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

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 162 211
Rank change year-on-year +75 +49 -1
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,555 579 475
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.96% 1.76% 1.19%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.48% 1.95% 1.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,075 370 349
10th Percentile £387 £363 £398
25th Percentile £440 £433 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £575
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -9.57% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £644 £688
90th Percentile £738 £800 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -13.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 7 13
10th Percentile £21.25 £27.00 £30.55
25th Percentile £35.25 £34.48 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.44 £52.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +32.27% +50.00% -52.05%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.38 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.00 £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 44,620 29,684 34,056
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.46% 85.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,627 18,648 21,888
10th Percentile £325 £300 £308
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £734 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,682 1,621 1,980
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £13.69
25th Percentile £19.73 £17.33 £17.74
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.13% -5.88%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £63.75
90th Percentile £82.35 £68.75 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.57 £40.33
% change year-on-year +86.55% -41.56% -

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 1,388 £525 - 635
London +54 820 £550 - 385
UK excluding London +80 573 £500 +6.38% 334
Work from Home +70 517 £525 - 283
North of England +30 178 £475 -2.56% 121
Midlands +37 149 £481 +4.79% 38
West Midlands +33 124 £475 +10.21% 28
South East -23 85 £525 +11.94% 99
South West +29 84 £505 -12.17% 43
Yorkshire +14 82 £475 +2.70% 35
North West -18 58 £500 +5.26% 61
Scotland +9 50 £450 -4.26% 15
North East -12 40 £425 -15.00% 26
East of England -4 29 £575 +35.29% 10
East Midlands -3 22 £525 +13.94% 10
Wales -9 7 £450 +82.58% 6
Northern Ireland +3 4 £334 - 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
1 192 (12.35%) Apache Spark
2 170 (10.93%) Apache Airflow
3 125 (8.04%) Apache
4 47 (3.02%) SAS
5 41 (2.64%) Confluence
6 23 (1.48%) Jupyter
7 22 (1.41%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.71%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.51%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.26%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.19%) Apache Solr
12 2 (0.13%) Appian
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.064%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.064%) CICS
13 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.064%) IBM HTTP Server
13 1 (0.064%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 21 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.26%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 13 (0.84%) 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 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.13%) Endur
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.13%) SAP BPC
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.064%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.064%) Markit EDM
7 1 (0.064%) MIS ActiveH
7 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
7 1 (0.064%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 651 (41.86%) Azure
2 584 (37.56%) AWS
3 326 (20.96%) Power Platform
4 240 (15.43%) Snowflake
5 211 (13.57%) GCP
6 192 (12.35%) dbt
7 178 (11.45%) Amazon S3
8 174 (11.19%) Azure Data Factory
9 148 (9.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 133 (8.55%) Serverless
11 128 (8.23%) Azure DevOps
12 119 (7.65%) GitHub
13 112 (7.20%) AWS Lambda
14 66 (4.24%) GitHub Actions
15 61 (3.92%) Amazon EMR
16 37 (2.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 34 (2.19%) AWS CloudFormation
18 31 (1.99%) AWS Step Functions
18 31 (1.99%) Azure AI
19 30 (1.93%) Amazon SageMaker
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
2 3 (0.19%) RTP
3 2 (0.13%) Network Security
4 1 (0.064%) 4G
4 1 (0.064%) 5G
4 1 (0.064%) Broadband
4 1 (0.064%) MIMO
4 1 (0.064%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (19.61%) Power BI
2 296 (19.04%) Data Warehouse
3 216 (13.89%) Data Lake
4 151 (9.71%) Metadata
5 107 (6.88%) Amazon Redshift
6 102 (6.56%) Big Data
7 97 (6.24%) BigQuery
7 97 (6.24%) Delta Lake
8 90 (5.79%) Tableau
9 77 (4.95%) Amazon Athena
10 76 (4.89%) SQL Server
11 66 (4.24%) Snowflake Schema
12 64 (4.12%) NoSQL
13 60 (3.86%) Relational Database
14 58 (3.73%) PostgreSQL
15 49 (3.15%) Azure SQL Database
16 41 (2.64%) Hadoop
17 37 (2.38%) Star Schema
18 35 (2.25%) Looker
19 34 (2.19%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 172 (11.06%) Git
2 72 (4.63%) GitLab
3 70 (4.50%) JIRA
4 31 (1.99%) MLflow
5 21 (1.35%) 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
9 2 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
10 1 (0.064%) Deequ
10 1 (0.064%) git-flow
10 1 (0.064%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.064%) RStudio
General
1 374 (24.05%) Social Skills
2 358 (23.02%) Finance
3 250 (16.08%) Analytical Skills
