Data Lake Contract Job Trends

Data Lakes
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Data Lake skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 25 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 239 197 224
Rank change year-on-year -42 +27 +52
Contract jobs citing Data Lake 425 449 474
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.15% 1.32% 1.09%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 6.67% 7.35% 6.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 358 353
10th Percentile £375 £394 £413
25th Percentile £425 £481 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -4.35%
75th Percentile £644 £825 £656
90th Percentile £760 £888 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £495 £525
% change year-on-year -9.09% -5.71% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 2
10th Percentile - - £30.98
25th Percentile - - £35.81
Median hourly rate - £65.00 £45.25
Median % change year-on-year - +43.65% +29.29%
75th Percentile - - £53.31
90th Percentile - - £57.33
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £30.50
% change year-on-year - - -12.86%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
UK

Data Lake 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 6,374 6,113 7,267
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.18% 18.04% 16.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,395 4,033 5,115
10th Percentile £325 £341 £350
25th Percentile £408 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £765 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -3.94% -1.10% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 86 141
10th Percentile £20.75 £18.90 £16.12
25th Percentile £29.00 £22.54 £23.24
Median hourly rate £50.00 £31.55 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +58.50% -33.59% -11.63%
75th Percentile £71.00 £64.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £67.88 £78.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £27.43 £46.18
% change year-on-year +118.78% -40.61% -6.71%

Data Lake
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Data Lake relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Data Lake job vacancy trend in the UK

Data Lake
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Lake.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Lake

Data Lake
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Data Lake over the 6 months to 25 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Data Lake in the UK

Data Lake
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Lake.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Data Lake

Data Lake
Top 17 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Data Lake within the UK over the 6 months to 25 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 -62 343 £575 -6.05% 280
London -27 246 £604 -10.56% 103
Work from Home -63 153 £575 -20.69% 108
UK excluding London -39 107 £450 -9.09% 199
North of England -50 32 £488 +8.33% 47
South East -38 20 £425 -21.66% 66
Scotland +7 18 £418 +10.82% 8
North West -26 18 £401 -10.89% 24
Midlands -47 13 £506 +13.13% 36
Yorkshire -33 10 £575 +6.98% 13
East of England -15 8 £580 +13.17% 25
West Midlands -43 8 £556 +21.58% 16
Northern Ireland 0 7 £325 -38.10% 2
Wales -2 6 £500 - 2
South West -9 5 £713 +23.91% 14
East Midlands -16 5 £465 +30.62% 18
North East -16 4 £463 -2.63% 10

Data Lake
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 62 (14.59%) Apache Airflow
2 57 (13.41%) Apache
3 56 (13.18%) Apache Spark
4 5 (1.18%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.71%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.71%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.24%) Apache Synapse
6 1 (0.24%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (1.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 4 (0.94%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.47%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.24%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.24%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 18 (4.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.18%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.47%) SAP CO
3 2 (0.47%) SAP FI
3 2 (0.47%) SAP FI/CO
3 2 (0.47%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.24%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.24%) JDE EnterpriseOne
4 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.24%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.24%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.24%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 277 (65.18%) Azure
2 151 (35.53%) AWS
3 134 (31.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 122 (28.71%) Power Platform
5 107 (25.18%) Azure Data Factory
6 75 (17.65%) Snowflake
7 55 (12.94%) GCP
8 52 (12.24%) Azure DevOps
8 52 (12.24%) Serverless
9 41 (9.65%) Amazon S3
9 41 (9.65%) GitHub
10 39 (9.18%) dbt
11 29 (6.82%) AWS CloudFormation
12 28 (6.59%) Microsoft Purview
13 26 (6.12%) Azure Functions
14 22 (5.18%) AWS Lambda
14 22 (5.18%) GitHub Actions
15 20 (4.71%) Azure Key Vault
16 19 (4.47%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 16 (3.76%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.12%) VPN
2 8 (1.88%) Firewall
3 3 (0.71%) Kerberos
4 2 (0.47%) Hyperconnected
4 2 (0.47%) Network Security
5 1 (0.24%) DSL
5 1 (0.24%) InfiniBand
5 1 (0.24%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (29.88%) Data Warehouse
2 115 (27.06%) Power BI
3 48 (11.29%) Azure SQL Database
4 44 (10.35%) Metadata
5 41 (9.65%) Amazon Athena
5 41 (9.65%) Delta Lake
6 38 (8.94%) SQL Server
7 30 (7.06%) Big Data
8 27 (6.35%) Apache Iceberg
9 25 (5.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 24 (5.65%) Relational Database
11 22 (5.18%) Apache Arrow
11 22 (5.18%) Apache Ignite
11 22 (5.18%) Dremio
12 21 (4.94%) Tableau
13 20 (4.71%) BigQuery
13 20 (4.71%) NoSQL
14 19 (4.47%) Amazon Redshift
15 18 (4.24%) PostgreSQL
16 14 (3.29%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 37 (8.71%) Git
2 29 (6.82%) GitLab
3 9 (2.12%) MLflow
4 6 (1.41%) ER Studio
4 6 (1.41%) ERwin
4 6 (1.41%) Jenkins
5 2 (0.47%) Bitbucket
5 2 (0.47%) GCC
5 2 (0.47%) JIRA
5 2 (0.47%) Pylint
5 2 (0.47%) SonarQube
5 2 (0.47%) Terragrunt
6 1 (0.24%) Gradle
6 1 (0.24%) Hudson
6 1 (0.24%) Liquibase
6 1 (0.24%) Maven
6 1 (0.24%) Poetry
6 1 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 1 (0.24%) Visual Studio
General
1 125 (29.41%) Social Skills
2 121 (28.47%) Finance
3 56 (13.18%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (8.71%) Public Sector
5 34 (8.00%) Banking
6 28 (6.59%) Front Office
7 22 (5.18%) Investment Banking
8 18 (4.24%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (3.76%) Pharmaceutical
10 12 (2.82%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.65%) Retail
12 6 (1.41%) Legal
13 4 (0.94%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.94%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.71%) Marketing
15 2 (0.47%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.47%) Law
15 2 (0.47%) Military
15 2 (0.47%) Police
15 2 (0.47%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 126 (29.65%) Data Engineer
2 79 (18.59%) Architect
3 74 (17.41%) Senior
4 50 (11.76%) Azure Engineer
5 47 (11.06%) AWS Engineer
6 42 (9.88%) Data Architect
7 36 (8.47%) Developer
8 35 (8.24%) Software Engineer
9 33 (7.76%) Python Engineer
10 31 (7.29%) Azure Data Engineer
10 31 (7.29%) Lead
11 26 (6.12%) AWS Software Engineer
12 23 (5.41%) Java Engineer
12 23 (5.41%) Java Software Engineer
13 22 (5.18%) Python Software Engineer
13 22 (5.18%) Senior Software Engineer
14 21 (4.94%) Senior Java Engineer
14 21 (4.94%) Senior Java Software Engineer
15 20 (4.71%) DevOps Engineer
16 18 (4.24%) Azure Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 68 (16.00%) PySpark
2 38 (8.94%) Kafka
3 34 (8.00%) Pandas
4 29 (6.82%) NumPy
5 24 (5.65%) SciPy
6 22 (5.18%) gRPC
6 22 (5.18%) Protocol Buffers
7 14 (3.29%) REST
8 12 (2.82%) JSON
9 11 (2.59%) PyTorch
9 11 (2.59%) scikit-learn
9 11 (2.59%) TensorFlow
10 10 (2.35%) LangChain
11 9 (2.12%) LangGraph
11 9 (2.12%) Microsoft Graph
12 8 (1.88%) Great Expectations
12 8 (1.88%) Spark Streaming
13 6 (1.41%) React
13 6 (1.41%) SOAP
14 5 (1.18%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 29 (6.82%) Cloud Native
2 24 (5.65%) Equities
3 23 (5.41%) Derivative
3 23 (5.41%) Fixed Income
4 22 (5.18%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 22 (5.18%) Hedge funds
4 22 (5.18%) Pricing Data
5 12 (2.82%) Product Ownership
6 11 (2.59%) Data Structures
6 11 (2.59%) Distributed Computing
7 10 (2.35%) Onboarding
8 9 (2.12%) Data Fabric
9 8 (1.88%) Algorithms
9 8 (1.88%) IoT
9 8 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
10 7 (1.65%) Hybrid Cloud
10 7 (1.65%) Management Information System
10 7 (1.65%) NHS
11 6 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
11 6 (1.41%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 14 (3.29%) Linux
2 11 (2.59%) Unix
3 7 (1.65%) Windows
4 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.24%) VMS
4 1 (0.24%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (45.41%) Analytics
2 170 (40.00%) ETL
3 159 (37.41%) Data Pipeline
4 136 (32.00%) CI/CD
5 129 (30.35%) Business Intelligence
6 128 (30.12%) Data Modelling
7 115 (27.06%) DevOps
8 112 (26.35%) Data Governance
9 111 (26.12%) Data Engineering
10 94 (22.12%) Agile
11 91 (21.41%) Data Architecture
12 76 (17.88%) AI
13 72 (16.94%) Infrastructure as Code
14 71 (16.71%) Machine Learning
15 55 (12.94%) Data Integration
16 54 (12.71%) Migration
17 53 (12.47%) Data Science
17 53 (12.47%) Software Engineering
18 46 (10.82%) Data Transformation
18 46 (10.82%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 229 (53.88%) SQL
2 208 (48.94%) Python
3 48 (11.29%) Java
4 28 (6.59%) JavaScript
5 27 (6.35%) TypeScript
6 19 (4.47%) C#
7 18 (4.24%) T-SQL
8 15 (3.53%) Scala
9 14 (3.29%) Bicep
10 12 (2.82%) Bash
10 12 (2.82%) R
11 11 (2.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 11 (2.59%) PowerShell
12 10 (2.35%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.71%) Korn
14 2 (0.47%) Ada
14 2 (0.47%) C++
14 2 (0.47%) Perl
15 1 (0.24%) C
15 1 (0.24%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 47 (11.06%) Security Cleared
2 35 (8.24%) SC Cleared
3 29 (6.82%) Degree
4 18 (4.24%) Azure Certification
5 14 (3.29%) Master's Degree
6 12 (2.82%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (2.12%) BPSS Clearance
8 8 (1.88%) AWS Certification
8 8 (1.88%) Computer Science Degree
9 6 (1.41%) MCP
10 3 (0.71%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.71%) DV Cleared
10 3 (0.71%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.71%) PMP
11 2 (0.47%) ACCA
11 2 (0.47%) CIMA
12 1 (0.24%) APMG
12 1 (0.24%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.24%) SAP Certification
12 1 (0.24%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (21.18%) Data Quality
2 52 (12.24%) GDPR
3 15 (3.53%) HIPAA
3 15 (3.53%) QA
4 9 (2.12%) NIST
5 6 (1.41%) Accessibility
6 5 (1.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.71%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.47%) GRC
9 1 (0.24%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.24%) IFRS
9 1 (0.24%) Solvency II
System Software
1 34 (8.00%) Docker
2 13 (3.06%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (1.18%) zsh
5 4 (0.94%) HDFS
6 1 (0.24%) Lustre
6 1 (0.24%) NFS
Systems Management
1 72 (16.94%) Terraform
2 29 (6.82%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.65%) Grafana
4 6 (1.41%) Ansible
5 3 (0.71%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.47%) Fluentd
6 2 (0.47%) Packer
7 1 (0.24%) Argo
7 1 (0.24%) Kibana
7 1 (0.24%) Kubeflow
7 1 (0.24%) logstash
7 1 (0.24%) Oracle ZFS
7 1 (0.24%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.24%) Puppet
7 1 (0.24%) Salt
7 1 (0.24%) SELinux
7 1 (0.24%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 168 (39.53%) Databricks
2 104 (24.47%) Microsoft
3 28 (6.59%) SAP
4 19 (4.47%) Google
5 15 (3.53%) OpenAI
6 13 (3.06%) Oracle
7 12 (2.82%) Informatica
8 7 (1.65%) Cloudera
9 6 (1.41%) Salesforce
10 3 (0.71%) Ab Initio
10 3 (0.71%) ServiceNow
10 3 (0.71%) Talend
11 2 (0.47%) Anaplan
11 2 (0.47%) eFront
11 2 (0.47%) Greenplum
11 2 (0.47%) Guidewire
11 2 (0.47%) Hyperion
11 2 (0.47%) New Relic
11 2 (0.47%) Qualtrics
11 2 (0.47%) SimCorp