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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 112 57
Rank change year-on-year -11 -55 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 998 676 1,196
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.18% 2.45% 3.60%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.38% 13.61% 19.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 699 496 852
10th Percentile £363 £313 £338
25th Percentile £413 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.60% - -6.54%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £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 42 6 8
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £28.60
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £35.38
Median hourly rate £50.02 £23.80 £48.03
Median % change year-on-year +110.21% -50.46% +4.41%
75th Percentile £63.31 £64.71 £62.96
90th Percentile £75.80 £83.13 £74.07
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £70.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -32.09% +47.37% +5.56%

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 6,938 4,967 6,121
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.19% 18.03% 18.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,636 3,420 4,323
10th Percentile £358 £338 £350
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £513 £545
Median % change year-on-year -2.34% -5.96% -0.91%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £675
90th Percentile £705 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £505 £525
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.81% -3.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 82 91
10th Percentile £14.85 £20.87 £14.25
25th Percentile £23.21 £25.34 £20.00
Median hourly rate £38.25 £34.99 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.32% -0.03% -36.36%
75th Percentile £61.50 £63.31 £55.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.58 £69.75
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £35.50 £33.22
% change year-on-year +7.75% +6.88% -39.61%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 -26 487 £525 -4.55% 104
North of England +3 194 £475 +6.15% 69
South East -17 116 £475 +44.82% 96
North West +1 105 £478 +6.82% 39
Midlands -11 103 £475 +11.11% 67
Yorkshire +13 89 £450 +5.88% 20
West Midlands -17 59 £475 -11.63% 39
South West -15 49 £519 +22.06% 30
East Midlands +8 43 £525 +60.80% 27
East of England -23 25 £450 -10.00% 24
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 66 (6.61%) SharePoint
2 47 (4.71%) IIS
3 38 (3.81%) Confluence
4 21 (2.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.90%) Apache
5 19 (1.90%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (1.80%) Apache Spark
6 18 (1.80%) Camunda
7 11 (1.10%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.60%) Appian
8 6 (0.60%) CMS
9 5 (0.50%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.50%) NetWeaver
9 5 (0.50%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.40%) OpenEdge
10 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
11 3 (0.30%) nginx
12 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 52 (5.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.81%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.10%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.10%) InDesign
6 1 (0.10%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 24 (2.40%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (2.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.70%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.70%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.40%) 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 (0.10%) Findur
8 1 (0.10%) Loan IQ
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
1 414 (41.48%) Azure
2 215 (21.54%) AWS
3 150 (15.03%) Power Platform
4 107 (10.72%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (9.02%) GitHub
6 60 (6.01%) Azure Data Factory
7 48 (4.81%) Entra ID
8 45 (4.51%) Serverless
9 41 (4.11%) Azure Monitor
10 40 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
10 40 (4.01%) Microsoft 365
11 38 (3.81%) Power Automate
12 37 (3.71%) Snowflake
13 33 (3.31%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 33 (3.31%) Dynamics 365
14 29 (2.91%) GCP
15 26 (2.61%) dbt
16 25 (2.51%) SaaS
17 21 (2.10%) PowerApps
18 20 (2.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.71%) DNS
2 40 (4.01%) DHCP
3 31 (3.11%) Firewall
4 19 (1.90%) VLAN
5 18 (1.80%) SAN
6 15 (1.50%) VPN
7 13 (1.30%) Internet
7 13 (1.30%) Network Security
8 11 (1.10%) TCP/IP
8 11 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
9 10 (1.00%) SSL
10 9 (0.90%) SSH
11 6 (0.60%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.60%) IPv4
11 6 (0.60%) IPv6
11 6 (0.60%) LAN
12 5 (0.50%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.50%) VoIP
12 5 (0.50%) WAN
13 3 (0.30%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 147 (14.73%) PostgreSQL
2 129 (12.93%) Power BI
3 106 (10.62%) Relational Database
4 98 (9.82%) Data Warehouse
5 91 (9.12%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 70 (7.01%) MySQL
7 59 (5.91%) Oracle Database
8 58 (5.81%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 56 (5.61%) Azure SQL Database
10 53 (5.31%) MongoDB
11 36 (3.61%) Data Lake
12 29 (2.91%) NoSQL
13 27 (2.71%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 26 (2.61%) Redis
15 22 (2.20%) Amazon RDS
16 21 (2.10%) RDBMS
17 20 (2.00%) Tableau
18 19 (1.90%) Metadata
19 16 (1.60%) Star Schema
20 12 (1.20%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 96 (9.62%) Git
2 61 (6.11%) Jenkins
3 53 (5.31%) JIRA
4 32 (3.21%) GitLab
5 27 (2.71%) Visual Studio
6 19 (1.90%) Maven
7 18 (1.80%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 17 (1.70%) Sonatype Nexus
9 16 (1.60%) TeamCity
10 15 (1.50%) Team Foundation Server
11 14 (1.40%) Selenium
12 13 (1.30%) Octopus Deploy
13 12 (1.20%) Postman
13 12 (1.20%) REST Assured
14 11 (1.10%) Artifactory
14 11 (1.10%) Cucumber
14 11 (1.10%) JUnit
15 10 (1.00%) Cypress.io
15 10 (1.00%) Mockito
16 9 (0.90%) WebDriver
General
1 304 (30.46%) Social Skills
2 258 (25.85%) Finance
3 188 (18.84%) Analytical Skills
4 127 (12.73%) Banking
5 75 (7.52%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.41%) Front Office
7 39 (3.91%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (2.71%) Investment Banking
9 19 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (1.80%) Legal
11 17 (1.70%) Retail
12 15 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.40%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.80%) Back Office
14 8 (0.80%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.60%) Advertising
16 5 (0.50%) Billing
16 5 (0.50%) Law
16 5 (0.50%) Military
16 5 (0.50%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 306 (30.66%) Developer
2 155 (15.53%) Senior
3 136 (13.63%) DBA
4 83 (8.32%) .NET Developer
4 83 (8.32%) SQL DBA
5 80 (8.02%) C# Developer
6 78 (7.82%) Data Engineer
7 68 (6.81%) Lead
8 62 (6.21%) Administrator
9 55 (5.51%) Architect
10 48 (4.81%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 47 (4.71%) Full-Stack Developer
11 47 (4.71%) Senior Developer
11 47 (4.71%) SQL Developer
12 45 (4.51%) Analyst
13 38 (3.81%) Software Engineer
14 34 (3.41%) Oracle DBA
15 33 (3.31%) Azure Engineer
15 33 (3.31%) C# .NET Developer
15 33 (3.31%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 277 (27.76%) .NET
2 128 (12.83%) REST
3 101 (10.12%) .NET Framework
4 79 (7.92%) React
5 77 (7.72%) Terraform
6 61 (6.11%) ASP.NET
7 59 (5.91%) AngularJS
7 59 (5.91%) CSS
8 54 (5.41%) Kafka
8 54 (5.41%) RESTful
9 53 (5.31%) .NET Core
10 48 (4.81%) HTML
11 39 (3.91%) Web Services
12 36 (3.61%) JSON
13 31 (3.11%) Spring Boot
13 31 (3.11%) XML
14 29 (2.91%) SOAP
15 26 (2.61%) Spring
16 24 (2.40%) Entity Framework
16 24 (2.40%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.11%) Onboarding
2 58 (5.81%) Cloud Native
3 51 (5.11%) Data Structures
4 44 (4.41%) Clustering
5 43 (4.31%) Enterprise Software
6 42 (4.21%) Self-Motivation
7 39 (3.91%) Replication
8 38 (3.81%) Legacy Systems
9 29 (2.91%) Product Ownership
10 24 (2.40%) Management Information System
11 23 (2.30%) Data Centre
12 21 (2.10%) PKI
13 17 (1.70%) Derivative
14 16 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
15 14 (1.40%) Low-Code
16 13 (1.30%) NHS
17 11 (1.10%) Algorithms
17 11 (1.10%) Fixed Income
18 10 (1.00%) Data Protection Act
18 10 (1.00%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 256 (25.65%) Windows
2 144 (14.43%) Windows Server
3 91 (9.12%) Linux
4 40 (4.01%) Unix
5 13 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.00%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.80%) VMS
