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 17 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 210 339 284
Rank change year-on-year +129 -55 +31
Contract jobs citing Metadata 540 190 336
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.25% 0.65% 0.76%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 7.80% 3.40% 4.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 374 137 232
10th Percentile £358 £254 £361
25th Percentile £415 £410 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £505 £559
Median % change year-on-year +3.47% -9.62% +1.59%
75th Percentile £600 £643 £738
90th Percentile £693 £792 £848
UK excluding London median daily rate £506 £468 £550
% change year-on-year +8.17% -14.91% +10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 7 25
10th Percentile £35.91 £22.63 £13.70
25th Percentile £61.50 £22.72 £20.49
Median hourly rate £69.00 £27.50 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +150.91% -31.68% +15.00%
75th Percentile £82.25 £56.13 £46.18
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.25 £47.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.00 £27.50 £40.25
% change year-on-year +150.91% -31.68% +11.03%

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 6,926 5,584 7,304
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.04% 19.02% 16.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,755 3,853 5,170
10th Percentile £349 £350 £340
25th Percentile £413 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £494 £488
% change year-on-year -3.85% +1.33% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 96 172
10th Percentile £18.25 £19.59 £14.36
25th Percentile £28.50 £24.06 £20.77
Median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +66.67% -25.47% -32.92%
75th Percentile £75.00 £64.56 £58.81
90th Percentile £85.00 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £27.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +81.82% -31.25% -29.08%

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 17 March 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 17 March 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 17 March 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 +105 459 £525 +1.20% 229
London +101 268 £525 -16.00% 145
UK excluding London +15 205 £506 +8.17% 153
Work from Home +55 154 £525 +0.48% 129
Midlands -14 51 £560 +54.48% 9
South East -15 47 £513 +7.61% 76
West Midlands -29 45 £569 +56.90% 6
North of England -53 39 £475 -9.09% 18
Scotland +37 37 £436 -28.29% 4
North West -26 22 £496 -9.04% 8
East of England -18 21 £492 +54.78% 22
South West -12 17 £570 +12.59% 22
Yorkshire -42 16 £525 +35.48% 9
East Midlands - 6 £447 - 3
North East -12 4 £475 -23.91% 1
Wales -15 1 £750 +217.80% 5

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 (7.78%) Apache Spark
2 31 (5.74%) SharePoint
3 25 (4.63%) SAS
4 20 (3.70%) Apache Airflow
4 20 (3.70%) Confluence
5 18 (3.33%) Apache
6 13 (2.41%) CMS
7 7 (1.30%) Drupal
7 7 (1.30%) Sitecore CMS
8 5 (0.93%) ArcGIS
8 5 (0.93%) GeoServer
8 5 (0.93%) Smallworld
9 4 (0.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.19%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.19%) Headless CMS
11 1 (0.19%) Palantir Foundry
11 1 (0.19%) SharePoint 2013
11 1 (0.19%) WordPress
Applications
1 30 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (2.41%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.74%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.56%) Microsoft Office
6 2 (0.37%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.19%) Oracle Smart View
7 1 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (3.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 12 (2.22%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (1.11%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 6 (1.11%) SAP FI
3 6 (1.11%) SAP MM
4 3 (0.56%) Actimize
4 3 (0.56%) Maximo
4 3 (0.56%) Summit
5 2 (0.37%) FIS Private Capital Suite
6 1 (0.19%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.19%) Hyperion Planning
6 1 (0.19%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.19%) Misys Midas
6 1 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
6 1 (0.19%) SAP MDG
6 1 (0.19%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 167 (30.93%) Azure
2 120 (22.22%) AWS
3 89 (16.48%) Power Platform
4 65 (12.04%) GCP
5 51 (9.44%) Collibra
6 48 (8.89%) Azure Data Factory
7 43 (7.96%) Microsoft Purview
8 35 (6.48%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 33 (6.11%) Snowflake
10 26 (4.81%) Serverless
11 24 (4.44%) Amazon S3
12 21 (3.89%) dbt
13 20 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
13 20 (3.70%) Azure DevOps
14 19 (3.52%) GitHub
15 18 (3.33%) Microsoft 365
16 8 (1.48%) Power Automate
17 7 (1.30%) Amazon EMR
17 7 (1.30%) AWS CloudFormation
17 7 (1.30%) ShareGate
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.56%) Intranet
2 2 (0.37%) Firewall
2 2 (0.37%) Hyperconnected
3 1 (0.19%) 4G
3 1 (0.19%) 5G
3 1 (0.19%) HTTP
3 1 (0.19%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (21.11%) Data Warehouse
2 83 (15.37%) Power BI
3 69 (12.78%) Data Lake
4 42 (7.78%) Metadata Repository
5 29 (5.37%) Big Data
5 29 (5.37%) SQL Server
5 29 (5.37%) Tableau
6 26 (4.81%) Data Vault
7 25 (4.63%) NoSQL
8 24 (4.44%) Snowflake Schema
9 23 (4.26%) Relational Database
10 22 (4.07%) PostgreSQL
11 19 (3.52%) Oracle Database
11 19 (3.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 18 (3.33%) Hadoop
13 17 (3.15%) Amazon Redshift
13 17 (3.15%) BigQuery
14 16 (2.96%) Azure SQL Database
15 14 (2.59%) Delta Lake
16 13 (2.41%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 29 (5.37%) ERwin
2 27 (5.00%) Git
3 23 (4.26%) JIRA
4 12 (2.22%) Jenkins
4 12 (2.22%) PowerDesigner
5 10 (1.85%) ER Studio
6 6 (1.11%) GitLab
7 5 (0.93%) Maven
7 5 (0.93%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.56%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.37%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 2 (0.37%) Subversion
9 2 (0.37%) Visual Studio
10 1 (0.19%) git-flow
10 1 (0.19%) gulp
10 1 (0.19%) Oracle Forms
10 1 (0.19%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.19%) Selenium
10 1 (0.19%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.19%) Yeoman
General
1 178 (32.96%) Social Skills
2 147 (27.22%) Finance
3 111 (20.56%) Analytical Skills
4 70 (12.96%) Public Sector
5 57 (10.56%) Banking
6 39 (7.22%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (2.96%) Publishing
8 13 (2.41%) Influencing Skills
8 13 (2.41%) Legal
9 12 (2.22%) Aviation
9 12 (2.22%) Investment Banking
10 11 (2.04%) Presentation Skills
10 11 (2.04%) Retail
11 10 (1.85%) Marketing
12 7 (1.30%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.30%) Military
13 6 (1.11%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (1.11%) Retail Banking
14 5 (0.93%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 142 (26.30%) Architect
2 108 (20.00%) Data Architect
3 76 (14.07%) Analyst
4 74 (13.70%) Data Engineer
5 52 (9.63%) Data Analyst
6 41 (7.59%) Senior
7 40 (7.41%) Data Modeller
7 40 (7.41%) Lead
8 37 (6.85%) Developer
9 26 (4.81%) Consultant
10 25 (4.63%) Business Analyst
11 16 (2.96%) Azure Engineer
12 14 (2.59%) Data Business Analyst
12 14 (2.59%) Software Engineer
13 12 (2.22%) Azure Data Engineer
13 12 (2.22%) Governance Analyst
13 12 (2.22%) Principal Engineer
14 11 (2.04%) AWS Engineer
14 11 (2.04%) Data Analytics Engineer
14 11 (2.04%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (7.59%) PySpark
2 31 (5.74%) Kafka
2 31 (5.74%) REST
3 18 (3.33%) JSON
4 15 (2.78%) .NET
5 13 (2.41%) YAML
6 12 (2.22%) React
6 12 (2.22%) SOAP
6 12 (2.22%) XML
7 8 (1.48%) OAuth
8 6 (1.11%) HTML
8 6 (1.11%) Node.js
8 6 (1.11%) Pandas
8 6 (1.11%) RESTful
8 6 (1.11%) SAP Basis
8 6 (1.11%) SAP Business Workflow
8 6 (1.11%) SAP Fiori
8 6 (1.11%) VML
9 5 (0.93%) SLSA
10 3 (0.56%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 52 (9.63%) Cloud Native
2 45 (8.33%) Data Structures
3 37 (6.85%) Taxonomies
4 34 (6.30%) Management Information System
5 32 (5.93%) Reference Data
6 24 (4.44%) Onboarding
7 23 (4.26%) Legacy Systems
8 22 (4.07%) Product Ownership
9 13 (2.41%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (2.04%) Virtual Team
11 9 (1.67%) Credit Risk
11 9 (1.67%) Self-Motivation
12 7 (1.30%) Data Fabric
12 7 (1.30%) Distributed Computing
13 5 (0.93%) CMDB
13 5 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
13 5 (0.93%) IoT
13 5 (0.93%) Market Risk
14 4 (0.74%) Derivative
14 4 (0.74%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 12 (2.22%) Unix
2 8 (1.48%) Linux
3 1 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 273 (50.56%) Data Governance
2 267 (49.44%) Data Modelling
3 218 (40.37%) Metadata Management
4 198 (36.67%) Analytics
5 161 (29.81%) Data Architecture
6 144 (26.67%) ETL
7 127 (23.52%) Business Intelligence
8 111 (20.56%) Data Engineering
9 102 (18.89%) Agile
10 101 (18.70%) Validation
11 98 (18.15%) Data Pipeline
12 94 (17.41%) Data Lineage
12 94 (17.41%) Problem-Solving
13 92 (17.04%) AI
14 91 (16.85%) Migration
15 83 (15.37%) Data Integration
16 80 (14.81%) Data Management
17 79 (14.63%) CI/CD
18 74 (13.70%) Decision-Making
18 74 (13.70%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 216 (40.00%) SQL
2 138 (25.56%) Python
3 24 (4.44%) C#
4 20 (3.70%) PowerShell
5 18 (3.33%) Java
6 12 (2.22%) PL/SQL
7 11 (2.04%) JavaScript
8 8 (1.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (1.48%) Shell Script
9 7 (1.30%) Groovy
9 7 (1.30%) R
10 6 (1.11%) ABAP
10 6 (1.11%) Perl
10 6 (1.11%) T-SQL
11 5 (0.93%) Apex Code
11 5 (0.93%) Scala
11 5 (0.93%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.56%) SOQL
13 2 (0.37%) Bicep
13 2 (0.37%) SOSL
Qualifications
1 129 (23.89%) Security Cleared
2 96 (17.78%) SC Cleared
3 34 (6.30%) Degree
4 24 (4.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.41%) Master's Degree
6 10 (1.85%) Azure Certification
6 10 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.48%) DV Cleared
7 8 (1.48%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (0.93%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.74%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.37%) Analytics IQ
11 1 (0.19%) CISSP
11 1 (0.19%) CSPO
11 1 (0.19%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.19%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 1 (0.19%) MySQL Certification
11 1 (0.19%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 229 (42.41%) Data Quality
2 55 (10.19%) GDPR
3 25 (4.63%) QA
4 18 (3.33%) Accessibility
5 11 (2.04%) GRC
5 11 (2.04%) Solvency II
6 6 (1.11%) IFRS
6 6 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.93%) NIST
8 4 (0.74%) MiFID
9 3 (0.56%) ISO 22301
10 2 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.37%) CRD IV
10 2 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.37%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.37%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.37%) ISO 19650
10 2 (0.37%) ISO 31000
10 2 (0.37%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.37%) PMO
System Software
1 12 (2.22%) Docker
2 5 (0.93%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 20 (3.70%) Terraform
2 15 (2.78%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.74%) Grafana
3 4 (0.74%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.19%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 1 (0.19%) Ansible
4 1 (0.19%) Microsoft Intune
4 1 (0.19%) SCCM
4 1 (0.19%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 102 (18.89%) Microsoft
2 78 (14.44%) Databricks
3 53 (9.81%) Oracle
4 41 (7.59%) Informatica
5 23 (4.26%) ServiceNow
6 19 (3.52%) Talend
7 18 (3.33%) Google
7 18 (3.33%) SAP
8 17 (3.15%) Salesforce
9 16 (2.96%) Sparx
10 11 (2.04%) Teradata
11 8 (1.48%) OpenText
12 7 (1.30%) Remedy
12 7 (1.30%) Sitecore
13 6 (1.11%) Atlassian
13 6 (1.11%) ESRI
13 6 (1.11%) Optimizely
14 5 (0.93%) Adobe
14 5 (0.93%) Intergraph
14 5 (0.93%) Sonatype