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 18 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 241 342 296
Rank change year-on-year +101 -46 +33
Contract jobs citing Metadata 414 189 336
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.11% 0.60% 0.78%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 6.66% 3.26% 4.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 285 126 237
10th Percentile £375 £318 £400
25th Percentile £429 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.44% -5.45% -4.35%
75th Percentile £600 £643 £680
90th Percentile £695 £793 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £488 £575
% change year-on-year +2.56% -15.22% +15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 6 22
10th Percentile £29.71 £21.01 £14.15
25th Percentile £35.91 £22.72 £19.37
Median hourly rate £80.50 £32.47 £44.28
Median % change year-on-year +147.96% -26.68% +6.05%
75th Percentile £84.00 £71.88 £48.36
90th Percentile £84.20 £82.25 £69.96
UK excluding London median hourly rate £80.50 £25.43 £35.85
% change year-on-year +216.56% -29.07% -42.64%

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 6,213 5,801 7,126
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.73% 18.27% 16.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,291 3,816 5,040
10th Percentile £333 £350 £350
25th Percentile £412 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 97 79 156
10th Percentile £18.25 £19.78 £15.95
25th Percentile £29.00 £24.25 £21.64
Median hourly rate £43.50 £35.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +24.29% -22.22% -18.18%
75th Percentile £72.00 £64.61 £64.43
90th Percentile £84.40 £67.55 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £49.36 £28.65 £42.50
% change year-on-year +72.29% -32.59% -22.73%

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 18 January 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 18 January 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 18 January 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 +99 360 £518 - 231
London +104 225 £525 - 55
UK excluding London -2 145 £500 +2.56% 223
Work from Home +34 109 £525 +0.48% 65
South East -4 34 £500 -6.98% 77
Midlands -20 31 £509 +35.60% 33
North of England -45 24 £475 -12.84% 39
Scotland +9 21 £465 -32.12% 14
East of England -2 21 £500 +57.01% 27
West Midlands -22 21 £560 +49.33% 15
North West -24 15 £448 -17.89% 10
South West -2 12 £568 +16.41% 24
East Midlands - 10 £425 - 17
Wales +4 8 £700 +229.21% 11
Yorkshire -44 8 £500 +25.00% 22
North East -15 1 £475 -23.91% 7

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 30 (7.25%) SharePoint
2 29 (7.00%) Apache Spark
3 16 (3.86%) Confluence
4 15 (3.62%) SAS
5 14 (3.38%) Apache
6 11 (2.66%) CMS
7 8 (1.93%) Apache Airflow
8 7 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
8 7 (1.69%) Sitecore CMS
9 6 (1.45%) Drupal
10 5 (1.21%) GeoServer
10 5 (1.21%) Smallworld
11 4 (0.97%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.48%) Adobe Experience Manager
13 1 (0.24%) Alfresco
13 1 (0.24%) Documentum
13 1 (0.24%) Headless CMS
13 1 (0.24%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.24%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 23 (5.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.17%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.72%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.24%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.24%) FrameMaker
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle Smart View
5 1 (0.24%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 14 (3.38%) SAP S/4HANA
1 14 (3.38%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (1.45%) OpenText VIM for SAP
2 6 (1.45%) SAP FI
2 6 (1.45%) SAP MM
3 3 (0.72%) Actimize
3 3 (0.72%) Maximo
4 2 (0.48%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 2 (0.48%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.24%) Hyperion Planning
5 1 (0.24%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.24%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 129 (31.16%) Azure
2 98 (23.67%) AWS
3 72 (17.39%) Power Platform
4 47 (11.35%) GCP
5 39 (9.42%) Azure Data Factory
5 39 (9.42%) Collibra
6 36 (8.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 36 (8.70%) Microsoft Purview
7 28 (6.76%) Snowflake
8 18 (4.35%) Serverless
9 17 (4.11%) Microsoft 365
10 15 (3.62%) Amazon S3
10 15 (3.62%) dbt
11 14 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (3.14%) AWS Lambda
13 11 (2.66%) GitHub
14 7 (1.69%) Alation
14 7 (1.69%) Contentful
14 7 (1.69%) PowerApps
14 7 (1.69%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.72%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.48%) Hyperconnected
2 2 (0.48%) Intranet
3 1 (0.24%) Firewall
3 1 (0.24%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 77 (18.60%) Data Warehouse
2 64 (15.46%) Power BI
3 50 (12.08%) Data Lake
4 30 (7.25%) Metadata Repository
5 23 (5.56%) NoSQL
6 21 (5.07%) Big Data
7 20 (4.83%) Relational Database
8 19 (4.59%) Data Vault
9 18 (4.35%) Snowflake Schema
10 17 (4.11%) SQL Server
10 17 (4.11%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 17 (4.11%) Tableau
11 16 (3.86%) Azure SQL Database
12 15 (3.62%) PostgreSQL
13 14 (3.38%) Amazon Redshift
14 13 (3.14%) BigQuery
15 10 (2.42%) Delta Lake
15 10 (2.42%) Oracle Database
15 10 (2.42%) Spark SQL
15 10 (2.42%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 22 (5.31%) ERwin
1 22 (5.31%) JIRA
2 20 (4.83%) Git
3 10 (2.42%) ER Studio
4 9 (2.17%) PowerDesigner
5 4 (0.97%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.48%) Subversion
6 2 (0.48%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.24%) GitLab
7 1 (0.24%) gulp
7 1 (0.24%) Poetry
7 1 (0.24%) Pylint
7 1 (0.24%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 1 (0.24%) Terragrunt
7 1 (0.24%) Yeoman
General
1 162 (39.13%) Social Skills
2 108 (26.09%) Finance
3 81 (19.57%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (13.77%) Public Sector
5 29 (7.00%) Banking
5 29 (7.00%) Documentation Skills
6 17 (4.11%) Publishing
7 14 (3.38%) Retail
8 12 (2.90%) Influencing Skills
9 11 (2.66%) Legal
10 10 (2.42%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.93%) Military
12 7 (1.69%) Financial Institution
13 6 (1.45%) Aviation
13 6 (1.45%) Law
13 6 (1.45%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (1.45%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.45%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.21%) Welsh Language
15 4 (0.97%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 87 (21.01%) Architect
2 64 (15.46%) Analyst
3 63 (15.22%) Data Architect
4 54 (13.04%) Data Engineer
5 45 (10.87%) Data Analyst
6 33 (7.97%) Data Modeller
7 32 (7.73%) Lead
8 28 (6.76%) Developer
8 28 (6.76%) Senior
9 25 (6.04%) Consultant
10 20 (4.83%) Business Analyst
11 17 (4.11%) Azure Engineer
12 13 (3.14%) Azure Data Engineer
13 11 (2.66%) Data Business Analyst
13 11 (2.66%) Governance Analyst
13 11 (2.66%) Software Engineer
14 10 (2.42%) Senior Data Engineer
15 9 (2.17%) Data Quality Analyst
15 9 (2.17%) Quality Analyst
16 8 (1.93%) Data Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (8.70%) PySpark
2 25 (6.04%) Kafka
3 21 (5.07%) REST
4 12 (2.90%) JSON
5 10 (2.42%) XML
6 9 (2.17%) React
7 7 (1.69%) .NET
7 7 (1.69%) SOAP
7 7 (1.69%) YAML
8 6 (1.45%) OAuth
8 6 (1.45%) RESTful
8 6 (1.45%) SAP Basis
8 6 (1.45%) SAP Business Workflow
8 6 (1.45%) SAP Fiori
8 6 (1.45%) VML
9 5 (1.21%) HTML
9 5 (1.21%) Pandas
10 4 (0.97%) Node.js
11 3 (0.72%) NumPy
11 3 (0.72%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 29 (7.00%) Cloud Native
2 28 (6.76%) Data Structures
3 24 (5.80%) Management Information System
4 20 (4.83%) Taxonomies
5 19 (4.59%) Legacy Systems
6 17 (4.11%) Onboarding
6 17 (4.11%) Reference Data
7 15 (3.62%) Product Ownership
8 11 (2.66%) Distributed Computing
9 7 (1.69%) Data Fabric
10 6 (1.45%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (1.21%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (0.97%) Genomics
12 4 (0.97%) Greenfield Project
12 4 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (0.97%) Low-Code
12 4 (0.97%) Omics
12 4 (0.97%) Replication
12 4 (0.97%) Virtual Team
13 3 (0.72%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.21%) Unix
2 4 (0.97%) Linux
3 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 217 (52.42%) Data Governance
2 205 (49.52%) Metadata Management
3 204 (49.28%) Data Modelling
4 142 (34.30%) Analytics
5 109 (26.33%) Data Architecture
6 106 (25.60%) ETL
7 101 (24.40%) Business Intelligence
8 82 (19.81%) Data Lineage
9 80 (19.32%) Agile
10 79 (19.08%) Data Pipeline
11 77 (18.60%) Problem-Solving
12 76 (18.36%) Data Engineering
13 71 (17.15%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 65 (15.70%) Validation
15 64 (15.46%) Data Management
16 63 (15.22%) AI
17 59 (14.25%) Data Integration
17 59 (14.25%) Decision-Making
17 59 (14.25%) Migration
17 59 (14.25%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 148 (35.75%) SQL
2 105 (25.36%) Python
3 21 (5.07%) Java
4 19 (4.59%) PowerShell
5 14 (3.38%) C#
6 9 (2.17%) JavaScript
7 8 (1.93%) Scala
8 7 (1.69%) PL/SQL
8 7 (1.69%) R
8 7 (1.69%) T-SQL
9 6 (1.45%) ABAP
9 6 (1.45%) Perl
10 5 (1.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (1.21%) Shell Script
11 4 (0.97%) C++
12 3 (0.72%) Apex Code
12 3 (0.72%) Bicep
12 3 (0.72%) SOQL
12 3 (0.72%) SOSL
12 3 (0.72%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 89 (21.50%) Security Cleared
2 66 (15.94%) SC Cleared
3 23 (5.56%) Degree
4 15 (3.62%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (1.93%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.69%) Azure Certification
6 7 (1.69%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.21%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.97%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.97%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.48%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.24%) Analytics IQ
10 1 (0.24%) CSPO
10 1 (0.24%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.24%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 1 (0.24%) MySQL Certification
10 1 (0.24%) PMP
10 1 (0.24%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 188 (45.41%) Data Quality
2 44 (10.63%) GDPR
3 16 (3.86%) QA
4 15 (3.62%) Accessibility
5 6 (1.45%) GRC
5 6 (1.45%) IFRS
5 6 (1.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.21%) MiFID
6 5 (1.21%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.72%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 3 (0.72%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.48%) CRD IV
8 2 (0.48%) FINREP
8 2 (0.48%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.48%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.48%) ISO 9001
8 2 (0.48%) NIST
9 1 (0.24%) GMP
9 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.24%) SLA
System Software
1 14 (3.38%) Docker
2 3 (0.72%) Active Directory
2 3 (0.72%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 18 (4.35%) Kubernetes
2 16 (3.86%) Terraform
3 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.72%) Hadoop YARN
4 3 (0.72%) Oozie
4 3 (0.72%) SCCM
5 1 (0.24%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 82 (19.81%) Microsoft
2 60 (14.49%) Databricks
3 34 (8.21%) Oracle
4 33 (7.97%) Informatica
5 19 (4.59%) ServiceNow
6 18 (4.35%) SAP
7 14 (3.38%) Sparx
8 11 (2.66%) Google
8 11 (2.66%) Talend
9 10 (2.42%) OpenText
9 10 (2.42%) Salesforce
10 8 (1.93%) Teradata
11 7 (1.69%) Sitecore
12 6 (1.45%) ESRI
12 6 (1.45%) IBM
12 6 (1.45%) Optimizely
13 5 (1.21%) Intergraph
13 5 (1.21%) Palantir
14 4 (0.97%) Atlassian
14 4 (0.97%) Remedy