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

 6 months to
13 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 93 58
Rank change year-on-year -26 -35 -5
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 922 667 1,277
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.16% 2.71% 3.40%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.17% 14.41% 19.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 647 496 899
10th Percentile £353 £323 £336
25th Percentile £404 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £516 £513
Median % change year-on-year -4.56% +0.59% -2.38%
75th Percentile £601 £650 £638
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £486 £500 £506
% change year-on-year -2.75% -1.23% -3.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 8 22
10th Percentile £13.51 £21.02 £36.84
25th Percentile £19.25 £24.01 £40.00
Median hourly rate £28.68 £45.03 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year -36.31% +12.23% -2.13%
75th Percentile £62.44 £68.59 £48.11
90th Percentile £74.60 £80.88 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £63.75 £40.13
% change year-on-year -41.17% +58.87% -17.69%

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 6,508 4,630 6,409
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.24% 18.82% 17.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,418 3,211 4,613
10th Percentile £350 £360 £350
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £800
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 209 91 143
10th Percentile £14.00 £19.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £23.88 £20.77
Median hourly rate £39.50 £33.88 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.59% -15.30% -31.73%
75th Percentile £73.75 £65.62 £52.83
90th Percentile £82.25 £77.50 £72.30
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +17.14% -12.50% -31.73%

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 13 June 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 13 June 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 13 June 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 -24 488 £519 -9.78% 102
North of England -15 142 £475 +10.14% 71
South East -21 118 £450 - 90
Midlands -22 76 £487 +7.81% 45
North West -24 75 £500 +11.11% 42
Yorkshire -9 65 £450 +12.50% 20
South West -5 44 £450 -10.00% 26
East Midlands +7 40 £525 +60.80% 15
East of England -3 36 £475 -3.80% 24
West Midlands -45 34 £475 -13.64% 30
North East -36 3 £475 +4.11% 10
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 50 (5.42%) SharePoint
2 41 (4.45%) IIS
3 23 (2.49%) Microsoft Exchange
4 20 (2.17%) Apache
4 20 (2.17%) Apache Spark
4 20 (2.17%) Confluence
5 18 (1.95%) Apache Airflow
6 14 (1.52%) Appian
7 12 (1.30%) CMS
8 11 (1.19%) Camunda
9 9 (0.98%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.87%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 6 (0.65%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.65%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.54%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.54%) Tomcat
12 5 (0.54%) Tuxedo
12 5 (0.54%) Umbraco
12 5 (0.54%) WebSphere
13 3 (0.33%) nginx
Applications
1 33 (3.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 17 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.30%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.11%) InDesign
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 17 (1.84%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.52%) Remedy ITSM
3 9 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.65%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.54%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.33%) Elite 3E
6 3 (0.33%) OpenText MBPM
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.33%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.22%) BusinessWorks
7 2 (0.22%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.22%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.22%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.11%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.11%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 391 (42.41%) Azure
2 204 (22.13%) AWS
3 150 (16.27%) Power Platform
4 101 (10.95%) Azure DevOps
5 86 (9.33%) Azure Data Factory
5 86 (9.33%) GitHub
6 47 (5.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 39 (4.23%) GCP
8 37 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
9 34 (3.69%) Microsoft 365
9 34 (3.69%) Serverless
10 33 (3.58%) Power Automate
11 31 (3.36%) Snowflake
12 25 (2.71%) Dynamics 365
13 24 (2.60%) Amazon S3
13 24 (2.60%) Azure Monitor
14 23 (2.49%) SaaS
15 20 (2.17%) dbt
15 20 (2.17%) Entra ID
16 19 (2.06%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 36 (3.90%) DNS
2 28 (3.04%) DHCP
3 20 (2.17%) Firewall
4 15 (1.63%) SAN
5 12 (1.30%) Internet
5 12 (1.30%) VLAN
6 10 (1.08%) VPN
7 9 (0.98%) TCP/IP
8 6 (0.65%) IPv4
8 6 (0.65%) IPv6
8 6 (0.65%) SSH
8 6 (0.65%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.54%) Network Security
10 4 (0.43%) LAN
10 4 (0.43%) NetScaler
11 3 (0.33%) FTP
11 3 (0.33%) NAS
11 3 (0.33%) RS-232
11 3 (0.33%) X.400
12 2 (0.22%) DMZ
Database & Business Intelligence
1 133 (14.43%) PostgreSQL
2 123 (13.34%) Power BI
3 113 (12.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 104 (11.28%) Data Warehouse
5 99 (10.74%) Relational Database
6 68 (7.38%) Oracle Database
7 59 (6.40%) Data Lake
8 53 (5.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 52 (5.64%) MySQL
10 51 (5.53%) Azure SQL Database
11 39 (4.23%) NoSQL
12 38 (4.12%) MongoDB
13 30 (3.25%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 26 (2.82%) RDBMS
15 22 (2.39%) Metadata
15 22 (2.39%) Tableau
16 20 (2.17%) Delta Lake
17 17 (1.84%) Redis
18 16 (1.74%) Big Data
19 15 (1.63%) Db2
Development Applications
1 75 (8.13%) Git
2 52 (5.64%) JIRA
3 34 (3.69%) Jenkins
4 25 (2.71%) Visual Studio
5 19 (2.06%) GitLab
6 18 (1.95%) TeamCity
7 17 (1.84%) Team Foundation Server
8 13 (1.41%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 12 (1.30%) Maven
9 12 (1.30%) Octopus Deploy
10 9 (0.98%) Gatling
11 8 (0.87%) Cucumber
11 8 (0.87%) MLflow
11 8 (0.87%) MSTest
11 8 (0.87%) Oracle Forms
12 7 (0.76%) Artifactory
12 7 (0.76%) Chocolatey
12 7 (0.76%) ERwin
13 6 (0.65%) Mocha
13 6 (0.65%) tSQLt
General
1 260 (28.20%) Social Skills
2 226 (24.51%) Finance
3 143 (15.51%) Analytical Skills
4 113 (12.26%) Banking
5 72 (7.81%) Public Sector
6 35 (3.80%) Documentation Skills
7 33 (3.58%) Front Office
8 22 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 21 (2.28%) Investment Banking
10 18 (1.95%) Legal
11 17 (1.84%) Retail
12 13 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.98%) Advertising
13 9 (0.98%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.87%) Local Government
15 7 (0.76%) Back Office
16 6 (0.65%) Law
16 6 (0.65%) Publishing
16 6 (0.65%) Telecoms
17 5 (0.54%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 273 (29.61%) Developer
2 148 (16.05%) Senior
3 117 (12.69%) Data Engineer
4 104 (11.28%) DBA
5 83 (9.00%) C# Developer
6 63 (6.83%) .NET Developer
6 63 (6.83%) Architect
6 63 (6.83%) SQL DBA
7 61 (6.62%) Lead
8 45 (4.88%) Senior Developer
9 39 (4.23%) Senior Data Engineer
10 38 (4.12%) SQL Developer
11 37 (4.01%) Analyst
12 34 (3.69%) Full-Stack Developer
13 33 (3.58%) Software Engineer
14 30 (3.25%) Administrator
15 29 (3.15%) Azure Engineer
16 28 (3.04%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 27 (2.93%) Oracle DBA
17 27 (2.93%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 228 (24.73%) .NET
2 111 (12.04%) REST
3 95 (10.30%) .NET Framework
4 76 (8.24%) React
5 65 (7.05%) CSS
6 63 (6.83%) RESTful
7 58 (6.29%) HTML
8 56 (6.07%) AngularJS
9 46 (4.99%) ASP.NET
10 43 (4.66%) Kafka
11 42 (4.56%) .NET Core
12 36 (3.90%) XML
13 31 (3.36%) OAuth
13 31 (3.36%) Web Services
14 25 (2.71%) Entity Framework
14 25 (2.71%) SOAP
15 22 (2.39%) JSON
15 22 (2.39%) PySpark
15 22 (2.39%) Spring Boot
16 21 (2.28%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 55 (5.97%) Legacy Systems
2 45 (4.88%) Cloud Native
3 41 (4.45%) Onboarding
4 36 (3.90%) Replication
5 30 (3.25%) Self-Motivation
6 29 (3.15%) Clustering
6 29 (3.15%) Data Structures
7 23 (2.49%) Low-Code
8 22 (2.39%) Management Information System
9 19 (2.06%) Enterprise Software
10 18 (1.95%) NHS
11 17 (1.84%) Product Ownership
12 15 (1.63%) Derivative
13 14 (1.52%) Fixed Income
13 14 (1.52%) PKI
14 13 (1.41%) Distributed Systems
15 12 (1.30%) Greenfield Project
15 12 (1.30%) Reinsurance
16 11 (1.19%) Legacy Code
17 10 (1.08%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 213 (23.10%) Windows
2 121 (13.12%) Windows Server
3 91 (9.87%) Linux
4 58 (6.29%) Unix
5 12 (1.30%) Windows 10
6 11 (1.19%) Windows Server 2019
7 10 (1.08%) AIX
7 10 (1.08%) Windows Server 2016
8 9 (0.98%) Android
9 8 (0.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.87%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.43%) VMS
11 3 (0.33%) CentOS
12 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
12 2 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.11%) Solaris
13 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 226 (24.51%) DevOps
2 223 (24.19%) CI/CD
3 203 (22.02%) Agile
4 180 (19.52%) Problem-Solving
5 178 (19.31%) ETL
6 149 (16.16%) Migration
7 148 (16.05%) Business Intelligence
8 147 (15.94%) Data Modelling
9 112 (12.15%) Performance Tuning
10 109 (11.82%) Analytics
11 105 (11.39%) Disaster Recovery
12 103 (11.17%) AI
13 92 (9.98%) Data Pipeline
14 84 (9.11%) Data Engineering
15 80 (8.68%) High Availability
16 79 (8.57%) Microservices
17 78 (8.46%) Data Integration
17 78 (8.46%) Validation
18 75 (8.13%) Data Analysis
19 74 (8.03%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 524 (56.83%) SQL
2 233 (25.27%) C#
2 233 (25.27%) Python
3 151 (16.38%) T-SQL
4 147 (15.94%) PowerShell
5 90 (9.76%) JavaScript
6 82 (8.89%) Java
7 66 (7.16%) PL/SQL
8 52 (5.64%) TypeScript
9 30 (3.25%) Bash
10 25 (2.71%) Shell Script
11 23 (2.49%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 20 (2.17%) VB
13 18 (1.95%) Scala
14 16 (1.74%) Korn
15 12 (1.30%) Bicep
15 12 (1.30%) VBA
16 7 (0.76%) VB6
17 5 (0.54%) Rust
17 5 (0.54%) XPath
Qualifications
1 203 (22.02%) Security Cleared
2 154 (16.70%) SC Cleared
3 98 (10.63%) Degree
4 34 (3.69%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.25%) Microsoft Certification
6 24 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
7 22 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (1.84%) Azure Certification
9 10 (1.08%) Master's Degree
10 9 (0.98%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.54%) CISSP
11 5 (0.54%) OCP
11 5 (0.54%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (0.43%) CCA
12 4 (0.43%) Citrix Certification
12 4 (0.43%) MCITP
12 4 (0.43%) MCTS
13 3 (0.33%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 3 (0.33%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 102 (11.06%) Data Quality
2 90 (9.76%) QA
3 24 (2.60%) GDPR
3 24 (2.60%) NIST
4 22 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 15 (1.63%) SLA
6 10 (1.08%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 7 (0.76%) WCAG
9 4 (0.43%) Basel III
10 3 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.33%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.33%) IFRS
10 3 (0.33%) IFRS 9
11 2 (0.22%) EMIR
11 2 (0.22%) GAAP
11 2 (0.22%) GRC
11 2 (0.22%) ISO 9000
11 2 (0.22%) MiFID
11 2 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 87 (9.44%) Active Directory
2 83 (9.00%) Docker
3 24 (2.60%) VMware Infrastructure
4 22 (2.39%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (2.06%) Oracle RAC
6 12 (1.30%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.65%) KVM
9 4 (0.43%) XenApp
9 4 (0.43%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.33%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.33%) GridGain
10 3 (0.33%) Postfix
10 3 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.22%) vSphere
12 1 (0.11%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.11%) NFS
12 1 (0.11%) RACF
12 1 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 105 (11.39%) Kubernetes
2 67 (7.27%) Terraform
3 19 (2.06%) Ansible
3 19 (2.06%) Oracle RMAN
4 18 (1.95%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 17 (1.84%) SCCM
6 13 (1.41%) HAProxy
7 8 (0.87%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (0.76%) Grafana
8 7 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.76%) vCenter Server
8 7 (0.76%) WSUS
9 6 (0.65%) IBM BigFix
10 4 (0.43%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.43%) SCVMM
11 3 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.33%) Control-M
11 3 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
11 3 (0.33%) Foglight
11 3 (0.33%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 256 (27.77%) Microsoft
2 253 (27.44%) Oracle
3 79 (8.57%) Databricks
4 52 (5.64%) Citrix
5 40 (4.34%) ServiceNow
6 37 (4.01%) VMware
7 34 (3.69%) Informatica
8 33 (3.58%) SAP
9 27 (2.93%) CyberArk
10 25 (2.71%) Google
11 23 (2.49%) Sybase
12 21 (2.28%) BeyondTrust
13 20 (2.17%) IBM
14 16 (1.74%) Dynatrace
15 14 (1.52%) Remedy
16 13 (1.41%) BMC
17 11 (1.19%) Alteryx
17 11 (1.19%) OpenAI
18 10 (1.08%) Cisco
18 10 (1.08%) UiPath
330 SQL Server jobs in England