Reference Data Contract Job Trends

Reference Data
UK

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Reference Data in contract job vacancies. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Reference Data over the 6 months leading up to 19 October 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

	6 months to 19 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	559	488	514
Rank change year-on-year	-71	+26	+45
Contract jobs citing Reference Data	124	71	48
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.23%	0.21%	0.13%
As % of the Miscellaneous category	0.64%	0.59%	0.42%
Number of daily rates quoted	81	48	31
10^th Percentile	£405	£471	£300
25^th Percentile	£447	£525	£450
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£563	£600	£585
Median % change year-on-year	-6.25%	+2.56%	-0.85%
75^th Percentile	£688	£703	£763
90^th Percentile	£750	£783	£825
UK excluding London median daily rate	£426	£550	£500
% change year-on-year	-22.64%	+10.00%	-10.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted	8	0	0
Median hourly rate	£70.00	-	-
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£70.00	-	-

All Generic Skills
UK

Reference Data falls under the General and Transferable Skills category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring generic IT skills.

	6 months to 19 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills	19,255	11,963	11,479
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	35.09%	36.09%	30.73%
Number of daily rates quoted	11,505	7,333	6,819
10^th Percentile	£319	£290	£281
25^th Percentile	£423	£408	£412
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£525	£515	£533
Median % change year-on-year	+1.94%	-3.38%	-3.09%
75^th Percentile	£638	£638	£668
90^th Percentile	£745	£750	£800
UK excluding London median daily rate	£500	£475	£494
% change year-on-year	+5.26%	-3.85%	-1.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted	1,402	644	388
10^th Percentile	£13.81	£14.13	£17.01
25^th Percentile	£17.49	£18.24	£23.30
Median hourly rate	£35.82	£26.64	£46.18
Median % change year-on-year	+34.46%	-42.31%	+3.78%
75^th Percentile	£67.50	£50.81	£70.00
90^th Percentile	£85.00	£72.20	£75.16
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£33.99	£25.08	£52.50
% change year-on-year	+35.55%	-52.24%	+5.00%

Reference Data Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Reference Data relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Reference Data Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Reference Data.

Reference Data Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Reference Data over the 6 months to 19 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Reference Data in the UK

Reference Data Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Reference Data.

Reference Data Top 14 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Reference Data within the UK over the 6 months to 19 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	-75	120	£556	-7.29%	112
London	-59	81	£608	-2.76%	73
Work from Home	-68	40	£513	-9.29%	52
UK excluding London	-87	37	£426	-22.64%	48
East of England	-16	11	£625	-	2
Midlands	-32	10	£434	-15.41%	7
North of England	-71	8	£411	-21.81%	13
West Midlands	-45	6	£535	+12.63%	2
North West	-	6	£418	-	7
East Midlands	-10	4	£425	-22.82%	5
South West	-29	4	£575	-	4
South East	-58	4	£488	-15.22%	6
Yorkshire	-40	2	£405	-22.86%	4
Scotland	-	1	£410	-	10

Reference Data Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 19 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Reference Data also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for Reference Data.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Data Modelling	58.1%	72
2	SQL	54.8%	68
3	Data Governance	48.4%	60
4	Data Quality	44.4%	55
5	Metadata	35.5%	44
6	Azure	31.5%	39
7	Data Management	29.8%	37
8	Logical Data Model	29.0%	36
9	Data Architecture	28.2%	35
9	Migration	28.2%	35
11	Validation	25.0%	31
12	Databricks	24.2%	30
13	Stakeholder Management	23.4%	29
14	Metadata Management	21.8%	27
14	Microsoft	21.8%	27
14	Physical Data Model	21.8%	27
17	ETL	21.0%	26
18	Analytics	20.2%	25
18	Data Integration	20.2%	25
20	Business Intelligence	19.4%	24
20	Integration Patterns	19.4%	24
22	AWS	18.5%	23
22	Data Migration	18.5%	23
22	Reference Data Management	18.5%	23
25	Data Lineage	17.7%	22
25	Problem-Solving	17.7%	22
27	CI/CD	16.9%	21
27	Lakehouse	16.9%	21
29	Data Pipeline	15.3%	19
29	Python	15.3%	19

Reference Data Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Miscellaneous

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Data Structures	16.1%	20
2	Legacy Systems	11.3%	14
3	Onboarding	9.7%	12
3	Product Ownership	9.7%	12
5	Cloud Native	8.9%	11
5	Fixed Income	8.9%	11
7	Management Information System	8.1%	10
8	Derivative	7.3%	9
8	Equities	7.3%	9
10	Data Protection Act	5.6%	7
11	Pricing Data	4.8%	6
12	Algorithms	3.2%	4
13	Distributed Systems	2.4%	3
13	Foreign Exchange (FX)	2.4%	3
13	Reinsurance	2.4%	3
13	Replication	2.4%	3
17	Analytical Mindset	1.6%	2
17	Enterprise Cloud	1.6%	2
17	FMCG	1.6%	2
17	Renewable Energy	1.6%	2