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 8 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 166 219
Rank change year-on-year +51 +53 +10
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 874 494 465
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.37% 1.53% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.70% 1.73% 1.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 577 345 348
10th Percentile £363 £368 £400
25th Percentile £413 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £675
90th Percentile £749 £800 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -5.00% -9.09% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 13 9
10th Percentile £41.15 £21.25 £35.00
25th Percentile £50.00 £22.00 £35.63
Median hourly rate £74.26 £25.43 £42.31
Median % change year-on-year +192.02% -39.89% -43.59%
75th Percentile £87.50 £28.15 £78.00
90th Percentile £101.00 £57.63 £79.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.13 £25.43 £78.00
% change year-on-year +144.32% -67.40% +63.50%

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 32,425 28,554 37,166
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.87% 88.48% 87.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,478 17,360 24,692
10th Percentile £304 £308 £305
25th Percentile £406 £413 £418
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £720 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,006 922 1,534
10th Percentile £14.75 £15.62 £14.25
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £18.93
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -23.53% +21.43%
75th Percentile £55.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.55 £75.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.41 £45.00
% change year-on-year -21.65% -32.42% +55.17%

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 8 January 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 8 January 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 8 January 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 +60 773 £520 -9.17% 687
London +70 548 £550 -4.35% 210
Work from Home +16 256 £550 -4.35% 359
UK excluding London -6 232 £475 -5.00% 580
North of England -18 73 £450 -18.18% 118
Midlands 0 62 £542 +8.30% 64
North West +2 47 £440 -10.66% 52
West Midlands -14 44 £550 +11.11% 28
Scotland +20 37 £402 -6.78% 20
South West -7 28 £550 -17.60% 63
South East -14 28 £513 -5.96% 218
East Midlands -11 18 £429 -25.43% 34
Yorkshire -44 14 £500 -9.09% 44
East of England -14 13 £500 +29.87% 75
North East -3 12 £425 -28.87% 22
Wales -15 2 £495 -1.00% 23
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 11

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
1 128 (14.65%) Apache Spark
2 107 (12.24%) Apache Airflow
3 65 (7.44%) Apache
4 13 (1.49%) Confluence
5 4 (0.46%) SAS
6 3 (0.34%) Appian
7 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.11%) Apache Pig
8 1 (0.11%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.11%) CMS
8 1 (0.11%) Luigi
8 1 (0.11%) SharePoint
Applications
1 18 (2.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.69%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.34%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.34%) Trello
5 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
6 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 7 (0.80%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.46%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.23%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.23%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.11%) Actimize
4 1 (0.11%) Maximo
4 1 (0.11%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.11%) SAP BPC
4 1 (0.11%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.11%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 398 (45.54%) Azure
2 298 (34.10%) AWS
3 161 (18.42%) Power Platform
4 154 (17.62%) Azure Data Factory
5 126 (14.42%) GCP
6 122 (13.96%) Snowflake
7 101 (11.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 96 (10.98%) Amazon S3
9 88 (10.07%) GitHub
10 86 (9.84%) Serverless
11 75 (8.58%) dbt
12 73 (8.35%) Azure DevOps
13 65 (7.44%) AWS Lambda
14 59 (6.75%) GitHub Actions
15 36 (4.12%) AWS CloudFormation
16 26 (2.97%) AWS Step Functions
17 23 (2.63%) Amazon SageMaker
17 23 (2.63%) Azure Machine Learning
18 20 (2.29%) Amazon EMR
18 20 (2.29%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.46%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.46%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.46%) Network Security
1 4 (0.46%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.34%) Firewall
2 3 (0.34%) SSH
2 3 (0.34%) SSL
2 3 (0.34%) VPN
3 2 (0.23%) DNS
4 1 (0.11%) MQTT
4 1 (0.11%) SAN
4 1 (0.11%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 169 (19.34%) Data Warehouse
2 156 (17.85%) Power BI
3 118 (13.50%) Data Lake
4 72 (8.24%) Metadata
5 59 (6.75%) Big Data
6 58 (6.64%) NoSQL
7 51 (5.84%) Azure SQL Database
8 50 (5.72%) Relational Database
8 50 (5.72%) SQL Server
9 48 (5.49%) Delta Lake
10 44 (5.03%) BigQuery
11 42 (4.81%) Snowflake Schema
12 40 (4.58%) PostgreSQL
13 39 (4.46%) Amazon Redshift
14 36 (4.12%) Hadoop
14 36 (4.12%) Tableau
15 35 (4.00%) Amazon Athena
16 23 (2.63%) RDBMS
17 19 (2.17%) Elasticsearch
17 19 (2.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 135 (15.45%) Git
2 48 (5.49%) Jenkins
3 47 (5.38%) GitLab
4 33 (3.78%) MLflow
5 24 (2.75%) JIRA
6 9 (1.03%) Visual Studio Code
7 7 (0.80%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.46%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.46%) Poetry
9 3 (0.34%) JMeter
9 3 (0.34%) Selenium
10 2 (0.23%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.23%) ERwin
10 2 (0.23%) Gemini Tracker
10 2 (0.23%) JUnit
10 2 (0.23%) Maven
10 2 (0.23%) PyCharm
10 2 (0.23%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.23%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 249 (28.49%) Social Skills
2 207 (23.68%) Finance
3 112 (12.81%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (6.64%) Public Sector
5 57 (6.52%) Banking
6 24 (2.75%) Investment Banking
7 21 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 17 (1.95%) Retail
9 16 (1.83%) Front Office
9 16 (1.83%) Marketing
10 15 (1.72%) Pharmaceutical
11 14 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
12 11 (1.26%) Legal
13 9 (1.03%) Publishing
14 8 (0.92%) Military
15 7 (0.80%) Documentation Skills
15 7 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.80%) Telecoms
16 6 (0.69%) Back Office
17 5 (0.57%) Electronics
Job Titles
1 369 (42.22%) Data Engineer
2 112 (12.81%) Senior
3 93 (10.64%) Lead
4 75 (8.58%) Azure Engineer
5 72 (8.24%) Senior Data Engineer
6 64 (7.32%) Developer
7 60 (6.86%) Architect
8 52 (5.95%) Azure Data Engineer
9 45 (5.15%) Analyst
9 45 (5.15%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 40 (4.58%) Python Engineer
11 39 (4.46%) AWS Engineer
12 37 (4.23%) Snowflake Engineer
13 32 (3.66%) Data Scientist
14 30 (3.43%) Data Architect
15 29 (3.32%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 25 (2.86%) AWS Data Engineer
16 25 (2.86%) Python Data Engineer
17 24 (2.75%) DevOps Engineer
17 24 (2.75%) Lead Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 162 (18.54%) PySpark
2 91 (10.41%) Kafka
3 61 (6.98%) Pandas
4 50 (5.72%) PyTorch
5 46 (5.26%) NumPy
6 45 (5.15%) TensorFlow
7 42 (4.81%) FastAPI
8 35 (4.00%) Flask
9 32 (3.66%) scikit-learn
10 31 (3.55%) RESTful
11 25 (2.86%) LangChain
12 24 (2.75%) React
13 20 (2.29%) JSON
14 19 (2.17%) pytest
15 17 (1.95%) REST
16 15 (1.72%) OAuth
16 15 (1.72%) Spark Streaming
16 15 (1.72%) YAML
17 14 (1.60%) Hugging Face
18 13 (1.49%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 82 (9.38%) Cloud Native
2 45 (5.15%) Algorithms
3 26 (2.97%) Distributed Computing
4 22 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
5 21 (2.40%) Data Structures
5 21 (2.40%) Product Ownership
6 19 (2.17%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.17%) Onboarding
7 18 (2.06%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 15 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
9 14 (1.60%) Hedge funds
9 14 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
10 13 (1.49%) AI Agents
11 12 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
12 11 (1.26%) Life Science
13 10 (1.14%) Clustering
13 10 (1.14%) Data Fabric
13 10 (1.14%) Derivative
13 10 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
14 9 (1.03%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 30 (3.43%) Linux
2 3 (0.34%) VMS
3 2 (0.23%) Android
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.11%) CentOS
4 1 (0.11%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 379 (43.36%) Data Pipeline
2 322 (36.84%) Analytics
3 320 (36.61%) ETL
4 313 (35.81%) CI/CD
5 302 (34.55%) Data Modelling
6 220 (25.17%) AI
7 213 (24.37%) Data Governance
8 204 (23.34%) DevOps
9 201 (23.00%) Agile
10 199 (22.77%) Machine Learning
11 188 (21.51%) Business Intelligence
12 175 (20.02%) Problem-Solving
13 174 (19.91%) Data Science
14 146 (16.70%) Data Architecture
15 102 (11.67%) Infrastructure as Code
16 96 (10.98%) Containerisation
17 93 (10.64%) Data Integration
18 82 (9.38%) Data Transformation
18 82 (9.38%) LLM
18 82 (9.38%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 546 (62.47%) Python
2 432 (49.43%) SQL
3 60 (6.86%) Scala
4 52 (5.95%) Java
5 37 (4.23%) C#
6 33 (3.78%) JavaScript
7 26 (2.97%) PowerShell
8 23 (2.63%) C++
9 22 (2.52%) Bash
10 20 (2.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 18 (2.06%) T-SQL
12 17 (1.95%) Bicep
13 16 (1.83%) PL/SQL
13 16 (1.83%) R
14 15 (1.72%) Go
14 15 (1.72%) TypeScript
15 13 (1.49%) Rust
16 12 (1.37%) Shell Script
17 7 (0.80%) Korn
18 4 (0.46%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 158 (18.08%) Security Cleared
2 130 (14.87%) SC Cleared
3 69 (7.89%) Degree
4 49 (5.61%) Azure Certification
5 31 (3.55%) Master's Degree
6 29 (3.32%) Computer Science Degree
7 18 (2.06%) DV Cleared
8 16 (1.83%) AWS Certification
9 14 (1.60%) Microsoft Certification
10 12 (1.37%) PhD
11 7 (0.80%) BPSS Clearance
11 7 (0.80%) MCP
12 5 (0.57%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.34%) SnowPro
13 3 (0.34%) Tableau Certification
14 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.23%) CBAP
14 2 (0.23%) ISTQB
15 1 (0.11%) OCP
15 1 (0.11%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 221 (25.29%) Data Quality
2 63 (7.21%) GDPR
3 27 (3.09%) QA
4 19 (2.17%) Accessibility
5 9 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (0.92%) HIPAA
7 5 (0.57%) PERC
8 4 (0.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 4 (0.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.46%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.46%) WCAG
9 3 (0.34%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.23%) HL7
10 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.23%) PMO
11 1 (0.11%) AIFMD
11 1 (0.11%) Dodd-Frank
11 1 (0.11%) EMIR
11 1 (0.11%) NCSC
11 1 (0.11%) Solvency II
System Software
1 138 (15.79%) Docker
2 16 (1.83%) HDFS
3 3 (0.34%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.11%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.11%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.11%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 133 (15.22%) Terraform
2 116 (13.27%) Kubernetes
3 16 (1.83%) Grafana
4 14 (1.60%) Ansible
5 11 (1.26%) Hadoop YARN
6 10 (1.14%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.69%) Argo
8 5 (0.57%) Puppet
9 4 (0.46%) Control-M
10 3 (0.34%) Istio
10 3 (0.34%) Kibana
10 3 (0.34%) Kustomize
10 3 (0.34%) logstash
10 3 (0.34%) Oozie
11 2 (0.23%) Kubeflow
11 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.23%) vCenter Server
12 1 (0.11%) Apache Ranger
12 1 (0.11%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 255 (29.18%) Databricks
2 112 (12.81%) Microsoft
3 47 (5.38%) Google
4 29 (3.32%) Oracle
5 17 (1.95%) Informatica
5 17 (1.95%) Palantir
6 15 (1.72%) Foundry
7 13 (1.49%) OpenAI
7 13 (1.49%) SAP
7 13 (1.49%) Talend
8 12 (1.37%) Cloudera
9 10 (1.14%) Salesforce
10 8 (0.92%) Virgin Media
11 6 (0.69%) Denodo
11 6 (0.69%) Guidewire
12 5 (0.57%) ServiceNow
13 4 (0.46%) Adobe
13 4 (0.46%) IBM
13 4 (0.46%) MicroStrategy
13 4 (0.46%) Red Hat