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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 161 210
Rank change year-on-year +70 +49 0
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,559 565 474
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.91% 1.74% 1.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 1.92% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,074 351 345
10th Percentile £400 £363 £363
25th Percentile £445 £426 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -10.87% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £738 £763 £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 24 7 12
10th Percentile £21.25 £37.48 £30.46
25th Percentile £31.56 £45.11 £31.25
Median hourly rate £68.25 £52.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +30.00% +10.53% -39.10%
75th Percentile £75.75 £76.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £86.83 £96.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +54.00% -35.07% -23.08%

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 45,329 29,411 32,997
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 90.42% 85.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,714 18,306 20,733
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.54%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,913 1,754 1,602
10th Percentile £14.07 £14.20 £14.16
25th Percentile £17.75 £17.30 £18.79
Median hourly rate £41.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.02% -40.82% +2.41%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.09 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.56 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +92.49% -47.37% +14.67%

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 2 September 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 2 September 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 2 September 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 +74 1,398 £525 - 1,589
London +58 862 £550 - 1,070
UK excluding London +73 543 £500 +5.26% 776
Work from Home +78 509 £520 +4.00% 691
North of England +24 177 £463 -2.63% 218
Midlands +34 135 £478 +6.10% 68
West Midlands +33 111 £475 -6.31% 51
South East -13 92 £500 +11.11% 181
Yorkshire +21 84 £475 +5.56% 40
South West +17 70 £525 -8.70% 100
North West -19 58 £513 +2.50% 148
Scotland -8 44 £506 +8.87% 99
North East -12 37 £425 -20.93% 31
East of England -8 27 £575 -4.17% 53
East Midlands -5 21 £525 +20.62% 17
Wales - 7 £450 - 18
Northern Ireland +6 4 £334 - 40

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
1 184 (11.80%) Apache Airflow
2 166 (10.65%) Apache Spark
3 126 (8.08%) Apache
4 40 (2.57%) Confluence
5 39 (2.50%) SAS
6 21 (1.35%) Jupyter
7 18 (1.15%) Palantir Foundry
8 13 (0.83%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.45%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.32%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.32%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.19%) PowerExchange
12 2 (0.13%) nginx
13 1 (0.064%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.064%) CICS
13 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.064%) GeoServer
13 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.064%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 18 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.32%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 12 (0.77%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.26%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.19%) BambooHR
4 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.13%) Endur
5 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
6 1 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.064%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.064%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.064%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 655 (42.01%) Azure
2 581 (37.27%) AWS
3 307 (19.69%) Power Platform
4 259 (16.61%) Snowflake
5 211 (13.53%) dbt
6 210 (13.47%) GCP
7 172 (11.03%) Amazon S3
8 169 (10.84%) Azure Data Factory
9 140 (8.98%) Azure DevOps
10 138 (8.85%) Serverless
11 133 (8.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 129 (8.27%) GitHub
13 113 (7.25%) AWS Lambda
14 80 (5.13%) Azure Databricks
15 64 (4.11%) GitHub Actions
16 52 (3.34%) Amazon EMR
17 35 (2.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 32 (2.05%) Amazon Bedrock
19 30 (1.92%) Microsoft Purview
20 29 (1.86%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
2 4 (0.26%) Broadband
2 4 (0.26%) Network Security
3 3 (0.19%) DNS
4 2 (0.13%) RTP
5 1 (0.064%) Internet
5 1 (0.064%) MIMO
5 1 (0.064%) MQTT
5 1 (0.064%) SMS
5 1 (0.064%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 318 (20.40%) Data Warehouse
2 294 (18.86%) Power BI
3 211 (13.53%) Data Lake
4 170 (10.90%) Metadata
5 110 (7.06%) BigQuery
6 108 (6.93%) Amazon Redshift
7 105 (6.74%) Delta Lake
8 94 (6.03%) Big Data
9 79 (5.07%) Tableau
10 75 (4.81%) Amazon Athena
11 67 (4.30%) SQL Server
12 63 (4.04%) Snowflake Schema
13 58 (3.72%) Relational Database
14 50 (3.21%) NoSQL
15 49 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
16 44 (2.82%) Azure SQL Database
17 40 (2.57%) Looker
18 34 (2.18%) Data Vault
18 34 (2.18%) Star Schema
19 30 (1.92%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 166 (10.65%) Git
2 87 (5.58%) GitLab
3 75 (4.81%) JIRA
4 28 (1.80%) MLflow
5 27 (1.73%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.51%) ERwin
6 8 (0.51%) RStudio
7 7 (0.45%) Terragrunt
8 6 (0.38%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.38%) Selenium
9 5 (0.32%) Claude Code
9 5 (0.32%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.26%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.19%) Snyk
11 3 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 2 (0.13%) Postman
12 2 (0.13%) TeamCity
12 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 388 (24.89%) Social Skills
2 359 (23.03%) Finance
3 259 (16.61%) Analytical Skills
4 162 (10.39%) Public Sector
5 120 (7.70%) Banking
6 50 (3.21%) Marketing
7 37 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 31 (1.99%) Retail
9 27 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
10 25 (1.60%) Investment Banking
11 23 (1.48%) Front Office
12 20 (1.28%) Telecoms
13 17 (1.09%) Law
14 16 (1.03%) Manufacturing
15 13 (0.83%) Billing
15 13 (0.83%) Financial Institution
15 13 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
15 13 (0.83%) Pharmaceutical
16 11 (0.71%) Police
17 9 (0.58%) Military
Job Titles
1 729 (46.76%) Data Engineer
2 238 (15.27%) Senior
3 172 (11.03%) Architect
4 171 (10.97%) Lead
5 145 (9.30%) Senior Data Engineer
6 95 (6.09%) Developer
7 94 (6.03%) Data Architect
8 74 (4.75%) AWS Engineer
9 68 (4.36%) Databricks Engineer
10 67 (4.30%) Analyst
11 65 (4.17%) Snowflake Engineer
12 63 (4.04%) AWS Data Engineer
13 57 (3.66%) Azure Engineer
14 54 (3.46%) Lead Data Engineer
15 53 (3.40%) Databricks Data Engineer
16 50 (3.21%) Python Engineer
17 47 (3.01%) Snowflake Data Engineer
18 44 (2.82%) Consultant
19 43 (2.76%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
20 42 (2.69%) Azure Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 234 (15.01%) PySpark
2 209 (13.41%) Terraform
3 123 (7.89%) Kafka
4 59 (3.78%) REST
5 33 (2.12%) JSON
5 33 (2.12%) React
6 28 (1.80%) Pandas
7 26 (1.67%) .NET
8 19 (1.22%) PyTorch
9 18 (1.15%) scikit-learn
10 17 (1.09%) Spring
10 17 (1.09%) TensorFlow
11 16 (1.03%) NumPy
12 14 (0.90%) pytest
13 13 (0.83%) FastAPI
13 13 (0.83%) XML
14 12 (0.77%) LangChain
15 11 (0.71%) Great Expectations
15 11 (0.71%) Spring Boot
15 11 (0.71%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 202 (12.96%) Cloud Native
2 75 (4.81%) Data Structures
3 63 (4.04%) Legacy Systems
4 62 (3.98%) Onboarding
5 61 (3.91%) Product Ownership
6 55 (3.53%) Distributed Systems
7 44 (2.82%) AI Agents
8 25 (1.60%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.41%) Greenfield Project
10 18 (1.15%) Distributed Computing
10 18 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
11 17 (1.09%) NHS
12 16 (1.03%) Algorithms
12 16 (1.03%) Clustering
12 16 (1.03%) Virtual Team
13 15 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
13 15 (0.96%) Management Information System
14 14 (0.90%) Life Science
15 13 (0.83%) Reference Data
16 11 (0.71%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 35 (2.25%) Linux
2 31 (1.99%) Unix
3 8 (0.51%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.064%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.064%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 754 (48.36%) Analytics
2 751 (48.17%) Data Pipeline
3 595 (38.17%) Data Modelling
4 546 (35.02%) CI/CD
5 542 (34.77%) ETL
6 465 (29.83%) AI
7 388 (24.89%) Agile
8 386 (24.76%) Business Intelligence
9 369 (23.67%) DevOps
10 354 (22.71%) Data Governance
11 271 (17.38%) Machine Learning
12 254 (16.29%) Problem-Solving
13 251 (16.10%) Migration
14 243 (15.59%) Data Transformation
15 238 (15.27%) Stakeholder Management
16 234 (15.01%) Validation
17 232 (14.88%) Data Science
18 230 (14.75%) Data Architecture
19 224 (14.37%) Decision-Making
20 212 (13.60%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 846 (54.27%) SQL
2 805 (51.64%) Python
3 112 (7.18%) Java
4 47 (3.01%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 43 (2.76%) Scala
6 42 (2.69%) PowerShell
7 37 (2.37%) Bash
8 34 (2.18%) C#
9 29 (1.86%) JavaScript
10 24 (1.54%) R
11 21 (1.35%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.28%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.96%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.90%) Bicep
15 12 (0.77%) TypeScript
16 10 (0.64%) Kusto Query Language
17 9 (0.58%) SAS Macro
17 9 (0.58%) SPARQL
18 7 (0.45%) Cypher
19 6 (0.38%) LookML
Qualifications
1 303 (19.44%) Security Cleared
2 260 (16.68%) SC Cleared
3 88 (5.64%) Degree
4 47 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
5 30 (1.92%) Azure Certification
5 30 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
6 26 (1.67%) DV Cleared
7 22 (1.41%) Master's Degree
8 21 (1.35%) AWS Certification
9 14 (0.90%) DBS Check
10 13 (0.83%) SnowPro
11 11 (0.71%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (0.32%) CSPO
13 5 (0.32%) Tableau Certification
14 4 (0.26%) PMI Certification
15 3 (0.19%) PhD
15 3 (0.19%) PMP
16 1 (0.064%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 492 (31.56%) Data Quality
2 75 (4.81%) QA
3 73 (4.68%) GDPR
4 26 (1.67%) Accessibility
5 13 (0.83%) SLA
6 4 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
6 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.19%) GRC
7 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (0.19%) MiFID
7 3 (0.19%) NIST
7 3 (0.19%) PMO
8 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.13%) COPPA
8 2 (0.13%) EMIR
8 2 (0.13%) IFRS
8 2 (0.13%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.13%) Solvency II
System Software
1 131 (8.40%) Docker
2 5 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.064%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 108 (6.93%) Kubernetes
2 29 (1.86%) Grafana
3 24 (1.54%) Ansible
4 10 (0.64%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.45%) Control-M
6 6 (0.38%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Argo
8 2 (0.13%) Puppet
8 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.064%) Cilium
9 1 (0.064%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.064%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.064%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.064%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.064%) Nagios
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.064%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.064%) QRadar
9 1 (0.064%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 424 (27.20%) Databricks
2 274 (17.58%) Microsoft
3 79 (5.07%) Informatica
4 72 (4.62%) Google
5 68 (4.36%) Oracle
6 33 (2.12%) SAP
7 30 (1.92%) Salesforce
8 29 (1.86%) Foundry
8 29 (1.86%) Talend
9 26 (1.67%) Palantir
10 16 (1.03%) Cloudera
10 16 (1.03%) OpenAI
11 14 (0.90%) ServiceNow
11 14 (0.90%) Teradata
12 12 (0.77%) Trend Micro
13 9 (0.58%) Adobe
14 7 (0.45%) Bloomberg
14 7 (0.45%) Hitachi
14 7 (0.45%) InterSystems
14 7 (0.45%) Splunk