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

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 90 164 212
Rank change year-on-year +74 +48 -6
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,530 571 468
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.85% 1.75% 1.21%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.37% 1.93% 1.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,053 356 347
10th Percentile £400 £363 £370
25th Percentile £445 £427 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £516 £575
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -10.22% -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £675
90th Percentile £744 £775 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £516
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.86% -10.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 7 12
10th Percentile £21.25 £37.48 £30.46
25th Percentile £28.13 £45.11 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.00 £52.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.43% +10.53% -39.10%
75th Percentile £76.50 £76.25 £60.00
90th Percentile £87.05 £96.50 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £38.96 £60.00
% change year-on-year +34.75% -35.07% -23.08%

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 45,367 29,590 33,147
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.58% 90.44% 85.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,794 18,422 20,982
10th Percentile £325 £300 £310
25th Percentile £425 £402 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -3.67%
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 2,879 1,766 1,695
10th Percentile £14.22 £14.20 £13.86
25th Percentile £17.97 £17.30 £18.13
Median hourly rate £41.06 £25.15 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year +63.26% -37.90% -4.71%
75th Percentile £67.89 £47.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £67.50 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.96 £22.63 £42.50
% change year-on-year +94.26% -46.75% +6.25%

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 +73 1,376 £525 - 413
London +50 836 £550 - 224
UK excluding London +80 546 £500 +5.26% 248
Work from Home +75 498 £525 +5.00% 217
North of England +28 175 £475 -2.56% 79
Midlands +39 138 £475 +4.05% 22
West Midlands +23 113 £475 -6.31% 19
South East -18 92 £525 +14.38% 51
Yorkshire +22 84 £475 +11.76% 22
South West +11 70 £525 -3.45% 54
North West -19 56 £525 +5.00% 35
Scotland -1 45 £500 +7.53% 24
North East -8 37 £425 -20.93% 23
East of England -8 28 £575 -4.17% 10
East Midlands -3 22 £525 +16.54% 3
Wales - 7 £450 - 7
Northern Ireland +4 4 £334 - 4

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
1 181 (11.83%) Apache Airflow
2 167 (10.92%) Apache Spark
3 122 (7.97%) Apache
4 40 (2.61%) SAS
5 38 (2.48%) Confluence
6 22 (1.44%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.11%) Palantir Foundry
8 13 (0.85%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.46%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.33%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.33%) ArcGIS
11 3 (0.20%) PowerExchange
12 2 (0.13%) Microsoft Exchange
13 1 (0.065%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.065%) CICS
13 1 (0.065%) Ethereum
13 1 (0.065%) GeoServer
13 1 (0.065%) Hyperledger
13 1 (0.065%) nginx
Applications
1 18 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.46%) Spreadsheet
3 6 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.33%) Chatbot
5 4 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.13%) MS Visio
7 1 (0.065%) Notion
Business Applications
1 12 (0.78%) Aladdin
2 6 (0.39%) Dynamics CRM
3 5 (0.33%) 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 (0.20%) Workday HCM
6 2 (0.13%) Endur
6 2 (0.13%) Oracle Assets
6 2 (0.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 2 (0.13%) Temenos T24
7 1 (0.065%) Distributed Ledger
7 1 (0.065%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.065%) MIS ActiveH
7 1 (0.065%) R3 Corda
7 1 (0.065%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 650 (42.48%) Azure
2 569 (37.19%) AWS
3 309 (20.20%) Power Platform
4 253 (16.54%) Snowflake
