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 28 October 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 275 391 338
Rank change year-on-year +116 -53 +38
Contract jobs citing Metadata 342 174 311
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.01% 0.48% 0.66%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 5.52% 2.69% 3.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 225 110 213
10th Percentile £404 £356 £368
25th Percentile £461 £463 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £506 £550
Median % change year-on-year +6.07% -7.95% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £685 £715
90th Percentile £712 £788 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £495 £488 £525
% change year-on-year +1.54% -7.14% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 4 20
10th Percentile £13.25 £24.99 £15.15
25th Percentile £17.25 £33.51 £28.17
Median hourly rate £46.75 £43.84 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +6.64% -5.07% +128.16%
75th Percentile £79.88 £48.18 £50.96
90th Percentile £86.25 - £72.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £48.18 £46.18
% change year-on-year -20.61% +4.33% +242.07%

All Database and Business Intelligence 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 6,198 6,459 7,929
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.27% 17.65% 16.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,184 4,334 5,530
10th Percentile £337 £342 £355
25th Percentile £413 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £618 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £782 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £484 £500
% change year-on-year -1.76% -3.30% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 87 86 160
10th Percentile £20.71 £17.50 £16.96
25th Percentile £29.00 £21.25 £25.13
Median hourly rate £43.50 £30.11 £48.45
Median % change year-on-year +44.49% -37.86% -3.11%
75th Percentile £65.00 £53.25 £70.00
90th Percentile £83.95 £67.39 £78.08
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £30.00 £46.84
% change year-on-year +33.33% -35.95% +15.00%

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 28 October 2025.

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 28 October 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for Metadata in the UK

Metadata
Top 17 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 28 October 2025. 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 +103 291 £548 +9.50% 250
London +97 183 £550 - 137
UK excluding London +33 129 £495 +1.54% 166
Work from Home +64 100 £575 +15.58% 127
Midlands +4 32 £555 +53.10% 20
West Midlands +5 26 £561 +54.76% 17
South East +7 24 £475 -17.39% 87
North of England -21 22 £500 +19.40% 34
Scotland 0 21 £470 -31.39% 6
North West -14 15 £448 +11.88% 19
East of England -3 14 £500 +57.23% 6
South West +5 10 £569 +16.67% 12
Wales +10 9 £700 +29.63% 2
Yorkshire -26 7 £525 +5.00% 11
East Midlands - 6 £415 - 3
Northern Ireland - 1 - -
Channel Islands - 1 £760 -

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 (9.94%) SharePoint
2 23 (6.73%) Apache Spark
3 20 (5.85%) Apache
4 17 (4.97%) Confluence
5 16 (4.68%) CMS
6 13 (3.80%) Apache Airflow
7 9 (2.63%) SAS
8 5 (1.46%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.88%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 3 (0.88%) ArcGIS
9 3 (0.88%) Drupal
9 3 (0.88%) GeoServer
9 3 (0.88%) Sitecore CMS
9 3 (0.88%) Smallworld
9 3 (0.88%) Umbraco
10 2 (0.58%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.29%) Alfresco
11 1 (0.29%) Documentum
11 1 (0.29%) Hyperledger
Applications
1 15 (4.39%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.63%) MS Visio
3 7 (2.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.88%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.58%) Photoshop
5 2 (0.58%) ProjectWise
6 1 (0.29%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.29%) FrameMaker
6 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.29%) Oracle Smart View
6 1 (0.29%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 8 (2.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 5 (1.46%) OpenText VIM for SAP
2 5 (1.46%) Salesforce CRM
2 5 (1.46%) SAP FI
2 5 (1.46%) SAP MM
3 4 (1.17%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 1 (0.29%) Actimize
4 1 (0.29%) Hyperion Planning
4 1 (0.29%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.29%) Primavera
4 1 (0.29%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 91 (26.61%) Azure
2 74 (21.64%) AWS
3 50 (14.62%) Power Platform
4 34 (9.94%) GCP
5 33 (9.65%) Collibra
6 32 (9.36%) Microsoft Purview
7 27 (7.89%) Snowflake
8 22 (6.43%) Microsoft 365
9 20 (5.85%) dbt
10 18 (5.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 17 (4.97%) Azure Data Factory
12 16 (4.68%) Amazon S3
12 16 (4.68%) Azure DevOps
13 13 (3.80%) GitHub
14 10 (2.92%) Serverless
15 9 (2.63%) AWS Lambda
15 9 (2.63%) PowerApps
16 7 (2.05%) Alation
17 6 (1.75%) Entra ID
17 6 (1.75%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.88%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (19.30%) Data Warehouse
2 42 (12.28%) Data Lake
3 39 (11.40%) Power BI
4 23 (6.73%) NoSQL
5 20 (5.85%) Big Data
6 17 (4.97%) SQL Server
7 15 (4.39%) BigQuery
7 15 (4.39%) Data Vault
7 15 (4.39%) Metadata Repository
7 15 (4.39%) PostgreSQL
7 15 (4.39%) Relational Database
8 13 (3.80%) Delta Lake
9 11 (3.22%) Amazon Redshift
9 11 (3.22%) Snowflake Schema
9 11 (3.22%) Tableau
10 10 (2.92%) Amazon Athena
11 9 (2.63%) Spark SQL
12 7 (2.05%) GIS
12 7 (2.05%) Star Schema
13 6 (1.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 26 (7.60%) ERwin
2 23 (6.73%) JIRA
3 17 (4.97%) ER Studio
4 11 (3.22%) Git
4 11 (3.22%) PowerDesigner
5 3 (0.88%) Visual Studio
6 2 (0.58%) GitLab
7 1 (0.29%) MLflow
7 1 (0.29%) Poetry
7 1 (0.29%) Postman
7 1 (0.29%) Pylint
7 1 (0.29%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.29%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 132 (38.60%) Social Skills
2 73 (21.35%) Finance
3 60 (17.54%) Analytical Skills
4 45 (13.16%) Public Sector
5 33 (9.65%) Banking
6 24 (7.02%) Documentation Skills
7 16 (4.68%) Publishing
8 15 (4.39%) Legal
9 14 (4.09%) Retail
10 11 (3.22%) Presentation Skills
11 8 (2.34%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (2.34%) Investment Banking
11 8 (2.34%) Organisational Skills
11 8 (2.34%) Pharmaceutical
12 5 (1.46%) Corporate Banking
12 5 (1.46%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (1.46%) Marketing
12 5 (1.46%) Welsh Language
13 4 (1.17%) Billing
13 4 (1.17%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 76 (22.22%) Architect
2 55 (16.08%) Data Architect
3 54 (15.79%) Analyst
4 35 (10.23%) Data Analyst
4 35 (10.23%) Data Modeller
5 31 (9.06%) Data Engineer
6 26 (7.60%) Developer
7 22 (6.43%) Lead
8 20 (5.85%) Consultant
9 19 (5.56%) Senior
10 14 (4.09%) Governance Analyst
11 12 (3.51%) Business Analyst
12 10 (2.92%) Azure Engineer
12 10 (2.92%) Data Manager
12 10 (2.92%) Technical Architect
13 9 (2.63%) Azure Data Engineer
14 8 (2.34%) SAP Consultant
15 7 (2.05%) Project Manager
15 7 (2.05%) Solutions Architect
16 6 (1.75%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (7.60%) PySpark
2 20 (5.85%) Kafka
3 11 (3.22%) REST
4 7 (2.05%) React
4 7 (2.05%) RESTful
5 6 (1.75%) Lightning Web Components
6 5 (1.46%) .NET
6 5 (1.46%) SAP Basis
6 5 (1.46%) SAP Business Workflow
6 5 (1.46%) SAP Fiori
6 5 (1.46%) Visualforce
7 4 (1.17%) HTML
7 4 (1.17%) LDAP
7 4 (1.17%) Regular Expression
7 4 (1.17%) SAML
7 4 (1.17%) SpaCy
8 3 (0.88%) Apache NiFi
8 3 (0.88%) Hugging Face
8 3 (0.88%) PyTorch
8 3 (0.88%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 31 (9.06%) Data Structures
2 19 (5.56%) Taxonomies
3 16 (4.68%) Onboarding
4 15 (4.39%) Cloud Native
4 15 (4.39%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (3.80%) Reference Data
6 8 (2.34%) Distributed Computing
6 8 (2.34%) Management Information System
6 8 (2.34%) Product Ownership
7 7 (2.05%) Low-Code
8 6 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
9 4 (1.17%) Data Fabric
9 4 (1.17%) Distributed Systems
9 4 (1.17%) Genomics
9 4 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
9 4 (1.17%) Hybrid Cloud
9 4 (1.17%) NHS
9 4 (1.17%) Omics
9 4 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
10 3 (0.88%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.17%) Unix
2 2 (0.58%) Linux
3 1 (0.29%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (54.68%) Data Governance
2 168 (49.12%) Data Modelling
3 165 (48.25%) Metadata Management
4 104 (30.41%) Analytics
5 81 (23.68%) Data Architecture
6 74 (21.64%) Agile
7 72 (21.05%) Business Intelligence
7 72 (21.05%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 67 (19.59%) ETL
9 66 (19.30%) Data Lineage
10 56 (16.37%) Problem-Solving
11 54 (15.79%) Data Engineering
12 53 (15.50%) Data Management
13 52 (15.20%) Data Pipeline
14 45 (13.16%) Migration
15 43 (12.57%) DevOps
16 41 (11.99%) Stakeholder Management
17 40 (11.70%) Data Analysis
18 39 (11.40%) AI
18 39 (11.40%) Data Transformation
Programming Languages
1 105 (30.70%) SQL
2 76 (22.22%) Python
3 16 (4.68%) Java
4 12 (3.51%) PowerShell
5 9 (2.63%) T-SQL
6 8 (2.34%) Scala
7 6 (1.75%) Apex Code
8 5 (1.46%) ABAP
8 5 (1.46%) C#
8 5 (1.46%) C++
8 5 (1.46%) Shell Script
8 5 (1.46%) SOQL
9 4 (1.17%) R
9 4 (1.17%) SOSL
10 2 (0.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 2 (0.58%) JavaScript
10 2 (0.58%) Korn
10 2 (0.58%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.29%) Groovy
11 1 (0.29%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 53 (15.50%) Security Cleared
2 36 (10.53%) SC Cleared
3 21 (6.14%) Degree
4 7 (2.05%) AWS Certification
4 7 (2.05%) Computer Science Degree
4 7 (2.05%) Master's Degree
5 6 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.46%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.17%) DV Cleared
8 2 (0.58%) AWS Certified Developer
8 2 (0.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (0.58%) PMI Certification
8 2 (0.58%) PMP
8 2 (0.58%) TOGAF Certification
9 1 (0.29%) MCP
9 1 (0.29%) Microsoft Certification
9 1 (0.29%) SnowPro
9 1 (0.29%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (34.21%) Data Quality
2 42 (12.28%) GDPR
3 21 (6.14%) QA
4 15 (4.39%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.46%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 5 (1.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.17%) Solvency II
7 3 (0.88%) HIPAA
7 3 (0.88%) MiFID
8 2 (0.58%) IFRS
8 2 (0.58%) ISO 9001
9 1 (0.29%) Basel III
9 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials
9 1 (0.29%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
9 1 (0.29%) GMP
9 1 (0.29%) GRC
9 1 (0.29%) IFRS 17
9 1 (0.29%) IFRS 9
9 1 (0.29%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.29%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 6 (1.75%) Docker
2 5 (1.46%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.88%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 13 (3.80%) Kubernetes
2 11 (3.22%) Terraform
3 4 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
4 3 (0.88%) Hadoop YARN
4 3 (0.88%) Oozie
4 3 (0.88%) SCCM
5 1 (0.29%) Kubeflow
5 1 (0.29%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 68 (19.88%) Microsoft
2 38 (11.11%) Databricks
3 30 (8.77%) Oracle
4 21 (6.14%) Informatica
5 17 (4.97%) Google
6 11 (3.22%) SAP
7 10 (2.92%) OpenText
7 10 (2.92%) ServiceNow
8 9 (2.63%) Salesforce
9 6 (1.75%) Adobe
9 6 (1.75%) Sparx
9 6 (1.75%) Teradata
10 5 (1.46%) Alteryx
10 5 (1.46%) Talend
11 4 (1.17%) ESRI
11 4 (1.17%) Remedy
12 3 (0.88%) Atlassian
12 3 (0.88%) IBM
12 3 (0.88%) Intergraph
12 3 (0.88%) Sitecore