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 4 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 190 263 376
Rank change year-on-year +73 +113 -8
Contract jobs citing Metadata 840 312 187
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.54% 0.94% 0.49%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 10.35% 5.17% 2.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 531 208 119
10th Percentile £400 £396 £392
25th Percentile £459 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year - +4.76% -3.67%
75th Percentile £659 £638 £688
90th Percentile £756 £741 £828
UK excluding London median daily rate £550 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +15.79% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 5 4
10th Percentile £22.88 - £24.99
25th Percentile £56.25 £13.25 £33.51
Median hourly rate £67.47 £30.50 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year +121.21% -30.43% -4.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.50 £48.18
90th Percentile - £78.30 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £67.47 £13.50 £48.18
% change year-on-year +399.78% -71.98% +24.42%

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 8,118 6,035 6,833
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.86% 18.18% 17.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,403 4,031 4,626
10th Percentile £353 £340 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.10% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £482
% change year-on-year - -1.45% -3.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 285 90 92
10th Percentile £16.70 £21.02 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.00 £29.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.71 £39.48 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.65% +12.80% -33.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.68 £80.00 £71.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.71 £35.49 £30.00
% change year-on-year +17.53% +18.30% -42.86%

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 4 October 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 4 October 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 4 October 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 +81 708 £550 - 838
London +40 399 £550 - 453
UK excluding London +72 341 £550 +15.79% 505
Work from Home +39 231 £550 -8.33% 439
North of England +9 93 £500 -2.44% 107
Midlands +7 72 £619 +50.98% 52
West Midlands +6 66 £627 +108.83% 30
South East -25 59 £575 +22.67% 118
Scotland +18 57 £509 +7.16% 79
Yorkshire +10 56 £500 -4.76% 32
South West 0 39 £575 -2.13% 67
North West -22 32 £660 +47.49% 61
East of England -1 27 £450 -18.18% 43
North East - 8 £463 - 14
East Midlands -9 6 £488 +17.47% 22
Wales -19 3 £750 +7.14% 16

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 44 (5.24%) SharePoint
2 41 (4.88%) Apache Airflow
3 38 (4.52%) Apache
4 28 (3.33%) Apache Spark
5 26 (3.10%) CMS
6 21 (2.50%) Confluence
7 17 (2.02%) SAS
8 12 (1.43%) Headless CMS
9 9 (1.07%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.60%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.48%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.24%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
13 1 (0.12%) Camunda
13 1 (0.12%) JBoss
13 1 (0.12%) Liferay
13 1 (0.12%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 17 (2.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.31%) MS Visio
3 6 (0.71%) Navisworks
3 6 (0.71%) Revit
4 5 (0.60%) Microsoft Office
5 3 (0.36%) Notepad++
6 2 (0.24%) Adobe Creative Suite
7 1 (0.12%) Gliffy
7 1 (0.12%) Notion
7 1 (0.12%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 19 (2.26%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 5 (0.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.36%) Maximo
3 3 (0.36%) 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 ERP
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle Payables
5 1 (0.12%) Oracle Receivables
5 1 (0.12%) SAP HCM
5 1 (0.12%) Summit
5 1 (0.12%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 249 (29.64%) Azure
2 188 (22.38%) AWS
3 114 (13.57%) Power Platform
4 101 (12.02%) GCP
5 82 (9.76%) Microsoft Purview
6 70 (8.33%) Collibra
7 56 (6.67%) Azure Data Factory
8 51 (6.07%) Snowflake
9 45 (5.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 44 (5.24%) Amazon S3
11 41 (4.88%) dbt
12 40 (4.76%) Azure DevOps
13 39 (4.64%) GitHub
14 31 (3.69%) Serverless
15 29 (3.45%) Microsoft 365
16 28 (3.33%) AWS Lambda
16 28 (3.33%) Azure Databricks
17 21 (2.50%) Alation
17 21 (2.50%) Entra ID
17 21 (2.50%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.60%) Broadband
2 4 (0.48%) HTTP
2 4 (0.48%) Intranet
2 4 (0.48%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.36%) DNS
3 3 (0.36%) Firewall
3 3 (0.36%) PuTTY
3 3 (0.36%) SSH
3 3 (0.36%) WinSCP
4 2 (0.24%) SAN
5 1 (0.12%) BGP
5 1 (0.12%) LAN
5 1 (0.12%) MPLS
5 1 (0.12%) Network Security
5 1 (0.12%) OSPF
5 1 (0.12%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.12%) VLAN
5 1 (0.12%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 117 (13.93%) Data Warehouse
2 102 (12.14%) Power BI
3 100 (11.90%) Data Lake
4 40 (4.76%) BigQuery
5 35 (4.17%) Relational Database
6 33 (3.93%) Delta Lake
6 33 (3.93%) NoSQL
7 32 (3.81%) PostgreSQL
8 26 (3.10%) Semantic Layer
9 25 (2.98%) Data Vault
10 23 (2.74%) Tableau
11 18 (2.14%) Elasticsearch
11 18 (2.14%) Parquet
11 18 (2.14%) SQL Server
12 17 (2.02%) Amazon Redshift
13 16 (1.90%) Big Data
14 15 (1.79%) Neo4j
15 13 (1.55%) Azure SQL Database
16 12 (1.43%) Geospatial Data
16 12 (1.43%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 46 (5.48%) Git
2 32 (3.81%) ERwin
3 25 (2.98%) JIRA
4 23 (2.74%) ER Studio
5 13 (1.55%) GitLab
6 11 (1.31%) Jenkins
6 11 (1.31%) Maven
6 11 (1.31%) PowerDesigner
7 7 (0.83%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.60%) Selenium
9 4 (0.48%) MLflow
10 2 (0.24%) TestRail
11 1 (0.12%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.12%) Deequ
11 1 (0.12%) Gemini Tracker
11 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
11 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 249 (29.64%) Social Skills
2 200 (23.81%) Finance
3 162 (19.29%) Analytical Skills
4 114 (13.57%) Public Sector
5 102 (12.14%) Banking
6 42 (5.00%) Influencing Skills
7 35 (4.17%) Investment Banking
8 25 (2.98%) Publishing
9 23 (2.74%) Documentation Skills
9 23 (2.74%) Legal
10 22 (2.62%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 22 (2.62%) Retail
11 19 (2.26%) Marketing
12 17 (2.02%) Aerospace
13 15 (1.79%) Manufacturing
14 14 (1.67%) Military
14 14 (1.67%) Presentation Skills
15 10 (1.19%) Front Office
16 9 (1.07%) Law
16 9 (1.07%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 234 (27.86%) Architect
2 169 (20.12%) Data Architect
3 134 (15.95%) Data Engineer
4 113 (13.45%) Lead
5 94 (11.19%) Analyst
6 93 (11.07%) Senior
7 49 (5.83%) Data Analyst
8 44 (5.24%) Data Modeller
9 42 (5.00%) Business Analyst
10 36 (4.29%) Developer
11 35 (4.17%) Senior Data Engineer
12 26 (3.10%) Consultant
13 24 (2.86%) Data Business Analyst
13 24 (2.86%) Enterprise Architect
13 24 (2.86%) Lead Data Engineer
14 23 (2.74%) Solutions Architect
15 20 (2.38%) Data Manager
15 20 (2.38%) Enterprise Data Architect
16 18 (2.14%) Product Owner
17 16 (1.90%) Information Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 55 (6.55%) PySpark
2 49 (5.83%) REST
3 48 (5.71%) Terraform
4 45 (5.36%) JSON
5 30 (3.57%) Kafka
6 24 (2.86%) YAML
7 17 (2.02%) FastAPI
8 15 (1.79%) Spring Boot
9 13 (1.55%) pydantic
10 12 (1.43%) Apache NiFi
11 11 (1.31%) React
11 11 (1.31%) XML
12 10 (1.19%) Spring
13 9 (1.07%) .NET
13 9 (1.07%) GraphQL
13 9 (1.07%) RESTful
14 8 (0.95%) JDBC
14 8 (0.95%) Node.js
15 7 (0.83%) Microsoft Graph
15 7 (0.83%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 80 (9.52%) Taxonomies
2 79 (9.40%) Cloud Native
3 72 (8.57%) Onboarding
4 71 (8.45%) Data Structures
5 62 (7.38%) Management Information System
6 57 (6.79%) Product Ownership
7 48 (5.71%) Legacy Systems
8 40 (4.76%) Reference Data
9 23 (2.74%) Data Fabric
10 18 (2.14%) AI Agents
11 17 (2.02%) Data Protection Act
12 14 (1.67%) Derivative
13 13 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.55%) Life Science
14 12 (1.43%) CMDB
15 11 (1.31%) Distributed Computing
16 10 (1.19%) Autonomous Agent
16 10 (1.19%) Distributed Systems
16 10 (1.19%) Equity Derivative
17 9 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 12 (1.43%) Linux
2 7 (0.83%) Unix
3 3 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (0.36%) Windows
3 3 (0.36%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.12%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 465 (55.36%) Data Governance
2 412 (49.05%) Data Modelling
3 335 (39.88%) Metadata Management
4 277 (32.98%) Analytics
5 250 (29.76%) Data Architecture
6 244 (29.05%) AI
7 226 (26.90%) Stakeholder Management
8 211 (25.12%) Agile
9 188 (22.38%) Data Engineering
9 188 (22.38%) Data Pipeline
10 179 (21.31%) CI/CD
11 171 (20.36%) Migration
12 168 (20.00%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 160 (19.05%) ETL
14 159 (18.93%) Data Lineage
15 155 (18.45%) Data Management
15 155 (18.45%) Roadmaps
16 142 (16.90%) Validation
17 134 (15.95%) Business Intelligence
18 127 (15.12%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 290 (34.52%) SQL
2 230 (27.38%) Python
3 55 (6.55%) Java
4 19 (2.26%) PowerShell
5 14 (1.67%) PL/SQL
6 13 (1.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 12 (1.43%) C#
8 11 (1.31%) Bash
8 11 (1.31%) Groovy
8 11 (1.31%) JavaScript
9 8 (0.95%) Bicep
10 7 (0.83%) C++
10 7 (0.83%) Shell Script
10 7 (0.83%) SPARQL
11 6 (0.71%) Scala
11 6 (0.71%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.48%) Cypher
12 4 (0.48%) Perl
12 4 (0.48%) R
12 4 (0.48%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 210 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 158 (18.81%) SC Cleared
3 55 (6.55%) Degree
4 44 (5.24%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (3.57%) DV Cleared
6 22 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
7 12 (1.43%) Azure Certification
8 11 (1.31%) TOGAF Certification
9 9 (1.07%) AWS Certification
10 7 (0.83%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
10 7 (0.83%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 4 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 3 (0.36%) CISSP
12 3 (0.36%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.24%) ACCA
13 2 (0.24%) CBAP
13 2 (0.24%) CIMA
13 2 (0.24%) DBS Check
13 2 (0.24%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 409 (48.69%) Data Quality
2 61 (7.26%) GDPR
3 45 (5.36%) Accessibility
4 44 (5.24%) QA
5 8 (0.95%) WCAG
6 7 (0.83%) NCSC
7 6 (0.71%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 6 (0.71%) MiFID
8 5 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.60%) NIST
9 4 (0.48%) GRC
9 4 (0.48%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.48%) ISO 19650
9 4 (0.48%) SNOMED CT
10 3 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 2 (0.24%) IFRS
11 2 (0.24%) IFRS 9
11 2 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.24%) SLA
11 2 (0.24%) Solvency II
System Software
1 25 (2.98%) Docker
2 7 (0.83%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.24%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 30 (3.57%) Kubernetes
2 10 (1.19%) Ansible
3 8 (0.95%) Grafana
3 8 (0.95%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.71%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.36%) Control-M
6 2 (0.24%) Kibana
6 2 (0.24%) systemd
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
7 1 (0.12%) Istio
Vendors
1 160 (19.05%) Microsoft
2 145 (17.26%) Databricks
3 49 (5.83%) Informatica
4 46 (5.48%) Google
5 36 (4.29%) Oracle
6 19 (2.26%) Sparx
7 16 (1.90%) SAP
8 14 (1.67%) ServiceNow
9 13 (1.55%) IBM
10 10 (1.19%) Autodesk
10 10 (1.19%) Denodo
10 10 (1.19%) Teradata
11 9 (1.07%) Palantir
11 9 (1.07%) Salesforce
11 9 (1.07%) Sybase
12 8 (0.95%) Foundry
12 8 (0.95%) Talend
13 7 (0.83%) CA Agile Central
13 7 (0.83%) Confluent
13 7 (0.83%) Sonatype