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

 6 months to
4 Jun 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 118 95 58
Rank change year-on-year -23 -37 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 896 659 1,246
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.14% 2.75% 3.39%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.17% 14.36% 20.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 628 488 879
10th Percentile £354 £327 £331
25th Percentile £404 £404 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £491 £521 £513
Median % change year-on-year -5.80% +1.71% -2.38%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £638
90th Percentile £700 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £486 £510 £510
% change year-on-year -4.66% - -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 7 21
10th Percentile £13.51 £21.02 £36.75
25th Percentile £19.25 £23.01 -
Median hourly rate £27.88 £26.32 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.93% -34.20% -2.44%
75th Percentile £58.75 £65.62 £46.18
90th Percentile £74.00 £74.87 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £63.75 £40.00
% change year-on-year -41.17% +59.36% -17.95%

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 6,325 4,590 6,226
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.14% 19.13% 16.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,304 3,183 4,494
10th Percentile £350 £363 £350
25th Percentile £413 £421 £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 £788
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 201 91 138
10th Percentile £14.00 £19.25 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.75 £22.99 £20.77
Median hourly rate £41.71 £32.05 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +30.14% -19.88% -31.73%
75th Percentile £73.75 £63.25 £55.00
90th Percentile £82.25 £76.25 £73.25
UK median hourly rate £42.50 £33.88 £40.00
% change year-on-year +25.44% -15.30% -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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -27 476 £500 -13.04% 151
North of England -24 143 £475 +10.14% 91
South East -17 113 £450 -3.85% 103
North West -19 72 £500 +11.11% 52
Yorkshire -14 69 £450 +12.50% 30
Midlands -32 69 £496 +7.24% 68
South West -17 43 £444 -11.25% 40
East Midlands +1 40 £525 +67.73% 23
East of England -9 35 £475 -5.00% 25
West Midlands -58 27 £475 -13.64% 45
North East -31 3 £475 +5.56% 10
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 48 (5.36%) SharePoint
2 45 (5.02%) IIS
3 23 (2.57%) Microsoft Exchange
4 21 (2.34%) Apache
5 20 (2.23%) Apache Spark
5 20 (2.23%) Confluence
6 19 (2.12%) Apache Airflow
7 14 (1.56%) Appian
8 12 (1.34%) CMS
9 11 (1.23%) Camunda
10 9 (1.00%) Oracle Workflow
11 8 (0.89%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 6 (0.67%) Sitecore CMS
13 5 (0.56%) NetWeaver
13 5 (0.56%) OpenEdge
13 5 (0.56%) Tomcat
13 5 (0.56%) Umbraco
13 5 (0.56%) WebSphere
14 3 (0.33%) nginx
14 3 (0.33%) WebLogic
Applications
1 31 (3.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.79%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.34%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.11%) InDesign
5 1 (0.11%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 14 (1.56%) Remedy ITSM
1 14 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.12%) Dynamics CRM
3 6 (0.67%) Dynamics AX
4 5 (0.56%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.33%) OpenText MBPM
5 3 (0.33%) Oracle BPM
5 3 (0.33%) Oracle General Ledger
5 3 (0.33%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.33%) SystmOne
6 2 (0.22%) BusinessWorks
6 2 (0.22%) Elite 3E
6 2 (0.22%) Loan IQ
6 2 (0.22%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.22%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.22%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 1 (0.11%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.11%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.11%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 389 (43.42%) Azure
2 199 (22.21%) AWS
3 147 (16.41%) Power Platform
4 107 (11.94%) Azure DevOps
5 87 (9.71%) Azure Data Factory
6 81 (9.04%) GitHub
7 49 (5.47%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 44 (4.91%) GCP
9 34 (3.79%) GitHub Actions
9 34 (3.79%) Microsoft 365
9 34 (3.79%) Serverless
10 32 (3.57%) Power Automate
10 32 (3.57%) Snowflake
11 27 (3.01%) SaaS
12 24 (2.68%) Amazon S3
12 24 (2.68%) Dynamics 365
13 22 (2.46%) Azure Monitor
14 20 (2.23%) dbt
15 19 (2.12%) Entra ID
16 18 (2.01%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 36 (4.02%) DNS
2 28 (3.13%) DHCP
3 20 (2.23%) Firewall
4 15 (1.67%) SAN
5 13 (1.45%) Internet
6 12 (1.34%) VLAN
7 11 (1.23%) VPN
8 9 (1.00%) TCP/IP
9 6 (0.67%) IPv4
9 6 (0.67%) IPv6
9 6 (0.67%) Wi-Fi
10 5 (0.56%) LAN
10 5 (0.56%) Network Security
11 4 (0.45%) NetScaler
11 4 (0.45%) SSH
12 3 (0.33%) FTP
12 3 (0.33%) NAS
12 3 (0.33%) RS-232
12 3 (0.33%) WAN
12 3 (0.33%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 127 (14.17%) PostgreSQL
2 120 (13.39%) Power BI
3 112 (12.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 105 (11.72%) Data Warehouse
5 93 (10.38%) Relational Database
6 70 (7.81%) Oracle Database
7 61 (6.81%) Data Lake
8 56 (6.25%) MySQL
9 53 (5.92%) Azure SQL Database
9 53 (5.92%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 40 (4.46%) NoSQL
11 39 (4.35%) MongoDB
12 32 (3.57%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 24 (2.68%) Tableau
14 22 (2.46%) Metadata
15 21 (2.34%) RDBMS
16 20 (2.23%) Delta Lake
17 17 (1.90%) Redis
18 16 (1.79%) Amazon RDS
18 16 (1.79%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 70 (7.81%) Git
2 57 (6.36%) JIRA
3 40 (4.46%) Jenkins
4 23 (2.57%) GitLab
5 22 (2.46%) Visual Studio
6 20 (2.23%) TeamCity
7 14 (1.56%) Team Foundation Server
8 13 (1.45%) Cucumber
9 12 (1.34%) Octopus Deploy
10 11 (1.23%) Maven
11 10 (1.12%) Postman
11 10 (1.12%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 9 (1.00%) Gatling
13 8 (0.89%) ERwin
13 8 (0.89%) MLflow
13 8 (0.89%) REST Assured
13 8 (0.89%) Selenium
14 7 (0.78%) Artifactory
14 7 (0.78%) Chocolatey
14 7 (0.78%) MSTest
General
1 255 (28.46%) Social Skills
2 216 (24.11%) Finance
3 140 (15.63%) Analytical Skills
4 109 (12.17%) Banking
5 64 (7.14%) Public Sector
6 32 (3.57%) Front Office
7 31 (3.46%) Documentation Skills
8 22 (2.46%) Investment Banking
9 20 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 19 (2.12%) Legal
11 17 (1.90%) Retail
12 14 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (1.00%) Advertising
13 9 (1.00%) Local Government
14 8 (0.89%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.89%) Law
15 7 (0.78%) Back Office
16 6 (0.67%) Publishing
16 6 (0.67%) Telecoms
17 5 (0.56%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 259 (28.91%) Developer
2 139 (15.51%) Senior
3 118 (13.17%) Data Engineer
4 101 (11.27%) DBA
5 80 (8.93%) C# Developer
6 64 (7.14%) Architect
7 62 (6.92%) SQL DBA
8 60 (6.70%) .NET Developer
8 60 (6.70%) Lead
9 41 (4.58%) Senior Developer
10 39 (4.35%) Senior Data Engineer
11 35 (3.91%) Analyst
12 34 (3.79%) Full-Stack Developer
13 33 (3.68%) SQL Developer
14 32 (3.57%) Software Engineer
15 28 (3.13%) Azure Engineer
16 27 (3.01%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 26 (2.90%) Administrator
17 26 (2.90%) Oracle DBA
17 26 (2.90%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 222 (24.78%) .NET
2 115 (12.83%) REST
3 93 (10.38%) .NET Framework
4 77 (8.59%) React
5 62 (6.92%) CSS
6 61 (6.81%) RESTful
7 57 (6.36%) AngularJS
8 56 (6.25%) HTML
9 45 (5.02%) ASP.NET
10 41 (4.58%) .NET Core
10 41 (4.58%) Kafka
11 33 (3.68%) XML
12 31 (3.46%) OAuth
13 28 (3.13%) Web Services
14 25 (2.79%) Entity Framework
15 24 (2.68%) SOAP
16 23 (2.57%) JSON
16 23 (2.57%) PySpark
17 20 (2.23%) Spring
17 20 (2.23%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 57 (6.36%) Legacy Systems
2 41 (4.58%) Cloud Native
3 36 (4.02%) Replication
4 33 (3.68%) Onboarding
5 30 (3.35%) Data Structures
6 28 (3.13%) Clustering
6 28 (3.13%) Self-Motivation
7 20 (2.23%) Management Information System
8 18 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
8 18 (2.01%) Low-Code
9 17 (1.90%) NHS
10 15 (1.67%) Product Ownership
11 14 (1.56%) Derivative
11 14 (1.56%) PKI
12 12 (1.34%) Distributed Systems
12 12 (1.34%) Fixed Income
12 12 (1.34%) Reinsurance
13 11 (1.23%) Greenfield Project
13 11 (1.23%) Legacy Code
14 9 (1.00%) Mobile Payment
Operating Systems
1 206 (22.99%) Windows
2 120 (13.39%) Windows Server
3 85 (9.49%) Linux
4 52 (5.80%) Unix
5 12 (1.34%) Windows 10
6 11 (1.23%) Windows Server 2019
7 10 (1.12%) AIX
7 10 (1.12%) Windows Server 2016
8 9 (1.00%) Android
9 8 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 8 (0.89%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.45%) Ubuntu
10 4 (0.45%) VMS
11 3 (0.33%) CentOS
12 2 (0.22%) OpenVMS
12 2 (0.22%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.22%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.11%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.11%) Solaris
13 1 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 230 (25.67%) DevOps
2 222 (24.78%) CI/CD
3 195 (21.76%) Agile
4 181 (20.20%) ETL
5 173 (19.31%) Problem-Solving
6 148 (16.52%) Data Modelling
7 146 (16.29%) Business Intelligence
8 138 (15.40%) Migration
9 107 (11.94%) Analytics
10 106 (11.83%) Performance Tuning
11 103 (11.50%) Disaster Recovery
12 100 (11.16%) AI
13 91 (10.16%) Data Pipeline
14 83 (9.26%) Data Engineering
15 81 (9.04%) Test Automation
16 78 (8.71%) High Availability
17 75 (8.37%) Microservices
18 74 (8.26%) Data Integration
18 74 (8.26%) Validation
19 73 (8.15%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 514 (57.37%) SQL
2 233 (26.00%) Python
3 225 (25.11%) C#
4 144 (16.07%) T-SQL
5 142 (15.85%) PowerShell
6 95 (10.60%) JavaScript
7 87 (9.71%) Java
8 66 (7.37%) PL/SQL
9 50 (5.58%) TypeScript
10 33 (3.68%) Bash
11 25 (2.79%) Shell Script
12 22 (2.46%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 18 (2.01%) Scala
14 16 (1.79%) Korn
14 16 (1.79%) VB
15 14 (1.56%) Bicep
16 13 (1.45%) VBA
17 8 (0.89%) PHP
18 5 (0.56%) Rust
19 4 (0.45%) XPath
Qualifications
1 192 (21.43%) Security Cleared
2 145 (16.18%) SC Cleared
3 95 (10.60%) Degree
4 32 (3.57%) DV Cleared
5 30 (3.35%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
7 20 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (2.01%) Azure Certification
9 10 (1.12%) Master's Degree
10 9 (1.00%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.56%) CISSP
11 5 (0.56%) OCP
11 5 (0.56%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (0.45%) CCA
12 4 (0.45%) Citrix Certification
12 4 (0.45%) MCITP
12 4 (0.45%) MCTS
13 3 (0.33%) ITIL Certification
13 3 (0.33%) Microsoft Certified Professional
14 2 (0.22%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 103 (11.50%) Data Quality
2 90 (10.04%) QA
3 25 (2.79%) GDPR
4 20 (2.23%) NIST
5 19 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 15 (1.67%) SLA
7 10 (1.12%) Accessibility
8 8 (0.89%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 7 (0.78%) WCAG
10 4 (0.45%) Basel III
11 3 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.33%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.33%) IFRS
11 3 (0.33%) IFRS 9
12 2 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.22%) EMIR
12 2 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.22%) GRC
12 2 (0.22%) IFRS 17
12 2 (0.22%) SOC 2
System Software
1 86 (9.60%) Docker
2 83 (9.26%) Active Directory
3 25 (2.79%) VMware Infrastructure
4 19 (2.12%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (2.01%) Oracle RAC
6 13 (1.45%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.67%) KVM
9 4 (0.45%) XenApp
9 4 (0.45%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.33%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.33%) GridGain
10 3 (0.33%) Postfix
10 3 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
11 2 (0.22%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.22%) vSphere
12 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.11%) Citrix Hypervisor
12 1 (0.11%) NFS
12 1 (0.11%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 107 (11.94%) Kubernetes
2 65 (7.25%) Terraform
3 18 (2.01%) Ansible
3 18 (2.01%) Oracle RMAN
4 17 (1.90%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 17 (1.90%) SCCM
5 13 (1.45%) HAProxy
6 8 (0.89%) Grafana
6 8 (0.89%) Microsoft Intune
7 7 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.78%) vCenter Server
7 7 (0.78%) WSUS
8 6 (0.67%) IBM BigFix
9 4 (0.45%) SCVMM
10 3 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 3 (0.33%) Control-M
10 3 (0.33%) Data Guard
10 3 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
10 3 (0.33%) Foglight
11 2 (0.22%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 246 (27.46%) Microsoft
2 242 (27.01%) Oracle
3 79 (8.82%) Databricks
4 51 (5.69%) Citrix
5 42 (4.69%) ServiceNow
6 38 (4.24%) VMware
7 33 (3.68%) Informatica
8 30 (3.35%) SAP
9 24 (2.68%) Google
10 22 (2.46%) CyberArk
11 20 (2.23%) Sybase
12 19 (2.12%) IBM
13 17 (1.90%) BeyondTrust
14 15 (1.67%) Dynatrace
15 14 (1.56%) Remedy
16 13 (1.45%) BMC
17 11 (1.23%) Alteryx
17 11 (1.23%) OpenAI
18 10 (1.12%) Cisco
18 10 (1.12%) UiPath
460 SQL Server jobs in England