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 14 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 92 158 213
Rank change year-on-year +66 +55 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,197 537 493
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.77% 1.82% 1.11%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.22% 2.01% 1.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 828 377 369
10th Percentile £375 £375 £375
25th Percentile £447 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £663 £675
90th Percentile £749 £838 £739
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £489 £550
% change year-on-year +2.25% -11.09% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 13 13
10th Percentile £50.75 £21.40 £30.55
25th Percentile £56.75 £22.00 £31.25
Median hourly rate £69.44 £25.43 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +173.06% -27.34% -
75th Percentile £75.00 £28.75 £43.51
90th Percentile £86.25 £58.00 £62.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £25.43 £47.69
% change year-on-year +172.20% -46.67% +139.50%

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 37,150 26,655 38,571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.07% 90.32% 86.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,527 17,023 25,087
10th Percentile £313 £306 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £612 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £745 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -2.04% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,218 906 2,334
10th Percentile £14.88 £15.39 £13.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.00 £16.06
Median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year -7.69% - -7.14%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £75.00 £77.50 £70.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £31.65
% change year-on-year -15.38% +2.69% -9.57%

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 14 March 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 14 March 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 14 March 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 1,066 £525 -4.55% 507
London +53 699 £550 -4.35% 274
UK excluding London +50 377 £500 +2.25% 339
Work from Home +28 354 £550 -4.35% 230
Midlands +21 108 £513 +2.50% 42
North of England -5 107 £460 -8.00% 102
West Midlands +6 87 £523 +4.50% 35
South West +11 62 £550 -15.38% 35
North West -6 51 £450 -2.70% 49
Scotland +31 49 £440 -6.98% 19
South East -34 43 £550 +10.00% 123
Yorkshire -35 35 £478 -20.42% 43
North East +7 21 £450 -10.00% 11
East Midlands -17 20 £447 -12.78% 7
East of England -28 14 £575 +79.69% 15
Wales -16 7 £563 +113.50% 7
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 -

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 (16.04%) Apache Spark
2 123 (10.28%) Apache Airflow
3 90 (7.52%) Apache
4 22 (1.84%) SAS
5 20 (1.67%) Palantir Foundry
6 16 (1.34%) Confluence
7 8 (0.67%) Appian
8 4 (0.33%) Apache Superset
8 4 (0.33%) Jupyter
8 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.17%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.084%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.084%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.084%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.084%) Camunda
10 1 (0.084%) CMS
10 1 (0.084%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.084%) Luigi
Applications
1 26 (2.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.58%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.58%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.33%) Chatbot
4 4 (0.33%) MS Visio
5 3 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
5 3 (0.25%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (0.58%) Aladdin
2 3 (0.25%) BambooHR
2 3 (0.25%) SAP BPC
3 2 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.084%) Actimize
4 1 (0.084%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.084%) Markit EDM
4 1 (0.084%) Maximo
4 1 (0.084%) Misys Midas
4 1 (0.084%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.084%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 564 (47.12%) Azure
2 425 (35.51%) AWS
3 257 (21.47%) Power Platform
4 206 (17.21%) Azure Data Factory
5 167 (13.95%) GCP
6 159 (13.28%) Snowflake
7 140 (11.70%) Amazon S3
8 128 (10.69%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 128 (10.69%) GitHub
9 122 (10.19%) Serverless
10 103 (8.60%) Azure DevOps
11 100 (8.35%) dbt
12 95 (7.94%) AWS Lambda
13 81 (6.77%) GitHub Actions
14 64 (5.35%) AWS CloudFormation
15 39 (3.26%) AWS Step Functions
16 33 (2.76%) Amazon EMR
17 28 (2.34%) Amazon SageMaker
17 28 (2.34%) Collibra
18 27 (2.26%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.33%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.33%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.33%) Network Security
1 4 (0.33%) RTP
2 3 (0.25%) Firewall
2 3 (0.25%) VPN
3 1 (0.084%) 4G
3 1 (0.084%) 5G
3 1 (0.084%) MQTT
3 1 (0.084%) SAN
3 1 (0.084%) SMS
3 1 (0.084%) SSL
3 1 (0.084%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 241 (20.13%) Data Warehouse
2 235 (19.63%) Power BI
3 172 (14.37%) Data Lake
4 112 (9.36%) Metadata
5 88 (7.35%) Big Data
6 84 (7.02%) NoSQL
6 84 (7.02%) SQL Server
7 80 (6.68%) Delta Lake
8 62 (5.18%) Amazon Redshift
9 61 (5.10%) Relational Database
9 61 (5.10%) Snowflake Schema
10 60 (5.01%) Amazon Athena
11 57 (4.76%) Azure SQL Database
11 57 (4.76%) BigQuery
11 57 (4.76%) PostgreSQL
12 54 (4.51%) Tableau
13 51 (4.26%) Hadoop
14 34 (2.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 32 (2.67%) Spark SQL
16 22 (1.84%) Mixpanel
Development Applications
1 173 (14.45%) Git
2 63 (5.26%) GitLab
3 48 (4.01%) MLflow
4 46 (3.84%) Jenkins
5 31 (2.59%) JIRA
6 6 (0.50%) Selenium
7 5 (0.42%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.42%) Visual Studio Code
8 4 (0.33%) Cucumber
9 3 (0.25%) JUnit
9 3 (0.25%) Maven
9 3 (0.25%) Postman
9 3 (0.25%) Robot Framework
9 3 (0.25%) Terragrunt
10 2 (0.17%) ERwin
10 2 (0.17%) Gemini Tracker
10 2 (0.17%) JMeter
10 2 (0.17%) Mockito
10 2 (0.17%) Visual Studio
10 2 (0.17%) Zephyr
General
1 326 (27.23%) Social Skills
2 280 (23.39%) Finance
3 174 (14.54%) Analytical Skills
4 99 (8.27%) Public Sector
5 74 (6.18%) Banking
6 28 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 20 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
7 20 (1.67%) Front Office
7 20 (1.67%) Investment Banking
7 20 (1.67%) Retail
8 18 (1.50%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (1.42%) Marketing
10 12 (1.00%) Legal
11 11 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
11 11 (0.92%) Telecoms
12 10 (0.84%) Financial Institution
13 9 (0.75%) Publishing
14 7 (0.58%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.50%) Back Office
15 6 (0.50%) Military
Job Titles
1 545 (45.53%) Data Engineer
2 161 (13.45%) Lead
3 152 (12.70%) Senior
4 101 (8.44%) Architect
4 101 (8.44%) Senior Data Engineer
5 80 (6.68%) Azure Engineer
6 77 (6.43%) Developer
7 63 (5.26%) Azure Data Engineer
8 58 (4.85%) Lead Data Engineer
9 57 (4.76%) AWS Engineer
10 53 (4.43%) Analyst
10 53 (4.43%) Data Architect
11 50 (4.18%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
12 46 (3.84%) Snowflake Engineer
13 45 (3.76%) Data Scientist
14 39 (3.26%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 36 (3.01%) AWS Data Engineer
16 34 (2.84%) Consultant
17 32 (2.67%) Python Engineer
18 31 (2.59%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 221 (18.46%) PySpark
2 145 (12.11%) Kafka
3 69 (5.76%) Pandas
4 62 (5.18%) PyTorch
5 51 (4.26%) TensorFlow
6 47 (3.93%) NumPy
6 47 (3.93%) scikit-learn
7 33 (2.76%) FastAPI
8 30 (2.51%) JSON
9 29 (2.42%) RESTful
10 27 (2.26%) Flask
10 27 (2.26%) YAML
11 26 (2.17%) pytest
12 25 (2.09%) REST
13 24 (2.01%) LangChain
13 24 (2.01%) React
14 18 (1.50%) Spring
15 17 (1.42%) ARM Templates
15 17 (1.42%) Great Expectations
16 15 (1.25%) Hugging Face
Miscellaneous
1 162 (13.53%) Cloud Native
2 52 (4.34%) Algorithms
3 46 (3.84%) Product Ownership
4 42 (3.51%) Distributed Systems
5 31 (2.59%) Legacy Systems
6 30 (2.51%) Distributed Computing
7 25 (2.09%) Onboarding
8 24 (2.01%) Data Structures
8 24 (2.01%) Hybrid Cloud
9 21 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
10 19 (1.59%) AI Agents
11 18 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
12 16 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
13 14 (1.17%) Fixed Income
14 13 (1.09%) Management Information System
15 12 (1.00%) Clustering
15 12 (1.00%) Derivative
15 12 (1.00%) NHS
15 12 (1.00%) Virtual Team
16 11 (0.92%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.42%) Linux
2 12 (1.00%) Unix
3 7 (0.58%) VMS
4 3 (0.25%) Windows
5 2 (0.17%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.17%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.084%) CentOS
6 1 (0.084%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 570 (47.62%) Analytics
2 544 (45.45%) Data Pipeline
3 479 (40.02%) ETL
4 461 (38.51%) Data Modelling
5 447 (37.34%) CI/CD
6 322 (26.90%) Data Governance
7 320 (26.73%) AI
8 309 (25.81%) Agile
9 306 (25.56%) DevOps
10 292 (24.39%) Business Intelligence
11 263 (21.97%) Machine Learning
12 247 (20.63%) Problem-Solving
13 236 (19.72%) Data Science
14 189 (15.79%) Data Architecture
15 153 (12.78%) Infrastructure as Code
16 136 (11.36%) Decision-Making
17 129 (10.78%) Validation
18 123 (10.28%) Migration
19 121 (10.11%) LLM
20 115 (9.61%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 707 (59.06%) Python
2 649 (54.22%) SQL
3 92 (7.69%) Java
4 68 (5.68%) Scala
5 45 (3.76%) C#
6 39 (3.26%) Bash
7 37 (3.09%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 36 (3.01%) PowerShell
9 31 (2.59%) JavaScript
10 22 (1.84%) Bicep
11 21 (1.75%) T-SQL
12 18 (1.50%) TypeScript
13 16 (1.34%) Go
13 16 (1.34%) R
14 11 (0.92%) C++
15 10 (0.84%) Shell Script
16 9 (0.75%) PL/SQL
17 6 (0.50%) Korn
17 6 (0.50%) Rust
18 3 (0.25%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 236 (19.72%) Security Cleared
2 194 (16.21%) SC Cleared
3 118 (9.86%) Degree
4 51 (4.26%) Azure Certification
5 49 (4.09%) Master's Degree
6 48 (4.01%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (1.92%) DV Cleared
8 19 (1.59%) AWS Certification
8 19 (1.59%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
10 12 (1.00%) PhD
11 4 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.33%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.25%) IBM Certification
13 1 (0.084%) ACCA
13 1 (0.084%) APMG
13 1 (0.084%) CIMA
13 1 (0.084%) CISM
13 1 (0.084%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 343 (28.65%) Data Quality
2 95 (7.94%) GDPR
3 40 (3.34%) QA
4 14 (1.17%) Accessibility
5 11 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 8 (0.67%) HIPAA
6 8 (0.67%) SLA
7 6 (0.50%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 5 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.42%) PERC
8 5 (0.42%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.25%) GRC
9 3 (0.25%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.25%) WCAG
10 2 (0.17%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.17%) HL7
10 2 (0.17%) MiFID
10 2 (0.17%) NIST
10 2 (0.17%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.084%) GxP
System Software
1 153 (12.78%) Docker
2 6 (0.50%) HDFS
3 3 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.084%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.084%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 183 (15.29%) Terraform
2 139 (11.61%) Kubernetes
3 28 (2.34%) Prometheus
4 17 (1.42%) Grafana
5 8 (0.67%) Ansible
6 4 (0.33%) Argo
7 3 (0.25%) Kubeflow
7 3 (0.25%) Rancher
8 2 (0.17%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.17%) Kibana
8 2 (0.17%) Nagios
8 2 (0.17%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.084%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.084%) Control-M
9 1 (0.084%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.084%) Oozie
Vendors
1 368 (30.74%) Databricks
2 173 (14.45%) Microsoft
3 61 (5.10%) Google
4 42 (3.51%) Informatica
5 40 (3.34%) Oracle
6 29 (2.42%) Talend
7 26 (2.17%) Foundry
8 24 (2.01%) Palantir
9 22 (1.84%) OpenAI
10 17 (1.42%) Splunk
11 15 (1.25%) Cloudera
11 15 (1.25%) SAP
12 10 (0.84%) Denodo
12 10 (0.84%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.75%) UiPath
14 8 (0.67%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.67%) IBM
14 8 (0.67%) ServiceNow
15 6 (0.50%) MicroStrategy
16 5 (0.42%) Murex