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 15 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 200 314 354
Rank change year-on-year +114 +40 +34
Contract jobs citing Metadata 701 258 242
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.33% 0.80% 0.57%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 8.67% 4.36% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 466 178 151
10th Percentile £361 £293 £375
25th Percentile £450 £436 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £519 £600
Median % change year-on-year +1.20% -13.54% +9.09%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £825
90th Percentile £755 £765 £925
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £465 £488
% change year-on-year +12.90% -4.62% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 6 13
10th Percentile £35.91 £13.25 £13.50
25th Percentile £50.23 £15.56 £21.25
Median hourly rate £60.50 £26.25 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +130.48% -19.23% -10.34%
75th Percentile £65.25 £29.69 £46.18
90th Percentile £69.40 £58.75 £47.78
UK excluding London median hourly rate £60.50 £25.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +142.00% -45.86% +15.45%

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 8,086 5,917 7,540
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.37% 18.23% 17.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,351 4,014 5,378
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -2.33%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £750 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 259 102 139
10th Percentile £15.99 £19.71 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.25 £25.88 £20.00
Median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.86% -6.67% -31.82%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.31 £51.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £77.50 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.25 £31.64 £31.25
% change year-on-year +20.89% +1.25% -40.48%

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 15 July 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 15 July 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 15 July 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 +81 580 £525 - 215
London +64 335 £525 -12.50% 96
UK excluding London +44 279 £525 +12.90% 164
Work from Home +43 203 £525 -9.68% 158
Midlands -3 73 £569 +431.54% 23
North of England -22 69 £524 +14.79% 26
West Midlands -15 68 £575 +437.38% 15
Scotland +36 55 £525 +10.53% 19
South East -41 48 £525 +9.95% 60
Yorkshire -21 35 £563 +23.29% 11
North West -27 30 £578 +83.49% 12
East of England -4 25 £475 +49.16% 15
South West -22 16 £563 -4.21% 10
North East -34 8 £463 - 3
East Midlands -8 5 £494 +20.43% 8
Wales -12 3 £750 +191.91% 5

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 37 (5.28%) SharePoint
2 34 (4.85%) Apache Airflow
3 33 (4.71%) Apache Spark
4 24 (3.42%) Apache
5 20 (2.85%) Confluence
6 17 (2.43%) SAS
7 14 (2.00%) CMS
8 3 (0.43%) ArcGIS
8 3 (0.43%) Palantir Foundry
9 2 (0.29%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 2 (0.29%) Alfresco
9 2 (0.29%) Headless CMS
10 1 (0.14%) Apache Solr
10 1 (0.14%) Apache Synapse
10 1 (0.14%) Drupal
10 1 (0.14%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.14%) Liferay
10 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Exchange
10 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.14%) WordPress
Applications
1 17 (2.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.00%) MS Visio
2 7 (1.00%) Navisworks
2 7 (1.00%) Notepad++
2 7 (1.00%) Revit
3 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.43%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.29%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.29%) Microsoft Office
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Creative Suite
6 1 (0.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 11 (1.57%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (0.86%) Summit
3 4 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
4 3 (0.43%) SAP HR
5 2 (0.29%) HFM
5 2 (0.29%) Maximo
5 2 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.29%) SAP MDG
6 1 (0.14%) Adobe Campaign
6 1 (0.14%) Loan IQ
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle General Ledger
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
6 1 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
6 1 (0.14%) Workfront
Cloud Services
1 202 (28.82%) Azure
2 153 (21.83%) AWS
3 97 (13.84%) Power Platform
4 74 (10.56%) GCP
5 60 (8.56%) Collibra
6 48 (6.85%) Microsoft Purview
7 42 (5.99%) Amazon S3
8 39 (5.56%) Azure Data Factory
8 39 (5.56%) GitHub
9 38 (5.42%) dbt
10 33 (4.71%) Snowflake
11 32 (4.56%) Serverless
12 31 (4.42%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 30 (4.28%) Azure DevOps
14 29 (4.14%) AWS Lambda
15 22 (3.14%) Microsoft 365
16 15 (2.14%) Amazon EMR
16 15 (2.14%) Entra ID
16 15 (2.14%) Microsoft Copilot
16 15 (2.14%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.00%) PuTTY
1 7 (1.00%) WinSCP
2 5 (0.71%) Intranet
3 4 (0.57%) SSL
4 3 (0.43%) Firewall
4 3 (0.43%) HTTP
5 1 (0.14%) 4G
5 1 (0.14%) 5G
5 1 (0.14%) Broadband
5 1 (0.14%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (17.40%) Data Warehouse
2 86 (12.27%) Power BI
3 79 (11.27%) Data Lake
4 35 (4.99%) Relational Database
5 34 (4.85%) Data Vault
6 31 (4.42%) Tableau
7 28 (3.99%) NoSQL
8 22 (3.14%) Delta Lake
8 22 (3.14%) PostgreSQL
9 21 (3.00%) Big Data
9 21 (3.00%) Snowflake Schema
9 21 (3.00%) SQL Server
10 20 (2.85%) Metadata Repository
10 20 (2.85%) Semantic Layer
11 18 (2.57%) Amazon Redshift
11 18 (2.57%) BigQuery
12 17 (2.43%) Amazon Athena
12 17 (2.43%) Hadoop
13 13 (1.85%) Db2
14 12 (1.71%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 38 (5.42%) ERwin
2 35 (4.99%) Git
3 21 (3.00%) JIRA
4 20 (2.85%) ER Studio
5 16 (2.28%) Jenkins
6 15 (2.14%) Maven
6 15 (2.14%) PowerDesigner
7 14 (2.00%) GitLab
8 10 (1.43%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.43%) Bitbucket
10 2 (0.29%) Artifactory
10 2 (0.29%) git-flow
10 2 (0.29%) Oracle Forms
10 2 (0.29%) Selenium
11 1 (0.14%) ScriptRunner
11 1 (0.14%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 1 (0.14%) Subversion
11 1 (0.14%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.14%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 203 (28.96%) Finance
2 190 (27.10%) Social Skills
3 133 (18.97%) Analytical Skills
4 100 (14.27%) Banking
5 76 (10.84%) Public Sector
6 39 (5.56%) Documentation Skills
7 38 (5.42%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.85%) Retail
9 18 (2.57%) Legal
10 17 (2.43%) Marketing
11 15 (2.14%) Influencing Skills
11 15 (2.14%) Presentation Skills
12 14 (2.00%) Publishing
13 12 (1.71%) Aviation
13 12 (1.71%) Front Office
14 10 (1.43%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 7 (1.00%) Manufacturing
15 7 (1.00%) Military
16 6 (0.86%) Pharmaceutical
17 5 (0.71%) Automotive
Job Titles
1 172 (24.54%) Architect
2 124 (17.69%) Data Architect
3 101 (14.41%) Data Engineer
4 88 (12.55%) Analyst
5 83 (11.84%) Lead
6 60 (8.56%) Senior
7 54 (7.70%) Data Analyst
8 50 (7.13%) Data Modeller
9 47 (6.70%) Developer
10 35 (4.99%) Business Analyst
11 25 (3.57%) Consultant
12 20 (2.85%) Data Business Analyst
12 20 (2.85%) Data Manager
13 17 (2.43%) DevOps Engineer
13 17 (2.43%) Lead Data Engineer
14 16 (2.28%) Product Owner
14 16 (2.28%) Senior Data Engineer
14 16 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
15 14 (2.00%) Enterprise Architect
16 12 (1.71%) AWS Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (6.28%) PySpark
2 36 (5.14%) JSON
3 31 (4.42%) Kafka
4 26 (3.71%) REST
5 17 (2.43%) YAML
6 14 (2.00%) .NET
6 14 (2.00%) XML
7 13 (1.85%) Spring Boot
8 11 (1.57%) Node.js
9 10 (1.43%) OAuth
9 10 (1.43%) React
9 10 (1.43%) SLSA
10 8 (1.14%) Middleware
10 8 (1.14%) OAuth2
10 8 (1.14%) SOAP
11 7 (1.00%) GraphQL
11 7 (1.00%) SPFx
11 7 (1.00%) Spring
12 6 (0.86%) CSS
12 6 (0.86%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 70 (9.99%) Cloud Native
