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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 387 344 385
Rank change year-on-year -43 +41 -13
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 206 128 163
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.52% 0.52% 0.44%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 3.31% 2.73% 2.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 143 91 120
10th Percentile £400 £406 £400
25th Percentile £438 £459 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £640 £676
90th Percentile £730 £738 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £518
% change year-on-year -4.76% +1.38% -5.84%
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 6,232 4,695 6,124
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.72% 19.14% 16.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,311 3,294 4,394
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £656 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 164 94 133
10th Percentile £16.85 £19.73 £14.00
25th Percentile £28.67 £23.69 £20.98
Median hourly rate £50.50 £32.96 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +53.22% -17.60% -33.33%
75th Percentile £74.37 £65.46 £54.13
90th Percentile £82.25 £70.00 £72.50
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £34.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +47.83% -13.75% -34.69%

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 April 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 April 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 +1 127 £540 -6.90% 52
South East -49 24 £500 -7.41% 42
North of England -60 19 £475 - 37
Midlands -53 16 £513 +3.80% 29
Yorkshire -46 11 £500 +8.11% 9
West Midlands -52 8 £500 +21.21% 18
East Midlands -29 7 £525 -8.70% 11
South West -37 6 £488 -2.50% 11
North West -45 6 £463 -2.63% 20
North East - 2 £463 - 8
East of England -34 1 £505 -12.25% 24
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 (15.53%) Apache Spark
2 7 (3.40%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.46%) ArcGIS
3 3 (1.46%) CMS
4 2 (0.97%) Confluence
4 2 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
5 1 (0.49%) Apache
5 1 (0.49%) IIS
5 1 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.49%) Tomcat
5 1 (0.49%) Umbraco
Applications
1 4 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.49%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 3 (1.46%) Payment Gateway
2 1 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 206 (100.00%) Azure
2 107 (51.94%) Azure Data Factory
3 78 (37.86%) Azure DevOps
4 69 (33.50%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 67 (32.52%) Power Platform
6 43 (20.87%) GitHub
7 33 (16.02%) Serverless
8 27 (13.11%) Azure Functions
9 25 (12.14%) Azure Key Vault
10 21 (10.19%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 21 (10.19%) Azure Monitor
11 19 (9.22%) Azure AKS
11 19 (9.22%) Azure Storage
12 17 (8.25%) Entra ID
13 15 (7.28%) Azure Service Bus
14 13 (6.31%) GitHub Actions
15 12 (5.83%) AWS
15 12 (5.83%) Azure Logic Apps
15 12 (5.83%) PaaS
16 9 (4.37%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (3.40%) Firewall
2 6 (2.91%) Network Security
3 5 (2.43%) DNS
4 1 (0.49%) HTTP
4 1 (0.49%) Internet
4 1 (0.49%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 66 (32.04%) Data Warehouse
2 56 (27.18%) Power BI
3 55 (26.70%) Data Lake
3 55 (26.70%) SQL Server
4 29 (14.08%) NoSQL
5 21 (10.19%) Delta Lake
6 19 (9.22%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 11 (5.34%) Metadata
8 8 (3.88%) PostgreSQL
8 8 (3.88%) Relational Database
8 8 (3.88%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 8 (3.88%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 7 (3.40%) Power Query
9 7 (3.40%) Spark SQL
10 6 (2.91%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 6 (2.91%) MySQL
10 6 (2.91%) Tableau
11 5 (2.43%) Big Data
11 5 (2.43%) Parquet
11 5 (2.43%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 59 (28.64%) Git
2 7 (3.40%) Jenkins
3 2 (0.97%) JMeter
4 1 (0.49%) Bitbucket
4 1 (0.49%) Cypress.io
4 1 (0.49%) git-flow
4 1 (0.49%) GitLab
4 1 (0.49%) JIRA
4 1 (0.49%) MSI
4 1 (0.49%) Postman
4 1 (0.49%) REST Assured
4 1 (0.49%) Selenium
4 1 (0.49%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.49%) webpack
General
1 47 (22.82%) Social Skills
2 38 (18.45%) Finance
3 23 (11.17%) Public Sector
4 15 (7.28%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (5.34%) Banking
6 7 (3.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.46%) Aviation
7 3 (1.46%) Investment Banking
8 2 (0.97%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
8 2 (0.97%) Military
9 1 (0.49%) Agriculture
9 1 (0.49%) Legal
