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

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 94 151 185
Rank change year-on-year +57 +34 +33
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,564 624 500
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.88% 1.90% 1.31%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.41% 2.10% 1.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,089 389 362
10th Percentile £400 £343 £400
25th Percentile £445 £413 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -8.33%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £663
90th Percentile £725 £740 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £463 £500
% change year-on-year +8.11% -7.50% -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 6 7
10th Percentile - £37.11 £23.72
25th Percentile £21.25 £42.03 £25.93
Median hourly rate £44.50 £58.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -24.26% -2.08% -20.53%
75th Percentile £72.08 £81.88 -
90th Percentile £79.67 £98.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +5.24% -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 45,850 29,737 32,777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.30% 90.62% 85.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,722 18,491 19,844
10th Percentile £325 £294 £308
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 £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £730 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,198 1,854 1,372
10th Percentile £13.69 £14.25 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.23 £17.30 £20.12
Median hourly rate £39.00 £25.15 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +55.07% -40.82% -1.16%
75th Percentile £65.60 £43.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.72 £65.00 £74.49
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £22.32 £43.00
% change year-on-year +79.25% -48.10% +1.18%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 +54 1,390 £525 - 1,638
London +45 851 £550 - 1,011
UK excluding London +69 555 £500 +8.11% 732
Work from Home +63 507 £523 +4.50% 722
North of England +30 183 £475 +7.34% 236
Midlands +28 122 £475 +2.70% 101
West Midlands +25 100 £475 -13.64% 76
Yorkshire +27 92 £500 +5.26% 63
South East -9 91 £525 +19.32% 137
South West +34 85 £525 -3.45% 75
North West -34 57 £513 +19.19% 138
Scotland -6 50 £500 +7.82% 83
North East -6 36 £425 -17.07% 35
East of England -10 25 £550 +22.22% 43
East Midlands -3 22 £503 +15.57% 25
Wales -8 8 £450 -9.09% 12
Northern Ireland +6 4 £334 - 46

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
1 188 (12.02%) Apache Airflow
2 168 (10.74%) Apache Spark
3 139 (8.89%) Apache
4 41 (2.62%) Confluence
5 32 (2.05%) SAS
6 22 (1.41%) Jupyter
7 16 (1.02%) Palantir Foundry
8 15 (0.96%) SharePoint
9 5 (0.32%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.32%) Apache Superset
9 5 (0.32%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.19%) nginx
10 3 (0.19%) PowerExchange
11 1 (0.064%) CICS
11 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
11 1 (0.064%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
11 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.064%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.064%) SugarCRM
Applications
1 10 (0.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.45%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.38%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.19%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.064%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 11 (0.70%) Aladdin
2 7 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
3 4 (0.26%) Sage X3
3 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.19%) 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 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
6 1 (0.064%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.064%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.064%) MIS ActiveH
6 1 (0.064%) Oracle EBS
6 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
6 1 (0.064%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 649 (41.50%) Azure
2 581 (37.15%) AWS
3 294 (18.80%) Power Platform
