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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 184 283 372
Rank change year-on-year +99 +89 -2
Contract jobs citing Metadata 851 308 193
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.55% 0.93% 0.50%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 10.31% 5.11% 2.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 543 211 123
10th Percentile £400 £388 £400
25th Percentile £460 £463 £464
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year - +3.77% -7.83%
75th Percentile £653 £638 £725
90th Percentile £755 £738 £868
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 5 5
10th Percentile £19.28 - £20.08
25th Percentile £58.94 £13.25 £21.25
Median hourly rate £67.50 £30.50 £39.50
Median % change year-on-year +121.31% -22.78% -14.30%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.50 £48.18
90th Percentile £70.15 £78.30 -
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 8,254 6,022 6,866
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.04% 18.25% 17.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,512 4,040 4,691
10th Percentile £355 £340 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £532
Median % change year-on-year - -6.02% -1.48%
75th Percentile £615 £625 £650
90th Percentile £710 £738 £800
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £485
% change year-on-year - -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 87 91
10th Percentile £16.70 £21.13 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.00 £29.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £40.18 £40.49 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.77% +15.69% -36.36%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £60.78
90th Percentile £74.97 £83.00 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.00 £37.48 £30.00
% change year-on-year +9.39% +24.93% -45.21%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 +78 725 £550 - 737
London +45 407 £550 - 418
UK excluding London +79 346 £550 +15.79% 403
Work from Home +55 233 £550 -8.33% 308
North of England +17 96 £500 -4.76% 91
Midlands +10 77 £610 +48.78% 52
West Midlands +15 70 £626 +108.67% 34
Yorkshire +16 60 £500 -5.88% 34
South East -32 59 £575 +24.32% 97
Scotland +9 51 £525 +10.53% 54
South West -11 34 £575 - 57
East of England -9 33 £463 -15.91% 31
North West -34 31 £625 +31.93% 48
North East - 8 £463 - 9
East Midlands -10 7 £494 +18.98% 18
Wales -18 4 £750 +7.14% 2

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 (5.41%) SharePoint
2 42 (4.94%) Apache Airflow
3 33 (3.88%) Apache
4 26 (3.06%) CMS
5 24 (2.82%) Apache Spark
5 24 (2.82%) Confluence
6 18 (2.12%) SAS
7 12 (1.41%) Headless CMS
8 9 (1.06%) Microsoft Exchange
9 5 (0.59%) Palantir Foundry
10 4 (0.47%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.24%) Alfresco
11 2 (0.24%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
12 1 (0.12%) Camunda
12 1 (0.12%) JBoss
12 1 (0.12%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.12%) Liferay
12 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 17 (2.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (1.18%) MS Visio
3 7 (0.82%) Navisworks
3 7 (0.82%) Notepad++
3 7 (0.82%) Revit
4 4 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.12%) Gliffy
6 1 (0.12%) Notion
6 1 (0.12%) ProjectWise
6 1 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 19 (2.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (0.71%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.35%) Maximo
3 3 (0.35%) 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 Payables
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.12%) Summit
5 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 256 (30.08%) Azure
2 199 (23.38%) AWS
3 112 (13.16%) Power Platform
