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

 6 months to
19 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 114 113 55
Rank change year-on-year -1 -58 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,021 674 1,209
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.23% 2.44% 3.64%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.61% 13.53% 19.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 724 497 859
10th Percentile £363 £313 £334
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £644 £625
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 44 6 9
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £29.48
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £36.75
Median hourly rate £50.02 £23.80 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +110.21% -51.00% +7.91%
75th Percentile £66.31 £64.71 £62.96
90th Percentile £76.35 £83.13 £84.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £70.00 £48.03
% change year-on-year -32.09% +45.74% +11.70%

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 6,986 4,983 6,121
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.28% 18.07% 18.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,688 3,440 4,355
10th Percentile £358 £338 £350
25th Percentile £421 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £547
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.31% -0.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £675
90th Percentile £709 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 227 80 91
10th Percentile £14.85 £20.84 £14.25
25th Percentile £23.48 £24.88 £20.00
Median hourly rate £38.25 £34.82 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.87% -0.53% -36.36%
75th Percentile £61.75 £63.75 £56.25
90th Percentile £75.40 £78.71 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £38.50 £35.00 £34.47
% change year-on-year +10.00% +1.55% -37.34%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 -21 495 £525 -4.55% 381
North of England -1 197 £475 +5.56% 91
South East -16 124 £471 +43.60% 130
North West -8 108 £478 +9.89% 49
Midlands +9 107 £473 +10.64% 79
Yorkshire +13 89 £450 -3.23% 26
West Midlands -23 63 £450 -16.28% 46
South West -15 49 £513 +20.59% 36
East Midlands +9 43 £525 +60.80% 33
East of England -27 26 £450 -10.00% 36
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 69 (6.76%) SharePoint
2 48 (4.70%) IIS
3 39 (3.82%) Confluence
4 24 (2.35%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.86%) Apache
5 19 (1.86%) Apache Spark
6 17 (1.67%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (1.47%) Camunda
8 11 (1.08%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.59%) Appian
9 6 (0.59%) CMS
9 6 (0.59%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.49%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.49%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.39%) OpenEdge
11 4 (0.39%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.39%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.29%) Apache Superset
12 3 (0.29%) nginx
13 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 50 (4.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.74%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (0.98%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.098%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.098%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.098%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 25 (2.45%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (1.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.69%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.69%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.59%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.39%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.39%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.20%) Endur
7 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.098%) Findur
8 1 (0.098%) Loan IQ
8 1 (0.098%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.098%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.098%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.098%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 424 (41.53%) Azure
2 225 (22.04%) AWS
3 151 (14.79%) Power Platform
4 106 (10.38%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (8.81%) GitHub
6 61 (5.97%) Azure Data Factory
7 48 (4.70%) Entra ID
8 43 (4.21%) Serverless
9 42 (4.11%) Microsoft 365
10 41 (4.02%) Azure Monitor
11 39 (3.82%) GitHub Actions
12 38 (3.72%) Power Automate
13 37 (3.62%) Snowflake
14 33 (3.23%) Dynamics 365
15 31 (3.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 30 (2.94%) GCP
17 26 (2.55%) dbt
17 26 (2.55%) SaaS
18 22 (2.15%) PaaS
19 21 (2.06%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 52 (5.09%) DNS
2 41 (4.02%) DHCP
3 32 (3.13%) Firewall
4 20 (1.96%) SAN
4 20 (1.96%) VLAN
5 17 (1.67%) VPN
6 13 (1.27%) Internet
6 13 (1.27%) Network Security
7 12 (1.18%) TCP/IP
7 12 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
8 10 (0.98%) SSL
9 9 (0.88%) SSH
10 6 (0.59%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.59%) IPv4
10 6 (0.59%) IPv6
10 6 (0.59%) LAN
11 5 (0.49%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.49%) VoIP
11 5 (0.49%) WAN
12 3 (0.29%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (14.89%) PostgreSQL
2 130 (12.73%) Power BI
3 106 (10.38%) Relational Database
4 96 (9.40%) Data Warehouse
5 91 (8.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 76 (7.44%) MySQL
7 64 (6.27%) Oracle Database
8 60 (5.88%) Azure SQL Database
9 58 (5.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 52 (5.09%) MongoDB
11 36 (3.53%) Data Lake
12 29 (2.84%) NoSQL
13 27 (2.64%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 25 (2.45%) Redis
15 23 (2.25%) Amazon RDS
16 22 (2.15%) RDBMS
17 20 (1.96%) Tableau
18 17 (1.67%) Metadata
19 16 (1.57%) Star Schema
20 12 (1.18%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 100 (9.79%) Git
2 57 (5.58%) Jenkins
3 51 (5.00%) JIRA
4 30 (2.94%) GitLab
5 27 (2.64%) Visual Studio
6 18 (1.76%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 18 (1.76%) TeamCity
7 16 (1.57%) Maven
8 15 (1.47%) Team Foundation Server
9 14 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
10 13 (1.27%) Octopus Deploy
11 12 (1.18%) Postman
11 12 (1.18%) Selenium
12 11 (1.08%) Artifactory
12 11 (1.08%) Cucumber
13 10 (0.98%) Cypress.io
14 9 (0.88%) Bitbucket
14 9 (0.88%) Gatling
14 9 (0.88%) REST Assured
14 9 (0.88%) WebDriver
General
1 311 (30.46%) Social Skills
2 257 (25.17%) Finance
3 186 (18.22%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (12.63%) Banking
5 81 (7.93%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.31%) Front Office
7 39 (3.82%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (2.74%) Investment Banking
9 19 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (1.76%) Legal
11 16 (1.57%) Organisational Skills
12 15 (1.47%) Financial Institution
12 15 (1.47%) Retail
13 9 (0.88%) Advertising
14 8 (0.78%) Back Office
14 8 (0.78%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.49%) Law
15 5 (0.49%) Local Government
15 5 (0.49%) Military
15 5 (0.49%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 307 (30.07%) Developer
2 162 (15.87%) Senior
3 147 (14.40%) DBA
4 89 (8.72%) SQL DBA
5 85 (8.33%) .NET Developer
6 84 (8.23%) C# Developer
7 82 (8.03%) Data Engineer
8 69 (6.76%) Lead
9 65 (6.37%) Administrator
10 57 (5.58%) Architect
11 49 (4.80%) Senior Developer
12 48 (4.70%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 47 (4.60%) SQL Developer
14 45 (4.41%) Full-Stack Developer
15 44 (4.31%) Analyst
16 38 (3.72%) Software Engineer
17 37 (3.62%) Oracle DBA
18 34 (3.33%) Azure Engineer
19 33 (3.23%) C# .NET Developer
19 33 (3.23%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 276 (27.03%) .NET
2 128 (12.54%) REST
3 101 (9.89%) .NET Framework
4 75 (7.35%) React
5 62 (6.07%) ASP.NET
6 59 (5.78%) AngularJS
7 56 (5.48%) RESTful
8 53 (5.19%) .NET Core
9 52 (5.09%) CSS
9 52 (5.09%) Kafka
10 41 (4.02%) HTML
11 39 (3.82%) Web Services
12 35 (3.43%) JSON
13 32 (3.13%) XML
14 29 (2.84%) SOAP
15 27 (2.64%) Entity Framework
15 27 (2.64%) Spring Boot
16 25 (2.45%) Spring
17 22 (2.15%) OAuth
17 22 (2.15%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 60 (5.88%) Onboarding
2 58 (5.68%) Cloud Native
3 47 (4.60%) Data Structures
4 46 (4.51%) Clustering
5 44 (4.31%) Replication
6 42 (4.11%) Enterprise Software
6 42 (4.11%) Self-Motivation
7 41 (4.02%) Legacy Systems
8 26 (2.55%) Management Information System
9 23 (2.25%) Data Centre
9 23 (2.25%) Product Ownership
10 22 (2.15%) PKI
11 17 (1.67%) Derivative
12 16 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
13 14 (1.37%) Low-Code
14 13 (1.27%) NHS
15 11 (1.08%) Algorithms
15 11 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
15 11 (1.08%) Fixed Income
15 11 (1.08%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 263 (25.76%) Windows
2 148 (14.50%) Windows Server
3 95 (9.30%) Linux
4 44 (4.31%) Unix
5 15 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.98%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.78%) VMS
8 7 (0.69%) Solaris
8 7 (0.69%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.59%) Android
9 6 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.59%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.49%) CentOS
11 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.20%) AIX
12 2 (0.20%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.098%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 255 (24.98%) DevOps
2 238 (23.31%) CI/CD
3 230 (22.53%) Agile
4 200 (19.59%) Problem-Solving
5 189 (18.51%) Migration
6 155 (15.18%) ETL
7 145 (14.20%) Business Intelligence
8 136 (13.32%) Data Modelling
9 135 (13.22%) Performance Tuning
10 125 (12.24%) Disaster Recovery
11 117 (11.46%) AI
12 99 (9.70%) Analytics
13 97 (9.50%) High Availability
14 89 (8.72%) Stakeholder Management
15 88 (8.62%) Continuous Improvement
16 87 (8.52%) Microservices
17 84 (8.23%) Data Pipeline
18 82 (8.03%) Software Engineering
19 81 (7.93%) Test Automation
20 78 (7.64%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 573 (56.12%) SQL
2 274 (26.84%) C#
3 200 (19.59%) Python
4 182 (17.83%) PowerShell
5 157 (15.38%) T-SQL
6 114 (11.17%) JavaScript
7 79 (7.74%) Java
8 65 (6.37%) PL/SQL
9 50 (4.90%) TypeScript
10 37 (3.62%) Bash
11 24 (2.35%) Shell Script
12 19 (1.86%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (1.57%) Korn
13 16 (1.57%) Scala
13 16 (1.57%) VB
14 14 (1.37%) VBA
15 8 (0.78%) VB.NET
16 7 (0.69%) Bicep
17 6 (0.59%) XPath
18 5 (0.49%) VB6
Qualifications
1 270 (26.44%) Security Cleared
2 206 (20.18%) SC Cleared
3 98 (9.60%) Degree
4 49 (4.80%) DV Cleared
5 42 (4.11%) Microsoft Certification
6 28 (2.74%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (1.96%) Azure Certification
9 13 (1.27%) ISTQB
10 12 (1.18%) AWS Certification
11 11 (1.08%) Oracle Certification
12 10 (0.98%) OCP
13 9 (0.88%) DBS Check
14 8 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 6 (0.59%) CISSP
15 6 (0.59%) Master's Degree
16 5 (0.49%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
17 4 (0.39%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 4 (0.39%) MCTS
17 4 (0.39%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (9.40%) Data Quality
2 93 (9.11%) QA
3 29 (2.84%) GDPR
4 24 (2.35%) Accessibility
5 22 (2.15%) NIST
6 21 (2.06%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 18 (1.76%) SLA
8 16 (1.57%) WCAG
9 6 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.49%) Actionable Recommendations
10 5 (0.49%) ISO 9000
11 4 (0.39%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.29%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.20%) Basel III
13 2 (0.20%) COREP
13 2 (0.20%) FINREP
13 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.20%) GRC
13 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.098%) IFRS
System Software
1 134 (13.12%) Active Directory
2 77 (7.54%) Docker
3 40 (3.92%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (2.94%) Virtual Machines
5 28 (2.74%) Oracle RAC
6 11 (1.08%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.59%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.59%) vSphere
8 4 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.29%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.29%) GridGain
9 3 (0.29%) Postfix
10 1 (0.098%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.098%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.098%) NFS
10 1 (0.098%) RACF
10 1 (0.098%) SRDF
10 1 (0.098%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 102 (9.99%) Kubernetes
2 84 (8.23%) Terraform
3 43 (4.21%) Ansible
4 21 (2.06%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 18 (1.76%) Oracle RMAN
6 17 (1.67%) Microsoft Intune
7 15 (1.47%) Data Guard
8 14 (1.37%) SCCM
9 13 (1.27%) HAProxy
9 13 (1.27%) SCOM
10 11 (1.08%) Microsoft Clustering
11 10 (0.98%) WSUS
12 9 (0.88%) Grafana
12 9 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
14 5 (0.49%) ITRS Geneos
15 4 (0.39%) Prometheus
16 3 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 3 (0.29%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
16 3 (0.29%) Istio
Vendors
1 343 (33.59%) Microsoft
2 270 (26.44%) Oracle
3 65 (6.37%) Databricks
3 65 (6.37%) VMware
4 51 (5.00%) ServiceNow
5 48 (4.70%) CyberArk
6 44 (4.31%) Citrix
7 36 (3.53%) SAP
8 29 (2.84%) BeyondTrust
9 25 (2.45%) BMC
9 25 (2.45%) Remedy
10 21 (2.06%) Cisco
11 20 (1.96%) Informatica
12 19 (1.86%) Dynatrace
12 19 (1.86%) Sybase
13 17 (1.67%) Red Hat
14 14 (1.37%) Google
14 14 (1.37%) IBM
15 13 (1.27%) Alteryx
16 10 (0.98%) AppDynamics
713 SQL Server jobs in England