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

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 87 170 200
Rank change year-on-year +83 +30 +11
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,442 509 510
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.86% 1.71% 1.16%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.37% 1.88% 1.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 992 349 383
10th Percentile £386 £375 £365
25th Percentile £443 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £633 £669 £663
90th Percentile £749 £815 £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 42,754 27,087 37,306
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.83% 91.00% 85.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,630 17,192 23,755
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.46% -3.79% -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £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 2,570 1,249 2,608
10th Percentile £14.80 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.02 £17.87 £16.02
Median hourly rate £43.96 £26.21 £37.18
Median % change year-on-year +67.72% -29.51% +6.14%
75th Percentile £68.00 £55.25 £61.30
90th Percentile £81.32 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -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 18 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 18 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 18 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 +73 1,280 £525 -2.78% 503
London +66 772 £550 -2.22% 279
UK excluding London +76 531 £500 +5.26% 370
Work from Home +74 459 £524 -0.24% 256
North of England +26 163 £475 -5.00% 94
Midlands +26 127 £500 +8.11% 44
West Midlands +32 107 £498 -14.22% 25
South West +36 83 £500 -4.76% 35
South East -16 72 £525 +8.92% 128
Yorkshire -11 70 £480 -4.00% 20
Scotland +23 58 £475 - 8
North West -3 58 £500 - 61
North East -4 37 £425 -15.00% 13
East of England -15 24 £575 +78.92% 13
East Midlands -15 17 £525 +13.51% 19
Wales -7 9 £450 +75.14% 10
Northern Ireland - 6 £382 - 43

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
1 189 (13.11%) Apache Spark
2 167 (11.58%) Apache Airflow
3 107 (7.42%) Apache
4 43 (2.98%) SAS
5 37 (2.57%) Confluence
6 23 (1.60%) Jupyter
7 17 (1.18%) Palantir Foundry
8 10 (0.69%) SharePoint
9 8 (0.55%) Appian
10 7 (0.49%) Apache Superset
11 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Exchange
12 3 (0.21%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
14 1 (0.069%) Adobe Experience Manager
14 1 (0.069%) Camunda
14 1 (0.069%) CICS
14 1 (0.069%) IBM HTTP Server
14 1 (0.069%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 26 (1.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.55%) Microsoft Office
2 8 (0.55%) Spreadsheet
3 7 (0.49%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (0.35%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.21%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.069%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.069%) Notion
6 1 (0.069%) 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 (0.069%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.069%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.069%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.069%) SAP ECC
5 1 (0.069%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 614 (42.58%) Azure
2 544 (37.73%) AWS
3 329 (22.82%) Power Platform
4 207 (14.36%) Snowflake
5 190 (13.18%) GCP
6 175 (12.14%) Azure Data Factory
7 174 (12.07%) Amazon S3
8 162 (11.23%) dbt
9 133 (9.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 130 (9.02%) GitHub
11 123 (8.53%) Serverless
12 122 (8.46%) Azure DevOps
13 107 (7.42%) AWS Lambda
14 74 (5.13%) GitHub Actions
15 55 (3.81%) Amazon EMR
16 44 (3.05%) AWS CloudFormation
17 33 (2.29%) Azure AI
18 31 (2.15%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 28 (1.94%) AWS Step Functions
19 28 (1.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.35%) Firewall
1 5 (0.35%) RTP
2 2 (0.14%) Network Security
3 1 (0.069%) 4G
3 1 (0.069%) 5G
3 1 (0.069%) MIMO
3 1 (0.069%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 305 (21.15%) Power BI
2 270 (18.72%) Data Warehouse
3 220 (15.26%) Data Lake
4 135 (9.36%) Metadata
5 110 (7.63%) Big Data
6 102 (7.07%) Amazon Redshift
7 93 (6.45%) SQL Server
8 89 (6.17%) Delta Lake
9 81 (5.62%) Tableau
10 80 (5.55%) Amazon Athena
10 80 (5.55%) BigQuery
11 75 (5.20%) Snowflake Schema
12 71 (4.92%) NoSQL
13 56 (3.88%) Relational Database
14 55 (3.81%) PostgreSQL
15 52 (3.61%) Azure SQL Database
16 49 (3.40%) Hadoop
17 39 (2.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 33 (2.29%) Spark SQL
19 32 (2.22%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 172 (11.93%) Git
2 80 (5.55%) GitLab
3 67 (4.65%) JIRA
4 36 (2.50%) MLflow
5 21 (1.46%) 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%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.21%) Snyk
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Claude Code
9 2 (0.14%) ERwin
9 2 (0.14%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.069%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.069%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.069%) Maven
10 1 (0.069%) SoapUI
General
1 353 (24.48%) Social Skills
2 344 (23.86%) Finance
3 216 (14.98%) Analytical Skills
4 149 (10.33%) Public Sector
5 103 (7.14%) Banking
6 35 (2.43%) Marketing
7 32 (2.22%) Documentation Skills
8 31 (2.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 31 (2.15%) Retail
9 18 (1.25%) Front Office
9 18 (1.25%) Telecoms
10 16 (1.11%) Investment Banking
11 14 (0.97%) Financial Institution
12 12 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
13 11 (0.76%) Law
14 10 (0.69%) Legal
15 8 (0.55%) Manufacturing
16 7 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
17 6 (0.42%) Back Office
17 6 (0.42%) Billing
Job Titles
1 676 (46.88%) Data Engineer
2 210 (14.56%) Senior
3 159 (11.03%) Architect
4 157 (10.89%) Lead
5 128 (8.88%) Senior Data Engineer
6 83 (5.76%) Data Architect
7 77 (5.34%) Developer
8 74 (5.13%) AWS Engineer
9 64 (4.44%) Analyst
10 63 (4.37%) Lead Data Engineer
11 57 (3.95%) AWS Data Engineer
12 56 (3.88%) Snowflake Engineer
13 48 (3.33%) Azure Engineer
14 46 (3.19%) Data Scientist
14 46 (3.19%) Solutions Architect
15 45 (3.12%) Snowflake Data Engineer
16 43 (2.98%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 42 (2.91%) Azure Data Engineer
17 42 (2.91%) Consultant
17 42 (2.91%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (14.84%) PySpark
2 137 (9.50%) Kafka
3 49 (3.40%) Pandas
4 44 (3.05%) REST
5 37 (2.57%) scikit-learn
6 36 (2.50%) PyTorch
7 31 (2.15%) NumPy
8 29 (2.01%) JSON
9 28 (1.94%) TensorFlow
10 24 (1.66%) Spring
11 23 (1.60%) React
12 19 (1.32%) RESTful
13 18 (1.25%) FastAPI
14 17 (1.18%) Spring Boot
15 15 (1.04%) pytest
15 15 (1.04%) YAML
16 14 (0.97%) LangChain
16 14 (0.97%) XML
17 13 (0.90%) Flask
17 13 (0.90%) Great Expectations
Miscellaneous
1 194 (13.45%) Cloud Native
2 57 (3.95%) Data Structures
2 57 (3.95%) Distributed Systems
3 53 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
4 48 (3.33%) Product Ownership
5 34 (2.36%) AI Agents
6 33 (2.29%) Onboarding
7 26 (1.80%) Distributed Computing
8 24 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 23 (1.60%) Greenfield Project
10 21 (1.46%) Algorithms
11 19 (1.32%) Analytical Mindset
12 18 (1.25%) NHS
13 15 (1.04%) Clustering
14 14 (0.97%) Fixed Income
15 13 (0.90%) Management Information System
15 13 (0.90%) Self-Motivation
15 13 (0.90%) Virtual Team
16 12 (0.83%) Reference Data
17 11 (0.76%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 28 (1.94%) Linux
2 25 (1.73%) Unix
3 5 (0.35%) VMS
4 3 (0.21%) Windows
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.069%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 749 (51.94%) Analytics
2 680 (47.16%) Data Pipeline
3 557 (38.63%) Data Modelling
4 522 (36.20%) CI/CD
5 513 (35.58%) ETL
6 438 (30.37%) AI
7 378 (26.21%) Business Intelligence
8 358 (24.83%) Agile
8 358 (24.83%) DevOps
9 310 (21.50%) Data Governance
10 283 (19.63%) Machine Learning
11 256 (17.75%) Problem-Solving
12 252 (17.48%) Data Science
13 201 (13.94%) Migration
14 200 (13.87%) Decision-Making
15 196 (13.59%) Data Architecture
16 192 (13.31%) Validation
17 169 (11.72%) Infrastructure as Code
18 165 (11.44%) Use Case
19 157 (10.89%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 793 (54.99%) SQL
2 774 (53.68%) Python
3 113 (7.84%) Java
4 44 (3.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 41 (2.84%) Scala
6 35 (2.43%) Bash
6 35 (2.43%) C#
7 27 (1.87%) T-SQL
8 24 (1.66%) PowerShell
9 20 (1.39%) JavaScript
9 20 (1.39%) R
10 17 (1.18%) Bicep
10 17 (1.18%) PL/SQL
11 13 (0.90%) TypeScript
12 12 (0.83%) Shell Script
13 10 (0.69%) SAS Macro
14 5 (0.35%) Korn
14 5 (0.35%) Kusto Query Language
15 4 (0.28%) SPARQL
16 3 (0.21%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 273 (18.93%) Security Cleared
2 240 (16.64%) SC Cleared
3 101 (7.00%) Degree
4 42 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (2.43%) BPSS Clearance
6 34 (2.36%) Master's Degree
7 33 (2.29%) Azure Certification
8 21 (1.46%) AWS Certification
9 13 (0.90%) DBS Check
10 12 (0.83%) DV Cleared
10 12 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
11 9 (0.62%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 8 (0.55%) SnowPro
13 6 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 3 (0.21%) CSPO
14 3 (0.21%) IBM Certification
15 2 (0.14%) PhD
15 2 (0.14%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.14%) Tableau Certification
16 1 (0.069%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 418 (28.99%) Data Quality
2 88 (6.10%) GDPR
3 65 (4.51%) QA
4 15 (1.04%) SLA
5 9 (0.62%) Accessibility
6 8 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.28%) MiFID
8 4 (0.28%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.21%) Disclosure Scotland
9 3 (0.21%) GRC
9 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.21%) NIST
10 2 (0.14%) COPPA
10 2 (0.14%) EMIR
10 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.14%) PMO
10 2 (0.14%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 131 (9.08%) Docker
2 3 (0.21%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (0.14%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 195 (13.52%) Terraform
2 109 (7.56%) Kubernetes
3 25 (1.73%) Grafana
3 25 (1.73%) Prometheus
4 9 (0.62%) 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 (0.069%) Control-M
7 1 (0.069%) Hadoop YARN
7 1 (0.069%) HP Fortify
7 1 (0.069%) IBM Guardium
7 1 (0.069%) Oozie
Vendors
1 373 (25.87%) Databricks
2 248 (17.20%) Microsoft
3 81 (5.62%) Informatica
4 60 (4.16%) Oracle
5 57 (3.95%) Google
6 32 (2.22%) Talend
7 28 (1.94%) OpenAI
8 25 (1.73%) Foundry
8 25 (1.73%) SAP
9 21 (1.46%) Palantir
9 21 (1.46%) Salesforce
9 21 (1.46%) Splunk
10 16 (1.11%) ServiceNow
11 15 (1.04%) Cloudera
12 12 (0.83%) Trend Micro
13 9 (0.62%) UiPath
14 8 (0.55%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (0.55%) Denodo
15 7 (0.49%) IBM
15 7 (0.49%) InterSystems