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

6 months to
24 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 162 214
Rank change year-on-year +75 +52 -3
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,554 576 486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.94% 1.76% 1.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 1.95% 1.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,076 376 357
10th Percentile £378 £363 £384
25th Percentile £437 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -8.70% -8.00%
75th Percentile £633 £650 £688
90th Percentile £732 £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 28 7 14
10th Percentile £21.25 £27.00 £30.63
25th Percentile £49.56 £34.48 £31.25
Median hourly rate £67.00 £52.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.62% +50.00% -52.05%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £88.25 £83.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £30.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +113.33% -50.00% -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 44,871 29,543 34,928
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.02% 90.39% 85.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,803 18,563 22,435
10th Percentile £325 £300 £306
25th Percentile £419 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -4.46%
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 2,660 1,589 2,131
10th Percentile £14.85 £14.20 £13.46
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.44 £17.25
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -6.98%
75th Percentile £68.13 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £69.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £24.34 £40.00
% change year-on-year +82.83% -39.15% -1.95%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 1,377 £525 - 672
London +53 808 £550 - 405
UK excluding London +83 586 £500 +5.26% 352
Work from Home +71 506 £525 - 275
North of England +35 177 £475 - 130
Midlands +46 155 £475 +2.70% 40
West Midlands +36 130 £469 +8.82% 29
South West +25 84 £500 -8.05% 43
Yorkshire +15 83 £475 +11.76% 36
South East -26 81 £525 +11.70% 103
Scotland +26 60 £450 -5.26% 13
North West -14 56 £500 +5.26% 64
North East -3 40 £425 -15.00% 31
East of England -3 30 £575 +35.29% 11
East Midlands 0 22 £525 +13.51% 11
Wales -9 8 £450 +82.58% 8
Northern Ireland - 4 £334 - 8

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
1 202 (13.00%) Apache Spark
2 176 (11.33%) Apache Airflow
3 130 (8.37%) Apache
4 46 (2.96%) SAS
5 44 (2.83%) Confluence
6 23 (1.48%) Jupyter
7 22 (1.42%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.71%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.51%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.26%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.19%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Solr
12 2 (0.13%) Apache Synapse
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.064%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 1 (0.064%) Camunda
13 1 (0.064%) CICS
13 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.064%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 23 (1.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 4 (0.26%) Microsoft Project
6 3 (0.19%) Chatbot
7 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 12 (0.77%) 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 2 (0.13%) Endur
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
5 2 (0.13%) Workday HCM
6 1 (0.064%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.064%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.064%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.064%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.064%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 653 (42.02%) Azure
2 584 (37.58%) AWS
3 322 (20.72%) Power Platform
4 235 (15.12%) Snowflake
5 212 (13.64%) GCP
6 190 (12.23%) dbt
7 182 (11.71%) Amazon S3
8 173 (11.13%) Azure Data Factory
9 148 (9.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 134 (8.62%) Serverless
11 130 (8.37%) Azure DevOps
12 120 (7.72%) GitHub
13 113 (7.27%) AWS Lambda
14 67 (4.31%) GitHub Actions
15 61 (3.93%) Amazon EMR
16 37 (2.38%) AWS CloudFormation
17 36 (2.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 31 (1.99%) Amazon SageMaker
18 31 (1.99%) Azure AI
19 30 (1.93%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
1 5 (0.32%) RTP
2 2 (0.13%) Network Security
3 1 (0.064%) 4G
3 1 (0.064%) 5G
3 1 (0.064%) Broadband
3 1 (0.064%) MIMO
3 1 (0.064%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 301 (19.37%) Power BI
2 300 (19.31%) Data Warehouse
3 221 (14.22%) Data Lake
4 158 (10.17%) Metadata
5 112 (7.21%) Big Data
6 110 (7.08%) Amazon Redshift
7 99 (6.37%) BigQuery
8 94 (6.05%) Delta Lake
9 89 (5.73%) Tableau
10 80 (5.15%) SQL Server
11 78 (5.02%) Amazon Athena
12 69 (4.44%) NoSQL
13 63 (4.05%) Snowflake Schema
14 60 (3.86%) PostgreSQL
15 59 (3.80%) Relational Database
16 48 (3.09%) Azure SQL Database
17 46 (2.96%) Hadoop
18 36 (2.32%) Star Schema
19 35 (2.25%) Looker
19 35 (2.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 175 (11.26%) Git
2 75 (4.83%) JIRA
3 72 (4.63%) GitLab
4 32 (2.06%) MLflow
5 20 (1.29%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.39%) ERwin
6 6 (0.39%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.32%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.19%) Postman
8 3 (0.19%) Selenium
8 3 (0.19%) Snyk
8 3 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.19%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
10 1 (0.064%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.064%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.064%) Robot Framework
General
1 374 (24.07%) Social Skills
2 356 (22.91%) Finance
3 256 (16.47%) Analytical Skills
4 169 (10.88%) Public Sector
5 120 (7.72%) Banking
6 41 (2.64%) Marketing
7 36 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
8 35 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 33 (2.12%) Retail
10 22 (1.42%) Front Office
10 22 (1.42%) Telecoms
11 21 (1.35%) Investment Banking
12 15 (0.97%) Manufacturing
13 14 (0.90%) Financial Institution
13 14 (0.90%) Law
14 11 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
14 11 (0.71%) Legal
14 11 (0.71%) Pharmaceutical
15 9 (0.58%) Billing
16 7 (0.45%) Military
Job Titles
1 716 (46.07%) Data Engineer
2 218 (14.03%) Senior
3 176 (11.33%) Architect
4 174 (11.20%) Lead
5 125 (8.04%) Senior Data Engineer
6 97 (6.24%) Data Architect
7 96 (6.18%) Developer
8 80 (5.15%) AWS Engineer
9 72 (4.63%) Analyst
10 64 (4.12%) Lead Data Engineer
11 62 (3.99%) AWS Data Engineer
11 62 (3.99%) Azure Engineer
11 62 (3.99%) Snowflake Engineer
12 55 (3.54%) Azure Data Engineer
13 48 (3.09%) Data Scientist
13 48 (3.09%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 47 (3.02%) Python Engineer
14 47 (3.02%) Solutions Architect
15 45 (2.90%) Consultant
16 44 (2.83%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 229 (14.74%) PySpark
2 141 (9.07%) Kafka
3 41 (2.64%) REST
4 40 (2.57%) Pandas
5 36 (2.32%) JSON
6 29 (1.87%) scikit-learn
7 27 (1.74%) PyTorch
8 26 (1.67%) React
9 25 (1.61%) NumPy
10 23 (1.48%) Spring
11 22 (1.42%) TensorFlow
12 19 (1.22%) .NET
13 17 (1.09%) RESTful
14 16 (1.03%) OpenTelemetry
14 16 (1.03%) Spring Boot
15 14 (0.90%) Apache Avro
16 13 (0.84%) FastAPI
17 12 (0.77%) Great Expectations
17 12 (0.77%) LangChain
17 12 (0.77%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 205 (13.19%) Cloud Native
2 71 (4.57%) Data Structures
3 64 (4.12%) Distributed Systems
3 64 (4.12%) Legacy Systems
4 55 (3.54%) Product Ownership
5 44 (2.83%) Onboarding
6 35 (2.25%) AI Agents
7 27 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
8 26 (1.67%) Distributed Computing
9 25 (1.61%) Algorithms
10 22 (1.42%) NHS
11 21 (1.35%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (1.22%) Virtual Team
13 18 (1.16%) Analytical Mindset
14 17 (1.09%) Clustering
15 15 (0.97%) Reference Data
16 14 (0.90%) Management Information System
17 13 (0.84%) Life Science
18 12 (0.77%) Fixed Income
18 12 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 34 (2.19%) Linux
2 27 (1.74%) Unix
3 6 (0.39%) Windows
4 4 (0.26%) VMS
5 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 803 (51.67%) Analytics
2 752 (48.39%) Data Pipeline
3 608 (39.12%) Data Modelling
4 544 (35.01%) CI/CD
5 532 (34.23%) ETL
6 436 (28.06%) AI
7 395 (25.42%) Agile
8 385 (24.77%) Business Intelligence
9 363 (23.36%) DevOps
10 350 (22.52%) Data Governance
11 291 (18.73%) Machine Learning
12 274 (17.63%) Data Science
13 270 (17.37%) Problem-Solving
14 236 (15.19%) Migration
15 227 (14.61%) Validation
16 221 (14.22%) Data Architecture
17 215 (13.84%) Decision-Making
18 192 (12.36%) Data Transformation
19 191 (12.29%) Stakeholder Management
20 190 (12.23%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 851 (54.76%) SQL
2 813 (52.32%) Python
3 126 (8.11%) Java
4 45 (2.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 40 (2.57%) Scala
6 37 (2.38%) Bash
7 36 (2.32%) C#
8 25 (1.61%) PowerShell
8 25 (1.61%) T-SQL
9 22 (1.42%) R
10 19 (1.22%) Bicep
10 19 (1.22%) JavaScript
11 17 (1.09%) PL/SQL
12 15 (0.97%) Shell Script
13 12 (0.77%) SAS Macro
14 11 (0.71%) TypeScript
15 8 (0.51%) SPARQL
16 7 (0.45%) Cypher
17 5 (0.32%) Go
17 5 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 304 (19.56%) Security Cleared
2 260 (16.73%) SC Cleared
3 112 (7.21%) Degree
4 47 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 37 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
5 37 (2.38%) Master's Degree
6 32 (2.06%) Azure Certification
7 28 (1.80%) DV Cleared
8 20 (1.29%) 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%) PhD
14 3 (0.19%) Tableau Certification
15 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.13%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 459 (29.54%) Data Quality
2 89 (5.73%) GDPR
3 81 (5.21%) QA
4 24 (1.54%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.97%) SLA
6 4 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.26%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (0.26%) NIST
6 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.19%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.19%) GRC
7 3 (0.19%) GxP
7 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (0.19%) MiFID
7 3 (0.19%) PMO
8 2 (0.13%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 2 (0.13%) COPPA
8 2 (0.13%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 132 (8.49%) Docker
2 4 (0.26%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.13%) HDFS
5 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 198 (12.74%) Terraform
2 113 (7.27%) Kubernetes
3 27 (1.74%) Grafana
4 25 (1.61%) Prometheus
5 13 (0.84%) Ansible
6 5 (0.32%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) Argo
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
7 3 (0.19%) Rancher
8 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.13%) Nagios
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.064%) Control-M
9 1 (0.064%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.064%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.064%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.064%) Oozie
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.064%) QRadar
Vendors
1 399 (25.68%) Databricks
2 265 (17.05%) Microsoft
3 85 (5.47%) Informatica
4 69 (4.44%) Oracle
5 68 (4.38%) Google
6 35 (2.25%) Talend
7 33 (2.12%) SAP
8 32 (2.06%) Foundry
9 31 (1.99%) Palantir
10 25 (1.61%) OpenAI
11 23 (1.48%) Splunk
12 22 (1.42%) Salesforce
13 15 (0.97%) Cloudera
13 15 (0.97%) ServiceNow
14 12 (0.77%) Trend Micro
15 8 (0.51%) Adobe
15 8 (0.51%) Workday
16 7 (0.45%) Denodo
16 7 (0.45%) InterSystems
17 6 (0.39%) Teradata