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 11 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 373 334 381
Rank change year-on-year -39 +47 +5
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 182 154 176
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.54% 0.59% 0.46%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.29% 3.21% 2.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 138 103 127
10th Percentile £412 £401 £425
25th Percentile £450 £481 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +3.77% -3.64%
75th Percentile £597 £675 £650
90th Percentile £661 £751 £693
UK median daily rate £520 £543 £525
% change year-on-year -4.15% +3.33% -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 5,524 4,796 6,127
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.31% 18.51% 16.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,839 3,204 4,416
10th Percentile £335 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% - -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £650
90th Percentile £700 £780 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 81 161
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £15.59
25th Percentile £27.25 £25.26 £21.64
Median hourly rate £54.00 £40.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +33.33% -4.71% -25.26%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.00 £61.50
90th Percentile £85.70 £73.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £54.00 £38.31 £42.50
% change year-on-year +40.97% -9.87% -25.26%

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 11 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 11 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 -30 105 £525 -12.50% 55
South East -27 28 £446 -15.05% 53
North of England -54 15 £500 +9.59% 44
Midlands -60 9 £554 +23.11% 24
Yorkshire -53 7 £438 +9.38% 13
North West -29 6 £500 +8.11% 26
South West -22 5 £550 +10.00% 12
East Midlands -24 5 £515 +0.49% 11
West Midlands -51 4 £592 +43.39% 13
North East - 2 £425 - 5
East of England -23 1 £505 -12.25% 20
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 (17.58%) Apache Spark
2 4 (2.20%) ArcGIS
2 4 (2.20%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.65%) CMS
3 3 (1.65%) Confluence
4 2 (1.10%) Apache Airflow
4 2 (1.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.55%) Umbraco
Applications
1 6 (3.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (2.20%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (1.10%) Trello
4 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (1.65%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (1.10%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 182 (100.00%) Azure
2 98 (53.85%) Azure Data Factory
3 63 (34.62%) Azure DevOps
4 56 (30.77%) Power Platform
5 55 (30.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 37 (20.33%) GitHub
7 33 (18.13%) Serverless
8 29 (15.93%) Azure Functions
9 23 (12.64%) Azure Key Vault
10 22 (12.09%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 21 (11.54%) Azure AKS
12 20 (10.99%) Azure Service Bus
13 18 (9.89%) GitHub Actions
14 17 (9.34%) Azure Storage
15 16 (8.79%) PaaS
16 15 (8.24%) Azure Monitor
17 14 (7.69%) Entra ID
18 11 (6.04%) Azure Logic Apps
19 9 (4.95%) IaaS
20 8 (4.40%) AWS
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.20%) HTTP
2 3 (1.65%) Network Security
3 2 (1.10%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (34.07%) Data Warehouse
2 55 (30.22%) Power BI
3 48 (26.37%) SQL Server
4 43 (23.63%) Data Lake
5 31 (17.03%) NoSQL
6 16 (8.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 15 (8.24%) Metadata
8 13 (7.14%) Delta Lake
9 11 (6.04%) Power Query
10 10 (5.49%) Tableau
11 9 (4.95%) Relational Database
12 7 (3.85%) Big Data
12 7 (3.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 6 (3.30%) PostgreSQL
14 5 (2.75%) MySQL
14 5 (2.75%) Spark SQL
14 5 (2.75%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 4 (2.20%) Amazon RDS
15 4 (2.20%) Metadata Repository
15 4 (2.20%) Parquet
Development Applications
1 50 (27.47%) Git
2 7 (3.85%) Jenkins
3 3 (1.65%) JIRA
4 2 (1.10%) JMeter
4 2 (1.10%) Postman
4 2 (1.10%) SonarQube
5 1 (0.55%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.55%) Poetry
5 1 (0.55%) Pylint
5 1 (0.55%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.55%) Selenium
5 1 (0.55%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.55%) Visual Studio
5 1 (0.55%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 53 (29.12%) Social Skills
2 29 (15.93%) Finance
3 27 (14.84%) Public Sector
4 11 (6.04%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (6.04%) Banking
5 7 (3.85%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 5 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
7 3 (1.65%) Aviation
8 2 (1.10%) Billing
8 2 (1.10%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (1.10%) Military
9 1 (0.55%) Agriculture
9 1 (0.55%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.55%) Legal
9 1 (0.55%) Marketing
9 1 (0.55%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.55%) Retail
9 1 (0.55%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.55%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 65 (35.71%) Data Engineer
2 45 (24.73%) Azure Engineer
3 34 (18.68%) Developer
4 31 (17.03%) Azure Data Engineer
5 26 (14.29%) Architect
6 21 (11.54%) Senior
7 16 (8.79%) Azure Architect
8 15 (8.24%) Azure Developer
9 13 (7.14%) Senior Data Engineer
10 12 (6.59%) Technical Architect
11 11 (6.04%) .NET Developer
12 10 (5.49%) Lead
13 7 (3.85%) Data Architect
13 7 (3.85%) DBA
13 7 (3.85%) SQL DBA
14 6 (3.30%) Azure Data Architect
14 6 (3.30%) Full-Stack Developer
15 5 (2.75%) Azure Software Engineer
15 5 (2.75%) Microsoft Engineer
15 5 (2.75%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (26.92%) PySpark
2 36 (19.78%) .NET
3 13 (7.14%) Kafka
4 12 (6.59%) JSON
5 11 (6.04%) .NET Core
6 10 (5.49%) AngularJS
6 10 (5.49%) ARM Templates
6 10 (5.49%) REST
7 9 (4.95%) React
8 8 (4.40%) Node.js
8 8 (4.40%) YAML
9 6 (3.30%) Next.js
10 5 (2.75%) ADO
10 5 (2.75%) Express.js
10 5 (2.75%) WebSockets
11 4 (2.20%) .NET Framework
11 4 (2.20%) RESTful
11 4 (2.20%) SignalR
11 4 (2.20%) Swagger
11 4 (2.20%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 14 (7.69%) Cloud Native
2 5 (2.75%) Clustering
2 5 (2.75%) Distributed Computing
3 4 (2.20%) AI Agents
3 4 (2.20%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (1.65%) Data Structures
4 3 (1.65%) Onboarding
4 3 (1.65%) Replication
5 2 (1.10%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (1.10%) IoT
5 2 (1.10%) Product Ownership
5 2 (1.10%) Wiki
6 1 (0.55%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.55%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.55%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (0.55%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (0.55%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (0.55%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.55%) Smart Meter
6 1 (0.55%) Social Media
Operating Systems
1 1 (0.55%) VMS
1 1 (0.55%) Windows
1 1 (0.55%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (45.60%) CI/CD
2 82 (45.05%) Data Modelling
3 75 (41.21%) DevOps
4 66 (36.26%) Data Pipeline
5 59 (32.42%) ETL
6 58 (31.87%) Analytics
7 57 (31.32%) Data Governance
8 56 (30.77%) Business Intelligence
9 52 (28.57%) Data Engineering
10 43 (23.63%) Agile
11 41 (22.53%) Data Integration
12 40 (21.98%) Data Architecture
13 31 (17.03%) Infrastructure as Code
14 30 (16.48%) Integration Patterns
15 25 (13.74%) Problem-Solving
16 24 (13.19%) Data Science
16 24 (13.19%) RBAC
17 21 (11.54%) Migration
17 21 (11.54%) Performance Optimisation
18 20 (10.99%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 182 (100.00%) SQL
2 75 (41.21%) Python
3 33 (18.13%) Scala
4 25 (13.74%) C#
5 16 (8.79%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 15 (8.24%) Bicep
7 14 (7.69%) JavaScript
8 12 (6.59%) T-SQL
9 11 (6.04%) PowerShell
10 9 (4.95%) TypeScript
11 6 (3.30%) Java
12 2 (1.10%) Bash
12 2 (1.10%) R
13 1 (0.55%) ANSI SQL
13 1 (0.55%) Korn
13 1 (0.55%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.55%) VBA
Qualifications
1 62 (34.07%) Security Cleared
2 49 (26.92%) SC Cleared
3 22 (12.09%) Azure Certification
4 11 (6.04%) Microsoft Certification
5 6 (3.30%) Degree
6 4 (2.20%) CTC Cleared
7 3 (1.65%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (1.10%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.10%) BPSS Clearance
8 2 (1.10%) OCP
8 2 (1.10%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.55%) BC Cleared
9 1 (0.55%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.55%) ISTQB
9 1 (0.55%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.55%) PMI Certification
9 1 (0.55%) PMP
9 1 (0.55%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (30.22%) Data Quality
2 11 (6.04%) GDPR
2 11 (6.04%) QA
3 4 (2.20%) Accessibility
4 3 (1.65%) HIPAA
4 3 (1.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.55%) California Consumer Privacy Act
6 1 (0.55%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.55%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (9.89%) Docker
2 14 (7.69%) Active Directory
3 6 (3.30%) Virtual Desktop
4 5 (2.75%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 33 (18.13%) Terraform
2 19 (10.44%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.55%) Grafana
3 1 (0.55%) Prometheus
3 1 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 75 (41.21%) Databricks
2 72 (39.56%) Microsoft
3 8 (4.40%) Oracle
4 7 (3.85%) ServiceNow
5 5 (2.75%) OpenAI
6 3 (1.65%) ForgeRock
7 2 (1.10%) Google
7 2 (1.10%) Palo Alto
7 2 (1.10%) SAP
7 2 (1.10%) Virgin Media
8 1 (0.55%) Alteryx