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

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 133 109 59
Rank change year-on-year -24 -50 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 967 699 1,180
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.09% 2.51% 3.58%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.03% 13.89% 19.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 684 509 847
10th Percentile £363 £313 £333
25th Percentile £413 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £496 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% -3.32% -4.65%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £486 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -1.92% -0.85% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 5 6
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.86 £26.83
25th Percentile £18.29 £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 £57.50 £77.50 £60.94
90th Percentile £74.60 £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 6,891 5,032 6,005
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.93% 18.09% 18.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,604 3,464 4,155
10th Percentile £356 £338 £350
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £623 £638 £675
90th Percentile £713 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.19% -2.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 238 76 84
10th Percentile £15.61 £21.11 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.35 £29.21 £21.25
Median hourly rate £38.50 £44.25 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.99% +22.07% -34.09%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.00 £73.08
UK median hourly rate £39.84 £43.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -8.41% +24.29% -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 18 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 18 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 18 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 -30 473 £505 -8.84% 508
North of England +4 192 £475 +10.47% 155
Midlands +12 113 £468 +23.09% 121
North West -2 108 £483 +12.33% 94
South East -39 94 £475 +35.71% 145
Yorkshire +5 80 £450 +5.88% 50
West Midlands -1 72 £460 -8.68% 74
East Midlands +7 40 £550 +68.45% 47
South West -25 40 £630 +40.00% 29
East of England -35 25 £425 -15.00% 31
North East -46 4 £425 -5.56% 13
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 (7.86%) SharePoint
2 43 (4.45%) Confluence
3 40 (4.14%) IIS
4 25 (2.59%) Apache Airflow
5 24 (2.48%) Microsoft Exchange
6 21 (2.17%) Apache
7 18 (1.86%) Apache Spark
7 18 (1.86%) Camunda
8 9 (0.93%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.62%) Appian
9 6 (0.62%) CMS
10 5 (0.52%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.52%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.52%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.41%) OpenEdge
11 4 (0.41%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.31%) nginx
12 3 (0.31%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.21%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 51 (5.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.10%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.03%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.21%) 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 (3.41%) Dynamics CRM
2 22 (2.28%) Remedy ITSM
3 15 (1.55%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.72%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.72%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.62%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
6 5 (0.52%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.41%) Elite 3E
8 3 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
9 2 (0.21%) Endur
9 2 (0.21%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
9 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
10 1 (0.10%) Findur
10 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
10 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
10 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
10 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
10 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 414 (42.81%) Azure
2 206 (21.30%) AWS
3 156 (16.13%) Power Platform
4 117 (12.10%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (9.31%) GitHub
6 54 (5.58%) Azure Data Factory
7 53 (5.48%) Entra ID
