SQL Server Contracts

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring SQL Server skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SQL Server over the 6 months leading up to 26 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 96 63 51
Rank change year-on-year -33 -12 0
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 760 1,382 2,669
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.59% 3.17% 4.45%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.61% 18.93% 24.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 551 944 2,014
10th Percentile £330 £334 £375
25th Percentile £415 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -2.38% +2.44%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £666
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +4.42% -2.06% +7.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 25 24
10th Percentile £25.03 £20.77 £26.32
25th Percentile £26.05 £37.63 £35.00
Median hourly rate £62.12 £40.00 £44.32
Median % change year-on-year +55.31% -9.74% -5.05%
75th Percentile £76.56 £51.91 £75.63
90th Percentile £92.13 £62.96 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.35 £40.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -31.63% +14.29% -25.01%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
UK

SQL Server falls under the Databases and Business Intelligence category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring database or business intelligence skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 5,583 7,301 10,860
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.01% 16.73% 18.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,853 5,192 7,728
10th Percentile £356 £350 £375
25th Percentile £420 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £545
Median % change year-on-year - -3.67% +0.93%
75th Percentile £640 £650 £663
90th Percentile £763 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £490 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +2.08% -4.00% +3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 146 184
10th Percentile £20.47 £14.00 £21.24
25th Percentile £24.25 £20.98 £35.00
Median hourly rate £34.58 £40.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -13.56% -33.33% +41.18%
75th Percentile £65.62 £57.61 £71.75
90th Percentile £73.63 £72.50 £79.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.64 £40.00 £58.05
% change year-on-year -20.90% -31.09% +65.84%

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 26 April 2025.

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 26 April 2025.

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 26 April 2025. 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 -34 667 £524 +0.77% 1,269
London -38 414 £564 +4.64% 545
UK excluding London -22 270 £496 +4.42% 804
Work from Home -47 260 £500 - 693
North of England -2 78 £425 -10.53% 252
South East +30 77 £500 +8.11% 193
North West +12 58 £475 - 120
Scotland +1 37 £496 -5.52% 56
Midlands -11 34 £538 +11.51% 152
South West +3 31 £538 -2.27% 75
West Midlands -2 25 £590 +27.46% 89
Yorkshire -4 14 £400 -11.06% 115
East Midlands +1 8 £312 -36.26% 62
East of England +8 7 £501 +5.53% 59
North East -6 6 £450 -5.26% 17
Northern Ireland -3 4 £470 - 19
Wales -5 3 £275 -45.00% 5

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 43 (5.66%) SharePoint
2 38 (5.00%) Microsoft Exchange
3 35 (4.61%) IIS
4 27 (3.55%) Apache
5 20 (2.63%) Confluence
6 16 (2.11%) Apache Spark
7 11 (1.45%) Tomcat
8 9 (1.18%) CMS
9 7 (0.92%) Skype for Business
10 6 (0.79%) BizTalk Server
10 6 (0.79%) Jupyter
11 5 (0.66%) nginx
12 4 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
12 4 (0.53%) Drupal
12 4 (0.53%) Umbraco
12 4 (0.53%) WordPress
13 3 (0.39%) OpenEdge
13 3 (0.39%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 3 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
13 3 (0.39%) SAS
Applications
1 59 (7.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.05%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.26%) Notepad++
5 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.13%) SPSS
5 1 (0.13%) Stata
5 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 31 (4.08%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.66%) Kondor
2 5 (0.66%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 4 (0.53%) Cognos Business Intelligence
3 4 (0.53%) Fidessa
4 3 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.26%) Actimize
5 2 (0.26%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.26%) Alphatax
5 2 (0.26%) Endur
5 2 (0.26%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.26%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.13%) FastStats
6 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
6 1 (0.13%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 361 (47.50%) Azure
2 125 (16.45%) AWS
2 125 (16.45%) Power Platform
3 66 (8.68%) Microsoft 365
4 63 (8.29%) Entra ID
5 52 (6.84%) Azure Data Factory
6 47 (6.18%) Azure DevOps
7 40 (5.26%) GitHub
8 36 (4.74%) PowerApps
9 34 (4.47%) Dynamics 365
10 31 (4.08%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 31 (4.08%) GCP
11 30 (3.95%) Power Automate
12 28 (3.68%) Serverless
13 26 (3.42%) Azure Service Bus
14 23 (3.03%) Azure Functions
14 23 (3.03%) IaaS
15 22 (2.89%) Azure Logic Apps
16 18 (2.37%) GitHub Actions
17 17 (2.24%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 44 (5.79%) Firewall
2 36 (4.74%) DNS
3 19 (2.50%) Internet
3 19 (2.50%) Network Security
4 18 (2.37%) TCP/IP
5 16 (2.11%) DHCP
6 14 (1.84%) Intrusion Detection
7 13 (1.71%) VPN
8 9 (1.18%) HTTP
9 7 (0.92%) LAN
9 7 (0.92%) Skype
9 7 (0.92%) WAN
10 6 (0.79%) SSH
11 5 (0.66%) SAN
12 4 (0.53%) Remote Desktop
12 4 (0.53%) VoIP
12 4 (0.53%) Wireless
13 3 (0.39%) iSCSI
13 3 (0.39%) NAS
13 3 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (11.84%) Power BI
2 86 (11.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 81 (10.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 78 (10.26%) PostgreSQL
5 64 (8.42%) Data Warehouse
6 62 (8.16%) Relational Database
7 53 (6.97%) Azure SQL Database
8 49 (6.45%) MySQL
8 49 (6.45%) Oracle Database
9 45 (5.92%) MongoDB
10 39 (5.13%) NoSQL
11 27 (3.55%) Big Data
12 22 (2.89%) Tableau
13 21 (2.76%) Data Lake
13 21 (2.76%) RDBMS
14 17 (2.24%) DB2
15 15 (1.97%) Redis
15 15 (1.97%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 12 (1.58%) Hadoop
17 11 (1.45%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 62 (8.16%) Git
2 49 (6.45%) JIRA
3 30 (3.95%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.37%) GitLab
5 17 (2.24%) Bitbucket
6 12 (1.58%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 11 (1.45%) Visual Studio
8 9 (1.18%) TeamCity
9 8 (1.05%) Octopus Deploy
9 8 (1.05%) SonarQube
10 7 (0.92%) Sonatype Nexus
11 6 (0.79%) ERwin
11 6 (0.79%) Postman
11 6 (0.79%) QARun
11 6 (0.79%) RStudio
11 6 (0.79%) Selenium
11 6 (0.79%) Team Foundation Server
11 6 (0.79%) WinRunner
12 5 (0.66%) LoadRunner
12 5 (0.66%) Subversion
General
1 206 (27.11%) Social Skills
2 197 (25.92%) Finance
3 105 (13.82%) Banking
4 76 (10.00%) Analytical Skills
5 56 (7.37%) Public Sector
6 25 (3.29%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.16%) Front Office
7 24 (3.16%) Legal
8 17 (2.24%) Telecoms
9 16 (2.11%) Organisational Skills
10 15 (1.97%) Back Office
11 10 (1.32%) Documentation Skills
11 10 (1.32%) Law
12 6 (0.79%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.79%) Marketing
12 6 (0.79%) Retail Banking
13 5 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 4 (0.53%) Local Government
14 4 (0.53%) Police
14 4 (0.53%) Retail
Job Titles
1 260 (34.21%) Developer
2 77 (10.13%) Senior
3 73 (9.61%) Analyst
4 72 (9.47%) C# Developer
5 62 (8.16%) Architect
6 59 (7.76%) .NET Developer
7 57 (7.50%) DBA
8 54 (7.11%) Data Engineer
9 44 (5.79%) SQL DBA
10 36 (4.74%) Software Engineer
11 34 (4.47%) Azure Engineer
12 28 (3.68%) Consultant
13 27 (3.55%) Full-Stack Developer
14 26 (3.42%) Data Analyst
14 26 (3.42%) Lead
15 25 (3.29%) Administrator
15 25 (3.29%) Senior Developer
16 23 (3.03%) C# .NET Developer
17 22 (2.89%) SQL Developer
18 21 (2.76%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (25.79%) .NET
2 77 (10.13%) .NET Framework
3 70 (9.21%) HTML
4 59 (7.76%) CSS
5 57 (7.50%) REST
6 54 (7.11%) AngularJS
7 52 (6.84%) ASP.NET
8 50 (6.58%) React
9 47 (6.18%) RESTful
10 43 (5.66%) .NET Core
10 43 (5.66%) Web Services
11 36 (4.74%) XML
12 35 (4.61%) Kafka
12 35 (4.61%) SOAP
13 33 (4.34%) JSON
13 33 (4.34%) WCF
14 32 (4.21%) ASP.NET Web API
15 30 (3.95%) OAuth
16 24 (3.16%) Node.js
17 23 (3.03%) ASP.NET MVC
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.21%) Replication
2 31 (4.08%) Derivative
