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 29 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 379 317 329
Rank change year-on-year -62 +12 +67
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 163 187 228
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.52% 0.66% 0.62%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.02% 3.63% 3.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 126 130 144
10th Percentile £397 £319 £413
25th Percentile £425 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -
75th Percentile £588 £669 £650
90th Percentile £631 £700 £713
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -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 5,390 5,154 6,060
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.09% 18.25% 16.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,761 3,429 4,340
10th Percentile £325 £350 £358
25th Percentile £409 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -
75th Percentile £614 £663 £660
90th Percentile £720 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 74 129
10th Percentile £20.70 £18.74 £18.18
25th Percentile £29.13 £23.10 £25.25
Median hourly rate £54.70 £39.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +40.26% -15.55% -16.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.73 £64.53
90th Percentile £84.60 £72.55 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £52.00 £30.59 £46.18
% change year-on-year +69.99% -33.76% -16.04%

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 29 December 2025.

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 29 December 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
London -44 97 £523 -9.13% 127
South East -2 20 £446 -15.05% 104
North of England -43 14 £463 +2.78% 108
North West -18 9 £475 +5.56% 68
Midlands -51 8 £513 -6.82% 79
East Midlands -20 5 £478 +6.11% 36
South West -6 3 £550 +7.32% 36
West Midlands -38 3 £575 +2.22% 42
Yorkshire -45 3 £475 +6.74% 31
North East - 2 £425 - 9
East of England -19 1 £505 - 53
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 31 (19.02%) Apache Spark
2 5 (3.07%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.84%) ArcGIS
4 2 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (1.23%) Confluence
5 1 (0.61%) CICS
5 1 (0.61%) CMS
5 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 6 (3.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (2.45%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (1.23%) Trello
4 1 (0.61%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (1.84%) Aladdin
2 2 (1.23%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 163 (100.00%) Azure
2 81 (49.69%) Azure Data Factory
3 50 (30.67%) Power Platform
4 48 (29.45%) Azure DevOps
5 42 (25.77%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 31 (19.02%) Serverless
7 26 (15.95%) Azure Functions
8 24 (14.72%) GitHub
9 21 (12.88%) Azure Key Vault
10 19 (11.66%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 19 (11.66%) Azure Service Bus
11 17 (10.43%) Azure AKS
11 17 (10.43%) GitHub Actions
12 16 (9.82%) Azure Logic Apps
12 16 (9.82%) Entra ID
12 16 (9.82%) PaaS
13 13 (7.98%) Azure Monitor
14 10 (6.13%) Azure Storage
15 9 (5.52%) IaaS
16 8 (4.91%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.45%) HTTP
2 3 (1.84%) Firewall
3 2 (1.23%) Network Security
3 2 (1.23%) VPN
4 1 (0.61%) DNS
4 1 (0.61%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (35.58%) Data Warehouse
2 49 (30.06%) Power BI
3 47 (28.83%) SQL Server
4 37 (22.70%) Data Lake
5 29 (17.79%) NoSQL
6 12 (7.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 11 (6.75%) Metadata
7 11 (6.75%) Relational Database
8 10 (6.13%) Power Query
8 10 (6.13%) Tableau
9 8 (4.91%) PostgreSQL
10 7 (4.29%) Big Data
11 6 (3.68%) Delta Lake
11 6 (3.68%) MySQL
11 6 (3.68%) Snowflake Schema
11 6 (3.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 5 (3.07%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (2.45%) Data Vault
13 4 (2.45%) MongoDB
13 4 (2.45%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 43 (26.38%) Git
2 8 (4.91%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.84%) JIRA
4 2 (1.23%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.61%) GitLab
5 1 (0.61%) JMeter
5 1 (0.61%) Poetry
5 1 (0.61%) Postman
5 1 (0.61%) Pylint
5 1 (0.61%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.61%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.61%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 53 (32.52%) Social Skills
2 28 (17.18%) Finance
3 22 (13.50%) Public Sector
4 15 (9.20%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (5.52%) Banking
6 6 (3.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.84%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.23%) Aviation
8 2 (1.23%) Billing
8 2 (1.23%) Manufacturing
8 2 (1.23%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.61%) Advertising
9 1 (0.61%) Agriculture
9 1 (0.61%) Automotive
9 1 (0.61%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.61%) Marketing
9 1 (0.61%) Military
9 1 (0.61%) Retail
9 1 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 56 (34.36%) Data Engineer
2 45 (27.61%) Azure Engineer
3 36 (22.09%) Developer
4 33 (20.25%) Azure Data Engineer
5 22 (13.50%) Architect
6 16 (9.82%) Senior
7 14 (8.59%) Azure Developer
8 13 (7.98%) Technical Architect
9 12 (7.36%) Azure Architect
10 9 (5.52%) DBA
11 8 (4.91%) .NET Developer
12 7 (4.29%) DevOps Engineer
12 7 (4.29%) Lead
12 7 (4.29%) Senior Data Engineer
12 7 (4.29%) SQL DBA
13 6 (3.68%) Cloud Engineer
14 5 (3.07%) Azure DevOps Engineer
14 5 (3.07%) Data Architect
14 5 (3.07%) Full-Stack Developer
14 5 (3.07%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (23.93%) PySpark
2 27 (16.56%) .NET
3 13 (7.98%) Kafka
4 11 (6.75%) .NET Core
4 11 (6.75%) AngularJS
5 8 (4.91%) ARM Templates
5 8 (4.91%) JSON
5 8 (4.91%) Node.js
5 8 (4.91%) React
6 5 (3.07%) ADO
6 5 (3.07%) Express.js
6 5 (3.07%) WebSockets
6 5 (3.07%) YAML
7 4 (2.45%) Next.js
7 4 (2.45%) REST
7 4 (2.45%) RESTful
7 4 (2.45%) SignalR
8 3 (1.84%) ASP.NET
8 3 (1.84%) FastAPI
8 3 (1.84%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 13 (7.98%) Cloud Native
2 4 (2.45%) AI Agents
2 4 (2.45%) Clustering
2 4 (2.45%) Data Structures
2 4 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
2 4 (2.45%) Legacy Systems
3 3 (1.84%) Distributed Computing
3 3 (1.84%) Onboarding
3 3 (1.84%) Replication
4 2 (1.23%) Data Centre
4 2 (1.23%) FMCG
4 2 (1.23%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (1.23%) Product Ownership
4 2 (1.23%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.61%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.61%) IoT
5 1 (0.61%) Life Science
5 1 (0.61%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.61%) Social Media
5 1 (0.61%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 4 (2.45%) VMS
2 2 (1.23%) Windows
3 1 (0.61%) AIX
3 1 (0.61%) Linux
3 1 (0.61%) Solaris
3 1 (0.61%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 68 (41.72%) Data Modelling
2 66 (40.49%) CI/CD
2 66 (40.49%) DevOps
3 55 (33.74%) Data Pipeline
4 51 (31.29%) Analytics
5 50 (30.67%) Business Intelligence
5 50 (30.67%) Data Governance
6 46 (28.22%) Data Engineering
7 44 (26.99%) ETL
8 42 (25.77%) Data Integration
9 41 (25.15%) Agile
10 33 (20.25%) Data Architecture
11 31 (19.02%) Infrastructure as Code
12 26 (15.95%) Integration Patterns
12 26 (15.95%) Migration
13 24 (14.72%) RBAC
14 23 (14.11%) Performance Tuning
15 22 (13.50%) Problem-Solving
16 21 (12.88%) Microservices
17 19 (11.66%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 162 (99.39%) SQL
2 65 (39.88%) Python
3 27 (16.56%) Scala
4 19 (11.66%) C#
5 16 (9.82%) Bicep
6 13 (7.98%) T-SQL
7 12 (7.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 10 (6.13%) JavaScript
9 9 (5.52%) PowerShell
9 9 (5.52%) TypeScript
10 5 (3.07%) Java
11 2 (1.23%) Bash
11 2 (1.23%) R
12 1 (0.61%) ANSI SQL
12 1 (0.61%) COBOL
12 1 (0.61%) PL/SQL
12 1 (0.61%) VBA
Qualifications
1 55 (33.74%) Security Cleared
2 44 (26.99%) SC Cleared
3 18 (11.04%) Azure Certification
4 7 (4.29%) Degree
4 7 (4.29%) Microsoft Certification
5 4 (2.45%) CTC Cleared
6 3 (1.84%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (1.23%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.23%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.23%) OCP
7 2 (1.23%) Oracle Certification
8 1 (0.61%) BC Cleared
8 1 (0.61%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.61%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.61%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.61%) PMP
8 1 (0.61%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (25.15%) Data Quality
2 8 (4.91%) QA
3 7 (4.29%) GDPR
4 3 (1.84%) HIPAA
5 2 (1.23%) Accessibility
5 2 (1.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.61%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.61%) SLA
System Software
1 16 (9.82%) Docker
2 15 (9.20%) Active Directory
3 5 (3.07%) Virtual Desktop
4 4 (2.45%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 30 (18.40%) Terraform
2 20 (12.27%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.61%) Ansible
3 1 (0.61%) Grafana
3 1 (0.61%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 64 (39.26%) Databricks
2 60 (36.81%) Microsoft
3 7 (4.29%) Oracle
4 5 (3.07%) OpenAI
5 4 (2.45%) ServiceNow
6 3 (1.84%) ForgeRock
7 2 (1.23%) Google
7 2 (1.23%) Qualtrics
7 2 (1.23%) SAP
7 2 (1.23%) Virgin Media
8 1 (0.61%) Atlassian
8 1 (0.61%) NetApp
8 1 (0.61%) Palo Alto