8 7 (0.70%) Solaris
8 7 (0.70%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.60%) Android
9 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.50%) CentOS
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.20%) AIX
13 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.10%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 258 (25.85%) DevOps
2 242 (24.25%) CI/CD
3 230 (23.05%) Agile
4 195 (19.54%) Problem-Solving
5 186 (18.64%) Migration
6 155 (15.53%) ETL
7 143 (14.33%) Business Intelligence
8 135 (13.53%) Data Modelling
9 126 (12.63%) Performance Tuning
10 117 (11.72%) Disaster Recovery
11 114 (11.42%) AI
12 97 (9.72%) Stakeholder Management
13 95 (9.52%) Analytics
14 91 (9.12%) Microservices
15 88 (8.82%) High Availability
16 87 (8.72%) Continuous Improvement
17 85 (8.52%) Test Automation
18 84 (8.42%) Software Engineering
19 81 (8.12%) Validation
20 79 (7.92%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 573 (57.41%) SQL
2 270 (27.05%) C#
3 194 (19.44%) Python
4 170 (17.03%) PowerShell
5 155 (15.53%) T-SQL
6 121 (12.12%) JavaScript
7 88 (8.82%) Java
8 64 (6.41%) PL/SQL
9 53 (5.31%) TypeScript
10 32 (3.21%) Bash
11 19 (1.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 19 (1.90%) Shell Script
12 16 (1.60%) VB
13 15 (1.50%) Scala
14 14 (1.40%) VBA
15 11 (1.10%) Korn
16 8 (0.80%) VB.NET
17 7 (0.70%) Bicep
18 6 (0.60%) XPath
19 5 (0.50%) VB6
Qualifications
1 252 (25.25%) Security Cleared
2 189 (18.94%) SC Cleared
3 96 (9.62%) Degree
4 49 (4.91%) DV Cleared
5 38 (3.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 28 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (1.90%) Azure Certification
9 12 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.20%) ISTQB
10 9 (0.90%) DBS Check
11 8 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 7 (0.70%) Master's Degree
12 7 (0.70%) Oracle Certification
13 6 (0.60%) OCP
14 5 (0.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 4 (0.40%) CISSP
15 4 (0.40%) MCITP
15 4 (0.40%) MCTS
15 4 (0.40%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (9.72%) Data Quality
2 93 (9.32%) QA
3 26 (2.61%) GDPR
4 24 (2.40%) Accessibility
5 21 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (2.00%) NIST
7 16 (1.60%) SLA
7 16 (1.60%) WCAG
8 6 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.50%) ISO 9000
10 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.30%) Basel III
12 2 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.20%) COREP
12 2 (0.20%) FINREP
12 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.20%) GRC
12 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.10%) IFRS
13 1 (0.10%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 129 (12.93%) Active Directory
2 76 (7.62%) Docker
3 39 (3.91%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (3.01%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (2.40%) Oracle RAC
6 9 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.60%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.60%) vSphere
8 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.30%) GridGain
9 3 (0.30%) Postfix
10 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.10%) NFS
10 1 (0.10%) RACF
10 1 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 99 (9.92%) Kubernetes
2 44 (4.41%) Ansible
3 17 (1.70%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 16 (1.60%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (1.40%) Data Guard
6 13 (1.30%) HAProxy
6 13 (1.30%) Oracle RMAN
6 13 (1.30%) SCCM
6 13 (1.30%) SCOM
7 11 (1.10%) Microsoft Clustering
8 10 (1.00%) WSUS
9 9 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.80%) Grafana
11 6 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
12 5 (0.50%) ITRS Geneos
12 5 (0.50%) Prometheus
13 3 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
13 3 (0.30%) Istio
14 2 (0.20%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 333 (33.37%) Microsoft
2 255 (25.55%) Oracle
3 69 (6.91%) Databricks
4 63 (6.31%) VMware
5 49 (4.91%) ServiceNow
6 46 (4.61%) CyberArk
7 41 (4.11%) Citrix
8 36 (3.61%) SAP
9 29 (2.91%) BeyondTrust
10 24 (2.40%) BMC
10 24 (2.40%) Remedy
11 21 (2.10%) Cisco
11 21 (2.10%) Informatica
12 18 (1.80%) Dynatrace
12 18 (1.80%) IBM
12 18 (1.80%) Sybase
13 15 (1.50%) Google
13 15 (1.50%) Red Hat
14 13 (1.30%) Alteryx
15 11 (1.10%) Splunk