Metadata Contract Job Trends

Metadata
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Metadata skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 203 304 368
Rank change year-on-year +101 +64 +11
Contract jobs citing Metadata 764 271 204
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.42% 0.83% 0.53%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 9.29% 4.55% 2.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 187 128
10th Percentile £400 £314 £400
25th Percentile £456 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £670 £638 £775
90th Percentile £751 £747 £925
UK excluding London median daily rate £531 £450 £488
% change year-on-year +18.06% -7.69% -10.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 4 10
10th Percentile £19.28 - £13.50
25th Percentile £50.23 £13.25 £14.95
Median hourly rate £67.49 £19.25 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year +250.57% -30.00% -40.33%
75th Percentile £70.00 £42.50 £33.75
90th Percentile £70.15 £69.50 £48.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.49 £13.50 £16.40
% change year-on-year +399.89% -17.68% -64.42%

All Database & BI Skills
UK

Metadata 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 8,220 5,952 7,034
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.27% 18.14% 18.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,488 3,996 4,952
10th Percentile £358 £340 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -2.78%
75th Percentile £606 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £750 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 96 100
10th Percentile £15.79 £21.02 £14.93
25th Percentile £23.00 £29.00 £19.59
Median hourly rate £38.25 £35.50 £33.22
Median % change year-on-year +7.75% +6.88% -39.61%
75th Percentile £60.25 £62.44 £54.06
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.73 £69.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £32.05 £30.00
% change year-on-year +19.34% +6.83% -42.86%

Metadata
Job Vacancy Trend

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

Metadata job vacancy trend in the UK

Metadata
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Metadata

Metadata
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Metadata over the 6 months to 22 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Metadata in the UK

Metadata
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Metadata

Metadata
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Metadata over the 6 months to 22 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Metadata in the UK

Metadata
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 Metadata within the UK over the 6 months to 22 August 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 +95 660 £538 +2.45% 147
London +69 384 £525 -8.70% 75
UK excluding London +61 294 £531 +18.06% 110
Work from Home +61 218 £525 -8.70% 83
North of England -4 74 £500 +30.72% 21
Midlands 0 72 £606 +466.59% 17
West Midlands -2 65 £653 +510.28% 13
South East -40 54 £525 +12.18% 50
Yorkshire +5 44 £514 -4.37% 10
Scotland +17 40 £525 +10.53% 9
East of England +3 32 £463 -11.90% 3
South West -18 28 £550 -8.33% 8
North West -32 26 £578 +84.08% 8
East Midlands -14 7 £494 +20.43% 4
North East -37 7 £463 +2.78% 3
Wales -18 3 £750 +76.47% 4

Metadata
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 42 (5.50%) SharePoint
2 32 (4.19%) Apache Airflow
3 25 (3.27%) Apache
3 25 (3.27%) Apache Spark
4 21 (2.75%) CMS
5 17 (2.23%) Confluence
6 15 (1.96%) SAS
7 6 (0.79%) Microsoft Exchange
7 6 (0.79%) Palantir Foundry
8 4 (0.52%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.26%) Alfresco
9 2 (0.26%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
9 2 (0.26%) Sitecore CMS
10 1 (0.13%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.13%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.13%) Drupal
10 1 (0.13%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.13%) Liferay
10 1 (0.13%) WordPress
Applications
1 22 (2.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (0.92%) Navisworks
2 7 (0.92%) Notepad++
2 7 (0.92%) Revit
3 6 (0.79%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.26%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 2 (0.26%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.13%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.13%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 1 (0.13%) Notion
7 1 (0.13%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 19 (2.49%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (0.79%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.52%) Summit
4 3 (0.39%) Maximo
4 3 (0.39%) SAP HR
5 2 (0.26%) HFM
5 2 (0.26%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.26%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.26%) SAP Oil and Gas
5 2 (0.26%) Workfront
6 1 (0.13%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.13%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 227 (29.71%) Azure
2 180 (23.56%) AWS
3 107 (14.01%) Power Platform
4 89 (11.65%) GCP
5 66 (8.64%) Microsoft Purview
6 63 (8.25%) Collibra
7 48 (6.28%) Azure Data Factory
8 40 (5.24%) GitHub
9 39 (5.10%) Amazon S3
9 39 (5.10%) Snowflake
10 38 (4.97%) dbt
11 37 (4.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 32 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
13 31 (4.06%) Serverless
14 29 (3.80%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (3.80%) Microsoft 365
15 19 (2.49%) Microsoft Copilot
15 19 (2.49%) Power Automate
16 18 (2.36%) Entra ID
16 18 (2.36%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.92%) PuTTY
1 7 (0.92%) WinSCP
2 5 (0.65%) Intranet
3 4 (0.52%) Broadband
3 4 (0.52%) Firewall
3 4 (0.52%) HTTP
3 4 (0.52%) SSL
4 1 (0.13%) DNS
4 1 (0.13%) Kerberos
4 1 (0.13%) SAN
4 1 (0.13%) SMS
4 1 (0.13%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (15.58%) Data Warehouse
2 95 (12.43%) Power BI
3 88 (11.52%) Data Lake
4 39 (5.10%) Relational Database
5 37 (4.84%) NoSQL
6 31 (4.06%) Delta Lake
7 30 (3.93%) Tableau
8 29 (3.80%) Data Vault
9 25 (3.27%) PostgreSQL
10 22 (2.88%) BigQuery
10 22 (2.88%) Semantic Layer
11 19 (2.49%) Amazon Redshift
11 19 (2.49%) SQL Server
12 16 (2.09%) Elasticsearch
13 15 (1.96%) Snowflake Schema
14 14 (1.83%) Db2
14 14 (1.83%) MongoDB
15 12 (1.57%) Amazon Athena
15 12 (1.57%) Parquet
15 12 (1.57%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 36 (4.71%) ERwin
2 33 (4.32%) Git
3 25 (3.27%) ER Studio
4 21 (2.75%) JIRA
5 18 (2.36%) Jenkins
6 16 (2.09%) Maven
7 14 (1.83%) PowerDesigner
8 12 (1.57%) GitLab
9 11 (1.44%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.65%) Selenium
11 3 (0.39%) Bitbucket
11 3 (0.39%) MLflow
12 2 (0.26%) Artifactory
12 2 (0.26%) git-flow
12 2 (0.26%) Oracle Forms
12 2 (0.26%) TestRail
13 1 (0.13%) Sonatype Nexus
13 1 (0.13%) Subversion
13 1 (0.13%) Team Foundation Server
13 1 (0.13%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 223 (29.19%) Social Skills
2 201 (26.31%) Finance
3 157 (20.55%) Analytical Skills
4 94 (12.30%) Banking
5 85 (11.13%) Public Sector
6 39 (5.10%) Investment Banking
7 29 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (3.66%) Influencing Skills
9 22 (2.88%) Retail
10 20 (2.62%) Publishing
11 19 (2.49%) Legal
11 19 (2.49%) Marketing
12 16 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 13 (1.70%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (1.57%) Front Office
15 11 (1.44%) Manufacturing
16 10 (1.31%) Military
17 9 (1.18%) Aviation
17 9 (1.18%) Law
18 7 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 186 (24.35%) Architect
2 135 (17.67%) Data Architect
3 119 (15.58%) Data Engineer
4 104 (13.61%) Lead
5 90 (11.78%) Analyst
6 71 (9.29%) Senior
7 53 (6.94%) Data Analyst
8 44 (5.76%) Data Modeller
9 36 (4.71%) Developer
10 35 (4.58%) Business Analyst
11 27 (3.53%) Consultant
12 24 (3.14%) Senior Data Engineer
13 21 (2.75%) Data Business Analyst
13 21 (2.75%) Data Manager
14 20 (2.62%) Product Owner
15 19 (2.49%) Lead Data Engineer
16 18 (2.36%) DevOps Engineer
17 15 (1.96%) Enterprise Architect
17 15 (1.96%) Solutions Architect
18 14 (1.83%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (6.94%) PySpark
2 43 (5.63%) JSON
3 38 (4.97%) Terraform
4 36 (4.71%) Kafka
5 32 (4.19%) REST
6 19 (2.49%) YAML
7 15 (1.96%) Spring Boot
8 13 (1.70%) Node.js
9 12 (1.57%) XML
10 11 (1.44%) React
10 11 (1.44%) SLSA
11 10 (1.31%) Spring
12 9 (1.18%) .NET
13 8 (1.05%) GraphQL
13 8 (1.05%) Middleware
13 8 (1.05%) Playwright
14 7 (0.92%) OAuth
14 7 (0.92%) RESTful
15 6 (0.79%) CSS
15 6 (0.79%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 75 (9.82%) Cloud Native
2 64 (8.38%) Onboarding
3 63 (8.25%) Data Structures
4 51 (6.68%) Product Ownership
4 51 (6.68%) Taxonomies
5 50 (6.54%) Management Information System
6 47 (6.15%) Legacy Systems
7 43 (5.63%) Reference Data
8 20 (2.62%) Data Protection Act
9 19 (2.49%) Derivative
10 16 (2.09%) Self-Motivation
11 15 (1.96%) AI Agents
12 13 (1.70%) Life Science
13 12 (1.57%) Equity Derivative
14 11 (1.44%) Data Fabric
14 11 (1.44%) Distributed Computing
15 10 (1.31%) Digital Media
16 9 (1.18%) Clustering
16 9 (1.18%) Credit Risk
16 9 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 19 (2.49%) Unix
2 13 (1.70%) Linux
3 1 (0.13%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.13%) VMS
3 1 (0.13%) Windows
3 1 (0.13%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 395 (51.70%) Data Governance
2 357 (46.73%) Data Modelling
3 280 (36.65%) Metadata Management
4 256 (33.51%) Analytics
5 198 (25.92%) AI
6 195 (25.52%) Data Architecture
7 178 (23.30%) Agile
8 176 (23.04%) Data Pipeline
9 171 (22.38%) Stakeholder Management
10 164 (21.47%) Data Engineering
11 162 (21.20%) CI/CD
11 162 (21.20%) ETL
12 160 (20.94%) Migration
13 129 (16.88%) Business Intelligence
14 128 (16.75%) Data Lineage
15 126 (16.49%) Validation
16 124 (16.23%) Data Management
17 123 (16.10%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 122 (15.97%) DevOps
19 120 (15.71%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 288 (37.70%) SQL
2 198 (25.92%) Python
3 63 (8.25%) Java
4 23 (3.01%) PL/SQL
5 15 (1.96%) Shell Script
6 14 (1.83%) C#
6 14 (1.83%) Groovy
6 14 (1.83%) PowerShell
7 13 (1.70%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 13 (1.70%) JavaScript
8 9 (1.18%) Bash
8 9 (1.18%) C++
9 7 (0.92%) Bicep
9 7 (0.92%) SPARQL
9 7 (0.92%) TypeScript
10 6 (0.79%) T-SQL
11 5 (0.65%) Apex Code
11 5 (0.65%) Scala
12 4 (0.52%) Cypher
12 4 (0.52%) Perl
Qualifications
1 162 (21.20%) Security Cleared
2 118 (15.45%) SC Cleared
3 44 (5.76%) Degree
4 33 (4.32%) BPSS Clearance
5 19 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
5 19 (2.49%) DV Cleared
6 13 (1.70%) Azure Certification
7 9 (1.18%) TOGAF Certification
8 8 (1.05%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.92%) AWS Certification
9 7 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
10 3 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.39%) CISSP
10 3 (0.39%) CompTIA Security+
10 3 (0.39%) PMI Certification
11 2 (0.26%) ACCA
11 2 (0.26%) CBAP
11 2 (0.26%) CIMA
11 2 (0.26%) CISM
11 2 (0.26%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 331 (43.32%) Data Quality
2 68 (8.90%) GDPR
3 45 (5.89%) QA
4 41 (5.37%) Accessibility
5 8 (1.05%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 6 (0.79%) ISO 19650
7 5 (0.65%) GRC
7 5 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.65%) MiFID
7 5 (0.65%) NIST
7 5 (0.65%) WCAG
8 4 (0.52%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.52%) NCSC
8 4 (0.52%) Solvency II
9 3 (0.39%) IFRS
9 3 (0.39%) IFRS 9
9 3 (0.39%) ISO/IEC 42001
10 2 (0.26%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.26%) ISO 31000
10 2 (0.26%) PMO
System Software
1 22 (2.88%) Docker
2 10 (1.31%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.13%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 23 (3.01%) Kubernetes
2 8 (1.05%) Grafana
3 7 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
4 5 (0.65%) Prometheus
5 4 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (0.52%) Ansible
5 4 (0.52%) CA Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.52%) PingFederate
6 2 (0.26%) Control-M
6 2 (0.26%) Kibana
7 1 (0.13%) Apache Ranger
7 1 (0.13%) Istio
7 1 (0.13%) systemd
Vendors
1 143 (18.72%) Microsoft
2 122 (15.97%) Databricks
3 56 (7.33%) Oracle
4 52 (6.81%) Informatica
5 29 (3.80%) Google
6 19 (2.49%) Sparx
7 16 (2.09%) IBM
7 16 (2.09%) Salesforce
8 15 (1.96%) SAP
9 13 (1.70%) Autodesk
9 13 (1.70%) Talend
10 11 (1.44%) Sonatype
10 11 (1.44%) Sybase
11 10 (1.31%) Denodo
11 10 (1.31%) Palantir
11 10 (1.31%) Teradata
12 9 (1.18%) Foundry
13 8 (1.05%) Adobe
13 8 (1.05%) CA Agile Central
14 7 (0.92%) Signiant