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 4 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 379 348 374
Rank change year-on-year -31 +26 -12
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 192 136 171
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.53% 0.54% 0.45%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.31% 2.86% 2.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 145 98 123
10th Percentile £408 £404 £420
25th Percentile £458 £478 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% +4.76% -4.55%
75th Percentile £610 £650 £666
90th Percentile £700 £741 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £540 £523
% change year-on-year -2.78% +3.35% -5.00%
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 5,803 4,759 6,047
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.14% 18.91% 16.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,044 3,274 4,323
10th Percentile £343 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £662
90th Percentile £700 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 111 85 152
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £15.62
25th Percentile £26.88 £24.75 £21.48
Median hourly rate £50.00 £38.11 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +31.20% -10.33% -24.95%
75th Percentile £74.84 £65.00 £61.75
90th Percentile £85.25 £70.00 £77.40
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £32.81 £42.50
% change year-on-year +60.01% -22.80% -23.70%

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 4 March 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 4 March 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 -15 117 £550 -8.33% 63
South East -19 28 £475 -12.84% 52
North of England -56 13 £475 +2.70% 52
Midlands -60 8 £525 +27.27% 25
South West -28 6 £538 +7.50% 9
North West -39 6 £463 - 28
Yorkshire -58 5 £500 +8.11% 15
East Midlands -29 4 £525 -8.70% 11
West Midlands -55 4 £548 +34.83% 14
North East - 2 £425 - 10
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 (16.67%) Apache Spark
2 7 (3.65%) SharePoint
3 4 (2.08%) ArcGIS
4 3 (1.56%) CMS
5 2 (1.04%) Confluence
5 2 (1.04%) Microsoft Exchange
6 1 (0.52%) Apache
6 1 (0.52%) IIS
6 1 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.52%) Umbraco
Applications
1 6 (3.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (2.08%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.52%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 3 (1.56%) Payment Gateway
2 2 (1.04%) Aladdin
Cloud Services
1 192 (100.00%) Azure
2 102 (53.13%) Azure Data Factory
3 65 (33.85%) Azure DevOps
4 59 (30.73%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 58 (30.21%) Power Platform
6 39 (20.31%) GitHub
7 31 (16.15%) Serverless
8 27 (14.06%) Azure Functions
9 25 (13.02%) Azure Key Vault
10 22 (11.46%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 21 (10.94%) Azure Monitor
12 20 (10.42%) Azure AKS
12 20 (10.42%) Azure Service Bus
13 18 (9.38%) Entra ID
13 18 (9.38%) GitHub Actions
14 17 (8.85%) Azure Storage
15 15 (7.81%) PaaS
16 12 (6.25%) AWS
17 10 (5.21%) Azure Logic Apps
18 9 (4.69%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 6 (3.13%) Network Security
2 5 (2.60%) HTTP
3 4 (2.08%) DNS
4 3 (1.56%) Firewall
5 1 (0.52%) Internet
5 1 (0.52%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (32.81%) Data Warehouse
2 54 (28.13%) Power BI
3 52 (27.08%) SQL Server
4 47 (24.48%) Data Lake
5 31 (16.15%) NoSQL
6 17 (8.85%) Delta Lake
6 17 (8.85%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 13 (6.77%) Metadata
8 9 (4.69%) Power Query
9 8 (4.17%) Relational Database
9 8 (4.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 7 (3.65%) Tableau
11 6 (3.13%) MySQL
11 6 (3.13%) PostgreSQL
11 6 (3.13%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 5 (2.60%) Parquet
12 5 (2.60%) Spark SQL
13 4 (2.08%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (2.08%) Metadata Repository
13 4 (2.08%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 55 (28.65%) Git
2 8 (4.17%) Jenkins
3 2 (1.04%) JMeter
3 2 (1.04%) Postman
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%) MSI
4 1 (0.52%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.52%) Selenium
4 1 (0.52%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.52%) Visual Studio Code
4 1 (0.52%) webpack
General
1 51 (26.56%) Social Skills
2 35 (18.23%) Finance
3 27 (14.06%) Public Sector
4 14 (7.29%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (6.25%) Banking
6 6 (3.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 5 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (1.56%) Aviation
9 2 (1.04%) Billing
9 2 (1.04%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (1.04%) Military
10 1 (0.52%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.52%) Legal
10 1 (0.52%) Presentation Skills
10 1 (0.52%) Publishing
10 1 (0.52%) Retail
10 1 (0.52%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 70 (36.46%) Data Engineer
2 42 (21.88%) Azure Engineer
3 35 (18.23%) Developer
4 31 (16.15%) Architect
5 30 (15.63%) Azure Data Engineer
6 22 (11.46%) Senior
7 17 (8.85%) Azure Developer
8 16 (8.33%) Azure Architect
9 14 (7.29%) Senior Data Engineer
9 14 (7.29%) Technical Architect
10 11 (5.73%) .NET Developer
10 11 (5.73%) Lead
11 9 (4.69%) DBA
12 8 (4.17%) Platform Engineer
12 8 (4.17%) SQL DBA
13 7 (3.65%) Data Architect
13 7 (3.65%) Full-Stack Developer
14 5 (2.60%) Azure Software Engineer
14 5 (2.60%) Microsoft Engineer
14 5 (2.60%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (26.56%) PySpark
2 38 (19.79%) .NET
3 13 (6.77%) JSON
3 13 (6.77%) REST
4 12 (6.25%) ARM Templates
5 11 (5.73%) .NET Core
5 11 (5.73%) Kafka
6 10 (5.21%) AngularJS
7 9 (4.69%) React
7 9 (4.69%) YAML
8 7 (3.65%) Node.js
9 6 (3.13%) .NET Framework
9 6 (3.13%) Next.js
10 5 (2.60%) SignalR
11 4 (2.08%) Entity Framework
11 4 (2.08%) Express.js
11 4 (2.08%) OAuth
11 4 (2.08%) PyTorch
11 4 (2.08%) TensorFlow
11 4 (2.08%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 15 (7.81%) Cloud Native
2 7 (3.65%) Replication
3 6 (3.13%) Clustering
4 5 (2.60%) Data Structures
5 4 (2.08%) AI Agents
5 4 (2.08%) Distributed Computing
5 4 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
6 3 (1.56%) Enterprise Software
6 3 (1.56%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.04%) IoT
7 2 (1.04%) Security Posture
7 2 (1.04%) Wiki
8 1 (0.52%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.52%) Distributed Applications
8 1 (0.52%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 1 (0.52%) Hybrid Cloud
8 1 (0.52%) Mobile App
8 1 (0.52%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.52%) Smart Meter
Operating Systems
1 4 (2.08%) Windows
2 1 (0.52%) Linux
2 1 (0.52%) VMS
2 1 (0.52%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 88 (45.83%) CI/CD
2 87 (45.31%) Data Modelling
3 79 (41.15%) DevOps
4 73 (38.02%) Data Pipeline
5 66 (34.38%) ETL
6 65 (33.85%) Analytics
7 58 (30.21%) Data Governance
8 55 (28.65%) Business Intelligence
9 54 (28.13%) Data Engineering
10 45 (23.44%) Agile
11 42 (21.88%) Data Integration
12 39 (20.31%) Data Architecture
13 38 (19.79%) Infrastructure as Code
14 31 (16.15%) Integration Patterns
15 28 (14.58%) Problem-Solving
16 27 (14.06%) Data Science
17 26 (13.54%) RBAC
18 25 (13.02%) Migration
19 24 (12.50%) High Availability
20 20 (10.42%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 192 (100.00%) SQL
2 84 (43.75%) Python
3 36 (18.75%) Scala
4 28 (14.58%) C#
5 20 (10.42%) PowerShell
6 19 (9.90%) Bicep
7 15 (7.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 15 (7.81%) JavaScript
8 14 (7.29%) T-SQL
9 10 (5.21%) TypeScript
10 8 (4.17%) Java
11 4 (2.08%) Bash
12 2 (1.04%) PL/SQL
12 2 (1.04%) R
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%) Kusto Query Language
13 1 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 68 (35.42%) Security Cleared
2 53 (27.60%) SC Cleared
3 25 (13.02%) Azure Certification
4 10 (5.21%) Microsoft Certification
5 5 (2.60%) Degree
6 4 (2.08%) CTC Cleared
7 3 (1.56%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (1.04%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.04%) OCP
8 2 (1.04%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.52%) BC Cleared
9 1 (0.52%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.52%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.52%) ISTQB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (30.73%) Data Quality
2 11 (5.73%) GDPR
3 10 (5.21%) QA
4 4 (2.08%) Accessibility
5 3 (1.56%) HIPAA
5 3 (1.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (1.04%) NCSC
7 1 (0.52%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.52%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.52%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.52%) SLA
System Software
1 18 (9.38%) Active Directory
1 18 (9.38%) Docker
2 6 (3.13%) Virtual Desktop
2 6 (3.13%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 43 (22.40%) Terraform
2 17 (8.85%) Kubernetes
3 1 (0.52%) Ansible
3 1 (0.52%) Failover Clustering
3 1 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 82 (42.71%) Microsoft
2 76 (39.58%) Databricks
3 9 (4.69%) Oracle
4 8 (4.17%) ServiceNow
5 5 (2.60%) OpenAI
6 3 (1.56%) ForgeRock
7 2 (1.04%) Google
7 2 (1.04%) Palo Alto
7 2 (1.04%) SAP
8 1 (0.52%) Adobe
8 1 (0.52%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.52%) Virgin Media