Hybrid/Remote Reference Data Contract Job Trends

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 30 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 300 312 371
Rank change year-on-year +12 +59 +128
Contract jobs citing Reference Data 18 15 18
As % of all contract jobs with remote/hybrid work options 0.18% 0.12% 0.10%
As % of the Miscellaneous category 0.50% 0.40% 0.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 15 12 11
10th Percentile £408 £475 £425
25th Percentile £475 £558 £500
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £565 £650 £535
Median % change year-on-year -13.08% +21.50% -19.25%
75th Percentile £738 £825 £620
90th Percentile £800 - £750
UK median daily rate £625 £619 £589
% change year-on-year +0.97% +5.09% -5.76%

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 3,580 3,791 5,441
As % of all contract jobs with a WFH option 35.10% 30.98% 30.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,243 2,412 3,778
10th Percentile £330 £325 £325
25th Percentile £420 £422 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% - -
75th Percentile £638 £675 £670
90th Percentile £762 £825 £750
UK median daily rate £505 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -6.05% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 139 69 128
10th Percentile £17.50 £17.42 £19.99
25th Percentile £21.38 £21.25 £22.00
Median hourly rate £45.46 £39.00 £48.03
Median % change year-on-year +16.56% -18.80% -13.15%
75th Percentile £67.00 £66.50 £69.06
90th Percentile £72.01 £75.00 £76.98
UK median hourly rate £27.00 £35.00 £43.84
% change year-on-year -22.86% -20.16% +25.25%

Reference Data
Job Vacancy Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Reference Data and offering remote or hybrid work options relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Reference Data job vacancy trend for remote/hybrid jobs

Reference Data
Daily Rate Trend for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Reference Data.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Reference Data

Reference Data
Daily Rate Histogram for Remote/Hybrid Jobs

Daily rate distribution for jobs with remote/hybrid work options citing Reference Data over the 6 months to 30 November 2025.

Reference Data daily rate histogram for jobs with remote/hybrid work options

Reference Data
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Remote/Hybrid Jobs 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 2 (11.11%) SharePoint
Business Applications
1 1 (5.56%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 6 (33.33%) Power Platform
2 4 (22.22%) Azure
2 4 (22.22%) Azure DevOps
3 2 (11.11%) Azure Data Factory
3 2 (11.11%) Azure Synapse Analytics
3 2 (11.11%) dbt
3 2 (11.11%) Dynamics 365
3 2 (11.11%) Microsoft 365
4 1 (5.56%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 4 (22.22%) Power BI
2 3 (16.67%) Data Warehouse
2 3 (16.67%) Metadata
2 3 (16.67%) Power Query
3 2 (11.11%) Azure SQL Database
4 1 (5.56%) Relational Database
4 1 (5.56%) SQL Server
4 1 (5.56%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 2 (11.11%) ERwin
2 1 (5.56%) JIRA
2 1 (5.56%) PowerDesigner
General
1 11 (61.11%) Finance
1 11 (61.11%) Social Skills
2 3 (16.67%) Banking
2 3 (16.67%) Investment Banking
3 2 (11.11%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (11.11%) Back Office
3 2 (11.11%) Local Government
3 2 (11.11%) Public Sector
4 1 (5.56%) Legal
4 1 (5.56%) Retail
Job Titles
1 5 (27.78%) Analyst
2 4 (22.22%) Business Analyst
2 4 (22.22%) Data Business Analyst
3 3 (16.67%) Asset Management Analyst
3 3 (16.67%) Asset Management Business Analyst
3 3 (16.67%) Business Intelligence Developer
3 3 (16.67%) Developer
3 3 (16.67%) Power BI Developer
4 2 (11.11%) Azure Data Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Azure Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Data Analyst
4 2 (11.11%) Data Engineer
4 2 (11.11%) Data Modeller
4 2 (11.11%) Investment Management Business Analyst
4 2 (11.11%) Subject Matter Expert
5 1 (5.56%) Data Migration Lead
5 1 (5.56%) Digital Analyst
5 1 (5.56%) Digital Business Analyst
5 1 (5.56%) Lead
5 1 (5.56%) Support Officer
Miscellaneous
1 3 (16.67%) Data Structures
2 1 (5.56%) Greenfield Project
2 1 (5.56%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (5.56%) NHS
2 1 (5.56%) Reinsurance
2 1 (5.56%) Taxonomies
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (55.56%) Migration
2 8 (44.44%) Data Migration
3 7 (38.89%) Data Governance
3 7 (38.89%) Data Modelling
3 7 (38.89%) Data Transformation
4 6 (33.33%) Data Pipeline
5 5 (27.78%) User Acceptance Testing
6 4 (22.22%) Business Intelligence
6 4 (22.22%) Data Lineage
6 4 (22.22%) Data Mapping
6 4 (22.22%) DevOps
6 4 (22.22%) ETL
7 3 (16.67%) Agile
7 3 (16.67%) Batch Processing
7 3 (16.67%) Data Cleansing
7 3 (16.67%) Data Security
7 3 (16.67%) GAP Analysis
7 3 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
7 3 (16.67%) Stakeholder Management
7 3 (16.67%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 8 (44.44%) SQL
2 6 (33.33%) Python
3 3 (16.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 1 (5.56%) DBS Check
1 1 (5.56%) SC Cleared
1 1 (5.56%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (55.56%) Data Quality
2 2 (11.11%) Accessibility
3 1 (5.56%) GDPR
Vendors
1 4 (22.22%) Databricks
2 3 (16.67%) Microsoft
3 1 (5.56%) Alteryx
3 1 (5.56%) Bloomberg
3 1 (5.56%) Refinitiv
3 1 (5.56%) Sparx