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 29 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 162 211
Rank change year-on-year +72 +49 0
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,355 502 489
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.77% 1.75% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.27% 1.92% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 934 347 366
10th Percentile £400 £375 £363
25th Percentile £450 £450 £461
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £650
90th Percentile £749 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +5.26% -9.52% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 10 15
10th Percentile £51.25 £22.45 £30.72
25th Percentile £56.75 £22.72 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £28.75 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +143.48% -17.86% -52.05%
75th Percentile £78.00 £50.05 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £54.88 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £26.47 £60.00
% change year-on-year +161.55% -55.89% +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 41,377 26,173 36,711
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.59% 91.02% 85.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,864 16,755 23,656
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -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 2,474 1,096 2,500
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.87 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £42.30 £27.59 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.34% -24.42% +1.04%
75th Percentile £67.65 £57.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £80.76 £74.38 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -33.82% +8.57%

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 29 May 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 29 May 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 29 May 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 +69 1,219 £530 -3.64% 273
London +60 755 £550 -4.35% 136
UK excluding London +70 483 £500 +5.26% 218
Work from Home +58 403 £535 +1.90% 134
North of England +15 138 £478 -4.50% 69
Midlands +23 125 £500 +8.11% 17
West Midlands +22 103 £500 -1.09% 14
South West +24 74 £500 -16.67% 19
South East -12 66 £550 +15.79% 94
Yorkshire -4 64 £480 -12.73% 16
Scotland +28 57 £460 -3.16% 6
North West -9 51 £506 +1.25% 36
North East -5 25 £450 -5.26% 18
East of England -19 22 £575 +54.08% 6
East Midlands -17 19 £525 +13.51% 3
Wales -9 9 £450 +100.61% 8
Northern Ireland - 3 £430 -

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
1 188 (13.87%) Apache Spark
2 145 (10.70%) Apache Airflow
3 96 (7.08%) Apache
4 37 (2.73%) SAS
5 24 (1.77%) Confluence
6 16 (1.18%) Palantir Foundry
7 12 (0.89%) Jupyter
8 8 (0.59%) Appian
9 7 (0.52%) Apache Superset
10 4 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
10 4 (0.30%) 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 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.52%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
3 7 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.22%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.22%) Trello
5 2 (0.15%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 6 (0.44%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.37%) BambooHR
3 4 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.15%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.15%) SAP BPC
5 2 (0.15%) SAP S/4HANA
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
1 599 (44.21%) Azure
2 493 (36.38%) AWS
3 312 (23.03%) Power Platform
4 192 (14.17%) Snowflake
5 188 (13.87%) GCP
6 187 (13.80%) Azure Data Factory
7 147 (10.85%) Amazon S3
8 141 (10.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 141 (10.41%) dbt
9 128 (9.45%) GitHub
10 118 (8.71%) Azure DevOps
11 105 (7.75%) Serverless
12 84 (6.20%) AWS Lambda
13 76 (5.61%) GitHub Actions
14 46 (3.39%) AWS CloudFormation
15 38 (2.80%) Amazon EMR
16 30 (2.21%) AWS Step Functions
17 27 (1.99%) Collibra
18 26 (1.92%) Azure AI
18 26 (1.92%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.37%) RTP
2 4 (0.30%) 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%) SAN
4 1 (0.074%) SMS
4 1 (0.074%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.074%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 289 (21.33%) Power BI
2 252 (18.60%) Data Warehouse
3 209 (15.42%) Data Lake
4 121 (8.93%) Metadata
5 107 (7.90%) Big Data
6 95 (7.01%) SQL Server
7 85 (6.27%) Delta Lake
8 79 (5.83%) Tableau
9 78 (5.76%) BigQuery
10 75 (5.54%) NoSQL
10 75 (5.54%) Snowflake Schema
11 71 (5.24%) Amazon Redshift
12 63 (4.65%) Azure SQL Database
13 60 (4.43%) Amazon Athena
14 55 (4.06%) Relational Database
15 53 (3.91%) PostgreSQL
16 50 (3.69%) Hadoop
17 38 (2.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 35 (2.58%) Spark SQL
19 29 (2.14%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 168 (12.40%) Git
2 66 (4.87%) GitLab
3 55 (4.06%) JIRA
4 36 (2.66%) MLflow
5 26 (1.92%) 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%) git-flow
10 1 (0.074%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.074%) REST Assured
10 1 (0.074%) SoapUI
10 1 (0.074%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 333 (24.58%) Finance
2 317 (23.39%) Social Skills
3 200 (14.76%) Analytical Skills
4 115 (8.49%) Public Sector
5 88 (6.49%) Banking
6 33 (2.44%) Marketing
7 28 (2.07%) Retail
8 27 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 20 (1.48%) Front Office
10 17 (1.25%) Investment Banking
11 15 (1.11%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.03%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.81%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (0.74%) Legal
15 8 (0.59%) Law
16 6 (0.44%) Back Office
16 6 (0.44%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.44%) Military
16 6 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 648 (47.82%) Data Engineer
2 182 (13.43%) Senior
3 143 (10.55%) Lead
4 139 (10.26%) Architect
5 114 (8.41%) Senior Data Engineer
6 75 (5.54%) Developer
7 72 (5.31%) Data Architect
8 64 (4.72%) AWS Engineer
9 60 (4.43%) Analyst
10 59 (4.35%) Lead Data Engineer
11 53 (3.91%) Snowflake Engineer
12 51 (3.76%) AWS Data Engineer
13 49 (3.62%) Azure Engineer
14 46 (3.39%) Data Scientist
15 44 (3.25%) Solutions Architect
16 43 (3.17%) Azure Data Engineer
16 43 (3.17%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 41 (3.03%) Consultant
18 36 (2.66%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
19 34 (2.51%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 201 (14.83%) PySpark
2 143 (10.55%) Kafka
3 58 (4.28%) Pandas
4 40 (2.95%) PyTorch
4 40 (2.95%) scikit-learn
5 37 (2.73%) REST
6 35 (2.58%) NumPy
7 32 (2.36%) TensorFlow
8 28 (2.07%) JSON
9 24 (1.77%) Spring
10 23 (1.70%) React
11 18 (1.33%) RESTful
12 17 (1.25%) Great Expectations
12 17 (1.25%) LangChain
12 17 (1.25%) Spring Boot
12 17 (1.25%) YAML
13 16 (1.18%) FastAPI
14 15 (1.11%) pytest
15 13 (0.96%) Flask
15 13 (0.96%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 181 (13.36%) Cloud Native
2 51 (3.76%) Distributed Systems
3 48 (3.54%) Product Ownership
4 46 (3.39%) Data Structures
5 45 (3.32%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (2.21%) AI Agents
7 29 (2.14%) Onboarding
8 27 (1.99%) Distributed Computing
9 24 (1.77%) Algorithms
10 22 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
11 20 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
11 20 (1.48%) Greenfield Project
12 13 (0.96%) Fixed Income
12 13 (0.96%) NHS
13 12 (0.89%) Clustering
13 12 (0.89%) Reference Data
13 12 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
14 10 (0.74%) Data Fabric
14 10 (0.74%) Equities
14 10 (0.74%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.14%) Linux
2 25 (1.85%) Unix
3 5 (0.37%) VMS
4 3 (0.22%) Ubuntu
4 3 (0.22%) Windows
5 2 (0.15%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.074%) CentOS
6 1 (0.074%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 697 (51.44%) Analytics
2 630 (46.49%) Data Pipeline
3 528 (38.97%) Data Modelling
4 501 (36.97%) ETL
5 471 (34.76%) CI/CD
6 404 (29.82%) AI
7 350 (25.83%) Business Intelligence
8 339 (25.02%) Agile
9 337 (24.87%) DevOps
10 307 (22.66%) Data Governance
11 266 (19.63%) Machine Learning
12 236 (17.42%) Problem-Solving
13 231 (17.05%) Data Science
14 188 (13.87%) Data Architecture
15 180 (13.28%) Migration
16 176 (12.99%) Decision-Making
17 167 (12.32%) Validation
18 143 (10.55%) Infrastructure as Code
19 139 (10.26%) Use Case
20 135 (9.96%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 752 (55.50%) SQL
2 711 (52.47%) Python
3 111 (8.19%) Java
4 50 (3.69%) Scala
5 45 (3.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 38 (2.80%) C#
7 35 (2.58%) Bash
8 26 (1.92%) T-SQL
9 21 (1.55%) PowerShell
10 18 (1.33%) JavaScript
10 18 (1.33%) R
11 16 (1.18%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.11%) Bicep
13 12 (0.89%) Shell Script
14 10 (0.74%) TypeScript
15 7 (0.52%) SAS Macro
16 6 (0.44%) Go
17 5 (0.37%) Korn
18 3 (0.22%) Kusto Query Language
19 2 (0.15%) C++
Qualifications
1 255 (18.82%) Security Cleared
2 225 (16.61%) SC Cleared
3 102 (7.53%) Degree
4 41 (3.03%) Computer Science Degree
5 36 (2.66%) Master's Degree
6 35 (2.58%) Azure Certification
7 23 (1.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.03%) DBS Check
9 12 (0.89%) AWS Certification
9 12 (0.89%) DV Cleared
10 8 (0.59%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.52%) SnowPro
12 5 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (0.37%) PhD
13 3 (0.22%) IBM Certification
13 3 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 2 (0.15%) CSPO
14 2 (0.15%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.15%) Tableau Certification
15 1 (0.074%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 376 (27.75%) Data Quality
2 88 (6.49%) GDPR
3 67 (4.94%) QA
4 13 (0.96%) SLA
5 12 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (0.52%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.30%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.30%) MiFID
8 4 (0.30%) 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%) PMO
10 2 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.15%) EMIR
10 2 (0.15%) GxP
10 2 (0.15%) NIST
10 2 (0.15%) SNOMED CT
11 1 (0.074%) HL7
System Software
1 124 (9.15%) Docker
2 4 (0.30%) HDFS
2 4 (0.30%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.074%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.074%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 165 (12.18%) Terraform
2 109 (8.04%) Kubernetes
3 26 (1.92%) Prometheus
4 24 (1.77%) Grafana
5 11 (0.81%) Ansible
6 5 (0.37%) Argo
7 3 (0.22%) Kibana
7 3 (0.22%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.22%) Nagios
7 3 (0.22%) Rancher
8 2 (0.15%) Hadoop YARN
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
1 366 (27.01%) Databricks
2 225 (16.61%) Microsoft
3 67 (4.94%) Informatica
4 60 (4.43%) Google
5 55 (4.06%) Oracle
6 32 (2.36%) Talend
7 26 (1.92%) OpenAI
8 24 (1.77%) SAP
9 23 (1.70%) Foundry
10 19 (1.40%) Splunk
11 18 (1.33%) 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