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 23 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 121 177 221
Rank change year-on-year +56 +44 +7
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 856 501 488
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.31% 1.48% 1.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 2.62% 1.68% 1.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 564 351 366
10th Percentile £363 £390 £400
25th Percentile £413 £463 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.36% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £688
90th Percentile £749 £788 £775
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 10
10th Percentile £41.15 £21.25 £35.00
25th Percentile £50.00 £22.00 £36.68
Median hourly rate £74.26 £25.43 £53.65
Median % change year-on-year +192.02% -52.60% -16.82%
75th Percentile £87.50 £28.15 £74.75
90th Percentile £101.00 £57.63 £78.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £62.13 £25.43 £78.00
% change year-on-year +144.32% -67.40% +56.00%

All Process and 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 32,672 29,808 38,411
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 88.28% 88.28% 88.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,566 18,179 25,645
10th Percentile £300 £307 £306
25th Percentile £406 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £528
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.47% -4.09%
75th Percentile £616 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £743 £744
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.70% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,089 966 1,478
10th Percentile £14.60 £15.62 £14.50
25th Percentile £17.50 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £43.90
Median % change year-on-year -22.62% -25.97% +25.43%
75th Percentile £51.02 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £68.75 £73.88 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.50 £31.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -25.40% -30.00% +40.63%

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 23 December 2025.

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 23 December 2025.

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 23 December 2025. 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 +58 753 £520 -9.57% 1,173
London +57 513 £550 -4.35% 304
Work from Home +17 257 £550 -3.93% 676
UK excluding London +19 247 £475 -5.00% 993
North of England -13 73 £450 -18.18% 253
Midlands -3 61 £533 +7.73% 158
North West -5 44 £440 -10.66% 133
West Midlands -7 43 £550 +12.24% 79
Scotland +24 38 £402 -8.11% 41
South East +3 37 £480 -11.93% 263
South West +1 30 £550 -17.60% 117
East Midlands -3 18 £429 -25.43% 71
Yorkshire -36 18 £500 -9.09% 90
East of England -13 17 £475 +23.38% 139
North East -3 11 £400 -33.05% 30
Wales -15 2 £495 -1.00% 24
Northern Ireland - 2 £430 - 7

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
1 125 (14.60%) Apache Spark
2 122 (14.25%) Apache Airflow
3 68 (7.94%) Apache
4 13 (1.52%) Confluence
5 4 (0.47%) SAS
6 2 (0.23%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.23%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Pig
7 1 (0.12%) Appian
7 1 (0.12%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.12%) CMS
7 1 (0.12%) Luigi
Applications
1 20 (2.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (0.70%) Chatbot
4 3 (0.35%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.23%) Trello
6 1 (0.12%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 7 (0.82%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.47%) 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
1 384 (44.86%) Azure
2 302 (35.28%) AWS
3 149 (17.41%) Power Platform
4 146 (17.06%) Azure Data Factory
5 128 (14.95%) GCP
6 124 (14.49%) Snowflake
7 99 (11.57%) Amazon S3
7 99 (11.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 93 (10.86%) GitHub
9 91 (10.63%) Serverless
10 83 (9.70%) Azure DevOps
10 83 (9.70%) dbt
11 69 (8.06%) AWS Lambda
12 64 (7.48%) GitHub Actions
13 35 (4.09%) AWS CloudFormation
14 29 (3.39%) Azure Machine Learning
15 28 (3.27%) Amazon SageMaker
15 28 (3.27%) AWS Step Functions
16 24 (2.80%) Cloud Computing
17 22 (2.57%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.47%) Cisco IPT
1 4 (0.47%) Kerberos
1 4 (0.47%) Network Security
1 4 (0.47%) SSL
1 4 (0.47%) TCP/IP
2 3 (0.35%) DNS
2 3 (0.35%) Firewall
2 3 (0.35%) SSH
2 3 (0.35%) VPN
3 1 (0.12%) Intrusion Detection
3 1 (0.12%) MQTT
3 1 (0.12%) SAN
3 1 (0.12%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 167 (19.51%) Data Warehouse
2 144 (16.82%) Power BI
3 111 (12.97%) Data Lake
4 67 (7.83%) Metadata
5 61 (7.13%) Big Data
6 55 (6.43%) NoSQL
7 54 (6.31%) Delta Lake
7 54 (6.31%) Relational Database
8 46 (5.37%) Azure SQL Database
8 46 (5.37%) BigQuery
9 41 (4.79%) PostgreSQL
9 41 (4.79%) SQL Server
10 40 (4.67%) Amazon Redshift
10 40 (4.67%) Tableau
11 37 (4.32%) Amazon Athena
12 35 (4.09%) Snowflake Schema
13 34 (3.97%) Hadoop
14 25 (2.92%) RDBMS
15 19 (2.22%) Elasticsearch
16 18 (2.10%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 141 (16.47%) Git
2 52 (6.07%) Jenkins
3 42 (4.91%) GitLab
4 33 (3.86%) MLflow
5 27 (3.15%) JIRA
6 9 (1.05%) Visual Studio Code
7 7 (0.82%) SonarQube
8 4 (0.47%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.47%) Poetry
9 3 (0.35%) JMeter
9 3 (0.35%) Selenium
10 2 (0.23%) Gemini Tracker
10 2 (0.23%) Maven
10 2 (0.23%) Mockito
10 2 (0.23%) PyCharm
10 2 (0.23%) Pylint
10 2 (0.23%) Sonatype Nexus
10 2 (0.23%) TeamCity
10 2 (0.23%) TestRail
10 2 (0.23%) Zephyr
General
1 247 (28.86%) Social Skills
2 189 (22.08%) Finance
3 117 (13.67%) Analytical Skills
4 60 (7.01%) Public Sector
5 58 (6.78%) Banking
6 26 (3.04%) Investment Banking
7 22 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 17 (1.99%) Retail
9 16 (1.87%) Front Office
10 15 (1.75%) Marketing
10 15 (1.75%) Pharmaceutical
11 13 (1.52%) Influencing Skills
12 12 (1.40%) Legal
12 12 (1.40%) Telecoms
13 9 (1.05%) Publishing
14 8 (0.93%) Documentation Skills
14 8 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
15 7 (0.82%) Military
16 5 (0.58%) Health Technology
16 5 (0.58%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 358 (41.82%) Data Engineer
2 108 (12.62%) Senior
3 82 (9.58%) Lead
4 75 (8.76%) Azure Engineer
5 71 (8.29%) Developer
6 70 (8.18%) Senior Data Engineer
7 67 (7.83%) Architect
8 52 (6.07%) Azure Data Engineer
9 43 (5.02%) Analyst
10 42 (4.91%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
11 41 (4.79%) AWS Engineer
11 41 (4.79%) Python Engineer
12 34 (3.97%) Data Architect
13 32 (3.74%) Data Scientist
13 32 (3.74%) Snowflake Engineer
14 27 (3.15%) AWS Data Engineer
15 26 (3.04%) Python Data Engineer
16 24 (2.80%) DevOps Engineer
16 24 (2.80%) Python Developer
16 24 (2.80%) Snowflake Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 161 (18.81%) PySpark
2 95 (11.10%) Kafka
3 62 (7.24%) Pandas
4 50 (5.84%) PyTorch
5 49 (5.72%) NumPy
6 43 (5.02%) TensorFlow
7 42 (4.91%) FastAPI
8 35 (4.09%) Flask
9 32 (3.74%) RESTful
9 32 (3.74%) scikit-learn
10 27 (3.15%) React
11 23 (2.69%) JSON
11 23 (2.69%) LangChain
12 18 (2.10%) pytest
13 17 (1.99%) Hugging Face
14 16 (1.87%) YAML
15 15 (1.75%) Polars
15 15 (1.75%) Vue
16 14 (1.64%) AngularJS
16 14 (1.64%) SciPy
Miscellaneous
1 83 (9.70%) Cloud Native
2 47 (5.49%) Algorithms
3 25 (2.92%) Distributed Computing
4 22 (2.57%) Data Structures
5 20 (2.34%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 20 (2.34%) Onboarding
5 20 (2.34%) Product Ownership
6 19 (2.22%) Data Protection Act
6 19 (2.22%) Hybrid Cloud
7 18 (2.10%) Distributed Systems
8 16 (1.87%) Hedge funds
9 14 (1.64%) AI Agents
10 12 (1.40%) Legacy Systems
11 11 (1.29%) Analytical Mindset
11 11 (1.29%) Life Science
12 10 (1.17%) Derivative
12 10 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
12 10 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
13 9 (1.05%) Data Fabric
13 9 (1.05%) Genomics
Operating Systems
1 32 (3.74%) Linux
2 3 (0.35%) Android
2 3 (0.35%) VMS
3 2 (0.23%) Ubuntu
3 2 (0.23%) Windows
4 1 (0.12%) CentOS
4 1 (0.12%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 370 (43.22%) Data Pipeline
2 322 (37.62%) CI/CD
3 309 (36.10%) ETL
4 299 (34.93%) Analytics
5 297 (34.70%) Data Modelling
6 210 (24.53%) DevOps
7 201 (23.48%) AI
7 201 (23.48%) Data Governance
8 198 (23.13%) Machine Learning
9 196 (22.90%) Agile
10 176 (20.56%) Business Intelligence
10 176 (20.56%) Problem-Solving
11 172 (20.09%) Data Science
12 141 (16.47%) Data Architecture
13 112 (13.08%) Infrastructure as Code
14 95 (11.10%) Containerisation
14 95 (11.10%) Data Integration
15 87 (10.16%) Visualisation
16 84 (9.81%) Data Transformation
17 82 (9.58%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 542 (63.32%) Python
2 427 (49.88%) SQL
3 61 (7.13%) Scala
4 53 (6.19%) Java
5 39 (4.56%) C#
6 35 (4.09%) JavaScript
7 28 (3.27%) PowerShell
8 25 (2.92%) C++
9 22 (2.57%) Bash
10 19 (2.22%) Bicep
11 18 (2.10%) T-SQL
12 16 (1.87%) R
12 16 (1.87%) TypeScript
13 15 (1.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 15 (1.75%) Go
13 15 (1.75%) Rust
14 14 (1.64%) PL/SQL
15 12 (1.40%) Shell Script
16 6 (0.70%) Korn
17 5 (0.58%) VBA
Qualifications
1 155 (18.11%) Security Cleared
2 128 (14.95%) SC Cleared
3 73 (8.53%) Degree
4 53 (6.19%) Azure Certification
5 37 (4.32%) Master's Degree
6 29 (3.39%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (2.22%) AWS Certification
7 19 (2.22%) DV Cleared
8 12 (1.40%) PhD
9 11 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
10 8 (0.93%) MCP
11 7 (0.82%) BPSS Clearance
12 5 (0.58%) DBS Check
13 3 (0.35%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 3 (0.35%) SnowPro
13 3 (0.35%) Tableau Certification
14 2 (0.23%) CBAP
14 2 (0.23%) ISTQB
15 1 (0.12%) OCP
15 1 (0.12%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 206 (24.07%) Data Quality
2 68 (7.94%) GDPR
3 27 (3.15%) QA
4 19 (2.22%) Accessibility
5 9 (1.05%) HIPAA
6 7 (0.82%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (0.82%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.58%) NIST
7 5 (0.58%) PERC
8 4 (0.47%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.47%) WCAG
9 3 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
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%) EMIR
11 1 (0.12%) GRC
11 1 (0.12%) NCSC
11 1 (0.12%) Solvency II
System Software
1 136 (15.89%) Docker
2 16 (1.87%) HDFS
3 3 (0.35%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.12%) ISA Server
4 1 (0.12%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 139 (16.24%) Terraform
2 113 (13.20%) Kubernetes
3 16 (1.87%) Grafana
4 14 (1.64%) Ansible
5 11 (1.29%) Hadoop YARN
6 10 (1.17%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.70%) Argo
7 6 (0.70%) Control-M
8 5 (0.58%) Kibana
8 5 (0.58%) logstash
8 5 (0.58%) Puppet
9 4 (0.47%) vCenter Server
10 3 (0.35%) Istio
10 3 (0.35%) Kustomize
10 3 (0.35%) Oozie
11 2 (0.23%) Kubeflow
11 2 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.12%) Demisto
12 1 (0.12%) Fluentd
12 1 (0.12%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
Vendors
1 260 (30.37%) Databricks
2 108 (12.62%) Microsoft
3 51 (5.96%) Google
4 32 (3.74%) Oracle
5 22 (2.57%) Informatica
6 18 (2.10%) Talend
7 17 (1.99%) Palantir
8 16 (1.87%) OpenAI
9 15 (1.75%) Foundry
10 13 (1.52%) SAP
11 12 (1.40%) Cloudera
12 9 (1.05%) Salesforce
13 8 (0.93%) Virgin Media
14 6 (0.70%) Denodo
15 5 (0.58%) Guidewire
15 5 (0.58%) IBM
15 5 (0.58%) VMware
16 4 (0.47%) Adobe
16 4 (0.47%) EMC
16 4 (0.47%) Murex