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 3 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 195 329 293
Rank change year-on-year +134 -36 +26
Contract jobs citing Metadata 591 198 323
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.32% 0.68% 0.73%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 8.26% 3.59% 4.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 413 146 219
10th Percentile £357 £236 £385
25th Percentile £415 £411 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £575
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -12.61% +4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £750
90th Percentile £700 £775 £925
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £465 £575
% change year-on-year +7.53% -19.13% +15.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 7 25
10th Percentile £35.91 £22.63 £13.70
25th Percentile £56.98 £22.72 £20.49
Median hourly rate £69.22 £27.50 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +151.71% -31.68% +15.00%
75th Percentile £82.69 £56.13 £46.18
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.25 £47.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £27.50 £43.22
% change year-on-year +151.71% -36.36% +19.21%

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 7,155 5,513 7,276
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.95% 18.96% 16.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,928 3,825 5,148
10th Percentile £350 £351 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £488 £488
% change year-on-year -2.56% - -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 160 100 156
10th Percentile £18.23 £20.72 £14.00
25th Percentile £30.90 £24.25 £20.81
Median hourly rate £51.00 £32.23 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +58.26% -19.44% -33.33%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £53.84
90th Percentile £84.00 £76.38 £72.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £28.78 £38.50
% change year-on-year +73.73% -25.25% -30.00%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 +110 503 £500 -2.20% 208
London +96 289 £500 -20.00% 89
UK excluding London +30 233 £500 +7.53% 159
Work from Home +48 159 £525 +0.24% 63
Midlands -17 59 £551 +415.19% 15
West Midlands -23 52 £561 +423.83% 6
North of England -46 47 £475 -7.32% 30
South East -26 45 £506 +6.02% 60
Scotland +43 41 £449 -15.22% 7
East of England -17 30 £489 +53.62% 27
North West -39 24 £500 -8.26% 11
Yorkshire -43 21 £544 +45.00% 15
South West -16 17 £569 +16.67% 14
East Midlands - 7 £447 - 9
North East -14 5 £419 -22.94% 4
Wales -14 2 £750 +217.80% 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 42 (7.11%) Apache Spark
2 34 (5.75%) SharePoint
3 26 (4.40%) SAS
4 25 (4.23%) Confluence
5 20 (3.38%) Apache Airflow
6 16 (2.71%) Apache
7 13 (2.20%) CMS
8 7 (1.18%) Drupal
8 7 (1.18%) Sitecore CMS
9 5 (0.85%) ArcGIS
10 4 (0.68%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.34%) Alfresco
11 2 (0.34%) GeoServer
11 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
11 2 (0.34%) Smallworld
12 1 (0.17%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.17%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.17%) Jupyter
12 1 (0.17%) WordPress
Applications
1 32 (5.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.03%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.68%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.68%) Notepad++
5 3 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.34%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.34%) Microsoft Office
7 1 (0.17%) Navisworks
7 1 (0.17%) Revit
Business Applications
1 17 (2.88%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 13 (2.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (1.02%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 6 (1.02%) SAP FI
3 6 (1.02%) SAP MM
4 5 (0.85%) Summit
5 3 (0.51%) Actimize
5 3 (0.51%) Maximo
6 2 (0.34%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.17%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.17%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.17%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.17%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.17%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 182 (30.80%) Azure
2 137 (23.18%) AWS
3 95 (16.07%) Power Platform
4 74 (12.52%) GCP
5 60 (10.15%) Collibra
6 47 (7.95%) Azure Data Factory
6 47 (7.95%) Microsoft Purview
7 34 (5.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 32 (5.41%) Serverless
9 31 (5.25%) Amazon S3
10 30 (5.08%) Snowflake
11 27 (4.57%) GitHub
12 26 (4.40%) AWS Lambda
13 23 (3.89%) dbt
14 22 (3.72%) Azure DevOps
15 18 (3.05%) Microsoft 365
16 12 (2.03%) Amazon EMR
17 9 (1.52%) Entra ID
17 9 (1.52%) Power Automate
18 8 (1.35%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (0.68%) PuTTY
1 4 (0.68%) SSL
1 4 (0.68%) WinSCP
2 3 (0.51%) Firewall
2 3 (0.51%) Intranet
3 2 (0.34%) Hyperconnected
4 1 (0.17%) 4G
4 1 (0.17%) 5G
4 1 (0.17%) HTTP
4 1 (0.17%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 126 (21.32%) Data Warehouse
2 87 (14.72%) Power BI
3 70 (11.84%) Data Lake
4 39 (6.60%) Metadata Repository
5 31 (5.25%) SQL Server
5 31 (5.25%) Tableau
6 28 (4.74%) Big Data
7 27 (4.57%) NoSQL
8 24 (4.06%) Relational Database
9 23 (3.89%) PostgreSQL
10 22 (3.72%) Data Vault
10 22 (3.72%) Snowflake Schema
11 20 (3.38%) Amazon Redshift
12 19 (3.21%) Oracle Database
12 19 (3.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 18 (3.05%) Hadoop
14 17 (2.88%) Delta Lake
15 16 (2.71%) Azure SQL Database
15 16 (2.71%) BigQuery
16 13 (2.20%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 30 (5.08%) Git
2 27 (4.57%) ERwin
2 27 (4.57%) JIRA
3 16 (2.71%) Jenkins
4 11 (1.86%) GitLab
5 10 (1.69%) PowerDesigner
6 9 (1.52%) Maven
7 8 (1.35%) ER Studio
7 8 (1.35%) SonarQube
8 3 (0.51%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.51%) Subversion
9 2 (0.34%) git-flow
9 2 (0.34%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 1 (0.17%) gulp
10 1 (0.17%) Postman
10 1 (0.17%) ScriptRunner
10 1 (0.17%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.17%) Terragrunt
10 1 (0.17%) VersionOne
10 1 (0.17%) Yeoman
General
1 192 (32.49%) Social Skills
2 158 (26.73%) Finance
3 125 (21.15%) Analytical Skills
4 76 (12.86%) Public Sector
5 61 (10.32%) Banking
6 41 (6.94%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (2.88%) Legal
7 17 (2.88%) Publishing
8 15 (2.54%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (2.37%) Investment Banking
10 12 (2.03%) Aviation
10 12 (2.03%) Marketing
10 12 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
11 10 (1.69%) Retail
12 8 (1.35%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 7 (1.18%) Financial Institution
13 7 (1.18%) Military
13 7 (1.18%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (1.02%) Law
15 3 (0.51%) Billing
Job Titles
1 145 (24.53%) Architect
2 112 (18.95%) Data Architect
3 85 (14.38%) Data Engineer
4 83 (14.04%) Analyst
5 59 (9.98%) Data Analyst
6 48 (8.12%) Senior
7 44 (7.45%) Lead
8 43 (7.28%) Developer
9 38 (6.43%) Data Modeller
10 28 (4.74%) Business Analyst
11 27 (4.57%) Consultant
12 15 (2.54%) Azure Engineer
12 15 (2.54%) Data Business Analyst
13 14 (2.37%) AWS Engineer
13 14 (2.37%) Software Engineer
14 13 (2.20%) Senior Data Engineer
15 12 (2.03%) Data Manager
15 12 (2.03%) Governance Analyst
15 12 (2.03%) Principal Engineer
16 11 (1.86%) DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (7.61%) PySpark
2 36 (6.09%) REST
3 35 (5.92%) Kafka
4 25 (4.23%) JSON
5 16 (2.71%) YAML
6 15 (2.54%) .NET
7 14 (2.37%) SOAP
7 14 (2.37%) XML
8 12 (2.03%) React
9 11 (1.86%) OAuth
10 10 (1.69%) Node.js
11 8 (1.35%) SLSA
12 7 (1.18%) RESTful
13 6 (1.02%) HTML
13 6 (1.02%) OAuth2
13 6 (1.02%) SAP Basis
13 6 (1.02%) SAP Business Workflow
13 6 (1.02%) SAP Fiori
13 6 (1.02%) VML
14 5 (0.85%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 55 (9.31%) Cloud Native
2 46 (7.78%) Data Structures
3 39 (6.60%) Taxonomies
4 37 (6.26%) Onboarding
5 36 (6.09%) Management Information System
6 35 (5.92%) Reference Data
7 25 (4.23%) Product Ownership
8 20 (3.38%) Legacy Systems
9 16 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
10 12 (2.03%) Virtual Team
11 11 (1.86%) Credit Risk
12 10 (1.69%) Self-Motivation
13 9 (1.52%) Distributed Computing
14 8 (1.35%) Derivative
15 7 (1.18%) Clustering
15 7 (1.18%) Data Fabric
15 7 (1.18%) Market Risk
16 5 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
16 5 (0.85%) IoT
16 5 (0.85%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 19 (3.21%) Unix
2 9 (1.52%) Linux
3 1 (0.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 294 (49.75%) Data Governance
2 284 (48.05%) Data Modelling
3 236 (39.93%) Metadata Management
4 210 (35.53%) Analytics
5 166 (28.09%) ETL
6 163 (27.58%) Data Architecture
7 132 (22.34%) Business Intelligence
8 122 (20.64%) Data Engineering
9 116 (19.63%) Data Pipeline
10 109 (18.44%) Validation
11 108 (18.27%) Problem-Solving
12 107 (18.10%) Agile
13 101 (17.09%) Migration
14 100 (16.92%) CI/CD
14 100 (16.92%) Data Lineage
15 97 (16.41%) AI
16 89 (15.06%) Data Integration
17 88 (14.89%) DevOps
18 87 (14.72%) Stakeholder Management
19 86 (14.55%) Data Management
Programming Languages
1 238 (40.27%) SQL
2 152 (25.72%) Python
3 29 (4.91%) Java
4 25 (4.23%) C#
5 20 (3.38%) PL/SQL
6 19 (3.21%) PowerShell
7 12 (2.03%) JavaScript
7 12 (2.03%) Shell Script
8 10 (1.69%) Groovy
9 8 (1.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 8 (1.35%) T-SQL
10 7 (1.18%) R
11 6 (1.02%) ABAP
11 6 (1.02%) Apex Code
11 6 (1.02%) Perl
12 5 (0.85%) Scala
12 5 (0.85%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.51%) Bicep
13 3 (0.51%) C++
14 2 (0.34%) C
Qualifications
1 142 (24.03%) Security Cleared
2 105 (17.77%) SC Cleared
3 37 (6.26%) Degree
4 26 (4.40%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.20%) Master's Degree
6 10 (1.69%) Azure Certification
6 10 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.35%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.18%) DV Cleared
9 6 (1.02%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.68%) TOGAF Certification
11 3 (0.51%) CISSP
12 2 (0.34%) Analytics IQ
12 2 (0.34%) CISM
12 2 (0.34%) CompTIA Security+
13 1 (0.17%) CSPO
13 1 (0.17%) DBS Check
13 1 (0.17%) MySQL Certification
13 1 (0.17%) PMI Certification
13 1 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 245 (41.46%) Data Quality
2 59 (9.98%) GDPR
3 26 (4.40%) QA
4 18 (3.05%) Accessibility
5 11 (1.86%) GRC
5 11 (1.86%) Solvency II
6 6 (1.02%) IFRS
6 6 (1.02%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (1.02%) NIST
7 4 (0.68%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 4 (0.68%) ISO 19650
7 4 (0.68%) ISO 22301
8 3 (0.51%) Cyber Essentials
8 3 (0.51%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.51%) ISO 31000
8 3 (0.51%) MiFID
9 2 (0.34%) CRD IV
9 2 (0.34%) FINREP
9 2 (0.34%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 13 (2.20%) Docker
2 8 (1.35%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 25 (4.23%) Terraform
2 17 (2.88%) Kubernetes
3 6 (1.02%) Grafana
4 5 (0.85%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 5 (0.85%) Prometheus
4 5 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.68%) CA Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.68%) PingFederate
6 1 (0.17%) Ansible
Vendors
1 113 (19.12%) Microsoft
2 85 (14.38%) Databricks
3 67 (11.34%) Oracle
4 56 (9.48%) Informatica
5 27 (4.57%) ServiceNow
6 26 (4.40%) Talend
7 21 (3.55%) Salesforce
8 20 (3.38%) SAP
9 18 (3.05%) Google
10 15 (2.54%) Sparx
11 12 (2.03%) Teradata
12 8 (1.35%) OpenText
12 8 (1.35%) Sitecore
12 8 (1.35%) Sonatype
13 7 (1.18%) IBM
14 6 (1.02%) Adobe
14 6 (1.02%) Atlassian
14 6 (1.02%) Optimizely
14 6 (1.02%) Palantir
14 6 (1.02%) Remedy