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 16 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
16 Dec 2025		 Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 138 79 61
Rank change year-on-year -59 -18 -13
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 657 841 1,300
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.10% 2.90% 3.47%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.20% 15.95% 20.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 466 591 940
10th Percentile £343 £325 £362
25th Percentile £404 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.88% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £731
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -1.60% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 7 20
10th Percentile £25.57 £27.71 £20.17
25th Percentile £32.81 £45.75 £45.13
Median hourly rate £48.72 £63.75 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -23.57% +18.60% +41.45%
75th Percentile £61.29 £65.31 £62.50
90th Percentile £66.52 £79.37 £64.96
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £32.50 £52.50
% change year-on-year +49.91% -38.10% +38.16%

All Database and Business Intelligence 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 5,385 5,273 6,244
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 17.19% 18.16% 16.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,762 3,518 4,457
10th Percentile £325 £350 £361
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -
75th Percentile £625 £663 £656
90th Percentile £725 £788 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £527 £535
% change year-on-year -5.12% -1.50% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 74 128
10th Percentile £20.68 £18.15 £16.62
25th Percentile £29.00 £23.10 £24.70
Median hourly rate £43.50 £37.50 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +16.00% -18.80% -9.45%
75th Percentile £65.00 £64.50 £64.51
90th Percentile £84.30 £66.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £43.50 £30.40 £46.18
% change year-on-year +43.09% -34.17% -7.64%

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025.

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 16 December 2025. 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 -36 384 £520 -5.45% 108
North of England -11 89 £435 -8.42% 121
South East -37 79 £478 +6.11% 137
North West -25 45 £448 +2.87% 68
Yorkshire -17 44 £425 -24.31% 40
East of England -19 26 £525 +31.25% 30
Midlands -89 25 £403 -12.97% 50
South West -32 24 £550 - 30
West Midlands -64 17 £425 -25.04% 26
East Midlands -40 7 £350 -5.41% 24
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 31 (4.72%) IIS
2 26 (3.96%) SharePoint
3 25 (3.81%) Confluence
4 14 (2.13%) Microsoft Exchange
5 13 (1.98%) Apache
5 13 (1.98%) WebSphere
6 9 (1.37%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 9 (1.37%) WebLogic
7 8 (1.22%) Apache Spark
8 5 (0.76%) Apache Airflow
8 5 (0.76%) JBoss
9 4 (0.61%) SharePoint Server
10 3 (0.46%) CMS
10 3 (0.46%) Skype for Business
10 3 (0.46%) Tomcat
11 2 (0.30%) CICS
11 2 (0.30%) HCL Notes
11 2 (0.30%) Oracle Workflow
11 2 (0.30%) SAS
11 2 (0.30%) WildFly
Applications
1 51 (7.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.07%) Microsoft Project
2 7 (1.07%) MS Visio
3 4 (0.61%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.30%) Trello
4 2 (0.30%) Windchill
5 1 (0.15%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 9 (1.37%) Advent Geneva
2 7 (1.07%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (1.07%) Fidessa
3 6 (0.91%) Salesforce CRM
4 5 (0.76%) BusinessWorks
4 5 (0.76%) Maximo
4 5 (0.76%) Oracle BPM
5 4 (0.61%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.61%) thinkFolio
6 3 (0.46%) Endur
6 3 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
7 2 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
7 2 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.30%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.30%) OpenText MBPM
7 2 (0.30%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.30%) Temenos T24
8 1 (0.15%) Magento
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle iProcurement
8 1 (0.15%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 261 (39.73%) Azure
2 126 (19.18%) AWS
3 94 (14.31%) Power Platform
4 64 (9.74%) Azure DevOps
5 48 (7.31%) GCP
6 42 (6.39%) GitHub
7 27 (4.11%) Azure Data Factory
7 27 (4.11%) SaaS
8 26 (3.96%) Microsoft 365
9 23 (3.50%) Serverless
10 22 (3.35%) GitHub Actions
11 20 (3.04%) Amazon S3
11 20 (3.04%) Snowflake
12 19 (2.89%) Azure Service Bus
12 19 (2.89%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 17 (2.59%) Azure Logic Apps
14 16 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
14 16 (2.44%) IaaS
14 16 (2.44%) PowerApps
15 15 (2.28%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 32 (4.87%) Firewall
2 22 (3.35%) DNS
3 19 (2.89%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.83%) DHCP
4 12 (1.83%) Internet
5 11 (1.67%) LAN
6 10 (1.52%) HTTP
7 7 (1.07%) SSL
8 6 (0.91%) VPN
9 5 (0.76%) NAS
9 5 (0.76%) Skype
10 4 (0.61%) NetScaler
10 4 (0.61%) SAN
10 4 (0.61%) VoIP
10 4 (0.61%) WAN
11 3 (0.46%) VLAN
11 3 (0.46%) VSAN
12 2 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
12 2 (0.30%) Wireshark
12 2 (0.30%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (13.24%) PostgreSQL
2 82 (12.48%) Relational Database
3 81 (12.33%) Power BI
4 68 (10.35%) Oracle Database
4 68 (10.35%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 58 (8.83%) Data Warehouse
6 55 (8.37%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 46 (7.00%) MySQL
8 43 (6.54%) Azure SQL Database
9 41 (6.24%) MongoDB
10 31 (4.72%) NoSQL
11 27 (4.11%) Amazon RDS
12 26 (3.96%) DB2
13 19 (2.89%) Big Data
13 19 (2.89%) RDBMS
14 18 (2.74%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 17 (2.59%) Data Lake
15 17 (2.59%) Redis
16 15 (2.28%) Tableau
17 14 (2.13%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 63 (9.59%) Git
2 42 (6.39%) JIRA
3 34 (5.18%) Jenkins
4 21 (3.20%) GitLab
5 15 (2.28%) Selenium
6 14 (2.13%) Cucumber
6 14 (2.13%) Postman
6 14 (2.13%) SpecFlow
6 14 (2.13%) Visual Studio
7 13 (1.98%) Maven
8 12 (1.83%) Bitbucket
9 11 (1.67%) JUnit
9 11 (1.67%) TeamCity
10 10 (1.52%) Octopus Deploy
11 9 (1.37%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 8 (1.22%) Mockito
13 7 (1.07%) Sonatype Nexus
13 7 (1.07%) webpack
14 6 (0.91%) REST Assured
14 6 (0.91%) TestRail
General
1 225 (34.25%) Social Skills
2 195 (29.68%) Finance
3 95 (14.46%) Analytical Skills
3 95 (14.46%) Banking
4 34 (5.18%) Public Sector
5 31 (4.72%) Documentation Skills
6 29 (4.41%) Investment Banking
7 23 (3.50%) Front Office
8 17 (2.59%) Financial Institution
9 14 (2.13%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 10 (1.52%) Presentation Skills
10 10 (1.52%) Retail
11 8 (1.22%) Back Office
12 7 (1.07%) Organisational Skills
13 6 (0.91%) Local Government
13 6 (0.91%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.76%) Law
14 5 (0.76%) Legal
15 4 (0.61%) Influencing Skills
16 3 (0.46%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 241 (36.68%) Developer
2 69 (10.50%) Senior
3 62 (9.44%) C# Developer
4 55 (8.37%) Data Engineer
5 52 (7.91%) Analyst
6 50 (7.61%) .NET Developer
7 44 (6.70%) Architect
8 35 (5.33%) DBA
8 35 (5.33%) Senior Developer
9 33 (5.02%) Consultant
10 25 (3.81%) Lead
11 24 (3.65%) Software Engineer
12 23 (3.50%) Angular Developer
13 22 (3.35%) Full-Stack Developer
14 21 (3.20%) SQL Developer
15 20 (3.04%) C# .NET Developer
15 20 (3.04%) SQL DBA
16 19 (2.89%) Applications Support
17 18 (2.74%) Java Developer
18 17 (2.59%) Data Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 181 (27.55%) .NET
2 76 (11.57%) .NET Framework
3 55 (8.37%) REST
4 51 (7.76%) HTML
5 48 (7.31%) AngularJS
6 45 (6.85%) React
7 44 (6.70%) CSS
8 41 (6.24%) XML
9 40 (6.09%) RESTful
10 39 (5.94%) Kafka
11 36 (5.48%) .NET Core
12 34 (5.18%) Entity Framework
13 29 (4.41%) SOAP
14 27 (4.11%) Web Services
15 25 (3.81%) ASP.NET
16 22 (3.35%) JSON
16 22 (3.35%) WPF
17 20 (3.04%) NHibernate
18 18 (2.74%) Middleware
18 18 (2.74%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 31 (4.72%) Legacy Systems
2 27 (4.11%) Cloud Native
3 22 (3.35%) Derivative
4 21 (3.20%) Product Ownership
5 20 (3.04%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 19 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
7 18 (2.74%) Management Information System
8 16 (2.44%) Data Protection Act
9 15 (2.28%) Credit Risk
9 15 (2.28%) Data Structures
9 15 (2.28%) PKI
10 14 (2.13%) Onboarding
10 14 (2.13%) Replication
11 12 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
11 12 (1.83%) Fixed Income
11 12 (1.83%) Hedge funds
12 10 (1.52%) Clustering
12 10 (1.52%) Data Centre
12 10 (1.52%) NHS
12 10 (1.52%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 114 (17.35%) Windows
2 85 (12.94%) Linux
3 59 (8.98%) Windows Server
4 10 (1.52%) Unix
4 10 (1.52%) Windows 10
5 9 (1.37%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (1.22%) Windows Server 2016
7 5 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (0.61%) VMS
9 2 (0.30%) Solaris
9 2 (0.30%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
9 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.15%) Android
10 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.15%) MVS
10 1 (0.15%) SUSE
10 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
10 1 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 166 (25.27%) Agile
2 153 (23.29%) Problem-Solving
3 141 (21.46%) DevOps
4 138 (21.00%) CI/CD
5 108 (16.44%) Migration
6 100 (15.22%) Business Intelligence
7 97 (14.76%) ETL
8 80 (12.18%) Microservices
9 72 (10.96%) Data Modelling
10 59 (8.98%) Performance Tuning
11 55 (8.37%) Data Migration
11 55 (8.37%) Test Automation
12 54 (8.22%) Full-Stack Development
12 54 (8.22%) Software Engineering
13 51 (7.76%) Data Analysis
14 50 (7.61%) Analytics
15 47 (7.15%) Containerisation
16 46 (7.00%) Clean Code
16 46 (7.00%) Data Governance
17 43 (6.54%) Disaster Recovery
Programming Languages
1 367 (55.86%) SQL
2 174 (26.48%) C#
3 131 (19.94%) Python
4 82 (12.48%) JavaScript
5 77 (11.72%) T-SQL
6 69 (10.50%) Java
7 46 (7.00%) PowerShell
8 45 (6.85%) PL/SQL
9 38 (5.78%) Bash
10 22 (3.35%) VBA
11 20 (3.04%) TypeScript
12 19 (2.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 18 (2.74%) VB
14 15 (2.28%) PHP
15 14 (2.13%) Shell Script
16 8 (1.22%) Bicep
17 5 (0.76%) COBOL
17 5 (0.76%) X++
17 5 (0.76%) XPath
18 4 (0.61%) Delphi
Qualifications
1 79 (12.02%) Security Cleared
2 72 (10.96%) Degree
3 57 (8.68%) SC Cleared
4 31 (4.72%) Computer Science Degree
5 14 (2.13%) DV Cleared
5 14 (2.13%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (1.37%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.22%) Azure Certification
7 8 (1.22%) Master's Degree
8 6 (0.91%) HNC
8 6 (0.91%) HND
8 6 (0.91%) MCP
8 6 (0.91%) MCSE
9 5 (0.76%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.76%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.61%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.46%) CCNP
12 2 (0.30%) CCIE
12 2 (0.30%) ISEB
12 2 (0.30%) OCP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (9.89%) QA
2 51 (7.76%) Data Quality
3 13 (1.98%) Accessibility
4 12 (1.83%) GDPR
5 10 (1.52%) MiFID
5 10 (1.52%) SLA
6 6 (0.91%) EMIR
7 5 (0.76%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.61%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 3 (0.46%) WCAG
10 2 (0.30%) PMO
10 2 (0.30%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
11 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.15%) IFRS
11 1 (0.15%) IFRS 17
11 1 (0.15%) NCSC
11 1 (0.15%) NIST
11 1 (0.15%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 67 (10.20%) Docker
2 49 (7.46%) Active Directory
3 32 (4.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (1.98%) Oracle RAC
5 11 (1.67%) Hyper-V
6 9 (1.37%) Virtual Machines
7 8 (1.22%) VMware NSX
7 8 (1.22%) zsh
8 6 (0.91%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.61%) vSphere
10 3 (0.46%) NFS
10 3 (0.46%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.30%) GPFS
11 2 (0.30%) GridGain
11 2 (0.30%) NDS
11 2 (0.30%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.15%) KVM
12 1 (0.15%) SRDF
12 1 (0.15%) XenApp
12 1 (0.15%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 47 (7.15%) Kubernetes
2 34 (5.18%) Terraform
3 29 (4.41%) Ansible
4 16 (2.44%) Grafana
5 14 (2.13%) Puppet
6 13 (1.98%) vCenter Server
7 12 (1.83%) Data Guard
8 11 (1.67%) NetBackup
8 11 (1.67%) Oracle RMAN
9 10 (1.52%) yum
10 9 (1.37%) Microsoft Intune
10 9 (1.37%) SCCM
11 7 (1.07%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 5 (0.76%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.76%) SCOM
12 5 (0.76%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.76%) TIBCO Hawk
13 4 (0.61%) Control-M
13 4 (0.61%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 4 (0.61%) WSUS
Vendors
1 207 (31.51%) Microsoft
1 207 (31.51%) Oracle
2 47 (7.15%) VMware
3 39 (5.94%) Citrix
4 32 (4.87%) Databricks
5 21 (3.20%) Google
6 19 (2.89%) IBM
7 17 (2.59%) SAP
8 14 (2.13%) CyberArk
8 14 (2.13%) Salesforce
9 13 (1.98%) ServiceNow
10 12 (1.83%) Cisco
11 11 (1.67%) Veritas
12 10 (1.52%) Informatica
13 9 (1.37%) Advent
14 8 (1.22%) Atlassian
14 8 (1.22%) PagerDuty
14 8 (1.22%) Sybase
15 7 (1.07%) Veeam
16 6 (0.91%) SolarWinds
426 SQL Server jobs in England