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 15 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 151 210
Rank change year-on-year +53 +59 +11
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,055 546 511
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.64% 1.77% 1.14%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.04% 1.97% 1.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 722 381 383
10th Percentile £363 £350 £375
25th Percentile £425 £444 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £517 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.05% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £623 £650 £650
90th Percentile £738 £825 £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 10 14 10
10th Percentile £48.53 £21.48 £33.67
25th Percentile £52.19 £22.18 £35.16
Median hourly rate £61.25 £25.97 £42.25
Median % change year-on-year +135.89% -38.54% +20.71%
75th Percentile £67.75 £28.60 £61.31
90th Percentile £69.92 £54.50 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £25.97 £71.50
% change year-on-year +146.49% -63.69% +249.29%

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 34,716 27,671 39,074
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 86.89% 89.53% 87.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,993 16,979 25,588
10th Percentile £310 £306 £300
25th Percentile £409 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £721 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.43% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,102 844 2,136
10th Percentile £14.55 £15.62 £13.25
25th Percentile £17.87 £21.00 £16.25
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £33.28
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -2.35% -1.12%
75th Percentile £60.00 £63.75 £60.29
90th Percentile £70.00 £75.00 £73.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £30.45 £35.00
% change year-on-year -17.41% -13.00% +7.69%

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 15 February 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 15 February 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 15 February 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 +62 932 £525 -4.55% 412
London +70 630 £550 -4.35% 170
UK excluding London +13 321 £475 -5.00% 299
Work from Home +25 309 £550 -3.51% 244
North of England -10 95 £450 -10.00% 83
Midlands +4 82 £513 +2.50% 51
West Midlands +1 62 £525 +5.00% 40
North West -4 52 £445 -1.11% 48
Scotland +26 51 £411 -13.05% 21
South West -6 47 £550 -15.38% 31
South East -19 39 £525 -2.78% 96
Yorkshire -51 25 £500 -20.00% 27
East Midlands -11 20 £445 -6.24% 11
North East +2 18 £450 -23.08% 9
East of England -22 14 £550 +72.37% 16
Wales -12 6 £563 +46.10% 4
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 1

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
1 160 (15.17%) Apache Spark
2 118 (11.18%) Apache Airflow
3 82 (7.77%) Apache
4 19 (1.80%) Palantir Foundry
5 16 (1.52%) Confluence
6 8 (0.76%) Appian
7 5 (0.47%) SAS
8 3 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.19%) Apache Superset
9 2 (0.19%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.19%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.095%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.095%) Apache Pig
10 1 (0.095%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.095%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.095%) Camunda
10 1 (0.095%) CMS
10 1 (0.095%) IBM HTTP Server
10 1 (0.095%) Luigi
Applications
1 23 (2.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.57%) Chatbot
4 6 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
5 4 (0.38%) MS Visio
6 3 (0.28%) Trello
7 1 (0.095%) Adobe XD
7 1 (0.095%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (0.38%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.19%) Markit EDM
2 2 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.095%) Actimize
3 1 (0.095%) Adobe Campaign
3 1 (0.095%) Eagle PACE
3 1 (0.095%) Maximo
3 1 (0.095%) Misys Midas
3 1 (0.095%) SAP BPC
3 1 (0.095%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.095%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.095%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 508 (48.15%) Azure
2 365 (34.60%) AWS
3 221 (20.95%) Power Platform
4 194 (18.39%) Azure Data Factory
5 151 (14.31%) GCP
6 139 (13.18%) Snowflake
7 119 (11.28%) Amazon S3
8 117 (11.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 109 (10.33%) Serverless
10 102 (9.67%) GitHub
11 89 (8.44%) dbt
12 88 (8.34%) Azure DevOps
13 85 (8.06%) AWS Lambda
14 69 (6.54%) GitHub Actions
15 53 (5.02%) AWS CloudFormation
16 33 (3.13%) AWS Step Functions
17 29 (2.75%) Amazon SageMaker
18 27 (2.56%) Amazon EMR
19 25 (2.37%) Collibra
20 24 (2.27%) Azure Machine Learning
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.47%) Network Security
2 4 (0.38%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.38%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.28%) Firewall
3 3 (0.28%) RTP
3 3 (0.28%) VPN
4 1 (0.095%) MQTT
4 1 (0.095%) SAN
4 1 (0.095%) SMS
4 1 (0.095%) SSL
4 1 (0.095%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 212 (20.09%) Data Warehouse
2 205 (19.43%) Power BI
3 150 (14.22%) Data Lake
4 96 (9.10%) Metadata
5 74 (7.01%) SQL Server
6 70 (6.64%) Big Data
7 69 (6.54%) NoSQL
8 60 (5.69%) Delta Lake
9 58 (5.50%) Relational Database
10 56 (5.31%) Snowflake Schema
11 55 (5.21%) Azure SQL Database
12 52 (4.93%) Amazon Redshift
13 48 (4.55%) BigQuery
13 48 (4.55%) PostgreSQL
14 45 (4.27%) Amazon Athena
15 41 (3.89%) Hadoop
16 39 (3.70%) Tableau
17 31 (2.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 27 (2.56%) Spark SQL
19 24 (2.27%) Elasticsearch
Development Applications
1 154 (14.60%) Git
2 58 (5.50%) GitLab
3 43 (4.08%) MLflow
4 42 (3.98%) Jenkins
5 31 (2.94%) JIRA
6 7 (0.66%) Visual Studio Code
7 4 (0.38%) Cucumber
7 4 (0.38%) Selenium
7 4 (0.38%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.28%) ERwin
8 3 (0.28%) JUnit
8 3 (0.28%) Maven
8 3 (0.28%) Terragrunt
9 2 (0.19%) Gemini Tracker
9 2 (0.19%) Mockito
9 2 (0.19%) Poetry
9 2 (0.19%) Postman
9 2 (0.19%) Pylint
9 2 (0.19%) Robot Framework
9 2 (0.19%) Zephyr
General
1 301 (28.53%) Social Skills
2 235 (22.27%) Finance
3 144 (13.65%) Analytical Skills
4 86 (8.15%) Public Sector
5 69 (6.54%) Banking
6 23 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 18 (1.71%) Investment Banking
8 17 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
9 16 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
10 15 (1.42%) Front Office
10 15 (1.42%) Retail
11 14 (1.33%) Marketing
12 10 (0.95%) Pharmaceutical
12 10 (0.95%) Publishing
13 9 (0.85%) Legal
14 8 (0.76%) Financial Institution
15 7 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.57%) Back Office
16 6 (0.57%) Military
17 5 (0.47%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 467 (44.27%) Data Engineer
2 133 (12.61%) Senior
3 125 (11.85%) Lead
4 86 (8.15%) Senior Data Engineer
5 82 (7.77%) Architect
6 78 (7.39%) Azure Engineer
7 69 (6.54%) Developer
8 60 (5.69%) Azure Data Engineer
9 54 (5.12%) Analyst
10 45 (4.27%) AWS Engineer
10 45 (4.27%) Snowflake Engineer
11 43 (4.08%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 43 (4.08%) Data Architect
12 42 (3.98%) Data Scientist
13 41 (3.89%) Lead Data Engineer
14 37 (3.51%) Snowflake Data Engineer
15 34 (3.22%) Python Engineer
16 33 (3.13%) Data Analyst
17 29 (2.75%) AWS Data Engineer
18 24 (2.27%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (18.48%) PySpark
2 123 (11.66%) Kafka
3 67 (6.35%) Pandas
4 60 (5.69%) PyTorch
5 51 (4.83%) TensorFlow
6 50 (4.74%) NumPy
7 44 (4.17%) scikit-learn
8 39 (3.70%) FastAPI
9 33 (3.13%) Flask
10 31 (2.94%) RESTful
11 29 (2.75%) JSON
12 26 (2.46%) YAML
13 25 (2.37%) LangChain
13 25 (2.37%) pytest
13 25 (2.37%) React
14 24 (2.27%) REST
15 17 (1.61%) Hugging Face
15 17 (1.61%) OAuth
16 16 (1.52%) Django
17 15 (1.42%) ARM Templates
Miscellaneous
1 118 (11.18%) Cloud Native
2 46 (4.36%) Algorithms
3 35 (3.32%) Product Ownership
4 32 (3.03%) Distributed Systems
5 30 (2.84%) Distributed Computing
6 25 (2.37%) Onboarding
7 22 (2.09%) Hybrid Cloud
8 21 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
8 21 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (1.90%) AI Agents
9 20 (1.90%) Data Structures
10 16 (1.52%) Analytical Mindset
11 12 (1.14%) Clustering
11 12 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
12 11 (1.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 11 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
12 11 (1.04%) Management Information System
13 10 (0.95%) Data Fabric
13 10 (0.95%) Fixed Income
13 10 (0.95%) Hedge funds
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.65%) Linux
2 6 (0.57%) VMS
3 5 (0.47%) Unix
4 2 (0.19%) Ubuntu
5 1 (0.095%) CentOS
5 1 (0.095%) Debian
5 1 (0.095%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 471 (44.64%) Data Pipeline
2 464 (43.98%) Analytics
3 409 (38.77%) ETL
4 390 (36.97%) Data Modelling
5 385 (36.49%) CI/CD
6 282 (26.73%) AI
7 272 (25.78%) Data Governance
8 264 (25.02%) DevOps
9 254 (24.08%) Agile
10 241 (22.84%) Business Intelligence
10 241 (22.84%) Machine Learning
11 224 (21.23%) Data Science
12 221 (20.95%) Problem-Solving
13 172 (16.30%) Data Architecture
14 139 (13.18%) Infrastructure as Code
15 110 (10.43%) Decision-Making
15 110 (10.43%) Validation
16 106 (10.05%) Containerisation
17 105 (9.95%) Data Integration
17 105 (9.95%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 644 (61.04%) Python
2 546 (51.75%) SQL
3 73 (6.92%) Java
4 61 (5.78%) Scala
5 43 (4.08%) C#
6 33 (3.13%) JavaScript
6 33 (3.13%) PowerShell
7 30 (2.84%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 24 (2.27%) Bicep
9 23 (2.18%) Bash
9 23 (2.18%) T-SQL
10 18 (1.71%) TypeScript
11 17 (1.61%) R
12 16 (1.52%) C++
13 15 (1.42%) Go
13 15 (1.42%) PL/SQL
14 12 (1.14%) Shell Script
15 9 (0.85%) Rust
16 8 (0.76%) Korn
17 2 (0.19%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 210 (19.91%) Security Cleared
2 170 (16.11%) SC Cleared
3 100 (9.48%) Degree
4 54 (5.12%) Azure Certification
5 47 (4.45%) Master's Degree
6 39 (3.70%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (2.09%) DV Cleared
8 17 (1.61%) AWS Certification
8 17 (1.61%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
10 13 (1.23%) PhD
11 4 (0.38%) DBS Check
11 4 (0.38%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.28%) IBM Certification
13 2 (0.19%) ISTQB
13 2 (0.19%) SnowPro
14 1 (0.095%) (ISC)2 CCSP
14 1 (0.095%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 1 (0.095%) CBAP
14 1 (0.095%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 295 (27.96%) Data Quality
2 88 (8.34%) GDPR
3 35 (3.32%) QA
4 17 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 11 (1.04%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 9 (0.85%) HIPAA
7 6 (0.57%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 6 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 5 (0.47%) PERC
8 5 (0.47%) SOC 2
9 3 (0.28%) GRC
9 3 (0.28%) SLA
9 3 (0.28%) WCAG
10 2 (0.19%) HL7
10 2 (0.19%) MiFID
10 2 (0.19%) NIST
10 2 (0.19%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.095%) NCSC
11 1 (0.095%) PMO
11 1 (0.095%) Solvency II
System Software
1 154 (14.60%) Docker
2 16 (1.52%) HDFS
3 2 (0.19%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.19%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.095%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.095%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 170 (16.11%) Terraform
2 139 (13.18%) Kubernetes
3 26 (2.46%) Prometheus
4 18 (1.71%) Grafana
5 12 (1.14%) Ansible
6 10 (0.95%) Hadoop YARN
7 5 (0.47%) Argo
7 5 (0.47%) Puppet
8 3 (0.28%) Control-M
8 3 (0.28%) Kibana
8 3 (0.28%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.28%) logstash
9 2 (0.19%) Nagios
9 2 (0.19%) Oozie
9 2 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.095%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.095%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.095%) Kustomize
10 1 (0.095%) Rancher
Vendors
1 319 (30.24%) Databricks
2 150 (14.22%) Microsoft
3 48 (4.55%) Google
4 33 (3.13%) Oracle
5 31 (2.94%) Informatica
6 22 (2.09%) Foundry
6 22 (2.09%) Palantir
7 21 (1.99%) OpenAI
7 21 (1.99%) Talend
8 13 (1.23%) SAP
9 11 (1.04%) Salesforce
10 9 (0.85%) Splunk
11 8 (0.76%) Automation Anywhere
11 8 (0.76%) Cloudera
11 8 (0.76%) IBM
11 8 (0.76%) UiPath
11 8 (0.76%) Virgin Media
12 7 (0.66%) Denodo
13 6 (0.57%) MicroStrategy
13 6 (0.57%) ServiceNow