What are the headline findings?
- 19 of 50 firms (38%) carry the Elite badge in Snowflake's partner directory; 31 appear in the directory at all.
- 36 of 50 (72%) are listed as Consulting & SI partners in Databricks' public directory, which listed 1,495 consulting partners in total on October 23, 2026.
- 18 firms hold both a Snowflake Elite badge and a Databricks consulting listing; 11 appear in neither directory.
- The most widely documented capability is generative ai (47 of 50 researched firms have a dedicated page); the least is data products (17).
- On GSA schedules, the median federal ceiling rate is $149/hr for data engineers and $187/hr for machine learning and AI engineers.
- By DCF Evidence Score, the firms with the most public evidence are DataArt, N-iX, NTT DATA, Slalom and Tiger Analytics.
How many firms are Snowflake and Databricks partners?
Snowflake shows a tier badge on each partner's directory page; Databricks' public directory lists consulting partners without a public tier. Counts by tier among the 50 firms:
| Snowflake directory status | Firms | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Elite | 19 | 38% |
| Premier | 3 | 6% |
| Select | 9 | 18% |
| Listed, no tier badge | 0 | 0% |
| Not found in the directory | 19 | 38% |
Source: Snowflake Partner Network directory, per-partner pages, checked October 23, 2026. See Snowflake partners and Databricks partners.
Which services do firms document?
A capability counts only when the firm's own site has a dedicated page for it. Share of the 50 researched firms with a page for each capability:
| Capability | Firms with a page | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Generative AI | 47 | 94% |
| Data architecture | 43 | 86% |
| Analytics & BI | 42 | 84% |
| Data governance | 42 | 84% |
| Data strategy | 40 | 80% |
| Data engineering | 40 | 80% |
| Data science & ML | 39 | 78% |
| Platform migration | 37 | 74% |
| Data products | 17 | 34% |
What do public case studies show?
Up to three public data or AI case studies were recorded per firm (148 in total). 88 of them (59%) name the client. The platforms mentioned most often:
- AWS: 22 case studies
- Power BI: 17 case studies
- Databricks: 16 case studies
- Microsoft Azure: 16 case studies
- Snowflake: 15 case studies
- Google Cloud: 12 case studies
- BigQuery: 6 case studies
- Amazon S3: 5 case studies
Outcomes in case studies are reported by the firms themselves and have not been audited.
Where are the firms headquartered?
- United States: 22
- India: 4
- Poland: 2
- Malta: 1
- Japan: 1
- Canada: 1
- Ireland: 1
- Prague 10): 1
How do evidence scores differ by type of firm?
Median DCF Evidence Score by segment. Large integrators publish the most partner credentials and service pages; strategy consultancies publish few platform credentials, so they score lower on this measure even when their work is well regarded. The score measures public evidence, not quality (see methodology).
| Segment | Firms | Median score |
|---|---|---|
| Strategy consultancy | 2 | 51 |
| Big Four | 4 | 65 |
| Global systems integrator | 11 | 78 |
| Technology consultancy | 8 | 79 |
| Data & AI specialist | 14 | 73 |
| Engineering partner | 9 | 63 |
| Platform vendor services | 2 | 56 |
What do data roles cost on federal contracts?
GSA CALC+ publishes the hourly ceiling prices awarded on GSA Multiple Award Schedule contracts. They are maximums for U.S. federal buyers, not commercial quotes; commercial rates for the same roles are often higher. Medians by role, accessed October 23, 2026:
| Role | Median $/hr | Middle 50% | Records |
|---|---|---|---|
| Machine learning / AI engineer | $187 | $147–$243 | 230 |
| Cloud architect | $185 | $154–$222 | 887 |
| Data scientist | $169 | $138–$205 | 1,488 |
| Data architect | $158 | $131–$188 | 913 |
| Data engineer | $149 | $125–$183 | 838 |
| BI developer / analyst | $128 | $106–$151 | 481 |
| Data governance / management | $120 | $95–$147 | 370 |
| Data analyst | $116 | $91–$151 | 2,117 |
Source: GSA CALC+ — U.S. General Services Administration (2026), buy.gsa.gov/pricing. More detail on rates and pricing.
How was this report produced?
DCF Research checked Snowflake's and Databricks' partner directories, each firm's website, and the GSA CALC+ dataset on October 23, 2026, recording a source URL for every fact. The full method and its limits are on the methodology page; every firm's evidence is on its profile, starting from the ranked directory. Earlier versions of this page made claims about RFP data and billing trends that could not be sourced; they were removed in October 2026.