Reference Data Contract Job Trends in England

Reference Data
UK > England

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Reference Data in contract job vacancies in England. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Reference Data over the 6 months leading up to 25 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 501 391 469
Rank change year-on-year -110 +78 +47
Contract jobs citing Reference Data 83 81 80
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.22% 0.33% 0.21%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.66% 0.98% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 56 43 54
10th Percentile £449 £376 £436
25th Percentile £528 £512 £516
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £625 £640 £650
Median % change year-on-year -2.34% -1.54% +4.00%
75th Percentile £740 £750 £925
90th Percentile £825 £905 -
UK median daily rate £610 £617 £650
% change year-on-year -1.05% -5.15% +4.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £78.75 £78.75 -
Median hourly rate £80.50 £80.50 -
75th Percentile £83.13 £82.25 -
90th Percentile £83.65 - -
UK median hourly rate £80.50 £80.50 -

All Generic Skills
England

Reference Data falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills in England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 12,580 8,272 11,635
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.54% 34.07% 30.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,011 5,392 7,592
10th Percentile £300 £298 £256
25th Percentile £412 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £540 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.09% -1.82% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £669 £663
90th Percentile £749 £775 £780
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 621 308 796
10th Percentile £15.62 £16.67 £12.50
25th Percentile £19.34 £22.27 £15.39
Median hourly rate £41.94 £33.50 £27.75
Median % change year-on-year +25.19% +20.72% +18.24%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.75 £57.50
90th Percentile £85.40 £84.30 £67.75
UK median hourly rate £40.00 £32.50 £27.50
% change year-on-year +23.08% +18.18% +22.22%

Reference Data
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Reference Data relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Reference Data job vacancy trend in England

Reference Data
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Reference Data.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Reference Data

Reference Data
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Reference Data in England over the 6 months to 25 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Reference Data in England

Reference Data
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Reference Data.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Reference Data

Reference Data
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Reference Data within the England region over the 6 months to 25 March 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
London -78 59 £625 -2.34% 14
North of England -61 10 £610 -6.15% 3
Yorkshire -52 9 £610 -6.15%
East of England -31 7 £575 +9.52% 4
West Midlands -52 2 £650 - 2
Midlands -69 2 £650 - 4
North West -36 1 £700 +96.63% 3
South East -48 1 £650 - 7
South West - 1 - - 2
Reference Data
UK

