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 26 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 252 364 304
Rank change year-on-year +112 -60 +42
Contract jobs citing Metadata 402 194 316
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.08% 0.57% 0.72%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 6.30% 3.19% 4.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 278 129 225
10th Percentile £384 £353 £389
25th Percentile £437 £464 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £520 £558
Median % change year-on-year +0.96% -6.73% -3.04%
75th Percentile £615 £650 £688
90th Percentile £700 £789 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £488 £575
% change year-on-year +0.28% -15.22% +9.52%
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 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 6,380 6,079 7,312
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.16% 18.01% 16.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,401 4,013 5,148
10th Percentile £325 £341 £350
25th Percentile £408 £425 £430
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 £763 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 89 84 143
10th Percentile £20.73 £18.74 £16.22
25th Percentile £29.00 £22.66 £22.44
Median hourly rate £50.00 £31.55 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +58.50% -31.69% -12.04%
75th Percentile £72.00 £64.56 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £68.63 £77.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £58.75 £27.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +113.64% -40.45% -6.71%

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 26 December 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 26 December 2025.

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 26 December 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 +88 348 £525 +1.45% 544
London +100 214 £538 -2.27% 106
UK excluding London 0 143 £489 +0.28% 510
Work from Home +52 112 £550 +6.02% 219
Midlands -20 33 £480 +28.00% 84
South East +1 30 £500 -6.98% 150
North of England -52 25 £475 -12.84% 113
West Midlands -16 23 £558 +48.67% 47
Scotland +7 20 £465 -32.12% 30
East of England -10 20 £496 +56.01% 78
North West -26 15 £448 -17.89% 44
South West -11 12 £568 +16.41% 48
East Midlands - 10 £425 - 31
Wales +6 9 £700 +239.29% 13
Yorkshire -32 9 £525 +16.67% 57
North East -11 1 £475 -23.91% 12

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 31 (7.71%) SharePoint
2 29 (7.21%) Apache Spark
3 17 (4.23%) Confluence
4 16 (3.98%) CMS
5 15 (3.73%) Apache
5 15 (3.73%) SAS
6 8 (1.99%) Apache Airflow
7 7 (1.74%) Microsoft Exchange
7 7 (1.74%) Sitecore CMS
8 6 (1.49%) Drupal
9 4 (1.00%) Adobe Experience Manager
9 4 (1.00%) GeoServer
9 4 (1.00%) Smallworld
10 3 (0.75%) ArcGIS
11 2 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.50%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.25%) Alfresco
12 1 (0.25%) Documentum
12 1 (0.25%) Headless CMS
12 1 (0.25%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 25 (6.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.24%) MS Visio
3 8 (1.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
5 2 (0.50%) 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 (3.48%) SAP S/4HANA
1 14 (3.48%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 6 (1.49%) OpenText VIM for SAP
2 6 (1.49%) SAP FI
2 6 (1.49%) SAP MM
3 3 (0.75%) Actimize
3 3 (0.75%) Maximo
4 2 (0.50%) FIS Private Capital Suite
4 2 (0.50%) 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
1 125 (31.09%) Azure
2 92 (22.89%) AWS
3 73 (18.16%) Power Platform
4 46 (11.44%) GCP
5 40 (9.95%) Collibra
6 34 (8.46%) Microsoft Purview
7 33 (8.21%) Azure Data Factory
8 32 (7.96%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 28 (6.97%) Snowflake
10 21 (5.22%) Microsoft 365
11 17 (4.23%) Serverless
12 16 (3.98%) Amazon S3
13 15 (3.73%) Azure DevOps
14 13 (3.23%) dbt
15 12 (2.99%) AWS Lambda
16 11 (2.74%) GitHub
17 10 (2.49%) PowerApps
18 7 (1.74%) Contentful
18 7 (1.74%) Entra ID
18 7 (1.74%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.75%) Kerberos
2 2 (0.50%) Hyperconnected
2 2 (0.50%) Intranet
3 1 (0.25%) Firewall
3 1 (0.25%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (18.16%) Data Warehouse
2 61 (15.17%) Power BI
3 44 (10.95%) Data Lake
4 23 (5.72%) Metadata Repository
5 22 (5.47%) NoSQL
6 21 (5.22%) Big Data
7 20 (4.98%) Relational Database
8 18 (4.48%) Data Vault
9 17 (4.23%) Snowflake Schema
9 17 (4.23%) SQL Server
10 16 (3.98%) PostgreSQL
10 16 (3.98%) Tableau
11 14 (3.48%) Amazon Redshift
11 14 (3.48%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (3.48%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 13 (3.23%) BigQuery
13 12 (2.99%) Spark SQL
14 11 (2.74%) Delta Lake
15 10 (2.49%) Star Schema
16 9 (2.24%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 23 (5.72%) JIRA
2 22 (5.47%) ERwin
2 22 (5.47%) Git
3 11 (2.74%) PowerDesigner
4 10 (2.49%) ER Studio
5 3 (0.75%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.50%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.50%) Subversion
6 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio
7 1 (0.25%) GitLab
7 1 (0.25%) gulp
7 1 (0.25%) Poetry
7 1 (0.25%) Postman
7 1 (0.25%) Pylint
7 1 (0.25%) SonarQube
7 1 (0.25%) Yeoman
General
1 162 (40.30%) Social Skills
2 104 (25.87%) Finance
3 80 (19.90%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (12.94%) Public Sector
5 35 (8.71%) Banking
6 30 (7.46%) Documentation Skills
7 18 (4.48%) Publishing
8 14 (3.48%) Retail
9 10 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (2.24%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (2.24%) Legal
11 8 (1.99%) Investment Banking
12 7 (1.74%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.74%) Military
12 7 (1.74%) Presentation Skills
13 6 (1.49%) Aviation
13 6 (1.49%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (1.49%) Retail Banking
14 5 (1.24%) Corporate Banking
14 5 (1.24%) Welsh Language
Job Titles
1 88 (21.89%) Architect
2 67 (16.67%) Analyst
3 64 (15.92%) Data Architect
4 46 (11.44%) Data Analyst
5 43 (10.70%) Data Engineer
6 31 (7.71%) Data Modeller
7 29 (7.21%) Lead
8 28 (6.97%) Developer
9 24 (5.97%) Consultant
10 20 (4.98%) Senior
11 19 (4.73%) Business Analyst
12 15 (3.73%) Azure Engineer
13 13 (3.23%) Governance Analyst
14 11 (2.74%) Azure Data Engineer
15 10 (2.49%) Data Manager
16 9 (2.24%) Data Business Analyst
16 9 (2.24%) Data Quality Analyst
16 9 (2.24%) Quality Analyst
16 9 (2.24%) SAP Consultant
16 9 (2.24%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (8.96%) PySpark
2 25 (6.22%) Kafka
3 21 (5.22%) REST
4 12 (2.99%) JSON
5 10 (2.49%) XML
6 7 (1.74%) React
7 6 (1.49%) SAP Basis
7 6 (1.49%) SAP Business Workflow
7 6 (1.49%) SAP Fiori
7 6 (1.49%) SOAP
7 6 (1.49%) VML
8 5 (1.24%) .NET
8 5 (1.24%) HTML
8 5 (1.24%) OAuth
8 5 (1.24%) Pandas
8 5 (1.24%) RESTful
8 5 (1.24%) YAML
9 4 (1.00%) Hugging Face
9 4 (1.00%) PyTorch
9 4 (1.00%) SpaCy
Miscellaneous
1 30 (7.46%) Data Structures
2 24 (5.97%) Cloud Native
3 22 (5.47%) Taxonomies
4 20 (4.98%) Management Information System
4 20 (4.98%) Reference Data
5 19 (4.73%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (3.73%) Onboarding
7 14 (3.48%) Product Ownership
8 11 (2.74%) Distributed Computing
9 8 (1.99%) Analytical Mindset
10 7 (1.74%) Data Fabric
10 7 (1.74%) Low-Code
11 5 (1.24%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (1.00%) Genomics
12 4 (1.00%) Greenfield Project
12 4 (1.00%) Hybrid Cloud
12 4 (1.00%) NHS
12 4 (1.00%) Omics
12 4 (1.00%) Replication
13 3 (0.75%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 5 (1.24%) Unix
2 4 (1.00%) Linux
3 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 212 (52.74%) Data Governance
2 203 (50.50%) Data Modelling
3 199 (49.50%) Metadata Management
4 140 (34.83%) Analytics
5 104 (25.87%) Data Architecture
6 97 (24.13%) ETL
7 96 (23.88%) Business Intelligence
8 84 (20.90%) Data Lineage
9 78 (19.40%) Agile
10 76 (18.91%) Problem-Solving
11 72 (17.91%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 71 (17.66%) Data Pipeline
13 70 (17.41%) Data Engineering
14 64 (15.92%) Validation
15 58 (14.43%) Data Management
16 57 (14.18%) Stakeholder Management
17 56 (13.93%) Migration
18 54 (13.43%) AI
19 53 (13.18%) Data Integration
20 49 (12.19%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 138 (34.33%) SQL
2 97 (24.13%) Python
3 22 (5.47%) Java
4 21 (5.22%) PowerShell
5 11 (2.74%) C#
6 8 (1.99%) T-SQL
7 7 (1.74%) JavaScript
7 7 (1.74%) Scala
8 6 (1.49%) ABAP
8 6 (1.49%) PL/SQL
8 6 (1.49%) R
9 5 (1.24%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (1.24%) Perl
10 4 (1.00%) C++
10 4 (1.00%) Shell Script
11 3 (0.75%) Apex Code
11 3 (0.75%) Bicep
11 3 (0.75%) SOQL
11 3 (0.75%) SOSL
12 2 (0.50%) Korn
Qualifications
1 84 (20.90%) Security Cleared
2 58 (14.43%) SC Cleared
3 25 (6.22%) Degree
4 13 (3.23%) BPSS Clearance
5 9 (2.24%) Computer Science Degree
6 7 (1.74%) Azure Certification
6 7 (1.74%) Master's Degree
7 6 (1.49%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (1.24%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.00%) DV Cleared
10 2 (0.50%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 2 (0.50%) PMI Certification
10 2 (0.50%) PMP
10 2 (0.50%) TOGAF Certification
11 1 (0.25%) CSPO
11 1 (0.25%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.25%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 1 (0.25%) MySQL Certification
11 1 (0.25%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 170 (42.29%) Data Quality
2 45 (11.19%) GDPR
3 17 (4.23%) QA
4 15 (3.73%) Accessibility
5 6 (1.49%) IFRS
5 6 (1.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (1.24%) MiFID
6 5 (1.24%) Solvency II
7 4 (1.00%) HIPAA
8 3 (0.75%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 3 (0.75%) GRC
9 2 (0.50%) Basel III
9 2 (0.50%) CRD IV
9 2 (0.50%) FINREP
9 2 (0.50%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.50%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.50%) ISO 9001
9 2 (0.50%) NIST
10 1 (0.25%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.25%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 10 (2.49%) Docker
2 5 (1.24%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.75%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 16 (3.98%) Kubernetes
1 16 (3.98%) Terraform
2 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
3 3 (0.75%) Hadoop YARN
3 3 (0.75%) Oozie
3 3 (0.75%) SCCM
4 1 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 82 (20.40%) Microsoft
2 60 (14.93%) Databricks
3 35 (8.71%) Oracle
4 34 (8.46%) Informatica
5 19 (4.73%) SAP
6 17 (4.23%) ServiceNow
7 14 (3.48%) Sparx
8 11 (2.74%) Google
9 10 (2.49%) Talend
10 9 (2.24%) OpenText
10 9 (2.24%) Salesforce
11 8 (1.99%) Teradata
12 7 (1.74%) Sitecore
13 6 (1.49%) IBM
13 6 (1.49%) Optimizely
14 5 (1.24%) Adobe
14 5 (1.24%) Alteryx
14 5 (1.24%) ESRI
14 5 (1.24%) Palantir
15 4 (1.00%) Intergraph