Reference Data Contracts with Hybrid/Remote/WFH Options

Reference Data
UK > Work from Home

The table below looks at the prevalence of the term Reference Data in remote or hybrid contract work. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited Reference Data over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 278 320 419
Rank change year-on-year +42 +99 +117
Contract jobs citing Reference Data 26 25 58
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 0.26% 0.16% 0.22%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.79% 0.57% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 14 44
10th Percentile £403 £472 £500
25th Percentile £492 £513 £523
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £561 £555 £650
Median % change year-on-year +1.13% -14.62% +10.64%
75th Percentile £646 £638 £763
90th Percentile £673 £668 £1,000
UK median daily rate £640 £650 £625
% change year-on-year -1.54% +4.00% +4.17%

All Generic Skills
Work from Home

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 with remote or hybrid options requiring generic IT skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for generic IT skills 3,272 4,408 8,138
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 33.03% 28.73% 31.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,222 2,974 5,725
10th Percentile £350 £325 £363
25th Percentile £425 £431 £454
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £545 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.91% - +2.33%
75th Percentile £680 £675 £688
90th Percentile £825 £800 £800
UK median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 76 199 151
10th Percentile £18.75 £15.48 £19.00
25th Percentile £26.25 £25.50 £31.38
Median hourly rate £41.75 £51.00 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.14% -11.30% +29.21%
75th Percentile £64.57 £65.02 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.13 £72.50 £85.00
UK median hourly rate £32.05 £30.00 £22.49
% change year-on-year +6.83% +33.42% -18.24%

Reference Data
Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

Job vacancies with remote working options citing Reference Data as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Reference Data trend for jobs with Hybrid/Remote/WFH options

Reference Data
Daily Rate Trend for Jobs with a WFH Option

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in job vacancies with remote working options citing Reference Data.

Reference Data daily rate for jobs with a WFH option

Reference Data
Daily Rate Histogram for Jobs with a WFH Option

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote working options citing Reference Data over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Reference Data daily rate histogram for jobs with a WFH option

