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

6 months to
11 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 89 163 209
Rank change year-on-year +74 +46 +5
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,408 505 495
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.82% 1.72% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.33% 1.89% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 969 346 375
10th Percentile £386 £375 £363
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £627 £659 £651
90th Percentile £749 £825 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £516
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.86% -6.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 8 15
10th Percentile £45.18 £22.65 £30.72
25th Percentile £55.44 £25.37 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.72 £34.48 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +102.20% -1.49% -52.05%
75th Percentile £77.25 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.75 £57.13 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £27.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +150.91% -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 42,291 26,731 37,187
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.76% 91.01% 85.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,385 16,984 23,772
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £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 2,541 1,182 2,587
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.28 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +61.14% -25.26% +1.39%
75th Percentile £68.00 £56.00 £61.16
90th Percentile £81.25 £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 11 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 11 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 11 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 1,262 £525 -2.55% 449
London +62 772 £550 -4.35% 234
UK excluding London +76 513 £500 +5.26% 319
Work from Home +66 433 £525 - 250
North of England +14 154 £475 -5.00% 94
Midlands +12 125 £500 +8.11% 33
West Midlands +22 105 £486 -16.16% 30
South West +34 83 £500 -4.76% 33
Yorkshire -5 68 £480 +3.78% 26
South East -23 68 £525 +8.92% 120
Scotland +19 56 £450 -5.26% 11
North West -14 55 £496 -0.80% 57
North East 0 33 £450 -10.00% 11
East of England -15 22 £575 +54.08% 12
East Midlands -20 17 £525 +13.51% 3
Wales -6 9 £450 +75.14% 11
Northern Ireland - 6 £382 - 8

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
1 191 (13.57%) Apache Spark
2 160 (11.36%) Apache Airflow
3 104 (7.39%) Apache
4 40 (2.84%) SAS
5 29 (2.06%) Confluence
6 19 (1.35%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.21%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.57%) Appian
9 7 (0.50%) Apache Superset
9 7 (0.50%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.14%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.071%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.071%) Camunda
12 1 (0.071%) CICS
12 1 (0.071%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.071%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 26 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.14%) Trello
6 1 (0.071%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.43%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.36%) BambooHR
2 5 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.36%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.14%) Endur
4 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.14%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.071%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.071%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.071%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.071%) NetSuite
5 1 (0.071%) Sage X3
5 1 (0.071%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 589 (41.83%) Azure
2 530 (37.64%) AWS
3 323 (22.94%) Power Platform
4 201 (14.28%) Snowflake
5 188 (13.35%) GCP
6 176 (12.50%) Azure Data Factory
7 167 (11.86%) Amazon S3
8 153 (10.87%) dbt
9 133 (9.45%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 129 (9.16%) GitHub
11 118 (8.38%) Azure DevOps
11 118 (8.38%) Serverless
12 102 (7.24%) AWS Lambda
13 76 (5.40%) GitHub Actions
14 48 (3.41%) Amazon EMR
15 45 (3.20%) AWS CloudFormation
16 31 (2.20%) AWS Step Functions
17 28 (1.99%) Azure AI
17 28 (1.99%) Collibra
18 27 (1.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) RTP
2 4 (0.28%) Firewall
3 1 (0.071%) 4G
3 1 (0.071%) 5G
3 1 (0.071%) MIMO
3 1 (0.071%) MQTT
3 1 (0.071%) Network Security
3 1 (0.071%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 299 (21.24%) Power BI
2 259 (18.39%) Data Warehouse
3 217 (15.41%) Data Lake
4 125 (8.88%) Metadata
5 112 (7.95%) Big Data
6 93 (6.61%) Amazon Redshift
6 93 (6.61%) SQL Server
7 88 (6.25%) Delta Lake
8 81 (5.75%) Tableau
9 78 (5.54%) Amazon Athena
9 78 (5.54%) BigQuery
10 73 (5.18%) Snowflake Schema
11 72 (5.11%) NoSQL
12 55 (3.91%) Azure SQL Database
12 55 (3.91%) Relational Database
13 53 (3.76%) PostgreSQL
14 48 (3.41%) Hadoop
15 37 (2.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 34 (2.41%) Spark SQL
17 31 (2.20%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 169 (12.00%) Git
2 72 (5.11%) GitLab
3 58 (4.12%) JIRA
4 36 (2.56%) MLflow
5 24 (1.70%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.43%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.36%) Postman
7 5 (0.36%) Selenium
8 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.21%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.21%) Snyk
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.14%) ERwin
9 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.071%) Ant
10 1 (0.071%) Claude Code
10 1 (0.071%) Deequ
10 1 (0.071%) Maven
10 1 (0.071%) REST Assured
General
1 340 (24.15%) Social Skills
2 338 (24.01%) Finance
3 203 (14.42%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (9.80%) Public Sector
5 98 (6.96%) Banking
6 35 (2.49%) Marketing
7 31 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (2.20%) Retail
8 28 (1.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 21 (1.49%) Front Office
10 17 (1.21%) Investment Banking
11 16 (1.14%) Telecoms
12 14 (0.99%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (0.71%) Law
14 10 (0.71%) Legal
15 8 (0.57%) Back Office
15 8 (0.57%) Manufacturing
16 7 (0.50%) Pharmaceutical
17 6 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 660 (46.88%) Data Engineer
2 201 (14.28%) Senior
3 151 (10.72%) Lead
4 149 (10.58%) Architect
5 121 (8.59%) Senior Data Engineer
6 78 (5.54%) Developer
7 76 (5.40%) Data Architect
8 75 (5.33%) AWS Engineer
9 64 (4.55%) Analyst
10 62 (4.40%) Lead Data Engineer
11 57 (4.05%) AWS Data Engineer
12 56 (3.98%) Snowflake Engineer
13 47 (3.34%) Data Scientist
14 45 (3.20%) Azure Engineer
14 45 (3.20%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 44 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
16 41 (2.91%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 41 (2.91%) Consultant
17 39 (2.77%) Azure Data Engineer
18 37 (2.63%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 203 (14.42%) PySpark
2 144 (10.23%) Kafka
3 51 (3.62%) Pandas
4 39 (2.77%) REST
5 36 (2.56%) scikit-learn
6 35 (2.49%) PyTorch
7 32 (2.27%) NumPy
8 28 (1.99%) JSON
9 27 (1.92%) TensorFlow
10 24 (1.70%) React
10 24 (1.70%) Spring
11 19 (1.35%) RESTful
12 17 (1.21%) FastAPI
12 17 (1.21%) Spring Boot
13 16 (1.14%) pytest
14 15 (1.07%) Great Expectations
14 15 (1.07%) LangChain
14 15 (1.07%) YAML
15 13 (0.92%) Django
15 13 (0.92%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 197 (13.99%) Cloud Native
2 55 (3.91%) Distributed Systems
3 54 (3.84%) Data Structures
4 50 (3.55%) Legacy Systems
5 49 (3.48%) Product Ownership
6 32 (2.27%) AI Agents
7 31 (2.20%) Onboarding
8 26 (1.85%) Distributed Computing
9 24 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
10 22 (1.56%) Algorithms
10 22 (1.56%) Greenfield Project
11 21 (1.49%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (1.14%) NHS
13 15 (1.07%) Clustering
14 14 (0.99%) Fixed Income
15 12 (0.85%) Reference Data
15 12 (0.85%) Self-Motivation
15 12 (0.85%) Virtual Team
16 10 (0.71%) Hybrid Cloud
16 10 (0.71%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 27 (1.92%) Linux
2 25 (1.78%) Unix
3 5 (0.36%) VMS
4 3 (0.21%) Windows
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.071%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 731 (51.92%) Analytics
2 670 (47.59%) Data Pipeline
3 539 (38.28%) Data Modelling
4 511 (36.29%) ETL
5 505 (35.87%) CI/CD
6 430 (30.54%) AI
7 371 (26.35%) Business Intelligence
8 348 (24.72%) Agile
9 344 (24.43%) DevOps
10 303 (21.52%) Data Governance
11 276 (19.60%) Machine Learning
12 246 (17.47%) Problem-Solving
13 245 (17.40%) Data Science
14 193 (13.71%) Data Architecture
15 192 (13.64%) Migration
16 190 (13.49%) Decision-Making
17 183 (13.00%) Validation
18 158 (11.22%) Use Case
19 157 (11.15%) Infrastructure as Code
20 146 (10.37%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 784 (55.68%) SQL
2 749 (53.20%) Python
3 111 (7.88%) Java
4 45 (3.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 45 (3.20%) Scala
5 36 (2.56%) C#
6 34 (2.41%) Bash
7 26 (1.85%) T-SQL
8 20 (1.42%) PowerShell
9 19 (1.35%) JavaScript
10 18 (1.28%) R
11 17 (1.21%) PL/SQL
12 15 (1.07%) Bicep
13 11 (0.78%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.78%) TypeScript
14 8 (0.57%) SAS Macro
15 5 (0.36%) Korn
16 4 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
17 3 (0.21%) Go
18 2 (0.14%) SPARQL
Qualifications
1 266 (18.89%) Security Cleared
2 235 (16.69%) SC Cleared
3 100 (7.10%) Degree
4 41 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (2.41%) Master's Degree
6 32 (2.27%) Azure Certification
7 30 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (1.28%) AWS Certification
9 12 (0.85%) DBS Check
10 11 (0.78%) DV Cleared
11 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
12 7 (0.50%) SnowPro
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 4 (0.28%) CSPO
15 3 (0.21%) IBM Certification
15 3 (0.21%) PhD
16 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 2 (0.14%) PMI Certification
16 2 (0.14%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 401 (28.48%) Data Quality
2 90 (6.39%) GDPR
3 67 (4.76%) QA
4 15 (1.07%) SLA
5 10 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (0.50%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.28%) MiFID
8 4 (0.28%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.21%) GRC
9 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.21%) NIST
9 3 (0.21%) PMO
10 2 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.14%) COPPA
10 2 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.14%) EMIR
10 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.14%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 124 (8.81%) Docker
2 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.14%) HDFS
4 1 (0.071%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 187 (13.28%) Terraform
2 106 (7.53%) Kubernetes
3 25 (1.78%) Prometheus
4 23 (1.63%) Grafana
5 9 (0.64%) Ansible
6 4 (0.28%) Argo
7 3 (0.21%) Kibana
7 3 (0.21%) Nagios
7 3 (0.21%) Rancher
8 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.14%) logstash
8 2 (0.14%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.071%) Control-M
9 1 (0.071%) Hadoop YARN
9 1 (0.071%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.071%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.071%) Oozie
Vendors
1 367 (26.07%) Databricks
2 231 (16.41%) Microsoft
3 75 (5.33%) Informatica
4 59 (4.19%) Oracle
5 58 (4.12%) Google
6 32 (2.27%) Talend
7 26 (1.85%) OpenAI
8 25 (1.78%) Foundry
8 25 (1.78%) SAP
9 19 (1.35%) Palantir
9 19 (1.35%) Splunk
10 18 (1.28%) Salesforce
11 15 (1.07%) Cloudera
12 13 (0.92%) ServiceNow
13 9 (0.64%) UiPath
14 8 (0.57%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.57%) Denodo
14 8 (0.57%) Trend Micro
15 7 (0.50%) IBM
15 7 (0.50%) InterSystems