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

 6 months to
13 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 82 66
Rank change year-on-year -43 -16 -16
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 762 720 1,190
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.09% 2.92% 3.14%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.97% 15.26% 19.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 524 531 842
10th Percentile £356 £350 £325
25th Percentile £406 £408 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.88% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £713 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 7 28
10th Percentile £12.95 £25.79 £20.65
25th Percentile £20.75 £43.29 £39.41
Median hourly rate £27.44 £63.75 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -56.95% +58.37% -7.47%
75th Percentile £60.25 £65.31 £59.88
90th Percentile £76.00 £65.62 £65.10
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £43.93 £40.25
% change year-on-year +10.92% +9.13% -9.17%

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 5,875 4,717 6,169
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.08% 19.12% 16.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,078 3,292 4,413
10th Percentile £346 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £530 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.66% +0.95% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £663
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 116 87 157
10th Percentile £18.13 £20.21 £14.22
25th Percentile £26.12 £24.25 £20.77
Median hourly rate £49.36 £35.00 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year +41.03% -13.04% -32.92%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £58.48
90th Percentile £85.13 £71.50 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.25
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.47% -30.00%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -31 456 £500 -9.09% 137
South East -42 102 £482 -3.60% 140
North of England -33 99 £450 +5.88% 108
North West -24 60 £466 +6.57% 62
Yorkshire -31 37 £400 -0.06% 42
Midlands -79 32 £450 -10.00% 65
South West -36 31 £488 -11.36% 56
West Midlands -69 23 £450 -21.74% 26
East of England -13 20 £600 +14.83% 38
East Midlands -41 7 £425 +11.70% 39
North East -12 3 £475 +14.11% 7
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 33 (4.33%) SharePoint
2 31 (4.07%) IIS
3 23 (3.02%) Microsoft Exchange
4 21 (2.76%) Confluence
5 14 (1.84%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 13 (1.71%) Apache Spark
7 11 (1.44%) Apache
7 11 (1.44%) WebSphere
8 10 (1.31%) Appian
9 9 (1.18%) Apache Airflow
9 9 (1.18%) CMS
10 7 (0.92%) WebLogic
11 6 (0.79%) Sitecore CMS
12 3 (0.39%) Camunda
12 3 (0.39%) Oracle Workflow
13 2 (0.26%) NetWeaver
13 2 (0.26%) SharePoint Server
14 1 (0.13%) ArcGIS
14 1 (0.13%) BizTalk Server
14 1 (0.13%) JBoss
Applications
1 42 (5.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.84%) MS Visio
3 13 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
4 6 (0.79%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.13%) InDesign
6 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 8 (1.05%) Advent Geneva
1 8 (1.05%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.92%) BusinessWorks
2 7 (0.92%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.79%) Salesforce CRM
4 4 (0.52%) Dynamics AX
4 4 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.52%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.39%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
6 2 (0.26%) Loan IQ
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.26%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.26%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 1 (0.13%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.13%) Orchestrade
7 1 (0.13%) RMDS
7 1 (0.13%) SAP R/3
Cloud Services
1 330 (43.31%) Azure
2 168 (22.05%) AWS
3 124 (16.27%) Power Platform
4 98 (12.86%) Azure DevOps
5 69 (9.06%) Azure Data Factory
6 60 (7.87%) GitHub
7 48 (6.30%) GCP
8 39 (5.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 34 (4.46%) Microsoft 365
10 31 (4.07%) SaaS
11 30 (3.94%) Snowflake
12 28 (3.67%) Amazon S3
13 24 (3.15%) GitHub Actions
14 21 (2.76%) Amazon EC2
14 21 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
14 21 (2.76%) IaaS
14 21 (2.76%) Power Automate
14 21 (2.76%) Serverless
15 18 (2.36%) AWS CloudFormation
16 17 (2.23%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 24 (3.15%) Firewall
2 21 (2.76%) DNS
3 14 (1.84%) DHCP
3 14 (1.84%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.57%) Internet
5 11 (1.44%) HTTP
5 11 (1.44%) VPN
6 8 (1.05%) SAN
7 7 (0.92%) LAN
8 6 (0.79%) NetScaler
8 6 (0.79%) VLAN
8 6 (0.79%) 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%) SSL
10 3 (0.39%) VoIP
10 3 (0.39%) WAN
11 2 (0.26%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (14.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 108 (14.17%) PostgreSQL
3 103 (13.52%) Power BI
4 93 (12.20%) Data Warehouse
5 87 (11.42%) Relational Database
6 64 (8.40%) Oracle Database
7 63 (8.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 57 (7.48%) MySQL
9 54 (7.09%) Azure SQL Database
10 50 (6.56%) Data Lake
11 39 (5.12%) NoSQL
12 37 (4.86%) MongoDB
13 29 (3.81%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 26 (3.41%) RDBMS
15 25 (3.28%) DB2
16 24 (3.15%) Big Data
17 23 (3.02%) Amazon RDS
18 21 (2.76%) Metadata
19 19 (2.49%) Delta Lake
20 15 (1.97%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 65 (8.53%) Git
2 51 (6.69%) JIRA
3 32 (4.20%) Jenkins
4 27 (3.54%) Visual Studio
5 22 (2.89%) GitLab
6 14 (1.84%) Postman
7 12 (1.57%) TeamCity
8 11 (1.44%) Cucumber
8 11 (1.44%) Team Foundation Server
9 10 (1.31%) Octopus Deploy
10 9 (1.18%) ERwin
10 9 (1.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 8 (1.05%) JUnit
11 8 (1.05%) MLflow
12 7 (0.92%) Mockito
12 7 (0.92%) Selenium
12 7 (0.92%) SpecFlow
13 6 (0.79%) Chocolatey
13 6 (0.79%) REST Assured
13 6 (0.79%) TestRail
General
1 228 (29.92%) Social Skills
2 185 (24.28%) Finance
3 121 (15.88%) Analytical Skills
4 95 (12.47%) Banking
5 62 (8.14%) Public Sector
6 36 (4.72%) Documentation Skills
7 22 (2.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 21 (2.76%) Investment Banking
9 17 (2.23%) Legal
10 16 (2.10%) Front Office
11 13 (1.71%) Retail
12 12 (1.57%) Financial Institution
13 10 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
14 9 (1.18%) Advertising
15 7 (0.92%) Local Government
16 6 (0.79%) Law
16 6 (0.79%) Telecoms
17 5 (0.66%) Presentation Skills
18 4 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
18 4 (0.52%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 238 (31.23%) Developer
2 109 (14.30%) Senior
3 103 (13.52%) Data Engineer
4 73 (9.58%) C# Developer
5 72 (9.45%) DBA
6 68 (8.92%) Architect
7 51 (6.69%) .NET Developer
8 42 (5.51%) SQL DBA
9 38 (4.99%) Lead
10 37 (4.86%) Analyst
11 33 (4.33%) Senior Developer
12 31 (4.07%) Senior Data Engineer
13 30 (3.94%) Full-Stack Developer
14 27 (3.54%) Azure Engineer
14 27 (3.54%) Software Engineer
15 24 (3.15%) Consultant
15 24 (3.15%) SQL Developer
16 22 (2.89%) Administrator
16 22 (2.89%) Data Architect
17 20 (2.62%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 210 (27.56%) .NET
2 92 (12.07%) .NET Framework
3 84 (11.02%) REST
4 60 (7.87%) React
5 56 (7.35%) AngularJS
6 50 (6.56%) HTML
7 46 (6.04%) CSS
8 45 (5.91%) RESTful
9 41 (5.38%) XML
10 38 (4.99%) .NET Core
11 36 (4.72%) Kafka
12 34 (4.46%) ASP.NET
13 29 (3.81%) Web Services
14 25 (3.28%) Entity Framework
15 22 (2.89%) OAuth
15 22 (2.89%) WPF
16 20 (2.62%) JSON
16 20 (2.62%) Node.js
16 20 (2.62%) Spring
17 19 (2.49%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 52 (6.82%) Legacy Systems
2 33 (4.33%) Cloud Native
3 29 (3.81%) Replication
4 24 (3.15%) Data Structures
5 23 (3.02%) Enterprise Software
6 21 (2.76%) Onboarding
7 20 (2.62%) Management Information System
8 18 (2.36%) Clustering
9 11 (1.44%) Low-Code
9 11 (1.44%) NHS
9 11 (1.44%) Reinsurance
9 11 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
10 10 (1.31%) Credit Risk
10 10 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
10 10 (1.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
10 10 (1.31%) Greenfield Project
10 10 (1.31%) Product Ownership
11 9 (1.18%) Derivative
11 9 (1.18%) Distributed Systems
11 9 (1.18%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 148 (19.42%) Windows
2 78 (10.24%) Windows Server
3 75 (9.84%) Linux
4 31 (4.07%) Unix
5 11 (1.44%) Windows Server 2016
6 9 (1.18%) Windows 10
7 8 (1.05%) AIX
7 8 (1.05%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.66%) 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%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 179 (23.49%) CI/CD
2 173 (22.70%) DevOps
3 165 (21.65%) Agile
4 164 (21.52%) ETL
5 163 (21.39%) Problem-Solving
6 140 (18.37%) Business Intelligence
7 131 (17.19%) Data Modelling
8 124 (16.27%) Migration
9 90 (11.81%) Analytics
10 87 (11.42%) Performance Tuning
11 80 (10.50%) Disaster Recovery
12 76 (9.97%) Data Engineering
13 75 (9.84%) Data Pipeline
14 67 (8.79%) Data Analysis
14 67 (8.79%) Test Automation
15 66 (8.66%) Data Governance
16 64 (8.40%) Microservices
17 60 (7.87%) Data Integration
18 58 (7.61%) AI
18 58 (7.61%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 450 (59.06%) SQL
2 188 (24.67%) C#
3 180 (23.62%) Python
4 106 (13.91%) T-SQL
5 88 (11.55%) PowerShell
6 68 (8.92%) JavaScript
7 61 (8.01%) Java
8 59 (7.74%) PL/SQL
9 47 (6.17%) TypeScript
10 38 (4.99%) Bash
11 22 (2.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (2.10%) Shell Script
12 16 (2.10%) VB
13 15 (1.97%) Bicep
13 15 (1.97%) Korn
14 13 (1.71%) PHP
15 12 (1.57%) VBA
16 8 (1.05%) Scala
17 7 (0.92%) XPath
18 4 (0.52%) Delphi
Qualifications
1 146 (19.16%) Security Cleared
2 108 (14.17%) SC Cleared
3 78 (10.24%) Degree
4 31 (4.07%) Microsoft Certification
5 27 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (2.89%) Azure Certification
7 17 (2.23%) DV Cleared
8 15 (1.97%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.05%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.92%) OCP
10 7 (0.92%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (0.66%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.66%) CCA
11 5 (0.66%) Citrix Certification
11 5 (0.66%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.52%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.52%) CISSP
12 4 (0.52%) MCITP
12 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 83 (10.89%) Data Quality
2 82 (10.76%) QA
3 21 (2.76%) GDPR
4 13 (1.71%) SLA
5 8 (1.05%) NIST
6 7 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.79%) Accessibility
8 5 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 4 (0.52%) IFRS
9 4 (0.52%) WCAG
10 3 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.39%) HIPAA
10 3 (0.39%) IFRS 17
10 3 (0.39%) IFRS 9
11 2 (0.26%) Basel III
11 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.26%) EMIR
11 2 (0.26%) GAAP
11 2 (0.26%) MiFID
11 2 (0.26%) NIST 800
System Software
1 84 (11.02%) Docker
2 57 (7.48%) Active Directory
3 18 (2.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.97%) Hyper-V
5 14 (1.84%) Oracle RAC
6 11 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
7 10 (1.31%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.79%) KVM
9 5 (0.66%) XenApp
9 5 (0.66%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.52%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.26%) NDS
11 2 (0.26%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.26%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.26%) zsh
12 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 79 (10.37%) Kubernetes
2 50 (6.56%) Terraform
3 17 (2.23%) Ansible
3 17 (2.23%) Oracle RMAN
4 16 (2.10%) Grafana
5 13 (1.71%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 13 (1.71%) SCCM
6 10 (1.31%) Puppet
6 10 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.18%) Microsoft Intune
8 7 (0.92%) TIBCO Hawk
9 6 (0.79%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.66%) SCVMM
11 4 (0.52%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 4 (0.52%) NetBackup
11 4 (0.52%) Progress Chef
12 3 (0.39%) Control-M
12 3 (0.39%) Microsoft Clustering
12 3 (0.39%) WSUS
Vendors
1 229 (30.05%) Oracle
2 223 (29.27%) Microsoft
3 63 (8.27%) Databricks
4 49 (6.43%) Citrix
5 32 (4.20%) VMware
6 31 (4.07%) Informatica
6 31 (4.07%) ServiceNow
7 21 (2.76%) Google
8 20 (2.62%) IBM
8 20 (2.62%) SAP
9 13 (1.71%) CyberArk
9 13 (1.71%) UiPath
10 10 (1.31%) Dynatrace
10 10 (1.31%) OpenAI
11 9 (1.18%) Sybase
12 8 (1.05%) Advent
12 8 (1.05%) PagerDuty
12 8 (1.05%) Sitecore
12 8 (1.05%) SolarWinds
12 8 (1.05%) Tenable
496 SQL Server jobs in England