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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 94 66
Rank change year-on-year -33 -28 -17
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 766 689 1,179
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 2.82% 3.12%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.91% 14.74% 19.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 525 510 830
10th Percentile £358 £344 £325
25th Percentile £406 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.02% -2.24% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £714 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £502 £525
% change year-on-year -2.79% -4.48% -
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% -3.59%
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% -7.75%

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 5,933 4,673 6,179
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.03% 19.10% 16.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,117 3,269 4,434
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £528 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% +0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £662
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 120 89 155
10th Percentile £18.23 £20.53 £14.14
25th Percentile £27.06 £24.25 £20.77
Median hourly rate £50.50 £32.81 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +53.92% -18.48% -30.00%
75th Percentile £75.00 £64.50 £55.19
90th Percentile £85.33 £70.00 £75.92
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £31.64 £40.25
% change year-on-year +61.19% -21.39% -29.32%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 -16 457 £500 -9.09% 133
North of England -37 104 £450 +7.27% 122
South East -38 100 £485 -3.00% 127
North West -18 63 £463 +5.71% 65
Yorkshire -32 39 £400 - 50
Midlands -76 35 £450 -10.00% 60
South West -28 33 £444 -19.32% 48
West Midlands -65 23 £450 -21.74% 28
East of England -8 20 £600 +14.83% 38
East Midlands -39 10 £375 -1.45% 32
North East -7 3 £475 +14.11% 14
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 34 (4.44%) SharePoint
2 33 (4.31%) IIS
3 23 (3.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (2.22%) Confluence
5 13 (1.70%) Apache Spark
5 13 (1.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 11 (1.44%) Apache
6 11 (1.44%) WebSphere
7 10 (1.31%) Appian
8 9 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (1.17%) CMS
9 7 (0.91%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.78%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.52%) Camunda
12 3 (0.39%) 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 42 (5.48%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.83%) MS Visio
3 13 (1.70%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.13%) InDesign
6 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (1.04%) Advent Geneva
1 8 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.91%) BusinessWorks
2 7 (0.91%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.78%) Salesforce CRM
4 5 (0.65%) Remedy ITSM
5 4 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.39%) Dynamics AX
6 3 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.39%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.39%) 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%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.13%) Orchestrade
8 1 (0.13%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 330 (43.08%) Azure
2 164 (21.41%) AWS
3 129 (16.84%) Power Platform
4 99 (12.92%) Azure DevOps
5 73 (9.53%) Azure Data Factory
6 59 (7.70%) GitHub
7 45 (5.87%) GCP
8 41 (5.35%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 35 (4.57%) Microsoft 365
10 32 (4.18%) SaaS
11 30 (3.92%) Snowflake
12 28 (3.66%) Amazon S3
13 24 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
14 23 (3.00%) Power Automate
15 22 (2.87%) Serverless
16 21 (2.74%) Amazon EC2
16 21 (2.74%) IaaS
17 20 (2.61%) Dynamics 365
18 18 (2.35%) AWS CloudFormation
18 18 (2.35%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 21 (2.74%) DNS
2 20 (2.61%) Firewall
3 14 (1.83%) DHCP
4 12 (1.57%) Internet
4 12 (1.57%) TCP/IP
5 11 (1.44%) VPN
6 8 (1.04%) HTTP
6 8 (1.04%) SAN
7 7 (0.91%) LAN
8 6 (0.78%) NetScaler
8 6 (0.78%) VLAN
8 6 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
9 4 (0.52%) FTP
9 4 (0.52%) RS-232
9 4 (0.52%) X.400
10 3 (0.39%) SSH
10 3 (0.39%) VoIP
10 3 (0.39%) WAN
11 2 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
11 2 (0.26%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (14.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 108 (14.10%) Power BI
3 101 (13.19%) PostgreSQL
4 96 (12.53%) Data Warehouse
5 91 (11.88%) Relational Database
6 63 (8.22%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 61 (7.96%) Oracle Database
8 56 (7.31%) Azure SQL Database
9 54 (7.05%) MySQL
10 50 (6.53%) Data Lake
11 35 (4.57%) NoSQL
12 34 (4.44%) MongoDB
13 31 (4.05%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 25 (3.26%) DB2
14 25 (3.26%) RDBMS
15 23 (3.00%) Big Data
16 22 (2.87%) Amazon RDS
17 21 (2.74%) Metadata
18 18 (2.35%) Delta Lake
19 16 (2.09%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 64 (8.36%) Git
2 47 (6.14%) JIRA
3 34 (4.44%) Jenkins
4 26 (3.39%) Visual Studio
5 22 (2.87%) GitLab
6 12 (1.57%) TeamCity
7 11 (1.44%) Cucumber
7 11 (1.44%) Team Foundation Server
8 10 (1.31%) Octopus Deploy
8 10 (1.31%) Postman
9 9 (1.17%) ERwin
10 8 (1.04%) JUnit
10 8 (1.04%) Maven
10 8 (1.04%) MLflow
10 8 (1.04%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 7 (0.91%) Mockito
11 7 (0.91%) Selenium
11 7 (0.91%) SpecFlow
12 6 (0.78%) Chocolatey
12 6 (0.78%) REST Assured
General
1 225 (29.37%) Social Skills
2 184 (24.02%) Finance
3 124 (16.19%) Analytical Skills
4 92 (12.01%) Banking
5 60 (7.83%) Public Sector
6 34 (4.44%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (2.87%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 20 (2.61%) Investment Banking
9 19 (2.48%) Front Office
10 17 (2.22%) Legal
11 13 (1.70%) Financial Institution
11 13 (1.70%) Retail
12 10 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.17%) Advertising
14 7 (0.91%) Local Government
15 6 (0.78%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.65%) Law
16 5 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
17 4 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
17 4 (0.52%) Military
Job Titles
1 238 (31.07%) Developer
2 110 (14.36%) Senior
3 102 (13.32%) Data Engineer
4 78 (10.18%) DBA
5 74 (9.66%) C# Developer
6 69 (9.01%) Architect
7 54 (7.05%) .NET Developer
8 45 (5.87%) SQL DBA
9 38 (4.96%) Lead
10 37 (4.83%) Analyst
11 34 (4.44%) Senior Developer
12 30 (3.92%) Azure Engineer
12 30 (3.92%) Senior Data Engineer
13 29 (3.79%) Full-Stack Developer
14 25 (3.26%) Administrator
14 25 (3.26%) Software Engineer
15 24 (3.13%) SQL Developer
16 22 (2.87%) Data Architect
17 21 (2.74%) Consultant
18 20 (2.61%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (27.55%) .NET
2 94 (12.27%) .NET Framework
3 86 (11.23%) REST
4 60 (7.83%) React
5 56 (7.31%) AngularJS
6 49 (6.40%) RESTful
7 47 (6.14%) HTML
8 44 (5.74%) CSS
9 39 (5.09%) XML
10 38 (4.96%) .NET Core
11 35 (4.57%) ASP.NET
11 35 (4.57%) Kafka
12 28 (3.66%) Web Services
13 25 (3.26%) Entity Framework
14 22 (2.87%) OAuth
15 21 (2.74%) WPF
16 20 (2.61%) Spring
16 20 (2.61%) YAML
17 19 (2.48%) SOAP
18 18 (2.35%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 54 (7.05%) Legacy Systems
2 35 (4.57%) Cloud Native
3 28 (3.66%) Replication
4 26 (3.39%) Data Structures
5 24 (3.13%) Enterprise Software
6 21 (2.74%) Onboarding
7 20 (2.61%) Management Information System
8 16 (2.09%) Clustering
9 12 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
10 11 (1.44%) Legacy Code
10 11 (1.44%) Product Ownership
10 11 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
11 10 (1.31%) Credit Risk
11 10 (1.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 10 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.31%) Low-Code
11 10 (1.31%) NHS
11 10 (1.31%) Reinsurance
12 9 (1.17%) Derivative
12 9 (1.17%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 148 (19.32%) Windows
2 82 (10.70%) Windows Server
3 73 (9.53%) Linux
4 33 (4.31%) Unix
5 11 (1.44%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (1.17%) Windows 10
7 8 (1.04%) AIX
7 8 (1.04%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.65%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.39%) Android
10 3 (0.39%) 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
1 181 (23.63%) CI/CD
2 179 (23.37%) DevOps
3 171 (22.32%) ETL
4 163 (21.28%) Problem-Solving
5 160 (20.89%) Agile
6 148 (19.32%) Business Intelligence
7 136 (17.75%) Data Modelling
8 124 (16.19%) Migration
9 92 (12.01%) Analytics
10 83 (10.84%) Performance Tuning
11 82 (10.70%) Disaster Recovery
12 78 (10.18%) Data Engineering
13 77 (10.05%) Data Pipeline
14 69 (9.01%) Data Analysis
15 65 (8.49%) Microservices
15 65 (8.49%) Test Automation
16 64 (8.36%) Data Governance
17 63 (8.22%) Data Integration
18 62 (8.09%) AI
19 58 (7.57%) Data Migration
Programming Languages
1 452 (59.01%) SQL
2 189 (24.67%) C#
3 174 (22.72%) Python
4 109 (14.23%) T-SQL
5 88 (11.49%) PowerShell
6 65 (8.49%) JavaScript
7 64 (8.36%) Java
8 58 (7.57%) PL/SQL
9 44 (5.74%) TypeScript
10 33 (4.31%) Bash
11 24 (3.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 19 (2.48%) Shell Script
13 16 (2.09%) VB
14 15 (1.96%) Bicep
14 15 (1.96%) Korn
15 12 (1.57%) VBA
16 11 (1.44%) PHP
17 8 (1.04%) Scala
18 7 (0.91%) XPath
19 4 (0.52%) Delphi
Qualifications
1 148 (19.32%) Security Cleared
2 110 (14.36%) SC Cleared
3 77 (10.05%) Degree
4 30 (3.92%) Microsoft Certification
5 27 (3.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (2.61%) Azure Certification
7 17 (2.22%) DV Cleared
8 14 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.04%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.65%) CCA
10 5 (0.65%) Citrix Certification
10 5 (0.65%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (0.65%) OCP
10 5 (0.65%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.52%) CISSP
11 4 (0.52%) MCITP
11 4 (0.52%) MCTS
11 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (11.36%) Data Quality
1 87 (11.36%) QA
2 19 (2.48%) GDPR
3 14 (1.83%) SLA
4 8 (1.04%) NIST
5 5 (0.65%) Accessibility
5 5 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 5 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.52%) IFRS
6 4 (0.52%) WCAG
7 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
7 3 (0.39%) IFRS 17
7 3 (0.39%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.26%) Basel III
8 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 2 (0.26%) EMIR
8 2 (0.26%) GAAP
8 2 (0.26%) HIPAA
8 2 (0.26%) MiFID
8 2 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 81 (10.57%) Docker
2 57 (7.44%) Active Directory
3 16 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.96%) Hyper-V
5 14 (1.83%) Oracle RAC
6 11 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (1.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.78%) KVM
9 5 (0.65%) XenApp
9 5 (0.65%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.52%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.39%) GridGain
12 2 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
13 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
13 1 (0.13%) zsh
Systems Management
1 81 (10.57%) Kubernetes
2 51 (6.66%) Terraform
3 18 (2.35%) Ansible
4 15 (1.96%) Grafana
4 15 (1.96%) Oracle RMAN
5 13 (1.70%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 13 (1.70%) SCCM
6 10 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.17%) Puppet
8 7 (0.91%) TIBCO Hawk
9 6 (0.78%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.65%) SCVMM
11 4 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.52%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.39%) Control-M
12 3 (0.39%) Foglight
12 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
12 3 (0.39%) WSUS
Vendors
1 229 (29.90%) Microsoft
2 224 (29.24%) Oracle
3 61 (7.96%) Databricks
4 49 (6.40%) Citrix
5 33 (4.31%) ServiceNow
6 31 (4.05%) Informatica
7 30 (3.92%) VMware
8 20 (2.61%) Google
8 20 (2.61%) IBM
8 20 (2.61%) SAP
9 12 (1.57%) Sybase
9 12 (1.57%) UiPath
10 11 (1.44%) CyberArk
11 10 (1.31%) OpenAI
12 9 (1.17%) Dynatrace
13 8 (1.04%) Advent
13 8 (1.04%) PagerDuty
13 8 (1.04%) Sitecore
13 8 (1.04%) SolarWinds
13 8 (1.04%) TIBCO