Reference Data
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities with WFH Options by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 1 (3.85%) Apache
1 1 (3.85%) Apache Spark
1 1 (3.85%) Jupyter
1 1 (3.85%) SAS
Applications
1 6 (23.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (15.38%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 3 (11.54%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (11.54%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (11.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (3.85%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 4 (15.38%) AWS
1 4 (15.38%) Azure
2 2 (7.69%) Collibra
2 2 (7.69%) SuccessFactors
3 1 (3.85%) Azure DevOps
3 1 (3.85%) Microsoft Purview
3 1 (3.85%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (3.85%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (23.08%) Data Warehouse
2 4 (15.38%) SQL Server
3 2 (7.69%) Data Lake
3 2 (7.69%) Metadata
3 2 (7.69%) Power Query
4 1 (3.85%) Apache Hive
4 1 (3.85%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (3.85%) Data Mining
4 1 (3.85%) Delta Lake
4 1 (3.85%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
4 1 (3.85%) OLTP
4 1 (3.85%) PostgreSQL
4 1 (3.85%) Power BI
4 1 (3.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 3 (11.54%) JIRA
2 2 (7.69%) Git
3 1 (3.85%) ER Studio
3 1 (3.85%) ERwin
3 1 (3.85%) Jenkins
3 1 (3.85%) Liquibase
3 1 (3.85%) RStudio
3 1 (3.85%) Visual Studio
General
1 10 (38.46%) Banking
2 9 (34.62%) Analytical Skills
3 7 (26.92%) Finance
4 6 (23.08%) Investment Banking
4 6 (23.08%) Social Skills
5 4 (15.38%) Back Office
6 3 (11.54%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (7.69%) Front Office
7 2 (7.69%) Public Sector
8 1 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 1 (3.85%) Law
Job Titles
1 8 (30.77%) Analyst
2 6 (23.08%) Data Analyst
3 5 (19.23%) Project Manager
4 4 (15.38%) Architect
4 4 (15.38%) Data Architect
4 4 (15.38%) Data Warehouse Analyst
4 4 (15.38%) Database Analyst
4 4 (15.38%) Fund Data Analyst
4 4 (15.38%) Lead
4 4 (15.38%) Performance Analyst
4 4 (15.38%) SQL Analyst
4 4 (15.38%) SQL Data Analyst
5 3 (11.54%) Oracle Analyst
6 2 (7.69%) Data Consultant
6 2 (7.69%) Data Manager
6 2 (7.69%) Data Migration Consultant
6 2 (7.69%) Data Modeller
6 2 (7.69%) Developer
6 2 (7.69%) Lead Architect
6 2 (7.69%) Migration Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (11.54%) Kafka
2 2 (7.69%) JSON
2 2 (7.69%) RESTful
3 1 (3.85%) .NET
3 1 (3.85%) ASP.NET
3 1 (3.85%) ASP.NET MVC
3 1 (3.85%) FIX Protocol
3 1 (3.85%) Flask
3 1 (3.85%) FpML
3 1 (3.85%) Motif
3 1 (3.85%) pydantic
3 1 (3.85%) PySpark
3 1 (3.85%) React
3 1 (3.85%) REST
3 1 (3.85%) Web Services
3 1 (3.85%) XML
3 1 (3.85%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 4 (15.38%) Hedge funds
2 3 (11.54%) PMI
3 2 (7.69%) Derivative
3 2 (7.69%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 2 (7.69%) Product Ownership
4 1 (3.85%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (3.85%) Credit Risk
4 1 (3.85%) Data Centre
4 1 (3.85%) Data Structures
4 1 (3.85%) Equities
4 1 (3.85%) Equity Derivative
4 1 (3.85%) Fixed Income
4 1 (3.85%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (3.85%) Linux Command Line
4 1 (3.85%) Management Information System
4 1 (3.85%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 2 (7.69%) Linux
2 1 (3.85%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (38.46%) Problem-Solving
2 8 (30.77%) Data Management
3 7 (26.92%) Agile
3 7 (26.92%) Data Governance
3 7 (26.92%) Migration
3 7 (26.92%) Reference Data Management
3 7 (26.92%) Validation
4 6 (23.08%) Project Management
5 5 (19.23%) Data Modelling
6 4 (15.38%) Analytics
6 4 (15.38%) Continuous Improvement
6 4 (15.38%) Data Architecture
6 4 (15.38%) Database Tuning
6 4 (15.38%) ETL
6 4 (15.38%) Logical Data Model
6 4 (15.38%) Master Data Management
6 4 (15.38%) Performance Tuning
6 4 (15.38%) Test Automation
7 3 (11.54%) DevOps
7 3 (11.54%) Physical Data Model
Programming Languages
1 14 (53.85%) SQL
2 6 (23.08%) Python
3 3 (11.54%) T-SQL
4 2 (7.69%) C++
4 2 (7.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 1 (3.85%) Bash
5 1 (3.85%) C
5 1 (3.85%) C#
5 1 (3.85%) PowerShell
5 1 (3.85%) Ruby
5 1 (3.85%) Scala
Qualifications
1 5 (19.23%) Degree
1 5 (19.23%) PMI Certification
2 2 (7.69%) PMP
2 2 (7.69%) SC Cleared
2 2 (7.69%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (15.38%) Data Quality
2 3 (11.54%) PMO
3 1 (3.85%) EMIR
3 1 (3.85%) GDPR
3 1 (3.85%) ISO 20022
3 1 (3.85%) MiFID
Vendors
1 6 (23.08%) Microsoft
2 3 (11.54%) Oracle
2 3 (11.54%) Sparx
3 2 (7.69%) SAP
4 1 (3.85%) Alteryx
4 1 (3.85%) Bloomberg
4 1 (3.85%) CQG
4 1 (3.85%) Databricks
4 1 (3.85%) ION Trading
4 1 (3.85%) Reuters