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 3 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 439 359 350
Rank change year-on-year -80 -9 +23
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 176 136 211
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.40% 0.52% 0.56%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 2.63% 2.83% 3.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 123 101 161
10th Percentile £401 £405 £375
25th Percentile £428 £443 £439
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £520 £538
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% -3.26% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £735 £725 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%

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 6,690 4,803 6,558
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.23% 18.41% 17.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,500 3,325 4,727
10th Percentile £352 £357 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £601 £650 £675
90th Percentile £710 £775 £813
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 90 139
10th Percentile £14.00 £19.20 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.11 £23.88 £20.62
Median hourly rate £38.25 £33.94 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.70% -15.15% -30.43%
75th Percentile £69.72 £61.25 £51.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £70.75 £71.70
UK median hourly rate £38.50 £34.99 £39.25
% change year-on-year +10.03% -10.85% -31.08%

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 3 July 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 3 July 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 -49 94 £575 +0.66% 62
Midlands -48 30 £545 +26.74% 17
North of England -61 21 £413 -21.43% 37
West Midlands -56 17 £500 +33.33% 13
Yorkshire -42 13 £495 -5.71% 7
East Midlands -7 12 £570 +26.67% 4
South East -67 12 £463 +8.82% 49
South West -22 10 £600 +20.00% 8
North West -45 5 £409 -16.15% 23
North East - 3 £400 - 7
East of England -24 1 £505 -12.25% 19
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 8 (4.55%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.70%) Apache
2 3 (1.70%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.14%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.14%) Apache Spark
3 2 (1.14%) CMS
3 2 (1.14%) Confluence
4 1 (0.57%) IIS
4 1 (0.57%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.57%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.57%) Umbraco
Applications
1 2 (1.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.57%) InDesign
2 1 (0.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 176 (100.00%) Azure
2 71 (40.34%) Azure Data Factory
2 71 (40.34%) Azure DevOps
3 60 (34.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 58 (32.95%) Power Platform
5 44 (25.00%) GitHub
6 31 (17.61%) Serverless
7 29 (16.48%) Azure Monitor
8 25 (14.20%) Azure Functions
8 25 (14.20%) Azure Key Vault
9 22 (12.50%) Azure Storage
10 21 (11.93%) Entra ID
11 20 (11.36%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 15 (8.52%) Azure AKS
13 14 (7.95%) AWS
14 13 (7.39%) PaaS
15 12 (6.82%) GitHub Actions
16 11 (6.25%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 11 (6.25%) Azure Service Bus
17 10 (5.68%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (5.68%) DNS
2 9 (5.11%) Firewall
3 6 (3.41%) Network Security
4 4 (2.27%) WAN
5 3 (1.70%) VPN
6 1 (0.57%) HTTP
6 1 (0.57%) Internet
6 1 (0.57%) Reverse Proxy
6 1 (0.57%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (30.11%) Data Lake
2 47 (26.70%) Power BI
2 47 (26.70%) SQL Server
3 33 (18.75%) Data Warehouse
4 20 (11.36%) Delta Lake
5 15 (8.52%) PostgreSQL
6 12 (6.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 11 (6.25%) NoSQL
8 9 (5.11%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 9 (5.11%) Star Schema
9 8 (4.55%) Relational Database
10 7 (3.98%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 6 (3.41%) Metadata
11 6 (3.41%) MySQL
11 6 (3.41%) Power Query
12 5 (2.84%) Oracle Database
12 5 (2.84%) Parquet
13 4 (2.27%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (2.27%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
13 4 (2.27%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 33 (18.75%) Git
2 4 (2.27%) Visual Studio
3 2 (1.14%) Jasmine
3 2 (1.14%) JetBrains Rider
3 2 (1.14%) JUnit
3 2 (1.14%) Karma Test Runner
3 2 (1.14%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.57%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.57%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.57%) git-flow
4 1 (0.57%) GitLab
4 1 (0.57%) Jenkins
4 1 (0.57%) JIRA
4 1 (0.57%) JMeter
4 1 (0.57%) MSI
4 1 (0.57%) Postman
4 1 (0.57%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.57%) Selenium
4 1 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
4 1 (0.57%) webpack
General
1 40 (22.73%) Finance
2 38 (21.59%) Social Skills
3 18 (10.23%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (9.09%) Public Sector
5 10 (5.68%) Banking
6 8 (4.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (3.98%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.84%) Investment Banking
9 2 (1.14%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.14%) Local Government
9 2 (1.14%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.57%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.57%) Agriculture
10 1 (0.57%) Games
10 1 (0.57%) Legal
10 1 (0.57%) Marketing
10 1 (0.57%) Military
10 1 (0.57%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.57%) Publishing
10 1 (0.57%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 56 (31.82%) Data Engineer
2 38 (21.59%) Architect
3 34 (19.32%) Developer
4 27 (15.34%) Senior
5 22 (12.50%) Azure Engineer
6 16 (9.09%) Azure Architect
7 15 (8.52%) Data Architect
8 13 (7.39%) Senior Data Engineer
9 11 (6.25%) Solutions Architect
10 10 (5.68%) Azure Developer
10 10 (5.68%) DBA
11 9 (5.11%) .NET Developer
11 9 (5.11%) Azure Data Engineer
11 9 (5.11%) Full-Stack Developer
11 9 (5.11%) Informatica Engineer
11 9 (5.11%) Platform Engineer
12 8 (4.55%) Azure Data Architect
12 8 (4.55%) Senior Developer
12 8 (4.55%) SQL DBA
13 7 (3.98%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (15.34%) .NET
2 23 (13.07%) REST
3 21 (11.93%) PySpark
4 10 (5.68%) JSON
5 9 (5.11%) ARM Templates
5 9 (5.11%) OAuth
6 8 (4.55%) AngularJS
6 8 (4.55%) CSS
6 8 (4.55%) HTML
6 8 (4.55%) React
7 7 (3.98%) .NET Framework
7 7 (3.98%) RESTful
8 6 (3.41%) .NET Core
8 6 (3.41%) Entity Framework
8 6 (3.41%) OAuth2
9 5 (2.84%) Web Services
9 5 (2.84%) XML
9 5 (2.84%) YAML
10 4 (2.27%) Pandas
10 4 (2.27%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 25 (14.20%) Cloud Native
2 10 (5.68%) Replication
3 6 (3.41%) IoT
3 6 (3.41%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.84%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.27%) Clustering
5 4 (2.27%) Data Structures
5 4 (2.27%) Legacy Systems
5 4 (2.27%) SCADA
6 3 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (1.70%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.70%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.70%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.14%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.14%) Data Fabric
7 2 (1.14%) Distributed Computing
7 2 (1.14%) Enterprise Cloud
7 2 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.14%) Low-Code
7 2 (1.14%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.98%) Linux
2 5 (2.84%) Windows
3 4 (2.27%) Ubuntu
4 3 (1.70%) VMS
5 2 (1.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.57%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (49.43%) DevOps
2 73 (41.48%) CI/CD
3 71 (40.34%) ETL
4 66 (37.50%) Data Modelling
5 60 (34.09%) Analytics
6 53 (30.11%) Data Pipeline
7 44 (25.00%) Business Intelligence
8 41 (23.30%) Data Engineering
9 36 (20.45%) Infrastructure as Code
10 34 (19.32%) Agile
11 33 (18.75%) Data Governance
12 29 (16.48%) Migration
13 28 (15.91%) Performance Tuning
14 27 (15.34%) AI
14 27 (15.34%) High Availability
15 25 (14.20%) Disaster Recovery
16 22 (12.50%) Data Science
16 22 (12.50%) RBAC
17 20 (11.36%) Log Analytics
17 20 (11.36%) Problem-Solving
Programming Languages
1 176 (100.00%) SQL
2 55 (31.25%) Python
3 24 (13.64%) C#
3 24 (13.64%) PowerShell
4 18 (10.23%) T-SQL
5 16 (9.09%) Bicep
6 14 (7.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 12 (6.82%) Scala
7 12 (6.82%) TypeScript
8 7 (3.98%) JavaScript
9 5 (2.84%) Bash
9 5 (2.84%) Java
10 2 (1.14%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.57%) C
11 1 (0.57%) C++
11 1 (0.57%) Korn
11 1 (0.57%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.57%) X++
Qualifications
1 34 (19.32%) Security Cleared
2 26 (14.77%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.95%) Azure Certification
4 6 (3.41%) Degree
5 5 (2.84%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.27%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (1.70%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.57%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.57%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.57%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.57%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (19.89%) Data Quality
2 17 (9.66%) QA
3 16 (9.09%) GDPR
4 10 (5.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (2.27%) NCSC
6 3 (1.70%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (1.70%) NIST
7 1 (0.57%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.57%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.57%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.57%) IFRS
7 1 (0.57%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.57%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.57%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.57%) SOC 2
System Software
1 12 (6.82%) Active Directory
1 12 (6.82%) Virtual Machines
2 11 (6.25%) Docker
3 4 (2.27%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 39 (22.16%) Terraform
2 12 (6.82%) Kubernetes
3 3 (1.70%) Failover Clustering
4 2 (1.14%) Ansible
5 1 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 99 (56.25%) Microsoft
2 45 (25.57%) Databricks
3 15 (8.52%) Informatica
4 13 (7.39%) Oracle
5 5 (2.84%) ServiceNow
6 4 (2.27%) SAP
7 3 (1.70%) Google
8 1 (0.57%) Adobe
8 1 (0.57%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.57%) IBM
8 1 (0.57%) NetApp
8 1 (0.57%) OpenAI
8 1 (0.57%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.57%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud