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 15 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 399 337 369
Rank change year-on-year -62 +32 +10
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 192 132 167
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.47% 0.55% 0.46%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.09% 2.86% 2.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 131 91 123
10th Percentile £395 £406 £414
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £607 £625 £656
90th Percentile £738 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £523 £525
% change year-on-year -4.31% -0.48% -

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 6,211 4,620 6,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.25% 19.09% 17.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,260 3,221 4,467
10th Percentile £350 £363 £355
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £600 £656 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 86 130
10th Percentile £16.07 £21.03 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.92 £23.69 £20.98
Median hourly rate £45.90 £32.43 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year +41.54% -19.18% -30.22%
75th Percentile £74.00 £65.46 £58.68
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.13 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £34.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +37.80% -13.75% -32.54%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 -20 116 £550 -4.56% 69
South East -57 22 £525 +2.44% 42
North of England -57 19 £450 -10.00% 49
Midlands -63 17 £513 +15.49% 21
Yorkshire -50 10 £438 -16.67% 14
West Midlands -63 9 £500 +21.21% 13
East Midlands -23 7 £533 +8.12% 8
South West -29 6 £488 -2.50% 9
North West -37 6 £463 -5.13% 29
North East - 3 £450 - 6
East of England -35 1 £505 -12.25% 21
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 24 (12.50%) Apache Spark
2 6 (3.13%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.56%) ArcGIS
3 3 (1.56%) CMS
4 2 (1.04%) Apache
4 2 (1.04%) Confluence
4 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (0.52%) IIS
5 1 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.52%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.52%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.52%) InDesign
2 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.52%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 3 (1.56%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 192 (100.00%) Azure
2 94 (48.96%) Azure Data Factory
3 75 (39.06%) Azure DevOps
4 72 (37.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 65 (33.85%) Power Platform
6 42 (21.88%) GitHub
7 30 (15.63%) Serverless
8 23 (11.98%) Azure Functions
9 18 (9.38%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 18 (9.38%) Azure Key Vault
9 18 (9.38%) Azure Monitor
9 18 (9.38%) Azure Storage
10 15 (7.81%) Azure Service Bus
11 13 (6.77%) Azure AKS
12 12 (6.25%) Entra ID
12 12 (6.25%) PaaS
13 11 (5.73%) AWS
14 9 (4.69%) Azure Logic Apps
14 9 (4.69%) GitHub Actions
15 8 (4.17%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.65%) Firewall
2 5 (2.60%) DNS
2 5 (2.60%) Network Security
3 1 (0.52%) HTTP
3 1 (0.52%) Internet
3 1 (0.52%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (30.73%) Data Warehouse
2 57 (29.69%) Data Lake
3 55 (28.65%) SQL Server
4 54 (28.13%) Power BI
5 22 (11.46%) NoSQL
6 20 (10.42%) Delta Lake
7 18 (9.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 9 (4.69%) Metadata
9 8 (4.17%) PostgreSQL
9 8 (4.17%) Power Query
9 8 (4.17%) SQL Server Analysis Services
10 7 (3.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 7 (3.65%) Star Schema
11 6 (3.13%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
11 6 (3.13%) Relational Database
11 6 (3.13%) Spark SQL
12 5 (2.60%) MySQL
12 5 (2.60%) Parquet
13 4 (2.08%) Big Data
13 4 (2.08%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 50 (26.04%) Git
2 5 (2.60%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.56%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.52%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.52%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.52%) git-flow
4 1 (0.52%) GitLab
4 1 (0.52%) JIRA
4 1 (0.52%) JMeter
4 1 (0.52%) MSI
4 1 (0.52%) Postman
4 1 (0.52%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.52%) Selenium
4 1 (0.52%) webpack
General
1 41 (21.35%) Finance
1 41 (21.35%) Social Skills
2 18 (9.38%) Public Sector
3 16 (8.33%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (4.69%) Banking
5 4 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
5 4 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 3 (1.56%) Aviation
6 3 (1.56%) Military
7 2 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (1.04%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.52%) Agriculture
8 1 (0.52%) Legal
