SQL Server Contracts in England

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England requiring SQL Server skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SQL Server over the 6 months leading up to 5 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 98 56 53
Rank change year-on-year -42 -3 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 692 1,324 1,996
As % of all contract jobs advertised in England 2.61% 3.55% 4.16%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.19% 20.19% 24.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 517 928 1,524
10th Percentile £325 £344 £363
25th Percentile £400 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £509 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.25% -3.10% -
75th Percentile £650 £638 £666
90th Percentile £750 £725 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.89% -3.90% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 24 12
10th Percentile £20.91 £25.30 £27.07
25th Percentile £21.02 £37.63 £35.10
Median hourly rate £25.00 £40.00 £48.75
Median % change year-on-year -37.50% -17.95% -10.55%
75th Percentile £51.91 £46.82 £73.13
90th Percentile £82.00 £62.96 £84.00
UK median hourly rate £48.16 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +20.40% -11.11% -10.00%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
England

SQL Server 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 4,876 6,559 8,259
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 18.39% 17.60% 17.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,375 4,722 5,899
10th Percentile £356 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £650 £675 £675
90th Percentile £775 £813 £775
UK median daily rate £513 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 140 156
10th Percentile £19.25 £14.00 £21.24
25th Percentile £24.25 £20.36 £32.37
Median hourly rate £34.00 £39.25 £58.05
Median % change year-on-year -13.38% -32.38% +53.56%
75th Percentile £62.88 £51.75 £75.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £71.60 £82.75
UK median hourly rate £35.00 £38.00 £57.50
% change year-on-year -7.89% -33.91% +52.12%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Job postings citing SQL Server as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in England.

Job vacancy trend for SQL Server in England

SQL Server
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SQL Server in England.

Daily rate trend for SQL Server in England

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in England over the 6 months to 5 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in England

SQL Server
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in England

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SQL Server in England.

Hourly rate trend for SQL Server in England

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL Server in England over the 6 months to 5 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL Server in England

SQL Server
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 SQL Server within the England region over the 6 months to 5 July 2025. 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 -42 426 £575 +7.48% 1,098
North of England -24 85 £425 -8.60% 471
South East -9 66 £450 -10.00% 435
North West -18 61 £425 -5.56% 278
Midlands -33 46 £433 -2.81% 245
West Midlands -8 28 £550 +11.68% 149
South West -15 26 £475 -11.63% 149
Yorkshire -3 19 £400 -15.79% 157
East of England +20 17 £500 +5.26% 136
East Midlands -23 17 £327 -24.94% 96
North East -4 5 £456 -3.95% 37
SQL Server
UK

SQL Server
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in England by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 40 (5.78%) IIS
2 36 (5.20%) Apache
3 21 (3.03%) SharePoint
4 20 (2.89%) Confluence
5 19 (2.75%) Microsoft Exchange
6 15 (2.17%) Apache Spark
7 7 (1.01%) Tomcat
7 7 (1.01%) WebSphere
8 6 (0.87%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.87%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.72%) nginx
9 5 (0.72%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 5 (0.72%) WordPress
10 4 (0.58%) BizTalk Server
10 4 (0.58%) CMS
10 4 (0.58%) Drupal
10 4 (0.58%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.58%) SAS
11 3 (0.43%) JBoss
11 3 (0.43%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 69 (9.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.43%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.14%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.14%) SPSS
5 1 (0.14%) Stata
5 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 29 (4.19%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.01%) Kondor
2 7 (1.01%) Maximo
2 7 (1.01%) OpenText MBPM
2 7 (1.01%) Oracle BPM
3 5 (0.72%) Endur
3 5 (0.72%) Fidessa
3 5 (0.72%) SAP S/4HANA
4 4 (0.58%) Cognos Business Intelligence
5 3 (0.43%) Aladdin
5 3 (0.43%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.29%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.29%) Markit EDM
6 2 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.29%) Temenos T24
6 2 (0.29%) thinkFolio
7 1 (0.14%) Eikon
7 1 (0.14%) FastStats
7 1 (0.14%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 295 (42.63%) Azure
2 111 (16.04%) Power Platform
3 94 (13.58%) AWS
4 59 (8.53%) Azure DevOps
5 53 (7.66%) Azure Data Factory
6 38 (5.49%) Entra ID
7 34 (4.91%) Microsoft 365
8 33 (4.77%) PowerApps
9 32 (4.62%) Azure Service Bus
9 32 (4.62%) Serverless
10 31 (4.48%) Dynamics 365
10 31 (4.48%) Power Automate
11 29 (4.19%) Azure Logic Apps
12 27 (3.90%) GitHub
13 24 (3.47%) Azure Functions
14 23 (3.32%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 23 (3.32%) GCP
15 22 (3.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 20 (2.89%) SaaS
17 15 (2.17%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.19%) Firewall
2 24 (3.47%) DNS
3 17 (2.46%) Internet
4 10 (1.45%) Network Security
4 10 (1.45%) TCP/IP
5 8 (1.16%) Intrusion Detection
5 8 (1.16%) LAN
6 7 (1.01%) DHCP
6 7 (1.01%) VPN
7 6 (0.87%) HTTP
7 6 (0.87%) WAN
8 4 (0.58%) Skype
8 4 (0.58%) SSH
8 4 (0.58%) VLAN
8 4 (0.58%) VoIP
9 3 (0.43%) SSL
10 2 (0.29%) iSCSI
10 2 (0.29%) NAS
10 2 (0.29%) SAN
10 2 (0.29%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 86 (12.43%) Power BI
2 69 (9.97%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 65 (9.39%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 56 (8.09%) Data Warehouse
4 56 (8.09%) Relational Database
5 52 (7.51%) Oracle Database
6 50 (7.23%) Azure SQL Database
7 49 (7.08%) PostgreSQL
8 40 (5.78%) MySQL
9 37 (5.35%) NoSQL
10 34 (4.91%) MongoDB
11 22 (3.18%) DB2
12 18 (2.60%) Big Data
12 18 (2.60%) Tableau
13 16 (2.31%) Amazon RDS
14 15 (2.17%) Data Lake
14 15 (2.17%) Metadata
14 15 (2.17%) Redis
15 11 (1.59%) Hadoop
15 11 (1.59%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 52 (7.51%) JIRA
2 47 (6.79%) Git
3 23 (3.32%) GitLab
4 20 (2.89%) Jenkins
5 17 (2.46%) Bitbucket
6 15 (2.17%) Selenium
7 14 (2.02%) Visual Studio
8 11 (1.59%) Cucumber
8 11 (1.59%) SonarQube
8 11 (1.59%) Sonatype Nexus
9 10 (1.45%) JUnit
9 10 (1.45%) Maven
9 10 (1.45%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 9 (1.30%) Mockito
11 8 (1.16%) ERwin
11 8 (1.16%) Octopus Deploy
12 7 (1.01%) TeamCity
13 6 (0.87%) QARun
13 6 (0.87%) SpecFlow
13 6 (0.87%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 219 (31.65%) Finance
2 194 (28.03%) Social Skills
3 99 (14.31%) Banking
4 80 (11.56%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (5.35%) Public Sector
6 27 (3.90%) Front Office
7 25 (3.61%) Investment Banking
8 16 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.73%) Back Office
9 12 (1.73%) Organisational Skills
9 12 (1.73%) Telecoms
10 11 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 11 (1.59%) Legal
11 8 (1.16%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.16%) Law
12 5 (0.72%) Local Government
12 5 (0.72%) Retail
13 4 (0.58%) Marketing
13 4 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.58%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 264 (38.15%) Developer
2 82 (11.85%) Analyst
3 74 (10.69%) C# Developer
4 64 (9.25%) Architect
5 63 (9.10%) Senior
6 49 (7.08%) Data Engineer
7 43 (6.21%) .NET Developer
8 37 (5.35%) DBA
9 32 (4.62%) Senior Developer
10 30 (4.34%) Data Analyst
11 28 (4.05%) Consultant
12 27 (3.90%) SQL Developer
13 25 (3.61%) Azure Engineer
13 25 (3.61%) SQL DBA
14 24 (3.47%) Solutions Architect
15 23 (3.32%) C# .NET Developer
16 22 (3.18%) Full-Stack Developer
17 21 (3.03%) Software Engineer
18 19 (2.75%) Data Architect
19 18 (2.60%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 200 (28.90%) .NET
2 89 (12.86%) .NET Framework
3 72 (10.40%) HTML
4 66 (9.54%) CSS
5 50 (7.23%) React
5 50 (7.23%) REST
5 50 (7.23%) XML
6 49 (7.08%) AngularJS
7 42 (6.07%) .NET Core
7 42 (6.07%) ASP.NET
8 36 (5.20%) RESTful
8 36 (5.20%) Web Services
9 34 (4.91%) JSON
10 33 (4.77%) SOAP
11 32 (4.62%) WCF
12 31 (4.48%) Entity Framework
13 29 (4.19%) ASP.NET Web API
14 28 (4.05%) Kafka
15 24 (3.47%) WPF
16 21 (3.03%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.62%) Derivative
2 23 (3.32%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 22 (3.18%) Replication
4 21 (3.03%) Distributed Systems
5 20 (2.89%) Legacy Systems
6 17 (2.46%) Data Centre
6 17 (2.46%) Data Structures
7 14 (2.02%) Clustering
8 13 (1.88%) Product Ownership
8 13 (1.88%) Public Cloud
9 12 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.59%) Enterprise Software
11 10 (1.45%) Onboarding
12 9 (1.30%) Fixed Income
12 9 (1.30%) Linux Command Line
12 9 (1.30%) N-Tier
12 9 (1.30%) PKI
12 9 (1.30%) Reference Data
13 8 (1.16%) Cloud Native
13 8 (1.16%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 137 (19.80%) Windows
2 87 (12.57%) Linux
3 62 (8.96%) Windows Server
4 24 (3.47%) Unix
5 17 (2.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (1.01%) Android
6 7 (1.01%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.87%) VMS
8 5 (0.72%) Apple iOS
8 5 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
9 4 (0.58%) CentOS
9 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.43%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.29%) Oracle Linux
11 2 (0.29%) Ubuntu
11 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2012
12 1 (0.14%) AIX
12 1 (0.14%) SUSE
12 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 172 (24.86%) Agile
2 165 (23.84%) Problem-Solving
3 158 (22.83%) DevOps
4 108 (15.61%) CI/CD
5 101 (14.60%) Business Intelligence
5 101 (14.60%) Migration
6 99 (14.31%) ETL
7 76 (10.98%) Test Automation
8 67 (9.68%) Data Analysis
9 64 (9.25%) Data Modelling
10 62 (8.96%) Performance Tuning
11 59 (8.53%) Microservices
12 56 (8.09%) Data Migration
13 55 (7.95%) Software Engineering
14 54 (7.80%) Disaster Recovery
15 52 (7.51%) Analytics
16 50 (7.23%) Scrum
17 48 (6.94%) High Availability
18 43 (6.21%) SDLC
18 43 (6.21%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 384 (55.49%) SQL
2 236 (34.10%) C#
3 144 (20.81%) Python
4 104 (15.03%) JavaScript
5 75 (10.84%) PowerShell
6 71 (10.26%) Java
7 62 (8.96%) T-SQL
8 39 (5.64%) TypeScript
9 38 (5.49%) PL/SQL
10 35 (5.06%) VBA
11 31 (4.48%) VB
12 24 (3.47%) Bash
13 15 (2.17%) Scala
14 9 (1.30%) PHP
15 8 (1.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 8 (1.16%) Perl
16 7 (1.01%) Bicep
16 7 (1.01%) R
16 7 (1.01%) Shell Script
16 7 (1.01%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 80 (11.56%) Security Cleared
2 73 (10.55%) Degree
3 60 (8.67%) SC Cleared
4 25 (3.61%) Azure Certification
4 25 (3.61%) Microsoft Certification
5 18 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 13 (1.88%) DV Cleared
7 5 (0.72%) ITIL Certification
8 4 (0.58%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.58%) MCPD
8 4 (0.58%) MCSD
8 4 (0.58%) MCSE
9 3 (0.43%) BPSS Clearance
9 3 (0.43%) PMP
9 3 (0.43%) SAP Certification
9 3 (0.43%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 2 (0.29%) ISEB
10 2 (0.29%) OCP
10 2 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
10 2 (0.29%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (9.68%) QA
2 45 (6.50%) Data Quality
3 25 (3.61%) GDPR
4 15 (2.17%) MiFID
5 13 (1.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 7 (1.01%) Accessibility
6 7 (1.01%) Basel III
7 6 (0.87%) EMIR
7 6 (0.87%) SLA
8 5 (0.72%) HIPAA
8 5 (0.72%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.43%) GAAP
10 2 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.29%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.29%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 2 (0.29%) ISO 15022
10 2 (0.29%) ISO 20022
10 2 (0.29%) PCI DSS
10 2 (0.29%) PMO
10 2 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 52 (7.51%) Active Directory
2 33 (4.77%) Docker
3 30 (4.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
5 12 (1.73%) vSphere
6 6 (0.87%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.72%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.58%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.43%) KVM
9 3 (0.43%) vCloud
9 3 (0.43%) VMware Workstation
10 2 (0.29%) GPFS
10 2 (0.29%) NFS
10 2 (0.29%) zsh
11 1 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
11 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
11 1 (0.14%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 45 (6.50%) Kubernetes
2 36 (5.20%) Terraform
3 18 (2.60%) Ansible
4 11 (1.59%) Microsoft Intune
5 7 (1.01%) Kibana
5 7 (1.01%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 6 (0.87%) Grafana
6 6 (0.87%) Oracle RMAN
6 6 (0.87%) Progress Chef
6 6 (0.87%) SCOM
7 5 (0.72%) WMI
8 4 (0.58%) Control-M
8 4 (0.58%) SCCM
8 4 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (0.58%) vCenter Server
9 3 (0.43%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 3 (0.43%) Data Guard
9 3 (0.43%) NetBackup
10 2 (0.29%) Puppet
10 2 (0.29%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 231 (33.38%) Microsoft
2 196 (28.32%) Oracle
3 41 (5.92%) VMware
4 38 (5.49%) Databricks
5 32 (4.62%) IBM
6 21 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 19 (2.75%) Citrix
8 18 (2.60%) Cisco
8 18 (2.60%) Sybase
9 16 (2.31%) SAP
10 13 (1.88%) Google
11 12 (1.73%) Informatica
12 10 (1.45%) Talend
13 9 (1.30%) Cognos
13 9 (1.30%) CyberArk
13 9 (1.30%) UiPath
14 8 (1.16%) Red Hat
14 8 (1.16%) TIBCO
14 8 (1.16%) Veracode
15 7 (1.01%) Salesforce