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 26 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 211 317 310
Rank change year-on-year +106 -7 +22
Contract jobs citing Metadata 614 214 284
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 0.75% 0.67%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 8.40% 3.96% 3.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 417 151 186
10th Percentile £358 £225 £393
25th Percentile £425 £436 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -13.04% +4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £800
90th Percentile £750 £775 £925
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £469 £575
% change year-on-year +11.94% -18.43% +15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 17 9 15
10th Percentile £33.48 £13.25 £13.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £22.50 £16.50
Median hourly rate £64.00 £25.43 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +151.67% -21.75% -8.77%
75th Percentile £73.75 £30.00 £42.88
90th Percentile £82.95 £82.25 £46.18
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.00 £25.43 £20.97
% change year-on-year +151.67% +21.27% -45.00%

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 7,312 5,410 7,279
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.06% 18.91% 17.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,922 3,714 5,229
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -0.95% -3.67%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 94 148
10th Percentile £14.17 £19.97 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.12 £23.69 £20.93
Median hourly rate £45.00 £32.96 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +36.53% -17.60% -31.73%
75th Percentile £72.25 £65.62 £61.53
90th Percentile £82.25 £77.13 £73.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £31.64 £38.50
% change year-on-year +31.83% -17.82% -32.40%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 26 May 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 +93 518 £525 +0.96% 151
London +80 302 £520 -13.33% 72
UK excluding London +19 243 £525 +11.94% 85
Work from Home +45 167 £525 -4.55% 64
Midlands -12 63 £575 +437.38% 15
West Midlands -14 61 £578 +440.19% 7
North of England -48 52 £523 +1.95% 24
Scotland +39 48 £475 - 1
South East -39 47 £513 +7.33% 24
East of England -19 29 £663 +106.14% 10
North West -29 26 £575 +5.50% 8
Yorkshire -35 24 £571 +52.27% 12
South West -27 9 £563 -4.21% 9
North East -22 5 £419 -9.46% 4
Wales -14 3 £750 +234.35% 3
East Midlands - 2 £474 - 8

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 34 (5.54%) Apache Spark
2 33 (5.37%) SharePoint
3 24 (3.91%) Apache Airflow
4 20 (3.26%) SAS
5 19 (3.09%) Confluence
6 15 (2.44%) Apache
7 8 (1.30%) CMS
8 4 (0.65%) ArcGIS
9 2 (0.33%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.33%) Alfresco
9 2 (0.33%) GeoServer
9 2 (0.33%) Headless CMS
9 2 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.33%) Smallworld
10 1 (0.16%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.16%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.16%) Drupal
10 1 (0.16%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.16%) SharePoint 2013
10 1 (0.16%) WordPress
Applications
1 24 (3.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.79%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.14%) Navisworks
3 7 (1.14%) Notepad++
3 7 (1.14%) Revit
4 4 (0.65%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.33%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Office
6 2 (0.33%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 11 (1.79%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (0.98%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (0.98%) Summit
3 2 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.16%) Adobe Campaign
4 1 (0.16%) Loan IQ
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle General Ledger
4 1 (0.16%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 178 (28.99%) Azure
2 127 (20.68%) AWS
3 84 (13.68%) Power Platform
4 66 (10.75%) GCP
5 51 (8.31%) Collibra
6 42 (6.84%) Microsoft Purview
7 41 (6.68%) Azure Data Factory
8 37 (6.03%) GitHub
9 32 (5.21%) Amazon S3
9 32 (5.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 31 (5.05%) Serverless
11 27 (4.40%) Azure DevOps
12 26 (4.23%) AWS Lambda
12 26 (4.23%) dbt
13 23 (3.75%) Snowflake
14 14 (2.28%) Entra ID
14 14 (2.28%) Microsoft 365
15 13 (2.12%) ChatGPT
16 12 (1.95%) Amazon EMR
16 12 (1.95%) ShareGate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.14%) PuTTY
1 7 (1.14%) WinSCP
2 5 (0.81%) Intranet
3 4 (0.65%) Firewall
3 4 (0.65%) SSL
4 3 (0.49%) HTTP
5 1 (0.16%) 4G
5 1 (0.16%) 5G
5 1 (0.16%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 113 (18.40%) Data Warehouse
2 78 (12.70%) Data Lake
3 75 (12.21%) Power BI
4 36 (5.86%) Relational Database
5 35 (5.70%) Metadata Repository
6 32 (5.21%) Data Vault
7 27 (4.40%) NoSQL
7 27 (4.40%) SQL Server
7 27 (4.40%) Tableau
8 23 (3.75%) Delta Lake
9 21 (3.42%) Big Data
9 21 (3.42%) Snowflake Schema
10 20 (3.26%) PostgreSQL
11 18 (2.93%) Amazon Redshift
12 16 (2.61%) Oracle Database
13 15 (2.44%) Amazon Athena
13 15 (2.44%) Hadoop
14 14 (2.28%) DB2
15 13 (2.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 12 (1.95%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 37 (6.03%) ERwin
2 27 (4.40%) Git
3 20 (3.26%) JIRA
4 17 (2.77%) ER Studio
5 15 (2.44%) PowerDesigner
6 13 (2.12%) Jenkins
7 12 (1.95%) GitLab
8 9 (1.47%) Maven
9 8 (1.30%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.49%) Bitbucket
11 2 (0.33%) Artifactory
11 2 (0.33%) git-flow
11 2 (0.33%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 1 (0.16%) gulp
12 1 (0.16%) ScriptRunner
12 1 (0.16%) Selenium
12 1 (0.16%) Sonatype Nexus
12 1 (0.16%) Team Foundation Server
12 1 (0.16%) VersionOne
12 1 (0.16%) Yeoman
General
1 176 (28.66%) Finance
1 176 (28.66%) Social Skills
2 120 (19.54%) Analytical Skills
3 84 (13.68%) Banking
4 71 (11.56%) Public Sector
5 36 (5.86%) Documentation Skills
6 32 (5.21%) Investment Banking
7 18 (2.93%) Legal
8 16 (2.61%) Influencing Skills
9 13 (2.12%) Publishing
10 12 (1.95%) Front Office
10 12 (1.95%) Marketing
11 11 (1.79%) Presentation Skills
12 10 (1.63%) Aviation
12 10 (1.63%) Retail
13 7 (1.14%) Military
14 6 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 6 (0.98%) Law
15 5 (0.81%) Financial Institution
16 4 (0.65%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 139 (22.64%) Architect
2 99 (16.12%) Data Architect
3 96 (15.64%) Data Engineer
4 84 (13.68%) Analyst
5 57 (9.28%) Data Analyst
6 56 (9.12%) Lead
7 48 (7.82%) Senior
8 44 (7.17%) Data Modeller
9 43 (7.00%) Developer
10 31 (5.05%) Business Analyst
11 25 (4.07%) Consultant
12 20 (3.26%) Data Manager
13 18 (2.93%) Data Business Analyst
14 14 (2.28%) DevOps Engineer
14 14 (2.28%) Senior Data Engineer
14 14 (2.28%) Software Engineer
15 13 (2.12%) AWS Engineer
16 12 (1.95%) Governance Analyst
17 11 (1.79%) Azure Engineer
17 11 (1.79%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (7.33%) PySpark
2 28 (4.56%) Kafka
3 24 (3.91%) JSON
3 24 (3.91%) REST
4 17 (2.77%) .NET
5 16 (2.61%) YAML
6 11 (1.79%) OAuth
6 11 (1.79%) React
7 10 (1.63%) Node.js
7 10 (1.63%) SOAP
7 10 (1.63%) XML
8 9 (1.47%) Middleware
9 8 (1.30%) SLSA
10 7 (1.14%) ADO
10 7 (1.14%) OAuth2
10 7 (1.14%) RESTful
11 5 (0.81%) Pandas
11 5 (0.81%) Playwright
11 5 (0.81%) SAML
12 4 (0.65%) SPFx
Miscellaneous
1 58 (9.45%) Cloud Native
2 45 (7.33%) Onboarding
3 41 (6.68%) Management Information System
4 40 (6.51%) Data Structures
5 37 (6.03%) Reference Data
