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 4 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 342 245 240
Rank change year-on-year -97 -5 -71
Contract jobs citing Big Data 245 331 440
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.67% 1.02% 1.02%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.89% 5.63% 6.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 194 202 291
10th Percentile £317 £363 £400
25th Percentile £400 £450 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -8.33%
75th Percentile £613 £676 £700
90th Percentile £734 £756 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £435 £613 £500
% change year-on-year -28.98% +22.50% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 22
10th Percentile - £30.25 £26.39
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 6,306 5,879 7,166
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.14% 18.14% 16.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,365 3,881 5,062
10th Percentile £327 £345 £350
25th Percentile £409 £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 84 79 140
10th Percentile £21.31 £19.53 £16.12
25th Percentile £29.00 £23.48 £22.61
Median hourly rate £52.00 £35.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +48.57% -24.21% -16.04%
75th Percentile £75.26 £64.73 £64.51
90th Percentile £85.00 £70.55 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.31 £27.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +119.29% -40.45% -7.64%

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 4 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 4 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 -106 213 £500 -13.04% 123
London -47 140 £547 -0.64% 68
UK excluding London -81 77 £435 -28.98% 70
Work from Home -21 74 £450 -13.96% 68
Midlands -33 19 £420 -31.37%
South East -32 16 £392 -43.50% 43
Scotland +4 15 £500 +28.21% 6
East Midlands -14 14 £420 -1.18%
North of England -52 14 £473 -24.40% 7
North West -10 13 £473 -12.82% 4
South West -23 11 £525 -21.35% 4
West Midlands -42 5 £402 -34.31%
East of England -20 2 £453 -30.38% 20
Northern Ireland -9 1 £513 -6.82%
Yorkshire -52 1 - - 2

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
1 113 (46.12%) Apache Spark
2 43 (17.55%) Apache
3 31 (12.65%) Apache Airflow
4 18 (7.35%) Confluence
5 4 (1.63%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.82%) Apache Pig
6 2 (0.82%) Jupyter
6 2 (0.82%) SAS
7 1 (0.41%) Apache Superset
7 1 (0.41%) IIS
7 1 (0.41%) Luigi
7 1 (0.41%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.82%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.22%) Salesforce CRM
2 1 (0.41%) Distributed Ledger
Cloud Services
1 91 (37.14%) AWS
2 67 (27.35%) Azure
3 47 (19.18%) GCP
4 31 (12.65%) Power Platform
5 29 (11.84%) Serverless
6 25 (10.20%) Snowflake
7 20 (8.16%) GitHub
8 15 (6.12%) Amazon S3
9 14 (5.71%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (4.49%) Azure Data Factory
11 9 (3.67%) AWS Lambda
12 7 (2.86%) Amazon ECS
12 7 (2.86%) Amazon SageMaker
12 7 (2.86%) Azure DevOps
13 5 (2.04%) Amazon EC2
13 5 (2.04%) Amazon EKS
13 5 (2.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 5 (2.04%) Microsoft Copilot
14 4 (1.63%) AWS Step Functions
14 4 (1.63%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.63%) TCP/IP
2 3 (1.22%) DNS
2 3 (1.22%) Kerberos
2 3 (1.22%) SSH
2 3 (1.22%) VPN
3 2 (0.82%) SSL
4 1 (0.41%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 96 (39.18%) Hadoop
2 56 (22.86%) Data Warehouse
3 33 (13.47%) NoSQL
4 31 (12.65%) Power BI
5 29 (11.84%) Data Lake
6 24 (9.80%) Elasticsearch
7 23 (9.39%) Apache Hive
8 22 (8.98%) Relational Database
9 21 (8.57%) SQL Server
10 20 (8.16%) Metadata
10 20 (8.16%) Tableau
11 19 (7.76%) PostgreSQL
12 13 (5.31%) HBase
13 12 (4.90%) Impala
13 12 (4.90%) RDBMS
14 10 (4.08%) BigQuery
15 8 (3.27%) Amazon Redshift
16 7 (2.86%) Azure SQL Database
16 7 (2.86%) Data Mining
17 6 (2.45%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 37 (15.10%) Git
2 22 (8.98%) Jenkins
2 22 (8.98%) JIRA
3 17 (6.94%) GitLab
4 9 (3.67%) MLflow
5 6 (2.45%) ERwin
6 4 (1.63%) ER Studio
6 4 (1.63%) SonarQube
7 3 (1.22%) Artifactory
7 3 (1.22%) Poetry
7 3 (1.22%) Sonatype Nexus
8 2 (0.82%) Cypress.io
8 2 (0.82%) Gradle
8 2 (0.82%) PyCharm
8 2 (0.82%) Selenium
8 2 (0.82%) Subversion
8 2 (0.82%) Team Foundation Server
8 2 (0.82%) Visual Studio Code
9 1 (0.41%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.41%) SpecFlow
General
1 80 (32.65%) Social Skills
2 70 (28.57%) Finance
3 42 (17.14%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (9.80%) Banking
5 17 (6.94%) Public Sector
6 5 (2.04%) Investment Banking
6 5 (2.04%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.63%) Financial Institution
7 4 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (1.22%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.82%) Marketing
10 1 (0.41%) Agriculture
10 1 (0.41%) Corporate Banking
10 1 (0.41%) Front Office
10 1 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.41%) Retail
10 1 (0.41%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 77 (31.43%) Data Engineer
2 35 (14.29%) Senior
3 26 (10.61%) Developer
4 21 (8.57%) Data Scientist
4 21 (8.57%) Lead
5 18 (7.35%) Analyst
6 15 (6.12%) Architect
6 15 (6.12%) Data Analyst
7 12 (4.90%) Data Architect
7 12 (4.90%) Python Engineer
8 10 (4.08%) Software Engineer
9 8 (3.27%) Python Data Engineer
9 8 (3.27%) Scala Developer
9 8 (3.27%) Senior Data Engineer
10 7 (2.86%) AWS Engineer
10 7 (2.86%) Data Modeller
10 7 (2.86%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 7 (2.86%) Senior Software Engineer
11 6 (2.45%) Big Data Engineer
11 6 (2.45%) Platform Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (20.41%) Kafka
2 36 (14.69%) PySpark
3 23 (9.39%) Apache NiFi
4 21 (8.57%) Pandas
5 18 (7.35%) scikit-learn
6 14 (5.71%) REST
6 14 (5.71%) TensorFlow
7 13 (5.31%) Flask
7 13 (5.31%) RESTful
8 12 (4.90%) .NET
8 12 (4.90%) Elastic Stack
8 12 (4.90%) NumPy
9 10 (4.08%) HTML
9 10 (4.08%) RabbitMQ
9 10 (4.08%) React
10 9 (3.67%) JSON
10 9 (3.67%) PyTorch
11 8 (3.27%) Spark Streaming
12 7 (2.86%) OpenTelemetry
12 7 (2.86%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (7.35%) Distributed Computing
2 17 (6.94%) Cloud Native
3 14 (5.71%) Algorithms
4 6 (2.45%) Data Structures
5 5 (2.04%) Analytical Mindset
5 5 (2.04%) Distributed Systems
5 5 (2.04%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (2.04%) Management Information System
6 4 (1.63%) AI Agents
6 4 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
6 4 (1.63%) Derivative
7 3 (1.22%) Data Centre
7 3 (1.22%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.22%) Product Ownership
7 3 (1.22%) Virtual Team
8 2 (0.82%) CMDB
8 2 (0.82%) FMCG
8 2 (0.82%) Hedge funds
8 2 (0.82%) Private Cloud
8 2 (0.82%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 30 (12.24%) Linux
2 8 (3.27%) Unix
3 2 (0.82%) Windows
4 1 (0.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (33.88%) ETL
2 76 (31.02%) Agile
2 76 (31.02%) Analytics
2 76 (31.02%) Data Pipeline
3 74 (30.20%) Data Modelling
4 64 (26.12%) Problem-Solving
5 60 (24.49%) CI/CD
6 58 (23.67%) Data Engineering
7 56 (22.86%) Machine Learning
8 53 (21.63%) Data Science
9 51 (20.82%) Data Governance
10 49 (20.00%) Visualisation
11 43 (17.55%) Business Intelligence
12 41 (16.73%) DevOps
13 40 (16.33%) AI
14 39 (15.92%) Software Engineering
15 33 (13.47%) Decision-Making
16 32 (13.06%) Containerisation
17 31 (12.65%) Microservices
18 30 (12.24%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 170 (69.39%) Python
2 127 (51.84%) SQL
3 43 (17.55%) Java
4 28 (11.43%) Scala
5 23 (9.39%) R
6 15 (6.12%) C#
6 15 (6.12%) C++
7 14 (5.71%) Bash
7 14 (5.71%) JavaScript
8 6 (2.45%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.22%) Groovy
9 3 (1.22%) Perl
9 3 (1.22%) PL/SQL
10 2 (0.82%) Ada
10 2 (0.82%) Kusto Query Language
10 2 (0.82%) PowerShell
10 2 (0.82%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.41%) Go
11 1 (0.41%) Korn
11 1 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 51 (20.82%) Security Cleared
2 38 (15.51%) SC Cleared
3 31 (12.65%) Degree
4 25 (10.20%) DV Cleared
5 20 (8.16%) Computer Science Degree
6 17 (6.94%) Master's Degree
7 6 (2.45%) Azure Certification
8 5 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (1.63%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.63%) PhD
10 3 (1.22%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.82%) MCP
12 1 (0.41%) CISSP
12 1 (0.41%) HP APS
12 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.41%) OCP
12 1 (0.41%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.41%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.41%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (21.22%) Data Quality
2 12 (4.90%) GDPR
2 12 (4.90%) QA
3 4 (1.63%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 2 (0.82%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (0.82%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.41%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.41%) IFRS
6 1 (0.41%) IFRS 17
6 1 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.41%) Solvency II
System Software
1 39 (15.92%) Docker
2 15 (6.12%) HDFS
3 2 (0.82%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 1 (0.41%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 42 (17.14%) Kubernetes
2 16 (6.53%) Terraform
3 13 (5.31%) Grafana
4 9 (3.67%) Ansible
4 9 (3.67%) Argo
4 9 (3.67%) Prometheus
5 7 (2.86%) Kibana
6 6 (2.45%) logstash
7 4 (1.63%) Hadoop YARN
8 3 (1.22%) Istio
8 3 (1.22%) Nagios
8 3 (1.22%) Oozie
8 3 (1.22%) Rancher
9 2 (0.82%) Kustomize
10 1 (0.41%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.41%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.41%) Puppet
10 1 (0.41%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 47 (19.18%) Databricks
2 20 (8.16%) Cloudera
2 20 (8.16%) Google
3 18 (7.35%) Microsoft
4 13 (5.31%) Foundry
4 13 (5.31%) Palantir
5 7 (2.86%) ServiceNow
6 6 (2.45%) Oracle
7 4 (1.63%) Ab Initio
8 3 (1.22%) OpenAI
8 3 (1.22%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.82%) IBM
9 2 (0.82%) Informatica
9 2 (0.82%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.82%) Splunk
9 2 (0.82%) Vertica
10 1 (0.41%) Atlassian
10 1 (0.41%) Bloomberg
10 1 (0.41%) HP
10 1 (0.41%) Sybase