3 24 (3.16%) Clustering
4 23 (3.03%) Legacy Systems
5 18 (2.37%) Data Centre
5 18 (2.37%) Distributed Systems
5 18 (2.37%) Public Cloud
6 17 (2.24%) Data Structures
6 17 (2.24%) Product Ownership
7 16 (2.11%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 12 (1.58%) Enterprise Software
8 12 (1.58%) Reference Data
9 11 (1.45%) Management Information System
9 11 (1.45%) Onboarding
10 9 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
10 9 (1.18%) PKI
11 8 (1.05%) NHS
11 8 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
11 8 (1.05%) SWIFT Messaging Network
12 7 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 178 (23.42%) Windows
2 116 (15.26%) Linux
3 91 (11.97%) Windows Server
4 37 (4.87%) Unix
5 30 (3.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.84%) Windows 10
7 13 (1.71%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (1.32%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (1.05%) Solaris
9 8 (1.05%) VMS
9 8 (1.05%) Windows Server 2012
10 7 (0.92%) AIX
10 7 (0.92%) Android
10 7 (0.92%) CentOS
11 3 (0.39%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.39%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.26%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.26%) Rocky
12 2 (0.26%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 192 (25.26%) Agile
2 172 (22.63%) Problem-Solving
3 160 (21.05%) DevOps
4 124 (16.32%) CI/CD
5 112 (14.74%) Migration
6 96 (12.63%) Business Intelligence
7 77 (10.13%) Software Engineering
8 73 (9.61%) ETL
9 69 (9.08%) Test Automation
10 68 (8.95%) Performance Tuning
11 63 (8.29%) Data Modelling
11 63 (8.29%) Disaster Recovery
12 57 (7.50%) Scrum
13 56 (7.37%) ITIL
14 55 (7.24%) High Availability
15 54 (7.11%) Data Migration
16 53 (6.97%) Data Analysis
17 50 (6.58%) Microservices
18 49 (6.45%) TDD
19 47 (6.18%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 387 (50.92%) SQL
2 212 (27.89%) C#
3 155 (20.39%) Python
4 102 (13.42%) JavaScript
5 92 (12.11%) PowerShell
6 65 (8.55%) Java
7 60 (7.89%) T-SQL
8 44 (5.79%) TypeScript
9 38 (5.00%) PL/SQL
10 28 (3.68%) Bash
11 26 (3.42%) VB
12 21 (2.76%) VBA
13 16 (2.11%) Perl
13 16 (2.11%) Scala
14 12 (1.58%) R
15 10 (1.32%) PHP
16 7 (0.92%) Shell Script
17 5 (0.66%) Bicep
18 4 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 3 (0.39%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 112 (14.74%) Security Cleared
2 85 (11.18%) Degree
3 77 (10.13%) SC Cleared
4 35 (4.61%) Microsoft Certification
5 29 (3.82%) Azure Certification
6 26 (3.42%) DV Cleared
7 16 (2.11%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (0.92%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.53%) MCPD
10 4 (0.53%) MCSD
10 4 (0.53%) MCSE
11 3 (0.39%) MCSA
12 2 (0.26%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.26%) OCP
12 2 (0.26%) Oracle Certification
12 2 (0.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 2 (0.26%) VCAP
12 2 (0.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (7.24%) QA
2 40 (5.26%) GDPR
3 34 (4.47%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.50%) Accessibility
5 17 (2.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 11 (1.45%) MiFID
7 8 (1.05%) SLA
8 7 (0.92%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (0.79%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.79%) EMIR
9 6 (0.79%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 5 (0.66%) Basel III
10 5 (0.66%) HIPAA
11 4 (0.53%) WCAG
12 3 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
13 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
13 2 (0.26%) HL7
13 2 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
14 1 (0.13%) ISO 20022
14 1 (0.13%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 93 (12.24%) Active Directory
2 59 (7.76%) Docker
3 37 (4.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (2.63%) vSphere
5 9 (1.18%) Virtual Machines
5 9 (1.18%) VMware ESXi
6 8 (1.05%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.92%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.39%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 3 (0.39%) KVM
9 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.39%) vCloud
9 3 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.39%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.13%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 67 (8.82%) Kubernetes
2 57 (7.50%) Terraform
3 24 (3.16%) Ansible
4 17 (2.24%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (1.71%) SCCM
6 8 (1.05%) SCOM
7 7 (0.92%) Data Guard
7 7 (0.92%) Kibana
7 7 (0.92%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 5 (0.66%) Grafana
8 5 (0.66%) Microsoft Clustering
8 5 (0.66%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
9 4 (0.53%) Oracle Flashback
9 4 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.39%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.39%) Puppet
10 3 (0.39%) Rundeck
10 3 (0.39%) SCSM
10 3 (0.39%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 272 (35.79%) Microsoft
2 219 (28.82%) Oracle
3 51 (6.71%) VMware
4 46 (6.05%) Databricks
5 28 (3.68%) Sybase
6 24 (3.16%) ServiceNow
7 21 (2.76%) Cisco
8 20 (2.63%) SAP
9 19 (2.50%) Red Hat
10 18 (2.37%) Google
11 17 (2.24%) Citrix
12 16 (2.11%) IBM
13 15 (1.97%) Informatica
14 11 (1.45%) CyberArk
14 11 (1.45%) Salesforce
14 11 (1.45%) Splunk
15 9 (1.18%) UiPath
16 7 (0.92%) AppDynamics
16 7 (0.92%) TIBCO
17 6 (0.79%) Bloomberg