SQL Server Contract Job Trends in England

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring SQL Server skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 31 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 110 58
Rank change year-on-year -17 -52 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 989 690 1,179
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.16% 2.49% 3.57%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.24% 13.85% 19.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 695 508 846
10th Percentile £363 £313 £330
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £645 £625
90th Percentile £720 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 6 7
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £27.71
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £34.00
Median hourly rate £50.02 £23.80 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +110.21% -49.91% +3.06%
75th Percentile £63.31 £64.71 £57.43
90th Percentile £75.80 £83.13 £77.78
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £70.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year -32.09% +62.79% -4.44%

All Database & BI 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 6,946 4,982 6,091
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.18% 17.95% 18.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,636 3,432 4,286
10th Percentile £358 £335 £350
25th Percentile £423 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £675
90th Percentile £705 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 80 91
10th Percentile £14.85 £21.02 £14.25
25th Percentile £23.75 £29.05 £19.92
Median hourly rate £38.25 £38.23 £33.93
Median % change year-on-year +0.05% +12.67% -38.31%
75th Percentile £62.00 £65.00 £58.73
90th Percentile £75.20 £78.88 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £38.85 £32.50
% change year-on-year -1.53% +19.52% -40.91%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL Server relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

SQL Server job vacancy trend in England

SQL Server
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL Server.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in England over the 6 months to 31 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in England

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL Server.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL Server in England over the 6 months to 31 August 2026.

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 31 August 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 -26 477 £525 -4.55% 173
North of England +1 195 £475 +7.95% 84
Midlands +3 108 £474 +10.88% 73
South East -29 106 £475 +35.71% 107
North West -4 105 £478 +8.64% 49
Yorkshire +6 89 £450 +5.88% 26
West Midlands -10 64 £467 -13.21% 40
South West -14 51 £519 +15.28% 31
East Midlands +11 43 £525 +60.80% 32
East of England -20 26 £425 -15.00% 28
North East -39 1 - - 11
SQL Server
UK

SQL Server
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 67 (6.77%) SharePoint
2 45 (4.55%) IIS
3 40 (4.04%) Confluence
4 23 (2.33%) Microsoft Exchange
5 20 (2.02%) Apache
5 20 (2.02%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (1.92%) Camunda
7 17 (1.72%) Apache Spark
8 10 (1.01%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.61%) Appian
9 6 (0.61%) CMS
10 5 (0.51%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.51%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.51%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.40%) OpenEdge
11 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
12 3 (0.30%) nginx
13 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 51 (5.16%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.83%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.01%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.20%) Windchill
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 23 (2.33%) Dynamics CRM
1 23 (2.33%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (1.62%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.71%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.71%) Oracle BPM
4 6 (0.61%) Oracle Payables
5 5 (0.51%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.40%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.20%) Endur
7 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.10%) Findur
8 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
8 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 410 (41.46%) Azure
2 212 (21.44%) AWS
3 149 (15.07%) Power Platform
4 108 (10.92%) Azure DevOps
5 89 (9.00%) GitHub
6 59 (5.97%) Azure Data Factory
7 49 (4.95%) Entra ID
8 46 (4.65%) Serverless
9 40 (4.04%) Microsoft 365
10 39 (3.94%) Azure Monitor
10 39 (3.94%) Power Automate
11 37 (3.74%) GitHub Actions
12 35 (3.54%) Dynamics 365
13 33 (3.34%) Snowflake
14 32 (3.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 28 (2.83%) GCP
16 25 (2.53%) SaaS
17 23 (2.33%) dbt
18 22 (2.22%) PowerApps
19 20 (2.02%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.75%) DNS
2 40 (4.04%) DHCP
3 31 (3.13%) Firewall
4 18 (1.82%) SAN
4 18 (1.82%) VLAN
5 14 (1.42%) VPN
6 13 (1.31%) Internet
6 13 (1.31%) Network Security
7 12 (1.21%) TCP/IP
8 10 (1.01%) SSL
8 10 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.91%) SSH
10 6 (0.61%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.61%) IPv4
10 6 (0.61%) IPv6
10 6 (0.61%) LAN
11 5 (0.51%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.51%) VoIP
11 5 (0.51%) WAN
12 3 (0.30%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 146 (14.76%) PostgreSQL
2 125 (12.64%) Power BI
3 103 (10.41%) Relational Database
4 95 (9.61%) Data Warehouse
5 89 (9.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 71 (7.18%) MySQL
7 58 (5.86%) Oracle Database
8 56 (5.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 55 (5.56%) Azure SQL Database
10 49 (4.95%) MongoDB
11 34 (3.44%) Data Lake
12 26 (2.63%) Redis
13 24 (2.43%) NoSQL
13 24 (2.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 23 (2.33%) Amazon RDS
15 21 (2.12%) RDBMS
15 21 (2.12%) Tableau
16 15 (1.52%) Metadata
16 15 (1.52%) Star Schema
17 11 (1.11%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 97 (9.81%) Git
2 61 (6.17%) Jenkins
3 56 (5.66%) JIRA
4 32 (3.24%) GitLab
5 26 (2.63%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.12%) Maven
7 20 (2.02%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 19 (1.92%) Sonatype Nexus
9 16 (1.62%) TeamCity
10 15 (1.52%) Team Foundation Server
11 14 (1.42%) REST Assured
11 14 (1.42%) Selenium
12 13 (1.31%) Octopus Deploy
13 12 (1.21%) Postman
14 11 (1.11%) Artifactory
14 11 (1.11%) Gradle
14 11 (1.11%) JUnit
15 10 (1.01%) Cucumber
15 10 (1.01%) Cypress.io
15 10 (1.01%) Mockito
General
1 304 (30.74%) Social Skills
2 257 (25.99%) Finance
3 185 (18.71%) Analytical Skills
4 124 (12.54%) Banking
5 72 (7.28%) Public Sector
6 45 (4.55%) Front Office
7 39 (3.94%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (2.63%) Investment Banking
9 21 (2.12%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (1.82%) Legal
11 17 (1.72%) Retail
12 15 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.42%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.81%) Back Office
14 8 (0.81%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.61%) Billing
16 5 (0.51%) Advertising
16 5 (0.51%) Law
16 5 (0.51%) Local Government
16 5 (0.51%) Military
Job Titles
1 308 (31.14%) Developer
2 153 (15.47%) Senior
3 134 (13.55%) DBA
4 81 (8.19%) .NET Developer
4 81 (8.19%) SQL DBA
5 79 (7.99%) Data Engineer
6 78 (7.89%) C# Developer
7 68 (6.88%) Lead
8 67 (6.77%) Administrator
9 51 (5.16%) Full-Stack Developer
10 49 (4.95%) Architect
11 48 (4.85%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 47 (4.75%) Analyst
12 47 (4.75%) Senior Developer
13 46 (4.65%) SQL Developer
14 38 (3.84%) Software Engineer
15 32 (3.24%) Oracle DBA
16 31 (3.13%) Azure Engineer
16 31 (3.13%) C# .NET Developer
16 31 (3.13%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 277 (28.01%) .NET
2 123 (12.44%) REST
3 97 (9.81%) .NET Framework
4 80 (8.09%) React
5 74 (7.48%) Terraform
6 62 (6.27%) CSS
7 60 (6.07%) ASP.NET
8 57 (5.76%) AngularJS
9 55 (5.56%) Kafka
10 53 (5.36%) .NET Core
11 52 (5.26%) HTML
11 52 (5.26%) RESTful
12 40 (4.04%) JSON
13 38 (3.84%) Web Services
14 34 (3.44%) XML
15 33 (3.34%) Spring Boot
16 29 (2.93%) SOAP
17 28 (2.83%) Spring
18 27 (2.73%) OAuth
19 24 (2.43%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.17%) Onboarding
2 58 (5.86%) Cloud Native
3 52 (5.26%) Data Structures
4 43 (4.35%) Enterprise Software
5 42 (4.25%) Clustering
6 41 (4.15%) Self-Motivation
7 40 (4.04%) Replication
8 37 (3.74%) Legacy Systems
9 31 (3.13%) Product Ownership
10 26 (2.63%) Management Information System
11 24 (2.43%) Data Centre
12 20 (2.02%) PKI
13 17 (1.72%) Derivative
14 16 (1.62%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (1.42%) Low-Code
16 12 (1.21%) NHS
17 11 (1.11%) Algorithms
17 11 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
17 11 (1.11%) Fixed Income
17 11 (1.11%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 253 (25.58%) Windows
2 146 (14.76%) Windows Server
3 88 (8.90%) Linux
4 38 (3.84%) Unix
5 13 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.11%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.81%) VMS
8 7 (0.71%) Solaris
8 7 (0.71%) Windows 10
8 7 (0.71%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.61%) Android
9 6 (0.61%) CentOS
9 6 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.20%) AIX
12 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.10%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 257 (25.99%) DevOps
2 242 (24.47%) CI/CD
3 230 (23.26%) Agile
4 196 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
5 183 (18.50%) Migration
6 150 (15.17%) ETL
7 138 (13.95%) Business Intelligence
8 134 (13.55%) Data Modelling
9 126 (12.74%) Performance Tuning
10 116 (11.73%) AI
11 111 (11.22%) Disaster Recovery
12 98 (9.91%) Stakeholder Management
13 91 (9.20%) Analytics
14 90 (9.10%) Microservices
15 88 (8.90%) Continuous Improvement
16 85 (8.59%) Software Engineering
16 85 (8.59%) Test Automation
17 83 (8.39%) High Availability
18 79 (7.99%) Data Pipeline
18 79 (7.99%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 565 (57.13%) SQL
2 270 (27.30%) C#
3 194 (19.62%) Python
4 174 (17.59%) PowerShell
5 151 (15.27%) T-SQL
6 126 (12.74%) JavaScript
7 88 (8.90%) Java
8 60 (6.07%) PL/SQL
9 52 (5.26%) TypeScript
10 32 (3.24%) Bash
11 17 (1.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (1.62%) Shell Script
12 16 (1.62%) VB
13 14 (1.42%) Scala
13 14 (1.42%) VBA
14 8 (0.81%) Korn
14 8 (0.81%) VB.NET
15 6 (0.61%) Bicep
15 6 (0.61%) XPath
16 5 (0.51%) Rust
Qualifications
1 253 (25.58%) Security Cleared
2 192 (19.41%) SC Cleared
3 102 (10.31%) Degree
4 50 (5.06%) DV Cleared
5 41 (4.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 32 (3.24%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (1.92%) Azure Certification
9 12 (1.21%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.21%) ISTQB
10 10 (1.01%) Oracle Certification
11 9 (0.91%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.91%) OCP
12 8 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 7 (0.71%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.51%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 4 (0.40%) CISSP
15 4 (0.40%) PhD
16 3 (0.30%) MCITP
16 3 (0.30%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (9.40%) Data Quality
2 89 (9.00%) QA
3 28 (2.83%) GDPR
4 26 (2.63%) Accessibility
5 21 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (2.02%) NIST
7 18 (1.82%) WCAG
8 17 (1.72%) SLA
9 6 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.51%) ISO 9000
11 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.30%) Basel III
13 2 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 2 (0.20%) COREP
13 2 (0.20%) FINREP
13 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.20%) GRC
13 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.10%) ISO 20022
14 1 (0.10%) SEPA
System Software
1 127 (12.84%) Active Directory
2 74 (7.48%) Docker
3 40 (4.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 29 (2.93%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (2.12%) Oracle RAC
6 8 (0.81%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.61%) vSphere
8 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.30%) GridGain
9 3 (0.30%) Postfix
10 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.10%) NFS
10 1 (0.10%) RACF
10 1 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 95 (9.61%) Kubernetes
2 45 (4.55%) Ansible
3 16 (1.62%) SCOM
4 15 (1.52%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (1.42%) Data Guard
5 14 (1.42%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 13 (1.31%) HAProxy
7 12 (1.21%) SCCM
8 11 (1.11%) Microsoft Clustering
9 10 (1.01%) Oracle RMAN
9 10 (1.01%) WSUS
10 8 (0.81%) Grafana
11 7 (0.71%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.61%) Failover Clustering
13 5 (0.51%) ITRS Geneos
13 5 (0.51%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
14 3 (0.30%) Istio
14 3 (0.30%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 339 (34.28%) Microsoft
2 250 (25.28%) Oracle
3 69 (6.98%) Databricks
4 64 (6.47%) VMware
5 50 (5.06%) ServiceNow
6 44 (4.45%) CyberArk
7 40 (4.04%) Citrix
8 36 (3.64%) SAP
9 29 (2.93%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.33%) BMC
10 23 (2.33%) Remedy
11 21 (2.12%) Cisco
11 21 (2.12%) IBM
12 20 (2.02%) Informatica
13 17 (1.72%) Dynatrace
14 16 (1.62%) Sybase
15 15 (1.52%) Red Hat
16 14 (1.42%) Google
17 13 (1.31%) Alteryx
18 12 (1.21%) Splunk