Python Engineer Contract Job Trends

Python Engineer
UK

The median Python Engineer daily rate in the UK is £600, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 October 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
10 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 320 244 293
Rank change year-on-year -76 +49 +69
Contract jobs requiring a Python Engineer 422 364 306
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.77% 1.10% 0.81%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.84% 1.21% 0.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 261 235 272
10th Percentile £400 £413 £450
25th Percentile £463 £487 £550
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £700
Median % change year-on-year - -14.29% +7.69%
75th Percentile £688 £825 £850
90th Percentile £788 - £875
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £500 £485
% change year-on-year +10.00% +3.09% -7.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 4 1
10th Percentile £66.15 £34.13 -
25th Percentile £74.16 £45.94 £65.63
Median hourly rate £95.00 £54.85 £68.75
Median % change year-on-year +73.20% -20.22% +10.00%
75th Percentile £102.50 £58.75 £71.88
90th Percentile - £61.00 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.81 £54.85 -
% change year-on-year +10.87% - -

All Contract IT Job Roles
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 50,251 30,087 35,271
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.06% 90.83% 93.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,471 18,979 21,309
10th Percentile £325 £275 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £638 £623 £638
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £494
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.75% -1.30%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4,065 1,640 1,482
10th Percentile £14.31 £13.75 £14.85
25th Percentile £19.33 £17.30 £20.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £25.15 £42.03
Median % change year-on-year +65.84% -40.16% -5.55%
75th Percentile £67.50 £50.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £68.00 £74.37
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £25.00 £42.91
% change year-on-year +66.84% -41.74% -3.03%

Python Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Python Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Python Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Python Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Python Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Python Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Python Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Python Engineer over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Python Engineer in the UK

Python Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Python Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Python Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Python Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Python Engineer over the 6 months to 10 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Python Engineer in the UK

Python Engineer
Top 15 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Python Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 10 October 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 -104 300 £600 -4.00% 518
London -90 210 £625 -10.71% 376
UK excluding London -70 127 £550 +10.00% 249
Work from Home -111 109 £600 -20.00% 190
Scotland -41 39 £468 -6.50% 98
North of England -70 35 £450 -5.26% 22
Yorkshire -21 24 £450 -10.00% 11
East of England -21 19 £550 -5.38% 28
Midlands -37 15 £700 +40.00% 16
West Midlands -41 14 £700 +40.00% 7
North West -52 11 £675 +42.11% 11
South East -59 11 £650 +8.33% 32
South West -27 7 £700 +53.42% 33
Wales - 7 £550 - 2
East Midlands - 1 £300 - 9

Python Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 October 2026, Python Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Python Engineer in the job title.

1 422 (100.00%) Python
2 152 (36.02%) Software Engineering
3 146 (34.60%) AI
4 124 (29.38%) CI/CD
5 121 (28.67%) SQL
6 110 (26.07%) Azure
7 106 (25.12%) AWS
8 105 (24.88%) Agile
9 83 (19.67%) Kubernetes
10 76 (18.01%) DevOps
11 72 (17.06%) Docker
12 70 (16.59%) LLM
12 70 (16.59%) Machine Learning
13 69 (16.35%) Security Cleared
14 68 (16.11%) SC Cleared
15 65 (15.40%) Data Pipeline
16 64 (15.17%) Terraform
17 54 (12.80%) Platform Engineering
18 53 (12.56%) Infrastructure as Code
19 51 (12.09%) Data Engineering
20 48 (11.37%) Analytics
21 47 (11.14%) Containerisation
21 47 (11.14%) Observability
22 46 (10.90%) Git
23 45 (10.66%) Data Quality
24 43 (10.19%) Continuous Improvement
24 43 (10.19%) Problem-Solving
25 41 (9.72%) Data Modelling
25 41 (9.72%) Django
26 40 (9.48%) Databricks

Python Engineer Skill Set
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 18 (4.27%) Apache Airflow
2 16 (3.79%) Apache
3 14 (3.32%) Apache Spark
4 8 (1.90%) Jupyter
5 4 (0.95%) ArcGIS
5 4 (0.95%) Confluence
6 1 (0.24%) SAS
Applications
1 3 (0.71%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (1.18%) Aladdin
2 2 (0.47%) Remedy ITSM
2 2 (0.47%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 110 (26.07%) Azure
2 106 (25.12%) AWS
3 40 (9.48%) Serverless
4 33 (7.82%) GCP
5 32 (7.58%) GitHub
6 29 (6.87%) AWS Lambda
7 28 (6.64%) GitHub Actions
8 25 (5.92%) Snowflake
9 21 (4.98%) Amazon S3
9 21 (4.98%) Power Platform
10 19 (4.50%) Amazon EKS
11 18 (4.27%) Amazon ECS
11 18 (4.27%) Azure AI
12 14 (3.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 14 (3.32%) Amazon SQS
12 14 (3.32%) Azure AKS
12 14 (3.32%) Azure Data Factory
12 14 (3.32%) dbt
13 13 (3.08%) AWS CloudFormation
13 13 (3.08%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.95%) Firewall
1 4 (0.95%) NAS
1 4 (0.95%) SAN
2 3 (0.71%) Fibre Channel
2 3 (0.71%) iSCSI
2 3 (0.71%) TCP/IP
3 2 (0.47%) BGP
3 2 (0.47%) DHCP
3 2 (0.47%) DNS
3 2 (0.47%) HTTP
3 2 (0.47%) Network Security
3 2 (0.47%) SSH
4 1 (0.24%) IGMP
4 1 (0.24%) LAN
4 1 (0.24%) Multicast
4 1 (0.24%) OSPF
4 1 (0.24%) Software-Defined Radio
4 1 (0.24%) SSL
4 1 (0.24%) VPN
4 1 (0.24%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (8.06%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (4.98%) Power BI
3 18 (4.27%) Metadata
4 16 (3.79%) MySQL
5 14 (3.32%) BigQuery
5 14 (3.32%) Relational Database
6 13 (3.08%) NoSQL
7 11 (2.61%) Data Warehouse
8 10 (2.37%) Big Data
9 9 (2.13%) Amazon RDS
9 9 (2.13%) Amazon Redshift
9 9 (2.13%) Data Lake
9 9 (2.13%) Snowflake Schema
10 8 (1.90%) Delta Lake
10 8 (1.90%) DynamoDB
10 8 (1.90%) Redis
11 7 (1.66%) Tableau
12 6 (1.42%) SQL Server
13 5 (1.18%) MongoDB
13 5 (1.18%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 46 (10.90%) Git
2 26 (6.16%) Jenkins
3 17 (4.03%) GitLab
4 16 (3.79%) JIRA
5 5 (1.18%) Maven
5 5 (1.18%) Selenium
5 5 (1.18%) SonarQube
6 3 (0.71%) Bitbucket
6 3 (0.71%) Postman
7 2 (0.47%) Robot Framework
7 2 (0.47%) TeamCity
7 2 (0.47%) Zephyr
8 1 (0.24%) Claude Code
8 1 (0.24%) MLflow
8 1 (0.24%) Newman
General
1 114 (27.01%) Finance
2 71 (16.82%) Social Skills
3 46 (10.90%) Banking
4 45 (10.66%) Analytical Skills
5 34 (8.06%) Public Sector
6 22 (5.21%) Front Office
7 17 (4.03%) Investment Banking
8 6 (1.42%) Back Office
9 5 (1.18%) Financial Institution
10 4 (0.95%) Publishing
10 4 (0.95%) Retail
10 4 (0.95%) Telecoms
11 3 (0.71%) Law
11 3 (0.71%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.71%) Military
12 2 (0.47%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.47%) Marketing
13 1 (0.24%) Documentation Skills
13 1 (0.24%) Organisational Skills
13 1 (0.24%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (15.17%) Terraform
2 41 (9.72%) Django
3 40 (9.48%) FastAPI
4 38 (9.00%) Kafka
5 37 (8.77%) REST
6 25 (5.92%) React
7 24 (5.69%) PySpark
8 19 (4.50%) Flask
9 17 (4.03%) JSON
9 17 (4.03%) pytest
10 16 (3.79%) Pandas
11 15 (3.55%) LangChain
12 14 (3.32%) RESTful
13 13 (3.08%) RabbitMQ
14 12 (2.84%) .NET
14 12 (2.84%) AWS CDK
14 12 (2.84%) LangGraph
14 12 (2.84%) Node.js
15 11 (2.61%) pydantic
15 11 (2.61%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 56 (13.27%) Cloud Native
2 40 (9.48%) Distributed Systems
3 28 (6.64%) AI Agents
4 16 (3.79%) Equities
5 15 (3.55%) Data Structures
6 10 (2.37%) Product Ownership
7 9 (2.13%) Derivative
8 8 (1.90%) Algorithms
8 8 (1.90%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.66%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.66%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.66%) Onboarding
10 5 (1.18%) Fixed Income
10 5 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
10 5 (1.18%) PKI
11 4 (0.95%) Hybrid Cloud
11 4 (0.95%) Reference Data
11 4 (0.95%) Security Posture
12 3 (0.71%) Autonomous Agent
12 3 (0.71%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 39 (9.24%) Linux
2 10 (2.37%) Unix
3 8 (1.90%) Windows
4 5 (1.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (0.95%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.71%) Windows Server
7 2 (0.47%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.47%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.47%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 152 (36.02%) Software Engineering
2 146 (34.60%) AI
3 124 (29.38%) CI/CD
4 105 (24.88%) Agile
5 76 (18.01%) DevOps
6 70 (16.59%) LLM
6 70 (16.59%) Machine Learning
7 65 (15.40%) Data Pipeline
8 54 (12.80%) Platform Engineering
9 53 (12.56%) Infrastructure as Code
10 51 (12.09%) Data Engineering
11 48 (11.37%) Analytics
12 47 (11.14%) Containerisation
12 47 (11.14%) Observability
13 43 (10.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 43 (10.19%) Problem-Solving
14 41 (9.72%) Data Modelling
15 40 (9.48%) Microservices
15 40 (9.48%) Test Automation
16 39 (9.24%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 422 (100.00%) Python
2 121 (28.67%) SQL
3 31 (7.35%) Java
4 22 (5.21%) JavaScript
5 18 (4.27%) TypeScript
6 17 (4.03%) Perl
7 12 (2.84%) PowerShell
8 11 (2.61%) Bash
9 9 (2.13%) C++
10 8 (1.90%) Go
11 7 (1.66%) Shell Script
12 6 (1.42%) C#
13 5 (1.18%) Groovy
13 5 (1.18%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.95%) C
14 4 (0.95%) Scala
15 3 (0.71%) Ruby
15 3 (0.71%) Rust
16 2 (0.47%) Kusto Query Language
17 1 (0.24%) Haskell
Qualifications
1 69 (16.35%) Security Cleared
2 68 (16.11%) SC Cleared
3 18 (4.27%) Degree
4 17 (4.03%) DV Cleared
5 9 (2.13%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.66%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.95%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
9 2 (0.47%) CISSP
9 2 (0.47%) PhD
9 2 (0.47%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Developer
10 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.24%) ISTQB
10 1 (0.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 1 (0.24%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (10.66%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.79%) QA
3 2 (0.47%) Accessibility
3 2 (0.47%) GDPR
4 1 (0.24%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.24%) GRC
4 1 (0.24%) HL7
4 1 (0.24%) MiFID
4 1 (0.24%) Solvency II
System Software
1 72 (17.06%) Docker
2 3 (0.71%) NFS
3 2 (0.47%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.24%) GPFS
4 1 (0.24%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 83 (19.67%) Kubernetes
2 20 (4.74%) Ansible
3 8 (1.90%) Grafana
4 5 (1.18%) Kibana
5 4 (0.95%) Argo
6 3 (0.71%) NetBackup
7 2 (0.47%) Prometheus
7 2 (0.47%) vRealize
8 1 (0.24%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.24%) Istio
8 1 (0.24%) Podman
Vendors
1 40 (9.48%) Databricks
2 27 (6.40%) OpenAI
3 21 (4.98%) Microsoft
4 13 (3.08%) Google
5 7 (1.66%) Foundry
6 6 (1.42%) Splunk
7 5 (1.18%) VMware
8 4 (0.95%) Bloomberg
8 4 (0.95%) Cisco
8 4 (0.95%) Oracle
8 4 (0.95%) Sonatype
8 4 (0.95%) Veritas
9 3 (0.71%) FIS
9 3 (0.71%) Informatica
9 3 (0.71%) New Relic
9 3 (0.71%) SimCorp
10 2 (0.47%) F5
10 2 (0.47%) IBM
10 2 (0.47%) Remedy
10 2 (0.47%) Salesforce