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 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 362 229 254
Rank change year-on-year -133 +25 -32
Contract jobs citing Big Data 282 334 407
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 1.14% 0.93%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.89% 5.97% 5.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 193 233 302
10th Percentile £350 £407 £376
25th Percentile £393 £463 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £563 £584
Median % change year-on-year -6.67% -3.68% -2.67%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £736
90th Percentile £796 £749 £825
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £550 £535
% change year-on-year -13.64% +2.80% -10.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 3 19
10th Percentile £58.60 £52.25 £18.20
25th Percentile £64.00 £53.75 £25.81
Median hourly rate £70.00 £57.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% +35.29% -41.78%
75th Percentile £75.00 £79.38 £47.50
90th Percentile £90.00 £91.75 £56.40
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 - £30.50
% change year-on-year - - -59.60%

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 7,250 5,595 7,295
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.76% 19.06% 16.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,965 3,853 5,185
10th Percentile £350 £354 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £594 £640 £650
90th Percentile £694 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £489 £483
% change year-on-year -2.86% +1.24% -3.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 181 108 152
10th Percentile £18.00 £21.10 £14.00
25th Percentile £31.03 £24.25 £20.77
Median hourly rate £52.50 £33.81 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.30% -15.49% -33.33%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.62 £53.84
90th Percentile £83.75 £73.63 £72.45
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £31.64 £35.00
% change year-on-year +58.03% -9.60% -39.70%

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 17 April 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Big Data over the 6 months to 17 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Big Data in the UK

Big Data
Top 16 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 17 April 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 -164 216 £550 -4.35% 91
London -94 140 £538 -6.52% 51
UK excluding London -118 89 £475 -13.64% 49
Work from Home -43 80 £475 -9.52% 37
South East -76 24 £500 -8.26% 13
Scotland +20 21 £400 -2.20% 3
North of England -72 20 £569 -5.21% 12
Midlands -77 13 £440 -9.74% 7
East Midlands -35 10 £425 +8.28% 1
North West -37 10 £669 +11.46% 7
North East -16 6 £510 +10.27% 3
Wales -5 5 £388 +131.94% 1
South West -35 4 £575 -9.80% 7
Yorkshire -54 4 £588 -2.08% 2
East of England -41 3 £540 -16.92% 6
West Midlands -60 3 £640 +21.50% 6

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
1 142 (50.35%) Apache Spark
2 38 (13.48%) Apache Airflow
3 36 (12.77%) Apache
4 14 (4.96%) Confluence
5 5 (1.77%) Palantir Foundry
5 5 (1.77%) SAS
6 4 (1.42%) SharePoint
7 3 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.35%) Apache Pig
8 1 (0.35%) Camunda
8 1 (0.35%) Jupyter
Applications
1 4 (1.42%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.71%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 138 (48.94%) AWS
2 115 (40.78%) Azure
3 76 (26.95%) GCP
4 33 (11.70%) Serverless
5 30 (10.64%) Amazon S3
6 29 (10.28%) GitHub
7 27 (9.57%) AWS Lambda
7 27 (9.57%) Power Platform
8 25 (8.87%) Snowflake
9 19 (6.74%) Amazon EMR
10 17 (6.03%) GitHub Actions
