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

 6 months to
19 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 94 59
Rank change year-on-year -21 -35 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 936 679 1,304
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.17% 2.73% 3.46%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.26% 14.55% 20.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 657 510 921
10th Percentile £356 £325 £345
25th Percentile £406 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £511 £505
Median % change year-on-year -3.77% +1.24% -3.81%
75th Percentile £605 £650 £638
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 6 23
10th Percentile £13.51 £21.02 £25.55
25th Percentile £19.25 £22.02 £38.81
Median hourly rate £28.68 £25.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.77% -35.85% -2.44%
75th Percentile £62.44 £64.71 £47.47
90th Percentile £74.60 £83.13 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £70.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -46.43% +75.00% -11.11%

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 6,562 4,667 6,489
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.22% 18.76% 17.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,446 3,251 4,673
10th Percentile £350 £359 £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% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 87 145
10th Percentile £14.00 £19.05 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.05 £25.01 £20.77
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.49% -13.75% -31.73%
75th Percentile £73.56 £65.25 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £77.98 £72.10
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +19.17% -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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -31 491 £525 -8.70% 96
North of England -19 149 £475 +11.76% 80
South East -19 118 £450 - 91
North West -22 83 £478 +8.33% 46
Midlands -21 79 £481 +9.20% 43
Yorkshire -14 64 £461 +15.31% 22
South West -8 45 £450 -7.69% 23
East Midlands +5 40 £525 +67.73% 16
East of England -5 37 £475 -5.00% 14
West Midlands -49 37 £473 -14.00% 27
North East -37 3 £475 +4.11% 14
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 53 (5.66%) SharePoint
2 42 (4.49%) IIS
3 23 (2.46%) Confluence
4 22 (2.35%) Microsoft Exchange
5 21 (2.24%) Apache Spark
6 20 (2.14%) Apache
7 18 (1.92%) Apache Airflow
8 14 (1.50%) Appian
9 12 (1.28%) Camunda
9 12 (1.28%) CMS
10 11 (1.18%) Oracle Workflow
11 8 (0.85%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 6 (0.64%) NetWeaver
12 6 (0.64%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.53%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.53%) Tuxedo
13 5 (0.53%) Umbraco
13 5 (0.53%) WebSphere
14 4 (0.43%) Tomcat
15 3 (0.32%) WebLogic
Applications
1 36 (3.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.03%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.28%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.11%) InDesign
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 17 (1.82%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.50%) Remedy ITSM
3 11 (1.18%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.75%) Oracle Payables
5 6 (0.64%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.43%) Elite 3E
6 4 (0.43%) OpenText MBPM
6 4 (0.43%) Oracle BPM
7 3 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 3 (0.32%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 3 (0.32%) SystmOne
8 2 (0.21%) BusinessWorks
8 2 (0.21%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.21%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
8 2 (0.21%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 387 (41.35%) Azure
2 207 (22.12%) AWS
3 144 (15.38%) Power Platform
4 96 (10.26%) Azure DevOps
5 81 (8.65%) GitHub
6 78 (8.33%) Azure Data Factory
7 42 (4.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 39 (4.17%) GCP
9 36 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
9 36 (3.85%) Serverless
10 34 (3.63%) Power Automate
11 33 (3.53%) Microsoft 365
12 29 (3.10%) Snowflake
13 27 (2.88%) Dynamics 365
14 25 (2.67%) Azure Monitor
14 25 (2.67%) SaaS
15 24 (2.56%) Amazon S3
16 22 (2.35%) Entra ID
17 20 (2.14%) dbt
18 19 (2.03%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 34 (3.63%) DNS
2 26 (2.78%) DHCP
3 17 (1.82%) Firewall
4 15 (1.60%) SAN
5 12 (1.28%) Internet
5 12 (1.28%) VLAN
6 9 (0.96%) SSH
6 9 (0.96%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.96%) VPN
7 6 (0.64%) IPv4
7 6 (0.64%) IPv6
7 6 (0.64%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.53%) HTTPS
8 5 (0.53%) Network Security
9 4 (0.43%) LAN
9 4 (0.43%) NetScaler
10 3 (0.32%) FTP
10 3 (0.32%) NAS
10 3 (0.32%) RS-232
10 3 (0.32%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 142 (15.17%) PostgreSQL
2 119 (12.71%) Power BI
3 110 (11.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 107 (11.43%) Data Warehouse
5 103 (11.00%) Relational Database
6 70 (7.48%) Oracle Database
7 57 (6.09%) MySQL
8 54 (5.77%) Data Lake
9 53 (5.66%) Azure SQL Database
9 53 (5.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 43 (4.59%) MongoDB
11 39 (4.17%) NoSQL
12 31 (3.31%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 28 (2.99%) RDBMS
14 21 (2.24%) Metadata
14 21 (2.24%) Tableau
15 17 (1.82%) Big Data
15 17 (1.82%) Delta Lake
15 17 (1.82%) Redis
16 15 (1.60%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 76 (8.12%) Git
2 53 (5.66%) JIRA
3 37 (3.95%) Jenkins
4 26 (2.78%) Visual Studio
5 22 (2.35%) GitLab
6 18 (1.92%) TeamCity
7 16 (1.71%) Team Foundation Server
8 14 (1.50%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 12 (1.28%) Maven
9 12 (1.28%) Octopus Deploy
10 9 (0.96%) Cucumber
10 9 (0.96%) Gatling
11 8 (0.85%) MSTest
11 8 (0.85%) Oracle Forms
12 7 (0.75%) Artifactory
12 7 (0.75%) Chocolatey
12 7 (0.75%) ERwin
12 7 (0.75%) MLflow
13 6 (0.64%) Postman
13 6 (0.64%) tSQLt
General
1 266 (28.42%) Social Skills
2 233 (24.89%) Finance
3 146 (15.60%) Analytical Skills
4 114 (12.18%) Banking
5 73 (7.80%) Public Sector
6 37 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
7 32 (3.42%) Front Office
8 23 (2.46%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 22 (2.35%) Investment Banking
10 18 (1.92%) Legal
11 17 (1.82%) Retail
12 14 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.96%) Advertising
13 9 (0.96%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.85%) Local Government
15 6 (0.64%) Back Office
15 6 (0.64%) Law
15 6 (0.64%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.53%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.53%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 275 (29.38%) Developer
2 147 (15.71%) Senior
3 115 (12.29%) Data Engineer
4 112 (11.97%) DBA
5 85 (9.08%) C# Developer
6 65 (6.94%) Lead
6 65 (6.94%) SQL DBA
7 63 (6.73%) .NET Developer
8 58 (6.20%) Architect
9 42 (4.49%) Senior Developer
10 41 (4.38%) Analyst
10 41 (4.38%) SQL Developer
11 38 (4.06%) Senior Data Engineer
12 35 (3.74%) Administrator
13 34 (3.63%) Software Engineer
14 31 (3.31%) Full-Stack Developer
15 30 (3.21%) Azure Engineer
16 29 (3.10%) Oracle DBA
17 27 (2.88%) C# .NET Developer
17 27 (2.88%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 227 (24.25%) .NET
2 114 (12.18%) REST
3 97 (10.36%) .NET Framework
4 79 (8.44%) React
5 65 (6.94%) CSS
6 61 (6.52%) RESTful
7 57 (6.09%) AngularJS
8 56 (5.98%) HTML
9 47 (5.02%) Kafka
10 46 (4.91%) ASP.NET
11 42 (4.49%) .NET Core
12 38 (4.06%) XML
13 32 (3.42%) Web Services
14 30 (3.21%) OAuth
15 28 (2.99%) SOAP
16 27 (2.88%) JSON
17 26 (2.78%) Entity Framework
18 22 (2.35%) Spring Boot
19 21 (2.24%) Spring
20 19 (2.03%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 51 (5.45%) Legacy Systems
2 48 (5.13%) Cloud Native
3 46 (4.91%) Onboarding
4 36 (3.85%) Replication
5 35 (3.74%) Data Structures
6 31 (3.31%) Self-Motivation
7 29 (3.10%) Clustering
8 23 (2.46%) Management Information System
9 22 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
9 22 (2.35%) Low-Code
10 19 (2.03%) Product Ownership
11 18 (1.92%) Derivative
12 16 (1.71%) NHS
13 14 (1.50%) Fixed Income
13 14 (1.50%) PKI
14 12 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
14 12 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
14 12 (1.28%) Reinsurance
15 11 (1.18%) Legacy Code
15 11 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 215 (22.97%) Windows
2 119 (12.71%) Windows Server
3 87 (9.29%) Linux
4 58 (6.20%) Unix
5 12 (1.28%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.07%) AIX
6 10 (1.07%) Windows Server 2019
7 9 (0.96%) Android
7 9 (0.96%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.75%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 5 (0.53%) Solaris
11 4 (0.43%) Ubuntu
11 4 (0.43%) VMS
12 3 (0.32%) CentOS
13 2 (0.21%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.21%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 225 (24.04%) DevOps
2 217 (23.18%) CI/CD
3 215 (22.97%) Agile
4 181 (19.34%) Problem-Solving
5 176 (18.80%) ETL
6 147 (15.71%) Migration
7 144 (15.38%) Business Intelligence
7 144 (15.38%) Data Modelling
8 114 (12.18%) Performance Tuning
9 107 (11.43%) Analytics
10 105 (11.22%) AI
10 105 (11.22%) Disaster Recovery
11 88 (9.40%) Data Pipeline
12 81 (8.65%) High Availability
12 81 (8.65%) Microservices
13 80 (8.55%) Data Engineering
14 79 (8.44%) Data Integration
15 78 (8.33%) Data Analysis
15 78 (8.33%) Validation
16 68 (7.26%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 529 (56.52%) SQL
2 241 (25.75%) C#
3 227 (24.25%) Python
4 153 (16.35%) T-SQL
5 152 (16.24%) PowerShell
6 93 (9.94%) JavaScript
7 77 (8.23%) Java
8 63 (6.73%) PL/SQL
9 54 (5.77%) TypeScript
10 31 (3.31%) Bash
11 25 (2.67%) Shell Script
12 22 (2.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 20 (2.14%) VB
14 18 (1.92%) Scala
15 16 (1.71%) Korn
16 12 (1.28%) VBA
17 10 (1.07%) Bicep
18 7 (0.75%) VB6
19 6 (0.64%) XPath
20 5 (0.53%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 209 (22.33%) Security Cleared
2 160 (17.09%) SC Cleared
3 102 (10.90%) Degree
4 36 (3.85%) DV Cleared
5 33 (3.53%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (2.67%) Computer Science Degree
7 17 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.60%) Azure Certification
9 11 (1.18%) Master's Degree
10 9 (0.96%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.64%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (0.53%) CISSP
12 5 (0.53%) OCP
13 4 (0.43%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.43%) CCA
13 4 (0.43%) Citrix Certification
13 4 (0.43%) ISTQB
13 4 (0.43%) MCITP
13 4 (0.43%) MCTS
13 4 (0.43%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (10.79%) Data Quality
2 93 (9.94%) QA
3 27 (2.88%) GDPR
4 25 (2.67%) NIST
5 23 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (1.60%) SLA
7 12 (1.28%) Accessibility
8 9 (0.96%) WCAG
9 8 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.43%) Basel III
11 3 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.32%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.32%) IFRS
11 3 (0.32%) IFRS 9
11 3 (0.32%) ISO 9000
12 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.21%) GRC
12 2 (0.21%) IFRS 17
12 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 86 (9.19%) Active Directory
2 79 (8.44%) Docker
3 22 (2.35%) Virtual Machines
3 22 (2.35%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (2.03%) Oracle RAC
5 11 (1.18%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.75%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.64%) KVM
8 4 (0.43%) XenApp
8 4 (0.43%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.32%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.32%) GridGain
9 3 (0.32%) Postfix
9 3 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.21%) vSphere
11 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.11%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.11%) NFS
11 1 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 101 (10.79%) Kubernetes
2 66 (7.05%) Terraform
3 22 (2.35%) Ansible
4 19 (2.03%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 19 (2.03%) Oracle RMAN
5 16 (1.71%) SCCM
6 13 (1.39%) HAProxy
7 8 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (0.75%) Grafana
8 7 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.75%) vCenter Server
8 7 (0.75%) WSUS
9 6 (0.64%) IBM BigFix
10 4 (0.43%) Data Guard
10 4 (0.43%) SCVMM
11 3 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.32%) Control-M
11 3 (0.32%) Failover Clustering
11 3 (0.32%) Foglight
11 3 (0.32%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 261 (27.88%) Microsoft
1 261 (27.88%) Oracle
2 73 (7.80%) Databricks
3 52 (5.56%) Citrix
4 43 (4.59%) ServiceNow
5 35 (3.74%) VMware
6 34 (3.63%) SAP
7 33 (3.53%) Informatica
8 31 (3.31%) CyberArk
9 25 (2.67%) Google
10 23 (2.46%) Sybase
11 22 (2.35%) BeyondTrust
12 21 (2.24%) IBM
13 16 (1.71%) Dynatrace
14 14 (1.50%) Remedy
15 13 (1.39%) BMC
16 11 (1.18%) Alteryx
16 11 (1.18%) OpenAI
17 10 (1.07%) Cisco
18 9 (0.96%) Red Hat
313 SQL Server jobs in England