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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 104 55
Rank change year-on-year -5 -49 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,012 694 1,299
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.26% 2.54% 3.67%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.71% 13.89% 20.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 701 515 924
10th Percentile £358 £317 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £513 £501
Median % change year-on-year -4.88% +2.24% -4.52%
75th Percentile £600 £645 £638
90th Percentile £712 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £486 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.75% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 6 15
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £33.45
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 -
Median hourly rate £29.48 £23.80 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.89% -40.51% -12.09%
75th Percentile £62.88 £64.71 £57.43
90th Percentile £74.80 £83.13 £70.19
UK median hourly rate £42.52 £70.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -39.26% +75.00% -11.11%

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 6,880 4,998 6,366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.34% 18.31% 18.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,601 3,458 4,580
10th Percentile £354 £350 £350
25th Percentile £418 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £530
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -1.89% -3.64%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 221 83 106
10th Percentile £16.00 £18.84 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.25 £23.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.98 £39.25
Median % change year-on-year +12.92% -10.88% -28.64%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.13 £54.23
90th Percentile £77.50 £76.00 £70.63
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £38.11 £38.00
% change year-on-year +9.45% +0.29% -30.91%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 -34 480 £525 -4.55% 130
North of England +11 201 £473 +11.18% 82
South East -9 122 £468 +6.97% 98
North West -4 111 £478 +12.47% 39
Midlands -9 102 £475 +9.20% 51
Yorkshire +22 90 £450 +12.36% 30
West Midlands -30 57 £472 -18.00% 32
South West -8 53 £513 +10.81% 21
East Midlands +13 43 £525 +54.41% 19
East of England -5 34 £450 -10.00% 19
North East -40 1 - - 16
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 64 (6.32%) SharePoint
2 46 (4.55%) IIS
3 36 (3.56%) Confluence
4 23 (2.27%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (2.17%) Apache Spark
6 21 (2.08%) Apache
7 19 (1.88%) Apache Airflow
8 14 (1.38%) Camunda
9 11 (1.09%) Oracle Workflow
10 10 (0.99%) Appian
11 8 (0.79%) CMS
12 6 (0.59%) NetWeaver
13 5 (0.49%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.49%) Tuxedo
14 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
15 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
15 3 (0.30%) nginx
15 3 (0.30%) Sitecore CMS
16 2 (0.20%) Anypoint
Applications
1 46 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 23 (2.27%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.099%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.099%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.099%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 18 (1.78%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 16 (1.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.59%) Dynamics AX
4 6 (0.59%) OpenText MBPM
4 6 (0.59%) Oracle BPM
5 5 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.40%) Elite 3E
7 3 (0.30%) Aladdin
7 3 (0.30%) SystmOne
8 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.099%) Endur
9 1 (0.099%) Findur
9 1 (0.099%) SAP Business One
9 1 (0.099%) SAP CRM
9 1 (0.099%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 417 (41.21%) Azure
2 218 (21.54%) AWS
3 138 (13.64%) Power Platform
4 107 (10.57%) Azure DevOps
5 91 (8.99%) GitHub
6 62 (6.13%) Azure Data Factory
7 43 (4.25%) Entra ID
8 40 (3.95%) Serverless
9 39 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
10 37 (3.66%) GitHub Actions
10 37 (3.66%) Microsoft 365
10 37 (3.66%) Snowflake
11 35 (3.46%) Power Automate
12 34 (3.36%) GCP
13 32 (3.16%) Dynamics 365
14 31 (3.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 29 (2.87%) SaaS
16 25 (2.47%) Amazon S3
