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 17 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
17 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 79 68
Rank change year-on-year -60 -11 -19
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 696 767 1,161
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.03% 2.99% 3.06%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.52% 16.10% 18.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 473 543 851
10th Percentile £350 £338 £325
25th Percentile £406 £403 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £510 £538
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% -5.12% -2.27%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £685 £700 £730
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 29
10th Percentile £12.95 £42.63 £20.71
25th Percentile £20.75 £60.66 £40.00
Median hourly rate £26.44 £63.75 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -58.52% +58.37% -7.47%
75th Percentile £30.24 £65.46 £56.25
90th Percentile £66.07 £65.62 £62.60
UK median hourly rate £27.44 £60.50 £40.25
% change year-on-year -54.64% +50.31% -7.75%

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 5,557 4,765 6,125
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.20% 18.59% 16.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,851 3,197 4,392
10th Percentile £338 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% - -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £657
90th Percentile £700 £783 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 82 162
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £15.99
25th Percentile £26.50 £25.06 £21.86
Median hourly rate £50.00 £41.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.95% -3.53% -25.26%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.00 £61.75
90th Percentile £85.70 £73.38 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £38.31 £42.50
% change year-on-year +37.06% -9.87% -25.26%

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 17 February 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 17 February 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 17 February 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 -36 431 £500 -9.09% 108
North of England -41 80 £425 -6.85% 99
South East -50 79 £488 -2.50% 148
North West -24 45 £449 +8.73% 64
Yorkshire -37 33 £393 -21.50% 24
South West -38 28 £550 - 36
Midlands -91 26 £455 -9.00% 60
East of England -11 25 £575 +10.05% 41
West Midlands -74 17 £450 -20.63% 32
East Midlands -39 7 £425 +16.44% 28
North East -10 3 £475 +28.38% 13
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 (4.45%) SharePoint
2 25 (3.59%) IIS
3 20 (2.87%) Microsoft Exchange
4 17 (2.44%) Confluence
5 14 (2.01%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 11 (1.58%) Apache
6 11 (1.58%) WebSphere
7 10 (1.44%) Apache Spark
7 10 (1.44%) Appian
8 9 (1.29%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (1.29%) CMS
9 7 (1.01%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.86%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.57%) SharePoint Server
12 2 (0.29%) JBoss
13 1 (0.14%) ColdFusion
13 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
13 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.14%) SAS
13 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 42 (6.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.72%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.72%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.29%) Windchill
6 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (1.29%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.01%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.86%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.43%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.29%) Dynamics AX
7 2 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.29%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.29%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.29%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.14%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.14%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.14%) Maximo
8 1 (0.14%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 303 (43.53%) Azure
2 145 (20.83%) AWS
3 126 (18.10%) Power Platform
4 89 (12.79%) Azure DevOps
5 60 (8.62%) Azure Data Factory
6 54 (7.76%) GitHub
7 53 (7.61%) GCP
