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

6 months to
10 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 445 367 345
Rank change year-on-year -78 -22 +18
Contract jobs citing Azure SQL Database 177 144 209
As % of all contract jobs in England 0.39% 0.53% 0.56%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 2.58% 2.91% 3.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 108 159
10th Percentile £401 £405 £350
25th Percentile £427 £430 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year +3.85% -0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £613 £650
90th Percentile £736 £708 £700
UK median daily rate £525 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -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 6,860 4,940 6,576
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.31% 18.28% 17.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,614 3,426 4,733
10th Percentile £352 £354 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £601 £648 £675
90th Percentile £703 £775 £821
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 91 135
10th Percentile £15.07 £19.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.00 £24.25 £19.50
Median hourly rate £38.25 £34.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -9.33% -36.00%
75th Percentile £72.25 £62.88 £51.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £70.00 £70.80
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +12.86% -6.67% -35.39%

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 10 July 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 10 July 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 -50 97 £575 +4.55% 52
Midlands -41 31 £545 +26.74% 12
North of England -71 21 £413 -21.43% 41
West Midlands -59 18 £500 +33.33% 8
Yorkshire -38 13 £495 -5.71% 7
East Midlands -7 12 £570 +26.67% 4
South East -68 11 £500 +17.65% 42
South West -29 8 £600 +20.00% 8
North West -45 5 £409 -16.15% 25
North East - 3 £400 - 9
East of England -34 1 £505 -12.25% 18
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 9 (5.08%) SharePoint
2 3 (1.69%) Apache
2 3 (1.69%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (1.13%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.13%) CMS
3 2 (1.13%) Confluence
4 1 (0.56%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.56%) IIS
4 1 (0.56%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.56%) Tomcat
4 1 (0.56%) Umbraco
Applications
1 3 (1.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.56%) InDesign
2 1 (0.56%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 1 (0.56%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (1.13%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 177 (100.00%) Azure
2 70 (39.55%) Azure DevOps
3 69 (38.98%) Azure Data Factory
4 60 (33.90%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 58 (32.77%) Power Platform
6 44 (24.86%) GitHub
7 30 (16.95%) Azure Monitor
7 30 (16.95%) Serverless
8 25 (14.12%) Azure Key Vault
9 24 (13.56%) Azure Functions
10 23 (12.99%) Entra ID
11 21 (11.86%) Azure Storage
12 20 (11.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 15 (8.47%) PaaS
14 14 (7.91%) AWS
14 14 (7.91%) Azure AKS
15 12 (6.78%) GitHub Actions
16 11 (6.21%) Azure ExpressRoute
16 11 (6.21%) Azure Service Bus
16 11 (6.21%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 10 (5.65%) DNS
2 9 (5.08%) Firewall
3 6 (3.39%) Network Security
4 4 (2.26%) WAN
5 3 (1.69%) VPN
6 1 (0.56%) HTTP
6 1 (0.56%) Internet
6 1 (0.56%) Reverse Proxy
6 1 (0.56%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (31.07%) Data Lake
2 50 (28.25%) SQL Server
3 47 (26.55%) Power BI
4 34 (19.21%) Data Warehouse
5 20 (11.30%) Delta Lake
6 16 (9.04%) PostgreSQL
7 13 (7.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 10 (5.65%) NoSQL
8 10 (5.65%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 10 (5.65%) Star Schema
9 9 (5.08%) Relational Database
10 8 (4.52%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 6 (3.39%) Metadata
11 6 (3.39%) MySQL
12 5 (2.82%) Oracle Database
12 5 (2.82%) Parquet
12 5 (2.82%) Power Query
13 4 (2.26%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (2.26%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
13 4 (2.26%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
Development Applications
1 32 (18.08%) Git
2 5 (2.82%) Visual Studio
3 3 (1.69%) JetBrains Rider
4 2 (1.13%) Jasmine
4 2 (1.13%) JUnit
4 2 (1.13%) Karma Test Runner
4 2 (1.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 1 (0.56%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.56%) Cypress.io
5 1 (0.56%) git-flow
5 1 (0.56%) GitLab
5 1 (0.56%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.56%) JIRA
5 1 (0.56%) JMeter
5 1 (0.56%) MSI
5 1 (0.56%) Postman
5 1 (0.56%) REST Assured
5 1 (0.56%) Selenium
5 1 (0.56%) Team Foundation Server
5 1 (0.56%) webpack
General
1 41 (23.16%) Finance
2 37 (20.90%) Social Skills
3 20 (11.30%) Analytical Skills
4 17 (9.60%) Public Sector
5 9 (5.08%) Banking
6 8 (4.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (2.82%) Investment Banking
9 3 (1.69%) Local Government
10 2 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (1.13%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.56%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.56%) Games
11 1 (0.56%) Legal
11 1 (0.56%) Marketing
11 1 (0.56%) Military
11 1 (0.56%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.56%) Presentation Skills
11 1 (0.56%) Publishing
11 1 (0.56%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 55 (31.07%) Data Engineer
2 38 (21.47%) Architect
3 36 (20.34%) Developer
4 28 (15.82%) Senior
5 20 (11.30%) Azure Engineer
6 16 (9.04%) Data Architect
7 15 (8.47%) Azure Architect
8 14 (7.91%) Senior Data Engineer
9 11 (6.21%) Solutions Architect
10 10 (5.65%) Azure Developer
10 10 (5.65%) DBA
10 10 (5.65%) Full-Stack Developer
11 9 (5.08%) .NET Developer
11 9 (5.08%) Informatica Engineer
11 9 (5.08%) Platform Engineer
12 8 (4.52%) Azure Data Architect
12 8 (4.52%) Azure Data Engineer
12 8 (4.52%) Senior Developer
12 8 (4.52%) SQL DBA
13 7 (3.95%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (15.25%) .NET
2 24 (13.56%) REST
3 18 (10.17%) PySpark
4 10 (5.65%) JSON
5 9 (5.08%) OAuth
5 9 (5.08%) React
6 8 (4.52%) .NET Framework
6 8 (4.52%) AngularJS
6 8 (4.52%) ARM Templates
6 8 (4.52%) CSS
6 8 (4.52%) HTML
7 7 (3.95%) .NET Core
7 7 (3.95%) Entity Framework
7 7 (3.95%) RESTful
8 6 (3.39%) OAuth2
9 5 (2.82%) Web Services
9 5 (2.82%) XML
9 5 (2.82%) YAML
10 4 (2.26%) Kafka
10 4 (2.26%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 26 (14.69%) Cloud Native
2 10 (5.65%) Replication
3 7 (3.95%) Product Ownership
4 6 (3.39%) IoT
5 5 (2.82%) Data Structures
5 5 (2.82%) Hybrid Cloud
5 5 (2.82%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (2.26%) Clustering
6 4 (2.26%) SCADA
7 3 (1.69%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.69%) Enterprise Software
7 3 (1.69%) Onboarding
7 3 (1.69%) Security Posture
8 2 (1.13%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.13%) Data Fabric
8 2 (1.13%) Distributed Computing
8 2 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
8 2 (1.13%) Enterprise Cloud
8 2 (1.13%) Linux Command Line
8 2 (1.13%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 7 (3.95%) Linux
2 5 (2.82%) Windows
3 4 (2.26%) Ubuntu
4 3 (1.69%) VMS
5 2 (1.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.56%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 86 (48.59%) DevOps
2 71 (40.11%) CI/CD
3 68 (38.42%) ETL
4 65 (36.72%) Data Modelling
5 60 (33.90%) Analytics
6 49 (27.68%) Data Pipeline
7 45 (25.42%) Business Intelligence
8 41 (23.16%) Data Engineering
9 37 (20.90%) Infrastructure as Code
10 34 (19.21%) Agile
11 32 (18.08%) Data Governance
12 31 (17.51%) Migration
13 29 (16.38%) Performance Tuning
14 28 (15.82%) AI
15 27 (15.25%) High Availability
16 25 (14.12%) Disaster Recovery
17 22 (12.43%) Data Science
17 22 (12.43%) RBAC
18 21 (11.86%) Data Architecture
19 20 (11.30%) Log Analytics
Programming Languages
1 177 (100.00%) SQL
2 51 (28.81%) Python
3 24 (13.56%) C#
3 24 (13.56%) PowerShell
4 17 (9.60%) T-SQL
5 16 (9.04%) Bicep
6 13 (7.34%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 13 (7.34%) TypeScript
7 11 (6.21%) Scala
8 6 (3.39%) JavaScript
9 5 (2.82%) Bash
9 5 (2.82%) Java
10 2 (1.13%) Kusto Query Language
11 1 (0.56%) C
11 1 (0.56%) C++
11 1 (0.56%) Korn
11 1 (0.56%) PL/SQL
11 1 (0.56%) X++
Qualifications
1 34 (19.21%) Security Cleared
2 27 (15.25%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.91%) Azure Certification
4 6 (3.39%) Degree
5 5 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
6 4 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 3 (1.69%) Microsoft Certification
8 1 (0.56%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.56%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.56%) ISTQB
8 1 (0.56%) Master's Degree
8 1 (0.56%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (18.08%) Data Quality
2 17 (9.60%) QA
3 16 (9.04%) GDPR
4 10 (5.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 4 (2.26%) NCSC
6 3 (1.69%) Cyber Essentials
6 3 (1.69%) NIST
7 1 (0.56%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.56%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 1 (0.56%) HIPAA
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%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.56%) SOC 2
System Software
1 13 (7.34%) Active Directory
2 11 (6.21%) Virtual Machines
3 10 (5.65%) Docker
4 4 (2.26%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 40 (22.60%) Terraform
2 12 (6.78%) Kubernetes
3 3 (1.69%) Failover Clustering
4 2 (1.13%) Ansible
5 1 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 101 (57.06%) Microsoft
2 42 (23.73%) Databricks
3 15 (8.47%) Informatica
4 14 (7.91%) Oracle
5 5 (2.82%) ServiceNow
6 4 (2.26%) SAP
7 3 (1.69%) Google
8 1 (0.56%) Adobe
8 1 (0.56%) Alteryx
8 1 (0.56%) IBM
8 1 (0.56%) NetApp
8 1 (0.56%) OpenAI
8 1 (0.56%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.56%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud