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

 6 months to
24 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 113 94 59
Rank change year-on-year -19 -35 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 946 678 1,303
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.18% 2.71% 3.49%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.29% 14.51% 20.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 666 508 920
10th Percentile £356 £325 £350
25th Percentile £408 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £511 £510
Median % change year-on-year -2.20% +0.25% -2.86%
75th Percentile £620 £650 £638
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £492 £500 £505
% change year-on-year -1.60% -0.99% -3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 6 23
10th Percentile £13.51 £21.02 £25.55
25th Percentile £19.25 £22.02 £38.81
Median hourly rate £28.68 £25.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.77% -35.85% -6.98%
75th Percentile £62.44 £64.71 £47.47
90th Percentile £74.60 £83.13 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £70.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -46.43% +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 6,618 4,672 6,467
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.23% 18.65% 17.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,483 3,250 4,660
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £800
UK median daily rate £500 £514 £525
% change year-on-year -2.72% -2.10% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 84 143
10th Percentile £14.00 £18.89 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.05 £24.63 £20.77
Median hourly rate £38.25 £33.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.20% -16.26% -30.43%
75th Percentile £71.13 £62.44 £52.83
90th Percentile £77.50 £75.25 £72.30
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £34.99 £40.00
% change year-on-year +12.89% -12.53% -30.43%

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 24 June 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 24 June 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 24 June 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 -30 489 £538 -6.52% 77
North of England -27 152 £475 +11.76% 89
South East -12 117 £450 - 96
North West -31 84 £478 +7.42% 50
Midlands -17 83 £481 +11.10% 47
Yorkshire -6 66 £473 +18.13% 29
South West -11 49 £481 -1.28% 20
West Midlands -41 41 £473 -14.00% 29
East Midlands +5 40 £525 +60.80% 18
East of England -4 37 £475 -5.00% 13
North East -37 3 £475 +4.11% 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 55 (5.81%) SharePoint
2 43 (4.55%) IIS
3 23 (2.43%) Confluence
3 23 (2.43%) Microsoft Exchange
4 22 (2.33%) Apache Spark
5 21 (2.22%) Apache
6 19 (2.01%) Apache Airflow
7 15 (1.59%) Appian
8 13 (1.37%) Camunda
9 12 (1.27%) CMS
9 12 (1.27%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.63%) NetWeaver
10 6 (0.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 6 (0.63%) Sitecore CMS
11 5 (0.53%) OpenEdge
11 5 (0.53%) Tuxedo
11 5 (0.53%) Umbraco
12 4 (0.42%) Tomcat
13 3 (0.32%) nginx
13 3 (0.32%) WebSphere
Applications
1 38 (4.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.16%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.11%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.11%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.11%) InDesign
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 18 (1.90%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.48%) Remedy ITSM
3 13 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (0.74%) Oracle Payables
5 6 (0.63%) Dynamics AX
6 5 (0.53%) Elite 3E
6 5 (0.53%) OpenText MBPM
6 5 (0.53%) Oracle BPM
7 3 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
7 3 (0.32%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.32%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 3 (0.32%) SystmOne
8 2 (0.21%) Aladdin
8 2 (0.21%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.21%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
8 2 (0.21%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 1 (0.11%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 390 (41.23%) Azure
2 212 (22.41%) AWS
3 143 (15.12%) Power Platform
4 96 (10.15%) Azure DevOps
5 80 (8.46%) GitHub
6 74 (7.82%) Azure Data Factory
7 41 (4.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 38 (4.02%) GCP
9 37 (3.91%) Power Automate
9 37 (3.91%) Serverless
10 36 (3.81%) GitHub Actions
11 31 (3.28%) Microsoft 365
11 31 (3.28%) Snowflake
12 29 (3.07%) Dynamics 365
13 25 (2.64%) Azure Monitor
13 25 (2.64%) SaaS
14 23 (2.43%) Amazon S3
15 22 (2.33%) dbt
15 22 (2.33%) Entra ID
16 20 (2.11%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 36 (3.81%) DNS
2 28 (2.96%) DHCP
3 17 (1.80%) SAN
4 16 (1.69%) Firewall
5 12 (1.27%) Internet
5 12 (1.27%) VLAN
6 9 (0.95%) SSH
6 9 (0.95%) TCP/IP
6 9 (0.95%) VPN
7 6 (0.63%) IPv4
7 6 (0.63%) IPv6
7 6 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
8 5 (0.53%) HTTPS
8 5 (0.53%) Network Security
9 4 (0.42%) LAN
10 3 (0.32%) NAS
10 3 (0.32%) NetScaler
10 3 (0.32%) RS-232
10 3 (0.32%) X.400
11 2 (0.21%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 145 (15.33%) PostgreSQL
2 117 (12.37%) Power BI
3 107 (11.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 106 (11.21%) Relational Database
5 105 (11.10%) Data Warehouse
6 75 (7.93%) Oracle Database
7 58 (6.13%) MySQL
8 54 (5.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 50 (5.29%) Data Lake
10 49 (5.18%) Azure SQL Database
11 44 (4.65%) MongoDB
12 39 (4.12%) NoSQL
13 31 (3.28%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 28 (2.96%) RDBMS
15 21 (2.22%) Tableau
16 20 (2.11%) Metadata
17 18 (1.90%) Delta Lake
18 17 (1.80%) Big Data
18 17 (1.80%) Redis
19 15 (1.59%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 77 (8.14%) Git
2 51 (5.39%) JIRA
3 39 (4.12%) Jenkins
4 25 (2.64%) Visual Studio
5 24 (2.54%) GitLab
6 18 (1.90%) TeamCity
7 16 (1.69%) Team Foundation Server
8 14 (1.48%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 13 (1.37%) Maven
10 12 (1.27%) Octopus Deploy
11 11 (1.16%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.95%) Gatling
12 9 (0.95%) Postman
13 8 (0.85%) MSTest
13 8 (0.85%) Oracle Forms
14 7 (0.74%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.74%) Chocolatey
14 7 (0.74%) ERwin
14 7 (0.74%) MLflow
15 6 (0.63%) Claude Code
General
1 269 (28.44%) Social Skills
2 236 (24.95%) Finance
3 152 (16.07%) Analytical Skills
4 118 (12.47%) Banking
5 75 (7.93%) Public Sector
6 38 (4.02%) Documentation Skills
7 33 (3.49%) Front Office
8 25 (2.64%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 22 (2.33%) Investment Banking
10 19 (2.01%) Legal
11 15 (1.59%) Retail
12 14 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.95%) Advertising
13 9 (0.95%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.85%) Local Government
15 6 (0.63%) Back Office
15 6 (0.63%) Law
15 6 (0.63%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.53%) Publishing
17 4 (0.42%) Military
Job Titles
1 281 (29.70%) Developer
2 142 (15.01%) Senior
3 114 (12.05%) DBA
4 107 (11.31%) Data Engineer
5 85 (8.99%) C# Developer
6 69 (7.29%) Lead
7 66 (6.98%) SQL DBA
8 65 (6.87%) .NET Developer
9 60 (6.34%) Architect
10 43 (4.55%) SQL Developer
11 42 (4.44%) Analyst
11 42 (4.44%) Senior Developer
12 36 (3.81%) Administrator
13 34 (3.59%) Software Engineer
14 33 (3.49%) Senior Data Engineer
15 31 (3.28%) Full-Stack Developer
16 30 (3.17%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 30 (3.17%) Oracle DBA
17 29 (3.07%) Azure Engineer
18 27 (2.85%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 233 (24.63%) .NET
2 118 (12.47%) REST
3 101 (10.68%) .NET Framework
4 81 (8.56%) React
5 65 (6.87%) CSS
6 63 (6.66%) RESTful
7 57 (6.03%) AngularJS
8 56 (5.92%) HTML
9 49 (5.18%) Kafka
10 48 (5.07%) ASP.NET
11 43 (4.55%) .NET Core
12 38 (4.02%) XML
13 31 (3.28%) Web Services
14 30 (3.17%) OAuth
15 29 (3.07%) JSON
16 27 (2.85%) SOAP
17 26 (2.75%) Entity Framework
18 24 (2.54%) Spring Boot
19 23 (2.43%) Spring
20 20 (2.11%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 54 (5.71%) Legacy Systems
2 49 (5.18%) Cloud Native
3 46 (4.86%) Onboarding
4 36 (3.81%) Data Structures
4 36 (3.81%) Replication
5 32 (3.38%) Self-Motivation
6 31 (3.28%) Clustering
7 24 (2.54%) Enterprise Software
7 24 (2.54%) Management Information System
8 22 (2.33%) Low-Code
9 20 (2.11%) Product Ownership
10 18 (1.90%) Derivative
11 16 (1.69%) NHS
11 16 (1.69%) PKI
12 14 (1.48%) Fixed Income
13 12 (1.27%) Distributed Systems
13 12 (1.27%) Greenfield Project
13 12 (1.27%) Reinsurance
14 11 (1.16%) Legacy Code
14 11 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 219 (23.15%) Windows
2 124 (13.11%) Windows Server
3 87 (9.20%) Linux
4 58 (6.13%) Unix
5 11 (1.16%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.06%) AIX
7 9 (0.95%) Android
7 9 (0.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 9 (0.95%) Windows Server 2019
8 8 (0.85%) Windows Server 2012
8 8 (0.85%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.53%) Solaris
10 4 (0.42%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.42%) VMS
11 3 (0.32%) CentOS
12 2 (0.21%) OpenVMS
12 2 (0.21%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 229 (24.21%) DevOps
2 222 (23.47%) Agile
3 221 (23.36%) CI/CD
4 189 (19.98%) Problem-Solving
5 173 (18.29%) ETL
6 151 (15.96%) Migration
7 144 (15.22%) Business Intelligence
8 143 (15.12%) Data Modelling
9 114 (12.05%) Performance Tuning
10 109 (11.52%) AI
11 106 (11.21%) Analytics
11 106 (11.21%) Disaster Recovery
12 89 (9.41%) Data Pipeline
13 84 (8.88%) Microservices
14 82 (8.67%) High Availability
15 81 (8.56%) Data Engineering
15 81 (8.56%) Validation
16 80 (8.46%) Data Analysis
17 79 (8.35%) Data Integration
18 70 (7.40%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 535 (56.55%) SQL
2 248 (26.22%) C#
3 226 (23.89%) Python
4 155 (16.38%) T-SQL
5 154 (16.28%) PowerShell
6 95 (10.04%) JavaScript
7 79 (8.35%) Java
8 66 (6.98%) PL/SQL
9 56 (5.92%) TypeScript
10 31 (3.28%) Bash
11 25 (2.64%) Shell Script
12 23 (2.43%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 19 (2.01%) Scala
13 19 (2.01%) VB
14 16 (1.69%) Korn
15 13 (1.37%) VBA
16 10 (1.06%) Bicep
17 7 (0.74%) VB.NET
17 7 (0.74%) VB6
18 5 (0.53%) XPath
Qualifications
1 212 (22.41%) Security Cleared
2 159 (16.81%) SC Cleared
3 101 (10.68%) Degree
4 39 (4.12%) DV Cleared
5 33 (3.49%) Microsoft Certification
6 26 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
7 17 (1.80%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.59%) Azure Certification
9 11 (1.16%) Master's Degree
10 9 (0.95%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.63%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (0.53%) CISSP
12 5 (0.53%) OCP
13 4 (0.42%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.42%) MCITP
13 4 (0.42%) MCTS
13 4 (0.42%) PhD
14 3 (0.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 3 (0.32%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (10.57%) Data Quality
2 96 (10.15%) QA
3 27 (2.85%) GDPR
4 25 (2.64%) NIST
5 23 (2.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.69%) SLA
7 15 (1.59%) Accessibility
8 11 (1.16%) WCAG
9 8 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.42%) Basel III
10 4 (0.42%) ISO 9000
11 3 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.32%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.32%) IFRS
11 3 (0.32%) IFRS 9
12 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.21%) GRC
12 2 (0.21%) IFRS 17
12 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 88 (9.30%) Active Directory
2 81 (8.56%) Docker
3 22 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
3 22 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (2.01%) Oracle RAC
5 12 (1.27%) Hyper-V
6 6 (0.63%) KVM
6 6 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.32%) Dovecot
7 3 (0.32%) GridGain
7 3 (0.32%) Postfix
7 3 (0.32%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.32%) XenApp
7 3 (0.32%) XenDesktop
8 2 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.21%) vSphere
9 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
9 1 (0.11%) Citrix Hypervisor
9 1 (0.11%) NFS
9 1 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 103 (10.89%) Kubernetes
2 66 (6.98%) Terraform
3 23 (2.43%) Ansible
4 20 (2.11%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 19 (2.01%) Oracle RMAN
6 15 (1.59%) SCCM
7 13 (1.37%) HAProxy
8 9 (0.95%) WSUS
9 8 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
10 7 (0.74%) Grafana
10 7 (0.74%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.74%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.63%) IBM BigFix
12 5 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
13 4 (0.42%) Data Guard
14 3 (0.32%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.32%) Control-M
14 3 (0.32%) Foglight
14 3 (0.32%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.32%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 269 (28.44%) Microsoft
2 263 (27.80%) Oracle
3 72 (7.61%) Databricks
4 52 (5.50%) Citrix
5 41 (4.33%) ServiceNow
6 35 (3.70%) SAP
6 35 (3.70%) VMware
7 34 (3.59%) Informatica
8 31 (3.28%) CyberArk
9 24 (2.54%) Google
10 23 (2.43%) Sybase
11 22 (2.33%) BeyondTrust
12 19 (2.01%) IBM
13 16 (1.69%) Dynatrace
14 14 (1.48%) Remedy
15 13 (1.37%) BMC
16 12 (1.27%) Cisco
17 11 (1.16%) Alteryx
17 11 (1.16%) OpenAI
17 11 (1.16%) Red Hat
304 SQL Server jobs in England