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 24 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 201 334 298
Rank change year-on-year +133 -36 +20
Contract jobs citing Metadata 554 193 333
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.26% 0.66% 0.75%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 7.94% 3.50% 4.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 384 142 228
10th Percentile £358 £251 £362
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £511 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.25% -13.04% +4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £738
90th Percentile £693 £775 £869
UK excluding London median daily rate £513 £463 £573
% change year-on-year +10.81% -19.21% +14.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 7 25
10th Percentile £35.91 £22.63 £13.70
25th Percentile £56.98 £22.72 £20.49
Median hourly rate £69.22 £27.50 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +151.71% -31.68% +15.00%
75th Percentile £82.69 £56.13 £46.18
90th Percentile £84.00 £82.25 £47.92
UK excluding London median hourly rate £69.22 £27.50 £40.25
% change year-on-year +151.71% -31.68% +11.03%

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 6,977 5,514 7,288
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.92% 18.93% 16.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,796 3,816 5,146
10th Percentile £350 £350 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £700 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £488
% change year-on-year -3.06% +0.51% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 149 98 172
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.47 £14.36
25th Percentile £29.83 £24.25 £20.70
Median hourly rate £50.00 £31.64 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year +58.03% -21.15% -29.54%
75th Percentile £74.68 £64.50 £58.55
90th Percentile £85.00 £70.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +66.67% -14.29% -36.36%

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 24 March 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 24 March 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 24 March 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 +96 470 £515 +1.48% 212
London +96 277 £510 -15.00% 83
UK excluding London +21 208 £513 +10.81% 167
Work from Home +49 157 £525 +0.72% 60
Midlands -25 51 £560 +54.48% 17
South East -20 48 £513 +7.33% 62
West Midlands -25 45 £569 +56.90% 7
North of England -56 40 £475 -5.00% 29
Scotland +37 38 £436 -17.58% 7
East of England -16 22 £492 +54.78% 29
North West -30 22 £496 -9.04% 11
Yorkshire -47 17 £525 +35.48% 15
South West -17 16 £570 +12.59% 18
East Midlands - 6 £447 - 10
North East -19 4 £475 -12.58% 3
Wales -14 1 £750 +217.80% 7

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 42 (7.58%) Apache Spark
2 31 (5.60%) SharePoint
3 25 (4.51%) SAS
4 21 (3.79%) Confluence
5 19 (3.43%) Apache Airflow
6 17 (3.07%) Apache
7 13 (2.35%) CMS
8 7 (1.26%) Drupal
8 7 (1.26%) Sitecore CMS
9 5 (0.90%) ArcGIS
9 5 (0.90%) GeoServer
9 5 (0.90%) Smallworld
10 4 (0.72%) Adobe Experience Manager
11 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.36%) Palantir Foundry
12 1 (0.18%) Apache Solr
12 1 (0.18%) Apache Synapse
12 1 (0.18%) SharePoint 2013
12 1 (0.18%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.18%) WordPress
Applications
1 30 (5.42%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (2.35%) MS Visio
3 7 (1.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.36%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.36%) Microsoft Office
6 1 (0.18%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 17 (3.07%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 12 (2.17%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (1.08%) OpenText VIM for SAP
3 6 (1.08%) SAP FI
3 6 (1.08%) SAP MM
4 5 (0.90%) Summit
5 3 (0.54%) Actimize
5 3 (0.54%) Maximo