4 168 (10.80%) Public Sector
5 119 (7.65%) Banking
6 40 (2.57%) Marketing
7 35 (2.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 33 (2.12%) Documentation Skills
8 33 (2.12%) Retail
9 24 (1.54%) Front Office
9 24 (1.54%) Telecoms
10 21 (1.35%) Investment Banking
11 15 (0.96%) Manufacturing
12 14 (0.90%) Financial Institution
12 14 (0.90%) Law
13 13 (0.84%) Pharmaceutical
14 12 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
15 11 (0.71%) Legal
16 9 (0.58%) Billing
17 8 (0.51%) Military
Job Titles
1 723 (46.50%) Data Engineer
2 215 (13.83%) Senior
3 181 (11.64%) Lead
4 178 (11.45%) Architect
5 127 (8.17%) Senior Data Engineer
6 96 (6.17%) Data Architect
7 94 (6.05%) Developer
8 81 (5.21%) AWS Engineer
9 69 (4.44%) Analyst
10 65 (4.18%) Lead Data Engineer
11 64 (4.12%) AWS Data Engineer
12 63 (4.05%) Snowflake Engineer
13 62 (3.99%) Azure Engineer
14 55 (3.54%) Azure Data Engineer
15 49 (3.15%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 48 (3.09%) Python Engineer
17 46 (2.96%) Consultant
17 46 (2.96%) Solutions Architect
18 44 (2.83%) Data Scientist
19 41 (2.64%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 232 (14.92%) PySpark
2 138 (8.87%) Kafka
3 42 (2.70%) REST
4 37 (2.38%) Pandas
5 35 (2.25%) JSON
6 28 (1.80%) PyTorch
6 28 (1.80%) scikit-learn
7 27 (1.74%) React
8 22 (1.41%) NumPy
8 22 (1.41%) Spring
8 22 (1.41%) TensorFlow
9 20 (1.29%) .NET
10 16 (1.03%) RESTful
11 15 (0.96%) OpenTelemetry
11 15 (0.96%) Spring Boot
12 13 (0.84%) Apache Avro
12 13 (0.84%) FastAPI
12 13 (0.84%) LangChain
13 12 (0.77%) Microsoft Graph
14 11 (0.71%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 206 (13.25%) Cloud Native
2 72 (4.63%) Data Structures
3 64 (4.12%) Distributed Systems
4 63 (4.05%) Legacy Systems
5 55 (3.54%) Product Ownership
6 42 (2.70%) Onboarding
7 37 (2.38%) AI Agents
8 28 (1.80%) Data Protection Act
9 25 (1.61%) Distributed Computing
10 23 (1.48%) Algorithms
11 22 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
12 21 (1.35%) NHS
13 17 (1.09%) Clustering
14 16 (1.03%) Virtual Team
15 15 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
15 15 (0.96%) Life Science
16 13 (0.84%) Enterprise Software
17 12 (0.77%) Management Information System
17 12 (0.77%) Reference Data
17 12 (0.77%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 33 (2.12%) Linux
2 25 (1.61%) Unix
3 7 (0.45%) Windows
4 4 (0.26%) VMS
5 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 797 (51.25%) Analytics
2 752 (48.36%) Data Pipeline
3 608 (39.10%) Data Modelling
4 540 (34.73%) CI/CD
5 526 (33.83%) ETL
6 433 (27.85%) AI
7 394 (25.34%) Agile
8 393 (25.27%) Business Intelligence
9 360 (23.15%) DevOps
10 349 (22.44%) Data Governance
11 286 (18.39%) Machine Learning
12 262 (16.85%) Data Science
13 260 (16.72%) Problem-Solving
14 231 (14.86%) Migration
15 226 (14.53%) Validation
16 219 (14.08%) Decision-Making
17 217 (13.95%) Data Architecture
18 200 (12.86%) Data Transformation
19 195 (12.54%) Stakeholder Management
20 189 (12.15%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 846 (54.41%) SQL
2 810 (52.09%) Python
3 121 (7.78%) Java
4 47 (3.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 40 (2.57%) Scala
6 37 (2.38%) Bash
7 35 (2.25%) C#
8 26 (1.67%) PowerShell
8 26 (1.67%) T-SQL
9 21 (1.35%) R
10 20 (1.29%) JavaScript
11 19 (1.22%) Bicep
12 17 (1.09%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.96%) Shell Script
14 12 (0.77%) SAS Macro
15 11 (0.71%) TypeScript
16 8 (0.51%) SPARQL
17 7 (0.45%) Cypher
18 5 (0.32%) Go
18 5 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 300 (19.29%) Security Cleared
2 258 (16.59%) SC Cleared
3 103 (6.62%) Degree
4 48 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 38 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
6 32 (2.06%) Azure Certification
7 30 (1.93%) Master's Degree
8 27 (1.74%) DV Cleared
9 20 (1.29%) AWS Certification
10 13 (0.84%) DBS Check
11 11 (0.71%) SnowPro
12 9 (0.58%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 7 (0.45%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.32%) CSPO
15 5 (0.32%) Tableau Certification
16 3 (0.19%) PhD
17 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Certified Professional
17 2 (0.13%) PMI Certification
18 1 (0.064%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 458 (29.45%) Data Quality
2 81 (5.21%) GDPR
3 80 (5.14%) QA
4 24 (1.54%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.96%) SLA
6 4 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.26%) NIST
6 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
7 3 (0.19%) GxP
7 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
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%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.13%) EMIR
8 2 (0.13%) GRC
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
1 196 (12.60%) Terraform
2 112 (7.20%) Kubernetes
3 27 (1.74%) Grafana
4 23 (1.48%) Prometheus
5 14 (0.90%) 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%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.064%) Oozie
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 407 (26.17%) Databricks
2 267 (17.17%) Microsoft
3 82 (5.27%) Informatica
4 68 (4.37%) Oracle
5 66 (4.24%) Google
6 34 (2.19%) SAP
7 33 (2.12%) Talend
8 32 (2.06%) Foundry
9 31 (1.99%) Palantir
10 24 (1.54%) OpenAI
11 23 (1.48%) Salesforce
12 22 (1.41%) Splunk
13 15 (0.96%) Cloudera
13 15 (0.96%) ServiceNow
14 12 (0.77%) Trend Micro
15 9 (0.58%) Workday
16 8 (0.51%) Denodo
17 7 (0.45%) Adobe
17 7 (0.45%) InterSystems
18 6 (0.39%) Teradata