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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 89 59
Rank change year-on-year -32 -30 -9
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 850 657 1,235
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.09% 2.72% 3.39%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.69% 14.22% 19.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 591 478 864
10th Percentile £356 £349 £350
25th Percentile £406 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £525 £510
Median % change year-on-year -7.62% +2.94% -2.86%
75th Percentile £592 £650 £638
90th Percentile £688 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £475 £513 £505
% change year-on-year -7.45% +1.63% -3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 5 22
10th Percentile £15.93 £25.53 £36.84
25th Percentile £20.75 £26.32 £40.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £63.75 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year -25.42% +58.87% -7.76%
75th Percentile £63.75 £65.62 £50.47
90th Percentile £74.00 £79.50 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £63.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -23.57% +59.36% -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 6,211 4,620 6,201
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.25% 19.09% 17.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,260 3,221 4,467
10th Percentile £350 £363 £355
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £530
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
75th Percentile £600 £656 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 182 86 130
10th Percentile £16.07 £21.03 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.92 £23.69 £20.98
Median hourly rate £45.90 £32.43 £40.13
Median % change year-on-year +41.54% -19.18% -30.22%
75th Percentile £74.00 £65.46 £58.68
90th Percentile £82.25 £73.13 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £34.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +37.80% -13.75% -32.54%

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 15 May 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 15 May 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 15 May 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 -34 461 £500 -13.04% 125
North of England -19 133 £475 +11.76% 86
South East -17 114 £473 -1.36% 99
North West -23 67 £500 +14.29% 50
Yorkshire -8 64 £450 +12.43% 30
Midlands -47 59 £463 -8.64% 61
South West -19 37 £438 -18.60% 32
East Midlands -6 32 £525 +72.13% 40
East of England -10 30 £475 -3.80% 23
West Midlands -65 25 £450 -21.74% 21
North East -22 3 £475 +5.56% 6
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 41 (4.82%) SharePoint
2 40 (4.71%) IIS
3 24 (2.82%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (2.24%) Confluence
5 17 (2.00%) Apache Spark
6 16 (1.88%) Apache
7 15 (1.76%) Apache Airflow
8 11 (1.29%) Appian
8 11 (1.29%) CMS
9 8 (0.94%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 7 (0.82%) Camunda
11 6 (0.71%) Sitecore CMS
11 6 (0.71%) WebSphere
12 5 (0.59%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.59%) Oracle Workflow
13 4 (0.47%) Umbraco
14 3 (0.35%) Apache Superset
14 3 (0.35%) WebLogic
15 2 (0.24%) NetWeaver
15 2 (0.24%) Tomcat
Applications
1 32 (3.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.53%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.24%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.12%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 13 (1.53%) Remedy ITSM
2 9 (1.06%) SAP S/4HANA
3 8 (0.94%) Dynamics CRM
4 6 (0.71%) Dynamics AX
5 4 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.35%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.24%) BusinessWorks
7 2 (0.24%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.24%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.24%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.24%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.12%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.12%) Endur
8 1 (0.12%) Findur
8 1 (0.12%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.12%) SAP R/3
8 1 (0.12%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 371 (43.65%) Azure
2 179 (21.06%) AWS
3 143 (16.82%) Power Platform
4 110 (12.94%) Azure DevOps
5 87 (10.24%) Azure Data Factory
6 76 (8.94%) GitHub
7 52 (6.12%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 40 (4.71%) GCP
9 34 (4.00%) GitHub Actions
9 34 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
9 34 (4.00%) Power Automate
10 31 (3.65%) Serverless
11 28 (3.29%) SaaS
11 28 (3.29%) Snowflake
12 27 (3.18%) Amazon S3
13 23 (2.71%) Azure Monitor
13 23 (2.71%) Dynamics 365
14 20 (2.35%) PowerApps
15 19 (2.24%) Amazon EC2
16 18 (2.12%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 28 (3.29%) DNS
2 23 (2.71%) DHCP
3 21 (2.47%) Firewall
4 13 (1.53%) Internet
4 13 (1.53%) VLAN
5 12 (1.41%) VPN
6 11 (1.29%) SAN
7 9 (1.06%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
9 6 (0.71%) IPv4
9 6 (0.71%) IPv6
9 6 (0.71%) LAN
10 5 (0.59%) NetScaler
10 5 (0.59%) Network Security
11 4 (0.47%) FTP
11 4 (0.47%) SSH
11 4 (0.47%) WAN
12 3 (0.35%) RS-232
12 3 (0.35%) X.400
13 2 (0.24%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 125 (14.71%) PostgreSQL
2 118 (13.88%) Power BI
3 116 (13.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 106 (12.47%) Data Warehouse
5 84 (9.88%) Relational Database
6 65 (7.65%) Oracle Database
7 61 (7.18%) Data Lake
8 55 (6.47%) Azure SQL Database
9 51 (6.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 45 (5.29%) MySQL
11 38 (4.47%) NoSQL
12 36 (4.24%) MongoDB
13 34 (4.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 22 (2.59%) Metadata
15 20 (2.35%) Tableau
16 19 (2.24%) RDBMS
17 18 (2.12%) Delta Lake
18 16 (1.88%) Amazon RDS
19 15 (1.76%) Big Data
20 14 (1.65%) Redis
Development Applications
1 65 (7.65%) Git
2 55 (6.47%) JIRA
3 39 (4.59%) Jenkins
4 24 (2.82%) Visual Studio
5 22 (2.59%) GitLab
6 18 (2.12%) TeamCity
7 13 (1.53%) Cucumber
7 13 (1.53%) Team Foundation Server
8 11 (1.29%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 10 (1.18%) Maven
9 10 (1.18%) Postman
10 9 (1.06%) Gatling
10 9 (1.06%) Octopus Deploy
11 8 (0.94%) ERwin
11 8 (0.94%) MLflow
11 8 (0.94%) Selenium
12 7 (0.82%) Chocolatey
12 7 (0.82%) MSTest
13 6 (0.71%) Artifactory
13 6 (0.71%) JUnit
General
1 234 (27.53%) Social Skills
2 197 (23.18%) Finance
3 135 (15.88%) Analytical Skills
4 98 (11.53%) Banking
5 67 (7.88%) Public Sector
6 28 (3.29%) Documentation Skills
7 27 (3.18%) Front Office
8 22 (2.59%) Investment Banking
9 19 (2.24%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 17 (2.00%) Legal
11 15 (1.76%) Organisational Skills
12 12 (1.41%) Retail
13 9 (1.06%) Advertising
13 9 (1.06%) Financial Institution
13 9 (1.06%) Local Government
14 6 (0.71%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.59%) Back Office
15 5 (0.59%) Manufacturing
15 5 (0.59%) Publishing
16 4 (0.47%) Law
Job Titles
1 249 (29.29%) Developer
2 135 (15.88%) Senior
3 115 (13.53%) Data Engineer
4 90 (10.59%) DBA
5 78 (9.18%) C# Developer
6 65 (7.65%) Architect
7 62 (7.29%) .NET Developer
8 55 (6.47%) SQL DBA
9 51 (6.00%) Lead
10 38 (4.47%) Senior Data Engineer
11 37 (4.35%) Senior Developer
12 34 (4.00%) Analyst
12 34 (4.00%) Full-Stack Developer
12 34 (4.00%) Software Engineer
13 29 (3.41%) Azure Engineer
13 29 (3.41%) SQL Developer
14 25 (2.94%) Administrator
14 25 (2.94%) C# .NET Developer
14 25 (2.94%) Consultant
14 25 (2.94%) Infrastructure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 215 (25.29%) .NET
2 103 (12.12%) REST
3 90 (10.59%) .NET Framework
4 77 (9.06%) React
5 57 (6.71%) CSS
5 57 (6.71%) RESTful
6 55 (6.47%) AngularJS
6 55 (6.47%) HTML
7 43 (5.06%) Kafka
8 40 (4.71%) .NET Core
8 40 (4.71%) ASP.NET
9 29 (3.41%) XML
10 27 (3.18%) OAuth
11 23 (2.71%) Entity Framework
11 23 (2.71%) Web Services
12 21 (2.47%) PySpark
13 20 (2.35%) JSON
13 20 (2.35%) SOAP
13 20 (2.35%) Spring
13 20 (2.35%) Spring Boot
Miscellaneous
1 54 (6.35%) Legacy Systems
2 39 (4.59%) Cloud Native
3 34 (4.00%) Data Structures
4 33 (3.88%) Onboarding
5 32 (3.76%) Replication
6 25 (2.94%) Clustering
7 23 (2.71%) Self-Motivation
8 21 (2.47%) Management Information System
9 20 (2.35%) Enterprise Software
10 16 (1.88%) Low-Code
10 16 (1.88%) NHS
11 15 (1.76%) Product Ownership
12 13 (1.53%) Legacy Code
13 11 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
13 11 (1.29%) Greenfield Project
14 10 (1.18%) Derivative
14 10 (1.18%) Fixed Income
14 10 (1.18%) PKI
15 9 (1.06%) Data Protection Act
15 9 (1.06%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 186 (21.88%) Windows
2 108 (12.71%) Windows Server
3 82 (9.65%) Linux
4 51 (6.00%) Unix
5 12 (1.41%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.18%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (0.94%) AIX
7 8 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 5 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.47%) Android
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%) VMS
12 1 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 209 (24.59%) DevOps
2 205 (24.12%) CI/CD
3 181 (21.29%) ETL
4 180 (21.18%) Agile
5 175 (20.59%) Problem-Solving
6 157 (18.47%) Business Intelligence
7 145 (17.06%) Data Modelling
8 129 (15.18%) Migration
9 106 (12.47%) Analytics
10 97 (11.41%) Disaster Recovery
11 95 (11.18%) Performance Tuning
12 91 (10.71%) Data Pipeline
13 84 (9.88%) AI
14 81 (9.53%) Data Engineering
14 81 (9.53%) Test Automation
15 75 (8.82%) Data Integration
16 73 (8.59%) Microservices
17 67 (7.88%) Data Analysis
18 66 (7.76%) High Availability
19 65 (7.65%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 499 (58.71%) SQL
2 222 (26.12%) Python
3 217 (25.53%) C#
4 142 (16.71%) T-SQL
5 128 (15.06%) PowerShell
6 89 (10.47%) JavaScript
7 81 (9.53%) Java
8 69 (8.12%) PL/SQL
9 48 (5.65%) TypeScript
10 31 (3.65%) Bash
11 24 (2.82%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 24 (2.82%) Shell Script
12 18 (2.12%) Scala
13 17 (2.00%) VB
14 16 (1.88%) Korn
15 15 (1.76%) Bicep
16 13 (1.53%) VBA
17 12 (1.41%) PHP
18 5 (0.59%) Rust
19 4 (0.47%) R
Qualifications
1 185 (21.76%) Security Cleared
2 142 (16.71%) SC Cleared
3 86 (10.12%) Degree
4 28 (3.29%) Microsoft Certification
5 26 (3.06%) DV Cleared
6 24 (2.82%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (2.47%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (2.24%) Azure Certification
9 8 (0.94%) Master's Degree
10 6 (0.71%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.59%) CISSP
11 5 (0.59%) OCP
11 5 (0.59%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (0.47%) CCA
12 4 (0.47%) Citrix Certification
12 4 (0.47%) MCITP
12 4 (0.47%) MCTS
13 3 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 2 (0.24%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 105 (12.35%) Data Quality
2 90 (10.59%) QA
3 23 (2.71%) GDPR
4 20 (2.35%) NIST
5 18 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 14 (1.65%) SLA
7 8 (0.94%) Accessibility
7 8 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 5 (0.59%) WCAG
9 3 (0.35%) Basel III
9 3 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 3 (0.35%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.35%) IFRS
9 3 (0.35%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.24%) EMIR
10 2 (0.24%) GAAP
10 2 (0.24%) GRC
10 2 (0.24%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.24%) MiFID
System Software
1 92 (10.82%) Docker
2 75 (8.82%) Active Directory
3 23 (2.71%) VMware Infrastructure
4 16 (1.88%) Oracle RAC
4 16 (1.88%) Virtual Machines
5 15 (1.76%) Hyper-V
6 11 (1.29%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.71%) KVM
8 4 (0.47%) XenApp
8 4 (0.47%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.35%) GridGain
10 2 (0.24%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.24%) VMware ESXi
11 1 (0.12%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.12%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.12%) NFS
11 1 (0.12%) RACF
11 1 (0.12%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.12%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 104 (12.24%) Kubernetes
2 63 (7.41%) Terraform
3 16 (1.88%) Oracle RMAN
3 16 (1.88%) SCCM
4 15 (1.76%) Ansible
5 14 (1.65%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 10 (1.18%) HAProxy
7 9 (1.06%) Grafana
7 9 (1.06%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (0.94%) WSUS
9 7 (0.82%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.71%) IBM BigFix
11 5 (0.59%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.47%) SCVMM
13 3 (0.35%) Control-M
13 3 (0.35%) Foglight
13 3 (0.35%) Microsoft Clustering
13 3 (0.35%) Progress Chef
13 3 (0.35%) Puppet
14 2 (0.24%) TIBCO Hawk
Vendors
1 238 (28.00%) Microsoft
2 232 (27.29%) Oracle
3 80 (9.41%) Databricks
4 53 (6.24%) Citrix
5 38 (4.47%) ServiceNow
6 36 (4.24%) VMware
7 29 (3.41%) Informatica
8 27 (3.18%) SAP
9 23 (2.71%) CyberArk
10 20 (2.35%) Google
11 17 (2.00%) BeyondTrust
12 15 (1.76%) IBM
12 15 (1.76%) Sybase
13 14 (1.65%) Dynatrace
14 13 (1.53%) Remedy
15 12 (1.41%) BMC
16 11 (1.29%) OpenAI
17 10 (1.18%) Alteryx
18 9 (1.06%) Tenable
18 9 (1.06%) UiPath