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 22 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 447 282 201
Rank change year-on-year -165 -81 +41
Contract jobs citing Big Data 242 282 464
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.87% 1.22%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 2.96% 4.76% 6.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 172 203 309
10th Percentile £358 £400 £369
25th Percentile £425 £449 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £588
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -6.38% -2.08%
75th Percentile £625 £647 £725
90th Percentile £700 £736 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £484 £500 £556
% change year-on-year -3.30% -10.11% +1.14%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 2 5
10th Percentile £54.70 £45.06 £27.25
25th Percentile £61.75 £54.22 £36.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £69.48 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +0.75% +46.27% -39.10%
75th Percentile £75.00 £84.74 £53.75
90th Percentile £81.00 £93.90 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £59.08 £38.96 -
% change year-on-year +51.64% - -

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 8,185 5,929 6,794
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.00% 18.26% 17.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,470 3,963 4,661
10th Percentile £356 £340 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -6.19% -1.30%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £710 £738 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £485
% change year-on-year - -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 270 86 89
10th Percentile £16.63 £21.23 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.35 £29.02 £21.25
Median hourly rate £40.18 £40.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.16% +14.99% -36.36%
75th Percentile £59.88 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £75.10 £83.75 £71.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.25 £36.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +11.81% +20.00% -45.45%

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 22 September 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 22 September 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 22 September 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 -169 203 £525 -4.55% 388
London -99 125 £581 +2.35% 273
UK excluding London -113 90 £484 -3.30% 179
Work from Home -76 76 £500 -0.99% 157
North of England -53 33 £500 - 27
Yorkshire -25 22 £509 +1.75% 7
Scotland -21 16 £402 -19.60% 32
Midlands -57 13 £414 -2.59% 19
South East -77 13 £451 -21.52% 30
South West -32 12 £505 +12.22% 28
East Midlands -17 8 £500 +19.05% 5
North East -30 7 £425 - 4
West Midlands -52 5 £405 -9.40% 14
North West -59 4 £513 +5.13% 16
East of England -44 2 £540 +6.93% 17
Wales - 2 £475 - 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
1 132 (54.55%) Apache Spark
2 40 (16.53%) Apache
3 38 (15.70%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (2.89%) Confluence
5 6 (2.48%) JBoss
6 5 (2.07%) Jupyter
6 5 (2.07%) SharePoint
7 4 (1.65%) SAS
8 3 (1.24%) CMS
8 3 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (1.24%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.83%) Apache Pig
9 2 (0.83%) Apache Superset
10 1 (0.41%) Luigi
10 1 (0.41%) MQSeries
10 1 (0.41%) nginx
Applications
1 3 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.83%) Endur
2 1 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.41%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 113 (46.69%) AWS
2 94 (38.84%) Azure
3 72 (29.75%) GCP
4 45 (18.60%) Snowflake
5 32 (13.22%) Amazon S3
6 30 (12.40%) Power Platform
7 23 (9.50%) Amazon EMR
7 23 (9.50%) Azure DevOps
8 21 (8.68%) GitHub
9 20 (8.26%) AWS Lambda
10 17 (7.02%) Serverless
11 14 (5.79%) Amazon ECS
12 13 (5.37%) Azure Data Factory
12 13 (5.37%) OpenShift
13 12 (4.96%) PaaS
14 11 (4.55%) Amazon EKS
14 11 (4.55%) GitHub Actions
15 10 (4.13%) Azure Databricks
16 9 (3.72%) dbt
17 8 (3.31%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.48%) Kerberos
2 5 (2.07%) DNS
3 3 (1.24%) Broadband
3 3 (1.24%) DHCP
3 3 (1.24%) Firewall
3 3 (1.24%) Internet
3 3 (1.24%) SMTP
3 3 (1.24%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 46 (19.01%) Hadoop
2 42 (17.36%) Data Warehouse
3 37 (15.29%) Data Lake
4 30 (12.40%) NoSQL
5 29 (11.98%) PostgreSQL
5 29 (11.98%) Power BI
6 22 (9.09%) Apache Hive
7 20 (8.26%) Amazon Redshift
8 19 (7.85%) BigQuery
9 16 (6.61%) MongoDB
10 13 (5.37%) Amazon Athena
10 13 (5.37%) Amazon RDS
11 12 (4.96%) Metadata
11 12 (4.96%) Relational Database
12 11 (4.55%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (4.55%) Tableau
13 10 (4.13%) DynamoDB
14 8 (3.31%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (3.31%) SQL Server
15 7 (2.89%) Presto
Development Applications
1 37 (15.29%) Git
2 33 (13.64%) GitLab
3 29 (11.98%) Jenkins
4 13 (5.37%) JIRA
5 8 (3.31%) Selenium
6 4 (1.65%) SonarQube
7 3 (1.24%) JMeter
7 3 (1.24%) JUnit
7 3 (1.24%) LoadRunner
7 3 (1.24%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.83%) eggPlant
8 2 (0.83%) Gatling
8 2 (0.83%) MLflow
8 2 (0.83%) PowerDesigner
8 2 (0.83%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.41%) Claude Code
General
1 73 (30.17%) Social Skills
2 52 (21.49%) Analytical Skills
3 47 (19.42%) Finance
4 27 (11.16%) Banking
5 20 (8.26%) Public Sector
6 10 (4.13%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (4.13%) Marketing
7 9 (3.72%) Investment Banking
8 8 (3.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (1.65%) Aerospace
10 3 (1.24%) Legal
10 3 (1.24%) Retail
10 3 (1.24%) Telecoms
11 2 (0.83%) Financial Institution
11 2 (0.83%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.83%) Local Government
12 1 (0.41%) Advertising
12 1 (0.41%) Automotive
12 1 (0.41%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.41%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 77 (31.82%) Data Engineer
2 41 (16.94%) Senior
3 33 (13.64%) Architect
4 19 (7.85%) Developer
5 16 (6.61%) Analyst
6 15 (6.20%) DevOps Engineer
7 14 (5.79%) Senior Data Engineer
7 14 (5.79%) Solutions Architect
8 13 (5.37%) Data Architect
9 12 (4.96%) Big Data Engineer
10 11 (4.55%) Data Analyst
10 11 (4.55%) Lead
11 10 (4.13%) Databricks Data Engineer
11 10 (4.13%) Databricks Engineer
11 10 (4.13%) Python Engineer
12 9 (3.72%) Azure Engineer
12 9 (3.72%) Test Engineer
13 8 (3.31%) Java Developer
13 8 (3.31%) Kafka Engineer
13 8 (3.31%) Scala Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (22.31%) Kafka
2 45 (18.60%) Terraform
3 28 (11.57%) PySpark
4 17 (7.02%) REST
5 16 (6.61%) Spring
6 15 (6.20%) Spring Boot
7 12 (4.96%) Pandas
8 10 (4.13%) Apache NiFi
9 8 (3.31%) CSS
9 8 (3.31%) Elastic Stack
9 8 (3.31%) HTML
9 8 (3.31%) Play Framework
10 7 (2.89%) NumPy
11 6 (2.48%) .NET
12 5 (2.07%) Langfuse
12 5 (2.07%) Microsoft Graph
12 5 (2.07%) Middleware
12 5 (2.07%) RESTful
13 4 (1.65%) Apache Beam
13 4 (1.65%) PyTorch
Miscellaneous
1 34 (14.05%) Cloud Native
2 26 (10.74%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (6.61%) Product Ownership
4 15 (6.20%) Data Structures
5 13 (5.37%) Onboarding
6 12 (4.96%) Clustering
6 12 (4.96%) Virtual Team
7 6 (2.48%) Cyber Threat
8 5 (2.07%) Algorithms
8 5 (2.07%) Distributed Architecture
8 5 (2.07%) Distributed Computing
9 4 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.65%) FMCG
10 3 (1.24%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.24%) Data Centre
10 3 (1.24%) PKI
10 3 (1.24%) Social Media
11 2 (0.83%) Analytical Mindset
11 2 (0.83%) Legacy Systems
11 2 (0.83%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 26 (10.74%) Linux
2 10 (4.13%) Unix
3 6 (2.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.24%) Windows
4 3 (1.24%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 117 (48.35%) Data Pipeline
2 100 (41.32%) Analytics
3 90 (37.19%) CI/CD
3 90 (37.19%) Data Engineering
4 89 (36.78%) ETL
5 80 (33.06%) AI
6 78 (32.23%) Agile
7 65 (26.86%) DevOps
7 65 (26.86%) Machine Learning
8 53 (21.90%) Data Modelling
9 44 (18.18%) Containerisation
9 44 (18.18%) Problem-Solving
10 42 (17.36%) Data Science
11 39 (16.12%) Infrastructure as Code
12 38 (15.70%) Data Governance
12 38 (15.70%) Scrum
13 36 (14.88%) Validation
14 35 (14.46%) Test Automation
15 33 (13.64%) Data Analysis
15 33 (13.64%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 138 (57.02%) Python
2 117 (48.35%) SQL
3 58 (23.97%) Java
4 30 (12.40%) Scala
5 21 (8.68%) PowerShell
6 15 (6.20%) JavaScript
7 12 (4.96%) R
8 10 (4.13%) Bash
9 9 (3.72%) C#
10 3 (1.24%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (1.24%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.83%) Go
11 2 (0.83%) Korn
11 2 (0.83%) Rust
12 1 (0.41%) Bicep
12 1 (0.41%) C
12 1 (0.41%) C++
12 1 (0.41%) MATLAB
12 1 (0.41%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.41%) SAS Macro
Qualifications
1 57 (23.55%) Security Cleared
2 42 (17.36%) SC Cleared
3 25 (10.33%) Degree
4 12 (4.96%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (4.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (3.72%) DV Cleared
6 9 (3.72%) Master's Degree
7 5 (2.07%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.65%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.24%) PhD
9 3 (1.24%) SnowPro
10 2 (0.83%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 1 (0.41%) (ISC)2 CCSP
11 1 (0.41%) Cisco Certification
11 1 (0.41%) CISSP
11 1 (0.41%) ISEB
11 1 (0.41%) MBA
11 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.41%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (20.25%) Data Quality
2 19 (7.85%) QA
3 9 (3.72%) GDPR
4 3 (1.24%) Actionable Recommendations
4 3 (1.24%) SLA
5 1 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 1 (0.41%) EMIR
5 1 (0.41%) EU AI Act
5 1 (0.41%) IFRS
5 1 (0.41%) IFRS 9
5 1 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.41%) MiFID
5 1 (0.41%) NCSC
5 1 (0.41%) NIST
5 1 (0.41%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.41%) PSD2
5 1 (0.41%) SEPA
System Software
1 44 (18.18%) Docker
2 9 (3.72%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.48%) HDFS
4 5 (2.07%) Active Directory
5 3 (1.24%) BitLocker
5 3 (1.24%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.24%) Microsoft App-V
5 3 (1.24%) Terminal Services
5 3 (1.24%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.24%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.83%) Apache Flume
Systems Management
1 48 (19.83%) Kubernetes
2 28 (11.57%) Grafana
3 11 (4.55%) Ansible
3 11 (4.55%) Puppet
4 8 (3.31%) Kibana
4 8 (3.31%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.48%) Red Hat Satellite
6 5 (2.07%) Failover Clustering
7 3 (1.24%) Nagios
7 3 (1.24%) vCenter Server
7 3 (1.24%) vMotion
8 1 (0.41%) Control-M
8 1 (0.41%) HAProxy
8 1 (0.41%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 67 (27.69%) Databricks
2 22 (9.09%) Google
3 20 (8.26%) Microsoft
4 18 (7.44%) Splunk
5 14 (5.79%) Salesforce
6 13 (5.37%) Cloudera
7 10 (4.13%) Oracle
8 9 (3.72%) VMware
9 6 (2.48%) Red Hat
10 5 (2.07%) Amplitude
10 5 (2.07%) Cisco
10 5 (2.07%) IBM
10 5 (2.07%) Informatica
11 4 (1.65%) Foundry
11 4 (1.65%) Talend
11 4 (1.65%) Tenable
12 3 (1.24%) Dynatrace
12 3 (1.24%) New Relic
12 3 (1.24%) Palantir
12 3 (1.24%) Teradata