SQL Server Contracts

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for SQL Server skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited SQL Server over the 6 months to 24 April 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
24 Apr 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 63 51 51
Rank change year-on-year -12 0 +3
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,381 2,671 4,347
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.16% 4.44% 4.87%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 18.94% 24.57% 24.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 943 2,019 3,291
10th Percentile £332 £375 £356
25th Percentile £400 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £525 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% +2.44% +13.89%
75th Percentile £638 £668 £633
90th Percentile £725 £750 £725
UK excluding London median daily rate £485 £485 £450
% change year-on-year -0.10% +7.78% +9.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 24 44
10th Percentile £20.77 £26.32 £20.75
25th Percentile £37.63 £35.00 £22.06
Median hourly rate £40.00 £44.32 £46.67
Median % change year-on-year -9.74% -5.05% +66.68%
75th Percentile £51.91 £75.63 £60.00
90th Percentile £62.96 £85.00 £67.42
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £35.00 £46.67
% change year-on-year +14.29% -25.01% +79.50%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
UK

SQL Server is in the Databases and Business Intelligence category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 7,291 10,869 18,039
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.71% 18.06% 20.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,183 7,742 12,862
10th Percentile £350 £375 £375
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £545 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% +0.93% +8.00%
75th Percentile £650 £663 £650
90th Percentile £763 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £500 £480
% change year-on-year -4.00% +4.17% +9.44%
Number of hourly rates quoted 144 181 190
10th Percentile £14.00 £21.24 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.98 £35.00 £22.40
Median hourly rate £40.00 £60.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -33.33% +41.18% +57.64%
75th Percentile £55.00 £72.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £72.50 £80.00 £69.05
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £58.59 £35.00
% change year-on-year -31.73% +67.40% +45.83%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SQL Server as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SQL Server.

Daily rate trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server over the 6 months to 24 April 2024.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SQL Server.

Hourly rate trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL Server over the 6 months to 24 April 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL Server within the UK over the 6 months to 24 April 2024. 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 -10 1,224 £525 -2.33% 1,068
London +3 820 £540 -6.09% 394
Work from Home -9 573 £500 -4.76% 819
UK excluding London -47 437 £485 -0.10% 737
South East -53 104 £463 -7.50% 167
North of England -19 102 £475 -5.00% 189
Midlands -15 70 £489 +14.39% 165
South West -26 69 £550 +10.00% 81
North West -30 61 £475 -5.00% 100
Scotland -8 54 £550 +15.79% 53
West Midlands +2 44 £475 -9.09% 97
Yorkshire -3 31 £450 -8.86% 64
East of England -31 28 £475 +7.95% 71
East Midlands -13 23 £490 +18.67% 68
Wales -2 12 £525 - 14
