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 20 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 347 241 229
Rank change year-on-year -106 -12 -54
Contract jobs citing Big Data 255 353 473
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.69% 1.04% 1.07%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 4.00% 5.75% 6.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 199 215 311
10th Percentile £350 £361 £400
25th Percentile £401 £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 £733 £764 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £440 £613 £500
% change year-on-year -28.16% +22.50% -13.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 24
10th Percentile - £30.25 £31.43
25th Percentile - £43.75 £42.90
Median hourly rate - £52.50 £48.09
Median % change year-on-year - +9.17% +10.22%
75th Percentile - £53.75 £73.50
90th Percentile - - £78.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £46.18

All Database and Business Intelligence 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 6,382 6,134 7,417
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.31% 18.00% 16.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,393 4,051 5,218
10th Percentile £325 £341 £350
25th Percentile £410 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £766 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.94% -1.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 84 141
10th Percentile £20.72 £18.74 £16.61
25th Percentile £29.00 £22.43 £21.64
Median hourly rate £47.61 £30.40 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +56.61% -34.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £69.44 £64.50 £64.53
90th Percentile £85.00 £66.00 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £56.10 £27.24 £46.18
% change year-on-year +105.97% -41.02% +1.49%

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 20 December 2025.

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 20 December 2025. 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 -100 223 £505 -12.17% 55
London -45 142 £550 - 31
UK excluding London -72 83 £440 -28.16% 45
Work from Home -24 74 £500 -4.40% 38
Midlands -30 19 £420 -31.37%
South East -31 19 £425 -38.74% 25
Scotland +8 15 £500 +28.21% 4
East Midlands -11 14 £420 -13.85%
North of England -52 14 £473 -12.09% 10
North West -12 13 £473 -12.82% 5
South West -25 12 £525 -21.35% 2
West Midlands -31 5 £402 -34.31%
East of England -26 4 £505 -22.31% 7
Northern Ireland -7 1 £513 -6.82%
Yorkshire -58 1 - - 4

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
1 117 (45.88%) Apache Spark
2 46 (18.04%) Apache
3 32 (12.55%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (6.67%) Confluence
5 2 (0.78%) Apache Pig
5 2 (0.78%) Jupyter
5 2 (0.78%) SAS
5 2 (0.78%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.39%) Apache Superset
6 1 (0.39%) IIS
6 1 (0.39%) Luigi
6 1 (0.39%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.78%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.39%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 3 (1.18%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (0.78%) Distributed Ledger
3 1 (0.39%) Avolution ABACUS
Cloud Services
1 102 (40.00%) AWS
2 74 (29.02%) Azure
3 49 (19.22%) GCP
4 35 (13.73%) Serverless
5 31 (12.16%) Power Platform
6 24 (9.41%) Snowflake
7 21 (8.24%) Amazon S3
7 21 (8.24%) GitHub
8 15 (5.88%) GitHub Actions
9 13 (5.10%) AWS Lambda
10 11 (4.31%) Amazon SageMaker
10 11 (4.31%) Azure Data Factory
10 11 (4.31%) Azure DevOps
11 8 (3.14%) AWS Step Functions
12 7 (2.75%) Amazon ECS
13 6 (2.35%) Amazon Bedrock
14 5 (1.96%) Amazon EC2
14 5 (1.96%) Amazon EKS
14 5 (1.96%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 5 (1.96%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 4 (1.57%) DNS
1 4 (1.57%) TCP/IP
2 3 (1.18%) Kerberos
2 3 (1.18%) SSH
2 3 (1.18%) VPN
3 2 (0.78%) SSL
4 1 (0.39%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 97 (38.04%) Hadoop
2 56 (21.96%) Data Warehouse
3 34 (13.33%) NoSQL
4 32 (12.55%) Data Lake
5 31 (12.16%) Power BI
6 25 (9.80%) Elasticsearch
7 23 (9.02%) Apache Hive
7 23 (9.02%) Relational Database
8 21 (8.24%) Metadata
8 21 (8.24%) SQL Server
9 20 (7.84%) PostgreSQL
9 20 (7.84%) Tableau
10 13 (5.10%) HBase
11 12 (4.71%) BigQuery
11 12 (4.71%) Impala
11 12 (4.71%) RDBMS
12 9 (3.53%) Amazon Athena
13 8 (3.14%) Amazon Redshift
14 7 (2.75%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (2.75%) Data Mining
Development Applications
1 38 (14.90%) Git
2 25 (9.80%) JIRA
3 22 (8.63%) Jenkins
4 17 (6.67%) GitLab
5 9 (3.53%) MLflow
6 6 (2.35%) ERwin
7 4 (1.57%) ER Studio
7 4 (1.57%) SonarQube
8 3 (1.18%) Artifactory
8 3 (1.18%) Poetry
8 3 (1.18%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.78%) Cypress.io
9 2 (0.78%) Gradle
9 2 (0.78%) PyCharm
9 2 (0.78%) Selenium
9 2 (0.78%) Subversion
9 2 (0.78%) Team Foundation Server
9 2 (0.78%) Visual Studio Code
10 1 (0.39%) Gatling
10 1 (0.39%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 79 (30.98%) Social Skills
2 66 (25.88%) Finance
3 47 (18.43%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (9.41%) Banking
5 19 (7.45%) Public Sector
6 7 (2.75%) Telecoms
7 5 (1.96%) Financial Institution
7 5 (1.96%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.18%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.78%) Marketing
10 2 (0.78%) Presentation Skills
10 2 (0.78%) Retail
11 1 (0.39%) Advertising
11 1 (0.39%) Agriculture
11 1 (0.39%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.39%) Front Office
11 1 (0.39%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.39%) Legal
11 1 (0.39%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 80 (31.37%) Data Engineer
2 38 (14.90%) Senior
3 29 (11.37%) Developer
4 26 (10.20%) Data Scientist
5 20 (7.84%) Lead
6 18 (7.06%) Architect
7 12 (4.71%) Python Engineer
8 11 (4.31%) Analyst
8 11 (4.31%) Data Architect
8 11 (4.31%) Software Engineer
9 9 (3.53%) Data Analyst
9 9 (3.53%) Senior Data Engineer
10 8 (3.14%) Machine Learning Engineer
10 8 (3.14%) Python Data Engineer
10 8 (3.14%) Scala Developer
10 8 (3.14%) Senior Software Engineer
11 7 (2.75%) AWS Engineer
11 7 (2.75%) Big Data Engineer
11 7 (2.75%) Data Modeller
12 6 (2.35%) Hadoop Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 54 (21.18%) Kafka
2 37 (14.51%) PySpark
3 27 (10.59%) Pandas
4 25 (9.80%) Apache NiFi
4 25 (9.80%) scikit-learn
5 17 (6.67%) NumPy
5 17 (6.67%) TensorFlow
6 15 (5.88%) PyTorch
7 14 (5.49%) REST
8 13 (5.10%) .NET
8 13 (5.10%) Flask
8 13 (5.10%) RESTful
9 12 (4.71%) Elastic Stack
10 11 (4.31%) RabbitMQ
11 10 (3.92%) HTML
11 10 (3.92%) React
12 9 (3.53%) JSON
13 8 (3.14%) OpenTelemetry
13 8 (3.14%) Spark Streaming
14 7 (2.75%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 19 (7.45%) Distributed Computing
2 17 (6.67%) Algorithms
2 17 (6.67%) Cloud Native
3 6 (2.35%) Analytical Mindset
3 6 (2.35%) Data Structures
4 5 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
4 5 (1.96%) Hybrid Cloud
4 5 (1.96%) Management Information System
5 4 (1.57%) AI Agents
5 4 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (1.57%) Derivative
5 4 (1.57%) Product Ownership
6 3 (1.18%) Data Centre
6 3 (1.18%) Legacy Systems
6 3 (1.18%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.18%) Virtual Team
7 2 (0.78%) FMCG
7 2 (0.78%) Private Cloud
7 2 (0.78%) Reference Data
7 2 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 31 (12.16%) Linux
2 8 (3.14%) Unix
3 2 (0.78%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 2 (0.78%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (32.16%) ETL
2 81 (31.76%) Agile
3 79 (30.98%) Data Pipeline
4 77 (30.20%) Data Modelling
5 73 (28.63%) Analytics
6 65 (25.49%) Machine Learning
6 65 (25.49%) Problem-Solving
7 63 (24.71%) CI/CD
8 62 (24.31%) Data Engineering
9 58 (22.75%) Data Science
10 50 (19.61%) Visualisation
11 49 (19.22%) Data Governance
12 45 (17.65%) DevOps
13 42 (16.47%) AI
14 41 (16.08%) Business Intelligence
14 41 (16.08%) Software Engineering
15 36 (14.12%) Microservices
16 35 (13.73%) Decision-Making
17 33 (12.94%) Containerisation
18 31 (12.16%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 176 (69.02%) Python
2 128 (50.20%) SQL
3 44 (17.25%) Java
4 27 (10.59%) Scala
5 22 (8.63%) R
6 17 (6.67%) C++
7 16 (6.27%) C#
8 15 (5.88%) JavaScript
9 14 (5.49%) Bash
10 6 (2.35%) Shell Script
11 3 (1.18%) Groovy
11 3 (1.18%) Perl
11 3 (1.18%) PL/SQL
12 2 (0.78%) Ada
12 2 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
12 2 (0.78%) PowerShell
12 2 (0.78%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.39%) Go
13 1 (0.39%) Korn
13 1 (0.39%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 56 (21.96%) Security Cleared
2 42 (16.47%) SC Cleared
3 33 (12.94%) Degree
4 27 (10.59%) DV Cleared
5 20 (7.84%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (7.84%) Master's Degree
6 7 (2.75%) PhD
7 6 (2.35%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.57%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.18%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (0.78%) CISSP
10 2 (0.78%) MCP
11 1 (0.39%) HP APS
11 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.39%) OCP
11 1 (0.39%) Oracle Certification
11 1 (0.39%) Postgraduate
11 1 (0.39%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 51 (20.00%) Data Quality
2 16 (6.27%) GDPR
3 12 (4.71%) QA
4 4 (1.57%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.18%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 2 (0.78%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.39%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.39%) IFRS
7 1 (0.39%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.39%) Solvency II
System Software
1 38 (14.90%) Docker
2 15 (5.88%) HDFS
3 2 (0.78%) Slurm Workload Manager
4 1 (0.39%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 42 (16.47%) Kubernetes
2 19 (7.45%) Terraform
3 14 (5.49%) Grafana
4 10 (3.92%) Ansible
4 10 (3.92%) Argo
5 9 (3.53%) Prometheus
6 7 (2.75%) Kibana
7 6 (2.35%) logstash
8 4 (1.57%) Hadoop YARN
9 3 (1.18%) Istio
9 3 (1.18%) Nagios
9 3 (1.18%) Oozie
9 3 (1.18%) Rancher
10 2 (0.78%) Kustomize
10 2 (0.78%) Progress Chef
11 1 (0.39%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.39%) Puppet
11 1 (0.39%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 47 (18.43%) Databricks
2 22 (8.63%) Cloudera
3 21 (8.24%) Google
4 18 (7.06%) Microsoft
5 14 (5.49%) Foundry
5 14 (5.49%) Palantir
6 7 (2.75%) Oracle
6 7 (2.75%) ServiceNow
7 4 (1.57%) Ab Initio
8 3 (1.18%) OpenAI
8 3 (1.18%) Sage
8 3 (1.18%) Salesforce
9 2 (0.78%) Bloomberg
9 2 (0.78%) IBM
9 2 (0.78%) Informatica
9 2 (0.78%) Red Hat
9 2 (0.78%) Refinitiv
9 2 (0.78%) Splunk
9 2 (0.78%) Vertica
10 1 (0.39%) Atlassian