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 3 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 99 63 52
Rank change year-on-year -36 -11 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 765 1,400 2,833
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.63% 3.17% 4.53%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.87% 19.24% 24.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 562 968 2,138
10th Percentile £330 £325 £363
25th Percentile £413 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% - +2.44%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £666
90th Percentile £713 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £500 £480
% change year-on-year - +4.17% +6.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 29 27
10th Percentile £25.00 £20.55 £26.39
25th Percentile £25.79 £37.63 £35.00
Median hourly rate £60.50 £40.25 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.31% -7.47% -1.97%
75th Percentile £77.18 £59.00 £71.25
90th Percentile £92.50 £70.00 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.35 £40.13 £35.00
% change year-on-year -31.84% +14.64% -19.23%

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 5,515 7,276 11,527
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.96% 16.48% 18.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,826 5,148 8,223
10th Percentile £351 £350 £375
25th Percentile £419 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% +1.85%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £663
90th Percentile £763 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £488 £500
% change year-on-year - -2.50% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 156 180
10th Percentile £20.72 £14.00 £21.24
25th Percentile £24.25 £20.81 £32.37
Median hourly rate £32.23 £40.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.44% -33.33% +50.00%
75th Percentile £65.00 £53.84 £68.75
90th Percentile £76.38 £72.25 £79.27
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.78 £38.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year -25.25% -30.00% +57.14%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -28 672 £518 -1.43% 1,412
London -30 413 £550 - 552
Work from Home -32 293 £499 -0.30% 969
UK excluding London -30 278 £500 - 986
South East +25 80 £500 +5.26% 260
North of England -1 73 £414 -8.00% 267
North West +1 54 £425 -10.53% 148
Midlands -8 41 £525 +2.44% 180
South West +6 38 £550 -12.00% 106
Scotland -14 36 £499 -13.30% 60
West Midlands -1 31 £594 +3.35% 104
Yorkshire 0 13 £400 - 93
East Midlands +2 9 £370 -13.45% 68
East of England +7 7 £523 +10.00% 96
North East -4 6 £450 -21.74% 26
Northern Ireland 0 4 £470 -6.00% 18
Wales -8 2 £221 -47.99% 19

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 51 (6.67%) SharePoint
2 45 (5.88%) Microsoft Exchange
3 34 (4.44%) IIS
4 24 (3.14%) Apache
4 24 (3.14%) Confluence
5 14 (1.83%) Apache Spark
6 11 (1.44%) CMS
6 11 (1.44%) Tomcat
7 7 (0.92%) Skype for Business
8 6 (0.78%) BizTalk Server
8 6 (0.78%) Drupal
8 6 (0.78%) WordPress
9 4 (0.52%) Jupyter
9 4 (0.52%) nginx
9 4 (0.52%) Umbraco
10 3 (0.39%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (0.39%) Exchange Server 2013
10 3 (0.39%) OpenEdge
10 3 (0.39%) SharePoint 2010
11 2 (0.26%) SAS
Applications
1 57 (7.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (0.78%) 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 32 (4.18%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.52%) Cognos Business Intelligence
2 4 (0.52%) Fidessa
2 4 (0.52%) Kondor
2 4 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
3 3 (0.39%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 2 (0.26%) Actimize
4 2 (0.26%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.26%) Markit EDM
4 2 (0.26%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.26%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.13%) Elite 3E
5 1 (0.13%) Endur
5 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
5 1 (0.13%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.13%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
5 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 366 (47.84%) Azure
2 122 (15.95%) AWS
3 121 (15.82%) Power Platform
4 70 (9.15%) Microsoft 365
5 55 (7.19%) Entra ID
6 52 (6.80%) Azure Data Factory
7 44 (5.75%) Azure DevOps
8 41 (5.36%) GitHub
9 40 (5.23%) PowerApps
10 35 (4.58%) Dynamics 365
10 35 (4.58%) Power Automate
11 32 (4.18%) Serverless
12 30 (3.92%) GCP
13 27 (3.53%) Azure Functions
14 25 (3.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 25 (3.27%) Azure Logic Apps
14 25 (3.27%) Azure Service Bus
15 23 (3.01%) IaaS
16 21 (2.75%) PaaS
17 16 (2.09%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 43 (5.62%) Firewall
2 36 (4.71%) DNS
3 20 (2.61%) Internet
3 20 (2.61%) TCP/IP
4 19 (2.48%) Network Security
5 17 (2.22%) DHCP
6 12 (1.57%) Intrusion Detection
6 12 (1.57%) VPN
7 10 (1.31%) HTTP
8 7 (0.92%) Skype
9 6 (0.78%) LAN
9 6 (0.78%) SAN
9 6 (0.78%) WAN
10 4 (0.52%) Remote Desktop
10 4 (0.52%) SSH
10 4 (0.52%) Wireless
11 3 (0.39%) iSCSI
11 3 (0.39%) NAS
11 3 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (0.39%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (12.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
2 93 (12.16%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 89 (11.63%) Power BI
4 74 (9.67%) PostgreSQL
5 71 (9.28%) Data Warehouse
5 71 (9.28%) Relational Database
6 52 (6.80%) MySQL
7 51 (6.67%) Azure SQL Database
8 44 (5.75%) Oracle Database
9 41 (5.36%) NoSQL
10 39 (5.10%) MongoDB
11 29 (3.79%) RDBMS
12 23 (3.01%) Big Data
13 22 (2.88%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 21 (2.75%) Data Lake
15 17 (2.22%) DB2
15 17 (2.22%) Tableau
16 15 (1.96%) Redis
17 13 (1.70%) Metadata
18 10 (1.31%) OLAP
Development Applications
1 64 (8.37%) Git
2 45 (5.88%) JIRA
3 37 (4.84%) Jenkins
4 21 (2.75%) Bitbucket
5 17 (2.22%) GitLab
6 16 (2.09%) TeamCity
6 16 (2.09%) Visual Studio
7 13 (1.70%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 8 (1.05%) Team Foundation Server
9 6 (0.78%) Artifactory
9 6 (0.78%) Bitbucket Server
9 6 (0.78%) ERwin
9 6 (0.78%) Octopus Deploy
9 6 (0.78%) Postman
10 5 (0.65%) LoadRunner
10 5 (0.65%) SonarQube
10 5 (0.65%) Sonatype Nexus
11 4 (0.52%) JMeter
11 4 (0.52%) RStudio
11 4 (0.52%) WinRunner
General
1 209 (27.32%) Social Skills
2 206 (26.93%) Finance
3 110 (14.38%) Banking
4 80 (10.46%) Analytical Skills
5 53 (6.93%) Public Sector
6 26 (3.40%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.14%) Legal
8 19 (2.48%) Telecoms
9 18 (2.35%) Front Office
10 15 (1.96%) Organisational Skills
11 13 (1.70%) Back Office
12 11 (1.44%) Law
13 9 (1.18%) Marketing
14 8 (1.05%) Financial Institution
15 7 (0.92%) Documentation Skills
15 7 (0.92%) Retail Banking
16 6 (0.78%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 5 (0.65%) Manufacturing
18 4 (0.52%) Local Government
18 4 (0.52%) Retail
Job Titles
1 255 (33.33%) Developer
2 77 (10.07%) Senior
3 71 (9.28%) Analyst
4 66 (8.63%) C# Developer
5 58 (7.58%) .NET Developer
6 56 (7.32%) Architect
7 54 (7.06%) DBA
8 50 (6.54%) Data Engineer
9 42 (5.49%) SQL DBA
10 39 (5.10%) Software Engineer
11 35 (4.58%) Consultant
12 30 (3.92%) Azure Engineer
13 29 (3.79%) Full-Stack Developer
13 29 (3.79%) Lead
14 25 (3.27%) Data Analyst
15 24 (3.14%) Administrator
15 24 (3.14%) Senior Developer
16 22 (2.88%) C# .NET Developer
16 22 (2.88%) Support Engineer
17 19 (2.48%) Applications Support
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (25.88%) .NET
2 81 (10.59%) .NET Framework
3 76 (9.93%) HTML
4 64 (8.37%) CSS
5 56 (7.32%) AngularJS
6 52 (6.80%) React
7 49 (6.41%) ASP.NET
7 49 (6.41%) REST
8 47 (6.14%) RESTful
9 41 (5.36%) Web Services
10 40 (5.23%) .NET Core
11 36 (4.71%) SOAP
12 32 (4.18%) Kafka
13 31 (4.05%) JSON
13 31 (4.05%) XML
14 30 (3.92%) ASP.NET Web API
15 29 (3.79%) WCF
16 28 (3.66%) OAuth
17 23 (3.01%) Entity Framework
18 20 (2.61%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 30 (3.92%) Replication
2 28 (3.66%) Clustering
3 25 (3.27%) Derivative
3 25 (3.27%) Legacy Systems
4 20 (2.61%) Product Ownership
5 18 (2.35%) Data Centre
5 18 (2.35%) Public Cloud
6 17 (2.22%) Onboarding
7 15 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
8 13 (1.70%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 12 (1.57%) Data Structures
9 12 (1.57%) Enterprise Software
10 11 (1.44%) Management Information System
11 10 (1.31%) Reference Data
12 9 (1.18%) Analytical Mindset
12 9 (1.18%) PKI
13 8 (1.05%) NHS
13 8 (1.05%) SWIFT Messaging Network
14 7 (0.92%) Data Protection Act
14 7 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 188 (24.58%) Windows
2 128 (16.73%) Linux
3 96 (12.55%) Windows Server
4 52 (6.80%) Unix
5 33 (4.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (1.83%) Windows 10
7 13 (1.70%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (1.44%) Windows Server 2012
9 10 (1.31%) Windows Server 2019
10 8 (1.05%) Solaris
11 7 (0.92%) AIX
12 6 (0.78%) Android
12 6 (0.78%) CentOS
12 6 (0.78%) VMS
13 3 (0.39%) Apple iOS
13 3 (0.39%) Windows 7
14 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.26%) Rocky
14 2 (0.26%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.13%) Fedora
Processes & Methodologies
1 193 (25.23%) Agile
2 181 (23.66%) Problem-Solving
3 159 (20.78%) DevOps
4 131 (17.12%) CI/CD
5 122 (15.95%) Migration
6 102 (13.33%) Business Intelligence
7 82 (10.72%) Software Engineering
8 79 (10.33%) ETL
9 64 (8.37%) Performance Tuning
9 64 (8.37%) Scrum
9 64 (8.37%) Test Automation
10 63 (8.24%) Data Modelling
11 57 (7.45%) Disaster Recovery
12 54 (7.06%) ITIL
13 51 (6.67%) Data Migration
14 50 (6.54%) Analytics
14 50 (6.54%) TDD
15 48 (6.27%) High Availability
16 45 (5.88%) Data Analysis
17 43 (5.62%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 386 (50.46%) SQL
2 205 (26.80%) C#
3 145 (18.95%) Python
4 106 (13.86%) JavaScript
5 96 (12.55%) PowerShell
6 67 (8.76%) T-SQL
7 63 (8.24%) Java
8 45 (5.88%) TypeScript
9 35 (4.58%) PL/SQL
10 21 (2.75%) Bash
10 21 (2.75%) VB
11 20 (2.61%) VBA
12 15 (1.96%) Perl
13 12 (1.57%) PHP
14 11 (1.44%) Scala
15 10 (1.31%) R
16 8 (1.05%) Shell Script
17 6 (0.78%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 4 (0.52%) Bicep
18 4 (0.52%) C++
Qualifications
1 117 (15.29%) Security Cleared
2 82 (10.72%) Degree
2 82 (10.72%) SC Cleared
3 31 (4.05%) Microsoft Certification
4 26 (3.40%) Azure Certification
4 26 (3.40%) DV Cleared
5 18 (2.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 5 (0.65%) AWS Certification
7 4 (0.52%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
7 4 (0.52%) MCSE
8 3 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
8 3 (0.39%) MCSA
8 3 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
9 2 (0.26%) MCPD
9 2 (0.26%) MCSD
9 2 (0.26%) OCP
9 2 (0.26%) Oracle Certification
9 2 (0.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
9 2 (0.26%) VCAP
9 2 (0.26%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 57 (7.45%) QA
2 34 (4.44%) GDPR
3 32 (4.18%) Data Quality
4 18 (2.35%) Accessibility
5 15 (1.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 10 (1.31%) MiFID
7 8 (1.05%) Disclosure Scotland
7 8 (1.05%) SLA
8 6 (0.78%) EMIR
8 6 (0.78%) Government Security Classifications
9 4 (0.52%) Basel III
9 4 (0.52%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 4 (0.52%) WCAG
10 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
10 3 (0.39%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.26%) HL7
11 2 (0.26%) ISO 20022
11 2 (0.26%) SEPA
12 1 (0.13%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 101 (13.20%) Active Directory
2 59 (7.71%) Docker
3 38 (4.97%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (2.48%) vSphere
5 11 (1.44%) VMware ESXi
6 9 (1.18%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.92%) Oracle RAC
7 7 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
8 4 (0.52%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.26%) vCloud
10 2 (0.26%) Virtual Desktop
10 2 (0.26%) VMware Workstation
11 1 (0.13%) HDFS
11 1 (0.13%) KVM
11 1 (0.13%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 62 (8.10%) Kubernetes
2 54 (7.06%) Terraform
3 25 (3.27%) Ansible
4 13 (1.70%) Microsoft Intune
4 13 (1.70%) SCCM
5 9 (1.18%) SCOM
6 7 (0.92%) Data Guard
6 7 (0.92%) Microsoft Clustering
6 7 (0.92%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 6 (0.78%) Kibana
8 5 (0.65%) Grafana
8 5 (0.65%) Rancher
9 4 (0.52%) Failover Clustering
9 4 (0.52%) Oracle Flashback
9 4 (0.52%) SCSM
9 4 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.39%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.39%) Puppet
10 3 (0.39%) Rundeck
10 3 (0.39%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 300 (39.22%) Microsoft
2 227 (29.67%) Oracle
3 55 (7.19%) VMware
4 40 (5.23%) Databricks
5 25 (3.27%) Sybase
6 23 (3.01%) Red Hat
6 23 (3.01%) SAP
7 22 (2.88%) ServiceNow
8 20 (2.61%) CyberArk
9 17 (2.22%) Citrix
10 16 (2.09%) Google
11 15 (1.96%) Cisco
11 15 (1.96%) IBM
12 12 (1.57%) Informatica
12 12 (1.57%) Salesforce
13 10 (1.31%) Splunk
14 9 (1.18%) AppDynamics
14 9 (1.18%) UiPath
15 7 (0.92%) Atlassian
15 7 (0.92%) Dynatrace