8 35 (5.03%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 33 (4.74%) Microsoft 365
10 30 (4.31%) SaaS
11 22 (3.16%) Amazon S3
12 21 (3.02%) Power Automate
13 20 (2.87%) GitHub Actions
14 19 (2.73%) Dynamics 365
14 19 (2.73%) Snowflake
15 18 (2.59%) Azure Service Bus
16 17 (2.44%) IaaS
17 16 (2.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 16 (2.30%) Serverless
18 15 (2.16%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 28 (4.02%) Firewall
2 21 (3.02%) DNS
3 15 (2.16%) TCP/IP
4 13 (1.87%) DHCP
4 13 (1.87%) Internet
5 10 (1.44%) HTTP
6 8 (1.15%) VPN
7 7 (1.01%) LAN
8 6 (0.86%) NetScaler
9 5 (0.72%) Skype
9 5 (0.72%) VLAN
9 5 (0.72%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (0.57%) RS-232
10 4 (0.57%) SAN
10 4 (0.57%) SSL
10 4 (0.57%) VoIP
10 4 (0.57%) X.400
11 3 (0.43%) SSH
11 3 (0.43%) WAN
12 2 (0.29%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 105 (15.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 104 (14.94%) Power BI
3 92 (13.22%) PostgreSQL
4 83 (11.93%) Data Warehouse
4 83 (11.93%) Relational Database
5 65 (9.34%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 52 (7.47%) Oracle Database
7 47 (6.75%) Azure SQL Database
7 47 (6.75%) Data Lake
8 46 (6.61%) MySQL
9 37 (5.32%) MongoDB
10 34 (4.89%) NoSQL
11 27 (3.88%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 25 (3.59%) DB2
12 25 (3.59%) RDBMS
13 20 (2.87%) Amazon RDS
13 20 (2.87%) Big Data
13 20 (2.87%) Delta Lake
14 18 (2.59%) Tableau
15 16 (2.30%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 60 (8.62%) Git
2 47 (6.75%) JIRA
3 30 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 24 (3.45%) Visual Studio
5 18 (2.59%) GitLab
6 16 (2.30%) Postman
7 11 (1.58%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 10 (1.44%) Cucumber
8 10 (1.44%) SpecFlow
8 10 (1.44%) Team Foundation Server
9 9 (1.29%) Maven
10 8 (1.15%) ERwin
10 8 (1.15%) MLflow
10 8 (1.15%) Octopus Deploy
10 8 (1.15%) Selenium
11 7 (1.01%) JUnit
11 7 (1.01%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.86%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.86%) TestRail
13 5 (0.72%) Bitbucket
General
1 203 (29.17%) Social Skills
2 174 (25.00%) Finance
3 105 (15.09%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (13.07%) Banking
5 49 (7.04%) Public Sector
6 39 (5.60%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.45%) Investment Banking
8 18 (2.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (2.01%) Retail
10 13 (1.87%) Front Office
11 12 (1.72%) Financial Institution
12 8 (1.15%) Legal
13 7 (1.01%) Local Government
14 6 (0.86%) Law
14 6 (0.86%) Manufacturing
14 6 (0.86%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.72%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.57%) Military
16 4 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.57%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 240 (34.48%) Developer
2 101 (14.51%) Senior
3 97 (13.94%) Data Engineer
4 67 (9.63%) C# Developer
5 58 (8.33%) Architect
6 49 (7.04%) .NET Developer
7 46 (6.61%) Analyst
8 39 (5.60%) DBA
9 38 (5.46%) Senior Developer
10 31 (4.45%) Lead
10 31 (4.45%) Senior Data Engineer
11 27 (3.88%) Full-Stack Developer
11 27 (3.88%) SQL DBA
12 24 (3.45%) Software Engineer
13 23 (3.30%) SQL Developer
14 22 (3.16%) Consultant
15 20 (2.87%) Azure Engineer
15 20 (2.87%) C# .NET Developer
16 19 (2.73%) Data Architect
17 17 (2.44%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (28.45%) .NET
2 83 (11.93%) .NET Framework
3 79 (11.35%) REST
4 51 (7.33%) React
5 50 (7.18%) AngularJS
5 50 (7.18%) HTML
6 41 (5.89%) .NET Core
6 41 (5.89%) CSS
6 41 (5.89%) RESTful
7 38 (5.46%) XML
8 35 (5.03%) Web Services
9 33 (4.74%) ASP.NET
10 32 (4.60%) Kafka
11 30 (4.31%) SOAP
12 26 (3.74%) Entity Framework
13 24 (3.45%) WPF
14 22 (3.16%) OAuth
15 20 (2.87%) JSON
15 20 (2.87%) Middleware
16 19 (2.73%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.60%) Legacy Systems
2 31 (4.45%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.45%) Enterprise Software
4 20 (2.87%) Management Information System
4 20 (2.87%) Onboarding
4 20 (2.87%) Replication
5 16 (2.30%) Data Structures
6 15 (2.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 13 (1.87%) Clustering
7 13 (1.87%) Derivative
7 13 (1.87%) Product Ownership
8 12 (1.72%) Credit Risk
8 12 (1.72%) PKI
9 11 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
9 11 (1.58%) Low-Code
9 11 (1.58%) Reinsurance
10 10 (1.44%) Linux Command Line
11 9 (1.29%) Greenfield Project
