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 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 160 207
Rank change year-on-year +68 +47 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,297 522 502
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.82% 1.78% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.32% 1.96% 1.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 897 365 376
10th Percentile £393 £375 £388
25th Percentile £450 £449 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £615 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £838 £741
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £550
% change year-on-year +5.26% -13.64% +2.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 14 13
10th Percentile £51.25 £21.48 £30.55
25th Percentile £58.56 £22.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.97 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +169.59% -25.81% -35.48%
75th Percentile £77.25 £29.69 £50.25
90th Percentile £89.75 £61.63 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £25.43 £60.00
% change year-on-year +173.06% -57.62% +71.43%

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 39,116 26,622 37,889
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.01% 90.70% 86.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,735 17,238 24,535
10th Percentile £316 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £524 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.51% -0.26% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £485 £500
% change year-on-year +0.41% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,315 1,028 2,411
10th Percentile £14.98 £14.96 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.85 £18.51 £15.85
Median hourly rate £37.50 £30.43 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +23.25% -7.98% -8.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £62.50 £57.50
90th Percentile £78.25 £75.00 £71.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £28.75 £33.07
% change year-on-year +39.13% -13.05% -7.64%

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 17 April 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 17 April 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 17 April 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 +66 1,168 £525 -4.55% 468
London +54 735 £550 -8.33% 230
UK excluding London +60 439 £500 +5.26% 307
Work from Home +44 371 £550 -8.33% 208
Midlands +21 125 £511 +2.25% 43
North of England +4 124 £475 -5.00% 92
West Midlands +23 99 £514 -4.86% 29
South West +15 70 £525 -14.29% 43
Yorkshire -13 55 £480 -14.67% 35
South East -28 54 £550 +10.00% 79
North West -11 51 £480 +1.05% 47
Scotland +24 50 £440 -7.37% 16
East of England -15 24 £575 +54.08% 27
East Midlands -15 23 £449 -5.58% 14
North East 0 20 £475 - 13
Wales -13 5 £665 +181.78% 5
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 5

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
1 194 (14.96%) Apache Spark
2 130 (10.02%) Apache Airflow
3 87 (6.71%) Apache
4 32 (2.47%) SAS
5 19 (1.46%) Palantir Foundry
6 17 (1.31%) Confluence
7 8 (0.62%) Appian
8 7 (0.54%) Apache Superset
9 5 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.15%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.15%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.077%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.077%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.077%) Camunda
12 1 (0.077%) CICS
12 1 (0.077%) CMS
12 1 (0.077%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 29 (2.24%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.31%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.23%) Trello
8 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.39%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.31%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.23%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.077%) Actimize
5 1 (0.077%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.077%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.077%) Maximo
5 1 (0.077%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.077%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.077%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 588 (45.34%) Azure
2 470 (36.24%) AWS
3 288 (22.21%) Power Platform
4 199 (15.34%) Azure Data Factory
5 175 (13.49%) GCP
6 162 (12.49%) Snowflake
7 157 (12.10%) Amazon S3
8 146 (11.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 132 (10.18%) GitHub
10 121 (9.33%) Serverless
11 114 (8.79%) dbt
12 100 (7.71%) Azure DevOps
13 98 (7.56%) AWS Lambda
14 79 (6.09%) GitHub Actions
15 64 (4.93%) AWS CloudFormation
16 40 (3.08%) AWS Step Functions
17 36 (2.78%) Amazon EMR
18 31 (2.39%) Collibra
19 29 (2.24%) Amazon SageMaker
20 28 (2.16%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.39%) RTP
2 4 (0.31%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.31%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.23%) Network Security
3 3 (0.23%) VPN
4 1 (0.077%) 4G
4 1 (0.077%) 5G
4 1 (0.077%) Firewall
4 1 (0.077%) MIMO
4 1 (0.077%) MQTT
4 1 (0.077%) SAN
4 1 (0.077%) SMS
4 1 (0.077%) SSL
4 1 (0.077%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 263 (20.28%) Power BI
2 259 (19.97%) Data Warehouse
3 192 (14.80%) Data Lake
4 127 (9.79%) Metadata
5 91 (7.02%) SQL Server
6 90 (6.94%) Big Data
7 84 (6.48%) Delta Lake
8 83 (6.40%) NoSQL
9 73 (5.63%) Amazon Redshift
10 71 (5.47%) Tableau
11 70 (5.40%) Amazon Athena
12 67 (5.17%) Snowflake Schema
13 66 (5.09%) Azure SQL Database
14 65 (5.01%) BigQuery
15 58 (4.47%) Relational Database
16 55 (4.24%) PostgreSQL
17 49 (3.78%) Hadoop
18 37 (2.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
19 35 (2.70%) Spark SQL
20 25 (1.93%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 174 (13.42%) Git
2 62 (4.78%) GitLab
3 46 (3.55%) MLflow
4 43 (3.32%) JIRA
5 38 (2.93%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.54%) Selenium
6 7 (0.54%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.23%) JUnit
7 3 (0.23%) Maven
7 3 (0.23%) Postman
7 3 (0.23%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.23%) Snyk
7 3 (0.23%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.15%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.15%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.15%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.15%) Mockito
8 2 (0.15%) Visual Studio
9 1 (0.077%) Octopus Deploy
9 1 (0.077%) SoapUI
General
1 319 (24.60%) Finance
1 319 (24.60%) Social Skills
2 194 (14.96%) Analytical Skills
3 113 (8.71%) Public Sector
4 74 (5.71%) Banking
5 27 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 24 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (1.70%) Retail
8 19 (1.46%) Marketing
9 17 (1.31%) Front Office
10 15 (1.16%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.16%) Telecoms
11 13 (1.00%) Investment Banking
11 13 (1.00%) Legal
12 12 (0.93%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
14 7 (0.54%) Law
15 6 (0.46%) Back Office
15 6 (0.46%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.46%) Military
Job Titles
1 595 (45.88%) Data Engineer
2 174 (13.42%) Senior
3 147 (11.33%) Lead
4 128 (9.87%) Architect
5 109 (8.40%) Senior Data Engineer
6 81 (6.25%) Developer
7 69 (5.32%) Azure Engineer
8 66 (5.09%) Data Architect
9 64 (4.93%) AWS Engineer
10 60 (4.63%) Analyst
11 57 (4.39%) Azure Data Engineer
12 56 (4.32%) Lead Data Engineer
13 44 (3.39%) Data Scientist
13 44 (3.39%) Snowflake Engineer
14 43 (3.32%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
14 43 (3.32%) AWS Data Engineer
15 41 (3.16%) Consultant
16 37 (2.85%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 35 (2.70%) Data Analyst
17 35 (2.70%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 220 (16.96%) PySpark
2 155 (11.95%) Kafka
3 61 (4.70%) Pandas
4 51 (3.93%) PyTorch
5 43 (3.32%) scikit-learn
6 42 (3.24%) TensorFlow
7 39 (3.01%) NumPy
8 30 (2.31%) JSON
9 29 (2.24%) REST
10 25 (1.93%) YAML
11 23 (1.77%) React
11 23 (1.77%) Spring
12 22 (1.70%) pytest
13 21 (1.62%) LangChain
13 21 (1.62%) RESTful
14 20 (1.54%) FastAPI
15 19 (1.46%) Great Expectations
16 17 (1.31%) Flask
17 16 (1.23%) OAuth
17 16 (1.23%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 172 (13.26%) Cloud Native
2 45 (3.47%) Distributed Systems
3 44 (3.39%) Product Ownership
4 39 (3.01%) Algorithms
5 37 (2.85%) Legacy Systems
6 34 (2.62%) Data Structures
7 29 (2.24%) Distributed Computing
8 28 (2.16%) Onboarding
9 25 (1.93%) AI Agents
10 23 (1.77%) Greenfield Project
11 20 (1.54%) Hybrid Cloud
12 19 (1.46%) Analytical Mindset
12 19 (1.46%) Data Protection Act
13 16 (1.23%) NHS
14 15 (1.16%) Clustering
15 13 (1.00%) Fixed Income
15 13 (1.00%) Management Information System
16 11 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
16 11 (0.85%) Virtual Team
17 10 (0.77%) Data Fabric
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.16%) Linux
2 16 (1.23%) Unix
3 8 (0.62%) VMS
4 3 (0.23%) Windows
5 2 (0.15%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.077%) CentOS
6 1 (0.077%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 655 (50.50%) Analytics
2 593 (45.72%) Data Pipeline
3 507 (39.09%) ETL
4 503 (38.78%) Data Modelling
5 458 (35.31%) CI/CD
6 355 (27.37%) AI
7 331 (25.52%) Agile
8 329 (25.37%) Business Intelligence
9 328 (25.29%) Data Governance
10 321 (24.75%) DevOps
11 265 (20.43%) Machine Learning
12 257 (19.81%) Problem-Solving
13 247 (19.04%) Data Science
14 205 (15.81%) Data Architecture
15 165 (12.72%) Decision-Making
16 158 (12.18%) Infrastructure as Code
17 157 (12.10%) Migration
18 147 (11.33%) Validation
19 137 (10.56%) Data Transformation
20 129 (9.95%) Data Ingestion
Programming Languages
1 712 (54.90%) Python
2 699 (53.89%) SQL
3 108 (8.33%) Java
4 69 (5.32%) Scala
5 44 (3.39%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 41 (3.16%) C#
7 34 (2.62%) Bash
8 30 (2.31%) PowerShell
9 25 (1.93%) T-SQL
10 23 (1.77%) JavaScript
11 22 (1.70%) R
12 18 (1.39%) Bicep
13 13 (1.00%) Go
14 11 (0.85%) PL/SQL
14 11 (0.85%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.85%) TypeScript
15 5 (0.39%) Korn
15 5 (0.39%) SAS Macro
16 4 (0.31%) C++
17 2 (0.15%) Rust
Qualifications
1 265 (20.43%) Security Cleared
2 228 (17.58%) SC Cleared
3 106 (8.17%) Degree
4 46 (3.55%) Azure Certification
5 45 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
6 41 (3.16%) Master's Degree
7 20 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (1.31%) DV Cleared
9 16 (1.23%) AWS Certification
10 11 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (0.62%) PhD
12 6 (0.46%) SnowPro
13 5 (0.39%) DBS Check
14 4 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 3 (0.23%) IBM Certification
16 2 (0.15%) Tableau Certification
17 1 (0.077%) (ISC)2 CCSP
17 1 (0.077%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
17 1 (0.077%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 366 (28.22%) Data Quality
2 95 (7.32%) GDPR
3 43 (3.32%) QA
4 13 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (0.77%) Accessibility
6 9 (0.69%) SLA
7 5 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.39%) PERC
8 4 (0.31%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.31%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.23%) GRC
9 3 (0.23%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.23%) WCAG
10 2 (0.15%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.15%) HL7
10 2 (0.15%) MiFID
10 2 (0.15%) NIST
10 2 (0.15%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.15%) PMO
System Software
1 139 (10.72%) Docker
2 6 (0.46%) HDFS
3 3 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.077%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.077%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.077%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 181 (13.96%) Terraform
2 130 (10.02%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.24%) Prometheus
4 21 (1.62%) Grafana
5 9 (0.69%) Ansible
6 5 (0.39%) Argo
7 4 (0.31%) Kibana
7 4 (0.31%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.23%) Nagios
8 3 (0.23%) Rancher
9 2 (0.15%) Hadoop YARN
9 2 (0.15%) logstash
9 2 (0.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.077%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.077%) Control-M
10 1 (0.077%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.077%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.077%) Oozie
Vendors
1 383 (29.53%) Databricks
2 207 (15.96%) Microsoft
3 64 (4.93%) Google
4 58 (4.47%) Informatica
5 45 (3.47%) Oracle
6 36 (2.78%) Talend
7 26 (2.00%) Foundry
8 22 (1.70%) OpenAI
9 21 (1.62%) Palantir
10 19 (1.46%) SAP
10 19 (1.46%) Splunk
11 15 (1.16%) Cloudera
12 14 (1.08%) ServiceNow
13 11 (0.85%) Denodo
13 11 (0.85%) Salesforce
14 10 (0.77%) IBM
15 9 (0.69%) UiPath
16 8 (0.62%) Automation Anywhere
17 6 (0.46%) MicroStrategy
18 5 (0.39%) Workday