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

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 159 200
Rank change year-on-year +70 +41 +6
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,588 598 475
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.91% 1.81% 1.23%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.44% 2.00% 1.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,099 369 349
10th Percentile £400 £350 £387
25th Percentile £450 £413 £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 £750 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £463 £538
% change year-on-year +8.11% -13.95% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 7 8
10th Percentile - £37.48 £24.13
25th Percentile £21.25 £45.11 £26.22
Median hourly rate £67.50 £52.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.57% -12.50% -23.08%
75th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 -
90th Percentile £85.25 £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 46,202 29,871 32,996
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.62% 90.47% 85.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,118 18,549 20,447
10th Percentile £325 £300 £311
25th Percentile £425 £403 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
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 3,059 1,786 1,512
10th Percentile £13.85 £14.23 £14.71
25th Percentile £17.36 £17.30 £20.09
Median hourly rate £40.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +59.05% -41.51% +3.61%
75th Percentile £67.50 £45.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.63 £43.00
% change year-on-year +76.76% -47.37% +8.72%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +62 1,416 £525 +0.96% 928
London +50 879 £550 - 587
UK excluding London +77 550 £500 +8.11% 513
Work from Home +69 514 £525 +5.00% 406
North of England +16 176 £475 - 117
Midlands +31 131 £486 +7.88% 53
West Midlands +32 107 £475 -6.31% 32
South East -7 92 £500 +15.61% 157
Yorkshire +23 88 £500 +5.26% 25
South West +15 77 £525 -8.70% 62
North West -22 55 £500 +5.26% 72
Scotland +2 48 £513 +10.51% 58
North East -15 35 £425 -20.93% 20
East of England -19 27 £550 +22.22% 39
East Midlands -2 21 £525 +20.62% 21
Wales - 7 £450 - 11
Northern Ireland +5 4 £334 - 17

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
1 189 (11.90%) Apache Airflow
2 169 (10.64%) Apache Spark
3 133 (8.38%) Apache
4 43 (2.71%) Confluence
5 38 (2.39%) SAS
6 21 (1.32%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.07%) Palantir Foundry
8 14 (0.88%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.44%) Apache Superset
10 6 (0.38%) ArcGIS
11 5 (0.31%) Apache Solr
12 3 (0.19%) nginx
12 3 (0.19%) PowerExchange
13 1 (0.063%) CICS
13 1 (0.063%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.063%) GeoServer
13 1 (0.063%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.063%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.063%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.063%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 18 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.38%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.31%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.063%) Notion
Business Applications
1 9 (0.57%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.25%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.25%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
5 2 (0.13%) BambooHR
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 (0.063%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.063%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.063%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.063%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.063%) SAP ECC
6 1 (0.063%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 671 (42.25%) Azure
2 585 (36.84%) AWS
3 310 (19.52%) Power Platform
4 262 (16.50%) Snowflake
5 220 (13.85%) GCP
6 217 (13.66%) dbt
7 176 (11.08%) Azure Data Factory
8 169 (10.64%) Amazon S3
9 141 (8.88%) Azure DevOps
10 138 (8.69%) Serverless
11 134 (8.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 130 (8.19%) GitHub
13 113 (7.12%) AWS Lambda
14 84 (5.29%) Azure Databricks
15 69 (4.35%) GitHub Actions
16 51 (3.21%) Amazon EMR
17 36 (2.27%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 34 (2.14%) Amazon Bedrock
19 32 (2.02%) Microsoft Purview
20 30 (1.89%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.31%) Firewall
2 4 (0.25%) Broadband
2 4 (0.25%) DNS
2 4 (0.25%) Network Security
3 1 (0.063%) Internet
3 1 (0.063%) MIMO
3 1 (0.063%) MQTT
3 1 (0.063%) RTP
3 1 (0.063%) SMS
3 1 (0.063%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 326 (20.53%) Data Warehouse
2 296 (18.64%) Power BI
3 216 (13.60%) Data Lake
4 183 (11.52%) Metadata
5 116 (7.30%) BigQuery
6 107 (6.74%) Delta Lake
7 104 (6.55%) Amazon Redshift
8 93 (5.86%) Big Data
9 78 (4.91%) Tableau
10 74 (4.66%) Amazon Athena
11 64 (4.03%) SQL Server
12 62 (3.90%) Snowflake Schema
13 57 (3.59%) Relational Database
14 49 (3.09%) PostgreSQL
15 46 (2.90%) Azure SQL Database
16 44 (2.77%) NoSQL
17 40 (2.52%) Looker
18 33 (2.08%) Data Vault
18 33 (2.08%) Star Schema
19 29 (1.83%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 168 (10.58%) Git
2 88 (5.54%) GitLab
3 76 (4.79%) JIRA
4 29 (1.83%) MLflow
5 27 (1.70%) Jenkins
6 8 (0.50%) ERwin
6 8 (0.50%) RStudio
6 8 (0.50%) Terragrunt
7 7 (0.44%) Bitbucket
8 6 (0.38%) Selenium
9 5 (0.31%) Claude Code
9 5 (0.31%) SonarQube
10 4 (0.25%) ER Studio
11 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
11 3 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 3 (0.19%) Snyk
12 2 (0.13%) Postman
12 2 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
12 2 (0.13%) TeamCity
12 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 396 (24.94%) Social Skills
2 364 (22.92%) Finance
3 262 (16.50%) Analytical Skills
4 164 (10.33%) Public Sector
5 127 (8.00%) Banking
6 53 (3.34%) Marketing
7 36 (2.27%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 35 (2.20%) Retail
9 25 (1.57%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (1.45%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.39%) Front Office
12 19 (1.20%) Law
12 19 (1.20%) Manufacturing
13 17 (1.07%) Pharmaceutical
13 17 (1.07%) Telecoms
14 15 (0.94%) Publishing
15 13 (0.82%) Police
16 12 (0.76%) Billing
16 12 (0.76%) Financial Institution
16 12 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 742 (46.73%) Data Engineer
2 245 (15.43%) Senior
3 173 (10.89%) Lead
4 171 (10.77%) Architect
5 151 (9.51%) Senior Data Engineer
6 97 (6.11%) Data Architect
7 96 (6.05%) Developer
8 74 (4.66%) AWS Engineer
9 72 (4.53%) Databricks Engineer
10 69 (4.35%) Analyst
11 65 (4.09%) Snowflake Engineer
12 64 (4.03%) AWS Data Engineer
12 64 (4.03%) Azure Engineer
13 55 (3.46%) Databricks Data Engineer
14 52 (3.27%) Lead Data Engineer
15 48 (3.02%) Python Engineer
16 47 (2.96%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 46 (2.90%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 46 (2.90%) Consultant
18 45 (2.83%) Azure Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 237 (14.92%) PySpark
2 219 (13.79%) Terraform
3 115 (7.24%) Kafka
4 63 (3.97%) REST
5 36 (2.27%) JSON
6 33 (2.08%) React
7 27 (1.70%) .NET
8 26 (1.64%) Pandas
9 17 (1.07%) PyTorch
9 17 (1.07%) scikit-learn
10 16 (1.01%) NumPy
10 16 (1.01%) XML
11 15 (0.94%) FastAPI
11 15 (0.94%) LangChain
11 15 (0.94%) TensorFlow
12 14 (0.88%) pytest
13 12 (0.76%) Spring
14 11 (0.69%) RESTful
14 11 (0.69%) Spring Boot
14 11 (0.69%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 201 (12.66%) Cloud Native
2 79 (4.97%) Data Structures
3 66 (4.16%) Onboarding
4 63 (3.97%) Product Ownership
5 61 (3.84%) Legacy Systems
6 50 (3.15%) Distributed Systems
7 47 (2.96%) AI Agents
8 21 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
8 21 (1.32%) Greenfield Project
9 20 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
10 19 (1.20%) Distributed Computing
11 18 (1.13%) NHS
11 18 (1.13%) Virtual Team
12 17 (1.07%) Life Science
13 16 (1.01%) Management Information System
14 15 (0.94%) Algorithms
14 15 (0.94%) Data Fabric
