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 26 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 114 56
Rank change year-on-year -9 -58 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 999 674 1,194
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.19% 2.45% 3.59%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.37% 13.59% 19.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 701 496 851
10th Percentile £363 £313 £338
25th Percentile £413 £397 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% - -6.54%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 6 8
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £28.60
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £35.38
Median hourly rate £50.02 £23.80 £48.03
Median % change year-on-year +110.21% -50.46% +4.41%
75th Percentile £63.31 £64.71 £62.96
90th Percentile £75.80 £83.13 £74.07
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £70.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -32.09% +47.37% +5.56%

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 6,950 4,961 6,122
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.21% 18.01% 18.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,642 3,423 4,323
10th Percentile £360 £336 £350
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £545
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -5.96% -0.91%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £675
90th Percentile £705 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -3.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 80 91
10th Percentile £14.85 £20.84 £14.25
25th Percentile £23.21 £28.33 £20.00
Median hourly rate £38.25 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year +9.29% - -36.36%
75th Percentile £62.00 £63.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £75.60 £78.71 £69.75
UK median hourly rate £38.25 £36.75 £33.22
% change year-on-year +4.08% +10.64% -39.61%

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 26 August 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 26 August 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 26 August 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 -23 487 £525 -4.55% 118
North of England -1 194 £475 +6.15% 54
South East -24 112 £475 +44.82% 56
Midlands +2 106 £475 +11.11% 52
North West -5 105 £478 +6.82% 33
Yorkshire +12 89 £450 +5.88% 17
West Midlands -26 62 £473 -12.00% 30
South West -17 49 £519 +22.06% 25
East Midlands +10 43 £525 +60.80% 21
East of England -25 26 £425 -15.00% 17
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 66 (6.61%) SharePoint
2 47 (4.70%) IIS
3 38 (3.80%) Confluence
4 21 (2.10%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.90%) Apache
5 19 (1.90%) Apache Airflow
6 18 (1.80%) Apache Spark
6 18 (1.80%) Camunda
7 11 (1.10%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.60%) Appian
8 6 (0.60%) CMS
9 5 (0.50%) Apache Solr
9 5 (0.50%) NetWeaver
9 5 (0.50%) Tuxedo
10 4 (0.40%) OpenEdge
10 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
10 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
11 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
11 3 (0.30%) nginx
12 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 52 (5.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.80%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.10%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.10%) InDesign
6 1 (0.10%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 23 (2.30%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (2.00%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.70%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.70%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.40%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.20%) Endur
7 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.10%) Findur
8 1 (0.10%) Loan IQ
8 1 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.10%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 416 (41.64%) Azure
2 214 (21.42%) AWS
3 147 (14.71%) Power Platform
4 108 (10.81%) Azure DevOps
5 92 (9.21%) GitHub
6 60 (6.01%) Azure Data Factory
7 48 (4.80%) Entra ID
8 44 (4.40%) Serverless
9 41 (4.10%) Azure Monitor
10 40 (4.00%) GitHub Actions
10 40 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
11 38 (3.80%) Power Automate
12 34 (3.40%) Snowflake
13 33 (3.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 33 (3.30%) Dynamics 365
14 29 (2.90%) GCP
15 25 (2.50%) SaaS
16 24 (2.40%) dbt
17 21 (2.10%) PowerApps
18 20 (2.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.70%) DNS
2 40 (4.00%) DHCP
3 31 (3.10%) Firewall
4 19 (1.90%) VLAN
5 18 (1.80%) SAN
6 15 (1.50%) VPN
7 13 (1.30%) Internet
7 13 (1.30%) Network Security
8 11 (1.10%) TCP/IP
8 11 (1.10%) Wi-Fi
9 10 (1.00%) SSL
10 9 (0.90%) SSH
11 6 (0.60%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.60%) IPv4
11 6 (0.60%) IPv6
11 6 (0.60%) LAN
12 5 (0.50%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.50%) VoIP
12 5 (0.50%) WAN
13 3 (0.30%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (14.91%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (12.61%) Power BI
3 107 (10.71%) Relational Database
4 96 (9.61%) Data Warehouse
5 89 (8.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 72 (7.21%) MySQL
7 59 (5.91%) Oracle Database
8 56 (5.61%) Azure SQL Database
8 56 (5.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 53 (5.31%) MongoDB
10 36 (3.60%) Data Lake
11 29 (2.90%) NoSQL
12 26 (2.60%) Redis
13 25 (2.50%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 22 (2.20%) Amazon RDS
14 22 (2.20%) RDBMS
15 20 (2.00%) Tableau
16 17 (1.70%) Metadata
17 16 (1.60%) Star Schema
18 12 (1.20%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 96 (9.61%) Git
2 61 (6.11%) Jenkins
3 53 (5.31%) JIRA
4 32 (3.20%) GitLab
5 27 (2.70%) Visual Studio
6 19 (1.90%) Maven
7 18 (1.80%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 17 (1.70%) Sonatype Nexus
9 16 (1.60%) TeamCity
10 15 (1.50%) Team Foundation Server
11 14 (1.40%) Selenium
12 13 (1.30%) Octopus Deploy
13 12 (1.20%) Postman
13 12 (1.20%) REST Assured
14 11 (1.10%) Artifactory
14 11 (1.10%) JUnit
15 10 (1.00%) Cucumber
15 10 (1.00%) Cypress.io
15 10 (1.00%) Mockito
16 9 (0.90%) WebDriver
General
1 308 (30.83%) Social Skills
2 258 (25.83%) Finance
3 186 (18.62%) Analytical Skills
4 126 (12.61%) Banking
5 74 (7.41%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.40%) Front Office
7 39 (3.90%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (2.70%) Investment Banking
9 19 (1.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (1.80%) Legal
11 17 (1.70%) Retail
12 15 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.40%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.80%) Back Office
14 8 (0.80%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.60%) Advertising
16 5 (0.50%) Billing
16 5 (0.50%) Law
16 5 (0.50%) Military
16 5 (0.50%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 307 (30.73%) Developer
2 155 (15.52%) Senior
3 139 (13.91%) DBA
4 83 (8.31%) SQL DBA
5 82 (8.21%) .NET Developer
6 80 (8.01%) C# Developer
7 78 (7.81%) Data Engineer
8 68 (6.81%) Lead
9 65 (6.51%) Administrator
10 52 (5.21%) Architect
11 49 (4.90%) Full-Stack Developer
12 48 (4.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 48 (4.80%) Senior Developer
13 46 (4.60%) SQL Developer
14 45 (4.50%) Analyst
15 38 (3.80%) Software Engineer
16 34 (3.40%) Oracle DBA
17 33 (3.30%) Azure Engineer
17 33 (3.30%) C# .NET Developer
17 33 (3.30%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 277 (27.73%) .NET
2 126 (12.61%) REST
3 102 (10.21%) .NET Framework
4 79 (7.91%) React
5 77 (7.71%) Terraform
6 61 (6.11%) ASP.NET
7 60 (6.01%) AngularJS
7 60 (6.01%) CSS
8 56 (5.61%) Kafka
9 54 (5.41%) RESTful
10 53 (5.31%) .NET Core
11 49 (4.90%) HTML
12 38 (3.80%) Web Services
13 36 (3.60%) JSON
14 33 (3.30%) Spring Boot
15 31 (3.10%) XML
16 29 (2.90%) SOAP
17 28 (2.80%) Spring
18 25 (2.50%) Entity Framework
19 24 (2.40%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.11%) Onboarding
2 58 (5.81%) Cloud Native
3 51 (5.11%) Data Structures
4 44 (4.40%) Enterprise Software
5 42 (4.20%) Clustering
5 42 (4.20%) Self-Motivation
6 38 (3.80%) Replication
7 36 (3.60%) Legacy Systems
8 29 (2.90%) Product Ownership
9 24 (2.40%) Management Information System
10 23 (2.30%) Data Centre
11 20 (2.00%) PKI
12 17 (1.70%) Derivative
13 16 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
14 14 (1.40%) Low-Code
15 13 (1.30%) NHS
16 11 (1.10%) Algorithms
16 11 (1.10%) Fixed Income
16 11 (1.10%) Legacy Code
17 10 (1.00%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 255 (25.53%) Windows
2 143 (14.31%) Windows Server
3 91 (9.11%) Linux
4 40 (4.00%) Unix
5 13 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (1.00%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.80%) VMS
8 7 (0.70%) Solaris
8 7 (0.70%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.60%) Android
9 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
9 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
10 5 (0.50%) CentOS
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.20%) AIX
13 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.10%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (26.03%) DevOps
2 244 (24.42%) CI/CD
3 231 (23.12%) Agile
4 198 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
5 184 (18.42%) Migration
6 152 (15.22%) ETL
7 140 (14.01%) Business Intelligence
8 134 (13.41%) Data Modelling
9 129 (12.91%) Performance Tuning
10 117 (11.71%) Disaster Recovery
11 116 (11.61%) AI
12 97 (9.71%) Stakeholder Management
13 92 (9.21%) Analytics
14 91 (9.11%) Microservices
15 88 (8.81%) Continuous Improvement
16 87 (8.71%) High Availability
17 85 (8.51%) Test Automation
18 84 (8.41%) Software Engineering
19 81 (8.11%) Validation
20 78 (7.81%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 570 (57.06%) SQL
2 269 (26.93%) C#
3 193 (19.32%) Python
4 169 (16.92%) PowerShell
5 154 (15.42%) T-SQL
6 121 (12.11%) JavaScript
7 90 (9.01%) Java
8 64 (6.41%) PL/SQL
9 55 (5.51%) TypeScript
10 32 (3.20%) Bash
11 19 (1.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 19 (1.90%) Shell Script
12 16 (1.60%) VB
13 14 (1.40%) Scala
13 14 (1.40%) VBA
14 11 (1.10%) Korn
15 8 (0.80%) VB.NET
16 7 (0.70%) Bicep
17 6 (0.60%) XPath
18 5 (0.50%) VB6
Qualifications
1 254 (25.43%) Security Cleared
2 192 (19.22%) SC Cleared
3 98 (9.81%) Degree
4 48 (4.80%) DV Cleared
5 41 (4.10%) Microsoft Certification
6 30 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (1.90%) Azure Certification
9 12 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.20%) ISTQB
10 10 (1.00%) Oracle Certification
11 9 (0.90%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.90%) OCP
12 8 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 7 (0.70%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 4 (0.40%) CISSP
15 4 (0.40%) MCITP
15 4 (0.40%) MCTS
15 4 (0.40%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (9.41%) Data Quality
2 92 (9.21%) QA
3 26 (2.60%) GDPR
4 24 (2.40%) Accessibility
5 21 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (2.00%) NIST
7 16 (1.60%) SLA
7 16 (1.60%) WCAG
8 6 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.50%) ISO 9000
10 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.30%) Basel III
12 2 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.20%) COREP
12 2 (0.20%) FINREP
12 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.20%) GRC
12 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
13 1 (0.10%) IFRS
13 1 (0.10%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 128 (12.81%) Active Directory
2 77 (7.71%) Docker
3 39 (3.90%) VMware Infrastructure
4 30 (3.00%) Virtual Machines
5 24 (2.40%) Oracle RAC
6 9 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.60%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.60%) vSphere
8 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.30%) GridGain
9 3 (0.30%) Postfix
10 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.10%) NFS
10 1 (0.10%) RACF
10 1 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 100 (10.01%) Kubernetes
2 44 (4.40%) Ansible
3 17 (1.70%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 16 (1.60%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (1.40%) Data Guard
6 13 (1.30%) HAProxy
6 13 (1.30%) Oracle RMAN
6 13 (1.30%) SCCM
6 13 (1.30%) SCOM
7 11 (1.10%) Microsoft Clustering
8 10 (1.00%) WSUS
9 9 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
10 8 (0.80%) Grafana
11 6 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
12 5 (0.50%) ITRS Geneos
12 5 (0.50%) Prometheus
13 3 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
13 3 (0.30%) Istio
14 2 (0.20%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 339 (33.93%) Microsoft
2 259 (25.93%) Oracle
3 68 (6.81%) Databricks
4 63 (6.31%) VMware
5 48 (4.80%) ServiceNow
6 46 (4.60%) CyberArk
7 41 (4.10%) Citrix
8 36 (3.60%) SAP
9 29 (2.90%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.30%) BMC
10 23 (2.30%) Remedy
11 21 (2.10%) Cisco
11 21 (2.10%) Informatica
12 20 (2.00%) IBM
13 18 (1.80%) Dynatrace
13 18 (1.80%) Sybase
14 15 (1.50%) Google
14 15 (1.50%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.30%) Alteryx
16 11 (1.10%) Splunk