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

6 months to
31 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 238 196 227
Rank change year-on-year -42 +31 +58
Contract jobs citing Data Lake 433 440 467
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.17% 1.32% 1.09%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 6.79% 7.28% 6.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 312 350 343
10th Percentile £375 £389 £413
25th Percentile £425 £481 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £550
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +9.09% -5.17%
75th Percentile £650 £825 £661
90th Percentile £750 £888 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £495 £535
% change year-on-year -9.09% -7.48% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 3
10th Percentile - - £34.20
25th Percentile - - £43.88
Median hourly rate - £65.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - +8.33% +71.43%
75th Percentile - - £60.75
90th Percentile - - £61.20
UK excluding London median hourly rate - - £45.75
% change year-on-year - - +30.71%

All Database & BI 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 6,379 6,045 7,186
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.22% 18.11% 16.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,401 3,996 5,069
10th Percentile £325 £345 £350
25th Percentile £408 £425 £425
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 £763 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £499 £500
% change year-on-year -4.71% -0.30% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 83 144
10th Percentile £20.71 £18.66 £16.12
25th Percentile £29.00 £22.60 £23.08
Median hourly rate £54.00 £30.59 £46.84
Median % change year-on-year +76.53% -34.69% -14.84%
75th Percentile £73.13 £64.61 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £69.00 £77.85
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.00 £27.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +118.18% -40.45% -7.64%

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 31 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 31 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 -55 352 £575 -6.05% 211
London -28 254 £603 -10.74% 124
Work from Home -62 154 £575 -16.36% 100
UK excluding London -35 108 £450 -9.09% 95
North of England -45 31 £488 +8.33% 28
South East -25 21 £425 -21.66% 20
Scotland +13 19 £432 +14.73% 6
North West -12 18 £401 -8.86% 14
Midlands -42 13 £506 +13.13% 20
Yorkshire -40 9 £575 +6.98% 6
East of England -12 8 £580 +13.17% 13
West Midlands -42 8 £556 +21.58% 11
Northern Ireland -2 7 £325 -38.10% 1
Wales -3 6 £500 -
South West +1 5 £713 +23.91% 8
East Midlands -11 5 £465 +30.62% 9
North East -17 4 £463 -2.63% 8

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 (14.32%) Apache Airflow
2 57 (13.16%) Apache Spark
3 56 (12.93%) Apache
4 5 (1.15%) SharePoint
5 3 (0.69%) Jupyter
5 3 (0.69%) WebLogic
6 1 (0.23%) Apache Synapse
6 1 (0.23%) Confluence
Applications
1 5 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 4 (0.92%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.69%) Spreadsheet
4 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 18 (4.16%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.15%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.46%) SAP CO
3 2 (0.46%) SAP FI
3 2 (0.46%) SAP FI/CO
3 2 (0.46%) SAP MDG
4 1 (0.23%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.23%) JDE EnterpriseOne
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.23%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.23%) SAP MM
4 1 (0.23%) SAP Oil and Gas
Cloud Services
1 288 (66.51%) Azure
2 153 (35.33%) AWS
3 137 (31.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 129 (29.79%) Power Platform
5 116 (26.79%) Azure Data Factory
6 76 (17.55%) Snowflake
7 58 (13.39%) GCP
8 53 (12.24%) Azure DevOps
9 51 (11.78%) Serverless
10 44 (10.16%) GitHub
11 41 (9.47%) Amazon S3
12 38 (8.78%) dbt
13 29 (6.70%) AWS CloudFormation
13 29 (6.70%) Microsoft Purview
14 25 (5.77%) Azure Functions
15 23 (5.31%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (5.08%) AWS Lambda
17 20 (4.62%) Azure Key Vault
18 17 (3.93%) Azure Cosmos DB
19 16 (3.70%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.62%) VPN
2 6 (1.39%) Firewall
3 3 (0.69%) Kerberos
4 2 (0.46%) Hyperconnected
4 2 (0.46%) Network Security
5 1 (0.23%) DSL
5 1 (0.23%) InfiniBand
5 1 (0.23%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (30.02%) Data Warehouse
2 122 (28.18%) Power BI
3 49 (11.32%) Azure SQL Database
4 48 (11.09%) Metadata
5 43 (9.93%) SQL Server
6 41 (9.47%) Amazon Athena
6 41 (9.47%) Delta Lake
7 30 (6.93%) Big Data
8 27 (6.24%) Apache Iceberg
8 27 (6.24%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 26 (6.00%) Relational Database
10 22 (5.08%) Apache Arrow
10 22 (5.08%) Apache Ignite
10 22 (5.08%) Dremio
11 21 (4.85%) NoSQL
11 21 (4.85%) Tableau
12 20 (4.62%) BigQuery
13 19 (4.39%) Amazon Redshift
13 19 (4.39%) PostgreSQL
14 14 (3.23%) Data Vault
Development Applications
1 37 (8.55%) Git
2 30 (6.93%) GitLab
3 9 (2.08%) MLflow
4 6 (1.39%) ER Studio
4 6 (1.39%) ERwin
4 6 (1.39%) Jenkins
5 4 (0.92%) JIRA
6 2 (0.46%) Bitbucket
6 2 (0.46%) GCC
6 2 (0.46%) JMeter
6 2 (0.46%) Pylint
6 2 (0.46%) SonarQube
6 2 (0.46%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.23%) Gradle
7 1 (0.23%) Hudson
7 1 (0.23%) Liquibase
7 1 (0.23%) Maven
7 1 (0.23%) Poetry
7 1 (0.23%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.23%) Visual Studio
General
1 125 (28.87%) Social Skills
2 124 (28.64%) Finance
3 55 (12.70%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (8.78%) Public Sector
5 34 (7.85%) Banking
6 28 (6.47%) Front Office
7 22 (5.08%) Investment Banking
8 18 (4.16%) Influencing Skills
9 16 (3.70%) Pharmaceutical
10 12 (2.77%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.62%) Retail
12 6 (1.39%) Legal
13 4 (0.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 4 (0.92%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.69%) Back Office
14 3 (0.69%) Marketing
14 3 (0.69%) Military
15 2 (0.46%) General Ledger
15 2 (0.46%) Police
15 2 (0.46%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 128 (29.56%) Data Engineer
2 80 (18.48%) Architect
3 76 (17.55%) Senior
4 51 (11.78%) Azure Engineer
5 47 (10.85%) AWS Engineer
6 44 (10.16%) Data Architect
7 36 (8.31%) Developer
7 36 (8.31%) Software Engineer
8 33 (7.62%) Lead
8 33 (7.62%) Python Engineer
9 31 (7.16%) Azure Data Engineer
10 26 (6.00%) AWS Software Engineer
11 23 (5.31%) Java Engineer
11 23 (5.31%) Java Software Engineer
12 22 (5.08%) Python Software Engineer
12 22 (5.08%) Senior Software Engineer
13 21 (4.85%) Senior Data Engineer
13 21 (4.85%) Senior Java Engineer
13 21 (4.85%) Senior Java Software Engineer
14 20 (4.62%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (15.94%) PySpark
2 37 (8.55%) Kafka
3 35 (8.08%) Pandas
4 29 (6.70%) NumPy
5 24 (5.54%) SciPy
6 22 (5.08%) gRPC
6 22 (5.08%) Protocol Buffers
7 16 (3.70%) REST
8 13 (3.00%) JSON
9 12 (2.77%) PyTorch
9 12 (2.77%) scikit-learn
9 12 (2.77%) TensorFlow
10 10 (2.31%) LangChain
11 9 (2.08%) LangGraph
11 9 (2.08%) Microsoft Graph
11 9 (2.08%) Spark Streaming
12 8 (1.85%) Great Expectations
13 6 (1.39%) React
13 6 (1.39%) SOAP
14 5 (1.15%) GraphQL
Miscellaneous
1 31 (7.16%) Cloud Native
2 24 (5.54%) Equities
3 23 (5.31%) Derivative
3 23 (5.31%) Fixed Income
4 22 (5.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 22 (5.08%) Hedge funds
4 22 (5.08%) Pricing Data
5 12 (2.77%) Data Structures