15 14 (0.88%) Analytical Mindset
15 14 (0.88%) Clustering
16 13 (0.82%) Marketing Technology
Operating Systems
1 35 (2.20%) Linux
2 29 (1.83%) Unix
3 8 (0.50%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.063%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.063%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.063%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.063%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 773 (48.68%) Data Pipeline
2 751 (47.29%) Analytics
3 614 (38.66%) Data Modelling
4 562 (35.39%) CI/CD
5 549 (34.57%) ETL
6 475 (29.91%) AI
7 396 (24.94%) Agile
8 384 (24.18%) Business Intelligence
9 380 (23.93%) DevOps
10 363 (22.86%) Data Governance
11 277 (17.44%) Machine Learning
12 258 (16.25%) Migration
13 256 (16.12%) Stakeholder Management
14 255 (16.06%) Data Transformation
14 255 (16.06%) Problem-Solving
15 244 (15.37%) Data Architecture
16 242 (15.24%) Validation
17 230 (14.48%) Decision-Making
18 229 (14.42%) Data Science
19 228 (14.36%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 858 (54.03%) SQL
2 823 (51.83%) Python
3 108 (6.80%) Java
4 48 (3.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 44 (2.77%) Scala
6 42 (2.64%) PowerShell
7 36 (2.27%) Bash
8 34 (2.14%) C#
9 29 (1.83%) JavaScript
10 26 (1.64%) R
11 22 (1.39%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.26%) PL/SQL
13 15 (0.94%) Bicep
13 15 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 14 (0.88%) TypeScript
15 11 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
16 10 (0.63%) SPARQL
17 9 (0.57%) SAS Macro
18 8 (0.50%) Cypher
19 7 (0.44%) LookML
Qualifications
1 313 (19.71%) Security Cleared
2 263 (16.56%) SC Cleared
3 84 (5.29%) Degree
4 39 (2.46%) Computer Science Degree
5 32 (2.02%) Azure Certification
5 32 (2.02%) DV Cleared
6 29 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
7 24 (1.51%) AWS Certification
8 22 (1.39%) Master's Degree
9 15 (0.94%) SnowPro
10 14 (0.88%) DBS Check
11 11 (0.69%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
13 6 (0.38%) PMI Certification
14 5 (0.31%) CSPO
14 5 (0.31%) PMP
14 5 (0.31%) Tableau Certification
15 4 (0.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 3 (0.19%) PhD
16 3 (0.19%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 519 (32.68%) Data Quality
2 79 (4.97%) QA
3 70 (4.41%) GDPR
4 26 (1.64%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.76%) SLA
6 5 (0.31%) Disclosure Scotland
6 5 (0.31%) PMO
7 4 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.19%) GRC
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.19%) MiFID
8 3 (0.19%) NIST
9 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.13%) COPPA
9 2 (0.13%) IFRS
9 2 (0.13%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.13%) NCSC
9 2 (0.13%) Solvency II
System Software
1 137 (8.63%) Docker
2 5 (0.31%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.063%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.063%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 109 (6.86%) Kubernetes
2 30 (1.89%) Grafana
3 25 (1.57%) Ansible
4 11 (0.69%) Prometheus
5 8 (0.50%) 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 (0.063%) Cilium
9 1 (0.063%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.063%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.063%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.063%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.063%) Nagios
9 1 (0.063%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.063%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.063%) QRadar
9 1 (0.063%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 441 (27.77%) Databricks
2 281 (17.70%) Microsoft
3 77 (4.85%) Informatica
4 76 (4.79%) Google
5 73 (4.60%) Oracle
6 34 (2.14%) SAP
7 30 (1.89%) Salesforce
8 29 (1.83%) Foundry
8 29 (1.83%) Talend
9 25 (1.57%) Palantir
10 17 (1.07%) Cloudera
10 17 (1.07%) OpenAI
11 14 (0.88%) ServiceNow
11 14 (0.88%) Teradata
12 12 (0.76%) Trend Micro
13 9 (0.57%) Adobe
14 8 (0.50%) Splunk
15 7 (0.44%) Bloomberg
15 7 (0.44%) Hitachi
15 7 (0.44%) InterSystems