4 264 (16.88%) Snowflake
5 234 (14.96%) dbt
5 234 (14.96%) GCP
6 180 (11.51%) Amazon S3
7 176 (11.25%) Azure Data Factory
8 145 (9.27%) Serverless
9 132 (8.44%) Azure DevOps
10 122 (7.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 121 (7.74%) AWS Lambda
12 120 (7.67%) GitHub
13 79 (5.05%) Azure Databricks
14 64 (4.09%) GitHub Actions
15 54 (3.45%) Amazon EMR
16 42 (2.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 38 (2.43%) Amazon Bedrock
18 33 (2.11%) Microsoft Purview
19 32 (2.05%) Azure AI
Communications & Networking
1 6 (0.38%) DNS
2 5 (0.32%) Broadband
3 4 (0.26%) Firewall
3 4 (0.26%) Network Security
4 1 (0.064%) HTTP
4 1 (0.064%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.064%) Internet
4 1 (0.064%) MIMO
4 1 (0.064%) MQTT
4 1 (0.064%) Radio Access Network
4 1 (0.064%) SMS
4 1 (0.064%) SSL
4 1 (0.064%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.064%) tcpdump
4 1 (0.064%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 324 (20.72%) Data Warehouse
2 281 (17.97%) Power BI
3 208 (13.30%) Data Lake
4 180 (11.51%) Metadata
5 125 (7.99%) BigQuery
6 108 (6.91%) Amazon Redshift
7 104 (6.65%) Delta Lake
8 83 (5.31%) Big Data
9 78 (4.99%) Amazon Athena
10 74 (4.73%) Tableau
11 59 (3.77%) Snowflake Schema
12 57 (3.64%) SQL Server
13 50 (3.20%) PostgreSQL
13 50 (3.20%) Relational Database
14 44 (2.81%) NoSQL
15 41 (2.62%) Looker
16 35 (2.24%) Azure SQL Database
17 31 (1.98%) Amazon RDS
17 31 (1.98%) Data Vault
18 25 (1.60%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 178 (11.38%) Git
2 93 (5.95%) GitLab
3 69 (4.41%) JIRA
4 27 (1.73%) Jenkins
5 26 (1.66%) MLflow
6 8 (0.51%) Bitbucket
6 8 (0.51%) Claude Code
6 8 (0.51%) ERwin
6 8 (0.51%) RStudio
6 8 (0.51%) Terragrunt
7 7 (0.45%) Selenium
8 4 (0.26%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.19%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 3 (0.19%) Postman
9 3 (0.19%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.13%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.13%) Cucumber
10 2 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.13%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
General
1 399 (25.51%) Social Skills
2 353 (22.57%) Finance
3 246 (15.73%) Analytical Skills
4 164 (10.49%) Public Sector
5 140 (8.95%) Banking
6 53 (3.39%) Marketing
7 35 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 33 (2.11%) Retail
9 25 (1.60%) Investment Banking
10 24 (1.53%) Front Office
11 20 (1.28%) Documentation Skills
12 19 (1.21%) Pharmaceutical
13 18 (1.15%) Law
13 18 (1.15%) Manufacturing
14 14 (0.90%) Publishing
14 14 (0.90%) Telecoms
15 13 (0.83%) Back Office
15 13 (0.83%) Police
16 12 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
17 11 (0.70%) Billing
Job Titles
1 733 (46.87%) Data Engineer
2 248 (15.86%) Senior
3 175 (11.19%) Lead
4 167 (10.68%) Architect
5 157 (10.04%) Senior Data Engineer
6 97 (6.20%) Developer
7 90 (5.75%) Data Architect
8 76 (4.86%) Databricks Engineer
9 74 (4.73%) AWS Engineer
10 68 (4.35%) Azure Engineer
10 68 (4.35%) Snowflake Engineer
11 66 (4.22%) Analyst
12 64 (4.09%) AWS Data Engineer
13 59 (3.77%) Databricks Data Engineer
14 51 (3.26%) Lead Data Engineer
14 51 (3.26%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 50 (3.20%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 47 (3.01%) Python Engineer
17 46 (2.94%) Azure Data Engineer
18 40 (2.56%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 233 (14.90%) Terraform
2 230 (14.71%) PySpark
3 111 (7.10%) Kafka
4 60 (3.84%) REST
5 34 (2.17%) JSON
6 32 (2.05%) React
7 27 (1.73%) .NET
8 22 (1.41%) Pandas
9 17 (1.09%) LangChain
10 16 (1.02%) FastAPI
10 16 (1.02%) pytest
11 15 (0.96%) PyTorch
12 14 (0.90%) XML
13 13 (0.83%) LangGraph
13 13 (0.83%) RESTful
14 12 (0.77%) NumPy
14 12 (0.77%) scikit-learn
14 12 (0.77%) Streamlit
14 12 (0.77%) TensorFlow
15 11 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
Miscellaneous
1 207 (13.24%) Cloud Native
2 82 (5.24%) Data Structures
3 77 (4.92%) Onboarding
4 64 (4.09%) Product Ownership
5 54 (3.45%) AI Agents
5 54 (3.45%) Legacy Systems
6 50 (3.20%) Distributed Systems
7 24 (1.53%) Data Protection Act
8 22 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
9 19 (1.21%) Distributed Computing
10 18 (1.15%) Virtual Team
11 17 (1.09%) Life Science
11 17 (1.09%) Management Information System
11 17 (1.09%) NHS
12 16 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
13 15 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
13 15 (0.96%) Data Fabric
14 14 (0.90%) Clustering
14 14 (0.90%) Marketing Technology
15 13 (0.83%) Algorithms
Operating Systems
1 30 (1.92%) Linux
2 24 (1.53%) Unix
3 7 (0.45%) Windows
4 1 (0.064%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.064%) Robot Operating System
4 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.064%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 762 (48.72%) Data Pipeline
2 728 (46.55%) Analytics
3 613 (39.19%) Data Modelling
4 561 (35.87%) CI/CD
5 541 (34.59%) ETL
6 497 (31.78%) AI
7 396 (25.32%) Agile
8 372 (23.79%) DevOps
9 363 (23.21%) Business Intelligence
10 346 (22.12%) Data Governance
11 281 (17.97%) Stakeholder Management
12 271 (17.33%) Machine Learning
13 252 (16.11%) Data Transformation
14 246 (15.73%) Infrastructure as Code
15 244 (15.60%) Migration
16 242 (15.47%) Validation
17 241 (15.41%) Data Architecture
18 237 (15.15%) Problem-Solving
19 232 (14.83%) Data Integration
20 226 (14.45%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 855 (54.67%) SQL
2 827 (52.88%) Python
3 106 (6.78%) Java
4 46 (2.94%) Scala
5 41 (2.62%) PowerShell
6 40 (2.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 36 (2.30%) C#
8 34 (2.17%) Bash
9 31 (1.98%) JavaScript
10 23 (1.47%) R
11 19 (1.21%) PL/SQL
11 19 (1.21%) T-SQL
12 16 (1.02%) Bicep
13 14 (0.90%) TypeScript
14 12 (0.77%) Kusto Query Language
15 10 (0.64%) Shell Script
15 10 (0.64%) SPARQL
16 9 (0.58%) Go
17 8 (0.51%) Cypher
17 8 (0.51%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 291 (18.61%) Security Cleared
2 244 (15.60%) SC Cleared
3 78 (4.99%) Degree
4 36 (2.30%) Computer Science Degree
5 33 (2.11%) Azure Certification
5 33 (2.11%) DV Cleared
6 31 (1.98%) AWS Certification
7 30 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (1.21%) Master's Degree
9 14 (0.90%) DBS Check
10 12 (0.77%) SnowPro
11 11 (0.70%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.51%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
13 5 (0.32%) CSPO
13 5 (0.32%) PMI Certification
13 5 (0.32%) PMP
13 5 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
14 4 (0.26%) PhD
14 4 (0.26%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 518 (33.12%) Data Quality
2 80 (5.12%) QA
3 62 (3.96%) GDPR
4 30 (1.92%) Accessibility
5 12 (0.77%) SLA
6 7 (0.45%) Disclosure Scotland
7 5 (0.32%) GRC
8 4 (0.26%) PMO
9 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.19%) EU AI Act
9 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.19%) MiFID
9 3 (0.19%) NCSC
9 3 (0.19%) NIST
10 2 (0.13%) 21 CFR Part 11
10 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.13%) COPPA
10 2 (0.13%) GxP
10 2 (0.13%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.13%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 130 (8.31%) Docker
2 5 (0.32%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.064%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 108 (6.91%) Kubernetes
2 30 (1.92%) Grafana
3 23 (1.47%) Ansible
4 11 (0.70%) Prometheus
5 8 (0.51%) Control-M
5 8 (0.51%) Kibana
6 3 (0.19%) logstash
7 2 (0.13%) Argo
7 2 (0.13%) Puppet
7 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
8 1 (0.064%) Cilium
8 1 (0.064%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.064%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.064%) IBM Guardium
8 1 (0.064%) Kustomize
8 1 (0.064%) Nagios
8 1 (0.064%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.064%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.064%) QRadar
Vendors
1 449 (28.71%) Databricks
2 266 (17.01%) Microsoft
3 94 (6.01%) Google
4 75 (4.80%) Oracle
5 60 (3.84%) Informatica
6 30 (1.92%) Salesforce
6 30 (1.92%) SAP
7 27 (1.73%) Foundry
7 27 (1.73%) Talend
8 24 (1.53%) Palantir
9 21 (1.34%) OpenAI
10 15 (0.96%) Teradata
11 13 (0.83%) Cloudera
12 12 (0.77%) Trend Micro
13 11 (0.70%) Adobe
13 11 (0.70%) ServiceNow
14 8 (0.51%) Denodo
14 8 (0.51%) Splunk
15 7 (0.45%) Hitachi
16 6 (0.38%) MicroStrategy