8 50 (5.17%) Serverless
9 45 (4.65%) Power Automate
10 43 (4.45%) Dynamics 365
10 43 (4.45%) Microsoft 365
11 39 (4.03%) Snowflake
12 35 (3.62%) Azure Monitor
12 35 (3.62%) GCP
12 35 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
13 34 (3.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 22 (2.28%) dbt
14 22 (2.28%) GitHub Copilot
14 22 (2.28%) PowerApps
14 22 (2.28%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 48 (4.96%) DNS
2 42 (4.34%) DHCP
3 34 (3.52%) Firewall
4 19 (1.96%) VLAN
5 17 (1.76%) SAN
6 15 (1.55%) Internet
6 15 (1.55%) VPN
7 14 (1.45%) SSL
7 14 (1.45%) TCP/IP
8 13 (1.34%) Network Security
9 10 (1.03%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.93%) SSH
11 6 (0.62%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.62%) IPv4
11 6 (0.62%) IPv6
11 6 (0.62%) Kerberos
11 6 (0.62%) LAN
12 5 (0.52%) VoIP
12 5 (0.52%) WAN
13 3 (0.31%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (16.65%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (13.03%) Power BI
3 93 (9.62%) Relational Database
4 92 (9.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 91 (9.41%) Data Warehouse
6 89 (9.20%) MySQL
7 59 (6.10%) Oracle Database
8 55 (5.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 54 (5.58%) Azure SQL Database
9 54 (5.58%) MongoDB
10 33 (3.41%) Data Lake
11 24 (2.48%) Amazon RDS
11 24 (2.48%) NoSQL
12 22 (2.28%) Redis
12 22 (2.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 20 (2.07%) RDBMS
13 20 (2.07%) Tableau
14 19 (1.96%) Metadata
15 14 (1.45%) Star Schema
16 13 (1.34%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 104 (10.75%) Git
2 67 (6.93%) JIRA
3 57 (5.89%) Jenkins
4 32 (3.31%) GitLab
5 23 (2.38%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 20 (2.07%) Maven
8 17 (1.76%) Sonatype Nexus
9 16 (1.65%) Selenium
10 15 (1.55%) REST Assured
10 15 (1.55%) Team Foundation Server
11 13 (1.34%) Postman
12 12 (1.24%) Claude Code
12 12 (1.24%) Gradle
12 12 (1.24%) JUnit
12 12 (1.24%) SonarQube
12 12 (1.24%) TeamCity
13 11 (1.14%) Artifactory
13 11 (1.14%) Cypress.io
13 11 (1.14%) Mockito
General
1 309 (31.95%) Social Skills
2 255 (26.37%) Finance
3 177 (18.30%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (13.24%) Banking
5 72 (7.45%) Public Sector
6 41 (4.24%) Front Office
7 39 (4.03%) Documentation Skills
8 28 (2.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 26 (2.69%) Investment Banking
10 21 (2.17%) Retail
11 11 (1.14%) Legal
12 10 (1.03%) Back Office
12 10 (1.03%) Financial Institution
13 9 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
14 8 (0.83%) Billing
14 8 (0.83%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
16 5 (0.52%) Local Government
16 5 (0.52%) Military
16 5 (0.52%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 310 (32.06%) Developer
2 159 (16.44%) Senior
3 129 (13.34%) DBA
4 78 (8.07%) SQL DBA
5 72 (7.45%) Data Engineer
6 71 (7.34%) .NET Developer
6 71 (7.34%) Administrator
6 71 (7.34%) C# Developer
7 68 (7.03%) Lead
8 55 (5.69%) Full-Stack Developer
9 52 (5.38%) Senior Developer
10 50 (5.17%) Analyst
11 48 (4.96%) Architect
12 47 (4.86%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 44 (4.55%) SQL Developer
14 35 (3.62%) Software Engineer
15 28 (2.90%) Oracle DBA
16 26 (2.69%) Azure Engineer
16 26 (2.69%) C# .NET Developer
16 26 (2.69%) SC Cleared DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 269 (27.82%) .NET
2 123 (12.72%) REST
3 85 (8.79%) .NET Framework
4 84 (8.69%) React
5 73 (7.55%) Terraform
6 66 (6.83%) CSS
7 59 (6.10%) ASP.NET
7 59 (6.10%) HTML
8 57 (5.89%) Kafka
9 55 (5.69%) AngularJS
10 53 (5.48%) .NET Core
11 48 (4.96%) RESTful
12 46 (4.76%) JSON
13 38 (3.93%) Web Services
14 36 (3.72%) XML
15 34 (3.52%) Spring Boot
16 30 (3.10%) SOAP
17 29 (3.00%) OAuth
17 29 (3.00%) Spring
18 26 (2.69%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.31%) Onboarding
2 59 (6.10%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.17%) Data Structures
4 49 (5.07%) Enterprise Software
5 43 (4.45%) Clustering
6 42 (4.34%) Replication
7 41 (4.24%) Self-Motivation
8 35 (3.62%) Product Ownership
9 33 (3.41%) Legacy Systems
9 33 (3.41%) Management Information System
10 30 (3.10%) Data Centre
11 19 (1.96%) Distributed Systems
11 19 (1.96%) PKI
12 17 (1.76%) Virtual Team
13 14 (1.45%) Derivative
13 14 (1.45%) Low-Code
14 12 (1.24%) Algorithms
15 11 (1.14%) NHS
15 11 (1.14%) Taxonomies
