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

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 185 279 379
Rank change year-on-year +94 +100 -23
Contract jobs citing Metadata 852 309 186
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.56% 0.93% 0.49%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 10.52% 5.13% 2.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 544 205 119
10th Percentile £400 £400 £392
25th Percentile £459 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.33% +2.38% -1.69%
75th Percentile £658 £638 £688
90th Percentile £750 £738 £828
UK excluding London median daily rate £540 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +13.68% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 5 4
10th Percentile £14.98 - £24.99
25th Percentile £55.00 £13.25 £33.51
Median hourly rate £64.99 £30.50 £43.84
Median % change year-on-year +113.07% -30.43% -4.70%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.50 £48.18
90th Percentile - £78.30 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £64.99 £13.50 £48.18
% change year-on-year +381.37% -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 8,099 6,018 6,824
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 14.86% 18.14% 17.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,397 4,029 4,610
10th Percentile £356 £340 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £623 £625 £650
90th Percentile £713 £738 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £485
% change year-on-year - -2.06% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 287 81 92
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.75 £17.50
25th Percentile £22.25 £29.00 £21.25
Median hourly rate £41.00 £38.96 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.24% +11.31% -33.33%
75th Percentile £58.13 £64.50 £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 9 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 9 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 9 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 +87 715 £550 - 796
London +45 407 £550 - 452
UK excluding London +87 343 £540 +13.68% 372
Work from Home +48 236 £550 -6.38% 337
North of England +6 89 £500 -2.44% 97
Midlands +11 73 £619 +49.16% 46
West Midlands +7 65 £635 +51.79% 30
Scotland +17 60 £484 -0.21% 46
South East -25 59 £575 +22.67% 81
Yorkshire +14 54 £481 -8.33% 28
South West +5 42 £575 - 44
North West -31 30 £709 +58.38% 58
East of England -9 27 £463 -15.91% 41
East Midlands -16 8 £494 +18.98% 16
North East - 8 £463 - 11
Wales -17 2 £750 +7.14% 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 43 (5.05%) SharePoint
2 41 (4.81%) Apache Airflow
3 38 (4.46%) Apache
4 31 (3.64%) Apache Spark
5 26 (3.05%) CMS
6 21 (2.46%) Confluence
7 17 (2.00%) SAS
8 12 (1.41%) Headless CMS
9 11 (1.29%) Microsoft Exchange
10 5 (0.59%) Palantir Foundry
11 4 (0.47%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.23%) ArcGIS
12 2 (0.23%) 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 18 (2.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.29%) MS Visio
3 6 (0.70%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.70%) Navisworks
3 6 (0.70%) Revit
4 2 (0.23%) Adobe Creative Suite
5 1 (0.12%) Gliffy
5 1 (0.12%) Notepad++
5 1 (0.12%) Notion
5 1 (0.12%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 18 (2.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 5 (0.59%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.35%) Maximo
3 3 (0.35%) SAP HR
4 2 (0.23%) HFM
4 2 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.23%) SAP MDG
4 2 (0.23%) SAP Oil and Gas
4 2 (0.23%) 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%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 254 (29.81%) Azure
2 194 (22.77%) AWS
3 122 (14.32%) Power Platform
4 103 (12.09%) GCP
5 83 (9.74%) Microsoft Purview
6 71 (8.33%) Collibra
7 56 (6.57%) Azure Data Factory
8 53 (6.22%) Snowflake
9 45 (5.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 44 (5.16%) Amazon S3
10 44 (5.16%) GitHub
11 42 (4.93%) Azure DevOps
12 41 (4.81%) dbt
13 34 (3.99%) Serverless
14 29 (3.40%) AWS Lambda
14 29 (3.40%) Microsoft 365
15 28 (3.29%) Azure Databricks
16 23 (2.70%) Entra ID
17 21 (2.46%) Alation
17 21 (2.46%) Microsoft Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 5 (0.59%) Broadband
2 4 (0.47%) HTTP
2 4 (0.47%) Intranet
2 4 (0.47%) Kerberos
3 3 (0.35%) DNS
3 3 (0.35%) Firewall
3 3 (0.35%) SSH
4 2 (0.23%) 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%) PuTTY
5 1 (0.12%) SD-WAN
5 1 (0.12%) TCP/IP
5 1 (0.12%) VLAN
5 1 (0.12%) WAN
5 1 (0.12%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (13.97%) Data Warehouse
2 109 (12.79%) Power BI
3 100 (11.74%) Data Lake
4 40 (4.69%) BigQuery
5 35 (4.11%) Delta Lake
5 35 (4.11%) NoSQL
6 34 (3.99%) Relational Database
7 31 (3.64%) PostgreSQL
8 27 (3.17%) Semantic Layer
9 25 (2.93%) Data Vault
9 25 (2.93%) Tableau
10 21 (2.46%) SQL Server
11 18 (2.11%) Elasticsearch
12 17 (2.00%) Amazon Redshift
12 17 (2.00%) Parquet
13 16 (1.88%) Big Data
14 15 (1.76%) Azure SQL Database
14 15 (1.76%) Neo4j
15 12 (1.41%) Geospatial Data
15 12 (1.41%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 49 (5.75%) Git
2 29 (3.40%) ERwin
3 27 (3.17%) JIRA
4 21 (2.46%) ER Studio
5 13 (1.53%) Jenkins
6 12 (1.41%) GitLab
7 11 (1.29%) Maven
8 9 (1.06%) PowerDesigner
9 7 (0.82%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.59%) Selenium
11 4 (0.47%) MLflow
12 2 (0.23%) TestRail
13 1 (0.12%) Artifactory
13 1 (0.12%) Cypress.io
13 1 (0.12%) Deequ
13 1 (0.12%) Gemini Tracker
13 1 (0.12%) Oracle Forms
13 1 (0.12%) Storybook
13 1 (0.12%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 257 (30.16%) Social Skills
2 200 (23.47%) Finance
3 166 (19.48%) Analytical Skills
4 116 (13.62%) Public Sector
5 101 (11.85%) Banking
6 42 (4.93%) Influencing Skills
7 34 (3.99%) Investment Banking
8 26 (3.05%) Documentation Skills
9 25 (2.93%) Publishing
10 24 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 23 (2.70%) Legal
12 22 (2.58%) Retail
13 19 (2.23%) Marketing
14 17 (2.00%) Aerospace
15 16 (1.88%) Manufacturing
15 16 (1.88%) Presentation Skills
16 14 (1.64%) Military
17 10 (1.17%) Front Office
17 10 (1.17%) Law
18 9 (1.06%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 244 (28.64%) Architect
2 177 (20.77%) Data Architect
3 136 (15.96%) Data Engineer
4 117 (13.73%) Lead
5 96 (11.27%) Senior
6 93 (10.92%) Analyst
7 48 (5.63%) Data Analyst
8 41 (4.81%) Data Modeller
9 40 (4.69%) Business Analyst
10 38 (4.46%) Developer
10 38 (4.46%) Senior Data Engineer
11 28 (3.29%) Consultant
12 26 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
13 24 (2.82%) Enterprise Architect
13 24 (2.82%) Lead Data Engineer
14 23 (2.70%) Data Business Analyst
15 20 (2.35%) Enterprise Data Architect
16 18 (2.11%) Data Manager
16 18 (2.11%) Python Engineer
17 17 (2.00%) Product Owner
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 57 (6.69%) PySpark
2 55 (6.46%) REST
2 55 (6.46%) Terraform
3 45 (5.28%) JSON
4 30 (3.52%) Kafka
5 23 (2.70%) YAML
6 17 (2.00%) FastAPI
7 16 (1.88%) Spring Boot
8 15 (1.76%) pydantic
9 12 (1.41%) Apache NiFi
9 12 (1.41%) React
10 11 (1.29%) Spring
11 10 (1.17%) XML
12 9 (1.06%) .NET
13 8 (0.94%) GraphQL
13 8 (0.94%) JDBC
13 8 (0.94%) Node.js
13 8 (0.94%) RESTful
14 7 (0.82%) Microsoft Graph
14 7 (0.82%) SLSA
Miscellaneous
1 81 (9.51%) Taxonomies
2 79 (9.27%) Cloud Native
3 73 (8.57%) Onboarding
4 71 (8.33%) Data Structures
5 65 (7.63%) Management Information System
6 58 (6.81%) Product Ownership
7 48 (5.63%) Legacy Systems
8 43 (5.05%) Reference Data
9 23 (2.70%) Data Fabric
10 18 (2.11%) AI Agents
11 17 (2.00%) Data Protection Act
12 16 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
13 13 (1.53%) Derivative
13 13 (1.53%) Life Science
14 12 (1.41%) CMDB
15 11 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
16 10 (1.17%) Autonomous Agent
16 10 (1.17%) Distributed Computing
16 10 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
16 10 (1.17%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 11 (1.29%) Linux
2 4 (0.47%) Unix
3 3 (0.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (0.35%) Windows
3 3 (0.35%) Windows Server
4 1 (0.12%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.12%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 473 (55.52%) Data Governance
2 417 (48.94%) Data Modelling
3 341 (40.02%) Metadata Management
4 284 (33.33%) Analytics
5 256 (30.05%) Data Architecture
6 250 (29.34%) AI
7 232 (27.23%) Stakeholder Management
8 218 (25.59%) Agile
9 191 (22.42%) Data Engineering
9 191 (22.42%) Data Pipeline
10 189 (22.18%) CI/CD
11 170 (19.95%) Migration
12 169 (19.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
13 166 (19.48%) Data Lineage
14 159 (18.66%) Roadmaps
15 158 (18.54%) Data Management
16 157 (18.43%) ETL
17 149 (17.49%) Validation
18 140 (16.43%) Business Intelligence
19 128 (15.02%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 290 (34.04%) SQL
2 233 (27.35%) Python
3 56 (6.57%) Java
4 19 (2.23%) PowerShell
5 13 (1.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 13 (1.53%) PL/SQL
6 12 (1.41%) C#
6 12 (1.41%) JavaScript
7 11 (1.29%) Bash
7 11 (1.29%) Groovy
8 10 (1.17%) Bicep
9 7 (0.82%) C++
9 7 (0.82%) SPARQL
9 7 (0.82%) TypeScript
10 6 (0.70%) Scala
11 5 (0.59%) Shell Script
12 4 (0.47%) Cypher
12 4 (0.47%) Perl
12 4 (0.47%) R
12 4 (0.47%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 209 (24.53%) Security Cleared
2 159 (18.66%) SC Cleared
3 59 (6.92%) Degree
4 44 (5.16%) BPSS Clearance
5 30 (3.52%) DV Cleared
6 22 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.53%) TOGAF Certification
8 12 (1.41%) Azure Certification
9 9 (1.06%) AWS Certification
10 7 (0.82%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.82%) PRINCE2 Certification
11 6 (0.70%) Microsoft Certification
12 4 (0.47%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 3 (0.35%) CISSP
13 3 (0.35%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.23%) ACCA
14 2 (0.23%) CBAP
14 2 (0.23%) CIMA
14 2 (0.23%) DBS Check
14 2 (0.23%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 419 (49.18%) Data Quality
2 60 (7.04%) GDPR
3 48 (5.63%) Accessibility
4 43 (5.05%) QA
5 8 (0.94%) WCAG
6 7 (0.82%) NCSC
7 6 (0.70%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 6 (0.70%) MiFID
8 5 (0.59%) Actionable Recommendations
8 5 (0.59%) NIST
9 4 (0.47%) GRC
9 4 (0.47%) HIPAA
9 4 (0.47%) ISO 19650
9 4 (0.47%) SNOMED CT
10 3 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 2 (0.23%) IFRS
11 2 (0.23%) IFRS 9
11 2 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.23%) SLA
11 2 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 25 (2.93%) Docker
2 7 (0.82%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.23%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 31 (3.64%) Kubernetes
2 10 (1.17%) Ansible
2 10 (1.17%) Grafana
3 8 (0.94%) Single Sign-On
4 6 (0.70%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.35%) Control-M
6 2 (0.23%) Kibana
6 2 (0.23%) systemd
7 1 (0.12%) Apache Ranger
7 1 (0.12%) Istio
Vendors
1 168 (19.72%) Microsoft
2 153 (17.96%) Databricks
3 48 (5.63%) Google
4 47 (5.52%) Informatica
5 38 (4.46%) Oracle
6 18 (2.11%) Sparx
7 14 (1.64%) SAP
7 14 (1.64%) ServiceNow
8 12 (1.41%) IBM
9 10 (1.17%) Autodesk
9 10 (1.17%) Denodo
9 10 (1.17%) Teradata
10 9 (1.06%) Foundry
10 9 (1.06%) Palantir
10 9 (1.06%) Salesforce
10 9 (1.06%) Sybase
10 9 (1.06%) Talend
11 7 (0.82%) CA Agile Central
11 7 (0.82%) Signiant
11 7 (0.82%) Sonatype