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

6 months to
29 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 110 61
Rank change year-on-year -26 -49 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 953 697 1,116
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 2.53% 3.45%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.92% 13.83% 18.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 667 515 787
10th Percentile £356 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £386 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £496 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% -0.90% -6.54%
75th Percentile £606 £632 £625
90th Percentile £725 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £486 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.75% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 4 6
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.83 £26.83
25th Percentile £17.97 £20.95 £35.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £21.27 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +123.51% -62.19% +14.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £35.52 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £60.71 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £24.50 £45.64 £47.50
% change year-on-year -46.31% -3.93% +3.06%

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 6,844 5,041 5,888
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.77% 18.30% 18.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,561 3,464 4,016
10th Percentile £350 £338 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.49% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £675
90th Percentile £713 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 73 81
10th Percentile £15.95 £21.02 £17.50
25th Percentile £22.91 £29.00 £22.00
Median hourly rate £39.50 £43.50 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.20% +24.29% -33.33%
75th Percentile £58.13 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.68 £79.75 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £40.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +0.45% +14.29% -33.33%

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 September 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 29 September 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 29 September 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 -33 471 £500 -9.09% 353
North of England -9 183 £475 +10.47% 170
Midlands +12 110 £463 +20.13% 114
North West 0 106 £493 +13.22% 95
South East -48 92 £475 +35.71% 116
West Midlands +2 75 £460 -10.24% 70
Yorkshire -4 73 £450 +5.88% 60
South West -29 41 £675 +45.95% 27
East Midlands 0 34 £525 +60.80% 44
East of England -37 21 £425 -15.00% 48
North East -39 4 £425 - 18
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 72 (7.56%) SharePoint
2 46 (4.83%) Confluence
3 38 (3.99%) IIS
4 24 (2.52%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (2.31%) Microsoft Exchange
6 20 (2.10%) Apache
7 18 (1.89%) Apache Spark
7 18 (1.89%) Camunda
8 9 (0.94%) Oracle Workflow
9 7 (0.73%) CMS
10 6 (0.63%) Appian
11 5 (0.52%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.52%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.52%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.42%) Traefik
12 4 (0.42%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.31%) nginx
13 3 (0.31%) OpenEdge
13 3 (0.31%) Tomcat
14 2 (0.21%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 50 (5.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.05%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.31%) Windchill
5 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 31 (3.25%) Dynamics CRM
2 21 (2.20%) Remedy ITSM
3 14 (1.47%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.73%) Aladdin
4 7 (0.73%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.73%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.63%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.42%) Elite 3E
7 3 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.21%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.10%) Endur
9 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
9 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
9 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
9 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 406 (42.60%) Azure
2 197 (20.67%) AWS
3 154 (16.16%) Power Platform
4 116 (12.17%) Azure DevOps
5 89 (9.34%) GitHub
6 52 (5.46%) Entra ID
7 51 (5.35%) Serverless
8 49 (5.14%) Azure Data Factory
9 45 (4.72%) Power Automate
10 43 (4.51%) Dynamics 365
11 42 (4.41%) Microsoft 365
12 38 (3.99%) Snowflake
13 37 (3.88%) GCP
14 35 (3.67%) Azure Monitor
15 31 (3.25%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 31 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
16 24 (2.52%) GitHub Copilot
17 22 (2.31%) Azure Functions
18 21 (2.20%) dbt
18 21 (2.20%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.62%) DNS
2 39 (4.09%) DHCP
3 32 (3.36%) Firewall
4 16 (1.68%) VLAN
5 15 (1.57%) SAN
6 14 (1.47%) Internet
6 14 (1.47%) SSL
7 13 (1.36%) TCP/IP
7 13 (1.36%) VPN
8 12 (1.26%) Network Security
9 9 (0.94%) SSH
9 9 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (0.63%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.63%) LAN
11 5 (0.52%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.52%) VoIP
11 5 (0.52%) WAN
12 4 (0.42%) IPv4
12 4 (0.42%) IPv6
13 3 (0.31%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 153 (16.05%) PostgreSQL
2 125 (13.12%) Power BI
3 94 (9.86%) MySQL
4 93 (9.76%) Relational Database
5 92 (9.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 86 (9.02%) Data Warehouse
7 57 (5.98%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 55 (5.77%) Oracle Database
9 51 (5.35%) Azure SQL Database
9 51 (5.35%) MongoDB
10 32 (3.36%) Data Lake
11 24 (2.52%) Amazon RDS
12 22 (2.31%) NoSQL
13 21 (2.20%) RDBMS
14 20 (2.10%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 20 (2.10%) Tableau
15 19 (1.99%) Redis
16 16 (1.68%) Metadata
17 13 (1.36%) Amazon Aurora
18 11 (1.15%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 108 (11.33%) Git
2 71 (7.45%) JIRA
3 52 (5.46%) Jenkins
4 32 (3.36%) GitLab
5 23 (2.41%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 18 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
8 17 (1.78%) Maven
8 17 (1.78%) REST Assured
8 17 (1.78%) Selenium
8 17 (1.78%) Team Foundation Server
9 14 (1.47%) Claude Code
9 14 (1.47%) Postman
10 13 (1.36%) Gradle
10 13 (1.36%) SonarQube
11 12 (1.26%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.26%) Cypress.io
11 12 (1.26%) JUnit
11 12 (1.26%) Mockito
12 11 (1.15%) WebDriver
General
1 303 (31.79%) Social Skills
2 252 (26.44%) Finance
3 172 (18.05%) Analytical Skills
4 124 (13.01%) Banking
5 71 (7.45%) Public Sector
6 40 (4.20%) Front Office
7 39 (4.09%) Documentation Skills
8 30 (3.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 22 (2.31%) Investment Banking
10 21 (2.20%) Retail
11 13 (1.36%) Legal
12 11 (1.15%) Financial Institution
13 10 (1.05%) Back Office
14 8 (0.84%) Billing
14 8 (0.84%) Manufacturing
15 7 (0.73%) Law
15 7 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
16 6 (0.63%) Local Government
16 6 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.63%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 306 (32.11%) Developer
2 161 (16.89%) Senior
3 129 (13.54%) DBA
4 79 (8.29%) SQL DBA
5 72 (7.56%) Administrator
6 69 (7.24%) Data Engineer
7 68 (7.14%) C# Developer
8 67 (7.03%) Lead
9 66 (6.93%) .NET Developer
10 54 (5.67%) Full-Stack Developer
10 54 (5.67%) Senior Developer
11 51 (5.35%) Analyst
12 47 (4.93%) Architect
13 46 (4.83%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 43 (4.51%) SQL Developer
15 33 (3.46%) Software Engineer
16 27 (2.83%) Oracle DBA
17 26 (2.73%) C# .NET Developer
17 26 (2.73%) SC Cleared DBA
18 25 (2.62%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 273 (28.65%) .NET
2 127 (13.33%) REST
3 87 (9.13%) .NET Framework
4 81 (8.50%) React
5 66 (6.93%) CSS
5 66 (6.93%) Terraform
6 60 (6.30%) HTML
7 58 (6.09%) ASP.NET
8 57 (5.98%) .NET Core
9 55 (5.77%) AngularJS
9 55 (5.77%) Kafka
10 48 (5.04%) JSON
10 48 (5.04%) RESTful
11 42 (4.41%) Web Services
11 42 (4.41%) XML
12 38 (3.99%) SOAP
13 32 (3.36%) Spring Boot
14 29 (3.04%) OAuth
15 26 (2.73%) Spring
16 25 (2.62%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 60 (6.30%) Onboarding
2 58 (6.09%) Cloud Native
3 52 (5.46%) Enterprise Software
4 47 (4.93%) Data Structures
5 43 (4.51%) Clustering
6 40 (4.20%) Product Ownership
6 40 (4.20%) Self-Motivation
7 39 (4.09%) Replication
8 35 (3.67%) Data Centre
8 35 (3.67%) Management Information System
9 31 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
10 18 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
10 18 (1.89%) PKI
11 15 (1.57%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.47%) Low-Code
13 13 (1.36%) Derivative
14 12 (1.26%) Algorithms
15 11 (1.15%) Taxonomies
16 10 (1.05%) Equities
16 10 (1.05%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 250 (26.23%) Windows
2 147 (15.42%) Windows Server
3 90 (9.44%) Linux
4 36 (3.78%) Unix
5 17 (1.78%) Solaris
6 12 (1.26%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (1.15%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.84%) VMS
9 7 (0.73%) CentOS
9 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.63%) Android
11 5 (0.52%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.21%) AIX
13 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (26.23%) DevOps
2 238 (24.97%) Agile
3 231 (24.24%) CI/CD
4 187 (19.62%) Problem-Solving
5 173 (18.15%) Migration
6 136 (14.27%) Business Intelligence
6 136 (14.27%) ETL
7 130 (13.64%) Data Modelling
8 126 (13.22%) Performance Tuning
9 123 (12.91%) AI
10 117 (12.28%) Stakeholder Management
11 106 (11.12%) Continuous Improvement
12 100 (10.49%) Disaster Recovery
13 88 (9.23%) Microservices
14 85 (8.92%) Test Automation
15 84 (8.81%) Analytics
15 84 (8.81%) Software Engineering
16 76 (7.97%) Mentoring
16 76 (7.97%) Validation
17 71 (7.45%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 567 (59.50%) SQL
2 275 (28.86%) C#
3 180 (18.89%) Python
4 170 (17.84%) PowerShell
5 160 (16.79%) T-SQL
6 150 (15.74%) JavaScript
7 79 (8.29%) Java
8 61 (6.40%) TypeScript
9 57 (5.98%) PL/SQL
10 33 (3.46%) Bash
11 17 (1.78%) VB
12 15 (1.57%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (1.57%) VBA
13 10 (1.05%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.84%) PHP
14 8 (0.84%) Scala
15 7 (0.73%) VB.NET
16 6 (0.63%) Bicep
16 6 (0.63%) Go
16 6 (0.63%) XPath
Qualifications
1 236 (24.76%) Security Cleared
2 176 (18.47%) SC Cleared
3 106 (11.12%) Degree
4 57 (5.98%) Microsoft Certification
5 48 (5.04%) DV Cleared
6 32 (3.36%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.83%) Azure Certification
8 26 (2.73%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.47%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.36%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.26%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.15%) OCP
13 9 (0.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 9 (0.94%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.84%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.52%) CISSP
15 5 (0.52%) DBS Check
16 4 (0.42%) PhD
17 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (9.86%) QA
2 84 (8.81%) Data Quality
3 36 (3.78%) GDPR
4 34 (3.57%) Accessibility
5 26 (2.73%) WCAG
6 22 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (2.10%) NIST
8 16 (1.68%) SLA
9 5 (0.52%) ISO 9000
10 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.31%) Basel III
11 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.21%) COREP
11 2 (0.21%) FINREP
11 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
12 1 (0.10%) GMP
12 1 (0.10%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 123 (12.91%) Active Directory
2 65 (6.82%) Docker
3 39 (4.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.46%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (1.89%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.05%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.63%) vSphere
9 4 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.31%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) HDFS
11 1 (0.10%) RACF
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 80 (8.39%) Kubernetes
2 42 (4.41%) Ansible
3 20 (2.10%) SCOM
4 14 (1.47%) Data Guard
5 13 (1.36%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.15%) Microsoft Clustering
6 11 (1.15%) SCCM
7 10 (1.05%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 8 (0.84%) HAProxy
8 8 (0.84%) WSUS
9 7 (0.73%) Grafana
9 7 (0.73%) Istio
10 6 (0.63%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.63%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.63%) Prometheus
10 6 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.52%) ITRS Geneos
12 3 (0.31%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 3 (0.31%) PowerCLI
12 3 (0.31%) Puppet
Vendors
1 340 (35.68%) Microsoft
2 254 (26.65%) Oracle
3 73 (7.66%) Databricks
4 63 (6.61%) VMware
5 47 (4.93%) ServiceNow
6 45 (4.72%) CyberArk
7 37 (3.88%) Citrix
8 30 (3.15%) BeyondTrust
9 28 (2.94%) SAP
10 24 (2.52%) IBM
11 21 (2.20%) BMC
11 21 (2.20%) Cisco
11 21 (2.20%) Remedy
12 19 (1.99%) Informatica
13 15 (1.57%) Dynatrace
13 15 (1.57%) Google
13 15 (1.57%) Red Hat
14 14 (1.47%) Splunk
15 12 (1.26%) Alteryx
16 11 (1.15%) Sybase