11 16 (5.67%) Azure DevOps
12 14 (4.96%) Azure Data Factory
13 10 (3.55%) dbt
14 9 (3.19%) Amazon ECS
15 8 (2.84%) Amazon EKS
15 8 (2.84%) OpenShift
16 7 (2.48%) Amazon EC2
16 7 (2.48%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 6 (2.13%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.77%) IPv4
1 5 (1.77%) IPv6
2 3 (1.06%) Kerberos
2 3 (1.06%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (31.56%) Hadoop
2 65 (23.05%) Data Warehouse
3 47 (16.67%) NoSQL
4 34 (12.06%) PostgreSQL
5 30 (10.64%) Data Lake
6 28 (9.93%) Metadata
7 23 (8.16%) Relational Database
8 22 (7.80%) Power BI
9 20 (7.09%) Apache Hive
10 19 (6.74%) SQL Server
11 15 (5.32%) MongoDB
11 15 (5.32%) Tableau
12 14 (4.96%) DynamoDB
13 13 (4.61%) Amazon Redshift
13 13 (4.61%) MySQL
14 10 (3.55%) Elasticsearch
15 9 (3.19%) Amazon Aurora
15 9 (3.19%) BigQuery
15 9 (3.19%) Star Schema
16 8 (2.84%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 31 (10.99%) Git
2 29 (10.28%) Jenkins
3 24 (8.51%) GitLab
4 23 (8.16%) JIRA
5 8 (2.84%) Selenium
6 7 (2.48%) Robot Framework
7 5 (1.77%) PowerDesigner
8 4 (1.42%) Postman
9 3 (1.06%) ERwin
9 3 (1.06%) SonarQube
10 2 (0.71%) Subversion
10 2 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.35%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.35%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.35%) Gatling
11 1 (0.35%) Gradle
11 1 (0.35%) MLflow
11 1 (0.35%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.35%) SpecFlow
11 1 (0.35%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 104 (36.88%) Social Skills
2 75 (26.60%) Finance
3 62 (21.99%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (11.70%) Banking
5 20 (7.09%) Public Sector
6 10 (3.55%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (3.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (2.84%) Investment Banking
7 8 (2.84%) Telecoms
8 5 (1.77%) Marketing
9 4 (1.42%) Legal
10 2 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.71%) Local Government
10 2 (0.71%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.71%) Retail
11 1 (0.35%) Agriculture
11 1 (0.35%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.35%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 81 (28.72%) Data Engineer
2 42 (14.89%) Architect
3 35 (12.41%) Senior
4 31 (10.99%) Developer
5 29 (10.28%) Lead
6 24 (8.51%) Data Scientist
7 23 (8.16%) Data Architect
8 19 (6.74%) Analyst
9 14 (4.96%) Senior Data Engineer
10 12 (4.26%) Solutions Architect
11 11 (3.90%) Data Analyst
12 10 (3.55%) Java Engineer
13 9 (3.19%) Java Developer
14 8 (2.84%) Scala Engineer
14 8 (2.84%) Senior Data Scientist
15 7 (2.48%) Azure Engineer
15 7 (2.48%) Business Analyst
15 7 (2.48%) Platform Engineer
16 6 (2.13%) AWS Engineer
16 6 (2.13%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (19.15%) Kafka
2 28 (9.93%) PySpark
3 15 (5.32%) Pandas
3 15 (5.32%) REST
4 14 (4.96%) Spring
4 14 (4.96%) TensorFlow
5 13 (4.61%) HTML
6 12 (4.26%) scikit-learn
6 12 (4.26%) Spring Boot
7 11 (3.90%) CSS
7 11 (3.90%) PyTorch
8 9 (3.19%) NumPy
9 8 (2.84%) Play Framework
9 8 (2.84%) React
10 7 (2.48%) Apache NiFi
10 7 (2.48%) Elastic Stack
10 7 (2.48%) JSON
11 6 (2.13%) Node.js
11 6 (2.13%) RESTful
12 5 (1.77%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (8.87%) Cloud Native
2 16 (5.67%) Algorithms
2 16 (5.67%) Product Ownership
3 14 (4.96%) Distributed Computing
4 10 (3.55%) Data Structures
5 9 (3.19%) Distributed Systems
5 9 (3.19%) Virtual Team
6 7 (2.48%) Management Information System
6 7 (2.48%) Onboarding
7 6 (2.13%) Reference Data
8 5 (1.77%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.77%) FMCG
9 4 (1.42%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 3 (1.06%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.06%) Analytical Mindset
10 3 (1.06%) Clustering
10 3 (1.06%) Cyber Threat
10 3 (1.06%) Educational Technology
10 3 (1.06%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 27 (9.57%) Linux
2 21 (7.45%) Unix
3 2 (0.71%) Windows
3 2 (0.71%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (42.91%) Analytics
2 119 (42.20%) CI/CD
3 111 (39.36%) Data Pipeline
4 103 (36.52%) Agile
5 98 (34.75%) ETL
6 90 (31.91%) Data Engineering
7 89 (31.56%) Problem-Solving
8 84 (29.79%) Data Governance
9 80 (28.37%) Data Modelling
10 72 (25.53%) DevOps
11 71 (25.18%) Machine Learning
12 68 (24.11%) Data Science
13 58 (20.57%) AI
14 46 (16.31%) Visualisation
15 41 (14.54%) Data Architecture
16 39 (13.83%) Decision-Making
17 38 (13.48%) Computer Science
18 37 (13.12%) Business Intelligence
18 37 (13.12%) Scrum
19 36 (12.77%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 155 (54.96%) Python
2 142 (50.35%) SQL
3 60 (21.28%) Java
4 32 (11.35%) R
5 31 (10.99%) Scala
6 17 (6.03%) JavaScript
7 12 (4.26%) Bash
8 8 (2.84%) Shell Script
9 7 (2.48%) C#
10 5 (1.77%) C++
10 5 (1.77%) SAS Macro
10 5 (1.77%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.42%) PowerShell
12 3 (1.06%) Rust
13 2 (0.71%) Ada
13 2 (0.71%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.35%) Perl
14 1 (0.35%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 75 (26.60%) Security Cleared
2 59 (20.92%) SC Cleared
3 50 (17.73%) Degree
4 25 (8.87%) Master's Degree
5 24 (8.51%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (3.90%) DV Cleared
7 9 (3.19%) BPSS Clearance
8 7 (2.48%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.77%) AWS Certification
10 3 (1.06%) IBM Certification
10 3 (1.06%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (1.06%) PhD
10 3 (1.06%) SnowPro
11 2 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 2 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.71%) CISSP
11 2 (0.71%) MCITP
11 2 (0.71%) MCTS
11 2 (0.71%) Numerate Degree
11 2 (0.71%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (23.05%) Data Quality
2 23 (8.16%) GDPR
3 15 (5.32%) QA
4 7 (2.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (2.48%) NIST
5 6 (2.13%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (1.42%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.42%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.06%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.35%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.35%) IFRS
8 1 (0.35%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.35%) ISO 13485
8 1 (0.35%) Solvency II
System Software
1 46 (16.31%) Docker
2 11 (3.90%) HDFS
3 3 (1.06%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.06%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.35%) Apache Flume
Systems Management
1 48 (17.02%) Kubernetes
2 37 (13.12%) Terraform
3 30 (10.64%) Grafana
4 18 (6.38%) Prometheus
5 11 (3.90%) Kibana
6 5 (1.77%) Ansible
7 3 (1.06%) Argo
7 3 (1.06%) logstash
7 3 (1.06%) Nagios
7 3 (1.06%) Rancher
8 2 (0.71%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.35%) Control-M
9 1 (0.35%) Kubeflow
9 1 (0.35%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 55 (19.50%) Databricks
2 20 (7.09%) Microsoft
3 17 (6.03%) Google
4 12 (4.26%) Splunk
5 9 (3.19%) IBM
5 9 (3.19%) Informatica
5 9 (3.19%) Oracle
6 8 (2.84%) Ab Initio
6 8 (2.84%) Salesforce
6 8 (2.84%) Talend
7 7 (2.48%) Cloudera
7 7 (2.48%) Foundry
8 5 (1.77%) OpenAI
8 5 (1.77%) Palantir
8 5 (1.77%) Teradata
9 3 (1.06%) Guidewire
9 3 (1.06%) ServiceNow
9 3 (1.06%) Tenable
10 2 (0.71%) HP
10 2 (0.71%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud