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 5 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 159 218
Rank change year-on-year +56 +59 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 991 539 476
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.53% 1.73% 1.07%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.90% 1.94% 1.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 669 374 357
10th Percentile £363 £375 £375
25th Percentile £428 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £638
90th Percentile £749 £821 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -4.00% -9.09% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 14 9
10th Percentile £50.00 £21.48 £35.00
25th Percentile £53.13 £22.18 £35.63
Median hourly rate £64.00 £25.97 £42.31
Median % change year-on-year +146.49% -38.62% -39.35%
75th Percentile £69.22 £28.60 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.26 £54.50 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £25.97 £78.00
% change year-on-year +146.49% -66.71% +286.33%

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 34,128 27,815 38,732
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.17% 89.32% 87.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,612 16,932 25,487
10th Percentile £306 £306 £300
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £498 £500
% change year-on-year -3.52% -0.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,064 868 2,102
10th Percentile £14.51 £15.62 £13.29
25th Percentile £17.69 £21.00 £16.26
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -7.14% +9.38%
75th Percentile £58.75 £62.50 £61.13
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.04 £31.50 £35.25
% change year-on-year -20.52% -10.64% +18.61%

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 5 February 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 5 February 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 5 February 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 +58 876 £525 -7.89% 477
London +53 600 £550 -4.35% 265
UK excluding London +18 290 £480 -4.00% 322
Work from Home +23 282 £550 -1.79% 285
North of England -19 85 £450 -18.18% 80
Midlands +3 78 £515 +3.00% 44
West Midlands +2 59 £528 +6.57% 29
North West +2 52 £450 -10.00% 49
Scotland +30 46 £404 -14.69% 27
South West -3 42 £550 -17.60% 27
South East -18 33 £513 -2.38% 125
East Midlands -6 19 £447 -20.53% 15
Yorkshire -51 17 £500 -14.89% 24
North East -2 16 £450 -23.08% 8
East of England -19 13 £550 +71.88% 18
Wales -7 6 £563 +12.50% 3
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 2

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
1 148 (14.93%) Apache Spark
2 122 (12.31%) Apache Airflow
3 78 (7.87%) Apache
4 17 (1.72%) Palantir Foundry
5 14 (1.41%) Confluence
6 7 (0.71%) Appian
7 5 (0.50%) SAS
8 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.20%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.20%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.10%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Pig
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.10%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.10%) Camunda
10 1 (0.10%) CMS
10 1 (0.10%) Luigi
Applications
1 20 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.61%) Chatbot
3 6 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.40%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.30%) Trello
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (0.50%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.20%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.20%) Markit EDM
3 2 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.10%) Actimize
4 1 (0.10%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.10%) Maximo
4 1 (0.10%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.10%) SAP BPC
4 1 (0.10%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.10%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.10%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 470 (47.43%) Azure
2 348 (35.12%) AWS
3 199 (20.08%) Power Platform
4 180 (18.16%) Azure Data Factory
5 146 (14.73%) GCP
6 135 (13.62%) Snowflake
7 118 (11.91%) Amazon S3
8 108 (10.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 101 (10.19%) Serverless
10 98 (9.89%) GitHub
11 91 (9.18%) dbt
12 81 (8.17%) Azure DevOps
13 77 (7.77%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (6.96%) GitHub Actions
15 48 (4.84%) AWS CloudFormation
16 29 (2.93%) AWS Step Functions
17 24 (2.42%) Amazon EMR
17 24 (2.42%) Amazon SageMaker
18 23 (2.32%) Cloud Computing
19 22 (2.22%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.50%) Network Security
2 4 (0.40%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.40%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.30%) Firewall
3 3 (0.30%) RTP
3 3 (0.30%) VPN
4 1 (0.10%) MQTT
4 1 (0.10%) SAN
4 1 (0.10%) SMS
4 1 (0.10%) SSL
4 1 (0.10%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 198 (19.98%) Data Warehouse
2 188 (18.97%) Power BI
3 141 (14.23%) Data Lake
4 89 (8.98%) Metadata
5 67 (6.76%) SQL Server
6 66 (6.66%) Big Data
7 63 (6.36%) NoSQL
8 53 (5.35%) Relational Database
9 52 (5.25%) Azure SQL Database
10 51 (5.15%) Amazon Redshift
10 51 (5.15%) Delta Lake
11 50 (5.05%) Snowflake Schema
12 49 (4.94%) BigQuery
13 46 (4.64%) PostgreSQL
14 43 (4.34%) Amazon Athena
15 38 (3.83%) Hadoop
16 36 (3.63%) Tableau
17 24 (2.42%) Elasticsearch
17 24 (2.42%) RDBMS
17 24 (2.42%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 142 (14.33%) Git
2 53 (5.35%) GitLab
3 42 (4.24%) Jenkins
4 39 (3.94%) MLflow
5 29 (2.93%) JIRA
6 7 (0.71%) Visual Studio Code
7 4 (0.40%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.40%) Selenium
7 4 (0.40%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.30%) ERwin
8 3 (0.30%) JMeter
8 3 (0.30%) JUnit
8 3 (0.30%) Maven
8 3 (0.30%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.20%) Gemini Tracker
9 2 (0.20%) Poetry
9 2 (0.20%) Pylint
9 2 (0.20%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.20%) TestRail
9 2 (0.20%) Zephyr
General
1 279 (28.15%) Social Skills
2 223 (22.50%) Finance
3 133 (13.42%) Analytical Skills
4 79 (7.97%) Public Sector
5 64 (6.46%) Banking
6 23 (2.32%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 19 (1.92%) Investment Banking
8 17 (1.72%) Front Office
9 16 (1.61%) Influencing Skills
10 14 (1.41%) Marketing
10 14 (1.41%) Retail
11 13 (1.31%) Documentation Skills
12 12 (1.21%) Pharmaceutical
13 10 (1.01%) Legal
14 9 (0.91%) Publishing
15 8 (0.81%) Military
16 7 (0.71%) Financial Institution
16 7 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
17 6 (0.61%) Back Office
18 5 (0.50%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 434 (43.79%) Data Engineer
2 129 (13.02%) Senior
3 113 (11.40%) Lead
4 85 (8.58%) Senior Data Engineer
5 78 (7.87%) Azure Engineer
6 76 (7.67%) Architect
7 65 (6.56%) Developer
8 59 (5.95%) Azure Data Engineer
9 49 (4.94%) Analyst
10 43 (4.34%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 43 (4.34%) Data Architect
11 42 (4.24%) AWS Engineer
11 42 (4.24%) Snowflake Engineer
12 38 (3.83%) Data Scientist
13 35 (3.53%) Python Engineer
14 34 (3.43%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 32 (3.23%) Lead Data Engineer
16 27 (2.72%) AWS Data Engineer
16 27 (2.72%) Data Analyst
17 26 (2.62%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 177 (17.86%) PySpark
2 109 (11.00%) Kafka
3 61 (6.16%) Pandas
4 57 (5.75%) PyTorch
5 49 (4.94%) TensorFlow
6 46 (4.64%) NumPy
7 39 (3.94%) FastAPI
8 37 (3.73%) scikit-learn
9 33 (3.33%) Flask
10 28 (2.83%) RESTful
11 26 (2.62%) React
12 25 (2.52%) pytest
13 24 (2.42%) LangChain
14 22 (2.22%) REST
15 21 (2.12%) YAML
16 20 (2.02%) JSON
17 18 (1.82%) Hugging Face
18 15 (1.51%) Django
18 15 (1.51%) OAuth
18 15 (1.51%) Spark Streaming
Miscellaneous
1 109 (11.00%) Cloud Native
2 42 (4.24%) Algorithms
3 31 (3.13%) Product Ownership
4 30 (3.03%) Distributed Computing
5 25 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
6 24 (2.42%) Onboarding
7 20 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
8 19 (1.92%) Data Structures
8 19 (1.92%) Legacy Systems
9 18 (1.82%) AI Agents
10 17 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
11 16 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
12 13 (1.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 12 (1.21%) Clustering
13 12 (1.21%) Management Information System
14 11 (1.11%) Data Fabric
14 11 (1.11%) Enterprise Software
14 11 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
14 11 (1.11%) Hedge funds
15 10 (1.01%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.83%) Linux
2 5 (0.50%) Unix
2 5 (0.50%) VMS
3 2 (0.20%) Ubuntu
4 1 (0.10%) CentOS
4 1 (0.10%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 440 (44.40%) Data Pipeline
2 420 (42.38%) Analytics
3 384 (38.75%) ETL
4 366 (36.93%) Data Modelling
5 362 (36.53%) CI/CD
6 270 (27.25%) AI
7 252 (25.43%) Data Governance
8 235 (23.71%) Agile
8 235 (23.71%) DevOps
9 227 (22.91%) Machine Learning
10 220 (22.20%) Business Intelligence
11 207 (20.89%) Data Science
12 200 (20.18%) Problem-Solving
13 170 (17.15%) Data Architecture
14 127 (12.82%) Infrastructure as Code
15 104 (10.49%) Data Integration
16 100 (10.09%) Containerisation
17 99 (9.99%) Data Transformation
17 99 (9.99%) Decision-Making
18 97 (9.79%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 601 (60.65%) Python
2 501 (50.55%) SQL
3 67 (6.76%) Java
4 63 (6.36%) Scala
5 38 (3.83%) C#
6 35 (3.53%) JavaScript
7 28 (2.83%) PowerShell
8 23 (2.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 20 (2.02%) Bash
10 19 (1.92%) Bicep
10 19 (1.92%) TypeScript
11 18 (1.82%) R
12 17 (1.72%) C++
12 17 (1.72%) T-SQL
13 15 (1.51%) Go
13 15 (1.51%) PL/SQL
14 12 (1.21%) Shell Script
15 10 (1.01%) Rust
16 8 (0.81%) Korn
17 2 (0.20%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 201 (20.28%) Security Cleared
2 166 (16.75%) SC Cleared
3 89 (8.98%) Degree
4 53 (5.35%) Azure Certification
5 42 (4.24%) Master's Degree
6 35 (3.53%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (2.12%) DV Cleared
8 17 (1.72%) AWS Certification
9 14 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.31%) PhD
11 10 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
12 4 (0.40%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.30%) IBM Certification
13 3 (0.30%) ISTQB
13 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.30%) Tableau Certification
14 2 (0.20%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.20%) CBAP
14 2 (0.20%) SnowPro
15 1 (0.10%) APMG
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 276 (27.85%) Data Quality
2 87 (8.78%) GDPR
3 29 (2.93%) QA
4 17 (1.72%) Accessibility
5 11 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 10 (1.01%) HIPAA
7 6 (0.61%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 5 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.50%) PERC
8 5 (0.50%) SOC 2
9 4 (0.40%) WCAG
10 3 (0.30%) GRC
11 2 (0.20%) Disclosure Scotland
11 2 (0.20%) HL7
11 2 (0.20%) MiFID
11 2 (0.20%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.20%) PMO
12 1 (0.10%) FATCA
12 1 (0.10%) SLA
12 1 (0.10%) Solvency II
System Software
1 147 (14.83%) Docker
2 15 (1.51%) HDFS
3 2 (0.20%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.10%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.10%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.10%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 157 (15.84%) Terraform
2 127 (12.82%) Kubernetes
3 16 (1.61%) Grafana
4 14 (1.41%) Prometheus
5 12 (1.21%) Ansible
6 10 (1.01%) Hadoop YARN
7 5 (0.50%) Argo
7 5 (0.50%) Puppet
8 3 (0.30%) Control-M
8 3 (0.30%) Kibana
8 3 (0.30%) logstash
9 2 (0.20%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.20%) Nagios
9 2 (0.20%) Oozie
9 2 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.10%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.10%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.10%) Kustomize
10 1 (0.10%) Rancher
10 1 (0.10%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 296 (29.87%) Databricks
2 134 (13.52%) Microsoft
3 49 (4.94%) Google
4 33 (3.33%) Oracle
5 29 (2.93%) Informatica
6 21 (2.12%) Talend
7 20 (2.02%) Foundry
7 20 (2.02%) Palantir
8 18 (1.82%) OpenAI
9 12 (1.21%) Salesforce
9 12 (1.21%) SAP
10 8 (0.81%) Cloudera
10 8 (0.81%) IBM
10 8 (0.81%) Virgin Media
11 7 (0.71%) Automation Anywhere
11 7 (0.71%) Denodo
11 7 (0.71%) UiPath
12 6 (0.61%) Guidewire
12 6 (0.61%) MicroStrategy
13 5 (0.50%) ServiceNow