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

 6 months to
29 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 137 80 66
Rank change year-on-year -57 -14 -19
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 670 778 1,148
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.04% 2.92% 3.08%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.41% 15.80% 19.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 461 545 839
10th Percentile £350 £334 £339
25th Percentile £404 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £505 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.95% -6.05% -2.27%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 6 30
10th Percentile - £42.63 £20.17
25th Percentile £12.95 £60.66 £38.22
Median hourly rate £20.75 £63.75 £43.22
Median % change year-on-year -67.45% +47.51% +3.51%
75th Percentile £38.42 £65.46 £57.92
90th Percentile £59.55 £65.62 £63.14
UK median hourly rate £23.50 £60.50 £43.22
% change year-on-year -61.16% +40.00% -0.80%

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 5,400 4,923 6,039
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.43% 18.50% 16.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,760 3,256 4,337
10th Percentile £328 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £426 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £606 £663 £650
90th Percentile £710 £775 £747
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 78 168
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.96 £15.57
25th Percentile £29.00 £24.81 £21.64
Median hourly rate £47.61 £38.31 £42.35
Median % change year-on-year +24.29% -9.54% -29.43%
75th Percentile £74.58 £64.73 £61.75
90th Percentile £85.30 £74.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £35.00 £42.35
% change year-on-year +46.43% -17.35% -29.43%

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 29 January 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 29 January 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 29 January 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 -26 414 £500 -9.09% 112
North of England -40 80 £443 -6.84% 92
South East -53 76 £484 -3.20% 146
North West -21 41 £450 +9.09% 63
Yorkshire -35 37 £400 -20.00% 21
South West -35 28 £550 - 41
Midlands -105 22 £414 -15.13% 68
East of England -14 21 £550 +37.50% 39
West Midlands -65 16 £433 -24.39% 34
East Midlands -50 5 £313 -18.41% 34
North East -13 2 £475 +28.38% 9
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 (4.63%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.43%) IIS
3 20 (2.99%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (2.69%) Confluence
5 14 (2.09%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 12 (1.79%) WebSphere
7 9 (1.34%) Apache
8 8 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
8 8 (1.19%) Apache Spark
9 7 (1.04%) Appian
9 7 (1.04%) CMS
9 7 (1.04%) WebLogic
10 4 (0.60%) SharePoint Server
10 4 (0.60%) Sitecore CMS
11 2 (0.30%) JBoss
11 2 (0.30%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
12 1 (0.15%) Skype for Business
12 1 (0.15%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.15%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 46 (6.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.79%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.30%) Trello
6 2 (0.30%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 9 (1.34%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.19%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.04%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.90%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.45%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.30%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.30%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 1 (0.15%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.15%) Magento
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle BPM
7 1 (0.15%) RMDS
7 1 (0.15%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.15%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 293 (43.73%) Azure
2 139 (20.75%) AWS
3 120 (17.91%) Power Platform
4 83 (12.39%) Azure DevOps
5 56 (8.36%) GCP
6 55 (8.21%) Azure Data Factory
7 54 (8.06%) GitHub
8 32 (4.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 30 (4.48%) Microsoft 365
10 29 (4.33%) SaaS
11 21 (3.13%) GitHub Actions
12 20 (2.99%) Snowflake
13 19 (2.84%) Amazon S3
13 19 (2.84%) Power Automate
14 18 (2.69%) Dynamics 365
15 16 (2.39%) Azure Service Bus
15 16 (2.39%) IaaS
15 16 (2.39%) Serverless
16 14 (2.09%) AWS CloudFormation
17 13 (1.94%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 28 (4.18%) Firewall
2 20 (2.99%) DNS
3 15 (2.24%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.79%) Internet
5 11 (1.64%) DHCP
6 10 (1.49%) HTTP
7 7 (1.04%) LAN
8 5 (0.75%) NetScaler
8 5 (0.75%) Skype
8 5 (0.75%) VPN
9 4 (0.60%) NAS
9 4 (0.60%) SAN
9 4 (0.60%) SSL
9 4 (0.60%) VoIP
10 3 (0.45%) RS-232
10 3 (0.45%) WAN
10 3 (0.45%) X.400
11 2 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.30%) VSAN
11 2 (0.30%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 103 (15.37%) Power BI
2 87 (12.99%) PostgreSQL
2 87 (12.99%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 82 (12.24%) Relational Database
4 72 (10.75%) Data Warehouse
5 55 (8.21%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 53 (7.91%) Oracle Database
7 47 (7.01%) Azure SQL Database
8 46 (6.87%) MySQL
9 40 (5.97%) Data Lake
10 37 (5.52%) MongoDB
11 36 (5.37%) NoSQL
12 24 (3.58%) RDBMS
13 23 (3.43%) DB2
14 22 (3.28%) Amazon RDS
15 20 (2.99%) Delta Lake
16 19 (2.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 19 (2.84%) Tableau
17 18 (2.69%) Big Data
18 14 (2.09%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 59 (8.81%) Git
2 46 (6.87%) JIRA
3 32 (4.78%) Jenkins
4 22 (3.28%) Visual Studio
5 18 (2.69%) GitLab
6 14 (2.09%) Postman
7 12 (1.79%) SpecFlow
7 12 (1.79%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 10 (1.49%) Selenium
9 9 (1.34%) Cucumber
9 9 (1.34%) ERwin
9 9 (1.34%) Maven
9 9 (1.34%) Octopus Deploy
10 8 (1.19%) JUnit
10 8 (1.19%) Team Foundation Server
10 8 (1.19%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.90%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.90%) MLflow
11 6 (0.90%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.90%) TestRail
General
1 212 (31.64%) Social Skills
2 179 (26.72%) Finance
3 94 (14.03%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (13.28%) Banking
5 40 (5.97%) Public Sector
6 35 (5.22%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.58%) Investment Banking
8 16 (2.39%) Financial Institution
8 16 (2.39%) Front Office
8 16 (2.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (2.24%) Retail
10 8 (1.19%) Legal
10 8 (1.19%) Local Government
11 6 (0.90%) Law
11 6 (0.90%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
12 5 (0.75%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.60%) Military
13 4 (0.60%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 238 (35.52%) Developer
2 92 (13.73%) Senior
3 89 (13.28%) Data Engineer
4 71 (10.60%) C# Developer
5 52 (7.76%) Architect
6 49 (7.31%) .NET Developer
7 46 (6.87%) Analyst
8 38 (5.67%) Senior Developer
9 33 (4.93%) DBA
10 30 (4.48%) Lead
11 29 (4.33%) Senior Data Engineer
12 28 (4.18%) Full-Stack Developer
13 23 (3.43%) Consultant
13 23 (3.43%) Software Engineer
14 22 (3.28%) C# .NET Developer
15 21 (3.13%) SQL DBA
16 20 (2.99%) SQL Developer
17 18 (2.69%) Azure Engineer
18 17 (2.54%) Angular Developer
19 16 (2.39%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 192 (28.66%) .NET
2 80 (11.94%) .NET Framework
3 68 (10.15%) REST
4 49 (7.31%) AngularJS
5 46 (6.87%) React
6 44 (6.57%) HTML
7 40 (5.97%) .NET Core
7 40 (5.97%) RESTful
8 36 (5.37%) XML
9 35 (5.22%) CSS
9 35 (5.22%) Kafka
10 32 (4.78%) ASP.NET
11 30 (4.48%) Web Services
12 29 (4.33%) SOAP
13 28 (4.18%) Entity Framework
14 23 (3.43%) WPF
15 22 (3.28%) Middleware
16 18 (2.69%) OAuth
17 17 (2.54%) Node.js
17 17 (2.54%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 38 (5.67%) Legacy Systems
2 31 (4.63%) Cloud Native
3 22 (3.28%) Enterprise Software
4 16 (2.39%) Derivative
4 16 (2.39%) Management Information System
4 16 (2.39%) Onboarding
5 15 (2.24%) Data Structures
5 15 (2.24%) Product Ownership
5 15 (2.24%) Replication
6 14 (2.09%) Credit Risk
7 13 (1.94%) Data Protection Act
7 13 (1.94%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 12 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
9 11 (1.64%) PKI
9 11 (1.64%) Reinsurance
10 9 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
11 8 (1.19%) Clustering
11 8 (1.19%) Low-Code
11 8 (1.19%) Market Risk
11 8 (1.19%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 113 (16.87%) Windows
2 81 (12.09%) Linux
3 57 (8.51%) Windows Server
4 14 (2.09%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.94%) Windows Server 2016
6 11 (1.64%) Unix
7 8 (1.19%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.60%) Android
9 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.45%) VMS
11 2 (0.30%) AIX
11 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.15%) MVS
12 1 (0.15%) Solaris
12 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (23.58%) CI/CD
2 156 (23.28%) Agile
3 147 (21.94%) DevOps
4 145 (21.64%) Problem-Solving
5 126 (18.81%) ETL
6 125 (18.66%) Business Intelligence
7 105 (15.67%) Data Modelling
8 104 (15.52%) Migration
9 73 (10.90%) Analytics
10 65 (9.70%) Microservices
11 62 (9.25%) Performance Tuning
12 58 (8.66%) Full-Stack Development
13 57 (8.51%) Test Automation
14 56 (8.36%) Containerisation
14 56 (8.36%) Data Analysis
15 55 (8.21%) Data Pipeline
16 54 (8.06%) Data Migration
17 52 (7.76%) Data Engineering
17 52 (7.76%) Data Governance
18 51 (7.61%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 392 (58.51%) SQL
2 173 (25.82%) C#
3 152 (22.69%) Python
4 78 (11.64%) T-SQL
5 67 (10.00%) Java
6 66 (9.85%) JavaScript
7 57 (8.51%) PL/SQL
8 53 (7.91%) PowerShell
9 33 (4.93%) Bash
10 27 (4.03%) TypeScript
11 17 (2.54%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 17 (2.54%) VB
12 14 (2.09%) PHP
12 14 (2.09%) VBA
13 12 (1.79%) Bicep
14 9 (1.34%) Shell Script
15 7 (1.04%) XPath
16 5 (0.75%) R
16 5 (0.75%) X++
17 4 (0.60%) Scala
Qualifications
1 86 (12.84%) Security Cleared
2 77 (11.49%) Degree
3 58 (8.66%) SC Cleared
4 29 (4.33%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (2.99%) Microsoft Certification
6 19 (2.84%) Azure Certification
7 17 (2.54%) DV Cleared
8 11 (1.64%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.19%) Master's Degree
10 6 (0.90%) AWS Certification
11 4 (0.60%) CCA
11 4 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.60%) Citrix Certification
11 4 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
12 3 (0.45%) CCNP
12 3 (0.45%) HNC
12 3 (0.45%) HND
12 3 (0.45%) MCP
12 3 (0.45%) PMI Certification
12 3 (0.45%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (10.75%) Data Quality
2 64 (9.55%) QA
3 15 (2.24%) GDPR
4 8 (1.19%) SLA
5 7 (1.04%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.75%) WCAG
8 4 (0.60%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 3 (0.45%) IFRS
9 3 (0.45%) IFRS 17
9 3 (0.45%) MiFID
10 2 (0.30%) Basel III
10 2 (0.30%) EMIR
10 2 (0.30%) GAAP
10 2 (0.30%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.30%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
11 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.15%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 83 (12.39%) Docker
2 47 (7.01%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (2.24%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.34%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.04%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.90%) Oracle RAC
7 6 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.90%) zsh
8 4 (0.60%) XenApp
8 4 (0.60%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.45%) vSphere
10 2 (0.30%) GridGain
10 2 (0.30%) KVM
10 2 (0.30%) NDS
10 2 (0.30%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.15%) SRDF
11 1 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 60 (8.96%) Kubernetes
2 41 (6.12%) Terraform
3 22 (3.28%) Ansible
4 13 (1.94%) Grafana
5 12 (1.79%) Puppet
5 12 (1.79%) SCCM
6 8 (1.19%) Microsoft Intune
6 8 (1.19%) NetBackup
6 8 (1.19%) vCenter Server
7 7 (1.04%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 7 (1.04%) Oracle RMAN
7 7 (1.04%) TIBCO Hawk
8 6 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
9 5 (0.75%) Data Guard
9 5 (0.75%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (0.60%) SCOM
10 4 (0.60%) SCVMM
10 4 (0.60%) WSUS
10 4 (0.60%) yum
Vendors
1 209 (31.19%) Microsoft
2 203 (30.30%) Oracle
3 55 (8.21%) Databricks
4 41 (6.12%) Citrix
5 40 (5.97%) VMware
6 27 (4.03%) Google
6 27 (4.03%) Informatica
7 23 (3.43%) ServiceNow
8 20 (2.99%) SAP
9 19 (2.84%) IBM
10 13 (1.94%) Salesforce
11 11 (1.64%) Cisco
11 11 (1.64%) CyberArk
11 11 (1.64%) UiPath
12 10 (1.49%) Veritas
13 9 (1.34%) Advent
14 8 (1.19%) PagerDuty
14 8 (1.19%) Sybase
15 7 (1.04%) BEA
15 7 (1.04%) TIBCO
453 SQL Server jobs in England