5 12 (2.77%) Distributed Computing
5 12 (2.77%) Product Ownership
6 10 (2.31%) Onboarding
7 9 (2.08%) Data Fabric
7 9 (2.08%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (1.85%) Algorithms
8 8 (1.85%) IoT
9 7 (1.62%) Management Information System
9 7 (1.62%) NHS
10 6 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
11 5 (1.15%) Hybrid Cloud
11 5 (1.15%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 14 (3.23%) Linux
2 11 (2.54%) Unix
3 7 (1.62%) Windows
4 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.23%) VMS
4 1 (0.23%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
4 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 202 (46.65%) Analytics
2 183 (42.26%) ETL
3 165 (38.11%) Data Pipeline
4 139 (32.10%) CI/CD
5 138 (31.87%) Data Modelling
6 137 (31.64%) Business Intelligence
7 120 (27.71%) DevOps
8 116 (26.79%) Data Engineering
9 114 (26.33%) Data Governance
10 95 (21.94%) Data Architecture
11 94 (21.71%) Agile
12 83 (19.17%) AI
13 76 (17.55%) Machine Learning
14 70 (16.17%) Infrastructure as Code
15 56 (12.93%) Data Integration
16 55 (12.70%) Data Science
17 54 (12.47%) Software Engineering
18 52 (12.01%) Migration
19 46 (10.62%) Problem-Solving
20 45 (10.39%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 239 (55.20%) SQL
2 215 (49.65%) Python
3 48 (11.09%) Java
4 29 (6.70%) JavaScript
5 27 (6.24%) TypeScript
6 20 (4.62%) C#
7 19 (4.39%) T-SQL
8 14 (3.23%) Scala
9 13 (3.00%) Bicep
10 12 (2.77%) Bash
10 12 (2.77%) PowerShell
10 12 (2.77%) R
11 11 (2.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 10 (2.31%) PL/SQL
13 3 (0.69%) Korn
14 2 (0.46%) Ada
14 2 (0.46%) C++
14 2 (0.46%) Perl
15 1 (0.23%) C
15 1 (0.23%) HiveQL
Qualifications
1 49 (11.32%) Security Cleared
2 36 (8.31%) SC Cleared
3 29 (6.70%) Degree
4 19 (4.39%) Azure Certification
5 14 (3.23%) Master's Degree
5 14 (3.23%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.85%) AWS Certification
7 8 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.39%) MCP
9 3 (0.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 3 (0.69%) DV Cleared
9 3 (0.69%) PMI Certification
9 3 (0.69%) PMP
10 2 (0.46%) ACCA
10 2 (0.46%) CIMA
10 2 (0.46%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.46%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
11 1 (0.23%) APMG
11 1 (0.23%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (22.40%) Data Quality
2 53 (12.24%) GDPR
3 17 (3.93%) QA
4 15 (3.46%) HIPAA
5 11 (2.54%) NIST
6 6 (1.39%) Accessibility
6 6 (1.39%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.69%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.46%) GRC
9 1 (0.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 1 (0.23%) IFRS
9 1 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 34 (7.85%) Docker
2 11 (2.54%) Active Directory
3 6 (1.39%) Virtual Machines
4 5 (1.15%) zsh
5 4 (0.92%) HDFS
6 1 (0.23%) Lustre
6 1 (0.23%) NFS
Systems Management
1 71 (16.40%) Terraform
2 29 (6.70%) Kubernetes
3 7 (1.62%) Ansible
3 7 (1.62%) Grafana
4 3 (0.69%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.46%) Fluentd
5 2 (0.46%) Packer
6 1 (0.23%) Argo
6 1 (0.23%) Kibana
6 1 (0.23%) Kubeflow
6 1 (0.23%) logstash
6 1 (0.23%) Oracle ZFS
6 1 (0.23%) Progress Chef
6 1 (0.23%) Puppet
6 1 (0.23%) Salt
6 1 (0.23%) SELinux
6 1 (0.23%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 167 (38.57%) Databricks
2 118 (27.25%) Microsoft
3 28 (6.47%) SAP
4 20 (4.62%) Google
5 15 (3.46%) OpenAI
6 13 (3.00%) Oracle
7 12 (2.77%) Informatica
8 7 (1.62%) Cloudera
9 6 (1.39%) Salesforce
10 4 (0.92%) ServiceNow
11 3 (0.69%) Ab Initio
11 3 (0.69%) Greenplum
11 3 (0.69%) Talend
12 2 (0.46%) Ariba
12 2 (0.46%) BiZZdesign
12 2 (0.46%) Charles River
12 2 (0.46%) eFront
12 2 (0.46%) Hyperion
12 2 (0.46%) Qualtrics
12 2 (0.46%) SimCorp