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

6 months to
18 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 160 200
Rank change year-on-year +71 +40 +8
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,313 529 490
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.74% 1.80% 1.15%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.25% 1.98% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 901 362 365
10th Percentile £400 £378 £375
25th Percentile £450 £449 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £673 £663
90th Percentile £749 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +2.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 15 13
10th Percentile £51.25 £21.55 £30.55
25th Percentile £56.75 £22.25 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £27.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +154.55% -21.43% -52.05%
75th Percentile £78.00 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £65.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £25.43 £60.00
% change year-on-year +172.20% -57.62% +71.43%

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 40,423 26,734 36,712
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.29% 90.97% 86.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,371 17,185 23,631
10th Percentile £325 £305 £300
25th Percentile £413 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.94% -1.90% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £493 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +3.68% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,395 1,096 2,442
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.35 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.72 £18.22 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.18 £36.02
Median % change year-on-year +50.82% -21.77% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.50 £60.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.23 £37.50
% change year-on-year +78.39% -32.73% +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 18 May 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 May 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 May 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 +64 1,179 £525 -4.55% 466
London +53 735 £550 -4.35% 236
UK excluding London +66 464 £500 +5.26% 276
Work from Home +49 375 £539 -2.05% 225
North of England -5 123 £480 -4.00% 95
Midlands +22 122 £500 +8.11% 43
West Midlands +21 101 £500 +16.01% 34
South West +31 78 £506 -15.75% 32
South East -25 62 £550 +12.02% 81
Scotland +32 59 £448 -5.68% 9
Yorkshire -17 55 £478 -13.18% 23
North West -19 49 £500 +2.56% 44
East of England -20 22 £575 +54.08% 10
North East -2 21 £463 -2.63% 29
East Midlands -17 18 £475 +1.33% 9
Wales -12 6 £563 +150.76% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £430 - 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
1 191 (14.55%) Apache Spark
2 129 (9.82%) Apache Airflow
3 87 (6.63%) Apache
4 36 (2.74%) SAS
5 21 (1.60%) Confluence
6 16 (1.22%) Palantir Foundry
7 8 (0.61%) Appian
7 8 (0.61%) Jupyter
8 7 (0.53%) Apache Superset
9 4 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.15%) Apache Synapse
10 2 (0.15%) SharePoint
11 1 (0.076%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 1 (0.076%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.076%) Camunda
11 1 (0.076%) CICS
11 1 (0.076%) CMS
11 1 (0.076%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 29 (2.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.61%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.23%) Chatbot
5 3 (0.23%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.23%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (0.46%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.38%) BambooHR
3 4 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.23%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.076%) Actimize
6 1 (0.076%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.076%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.076%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.076%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 581 (44.25%) Azure
2 474 (36.10%) AWS
3 300 (22.85%) Power Platform
4 187 (14.24%) GCP
5 186 (14.17%) Azure Data Factory
6 171 (13.02%) Snowflake
7 147 (11.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 146 (11.12%) Amazon S3
9 130 (9.90%) GitHub
10 126 (9.60%) dbt
11 108 (8.23%) Serverless
12 103 (7.84%) Azure DevOps
13 86 (6.55%) AWS Lambda
14 78 (5.94%) GitHub Actions
15 54 (4.11%) AWS CloudFormation
16 35 (2.67%) AWS Step Functions
17 33 (2.51%) Amazon EMR
18 30 (2.28%) Collibra
19 27 (2.06%) Amazon SageMaker
20 26 (1.98%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.38%) RTP
2 4 (0.30%) Firewall
3 3 (0.23%) Kerberos
4 2 (0.15%) VPN
5 1 (0.076%) 4G
5 1 (0.076%) 5G
5 1 (0.076%) MIMO
5 1 (0.076%) Network Security
5 1 (0.076%) SAN
5 1 (0.076%) SMS
5 1 (0.076%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 277 (21.10%) Power BI
2 253 (19.27%) Data Warehouse
3 203 (15.46%) Data Lake
4 124 (9.44%) Metadata
5 103 (7.84%) Big Data
6 90 (6.85%) SQL Server
7 86 (6.55%) Delta Lake
8 76 (5.79%) NoSQL
9 74 (5.64%) Tableau
10 73 (5.56%) BigQuery
11 72 (5.48%) Amazon Redshift
12 70 (5.33%) Snowflake Schema
13 65 (4.95%) Azure SQL Database
14 64 (4.87%) Amazon Athena
15 57 (4.34%) Relational Database
16 55 (4.19%) PostgreSQL
17 50 (3.81%) Hadoop
18 36 (2.74%) Spark SQL
18 36 (2.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 29 (2.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 164 (12.49%) Git
2 61 (4.65%) GitLab
3 49 (3.73%) JIRA
4 45 (3.43%) MLflow
5 31 (2.36%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.46%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.38%) Selenium
8 3 (0.23%) Postman
8 3 (0.23%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.23%) Snyk
9 2 (0.15%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.15%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.15%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.15%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.076%) Ant
10 1 (0.076%) ERwin
10 1 (0.076%) JUnit
10 1 (0.076%) Maven
10 1 (0.076%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.076%) SoapUI
General
1 328 (24.98%) Finance
2 300 (22.85%) Social Skills
3 195 (14.85%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (8.61%) Public Sector
5 80 (6.09%) Banking
6 26 (1.98%) Retail
7 24 (1.83%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 23 (1.75%) Marketing
9 19 (1.45%) Front Office
10 16 (1.22%) Investment Banking
11 15 (1.14%) Financial Institution
11 15 (1.14%) Telecoms
12 13 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
13 10 (0.76%) Legal
14 8 (0.61%) Law
14 8 (0.61%) Military
15 6 (0.46%) Back Office
16 5 (0.38%) Pharmaceutical
17 4 (0.30%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 631 (48.06%) Data Engineer
2 174 (13.25%) Senior
3 141 (10.74%) Lead
4 132 (10.05%) Architect
5 115 (8.76%) Senior Data Engineer
6 79 (6.02%) Developer
7 68 (5.18%) Data Architect
8 60 (4.57%) AWS Engineer
8 60 (4.57%) Azure Engineer
9 57 (4.34%) Analyst
10 55 (4.19%) Lead Data Engineer
11 53 (4.04%) Azure Data Engineer
11 53 (4.04%) Snowflake Engineer
12 44 (3.35%) AWS Data Engineer
13 43 (3.27%) Data Scientist
13 43 (3.27%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 42 (3.20%) Solutions Architect
15 39 (2.97%) Consultant
16 38 (2.89%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 35 (2.67%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 212 (16.15%) PySpark
2 149 (11.35%) Kafka
3 59 (4.49%) Pandas
4 42 (3.20%) PyTorch
5 39 (2.97%) scikit-learn
6 36 (2.74%) NumPy
7 32 (2.44%) TensorFlow
8 28 (2.13%) REST
9 25 (1.90%) JSON
10 24 (1.83%) Spring
11 22 (1.68%) React
12 20 (1.52%) LangChain
12 20 (1.52%) RESTful
12 20 (1.52%) YAML
13 18 (1.37%) FastAPI
13 18 (1.37%) Great Expectations
13 18 (1.37%) pytest
14 17 (1.29%) Spring Boot
15 15 (1.14%) Flask
16 13 (0.99%) Django
Miscellaneous
1 172 (13.10%) Cloud Native
2 50 (3.81%) Distributed Systems
3 44 (3.35%) Product Ownership
4 43 (3.27%) Data Structures
5 42 (3.20%) Legacy Systems
6 31 (2.36%) Distributed Computing
7 30 (2.28%) Algorithms
8 29 (2.21%) AI Agents
9 27 (2.06%) Onboarding
10 22 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
11 21 (1.60%) Greenfield Project
12 19 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
13 14 (1.07%) Fixed Income
13 14 (1.07%) NHS
14 13 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
14 13 (0.99%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (0.91%) Clustering
16 11 (0.84%) Reference Data
17 10 (0.76%) Equities
17 10 (0.76%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.21%) Linux
2 22 (1.68%) Unix
3 6 (0.46%) VMS
4 3 (0.23%) Windows
5 2 (0.15%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.076%) CentOS
6 1 (0.076%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 673 (51.26%) Analytics
2 603 (45.93%) Data Pipeline
3 517 (39.38%) Data Modelling
4 496 (37.78%) ETL
5 447 (34.04%) CI/CD
6 382 (29.09%) AI
7 339 (25.82%) Business Intelligence
8 325 (24.75%) Agile
9 318 (24.22%) DevOps
10 302 (23.00%) Data Governance
11 260 (19.80%) Machine Learning
12 234 (17.82%) Problem-Solving
13 228 (17.36%) Data Science
14 187 (14.24%) Data Architecture
15 174 (13.25%) Migration
16 170 (12.95%) Decision-Making
17 159 (12.11%) Validation
18 145 (11.04%) Infrastructure as Code
19 138 (10.51%) Data Integration
20 131 (9.98%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 726 (55.29%) SQL
2 697 (53.08%) Python
3 104 (7.92%) Java
4 60 (4.57%) Scala
5 45 (3.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 37 (2.82%) C#
7 33 (2.51%) Bash
8 27 (2.06%) T-SQL
9 23 (1.75%) PowerShell
10 22 (1.68%) JavaScript
11 21 (1.60%) R
12 15 (1.14%) Bicep
13 13 (0.99%) PL/SQL
14 12 (0.91%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.84%) TypeScript
16 8 (0.61%) Go
17 7 (0.53%) SAS Macro
18 4 (0.30%) Korn
19 2 (0.15%) SPARQL
20 1 (0.076%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 254 (19.35%) Security Cleared
2 219 (16.68%) SC Cleared
3 98 (7.46%) Degree
4 40 (3.05%) Computer Science Degree
5 37 (2.82%) Master's Degree
6 34 (2.59%) Azure Certification
7 20 (1.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.07%) DV Cleared
9 13 (0.99%) AWS Certification
10 9 (0.69%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (0.61%) DBS Check
12 7 (0.53%) SnowPro
13 5 (0.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.38%) PhD
14 4 (0.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 3 (0.23%) IBM Certification
16 2 (0.15%) Tableau Certification
17 1 (0.076%) ACCA
17 1 (0.076%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
17 1 (0.076%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 372 (28.33%) Data Quality
2 89 (6.78%) GDPR
3 57 (4.34%) QA
4 12 (0.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (0.76%) SLA
6 8 (0.61%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.38%) MiFID
9 4 (0.30%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.30%) Solvency II
10 3 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.23%) GRC
10 3 (0.23%) PMO
11 2 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
11 2 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.15%) EMIR
11 2 (0.15%) NIST
11 2 (0.15%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.15%) SNOMED CT
12 1 (0.076%) HL7
System Software
1 128 (9.75%) Docker
2 6 (0.46%) HDFS
3 3 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.076%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.076%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 167 (12.72%) Terraform
2 118 (8.99%) Kubernetes
3 26 (1.98%) Prometheus
4 24 (1.83%) Grafana
5 12 (0.91%) Ansible
6 5 (0.38%) Argo
7 4 (0.30%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.23%) Kibana
8 3 (0.23%) Nagios
8 3 (0.23%) Rancher
9 2 (0.15%) Hadoop YARN
9 2 (0.15%) logstash
9 2 (0.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.076%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.076%) Control-M
10 1 (0.076%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.076%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.076%) Oozie
Vendors
1 364 (27.72%) Databricks
2 215 (16.37%) Microsoft
3 64 (4.87%) Informatica
4 63 (4.80%) Google
5 45 (3.43%) Oracle
6 29 (2.21%) Talend
7 23 (1.75%) Foundry
7 23 (1.75%) SAP
8 22 (1.68%) OpenAI
9 19 (1.45%) Splunk
10 17 (1.29%) Palantir
11 16 (1.22%) Cloudera
12 13 (0.99%) ServiceNow
13 11 (0.84%) Salesforce
14 9 (0.69%) UiPath
15 8 (0.61%) Automation Anywhere
15 8 (0.61%) IBM
16 7 (0.53%) InterSystems
17 6 (0.46%) Denodo
18 5 (0.38%) Workday