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

6 months to
5 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 110 65
Rank change year-on-year -25 -45 -9
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 952 688 1,090
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 2.46% 3.36%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.15% 13.59% 18.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 666 506 776
10th Percentile £354 £313 £330
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £496 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.11% -0.90% -6.98%
75th Percentile £604 £626 £625
90th Percentile £713 £744 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £498 £500
% change year-on-year -2.11% -0.40% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 35 4 6
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.83 £26.83
25th Percentile £17.97 £20.95 £35.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £21.27 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +123.51% -62.19% +7.14%
75th Percentile £56.50 £35.52 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £60.71 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £24.25 £21.27 £47.50
% change year-on-year +14.01% -55.22% -9.52%

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 6,728 5,064 5,900
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.59% 18.13% 18.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,464 3,465 4,019
10th Percentile £350 £338 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -7.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £669
90th Percentile £719 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £501 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.24% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 254 76 84
10th Percentile £16.21 £20.89 £17.50
25th Percentile £22.87 £29.00 £22.30
Median hourly rate £41.71 £40.25 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year +3.64% +11.02% -33.49%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.68 £80.00 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £38.85 £35.00
% change year-on-year +7.38% +10.99% -33.33%

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 5 October 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 5 October 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 5 October 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 -26 476 £500 -9.09% 530
North of England +6 184 £475 +6.74% 179
Midlands +13 107 £461 +24.66% 131
North West +4 105 £500 +11.73% 91
South East -41 92 £475 +35.71% 174
West Midlands -1 74 £460 -1.60% 76
Yorkshire 0 72 £450 +5.88% 71
South West -31 37 £700 +51.35% 44
East Midlands +6 33 £525 +60.80% 54
East of England -35 19 £425 -15.00% 62
North East - 7 £425 - 20
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 70 (7.35%) SharePoint
2 46 (4.83%) Confluence
3 37 (3.89%) IIS
4 24 (2.52%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (2.31%) Microsoft Exchange
6 19 (2.00%) Apache
7 18 (1.89%) Apache Spark
8 17 (1.79%) Camunda
9 9 (0.95%) Oracle Workflow
10 7 (0.74%) CMS
11 5 (0.53%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.53%) Appian
11 5 (0.53%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.53%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.53%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.42%) Traefik
12 4 (0.42%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.32%) nginx
13 3 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.21%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 49 (5.15%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.15%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.05%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.32%) Windchill
5 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 30 (3.15%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (2.00%) Remedy ITSM
3 15 (1.58%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.74%) Aladdin
4 7 (0.74%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.74%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
6 5 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
7 4 (0.42%) Elite 3E
8 3 (0.32%) Dynamics NAV
8 3 (0.32%) Teamcenter
9 2 (0.21%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
10 1 (0.11%) FIS Private Capital Suite
10 1 (0.11%) NetSuite
10 1 (0.11%) Oracle Retail
10 1 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
10 1 (0.11%) Salesforce CRM
10 1 (0.11%) SAP Hybris
10 1 (0.11%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 411 (43.17%) Azure
2 200 (21.01%) AWS
3 156 (16.39%) Power Platform
4 118 (12.39%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (9.45%) GitHub
6 57 (5.99%) Entra ID
7 52 (5.46%) Serverless
8 49 (5.15%) Azure Data Factory
9 43 (4.52%) Power Automate
10 42 (4.41%) Microsoft 365
11 41 (4.31%) Dynamics 365
12 39 (4.10%) GCP
13 38 (3.99%) Snowflake
14 36 (3.78%) Azure Monitor
15 34 (3.57%) Azure Synapse Analytics
16 31 (3.26%) GitHub Actions
17 24 (2.52%) GitHub Copilot
18 23 (2.42%) Amazon S3
18 23 (2.42%) Azure Functions
19 22 (2.31%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 45 (4.73%) DNS
2 38 (3.99%) DHCP
3 32 (3.36%) Firewall
4 16 (1.68%) SAN
4 16 (1.68%) SSL
5 15 (1.58%) VLAN
6 13 (1.37%) Internet
6 13 (1.37%) TCP/IP
6 13 (1.37%) VPN
7 12 (1.26%) Network Security
8 9 (0.95%) SSH
8 9 (0.95%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.63%) HTTPS
9 6 (0.63%) LAN
10 5 (0.53%) Kerberos
10 5 (0.53%) VoIP
10 5 (0.53%) WAN
11 3 (0.32%) IPv4
11 3 (0.32%) IPv6
11 3 (0.32%) Reverse Proxy
Database & Business Intelligence
1 156 (16.39%) PostgreSQL
2 128 (13.45%) Power BI
3 99 (10.40%) MySQL
4 97 (10.19%) Relational Database
5 89 (9.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 86 (9.03%) Data Warehouse
7 56 (5.88%) Azure SQL Database
7 56 (5.88%) Oracle Database
7 56 (5.88%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 55 (5.78%) MongoDB
9 32 (3.36%) Data Lake
10 29 (3.05%) Amazon RDS
11 23 (2.42%) NoSQL
12 20 (2.10%) RDBMS
12 20 (2.10%) Redis
12 20 (2.10%) Tableau
13 19 (2.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 18 (1.89%) Metadata
15 15 (1.58%) Amazon Aurora
16 12 (1.26%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 113 (11.87%) Git
2 72 (7.56%) JIRA
3 53 (5.57%) Jenkins
4 32 (3.36%) GitLab
5 23 (2.42%) Visual Studio
6 20 (2.10%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 18 (1.89%) Maven
7 18 (1.89%) Sonatype Nexus
7 18 (1.89%) Team Foundation Server
8 17 (1.79%) REST Assured
8 17 (1.79%) Selenium
9 14 (1.47%) Claude Code
9 14 (1.47%) Gradle
9 14 (1.47%) Postman
10 13 (1.37%) SonarQube
11 12 (1.26%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.26%) Cypress.io
11 12 (1.26%) JUnit
11 12 (1.26%) Mockito
12 11 (1.16%) WebDriver
General
1 305 (32.04%) Social Skills
2 254 (26.68%) Finance
3 173 (18.17%) Analytical Skills
4 125 (13.13%) Banking
5 71 (7.46%) Public Sector
6 40 (4.20%) Documentation Skills
7 38 (3.99%) Front Office
8 30 (3.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 22 (2.31%) Retail
10 21 (2.21%) Investment Banking
11 13 (1.37%) Legal
12 12 (1.26%) Financial Institution
13 11 (1.16%) Back Office
14 9 (0.95%) Manufacturing
15 8 (0.84%) Billing
16 7 (0.74%) Law
17 6 (0.63%) Presentation Skills
17 6 (0.63%) Publishing
18 5 (0.53%) Military
18 5 (0.53%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 305 (32.04%) Developer
2 155 (16.28%) Senior
3 130 (13.66%) DBA
4 78 (8.19%) SQL DBA
5 72 (7.56%) Administrator
6 69 (7.25%) C# Developer
7 68 (7.14%) .NET Developer
8 65 (6.83%) Data Engineer
9 64 (6.72%) Lead
10 54 (5.67%) Full-Stack Developer
11 53 (5.57%) Senior Developer
12 52 (5.46%) Analyst
13 49 (5.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 45 (4.73%) Architect
15 42 (4.41%) SQL Developer
16 34 (3.57%) Software Engineer
17 28 (2.94%) Azure Engineer
18 27 (2.84%) C# .NET Developer
18 27 (2.84%) SC Cleared DBA
19 26 (2.73%) Cloud Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 276 (28.99%) .NET
2 130 (13.66%) REST
3 85 (8.93%) .NET Framework
4 81 (8.51%) React
5 74 (7.77%) Terraform
6 66 (6.93%) CSS
7 60 (6.30%) ASP.NET
7 60 (6.30%) HTML
8 58 (6.09%) .NET Core
9 57 (5.99%) AngularJS
10 56 (5.88%) Kafka
11 52 (5.46%) RESTful
12 50 (5.25%) JSON
13 44 (4.62%) Web Services
14 43 (4.52%) XML
15 38 (3.99%) SOAP
16 34 (3.57%) Spring Boot
17 32 (3.36%) OAuth
18 28 (2.94%) Spring
19 25 (2.63%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 59 (6.20%) Cloud Native
1 59 (6.20%) Onboarding
2 55 (5.78%) Enterprise Software
3 48 (5.04%) Data Structures
4 43 (4.52%) Replication
5 42 (4.41%) Clustering
6 41 (4.31%) Product Ownership
7 40 (4.20%) Self-Motivation
8 37 (3.89%) Data Centre
9 35 (3.68%) Management Information System
10 29 (3.05%) Legacy Systems
11 19 (2.00%) PKI
12 18 (1.89%) Distributed Systems
13 14 (1.47%) Derivative
13 14 (1.47%) Low-Code
13 14 (1.47%) Virtual Team
14 13 (1.37%) Algorithms
15 11 (1.16%) Taxonomies
16 10 (1.05%) Fixed Income
16 10 (1.05%) Legacy Applications
Operating Systems
1 252 (26.47%) Windows
2 150 (15.76%) Windows Server
3 94 (9.87%) Linux
4 35 (3.68%) Unix
5 17 (1.79%) Solaris
6 13 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (1.16%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.84%) VMS
9 7 (0.74%) CentOS
9 7 (0.74%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.63%) Android
10 6 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.42%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.21%) AIX
13 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.11%) SUSE
14 1 (0.11%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 253 (26.58%) DevOps
2 240 (25.21%) Agile
3 237 (24.89%) CI/CD
4 189 (19.85%) Problem-Solving
5 180 (18.91%) Migration
6 139 (14.60%) Business Intelligence
7 134 (14.08%) ETL
8 131 (13.76%) Performance Tuning
9 128 (13.45%) Data Modelling
10 126 (13.24%) AI
11 119 (12.50%) Stakeholder Management
12 111 (11.66%) Continuous Improvement
13 104 (10.92%) Disaster Recovery
14 90 (9.45%) Microservices
15 86 (9.03%) Test Automation
16 84 (8.82%) Analytics
16 84 (8.82%) Software Engineering
17 83 (8.72%) Validation
18 73 (7.67%) Mentoring
19 71 (7.46%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 575 (60.40%) SQL
2 277 (29.10%) C#
3 176 (18.49%) Python
4 171 (17.96%) PowerShell
5 158 (16.60%) T-SQL
6 146 (15.34%) JavaScript
7 79 (8.30%) Java
8 61 (6.41%) TypeScript
9 56 (5.88%) PL/SQL
10 34 (3.57%) Bash
11 16 (1.68%) VB
12 15 (1.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 14 (1.47%) VBA
14 10 (1.05%) Shell Script
15 8 (0.84%) Bicep
15 8 (0.84%) PHP
15 8 (0.84%) Scala
16 7 (0.74%) Go
16 7 (0.74%) VB.NET
17 6 (0.63%) XPath
Qualifications
1 238 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 175 (18.38%) SC Cleared
3 106 (11.13%) Degree
4 57 (5.99%) Microsoft Certification
5 51 (5.36%) DV Cleared
6 33 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
7 28 (2.94%) Azure Certification
8 25 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (1.58%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.37%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.26%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.16%) OCP
13 9 (0.95%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 9 (0.95%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 9 (0.95%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.53%) DBS Check
15 4 (0.42%) CISSP
15 4 (0.42%) PhD
16 3 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 3 (0.32%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (9.87%) QA
2 82 (8.61%) Data Quality
3 35 (3.68%) GDPR
4 34 (3.57%) Accessibility
5 25 (2.63%) WCAG
6 21 (2.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (2.10%) NIST
8 16 (1.68%) SLA
9 5 (0.53%) ISO 9000
10 3 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.32%) Basel III
10 3 (0.32%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.21%) COREP
11 2 (0.21%) FINREP
11 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.11%) GMP
12 1 (0.11%) HL7
System Software
1 127 (13.34%) Active Directory
2 67 (7.04%) Docker
3 38 (3.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 32 (3.36%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (1.79%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.05%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.74%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.63%) vSphere
9 5 (0.53%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.32%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.32%) Postfix
12 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.11%) HDFS
12 1 (0.11%) SRDF
12 1 (0.11%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 80 (8.40%) Kubernetes
2 45 (4.73%) Ansible
3 20 (2.10%) SCOM
4 14 (1.47%) Data Guard
4 14 (1.47%) Microsoft Intune
5 11 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
5 11 (1.16%) SCCM
6 9 (0.95%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 8 (0.84%) HAProxy
7 8 (0.84%) Single Sign-On
8 7 (0.74%) Grafana
8 7 (0.74%) Istio
8 7 (0.74%) WSUS
9 6 (0.63%) Failover Clustering
9 6 (0.63%) Prometheus
10 5 (0.53%) ITRS Geneos
10 5 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
11 3 (0.32%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
11 3 (0.32%) PowerCLI
11 3 (0.32%) Puppet
Vendors
1 348 (36.55%) Microsoft
2 254 (26.68%) Oracle
3 73 (7.67%) Databricks
4 63 (6.62%) VMware
5 44 (4.62%) CyberArk
5 44 (4.62%) ServiceNow
6 35 (3.68%) Citrix
7 31 (3.26%) SAP
8 29 (3.05%) BeyondTrust
9 26 (2.73%) IBM
10 21 (2.21%) Cisco
11 20 (2.10%) Informatica
12 19 (2.00%) BMC
12 19 (2.00%) Remedy
13 16 (1.68%) Google
14 15 (1.58%) Dynatrace
14 15 (1.58%) Red Hat
15 14 (1.47%) Splunk
16 12 (1.26%) Alteryx
17 11 (1.16%) SolarWinds