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

6 months to
16 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 166 197
Rank change year-on-year +80 +31 +13
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,427 506 506
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.84% 1.71% 1.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.35% 1.88% 1.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 980 346 380
10th Percentile £385 £375 £363
25th Percentile £441 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £627 £659 £663
90th Percentile £749 £825 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £511
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.05% -7.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 7 15
10th Percentile £45.18 £24.75 £30.72
25th Percentile £55.44 £28.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.72 £38.96 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.95% +11.31% -52.05%
75th Percentile £77.25 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.75 £58.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £28.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +140.00% -52.08% -17.81%

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 42,574 26,968 37,058
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.80% 91.03% 85.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,549 17,103 23,600
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £506 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.28% -3.62% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,556 1,231 2,598
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.01
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.32 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.02% -29.21% +6.23%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +76.94% -34.02% +17.29%

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 16 June 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 16 June 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 16 June 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 +75 1,271 £525 -2.33% 609
London +61 771 £550 -1.57% 342
UK excluding London +64 522 £500 +5.26% 386
Work from Home +72 447 £525 - 298
North of England +22 161 £475 -5.00% 107
Midlands +23 125 £500 +8.11% 46
West Midlands +24 106 £475 -18.10% 28
South West +32 83 £500 -4.76% 45
Yorkshire -8 69 £478 -4.50% 29
South East -21 69 £525 +8.92% 134
North West -9 57 £500 - 65
Scotland +21 56 £450 -5.26% 14
North East -1 37 £438 -12.50% 13
East of England -19 24 £575 +54.08% 16
East Midlands -17 16 £525 +13.51% 18
Wales -7 9 £450 +75.14% 8
Northern Ireland - 6 £382 - 21

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 (13.38%) Apache Spark
2 165 (11.56%) Apache Airflow
3 107 (7.50%) Apache
4 42 (2.94%) SAS
5 34 (2.38%) Confluence
6 22 (1.54%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.19%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.56%) Appian
8 8 (0.56%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.49%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.21%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.070%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 1 (0.070%) Camunda
13 1 (0.070%) CICS
13 1 (0.070%) IBM HTTP Server
13 1 (0.070%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 25 (1.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
4 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.070%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.070%) Notion
6 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.49%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.35%) BambooHR
2 5 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.14%) Endur
4 2 (0.14%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.14%) Sage X3
4 2 (0.14%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.070%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.070%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.070%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.070%) SAP ECC
5 1 (0.070%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 601 (42.12%) Azure
2 539 (37.77%) AWS
3 330 (23.13%) Power Platform
4 204 (14.30%) Snowflake
5 187 (13.10%) GCP
6 174 (12.19%) Azure Data Factory
7 172 (12.05%) Amazon S3
8 157 (11.00%) dbt
9 132 (9.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 131 (9.18%) GitHub
11 124 (8.69%) Serverless
12 121 (8.48%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (7.50%) AWS Lambda
14 76 (5.33%) GitHub Actions
15 53 (3.71%) Amazon EMR
16 44 (3.08%) AWS CloudFormation
17 31 (2.17%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 31 (2.17%) Azure AI
18 30 (2.10%) AWS Step Functions
19 27 (1.89%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.35%) Firewall
1 5 (0.35%) RTP
2 2 (0.14%) Network Security
3 1 (0.070%) 4G
3 1 (0.070%) 5G
3 1 (0.070%) MIMO
3 1 (0.070%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (21.37%) Power BI
2 267 (18.71%) Data Warehouse
3 220 (15.42%) Data Lake
4 133 (9.32%) Metadata
5 111 (7.78%) Big Data
6 100 (7.01%) Amazon Redshift
7 93 (6.52%) SQL Server
8 88 (6.17%) Delta Lake
9 82 (5.75%) Amazon Athena
10 79 (5.54%) BigQuery
10 79 (5.54%) Tableau
11 75 (5.26%) Snowflake Schema
12 70 (4.91%) NoSQL
13 55 (3.85%) Relational Database
14 54 (3.78%) Azure SQL Database
14 54 (3.78%) PostgreSQL
15 48 (3.36%) Hadoop
16 39 (2.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 34 (2.38%) Spark SQL
18 32 (2.24%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 171 (11.98%) Git
2 78 (5.47%) GitLab
3 63 (4.41%) JIRA
4 36 (2.52%) MLflow
5 22 (1.54%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.42%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.28%) Postman
7 4 (0.28%) Selenium
8 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.21%) Snyk
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.14%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.14%) ERwin
9 2 (0.14%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.070%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.070%) Deequ
10 1 (0.070%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.070%) SoapUI
General
1 346 (24.25%) Social Skills
2 336 (23.55%) Finance
3 211 (14.79%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (9.95%) Public Sector
5 100 (7.01%) Banking
6 34 (2.38%) Marketing
7 32 (2.24%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 31 (2.17%) Retail
9 18 (1.26%) Front Office
10 17 (1.19%) Telecoms
11 16 (1.12%) Investment Banking
12 14 (0.98%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (0.77%) Law
14 10 (0.70%) Legal
15 9 (0.63%) Manufacturing
16 7 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
17 6 (0.42%) Back Office
17 6 (0.42%) Billing
Job Titles
1 672 (47.09%) Data Engineer
2 204 (14.30%) Senior
3 156 (10.93%) Architect
4 155 (10.86%) Lead
5 124 (8.69%) Senior Data Engineer
6 80 (5.61%) Data Architect
7 76 (5.33%) Developer
8 73 (5.12%) AWS Engineer
9 65 (4.56%) Lead Data Engineer
10 63 (4.41%) Analyst
11 57 (3.99%) Snowflake Engineer
12 56 (3.92%) AWS Data Engineer
13 46 (3.22%) Snowflake Data Engineer
13 46 (3.22%) Solutions Architect
14 45 (3.15%) Azure Engineer
14 45 (3.15%) Data Scientist
15 42 (2.94%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 41 (2.87%) Consultant
17 40 (2.80%) Azure Data Engineer
18 38 (2.66%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 207 (14.51%) PySpark
2 140 (9.81%) Kafka
3 49 (3.43%) Pandas
4 40 (2.80%) REST
5 35 (2.45%) scikit-learn
6 34 (2.38%) PyTorch
7 31 (2.17%) NumPy
8 28 (1.96%) JSON
9 26 (1.82%) TensorFlow
10 24 (1.68%) Spring
11 23 (1.61%) React
12 19 (1.33%) RESTful
13 18 (1.26%) FastAPI
14 17 (1.19%) Spring Boot
15 15 (1.05%) pytest
15 15 (1.05%) YAML
16 14 (0.98%) Great Expectations
16 14 (0.98%) LangChain
17 13 (0.91%) Django
17 13 (0.91%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 199 (13.95%) Cloud Native
2 56 (3.92%) Data Structures
2 56 (3.92%) Distributed Systems
3 52 (3.64%) Legacy Systems
4 47 (3.29%) Product Ownership
5 33 (2.31%) AI Agents
5 33 (2.31%) Onboarding
6 26 (1.82%) Distributed Computing
7 24 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
8 23 (1.61%) Greenfield Project
9 21 (1.47%) Algorithms
10 18 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
11 17 (1.19%) NHS
12 15 (1.05%) Clustering
13 14 (0.98%) Fixed Income
14 12 (0.84%) Reference Data
14 12 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
14 12 (0.84%) Virtual Team
15 11 (0.77%) Hybrid Cloud
15 11 (0.77%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 27 (1.89%) Linux
2 25 (1.75%) Unix
3 5 (0.35%) VMS
4 3 (0.21%) Windows
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.070%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 739 (51.79%) Analytics
2 673 (47.16%) Data Pipeline
3 550 (38.54%) Data Modelling
4 516 (36.16%) CI/CD
5 515 (36.09%) ETL
6 436 (30.55%) AI
7 377 (26.42%) Business Intelligence
8 353 (24.74%) DevOps
9 351 (24.60%) Agile
10 307 (21.51%) Data Governance
11 280 (19.62%) Machine Learning
12 251 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
13 245 (17.17%) Data Science
14 199 (13.95%) Migration
15 196 (13.74%) Data Architecture
15 196 (13.74%) Decision-Making
16 188 (13.17%) Validation
17 169 (11.84%) Infrastructure as Code
18 161 (11.28%) Use Case
19 152 (10.65%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 788 (55.22%) SQL
2 759 (53.19%) Python
3 112 (7.85%) Java
4 45 (3.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 43 (3.01%) Scala
6 34 (2.38%) Bash
6 34 (2.38%) C#
7 27 (1.89%) T-SQL
8 23 (1.61%) PowerShell
9 20 (1.40%) R
10 17 (1.19%) Bicep
10 17 (1.19%) JavaScript
10 17 (1.19%) PL/SQL
11 11 (0.77%) Shell Script
11 11 (0.77%) TypeScript
12 10 (0.70%) SAS Macro
13 5 (0.35%) Korn
14 4 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
15 3 (0.21%) SPARQL
16 2 (0.14%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 274 (19.20%) Security Cleared
2 242 (16.96%) SC Cleared
3 100 (7.01%) Degree
4 42 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (2.38%) Azure Certification
5 34 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
5 34 (2.38%) Master's Degree
6 21 (1.47%) AWS Certification
7 13 (0.91%) DBS Check
8 12 (0.84%) DV Cleared
8 12 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 9 (0.63%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 8 (0.56%) SnowPro
11 6 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.21%) CSPO
12 3 (0.21%) IBM Certification
13 2 (0.14%) PhD
13 2 (0.14%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.14%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.070%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 409 (28.66%) Data Quality
2 89 (6.24%) GDPR
3 66 (4.63%) QA
4 15 (1.05%) SLA
5 9 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (0.49%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.28%) MiFID
8 4 (0.28%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.21%) GRC
9 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.21%) NIST
10 2 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.14%) COPPA
10 2 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.14%) EMIR
10 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.14%) PMO
10 2 (0.14%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 128 (8.97%) Docker
2 3 (0.21%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.14%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 196 (13.74%) Terraform
2 107 (7.50%) Kubernetes
3 25 (1.75%) Grafana
3 25 (1.75%) Prometheus
4 9 (0.63%) Ansible
5 3 (0.21%) Argo
5 3 (0.21%) Kibana
5 3 (0.21%) Nagios
5 3 (0.21%) Rancher
6 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
6 2 (0.14%) logstash
6 2 (0.14%) Thomson Reuters DACS
7 1 (0.070%) Control-M
7 1 (0.070%) Hadoop YARN
7 1 (0.070%) HP Fortify
7 1 (0.070%) IBM Guardium
7 1 (0.070%) Oozie
Vendors
1 366 (25.65%) Databricks
2 241 (16.89%) Microsoft
3 79 (5.54%) Informatica
4 60 (4.20%) Oracle
5 58 (4.06%) Google
6 32 (2.24%) Talend
7 27 (1.89%) OpenAI
8 26 (1.82%) SAP
9 25 (1.75%) Foundry
10 21 (1.47%) Splunk
11 20 (1.40%) Palantir
12 19 (1.33%) Salesforce
13 16 (1.12%) ServiceNow
14 15 (1.05%) Cloudera
15 11 (0.77%) Trend Micro
16 9 (0.63%) UiPath
17 8 (0.56%) Automation Anywhere
17 8 (0.56%) Denodo
18 7 (0.49%) IBM
18 7 (0.49%) InterSystems