11 9 (1.29%) NHS
12 8 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 124 (17.82%) Windows
2 80 (11.49%) Linux
3 63 (9.05%) Windows Server
4 19 (2.73%) Unix
5 15 (2.16%) Windows 10
6 13 (1.87%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.86%) AIX
9 5 (0.72%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.57%) Android
10 4 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.29%) VMS
12 2 (0.29%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
13 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (23.13%) CI/CD
2 157 (22.56%) Agile
3 154 (22.13%) Problem-Solving
4 150 (21.55%) DevOps
5 139 (19.97%) ETL
6 134 (19.25%) Business Intelligence
7 114 (16.38%) Data Modelling
8 103 (14.80%) Migration
9 75 (10.78%) Analytics
10 66 (9.48%) Data Engineering
10 66 (9.48%) Microservices
11 62 (8.91%) Test Automation
12 61 (8.76%) Data Analysis
13 60 (8.62%) Data Pipeline
13 60 (8.62%) Performance Tuning
14 59 (8.48%) Containerisation
15 58 (8.33%) Disaster Recovery
16 55 (7.90%) Data Governance
17 53 (7.61%) Full-Stack Development
18 52 (7.47%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 404 (58.05%) SQL
2 179 (25.72%) C#
3 164 (23.56%) Python
4 92 (13.22%) T-SQL
5 72 (10.34%) JavaScript
6 70 (10.06%) PowerShell
7 66 (9.48%) Java
8 60 (8.62%) PL/SQL
9 35 (5.03%) Bash
10 33 (4.74%) TypeScript
11 22 (3.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 18 (2.59%) VB
13 15 (2.16%) VBA
14 14 (2.01%) Bicep
14 14 (2.01%) PHP
15 7 (1.01%) XPath
16 5 (0.72%) R
16 5 (0.72%) Scala
16 5 (0.72%) Shell Script
16 5 (0.72%) X++
Qualifications
1 103 (14.80%) Security Cleared
2 75 (10.78%) Degree
3 71 (10.20%) SC Cleared
4 24 (3.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (2.87%) Azure Certification
6 19 (2.73%) DV Cleared
6 19 (2.73%) Microsoft Certification
7 14 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (1.29%) Master's Degree
9 6 (0.86%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.72%) CCA
10 5 (0.72%) Citrix Certification
11 4 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
12 3 (0.43%) CCNP
12 3 (0.43%) HNC
12 3 (0.43%) HND
12 3 (0.43%) MCSE
12 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (0.29%) CCIE
13 2 (0.29%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 76 (10.92%) QA
2 75 (10.78%) Data Quality
3 16 (2.30%) GDPR
4 9 (1.29%) SLA
5 7 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 5 (0.72%) Accessibility
6 5 (0.72%) NIST
6 5 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 4 (0.57%) MiFID
7 4 (0.57%) WCAG
8 3 (0.43%) EMIR
8 3 (0.43%) IFRS
8 3 (0.43%) IFRS 17
9 2 (0.29%) Basel III
9 2 (0.29%) GAAP
9 2 (0.29%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.29%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.14%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 84 (12.07%) Docker
2 51 (7.33%) Active Directory
3 26 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (2.30%) Hyper-V
5 10 (1.44%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.01%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.86%) zsh
8 5 (0.72%) XenApp
8 5 (0.72%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.57%) KVM
10 3 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.43%) vSphere
11 2 (0.29%) GridGain
11 2 (0.29%) NDS
11 2 (0.29%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 65 (9.34%) Kubernetes
2 40 (5.75%) Terraform
3 18 (2.59%) Ansible
4 14 (2.01%) SCCM
5 13 (1.87%) Grafana
6 11 (1.58%) vCenter Server
7 10 (1.44%) Puppet
8 9 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (1.15%) NetBackup
9 8 (1.15%) Oracle RMAN
10 7 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (1.01%) TIBCO Hawk
11 6 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.72%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.72%) SCVMM
13 4 (0.57%) IBM BigFix
13 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Clustering
13 4 (0.57%) WSUS
14 3 (0.43%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.43%) SCOM
Vendors
1 212 (30.46%) Microsoft
1 212 (30.46%) Oracle
2 56 (8.05%) Databricks
3 45 (6.47%) Citrix
4 40 (5.75%) VMware
5 27 (3.88%) Informatica
6 25 (3.59%) Google
7 24 (3.45%) ServiceNow
8 20 (2.87%) IBM
8 20 (2.87%) SAP
9 15 (2.16%) CyberArk
10 13 (1.87%) UiPath
11 12 (1.72%) Salesforce
11 12 (1.72%) SolarWinds
12 10 (1.44%) Cisco
12 10 (1.44%) Veritas
13 9 (1.29%) Advent
13 9 (1.29%) OpenAI
13 9 (1.29%) Sybase
14 8 (1.15%) Automation Anywhere
440 SQL Server jobs in England