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

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 168 215
Rank change year-on-year +49 +47 +8
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 857 487 471
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.36% 1.55% 1.10%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.69% 1.74% 1.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 568 337 351
10th Percentile £363 £384 £400
25th Percentile £415 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £749 £805 £738
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 31,821 27,941 37,669
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 87.79% 88.66% 87.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,057 16,962 24,992
10th Percentile £304 £306 £304
25th Percentile £406 £413 £415
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £723 £744 £742
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,969 885 1,593
10th Percentile £14.60 £15.62 £14.18
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.48 £18.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.25 £40.50
Median % change year-on-year -22.00% -20.38% +16.41%
75th Percentile £56.00 £61.76 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.49 £74.82 £77.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.83 £30.11 £43.90
% change year-on-year -20.86% -31.42% +59.64%

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 12 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 12 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 12 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 +58 758 £525 -8.70% 932
London +62 538 £550 -4.35% 211
Work from Home +15 252 £550 -4.35% 393
UK excluding London +10 227 £475 -5.00% 849
North of England -13 72 £450 -18.18% 158
Midlands -5 60 £546 +9.15% 109
North West -6 46 £435 -13.00% 65
West Midlands -11 42 £550 +10.00% 38
Scotland +20 36 £402 -6.78% 28
South East -10 28 £513 -5.96% 282
South West -16 28 £550 -17.60% 113
East Midlands -4 18 £429 -31.40% 69
Yorkshire -34 14 £500 -9.09% 65
North East 0 12 £425 -28.87% 28
East of England -15 12 £500 +29.87% 122
Wales -14 2 £495 -1.00% 39
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 18

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
1 123 (14.35%) Apache Spark
2 103 (12.02%) Apache Airflow
3 64 (7.47%) Apache
4 13 (1.52%) Confluence
5 4 (0.47%) Appian
5 4 (0.47%) SAS
6 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Pig
7 1 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.12%) CMS
7 1 (0.12%) Luigi
7 1 (0.12%) SharePoint
Applications
1 16 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.93%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.70%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.35%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.35%) Trello
5 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
6 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 6 (0.70%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.35%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.23%) Eagle PACE
3 2 (0.23%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.12%) Actimize
4 1 (0.12%) Maximo
4 1 (0.12%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.12%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.12%) SAP BPC
4 1 (0.12%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 391 (45.62%) Azure
2 293 (34.19%) AWS
3 158 (18.44%) Power Platform
4 153 (17.85%) Azure Data Factory
5 122 (14.24%) GCP
6 121 (14.12%) Snowflake
7 98 (11.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 95 (11.09%) Amazon S3
9 86 (10.04%) GitHub
10 85 (9.92%) Serverless
11 75 (8.75%) dbt
12 69 (8.05%) Azure DevOps
13 64 (7.47%) AWS Lambda
14 57 (6.65%) GitHub Actions
15 36 (4.20%) AWS CloudFormation
16 25 (2.92%) AWS Step Functions
17 22 (2.57%) Amazon SageMaker
17 22 (2.57%) Azure Machine Learning
18 20 (2.33%) Cloud Computing
19 19 (2.22%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.47%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.47%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.47%) Network Security
2 3 (0.35%) Firewall
2 3 (0.35%) VPN
3 2 (0.23%) SSL
3 2 (0.23%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.12%) DNS
4 1 (0.12%) MQTT
4 1 (0.12%) SAN
4 1 (0.12%) SMS
4 1 (0.12%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 166 (19.37%) Data Warehouse
2 153 (17.85%) Power BI
3 118 (13.77%) Data Lake
4 71 (8.28%) Metadata
5 54 (6.30%) Big Data
5 54 (6.30%) NoSQL
6 50 (5.83%) Azure SQL Database
6 50 (5.83%) Relational Database
7 49 (5.72%) SQL Server
8 46 (5.37%) Delta Lake
9 43 (5.02%) BigQuery
10 41 (4.78%) Snowflake Schema
11 39 (4.55%) Amazon Redshift
12 36 (4.20%) PostgreSQL
13 35 (4.08%) Amazon Athena
13 35 (4.08%) Tableau
14 33 (3.85%) Hadoop
15 23 (2.68%) RDBMS
16 19 (2.22%) Spark SQL
16 19 (2.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 132 (15.40%) Git
2 46 (5.37%) GitLab
3 45 (5.25%) Jenkins
4 32 (3.73%) MLflow
5 24 (2.80%) JIRA
6 8 (0.93%) Visual Studio Code
7 5 (0.58%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.47%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.35%) JMeter
9 3 (0.35%) Poetry
9 3 (0.35%) Selenium
10 2 (0.23%) Gemini Tracker
10 2 (0.23%) JUnit
10 2 (0.23%) Maven
10 2 (0.23%) Mockito
10 2 (0.23%) Pylint
10 2 (0.23%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.23%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.23%) TestRail
10 2 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 243 (28.35%) Social Skills
2 201 (23.45%) Finance
3 109 (12.72%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (6.88%) Public Sector
5 55 (6.42%) Banking
6 22 (2.57%) Investment Banking
7 19 (2.22%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 16 (1.87%) Retail
9 15 (1.75%) Front Office
9 15 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
10 14 (1.63%) Influencing Skills
11 13 (1.52%) Marketing
12 11 (1.28%) Legal
13 9 (1.05%) Publishing
14 8 (0.93%) Military
15 7 (0.82%) Documentation Skills
15 7 (0.82%) Telecoms
16 6 (0.70%) Back Office
16 6 (0.70%) Presentation Skills
17 5 (0.58%) Health Technology
Job Titles
1 368 (42.94%) Data Engineer
2 110 (12.84%) Senior
3 92 (10.74%) Lead
4 75 (8.75%) Azure Engineer
5 72 (8.40%) Senior Data Engineer
6 60 (7.00%) Developer
7 59 (6.88%) Architect
8 53 (6.18%) Azure Data Engineer
9 45 (5.25%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
10 42 (4.90%) Analyst
11 39 (4.55%) AWS Engineer
11 39 (4.55%) Python Engineer
12 37 (4.32%) Snowflake Engineer
13 31 (3.62%) Data Scientist
14 30 (3.50%) Data Architect
15 29 (3.38%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 25 (2.92%) AWS Data Engineer
17 24 (2.80%) Lead Data Engineer
17 24 (2.80%) Python Data Engineer
18 23 (2.68%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 162 (18.90%) PySpark
2 88 (10.27%) Kafka
3 59 (6.88%) Pandas
4 49 (5.72%) PyTorch
5 44 (5.13%) NumPy
5 44 (5.13%) TensorFlow
6 40 (4.67%) FastAPI
7 32 (3.73%) Flask
7 32 (3.73%) scikit-learn
8 30 (3.50%) RESTful
9 24 (2.80%) LangChain
10 23 (2.68%) React
11 20 (2.33%) pytest
12 19 (2.22%) JSON
13 18 (2.10%) REST
14 15 (1.75%) OAuth
14 15 (1.75%) Spark Streaming
14 15 (1.75%) YAML
15 14 (1.63%) Hugging Face
16 12 (1.40%) Polars
Miscellaneous
1 80 (9.33%) Cloud Native
2 44 (5.13%) Algorithms
3 25 (2.92%) Distributed Computing
4 22 (2.57%) Distributed Systems
4 22 (2.57%) Product Ownership
5 21 (2.45%) Data Structures
6 19 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.22%) Onboarding
7 16 (1.87%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 15 (1.75%) Hybrid Cloud
8 15 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
9 13 (1.52%) Hedge funds
10 12 (1.40%) AI Agents
10 12 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.28%) Life Science
12 10 (1.17%) Clustering
12 10 (1.17%) Data Fabric
12 10 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
13 9 (1.05%) Genomics
13 9 (1.05%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 27 (3.15%) Linux
2 3 (0.35%) VMS
3 2 (0.23%) Android
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.12%) CentOS
4 1 (0.12%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 375 (43.76%) Data Pipeline
2 318 (37.11%) Analytics
3 316 (36.87%) ETL
4 303 (35.36%) CI/CD
5 297 (34.66%) Data Modelling
6 221 (25.79%) AI
7 209 (24.39%) Data Governance
8 198 (23.10%) Agile
8 198 (23.10%) Machine Learning
9 195 (22.75%) DevOps
10 184 (21.47%) Business Intelligence
11 172 (20.07%) Data Science
12 171 (19.95%) Problem-Solving
13 144 (16.80%) Data Architecture
14 99 (11.55%) Infrastructure as Code
15 92 (10.74%) Data Integration
16 91 (10.62%) Containerisation
17 82 (9.57%) LLM
18 80 (9.33%) Data Transformation
19 78 (9.10%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 539 (62.89%) Python
2 422 (49.24%) SQL
3 60 (7.00%) Scala
4 51 (5.95%) Java
5 35 (4.08%) C#
6 31 (3.62%) JavaScript
7 26 (3.03%) PowerShell
8 22 (2.57%) C++
9 19 (2.22%) Bash
9 19 (2.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 17 (1.98%) Bicep
10 17 (1.98%) T-SQL
11 16 (1.87%) PL/SQL
11 16 (1.87%) R
12 15 (1.75%) Go
12 15 (1.75%) TypeScript
13 12 (1.40%) Rust
13 12 (1.40%) Shell Script
14 7 (0.82%) Korn
15 2 (0.23%) VBA
Qualifications
1 157 (18.32%) Security Cleared
2 129 (15.05%) SC Cleared
3 67 (7.82%) Degree
4 49 (5.72%) Azure Certification
5 30 (3.50%) Master's Degree
6 28 (3.27%) Computer Science Degree
7 18 (2.10%) DV Cleared
8 14 (1.63%) AWS Certification
8 14 (1.63%) Microsoft Certification
9 12 (1.40%) PhD
10 7 (0.82%) MCP
11 6 (0.70%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (0.58%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.35%) Tableau Certification
14 2 (0.23%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 2 (0.23%) CBAP
14 2 (0.23%) ISTQB
14 2 (0.23%) SnowPro
15 1 (0.12%) APMG
15 1 (0.12%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 218 (25.44%) Data Quality
2 63 (7.35%) GDPR
3 27 (3.15%) QA
4 19 (2.22%) Accessibility
5 9 (1.05%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (0.93%) HIPAA
7 5 (0.58%) PERC
8 4 (0.47%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 4 (0.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.47%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.47%) WCAG
9 3 (0.35%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.23%) HL7
10 2 (0.23%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.23%) PMO
11 1 (0.12%) AIFMD
11 1 (0.12%) Dodd-Frank
11 1 (0.12%) EMIR
11 1 (0.12%) NCSC
11 1 (0.12%) Solvency II
System Software
1 135 (15.75%) Docker
2 16 (1.87%) HDFS
3 2 (0.23%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.12%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 131 (15.29%) Terraform
2 112 (13.07%) Kubernetes
3 15 (1.75%) Grafana
4 13 (1.52%) Ansible
5 11 (1.28%) Hadoop YARN
6 9 (1.05%) Prometheus
7 5 (0.58%) Puppet
8 4 (0.47%) Argo
9 3 (0.35%) Control-M
9 3 (0.35%) Kibana
9 3 (0.35%) logstash
9 3 (0.35%) Oozie
10 2 (0.23%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.23%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
11 1 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
11 1 (0.12%) Istio
11 1 (0.12%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
11 1 (0.12%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 252 (29.40%) Databricks
2 109 (12.72%) Microsoft
3 45 (5.25%) Google
4 28 (3.27%) Oracle
5 17 (1.98%) Informatica
5 17 (1.98%) Palantir
6 15 (1.75%) Foundry
7 13 (1.52%) OpenAI
7 13 (1.52%) SAP
7 13 (1.52%) Talend
8 10 (1.17%) Cloudera
8 10 (1.17%) Salesforce
9 8 (0.93%) Virgin Media
10 6 (0.70%) Denodo
10 6 (0.70%) Guidewire
11 5 (0.58%) ServiceNow
12 4 (0.47%) Automation Anywhere
12 4 (0.47%) IBM
12 4 (0.47%) MicroStrategy
12 4 (0.47%) UiPath