8 1 (0.52%) Marketing
8 1 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
8 1 (0.52%) Publishing
8 1 (0.52%) Retail
8 1 (0.52%) Retail Banking
8 1 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 80 (41.67%) Data Engineer
2 37 (19.27%) Architect
3 35 (18.23%) Azure Engineer
4 31 (16.15%) Senior
5 24 (12.50%) Azure Data Engineer
6 22 (11.46%) Developer
7 20 (10.42%) Senior Data Engineer
8 19 (9.90%) Azure Architect
9 14 (7.29%) Data Architect
10 12 (6.25%) DBA
10 12 (6.25%) Technical Architect
11 10 (5.21%) SQL DBA
12 9 (4.69%) Informatica Engineer
13 8 (4.17%) .NET Developer
13 8 (4.17%) Azure Data Architect
13 8 (4.17%) Full-Stack Developer
13 8 (4.17%) Platform Engineer
14 7 (3.65%) Azure Developer
15 6 (3.13%) Cloud Engineer
15 6 (3.13%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (21.35%) PySpark
2 35 (18.23%) .NET
3 20 (10.42%) REST
4 12 (6.25%) Kafka
5 11 (5.73%) ARM Templates
6 10 (5.21%) JSON
7 9 (4.69%) .NET Core
7 9 (4.69%) React
8 6 (3.13%) OAuth
8 6 (3.13%) YAML
9 5 (2.60%) .NET Framework
9 5 (2.60%) XML
10 4 (2.08%) Entity Framework
10 4 (2.08%) Next.js
10 4 (2.08%) Pandas
11 3 (1.56%) AngularJS
11 3 (1.56%) Blazor
11 3 (1.56%) OAuth2
11 3 (1.56%) OpenID
11 3 (1.56%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 17 (8.85%) Cloud Native
2 9 (4.69%) Replication
3 5 (2.60%) Data Structures
3 5 (2.60%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (2.60%) IoT
4 4 (2.08%) Distributed Computing
4 4 (2.08%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
5 3 (1.56%) Onboarding
5 3 (1.56%) SCADA
5 3 (1.56%) Security Posture
6 2 (1.04%) Clustering
6 2 (1.04%) Data Fabric
6 2 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (1.04%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (1.04%) Low-Code
6 2 (1.04%) Wiki
7 1 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.52%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 4 (2.08%) Windows
2 3 (1.56%) Linux
3 1 (0.52%) Data ONTAP
3 1 (0.52%) Ubuntu
3 1 (0.52%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (48.44%) Data Modelling
2 89 (46.35%) DevOps
3 84 (43.75%) ETL
4 78 (40.63%) CI/CD
5 77 (40.10%) Data Pipeline
6 67 (34.90%) Analytics
7 62 (32.29%) Data Engineering
8 55 (28.65%) Business Intelligence
9 49 (25.52%) Data Governance
10 41 (21.35%) Data Architecture
11 38 (19.79%) Infrastructure as Code
12 36 (18.75%) Data Integration
13 35 (18.23%) Agile
14 30 (15.63%) Performance Tuning
15 28 (14.58%) High Availability
16 25 (13.02%) AI
17 24 (12.50%) Data Science
17 24 (12.50%) Integration Patterns
18 23 (11.98%) Migration
18 23 (11.98%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 192 (100.00%) SQL
2 78 (40.63%) Python
3 29 (15.10%) Scala
4 25 (13.02%) C#
5 20 (10.42%) PowerShell
6 19 (9.90%) Bicep
7 14 (7.29%) T-SQL
8 13 (6.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 11 (5.73%) JavaScript
10 5 (2.60%) Java
10 5 (2.60%) TypeScript
11 4 (2.08%) Bash
12 2 (1.04%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.52%) ANSI SQL
13 1 (0.52%) C
13 1 (0.52%) C++
13 1 (0.52%) Korn
13 1 (0.52%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.52%) R
13 1 (0.52%) X++
Qualifications
1 62 (32.29%) Security Cleared
2 48 (25.00%) SC Cleared
3 22 (11.46%) Azure Certification
4 9 (4.69%) Microsoft Certification
5 6 (3.13%) Degree
6 4 (2.08%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.52%) BC Cleared
7 1 (0.52%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.52%) DBS Check
7 1 (0.52%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.52%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.52%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 61 (31.77%) Data Quality
2 17 (8.85%) QA
3 12 (6.25%) GDPR
4 6 (3.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (2.08%) Accessibility
6 2 (1.04%) HIPAA
6 2 (1.04%) NCSC
7 1 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.52%) IFRS
7 1 (0.52%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.52%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.52%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.52%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.52%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (6.77%) Active Directory
2 11 (5.73%) Docker
3 7 (3.65%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (3.13%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 42 (21.88%) Terraform
2 9 (4.69%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.04%) Ansible
4 1 (0.52%) Failover Clustering
Vendors
1 96 (50.00%) Microsoft
2 67 (34.90%) Databricks
3 13 (6.77%) Informatica
4 11 (5.73%) Oracle
5 9 (4.69%) ServiceNow
6 3 (1.56%) Google
6 3 (1.56%) SAP
7 2 (1.04%) Palo Alto
8 1 (0.52%) Adobe
8 1 (0.52%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.52%) NetApp
8 1 (0.52%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.52%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud