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

6 months to
21 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 102 55
Rank change year-on-year -8 -47 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,006 697 1,299
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.24% 2.56% 3.67%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.64% 13.96% 20.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 695 516 924
10th Percentile £358 £318 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £411
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £509 £501
Median % change year-on-year -4.18% +1.50% -4.52%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £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 6,872 4,992 6,366
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.33% 18.32% 17.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,587 3,450 4,579
10th Percentile £355 £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 £701 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 85 107
10th Percentile £16.00 £18.94 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.25 £23.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £41.00 £34.65 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +18.33% -13.38% -27.27%
75th Percentile £70.00 £63.75 £53.45
90th Percentile £77.50 £74.50 £70.45
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £37.50 £38.50
% change year-on-year +13.33% -2.60% -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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -32 476 £525 -4.55% 107
North of England +19 199 £473 +11.18% 76
South East -20 122 £468 +6.97% 97
North West -5 109 £478 +12.47% 37
Midlands -3 102 £475 +9.20% 49
Yorkshire +16 90 £450 +12.36% 28
West Midlands -28 57 £472 -18.00% 32
South West -10 53 £513 +10.81% 19
East Midlands +12 43 £525 +54.41% 17
East of England -7 34 £450 -10.00% 12
North East -46 1 - - 14
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 63 (6.26%) SharePoint
2 46 (4.57%) IIS
3 36 (3.58%) Confluence
4 22 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
5 21 (2.09%) Apache
5 21 (2.09%) Apache Spark
6 19 (1.89%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (1.39%) Camunda
8 11 (1.09%) Oracle Workflow
9 10 (0.99%) Appian
10 9 (0.89%) CMS
11 6 (0.60%) NetWeaver
12 5 (0.50%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.50%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.40%) Sitecore CMS
13 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
14 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
14 3 (0.30%) nginx
15 2 (0.20%) Anypoint
Applications
1 45 (4.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 21 (2.09%) 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 (1.79%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (1.69%) SAP S/4HANA
3 16 (1.59%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
4 6 (0.60%) OpenText MBPM
4 6 (0.60%) Oracle BPM
5 5 (0.50%) 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
1 415 (41.25%) Azure
2 219 (21.77%) AWS
3 136 (13.52%) Power Platform
4 106 (10.54%) Azure DevOps
5 92 (9.15%) GitHub
6 62 (6.16%) Azure Data Factory
7 41 (4.08%) Entra ID
8 40 (3.98%) Serverless
9 38 (3.78%) Azure Monitor
10 37 (3.68%) GitHub Actions
10 37 (3.68%) Snowflake
11 35 (3.48%) Power Automate
12 34 (3.38%) GCP
12 34 (3.38%) Microsoft 365
13 32 (3.18%) Dynamics 365
14 31 (3.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 28 (2.78%) SaaS
16 25 (2.49%) dbt
17 24 (2.39%) Amazon S3
18 23 (2.29%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 43 (4.27%) DNS
2 34 (3.38%) DHCP
3 25 (2.49%) Firewall
4 19 (1.89%) SAN
5 16 (1.59%) VLAN
6 14 (1.39%) Internet
7 13 (1.29%) VPN
8 11 (1.09%) Network Security
8 11 (1.09%) SSH
9 10 (0.99%) TCP/IP
10 9 (0.89%) Wi-Fi
11 7 (0.70%) SSL
12 6 (0.60%) HTTPS
12 6 (0.60%) IPv4
12 6 (0.60%) IPv6
13 4 (0.40%) Kerberos
13 4 (0.40%) LAN
13 4 (0.40%) WAN
14 3 (0.30%) NAS
14 3 (0.30%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (15.11%) PostgreSQL
2 112 (11.13%) Power BI
3 107 (10.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 106 (10.54%) Relational Database
5 102 (10.14%) Data Warehouse
6 77 (7.65%) Oracle Database
7 62 (6.16%) MySQL
8 61 (6.06%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 50 (4.97%) Azure SQL Database
10 42 (4.17%) MongoDB
11 40 (3.98%) Data Lake
12 33 (3.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 31 (3.08%) NoSQL
14 24 (2.39%) RDBMS
15 22 (2.19%) Tableau
16 16 (1.59%) Redis
17 15 (1.49%) Big Data
17 15 (1.49%) Metadata
18 14 (1.39%) Amazon RDS
18 14 (1.39%) Db2
Development Applications
1 89 (8.85%) Git
2 55 (5.47%) Jenkins
3 51 (5.07%) JIRA
4 29 (2.88%) Visual Studio
5 26 (2.58%) GitLab
6 21 (2.09%) Team Foundation Server
7 18 (1.79%) TeamCity
8 17 (1.69%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 15 (1.49%) Maven
10 13 (1.29%) Sonatype Nexus
11 12 (1.19%) Cucumber
12 11 (1.09%) Octopus Deploy
12 11 (1.09%) Postman
13 10 (0.99%) Selenium
14 9 (0.89%) Artifactory
14 9 (0.89%) Gatling
15 8 (0.80%) Chocolatey
15 8 (0.80%) JUnit
15 8 (0.80%) MSTest
16 7 (0.70%) Oracle Forms
General
1 292 (29.03%) Social Skills
2 249 (24.75%) Finance
3 182 (18.09%) Analytical Skills
4 122 (12.13%) Banking
5 81 (8.05%) Public Sector
6 47 (4.67%) Documentation Skills
7 36 (3.58%) Front Office
8 25 (2.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (2.39%) Investment Banking
10 16 (1.59%) Legal
11 14 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (1.29%) Financial Institution
13 11 (1.09%) Retail
14 9 (0.89%) Advertising
15 8 (0.80%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.60%) Back Office
16 6 (0.60%) Local Government
17 5 (0.50%) Law
17 5 (0.50%) Publishing
18 4 (0.40%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 305 (30.32%) Developer
2 146 (14.51%) Senior
3 142 (14.12%) DBA
4 90 (8.95%) SQL DBA
5 87 (8.65%) C# Developer
5 87 (8.65%) Data Engineer
6 77 (7.65%) .NET Developer
7 68 (6.76%) Lead
8 57 (5.67%) Architect
9 54 (5.37%) Administrator
9 54 (5.37%) SQL Developer
10 44 (4.37%) Senior Developer
11 43 (4.27%) Analyst
12 42 (4.17%) Oracle DBA
13 38 (3.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 38 (3.78%) Software Engineer
14 36 (3.58%) Full-Stack Developer
15 33 (3.28%) Azure Engineer
16 31 (3.08%) C# .NET Developer
17 30 (2.98%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 254 (25.25%) .NET
2 129 (12.82%) REST
3 105 (10.44%) .NET Framework
4 83 (8.25%) React
5 61 (6.06%) AngularJS
6 60 (5.96%) CSS
7 58 (5.77%) RESTful
8 57 (5.67%) ASP.NET
9 51 (5.07%) HTML
10 49 (4.87%) .NET Core
11 48 (4.77%) Kafka
12 38 (3.78%) Web Services
12 38 (3.78%) XML
13 37 (3.68%) JSON
14 31 (3.08%) SOAP
15 28 (2.78%) Entity Framework
16 25 (2.49%) OAuth
16 25 (2.49%) Spring Boot
17 23 (2.29%) Spring
18 20 (1.99%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 55 (5.47%) Onboarding
2 52 (5.17%) Legacy Systems
3 49 (4.87%) Cloud Native
4 46 (4.57%) Data Structures
4 46 (4.57%) Replication
5 41 (4.08%) Clustering
6 39 (3.88%) Self-Motivation
7 37 (3.68%) Enterprise Software
8 25 (2.49%) Management Information System
9 22 (2.19%) Product Ownership
10 19 (1.89%) PKI
11 18 (1.79%) Low-Code
12 16 (1.59%) Derivative
12 16 (1.59%) NHS
13 14 (1.39%) Data Centre
13 14 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
13 14 (1.39%) Fixed Income
14 13 (1.29%) Algorithms
15 12 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
16 10 (0.99%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 245 (24.35%) Windows
2 143 (14.21%) Windows Server
3 95 (9.44%) Linux
4 57 (5.67%) Unix
5 13 (1.29%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (0.89%) AIX
7 8 (0.80%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.80%) Windows 10
7 8 (0.80%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.70%) Android
9 6 (0.60%) VMS
10 5 (0.50%) Solaris
10 5 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.50%) 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
1 247 (24.55%) DevOps
2 228 (22.66%) Agile
3 222 (22.07%) CI/CD
4 212 (21.07%) Problem-Solving
5 172 (17.10%) Migration
6 155 (15.41%) ETL
7 141 (14.02%) Business Intelligence
8 139 (13.82%) Performance Tuning
9 132 (13.12%) Data Modelling
10 115 (11.43%) Disaster Recovery
11 113 (11.23%) AI
12 94 (9.34%) Analytics
13 90 (8.95%) High Availability
14 87 (8.65%) Data Pipeline
15 86 (8.55%) Microservices
16 79 (7.85%) Continuous Improvement
17 78 (7.75%) Test Automation
18 76 (7.55%) Data Analysis
18 76 (7.55%) Validation
19 75 (7.46%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 570 (56.66%) SQL
2 261 (25.94%) C#
3 210 (20.87%) Python
4 179 (17.79%) PowerShell
5 167 (16.60%) T-SQL
6 108 (10.74%) JavaScript
7 79 (7.85%) Java
8 65 (6.46%) PL/SQL
9 57 (5.67%) TypeScript
10 36 (3.58%) Bash
11 25 (2.49%) Shell Script
12 22 (2.19%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 18 (1.79%) Scala
13 18 (1.79%) VB
14 16 (1.59%) Korn
15 15 (1.49%) VBA
16 11 (1.09%) Bicep
17 8 (0.80%) VB.NET
18 6 (0.60%) VB6
18 6 (0.60%) XPath
Qualifications
1 243 (24.16%) Security Cleared
2 182 (18.09%) SC Cleared
3 103 (10.24%) Degree
4 44 (4.37%) DV Cleared
5 35 (3.48%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (2.49%) Computer Science Degree
7 18 (1.79%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (1.69%) 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 6 (0.60%) CISSP
12 5 (0.50%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.40%) MCITP
13 4 (0.40%) MCTS
13 4 (0.40%) PhD
14 3 (0.30%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 95 (9.44%) QA
2 88 (8.75%) Data Quality
3 28 (2.78%) GDPR
4 26 (2.58%) NIST
5 24 (2.39%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 22 (2.19%) Accessibility
7 18 (1.79%) SLA
8 14 (1.39%) WCAG
9 6 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.50%) 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
1 113 (11.23%) Active Directory
2 75 (7.46%) Docker
3 31 (3.08%) Virtual Machines
4 30 (2.98%) Oracle RAC
5 26 (2.58%) VMware Infrastructure
6 13 (1.29%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.70%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.60%) 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 99 (9.84%) Kubernetes
2 70 (6.96%) Terraform
3 35 (3.48%) Ansible
4 23 (2.29%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 21 (2.09%) Oracle RMAN
6 15 (1.49%) Data Guard
7 14 (1.39%) SCCM
8 13 (1.29%) HAProxy
8 13 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.99%) WSUS
10 9 (0.89%) Grafana
11 7 (0.70%) SCOM
11 7 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.70%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.60%) 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
1 311 (30.91%) Microsoft
2 282 (28.03%) Oracle
3 53 (5.27%) Databricks
4 50 (4.97%) Citrix
5 49 (4.87%) ServiceNow
6 48 (4.77%) VMware
7 44 (4.37%) CyberArk
8 37 (3.68%) SAP
9 28 (2.78%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.29%) Sybase
11 21 (2.09%) Informatica
12 19 (1.89%) Dynatrace
13 18 (1.79%) Cisco
13 18 (1.79%) IBM
13 18 (1.79%) Remedy
14 17 (1.69%) BMC
14 17 (1.69%) Google
14 17 (1.69%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.29%) Alteryx
16 10 (0.99%) AppDynamics