6 2 (0.36%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.18%) Adobe Campaign
7 1 (0.18%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.18%) Misys Midas
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.18%) Salesforce CRM
7 1 (0.18%) SAP MDG
7 1 (0.18%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 169 (30.51%) Azure
2 124 (22.38%) AWS
3 90 (16.25%) Power Platform
4 64 (11.55%) GCP
5 55 (9.93%) Collibra
6 48 (8.66%) Azure Data Factory
7 45 (8.12%) Microsoft Purview
8 35 (6.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 33 (5.96%) Snowflake
10 30 (5.42%) Serverless
11 28 (5.05%) Amazon S3
12 24 (4.33%) AWS Lambda
13 23 (4.15%) GitHub
14 21 (3.79%) Azure DevOps
15 20 (3.61%) dbt
16 17 (3.07%) Microsoft 365
17 10 (1.81%) Amazon EMR
18 8 (1.44%) Power Automate
19 7 (1.26%) AWS CloudFormation
19 7 (1.26%) AWS Step Functions
Communications & Networking
1 3 (0.54%) Intranet
2 2 (0.36%) Firewall
2 2 (0.36%) Hyperconnected
3 1 (0.18%) 4G
3 1 (0.18%) 5G
3 1 (0.18%) HTTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 119 (21.48%) Data Warehouse
2 84 (15.16%) Power BI
3 70 (12.64%) Data Lake
4 42 (7.58%) Metadata Repository
5 31 (5.60%) SQL Server
6 29 (5.23%) Big Data
6 29 (5.23%) Tableau
7 26 (4.69%) Relational Database
8 25 (4.51%) Data Vault
8 25 (4.51%) NoSQL
9 23 (4.15%) Snowflake Schema
10 22 (3.97%) PostgreSQL
11 20 (3.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 19 (3.43%) Oracle Database
13 18 (3.25%) Amazon Redshift
13 18 (3.25%) Hadoop
14 16 (2.89%) Azure SQL Database
14 16 (2.89%) BigQuery
15 14 (2.53%) Delta Lake
16 13 (2.35%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 28 (5.05%) ERwin
2 27 (4.87%) Git
3 23 (4.15%) JIRA
4 12 (2.17%) Jenkins
5 11 (1.99%) PowerDesigner
6 9 (1.62%) ER Studio
6 9 (1.62%) GitLab
7 6 (1.08%) Maven
8 5 (0.90%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.54%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.54%) Subversion
10 2 (0.36%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 2 (0.36%) Visual Studio
11 1 (0.18%) Artifactory
11 1 (0.18%) git-flow
11 1 (0.18%) gulp
11 1 (0.18%) Sonatype Nexus
11 1 (0.18%) Team Foundation Server
11 1 (0.18%) VersionOne
11 1 (0.18%) Yeoman
General
1 185 (33.39%) Social Skills
2 150 (27.08%) Finance
3 117 (21.12%) Analytical Skills
4 73 (13.18%) Public Sector
5 59 (10.65%) Banking
6 39 (7.04%) Documentation Skills
7 15 (2.71%) Investment Banking
7 15 (2.71%) Publishing
8 13 (2.35%) Influencing Skills
8 13 (2.35%) Legal
9 12 (2.17%) Aviation
10 11 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
10 11 (1.99%) Retail
11 10 (1.81%) Marketing
12 7 (1.26%) Financial Institution
12 7 (1.26%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 7 (1.26%) Military
13 6 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
14 5 (0.90%) Corporate Banking
14 5 (0.90%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 142 (25.63%) Architect
2 107 (19.31%) Data Architect
3 79 (14.26%) Analyst
3 79 (14.26%) Data Engineer
4 55 (9.93%) Data Analyst
5 43 (7.76%) Senior
6 42 (7.58%) Lead
7 41 (7.40%) Developer
8 40 (7.22%) Data Modeller
9 26 (4.69%) Business Analyst
10 25 (4.51%) Consultant
11 16 (2.89%) Azure Engineer
12 14 (2.53%) AWS Engineer
12 14 (2.53%) Software Engineer
13 13 (2.35%) Data Business Analyst
13 13 (2.35%) Governance Analyst
14 12 (2.17%) Azure Data Engineer
14 12 (2.17%) Principal Engineer
15 11 (1.99%) Senior Data Engineer
16 10 (1.81%) Data Analytics Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (8.12%) PySpark
2 33 (5.96%) REST
3 32 (5.78%) Kafka
4 19 (3.43%) JSON
5 15 (2.71%) .NET
6 14 (2.53%) XML
7 13 (2.35%) SOAP
7 13 (2.35%) YAML
8 12 (2.17%) React
9 7 (1.26%) Node.js
9 7 (1.26%) OAuth
9 7 (1.26%) RESTful
10 6 (1.08%) HTML
10 6 (1.08%) Pandas
10 6 (1.08%) SAP Basis
10 6 (1.08%) SAP Business Workflow
10 6 (1.08%) SAP Fiori
10 6 (1.08%) VML
11 5 (0.90%) SLSA
12 4 (0.72%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 52 (9.39%) Cloud Native
2 44 (7.94%) Data Structures
3 38 (6.86%) Taxonomies
4 34 (6.14%) Management Information System
5 32 (5.78%) Reference Data
6 29 (5.23%) Onboarding
7 23 (4.15%) Legacy Systems
8 22 (3.97%) Product Ownership
9 13 (2.35%) Data Protection Act
10 12 (2.17%) Virtual Team
11 11 (1.99%) Credit Risk
12 9 (1.62%) Self-Motivation
13 7 (1.26%) Data Fabric
13 7 (1.26%) Derivative
13 7 (1.26%) Distributed Computing
13 7 (1.26%) Market Risk
14 5 (0.90%) CMDB
14 5 (0.90%) Fixed Income
14 5 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
14 5 (0.90%) IoT
Operating Systems
1 14 (2.53%) Unix
2 8 (1.44%) Linux
3 1 (0.18%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 282 (50.90%) Data Governance
2 273 (49.28%) Data Modelling
3 230 (41.52%) Metadata Management
4 205 (37.00%) Analytics
5 161 (29.06%) Data Architecture
6 152 (27.44%) ETL
7 128 (23.10%) Business Intelligence
8 117 (21.12%) Data Engineering
9 107 (19.31%) Data Pipeline
10 105 (18.95%) Validation
11 103 (18.59%) Agile
12 101 (18.23%) Problem-Solving
13 98 (17.69%) Data Lineage
14 92 (16.61%) AI
15 90 (16.25%) Migration
16 85 (15.34%) CI/CD
16 85 (15.34%) Data Integration
17 82 (14.80%) Data Management
18 74 (13.36%) Decision-Making
18 74 (13.36%) DevOps
Programming Languages
1 226 (40.79%) SQL
2 144 (25.99%) Python
3 25 (4.51%) C#
4 21 (3.79%) Java
5 19 (3.43%) PowerShell
6 14 (2.53%) PL/SQL
7 12 (2.17%) JavaScript
8 8 (1.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (1.44%) Shell Script
8 8 (1.44%) T-SQL
9 7 (1.26%) Groovy
10 6 (1.08%) ABAP
10 6 (1.08%) Perl
10 6 (1.08%) R
11 5 (0.90%) Scala
11 5 (0.90%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.72%) Apex Code
13 2 (0.36%) C
13 2 (0.36%) C++
13 2 (0.36%) VBA
Qualifications
1 134 (24.19%) Security Cleared
2 101 (18.23%) SC Cleared
3 34 (6.14%) Degree
4 25 (4.51%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (2.53%) Master's Degree
6 10 (1.81%) Azure Certification
6 10 (1.81%) Computer Science Degree
7 8 (1.44%) DV Cleared
7 8 (1.44%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.08%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.72%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.36%) Analytics IQ
11 1 (0.18%) AWS Certified Developer
11 1 (0.18%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.18%) CISSP
11 1 (0.18%) CSPO
11 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
11 1 (0.18%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
11 1 (0.18%) MySQL Certification
11 1 (0.18%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 236 (42.60%) Data Quality
2 54 (9.75%) GDPR
3 27 (4.87%) QA
4 18 (3.25%) Accessibility
5 12 (2.17%) GRC
6 11 (1.99%) Solvency II
7 6 (1.08%) IFRS
7 6 (1.08%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (1.08%) NIST
8 4 (0.72%) ISO 22301
8 4 (0.72%) MiFID
9 3 (0.54%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.54%) ISO 31000
10 2 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.36%) CRD IV
10 2 (0.36%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.36%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.36%) ISO 19650
10 2 (0.36%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.36%) PMO
System Software
1 12 (2.17%) Docker
2 4 (0.72%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 20 (3.61%) Terraform
2 15 (2.71%) Kubernetes
3 4 (0.72%) Grafana
3 4 (0.72%) Prometheus
4 1 (0.18%) Active Directory Federation Services
4 1 (0.18%) Ansible
4 1 (0.18%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 101 (18.23%) Microsoft
2 80 (14.44%) Databricks
3 59 (10.65%) Oracle
4 45 (8.12%) Informatica
5 23 (4.15%) ServiceNow
6 20 (3.61%) Talend
7 18 (3.25%) Google
7 18 (3.25%) SAP
8 17 (3.07%) Salesforce
9 16 (2.89%) Sparx
10 11 (1.99%) Teradata
11 8 (1.44%) OpenText
12 7 (1.26%) Remedy
12 7 (1.26%) Sitecore
13 6 (1.08%) Atlassian
13 6 (1.08%) ESRI
13 6 (1.08%) Optimizely
13 6 (1.08%) Palantir
14 5 (0.90%) IBM
14 5 (0.90%) Intergraph