Reference Data
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 7 (8.43%) Confluence
2 1 (1.20%) Apache
2 1 (1.20%) Apache Spark
Applications
1 7 (8.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (1.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (7.23%) Finacle
2 5 (6.02%) Aladdin
2 5 (6.02%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 2 (2.41%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (1.20%) Loan IQ
4 1 (1.20%) Markit EDM
4 1 (1.20%) SAP MDG
4 1 (1.20%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 11 (13.25%) Azure
2 8 (9.64%) AWS
2 8 (9.64%) Power Platform
3 5 (6.02%) GCP
4 4 (4.82%) Snowflake
5 3 (3.61%) Amazon S3
6 2 (2.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 2 (2.41%) Collibra
7 1 (1.20%) Amazon EMR
7 1 (1.20%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
7 1 (1.20%) Azure Machine Learning
7 1 (1.20%) Datadog
7 1 (1.20%) dbt
7 1 (1.20%) Entra ID
7 1 (1.20%) Lucidchart
7 1 (1.20%) Microsoft Purview
7 1 (1.20%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (30.12%) Metadata
2 8 (9.64%) Power BI
3 7 (8.43%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (6.02%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (4.82%) BigQuery
5 4 (4.82%) Relational Database
6 2 (2.41%) Apache Iceberg
6 2 (2.41%) Big Data
6 2 (2.41%) Data Lake
6 2 (2.41%) DataStage
6 2 (2.41%) DB2
6 2 (2.41%) NoSQL
6 2 (2.41%) RDBMS
6 2 (2.41%) SQL Server
7 1 (1.20%) Amazon Athena
7 1 (1.20%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (1.20%) Apache Hudi
7 1 (1.20%) Ataccama
7 1 (1.20%) Metadata Repository
7 1 (1.20%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 14 (16.87%) ERwin
2 7 (8.43%) JIRA
3 4 (4.82%) ER Studio
3 4 (4.82%) PowerDesigner
General
1 37 (44.58%) Finance
2 25 (30.12%) Social Skills
3 20 (24.10%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (24.10%) Banking
4 12 (14.46%) Front Office
5 8 (9.64%) Public Sector
5 8 (9.64%) Retail
6 6 (7.23%) Private Banking
7 5 (6.02%) Investment Banking
7 5 (6.02%) Publishing
8 3 (3.61%) Back Office
9 2 (2.41%) Financial Institution
9 2 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (2.41%) Law
9 2 (2.41%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (2.41%) Wholesale Banking
10 1 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (1.20%) Legal
10 1 (1.20%) Manufacturing
10 1 (1.20%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 19 (22.89%) Architect
2 16 (19.28%) Data Architect
2 16 (19.28%) Lead
3 13 (15.66%) Analyst
4 12 (14.46%) Business Analyst
4 12 (14.46%) Data Modeller
5 10 (12.05%) Developer
6 6 (7.23%) Data Migration Lead
6 6 (7.23%) Python Developer
7 5 (6.02%) Data Analyst
7 5 (6.02%) Senior
8 4 (4.82%) Data Business Analyst
8 4 (4.82%) Data Engineer
9 3 (3.61%) Asset Management Analyst
9 3 (3.61%) Asset Management Business Analyst
9 3 (3.61%) Perl Developer
9 3 (3.61%) Project Manager
10 2 (2.41%) Software Developer
10 2 (2.41%) Software Engineer
10 2 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (3.61%) JSON
2 2 (2.41%) REST
2 2 (2.41%) XML
3 1 (1.20%) GraphQL
3 1 (1.20%) JSON Schema
3 1 (1.20%) Lightning Web Components
3 1 (1.20%) Middleware
3 1 (1.20%) NumPy
3 1 (1.20%) Pandas
3 1 (1.20%) Ruby on Rails
Miscellaneous
1 13 (15.66%) Data Structures
1 13 (15.66%) Fixed Income
2 8 (9.64%) Cloud Native
2 8 (9.64%) Legacy Systems
3 7 (8.43%) Product Ownership
4 6 (7.23%) Equities
5 5 (6.02%) Derivative
5 5 (6.02%) Management Information System
6 3 (3.61%) Life Science
7 2 (2.41%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (2.41%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 2 (2.41%) NHS
7 2 (2.41%) Onboarding
7 2 (2.41%) Reinsurance
8 1 (1.20%) Clustering
8 1 (1.20%) Credit Risk
8 1 (1.20%) Distributed Systems
8 1 (1.20%) SWIFT Messaging Network
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (49.40%) Data Modelling
2 23 (27.71%) Data Governance
2 23 (27.71%) Data Management
3 19 (22.89%) Problem-Solving
4 18 (21.69%) Stakeholder Management
5 16 (19.28%) Data Analysis
5 16 (19.28%) Data Architecture
5 16 (19.28%) Metadata Management
5 16 (19.28%) Migration
6 15 (18.07%) Data Mapping
7 14 (16.87%) Agile
7 14 (16.87%) Data Lineage
7 14 (16.87%) Data Transformation
8 13 (15.66%) User Acceptance Testing
9 11 (13.25%) Analytics
9 11 (13.25%) Data Migration
9 11 (13.25%) Validation
10 10 (12.05%) ETL
10 10 (12.05%) Logical Data Model
10 10 (12.05%) Reference Data Management
Programming Languages
1 27 (32.53%) SQL
2 14 (16.87%) Python
3 7 (8.43%) Java
4 5 (6.02%) C#
4 5 (6.02%) Perl
4 5 (6.02%) PowerShell
5 2 (2.41%) Groovy
6 1 (1.20%) Apex Code
6 1 (1.20%) C
6 1 (1.20%) PL/SQL
6 1 (1.20%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 7 (8.43%) Security Cleared
2 4 (4.82%) SC Cleared
3 2 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
3 2 (2.41%) Degree
4 1 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
4 1 (1.20%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (32.53%) Data Quality
2 3 (3.61%) QA
3 2 (2.41%) GDPR
3 2 (2.41%) IFRS
4 1 (1.20%) IFRS 17
4 1 (1.20%) IFRS 9
4 1 (1.20%) Solvency II
Vendors
1 8 (9.64%) Databricks
1 8 (9.64%) Murex
2 7 (8.43%) GoldenSource
3 6 (7.23%) Avaloq
3 6 (7.23%) Temenos
4 5 (6.02%) Microsoft
4 5 (6.02%) Oracle
4 5 (6.02%) Sparx
5 3 (3.61%) Bloomberg
5 3 (3.61%) Charles River
5 3 (3.61%) Informatica
5 3 (3.61%) SAP
6 2 (2.41%) IDERA
6 2 (2.41%) Refinitiv
7 1 (1.20%) Atlassian
7 1 (1.20%) Calypso
7 1 (1.20%) Google
7 1 (1.20%) ION Trading
7 1 (1.20%) Reuters
7 1 (1.20%) Salesforce