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 17 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

	6 months to 17 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	529	455	477
Rank change year-on-year	-74	+22	+24
Contract jobs citing Reference Data	121	65	46
As % of all contract jobs in England	0.26%	0.23%	0.14%
As % of the Miscellaneous category	0.74%	0.63%	0.46%
Number of daily rates quoted	79	45	29
10^th Percentile	£404	£468	£300
25^th Percentile	£447	£525	£450
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£563	£600	£600
Median % change year-on-year	-6.25%	-	-
75^th Percentile	£681	£713	£775
90^th Percentile	£755	£790	£828
UK median daily rate	£568	£600	£585
% change year-on-year	-5.31%	+2.56%	-1.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted	8	0	0
Median hourly rate	£70.00	-	-
UK median hourly rate	£70.00	-	-

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.

	6 months to 17 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills	16,282	10,313	9,974
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England	34.80%	36.53%	31.21%
Number of daily rates quoted	9,772	6,440	5,996
10^th Percentile	£320	£300	£294
25^th Percentile	£425	£410	£413
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£525	£525	£546
Median % change year-on-year	-	-3.85%	-0.73%
75^th Percentile	£644	£644	£675
90^th Percentile	£750	£763	£816
UK median daily rate	£525	£515	£531
% change year-on-year	+1.94%	-2.92%	-3.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted	1,255	551	347
10^th Percentile	£13.69	£15.00	£17.25
25^th Percentile	£17.42	£18.51	£25.87
Median hourly rate	£33.60	£29.27	£54.00
Median % change year-on-year	+14.79%	-45.80%	+17.31%
75^th Percentile	£67.50	£55.00	£70.00
90^th Percentile	£85.00	£73.75	£75.16
UK median hourly rate	£35.11	£27.21	£47.50
% change year-on-year	+29.03%	-42.72%	+5.56%

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 Daily Rate Trend in England

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 17 October 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.

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 17 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
London	-56	82	£608	-2.76%	63
East of England	-14	11	£625	-	2
Midlands	-33	10	£434	-15.41%	7
North of England	-74	8	£411	-21.81%	12
West Midlands	-36	6	£535	+12.63%	2
North West	-	6	£418	-	6
East Midlands	-9	4	£425	-22.82%	5
South West	-33	4	£575	-	4
South East	-61	4	£488	-15.22%	5
Yorkshire	-37	2	£405	-22.86%	4
Reference Data UK

Reference Data Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England

For the 6 months to 17 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Reference Data also mentioned 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 across the England region with a requirement for Reference Data.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Data Modelling	57.0%	69
2	SQL	54.5%	66
3	Data Governance	47.9%	58
4	Data Quality	43.0%	52
5	Metadata	36.4%	44
6	Azure	30.6%	37
7	Logical Data Model	29.8%	36
8	Data Architecture	28.1%	34
8	Data Management	28.1%	34
10	Migration	27.3%	33
11	Validation	24.8%	30
12	Databricks	24.0%	29
12	Stakeholder Management	24.0%	29
14	Metadata Management	22.3%	27
14	Physical Data Model	22.3%	27
16	Microsoft	21.5%	26
17	Analytics	19.8%	24
17	ETL	19.8%	24
17	Integration Patterns	19.8%	24
20	Data Integration	19.0%	23
20	Data Migration	19.0%	23
22	AWS	18.2%	22
22	Business Intelligence	18.2%	22
22	Data Lineage	18.2%	22
22	Problem-Solving	18.2%	22
26	Reference Data Management	17.4%	21
27	Lakehouse	16.5%	20
28	CI/CD	15.7%	19
28	Data Analysis	15.7%	19
28	Data Pipeline	15.7%	19

Reference Data Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Miscellaneous

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Data Structures	16.5%	20
2	Legacy Systems	11.6%	14
3	Product Ownership	9.9%	12
4	Cloud Native	9.1%	11
4	Fixed Income	9.1%	11
4	Onboarding	9.1%	11
7	Management Information System	8.3%	10
8	Derivative	7.4%	9
8	Equities	7.4%	9
10	Data Protection Act	5.8%	7
11	Pricing Data	5.0%	6
12	Algorithms	3.3%	4
13	Distributed Systems	2.5%	3
13	Foreign Exchange (FX)	2.5%	3
13	Reinsurance	2.5%	3
13	Replication	2.5%	3
17	Analytical Mindset	1.7%	2
17	FMCG	1.7%	2
17	Renewable Energy	1.7%	2
17	Taxonomies	1.7%	2