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

6 months to
2 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 119 101 58
Rank change year-on-year -18 -43 -5
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 974 675 1,317
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.22% 2.61% 3.53%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.57% 14.21% 20.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 675 507 928
10th Percentile £356 £325 £350
25th Percentile £410 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £509
Median % change year-on-year - -1.72% -3.10%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £638
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £505
% change year-on-year - -0.89% -3.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 6 23
10th Percentile £13.51 £21.02 £25.55
25th Percentile £19.25 £22.02 £38.81
Median hourly rate £27.88 £25.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +8.65% -35.85% -11.11%
75th Percentile £62.00 £64.71 £47.47
90th Percentile £74.40 £83.13 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £33.49 £70.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -52.16% +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 6,686 4,749 6,536
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.24% 18.39% 17.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,504 3,291 4,711
10th Percentile £352 £358 £350
25th Percentile £415 £413 £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 £709 £775 £800
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 219 89 139
10th Percentile £14.00 £19.15 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.11 £25.00 £20.76
Median hourly rate £38.25 £34.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.50% -15.00% -30.43%
75th Percentile £69.72 £62.00 £51.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £71.50 £71.70
UK median hourly rate £38.50 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +10.00% -12.50% -29.76%

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 2 July 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 2 July 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 2 July 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 -29 475 £525 -8.70% 132
North of England -3 178 £475 +11.76% 110
South East -13 120 £461 +2.33% 104
North West -18 97 £478 +12.47% 55
Midlands -9 91 £492 +15.76% 62
Yorkshire +14 81 £450 +12.50% 41
South West -6 53 £513 +7.89% 28
West Midlands -39 46 £481 -8.48% 40
East Midlands +8 43 £525 +60.80% 22
East of England +3 38 £475 -5.00% 16
North East -34 1 - - 18
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 58 (5.95%) SharePoint
2 44 (4.52%) IIS
3 31 (3.18%) Confluence
4 23 (2.36%) Apache Spark
5 22 (2.26%) Apache
5 22 (2.26%) Microsoft Exchange
6 20 (2.05%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (1.44%) Appian
8 13 (1.33%) Camunda
9 12 (1.23%) CMS
10 11 (1.13%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.62%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.62%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.51%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.51%) Tuxedo
12 5 (0.51%) Umbraco
13 4 (0.41%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.31%) Apache Superset
14 3 (0.31%) nginx
15 2 (0.21%) Anypoint
Applications
1 42 (4.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.95%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.33%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.10%) InDesign
5 1 (0.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 18 (1.85%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.44%) Remedy ITSM
3 13 (1.33%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.62%) Dynamics AX
4 6 (0.62%) OpenText MBPM
4 6 (0.62%) Oracle BPM
5 5 (0.51%) Elite 3E
5 5 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.31%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.21%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.21%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.10%) Endur
8 1 (0.10%) Findur
8 1 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.10%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 410 (42.09%) Azure
2 225 (23.10%) AWS
3 142 (14.58%) Power Platform
4 104 (10.68%) Azure DevOps
5 86 (8.83%) GitHub
6 69 (7.08%) Azure Data Factory
7 41 (4.21%) GCP
8 39 (4.00%) GitHub Actions
8 39 (4.00%) Serverless
9 36 (3.70%) Azure Monitor
10 35 (3.59%) Power Automate
11 34 (3.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 34 (3.49%) Snowflake
12 30 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
13 29 (2.98%) Dynamics 365
14 26 (2.67%) Entra ID
14 26 (2.67%) SaaS
15 25 (2.57%) dbt
16 24 (2.46%) Amazon S3
17 20 (2.05%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.80%) DNS
2 29 (2.98%) DHCP
3 18 (1.85%) SAN
4 17 (1.75%) Firewall
5 13 (1.33%) Internet
6 12 (1.23%) VLAN
7 10 (1.03%) SSH
8 9 (0.92%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.92%) VPN
9 8 (0.82%) Network Security
10 6 (0.62%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.62%) IPv4
10 6 (0.62%) IPv6
10 6 (0.62%) Wi-Fi
11 5 (0.51%) SSL
12 4 (0.41%) Kerberos
12 4 (0.41%) LAN
13 3 (0.31%) NAS
13 3 (0.31%) VoIP
13 3 (0.31%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (15.50%) PostgreSQL
2 117 (12.01%) Power BI
3 110 (11.29%) Relational Database
4 107 (10.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 102 (10.47%) Data Warehouse
6 74 (7.60%) Oracle Database
7 63 (6.47%) MySQL
8 58 (5.95%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 47 (4.83%) Azure SQL Database
10 46 (4.72%) MongoDB
11 43 (4.41%) Data Lake
12 37 (3.80%) NoSQL
13 32 (3.29%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 29 (2.98%) RDBMS
15 21 (2.16%) Tableau
16 18 (1.85%) Metadata
17 17 (1.75%) Big Data
17 17 (1.75%) Delta Lake
17 17 (1.75%) Redis
18 15 (1.54%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 84 (8.62%) Git
2 50 (5.13%) JIRA
3 49 (5.03%) Jenkins
4 29 (2.98%) Visual Studio
5 24 (2.46%) GitLab
6 18 (1.85%) TeamCity
7 17 (1.75%) Team Foundation Server
8 15 (1.54%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 13 (1.33%) Maven
10 12 (1.23%) Octopus Deploy
11 11 (1.13%) Cucumber
12 10 (1.03%) Sonatype Nexus
13 9 (0.92%) Gatling
13 9 (0.92%) Postman
14 8 (0.82%) Artifactory
14 8 (0.82%) MSTest
14 8 (0.82%) Oracle Forms
15 7 (0.72%) Chocolatey
15 7 (0.72%) ERwin
15 7 (0.72%) MLflow
General
1 277 (28.44%) Social Skills
2 243 (24.95%) Finance
3 164 (16.84%) Analytical Skills
4 119 (12.22%) Banking
5 75 (7.70%) Public Sector
6 41 (4.21%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (3.59%) Front Office
8 25 (2.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 23 (2.36%) Investment Banking
10 18 (1.85%) Legal
11 16 (1.64%) Retail
12 14 (1.44%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.92%) Advertising
13 9 (0.92%) Financial Institution
14 7 (0.72%) Local Government
15 6 (0.62%) Back Office
15 6 (0.62%) Law
15 6 (0.62%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.51%) Publishing
17 4 (0.41%) Games
Job Titles
1 294 (30.18%) Developer
2 137 (14.07%) Senior
3 122 (12.53%) DBA
4 98 (10.06%) Data Engineer
5 87 (8.93%) C# Developer
6 75 (7.70%) SQL DBA
7 71 (7.29%) .NET Developer
8 70 (7.19%) Lead
9 60 (6.16%) Architect
10 49 (5.03%) SQL Developer
11 44 (4.52%) Analyst
12 42 (4.31%) Senior Developer
13 39 (4.00%) Administrator
14 35 (3.59%) Software Engineer
15 33 (3.39%) Full-Stack Developer
16 32 (3.29%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 31 (3.18%) Azure Engineer
17 31 (3.18%) Oracle DBA
18 30 (3.08%) Support Engineer
19 28 (2.87%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 248 (25.46%) .NET
2 124 (12.73%) REST
3 103 (10.57%) .NET Framework
4 81 (8.32%) React
5 63 (6.47%) CSS
6 62 (6.37%) RESTful
7 61 (6.26%) AngularJS
8 54 (5.54%) ASP.NET
9 52 (5.34%) HTML
10 50 (5.13%) Kafka
11 46 (4.72%) .NET Core
12 36 (3.70%) Web Services
13 34 (3.49%) XML
14 32 (3.29%) JSON
15 28 (2.87%) OAuth
15 28 (2.87%) SOAP
16 27 (2.77%) Entity Framework
17 26 (2.67%) Spring Boot
18 25 (2.57%) Spring
19 20 (2.05%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 54 (5.54%) Legacy Systems
2 50 (5.13%) Cloud Native
3 48 (4.93%) Onboarding
4 40 (4.11%) Data Structures
4 40 (4.11%) Replication
5 36 (3.70%) Clustering
6 35 (3.59%) Self-Motivation
7 34 (3.49%) Enterprise Software
8 23 (2.36%) Management Information System
9 21 (2.16%) Low-Code
10 20 (2.05%) Product Ownership
11 17 (1.75%) Derivative
11 17 (1.75%) PKI
12 16 (1.64%) NHS
13 14 (1.44%) Fixed Income
14 13 (1.33%) Algorithms
15 12 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
15 12 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
15 12 (1.23%) Linux Command Line
15 12 (1.23%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 228 (23.41%) Windows
2 130 (13.35%) Windows Server
3 90 (9.24%) Linux
4 60 (6.16%) Unix
5 11 (1.13%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.03%) AIX
6 10 (1.03%) Windows 10
7 9 (0.92%) Android
7 9 (0.92%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (0.72%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.51%) Solaris
9 5 (0.51%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.51%) VMS
10 3 (0.31%) CentOS
11 2 (0.21%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.21%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 243 (24.95%) DevOps
2 230 (23.61%) CI/CD
3 223 (22.90%) Agile
4 202 (20.74%) Problem-Solving
5 164 (16.84%) ETL
6 157 (16.12%) Migration
7 145 (14.89%) Business Intelligence
8 138 (14.17%) Data Modelling
9 121 (12.42%) Performance Tuning
10 111 (11.40%) AI
11 105 (10.78%) Disaster Recovery
12 102 (10.47%) Analytics
13 90 (9.24%) Data Pipeline
14 87 (8.93%) Microservices
15 83 (8.52%) Data Analysis
15 83 (8.52%) High Availability
16 81 (8.32%) Validation
17 79 (8.11%) Data Integration
18 77 (7.91%) Data Engineering
18 77 (7.91%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 557 (57.19%) SQL
2 257 (26.39%) C#
3 231 (23.72%) Python
4 166 (17.04%) PowerShell
5 165 (16.94%) T-SQL
6 95 (9.75%) JavaScript
7 79 (8.11%) Java
8 65 (6.67%) PL/SQL
9 57 (5.85%) TypeScript
10 31 (3.18%) Bash
11 25 (2.57%) Shell Script
12 24 (2.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 20 (2.05%) Scala
14 18 (1.85%) VB
15 16 (1.64%) Korn
16 13 (1.33%) Bicep
16 13 (1.33%) VBA
17 7 (0.72%) VB.NET
17 7 (0.72%) VB6
18 5 (0.51%) XPath
Qualifications
1 220 (22.59%) Security Cleared
2 166 (17.04%) SC Cleared
3 105 (10.78%) Degree
4 40 (4.11%) DV Cleared
5 33 (3.39%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (2.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (1.85%) Azure Certification
9 9 (0.92%) DBS Check
9 9 (0.92%) Master's Degree
10 6 (0.62%) CISSP
10 6 (0.62%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.62%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (0.51%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.51%) OCP
12 4 (0.41%) MCITP
12 4 (0.41%) MCTS
12 4 (0.41%) PhD
13 3 (0.31%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (10.27%) QA
2 98 (10.06%) Data Quality
3 26 (2.67%) GDPR
3 26 (2.67%) NIST
4 24 (2.46%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 16 (1.64%) SLA
6 14 (1.44%) Accessibility
7 10 (1.03%) WCAG
8 6 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.51%) ISO 9000
10 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.31%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.21%) Basel III
11 2 (0.21%) COREP
11 2 (0.21%) FINREP
11 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.21%) GRC
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.10%) EMIR
System Software
1 98 (10.06%) Active Directory
2 83 (8.52%) Docker
3 30 (3.08%) Virtual Machines
4 22 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
5 19 (1.95%) Oracle RAC
6 12 (1.23%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.62%) KVM
8 5 (0.51%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.31%) GridGain
9 3 (0.31%) Postfix
9 3 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.21%) vSphere
10 2 (0.21%) XenApp
10 2 (0.21%) XenDesktop
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.10%) NFS
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 108 (11.09%) Kubernetes
2 73 (7.49%) Terraform
3 33 (3.39%) Ansible
4 21 (2.16%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 19 (1.95%) Oracle RMAN
6 14 (1.44%) SCCM
7 13 (1.33%) HAProxy
8 10 (1.03%) WSUS
9 8 (0.82%) Grafana
9 8 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.72%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.62%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.62%) IBM BigFix
12 5 (0.51%) SCOM
13 4 (0.41%) Data Guard
13 4 (0.41%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.31%) Foglight
14 3 (0.31%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 284 (29.16%) Microsoft
2 263 (27.00%) Oracle
3 70 (7.19%) Databricks
4 51 (5.24%) Citrix
5 45 (4.62%) ServiceNow
6 37 (3.80%) CyberArk
7 35 (3.59%) VMware
8 34 (3.49%) SAP
9 30 (3.08%) Informatica
10 23 (2.36%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.36%) Sybase
11 22 (2.26%) Google
12 17 (1.75%) Dynatrace
12 17 (1.75%) IBM
13 14 (1.44%) Remedy
14 13 (1.33%) BMC
14 13 (1.33%) Cisco
15 12 (1.23%) Red Hat
16 11 (1.13%) Alteryx
17 10 (1.03%) OpenAI