16 10 (1.03%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 251 (25.96%) Windows
2 144 (14.89%) Windows Server
3 88 (9.10%) Linux
4 36 (3.72%) Unix
5 16 (1.65%) Solaris
6 13 (1.34%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.24%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.83%) VMS
9 7 (0.72%) CentOS
9 7 (0.72%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.72%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.62%) Android
11 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.21%) AIX
12 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 256 (26.47%) DevOps
2 237 (24.51%) CI/CD
3 236 (24.41%) Agile
4 193 (19.96%) Problem-Solving
5 177 (18.30%) Migration
6 144 (14.89%) ETL
7 138 (14.27%) Business Intelligence
8 137 (14.17%) Data Modelling
9 129 (13.34%) Performance Tuning
10 126 (13.03%) AI
11 114 (11.79%) Stakeholder Management
12 100 (10.34%) Disaster Recovery
13 97 (10.03%) Continuous Improvement
14 91 (9.41%) Microservices
15 89 (9.20%) Analytics
16 87 (9.00%) Software Engineering
16 87 (9.00%) Test Automation
17 77 (7.96%) Validation
18 74 (7.65%) Full-Stack Development
18 74 (7.65%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 568 (58.74%) SQL
2 272 (28.13%) C#
3 187 (19.34%) Python
4 169 (17.48%) PowerShell
5 154 (15.93%) T-SQL
6 145 (14.99%) JavaScript
7 86 (8.89%) Java
8 61 (6.31%) PL/SQL
9 59 (6.10%) TypeScript
10 30 (3.10%) Bash
11 18 (1.86%) VB
12 17 (1.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (1.65%) VBA
14 12 (1.24%) Scala
15 10 (1.03%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.72%) VB.NET
17 6 (0.62%) Bicep
17 6 (0.62%) PHP
17 6 (0.62%) XPath
18 5 (0.52%) VB6
Qualifications
1 246 (25.44%) Security Cleared
2 184 (19.03%) SC Cleared
3 108 (11.17%) Degree
4 55 (5.69%) Microsoft Certification
5 51 (5.27%) DV Cleared
6 32 (3.31%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.79%) Azure Certification
7 27 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (1.45%) AWS Certification
9 13 (1.34%) ISTQB
10 12 (1.24%) Oracle Certification
11 11 (1.14%) OCP
12 9 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 9 (0.93%) Master's Degree
13 8 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
14 5 (0.52%) CISSP
14 5 (0.52%) DBS Check
15 4 (0.41%) PhD
16 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 91 (9.41%) Data Quality
2 90 (9.31%) QA
3 35 (3.62%) GDPR
4 33 (3.41%) Accessibility
5 25 (2.59%) WCAG
6 22 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (2.07%) NIST
8 17 (1.76%) SLA
9 5 (0.52%) ISO 9000
10 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.31%) Basel III
10 3 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
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%) GRC
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
12 1 (0.10%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 127 (13.13%) Active Directory
2 73 (7.55%) Docker
3 42 (4.34%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.41%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (1.76%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.03%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.62%) vSphere
9 4 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.31%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) HDFS
11 1 (0.10%) NFS
11 1 (0.10%) RACF
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 90 (9.31%) Kubernetes
2 43 (4.45%) Ansible
3 20 (2.07%) SCOM
4 14 (1.45%) Data Guard
4 14 (1.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (1.34%) HAProxy
6 12 (1.24%) SCCM
7 11 (1.14%) Microsoft Clustering
8 10 (1.03%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 10 (1.03%) WSUS
9 7 (0.72%) Grafana
10 6 (0.62%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.52%) ITRS Geneos
11 5 (0.52%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.41%) Istio
13 3 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.31%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
13 3 (0.31%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 346 (35.78%) Microsoft
2 253 (26.16%) Oracle
3 74 (7.65%) Databricks
4 65 (6.72%) VMware
5 50 (5.17%) ServiceNow
6 45 (4.65%) CyberArk
7 40 (4.14%) Citrix
8 32 (3.31%) SAP
9 30 (3.10%) BeyondTrust
10 22 (2.28%) BMC
10 22 (2.28%) IBM
10 22 (2.28%) Informatica
10 22 (2.28%) Remedy
11 21 (2.17%) Cisco
12 16 (1.65%) Dynatrace
12 16 (1.65%) Google
13 15 (1.55%) Red Hat
14 13 (1.34%) Alteryx
14 13 (1.34%) Splunk
14 13 (1.34%) Sybase