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 12 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 164 213
Rank change year-on-year +76 +49 +3
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,417 507 496
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.84% 1.72% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.34% 1.89% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 972 348 374
10th Percentile £386 £375 £363
25th Percentile £449 £450 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £627 £658 £652
90th Percentile £749 £825 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £511
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.05% -7.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 7 15
10th Percentile £45.18 £24.75 £30.72
25th Percentile £55.44 £28.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.72 £38.96 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.95% +11.31% -52.05%
75th Percentile £77.25 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.75 £58.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £28.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +140.00% -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 42,365 26,787 37,171
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.77% 91.01% 85.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,429 17,005 23,768
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,540 1,187 2,585
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.21 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.56% -25.45% +4.20%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +15.02%

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 12 June 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 12 June 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 12 June 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 +75 1,268 £525 -2.33% 469
London +64 773 £550 -1.57% 251
UK excluding London +80 517 £500 +5.26% 329
Work from Home +64 438 £525 - 254
North of England +23 157 £475 -5.00% 96
Midlands +16 124 £500 +8.11% 35
West Midlands +22 105 £486 -16.16% 32
South West +34 83 £500 -4.76% 40
South East -35 69 £525 +8.92% 119
Yorkshire -7 68 £480 +3.78% 25
Scotland +22 56 £450 -5.26% 13
North West 0 56 £500 - 61
North East -4 35 £450 -10.00% 10
East of England -12 23 £575 +54.08% 12
East Midlands -16 16 £525 +13.51% 3
Wales -9 9 £450 +75.14% 9
Northern Ireland - 6 £382 - 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
1 191 (13.48%) Apache Spark
2 162 (11.43%) Apache Airflow
3 105 (7.41%) Apache
4 40 (2.82%) SAS
5 33 (2.33%) Confluence
6 20 (1.41%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.20%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.56%) Appian
8 8 (0.56%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.49%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.071%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.071%) Camunda
12 1 (0.071%) CICS
12 1 (0.071%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.071%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 25 (1.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.42%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.14%) Trello
6 1 (0.071%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.071%) Notion
Business Applications
1 7 (0.49%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.35%) BambooHR
2 5 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.14%) Endur
4 2 (0.14%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.14%) Sage X3
4 2 (0.14%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.071%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.071%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.071%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.071%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 591 (41.71%) Azure
2 534 (37.69%) AWS
3 325 (22.94%) Power Platform
4 202 (14.26%) Snowflake
5 189 (13.34%) GCP
6 176 (12.42%) Azure Data Factory
7 171 (12.07%) Amazon S3
8 154 (10.87%) dbt
9 132 (9.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 130 (9.17%) GitHub
11 122 (8.61%) Serverless
12 118 (8.33%) Azure DevOps
13 106 (7.48%) AWS Lambda
14 76 (5.36%) GitHub Actions
15 51 (3.60%) Amazon EMR
16 44 (3.11%) AWS CloudFormation
17 31 (2.19%) AWS Step Functions
18 30 (2.12%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 30 (2.12%) Azure AI
19 27 (1.91%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.35%) RTP
2 4 (0.28%) Firewall
3 1 (0.071%) 4G
3 1 (0.071%) 5G
3 1 (0.071%) MIMO
3 1 (0.071%) MQTT
3 1 (0.071%) Network Security
3 1 (0.071%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 300 (21.17%) Power BI
2 265 (18.70%) Data Warehouse
3 215 (15.17%) Data Lake
4 128 (9.03%) Metadata
5 112 (7.90%) Big Data
6 99 (6.99%) Amazon Redshift
7 93 (6.56%) SQL Server
8 88 (6.21%) Delta Lake
9 80 (5.65%) Amazon Athena
9 80 (5.65%) BigQuery
10 79 (5.58%) Tableau
11 73 (5.15%) Snowflake Schema
12 72 (5.08%) NoSQL
13 55 (3.88%) Azure SQL Database
13 55 (3.88%) Relational Database
14 53 (3.74%) PostgreSQL
15 48 (3.39%) Hadoop
16 38 (2.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 34 (2.40%) Spark SQL
18 31 (2.19%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 173 (12.21%) Git
2 76 (5.36%) GitLab
3 63 (4.45%) JIRA
4 36 (2.54%) MLflow
5 23 (1.62%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.42%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.35%) Postman
7 5 (0.35%) Selenium
8 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.21%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.21%) Snyk
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.14%) ERwin
9 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.071%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.071%) git-flow
10 1 (0.071%) Maven
10 1 (0.071%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.071%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 343 (24.21%) Social Skills
2 336 (23.71%) Finance
3 204 (14.40%) Analytical Skills
4 139 (9.81%) Public Sector
5 98 (6.92%) Banking
6 35 (2.47%) Marketing
7 32 (2.26%) Documentation Skills
8 30 (2.12%) Retail
9 29 (2.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 20 (1.41%) Front Office
11 17 (1.20%) Telecoms
12 16 (1.13%) Investment Banking
13 14 (0.99%) Financial Institution
14 11 (0.78%) Legal
15 10 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
15 10 (0.71%) Law
16 8 (0.56%) Manufacturing
17 7 (0.49%) Back Office
17 7 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
18 6 (0.42%) Billing
Job Titles
1 667 (47.07%) Data Engineer
2 204 (14.40%) Senior
3 155 (10.94%) Lead
4 151 (10.66%) Architect
5 124 (8.75%) Senior Data Engineer
6 77 (5.43%) Data Architect
7 76 (5.36%) Developer
8 74 (5.22%) AWS Engineer
9 65 (4.59%) Lead Data Engineer
10 63 (4.45%) Analyst
11 57 (4.02%) AWS Data Engineer
12 56 (3.95%) Snowflake Engineer
13 46 (3.25%) Data Scientist
14 45 (3.18%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 45 (3.18%) Solutions Architect
15 43 (3.03%) Azure Engineer
16 42 (2.96%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 41 (2.89%) Consultant
18 38 (2.68%) Azure Data Engineer
19 36 (2.54%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (14.47%) PySpark
2 141 (9.95%) Kafka
3 50 (3.53%) Pandas
4 39 (2.75%) REST
5 35 (2.47%) scikit-learn
6 34 (2.40%) PyTorch
7 31 (2.19%) NumPy
8 29 (2.05%) JSON
9 26 (1.83%) TensorFlow
10 24 (1.69%) React
10 24 (1.69%) Spring
11 19 (1.34%) RESTful
12 18 (1.27%) FastAPI
13 17 (1.20%) Spring Boot
14 16 (1.13%) pytest
15 15 (1.06%) YAML
16 14 (0.99%) Great Expectations
16 14 (0.99%) LangChain
17 13 (0.92%) Django
17 13 (0.92%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 198 (13.97%) Cloud Native
2 55 (3.88%) Data Structures
2 55 (3.88%) Distributed Systems
3 50 (3.53%) Legacy Systems
4 48 (3.39%) Product Ownership
5 33 (2.33%) Onboarding
6 32 (2.26%) AI Agents
7 26 (1.83%) Distributed Computing
8 25 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.55%) Algorithms
9 22 (1.55%) Greenfield Project
10 20 (1.41%) Analytical Mindset
11 16 (1.13%) NHS
12 15 (1.06%) Clustering
13 14 (0.99%) Fixed Income
14 12 (0.85%) Reference Data
14 12 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (0.85%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.78%) Management Information System
16 10 (0.71%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 27 (1.91%) Linux
2 25 (1.76%) Unix
3 5 (0.35%) VMS
4 3 (0.21%) Windows
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 733 (51.73%) Analytics
2 672 (47.42%) Data Pipeline
3 546 (38.53%) Data Modelling
4 515 (36.34%) ETL
5 509 (35.92%) CI/CD
6 435 (30.70%) AI
7 373 (26.32%) Business Intelligence
8 352 (24.84%) Agile
9 348 (24.56%) DevOps
10 306 (21.59%) Data Governance
11 281 (19.83%) Machine Learning
12 249 (17.57%) Problem-Solving
13 246 (17.36%) Data Science
14 194 (13.69%) Data Architecture
14 194 (13.69%) Migration
15 192 (13.55%) Decision-Making
16 184 (12.99%) Validation
17 162 (11.43%) Infrastructure as Code
18 159 (11.22%) Use Case
19 148 (10.44%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 787 (55.54%) SQL
2 754 (53.21%) Python
3 111 (7.83%) Java
4 45 (3.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 45 (3.18%) Scala
5 34 (2.40%) Bash
5 34 (2.40%) C#
6 27 (1.91%) T-SQL
7 22 (1.55%) PowerShell
8 19 (1.34%) JavaScript
9 18 (1.27%) R
10 17 (1.20%) PL/SQL
11 15 (1.06%) Bicep
12 11 (0.78%) Shell Script
12 11 (0.78%) TypeScript
13 8 (0.56%) SAS Macro
14 5 (0.35%) Korn
15 4 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
16 3 (0.21%) Go
16 3 (0.21%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 271 (19.12%) Security Cleared
2 240 (16.94%) SC Cleared
3 99 (6.99%) Degree
4 41 (2.89%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (2.40%) Azure Certification
6 33 (2.33%) Master's Degree
7 32 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
8 21 (1.48%) AWS Certification
9 12 (0.85%) DBS Check
9 12 (0.85%) DV Cleared
10 10 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (0.56%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 7 (0.49%) SnowPro
13 5 (0.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (0.28%) CSPO
15 3 (0.21%) IBM Certification
16 2 (0.14%) PhD
16 2 (0.14%) PMI Certification
16 2 (0.14%) Tableau Certification
17 1 (0.071%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 407 (28.72%) Data Quality
2 90 (6.35%) GDPR
3 67 (4.73%) QA
4 15 (1.06%) SLA
5 10 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (0.49%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.28%) MiFID
8 4 (0.28%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.21%) GRC
9 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.21%) NIST
10 2 (0.14%) COPPA
10 2 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.14%) EMIR
10 2 (0.14%) GxP
10 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.14%) PMO
10 2 (0.14%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 126 (8.89%) Docker
2 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.14%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.14%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 191 (13.48%) Terraform
2 107 (7.55%) Kubernetes
3 25 (1.76%) Prometheus
4 24 (1.69%) Grafana
5 9 (0.64%) Ansible
6 4 (0.28%) Argo
7 3 (0.21%) Kibana
7 3 (0.21%) Nagios
7 3 (0.21%) Rancher
8 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.14%) logstash
8 2 (0.14%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.071%) Control-M
9 1 (0.071%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.071%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.071%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.071%) Oozie
Vendors
1 364 (25.69%) Databricks
2 235 (16.58%) Microsoft
3 78 (5.50%) Informatica
4 60 (4.23%) Oracle
5 58 (4.09%) Google
6 32 (2.26%) Talend
7 26 (1.83%) OpenAI
8 25 (1.76%) Foundry
8 25 (1.76%) SAP
9 20 (1.41%) Splunk
10 19 (1.34%) Palantir
10 19 (1.34%) Salesforce
11 15 (1.06%) Cloudera
11 15 (1.06%) ServiceNow
12 9 (0.64%) Trend Micro
12 9 (0.64%) UiPath
13 8 (0.56%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.56%) Denodo
14 7 (0.49%) IBM
14 7 (0.49%) InterSystems