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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 88 166 210
Rank change year-on-year +78 +44 +2
Contract jobs citing Data Engineering 1,401 507 491
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 2.82% 1.73% 1.13%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.33% 1.90% 1.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 966 348 371
10th Percentile £388 £373 £363
25th Percentile £450 £450 £453
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -12.00%
75th Percentile £625 £670 £650
90th Percentile £749 £838 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £516
% change year-on-year +5.26% -7.86% -6.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 8 15
10th Percentile £51.25 £22.65 £30.72
25th Percentile £56.75 £25.37 £31.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £34.48 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +103.02% -1.49% -52.05%
75th Percentile £78.00 £53.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £90.00 £57.13 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £27.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +151.71% -54.17% -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 42,104 26,621 36,920
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 84.75% 90.94% 85.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,283 16,896 23,594
10th Percentile £325 £300 £300
25th Percentile £413 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -2.86% -4.55%
75th Percentile £615 £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 2,537 1,167 2,565
10th Percentile £14.68 £14.20 £12.75
25th Percentile £20.00 £17.87 £16.00
Median hourly rate £43.96 £27.50 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +59.85% -24.66% +1.67%
75th Percentile £67.89 £56.00 £61.25
90th Percentile £81.24 £73.75 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +78.93% -34.02% +8.91%

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +69 1,256 £525 -4.55% 451
London +69 767 £550 -4.35% 235
UK excluding London +81 508 £500 +5.26% 302
Work from Home +62 426 £525 - 656
North of England +19 151 £475 -5.00% 105
Midlands +18 128 £500 +8.11% 27
West Midlands +20 107 £498 -1.58% 25
South West +33 81 £500 -4.76% 31
Yorkshire -12 68 £480 +3.78% 26
South East -16 68 £531 +11.84% 104
Scotland +23 55 £450 -5.26% 10
North West -7 54 £500 - 64
North East +1 31 £438 -12.50% 16
East of England -22 22 £575 +54.08% 10
East Midlands -20 18 £525 +13.51% 2
Wales -5 9 £450 +75.14% 9
Northern Ireland - 5 £382 - 8

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 (13.70%) Apache Spark
2 159 (11.35%) Apache Airflow
3 103 (7.35%) Apache
4 39 (2.78%) SAS
5 29 (2.07%) Confluence
6 18 (1.28%) Jupyter
6 18 (1.28%) Palantir Foundry
7 8 (0.57%) Appian
8 7 (0.50%) Apache Superset
9 6 (0.43%) SharePoint
10 4 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.071%) Adobe Experience Manager
12 1 (0.071%) ArcGIS
12 1 (0.071%) Camunda
12 1 (0.071%) CICS
12 1 (0.071%) IBM HTTP Server
12 1 (0.071%) PowerExchange
Applications
1 27 (1.93%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (0.57%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.50%) Spreadsheet
4 6 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.14%) Trello
6 1 (0.071%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (0.43%) Aladdin
2 5 (0.36%) BambooHR
2 5 (0.36%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.29%) Salesforce CRM
4 3 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.14%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.14%) SAP BPC
6 1 (0.071%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.071%) Endur
6 1 (0.071%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.071%) Markit EDM
6 1 (0.071%) NetSuite
6 1 (0.071%) Sage X3
6 1 (0.071%) SAP ECC
Cloud Services
1 595 (42.47%) Azure
2 526 (37.54%) AWS
3 321 (22.91%) Power Platform
4 198 (14.13%) Snowflake
5 191 (13.63%) GCP
6 181 (12.92%) Azure Data Factory
7 165 (11.78%) Amazon S3
8 154 (10.99%) dbt
9 138 (9.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 130 (9.28%) GitHub
11 119 (8.49%) Azure DevOps
12 117 (8.35%) Serverless
13 101 (7.21%) AWS Lambda
14 77 (5.50%) GitHub Actions
15 48 (3.43%) Amazon EMR
16 46 (3.28%) AWS CloudFormation
17 31 (2.21%) AWS Step Functions
18 28 (2.00%) Azure AI
18 28 (2.00%) Collibra
19 27 (1.93%) Amazon SageMaker
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.36%) RTP
2 4 (0.29%) Firewall
3 2 (0.14%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.071%) 4G
4 1 (0.071%) 5G
4 1 (0.071%) MIMO
4 1 (0.071%) MQTT
4 1 (0.071%) Network Security
4 1 (0.071%) SMS
4 1 (0.071%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 297 (21.20%) Power BI
2 260 (18.56%) Data Warehouse
3 215 (15.35%) Data Lake
4 125 (8.92%) Metadata
5 111 (7.92%) Big Data
6 94 (6.71%) SQL Server
7 91 (6.50%) Amazon Redshift
8 85 (6.07%) Delta Lake
9 80 (5.71%) Tableau
10 78 (5.57%) BigQuery
11 76 (5.42%) Amazon Athena
12 74 (5.28%) Snowflake Schema
13 72 (5.14%) NoSQL
14 57 (4.07%) Azure SQL Database
14 57 (4.07%) Relational Database
15 54 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
16 50 (3.57%) Hadoop
17 37 (2.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
18 35 (2.50%) Spark SQL
19 31 (2.21%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 172 (12.28%) Git
2 73 (5.21%) GitLab
3 59 (4.21%) JIRA
4 35 (2.50%) MLflow
5 25 (1.78%) Jenkins
6 6 (0.43%) SonarQube
7 5 (0.36%) Postman
7 5 (0.36%) Selenium
8 3 (0.21%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.21%) Robot Framework
8 3 (0.21%) Snyk
8 3 (0.21%) Visual Studio
9 2 (0.14%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.14%) ERwin
9 2 (0.14%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.071%) Ant
10 1 (0.071%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.071%) JUnit
10 1 (0.071%) Maven
10 1 (0.071%) SoapUI
General
1 337 (24.05%) Social Skills
2 333 (23.77%) Finance
3 202 (14.42%) Analytical Skills
4 135 (9.64%) Public Sector
5 93 (6.64%) Banking
6 34 (2.43%) Marketing
7 31 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
7 31 (2.21%) Retail
8 29 (2.07%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 20 (1.43%) Front Office
10 17 (1.21%) Investment Banking
11 16 (1.14%) Telecoms
12 14 (1.00%) Financial Institution
13 11 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
14 10 (0.71%) Law
14 10 (0.71%) Legal
15 8 (0.57%) Manufacturing
16 7 (0.50%) Military
16 7 (0.50%) Pharmaceutical
17 6 (0.43%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 658 (46.97%) Data Engineer
2 198 (14.13%) Senior
3 146 (10.42%) Lead
4 145 (10.35%) Architect
5 120 (8.57%) Senior Data Engineer
6 78 (5.57%) Developer
7 77 (5.50%) Data Architect
8 73 (5.21%) AWS Engineer
9 61 (4.35%) Analyst
9 61 (4.35%) Lead Data Engineer
10 56 (4.00%) Snowflake Engineer
11 54 (3.85%) AWS Data Engineer
12 47 (3.35%) Data Scientist
13 45 (3.21%) Azure Engineer
13 45 (3.21%) Snowflake Data Engineer
14 44 (3.14%) Solutions Architect
15 41 (2.93%) Consultant
16 40 (2.86%) Artificial Intelligence Engineer
17 39 (2.78%) Azure Data Engineer
18 36 (2.57%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 205 (14.63%) PySpark
2 145 (10.35%) Kafka
3 54 (3.85%) Pandas
4 39 (2.78%) REST
5 36 (2.57%) PyTorch
5 36 (2.57%) scikit-learn
6 33 (2.36%) NumPy
7 29 (2.07%) JSON
8 27 (1.93%) TensorFlow
9 24 (1.71%) Spring
10 23 (1.64%) React
11 19 (1.36%) RESTful
12 17 (1.21%) FastAPI
12 17 (1.21%) Spring Boot
13 16 (1.14%) LangChain
13 16 (1.14%) pytest
13 16 (1.14%) YAML
14 15 (1.07%) Great Expectations
15 13 (0.93%) Django
15 13 (0.93%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 194 (13.85%) Cloud Native
2 55 (3.93%) Distributed Systems
3 51 (3.64%) Data Structures
4 50 (3.57%) Legacy Systems
5 49 (3.50%) Product Ownership
6 31 (2.21%) AI Agents
6 31 (2.21%) Onboarding
7 28 (2.00%) Distributed Computing
8 24 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
9 22 (1.57%) Algorithms
9 22 (1.57%) Greenfield Project
10 20 (1.43%) Analytical Mindset
11 16 (1.14%) NHS
12 14 (1.00%) Fixed Income
13 12 (0.86%) Clustering
13 12 (0.86%) Reference Data
13 12 (0.86%) Self-Motivation
14 11 (0.79%) Virtual Team
15 10 (0.71%) Equities
15 10 (0.71%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 28 (2.00%) Linux
2 25 (1.78%) Unix
3 5 (0.36%) VMS
4 3 (0.21%) Windows
5 2 (0.14%) Ubuntu
5 2 (0.14%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.071%) CentOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 725 (51.75%) Analytics
2 665 (47.47%) Data Pipeline
3 539 (38.47%) Data Modelling
4 505 (36.05%) ETL
5 504 (35.97%) CI/CD
6 424 (30.26%) AI
7 367 (26.20%) Business Intelligence
8 350 (24.98%) Agile
9 347 (24.77%) DevOps
10 302 (21.56%) Data Governance
11 278 (19.84%) Machine Learning
12 243 (17.34%) Problem-Solving
13 242 (17.27%) Data Science
14 195 (13.92%) Data Architecture
15 187 (13.35%) Migration
16 186 (13.28%) Decision-Making
17 182 (12.99%) Validation
18 157 (11.21%) Infrastructure as Code
19 153 (10.92%) Use Case
20 147 (10.49%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 781 (55.75%) SQL
2 748 (53.39%) Python
3 112 (7.99%) Java
4 46 (3.28%) Scala
5 45 (3.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 37 (2.64%) C#
7 34 (2.43%) Bash
8 25 (1.78%) T-SQL
9 20 (1.43%) PowerShell
10 19 (1.36%) JavaScript
11 18 (1.28%) R
12 17 (1.21%) PL/SQL
13 15 (1.07%) Bicep
14 12 (0.86%) Shell Script
15 11 (0.79%) TypeScript
16 8 (0.57%) SAS Macro
17 5 (0.36%) Korn
18 4 (0.29%) Go
18 4 (0.29%) Kusto Query Language
19 2 (0.14%) Cypher
Qualifications
1 266 (18.99%) Security Cleared
2 235 (16.77%) SC Cleared
3 99 (7.07%) Degree
4 42 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
5 35 (2.50%) Master's Degree
6 33 (2.36%) Azure Certification
7 29 (2.07%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (1.28%) AWS Certification
9 13 (0.93%) DBS Check
10 10 (0.71%) DV Cleared
11 7 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
11 7 (0.50%) SnowPro
12 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 5 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 4 (0.29%) CSPO
14 3 (0.21%) IBM Certification
14 3 (0.21%) PhD
15 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Certified Professional
15 2 (0.14%) PMI Certification
15 2 (0.14%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 396 (28.27%) Data Quality
2 88 (6.28%) GDPR
3 67 (4.78%) QA
4 14 (1.00%) SLA
5 11 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (0.50%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.29%) MiFID
8 4 (0.29%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.21%) GRC
9 3 (0.21%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.21%) NIST
9 3 (0.21%) PMO
10 2 (0.14%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.14%) Disclosure Scotland
10 2 (0.14%) EMIR
10 2 (0.14%) GxP
10 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.14%) SNOMED CT
System Software
1 126 (8.99%) Docker
2 4 (0.29%) HDFS
2 4 (0.29%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.071%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.071%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 184 (13.13%) Terraform
2 108 (7.71%) Kubernetes
3 26 (1.86%) Prometheus
4 24 (1.71%) Grafana
5 9 (0.64%) Ansible
6 4 (0.29%) Argo
7 3 (0.21%) Kibana
7 3 (0.21%) Nagios
7 3 (0.21%) Rancher
8 2 (0.14%) Hadoop YARN
8 2 (0.14%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.14%) logstash
8 2 (0.14%) Thomson Reuters DACS
9 1 (0.071%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.071%) Control-M
9 1 (0.071%) HP Fortify
9 1 (0.071%) IBM Guardium
9 1 (0.071%) Oozie
Vendors
1 367 (26.20%) Databricks
2 228 (16.27%) Microsoft
3 74 (5.28%) Informatica
4 58 (4.14%) Google
4 58 (4.14%) Oracle
5 31 (2.21%) Talend
6 26 (1.86%) Foundry
7 25 (1.78%) OpenAI
7 25 (1.78%) SAP
8 20 (1.43%) Palantir
9 19 (1.36%) Splunk
10 16 (1.14%) Cloudera
10 16 (1.14%) Salesforce
11 13 (0.93%) ServiceNow
12 9 (0.64%) UiPath
13 8 (0.57%) Automation Anywhere
13 8 (0.57%) Denodo
14 7 (0.50%) IBM
14 7 (0.50%) InterSystems
14 7 (0.50%) Trend Micro