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

6 months to
13 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 107 101 57
Rank change year-on-year -6 -44 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,007 707 1,326
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.25% 2.59% 3.62%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.70% 14.22% 20.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 700 526 934
10th Percentile £356 £323 £330
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £504 £511
Median % change year-on-year -2.73% -1.47% -2.62%
75th Percentile £600 £648 £638
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £505
% change year-on-year -2.50% -0.99% -3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 7 21
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.91 £36.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 -
Median hourly rate £27.88 £25.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.52% -37.50% -12.09%
75th Percentile £62.00 £51.91 £48.75
90th Percentile £74.40 £82.00 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £33.49 £48.16 £40.00
% change year-on-year -30.46% +20.40% -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 6,851 4,972 6,498
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.28% 18.22% 17.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,598 3,447 4,679
10th Percentile £355 £350 £350
25th Percentile £416 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £600 £642 £675
90th Percentile £703 £775 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 224 91 127
10th Percentile £15.17 £19.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.13 £24.25 £19.25
Median hourly rate £38.38 £34.00 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +12.87% -11.69% -33.04%
75th Percentile £73.00 £62.88 £51.00
90th Percentile £79.39 £70.00 £69.15
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +12.86% -6.67% -31.82%

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 13 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 13 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 13 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 -34 483 £525 -4.55% 133
North of England +3 190 £468 +10.00% 104
South East -23 123 £471 +4.67% 97
North West -10 106 £475 +11.76% 56
Midlands -4 99 £481 +9.32% 62
Yorkshire +9 84 £450 +12.50% 33
West Midlands -40 54 £474 -17.57% 40
South West -5 53 £513 +7.89% 26
East Midlands +12 43 £525 +60.80% 22
East of England -2 38 £475 -5.00% 16
North East -38 1 - - 18
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 60 (5.96%) SharePoint
2 46 (4.57%) IIS
3 34 (3.38%) Confluence
4 22 (2.18%) Apache
4 22 (2.18%) Apache Spark
5 21 (2.09%) Microsoft Exchange
6 19 (1.89%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (1.29%) Camunda
8 12 (1.19%) Appian
8 12 (1.19%) CMS
9 11 (1.09%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.60%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.60%) Sitecore CMS
11 5 (0.50%) OpenEdge
11 5 (0.50%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.50%) Umbraco
12 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
13 3 (0.30%) nginx
14 2 (0.20%) Anypoint
Applications
1 46 (4.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.89%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.39%) 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%) SAP S/4HANA
2 15 (1.49%) Remedy ITSM
3 14 (1.39%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
4 6 (0.60%) OpenText MBPM
4 6 (0.60%) Oracle BPM
5 5 (0.50%) Elite 3E
5 5 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.30%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.30%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.099%) Oracle General Ledger
8 1 (0.099%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.099%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.099%) SAP Hybris
8 1 (0.099%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.099%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 421 (41.81%) Azure
2 229 (22.74%) AWS
3 140 (13.90%) Power Platform
4 108 (10.72%) Azure DevOps
5 92 (9.14%) GitHub
6 64 (6.36%) Azure Data Factory
7 40 (3.97%) GCP
7 40 (3.97%) Serverless
8 38 (3.77%) Azure Monitor
9 37 (3.67%) GitHub Actions
10 35 (3.48%) Entra ID
11 34 (3.38%) Power Automate
12 33 (3.28%) Snowflake
13 31 (3.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 31 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
14 30 (2.98%) Dynamics 365
15 29 (2.88%) SaaS
16 24 (2.38%) Amazon S3
16 24 (2.38%) dbt
17 23 (2.28%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 39 (3.87%) DNS
2 31 (3.08%) DHCP
3 21 (2.09%) Firewall
4 19 (1.89%) SAN
5 14 (1.39%) VLAN
6 13 (1.29%) Internet
7 11 (1.09%) SSH
7 11 (1.09%) VPN
8 9 (0.89%) Network Security
8 9 (0.89%) TCP/IP
9 7 (0.70%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (0.60%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.60%) IPv4
10 6 (0.60%) IPv6
10 6 (0.60%) SSL
11 4 (0.40%) Kerberos
11 4 (0.40%) LAN
12 3 (0.30%) NAS
12 3 (0.30%) VoIP
12 3 (0.30%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 158 (15.69%) PostgreSQL
2 115 (11.42%) Power BI
3 113 (11.22%) Relational Database
4 107 (10.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 104 (10.33%) Data Warehouse
6 74 (7.35%) Oracle Database
7 66 (6.55%) MySQL
8 60 (5.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 52 (5.16%) Azure SQL Database
10 45 (4.47%) MongoDB
11 38 (3.77%) Data Lake
12 36 (3.57%) NoSQL
13 32 (3.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 28 (2.78%) RDBMS
15 23 (2.28%) Tableau
16 18 (1.79%) Metadata
17 17 (1.69%) Big Data
17 17 (1.69%) Redis
18 15 (1.49%) Amazon RDS
19 13 (1.29%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 91 (9.04%) Git
2 54 (5.36%) Jenkins
3 53 (5.26%) JIRA
4 33 (3.28%) Visual Studio
5 25 (2.48%) GitLab
6 19 (1.89%) Team Foundation Server
7 18 (1.79%) TeamCity
8 16 (1.59%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 14 (1.39%) Maven
10 12 (1.19%) Cucumber
10 12 (1.19%) Octopus Deploy
10 12 (1.19%) Sonatype Nexus
11 10 (0.99%) Postman
12 9 (0.89%) Gatling
13 8 (0.79%) Artifactory
13 8 (0.79%) Chocolatey
13 8 (0.79%) MSTest
13 8 (0.79%) Oracle Forms
14 7 (0.70%) JUnit
14 7 (0.70%) Selenium
General
1 293 (29.10%) Social Skills
2 252 (25.02%) Finance
3 175 (17.38%) Analytical Skills
4 122 (12.12%) Banking
5 79 (7.85%) Public Sector
6 45 (4.47%) Documentation Skills
7 35 (3.48%) Front Office
8 25 (2.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (2.38%) Investment Banking
10 18 (1.79%) Legal
11 15 (1.49%) Retail
12 14 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
13 12 (1.19%) Financial Institution
14 9 (0.89%) Advertising
15 7 (0.70%) Local Government
15 7 (0.70%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.60%) Back Office
16 6 (0.60%) Law
17 5 (0.50%) Publishing
18 4 (0.40%) Games
Job Titles
1 303 (30.09%) Developer
2 140 (13.90%) Senior
3 135 (13.41%) DBA
4 93 (9.24%) Data Engineer
5 89 (8.84%) C# Developer
6 85 (8.44%) SQL DBA
7 75 (7.45%) .NET Developer
8 72 (7.15%) Lead
9 59 (5.86%) Architect
10 51 (5.06%) SQL Developer
11 50 (4.97%) Administrator
12 46 (4.57%) Analyst
13 43 (4.27%) Senior Developer
14 40 (3.97%) Oracle DBA
15 37 (3.67%) Software Engineer
16 35 (3.48%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 34 (3.38%) Full-Stack Developer
18 33 (3.28%) Azure Engineer
19 30 (2.98%) C# .NET Developer
19 30 (2.98%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 256 (25.42%) .NET
2 129 (12.81%) REST
3 107 (10.63%) .NET Framework
4 85 (8.44%) React
5 63 (6.26%) CSS
6 62 (6.16%) AngularJS
6 62 (6.16%) RESTful
7 57 (5.66%) ASP.NET
8 53 (5.26%) HTML
9 51 (5.06%) .NET Core
10 49 (4.87%) Kafka
11 37 (3.67%) Web Services
12 36 (3.57%) XML
13 35 (3.48%) JSON
14 29 (2.88%) Entity Framework
14 29 (2.88%) SOAP
15 27 (2.68%) Spring Boot
16 26 (2.58%) OAuth
16 26 (2.58%) Spring
17 19 (1.89%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 54 (5.36%) Legacy Systems
2 52 (5.16%) Cloud Native
2 52 (5.16%) Onboarding
3 44 (4.37%) Data Structures
4 42 (4.17%) Replication
5 37 (3.67%) Clustering
5 37 (3.67%) Enterprise Software
5 37 (3.67%) Self-Motivation
6 26 (2.58%) Management Information System
7 21 (2.09%) Product Ownership
8 19 (1.89%) Low-Code
9 18 (1.79%) PKI
10 17 (1.69%) Derivative
11 16 (1.59%) NHS
12 14 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
12 14 (1.39%) Fixed Income
13 13 (1.29%) Algorithms
14 12 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
14 12 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
14 12 (1.19%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 238 (23.63%) Windows
2 138 (13.70%) Windows Server
3 94 (9.33%) Linux
4 60 (5.96%) Unix
5 11 (1.09%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (0.99%) AIX
7 9 (0.89%) Windows 10
8 8 (0.79%) Android
8 8 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
9 7 (0.70%) Ubuntu
10 6 (0.60%) VMS
10 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.50%) Solaris
11 5 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
12 3 (0.30%) CentOS
13 2 (0.20%) OpenVMS
13 2 (0.20%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.099%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (24.73%) DevOps
2 229 (22.74%) Agile
2 229 (22.74%) CI/CD
3 214 (21.25%) Problem-Solving
4 160 (15.89%) ETL
4 160 (15.89%) Migration
5 144 (14.30%) Business Intelligence
6 135 (13.41%) Data Modelling
6 135 (13.41%) Performance Tuning
7 112 (11.12%) AI
8 111 (11.02%) Disaster Recovery
9 97 (9.63%) Analytics
10 91 (9.04%) Microservices
11 88 (8.74%) Data Pipeline
12 85 (8.44%) High Availability
13 83 (8.24%) Data Analysis
14 78 (7.75%) Data Integration
14 78 (7.75%) Validation
15 75 (7.45%) Test Automation
16 74 (7.35%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 578 (57.40%) SQL
2 265 (26.32%) C#
3 226 (22.44%) Python
4 172 (17.08%) PowerShell
5 168 (16.68%) T-SQL
6 101 (10.03%) JavaScript
7 80 (7.94%) Java
8 66 (6.55%) PL/SQL
9 60 (5.96%) TypeScript
10 35 (3.48%) Bash
11 25 (2.48%) Shell Script
12 23 (2.28%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 19 (1.89%) Scala
14 18 (1.79%) VB
15 17 (1.69%) Korn
16 14 (1.39%) VBA
17 11 (1.09%) Bicep
18 8 (0.79%) VB.NET
19 7 (0.70%) VB6
20 6 (0.60%) XPath
Qualifications
1 236 (23.44%) Security Cleared
2 178 (17.68%) SC Cleared
3 107 (10.63%) Degree
4 41 (4.07%) DV Cleared
5 36 (3.57%) Microsoft Certification
6 27 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
8 17 (1.69%) Azure Certification
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 7 (0.70%) ISTQB
12 6 (0.60%) CISSP
13 5 (0.50%) AWS Certification
14 4 (0.40%) MCITP
14 4 (0.40%) MCTS
14 4 (0.40%) PhD
15 3 (0.30%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 3 (0.30%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 101 (10.03%) QA
2 93 (9.24%) Data Quality
3 26 (2.58%) GDPR
3 26 (2.58%) NIST
4 24 (2.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (1.79%) SLA
6 16 (1.59%) Accessibility
7 11 (1.09%) WCAG
8 6 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 5 (0.50%) ISO 9000
10 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 3 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.30%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.20%) Basel III
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 (0.099%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 105 (10.43%) Active Directory
2 81 (8.04%) Docker
3 30 (2.98%) Virtual Machines
4 27 (2.68%) Oracle RAC
5 23 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
6 12 (1.19%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.60%) KVM
7 6 (0.60%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
8 3 (0.30%) GridGain
8 3 (0.30%) Postfix
8 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
9 2 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.20%) vSphere
10 1 (0.099%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.099%) NFS
10 1 (0.099%) RACF
10 1 (0.099%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.099%) XenApp
10 1 (0.099%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 106 (10.53%) Kubernetes
2 72 (7.15%) Terraform
3 36 (3.57%) Ansible
4 21 (2.09%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 19 (1.89%) Oracle RMAN
6 14 (1.39%) SCCM
7 13 (1.29%) HAProxy
8 12 (1.19%) Data Guard
9 10 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
9 10 (0.99%) WSUS
10 8 (0.79%) Grafana
10 8 (0.79%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.70%) vCenter Server
12 6 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
12 6 (0.60%) IBM BigFix
13 5 (0.50%) SCOM
14 4 (0.40%) Prometheus
15 3 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
15 3 (0.30%) Foglight
15 3 (0.30%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 303 (30.09%) Microsoft
2 290 (28.80%) Oracle
3 62 (6.16%) Databricks
4 52 (5.16%) Citrix
5 48 (4.77%) ServiceNow
6 42 (4.17%) CyberArk
7 41 (4.07%) VMware
8 35 (3.48%) SAP
9 29 (2.88%) Informatica
10 26 (2.58%) BeyondTrust
11 23 (2.28%) Sybase
12 21 (2.09%) Google
13 18 (1.79%) Dynatrace
14 16 (1.59%) IBM
15 15 (1.49%) Cisco
15 15 (1.49%) Remedy
16 14 (1.39%) BMC
16 14 (1.39%) Red Hat
17 11 (1.09%) Alteryx
18 10 (0.99%) AppDynamics