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

6 months to
10 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 242 346 298
Rank change year-on-year +104 -48 +37
Contract jobs citing Metadata 408 189 322
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.11% 0.59% 0.75%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 6.56% 3.26% 4.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 281 127 227
10th Percentile £388 £330 £398
25th Percentile £436 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £680
90th Percentile £688 £796 £747
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £488 £575
% change year-on-year +1.25% -15.22% +10.58%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 6 21
10th Percentile £48.60 £21.01 £14.00
25th Percentile £70.13 £22.72 £20.50
Median hourly rate £80.50 £32.47 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +147.96% -29.70% +10.61%
75th Percentile £84.00 £71.88 £49.08
90th Percentile £84.40 £82.25 £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £82.25 £25.43 £46.18
% change year-on-year +223.44% -44.93% -26.11%

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 6,219 5,802 7,096
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.99% 18.19% 16.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,285 3,823 5,013
10th Percentile £328 £350 £350
25th Percentile £410 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £534
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £756 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 76 147
10th Percentile £19.60 £19.71 £16.12
25th Percentile £29.00 £24.25 £22.61
Median hourly rate £48.72 £35.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +39.20% -24.21% -16.04%
75th Percentile £73.13 £64.73 £64.50
90th Percentile £85.00 £69.88 £77.70
UK excluding London median hourly rate £57.50 £28.75 £46.18
% change year-on-year +100.00% -37.74% -7.69%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +99 353 £525 - 196
London +96 218 £531 -3.41% 58
UK excluding London +4 144 £494 +1.25% 180
Work from Home +42 110 £525 +0.96% 74
South East -8 33 £500 -6.98% 66
Midlands -17 32 £509 +35.60% 22
North of England -35 24 £475 -12.84% 35
West Midlands -21 22 £560 +49.33% 11
Scotland +9 21 £465 -32.12% 11
East of England -10 20 £500 +57.23% 22
North West -25 15 £448 -17.89% 12
South West -17 12 £568 +16.41% 19
East Midlands - 10 £425 - 11
Wales +3 8 £700 +229.21% 6
Yorkshire -43 8 £500 +25.00% 16
North East -8 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 32 (7.84%) SharePoint
2 28 (6.86%) Apache Spark
3 17 (4.17%) Confluence
4 15 (3.68%) CMS
4 15 (3.68%) SAS
5 14 (3.43%) Apache
6 7 (1.72%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (1.72%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (1.72%) Sitecore CMS
7 6 (1.47%) Drupal
8 5 (1.23%) GeoServer
8 5 (1.23%) Smallworld
9 4 (0.98%) ArcGIS
10 3 (0.74%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.25%) Alfresco
12 1 (0.25%) Documentum
12 1 (0.25%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
12 1 (0.25%) Umbraco
Applications
1 25 (6.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.21%) MS Visio
3 8 (1.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.98%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.49%) ProjectWise
6 1 (0.25%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.25%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.25%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.25%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 14 (3.43%) SAP S/4HANA
1 14 (3.43%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (1.47%) OpenText VIM for SAP
2 6 (1.47%) SAP FI
2 6 (1.47%) SAP MM
3 3 (0.74%) Actimize
3 3 (0.74%) Maximo
4 2 (0.49%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 2 (0.49%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.25%) Hyperion Planning
5 1 (0.25%) Misys Midas
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) Primavera
5 1 (0.25%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 126 (30.88%) Azure
2 92 (22.55%) AWS
3 71 (17.40%) Power Platform
4 46 (11.27%) GCP
5 40 (9.80%) Collibra
6 36 (8.82%) Azure Data Factory
7 35 (8.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 35 (8.58%) Microsoft Purview
8 27 (6.62%) Snowflake
9 20 (4.90%) Microsoft 365
10 18 (4.41%) Serverless
11 15 (3.68%) Amazon S3
12 13 (3.19%) AWS Lambda
12 13 (3.19%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (2.70%) dbt
13 11 (2.70%) GitHub
14 10 (2.45%) PowerApps
15 7 (1.72%) Contentful
15 7 (1.72%) Entra ID
15 7 (1.72%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.74%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.49%) Hyperconnected
2 2 (0.49%) Intranet
3 1 (0.25%) Firewall
3 1 (0.25%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (17.89%) Data Warehouse
2 60 (14.71%) Power BI
3 49 (12.01%) Data Lake
4 26 (6.37%) Metadata Repository
5 22 (5.39%) NoSQL
6 20 (4.90%) Big Data
6 20 (4.90%) Relational Database
7 18 (4.41%) Data Vault
7 18 (4.41%) SQL Server
8 17 (4.17%) Snowflake Schema
9 16 (3.92%) Azure SQL Database
9 16 (3.92%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 15 (3.68%) PostgreSQL
10 15 (3.68%) Tableau
11 14 (3.43%) Amazon Redshift
12 13 (3.19%) BigQuery
13 11 (2.70%) Spark SQL
14 10 (2.45%) Star Schema
15 9 (2.21%) Delta Lake
15 9 (2.21%) Geospatial Data
Development Applications
1 23 (5.64%) JIRA
2 21 (5.15%) ERwin
3 19 (4.66%) Git
4 10 (2.45%) ER Studio
4 10 (2.45%) PowerDesigner
5 3 (0.74%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.49%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.49%) Subversion
6 2 (0.49%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.25%) GitLab
7 1 (0.25%) gulp
7 1 (0.25%) Poetry
7 1 (0.25%) Pylint
7 1 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.25%) Yeoman
General
1 155 (37.99%) Social Skills
2 104 (25.49%) Finance
3 80 (19.61%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (13.97%) Public Sector
5 33 (8.09%) Banking
6 30 (7.35%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (4.41%) Publishing
8 12 (2.94%) Retail
9 11 (2.70%) Influencing Skills
9 11 (2.70%) Legal
10 10 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (1.96%) Military
12 7 (1.72%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.72%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.47%) Aviation
13 6 (1.47%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.23%) Law
14 5 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (1.23%) Welsh Language
Job Titles
1 87 (21.32%) Architect
2 68 (16.67%) Analyst
3 62 (15.20%) Data Architect
4 46 (11.27%) Data Analyst
4 46 (11.27%) Data Engineer
5 31 (7.60%) Data Modeller
6 30 (7.35%) Lead
7 27 (6.62%) Developer
8 25 (6.13%) Consultant
9 22 (5.39%) Senior
10 21 (5.15%) Business Analyst
11 15 (3.68%) Azure Engineer
12 14 (3.43%) Governance Analyst
13 11 (2.70%) Azure Data Engineer
13 11 (2.70%) Data Business Analyst
14 10 (2.45%) Software Engineer
15 9 (2.21%) Data Quality Analyst
15 9 (2.21%) Quality Analyst
15 9 (2.21%) SAP Consultant
16 8 (1.96%) Data Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (8.33%) PySpark
2 24 (5.88%) Kafka
3 21 (5.15%) REST
4 11 (2.70%) JSON
5 9 (2.21%) React
5 9 (2.21%) XML
6 6 (1.47%) .NET
6 6 (1.47%) OAuth
6 6 (1.47%) RESTful
6 6 (1.47%) SAP Basis
6 6 (1.47%) SAP Business Workflow
6 6 (1.47%) SAP Fiori
6 6 (1.47%) SOAP
6 6 (1.47%) VML
7 5 (1.23%) HTML
7 5 (1.23%) Pandas
7 5 (1.23%) YAML
8 4 (0.98%) LDAP
8 4 (0.98%) Node.js
8 4 (0.98%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 30 (7.35%) Data Structures
2 25 (6.13%) Cloud Native
3 24 (5.88%) Management Information System
4 22 (5.39%) Taxonomies
5 19 (4.66%) Legacy Systems
6 18 (4.41%) Reference Data
7 17 (4.17%) Onboarding
8 14 (3.43%) Product Ownership
9 11 (2.70%) Distributed Computing
10 8 (1.96%) Analytical Mindset
11 7 (1.72%) Data Fabric
12 6 (1.47%) Low-Code
13 5 (1.23%) Data Protection Act
14 4 (0.98%) Genomics
14 4 (0.98%) Greenfield Project
14 4 (0.98%) Hybrid Cloud
14 4 (0.98%) Omics
14 4 (0.98%) Replication
15 3 (0.74%) Data Centre
15 3 (0.74%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.23%) Unix
2 4 (0.98%) Linux
3 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 211 (51.72%) Data Governance
2 200 (49.02%) Data Modelling
3 197 (48.28%) Metadata Management
4 139 (34.07%) Analytics
5 105 (25.74%) Data Architecture
6 100 (24.51%) ETL
7 96 (23.53%) Business Intelligence
8 78 (19.12%) Agile
8 78 (19.12%) Data Lineage
9 76 (18.63%) Problem-Solving
10 75 (18.38%) Data Pipeline
11 73 (17.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 71 (17.40%) Data Engineering
13 64 (15.69%) Validation
14 62 (15.20%) Data Management
15 59 (14.46%) Stakeholder Management
16 58 (14.22%) AI
17 55 (13.48%) Migration
18 54 (13.24%) Data Integration
19 50 (12.25%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 140 (34.31%) SQL
2 99 (24.26%) Python
3 22 (5.39%) Java
3 22 (5.39%) PowerShell
4 13 (3.19%) C#
5 8 (1.96%) JavaScript
5 8 (1.96%) T-SQL
6 7 (1.72%) Scala
7 6 (1.47%) ABAP
7 6 (1.47%) Perl
7 6 (1.47%) PL/SQL
7 6 (1.47%) R
8 5 (1.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (0.98%) C++
9 4 (0.98%) Shell Script
10 3 (0.74%) Apex Code
10 3 (0.74%) Bicep
10 3 (0.74%) SOQL
10 3 (0.74%) SOSL
10 3 (0.74%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 90 (22.06%) Security Cleared
2 64 (15.69%) SC Cleared
3 23 (5.64%) Degree
4 14 (3.43%) BPSS Clearance
5 7 (1.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
6 6 (1.47%) Azure Certification
7 5 (1.23%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.98%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.98%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.49%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.49%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 2 (0.49%) TOGAF Certification
10 1 (0.25%) CSPO
10 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.25%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
10 1 (0.25%) MySQL Certification
10 1 (0.25%) PMI Certification
10 1 (0.25%) PMP
10 1 (0.25%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 179 (43.87%) Data Quality
2 44 (10.78%) GDPR
3 17 (4.17%) QA
4 15 (3.68%) Accessibility
5 6 (1.47%) IFRS
5 6 (1.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.23%) Solvency II
7 4 (0.98%) MiFID
8 3 (0.74%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.74%) GRC
8 3 (0.74%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.49%) CRD IV
9 2 (0.49%) FINREP
9 2 (0.49%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.49%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.49%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.49%) NIST
10 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 11 (2.70%) Docker
2 5 (1.23%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.74%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 15 (3.68%) Kubernetes
1 15 (3.68%) Terraform
2 4 (0.98%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (0.74%) Hadoop YARN
3 3 (0.74%) Oozie
3 3 (0.74%) SCCM
4 1 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 85 (20.83%) Microsoft
2 57 (13.97%) Databricks
3 33 (8.09%) Informatica
3 33 (8.09%) Oracle
4 19 (4.66%) SAP
4 19 (4.66%) ServiceNow
5 14 (3.43%) Sparx
6 11 (2.70%) OpenText
7 9 (2.21%) Google
7 9 (2.21%) Salesforce
7 9 (2.21%) Talend
8 8 (1.96%) Teradata
9 7 (1.72%) Sitecore
10 6 (1.47%) ESRI
10 6 (1.47%) IBM
10 6 (1.47%) Optimizely
11 5 (1.23%) Alteryx
11 5 (1.23%) Intergraph
11 5 (1.23%) Palantir
12 4 (0.98%) Atlassian