6 34 (5.54%) Product Ownership
7 33 (5.37%) Taxonomies
8 30 (4.89%) Legacy Systems
9 20 (3.26%) Derivative
10 18 (2.93%) Data Protection Act
11 12 (1.95%) Credit Risk
11 12 (1.95%) Equity Derivative
11 12 (1.95%) Virtual Team
12 11 (1.79%) Self-Motivation
13 10 (1.63%) Distributed Computing
14 9 (1.47%) Fixed Income
15 8 (1.30%) Clustering
15 8 (1.30%) Distributed Systems
15 8 (1.30%) Linux Command Line
15 8 (1.30%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 19 (3.09%) Unix
2 7 (1.14%) Linux
3 1 (0.16%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 307 (50.00%) Data Governance
2 286 (46.58%) Data Modelling
3 218 (35.50%) Metadata Management
4 209 (34.04%) Analytics
5 160 (26.06%) ETL
6 151 (24.59%) Data Architecture
7 141 (22.96%) AI
8 130 (21.17%) Data Pipeline
9 125 (20.36%) Data Engineering
10 124 (20.20%) CI/CD
11 116 (18.89%) Migration
12 113 (18.40%) Agile
13 110 (17.92%) Data Lineage
13 110 (17.92%) Problem-Solving
14 105 (17.10%) Stakeholder Management
15 104 (16.94%) Business Intelligence
16 95 (15.47%) Data Management
17 94 (15.31%) Decision-Making
17 94 (15.31%) DevOps
18 88 (14.33%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 250 (40.72%) SQL
2 162 (26.38%) Python
3 44 (7.17%) Java
4 27 (4.40%) C#
5 26 (4.23%) PL/SQL
6 14 (2.28%) PowerShell
7 13 (2.12%) Shell Script
8 11 (1.79%) JavaScript
9 10 (1.63%) Perl
10 9 (1.47%) C++
10 9 (1.47%) Groovy
11 8 (1.30%) T-SQL
12 7 (1.14%) TypeScript
13 6 (0.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 5 (0.81%) Apex Code
15 4 (0.65%) Bash
15 4 (0.65%) Bicep
15 4 (0.65%) Scala
16 3 (0.49%) R
17 2 (0.33%) VBA
Qualifications
1 133 (21.66%) Security Cleared
2 98 (15.96%) SC Cleared
3 42 (6.84%) Degree
4 22 (3.58%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (2.12%) Master's Degree
7 10 (1.63%) Azure Certification
8 9 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
8 9 (1.47%) TOGAF Certification
9 8 (1.30%) DV Cleared
10 4 (0.65%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.33%) Analytics IQ
11 2 (0.33%) CISM
11 2 (0.33%) CISSP
11 2 (0.33%) CompTIA Security+
11 2 (0.33%) PMI Certification
12 1 (0.16%) CBAP
12 1 (0.16%) CSPO
12 1 (0.16%) DBS Check
12 1 (0.16%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 250 (40.72%) Data Quality
2 58 (9.45%) GDPR
3 34 (5.54%) QA
4 20 (3.26%) Accessibility
5 12 (1.95%) GRC
6 7 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.14%) Solvency II
7 6 (0.98%) ISO 19650
7 6 (0.98%) NIST
8 4 (0.65%) ISO 22301
8 4 (0.65%) MiFID
9 3 (0.49%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.49%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.49%) ISO 31000
10 2 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.33%) IFRS
10 2 (0.33%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.33%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.16%) IFRS 17
11 1 (0.16%) ISO/IEC 42001
System Software
1 13 (2.12%) Docker
2 8 (1.30%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 25 (4.07%) Terraform
2 11 (1.79%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.30%) Grafana
4 6 (0.98%) Prometheus
4 6 (0.98%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.81%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (0.65%) CA Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.65%) PingFederate
7 1 (0.16%) Ansible
7 1 (0.16%) Kibana
Vendors
1 112 (18.24%) Microsoft
2 86 (14.01%) Databricks
3 61 (9.93%) Oracle
4 42 (6.84%) Informatica
5 21 (3.42%) Salesforce
6 20 (3.26%) Google
7 18 (2.93%) Talend
8 15 (2.44%) SAP
8 15 (2.44%) ServiceNow
9 13 (2.12%) Autodesk
10 11 (1.79%) Sparx
10 11 (1.79%) Sybase
11 10 (1.63%) IBM
12 8 (1.30%) Sonatype
13 7 (1.14%) OpenAI
13 7 (1.14%) Teradata
14 5 (0.81%) Adobe
14 5 (0.81%) Denodo
15 4 (0.65%) Hortonworks
15 4 (0.65%) Ping Identity