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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 441 292 198
Rank change year-on-year -149 -94 +45
Contract jobs citing Big Data 246 286 471
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.45% 0.88% 1.23%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 2.99% 4.87% 6.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 174 203 315
10th Percentile £364 £402 £356
25th Percentile £427 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -8.26% -0.08%
75th Percentile £625 £655 £719
90th Percentile £718 £748 £845
UK excluding London median daily rate £492 £500 £563
% change year-on-year -1.60% -11.11% +2.27%
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 8,222 5,867 6,839
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.11% 18.08% 17.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,490 3,918 4,724
10th Percentile £358 £338 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -6.19% -1.75%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £701 £738 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £482
% change year-on-year - -1.45% -3.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 268 92 86
10th Percentile £16.49 £22.85 £17.50
25th Percentile £24.13 £30.55 £20.88
Median hourly rate £39.84 £40.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.01% +14.99% -36.36%
75th Percentile £60.38 £65.00 £61.19
90th Percentile £76.00 £80.00 £73.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.00 £36.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +8.33% +20.00% -44.95%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -158 205 £528 -4.09% 638
London -104 128 £582 +1.17% 475
UK excluding London -122 88 £492 -1.60% 251
Work from Home -81 79 £500 -2.34% 236
North of England -55 32 £505 +1.00% 42
Yorkshire -14 21 £518 +3.50% 8
Scotland -15 15 £402 -19.60% 48
Midlands -49 14 £410 -2.50% 28
South East -78 13 £451 -21.52% 46
South West -45 11 £515 +14.44% 32
East Midlands -13 9 £495 +17.86% 7
North East -33 7 £425 - 4
West Midlands -54 5 £405 -14.10% 21
North West -53 4 £513 +5.13% 30
East of England -41 2 £540 +6.93% 26
Wales - 2 £475 - 3

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
1 129 (52.44%) Apache Spark
2 41 (16.67%) Apache
3 38 (15.45%) Apache Airflow
4 8 (3.25%) Confluence
5 6 (2.44%) JBoss
6 5 (2.03%) Jupyter
6 5 (2.03%) SAS
6 5 (2.03%) SharePoint
7 3 (1.22%) CMS
7 3 (1.22%) Microsoft Exchange
7 3 (1.22%) Palantir Foundry
8 2 (0.81%) Apache Pig
8 2 (0.81%) Apache Superset
9 1 (0.41%) Luigi
9 1 (0.41%) MQSeries
9 1 (0.41%) nginx
Applications
1 2 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 2 (0.81%) Endur
2 1 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.41%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 113 (45.93%) AWS
2 92 (37.40%) Azure
3 72 (29.27%) GCP
4 45 (18.29%) Snowflake
5 31 (12.60%) Amazon S3
6 30 (12.20%) Power Platform
7 23 (9.35%) Amazon EMR
8 22 (8.94%) Azure DevOps
9 20 (8.13%) AWS Lambda
9 20 (8.13%) GitHub
10 17 (6.91%) Serverless
11 14 (5.69%) Amazon ECS
12 13 (5.28%) OpenShift
13 12 (4.88%) Azure Data Factory
13 12 (4.88%) PaaS
14 11 (4.47%) Amazon EKS
15 10 (4.07%) GitHub Actions
16 9 (3.66%) dbt
17 8 (3.25%) Amazon EC2
17 8 (3.25%) Azure Databricks
Communications & Networking
1 6 (2.44%) Kerberos
2 5 (2.03%) DNS
3 3 (1.22%) Broadband
3 3 (1.22%) DHCP
3 3 (1.22%) Firewall
3 3 (1.22%) SMTP
3 3 (1.22%) VPN
4 2 (0.81%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 48 (19.51%) Hadoop
2 43 (17.48%) Data Warehouse
3 37 (15.04%) Data Lake
4 30 (12.20%) NoSQL
5 29 (11.79%) Power BI
6 28 (11.38%) PostgreSQL
7 23 (9.35%) Apache Hive
8 20 (8.13%) Amazon Redshift
9 19 (7.72%) BigQuery
10 16 (6.50%) MongoDB
11 14 (5.69%) Amazon Athena
12 13 (5.28%) Amazon RDS
13 12 (4.88%) Metadata
13 12 (4.88%) Relational Database
13 12 (4.88%) Tableau
14 11 (4.47%) DynamoDB
15 10 (4.07%) Elasticsearch
16 9 (3.66%) Amazon Aurora
17 8 (3.25%) SQL Server
18 7 (2.85%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 35 (14.23%) Git
2 33 (13.41%) GitLab
3 28 (11.38%) Jenkins
4 15 (6.10%) JIRA
5 7 (2.85%) Selenium
6 4 (1.63%) SonarQube
7 3 (1.22%) JUnit
7 3 (1.22%) PowerDesigner
7 3 (1.22%) Robot Framework
8 2 (0.81%) JMeter
8 2 (0.81%) LoadRunner
8 2 (0.81%) MLflow
8 2 (0.81%) TeamCity
9 1 (0.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.41%) Claude Code
9 1 (0.41%) eggPlant
9 1 (0.41%) Gatling
General
1 74 (30.08%) Social Skills
2 56 (22.76%) Analytical Skills
3 51 (20.73%) Finance
4 29 (11.79%) Banking
5 20 (8.13%) Public Sector
6 10 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
7 9 (3.66%) Investment Banking
7 9 (3.66%) Marketing
8 8 (3.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (1.22%) Aerospace
9 3 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (1.22%) Legal
9 3 (1.22%) Retail
9 3 (1.22%) Telecoms
10 2 (0.81%) Financial Institution
10 2 (0.81%) Local Government
11 1 (0.41%) Corporate Banking
11 1 (0.41%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.41%) Police
11 1 (0.41%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 75 (30.49%) Data Engineer
2 42 (17.07%) Senior
3 35 (14.23%) Architect
4 23 (9.35%) Developer
5 16 (6.50%) Analyst
6 15 (6.10%) DevOps Engineer
7 14 (5.69%) Solutions Architect
8 13 (5.28%) Data Architect
8 13 (5.28%) Senior Data Engineer
9 12 (4.88%) Big Data Engineer
10 11 (4.47%) Data Analyst
11 10 (4.07%) Databricks Data Engineer
11 10 (4.07%) Databricks Engineer
11 10 (4.07%) Lead
12 9 (3.66%) Python Engineer
12 9 (3.66%) Test Engineer
13 8 (3.25%) Azure Engineer
13 8 (3.25%) Java Developer
13 8 (3.25%) Kafka Engineer
13 8 (3.25%) Scala Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (21.14%) Kafka
2 45 (18.29%) Terraform
3 28 (11.38%) PySpark
4 18 (7.32%) REST
5 16 (6.50%) Spring
6 15 (6.10%) Spring Boot
7 11 (4.47%) Pandas
8 9 (3.66%) Apache NiFi
9 8 (3.25%) CSS
9 8 (3.25%) HTML
9 8 (3.25%) Play Framework
10 6 (2.44%) .NET
10 6 (2.44%) Elastic Stack
10 6 (2.44%) NumPy
11 5 (2.03%) Langfuse
11 5 (2.03%) Microsoft Graph
11 5 (2.03%) RESTful
12 4 (1.63%) Apache Beam
12 4 (1.63%) Middleware
12 4 (1.63%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 35 (14.23%) Cloud Native
2 27 (10.98%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (6.50%) Product Ownership
4 15 (6.10%) Data Structures
5 13 (5.28%) Onboarding
6 12 (4.88%) Clustering
6 12 (4.88%) Virtual Team
7 7 (2.85%) Algorithms
8 6 (2.44%) Cyber Threat
9 5 (2.03%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (2.03%) Distributed Architecture
9 5 (2.03%) Distributed Computing
10 4 (1.63%) FMCG
11 3 (1.22%) AI Agents
11 3 (1.22%) Data Centre
11 3 (1.22%) Linux Command Line
11 3 (1.22%) PKI
11 3 (1.22%) Social Media
12 2 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
12 2 (0.81%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 27 (10.98%) Linux
2 10 (4.07%) Unix
3 6 (2.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.22%) Windows
4 3 (1.22%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.41%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 114 (46.34%) Data Pipeline
2 102 (41.46%) Analytics
3 91 (36.99%) Data Engineering
4 88 (35.77%) ETL
5 87 (35.37%) CI/CD
6 80 (32.52%) Agile
7 79 (32.11%) AI
8 65 (26.42%) Machine Learning
9 63 (25.61%) DevOps
10 54 (21.95%) Data Modelling
11 47 (19.11%) Problem-Solving
12 45 (18.29%) Containerisation
13 44 (17.89%) Data Science
14 38 (15.45%) Data Governance
14 38 (15.45%) Infrastructure as Code
14 38 (15.45%) Scrum
15 36 (14.63%) Validation
16 35 (14.23%) Business Intelligence
16 35 (14.23%) Test Automation
17 34 (13.82%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 138 (56.10%) Python
2 118 (47.97%) SQL
3 58 (23.58%) Java
4 30 (12.20%) Scala
5 21 (8.54%) PowerShell
6 14 (5.69%) JavaScript
6 14 (5.69%) R
7 10 (4.07%) Bash
8 9 (3.66%) C#
9 3 (1.22%) Kusto Query Language
9 3 (1.22%) Rust
9 3 (1.22%) Shell Script
10 2 (0.81%) Go
10 2 (0.81%) Korn
10 2 (0.81%) SAS Macro
11 1 (0.41%) Bicep
11 1 (0.41%) C++
11 1 (0.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 1 (0.41%) MATLAB
11 1 (0.41%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 55 (22.36%) Security Cleared
2 41 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 25 (10.16%) Degree
4 13 (5.28%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (4.07%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (3.66%) Master's Degree
7 8 (3.25%) DV Cleared
8 5 (2.03%) AWS Certification
8 5 (2.03%) Azure Certification
9 3 (1.22%) PhD
9 3 (1.22%) SnowPro
10 2 (0.81%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 2 (0.81%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
10 2 (0.81%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.81%) CISSP
11 1 (0.41%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.41%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.41%) PMI Certification
11 1 (0.41%) PMP
11 1 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (19.92%) Data Quality
2 19 (7.72%) QA
3 10 (4.07%) GDPR
4 3 (1.22%) SLA
5 2 (0.81%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.81%) NIST
5 2 (0.81%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.41%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.41%) EMIR
6 1 (0.41%) EU AI Act
6 1 (0.41%) IFRS
6 1 (0.41%) IFRS 9
6 1 (0.41%) MiFID
6 1 (0.41%) NCSC
6 1 (0.41%) PSD2
6 1 (0.41%) SEPA
System Software
1 44 (17.89%) Docker
2 9 (3.66%) VMware Infrastructure
3 6 (2.44%) HDFS
4 5 (2.03%) Active Directory
5 3 (1.22%) BitLocker
5 3 (1.22%) Hyper-V
5 3 (1.22%) Microsoft App-V
5 3 (1.22%) Terminal Services
5 3 (1.22%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (1.22%) VMware ESXi
6 2 (0.81%) Apache Flume
Systems Management
1 49 (19.92%) Kubernetes
2 27 (10.98%) Grafana
3 11 (4.47%) Ansible
3 11 (4.47%) Puppet
4 8 (3.25%) Kibana
4 8 (3.25%) Prometheus
5 6 (2.44%) Red Hat Satellite
6 5 (2.03%) Failover Clustering
7 3 (1.22%) Nagios
7 3 (1.22%) vCenter Server
7 3 (1.22%) vMotion
8 2 (0.81%) Control-M
9 1 (0.41%) HAProxy
9 1 (0.41%) HP ALM
9 1 (0.41%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 64 (26.02%) Databricks
2 22 (8.94%) Google
3 20 (8.13%) Microsoft
4 17 (6.91%) Splunk
5 14 (5.69%) Salesforce
6 13 (5.28%) Cloudera
7 10 (4.07%) Oracle
8 9 (3.66%) VMware
9 6 (2.44%) Cisco
9 6 (2.44%) Red Hat
10 5 (2.03%) Amplitude
10 5 (2.03%) IBM
10 5 (2.03%) Informatica
11 4 (1.63%) Foundry
11 4 (1.63%) HP
11 4 (1.63%) Talend
11 4 (1.63%) Tenable
12 3 (1.22%) Citrix
12 3 (1.22%) Palantir
12 3 (1.22%) Teradata