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 29 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
29 Nov 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 135 77 58
Rank change year-on-year -58 -19 -12
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 660 909 1,392
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.15% 2.93% 3.57%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.31% 16.28% 21.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 648 1,005
10th Percentile £325 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £406 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £510 £543
Median % change year-on-year -5.81% -6.06% -1.36%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 7 20
10th Percentile £29.80 £27.71 £20.17
25th Percentile £43.38 £38.75 £45.13
Median hourly rate £68.00 £60.50 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year +12.40% +12.56% +34.38%
75th Percentile £73.75 £65.00 £62.50
90th Percentile £76.00 £79.00 £64.96
UK median hourly rate £68.00 £32.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +109.23% -38.10% +38.16%

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 5,361 5,582 6,484
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.45% 18.02% 16.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,738 3,726 4,621
10th Percentile £327 £350 £355
25th Percentile £411 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -
75th Percentile £625 £663 £650
90th Percentile £725 £788 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £530 £533
% change year-on-year -5.57% -0.66% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 78 135
10th Percentile £21.15 £18.35 £18.84
25th Percentile £30.96 £24.88 £24.00
Median hourly rate £55.00 £38.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +44.74% -20.00% -5.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.55 £65.00
90th Percentile £86.30 £66.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £31.55 £46.18
% change year-on-year +74.35% -31.69% -5.76%

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 29 November 2025.

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 29 November 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 29 November 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 -37 383 £525 -4.55% 131
North of England -21 85 £425 -11.69% 113
South East -31 78 £450 -10.00% 174
North West -17 48 £415 -7.26% 66
Yorkshire -11 37 £425 -24.31% 39
East of England -11 27 £500 +29.03% 29
South West -16 27 £485 -9.77% 43
Midlands -84 26 £375 -16.67% 80
West Midlands -57 16 £438 -22.84% 47
East Midlands -39 9 £333 -8.90% 32
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 28 (4.24%) Confluence
1 28 (4.24%) IIS
2 25 (3.79%) SharePoint
3 13 (1.97%) Apache
3 13 (1.97%) Microsoft Exchange
3 13 (1.97%) WebSphere
4 10 (1.52%) Apache Spark
5 9 (1.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 9 (1.36%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.76%) JBoss
7 4 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
8 3 (0.45%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (0.45%) CICS
8 3 (0.45%) CMS
8 3 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
8 3 (0.45%) Skype for Business
8 3 (0.45%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.30%) HCL Notes
9 2 (0.30%) SAS
9 2 (0.30%) WildFly
Applications
1 53 (8.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.06%) Microsoft Project
3 7 (1.06%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.30%) Trello
5 2 (0.30%) Windchill
6 1 (0.15%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 9 (1.36%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (1.06%) Fidessa
2 7 (1.06%) Oracle BPM
3 6 (0.91%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.91%) Maximo
3 6 (0.91%) Salesforce CRM
4 5 (0.76%) BusinessWorks
5 4 (0.61%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.61%) Endur
5 4 (0.61%) OpenText MBPM
5 4 (0.61%) thinkFolio
6 3 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
7 2 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.30%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.30%) RMDS
7 2 (0.30%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.30%) Temenos T24
8 1 (0.15%) IBM Planning Analytics
8 1 (0.15%) Infor CloudSuite Industrial (formerly SyteLine)
Cloud Services
1 263 (39.85%) Azure
2 123 (18.64%) AWS
3 92 (13.94%) Power Platform
4 56 (8.48%) Azure DevOps
5 40 (6.06%) GCP
6 38 (5.76%) GitHub
7 29 (4.39%) Azure Data Factory
8 25 (3.79%) Microsoft 365
9 23 (3.48%) Serverless
10 22 (3.33%) SaaS
11 20 (3.03%) Amazon S3
11 20 (3.03%) GitHub Actions
12 19 (2.88%) Azure Service Bus
12 19 (2.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 19 (2.88%) Snowflake
13 17 (2.58%) Azure Logic Apps
13 17 (2.58%) Dynamics 365
14 15 (2.27%) Amazon EC2
15 14 (2.12%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 13 (1.97%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 30 (4.55%) Firewall
2 19 (2.88%) TCP/IP
3 17 (2.58%) DNS
4 12 (1.82%) Internet
5 10 (1.52%) HTTP
6 9 (1.36%) LAN
7 7 (1.06%) DHCP
7 7 (1.06%) SSL
8 5 (0.76%) NAS
8 5 (0.76%) Skype
9 4 (0.61%) NetScaler
9 4 (0.61%) SAN
10 3 (0.45%) VLAN
10 3 (0.45%) VoIP
10 3 (0.45%) VSAN
10 3 (0.45%) Wireshark
11 2 (0.30%) RS-232
11 2 (0.30%) SMTP
11 2 (0.30%) WAN
11 2 (0.30%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 85 (12.88%) PostgreSQL
2 81 (12.27%) Relational Database
3 79 (11.97%) Power BI
4 68 (10.30%) Oracle Database
5 60 (9.09%) Data Warehouse
5 60 (9.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 49 (7.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 46 (6.97%) Azure SQL Database
8 42 (6.36%) MongoDB
9 40 (6.06%) MySQL
10 33 (5.00%) NoSQL
11 29 (4.39%) DB2
12 27 (4.09%) Amazon RDS
13 20 (3.03%) Big Data
14 18 (2.73%) Data Lake
14 18 (2.73%) RDBMS
14 18 (2.73%) Redis
15 15 (2.27%) Power Query
16 13 (1.97%) Metadata
16 13 (1.97%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 63 (9.55%) Git
2 42 (6.36%) JIRA
3 27 (4.09%) Jenkins
4 19 (2.88%) GitLab
5 17 (2.58%) Maven
6 16 (2.42%) Bitbucket
7 15 (2.27%) Visual Studio
8 14 (2.12%) SpecFlow
9 13 (1.97%) JUnit
9 13 (1.97%) Selenium
10 12 (1.82%) Cucumber
11 10 (1.52%) Mockito
11 10 (1.52%) Octopus Deploy
11 10 (1.52%) Sonatype Nexus
12 9 (1.36%) TeamCity
13 8 (1.21%) Postman
14 7 (1.06%) SonarQube
14 7 (1.06%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
14 7 (1.06%) webpack
15 6 (0.91%) Eclipse
General
1 226 (34.24%) Social Skills
2 201 (30.45%) Finance
3 94 (14.24%) Banking
4 92 (13.94%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (5.61%) Public Sector
6 32 (4.85%) Documentation Skills
7 29 (4.39%) Investment Banking
8 20 (3.03%) Front Office
9 17 (2.58%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 11 (1.67%) Retail
12 10 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
13 8 (1.21%) Legal
14 7 (1.06%) Back Office
14 7 (1.06%) Local Government
14 7 (1.06%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.76%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.76%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.61%) Law
17 3 (0.45%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 253 (38.33%) Developer
2 73 (11.06%) Senior
3 63 (9.55%) C# Developer
4 56 (8.48%) Analyst
5 52 (7.88%) .NET Developer
6 51 (7.73%) Data Engineer
7 45 (6.82%) Architect
8 37 (5.61%) DBA
8 37 (5.61%) Senior Developer
9 32 (4.85%) Consultant
10 24 (3.64%) Angular Developer
10 24 (3.64%) Lead
10 24 (3.64%) SQL Developer
11 22 (3.33%) C# .NET Developer
12 21 (3.18%) Full-Stack Developer
13 20 (3.03%) Applications Support
13 20 (3.03%) Java Developer
13 20 (3.03%) Software Engineer
14 19 (2.88%) Data Analyst
15 17 (2.58%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 180 (27.27%) .NET
2 82 (12.42%) .NET Framework
3 58 (8.79%) HTML
4 53 (8.03%) CSS
5 52 (7.88%) REST
6 49 (7.42%) AngularJS
7 44 (6.67%) React
8 43 (6.52%) XML
9 39 (5.91%) Entity Framework
10 38 (5.76%) .NET Core
10 38 (5.76%) RESTful
11 37 (5.61%) Kafka
12 30 (4.55%) SOAP
13 29 (4.39%) Web Services
14 24 (3.64%) WPF
15 23 (3.48%) ASP.NET
15 23 (3.48%) JSON
16 21 (3.18%) NHibernate
17 18 (2.73%) Middleware
17 18 (2.73%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 27 (4.09%) Legacy Systems
2 26 (3.94%) Cloud Native
3 22 (3.33%) Derivative
4 20 (3.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 20 (3.03%) Product Ownership
5 19 (2.88%) Management Information System
6 18 (2.73%) Data Protection Act
6 18 (2.73%) Enterprise Software
7 15 (2.27%) Onboarding
7 15 (2.27%) PKI
7 15 (2.27%) Replication
8 14 (2.12%) Credit Risk
9 12 (1.82%) Data Structures
9 12 (1.82%) Distributed Systems
9 12 (1.82%) Fixed Income
10 11 (1.67%) Clustering
10 11 (1.67%) Hedge funds
10 11 (1.67%) Reinsurance
11 10 (1.52%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (1.52%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 117 (17.73%) Windows
2 86 (13.03%) Linux
