Azure SQL Database Contract Job Trends in England

Microsoft Azure SQL Database (formerly SQL Azure)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring Azure SQL Database skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 21 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 384 328 393
Rank change year-on-year -56 +65 -21
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 181 154 172
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.52% 0.60% 0.45%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.20% 3.20% 2.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 137 107 124
10th Percentile £406 £400 £425
25th Percentile £450 £480 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £528
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.27% -4.09%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £650
90th Percentile £688 £743 £700
UK median daily rate £521 £545 £525
% change year-on-year -4.36% +3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £60.50 -
UK median hourly rate - £60.50 -

All Database & BI Skills
England

Azure SQL Database 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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 5,657 4,807 6,115
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.19% 18.59% 16.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,931 3,255 4,386
10th Percentile £341 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £535
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +0.47% -2.73%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £660
90th Percentile £700 £779 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 84 159
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £15.83
25th Percentile £27.06 £25.19 £21.69
Median hourly rate £55.00 £41.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.15% -3.53% -25.26%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £61.75
90th Percentile £86.00 £72.63 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £38.31 £42.50
% change year-on-year +43.58% -9.87% -24.01%

Azure SQL Database
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Azure SQL Database relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Azure SQL Database job vacancy trend in England

Azure SQL Database
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Azure SQL Database.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Azure SQL Database in England over the 6 months to 21 February 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Azure SQL Database in England

Azure SQL Database
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Azure SQL Database.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Azure SQL Database

Azure SQL Database
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Azure SQL Database within the England region over the 6 months to 21 February 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
London -32 106 £540 -10.00% 54
South East -21 29 £446 -16.24% 50
North of England -60 13 £500 +8.11% 38
Midlands -55 8 £525 +21.74% 21
Yorkshire -59 6 £500 +8.11% 12
South West -22 5 £550 +10.00% 10
East Midlands -24 5 £515 +0.49% 8
North West -36 5 £500 +8.11% 21
West Midlands -55 3 £583 +43.51% 13
North East - 2 £425 - 6
East of England -24 1 £505 -12.25% 16
Azure SQL Database
UK

Azure SQL Database
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 32 (17.68%) Apache Spark
2 4 (2.21%) ArcGIS
2 4 (2.21%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.66%) CMS
4 2 (1.10%) Confluence
4 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.55%) Apache
5 1 (0.55%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.55%) Umbraco
Applications
1 5 (2.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (2.21%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 3 (1.66%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (1.10%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 181 (100.00%) Azure
2 99 (54.70%) Azure Data Factory
3 62 (34.25%) Azure DevOps
4 56 (30.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 55 (30.39%) Power Platform
6 37 (20.44%) GitHub
7 31 (17.13%) Serverless
8 27 (14.92%) Azure Functions
9 23 (12.71%) Azure Key Vault
10 22 (12.15%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 20 (11.05%) Azure AKS
11 20 (11.05%) Azure Service Bus
12 18 (9.94%) GitHub Actions
13 17 (9.39%) Azure Monitor
13 17 (9.39%) Azure Storage
14 15 (8.29%) Entra ID
14 15 (8.29%) PaaS
15 11 (6.08%) Azure Logic Apps
16 9 (4.97%) IaaS
17 8 (4.42%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.21%) HTTP
2 3 (1.66%) Network Security
3 2 (1.10%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (34.25%) Data Warehouse
2 53 (29.28%) Power BI
3 48 (26.52%) SQL Server
4 45 (24.86%) Data Lake
5 31 (17.13%) NoSQL
6 17 (9.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 14 (7.73%) Delta Lake
7 14 (7.73%) Metadata
8 9 (4.97%) Power Query
9 8 (4.42%) Relational Database
9 8 (4.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 8 (4.42%) Tableau
10 6 (3.31%) MySQL
10 6 (3.31%) PostgreSQL
10 6 (3.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 5 (2.76%) Big Data
11 5 (2.76%) Parquet
11 5 (2.76%) Spark SQL
12 4 (2.21%) Metadata Repository
12 4 (2.21%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 52 (28.73%) Git
2 8 (4.42%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.10%) JMeter
3 2 (1.10%) Postman
4 1 (0.55%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.55%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.55%) git-flow
4 1 (0.55%) GitLab
4 1 (0.55%) JIRA
4 1 (0.55%) Poetry
4 1 (0.55%) Pylint
4 1 (0.55%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.55%) Selenium
4 1 (0.55%) SonarQube
4 1 (0.55%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 51 (28.18%) Social Skills
2 30 (16.57%) Finance
3 26 (14.36%) Public Sector
4 13 (7.18%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (6.08%) Banking
6 6 (3.31%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.76%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.66%) Aviation
9 2 (1.10%) Billing
9 2 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.10%) Military
10 1 (0.55%) Agriculture
10 1 (0.55%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.55%) Legal
10 1 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.55%) Retail
10 1 (0.55%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.55%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 67 (37.02%) Data Engineer
2 44 (24.31%) Azure Engineer
3 33 (18.23%) Developer
4 31 (17.13%) Azure Data Engineer
5 25 (13.81%) Architect
6 22 (12.15%) Senior
7 16 (8.84%) Azure Developer
8 15 (8.29%) Azure Architect
9 14 (7.73%) Senior Data Engineer
10 12 (6.63%) Technical Architect
11 11 (6.08%) .NET Developer
12 10 (5.52%) Lead
13 8 (4.42%) DBA
13 8 (4.42%) SQL DBA
14 7 (3.87%) Full-Stack Developer
15 6 (3.31%) Data Architect
16 5 (2.76%) Azure Software Engineer
16 5 (2.76%) Microsoft Engineer
16 5 (2.76%) Platform Engineer
16 5 (2.76%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 50 (27.62%) PySpark
2 36 (19.89%) .NET
3 13 (7.18%) JSON
4 12 (6.63%) Kafka
5 11 (6.08%) .NET Core
5 11 (6.08%) ARM Templates
5 11 (6.08%) REST
6 10 (5.52%) AngularJS
6 10 (5.52%) React
7 9 (4.97%) YAML
8 8 (4.42%) Node.js
9 6 (3.31%) Next.js
10 5 (2.76%) .NET Framework
10 5 (2.76%) Express.js
11 4 (2.21%) ADO
11 4 (2.21%) PyTorch
11 4 (2.21%) SignalR
11 4 (2.21%) TensorFlow
11 4 (2.21%) WebSockets
11 4 (2.21%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 14 (7.73%) Cloud Native
2 6 (3.31%) Clustering
3 5 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
4 4 (2.21%) AI Agents
4 4 (2.21%) Data Structures
4 4 (2.21%) Distributed Computing
4 4 (2.21%) Replication
5 3 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.66%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.10%) IoT
6 2 (1.10%) Product Ownership
6 2 (1.10%) Wiki
7 1 (0.55%) Data Fabric
7 1 (0.55%) Distributed Applications
7 1 (0.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.55%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.55%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (0.55%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.55%) Security Posture
7 1 (0.55%) Smart Meter
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.55%) VMS
1 1 (0.55%) Windows
1 1 (0.55%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (46.41%) CI/CD
2 82 (45.30%) Data Modelling
3 75 (41.44%) DevOps
4 68 (37.57%) Data Pipeline
5 60 (33.15%) ETL
6 58 (32.04%) Analytics
7 55 (30.39%) Business Intelligence
7 55 (30.39%) Data Governance
8 54 (29.83%) Data Engineering
9 44 (24.31%) Agile
10 41 (22.65%) Data Integration
11 38 (20.99%) Data Architecture
12 32 (17.68%) Infrastructure as Code
13 30 (16.57%) Integration Patterns
14 27 (14.92%) Problem-Solving
15 25 (13.81%) Data Science
15 25 (13.81%) RBAC
16 21 (11.60%) Migration
17 19 (10.50%) Containerisation
17 19 (10.50%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 181 (100.00%) SQL
2 79 (43.65%) Python
3 34 (18.78%) Scala
4 27 (14.92%) C#
5 17 (9.39%) Bicep
6 15 (8.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 14 (7.73%) JavaScript
7 14 (7.73%) PowerShell
7 14 (7.73%) T-SQL
8 9 (4.97%) TypeScript
9 7 (3.87%) Java
10 3 (1.66%) Bash
11 2 (1.10%) R
12 1 (0.55%) ANSI SQL
12 1 (0.55%) Korn
12 1 (0.55%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.55%) VBA
Qualifications
1 62 (34.25%) Security Cleared
2 49 (27.07%) SC Cleared
3 22 (12.15%) Azure Certification
4 11 (6.08%) Microsoft Certification
5 5 (2.76%) Degree
6 4 (2.21%) CTC Cleared
7 3 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (1.10%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.10%) OCP
8 2 (1.10%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.55%) BC Cleared
9 1 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.55%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.55%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.55%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (30.94%) Data Quality
2 11 (6.08%) QA
3 10 (5.52%) GDPR
4 4 (2.21%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.66%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.55%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.55%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.55%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.55%) SLA
System Software
1 17 (9.39%) Docker
2 15 (8.29%) Active Directory
3 6 (3.31%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (2.76%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 36 (19.89%) Terraform
2 17 (9.39%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.55%) Ansible
3 1 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 75 (41.44%) Databricks
2 73 (40.33%) Microsoft
3 8 (4.42%) Oracle
3 8 (4.42%) ServiceNow
4 5 (2.76%) OpenAI
5 3 (1.66%) ForgeRock
6 2 (1.10%) Palo Alto
6 2 (1.10%) SAP
6 2 (1.10%) Virgin Media
7 1 (0.55%) Alteryx
7 1 (0.55%) Google