16 25 (2.47%) dbt
17 24 (2.37%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (4.55%) DNS
2 37 (3.66%) DHCP
3 28 (2.77%) Firewall
4 20 (1.98%) SAN
5 18 (1.78%) VLAN
6 15 (1.48%) VPN
7 14 (1.38%) Internet
8 12 (1.19%) Network Security
9 11 (1.09%) SSH
9 11 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 11 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.79%) SSL
11 6 (0.59%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.59%) IPv4
11 6 (0.59%) IPv6
11 6 (0.59%) LAN
12 5 (0.49%) WAN
13 4 (0.40%) Kerberos
13 4 (0.40%) VoIP
14 3 (0.30%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 151 (14.92%) PostgreSQL
2 114 (11.26%) Power BI
3 108 (10.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 105 (10.38%) Relational Database
5 102 (10.08%) Data Warehouse
6 77 (7.61%) Oracle Database
7 63 (6.23%) MySQL
8 61 (6.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 51 (5.04%) Azure SQL Database
10 42 (4.15%) MongoDB
11 41 (4.05%) Data Lake
12 33 (3.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 30 (2.96%) NoSQL
14 24 (2.37%) RDBMS
15 22 (2.17%) Tableau
16 16 (1.58%) Metadata
16 16 (1.58%) Redis
17 15 (1.48%) Big Data
17 15 (1.48%) Db2
18 14 (1.38%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 90 (8.89%) Git
2 55 (5.43%) Jenkins
3 51 (5.04%) JIRA
4 29 (2.87%) Visual Studio
5 26 (2.57%) GitLab
6 21 (2.08%) Team Foundation Server
7 18 (1.78%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 18 (1.78%) TeamCity
8 15 (1.48%) Maven
9 13 (1.28%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.19%) Cucumber
11 11 (1.09%) Octopus Deploy
11 11 (1.09%) Postman
12 10 (0.99%) Selenium
13 9 (0.89%) Artifactory
13 9 (0.89%) Chocolatey
13 9 (0.89%) Gatling
14 8 (0.79%) JUnit
14 8 (0.79%) MSTest
15 7 (0.69%) Oracle Forms
General
1 290 (28.66%) Social Skills
2 252 (24.90%) Finance
3 184 (18.18%) Analytical Skills
4 124 (12.25%) Banking
5 81 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 47 (4.64%) Documentation Skills
7 36 (3.56%) Front Office
8 24 (2.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 23 (2.27%) Investment Banking
10 16 (1.58%) Legal
11 15 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (1.28%) Financial Institution
13 11 (1.09%) Retail
14 9 (0.89%) Advertising
15 8 (0.79%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.59%) Back Office
16 6 (0.59%) Local Government
17 5 (0.49%) Law
17 5 (0.49%) Publishing
17 5 (0.49%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 304 (30.04%) Developer
2 148 (14.62%) Senior
3 143 (14.13%) DBA
4 91 (8.99%) SQL DBA
5 88 (8.70%) Data Engineer
6 87 (8.60%) C# Developer
7 76 (7.51%) .NET Developer
8 69 (6.82%) Lead
9 57 (5.63%) Architect
10 54 (5.34%) Administrator
10 54 (5.34%) SQL Developer
11 44 (4.35%) Senior Developer
12 43 (4.25%) Analyst
13 42 (4.15%) Oracle DBA
14 40 (3.95%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 39 (3.85%) Software Engineer
16 35 (3.46%) Full-Stack Developer
17 34 (3.36%) Azure Engineer
18 31 (3.06%) C# .NET Developer
19 30 (2.96%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 253 (25.00%) .NET
2 128 (12.65%) REST
3 104 (10.28%) .NET Framework
4 82 (8.10%) React
5 59 (5.83%) AngularJS
5 59 (5.83%) CSS
6 58 (5.73%) RESTful
7 56 (5.53%) ASP.NET
8 49 (4.84%) HTML
8 49 (4.84%) Kafka
9 48 (4.74%) .NET Core
10 39 (3.85%) Web Services
11 38 (3.75%) XML
12 37 (3.66%) JSON
13 31 (3.06%) SOAP
14 28 (2.77%) Entity Framework
15 25 (2.47%) Spring Boot
16 24 (2.37%) OAuth
17 23 (2.27%) Spring
18 20 (1.98%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 55 (5.43%) Onboarding
2 52 (5.14%) Legacy Systems
3 50 (4.94%) Cloud Native
4 47 (4.64%) Replication
5 46 (4.55%) Data Structures
6 42 (4.15%) Clustering
7 39 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
8 36 (3.56%) Enterprise Software
9 25 (2.47%) Management Information System
10 23 (2.27%) Product Ownership
11 19 (1.88%) PKI
12 18 (1.78%) Low-Code
13 16 (1.58%) Derivative
13 16 (1.58%) NHS
14 14 (1.38%) Data Centre
15 13 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
15 13 (1.28%) Fixed Income
16 12 (1.19%) Algorithms
16 12 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
17 10 (0.99%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 249 (24.60%) Windows
2 145 (14.33%) Windows Server
3 98 (9.68%) Linux
4 57 (5.63%) Unix
5 13 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.89%) AIX
7 8 (0.79%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.79%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.69%) Android
9 6 (0.59%) VMS
10 5 (0.49%) Solaris
10 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
11 3 (0.30%) CentOS
12 2 (0.20%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.099%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.099%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 248 (24.51%) DevOps
2 227 (22.43%) Agile
3 219 (21.64%) CI/CD
4 211 (20.85%) Problem-Solving
5 176 (17.39%) Migration
6 157 (15.51%) ETL
7 143 (14.13%) Business Intelligence
8 139 (13.74%) Performance Tuning
9 132 (13.04%) Data Modelling
10 117 (11.56%) Disaster Recovery
11 114 (11.26%) AI
12 95 (9.39%) Analytics
13 90 (8.89%) High Availability
14 89 (8.79%) Data Pipeline
15 85 (8.40%) Microservices
16 81 (8.00%) Continuous Improvement
17 78 (7.71%) Test Automation
18 77 (7.61%) Data Analysis
18 77 (7.61%) Software Engineering
18 77 (7.61%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 576 (56.92%) SQL
2 260 (25.69%) C#
3 208 (20.55%) Python
4 180 (17.79%) PowerShell
5 169 (16.70%) T-SQL
6 108 (10.67%) JavaScript
7 79 (7.81%) Java
8 65 (6.42%) PL/SQL
9 55 (5.43%) TypeScript
10 36 (3.56%) Bash
11 26 (2.57%) Shell Script
12 22 (2.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 18 (1.78%) Scala
13 18 (1.78%) VB
14 16 (1.58%) Korn
15 15 (1.48%) VBA
16 11 (1.09%) Bicep
17 8 (0.79%) VB.NET
18 6 (0.59%) VB6
18 6 (0.59%) XPath
Qualifications
1 244 (24.11%) Security Cleared
2 183 (18.08%) SC Cleared
3 105 (10.38%) Degree
4 44 (4.35%) DV Cleared
5 36 (3.56%) Microsoft Certification
6 26 (2.57%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (1.78%) Azure Certification
9 10 (0.99%) ISTQB
9 10 (0.99%) Oracle Certification
10 9 (0.89%) DBS Check
10 9 (0.89%) Master's Degree
10 9 (0.89%) OCP
11 5 (0.49%) CISSP
12 4 (0.40%) AWS Certification
12 4 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 4 (0.40%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 4 (0.40%) MCITP
12 4 (0.40%) MCTS
12 4 (0.40%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (9.39%) QA
2 89 (8.79%) Data Quality
3 28 (2.77%) GDPR
4 26 (2.57%) NIST
5 24 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (2.17%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.98%) SLA
8 14 (1.38%) WCAG
9 6 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.49%) ISO 9000
11 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.30%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.20%) Basel III
13 2 (0.20%) COREP
13 2 (0.20%) FINREP
13 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.20%) GRC
13 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.099%) NIST 800
System Software
1 116 (11.46%) Active Directory
2 73 (7.21%) Docker
3 32 (3.16%) Virtual Machines
4 30 (2.96%) Oracle RAC
5 26 (2.57%) VMware Infrastructure
6 13 (1.28%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.59%) KVM
9 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.30%) GridGain
9 3 (0.30%) Postfix
9 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.20%) vSphere
11 1 (0.099%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.099%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.099%) SRDF
11 1 (0.099%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.099%) XenApp
11 1 (0.099%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 98 (9.68%) Kubernetes
2 70 (6.92%) Terraform
3 36 (3.56%) Ansible
4 23 (2.27%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 21 (2.08%) Oracle RMAN
6 15 (1.48%) Data Guard
6 15 (1.48%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (1.48%) SCCM
7 13 (1.28%) HAProxy
8 10 (0.99%) WSUS
9 9 (0.89%) Grafana
10 8 (0.79%) SCOM
11 7 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.69%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.59%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.59%) IBM BigFix
13 4 (0.40%) ITRS Geneos
13 4 (0.40%) Microsoft Clustering
13 4 (0.40%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.30%) Foglight
Vendors
1 315 (31.13%) Microsoft
2 283 (27.96%) Oracle
3 54 (5.34%) Databricks
4 50 (4.94%) Citrix
4 50 (4.94%) ServiceNow
4 50 (4.94%) VMware
5 44 (4.35%) CyberArk
6 37 (3.66%) SAP
7 28 (2.77%) BeyondTrust
8 23 (2.27%) Sybase
9 21 (2.08%) Informatica
10 20 (1.98%) Dynatrace
11 19 (1.88%) Cisco
12 18 (1.78%) IBM
12 18 (1.78%) Remedy
13 17 (1.68%) BMC
13 17 (1.68%) Google
13 17 (1.68%) Red Hat
14 13 (1.28%) Alteryx
15 11 (1.09%) AppDynamics