North East +20 10 £475 -5.00% 26
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 14

SQL Server
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities 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 72 (5.21%) SharePoint
2 41 (2.97%) IIS
3 30 (2.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.88%) Confluence
5 24 (1.74%) Apache
6 20 (1.45%) CMS
7 19 (1.38%) Apache Spark
8 14 (1.01%) Tomcat
9 12 (0.87%) nginx
10 10 (0.72%) JBoss
10 10 (0.72%) SAS
11 7 (0.51%) SharePoint 2010
11 7 (0.51%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.43%) Appian
12 6 (0.43%) Tornado
13 4 (0.29%) ArcGIS
13 4 (0.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 3 (0.22%) EPiServer
14 3 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2010
14 3 (0.22%) WordPress
Applications
1 75 (5.43%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (2.39%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.59%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.58%) CATIA
5 4 (0.29%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.14%) Chatbot
7 1 (0.072%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 19 (1.38%) Teamcenter
2 18 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
2 18 (1.30%) Endur
3 10 (0.72%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 9 (0.65%) Temenos T24
5 8 (0.58%) DELMIA
6 5 (0.36%) OPENHousing
7 4 (0.29%) Elite 3E
8 3 (0.22%) MIS ActiveH
8 3 (0.22%) NEC Housing
8 3 (0.22%) Sage X3
8 3 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
9 2 (0.14%) BusinessWorks
9 2 (0.14%) Dynamics NAV
9 2 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
9 2 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
9 2 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
9 2 (0.14%) Visualfiles
10 1 (0.072%) Oracle EBS
10 1 (0.072%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 622 (45.04%) Azure
2 257 (18.61%) Azure DevOps
3 200 (14.48%) Power Platform
4 168 (12.17%) AWS
5 90 (6.52%) Microsoft 365
6 80 (5.79%) Entra ID
7 79 (5.72%) Azure Data Factory
8 78 (5.65%) GitHub
9 74 (5.36%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 67 (4.85%) Azure Service Bus
11 60 (4.34%) Serverless
12 51 (3.69%) PowerApps
13 50 (3.62%) Azure Functions
14 49 (3.55%) Power Automate
15 47 (3.40%) Azure Monitor
16 40 (2.90%) PaaS
17 33 (2.39%) Azure Logic Apps
18 31 (2.24%) GCP
19 30 (2.17%) Snowflake
20 27 (1.96%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 58 (4.20%) Firewall
2 52 (3.77%) DNS
3 34 (2.46%) SAN
4 25 (1.81%) DHCP
5 24 (1.74%) WAN
6 22 (1.59%) LAN
7 18 (1.30%) Internet
8 15 (1.09%) FTP
9 14 (1.01%) NAS
10 12 (0.87%) VPN
11 11 (0.80%) Wi-Fi
12 9 (0.65%) Wireless
13 8 (0.58%) MPLS
13 8 (0.58%) TCP/IP
14 6 (0.43%) Cisco IOS
14 6 (0.43%) SSL
15 5 (0.36%) HTTP
15 5 (0.36%) Network Security
16 4 (0.29%) Fibre Channel
16 4 (0.29%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 172 (12.45%) Power BI
2 166 (12.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 141 (10.21%) Data Warehouse
4 130 (9.41%) Relational Database
5 119 (8.62%) MySQL
5 119 (8.62%) PostgreSQL
6 114 (8.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 67 (4.85%) Oracle Database
8 63 (4.56%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 60 (4.34%) Azure SQL Database
10 55 (3.98%) NoSQL
11 48 (3.48%) Data Lake
12 42 (3.04%) Oracle Reports
13 40 (2.90%) RDBMS
14 39 (2.82%) MongoDB
15 37 (2.68%) Metadata
15 37 (2.68%) Tableau
16 30 (2.17%) Microsoft Analysis Services
17 23 (1.67%) Big Data
18 16 (1.16%) Qlik Sense
Development Applications
1 149 (10.79%) Git
2 98 (7.10%) JIRA
3 58 (4.20%) Visual Studio
