (11.45%) Git
2 75 (4.85%) JIRA
3 74 (4.79%) GitLab
4 35 (2.26%) MLflow
5 20 (1.29%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.39%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.32%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.26%) ERwin
9 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.19%) Postman
9 3 (0.19%) Selenium
9 3 (0.19%) Snyk
9 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.13%) Claude Code
10 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
11 1 (0.065%) Cypress.io
11 1 (0.065%) Octopus Deploy
11 1 (0.065%) REST Assured
11 1 (0.065%) Robot Framework
11 1 (0.065%) SoapUI
General
1 376 (24.32%) Social Skills
2 354 (22.90%) Finance
3 253 (16.36%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (10.93%) Public Sector
5 115 (7.44%) Banking
6 40 (2.59%) Marketing
7 36 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
7 36 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 32 (2.07%) Retail
9 22 (1.42%) Front Office
10 21 (1.36%) Telecoms
11 20 (1.29%) Investment Banking
12 14 (0.91%) Financial Institution
12 14 (0.91%) Law
12 14 (0.91%) Manufacturing
13 11 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (0.71%) Legal
13 11 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
14 9 (0.58%) Billing
15 6 (0.39%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 717 (46.38%) Data Engineer
2 218 (14.10%) Senior
3 178 (11.51%) Architect
4 169 (10.93%) Lead
5 125 (8.09%) Senior Data Engineer
6 97 (6.27%) Data Architect
7 96 (6.21%) Developer
8 82 (5.30%) AWS Engineer
9 73 (4.72%) Analyst
10 67 (4.33%) Lead Data Engineer
11 64 (4.14%) AWS Data Engineer
12 63 (4.08%) Snowflake Engineer
13 59 (3.82%) Azure Engineer
14 53 (3.43%) Azure Data Engineer
15 49 (3.17%) Data Scientist
15 49 (3.17%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 48 (3.10%) Solutions Architect
17 46 (2.98%) Consultant
17 46 (2.98%) Python Engineer
18 43 (2.78%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 223 (14.42%) PySpark
2 143 (9.25%) Kafka
3 41 (2.65%) REST
4 38 (2.46%) Pandas
5 35 (2.26%) JSON
6 31 (2.01%) scikit-learn
7 29 (1.88%) PyTorch
8 27 (1.75%) React
9 24 (1.55%) NumPy
10 23 (1.49%) Spring
10 23 (1.49%) TensorFlow
11 18 (1.16%) .NET
11 18 (1.16%) RESTful
12 16 (1.03%) Spring Boot
13 15 (0.97%) OpenTelemetry
14 14 (0.91%) FastAPI
15 13 (0.84%) Apache Avro
15 13 (0.84%) Great Expectations
15 13 (0.84%) Microsoft Graph
15 13 (0.84%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 207 (13.39%) Cloud Native
2 69 (4.46%) Data Structures
3 60 (3.88%) Legacy Systems
4 59 (3.82%) Distributed Systems
5 50 (3.23%) Product Ownership
6 41 (2.65%) Onboarding
7 38 (2.46%) AI Agents
8 28 (1.81%) Data Protection Act
9 26 (1.68%) Distributed Computing
10 25 (1.62%) Algorithms
11 22 (1.42%) Greenfield Project
11 22 (1.42%) NHS
12 18 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (1.16%) Virtual Team
13 17 (1.10%) Clustering
14 15 (0.97%) Management Information System
15 13 (0.84%) Life Science
15 13 (0.84%) Reference Data
16 12 (0.78%) Fixed Income
16 12 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 31 (2.01%) Linux
2 25 (1.62%) Unix
3 5 (0.32%) VMS
3 5 (0.32%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 796 (51.49%) Analytics
2 749 (48.45%) Data Pipeline
3 607 (39.26%) Data Modelling
4 550 (35.58%) CI/CD
5 537 (34.73%) ETL
6 440 (28.46%) AI
7 395 (25.55%) Agile
8 383 (24.77%) Business Intelligence
9 368 (23.80%) DevOps
10 343 (22.19%) Data Governance
11 294 (19.02%) Machine Learning
12 272 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
13 270 (17.46%) Data Science
14 232 (15.01%) Migration
15 224 (14.49%) Validation
16 221 (14.29%) Data Architecture
17 213 (13.78%) Decision-Making
18 189 (12.23%) Stakeholder Management
19 187 (12.10%) Infrastructure as Code
20 183 (11.84%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 838 (54.20%) SQL
2 810 (52.39%) Python
3 129 (8.34%) Java
4 45 (2.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 41 (2.65%) Scala
6 37 (2.39%) Bash
6 37 (2.39%) C#
7 25 (1.62%) PowerShell
7 25 (1.62%) T-SQL
8 22 (1.42%) R
9 21 (1.36%) JavaScript
10 18 (1.16%) Bicep
11 17 (1.10%) PL/SQL
12 13 (0.84%) Shell Script
12 13 (0.84%) TypeScript
13 12 (0.78%) SAS Macro
14 8 (0.52%) SPARQL
15 7 (0.45%) Cypher
16 5 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
17 4 (0.26%) Go
Qualifications
1 303 (19.60%) Security Cleared
2 260 (16.82%) SC Cleared
3 112 (7.24%) Degree
4 47 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
5 37 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 37 (2.39%) Master's Degree
6 30 (1.94%) Azure Certification
7 27 (1.75%) DV Cleared
8 21 (1.36%) AWS Certification
9 13 (0.84%) DBS Check
10 9 (0.58%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 9 (0.58%) SnowPro
11 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
12 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.32%) CSPO
14 3 (0.19%) IBM Certification
14 3 (0.19%) Tableau Certification
15 2 (0.13%) PhD
15 2 (0.13%) PMI Certification
16 1 (0.065%) (ISC)2 CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 452 (29.24%) Data Quality
2 90 (5.82%) GDPR
3 77 (4.98%) QA
4 24 (1.55%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.97%) SLA
6 5 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
7 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.19%) GxP
8 3 (0.19%) HIPAA
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%) EMIR
9 2 (0.13%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 136 (8.80%) Docker
2 3 (0.19%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.13%) HDFS
4 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 198 (12.81%) Terraform
2 114 (7.37%) Kubernetes
3 28 (1.81%) Grafana
4 27 (1.75%) Prometheus
5 12 (0.78%) Ansible
6 5 (0.32%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) Argo
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
7 3 (0.19%) Nagios
7 3 (0.19%) Rancher
8 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.065%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.065%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.065%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.065%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.065%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.065%) Oozie
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.065%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 391 (25.29%) Databricks
2 267 (17.27%) Microsoft
3 87 (5.63%) Informatica
4 65 (4.20%) Oracle
5 64 (4.14%) Google
6 35 (2.26%) Talend
7 31 (2.01%) SAP
8 30 (1.94%) Foundry
9 27 (1.75%) Palantir
10 26 (1.68%) OpenAI
11 22 (1.42%) Salesforce
11 22 (1.42%) Splunk
12 15 (0.97%) Cloudera
12 15 (0.97%) ServiceNow
13 12 (0.78%) Trend Micro
14 8 (0.52%) Adobe
15 7 (0.45%) Denodo
15 7 (0.45%) InterSystems
16 6 (0.39%) Teradata
16 6 (0.39%) Workday