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 16 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 473 466 509
Rank change year-on-year -7 +43 +90
Contract jobs citing Reference Data 62 51 72
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.21% 0.16% 0.18%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.57% 0.52% 0.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 43 33 49
10th Percentile £411 £302 £413
25th Percentile £488 £431 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £600 £600 £595
Median % change year-on-year - +0.84% -4.80%
75th Percentile £706 £750 £725
90th Percentile £795 £825 £758
UK median daily rate £600 £600 £590
% change year-on-year - +1.78% -5.68%

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 10,960 9,817 12,985
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 36.48% 31.54% 32.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,859 5,867 8,849
10th Percentile £285 £300 £275
25th Percentile £408 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.59% -0.91% -2.22%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £750 £800 £775
UK median daily rate £512 £526 £550
% change year-on-year -2.76% -4.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 591 308 471
10th Percentile £13.50 £16.97 £17.00
25th Percentile £18.25 £24.18 £21.25
Median hourly rate £27.53 £46.18 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -40.39% +3.78% +50.85%
75th Percentile £53.44 £70.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £73.00 £75.16 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £26.89 £37.50 £43.84
% change year-on-year -28.29% -14.46% +48.61%

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025. 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 0 45 £625 +4.17% 27
Yorkshire -34 6 £500 -23.08% 2
North of England -34 6 £500 +19.40% 3
South East +4 4 £575 - 9
Midlands -34 2 £475 -5.57% 3
South West +8 1 - -
East Midlands -9 1 - - 1
West Midlands -24 1 £475 -26.92% 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 5 (8.06%) Confluence
2 1 (1.61%) Apache
2 1 (1.61%) Apache Spark
2 1 (1.61%) Appian
2 1 (1.61%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 2 (3.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (1.61%) Actimize
2 1 (1.61%) Aladdin
2 1 (1.61%) Markit EDM
2 1 (1.61%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 15 (24.19%) Azure
2 11 (17.74%) Power Platform
3 8 (12.90%) AWS
4 4 (6.45%) GCP
4 4 (6.45%) Snowflake
5 3 (4.84%) Azure DevOps
6 2 (3.23%) Amazon S3
6 2 (3.23%) Collibra
6 2 (3.23%) dbt
7 1 (1.61%) Amazon Bedrock
7 1 (1.61%) Amazon EMR
7 1 (1.61%) Amazon SageMaker
7 1 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
7 1 (1.61%) Azure Data Factory
7 1 (1.61%) Datadog
7 1 (1.61%) Dynamics 365
7 1 (1.61%) Lucidchart
7 1 (1.61%) Microsoft 365
7 1 (1.61%) PowerApps
7 1 (1.61%) Serverless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (20.97%) Metadata
2 10 (16.13%) Power BI
3 7 (11.29%) Power Query
4 6 (9.68%) Data Warehouse
5 3 (4.84%) PostgreSQL
5 3 (4.84%) Tableau
6 2 (3.23%) Big Data
6 2 (3.23%) Data Lake
6 2 (3.23%) Delta Lake
6 2 (3.23%) Relational Database
6 2 (3.23%) SQL Server
7 1 (1.61%) Amazon Aurora
7 1 (1.61%) Apache Iceberg
7 1 (1.61%) Azure SQL Database
7 1 (1.61%) BigQuery
7 1 (1.61%) Data Vault
7 1 (1.61%) DataStage
7 1 (1.61%) DB2
7 1 (1.61%) Parquet
7 1 (1.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 8 (12.90%) ERwin
2 5 (8.06%) JIRA
2 5 (8.06%) PowerDesigner
3 1 (1.61%) Postman
General
1 27 (43.55%) Finance
1 27 (43.55%) Social Skills
2 15 (24.19%) Banking
3 11 (17.74%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (16.13%) Investment Banking
5 8 (12.90%) Front Office
6 5 (8.06%) Presentation Skills
6 5 (8.06%) Public Sector
7 3 (4.84%) Back Office
7 3 (4.84%) Legal
7 3 (4.84%) Retail
8 2 (3.23%) Financial Institution
8 2 (3.23%) Law
8 2 (3.23%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 15 (24.19%) Analyst
2 11 (17.74%) Developer
3 10 (16.13%) Architect
3 10 (16.13%) Business Analyst
4 8 (12.90%) Data Modeller
5 7 (11.29%) Data Architect
5 7 (11.29%) Senior
6 6 (9.68%) Business Intelligence Developer
7 5 (8.06%) Data Analyst
7 5 (8.06%) Data Business Analyst
7 5 (8.06%) Power BI Developer
8 4 (6.45%) Lead
9 3 (4.84%) Asset Management Analyst
9 3 (4.84%) Asset Management Business Analyst
9 3 (4.84%) Consultant
9 3 (4.84%) Senior Developer
10 2 (3.23%) Applications Support
10 2 (3.23%) Front Office Developer
10 2 (3.23%) Project Manager
10 2 (3.23%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 4 (6.45%) FIX Protocol
2 2 (3.23%) JSON
3 1 (1.61%) .NET
3 1 (1.61%) Boost C++ Libraries
3 1 (1.61%) GraphQL
3 1 (1.61%) JSON Schema
3 1 (1.61%) LangChain
3 1 (1.61%) QuickFIX
3 1 (1.61%) REST
3 1 (1.61%) STL
3 1 (1.61%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 7 (11.29%) Derivative
1 7 (11.29%) Equities
1 7 (11.29%) Fixed Income
2 5 (8.06%) Product Ownership
3 4 (6.45%) Data Structures
3 4 (6.45%) Onboarding
4 3 (4.84%) Cloud Native
4 3 (4.84%) NHS
5 2 (3.23%) Analytical Mindset
5 2 (3.23%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (3.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 2 (3.23%) Greenfield Project
5 2 (3.23%) Management Information System
5 2 (3.23%) Reinsurance
6 1 (1.61%) Algorithms
6 1 (1.61%) Credit Risk
6 1 (1.61%) Market Risk
6 1 (1.61%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (1.61%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 4 (6.45%) Linux
2 1 (1.61%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (40.32%) Data Modelling
2 24 (38.71%) Data Governance
3 20 (32.26%) Data Management
4 14 (22.58%) Agile
5 13 (20.97%) Business Intelligence
6 12 (19.35%) Analytics
6 12 (19.35%) Migration
6 12 (19.35%) Problem-Solving
6 12 (19.35%) Stakeholder Management
7 11 (17.74%) Data Lineage
7 11 (17.74%) Data Migration
7 11 (17.74%) User Acceptance Testing
8 10 (16.13%) Data Architecture
8 10 (16.13%) Reference Data Management
9 8 (12.90%) Business Analysis
9 8 (12.90%) DevOps
9 8 (12.90%) Metadata Management
10 7 (11.29%) Data Analysis
10 7 (11.29%) Data Transformation
10 7 (11.29%) Low Latency
Programming Languages
1 26 (41.94%) SQL
2 18 (29.03%) Python
3 4 (6.45%) C++
3 4 (6.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
4 3 (4.84%) Java
5 2 (3.23%) C#
6 1 (1.61%) Groovy
6 1 (1.61%) JavaScript
6 1 (1.61%) Korn
6 1 (1.61%) Perl
Qualifications
1 5 (8.06%) Degree
2 4 (6.45%) Computer Science Degree
3 3 (4.84%) Master's Degree
4 2 (3.23%) Security Cleared
5 1 (1.61%) DBS Check
5 1 (1.61%) PhD
5 1 (1.61%) SC Cleared
5 1 (1.61%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (29.03%) Data Quality
2 6 (9.68%) GDPR
3 3 (4.84%) MiFID
3 3 (4.84%) QA
4 2 (3.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 1 (1.61%) EMIR
5 1 (1.61%) FATCA
5 1 (1.61%) IFRS
5 1 (1.61%) IFRS 17
5 1 (1.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (1.61%) Solvency II
Vendors
1 9 (14.52%) Databricks
2 4 (6.45%) Bloomberg
2 4 (6.45%) Informatica
3 3 (4.84%) Microsoft
3 3 (4.84%) Oracle
4 2 (3.23%) Murex
4 2 (3.23%) Refinitiv
4 2 (3.23%) Reuters
4 2 (3.23%) Sparx
4 2 (3.23%) Trayport
5 1 (1.61%) Alteryx
5 1 (1.61%) Charles River
5 1 (1.61%) GoldenSource
5 1 (1.61%) Pega
5 1 (1.61%) Salesforce