3 57 (8.64%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.52%) Unix
4 10 (1.52%) Windows 10
5 8 (1.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 7 (1.06%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (0.61%) VMS
9 2 (0.30%) Solaris
9 2 (0.30%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
9 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.15%) Android
10 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.15%) SUSE
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 168 (25.45%) Agile
2 151 (22.88%) Problem-Solving
3 136 (20.61%) DevOps
4 131 (19.85%) CI/CD
5 107 (16.21%) Migration
6 102 (15.45%) Business Intelligence
7 98 (14.85%) ETL
8 82 (12.42%) Microservices
9 67 (10.15%) Data Modelling
10 57 (8.64%) Performance Tuning
11 56 (8.48%) Data Analysis
11 56 (8.48%) Data Migration
11 56 (8.48%) Test Automation
12 54 (8.18%) Analytics
13 52 (7.88%) Full-Stack Development
14 48 (7.27%) Software Engineering
15 44 (6.67%) Data Governance
15 44 (6.67%) Scrum
16 43 (6.52%) Containerisation
16 43 (6.52%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 366 (55.45%) SQL
2 177 (26.82%) C#
3 126 (19.09%) Python
4 82 (12.42%) T-SQL
5 80 (12.12%) JavaScript
6 60 (9.09%) Java
7 49 (7.42%) PowerShell
8 44 (6.67%) PL/SQL
9 35 (5.30%) Bash
10 25 (3.79%) VBA
11 20 (3.03%) VB
12 18 (2.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 18 (2.73%) TypeScript
13 15 (2.27%) Shell Script
14 9 (1.36%) PHP
15 6 (0.91%) COBOL
15 6 (0.91%) Scala
15 6 (0.91%) X++
16 5 (0.76%) XPath
17 4 (0.61%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 77 (11.67%) Security Cleared
2 65 (9.85%) Degree
3 56 (8.48%) SC Cleared
4 27 (4.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (2.58%) Microsoft Certification
6 13 (1.97%) DV Cleared
7 8 (1.21%) Azure Certification
7 8 (1.21%) MCSE
8 6 (0.91%) BPSS Clearance
8 6 (0.91%) HNC
8 6 (0.91%) HND
8 6 (0.91%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.91%) MCP
9 5 (0.76%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
10 3 (0.45%) CCNP
10 3 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
11 2 (0.30%) CTC Cleared
11 2 (0.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 2 (0.30%) MCITP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 60 (9.09%) QA
2 51 (7.73%) Data Quality
3 14 (2.12%) Accessibility
3 14 (2.12%) GDPR
4 10 (1.52%) SLA
5 9 (1.36%) MiFID
6 5 (0.76%) EMIR
7 4 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 4 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 3 (0.45%) WCAG
9 2 (0.30%) HIPAA
9 2 (0.30%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.30%) PMO
9 2 (0.30%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.15%) HL7
10 1 (0.15%) IFRS 17
10 1 (0.15%) NCSC
10 1 (0.15%) NIST
10 1 (0.15%) NIST 800
System Software
1 60 (9.09%) Docker
2 47 (7.12%) Active Directory
3 28 (4.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.97%) Oracle RAC
5 11 (1.67%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (1.36%) Hyper-V
6 9 (1.36%) zsh
7 8 (1.21%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.61%) vSphere
10 3 (0.45%) NFS
10 3 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.30%) GPFS
11 2 (0.30%) GridGain
11 2 (0.30%) NDS
11 2 (0.30%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.15%) KVM
12 1 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
12 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 41 (6.21%) Kubernetes
2 28 (4.24%) Ansible
3 25 (3.79%) Terraform
4 14 (2.12%) Data Guard
4 14 (2.12%) Grafana
5 13 (1.97%) Oracle RMAN
5 13 (1.97%) Puppet
5 13 (1.97%) vCenter Server
6 11 (1.67%) NetBackup
7 10 (1.52%) yum
8 9 (1.36%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 9 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (1.21%) SCCM
10 6 (0.91%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 6 (0.91%) SCOM
10 6 (0.91%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.76%) Prometheus
11 5 (0.76%) TIBCO Hawk
12 4 (0.61%) Control-M
12 4 (0.61%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 210 (31.82%) Microsoft
2 208 (31.52%) Oracle
3 42 (6.36%) VMware
4 36 (5.45%) Citrix
5 31 (4.70%) Databricks
6 22 (3.33%) Google
7 21 (3.18%) IBM
8 19 (2.88%) SAP
9 15 (2.27%) Salesforce
10 14 (2.12%) CyberArk
11 11 (1.67%) Cisco
11 11 (1.67%) Informatica
11 11 (1.67%) Veritas
12 9 (1.36%) Advent
13 8 (1.21%) Atlassian
13 8 (1.21%) ServiceNow
13 8 (1.21%) Sybase
14 7 (1.06%) PagerDuty
14 7 (1.06%) Veeam
15 6 (0.91%) SolarWinds
502 SQL Server jobs in England