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

6 months to
6 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 84 158 201
Rank change year-on-year +74 +43 +4
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,565 570 470
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.94% 1.73% 1.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.46% 1.91% 1.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,082 363 345
10th Percentile £388 £361 £400
25th Percentile £440 £426 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -10.87% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £688
90th Percentile £750 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £470 £500
% change year-on-year +6.38% -6.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 6 14
10th Percentile £21.25 £30.73 £24.32
25th Percentile £35.00 £42.03 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £52.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% +50.00% -52.05%
75th Percentile £78.00 £62.19 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.00 £87.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.75 £31.98 £60.00
% change year-on-year +89.96% -46.70% -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 45,262 29,771 33,475
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.91% 90.46% 85.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,917 18,660 21,435
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £420 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -4.55%
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 2,788 1,660 1,878
10th Percentile £14.46 £14.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £18.15
Median hourly rate £43.96 £25.15 £40.33
Median % change year-on-year +74.79% -37.63% -5.12%
75th Percentile £68.00 £50.00 £64.13
90th Percentile £82.25 £68.00 £74.46
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £23.30 £40.94
% change year-on-year +88.67% -43.09% +3.38%

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 6 August 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 6 August 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 6 August 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 1,403 £525 - 928
London +56 836 £550 - 588
UK excluding London +79 574 £500 +6.38% 445
Work from Home +70 517 £525 +5.00% 407
North of England +33 179 £463 -2.63% 149
Midlands +40 152 £486 +5.98% 39
West Midlands +37 127 £475 -0.63% 27
South East -10 90 £525 +11.94% 131
Yorkshire +11 83 £475 +2.70% 43
South West +17 78 £505 -12.17% 64
North West -18 59 £500 +5.26% 81
Scotland +22 49 £500 +6.38% 30
North East -6 39 £425 -20.93% 26
East of England -6 28 £575 +35.29% 14
East Midlands +3 22 £525 +14.38% 12
Wales -5 7 £450 +82.58% 6
Northern Ireland +7 4 £334 - 15

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
1 185 (11.82%) Apache Spark
2 175 (11.18%) Apache Airflow
3 124 (7.92%) Apache
4 47 (3.00%) SAS
5 41 (2.62%) Confluence
6 23 (1.47%) Jupyter
7 20 (1.28%) Palantir Foundry
8 11 (0.70%) SharePoint
9 9 (0.58%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.26%) Apache Solr
10 4 (0.26%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
12 1 (0.064%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.064%) Appian
12 1 (0.064%) CICS
12 1 (0.064%) Ethereum
12 1 (0.064%) Hyperledger
12 1 (0.064%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 21 (1.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 5 (0.32%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.064%) Microsoft Project
7 1 (0.064%) Notion
Business Applications
1 13 (0.83%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.38%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.32%) BambooHR
4 4 (0.26%) NetSuite
4 4 (0.26%) Sage X3
4 4 (0.26%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.26%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.19%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.13%) Endur
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.13%) SAP BPC
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.064%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.064%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.064%) MIS ActiveH
7 1 (0.064%) R3 Corda
7 1 (0.064%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 655 (41.85%) Azure
2 586 (37.44%) AWS
3 326 (20.83%) Power Platform
4 249 (15.91%) Snowflake
5 210 (13.42%) GCP
6 198 (12.65%) dbt
7 172 (10.99%) Azure Data Factory
8 169 (10.80%) Amazon S3
9 146 (9.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 138 (8.82%) Azure DevOps
11 127 (8.12%) GitHub
12 124 (7.92%) Serverless
13 106 (6.77%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (4.41%) GitHub Actions
15 58 (3.71%) Amazon EMR
16 35 (2.24%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 31 (1.98%) AWS CloudFormation
17 31 (1.98%) Azure AI
18 30 (1.92%) AWS Step Functions
19 29 (1.85%) Amazon Bedrock
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.32%) Firewall
2 2 (0.13%) Broadband
2 2 (0.13%) Network Security
2 2 (0.13%) RTP
3 1 (0.064%) 4G
3 1 (0.064%) 5G
3 1 (0.064%) MIMO
3 1 (0.064%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (19.49%) Power BI
2 303 (19.36%) Data Warehouse
3 209 (13.35%) Data Lake
4 153 (9.78%) Metadata
5 105 (6.71%) Amazon Redshift
6 102 (6.52%) BigQuery
7 100 (6.39%) Big Data
7 100 (6.39%) Delta Lake
8 87 (5.56%) Tableau
9 77 (4.92%) Amazon Athena
10 72 (4.60%) SQL Server
11 65 (4.15%) Snowflake Schema
12 63 (4.03%) NoSQL
13 59 (3.77%) Relational Database
14 51 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
15 45 (2.88%) Azure SQL Database
16 38 (2.43%) Looker
17 37 (2.36%) Hadoop
18 36 (2.30%) Star Schema
19 32 (2.04%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 174 (11.12%) Git
2 83 (5.30%) GitLab
3 71 (4.54%) JIRA
4 29 (1.85%) MLflow
5 27 (1.73%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.45%) SonarQube
7 6 (0.38%) Bitbucket
7 6 (0.38%) ERwin
8 3 (0.19%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.19%) ER Studio
8 3 (0.19%) Postman
8 3 (0.19%) Selenium
8 3 (0.19%) Snyk
8 3 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
8 3 (0.19%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.13%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
10 1 (0.064%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.064%) git-flow
10 1 (0.064%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 389 (24.86%) Social Skills
2 361 (23.07%) Finance
3 253 (16.17%) Analytical Skills
4 164 (10.48%) Public Sector
5 120 (7.67%) Banking
6 45 (2.88%) Marketing
7 36 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 35 (2.24%) Retail
9 31 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
10 25 (1.60%) Telecoms
11 24 (1.53%) Front Office
12 23 (1.47%) Investment Banking
13 16 (1.02%) Manufacturing
14 15 (0.96%) Financial Institution
15 14 (0.89%) Pharmaceutical
16 13 (0.83%) Law
17 12 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
18 10 (0.64%) Legal
19 9 (0.58%) Back Office
19 9 (0.58%) Billing
Job Titles
1 730 (46.65%) Data Engineer
2 214 (13.67%) Senior
3 183 (11.69%) Lead
4 177 (11.31%) Architect
5 128 (8.18%) Senior Data Engineer
6 95 (6.07%) Developer
7 92 (5.88%) Data Architect
8 83 (5.30%) AWS Engineer
9 72 (4.60%) Analyst
10 68 (4.35%) AWS Data Engineer
11 63 (4.03%) Lead Data Engineer
11 63 (4.03%) Snowflake Engineer
12 61 (3.90%) Azure Engineer
13 52 (3.32%) Azure Data Engineer
14 48 (3.07%) Python Engineer
14 48 (3.07%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 47 (3.00%) Solutions Architect
16 44 (2.81%) Consultant
17 43 (2.75%) Data Analyst
18 42 (2.68%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 229 (14.63%) PySpark
2 131 (8.37%) Kafka
3 42 (2.68%) REST
4 35 (2.24%) Pandas
5 30 (1.92%) JSON
6 27 (1.73%) scikit-learn
7 25 (1.60%) PyTorch
7 25 (1.60%) React
8 22 (1.41%) Spring
9 21 (1.34%) NumPy
10 20 (1.28%) .NET
10 20 (1.28%) TensorFlow
11 15 (0.96%) RESTful
11 15 (0.96%) Spring Boot
12 12 (0.77%) OpenTelemetry
13 11 (0.70%) Apache Avro
13 11 (0.70%) FastAPI
13 11 (0.70%) LangChain
13 11 (0.70%) Microsoft Graph
13 11 (0.70%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 210 (13.42%) Cloud Native
2 74 (4.73%) Data Structures
3 65 (4.15%) Distributed Systems
3 65 (4.15%) Legacy Systems
4 60 (3.83%) Product Ownership
5 45 (2.88%) Onboarding
6 35 (2.24%) AI Agents
7 27 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
8 23 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
9 22 (1.41%) Algorithms
10 20 (1.28%) Distributed Computing
10 20 (1.28%) NHS
11 17 (1.09%) Clustering
11 17 (1.09%) Virtual Team
12 15 (0.96%) Analytical Mindset
12 15 (0.96%) Life Science
13 14 (0.89%) Enterprise Software
14 13 (0.83%) Management Information System
15 12 (0.77%) Fixed Income
15 12 (0.77%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 33 (2.11%) Linux
2 30 (1.92%) Unix
3 8 (0.51%) Windows
4 3 (0.19%) VMS
5 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.064%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 782 (49.97%) Analytics
2 753 (48.12%) Data Pipeline
3 605 (38.66%) Data Modelling
4 547 (34.95%) CI/CD
5 532 (33.99%) ETL
6 441 (28.18%) AI
7 398 (25.43%) Agile
8 391 (24.98%) Business Intelligence
9 377 (24.09%) DevOps
10 355 (22.68%) Data Governance
11 281 (17.96%) Machine Learning
12 265 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
13 250 (15.97%) Data Science
14 238 (15.21%) Migration
15 230 (14.70%) Decision-Making
16 224 (14.31%) Validation
17 217 (13.87%) Data Architecture
18 215 (13.74%) Stakeholder Management
19 212 (13.55%) Data Transformation
20 192 (12.27%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 848 (54.19%) SQL
2 799 (51.05%) Python
3 117 (7.48%) Java
4 43 (2.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 41 (2.62%) Bash
6 40 (2.56%) Scala
7 34 (2.17%) C#
8 32 (2.04%) PowerShell
9 26 (1.66%) T-SQL
10 22 (1.41%) JavaScript
11 21 (1.34%) R
12 18 (1.15%) Bicep
13 17 (1.09%) PL/SQL
14 14 (0.89%) Shell Script
15 12 (0.77%) SAS Macro
16 9 (0.58%) TypeScript
17 8 (0.51%) SPARQL
18 7 (0.45%) Cypher
19 5 (0.32%) Korn
19 5 (0.32%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 306 (19.55%) Security Cleared
2 262 (16.74%) SC Cleared
3 100 (6.39%) Degree
4 51 (3.26%) Computer Science Degree
5 36 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
6 32 (2.04%) Azure Certification
7 27 (1.73%) Master's Degree
8 25 (1.60%) DV Cleared
9 20 (1.28%) AWS Certification
10 13 (0.83%) DBS Check
11 11 (0.70%) SnowPro
12 9 (0.58%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 8 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (0.38%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.32%) CSPO
15 5 (0.32%) Tableau Certification
16 3 (0.19%) PhD
17 2 (0.13%) CCSP
17 2 (0.13%) Cisco Certification
17 2 (0.13%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 462 (29.52%) Data Quality
2 79 (5.05%) GDPR
3 78 (4.98%) QA
4 23 (1.47%) Accessibility
5 13 (0.83%) SLA
6 5 (0.32%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.26%) NIST
7 4 (0.26%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.19%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.19%) GxP
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 3 (0.19%) ISO/IEC 42001
8 3 (0.19%) MiFID
8 3 (0.19%) PMO
9 2 (0.13%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.13%) COPPA
9 2 (0.13%) EMIR
9 2 (0.13%) GRC
System Software
1 134 (8.56%) Docker
2 4 (0.26%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.064%) HDFS
4 1 (0.064%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 200 (12.78%) Terraform
2 116 (7.41%) Kubernetes
3 27 (1.73%) Grafana
4 20 (1.28%) Prometheus
5 18 (1.15%) Ansible
6 5 (0.32%) Kibana
7 3 (0.19%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Argo
8 2 (0.13%) Control-M
8 2 (0.13%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.13%) Rancher
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.064%) Cilium
9 1 (0.064%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.064%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.064%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.064%) Nagios
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 1 (0.064%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.064%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 409 (26.13%) Databricks
2 274 (17.51%) Microsoft
3 81 (5.18%) Informatica
4 69 (4.41%) Google
5 65 (4.15%) Oracle
6 36 (2.30%) SAP
7 31 (1.98%) Foundry
7 31 (1.98%) Talend
8 29 (1.85%) Palantir
9 25 (1.60%) Salesforce
10 21 (1.34%) OpenAI
11 20 (1.28%) Splunk
12 18 (1.15%) Cloudera
13 15 (0.96%) ServiceNow
14 12 (0.77%) Trend Micro
15 9 (0.58%) Workday
16 8 (0.51%) Denodo
16 8 (0.51%) Teradata
17 7 (0.45%) Adobe
17 7 (0.45%) InterSystems