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

 6 months to
22 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 93 65
Rank change year-on-year -35 -28 -15
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 781 692 1,204
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.08% 2.81% 3.19%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.06% 14.74% 19.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 539 508 853
10th Percentile £358 £343 £325
25th Percentile £408 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £510 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.41% -2.86% -3.67%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £716 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 20 6 29
10th Percentile £12.95 £25.66 £20.71
25th Percentile £20.75 £34.80 £40.00
Median hourly rate £27.44 £62.12 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -55.83% +54.34% +0.63%
75th Percentile £62.44 £65.46 £59.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £65.62 £64.40
UK median hourly rate £50.86 £27.35 £40.25
% change year-on-year +85.96% -32.05% -7.61%

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 5,982 4,696 6,178
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.95% 19.04% 16.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,160 3,285 4,422
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £663
90th Percentile £700 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 122 92 155
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.99 £14.00
25th Percentile £27.41 £24.25 £20.77
Median hourly rate £49.36 £33.81 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +46.01% -16.01% -29.32%
75th Percentile £75.00 £64.79 £53.94
90th Percentile £85.23 £70.00 £74.00
UK median hourly rate £50.50 £31.64 £40.13
% change year-on-year +59.61% -21.15% -29.54%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 22 March 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 -23 464 £500 -9.09% 128
North of England -35 112 £463 +8.82% 115
South East -36 101 £485 -3.10% 135
North West -12 65 £463 +5.71% 63
Yorkshire -26 45 £425 +6.25% 47
Midlands -66 35 £450 -10.00% 66
South West -40 32 £438 -20.45% 39
West Midlands -73 23 £450 -21.74% 37
East of England -10 20 £600 +14.83% 48
East Midlands -38 10 £375 -1.45% 29
North East -14 3 £475 +5.56% 12
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 35 (4.48%) SharePoint
2 34 (4.35%) IIS
3 23 (2.94%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (2.18%) Confluence
5 13 (1.66%) Apache Spark
5 13 (1.66%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 11 (1.41%) Apache
6 11 (1.41%) WebSphere
7 10 (1.28%) Appian
8 9 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (1.15%) CMS
9 7 (0.90%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.77%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.51%) Camunda
12 3 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
13 2 (0.26%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
13 2 (0.26%) Tomcat
14 1 (0.13%) ArcGIS
14 1 (0.13%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 43 (5.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.79%) MS Visio
3 13 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.13%) InDesign
6 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (1.02%) Advent Geneva
1 8 (1.02%) Dynamics CRM
1 8 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 7 (0.90%) BusinessWorks
3 6 (0.77%) Salesforce CRM
4 5 (0.64%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.38%) Dynamics AX
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.38%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.26%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.26%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.13%) RMDS
8 1 (0.13%) SAP R/3
8 1 (0.13%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 339 (43.41%) Azure
2 173 (22.15%) AWS
3 131 (16.77%) Power Platform
4 98 (12.55%) Azure DevOps
5 75 (9.60%) Azure Data Factory
6 64 (8.19%) GitHub
7 45 (5.76%) GCP
8 43 (5.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 36 (4.61%) Microsoft 365
10 31 (3.97%) Snowflake
11 29 (3.71%) SaaS
12 28 (3.59%) Amazon S3
12 28 (3.59%) GitHub Actions
13 24 (3.07%) Power Automate
14 23 (2.94%) Serverless
15 21 (2.69%) IaaS
16 20 (2.56%) Amazon EC2
16 20 (2.56%) Dynamics 365
17 17 (2.18%) AWS CloudFormation
17 17 (2.18%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 21 (2.69%) DNS
2 20 (2.56%) Firewall
3 14 (1.79%) DHCP
4 12 (1.54%) Internet
4 12 (1.54%) TCP/IP
5 11 (1.41%) VPN
6 9 (1.15%) SAN
7 8 (1.02%) HTTP
8 7 (0.90%) LAN
9 6 (0.77%) NetScaler
9 6 (0.77%) VLAN
9 6 (0.77%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (0.51%) FTP
10 4 (0.51%) RS-232
10 4 (0.51%) X.400
11 3 (0.38%) SSH
11 3 (0.38%) VoIP
11 3 (0.38%) WAN
12 2 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
12 2 (0.26%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (14.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 108 (13.83%) Power BI
3 107 (13.70%) PostgreSQL
4 96 (12.29%) Data Warehouse
5 92 (11.78%) Relational Database
6 62 (7.94%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 61 (7.81%) Oracle Database
8 57 (7.30%) Azure SQL Database
9 53 (6.79%) MySQL
10 50 (6.40%) Data Lake
11 36 (4.61%) NoSQL
12 33 (4.23%) MongoDB
13 32 (4.10%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 25 (3.20%) DB2
14 25 (3.20%) RDBMS
15 23 (2.94%) Big Data
16 22 (2.82%) Metadata
17 21 (2.69%) Amazon RDS
18 18 (2.30%) Delta Lake
19 16 (2.05%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 66 (8.45%) Git
2 48 (6.15%) JIRA
3 40 (5.12%) Jenkins
4 26 (3.33%) Visual Studio
5 22 (2.82%) GitLab
6 13 (1.66%) TeamCity
7 12 (1.54%) Maven
8 11 (1.41%) Cucumber
8 11 (1.41%) Team Foundation Server
9 10 (1.28%) Postman
10 9 (1.15%) ERwin
10 9 (1.15%) Octopus Deploy
11 8 (1.02%) JUnit
11 8 (1.02%) MLflow
11 8 (1.02%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 7 (0.90%) Mockito
12 7 (0.90%) Selenium
12 7 (0.90%) SpecFlow
13 6 (0.77%) Chocolatey
13 6 (0.77%) REST Assured
General
1 229 (29.32%) Social Skills
2 189 (24.20%) Finance
3 129 (16.52%) Analytical Skills
4 96 (12.29%) Banking
5 60 (7.68%) Public Sector
6 34 (4.35%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (2.82%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 22 (2.82%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.56%) Front Office
9 17 (2.18%) Legal
10 13 (1.66%) Financial Institution
10 13 (1.66%) Retail
11 12 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.15%) Advertising
13 7 (0.90%) Local Government
14 6 (0.77%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.64%) Law
15 5 (0.64%) Presentation Skills
16 4 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.51%) Military
Job Titles
1 240 (30.73%) Developer
2 112 (14.34%) Senior
3 100 (12.80%) Data Engineer
4 80 (10.24%) DBA
5 74 (9.48%) C# Developer
6 69 (8.83%) Architect
7 54 (6.91%) .NET Developer
8 45 (5.76%) SQL DBA
9 38 (4.87%) Lead
10 37 (4.74%) Analyst
11 35 (4.48%) Senior Developer
12 31 (3.97%) Senior Data Engineer
13 30 (3.84%) Full-Stack Developer
14 28 (3.59%) Azure Engineer
14 28 (3.59%) Software Engineer
15 26 (3.33%) Administrator
16 24 (3.07%) SQL Developer
17 22 (2.82%) Data Architect
18 20 (2.56%) Consultant
18 20 (2.56%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 214 (27.40%) .NET
2 94 (12.04%) .NET Framework
3 88 (11.27%) REST
4 63 (8.07%) React
5 57 (7.30%) AngularJS
6 51 (6.53%) RESTful
7 49 (6.27%) HTML
8 46 (5.89%) CSS
9 39 (4.99%) XML
10 38 (4.87%) .NET Core
10 38 (4.87%) ASP.NET
11 35 (4.48%) Kafka
12 28 (3.59%) Web Services
13 26 (3.33%) Entity Framework
14 22 (2.82%) OAuth
15 21 (2.69%) WPF
16 20 (2.56%) Spring
16 20 (2.56%) YAML
17 19 (2.43%) JSON
17 19 (2.43%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 56 (7.17%) Legacy Systems
2 34 (4.35%) Cloud Native
3 31 (3.97%) Replication
4 25 (3.20%) Data Structures
5 24 (3.07%) Enterprise Software
6 21 (2.69%) Onboarding
7 20 (2.56%) Management Information System
8 15 (1.92%) Clustering
9 12 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
9 12 (1.54%) Legacy Code
9 12 (1.54%) Product Ownership
9 12 (1.54%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (1.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 10 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
10 10 (1.28%) Low-Code
10 10 (1.28%) NHS
10 10 (1.28%) Reinsurance
11 9 (1.15%) Credit Risk
11 9 (1.15%) Distributed Systems
11 9 (1.15%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 150 (19.21%) Windows
2 82 (10.50%) Windows Server
3 76 (9.73%) Linux
4 35 (4.48%) Unix
5 11 (1.41%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (1.15%) Windows 10
7 8 (1.02%) AIX
7 8 (1.02%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.64%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.38%) Android
10 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.26%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.26%) VMS
11 2 (0.26%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (23.94%) CI/CD
2 186 (23.82%) DevOps
3 176 (22.54%) ETL
4 165 (21.13%) Problem-Solving
5 164 (21.00%) Agile
6 147 (18.82%) Business Intelligence
7 137 (17.54%) Data Modelling
8 125 (16.01%) Migration
9 94 (12.04%) Analytics
10 84 (10.76%) Performance Tuning
11 82 (10.50%) Disaster Recovery
12 81 (10.37%) Data Engineering
13 80 (10.24%) Data Pipeline
14 71 (9.09%) Data Analysis
15 69 (8.83%) Test Automation
16 67 (8.58%) AI
17 65 (8.32%) Data Governance
18 64 (8.19%) Data Integration
18 64 (8.19%) Microservices
19 58 (7.43%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 461 (59.03%) SQL
2 193 (24.71%) C#
3 184 (23.56%) Python
4 110 (14.08%) T-SQL
5 89 (11.40%) PowerShell
6 70 (8.96%) Java
7 67 (8.58%) JavaScript
8 60 (7.68%) PL/SQL
9 45 (5.76%) TypeScript
10 33 (4.23%) Bash
11 25 (3.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 21 (2.69%) Shell Script
13 16 (2.05%) VB
14 15 (1.92%) Bicep
14 15 (1.92%) Korn
15 12 (1.54%) Scala
15 12 (1.54%) VBA
16 11 (1.41%) PHP
17 7 (0.90%) XPath
18 4 (0.51%) Delphi
Qualifications
1 153 (19.59%) Security Cleared
2 115 (14.72%) SC Cleared
3 78 (9.99%) Degree
4 30 (3.84%) Microsoft Certification
5 28 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (2.56%) Azure Certification
7 17 (2.18%) DV Cleared
8 15 (1.92%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.02%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.64%) CCA
10 5 (0.64%) Citrix Certification
10 5 (0.64%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (0.64%) OCP
10 5 (0.64%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (0.51%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.51%) CISSP
11 4 (0.51%) MCITP
11 4 (0.51%) MCTS
11 4 (0.51%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (11.52%) Data Quality
2 88 (11.27%) QA
3 21 (2.69%) GDPR
4 14 (1.79%) SLA
5 8 (1.02%) NIST
6 6 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.64%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.51%) IFRS
8 4 (0.51%) WCAG
9 3 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.38%) IFRS 17
9 3 (0.38%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.26%) Basel III
10 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.26%) EMIR
10 2 (0.26%) GAAP
10 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.26%) MiFID
10 2 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 90 (11.52%) Docker
2 58 (7.43%) Active Directory
3 16 (2.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.92%) Hyper-V
5 14 (1.79%) Oracle RAC
6 11 (1.41%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (1.28%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.77%) KVM
9 5 (0.64%) XenApp
9 5 (0.64%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.51%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.38%) GridGain
12 2 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
13 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.13%) zsh
Systems Management
1 89 (11.40%) Kubernetes
2 55 (7.04%) Terraform
3 19 (2.43%) Ansible
4 15 (1.92%) Grafana
4 15 (1.92%) Oracle RMAN
5 13 (1.66%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 13 (1.66%) SCCM
6 10 (1.28%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.15%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.15%) Puppet
8 7 (0.90%) TIBCO Hawk
9 6 (0.77%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (0.77%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.64%) HAProxy
10 5 (0.64%) SCVMM
11 4 (0.51%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.51%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.38%) Control-M
12 3 (0.38%) Foglight
12 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 237 (30.35%) Microsoft
2 227 (29.07%) Oracle
3 62 (7.94%) Databricks
4 49 (6.27%) Citrix
5 34 (4.35%) Informatica
5 34 (4.35%) ServiceNow
6 30 (3.84%) VMware
7 20 (2.56%) Google
7 20 (2.56%) IBM
7 20 (2.56%) SAP
8 14 (1.79%) Sybase
9 12 (1.54%) UiPath
10 11 (1.41%) CyberArk
11 10 (1.28%) OpenAI
12 9 (1.15%) Dynatrace
13 8 (1.02%) Advent
13 8 (1.02%) PagerDuty
13 8 (1.02%) Sitecore
13 8 (1.02%) SolarWinds
13 8 (1.02%) TIBCO
497 SQL Server jobs in England