9 1 (0.49%) Marketing
9 1 (0.49%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.49%) Presentation Skills
9 1 (0.49%) Publishing
9 1 (0.49%) Retail
9 1 (0.49%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.49%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 82 (39.81%) Data Engineer
2 41 (19.90%) Azure Engineer
3 39 (18.93%) Architect
4 31 (15.05%) Azure Data Engineer
5 27 (13.11%) Senior
6 25 (12.14%) Developer
7 19 (9.22%) Azure Architect
8 18 (8.74%) Senior Data Engineer
9 15 (7.28%) Technical Architect
10 13 (6.31%) Data Architect
10 13 (6.31%) DBA
11 12 (5.83%) Azure Developer
12 11 (5.34%) .NET Developer
12 11 (5.34%) SQL DBA
13 9 (4.37%) Platform Engineer
14 8 (3.88%) Azure Data Architect
14 8 (3.88%) Lead
15 7 (3.40%) Full-Stack Developer
15 7 (3.40%) Informatica Engineer
16 6 (2.91%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 49 (23.79%) PySpark
2 42 (20.39%) .NET
3 19 (9.22%) REST
4 14 (6.80%) Kafka
5 12 (5.83%) .NET Core
5 12 (5.83%) ARM Templates
6 10 (4.85%) JSON
6 10 (4.85%) React
7 8 (3.88%) AngularJS
7 8 (3.88%) YAML
8 7 (3.40%) .NET Framework
8 7 (3.40%) OAuth
9 6 (2.91%) XML
10 4 (1.94%) Entity Framework
10 4 (1.94%) Next.js
10 4 (1.94%) OAuth2
10 4 (1.94%) Pandas
10 4 (1.94%) PyTorch
10 4 (1.94%) TensorFlow
11 3 (1.46%) Blazor
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.22%) Cloud Native
2 9 (4.37%) Replication
3 5 (2.43%) Data Structures
3 5 (2.43%) Distributed Systems
3 5 (2.43%) IoT
4 4 (1.94%) Distributed Computing
4 4 (1.94%) Product Ownership
5 3 (1.46%) AI Agents
5 3 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.46%) Onboarding
5 3 (1.46%) SCADA
5 3 (1.46%) Security Posture
6 2 (0.97%) Clustering
6 2 (0.97%) Data Fabric
6 2 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
6 2 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
6 2 (0.97%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (0.97%) Low-Code
6 2 (0.97%) Wiki
7 1 (0.49%) Distributed Applications
Operating Systems
1 4 (1.94%) Windows
2 2 (0.97%) Linux
3 1 (0.49%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (48.06%) Data Modelling
2 95 (46.12%) DevOps
3 87 (42.23%) CI/CD
4 85 (41.26%) Data Pipeline
5 81 (39.32%) ETL
6 71 (34.47%) Analytics
7 64 (31.07%) Data Engineering
8 60 (29.13%) Data Governance
9 58 (28.16%) Business Intelligence
10 50 (24.27%) Data Architecture
11 46 (22.33%) Data Integration
12 42 (20.39%) Agile
12 42 (20.39%) Infrastructure as Code
13 35 (16.99%) Integration Patterns
14 31 (15.05%) Data Science
15 29 (14.08%) High Availability
16 28 (13.59%) Performance Tuning
17 25 (12.14%) AI
17 25 (12.14%) Problem-Solving
18 24 (11.65%) RBAC
Programming Languages
1 206 (100.00%) SQL
2 87 (42.23%) Python
3 37 (17.96%) Scala
4 28 (13.59%) C#
5 20 (9.71%) Bicep
5 20 (9.71%) PowerShell
6 15 (7.28%) T-SQL
7 14 (6.80%) JavaScript
8 13 (6.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 8 (3.88%) Java
10 7 (3.40%) TypeScript
11 4 (1.94%) Bash
12 2 (0.97%) R
13 1 (0.49%) ANSI SQL
13 1 (0.49%) C
13 1 (0.49%) C++
13 1 (0.49%) Korn
13 1 (0.49%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.49%) VBA
13 1 (0.49%) X++
Qualifications
1 72 (34.95%) Security Cleared
2 57 (27.67%) SC Cleared
3 24 (11.65%) Azure Certification
4 9 (4.37%) Microsoft Certification
5 6 (2.91%) Degree
6 4 (1.94%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.49%) BC Cleared
7 1 (0.49%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.49%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.49%) ISTQB
7 1 (0.49%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (33.50%) Data Quality
2 13 (6.31%) QA
3 12 (5.83%) GDPR
4 6 (2.91%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (1.94%) Accessibility
6 2 (0.97%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.97%) NCSC
7 1 (0.49%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.49%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.49%) PCI DSS
7 1 (0.49%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.49%) SOC 2
System Software
1 17 (8.25%) Docker
2 16 (7.77%) Active Directory
3 7 (3.40%) Virtual Machines
4 6 (2.91%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 47 (22.82%) Terraform
2 16 (7.77%) Kubernetes
3 2 (0.97%) Ansible
4 1 (0.49%) Failover Clustering
4 1 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 101 (49.03%) Microsoft
2 79 (38.35%) Databricks
3 11 (5.34%) Oracle
4 10 (4.85%) Informatica
5 9 (4.37%) ServiceNow
6 4 (1.94%) OpenAI
7 3 (1.46%) ForgeRock
7 3 (1.46%) Google
7 3 (1.46%) SAP
8 2 (0.97%) Palo Alto
9 1 (0.49%) Adobe
9 1 (0.49%) Alteryx
9 1 (0.49%) NetApp
9 1 (0.49%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.49%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud