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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 95 150 225
Rank change year-on-year +55 +75 -7
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,161 553 492
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.72% 1.80% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.15% 2.00% 1.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 799 386 367
10th Percentile £363 £375 £400
25th Percentile £434 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £615 £672 £669
90th Percentile £740 £838 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -1.30% -9.09% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 15 11
10th Percentile £50.38 £21.55 £31.25
25th Percentile £55.44 £22.25 £33.13
Median hourly rate £66.50 £25.43 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +161.50% -27.34% -
75th Percentile £74.82 £28.45 £39.57
90th Percentile £81.13 £51.00 £50.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £66.50 £25.43 £43.37
% change year-on-year +161.50% -41.36% +117.81%

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 36,884 27,639 38,956
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.36% 90.19% 86.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,378 17,377 25,379
10th Percentile £313 £306 £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 £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -2.58% -1.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,184 915 2,310
10th Percentile £14.72 £15.62 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.32 £21.03 £16.06
Median hourly rate £28.00 £32.81 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -14.66% +0.95% -7.14%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.50 £58.64
90th Percentile £74.00 £75.95 £71.87
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.38 £32.25 £32.50
% change year-on-year -21.30% -0.77% -7.14%

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 7 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 7 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 7 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 +61 1,032 £525 -6.25% 556
London +57 678 £550 -4.35% 264
UK excluding London +34 367 £494 -1.30% 400
Work from Home +27 340 £550 -4.35% 308
North of England -4 107 £450 -14.29% 108
Midlands +12 99 £519 +3.70% 52
West Midlands +8 79 £534 +6.75% 43
South West +5 57 £550 -15.38% 44
North West -4 54 £450 - 47
Scotland +31 49 £440 -6.98% 23
South East -17 45 £550 +8.91% 139
Yorkshire -40 33 £490 -18.33% 50
North East +5 20 £450 -23.08% 12
East Midlands -16 20 £447 -12.78% 9
East of England -22 16 £563 +75.86% 29
Wales -12 7 £563 +46.10% 9
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
1 182 (15.68%) Apache Spark
2 121 (10.42%) Apache Airflow
3 84 (7.24%) Apache
4 20 (1.72%) Palantir Foundry
4 20 (1.72%) SAS
5 17 (1.46%) Confluence
6 8 (0.69%) Appian
7 4 (0.34%) Jupyter
7 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.26%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.086%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.086%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.086%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.086%) Camunda
10 1 (0.086%) CMS
10 1 (0.086%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.086%) Luigi
Applications
1 24 (2.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (0.95%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
5 5 (0.43%) Chatbot
6 4 (0.34%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.26%) Trello
8 2 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
9 1 (0.086%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 7 (0.60%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.26%) BambooHR
2 3 (0.26%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.086%) Actimize
4 1 (0.086%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.086%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.086%) Maximo
4 1 (0.086%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.086%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.086%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 547 (47.11%) Azure
2 408 (35.14%) AWS
3 250 (21.53%) Power Platform
4 206 (17.74%) Azure Data Factory
5 163 (14.04%) GCP
6 155 (13.35%) Snowflake
7 135 (11.63%) Amazon S3
8 126 (10.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 121 (10.42%) Serverless
10 115 (9.91%) GitHub
11 99 (8.53%) dbt
12 97 (8.35%) Azure DevOps
13 95 (8.18%) AWS Lambda
14 75 (6.46%) GitHub Actions
15 63 (5.43%) AWS CloudFormation
16 38 (3.27%) AWS Step Functions
17 33 (2.84%) Amazon EMR
18 28 (2.41%) Collibra
19 26 (2.24%) Amazon SageMaker
19 26 (2.24%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.34%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.34%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.34%) Network Security
2 3 (0.26%) RTP
2 3 (0.26%) VPN
3 2 (0.17%) Firewall
4 1 (0.086%) 4G
4 1 (0.086%) 5G
4 1 (0.086%) MQTT
4 1 (0.086%) SAN
4 1 (0.086%) SMS
4 1 (0.086%) SSL
4 1 (0.086%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 232 (19.98%) Data Warehouse
2 228 (19.64%) Power BI
3 164 (14.13%) Data Lake
4 104 (8.96%) Metadata
5 81 (6.98%) Big Data
6 79 (6.80%) SQL Server
7 76 (6.55%) NoSQL
8 72 (6.20%) Delta Lake
9 64 (5.51%) Snowflake Schema
10 61 (5.25%) Amazon Redshift
11 58 (5.00%) Relational Database
12 57 (4.91%) Amazon Athena
13 56 (4.82%) Azure SQL Database
13 56 (4.82%) PostgreSQL
14 55 (4.74%) BigQuery
15 49 (4.22%) Tableau
16 47 (4.05%) Hadoop
17 34 (2.93%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 32 (2.76%) Spark SQL
19 21 (1.81%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 170 (14.64%) Git
2 60 (5.17%) GitLab
3 44 (3.79%) Jenkins
3 44 (3.79%) MLflow
4 31 (2.67%) JIRA
5 7 (0.60%) Visual Studio Code
6 6 (0.52%) Selenium
7 5 (0.43%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.34%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.26%) JUnit
9 3 (0.26%) Maven
9 3 (0.26%) Postman
9 3 (0.26%) Robot Framework
9 3 (0.26%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.17%) ERwin
10 2 (0.17%) Gemini Tracker
10 2 (0.17%) JMeter
10 2 (0.17%) Mockito
10 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.17%) Zephyr
General
1 317 (27.30%) Social Skills
2 267 (23.00%) Finance
3 156 (13.44%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (8.10%) Public Sector
5 76 (6.55%) Banking
6 27 (2.33%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (1.72%) Investment Banking
7 20 (1.72%) Retail
8 18 (1.55%) Documentation Skills
8 18 (1.55%) Front Office
8 18 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (1.38%) Marketing
10 11 (0.95%) Legal
10 11 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
11 10 (0.86%) Publishing
12 8 (0.69%) Financial Institution
12 8 (0.69%) Telecoms
13 6 (0.52%) Back Office
13 6 (0.52%) Manufacturing
13 6 (0.52%) Military
Job Titles
1 527 (45.39%) Data Engineer
2 154 (13.26%) Lead
3 150 (12.92%) Senior
4 100 (8.61%) Senior Data Engineer
5 94 (8.10%) Architect
6 81 (6.98%) Azure Engineer
7 73 (6.29%) Developer
8 64 (5.51%) Azure Data Engineer
9 55 (4.74%) AWS Engineer
10 54 (4.65%) Lead Data Engineer
11 53 (4.57%) Analyst
12 52 (4.48%) Data Architect
13 50 (4.31%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 46 (3.96%) Snowflake Engineer
15 44 (3.79%) Data Scientist
16 39 (3.36%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 35 (3.01%) AWS Data Engineer
18 32 (2.76%) Python Engineer
19 30 (2.58%) Data Analyst
20 29 (2.50%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 215 (18.52%) PySpark
2 136 (11.71%) Kafka
3 64 (5.51%) Pandas
4 59 (5.08%) PyTorch
5 48 (4.13%) TensorFlow
6 44 (3.79%) scikit-learn
7 43 (3.70%) NumPy
8 34 (2.93%) FastAPI
9 30 (2.58%) JSON
9 30 (2.58%) RESTful
10 28 (2.41%) pytest
11 27 (2.33%) Flask
11 27 (2.33%) YAML
12 24 (2.07%) LangChain
12 24 (2.07%) REST
13 23 (1.98%) React
14 16 (1.38%) ARM Templates
14 16 (1.38%) Great Expectations
15 15 (1.29%) Hugging Face
15 15 (1.29%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 145 (12.49%) Cloud Native
2 48 (4.13%) Algorithms
3 44 (3.79%) Product Ownership
4 39 (3.36%) Distributed Systems
5 30 (2.58%) Distributed Computing
6 26 (2.24%) Onboarding
7 23 (1.98%) Data Structures
7 23 (1.98%) Legacy Systems
8 22 (1.89%) Data Protection Act
8 22 (1.89%) Hybrid Cloud
9 21 (1.81%) AI Agents
10 18 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
11 14 (1.21%) Clustering
12 13 (1.12%) Fixed Income
12 13 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
13 12 (1.03%) Derivative
13 12 (1.03%) NHS
14 11 (0.95%) Life Science
14 11 (0.95%) Management Information System
14 11 (0.95%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 24 (2.07%) Linux
2 7 (0.60%) VMS
3 6 (0.52%) Unix
4 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
4 2 (0.17%) Windows
5 1 (0.086%) CentOS
5 1 (0.086%) Debian
5 1 (0.086%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 538 (46.34%) Analytics
2 530 (45.65%) Data Pipeline
3 462 (39.79%) ETL
4 445 (38.33%) Data Modelling
5 428 (36.86%) CI/CD
6 307 (26.44%) AI
7 306 (26.36%) Data Governance
8 295 (25.41%) Agile
8 295 (25.41%) DevOps
9 282 (24.29%) Business Intelligence
10 258 (22.22%) Machine Learning
11 238 (20.50%) Data Science
12 234 (20.16%) Problem-Solving
13 179 (15.42%) Data Architecture
14 152 (13.09%) Infrastructure as Code
15 132 (11.37%) Decision-Making
16 124 (10.68%) Validation
17 120 (10.34%) LLM
18 114 (9.82%) Data Transformation
19 112 (9.65%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 693 (59.69%) Python
2 618 (53.23%) SQL
3 86 (7.41%) Java
4 66 (5.68%) Scala
5 45 (3.88%) C#
6 35 (3.01%) PowerShell
7 34 (2.93%) Bash
7 34 (2.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 34 (2.93%) JavaScript
8 22 (1.89%) Bicep
8 22 (1.89%) T-SQL
9 18 (1.55%) TypeScript
10 16 (1.38%) Go
10 16 (1.38%) R
11 12 (1.03%) C++
11 12 (1.03%) PL/SQL
12 7 (0.60%) Rust
13 6 (0.52%) Korn
13 6 (0.52%) Shell Script
14 3 (0.26%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 229 (19.72%) Security Cleared
2 188 (16.19%) SC Cleared
3 112 (9.65%) Degree
4 53 (4.57%) Azure Certification
5 47 (4.05%) Master's Degree
6 44 (3.79%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (1.89%) DV Cleared
8 19 (1.64%) AWS Certification
8 19 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.21%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.12%) PhD
11 4 (0.34%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.34%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.26%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.26%) IBM Certification
13 1 (0.086%) ACCA
13 1 (0.086%) CIMA
13 1 (0.086%) CISM
13 1 (0.086%) ISTQB
13 1 (0.086%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 326 (28.08%) Data Quality
2 93 (8.01%) GDPR
3 39 (3.36%) QA
4 16 (1.38%) Accessibility
5 12 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 9 (0.78%) HIPAA
7 8 (0.69%) SLA
8 6 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 5 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.43%) PERC
9 5 (0.43%) SOC 2
10 3 (0.26%) GRC
10 3 (0.26%) Solvency II
10 3 (0.26%) WCAG
11 2 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.17%) HL7
11 2 (0.17%) MiFID
11 2 (0.17%) NIST
11 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
12 1 (0.086%) GxP
System Software
1 153 (13.18%) Docker
2 7 (0.60%) HDFS
3 3 (0.26%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.086%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.086%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.086%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 183 (15.76%) Terraform
2 138 (11.89%) Kubernetes
3 28 (2.41%) Prometheus
4 17 (1.46%) Grafana
5 8 (0.69%) Ansible
6 5 (0.43%) Argo
7 3 (0.26%) Control-M
7 3 (0.26%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.26%) Rancher
8 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.17%) Kibana
8 2 (0.17%) Nagios
9 1 (0.086%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.086%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.086%) logstash
9 1 (0.086%) Oozie
9 1 (0.086%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.086%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 354 (30.49%) Databricks
2 164 (14.13%) Microsoft
3 56 (4.82%) Google
4 41 (3.53%) Oracle
5 39 (3.36%) Informatica
6 27 (2.33%) Talend
7 26 (2.24%) Foundry
8 24 (2.07%) Palantir
9 22 (1.89%) OpenAI
10 17 (1.46%) Splunk
11 14 (1.21%) SAP
12 12 (1.03%) Salesforce
13 11 (0.95%) Cloudera
14 9 (0.78%) Denodo
15 8 (0.69%) Automation Anywhere
15 8 (0.69%) IBM
15 8 (0.69%) ServiceNow
15 8 (0.69%) UiPath
16 7 (0.60%) Virgin Media
17 6 (0.52%) Guidewire