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 27 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 210 306 335
Rank change year-on-year +96 +29 +26
Contract jobs citing Metadata 669 245 265
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.31% 0.81% 0.61%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 8.58% 4.38% 3.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 442 172 165
10th Percentile £360 £301 £379
25th Percentile £431 £436 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -10.87% +4.55%
75th Percentile £640 £638 £825
90th Percentile £750 £775 £925
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £464 £525
% change year-on-year +13.21% -11.67% +5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 16
10th Percentile £31.05 £13.25 £13.50
25th Percentile £35.91 £15.56 £20.11
Median hourly rate £60.50 £26.25 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +130.48% -19.23% -7.14%
75th Percentile £64.00 £29.69 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.35 £58.75 £47.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.50 £25.00 £40.25
% change year-on-year +142.00% -37.89% +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 7,801 5,590 7,545
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.30% 18.44% 17.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,179 3,788 5,384
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.33%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 249 98 151
10th Percentile £14.85 £19.49 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £25.88 £20.88
Median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.86% -12.50% -29.08%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.31 £53.94
90th Percentile £77.00 £77.50 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £37.50 £31.64 £33.93
% change year-on-year +18.52% -6.75% -38.31%

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 27 June 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 27 June 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 27 June 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 +75 557 £525 +0.48% 131
London +65 320 £524 -12.71% 77
UK excluding London +38 267 £525 +13.21% 89
Work from Home +44 195 £525 -8.70% 54
Midlands -13 67 £569 +431.54% 15
West Midlands -16 65 £571 +433.64% 11
North of England -23 64 £525 +27.27% 10
Scotland +36 50 £513 +7.89% 5
South East -35 50 £506 +6.02% 46
Yorkshire -10 32 £567 +51.13% 3
North West -34 28 £575 +82.54% 7
East of England -7 27 £475 +48.48% 9
South West -28 14 £588 +0.04% 5
North East -32 7 £413 -10.81%
Wales -15 3 £750 +184.67% 1
East Midlands -12 2 £474 +15.49% 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 37 (5.53%) SharePoint
2 33 (4.93%) Apache Spark
3 30 (4.48%) Apache Airflow
4 20 (2.99%) Confluence
5 18 (2.69%) Apache
6 16 (2.39%) SAS
7 12 (1.79%) CMS
8 4 (0.60%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.45%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.30%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 2 (0.30%) Alfresco
10 2 (0.30%) Headless CMS
11 1 (0.15%) Apache Solr
11 1 (0.15%) Apache Synapse
11 1 (0.15%) Drupal
11 1 (0.15%) Liferay
11 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Exchange
11 1 (0.15%) Smallworld
11 1 (0.15%) Tomcat
11 1 (0.15%) WordPress
Applications
1 18 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.20%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.05%) Navisworks
3 7 (1.05%) Notepad++
3 7 (1.05%) Revit
4 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.30%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.30%) Microsoft Office
7 1 (0.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 11 (1.64%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (0.90%) Summit
3 3 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
4 2 (0.30%) Maximo
4 2 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.15%) Adobe Campaign
5 1 (0.15%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.15%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.15%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 195 (29.15%) Azure
2 143 (21.38%) AWS
3 90 (13.45%) Power Platform
4 72 (10.76%) GCP
5 58 (8.67%) Collibra
6 52 (7.77%) Microsoft Purview
7 38 (5.68%) Azure Data Factory
8 37 (5.53%) Amazon S3
8 37 (5.53%) GitHub
9 34 (5.08%) dbt
10 31 (4.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 31 (4.63%) Serverless
11 28 (4.19%) AWS Lambda
11 28 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
11 28 (4.19%) Snowflake
12 19 (2.84%) Microsoft 365
13 16 (2.39%) Microsoft Copilot
14 15 (2.24%) Entra ID
14 15 (2.24%) Power Automate
15 13 (1.94%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.05%) PuTTY
1 7 (1.05%) WinSCP
2 5 (0.75%) Intranet
3 4 (0.60%) SSL
4 3 (0.45%) Firewall
4 3 (0.45%) HTTP
5 1 (0.15%) 4G
5 1 (0.15%) 5G
5 1 (0.15%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 114 (17.04%) Data Warehouse
2 79 (11.81%) Power BI
3 77 (11.51%) Data Lake
4 36 (5.38%) Relational Database
5 33 (4.93%) Data Vault
6 29 (4.33%) Tableau
7 28 (4.19%) NoSQL
8 26 (3.89%) Metadata Repository
9 23 (3.44%) SQL Server
10 22 (3.29%) PostgreSQL
11 21 (3.14%) Delta Lake
12 20 (2.99%) Big Data
12 20 (2.99%) Snowflake Schema
13 17 (2.54%) Amazon Redshift
13 17 (2.54%) Hadoop
14 16 (2.39%) Amazon Athena
15 15 (2.24%) BigQuery
16 14 (2.09%) Semantic Layer
17 13 (1.94%) Db2
18 12 (1.79%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 39 (5.83%) ERwin
2 30 (4.48%) Git
3 20 (2.99%) ER Studio
3 20 (2.99%) JIRA
4 15 (2.24%) Jenkins
4 15 (2.24%) PowerDesigner
5 14 (2.09%) GitLab
6 12 (1.79%) Maven
7 10 (1.49%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.45%) Bitbucket
9 2 (0.30%) Artifactory
9 2 (0.30%) git-flow
10 1 (0.15%) Deequ
10 1 (0.15%) Postman
10 1 (0.15%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.15%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.15%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.15%) Team Foundation Server
10 1 (0.15%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.15%) VersionOne
General
1 201 (30.04%) Finance
2 183 (27.35%) Social Skills
3 121 (18.09%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (14.65%) Banking
5 75 (11.21%) Public Sector
6 38 (5.68%) Documentation Skills
7 37 (5.53%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.99%) Legal
9 17 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
9 17 (2.54%) Retail
10 15 (2.24%) Presentation Skills
11 14 (2.09%) Marketing
12 13 (1.94%) Publishing
13 12 (1.79%) Front Office
14 11 (1.64%) Aviation
14 11 (1.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 7 (1.05%) Law
16 6 (0.90%) Manufacturing
17 5 (0.75%) Automotive
17 5 (0.75%) Military
Job Titles
1 164 (24.51%) Architect
2 116 (17.34%) Data Architect
3 97 (14.50%) Data Engineer
4 80 (11.96%) Analyst
5 72 (10.76%) Lead
6 58 (8.67%) Senior
7 51 (7.62%) Data Analyst
8 48 (7.17%) Data Modeller
9 41 (6.13%) Developer
10 31 (4.63%) Business Analyst
11 28 (4.19%) Consultant
12 19 (2.84%) Data Manager
13 18 (2.69%) Data Business Analyst
14 16 (2.39%) DevOps Engineer
14 16 (2.39%) Solutions Architect
15 14 (2.09%) Senior Data Engineer
16 13 (1.94%) Lead Data Engineer
17 12 (1.79%) AWS Engineer
18 11 (1.64%) Designer
18 11 (1.64%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (6.43%) PySpark
2 34 (5.08%) JSON
3 28 (4.19%) Kafka
4 23 (3.44%) REST
5 16 (2.39%) .NET
5 16 (2.39%) YAML
6 12 (1.79%) React
6 12 (1.79%) XML
7 11 (1.64%) Node.js
8 10 (1.49%) OAuth
8 10 (1.49%) SLSA
9 9 (1.35%) Middleware
9 9 (1.35%) SOAP
9 9 (1.35%) Spring Boot
10 7 (1.05%) OAuth2
10 7 (1.05%) RESTful
10 7 (1.05%) SPFx
11 6 (0.90%) ADO
11 6 (0.90%) CSS
11 6 (0.90%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 65 (9.72%) Cloud Native
2 56 (8.37%) Onboarding
3 48 (7.17%) Taxonomies
4 46 (6.88%) Management Information System
5 45 (6.73%) Data Structures
6 34 (5.08%) Product Ownership
7 33 (4.93%) Reference Data
8 31 (4.63%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (2.99%) Derivative
10 15 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
11 12 (1.79%) Credit Risk
11 12 (1.79%) Equity Derivative
12 11 (1.64%) AI Agents
12 11 (1.64%) Distributed Systems
12 11 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (1.49%) Clustering
13 10 (1.49%) Virtual Team
14 9 (1.35%) Fixed Income
15 8 (1.20%) Distributed Computing
15 8 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 19 (2.84%) Unix
2 8 (1.20%) Linux
3 1 (0.15%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 334 (49.93%) Data Governance
2 302 (45.14%) Data Modelling
3 225 (33.63%) Metadata Management
4 223 (33.33%) Analytics
5 169 (25.26%) Data Architecture
6 168 (25.11%) AI
7 151 (22.57%) ETL
8 145 (21.67%) Data Engineering
9 134 (20.03%) Data Pipeline
10 128 (19.13%) CI/CD
11 127 (18.98%) Migration
12 125 (18.68%) Agile
13 112 (16.74%) Data Lineage
13 112 (16.74%) Stakeholder Management
14 111 (16.59%) Business Intelligence
15 108 (16.14%) Decision-Making
16 105 (15.70%) Data Management
17 103 (15.40%) Validation
18 101 (15.10%) Problem-Solving
19 99 (14.80%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 247 (36.92%) SQL
2 168 (25.11%) Python
3 47 (7.03%) Java
4 22 (3.29%) PL/SQL
5 21 (3.14%) C#
6 15 (2.24%) Shell Script
7 12 (1.79%) JavaScript
7 12 (1.79%) PowerShell
8 10 (1.49%) Groovy
9 9 (1.35%) C++
9 9 (1.35%) TypeScript
10 6 (0.90%) Bash
10 6 (0.90%) SPARQL
11 5 (0.75%) Apex Code
11 5 (0.75%) Bicep
11 5 (0.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 5 (0.75%) Perl
11 5 (0.75%) T-SQL
12 4 (0.60%) Scala
12 4 (0.60%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 147 (21.97%) Security Cleared
2 112 (16.74%) SC Cleared
3 43 (6.43%) Degree
4 29 (4.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 17 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
6 16 (2.39%) Master's Degree
7 12 (1.79%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.64%) DV Cleared
9 10 (1.49%) TOGAF Certification
10 7 (1.05%) AWS Certification
11 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
12 3 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 2 (0.30%) Analytics IQ
13 2 (0.30%) CISM
13 2 (0.30%) CISSP
13 2 (0.30%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.30%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.30%) PMI Certification
14 1 (0.15%) CBAP
14 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 262 (39.16%) Data Quality
2 65 (9.72%) GDPR
3 37 (5.53%) QA
4 29 (4.33%) Accessibility
5 10 (1.49%) GRC
6 7 (1.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.05%) Solvency II
7 6 (0.90%) ISO 19650
7 6 (0.90%) NIST
8 5 (0.75%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 4 (0.60%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.60%) ISO 22301
9 4 (0.60%) MiFID
10 3 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.45%) ISO 31000
10 3 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.30%) IFRS
11 2 (0.30%) IFRS 9
11 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.30%) PMO
System Software
1 13 (1.94%) Docker
2 10 (1.49%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 29 (4.33%) Terraform
2 14 (2.09%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.35%) Grafana
4 7 (1.05%) Prometheus
4 7 (1.05%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (0.60%) CA Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.60%) PingFederate
6 2 (0.30%) Ansible
7 1 (0.15%) Kibana
Vendors
1 126 (18.83%) Microsoft
2 101 (15.10%) Databricks
3 61 (9.12%) Oracle
4 41 (6.13%) Informatica
5 22 (3.29%) Salesforce
6 21 (3.14%) Google
7 18 (2.69%) Talend
8 14 (2.09%) IBM
9 13 (1.94%) Autodesk
10 11 (1.64%) ServiceNow
10 11 (1.64%) Sparx
10 11 (1.64%) Sybase
11 10 (1.49%) SAP
11 10 (1.49%) Sonatype
12 7 (1.05%) OpenAI
13 6 (0.90%) Adobe
13 6 (0.90%) Foundry
14 5 (0.75%) Denodo
14 5 (0.75%) Palantir
15 4 (0.60%) CA Agile Central