Big Data Contract Job Trends

Big Data
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Big Data skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 360 232 243
Rank change year-on-year -128 +11 -66
Contract jobs citing Big Data 240 330 431
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.66% 1.04% 1.00%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.88% 5.71% 6.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 198 282
10th Percentile £321 £364 £400
25th Percentile £400 £451 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £558 £550
Median % change year-on-year -10.31% +1.36% -8.33%
75th Percentile £613 £676 £700
90th Percentile £750 £757 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £440 £625 £500
% change year-on-year -29.60% +25.00% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 24
10th Percentile - £30.25 £26.69
25th Percentile - £43.75 £42.50
Median hourly rate - £52.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year - +13.69% +5.84%
75th Percentile - £53.75 £72.00
90th Percentile - - £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £46.18

All Database & BI Skills
UK

Big Data falls under the Databases and Business Intelligence category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring database or business intelligence skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 6,178 5,775 7,116
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.98% 18.17% 16.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,254 3,809 5,028
10th Percentile £329 £350 £350
25th Percentile £410 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 76 153
10th Percentile £19.60 £19.71 £16.12
25th Percentile £29.00 £24.25 £21.64
Median hourly rate £48.72 £35.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +39.20% -24.21% -16.04%
75th Percentile £73.13 £64.73 £64.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £69.88 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £28.75 £46.18
% change year-on-year +100.00% -37.74% -7.73%

Big Data
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Big Data job vacancy trend in the UK

Big Data
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Big Data.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Big Data

Big Data
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Big Data over the 6 months to 11 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Big Data in the UK

Big Data
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Big Data.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Big Data

Big Data
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 Big Data within the UK over the 6 months to 11 January 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 -108 208 £500 -13.04% 157
London -38 139 £550 - 45
UK excluding London -93 72 £440 -29.60% 126
Work from Home -29 70 £475 -9.18% 82
Midlands -30 17 £420 -31.37% 11
South East -22 16 £392 -43.50% 54
Scotland +3 14 £500 +28.21% 4
East Midlands -12 14 £420 -23.64% 9
North of England -43 14 £473 -27.31% 22
North West -15 13 £473 -30.00% 12
South West -33 9 £525 -21.35% 13
West Midlands -30 3 £447 -26.96% 2
East of England -25 2 £453 -30.38% 24
Northern Ireland -5 1 £513 -6.82% 2
Yorkshire -53 1 - - 7

Big Data
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
1 109 (45.42%) Apache Spark
2 41 (17.08%) Apache
3 28 (11.67%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (7.50%) Confluence
5 4 (1.67%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.83%) Apache Pig
6 2 (0.83%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.83%) SAS
7 1 (0.42%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.42%) IIS
7 1 (0.42%) Luigi
7 1 (0.42%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.83%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.25%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.42%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 89 (37.08%) AWS
2 65 (27.08%) Azure
3 44 (18.33%) GCP
4 31 (12.92%) Power Platform
5 28 (11.67%) Serverless
6 25 (10.42%) Snowflake
7 18 (7.50%) GitHub
8 13 (5.42%) Amazon S3
9 12 (5.00%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (4.58%) Azure Data Factory
11 8 (3.33%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (2.92%) Amazon ECS
13 6 (2.50%) Amazon SageMaker
13 6 (2.50%) Azure DevOps
14 5 (2.08%) Amazon EC2
14 5 (2.08%) Amazon EKS
14 5 (2.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 5 (2.08%) Microsoft Copilot
15 4 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 3 (1.25%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.25%) Kerberos
1 3 (1.25%) VPN
2 2 (0.83%) DNS
2 2 (0.83%) TCP/IP
3 1 (0.42%) HTTP
3 1 (0.42%) SSH
3 1 (0.42%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 93 (38.75%) Hadoop
2 55 (22.92%) Data Warehouse
3 31 (12.92%) Power BI
4 30 (12.50%) Data Lake
4 30 (12.50%) NoSQL
5 24 (10.00%) Elasticsearch
6 23 (9.58%) Apache Hive
7 22 (9.17%) Relational Database
8 21 (8.75%) SQL Server
9 20 (8.33%) Metadata
9 20 (8.33%) Tableau
10 16 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
11 13 (5.42%) HBase
12 12 (5.00%) Impala
12 12 (5.00%) RDBMS
13 9 (3.75%) BigQuery
14 7 (2.92%) Amazon Redshift
14 7 (2.92%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (2.92%) Data Mining
15 6 (2.50%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 36 (15.00%) Git
2 22 (9.17%) JIRA
3 19 (7.92%) Jenkins
4 16 (6.67%) GitLab
5 7 (2.92%) MLflow
6 6 (2.50%) ERwin
7 4 (1.67%) ER Studio
8 2 (0.83%) Artifactory
8 2 (0.83%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.83%) Gradle
8 2 (0.83%) Poetry
8 2 (0.83%) Selenium
8 2 (0.83%) SonarQube
8 2 (0.83%) Subversion
8 2 (0.83%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.42%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.42%) JMeter
9 1 (0.42%) Maven
9 1 (0.42%) Robot Framework
9 1 (0.42%) SpecFlow
General
1 80 (33.33%) Social Skills
2 70 (29.17%) Finance
3 42 (17.50%) Analytical Skills
4 25 (10.42%) Banking
5 16 (6.67%) Public Sector
6 5 (2.08%) Investment Banking
6 5 (2.08%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.67%) Financial Institution
7 4 (1.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.25%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.83%) Marketing
10 1 (0.42%) Agriculture
10 1 (0.42%) Corporate Banking
10 1 (0.42%) Front Office
10 1 (0.42%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.42%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.42%) Retail
10 1 (0.42%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 73 (30.42%) Data Engineer
2 34 (14.17%) Senior
3 25 (10.42%) Developer
4 22 (9.17%) Lead
5 20 (8.33%) Data Scientist
6 18 (7.50%) Analyst
7 15 (6.25%) Architect
7 15 (6.25%) Data Analyst
8 12 (5.00%) Data Architect
9 11 (4.58%) Python Engineer
10 9 (3.75%) Software Engineer
11 8 (3.33%) Scala Developer
11 8 (3.33%) Senior Data Engineer
12 7 (2.92%) AWS Engineer
12 7 (2.92%) Data Modeller
12 7 (2.92%) Machine Learning Engineer
12 7 (2.92%) Python Data Engineer
12 7 (2.92%) Senior Software Engineer
13 6 (2.50%) Hadoop Developer
13 6 (2.50%) Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (19.58%) Kafka
2 35 (14.58%) PySpark
3 22 (9.17%) Apache NiFi
4 18 (7.50%) Pandas
5 17 (7.08%) scikit-learn
6 14 (5.83%) REST
7 12 (5.00%) .NET
7 12 (5.00%) RESTful
7 12 (5.00%) TensorFlow
8 10 (4.17%) Flask
8 10 (4.17%) HTML
8 10 (4.17%) NumPy
8 10 (4.17%) RabbitMQ
8 10 (4.17%) React
9 9 (3.75%) Elastic Stack
9 9 (3.75%) JSON
10 8 (3.33%) Spark Streaming
11 7 (2.92%) PyTorch
11 7 (2.92%) XML
12 6 (2.50%) OpenTelemetry
Miscellaneous
1 17 (7.08%) Cloud Native
1 17 (7.08%) Distributed Computing
2 13 (5.42%) Algorithms
3 6 (2.50%) Data Structures
4 5 (2.08%) Analytical Mindset
4 5 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (2.08%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (2.08%) Management Information System
5 4 (1.67%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (1.67%) Derivative
6 3 (1.25%) AI Agents
6 3 (1.25%) Data Centre
6 3 (1.25%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.25%) Product Ownership
6 3 (1.25%) Virtual Team
7 2 (0.83%) FMCG
7 2 (0.83%) Hedge funds
7 2 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
7 2 (0.83%) Reference Data
7 2 (0.83%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 28 (11.67%) Linux
2 8 (3.33%) Unix
3 2 (0.83%) Windows
4 1 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (32.92%) ETL
2 76 (31.67%) Agile
2 76 (31.67%) Analytics
3 75 (31.25%) Data Modelling
4 73 (30.42%) Data Pipeline
5 62 (25.83%) Problem-Solving
6 57 (23.75%) CI/CD
7 54 (22.50%) Data Engineering
8 53 (22.08%) Machine Learning
9 51 (21.25%) Data Governance
9 51 (21.25%) Data Science
10 48 (20.00%) Visualisation
11 42 (17.50%) Business Intelligence
12 39 (16.25%) AI
12 39 (16.25%) DevOps
13 37 (15.42%) Software Engineering
14 32 (13.33%) Decision-Making
15 30 (12.50%) Data Integration
15 30 (12.50%) Microservices
16 29 (12.08%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 164 (68.33%) Python
2 123 (51.25%) SQL
3 43 (17.92%) Java
4 29 (12.08%) Scala
5 23 (9.58%) R
6 15 (6.25%) C#
6 15 (6.25%) C++
7 14 (5.83%) JavaScript
8 11 (4.58%) Bash
9 6 (2.50%) Shell Script
10 3 (1.25%) Perl
10 3 (1.25%) PL/SQL
11 2 (0.83%) Ada
11 2 (0.83%) Kusto Query Language
11 2 (0.83%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.83%) T-SQL
12 1 (0.42%) Go
12 1 (0.42%) Groovy
12 1 (0.42%) Korn
12 1 (0.42%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 50 (20.83%) Security Cleared
2 38 (15.83%) SC Cleared
3 31 (12.92%) Degree
4 24 (10.00%) DV Cleared
5 20 (8.33%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (6.67%) Master's Degree
7 6 (2.50%) Azure Certification
8 5 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (1.67%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.67%) PhD
10 3 (1.25%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.83%) MCP
12 1 (0.42%) CISSP
12 1 (0.42%) HP APS
12 1 (0.42%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.42%) OCP
12 1 (0.42%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.42%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.42%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (21.67%) Data Quality
2 12 (5.00%) GDPR
2 12 (5.00%) QA
3 4 (1.67%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 2 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (0.83%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.42%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.42%) IFRS
6 1 (0.42%) IFRS 17
6 1 (0.42%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.42%) Solvency II
System Software
1 37 (15.42%) Docker
2 15 (6.25%) HDFS
3 2 (0.83%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 1 (0.42%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 39 (16.25%) Kubernetes
2 15 (6.25%) Terraform
3 11 (4.58%) Grafana
4 7 (2.92%) Ansible
4 7 (2.92%) Argo
4 7 (2.92%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.50%) Kibana
6 5 (2.08%) logstash
7 4 (1.67%) Hadoop YARN
8 3 (1.25%) Nagios
8 3 (1.25%) Oozie
8 3 (1.25%) Rancher
9 1 (0.42%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.42%) Istio
9 1 (0.42%) Kustomize
9 1 (0.42%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.42%) Puppet
9 1 (0.42%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 46 (19.17%) Databricks
2 18 (7.50%) Cloudera
2 18 (7.50%) Google
3 17 (7.08%) Microsoft
4 13 (5.42%) Foundry
4 13 (5.42%) Palantir
5 7 (2.92%) ServiceNow
6 6 (2.50%) Oracle
7 4 (1.67%) Ab Initio
8 3 (1.25%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.83%) IBM
9 2 (0.83%) Informatica
9 2 (0.83%) OpenAI
9 2 (0.83%) Splunk
9 2 (0.83%) Vertica
10 1 (0.42%) Guidewire
10 1 (0.42%) PayPal
10 1 (0.42%) Refinitiv
10 1 (0.42%) SnapLogic
10 1 (0.42%) Zoomdata