4 49 (3.55%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 43 (3.11%) Jenkins
6 39 (2.82%) SpecFlow
7 38 (2.75%) Selenium
8 36 (2.61%) TeamCity
9 30 (2.17%) GitLab
10 21 (1.52%) Postman
11 20 (1.45%) Team Foundation Server
12 18 (1.30%) Octopus Deploy
13 17 (1.23%) Bitbucket
13 17 (1.23%) WebDriver
14 15 (1.09%) Maven
15 14 (1.01%) SoapUI
16 13 (0.94%) JMeter
17 11 (0.80%) ERwin
17 11 (0.80%) NUnit
17 11 (0.80%) Visual Studio Team System
General
1 287 (20.78%) Finance
2 284 (20.56%) Social Skills
3 146 (10.57%) Analytical Skills
4 143 (10.35%) Public Sector
5 123 (8.91%) Banking
6 44 (3.19%) Back Office
7 34 (2.46%) Manufacturing
8 29 (2.10%) Financial Institution
8 29 (2.10%) Investment Banking
8 29 (2.10%) Presentation Skills
9 28 (2.03%) Front Office
10 26 (1.88%) Marketing
10 26 (1.88%) Telecoms
11 20 (1.45%) Retail
12 18 (1.30%) Electronics
13 16 (1.16%) Local Government
13 16 (1.16%) Publishing
14 12 (0.87%) Documentation Skills
15 10 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
16 9 (0.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
Job Titles
1 546 (39.54%) Developer
2 219 (15.86%) Senior
3 133 (9.63%) .NET Developer
4 131 (9.49%) C# Developer
5 129 (9.34%) Senior Developer
6 97 (7.02%) Analyst
7 96 (6.95%) DBA
8 95 (6.88%) Architect
9 85 (6.15%) Data Engineer
10 73 (5.29%) SQL DBA
11 67 (4.85%) SQL Developer
12 65 (4.71%) Software Developer
13 62 (4.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 62 (4.49%) Lead
14 56 (4.06%) C# .NET Developer
15 51 (3.69%) Azure Developer
16 49 (3.55%) Administrator
17 46 (3.33%) Senior Software Developer
18 44 (3.19%) Consultant
18 44 (3.19%) Full Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 409 (29.62%) .NET
2 156 (11.30%) XML
3 140 (10.14%) .NET Framework
4 138 (9.99%) .NET Core
5 127 (9.20%) HTML
6 114 (8.25%) AngularJS
7 90 (6.52%) ASP.NET
8 88 (6.37%) CSS
9 72 (5.21%) React
10 65 (4.71%) Web Services
11 63 (4.56%) REST
12 54 (3.91%) SOAP
13 49 (3.55%) JSON
14 47 (3.40%) Entity Framework
15 46 (3.33%) Kafka
16 38 (2.75%) RESTful
17 36 (2.61%) jQuery
17 36 (2.61%) LDAP
17 36 (2.61%) SailPoint
18 35 (2.53%) ASP.NET MVC
Miscellaneous
1 63 (4.56%) Product Ownership
2 59 (4.27%) Onboarding
3 58 (4.20%) Replication
4 43 (3.11%) Clustering
5 27 (1.96%) Data Centre
6 26 (1.88%) Public Cloud
7 24 (1.74%) Cloud Native
8 23 (1.67%) Client/Server
8 23 (1.67%) Distributed Systems
9 22 (1.59%) Derivative
9 22 (1.59%) Management Information System
10 21 (1.52%) Hedge funds
11 18 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
12 17 (1.23%) Linux Command Line
12 17 (1.23%) PKI
13 15 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
14 14 (1.01%) NHS
15 13 (0.94%) Blog
15 13 (0.94%) Equity Derivative
16 11 (0.80%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 253 (18.32%) Windows
2 134 (9.70%) Windows Server
3 123 (8.91%) Linux
4 53 (3.84%) Unix
5 52 (3.77%) Windows Server 2019
6 47 (3.40%) Windows Server 2016
7 34 (2.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 28 (2.03%) Windows 10
9 23 (1.67%) Windows Server 2012
10 11 (0.80%) Ubuntu
10 11 (0.80%) Windows Server 2008
11 9 (0.65%) VMS
11 9 (0.65%) Windows 7
12 8 (0.58%) Android
13 6 (0.43%) CentOS
14 5 (0.36%) Apple iOS
14 5 (0.36%) Mac OS
14 5 (0.36%) zOS
15 2 (0.14%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 438 (31.72%) Agile
2 389 (28.17%) DevOps
3 217 (15.71%) Business Intelligence
4 205 (14.84%) Migration
5 186 (13.47%) Scrum
6 183 (13.25%) Problem-Solving
7 182 (13.18%) CI/CD
8 170 (12.31%) ETL
9 138 (9.99%) Data Modelling
10 124 (8.98%) TDD
11 100 (7.24%) OO
12 97 (7.02%) Disaster Recovery
13 88 (6.37%) MVC
14 86 (6.23%) Data Analysis
14 86 (6.23%) SDLC
15 82 (5.94%) Software Engineering
16 81 (5.87%) Analytics
17 77 (5.58%) Test Automation
18 76 (5.50%) High Availability
19 73 (5.29%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 752 (54.45%) SQL
2 496 (35.92%) C#
3 263 (19.04%) PowerShell
4 173 (12.53%) JavaScript
5 157 (11.37%) T-SQL
6 149 (10.79%) Python
7 127 (9.20%) Java
8 91 (6.59%) PL/SQL
9 82 (5.94%) Bicep
10 49 (3.55%) TypeScript
11 34 (2.46%) VBA
12 29 (2.10%) Bash
12 29 (2.10%) VB.NET
13 26 (1.88%) VB
14 22 (1.59%) Shell Script
15 20 (1.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
16 16 (1.16%) C
17 14 (1.01%) PHP
18 13 (0.94%) C++
19 10 (0.72%) XPath
Qualifications
1 195 (14.12%) Security Cleared
2 136 (9.85%) Degree
3 112 (8.11%) SC Cleared
4 66 (4.78%) DV Cleared
5 42 (3.04%) Computer Science Degree
6 25 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (1.01%) BPSS Clearance
8 13 (0.94%) Azure Certification
8 13 (0.94%) MCSE
9 12 (0.87%) ISTQB
10 11 (0.80%) Master's Degree
11 6 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 5 (0.36%) CCNA
12 5 (0.36%) CCNP
12 5 (0.36%) Cisco Certification
12 5 (0.36%) SAP Certification
13 4 (0.29%) ISEB
14 3 (0.22%) AWS Certification
14 3 (0.22%) MCITP
14 3 (0.22%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 111 (8.04%) QA
2 59 (4.27%) Data Quality
3 40 (2.90%) Accessibility
4 26 (1.88%) WCAG
5 13 (0.94%) GDPR
5 13 (0.94%) SLA
6 11 (0.80%) MiFID
7 5 (0.36%) EMIR
8 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.22%) Dodd-Frank
9 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 2 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
10 2 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
10 2 (0.14%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.14%) IFRS
10 2 (0.14%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 2 (0.14%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 2 (0.14%) NIST
10 2 (0.14%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 253 (18.32%) Active Directory
2 47 (3.40%) Docker
2 47 (3.40%) VMware Infrastructure
3 33 (2.39%) IAG
4 28 (2.03%) ACF2
4 28 (2.03%) RACF
5 22 (1.59%) Virtual Machines
6 16 (1.16%) vSphere
7 13 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.72%) Hyper-V
9 9 (0.65%) Virtual Servers
10 8 (0.58%) VMware Workstation
11 6 (0.43%) VMware NSX
12 4 (0.29%) Oracle RAC
13 3 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
14 2 (0.14%) VirtualBox
15 1 (0.072%) Apache ZooKeeper
15 1 (0.072%) HDFS
15 1 (0.072%) Terminal Server
15 1 (0.072%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 61 (4.42%) Kubernetes
2 57 (4.13%) Terraform
3 48 (3.48%) Ansible
4 44 (3.19%) SCCM
5 30 (2.17%) Active Directory Federation Services
6 21 (1.52%) Microsoft Clustering
6 21 (1.52%) Single Sign-On
7 19 (1.38%) Grafana
8 18 (1.30%) Puppet
9 17 (1.23%) Nagios
10 16 (1.16%) Prometheus
11 14 (1.01%) Progress Chef
12 12 (0.87%) Graylog
12 12 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
13 11 (0.80%) Nessus
14 9 (0.65%) Data Guard
15 8 (0.58%) NetBackup
15 8 (0.58%) vCenter Server
16 7 (0.51%) WSUS
17 6 (0.43%) WebInspect
Vendors
1 513 (37.15%) Microsoft
2 311 (22.52%) Oracle
3 77 (5.58%) VMware
4 57 (4.13%) SAP
5 55 (3.98%) Databricks
5 55 (3.98%) ServiceNow
6 43 (3.11%) Sybase
7 40 (2.90%) Red Hat
8 34 (2.46%) Citrix
9 32 (2.32%) Veeam
10 31 (2.24%) Informatica
11 21 (1.52%) IBM
11 21 (1.52%) Sparx
11 21 (1.52%) Splunk
12 17 (1.23%) Salesforce
13 15 (1.09%) Cisco
14 14 (1.01%) HP
15 13 (0.94%) AVEVA
15 13 (0.94%) CA
15 13 (0.94%) OpenLink