4 109 (12.81%) GCP
5 80 (9.40%) Microsoft Purview
6 72 (8.46%) Collibra
7 52 (6.11%) Azure Data Factory
8 48 (5.64%) Snowflake
9 45 (5.29%) dbt
10 44 (5.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 40 (4.70%) Amazon S3
11 40 (4.70%) GitHub
12 37 (4.35%) Azure DevOps
13 32 (3.76%) Serverless
14 30 (3.53%) AWS Lambda
14 30 (3.53%) Microsoft 365
15 28 (3.29%) Azure Databricks
16 23 (2.70%) Entra ID
17 22 (2.59%) Microsoft Copilot
18 21 (2.47%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (0.82%) PuTTY
1 7 (0.82%) WinSCP
2 5 (0.59%) Broadband
3 4 (0.47%) HTTP
3 4 (0.47%) Intranet
3 4 (0.47%) SSL
4 3 (0.35%) DNS
4 3 (0.35%) Firewall
4 3 (0.35%) 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%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.12%) SMS
6 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.12%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (14.81%) Data Warehouse
2 98 (11.52%) Data Lake
2 98 (11.52%) Power BI
3 40 (4.70%) BigQuery
4 37 (4.35%) Relational Database
5 36 (4.23%) NoSQL
6 34 (4.00%) Delta Lake
7 33 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
8 28 (3.29%) Semantic Layer
9 25 (2.94%) Data Vault
10 23 (2.70%) Tableau
11 20 (2.35%) Amazon Redshift
12 18 (2.12%) Elasticsearch
13 17 (2.00%) SQL Server
14 15 (1.76%) Neo4j
14 15 (1.76%) Parquet
15 13 (1.53%) Db2
15 13 (1.53%) Metadata Repository
16 12 (1.41%) Big Data
16 12 (1.41%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 43 (5.05%) Git
2 33 (3.88%) ERwin
3 29 (3.41%) JIRA
4 24 (2.82%) ER Studio
5 15 (1.76%) Jenkins
6 14 (1.65%) Maven
7 11 (1.29%) PowerDesigner
8 10 (1.18%) GitLab
8 10 (1.18%) SonarQube
9 5 (0.59%) Selenium
10 4 (0.47%) 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
1 249 (29.26%) Social Skills
2 207 (24.32%) Finance
3 158 (18.57%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (13.28%) Public Sector
5 103 (12.10%) Banking
6 41 (4.82%) Influencing Skills
7 35 (4.11%) Investment Banking
8 27 (3.17%) Publishing
9 25 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (2.94%) Retail
10 23 (2.70%) Legal
11 22 (2.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 20 (2.35%) Marketing
13 15 (1.76%) Aerospace
13 15 (1.76%) Manufacturing
13 15 (1.76%) Presentation Skills
14 12 (1.41%) Military
15 11 (1.29%) Front Office
16 10 (1.18%) Law
17 8 (0.94%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 238 (27.97%) Architect
2 172 (20.21%) Data Architect
3 132 (15.51%) Data Engineer
4 111 (13.04%) Lead
5 89 (10.46%) Analyst
6 82 (9.64%) Senior
7 49 (5.76%) Data Analyst
8 43 (5.05%) Data Modeller
9 39 (4.58%) Business Analyst
10 33 (3.88%) Developer
11 30 (3.53%) Senior Data Engineer
12 27 (3.17%) Consultant
13 24 (2.82%) Data Business Analyst
13 24 (2.82%) Solutions Architect
14 23 (2.70%) Enterprise Architect
14 23 (2.70%) Lead Data Engineer
15 22 (2.59%) Data Manager
16 20 (2.35%) Product Owner
17 19 (2.23%) Enterprise Data Architect
18 16 (1.88%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 56 (6.58%) PySpark
2 47 (5.52%) JSON
2 47 (5.52%) Terraform
3 42 (4.94%) REST
4 33 (3.88%) Kafka
5 23 (2.70%) YAML
6 15 (1.76%) Spring Boot
7 11 (1.29%) FastAPI
7 11 (1.29%) Node.js
7 11 (1.29%) React
7 11 (1.29%) XML
8 10 (1.18%) SLSA
8 10 (1.18%) Spring
9 9 (1.06%) .NET
9 9 (1.06%) GraphQL
9 9 (1.06%) OAuth
10 8 (0.94%) JDBC
10 8 (0.94%) OAuth2
10 8 (0.94%) pydantic
10 8 (0.94%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 81 (9.52%) Cloud Native
2 78 (9.17%) Onboarding
3 75 (8.81%) Taxonomies
4 67 (7.87%) Data Structures
5 62 (7.29%) Management Information System
6 60 (7.05%) Product Ownership
7 46 (5.41%) Legacy Systems
8 43 (5.05%) Reference Data
9 23 (2.70%) Data Fabric
10 19 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
11 18 (2.12%) AI Agents
12 15 (1.76%) Derivative
13 13 (1.53%) Distributed Computing
13 13 (1.53%) Life Science
14 12 (1.41%) Clustering
14 12 (1.41%) Enterprise Software
15 11 (1.29%) CMDB
15 11 (1.29%) Equity Derivative
16 10 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
16 10 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 12 (1.41%) Linux
1 12 (1.41%) 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
1 466 (54.76%) Data Governance
2 407 (47.83%) Data Modelling
3 329 (38.66%) Metadata Management
4 276 (32.43%) Analytics
5 250 (29.38%) Data Architecture
6 242 (28.44%) AI
7 232 (27.26%) Stakeholder Management
8 214 (25.15%) Agile
9 188 (22.09%) Data Pipeline
10 183 (21.50%) Data Engineering
10 183 (21.50%) Migration
11 181 (21.27%) CI/CD
12 172 (20.21%) ETL
13 167 (19.62%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 160 (18.80%) Roadmaps
15 151 (17.74%) Data Lineage
15 151 (17.74%) Data Management
16 137 (16.10%) Validation
17 132 (15.51%) Business Intelligence
17 132 (15.51%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 292 (34.31%) SQL
2 220 (25.85%) Python
3 63 (7.40%) Java
4 19 (2.23%) PL/SQL
5 16 (1.88%) PowerShell
6 14 (1.65%) Groovy
7 13 (1.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 12 (1.41%) C#
8 12 (1.41%) Shell Script
9 11 (1.29%) JavaScript
10 10 (1.18%) Bash
11 8 (0.94%) C++
12 7 (0.82%) Bicep
12 7 (0.82%) SPARQL
13 6 (0.71%) Scala
13 6 (0.71%) TypeScript
14 4 (0.47%) Apex Code
14 4 (0.47%) Cypher
14 4 (0.47%) Perl
14 4 (0.47%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 208 (24.44%) Security Cleared
2 159 (18.68%) SC Cleared
3 55 (6.46%) Degree
4 45 (5.29%) BPSS Clearance
5 24 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
5 24 (2.82%) DV Cleared
6 12 (1.41%) Azure Certification
6 12 (1.41%) TOGAF Certification
7 9 (1.06%) AWS Certification
8 8 (0.94%) Master's Degree
9 7 (0.82%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (0.82%) PRINCE2 Certification
10 5 (0.59%) CISSP
11 4 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.47%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.35%) CompTIA Security+
13 2 (0.24%) ACCA
13 2 (0.24%) CIMA
13 2 (0.24%) CISM
13 2 (0.24%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 407 (47.83%) Data Quality
2 67 (7.87%) GDPR
3 45 (5.29%) Accessibility
4 41 (4.82%) QA
5 8 (0.94%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 8 (0.94%) WCAG
6 7 (0.82%) NCSC
7 6 (0.71%) ISO 19650
7 6 (0.71%) MiFID
8 5 (0.59%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
9 4 (0.47%) GRC
9 4 (0.47%) NIST
9 4 (0.47%) SNOMED CT
10 3 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 42001
11 2 (0.24%) IFRS
11 2 (0.24%) IFRS 9
11 2 (0.24%) SLA
11 2 (0.24%) Solvency II
System Software
1 25 (2.94%) Docker
2 10 (1.18%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.24%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 27 (3.17%) Kubernetes
2 12 (1.41%) Single Sign-On
3 10 (1.18%) Grafana
4 7 (0.82%) Prometheus
5 6 (0.71%) Ansible
6 4 (0.47%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 4 (0.47%) CA Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.47%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.35%) Control-M
8 2 (0.24%) Kibana
8 2 (0.24%) systemd
9 1 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
9 1 (0.12%) Istio
Vendors
1 163 (19.15%) Microsoft
2 145 (17.04%) Databricks
3 59 (6.93%) Informatica
4 45 (5.29%) Google
5 42 (4.94%) Oracle
6 19 (2.23%) Sparx
7 17 (2.00%) SAP
8 16 (1.88%) ServiceNow
9 15 (1.76%) IBM
10 14 (1.65%) Talend
11 13 (1.53%) Autodesk
11 13 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 11 (1.29%) Denodo
12 11 (1.29%) Teradata
13 10 (1.18%) Sonatype
13 10 (1.18%) Sybase
14 9 (1.06%) Palantir
15 8 (0.94%) Foundry
16 7 (0.82%) Aspera
16 7 (0.82%) Signiant