2 57 (8.13%) Onboarding
3 52 (7.42%) Data Structures
4 49 (6.99%) Taxonomies
5 40 (5.71%) Management Information System
5 40 (5.71%) Product Ownership
6 35 (4.99%) Legacy Systems
7 33 (4.71%) Reference Data
8 20 (2.85%) Derivative
9 16 (2.28%) Data Protection Act
10 13 (1.85%) Credit Risk
10 13 (1.85%) Distributed Systems
11 12 (1.71%) Equity Derivative
11 12 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
12 11 (1.57%) AI Agents
13 10 (1.43%) Clustering
13 10 (1.43%) Distributed Computing
13 10 (1.43%) Life Science
14 9 (1.28%) Fixed Income
14 9 (1.28%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 19 (2.71%) Unix
2 10 (1.43%) Linux
3 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 350 (49.93%) Data Governance
2 331 (47.22%) Data Modelling
3 238 (33.95%) Analytics
4 229 (32.67%) Metadata Management
5 175 (24.96%) Data Architecture
6 170 (24.25%) AI
7 157 (22.40%) ETL
8 153 (21.83%) Data Pipeline
9 150 (21.40%) Data Engineering
10 141 (20.11%) Agile
11 139 (19.83%) CI/CD
12 136 (19.40%) Migration
13 122 (17.40%) Stakeholder Management
14 120 (17.12%) Business Intelligence
15 112 (15.98%) Data Lineage
15 112 (15.98%) Validation
16 108 (15.41%) Decision-Making
17 105 (14.98%) Data Management
18 103 (14.69%) DevOps
19 102 (14.55%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 265 (37.80%) SQL
2 181 (25.82%) Python
3 54 (7.70%) Java
4 24 (3.42%) PL/SQL
5 19 (2.71%) C#
6 15 (2.14%) Shell Script
7 13 (1.85%) PowerShell
8 12 (1.71%) Groovy
9 11 (1.57%) JavaScript
10 9 (1.28%) C++
10 9 (1.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 8 (1.14%) TypeScript
12 7 (1.00%) Apex Code
12 7 (1.00%) Bash
13 6 (0.86%) Bicep
13 6 (0.86%) SPARQL
13 6 (0.86%) T-SQL
14 5 (0.71%) Scala
15 4 (0.57%) Perl
15 4 (0.57%) SHACL
Qualifications
1 149 (21.26%) Security Cleared
2 110 (15.69%) SC Cleared
3 45 (6.42%) Degree
4 30 (4.28%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.28%) Computer Science Degree
6 15 (2.14%) DV Cleared
6 15 (2.14%) Master's Degree
7 12 (1.71%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.57%) TOGAF Certification
9 8 (1.14%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.71%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (0.43%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 2 (0.29%) ACCA
12 2 (0.29%) CBAP
12 2 (0.29%) CIMA
12 2 (0.29%) CISM
12 2 (0.29%) CISSP
12 2 (0.29%) CompTIA Security+
12 2 (0.29%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.29%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 273 (38.94%) Data Quality
2 67 (9.56%) GDPR
3 39 (5.56%) QA
4 33 (4.71%) Accessibility
5 8 (1.14%) GRC
6 7 (1.00%) Solvency II
7 6 (0.86%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 6 (0.86%) ISO 19650
7 6 (0.86%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.86%) NIST
8 4 (0.57%) HIPAA
8 4 (0.57%) ISO 22301
9 3 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.43%) ISO 31000
9 3 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 42001
9 3 (0.43%) MiFID
9 3 (0.43%) NCSC
10 2 (0.29%) IFRS
10 2 (0.29%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.29%) PMO
System Software
1 11 (1.57%) Docker
2 10 (1.43%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 30 (4.28%) Terraform
2 13 (1.85%) Kubernetes
3 9 (1.28%) Grafana
4 7 (1.00%) Prometheus
4 7 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.57%) Active Directory Federation Services
5 4 (0.57%) CA Single Sign-On
5 4 (0.57%) PingFederate
6 2 (0.29%) Ansible
7 1 (0.14%) Apache Ranger
7 1 (0.14%) Kibana
Vendors
1 123 (17.55%) Microsoft
2 110 (15.69%) Databricks
3 63 (8.99%) Oracle
4 45 (6.42%) Informatica
5 23 (3.28%) Google
6 22 (3.14%) Salesforce
7 18 (2.57%) Talend
8 14 (2.00%) IBM
8 14 (2.00%) SAP
9 13 (1.85%) Autodesk
10 11 (1.57%) Sparx
10 11 (1.57%) Sybase
11 10 (1.43%) Sonatype
12 8 (1.14%) Adobe
12 8 (1.14%) ServiceNow
13 6 (0.86%) CA Agile Central
13 6 (0.86%) Foundry
13 6 (0.86%) OpenAI
14 5 (0.71%) Denodo
14 5 (0.71%) Signiant