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 22 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 455 382 320
Rank change year-on-year -73 -62 +16
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 179 137 221
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.39% 0.50% 0.67%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 2.55% 2.74% 3.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 124 102 165
10th Percentile £402 £376 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £481 £545
Median % change year-on-year +9.09% -11.70% -2.85%
75th Percentile £603 £600 £650
90th Percentile £718 £675 £700
UK median daily rate £505 £475 £525
% change year-on-year +6.32% -9.52% -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 7,018 4,998 6,126
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.30% 18.11% 18.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,702 3,442 4,350
10th Percentile £358 £338 £350
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £545
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -5.96% -0.91%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £675
90th Percentile £709 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 226 82 91
10th Percentile £14.85 £20.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £23.35 £25.34 £19.65
Median hourly rate £38.25 £34.99 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.32% -0.03% -36.36%
75th Percentile £61.31 £63.31 £55.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.58 £69.75
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £35.50 £33.22
% change year-on-year +7.75% +6.88% -39.61%

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 22 August 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 22 August 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 -53 101 £547 -0.50% 102
Midlands -34 32 £523 +16.11% 20
West Midlands -40 19 £500 +2.56% 12
North of England -60 19 £419 -11.84% 39
South East -73 13 £513 +20.59% 54
East Midlands -9 12 £570 +32.56% 8
Yorkshire -31 10 £490 -6.67% 7
South West -35 8 £600 +15.38% 11
North West -52 6 £409 -11.62% 25
North East - 3 £400 - 7
East of England - 1 £505 - 23
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 13 (7.26%) SharePoint
2 5 (2.79%) Confluence
3 4 (2.23%) Apache
3 4 (2.23%) Apache Airflow
4 3 (1.68%) Microsoft Exchange
5 2 (1.12%) Apache Spark
5 2 (1.12%) IIS
6 1 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.56%) Tomcat
Applications
1 5 (2.79%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (2.79%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.56%) InDesign
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.56%) MS Visio
2 1 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.56%) Aladdin
2 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 179 (100.00%) Azure
2 72 (40.22%) Azure DevOps
3 61 (34.08%) Azure Data Factory
4 57 (31.84%) Power Platform
5 51 (28.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 36 (20.11%) GitHub
7 31 (17.32%) Serverless
8 30 (16.76%) Entra ID
9 29 (16.20%) Azure Key Vault
10 27 (15.08%) Azure Monitor
11 23 (12.85%) Azure Functions
12 20 (11.17%) PaaS
13 17 (9.50%) Azure Storage
14 16 (8.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 15 (8.38%) Azure AKS
16 14 (7.82%) IaaS
17 13 (7.26%) Azure App Service
17 13 (7.26%) Azure Logic Apps
18 12 (6.70%) Azure Service Bus
18 12 (6.70%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (5.59%) DNS
1 10 (5.59%) Firewall
2 6 (3.35%) Network Security
3 4 (2.23%) WAN
4 3 (1.68%) VPN
5 1 (0.56%) HTTP
5 1 (0.56%) Internet
5 1 (0.56%) Reverse Proxy
5 1 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (32.96%) SQL Server
2 48 (26.82%) Data Lake
3 47 (26.26%) Power BI
4 36 (20.11%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (11.17%) PostgreSQL
6 16 (8.94%) NoSQL
6 16 (8.94%) Star Schema
7 13 (7.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 12 (6.70%) Delta Lake
9 9 (5.03%) Power Query
9 9 (5.03%) Relational Database
10 8 (4.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 7 (3.91%) Metadata
12 6 (3.35%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
12 6 (3.35%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 6 (3.35%) Oracle Database
13 5 (2.79%) MySQL
13 5 (2.79%) Parquet
13 5 (2.79%) Semantic Layer
13 5 (2.79%) SQL Server Analysis Services
Development Applications
1 26 (14.53%) Git
2 6 (3.35%) Visual Studio
3 4 (2.23%) JetBrains Rider
4 2 (1.12%) GitLab
4 2 (1.12%) Jasmine
4 2 (1.12%) JUnit
4 2 (1.12%) Karma Test Runner
4 2 (1.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.56%) ERwin
5 1 (0.56%) JIRA
5 1 (0.56%) MSI
5 1 (0.56%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.56%) Team Foundation Server
5 1 (0.56%) Toad
5 1 (0.56%) webpack
General
1 41 (22.91%) Social Skills
2 40 (22.35%) Finance
3 20 (11.17%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (8.38%) Public Sector
5 11 (6.15%) Banking
6 8 (4.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (3.35%) Investment Banking
8 5 (2.79%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (2.23%) Retail
10 3 (1.68%) Local Government
11 2 (1.12%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
12 1 (0.56%) Agriculture
12 1 (0.56%) Games
12 1 (0.56%) Marketing
12 1 (0.56%) Military
12 1 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.56%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 47 (26.26%) Data Engineer
1 47 (26.26%) Developer
2 42 (23.46%) Architect
3 25 (13.97%) Senior
4 24 (13.41%) Azure Engineer
5 17 (9.50%) Data Architect
5 17 (9.50%) Full-Stack Developer
6 12 (6.70%) Solutions Architect
7 11 (6.15%) Azure Architect
7 11 (6.15%) Azure Data Engineer
7 11 (6.15%) Azure Developer
7 11 (6.15%) Technical Architect
8 10 (5.59%) Business Intelligence Developer
8 10 (5.59%) Senior Developer
9 9 (5.03%) .NET Developer
9 9 (5.03%) DBA
9 9 (5.03%) Informatica Engineer
9 9 (5.03%) Senior Data Engineer
10 8 (4.47%) Power BI Developer
11 7 (3.91%) Angular Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (21.79%) Terraform
2 34 (18.99%) .NET
3 27 (15.08%) REST
4 13 (7.26%) .NET Core
4 13 (7.26%) OAuth
5 12 (6.70%) .NET Framework
5 12 (6.70%) React
6 10 (5.59%) Entity Framework
6 10 (5.59%) PySpark
6 10 (5.59%) RESTful
7 9 (5.03%) ARM Templates
7 9 (5.03%) CSS
7 9 (5.03%) HTML
7 9 (5.03%) JSON
8 8 (4.47%) AngularJS
9 7 (3.91%) Kafka
9 7 (3.91%) OAuth2
9 7 (3.91%) OpenID
10 6 (3.35%) SAML
11 5 (2.79%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 28 (15.64%) Cloud Native
2 9 (5.03%) Replication
3 6 (3.35%) Hybrid Cloud
3 6 (3.35%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.79%) Data Structures
4 5 (2.79%) IoT
4 5 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (2.79%) SCADA
5 4 (2.23%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (1.68%) Clustering
6 3 (1.68%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.68%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.12%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (1.12%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.12%) Data Fabric
7 2 (1.12%) Enterprise Cloud
7 2 (1.12%) Linux Command Line
7 2 (1.12%) Low-Code
7 2 (1.12%) Reinsurance
7 2 (1.12%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 9 (5.03%) Linux
2 5 (2.79%) Windows
3 4 (2.23%) Ubuntu
4 3 (1.68%) VMS
5 2 (1.12%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.56%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 92 (51.40%) DevOps
2 75 (41.90%) CI/CD
3 63 (35.20%) Analytics
4 62 (34.64%) Data Modelling
5 58 (32.40%) ETL
6 45 (25.14%) Business Intelligence
7 41 (22.91%) Data Pipeline
8 39 (21.79%) Data Engineering
9 35 (19.55%) AI
9 35 (19.55%) Migration
10 33 (18.44%) Infrastructure as Code
11 32 (17.88%) Agile
11 32 (17.88%) Performance Tuning
12 27 (15.08%) Data Governance
12 27 (15.08%) RBAC
13 22 (12.29%) Validation
14 20 (11.17%) Data Architecture
14 20 (11.17%) High Availability
15 19 (10.61%) Problem-Solving
16 18 (10.06%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 178 (99.44%) SQL
2 46 (25.70%) Python
3 24 (13.41%) C#
3 24 (13.41%) PowerShell
4 19 (10.61%) Bicep
5 16 (8.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 16 (8.94%) TypeScript
6 15 (8.38%) T-SQL
7 6 (3.35%) JavaScript
8 4 (2.23%) Bash
8 4 (2.23%) Scala
9 3 (1.68%) Java
10 2 (1.12%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.56%) C
11 1 (0.56%) C++
11 1 (0.56%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.56%) X++
Qualifications
1 40 (22.35%) Security Cleared
2 32 (17.88%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.82%) Azure Certification
4 8 (4.47%) Degree
5 5 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
6 3 (1.68%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (1.12%) DV Cleared
7 2 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.56%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.56%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (13.97%) Data Quality
2 15 (8.38%) QA
3 12 (6.70%) GDPR
4 10 (5.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (2.23%) NCSC
6 3 (1.68%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (1.68%) NIST
7 1 (0.56%) IFRS
7 1 (0.56%) IFRS 17
7 1 (0.56%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.56%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.56%) SOC 2
System Software
1 20 (11.17%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.15%) Docker
3 10 (5.59%) Virtual Machines
4 9 (5.03%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 9 (5.03%) Kubernetes
2 3 (1.68%) Failover Clustering
3 2 (1.12%) Control-M
3 2 (1.12%) Puppet
4 1 (0.56%) Ansible
4 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 114 (63.69%) Microsoft
2 40 (22.35%) Databricks
3 18 (10.06%) Informatica
4 15 (8.38%) Oracle
5 5 (2.79%) SAP
6 3 (1.68%) Google
6 3 (1.68%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.12%) Foundry
7 2 (1.12%) Salesforce
7 2 (1.12%) Talend
8 1 (0.56%) Adobe
8 1 (0.56%) IBM
8 1 (0.56%) MuleSoft
8 1 (0.56%) NetApp
8 1 (0.56%) OpenAI
8 1 (0.56%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud