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

6 months to
17 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 86 167 197
Rank change year-on-year +81 +30 +12
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,433 507 506
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.85% 1.71% 1.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.36% 1.88% 1.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 989 347 380
10th Percentile £386 £375 £363
25th Percentile £443 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £627 £666 £663
90th Percentile £749 £825 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £511
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.05% -7.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 7 15
10th Percentile £45.18 £24.75 £30.72
25th Percentile £55.44 £28.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.72 £38.96 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +78.95% +11.31% -52.05%
75th Percentile £77.25 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £89.75 £58.25 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £28.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +140.00% -52.08% -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 42,679 27,009 37,072
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.81% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,607 17,137 23,609
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 2,567 1,242 2,598
10th Percentile £14.82 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.09 £17.87 £16.03
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.27 £37.34
Median % change year-on-year +67.37% -29.66% +6.69%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.25 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.50 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +76.94% -34.02% +17.29%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 +72 1,273 £525 -2.55% 512
London +66 766 £550 -1.57% 269
UK excluding London +81 530 £500 +5.26% 376
Work from Home +68 454 £525 - 272
North of England +26 164 £475 -5.00% 104
Midlands +25 126 £500 +8.11% 47
West Midlands +26 106 £486 -16.16% 25
South West +34 83 £500 -4.76% 38
South East -18 71 £525 +8.92% 128
Yorkshire -8 70 £480 -4.00% 23
Scotland +23 58 £475 - 11
North West -5 58 £500 - 66
North East +1 38 £425 -15.00% 15
East of England -15 24 £575 +78.92% 18
East Midlands -13 17 £525 +13.51% 22
Wales -5 9 £450 +75.14% 13
Northern Ireland - 6 £382 - 23

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
1 192 (13.40%) Apache Spark
2 167 (11.65%) Apache Airflow
3 109 (7.61%) Apache
4 43 (3.00%) SAS
5 36 (2.51%) Confluence
6 23 (1.61%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.19%) Palantir Foundry
8 8 (0.56%) Appian
8 8 (0.56%) SharePoint
9 7 (0.49%) Apache Superset
10 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.21%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
13 1 (0.070%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 1 (0.070%) Camunda
13 1 (0.070%) CICS
13 1 (0.070%) IBM HTTP Server
13 1 (0.070%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 26 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
3 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.070%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.070%) Notion
6 1 (0.070%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.49%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.35%) BambooHR
2 5 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.35%) Salesforce CRM
3 4 (0.28%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.14%) Endur
4 2 (0.14%) NetSuite
4 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.14%) Sage X3
4 2 (0.14%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.14%) Temenos T24
5 1 (0.070%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.070%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.070%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.070%) SAP ECC
5 1 (0.070%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 610 (42.57%) Azure
2 541 (37.75%) AWS
3 331 (23.10%) Power Platform
4 206 (14.38%) Snowflake
5 188 (13.12%) GCP
6 176 (12.28%) Azure Data Factory
7 173 (12.07%) Amazon S3
8 161 (11.24%) dbt
9 134 (9.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 130 (9.07%) GitHub
11 124 (8.65%) Serverless
12 121 (8.44%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (7.47%) AWS Lambda
14 75 (5.23%) GitHub Actions
15 55 (3.84%) Amazon EMR
16 44 (3.07%) AWS CloudFormation
17 32 (2.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 31 (2.16%) Azure AI
19 28 (1.95%) AWS Step Functions
20 27 (1.88%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.35%) Firewall
1 5 (0.35%) RTP
2 2 (0.14%) Network Security
3 1 (0.070%) 4G
3 1 (0.070%) 5G
3 1 (0.070%) MIMO
3 1 (0.070%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 306 (21.35%) Power BI
2 270 (18.84%) Data Warehouse
3 221 (15.42%) Data Lake
4 134 (9.35%) Metadata
5 110 (7.68%) Big Data
6 101 (7.05%) Amazon Redshift
7 93 (6.49%) SQL Server
8 88 (6.14%) Delta Lake
9 82 (5.72%) Tableau
10 81 (5.65%) Amazon Athena
11 80 (5.58%) BigQuery
12 75 (5.23%) Snowflake Schema
13 70 (4.88%) NoSQL
14 56 (3.91%) Relational Database
15 54 (3.77%) Azure SQL Database
15 54 (3.77%) PostgreSQL
16 48 (3.35%) Hadoop
17 39 (2.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 34 (2.37%) Spark SQL
19 32 (2.23%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 173 (12.07%) Git
2 80 (5.58%) GitLab
3 65 (4.54%) JIRA
4 36 (2.51%) MLflow
5 22 (1.54%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.42%) SonarQube
7 4 (0.28%) Postman
7 4 (0.28%) Selenium
8 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.21%) Snyk
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.14%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.14%) ERwin
9 2 (0.14%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.070%) Deequ
10 1 (0.070%) git-flow
10 1 (0.070%) Octopus Deploy
10 1 (0.070%) REST Assured
General
1 348 (24.28%) Social Skills
2 337 (23.52%) Finance
3 212 (14.79%) Analytical Skills
4 147 (10.26%) Public Sector
5 102 (7.12%) Banking
6 34 (2.37%) Marketing
7 32 (2.23%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (2.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 31 (2.16%) Retail
9 18 (1.26%) Front Office
10 17 (1.19%) Telecoms
11 16 (1.12%) Investment Banking
12 14 (0.98%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (0.77%) Law
14 10 (0.70%) Legal
15 8 (0.56%) Manufacturing
16 7 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
17 6 (0.42%) Back Office
17 6 (0.42%) Billing
Job Titles
1 676 (47.17%) Data Engineer
2 206 (14.38%) Senior
3 158 (11.03%) Architect
4 156 (10.89%) Lead
5 126 (8.79%) Senior Data Engineer
6 81 (5.65%) Data Architect
7 77 (5.37%) Developer
8 73 (5.09%) AWS Engineer
9 65 (4.54%) Lead Data Engineer
10 64 (4.47%) Analyst
11 57 (3.98%) Snowflake Engineer
12 56 (3.91%) AWS Data Engineer
13 47 (3.28%) Azure Engineer
14 46 (3.21%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 46 (3.21%) Solutions Architect
15 45 (3.14%) Data Scientist
16 42 (2.93%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
16 42 (2.93%) Azure Data Engineer
16 42 (2.93%) Consultant
17 41 (2.86%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (14.86%) PySpark
2 140 (9.77%) Kafka
3 49 (3.42%) Pandas
4 42 (2.93%) REST
5 35 (2.44%) scikit-learn
6 34 (2.37%) PyTorch
7 31 (2.16%) NumPy
8 29 (2.02%) JSON
9 26 (1.81%) TensorFlow
10 24 (1.67%) Spring
11 23 (1.61%) React
12 19 (1.33%) RESTful
13 18 (1.26%) FastAPI
14 17 (1.19%) Spring Boot
15 15 (1.05%) pytest
15 15 (1.05%) YAML
16 14 (0.98%) Great Expectations
16 14 (0.98%) LangChain
17 13 (0.91%) Django
17 13 (0.91%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 195 (13.61%) Cloud Native
2 57 (3.98%) Data Structures
3 56 (3.91%) Distributed Systems
4 52 (3.63%) Legacy Systems
5 47 (3.28%) Product Ownership
6 34 (2.37%) AI Agents
7 33 (2.30%) Onboarding
8 26 (1.81%) Distributed Computing
9 24 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
10 23 (1.61%) Greenfield Project
11 21 (1.47%) Algorithms
12 18 (1.26%) Analytical Mindset
13 17 (1.19%) NHS
14 15 (1.05%) Clustering
15 14 (0.98%) Fixed Income
16 12 (0.84%) Management Information System
16 12 (0.84%) Reference Data
16 12 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
16 12 (0.84%) Virtual Team
17 11 (0.77%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 27 (1.88%) Linux
2 25 (1.74%) Unix
3 5 (0.35%) VMS
4 3 (0.21%) Windows
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.070%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 745 (51.99%) Analytics
2 671 (46.82%) Data Pipeline
3 555 (38.73%) Data Modelling
4 516 (36.01%) CI/CD
5 513 (35.80%) ETL
6 434 (30.29%) AI
7 377 (26.31%) Business Intelligence
8 358 (24.98%) DevOps
9 354 (24.70%) Agile
10 311 (21.70%) Data Governance
11 278 (19.40%) Machine Learning
12 252 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
13 248 (17.31%) Data Science
14 199 (13.89%) Migration
15 197 (13.75%) Decision-Making
16 196 (13.68%) Data Architecture
17 193 (13.47%) Validation
18 170 (11.86%) Infrastructure as Code
19 161 (11.24%) Use Case
20 154 (10.75%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 791 (55.20%) SQL
2 764 (53.31%) Python
3 112 (7.82%) Java
4 44 (3.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 42 (2.93%) Scala
6 35 (2.44%) Bash
7 34 (2.37%) C#
8 27 (1.88%) T-SQL
9 23 (1.61%) PowerShell
10 20 (1.40%) R
11 17 (1.19%) Bicep
11 17 (1.19%) JavaScript
11 17 (1.19%) PL/SQL
12 12 (0.84%) Shell Script
13 11 (0.77%) TypeScript
14 10 (0.70%) SAS Macro
15 5 (0.35%) Korn
16 4 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
16 4 (0.28%) SPARQL
17 3 (0.21%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 276 (19.26%) Security Cleared
2 243 (16.96%) SC Cleared
3 101 (7.05%) Degree
4 42 (2.93%) Computer Science Degree
5 34 (2.37%) Azure Certification
5 34 (2.37%) BPSS Clearance
5 34 (2.37%) Master's Degree
6 21 (1.47%) AWS Certification
7 13 (0.91%) DBS Check
8 12 (0.84%) DV Cleared
8 12 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 9 (0.63%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 8 (0.56%) SnowPro
11 6 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.21%) CSPO
12 3 (0.21%) IBM Certification
13 2 (0.14%) PhD
13 2 (0.14%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.14%) Tableau Certification
14 1 (0.070%) CCSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 415 (28.96%) Data Quality
2 89 (6.21%) GDPR
3 65 (4.54%) QA
4 15 (1.05%) SLA
5 8 (0.56%) Accessibility
5 8 (0.56%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.28%) MiFID
7 4 (0.28%) Solvency II
8 3 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
8 3 (0.21%) GRC
8 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.21%) NIST
9 2 (0.14%) COPPA
9 2 (0.14%) EMIR
9 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 2 (0.14%) PMO
9 2 (0.14%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 130 (9.07%) Docker
2 3 (0.21%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.14%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 197 (13.75%) Terraform
2 108 (7.54%) Kubernetes
3 25 (1.74%) Grafana
3 25 (1.74%) Prometheus
4 9 (0.63%) Ansible
5 3 (0.21%) Argo
5 3 (0.21%) Kibana
5 3 (0.21%) Nagios
5 3 (0.21%) Rancher
6 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
6 2 (0.14%) logstash
6 2 (0.14%) Thomson Reuters DACS
7 1 (0.070%) Control-M
7 1 (0.070%) Hadoop YARN
7 1 (0.070%) HP Fortify
7 1 (0.070%) IBM Guardium
7 1 (0.070%) Oozie
Vendors
1 371 (25.89%) Databricks
2 243 (16.96%) Microsoft
3 81 (5.65%) Informatica
4 60 (4.19%) Oracle
5 58 (4.05%) Google
6 32 (2.23%) Talend
7 27 (1.88%) OpenAI
8 25 (1.74%) Foundry
8 25 (1.74%) SAP
9 21 (1.47%) Splunk
10 20 (1.40%) Palantir
11 19 (1.33%) Salesforce
12 16 (1.12%) ServiceNow
13 15 (1.05%) Cloudera
14 12 (0.84%) Trend Micro
15 9 (0.63%) UiPath
16 8 (0.56%) Automation Anywhere
16 8 (0.56%) Denodo
17 7 (0.49%) IBM
17 7 (0.49%) InterSystems