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 13 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 377 246 226
Rank change year-on-year -131 -20 +18
Contract jobs citing Big Data 281 320 448
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.56% 1.08% 1.03%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.70% 5.80% 6.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 223 340
10th Percentile £355 £410 £362
25th Percentile £413 £469 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £563 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.22% -2.17% -4.17%
75th Percentile £643 £675 £750
90th Percentile £781 £738 £850
UK excluding London median daily rate £503 £515 £510
% change year-on-year -2.43% +0.98% -15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 3 10
10th Percentile £58.60 £42.42 £18.20
25th Percentile £64.00 £47.61 £19.90
Median hourly rate £70.00 £57.50 £41.25
Median % change year-on-year +21.74% +39.39% -47.12%
75th Percentile £75.00 £79.38 £46.56
90th Percentile £90.00 £91.75 £51.13
UK excluding London median hourly rate £70.00 £38.96 £19.38
% change year-on-year +79.67% +101.08% -75.16%

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 7,595 5,517 7,468
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.18% 18.69% 17.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,070 3,752 5,332
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -3.67%
75th Percentile £600 £634 £650
90th Percentile £700 £756 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 103 155
10th Percentile £14.85 £19.84 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £25.01 £20.77
Median hourly rate £41.00 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +17.14% -12.50% -31.73%
75th Percentile £69.44 £65.81 £53.94
90th Percentile £77.50 £78.46 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £31.85 £34.47
% change year-on-year +20.11% -7.60% -39.48%

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 13 June 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 13 June 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 13 June 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 -176 211 £550 -3.51% 116
London -91 131 £559 -4.54% 66
UK excluding London -121 98 £503 -2.43% 68
Work from Home -66 94 £491 -6.43% 48
North of England -53 28 £550 -8.33% 19
Scotland +7 24 £375 -17.54% 1
South East -78 21 £538 -1.83% 20
North East -24 11 £480 +3.78% 4
Yorkshire -49 11 £588 -2.08% 3
Midlands -72 10 £500 - 2
South West -18 8 £525 -18.45% 23
East Midlands -26 7 £495 +20.73% 2
North West -43 6 - - 12
Wales - 5 £388 -
East of England -41 3 £540 -16.92% 2
West Midlands -61 3 £640 +24.90%

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
1 149 (53.02%) Apache Spark
2 43 (15.30%) Apache Airflow
3 41 (14.59%) Apache
4 9 (3.20%) Confluence
5 5 (1.78%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (1.78%) SAS
5 5 (1.78%) SharePoint
6 3 (1.07%) Jupyter
7 2 (0.71%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.36%) Apache Pig
8 1 (0.36%) Camunda
Applications
1 4 (1.42%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 2 (0.71%) Endur
Cloud Services
1 144 (51.25%) AWS
2 116 (41.28%) Azure
3 85 (30.25%) GCP
4 43 (15.30%) Snowflake
5 32 (11.39%) Power Platform
6 29 (10.32%) Amazon S3
7 28 (9.96%) GitHub
8 25 (8.90%) Serverless
9 24 (8.54%) AWS Lambda
10 21 (7.47%) Amazon EMR
11 20 (7.12%) Azure DevOps
12 17 (6.05%) GitHub Actions
13 13 (4.63%) dbt
13 13 (4.63%) OpenShift
14 11 (3.91%) Amazon ECS
14 11 (3.91%) Azure Data Factory
15 8 (2.85%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 7 (2.49%) Amazon EKS
17 6 (2.14%) PaaS
18 5 (1.78%) Salesforce Service Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.78%) IPv4
1 5 (1.78%) IPv6
2 2 (0.71%) DHCP
2 2 (0.71%) DNS
2 2 (0.71%) Firewall
2 2 (0.71%) SMTP
2 2 (0.71%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (25.98%) Hadoop
2 62 (22.06%) Data Warehouse
3 46 (16.37%) NoSQL
4 36 (12.81%) Data Lake
4 36 (12.81%) PostgreSQL
5 27 (9.61%) Power BI
6 22 (7.83%) Amazon Redshift
6 22 (7.83%) Relational Database
7 20 (7.12%) Metadata
7 20 (7.12%) SQL Server
8 18 (6.41%) MongoDB
9 17 (6.05%) BigQuery
10 15 (5.34%) Tableau
11 13 (4.63%) DynamoDB
12 11 (3.91%) Apache Hive
12 11 (3.91%) MySQL
13 10 (3.56%) Amazon Athena
14 9 (3.20%) Amazon Aurora
14 9 (3.20%) Amazon RDS
14 9 (3.20%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 45 (16.01%) Git
2 28 (9.96%) Jenkins
3 26 (9.25%) GitLab
4 17 (6.05%) JIRA
5 10 (3.56%) Selenium
6 7 (2.49%) Robot Framework
7 4 (1.42%) Postman
7 4 (1.42%) PowerDesigner
8 3 (1.07%) JUnit
8 3 (1.07%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.71%) ERwin
9 2 (0.71%) MLflow
10 1 (0.36%) Claude Code
General
1 97 (34.52%) Social Skills
2 72 (25.62%) Finance
3 69 (24.56%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (13.17%) Banking
5 21 (7.47%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 11 (3.91%) Documentation Skills
8 10 (3.56%) Investment Banking
9 7 (2.49%) Telecoms
10 5 (1.78%) Legal
10 5 (1.78%) Marketing
11 4 (1.42%) Retail
12 2 (0.71%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.71%) Local Government
12 2 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.71%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.36%) Corporate Banking
13 1 (0.36%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.36%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 88 (31.32%) Data Engineer
2 41 (14.59%) Architect
3 35 (12.46%) Senior
4 29 (10.32%) Developer
4 29 (10.32%) Lead
5 23 (8.19%) Analyst
6 21 (7.47%) Data Scientist
7 18 (6.41%) Data Architect
8 16 (5.69%) Senior Data Engineer
9 15 (5.34%) Data Analyst
10 12 (4.27%) Solutions Architect
11 11 (3.91%) Java Developer
12 9 (3.20%) Big Data Engineer
12 9 (3.20%) Java Engineer
12 9 (3.20%) QA Engineer
13 8 (2.85%) Business Analyst
13 8 (2.85%) Kafka Engineer
13 8 (2.85%) Python Engineer
13 8 (2.85%) Scala Engineer
14 7 (2.49%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (22.06%) Kafka
2 32 (11.39%) PySpark
3 21 (7.47%) Spring
4 19 (6.76%) Spring Boot
5 17 (6.05%) REST
6 13 (4.63%) HTML
7 12 (4.27%) Pandas
8 11 (3.91%) CSS
8 11 (3.91%) TensorFlow
9 10 (3.56%) PyTorch
10 8 (2.85%) Node.js
10 8 (2.85%) NumPy
10 8 (2.85%) Play Framework
10 8 (2.85%) React
10 8 (2.85%) scikit-learn
11 6 (2.14%) Middleware
12 5 (1.78%) Keras
12 5 (1.78%) RESTful
13 4 (1.42%) Apache Beam
13 4 (1.42%) Seaborn
Miscellaneous
1 35 (12.46%) Cloud Native
2 23 (8.19%) Distributed Systems
3 19 (6.76%) Product Ownership
4 16 (5.69%) Algorithms
5 12 (4.27%) Data Structures
6 11 (3.91%) Virtual Team
7 9 (3.20%) Distributed Computing
8 8 (2.85%) Clustering
9 7 (2.49%) Onboarding
10 6 (2.14%) Data Centre
10 6 (2.14%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.78%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (1.78%) Distributed Architecture
11 5 (1.78%) Reference Data
12 4 (1.42%) AI Agents
12 4 (1.42%) FMCG
13 3 (1.07%) Educational Technology
13 3 (1.07%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 3 (1.07%) Management Information System
14 2 (0.71%) Analytical Mindset
Operating Systems
1 19 (6.76%) Linux
2 16 (5.69%) Unix
3 4 (1.42%) Windows
3 4 (1.42%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 129 (45.91%) Analytics
2 128 (45.55%) Data Pipeline
3 122 (43.42%) CI/CD
4 112 (39.86%) Data Engineering
5 103 (36.65%) ETL
6 102 (36.30%) Agile
7 79 (28.11%) Machine Learning
8 78 (27.76%) AI
9 77 (27.40%) Problem-Solving
10 72 (25.62%) Data Science
10 72 (25.62%) DevOps
11 69 (24.56%) Data Governance
11 69 (24.56%) Data Modelling
12 44 (15.66%) Scrum
13 43 (15.30%) Containerisation
13 43 (15.30%) Visualisation
14 41 (14.59%) Decision-Making
15 38 (13.52%) Business Intelligence
15 38 (13.52%) Technical Leadership
16 37 (13.17%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 165 (58.72%) Python
2 152 (54.09%) SQL
3 63 (22.42%) Java
4 33 (11.74%) Scala
5 32 (11.39%) R
6 12 (4.27%) JavaScript
7 9 (3.20%) Bash
8 5 (1.78%) PowerShell
8 5 (1.78%) SAS Macro
8 5 (1.78%) TypeScript
9 4 (1.42%) C#
10 3 (1.07%) C++
10 3 (1.07%) Rust
10 3 (1.07%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.71%) Ada
12 1 (0.36%) C
12 1 (0.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 1 (0.36%) Korn
12 1 (0.36%) Perl
Qualifications
1 66 (23.49%) Security Cleared
2 54 (19.22%) SC Cleared
3 47 (16.73%) Degree
4 21 (7.47%) Master's Degree
5 17 (6.05%) Computer Science Degree
6 8 (2.85%) BPSS Clearance
7 5 (1.78%) Azure Certification
7 5 (1.78%) DV Cleared
8 4 (1.42%) AWS Certification
9 3 (1.07%) IBM Certification
9 3 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (1.07%) SnowPro
10 2 (0.71%) (ISC)2 CCSP
10 2 (0.71%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.71%) CISSP
10 2 (0.71%) MCITP
10 2 (0.71%) MCTS
10 2 (0.71%) Numerate Degree
10 2 (0.71%) PhD
10 2 (0.71%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 64 (22.78%) Data Quality
2 24 (8.54%) QA
3 17 (6.05%) GDPR
4 7 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 7 (2.49%) NIST
5 6 (2.14%) Actionable Recommendations
6 3 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 2 (0.71%) PCI DSS
8 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.36%) ISO 13485
System Software
1 53 (18.86%) Docker
2 7 (2.49%) HDFS
3 5 (1.78%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.07%) Virtual Machines
5 2 (0.71%) BitLocker
5 2 (0.71%) Hyper-V
5 2 (0.71%) Microsoft App-V
5 2 (0.71%) Terminal Services
5 2 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
6 1 (0.36%) Apache Flume
Systems Management
1 57 (20.28%) Kubernetes
2 40 (14.23%) Terraform
3 33 (11.74%) Grafana
4 15 (5.34%) Prometheus
5 8 (2.85%) Kibana
6 7 (2.49%) Ansible
7 2 (0.71%) Nagios
7 2 (0.71%) Puppet
7 2 (0.71%) vCenter Server
7 2 (0.71%) vMotion
8 1 (0.36%) Control-M
8 1 (0.36%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.36%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 55 (19.57%) Databricks
2 24 (8.54%) Microsoft
3 20 (7.12%) Google
4 12 (4.27%) Splunk
5 10 (3.56%) Oracle
6 9 (3.20%) Informatica
6 9 (3.20%) Salesforce
6 9 (3.20%) Talend
7 7 (2.49%) IBM
8 5 (1.78%) Ab Initio
8 5 (1.78%) OpenAI
8 5 (1.78%) Teradata
9 4 (1.42%) Foundry
10 3 (1.07%) Amplitude
10 3 (1.07%) Guidewire
10 3 (1.07%) HP
10 3 (1.07%) Tenable
11 2 (0.71%) Cloudera
11 2 (0.71%) Palantir
11 2 (0.71%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud