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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 113 59
Rank change year-on-year -15 -54 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 987 677 1,156
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.13% 2.47% 3.55%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.21% 13.75% 19.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 697 492 829
10th Percentile £363 £313 £330
25th Percentile £413 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £510
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -1.96% -2.86%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £486 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -1.97% -0.80% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 40 5 6
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.86 £26.83
25th Percentile £18.93 £21.02 £32.63
Median hourly rate £47.54 £21.27 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +123.51% -50.53% -18.10%
75th Percentile £59.06 £77.50 £60.94
90th Percentile £74.20 £84.25 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £72.50 £38.50
% change year-on-year -34.43% +88.31% -16.63%

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 6,944 4,924 5,933
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.02% 18.00% 18.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,642 3,377 4,123
10th Percentile £358 £333 £350
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £622 £638 £675
90th Percentile £709 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.19% -1.75%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 79 80
10th Percentile £15.82 £21.24 £17.50
25th Percentile £24.72 £31.29 £21.25
Median hourly rate £38.50 £43.50 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -11.49% +20.00% -34.09%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £75.10 £80.00 £71.85
UK median hourly rate £39.84 £40.25 £35.00
% change year-on-year -1.01% +14.99% -36.36%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 15 September 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 -24 479 £511 -9.23% 636
North of England +7 197 £475 +10.47% 185
Midlands +11 116 £463 +20.13% 149
North West +7 111 £481 +11.74% 114
South East -39 95 £475 +45.48% 157
Yorkshire +14 83 £450 +5.88% 56
West Midlands -9 72 £460 -10.24% 89
South West -33 44 £542 +14.16% 53
East Midlands +14 43 £525 +60.80% 59
East of England -33 26 £425 -15.00% 51
North East -39 3 - - 17
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 76 (7.70%) SharePoint
2 44 (4.46%) Confluence
3 42 (4.26%) IIS
4 25 (2.53%) Apache Airflow
5 24 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
6 21 (2.13%) Apache
7 19 (1.93%) Camunda
8 17 (1.72%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.91%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.61%) Appian
10 6 (0.61%) CMS
11 5 (0.51%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.51%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.51%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.41%) OpenEdge
12 4 (0.41%) Tomcat
12 4 (0.41%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
13 3 (0.30%) nginx
14 2 (0.20%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (5.07%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.04%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.01%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Windchill
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
6 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 33 (3.34%) Dynamics CRM
2 22 (2.23%) Remedy ITSM
3 15 (1.52%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.71%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.71%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.61%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.61%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.41%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.41%) Elite 3E
7 3 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.20%) Endur
8 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.10%) Findur
9 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
9 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
9 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
9 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
9 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 423 (42.86%) Azure
2 210 (21.28%) AWS
3 162 (16.41%) Power Platform
4 118 (11.96%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (9.12%) GitHub
6 58 (5.88%) Azure Data Factory
7 53 (5.37%) Entra ID
8 51 (5.17%) Serverless
9 47 (4.76%) Power Automate
10 43 (4.36%) Dynamics 365
10 43 (4.36%) Microsoft 365
11 39 (3.95%) Snowflake
12 38 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
13 36 (3.65%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 36 (3.65%) GCP
14 35 (3.55%) GitHub Actions
15 23 (2.33%) dbt
15 23 (2.33%) PowerApps
16 22 (2.23%) Azure Functions
16 22 (2.23%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 48 (4.86%) DNS
2 42 (4.26%) DHCP
3 34 (3.44%) Firewall
4 19 (1.93%) VLAN
5 17 (1.72%) SAN
6 15 (1.52%) VPN
7 14 (1.42%) Internet
7 14 (1.42%) SSL
7 14 (1.42%) TCP/IP
8 13 (1.32%) Network Security
9 10 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.91%) SSH
11 6 (0.61%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.61%) IPv4
11 6 (0.61%) IPv6
11 6 (0.61%) Kerberos
11 6 (0.61%) LAN
12 5 (0.51%) VoIP
12 5 (0.51%) WAN
13 3 (0.30%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (16.51%) PostgreSQL
2 131 (13.27%) Power BI
3 101 (10.23%) Relational Database
4 97 (9.83%) Data Warehouse
5 94 (9.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 90 (9.12%) MySQL
7 57 (5.78%) Azure SQL Database
7 57 (5.78%) Oracle Database
8 56 (5.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 55 (5.57%) MongoDB
10 33 (3.34%) Data Lake
11 25 (2.53%) Amazon RDS
12 24 (2.43%) NoSQL
12 24 (2.43%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 22 (2.23%) Redis
14 21 (2.13%) RDBMS
14 21 (2.13%) Tableau
15 18 (1.82%) Metadata
16 16 (1.62%) Star Schema
17 13 (1.32%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 105 (10.64%) Git
2 67 (6.79%) JIRA
3 60 (6.08%) Jenkins
4 32 (3.24%) GitLab
5 23 (2.33%) Maven
5 23 (2.33%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 20 (2.03%) Sonatype Nexus
8 16 (1.62%) Selenium
9 15 (1.52%) REST Assured
9 15 (1.52%) Team Foundation Server
10 13 (1.32%) Postman
11 12 (1.22%) Gradle
11 12 (1.22%) JUnit
11 12 (1.22%) SonarQube
11 12 (1.22%) TeamCity
12 11 (1.11%) Artifactory
12 11 (1.11%) Cucumber
12 11 (1.11%) Cypress.io
12 11 (1.11%) Mockito
General
1 314 (31.81%) Social Skills
2 263 (26.65%) Finance
3 181 (18.34%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (13.07%) Banking
5 73 (7.40%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.46%) Front Office
7 39 (3.95%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 26 (2.63%) Investment Banking
10 21 (2.13%) Retail
11 12 (1.22%) Financial Institution
11 12 (1.22%) Legal
12 9 (0.91%) Back Office
12 9 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
13 8 (0.81%) Billing
13 8 (0.81%) Manufacturing
14 6 (0.61%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.51%) Local Government
15 5 (0.51%) Military
15 5 (0.51%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 319 (32.32%) Developer
2 159 (16.11%) Senior
3 130 (13.17%) DBA
4 80 (8.11%) SQL DBA
5 76 (7.70%) .NET Developer
6 73 (7.40%) C# Developer
6 73 (7.40%) Data Engineer
7 72 (7.29%) Administrator
8 70 (7.09%) Lead
9 55 (5.57%) Senior Developer
10 54 (5.47%) Full-Stack Developer
11 50 (5.07%) Analyst
12 49 (4.96%) Architect
13 47 (4.76%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 45 (4.56%) SQL Developer
15 35 (3.55%) Software Engineer
16 29 (2.94%) Azure Engineer
16 29 (2.94%) Software Developer
17 28 (2.84%) C# .NET Developer
17 28 (2.84%) Oracle DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 277 (28.06%) .NET
2 125 (12.66%) REST
3 88 (8.92%) .NET Framework
4 85 (8.61%) React
5 74 (7.50%) Terraform
6 67 (6.79%) CSS
7 60 (6.08%) ASP.NET
7 60 (6.08%) HTML
8 57 (5.78%) Kafka
9 56 (5.67%) AngularJS
10 54 (5.47%) .NET Core
11 52 (5.27%) RESTful
12 47 (4.76%) JSON
13 38 (3.85%) Web Services
14 37 (3.75%) XML
15 34 (3.44%) Spring Boot
16 30 (3.04%) SOAP
17 29 (2.94%) OAuth
17 29 (2.94%) Spring
18 25 (2.53%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.18%) Cloud Native
1 61 (6.18%) Onboarding
2 51 (5.17%) Data Structures
3 48 (4.86%) Enterprise Software
4 43 (4.36%) Clustering
4 43 (4.36%) Replication
5 40 (4.05%) Self-Motivation
6 38 (3.85%) Product Ownership
7 35 (3.55%) Legacy Systems
8 33 (3.34%) Management Information System
9 30 (3.04%) Data Centre
10 19 (1.93%) Distributed Systems
10 19 (1.93%) PKI
11 17 (1.72%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.42%) Derivative
12 14 (1.42%) Low-Code
13 12 (1.22%) Algorithms
13 12 (1.22%) Fixed Income
14 11 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
14 11 (1.11%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 254 (25.73%) Windows
2 147 (14.89%) Windows Server
3 91 (9.22%) Linux
4 37 (3.75%) Unix
5 15 (1.52%) Solaris
6 13 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.22%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.81%) VMS
9 7 (0.71%) CentOS
9 7 (0.71%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.71%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.71%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.61%) Android
11 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.20%) AIX
12 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 263 (26.65%) DevOps
2 241 (24.42%) Agile
2 241 (24.42%) CI/CD
3 199 (20.16%) Problem-Solving
4 179 (18.14%) Migration
5 152 (15.40%) ETL
6 145 (14.69%) Business Intelligence
7 143 (14.49%) Data Modelling
8 131 (13.27%) Performance Tuning
9 128 (12.97%) AI
10 114 (11.55%) Stakeholder Management
11 104 (10.54%) Disaster Recovery
12 97 (9.83%) Continuous Improvement
13 93 (9.42%) Analytics
13 93 (9.42%) Microservices
14 88 (8.92%) Test Automation
15 87 (8.81%) Software Engineering
16 79 (8.00%) Validation
17 75 (7.60%) Data Pipeline
18 74 (7.50%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 577 (58.46%) SQL
2 277 (28.06%) C#
3 190 (19.25%) Python
4 172 (17.43%) PowerShell
5 156 (15.81%) T-SQL
6 144 (14.59%) JavaScript
7 90 (9.12%) Java
8 61 (6.18%) PL/SQL
9 57 (5.78%) TypeScript
10 30 (3.04%) Bash
11 19 (1.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 17 (1.72%) VB
13 15 (1.52%) VBA
14 12 (1.22%) Scala
14 12 (1.22%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.71%) VB.NET
16 6 (0.61%) Bicep
16 6 (0.61%) PHP
16 6 (0.61%) XPath
17 5 (0.51%) VB6
Qualifications
1 249 (25.23%) Security Cleared
2 187 (18.95%) SC Cleared
3 109 (11.04%) Degree
4 55 (5.57%) Microsoft Certification
5 51 (5.17%) DV Cleared
6 33 (3.34%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.74%) BPSS Clearance
8 26 (2.63%) Azure Certification
9 13 (1.32%) AWS Certification
9 13 (1.32%) ISTQB
10 12 (1.22%) Oracle Certification
11 11 (1.11%) OCP
12 9 (0.91%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 9 (0.91%) Master's Degree
13 8 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.51%) CISSP
14 5 (0.51%) DBS Check
15 4 (0.41%) PhD
16 3 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 3 (0.30%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (9.83%) QA
2 94 (9.52%) Data Quality
3 36 (3.65%) GDPR
4 33 (3.34%) Accessibility
5 25 (2.53%) WCAG
6 22 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (2.03%) NIST
8 17 (1.72%) SLA
9 5 (0.51%) ISO 9000
10 4 (0.41%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 3 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.30%) Basel III
11 3 (0.30%) GRC
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%) SOC 2
12 2 (0.20%) Software Quality Assurance
13 1 (0.10%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 127 (12.87%) Active Directory
2 76 (7.70%) Docker
3 42 (4.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.34%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (1.72%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.01%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.81%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.61%) vSphere
9 4 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.30%) GridGain
10 3 (0.30%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) NFS
11 1 (0.10%) RACF
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 94 (9.52%) Kubernetes
2 44 (4.46%) Ansible
3 20 (2.03%) SCOM
4 14 (1.42%) Data Guard
4 14 (1.42%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (1.32%) HAProxy
6 12 (1.22%) SCCM
7 11 (1.11%) Microsoft Clustering
8 10 (1.01%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 10 (1.01%) WSUS
9 7 (0.71%) Grafana
10 6 (0.61%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.61%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.51%) ITRS Geneos
11 5 (0.51%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.41%) Istio
13 3 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
13 3 (0.30%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 358 (36.27%) Microsoft
2 255 (25.84%) Oracle
3 73 (7.40%) Databricks
4 65 (6.59%) VMware
5 51 (5.17%) ServiceNow
6 45 (4.56%) CyberArk
7 39 (3.95%) Citrix
8 33 (3.34%) SAP
9 30 (3.04%) BeyondTrust
10 22 (2.23%) BMC
10 22 (2.23%) IBM
10 22 (2.23%) Remedy
11 21 (2.13%) Cisco
11 21 (2.13%) Informatica
12 17 (1.72%) Google
13 16 (1.62%) Dynatrace
13 16 (1.62%) Sybase
14 15 (1.52%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.32%) Alteryx
15 13 (1.32%) Splunk