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 11 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 91 159 212
Rank change year-on-year +68 +53 -4
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,286 522 494
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.81% 1.79% 1.12%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.30% 1.97% 1.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 887 364 371
10th Percentile £392 £375 £400
25th Percentile £450 £446 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -8.33%
75th Percentile £625 £675 £669
90th Percentile £750 £838 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £480 £550
% change year-on-year +4.28% -12.82% +2.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 14 13
10th Percentile £51.25 £21.48 £30.55
25th Percentile £58.56 £22.13 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £25.97 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +169.59% -25.81% -1.41%
75th Percentile £77.25 £29.69 £50.25
90th Percentile £89.75 £61.63 £60.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.44 £25.43 £60.00
% change year-on-year +173.06% -57.62% +116.33%

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 39,019 26,482 37,961
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 85.25% 90.62% 86.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,692 17,180 24,590
10th Percentile £315 £308 £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 £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £744 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £487 £488 £500
% change year-on-year -0.10% -2.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,316 1,006 2,380
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.99 £12.75
25th Percentile £19.38 £19.05 £16.00
Median hourly rate £36.71 £31.04 £33.07
Median % change year-on-year +18.27% -6.12% -8.15%
75th Percentile £65.00 £63.75 £57.58
90th Percentile £77.75 £75.38 £70.66
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.00 £29.12 £33.03
% change year-on-year +27.08% -11.86% -6.76%

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 11 April 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 11 April 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 11 April 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 +71 1,160 £525 -4.55% 542
London +55 739 £550 -4.35% 253
UK excluding London +61 423 £500 +4.28% 383
Work from Home +44 365 £550 -5.17% 229
North of England +5 122 £475 -5.00% 110
Midlands +23 120 £517 +3.35% 51
West Midlands +15 94 £525 -2.78% 36
South West +16 71 £525 -14.29% 49
Yorkshire -12 54 £480 -16.52% 40
North West -8 48 £480 +1.05% 59
South East -33 48 £550 +10.00% 111
Scotland +23 47 £440 -7.37% 21
East of England -18 23 £575 +54.08% 34
East Midlands -23 23 £449 -5.58% 15
North East +4 22 £450 -5.26% 13
Wales -12 5 £665 +181.78% 11
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
1 194 (15.09%) Apache Spark
2 129 (10.03%) Apache Airflow
3 87 (6.77%) Apache
4 32 (2.49%) SAS
5 19 (1.48%) Palantir Foundry
6 17 (1.32%) Confluence
7 8 (0.62%) Appian
8 7 (0.54%) Apache Superset
9 5 (0.39%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.16%) Apache Synapse
11 2 (0.16%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.078%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.078%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.078%) Camunda
12 1 (0.078%) CICS
12 1 (0.078%) CMS
12 1 (0.078%) IBM HTTP Server
Applications
1 29 (2.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (0.78%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 8 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.54%) Microsoft Project
5 6 (0.47%) Spreadsheet
6 4 (0.31%) MS Visio
7 3 (0.23%) Trello
8 2 (0.16%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 5 (0.39%) BambooHR
2 4 (0.31%) Aladdin
2 4 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
3 3 (0.23%) SAP BPC
4 2 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.078%) Actimize
5 1 (0.078%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.078%) Markit EDM
5 1 (0.078%) Maximo
5 1 (0.078%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.078%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 595 (46.27%) Azure
2 458 (35.61%) AWS
3 286 (22.24%) Power Platform
4 201 (15.63%) Azure Data Factory
5 171 (13.30%) GCP
6 162 (12.60%) Snowflake
7 153 (11.90%) Amazon S3
8 147 (11.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 136 (10.58%) GitHub
10 116 (9.02%) Serverless
11 112 (8.71%) dbt
12 105 (8.16%) Azure DevOps
13 94 (7.31%) AWS Lambda
14 81 (6.30%) GitHub Actions
15 63 (4.90%) AWS CloudFormation
16 37 (2.88%) AWS Step Functions
17 34 (2.64%) Amazon EMR
18 31 (2.41%) Collibra
19 28 (2.18%) Amazon SageMaker
19 28 (2.18%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.39%) RTP
2 4 (0.31%) Cisco IPT
2 4 (0.31%) Kerberos
2 4 (0.31%) Network Security
3 3 (0.23%) VPN
4 1 (0.078%) 4G
4 1 (0.078%) 5G
4 1 (0.078%) Firewall
4 1 (0.078%) MIMO
4 1 (0.078%) MQTT
4 1 (0.078%) SAN
4 1 (0.078%) SMS
4 1 (0.078%) SSL
4 1 (0.078%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 260 (20.22%) Power BI
2 257 (19.98%) Data Warehouse
3 191 (14.85%) Data Lake
4 125 (9.72%) Metadata
5 89 (6.92%) Big Data
5 89 (6.92%) SQL Server
6 84 (6.53%) Delta Lake
7 83 (6.45%) NoSQL
8 71 (5.52%) Amazon Redshift
9 69 (5.37%) Amazon Athena
10 66 (5.13%) Azure SQL Database
10 66 (5.13%) Tableau
11 65 (5.05%) Snowflake Schema
12 62 (4.82%) BigQuery
13 58 (4.51%) Relational Database
14 56 (4.35%) PostgreSQL
15 49 (3.81%) Hadoop
16 38 (2.95%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 35 (2.72%) Spark SQL
18 23 (1.79%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 174 (13.53%) Git
2 63 (4.90%) GitLab
3 47 (3.65%) MLflow
4 42 (3.27%) JIRA
5 38 (2.95%) Jenkins
6 7 (0.54%) Selenium
6 7 (0.54%) SonarQube
7 3 (0.23%) JUnit
7 3 (0.23%) Maven
7 3 (0.23%) Postman
7 3 (0.23%) Robot Framework
7 3 (0.23%) Snyk
7 3 (0.23%) Terragrunt
8 2 (0.16%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.16%) Bitbucket
8 2 (0.16%) Cucumber
8 2 (0.16%) Mockito
8 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio
8 2 (0.16%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.078%) ERwin
General
1 321 (24.96%) Social Skills
2 316 (24.57%) Finance
3 194 (15.09%) Analytical Skills
4 109 (8.48%) Public Sector
5 75 (5.83%) Banking
6 28 (2.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 23 (1.79%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (1.71%) Retail
9 17 (1.32%) Front Office
9 17 (1.32%) Marketing
10 16 (1.24%) Influencing Skills
11 15 (1.17%) Investment Banking
11 15 (1.17%) Telecoms
12 13 (1.01%) Legal
13 12 (0.93%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
15 7 (0.54%) Law
16 6 (0.47%) Back Office
16 6 (0.47%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.47%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 593 (46.11%) Data Engineer
2 174 (13.53%) Senior
3 144 (11.20%) Lead
4 122 (9.49%) Architect
5 109 (8.48%) Senior Data Engineer
6 82 (6.38%) Developer
7 76 (5.91%) Azure Engineer
8 63 (4.90%) Data Architect
9 62 (4.82%) AWS Engineer
9 62 (4.82%) Azure Data Engineer
10 60 (4.67%) Analyst
11 58 (4.51%) Lead Data Engineer
12 48 (3.73%) Snowflake Engineer
13 45 (3.50%) Data Scientist
14 42 (3.27%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
15 41 (3.19%) AWS Data Engineer
16 40 (3.11%) Consultant
16 40 (3.11%) Snowflake Data Engineer
17 36 (2.80%) Data Analyst
18 32 (2.49%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 218 (16.95%) PySpark
2 152 (11.82%) Kafka
3 65 (5.05%) Pandas
4 51 (3.97%) PyTorch
5 43 (3.34%) scikit-learn
6 42 (3.27%) TensorFlow
7 41 (3.19%) NumPy
8 30 (2.33%) JSON
9 29 (2.26%) REST
10 25 (1.94%) YAML
11 23 (1.79%) Spring
12 22 (1.71%) pytest
12 22 (1.71%) React
13 21 (1.63%) FastAPI
13 21 (1.63%) LangChain
13 21 (1.63%) RESTful
14 18 (1.40%) Flask
14 18 (1.40%) Great Expectations
15 16 (1.24%) OAuth
15 16 (1.24%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 172 (13.37%) Cloud Native
2 45 (3.50%) Distributed Systems
3 44 (3.42%) Product Ownership
4 40 (3.11%) Algorithms
5 38 (2.95%) Legacy Systems
6 33 (2.57%) Data Structures
7 30 (2.33%) Onboarding
8 29 (2.26%) Distributed Computing
9 23 (1.79%) AI Agents
10 22 (1.71%) Greenfield Project
10 22 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
11 19 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
11 19 (1.48%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (1.24%) NHS
13 15 (1.17%) Clustering
14 13 (1.01%) Management Information System
15 12 (0.93%) Fixed Income
15 12 (0.93%) Virtual Team
16 11 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
17 9 (0.70%) Derivative
Operating Systems
1 29 (2.26%) Linux
2 16 (1.24%) Unix
3 8 (0.62%) VMS
4 3 (0.23%) Windows
5 2 (0.16%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.16%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.078%) CentOS
6 1 (0.078%) Debian
Processes & Methodologies
1 650 (50.54%) Analytics
2 587 (45.65%) Data Pipeline
3 504 (39.19%) ETL
4 497 (38.65%) Data Modelling
5 459 (35.69%) CI/CD
6 344 (26.75%) AI
7 329 (25.58%) DevOps
8 327 (25.43%) Data Governance
9 324 (25.19%) Business Intelligence
10 321 (24.96%) Agile
11 264 (20.53%) Machine Learning
12 258 (20.06%) Problem-Solving
13 247 (19.21%) Data Science
14 207 (16.10%) Data Architecture
15 159 (12.36%) Decision-Making
16 158 (12.29%) Infrastructure as Code
17 150 (11.66%) Migration
18 149 (11.59%) Validation
19 132 (10.26%) Data Transformation
20 126 (9.80%) Data Ingestion
Programming Languages
1 715 (55.60%) Python
2 686 (53.34%) SQL
3 107 (8.32%) Java
4 69 (5.37%) Scala
5 44 (3.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 42 (3.27%) C#
7 34 (2.64%) Bash
8 32 (2.49%) PowerShell
9 24 (1.87%) T-SQL
10 23 (1.79%) JavaScript
11 21 (1.63%) R
12 19 (1.48%) Bicep
13 14 (1.09%) Go
14 11 (0.86%) Shell Script
14 11 (0.86%) TypeScript
15 9 (0.70%) PL/SQL
16 6 (0.47%) Korn
17 5 (0.39%) C++
17 5 (0.39%) SAS Macro
18 3 (0.23%) Rust
Qualifications
1 261 (20.30%) Security Cleared
2 224 (17.42%) SC Cleared
3 104 (8.09%) Degree
4 47 (3.65%) Azure Certification
5 45 (3.50%) Computer Science Degree
6 40 (3.11%) Master's Degree
7 20 (1.56%) BPSS Clearance
8 16 (1.24%) AWS Certification
9 15 (1.17%) DV Cleared
10 11 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
11 8 (0.62%) PhD
12 5 (0.39%) SnowPro
13 4 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.31%) DBS Check
13 4 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 3 (0.23%) IBM Certification
15 2 (0.16%) Tableau Certification
16 1 (0.078%) (ISC)2 CCSP
16 1 (0.078%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
16 1 (0.078%) CSPO
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 365 (28.38%) Data Quality
2 95 (7.39%) GDPR
3 43 (3.34%) QA
4 13 (1.01%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 10 (0.78%) Accessibility
6 9 (0.70%) SLA
7 5 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.39%) PERC
8 4 (0.31%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.31%) SOC 2
8 4 (0.31%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.23%) GRC
9 3 (0.23%) WCAG
10 2 (0.16%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.16%) HL7
10 2 (0.16%) MiFID
10 2 (0.16%) NIST
10 2 (0.16%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.16%) PMO
System Software
1 140 (10.89%) Docker
2 6 (0.47%) HDFS
3 3 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.078%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.078%) Apache ZooKeeper
4 1 (0.078%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 182 (14.15%) Terraform
2 128 (9.95%) Kubernetes
3 29 (2.26%) Prometheus
4 20 (1.56%) Grafana
5 9 (0.70%) Ansible
6 5 (0.39%) Argo
7 4 (0.31%) Kubeflow
8 3 (0.23%) Nagios
8 3 (0.23%) Rancher
9 2 (0.16%) Hadoop YARN
9 2 (0.16%) Kibana
9 2 (0.16%) Thomson Reuters DACS
10 1 (0.078%) Apache Ranger
10 1 (0.078%) Control-M
10 1 (0.078%) HP Fortify
10 1 (0.078%) IBM Guardium
10 1 (0.078%) Oozie
Vendors
1 387 (30.09%) Databricks
2 204 (15.86%) Microsoft
3 63 (4.90%) Google
4 58 (4.51%) Informatica
5 41 (3.19%) Oracle
6 31 (2.41%) Talend
7 26 (2.02%) Foundry
8 21 (1.63%) OpenAI
8 21 (1.63%) Palantir
9 19 (1.48%) SAP
9 19 (1.48%) Splunk
10 15 (1.17%) Cloudera
10 15 (1.17%) ServiceNow
11 11 (0.86%) Denodo
12 10 (0.78%) IBM
12 10 (0.78%) Salesforce
13 9 (0.70%) UiPath
14 8 (0.62%) Automation Anywhere
15 7 (0.54%) MicroStrategy
16 5 (0.39%) Virgin Media