SQL Server Contract Job Trends in Central London

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
London > Central London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Central London requiring SQL Server skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 80 65 39
Rank change year-on-year -15 -26 0
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 73 57 113
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 3.00% 2.95% 4.85%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 16.98% 14.07% 23.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 49 41 86
10th Percentile £328 £404 £388
25th Percentile £425 £405 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £496 £550
Median % change year-on-year +8.48% -9.91% -8.33%
75th Percentile £668 £638 £675
90th Percentile £707 £675 £750
London median daily rate £500 £550 £538
% change year-on-year -9.09% +2.33% -6.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £19.25 - -
Median hourly rate £19.50 - -
75th Percentile £19.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
London median hourly rate £36.00 - £100.00
% change year-on-year - - +33.33%

All Database & BI Skills
Central London

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 in Central London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 430 405 489
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 17.66% 20.93% 21.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 310 283 349
10th Percentile £351 £375 £413
25th Percentile £457 £425 £486
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year - -4.17% -
75th Percentile £663 £675 £713
90th Percentile £763 £798 £825
London median daily rate £533 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -3.18% -4.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 6 2
10th Percentile - £24.25 £37.20
25th Percentile £19.25 £32.13 £37.88
Median hourly rate £19.50 £48.25 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -59.59% +20.63% -9.09%
75th Percentile £19.75 £63.75 £41.38
90th Percentile - £81.88 £41.60
London median hourly rate £36.00 £53.75 £45.00
% change year-on-year -33.02% +19.44% -10.45%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in Central London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL Server relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London.

SQL Server job vacancy trend in Central London

SQL Server
Daily Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL Server.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram in Central London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in Central London over the 6 months to 1 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in Central London

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL Server.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Contract Job Locations in Central London

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 Central London region over the 6 months to 1 October 2026. 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
City of London -4 65 £538 +7.50% 52
West End of London -5 4 £475 - 3
City of Westminster - 2 £653 - 5
SQL Server
London

SQL Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Central London 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 9 (12.33%) SharePoint
2 5 (6.85%) IIS
3 3 (4.11%) Apache Airflow
3 3 (4.11%) Confluence
4 2 (2.74%) Apache
4 2 (2.74%) Apache Spark
5 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 3 (4.11%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (1.37%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 4 (5.48%) Dynamics AX
2 3 (4.11%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (2.74%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 42 (57.53%) Azure
2 23 (31.51%) Power Platform
3 14 (19.18%) Azure Data Factory
4 12 (16.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 10 (13.70%) Azure DevOps
6 8 (10.96%) AWS
6 8 (10.96%) Power Automate
7 7 (9.59%) GitHub
8 6 (8.22%) Azure AKS
8 6 (8.22%) Azure Monitor
8 6 (8.22%) Dynamics 365
8 6 (8.22%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (6.85%) PowerApps
10 3 (4.11%) Entra ID
11 2 (2.74%) Azure Databricks
11 2 (2.74%) Azure Logic Apps
11 2 (2.74%) SaaS
11 2 (2.74%) Snowflake
12 1 (1.37%) Alation
12 1 (1.37%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 8 (10.96%) DNS
2 4 (5.48%) DHCP
3 3 (4.11%) TCP/IP
3 3 (4.11%) VLAN
3 3 (4.11%) VPN
4 2 (2.74%) Firewall
4 2 (2.74%) Internet
4 2 (2.74%) Intranet
4 2 (2.74%) Reverse Proxy
4 2 (2.74%) SSL
5 1 (1.37%) SAN
5 1 (1.37%) SSH
5 1 (1.37%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (24.66%) Power BI
2 12 (16.44%) Azure SQL Database
2 12 (16.44%) Data Warehouse
3 9 (12.33%) Relational Database
3 9 (12.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 7 (9.59%) Power Query
4 7 (9.59%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 7 (9.59%) Star Schema
5 5 (6.85%) Oracle Database
6 4 (5.48%) PostgreSQL
6 4 (5.48%) SQL Server Analysis Services
7 3 (4.11%) ClickHouse
8 2 (2.74%) Delta Lake
8 2 (2.74%) Metadata
8 2 (2.74%) MongoDB
8 2 (2.74%) RDBMS
8 2 (2.74%) Redis
8 2 (2.74%) Spark SQL
9 1 (1.37%) OLAP
9 1 (1.37%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 10 (13.70%) JIRA
2 9 (12.33%) Git
3 5 (6.85%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 4 (5.48%) Artifactory
4 4 (5.48%) Bitbucket
4 4 (5.48%) Jenkins
5 3 (4.11%) TeamCity
5 3 (4.11%) Visual Studio
6 1 (1.37%) Claude Code
6 1 (1.37%) Octopus Deploy
General
1 31 (42.47%) Finance
2 21 (28.77%) Social Skills
3 16 (21.92%) Banking
4 9 (12.33%) Analytical Skills
5 5 (6.85%) Front Office
5 5 (6.85%) Retail
6 3 (4.11%) Documentation Skills
6 3 (4.11%) Investment Banking
7 2 (2.74%) Back Office
7 2 (2.74%) Public Sector
8 1 (1.37%) Aerospace
8 1 (1.37%) Billing
8 1 (1.37%) Law
8 1 (1.37%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 22 (30.14%) Developer
2 11 (15.07%) C# Developer
2 11 (15.07%) Senior
3 8 (10.96%) Infrastructure Engineer
4 7 (9.59%) Senior Developer
5 6 (8.22%) Data Engineer
6 5 (6.85%) Applications Engineer
6 5 (6.85%) Architect
6 5 (6.85%) Business Intelligence Developer
6 5 (6.85%) Cloud Engineer
6 5 (6.85%) Power BI Developer
6 5 (6.85%) Support Engineer
7 4 (5.48%) Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
7 4 (5.48%) Consultant
7 4 (5.48%) DBA
7 4 (5.48%) Dynamics 365 Consultant
7 4 (5.48%) Dynamics AX Consultant
7 4 (5.48%) Senior C# Developer
7 4 (5.48%) Solutions Architect
7 4 (5.48%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 21 (28.77%) .NET
2 9 (12.33%) .NET Framework
2 9 (12.33%) Terraform
3 7 (9.59%) REST
4 4 (5.48%) AngularJS
4 4 (5.48%) OAuth
4 4 (5.48%) XML
5 3 (4.11%) ASP.NET
5 3 (4.11%) JSON
5 3 (4.11%) React
6 2 (2.74%) ASP.NET Web API
6 2 (2.74%) ASP.NET Web Forms
6 2 (2.74%) CSS
6 2 (2.74%) Kafka
6 2 (2.74%) Node.js
6 2 (2.74%) OpenID
6 2 (2.74%) PySpark
6 2 (2.74%) SOAP
6 2 (2.74%) Spring Boot
6 2 (2.74%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 6 (8.22%) Data Centre
1 6 (8.22%) Self-Motivation
2 5 (6.85%) Clustering
2 5 (6.85%) Enterprise Software
3 3 (4.11%) Cloud Native
3 3 (4.11%) Legacy Systems
3 3 (4.11%) PKI
4 2 (2.74%) Greenfield Project
4 2 (2.74%) Product Ownership
4 2 (2.74%) Reinsurance
4 2 (2.74%) Replication
5 1 (1.37%) AI Agents
5 1 (1.37%) Derivative
5 1 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (1.37%) Enterprise Cloud
5 1 (1.37%) Enterprise Storage
5 1 (1.37%) Hybrid Cloud
5 1 (1.37%) Legacy Code
5 1 (1.37%) Market Risk
5 1 (1.37%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 26 (35.62%) Windows
2 15 (20.55%) Windows Server
3 5 (6.85%) Linux
4 3 (4.11%) Unix
4 3 (4.11%) VMS
5 1 (1.37%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 25 (34.25%) DevOps
2 22 (30.14%) CI/CD
3 20 (27.40%) Migration
4 17 (23.29%) Business Intelligence
5 14 (19.18%) Agile
5 14 (19.18%) Data Modelling
6 12 (16.44%) Analytics
7 11 (15.07%) Disaster Recovery
7 11 (15.07%) ETL
8 10 (13.70%) Data Governance
9 9 (12.33%) Infrastructure as Code
9 9 (12.33%) Unit Testing
10 8 (10.96%) Change Control
10 8 (10.96%) Infrastructure Engineering
10 8 (10.96%) Project Delivery
11 7 (9.59%) Performance Tuning
11 7 (9.59%) Root Cause Analysis
11 7 (9.59%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 7 (9.59%) Stakeholder Management
11 7 (9.59%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 51 (69.86%) SQL
2 26 (35.62%) C#
3 20 (27.40%) PowerShell
4 18 (24.66%) Python
5 10 (13.70%) T-SQL
6 7 (9.59%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 6 (8.22%) Java
7 6 (8.22%) PL/SQL
8 5 (6.85%) TypeScript
9 3 (4.11%) JavaScript
10 2 (2.74%) Bash
10 2 (2.74%) Korn
11 1 (1.37%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 18 (24.66%) Security Cleared
2 14 (19.18%) SC Cleared
3 4 (5.48%) DBS Check
3 4 (5.48%) Degree
4 1 (1.37%) Azure Certification
4 1 (1.37%) DV Cleared
4 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Certification
4 1 (1.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (15.07%) QA
2 5 (6.85%) Data Quality
3 2 (2.74%) SLA
4 1 (1.37%) Accessibility
4 1 (1.37%) GDPR
4 1 (1.37%) Government Security Classifications
System Software
1 11 (15.07%) Active Directory
2 7 (9.59%) Virtual Machines
2 7 (9.59%) VMware Infrastructure
3 1 (1.37%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.37%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (1.37%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 8 (10.96%) Kubernetes
2 4 (5.48%) SCOM
3 3 (4.11%) ITRS Geneos
3 3 (4.11%) Microsoft Clustering
4 2 (2.74%) Grafana
4 2 (2.74%) PowerCLI
4 2 (2.74%) Single Sign-On
5 1 (1.37%) Data Guard
5 1 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
5 1 (1.37%) Packer
5 1 (1.37%) SCCM
5 1 (1.37%) SCOrch
Vendors
1 22 (30.14%) Microsoft
2 15 (20.55%) Oracle
3 10 (13.70%) VMware
4 9 (12.33%) Databricks
5 6 (8.22%) ServiceNow
6 4 (5.48%) Citrix
6 4 (5.48%) Dynatrace
7 3 (4.11%) BMC
7 3 (4.11%) Commvault
7 3 (4.11%) Remedy
8 2 (2.74%) Cisco
8 2 (2.74%) Informatica
8 2 (2.74%) ION Trading
8 2 (2.74%) Sitecore
8 2 (2.74%) Splunk
9 1 (1.37%) Dell
9 1 (1.37%) EMC
9 1 (1.37%) Isilon
9 1 (1.37%) PTC
9 1 (1.37%) RedGate