UK-Based Data Engineering Experts

What you'll do

The premise is not annotation, and it is worth understanding before you judge the rate. You are asked to "produce the kind of professional documents and deliverables you create day to day in your own field": working pipelines, specs, the artefacts of an ordinary week. Those outputs are then logged and used to build the tasks and rubrics that train and evaluate frontier AI models.

In practice you do your own job while it is recorded, and your professional judgement is the product. Some seats focus on hands-on delivery and others on documenting and structuring that work, so the balance may vary.

You work alongside experts from two other domains staffed on the same engagement. One of them is UK-Based MBB and Top-Tier Strategy Consulting Experts, on the same rate and the same dates.

What you need

Hands-on data engineers who build and own pipelines in production. The titles named: Data Engineer, Senior or Staff Data Engineer, Analytics Engineer, Data Platform Engineer, and Data Architect.

The stack asked for:

• Core: SQL and Python
• Experience across: ETL and ELT, orchestration, streaming, data warehousing
• Tools such as: Spark, Kafka, Airflow, dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks
• On: AWS, GCP or Azure

Note the phrasing is "such as" throughout: this describes a shape of experience rather than a checklist of products. No degree, no named employer, and no years-of-experience floor appear anywhere in the ad.

You must also be based in the United Kingdom with the right to work in the United Kingdom. The ad calls this essential, and it is a genuine residence requirement rather than a credential; the eligibility field on this page says United Kingdom because the ad does.

The ad separately states it is "unable to support H1-B or STEM OPT candidates at this time". Both are United States immigration statuses, which reads oddly on a UK-based role. We mention it because it is in the ad, not because we can explain it.

The dates are the real constraint

The ad sets fixed hours and dates:

• 40 hours per week
• Running from 14 September to 10 October 2026: four weeks
• The project team works to a UK business-hours rhythm
• You "should not be committed to other projects requiring significant hours during this period", though smaller side projects can be discussed

That is effectively a full-time month. If you are employed, this is a role for someone between contracts, on notice, or with a month genuinely free, not a side income. Projects "can be extended, shortened, or concluded early depending on needs and performance", so the four weeks is a plan rather than a guarantee. The runway is short too: vetting has to complete before 14 September.

What it pays

$140–200/hour. At 40 hours a week across four weeks that is roughly $22,400 to $32,000 for the engagement, straightforward arithmetic on the stated rate and hours, though the ad notes the project may be shortened or extended.

The band is stated as an hourly rate for hours worked, with no task-based or output-based qualification anywhere in the ad.

You are engaged as an independent contractor. Tax is not withheld, and local registration and reporting are on you. See our FAQ on tax handling.

How you get hired

Two stages, both stated: a resume and work history screen, then a short assessment evaluating domain expertise. No AI interview is named on this ad.

One clause worth reading twice

Your work at Mercor will not involve access to confidential or proprietary information from any employer, client, or institution.

The clause protects you. You produce fresh work rather than surfacing anything you already hold, which matters if you are currently employed and your contract assigns what you touch.

Worth knowing

Good:

• $140–200/hour as a plain hourly rate for hours worked, with no output-based qualification
• No degree, no named employer, no years-of-experience floor
• Fixed, known dates: you can plan around a defined four weeks rather than an open-ended maybe
• Light vetting: two stages, no unpaid AI interview named
• The work is stated not to require confidential information from your employer

Less good:

• 40 hours a week for a month, with near-exclusivity expected. This rules out anyone in full-time employment
• Short runway: the project starts 14 September, so vetting has to complete quickly
• It can be "extended, shortened, or concluded early", so the four-week figure is not a commitment
• UK residence and right to work are hard requirements
• Independent contractor: no benefits, no notice period, your own tax and any local registration
• The AI lab is not named

About this listing

Posted by Mercor, confirmed open on 7 September 2026. The $140–200/hour rate, the 14 September to 10 October dates, the 40-hour commitment, the UK requirement, the stack and the vetting steps are its own published text for this listing.

The $22,400–32,000 engagement figure is our arithmetic on the stated rate and hours, not a total the ad publishes. This is one of the few listings with a stated end date, so it will expire on its own. The AI lab and the third domain being staffed are not named. Eligibility and payment run at the platform level. See Mercor.