5 208 (13.59%) GCP
6 204 (13.33%) dbt
7 166 (10.85%) Amazon S3
7 166 (10.85%) Azure Data Factory
8 137 (8.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 132 (8.63%) Azure DevOps
10 128 (8.37%) Serverless
11 122 (7.97%) GitHub
12 108 (7.06%) AWS Lambda
13 63 (4.12%) GitHub Actions
14 50 (3.27%) Amazon EMR
15 34 (2.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 31 (2.03%) Amazon Bedrock
17 28 (1.83%) Azure AI
18 27 (1.76%) Microsoft Purview
19 26 (1.70%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.33%) Firewall
2 3 (0.20%) Broadband
2 3 (0.20%) DNS
2 3 (0.20%) Network Security
3 2 (0.13%) RTP
4 1 (0.065%) Internet
4 1 (0.065%) MIMO
4 1 (0.065%) MQTT
4 1 (0.065%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 309 (20.20%) Data Warehouse
2 295 (19.28%) Power BI
3 211 (13.79%) Data Lake
4 164 (10.72%) Metadata
5 111 (7.25%) Amazon Redshift
5 111 (7.25%) BigQuery
6 100 (6.54%) Delta Lake
7 93 (6.08%) Big Data
8 82 (5.36%) Tableau
9 74 (4.84%) Amazon Athena
10 66 (4.31%) SQL Server
11 61 (3.99%) Snowflake Schema
12 56 (3.66%) Relational Database
13 54 (3.53%) NoSQL
14 51 (3.33%) PostgreSQL
15 46 (3.01%) Azure SQL Database
16 38 (2.48%) Looker
17 35 (2.29%) Star Schema
18 34 (2.22%) Data Vault
19 30 (1.96%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 157 (10.26%) Git
2 85 (5.56%) GitLab
3 70 (4.58%) JIRA
4 26 (1.70%) Jenkins
4 26 (1.70%) MLflow
5 8 (0.52%) ERwin
6 6 (0.39%) Bitbucket
6 6 (0.39%) RStudio
6 6 (0.39%) Terragrunt
7 5 (0.33%) Claude Code
7 5 (0.33%) Selenium
7 5 (0.33%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.26%) ER Studio
9 3 (0.20%) Artifactory
9 3 (0.20%) Snyk
9 3 (0.20%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.13%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 2 (0.13%) Postman
10 2 (0.13%) Yeoman
11 1 (0.065%) TeamCity
General
1 379 (24.77%) Social Skills
2 347 (22.68%) Finance
3 248 (16.21%) Analytical Skills
4 159 (10.39%) Public Sector
5 115 (7.52%) Banking
6 50 (3.27%) Marketing
7 39 (2.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 31 (2.03%) Retail
9 26 (1.70%) Documentation Skills
10 23 (1.50%) Investment Banking
11 22 (1.44%) Front Office
11 22 (1.44%) Telecoms
12 16 (1.05%) Manufacturing
13 14 (0.92%) Law
13 14 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
14 13 (0.85%) Financial Institution
15 12 (0.78%) Billing
15 12 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
16 10 (0.65%) Legal
17 9 (0.59%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 707 (46.21%) Data Engineer
2 230 (15.03%) Senior
3 178 (11.63%) Architect
4 166 (10.85%) Lead
5 139 (9.08%) Senior Data Engineer
6 98 (6.41%) Data Architect
7 90 (5.88%) Developer
8 77 (5.03%) AWS Engineer
9 68 (4.44%) Analyst
10 65 (4.25%) Snowflake Engineer
11 64 (4.18%) AWS Data Engineer
12 56 (3.66%) Azure Engineer
13 54 (3.53%) Lead Data Engineer
14 49 (3.20%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 48 (3.14%) Python Engineer
16 46 (3.01%) Consultant
17 43 (2.81%) Azure Data Engineer
18 42 (2.75%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
18 42 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
19 39 (2.55%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 229 (14.97%) PySpark
2 204 (13.33%) Terraform
3 124 (8.10%) Kafka
4 54 (3.53%) REST
5 30 (1.96%) JSON
5 30 (1.96%) React
6 27 (1.76%) Pandas
7 22 (1.44%) .NET
8 20 (1.31%) PyTorch
9 18 (1.18%) scikit-learn
9 18 (1.18%) TensorFlow
10 17 (1.11%) Spring
11 16 (1.05%) NumPy
12 12 (0.78%) FastAPI
12 12 (0.78%) pytest
13 11 (0.72%) LangChain
13 11 (0.72%) Microsoft Graph
13 11 (0.72%) RESTful
13 11 (0.72%) Spring Boot
13 11 (0.72%) Streamlit
Miscellaneous
1 200 (13.07%) Cloud Native
2 71 (4.64%) Data Structures
3 64 (4.18%) Legacy Systems
4 59 (3.86%) Product Ownership
5 56 (3.66%) Distributed Systems
6 54 (3.53%) Onboarding
7 40 (2.61%) AI Agents
8 25 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.44%) Greenfield Project
10 18 (1.18%) Distributed Computing
11 17 (1.11%) NHS
12 16 (1.05%) Algorithms
12 16 (1.05%) Clustering
12 16 (1.05%) Virtual Team
13 15 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
13 15 (0.98%) Life Science
14 14 (0.92%) Analytical Mindset
14 14 (0.92%) Management Information System
15 13 (0.85%) Reference Data
16 10 (0.65%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 36 (2.35%) Linux
2 31 (2.03%) Unix
3 8 (0.52%) Windows
4 2 (0.13%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.065%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (0.065%) Robot Operating System
5 1 (0.065%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.065%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (48.95%) Analytics
2 731 (47.78%) Data Pipeline
3 581 (37.97%) Data Modelling
4 530 (34.64%) CI/CD
5 528 (34.51%) ETL
6 448 (29.28%) AI
7 383 (25.03%) Business Intelligence
8 380 (24.84%) Agile
9 355 (23.20%) DevOps
10 351 (22.94%) Data Governance
11 268 (17.52%) Machine Learning
12 250 (16.34%) Problem-Solving
13 238 (15.56%) Migration
14 235 (15.36%) Data Transformation
15 230 (15.03%) Stakeholder Management
16 228 (14.90%) Data Science
17 226 (14.77%) Data Architecture
17 226 (14.77%) Validation
18 223 (14.58%) Decision-Making
19 204 (13.33%) Infrastructure as Code
Programming Languages
1 829 (54.18%) SQL
2 776 (50.72%) Python
3 111 (7.25%) Java
4 44 (2.88%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 41 (2.68%) Scala
6 40 (2.61%) Bash
7 38 (2.48%) PowerShell
8 30 (1.96%) C#
9 26 (1.70%) JavaScript
10 23 (1.50%) R
11 21 (1.37%) T-SQL
12 20 (1.31%) PL/SQL
13 16 (1.05%) Shell Script
14 15 (0.98%) Bicep
15 10 (0.65%) TypeScript
16 9 (0.59%) SAS Macro
17 8 (0.52%) Kusto Query Language
17 8 (0.52%) SPARQL
18 6 (0.39%) Cypher
18 6 (0.39%) Go
Qualifications
1 293 (19.15%) Security Cleared
2 250 (16.34%) SC Cleared
3 89 (5.82%) Degree
4 46 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
5 31 (2.03%) Azure Certification
6 28 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
7 25 (1.63%) DV Cleared
8 22 (1.44%) Master's Degree
9 21 (1.37%) AWS Certification
10 14 (0.92%) DBS Check
11 12 (0.78%) SnowPro
12 11 (0.72%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 8 (0.52%) Microsoft Certification
14 6 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.33%) CSPO
15 5 (0.33%) Tableau Certification
16 4 (0.26%) PMI Certification
17 3 (0.20%) PhD
17 3 (0.20%) PMP
18 1 (0.065%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 470 (30.72%) Data Quality
2 76 (4.97%) GDPR
3 73 (4.77%) QA
4 26 (1.70%) Accessibility
5 15 (0.98%) SLA
6 4 (0.26%) Disclosure Scotland
6 4 (0.26%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.20%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.20%) GxP
7 3 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 3 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 42001
7 3 (0.20%) MiFID
7 3 (0.20%) NIST
7 3 (0.20%) PMO
7 3 (0.20%) Solvency II
8 2 (0.13%) 21 CFR Part 11
8 2 (0.13%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.13%) COPPA
8 2 (0.13%) EMIR
8 2 (0.13%) GRC
System Software
1 131 (8.56%) Docker
2 5 (0.33%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.065%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (0.065%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 106 (6.93%) Kubernetes
2 28 (1.83%) Grafana
3 21 (1.37%) Ansible
4 9 (0.59%) Prometheus
5 7 (0.46%) Control-M
6 5 (0.33%) Kibana
7 3 (0.20%) logstash
8 2 (0.13%) Argo
8 2 (0.13%) Puppet
8 2 (0.13%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.13%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.065%) Cilium
9 1 (0.065%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.065%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.065%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.065%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.065%) Nagios
9 1 (0.065%) Oracle RMAN
9 1 (0.065%) QRadar
9 1 (0.065%) Rancher
Vendors
1 412 (26.93%) Databricks
2 271 (17.71%) Microsoft
3 80 (5.23%) Informatica
4 69 (4.51%) Google
5 67 (4.38%) Oracle
6 32 (2.09%) SAP
7 29 (1.90%) Talend
8 28 (1.83%) Salesforce
9 26 (1.70%) Foundry
10 25 (1.63%) Palantir
11 16 (1.05%) Cloudera
11 16 (1.05%) OpenAI
12 14 (0.92%) ServiceNow
13 13 (0.85%) Teradata
14 12 (0.78%) Trend Micro
15 9 (0.59%) Splunk
15 9 (0.59%) Workday
16 8 (0.52%) Adobe
17 7 (0.46%) Hitachi
17 7 (0.46%) InterSystems