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

 6 months to
26 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 81 67
Rank change year-on-year -52 -14 -20
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 652 762 1,163
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.02% 2.88% 3.09%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.30% 15.59% 19.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 448 536 853
10th Percentile £350 £334 £350
25th Percentile £404 £400 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £510 £540
Median % change year-on-year -6.86% -5.56% -1.82%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 6 30
10th Percentile - £42.63 £20.17
25th Percentile £12.95 £60.66 £38.22
Median hourly rate £20.75 £63.75 £43.22
Median % change year-on-year -67.45% +47.51% +8.04%
75th Percentile £38.42 £65.46 £57.92
90th Percentile £59.55 £65.62 £63.14
UK median hourly rate £20.75 £60.50 £43.22
% change year-on-year -65.70% +40.00% -0.66%

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 5,299 4,888 6,120
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.42% 18.48% 16.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,695 3,237 4,399
10th Percentile £331 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £426 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £608 £663 £650
90th Percentile £708 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 94 77 168
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.86 £15.57
25th Percentile £27.69 £24.75 £21.64
Median hourly rate £44.25 £38.11 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +16.11% -10.33% -25.26%
75th Percentile £71.50 £64.73 £61.75
90th Percentile £84.00 £69.10 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £44.25 £35.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +26.43% -17.65% -25.26%

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 26 January 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 26 January 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 26 January 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 -22 404 £500 -9.09% 116
North of England -31 76 £430 -9.47% 113
South East -53 76 £484 -2.27% 168
North West -19 38 £450 +2.86% 71
Yorkshire -28 36 £400 -20.00% 30
South West -34 28 £550 - 55
East of England -14 21 £550 +37.50% 55
Midlands -100 19 £395 -18.97% 79
West Midlands -72 13 £414 -27.79% 39
East Midlands -49 5 £313 -18.41% 39
North East -13 2 £475 +28.38% 13
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 31 (4.75%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.53%) IIS
3 19 (2.91%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (2.76%) Confluence
5 14 (2.15%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 14 (2.15%) WebSphere
6 9 (1.38%) Apache
6 9 (1.38%) WebLogic
7 8 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (1.23%) Apache Spark
8 6 (0.92%) Appian
8 6 (0.92%) CMS
9 4 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
10 3 (0.46%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.31%) JBoss
11 2 (0.31%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.31%) WildFly
12 1 (0.15%) ColdFusion
12 1 (0.15%) SAS
12 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 46 (7.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.69%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.92%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.46%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.31%) Trello
6 2 (0.31%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 9 (1.38%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.07%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.92%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.46%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.46%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.31%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.31%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 1 (0.15%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.15%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.15%) ION Anvil
7 1 (0.15%) Maximo
7 1 (0.15%) Orchestrade
7 1 (0.15%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 288 (44.17%) Azure
2 134 (20.55%) AWS
3 120 (18.40%) Power Platform
4 78 (11.96%) Azure DevOps
5 55 (8.44%) GCP
6 54 (8.28%) Azure Data Factory
7 52 (7.98%) GitHub
8 32 (4.91%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 31 (4.75%) Microsoft 365
10 28 (4.29%) SaaS
11 21 (3.22%) GitHub Actions
11 21 (3.22%) Snowflake
12 18 (2.76%) Amazon S3
12 18 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
12 18 (2.76%) Power Automate
13 17 (2.61%) IaaS
14 16 (2.45%) Azure Service Bus
14 16 (2.45%) Serverless
15 14 (2.15%) AWS CloudFormation
16 13 (1.99%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.45%) Firewall
2 20 (3.07%) DNS
3 16 (2.45%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.84%) Internet
5 11 (1.69%) DHCP
6 10 (1.53%) HTTP
7 8 (1.23%) LAN
8 7 (1.07%) NetScaler
9 5 (0.77%) Skype
9 5 (0.77%) VPN
10 4 (0.61%) NAS
10 4 (0.61%) SAN
10 4 (0.61%) SSL
10 4 (0.61%) VoIP
11 3 (0.46%) RS-232
11 3 (0.46%) WAN
11 3 (0.46%) X.400
12 2 (0.31%) FTP
12 2 (0.31%) SMTP
12 2 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (15.80%) Power BI
2 84 (12.88%) PostgreSQL
3 83 (12.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 82 (12.58%) Relational Database
5 71 (10.89%) Data Warehouse
6 53 (8.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 50 (7.67%) Oracle Database
8 47 (7.21%) Azure SQL Database
8 47 (7.21%) MySQL
9 40 (6.13%) Data Lake
10 38 (5.83%) MongoDB
11 35 (5.37%) NoSQL
12 23 (3.53%) RDBMS
13 22 (3.37%) DB2
14 21 (3.22%) Amazon RDS
15 20 (3.07%) Delta Lake
16 18 (2.76%) Big Data
16 18 (2.76%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 18 (2.76%) Tableau
17 14 (2.15%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 56 (8.59%) Git
2 44 (6.75%) JIRA
3 30 (4.60%) Jenkins
4 21 (3.22%) Visual Studio
5 17 (2.61%) GitLab
6 14 (2.15%) Postman
7 12 (1.84%) SpecFlow
8 10 (1.53%) Selenium
8 10 (1.53%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 9 (1.38%) Cucumber
9 9 (1.38%) Maven
9 9 (1.38%) Octopus Deploy
10 8 (1.23%) ERwin
10 8 (1.23%) JUnit
10 8 (1.23%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.92%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.92%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.92%) TestRail
12 5 (0.77%) MLflow
12 5 (0.77%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 210 (32.21%) Social Skills
2 173 (26.53%) Finance
3 90 (13.80%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (13.65%) Banking
5 38 (5.83%) Public Sector
6 34 (5.21%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.68%) Investment Banking
8 16 (2.45%) Financial Institution
8 16 (2.45%) Front Office
9 15 (2.30%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (2.30%) Retail
10 8 (1.23%) Legal
10 8 (1.23%) Local Government
11 6 (0.92%) Law
11 6 (0.92%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (0.92%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (0.61%) Military
13 4 (0.61%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 229 (35.12%) Developer
2 90 (13.80%) Senior
3 88 (13.50%) Data Engineer
4 68 (10.43%) C# Developer
5 49 (7.52%) Architect
6 48 (7.36%) .NET Developer
7 47 (7.21%) Analyst
8 37 (5.67%) Senior Developer
9 31 (4.75%) Lead
10 29 (4.45%) DBA
10 29 (4.45%) Senior Data Engineer
11 28 (4.29%) Full-Stack Developer
12 23 (3.53%) Consultant
13 21 (3.22%) C# .NET Developer
13 21 (3.22%) Software Engineer
14 18 (2.76%) Azure Engineer
15 17 (2.61%) Angular Developer
15 17 (2.61%) SQL DBA
15 17 (2.61%) SQL Developer
16 15 (2.30%) Business Intelligence Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 186 (28.53%) .NET
2 76 (11.66%) .NET Framework
3 63 (9.66%) REST
4 47 (7.21%) AngularJS
5 42 (6.44%) HTML
5 42 (6.44%) React
6 37 (5.67%) RESTful
7 36 (5.52%) .NET Core
8 34 (5.21%) Kafka
8 34 (5.21%) XML
9 33 (5.06%) CSS
10 30 (4.60%) ASP.NET
11 28 (4.29%) Entity Framework
12 27 (4.14%) SOAP
12 27 (4.14%) Web Services
13 23 (3.53%) Middleware
13 23 (3.53%) WPF
14 17 (2.61%) OAuth
14 17 (2.61%) Playwright
14 17 (2.61%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 34 (5.21%) Legacy Systems
2 30 (4.60%) Cloud Native
3 21 (3.22%) Enterprise Software
4 17 (2.61%) Management Information System
5 16 (2.45%) Derivative
6 15 (2.30%) Data Structures
6 15 (2.30%) Onboarding
6 15 (2.30%) Product Ownership
7 14 (2.15%) Credit Risk
8 13 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 12 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
9 12 (1.84%) Replication
10 11 (1.69%) PKI
11 10 (1.53%) Reinsurance
12 8 (1.23%) Market Risk
12 8 (1.23%) NHS
12 8 (1.23%) Virtual Team
13 7 (1.07%) Greenfield Project
13 7 (1.07%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 112 (17.18%) Windows
2 78 (11.96%) Linux
3 57 (8.74%) Windows Server
4 14 (2.15%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.99%) Windows Server 2016
6 10 (1.53%) Unix
7 8 (1.23%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.61%) Android
9 4 (0.61%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.46%) VMS
11 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.15%) AIX
12 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.15%) MVS
12 1 (0.15%) Solaris
12 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 153 (23.47%) CI/CD
2 151 (23.16%) Agile
3 141 (21.63%) DevOps
4 140 (21.47%) Problem-Solving
5 123 (18.87%) ETL
6 122 (18.71%) Business Intelligence
7 102 (15.64%) Data Modelling
8 98 (15.03%) Migration
9 74 (11.35%) Analytics
10 64 (9.82%) Microservices
11 57 (8.74%) Full-Stack Development
11 57 (8.74%) Performance Tuning
12 55 (8.44%) Containerisation
13 54 (8.28%) Test Automation
14 53 (8.13%) Data Analysis
14 53 (8.13%) Data Pipeline
15 51 (7.82%) Data Engineering
15 51 (7.82%) Data Governance
15 51 (7.82%) Data Migration
16 49 (7.52%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 376 (57.67%) SQL
2 167 (25.61%) C#
3 145 (22.24%) Python
4 74 (11.35%) T-SQL
5 65 (9.97%) Java
5 65 (9.97%) JavaScript
6 55 (8.44%) PL/SQL
7 49 (7.52%) PowerShell
8 32 (4.91%) Bash
9 24 (3.68%) TypeScript
10 17 (2.61%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 17 (2.61%) VB
11 14 (2.15%) PHP
11 14 (2.15%) VBA
12 12 (1.84%) Bicep
13 8 (1.23%) Shell Script
14 7 (1.07%) XPath
15 5 (0.77%) R
15 5 (0.77%) X++
16 4 (0.61%) Scala
Qualifications
1 83 (12.73%) Security Cleared
2 76 (11.66%) Degree
3 58 (8.90%) SC Cleared
4 29 (4.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 22 (3.37%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (2.76%) Azure Certification
7 14 (2.15%) DV Cleared
8 11 (1.69%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.07%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.77%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.77%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.61%) CCA
11 4 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.61%) Citrix Certification
11 4 (0.61%) HNC
11 4 (0.61%) HND
11 4 (0.61%) MCP
11 4 (0.61%) MCSE
12 3 (0.46%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.46%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (10.89%) Data Quality
2 62 (9.51%) QA
3 15 (2.30%) GDPR
4 9 (1.38%) SLA
5 8 (1.23%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.77%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.77%) WCAG
8 3 (0.46%) IFRS
8 3 (0.46%) IFRS 17
8 3 (0.46%) MiFID
9 2 (0.31%) Basel III
9 2 (0.31%) EMIR
9 2 (0.31%) GAAP
9 2 (0.31%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.31%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.15%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 82 (12.58%) Docker
2 47 (7.21%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (2.15%) Hyper-V
5 8 (1.23%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.07%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.92%) Oracle RAC
7 6 (0.92%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.92%) zsh
8 4 (0.61%) XenApp
8 4 (0.61%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.46%) vSphere
10 2 (0.31%) GridGain
10 2 (0.31%) NDS
10 2 (0.31%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.15%) KVM
11 1 (0.15%) NFS
11 1 (0.15%) SRDF
11 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 59 (9.05%) Kubernetes
2 40 (6.13%) Terraform
3 21 (3.22%) Ansible
4 13 (1.99%) Grafana
5 12 (1.84%) Puppet
5 12 (1.84%) SCCM
6 9 (1.38%) Microsoft Intune
7 8 (1.23%) NetBackup
8 7 (1.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (1.07%) Oracle RMAN
8 7 (1.07%) TIBCO Hawk
8 7 (1.07%) vCenter Server
9 6 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.77%) Data Guard
10 5 (0.77%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.77%) SCOM
11 4 (0.61%) SCVMM
11 4 (0.61%) WSUS
11 4 (0.61%) yum
12 3 (0.46%) Control-M
Vendors
1 203 (31.13%) Microsoft
2 200 (30.67%) Oracle
3 54 (8.28%) Databricks
4 43 (6.60%) Citrix
5 38 (5.83%) VMware
6 26 (3.99%) Google
6 26 (3.99%) Informatica
7 22 (3.37%) ServiceNow
8 18 (2.76%) IBM
8 18 (2.76%) SAP
9 13 (1.99%) Salesforce
10 11 (1.69%) Cisco
10 11 (1.69%) CyberArk
11 10 (1.53%) UiPath
11 10 (1.53%) Veritas
12 9 (1.38%) Advent
13 8 (1.23%) PagerDuty
14 7 (1.07%) BEA
14 7 (1.07%) Splunk
14 7 (1.07%) TIBCO
548 SQL Server jobs in England