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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 366 233 250
Rank change year-on-year -133 +17 -42
Contract jobs citing Big Data 271 323 409
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 1.11% 0.93%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.79% 5.86% 5.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 227 297
10th Percentile £350 £389 £388
25th Percentile £393 £450 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £645 £675 £725
90th Percentile £813 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -13.64% - -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 2 22
10th Percentile £59.50 £51.75 £18.88
25th Percentile £64.75 £52.50 £26.62
Median hourly rate £70.00 £55.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +27.27% +22.22% -36.62%
75th Percentile £75.00 £57.50 £47.50
90th Percentile £90.00 £58.25 £52.41
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 - £46.18
% change year-on-year - - -40.79%

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 7,155 5,513 7,276
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.95% 18.96% 16.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,928 3,825 5,148
10th Percentile £350 £351 £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 £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £488
% change year-on-year -2.56% - -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 100 156
10th Percentile £18.23 £20.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £30.90 £24.25 £20.81
Median hourly rate £51.00 £32.23 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +58.26% -19.44% -33.33%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £53.84
90th Percentile £84.00 £76.38 £72.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £28.78 £38.50
% change year-on-year +73.73% -25.25% -30.00%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -143 216 £525 -7.89% 92
London -82 140 £525 -6.67% 48
UK excluding London -138 87 £475 -13.64% 55
Work from Home -62 67 £450 -14.29% 50
South East -72 25 £488 -10.14% 14
Scotland +16 19 £400 +2.24% 1
North of England -70 19 £550 -8.33% 21
Midlands -69 12 £440 -9.74% 3
North West -46 11 £663 +6.00% 14
East Midlands -33 9 £425 +8.28% 3
South West -30 7 £525 -18.45% 5
North East -12 5 £500 +8.11% 4
Wales -10 3 £375 -34.44% 2
Yorkshire -65 3 £594 -5.00% 3
West Midlands -66 3 £640 +21.50%
East of England -47 2 £575 -11.54% 9

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
1 127 (46.86%) Apache Spark
2 34 (12.55%) Apache
3 29 (10.70%) Apache Airflow
4 16 (5.90%) Confluence
5 7 (2.58%) Palantir Foundry
6 5 (1.85%) SAS
7 4 (1.48%) SharePoint
8 3 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.37%) Camunda
9 1 (0.37%) Jupyter
Applications
1 4 (1.48%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.74%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 128 (47.23%) AWS
2 110 (40.59%) Azure
3 77 (28.41%) GCP
4 30 (11.07%) Power Platform
5 27 (9.96%) Serverless
6 26 (9.59%) GitHub
7 23 (8.49%) Snowflake
8 18 (6.64%) Amazon S3
9 17 (6.27%) GitHub Actions
10 15 (5.54%) AWS Lambda
10 15 (5.54%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (4.80%) Azure Data Factory
12 10 (3.69%) dbt
13 8 (2.95%) OpenShift
14 7 (2.58%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 6 (2.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 6 (2.21%) Amazon EMR
15 6 (2.21%) AWS CloudFormation
15 6 (2.21%) Datadog
16 4 (1.48%) Cloud Computing
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.85%) IPv4
1 5 (1.85%) IPv6
2 3 (1.11%) Kerberos
2 3 (1.11%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (31.73%) Hadoop
2 63 (23.25%) Data Warehouse
3 41 (15.13%) NoSQL
4 30 (11.07%) Data Lake
5 28 (10.33%) Metadata
6 25 (9.23%) PostgreSQL
6 25 (9.23%) Power BI
7 21 (7.75%) Relational Database
8 20 (7.38%) SQL Server
9 15 (5.54%) Tableau
10 14 (5.17%) Apache Hive
11 12 (4.43%) Elasticsearch
12 11 (4.06%) DynamoDB
13 10 (3.69%) Amazon Redshift
13 10 (3.69%) BigQuery
13 10 (3.69%) MySQL
14 9 (3.32%) Star Schema
15 8 (2.95%) Data Vault
15 8 (2.95%) Delta Lake
16 7 (2.58%) Impala
Development Applications
1 29 (10.70%) Git
2 22 (8.12%) JIRA
3 21 (7.75%) GitLab
3 21 (7.75%) Jenkins
4 7 (2.58%) Robot Framework
4 7 (2.58%) Selenium
5 5 (1.85%) PowerDesigner
6 4 (1.48%) Postman
7 3 (1.11%) ERwin
8 2 (0.74%) MLflow
8 2 (0.74%) Subversion
8 2 (0.74%) Team Foundation Server
9 1 (0.37%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.37%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.37%) Gatling
9 1 (0.37%) Gradle
9 1 (0.37%) Poetry
9 1 (0.37%) Sonatype Nexus
9 1 (0.37%) SpecFlow
9 1 (0.37%) Visual Studio Coded UI
General
1 101 (37.27%) Social Skills
2 79 (29.15%) Finance
3 53 (19.56%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (13.65%) Banking
5 18 (6.64%) Public Sector
6 10 (3.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 8 (2.95%) Telecoms
8 7 (2.58%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.58%) Investment Banking
9 5 (1.85%) Marketing
10 4 (1.48%) Legal
11 2 (0.74%) Front Office
11 2 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.74%) Manufacturing
11 2 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.74%) Presentation Skills
11 2 (0.74%) Retail
12 1 (0.37%) Dutch Language
12 1 (0.37%) French Language
12 1 (0.37%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 72 (26.57%) Data Engineer
2 41 (15.13%) Architect
3 37 (13.65%) Senior
4 30 (11.07%) Developer
5 28 (10.33%) Lead
6 25 (9.23%) Data Scientist
7 24 (8.86%) Data Architect
8 18 (6.64%) Analyst
9 11 (4.06%) Data Analyst
9 11 (4.06%) Senior Data Engineer
10 10 (3.69%) Java Engineer
10 10 (3.69%) Solutions Architect
11 9 (3.32%) Java Developer
12 8 (2.95%) Senior Data Scientist
13 7 (2.58%) Azure Engineer
13 7 (2.58%) Machine Learning Engineer
13 7 (2.58%) Platform Engineer
14 6 (2.21%) AWS Engineer
14 6 (2.21%) Business Analyst
14 6 (2.21%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (19.19%) Kafka
2 31 (11.44%) PySpark
3 15 (5.54%) Pandas
3 15 (5.54%) REST
3 15 (5.54%) TensorFlow
4 14 (5.17%) scikit-learn
4 14 (5.17%) Spring
5 12 (4.43%) PyTorch
5 12 (4.43%) Spring Boot
6 9 (3.32%) Apache NiFi
6 9 (3.32%) NumPy
7 8 (2.95%) React
8 7 (2.58%) Elastic Stack
8 7 (2.58%) JSON
9 6 (2.21%) HTML
10 5 (1.85%) Node.js
10 5 (1.85%) RabbitMQ
10 5 (1.85%) XGBoost
10 5 (1.85%) XML
10 5 (1.85%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (9.23%) Cloud Native
2 18 (6.64%) Algorithms
3 15 (5.54%) Distributed Computing
4 10 (3.69%) Product Ownership
5 9 (3.32%) Data Structures
5 9 (3.32%) Distributed Systems
5 9 (3.32%) Virtual Team
6 7 (2.58%) Management Information System
7 6 (2.21%) Onboarding
7 6 (2.21%) Reference Data
8 5 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
8 5 (1.85%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 4 (1.48%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.48%) Data Centre
9 4 (1.48%) Derivative
9 4 (1.48%) FMCG
10 3 (1.11%) AI Agents
10 3 (1.11%) Clustering
10 3 (1.11%) Educational Technology
11 2 (0.74%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 17 (6.27%) Linux
2 15 (5.54%) Unix
3 2 (0.74%) Windows
3 2 (0.74%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 125 (46.13%) Analytics
2 109 (40.22%) CI/CD
3 104 (38.38%) Data Pipeline
4 93 (34.32%) Agile
5 90 (33.21%) ETL
6 88 (32.47%) Data Engineering
7 86 (31.73%) Problem-Solving
8 84 (31.00%) Data Governance
9 83 (30.63%) Data Modelling
10 70 (25.83%) Machine Learning
11 68 (25.09%) Data Science
12 66 (24.35%) DevOps
13 59 (21.77%) AI
14 46 (16.97%) Visualisation
15 41 (15.13%) Data Architecture
16 38 (14.02%) Business Intelligence
16 38 (14.02%) Computer Science
16 38 (14.02%) Decision-Making
17 33 (12.18%) Scrum
17 33 (12.18%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 146 (53.87%) Python
2 134 (49.45%) SQL
3 50 (18.45%) Java
4 34 (12.55%) R
5 22 (8.12%) Scala
6 12 (4.43%) Bash
7 10 (3.69%) JavaScript
8 8 (2.95%) C#
9 7 (2.58%) C++
9 7 (2.58%) Shell Script
10 5 (1.85%) SAS Macro
10 5 (1.85%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.48%) PowerShell
12 3 (1.11%) Rust
13 2 (0.74%) Ada
13 2 (0.74%) T-SQL
14 1 (0.37%) Perl
14 1 (0.37%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 69 (25.46%) Security Cleared
2 56 (20.66%) SC Cleared
3 50 (18.45%) Degree
4 25 (9.23%) Master's Degree
5 24 (8.86%) Computer Science Degree
6 14 (5.17%) DV Cleared
7 6 (2.21%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.85%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.11%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (1.11%) IBM Certification
9 3 (1.11%) PhD
10 2 (0.74%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 2 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.74%) CISSP
10 2 (0.74%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (0.74%) MCITP
10 2 (0.74%) MCTS
10 2 (0.74%) Microsoft Certification
10 2 (0.74%) Numerate Degree
10 2 (0.74%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (23.62%) Data Quality
2 23 (8.49%) GDPR
3 15 (5.54%) QA
4 7 (2.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (2.58%) NIST
5 6 (2.21%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (1.48%) Accessibility
6 4 (1.48%) PCI DSS
7 3 (1.11%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (1.11%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.37%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.37%) IFRS
8 1 (0.37%) IFRS 17
8 1 (0.37%) ISO 13485
8 1 (0.37%) Solvency II
System Software
1 40 (14.76%) Docker
2 8 (2.95%) HDFS
3 3 (1.11%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 46 (16.97%) Kubernetes
2 23 (8.49%) Terraform
3 16 (5.90%) Grafana
4 14 (5.17%) Prometheus
5 4 (1.48%) Ansible
6 3 (1.11%) Argo
6 3 (1.11%) Kibana
6 3 (1.11%) logstash
6 3 (1.11%) Nagios
6 3 (1.11%) Rancher
7 2 (0.74%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.37%) Control-M
8 1 (0.37%) Kubeflow
8 1 (0.37%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 47 (17.34%) Databricks
2 21 (7.75%) Microsoft
3 19 (7.01%) Google
4 9 (3.32%) Cloudera
4 9 (3.32%) Foundry
4 9 (3.32%) IBM
4 9 (3.32%) Informatica
4 9 (3.32%) Oracle
5 8 (2.95%) Ab Initio
5 8 (2.95%) Salesforce
6 7 (2.58%) Palantir
6 7 (2.58%) Talend
7 5 (1.85%) OpenAI
7 5 (1.85%) Teradata
8 3 (1.11%) ServiceNow
9 2 (0.74%) HP
9 2 (0.74%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
9 2 (0.74%) Sybase
10 1 (0.37%) Guidewire
10 1 (0.37%) Splunk