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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 123 96 61
Rank change year-on-year -27 -35 -10
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 835 679 1,230
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.12% 2.78% 3.29%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.37% 14.54% 19.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 585 501 861
10th Percentile £356 £345 £350
25th Percentile £404 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.21% -1.43% -2.33%
75th Percentile £588 £650 £645
90th Percentile £675 £738 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -6.86% -2.86% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 31 6 26
10th Percentile £19.25 £25.66 £21.79
25th Percentile £26.11 £34.80 £38.22
Median hourly rate £52.50 £62.12 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year -15.49% +54.82% +5.59%
75th Percentile £69.72 £65.62 £56.84
90th Percentile £74.00 £77.18 £62.98
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £62.12 £40.00
% change year-on-year -14.68% +55.31% -8.18%

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 6,245 4,670 6,174
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.87% 19.11% 16.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,340 3,267 4,431
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 155 95 137
10th Percentile £17.55 £20.99 £14.00
25th Percentile £29.85 £24.25 £20.77
Median hourly rate £51.00 £33.11 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +54.03% -17.23% -30.43%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.31 £52.50
90th Percentile £83.55 £70.00 £70.25
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £33.81 £40.00
% change year-on-year +55.30% -15.49% -33.33%

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 April 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 April 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 April 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 -29 464 £500 -9.09% 116
North of England -23 133 £467 +9.76% 77
South East -27 107 £475 -5.00% 116
North West -20 70 £475 +10.14% 45
Yorkshire -8 61 £450 +12.43% 24
Midlands -59 52 £450 -18.18% 56
South West -36 33 £438 -18.60% 46
East of England -6 28 £544 +5.58% 24
West Midlands -61 26 £449 -24.53% 33
East Midlands -17 24 £494 +36.02% 23
North East -21 3 £475 +5.56% 8
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 37 (4.43%) IIS
2 35 (4.19%) SharePoint
3 22 (2.63%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (2.16%) Confluence
5 13 (1.56%) Apache
5 13 (1.56%) Apache Spark
5 13 (1.56%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 11 (1.32%) Apache Airflow
6 11 (1.32%) Appian
6 11 (1.32%) WebSphere
7 8 (0.96%) WebLogic
8 7 (0.84%) CMS
9 6 (0.72%) Camunda
9 6 (0.72%) Sitecore CMS
10 4 (0.48%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.36%) Apache Superset
11 3 (0.36%) OpenEdge
12 2 (0.24%) Tomcat
13 1 (0.12%) ColdFusion
13 1 (0.12%) JBoss
Applications
1 38 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.68%) MS Visio
3 13 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.12%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 12 (1.44%) Dynamics CRM
2 9 (1.08%) Remedy ITSM
3 8 (0.96%) Advent Geneva
4 7 (0.84%) BusinessWorks
4 7 (0.84%) SAP S/4HANA
5 4 (0.48%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.36%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.24%) Endur
7 2 (0.24%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.24%) Salesforce CRM
7 2 (0.24%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.12%) Findur
8 1 (0.12%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.12%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 366 (43.83%) Azure
2 171 (20.48%) AWS
3 136 (16.29%) Power Platform
4 109 (13.05%) Azure DevOps
5 83 (9.94%) Azure Data Factory
6 67 (8.02%) GitHub
7 49 (5.87%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 39 (4.67%) GCP
9 32 (3.83%) Microsoft 365
10 31 (3.71%) GitHub Actions
11 30 (3.59%) SaaS
12 28 (3.35%) Amazon S3
12 28 (3.35%) Power Automate
13 26 (3.11%) Snowflake
14 23 (2.75%) Dynamics 365
14 23 (2.75%) Serverless
15 22 (2.63%) IaaS
16 20 (2.40%) Amazon EC2
17 19 (2.28%) Azure Monitor
18 18 (2.16%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 28 (3.35%) DNS
2 22 (2.63%) DHCP
3 21 (2.51%) Firewall
4 13 (1.56%) Internet
5 12 (1.44%) TCP/IP
5 12 (1.44%) VLAN
5 12 (1.44%) VPN
6 10 (1.20%) SAN
7 7 (0.84%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.72%) HTTP
8 6 (0.72%) LAN
8 6 (0.72%) NetScaler
9 5 (0.60%) IPv4
9 5 (0.60%) IPv6
10 4 (0.48%) FTP
10 4 (0.48%) Network Security
10 4 (0.48%) SSH
10 4 (0.48%) WAN
11 3 (0.36%) RS-232
11 3 (0.36%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 122 (14.61%) PostgreSQL
2 114 (13.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 110 (13.17%) Power BI
4 98 (11.74%) Data Warehouse
5 88 (10.54%) Relational Database
6 65 (7.78%) Oracle Database
6 65 (7.78%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 60 (7.19%) Azure SQL Database
8 56 (6.71%) Data Lake
9 53 (6.35%) MySQL
10 36 (4.31%) NoSQL
11 34 (4.07%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 33 (3.95%) MongoDB
13 25 (2.99%) DB2
14 23 (2.75%) Metadata
15 21 (2.51%) Amazon RDS
16 18 (2.16%) Delta Lake
16 18 (2.16%) RDBMS
16 18 (2.16%) Tableau
17 13 (1.56%) Redis
Development Applications
1 70 (8.38%) Git
2 53 (6.35%) JIRA
3 39 (4.67%) Jenkins
4 25 (2.99%) Visual Studio
5 21 (2.51%) GitLab
6 15 (1.80%) TeamCity
7 11 (1.32%) Cucumber
7 11 (1.32%) Team Foundation Server
8 10 (1.20%) Maven
8 10 (1.20%) Postman
9 9 (1.08%) ERwin
9 9 (1.08%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
10 8 (0.96%) Gatling
10 8 (0.96%) MLflow
10 8 (0.96%) Octopus Deploy
11 7 (0.84%) Chocolatey
11 7 (0.84%) Selenium
12 6 (0.72%) JUnit
12 6 (0.72%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.72%) TestRail
General
1 233 (27.90%) Social Skills
2 193 (23.11%) Finance
3 131 (15.69%) Analytical Skills
4 95 (11.38%) Banking
5 73 (8.74%) Public Sector
6 34 (4.07%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (2.87%) Front Office
8 23 (2.75%) Investment Banking
9 22 (2.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (1.92%) Retail
11 15 (1.80%) Legal
12 14 (1.68%) Organisational Skills
13 12 (1.44%) Financial Institution
14 9 (1.08%) Advertising
15 8 (0.96%) Local Government
16 6 (0.72%) Telecoms
17 4 (0.48%) General Ledger
17 4 (0.48%) Law
17 4 (0.48%) Manufacturing
17 4 (0.48%) Military
Job Titles
1 259 (31.02%) Developer
2 126 (15.09%) Senior
3 109 (13.05%) Data Engineer
4 90 (10.78%) DBA
5 77 (9.22%) C# Developer
6 71 (8.50%) Architect
7 64 (7.66%) .NET Developer
8 52 (6.23%) SQL DBA
9 41 (4.91%) Lead
10 35 (4.19%) Senior Developer
11 34 (4.07%) Senior Data Engineer
12 32 (3.83%) Analyst
13 30 (3.59%) Azure Engineer
13 30 (3.59%) Software Engineer
14 29 (3.47%) SQL Developer
15 28 (3.35%) Full-Stack Developer
16 27 (3.23%) Administrator
17 23 (2.75%) C# .NET Developer
18 22 (2.63%) Oracle DBA
19 20 (2.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 230 (27.54%) .NET
2 95 (11.38%) .NET Framework
3 94 (11.26%) REST
4 70 (8.38%) React
5 56 (6.71%) AngularJS
6 55 (6.59%) RESTful
7 48 (5.75%) HTML
8 45 (5.39%) CSS
9 39 (4.67%) .NET Core
9 39 (4.67%) ASP.NET
10 37 (4.43%) Kafka
11 36 (4.31%) XML
12 29 (3.47%) Web Services
13 23 (2.75%) Entity Framework
14 20 (2.40%) JSON
14 20 (2.40%) Node.js
14 20 (2.40%) OAuth
14 20 (2.40%) WPF
15 19 (2.28%) Spring
15 19 (2.28%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 60 (7.19%) Legacy Systems
2 37 (4.43%) Cloud Native
3 35 (4.19%) Onboarding
4 32 (3.83%) Data Structures
5 31 (3.71%) Replication
6 23 (2.75%) Enterprise Software
7 21 (2.51%) Management Information System
8 20 (2.40%) Clustering
8 20 (2.40%) Self-Motivation
9 16 (1.92%) NHS
10 15 (1.80%) Product Ownership
11 12 (1.44%) Legacy Code
11 12 (1.44%) Virtual Team
12 11 (1.32%) Low-Code
13 9 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
13 9 (1.08%) Distributed Systems
13 9 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 9 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
13 9 (1.08%) PKI
13 9 (1.08%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 167 (20.00%) Windows
2 93 (11.14%) Windows Server
3 83 (9.94%) Linux
4 47 (5.63%) Unix
5 12 (1.44%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (0.96%) AIX
8 7 (0.84%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.36%) Android
10 3 (0.36%) VMS
11 2 (0.24%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.24%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.24%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.12%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.12%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (24.91%) CI/CD
2 205 (24.55%) DevOps
3 181 (21.68%) Agile
4 176 (21.08%) ETL
5 174 (20.84%) Problem-Solving
6 152 (18.20%) Business Intelligence
7 142 (17.01%) Data Modelling
8 128 (15.33%) Migration
9 100 (11.98%) Analytics
10 94 (11.26%) Disaster Recovery
11 87 (10.42%) Performance Tuning
12 85 (10.18%) Data Pipeline
13 81 (9.70%) Data Engineering
14 77 (9.22%) AI
15 75 (8.98%) Test Automation
16 71 (8.50%) Data Integration
17 69 (8.26%) Data Analysis
18 67 (8.02%) Microservices
19 65 (7.78%) High Availability
20 62 (7.43%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 490 (58.68%) SQL
2 211 (25.27%) C#
3 207 (24.79%) Python
4 134 (16.05%) T-SQL
5 108 (12.93%) PowerShell
6 73 (8.74%) Java
7 72 (8.62%) JavaScript
8 67 (8.02%) PL/SQL
9 49 (5.87%) TypeScript
10 34 (4.07%) Bash
11 24 (2.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 23 (2.75%) Shell Script
13 17 (2.04%) VB
14 16 (1.92%) Korn
14 16 (1.92%) Scala
15 15 (1.80%) Bicep
16 14 (1.68%) VBA
17 11 (1.32%) PHP
18 7 (0.84%) XPath
19 5 (0.60%) Rust
Qualifications
1 175 (20.96%) Security Cleared
2 132 (15.81%) SC Cleared
3 86 (10.30%) Degree
4 29 (3.47%) Microsoft Certification
5 28 (3.35%) Computer Science Degree
6 23 (2.75%) DV Cleared
7 21 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (2.28%) Azure Certification
9 8 (0.96%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.60%) CCA
10 5 (0.60%) CISSP
10 5 (0.60%) Citrix Certification
10 5 (0.60%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.60%) OCP
10 5 (0.60%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (0.48%) MCITP
11 4 (0.48%) MCTS
12 3 (0.36%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Certified Professional
13 2 (0.24%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (11.62%) Data Quality
2 90 (10.78%) QA
3 23 (2.75%) GDPR
4 18 (2.16%) NIST
5 16 (1.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (1.80%) SLA
7 6 (0.72%) Accessibility
7 6 (0.72%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 4 (0.48%) IFRS
9 3 (0.36%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.36%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.36%) IFRS 17
9 3 (0.36%) IFRS 9
9 3 (0.36%) WCAG
10 2 (0.24%) Basel III
10 2 (0.24%) EMIR
10 2 (0.24%) GAAP
10 2 (0.24%) GRC
10 2 (0.24%) MiFID
System Software
1 89 (10.66%) Docker
2 63 (7.54%) Active Directory
3 20 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.92%) Hyper-V
4 16 (1.92%) Oracle RAC
5 11 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
6 10 (1.20%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.72%) KVM
8 5 (0.60%) XenApp
8 5 (0.60%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.36%) GridGain
10 2 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.12%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.12%) NFS
11 1 (0.12%) RACF
11 1 (0.12%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 91 (10.90%) Kubernetes
2 61 (7.31%) Terraform
3 16 (1.92%) Ansible
3 16 (1.92%) Oracle RMAN
4 14 (1.68%) Grafana
4 14 (1.68%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 14 (1.68%) SCCM
5 11 (1.32%) Microsoft Intune
6 9 (1.08%) HAProxy
6 9 (1.08%) vCenter Server
7 8 (0.96%) Puppet
8 7 (0.84%) TIBCO Hawk
9 6 (0.72%) IBM BigFix
9 6 (0.72%) Single Sign-On
9 6 (0.72%) WSUS
10 5 (0.60%) SCVMM
11 3 (0.36%) Control-M
11 3 (0.36%) Foglight
11 3 (0.36%) Microsoft Clustering
11 3 (0.36%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 257 (30.78%) Microsoft
2 240 (28.74%) Oracle
3 75 (8.98%) Databricks
4 57 (6.83%) Citrix
5 36 (4.31%) ServiceNow
6 33 (3.95%) VMware
7 29 (3.47%) Informatica
8 23 (2.75%) CyberArk
8 23 (2.75%) SAP
9 21 (2.51%) Google
10 20 (2.40%) IBM
11 15 (1.80%) BeyondTrust
12 14 (1.68%) Sybase
13 11 (1.32%) Dynatrace
13 11 (1.32%) UiPath
14 10 (1.20%) OpenAI
15 9 (1.08%) Remedy
15 9 (1.08%) Tenable
16 8 (0.96%) BMC
16 8 (0.96%) TIBCO