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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 158 210
Rank change year-on-year +67 +52 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,359 510 486
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.78% 1.77% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.29% 1.95% 1.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 939 355 365
10th Percentile £390 £363 £363
25th Percentile £450 £437 £460
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £663 £650
90th Percentile £750 £833 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £533
% change year-on-year +5.26% -10.80% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 8 15
10th Percentile £51.25 £22.65 £30.72
25th Percentile £62.19 £25.37 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £34.48 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.02% -1.49% -52.05%
75th Percentile £79.44 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £57.13 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £27.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +152.51% -54.17% -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 41,363 26,184 36,825
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.68% 91.01% 85.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,810 16,717 23,641
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year - -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £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 2,496 1,118 2,535
10th Percentile £14.64 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.98 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.69 £27.85 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.27% -23.70% +1.39%
75th Percentile £67.84 £57.19 £60.75
90th Percentile £81.14 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 +67 1,220 £525 -2.78% 629
London +57 752 £550 -4.35% 348
UK excluding London +74 486 £500 +5.26% 377
Work from Home +58 406 £527 +0.38% 344
North of England +7 143 £475 -5.00% 121
Midlands +21 125 £500 +8.11% 45
West Midlands +16 103 £500 -1.09% 31
South West +26 73 £500 -11.11% 40
Yorkshire -11 66 £480 +3.78% 28
South East -23 65 £525 +10.53% 119
Scotland +29 56 £460 -3.16% 17
North West -10 51 £513 +2.50% 72
North East -6 28 £438 -12.50% 22
East of England -21 22 £575 +54.08% 14
East Midlands -18 19 £525 +13.51% 14
Wales -9 9 £450 +100.61% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £430 - 19

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
1 189 (13.91%) Apache Spark
2 150 (11.04%) Apache Airflow
3 97 (7.14%) Apache
4 38 (2.80%) SAS
5 27 (1.99%) Confluence
6 16 (1.18%) Palantir Foundry
7 15 (1.10%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.59%) Appian
9 7 (0.52%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.29%) SharePoint
11 2 (0.15%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.074%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.074%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.074%) Camunda
12 1 (0.074%) CICS
12 1 (0.074%) CMS
12 1 (0.074%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.074%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 29 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.44%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.15%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.15%) Trello
Business Applications
1 6 (0.44%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.37%) BambooHR
3 4 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.15%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.074%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.074%) Endur
6 1 (0.074%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.074%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 596 (43.86%) Azure
2 500 (36.79%) AWS
3 311 (22.88%) Power Platform
4 191 (14.05%) Snowflake
5 187 (13.76%) GCP
6 184 (13.54%) Azure Data Factory
7 150 (11.04%) Amazon S3
8 146 (10.74%) dbt
9 137 (10.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 127 (9.35%) GitHub
11 116 (8.54%) Azure DevOps
12 107 (7.87%) Serverless
13 89 (6.55%) AWS Lambda
14 75 (5.52%) GitHub Actions
15 44 (3.24%) Amazon EMR
15 44 (3.24%) AWS CloudFormation
16 30 (2.21%) AWS Step Functions
17 28 (2.06%) Azure AI
18 26 (1.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 26 (1.91%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.37%) RTP
2 4 (0.29%) Firewall
3 2 (0.15%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.074%) 4G
4 1 (0.074%) 5G
4 1 (0.074%) MIMO
4 1 (0.074%) Network Security
4 1 (0.074%) SMS
4 1 (0.074%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 287 (21.12%) Power BI
2 251 (18.47%) Data Warehouse
3 205 (15.08%) Data Lake
4 122 (8.98%) Metadata
5 108 (7.95%) Big Data
6 94 (6.92%) SQL Server
7 85 (6.25%) Delta Lake
8 78 (5.74%) Tableau
9 76 (5.59%) Amazon Redshift
9 76 (5.59%) NoSQL
10 75 (5.52%) BigQuery
11 74 (5.45%) Snowflake Schema
12 64 (4.71%) Amazon Athena
13 61 (4.49%) Azure SQL Database
14 54 (3.97%) Relational Database
15 51 (3.75%) PostgreSQL
16 50 (3.68%) Hadoop
17 38 (2.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 34 (2.50%) Spark SQL
19 30 (2.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 171 (12.58%) Git
2 71 (5.22%) GitLab
3 57 (4.19%) JIRA
4 35 (2.58%) MLflow
5 25 (1.84%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.44%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.37%) Postman
7 5 (0.37%) Selenium
8 3 (0.22%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.22%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.22%) Snyk
8 3 (0.22%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.15%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.15%) ERwin
9 2 (0.15%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.074%) Ant
10 1 (0.074%) JUnit
10 1 (0.074%) Maven
10 1 (0.074%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.074%) SoapUI
General
1 331 (24.36%) Finance
2 326 (23.99%) Social Skills
3 201 (14.79%) Analytical Skills
4 123 (9.05%) Public Sector
5 90 (6.62%) Banking
6 33 (2.43%) Marketing
7 30 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
7 30 (2.21%) Retail
8 28 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 20 (1.47%) Front Office
10 17 (1.25%) Investment Banking
11 15 (1.10%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.03%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.81%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (0.74%) Law
14 10 (0.74%) Legal
15 6 (0.44%) Back Office
15 6 (0.44%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.44%) Military
15 6 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 648 (47.68%) Data Engineer
2 187 (13.76%) Senior
3 145 (10.67%) Lead
4 142 (10.45%) Architect
5 116 (8.54%) Senior Data Engineer
6 75 (5.52%) Developer
7 74 (5.45%) Data Architect
8 64 (4.71%) AWS Engineer
9 59 (4.34%) Lead Data Engineer
10 58 (4.27%) Analyst
11 55 (4.05%) Snowflake Engineer
12 51 (3.75%) AWS Data Engineer
13 48 (3.53%) Azure Engineer
14 47 (3.46%) Data Scientist
15 44 (3.24%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 44 (3.24%) Solutions Architect
16 42 (3.09%) Azure Data Engineer
17 41 (3.02%) Consultant
18 37 (2.72%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
19 34 (2.50%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (14.94%) PySpark
2 141 (10.38%) Kafka
3 56 (4.12%) Pandas
4 40 (2.94%) PyTorch
5 39 (2.87%) scikit-learn
6 37 (2.72%) REST
7 34 (2.50%) NumPy
8 32 (2.35%) TensorFlow
9 28 (2.06%) JSON
10 24 (1.77%) Spring
11 23 (1.69%) React
12 18 (1.32%) RESTful
13 17 (1.25%) Spring Boot
13 17 (1.25%) YAML
14 16 (1.18%) FastAPI
14 16 (1.18%) LangChain
14 16 (1.18%) pytest
15 15 (1.10%) Great Expectations
16 13 (0.96%) Django
16 13 (0.96%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 185 (13.61%) Cloud Native
2 49 (3.61%) Data Structures
2 49 (3.61%) Distributed Systems
3 47 (3.46%) Product Ownership
4 44 (3.24%) Legacy Systems
5 30 (2.21%) Onboarding
6 29 (2.13%) AI Agents
7 27 (1.99%) Distributed Computing
8 24 (1.77%) Algorithms
9 23 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
10 20 (1.47%) Analytical Mindset
10 20 (1.47%) Greenfield Project
11 13 (0.96%) Fixed Income
11 13 (0.96%) NHS
12 12 (0.88%) Clustering
12 12 (0.88%) Reference Data
12 12 (0.88%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (0.74%) Equities
13 10 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
13 10 (0.74%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.06%) Linux
2 25 (1.84%) Unix
3 5 (0.37%) VMS
4 3 (0.22%) Windows
5 2 (0.15%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.074%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 702 (51.66%) Analytics
2 642 (47.24%) Data Pipeline
3 526 (38.70%) Data Modelling
4 492 (36.20%) ETL
5 480 (35.32%) CI/CD
6 403 (29.65%) AI
7 349 (25.68%) Business Intelligence
8 344 (25.31%) Agile
9 341 (25.09%) DevOps
10 306 (22.52%) Data Governance
11 264 (19.43%) Machine Learning
12 233 (17.14%) Problem-Solving
13 230 (16.92%) Data Science
14 188 (13.83%) Data Architecture
15 182 (13.39%) Migration
16 178 (13.10%) Decision-Making
17 174 (12.80%) Validation
18 146 (10.74%) Infrastructure as Code
19 142 (10.45%) Use Case
20 141 (10.38%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 754 (55.48%) SQL
2 712 (52.39%) Python
3 109 (8.02%) Java
4 48 (3.53%) Scala
5 45 (3.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 36 (2.65%) C#
7 34 (2.50%) Bash
8 25 (1.84%) T-SQL
9 20 (1.47%) PowerShell
10 18 (1.32%) JavaScript
10 18 (1.32%) R
11 16 (1.18%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.10%) Bicep
13 12 (0.88%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.74%) TypeScript
15 7 (0.52%) SAS Macro
16 5 (0.37%) Go
16 5 (0.37%) Korn
17 3 (0.22%) Kusto Query Language
18 2 (0.15%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 259 (19.06%) Security Cleared
2 229 (16.85%) SC Cleared
3 101 (7.43%) Degree
4 41 (3.02%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (2.58%) Master's Degree
6 32 (2.35%) Azure Certification
7 25 (1.84%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (1.18%) AWS Certification
9 15 (1.10%) DBS Check
10 10 (0.74%) DV Cleared
11 7 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.52%) SnowPro
12 5 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.29%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 4 (0.29%) PhD
14 3 (0.22%) IBM Certification
14 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.15%) CSPO
15 2 (0.15%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.15%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 377 (27.74%) Data Quality
2 84 (6.18%) GDPR
3 67 (4.93%) QA
4 14 (1.03%) SLA
5 11 (0.81%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (0.52%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.29%) MiFID
8 4 (0.29%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.22%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.22%) GRC
9 3 (0.22%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.22%) PMO
10 2 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.15%) EMIR
10 2 (0.15%) GxP
10 2 (0.15%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.15%) NIST
10 2 (0.15%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 125 (9.20%) Docker
2 4 (0.29%) HDFS
2 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.074%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.074%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 164 (12.07%) Terraform
2 105 (7.73%) Kubernetes
3 26 (1.91%) Prometheus
4 24 (1.77%) Grafana
5 9 (0.66%) Ansible
6 5 (0.37%) Argo
7 3 (0.22%) Kibana
7 3 (0.22%) Nagios
7 3 (0.22%) Rancher
8 2 (0.15%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.15%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.15%) logstash
8 2 (0.15%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.074%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.074%) Control-M
9 1 (0.074%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.074%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.074%) Oozie
Vendors
1 364 (26.78%) Databricks
2 224 (16.48%) Microsoft
3 72 (5.30%) Informatica
4 57 (4.19%) Google
5 56 (4.12%) Oracle
6 31 (2.28%) Talend
7 26 (1.91%) OpenAI
8 25 (1.84%) SAP
9 24 (1.77%) Foundry
10 19 (1.40%) Splunk
11 18 (1.32%) Palantir
12 16 (1.18%) Cloudera
13 13 (0.96%) ServiceNow
14 11 (0.81%) Salesforce
15 9 (0.66%) UiPath
16 8 (0.59%) Automation Anywhere
16 8 (0.59%) Denodo
17 7 (0.52%) IBM
17 7 (0.52%) InterSystems
18 5 (0.37%) Teradata