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 21 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 187 288 378
Rank change year-on-year +101 +90 -7
Contract jobs citing Metadata 835 304 191
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.54% 0.93% 0.50%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 10.25% 5.09% 2.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 532 209 123
10th Percentile £400 £373 £400
25th Percentile £459 £463 £464
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -8.70%
75th Percentile £658 £638 £725
90th Percentile £760 £750 £885
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +15.79% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 4 5
10th Percentile £19.28 - £20.08
25th Percentile £58.94 £13.25 £21.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £22.00 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +206.82% -44.30% -14.30%
75th Percentile £70.00 £45.69 £48.18
90th Percentile £70.15 £70.78 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.50 £13.50 £48.18
% change year-on-year +400.00% -71.98% +4.74%

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 8,150 5,970 6,885
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.00% 18.28% 17.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,448 3,993 4,732
10th Percentile £356 £340 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% -0.93%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £650
90th Percentile £707 £738 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £488
% change year-on-year - -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 270 86 89
10th Percentile £16.63 £21.23 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.35 £29.02 £21.25
Median hourly rate £40.18 £40.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.16% +14.99% -36.36%
75th Percentile £59.88 £65.00 £59.95
90th Percentile £75.10 £83.75 £71.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £36.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.72% +20.00% -45.45%

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 21 September 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 21 September 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 21 September 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 +93 714 £550 - 909
London +50 404 £550 -4.35% 544
UK excluding London +66 338 £550 +15.79% 467
Work from Home +47 226 £550 -8.33% 384
North of England +7 94 £500 -4.76% 111
Midlands +9 77 £610 +71.83% 55
West Midlands +8 70 £626 +207.62% 43
Yorkshire +14 58 £500 -5.88% 39
South East -26 58 £575 +24.32% 111
Scotland +8 50 £525 +10.53% 58
South West -14 32 £575 - 66
East of England -5 31 £450 -18.18% 34
North West -30 31 £625 +31.93% 65
North East -33 8 £463 +2.78% 7
East Midlands -13 7 £494 +18.98% 12
Wales -17 4 £750 +7.14% 9

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 46 (5.51%) SharePoint
2 40 (4.79%) Apache Airflow
3 31 (3.71%) Apache
4 24 (2.87%) CMS
5 23 (2.75%) Confluence
6 21 (2.51%) Apache Spark
7 18 (2.16%) SAS
8 11 (1.32%) Headless CMS
9 9 (1.08%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.60%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.48%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.24%) Alfresco
12 2 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
13 1 (0.12%) Camunda
13 1 (0.12%) JBoss
13 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
13 1 (0.12%) Liferay
13 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 18 (2.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.08%) MS Visio
3 7 (0.84%) Navisworks
3 7 (0.84%) Notepad++
3 7 (0.84%) Revit
4 4 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 2 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) Gliffy
6 1 (0.12%) Notion
6 1 (0.12%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 19 (2.28%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.36%) Maximo
3 3 (0.36%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.24%) HFM
4 2 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.24%) SAP MDG
4 2 (0.24%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 2 (0.24%) Workfront
5 1 (0.12%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.12%) FIS Private Capital Suite
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.12%) Summit
5 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 252 (30.18%) Azure
2 196 (23.47%) AWS
3 109 (13.05%) Power Platform
4 103 (12.34%) GCP
5 76 (9.10%) Microsoft Purview
6 71 (8.50%) Collibra
7 51 (6.11%) Azure Data Factory
8 45 (5.39%) Snowflake
9 44 (5.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 44 (5.27%) dbt
10 41 (4.91%) Amazon S3
11 39 (4.67%) GitHub
12 35 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
13 33 (3.95%) Serverless
14 31 (3.71%) AWS Lambda
15 30 (3.59%) Microsoft 365
16 26 (3.11%) Azure Databricks
17 23 (2.75%) Entra ID
18 22 (2.63%) Microsoft Copilot
19 21 (2.51%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.84%) PuTTY
1 7 (0.84%) WinSCP
2 5 (0.60%) Broadband
3 4 (0.48%) HTTP
3 4 (0.48%) Intranet
3 4 (0.48%) SSL
4 3 (0.36%) DNS
4 3 (0.36%) Firewall
4 3 (0.36%) Kerberos
5 2 (0.24%) SAN
5 2 (0.24%) SSH
6 1 (0.12%) BGP
6 1 (0.12%) LAN
6 1 (0.12%) MPLS
6 1 (0.12%) Network Security
6 1 (0.12%) OSPF
6 1 (0.12%) SMS
6 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.12%) VLAN
6 1 (0.12%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 124 (14.85%) Data Warehouse
2 97 (11.62%) Data Lake
3 95 (11.38%) Power BI
4 36 (4.31%) BigQuery
4 36 (4.31%) NoSQL
5 35 (4.19%) Relational Database
6 33 (3.95%) Delta Lake
7 32 (3.83%) PostgreSQL
8 28 (3.35%) Semantic Layer
9 25 (2.99%) Data Vault
10 22 (2.63%) Tableau
11 19 (2.28%) Amazon Redshift
12 18 (2.16%) SQL Server
13 17 (2.04%) Elasticsearch
14 15 (1.80%) Parquet
15 14 (1.68%) Neo4j
16 13 (1.56%) Db2
17 12 (1.44%) Big Data
17 12 (1.44%) Geospatial Data
17 12 (1.44%) Metadata Repository
Development Applications
1 41 (4.91%) Git
2 32 (3.83%) ERwin
3 28 (3.35%) JIRA
4 24 (2.87%) ER Studio
5 15 (1.80%) Jenkins
6 14 (1.68%) Maven
7 11 (1.32%) PowerDesigner
8 10 (1.20%) GitLab
8 10 (1.20%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.60%) Selenium
10 3 (0.36%) MLflow
11 2 (0.24%) TestRail
12 1 (0.12%) Artifactory
12 1 (0.12%) Deequ
12 1 (0.12%) Gemini Tracker
12 1 (0.12%) git-flow
12 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
12 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 244 (29.22%) Social Skills
2 206 (24.67%) Finance
3 157 (18.80%) Analytical Skills
4 112 (13.41%) Public Sector
5 102 (12.22%) Banking
6 40 (4.79%) Influencing Skills
7 35 (4.19%) Investment Banking
8 26 (3.11%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (3.11%) Publishing
9 23 (2.75%) Legal
9 23 (2.75%) Retail
10 22 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 21 (2.51%) Marketing
12 16 (1.92%) Manufacturing
13 15 (1.80%) Aerospace
13 15 (1.80%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (1.44%) Military
15 11 (1.32%) Front Office
16 10 (1.20%) Law
17 8 (0.96%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 226 (27.07%) Architect
2 163 (19.52%) Data Architect
3 131 (15.69%) Data Engineer
4 109 (13.05%) Lead
5 86 (10.30%) Analyst
6 82 (9.82%) Senior
7 47 (5.63%) Data Analyst
8 43 (5.15%) Data Modeller
9 37 (4.43%) Business Analyst
10 36 (4.31%) Developer
11 30 (3.59%) Senior Data Engineer
12 27 (3.23%) Consultant
13 23 (2.75%) Data Manager
13 23 (2.75%) Enterprise Architect
13 23 (2.75%) Solutions Architect
14 22 (2.63%) Data Business Analyst
15 21 (2.51%) Lead Data Engineer
16 20 (2.40%) Product Owner
17 19 (2.28%) Enterprise Data Architect
18 16 (1.92%) Information Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (6.83%) PySpark
2 46 (5.51%) JSON
3 44 (5.27%) Terraform
4 41 (4.91%) REST
5 32 (3.83%) Kafka
6 22 (2.63%) YAML
7 15 (1.80%) Spring Boot
8 12 (1.44%) Node.js
9 11 (1.32%) React
9 11 (1.32%) XML
10 10 (1.20%) FastAPI
10 10 (1.20%) SLSA
10 10 (1.20%) Spring
11 9 (1.08%) .NET
11 9 (1.08%) GraphQL
11 9 (1.08%) OAuth
12 8 (0.96%) JDBC
12 8 (0.96%) OAuth2
12 8 (0.96%) Playwright
13 7 (0.84%) pydantic
Miscellaneous
1 78 (9.34%) Cloud Native
2 74 (8.86%) Onboarding
3 71 (8.50%) Taxonomies
4 68 (8.14%) Data Structures
5 61 (7.31%) Management Information System
6 57 (6.83%) Product Ownership
7 44 (5.27%) Legacy Systems
8 42 (5.03%) Reference Data
9 23 (2.75%) Data Fabric
10 18 (2.16%) AI Agents
10 18 (2.16%) Data Protection Act
11 15 (1.80%) Derivative
12 13 (1.56%) Distributed Computing
12 13 (1.56%) Life Science
13 12 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
14 11 (1.32%) CMDB
14 11 (1.32%) Equity Derivative
14 11 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
15 10 (1.20%) Clustering
15 10 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 12 (1.44%) Linux
1 12 (1.44%) Unix
2 2 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
2 2 (0.24%) Windows
2 2 (0.24%) Windows Server
3 1 (0.12%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 452 (54.13%) Data Governance
2 397 (47.54%) Data Modelling
3 321 (38.44%) Metadata Management
4 270 (32.34%) Analytics
5 239 (28.62%) Data Architecture
6 236 (28.26%) AI
7 230 (27.54%) Stakeholder Management
8 208 (24.91%) Agile
9 187 (22.40%) Data Pipeline
10 179 (21.44%) Data Engineering
11 177 (21.20%) Migration
12 175 (20.96%) CI/CD
13 171 (20.48%) ETL
14 161 (19.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 153 (18.32%) Roadmaps
16 146 (17.49%) Data Lineage
16 146 (17.49%) Data Management
17 133 (15.93%) Validation
18 129 (15.45%) Decision-Making
18 129 (15.45%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 289 (34.61%) SQL
2 219 (26.23%) Python
3 64 (7.66%) Java
4 20 (2.40%) PL/SQL
5 16 (1.92%) PowerShell
6 13 (1.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 13 (1.56%) Groovy
7 12 (1.44%) C#
7 12 (1.44%) Shell Script
8 11 (1.32%) JavaScript
9 10 (1.20%) Bash
10 8 (0.96%) C++
11 7 (0.84%) Bicep
11 7 (0.84%) SPARQL
12 6 (0.72%) Scala
12 6 (0.72%) TypeScript
13 5 (0.60%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.48%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.48%) Perl
14 4 (0.48%) R
Qualifications
1 204 (24.43%) Security Cleared
2 155 (18.56%) SC Cleared
3 56 (6.71%) Degree
4 43 (5.15%) BPSS Clearance
5 24 (2.87%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (2.87%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.44%) Azure Certification
6 12 (1.44%) TOGAF Certification
7 10 (1.20%) AWS Certification
8 8 (0.96%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (0.84%) PRINCE2 Certification
10 5 (0.60%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 5 (0.60%) CISSP
11 4 (0.48%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.36%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.24%) ACCA
13 2 (0.24%) CIMA
13 2 (0.24%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.24%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 395 (47.31%) Data Quality
2 66 (7.90%) GDPR
3 45 (5.39%) Accessibility
4 41 (4.91%) QA
5 8 (0.96%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 8 (0.96%) WCAG
6 7 (0.84%) NCSC
7 6 (0.72%) ISO 19650
7 6 (0.72%) MiFID
8 5 (0.60%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.48%) GRC
9 4 (0.48%) NIST
9 4 (0.48%) SNOMED CT
10 3 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.24%) IFRS
11 2 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.24%) SLA
11 2 (0.24%) Solvency II
System Software
1 25 (2.99%) Docker
2 10 (1.20%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.24%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 27 (3.23%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.44%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (1.20%) Grafana
4 7 (0.84%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.72%) Ansible
6 4 (0.48%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (0.48%) CA Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.48%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.36%) Control-M
8 2 (0.24%) Kibana
8 2 (0.24%) systemd
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.12%) Istio
Vendors
1 161 (19.28%) Microsoft
2 142 (17.01%) Databricks
3 60 (7.19%) Informatica
4 45 (5.39%) Oracle
5 41 (4.91%) Google
6 19 (2.28%) Sparx
7 17 (2.04%) SAP
8 16 (1.92%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.80%) IBM
10 14 (1.68%) Talend
11 13 (1.56%) Autodesk
11 13 (1.56%) Salesforce
12 11 (1.32%) Denodo
12 11 (1.32%) Teradata
13 10 (1.20%) Sonatype
13 10 (1.20%) Sybase
14 9 (1.08%) Palantir
15 8 (0.96%) Foundry
16 7 (0.84%) CA Agile Central
16 7 (0.84%) Signiant