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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 124 68
Rank change year-on-year -15 -56 -7
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 960 678 1,046
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.05% 2.41% 3.27%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.04% 13.28% 18.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 670 498 739
10th Percentile £357 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £496 £505
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -1.88% -6.05%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £625
90th Percentile £713 £728 £725
UK median daily rate £494 £496 £500
% change year-on-year -0.45% -0.85% -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 4 6
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.83 £26.83
25th Percentile £17.97 £20.95 £35.00
Median hourly rate £24.25 £21.27 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +14.01% -62.19% +7.14%
75th Percentile £57.50 £35.52 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.20 £60.71 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £22.37 £21.27 £47.50
% change year-on-year +5.15% -55.22% -9.52%

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 6,836 5,105 5,777
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.60% 18.15% 18.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,536 3,508 3,918
10th Percentile £353 £337 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -7.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £634 £663
90th Percentile £713 £750 £813
UK median daily rate £501 £500 £525
% change year-on-year +0.24% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 272 72 83
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.67 £17.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £29.00 £22.20
Median hourly rate £41.71 £42.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -0.68% +19.99% -33.33%
75th Percentile £59.25 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.68 £80.00 £71.15
UK median hourly rate £41.00 £39.48 £33.93
% change year-on-year +3.85% +16.36% -33.54%

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 14 October 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 14 October 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 14 October 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 -28 499 £500 -9.09% 467
North of England +5 183 £475 +9.20% 155
North West +4 106 £493 +11.93% 79
Midlands +5 101 £463 +23.33% 87
South East -50 84 £525 +40.00% 125
West Midlands +3 74 £460 -1.60% 59
Yorkshire -1 70 £450 +5.88% 59
South West -31 36 £715 +50.53% 44
East Midlands -5 27 £525 +54.41% 28
East of England -41 19 £425 -15.00% 47
North East - 7 £425 - 19
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 68 (7.08%) SharePoint
2 48 (5.00%) Confluence
3 37 (3.85%) IIS
4 23 (2.40%) Apache Airflow
5 21 (2.19%) Microsoft Exchange
6 19 (1.98%) Apache
7 18 (1.88%) Camunda
8 17 (1.77%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.94%) Oracle Workflow
10 8 (0.83%) CMS
11 5 (0.52%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.52%) Appian
11 5 (0.52%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.52%) Tomcat
11 5 (0.52%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.42%) Traefik
12 4 (0.42%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.31%) nginx
13 3 (0.31%) OpenEdge
14 2 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 48 (5.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.13%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.04%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.31%) Windchill
5 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.10%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 34 (3.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (1.98%) Remedy ITSM
3 15 (1.56%) SAP S/4HANA
4 8 (0.83%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.73%) OpenText MBPM
5 7 (0.73%) Oracle BPM
6 6 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
7 5 (0.52%) Dynamics AX
8 4 (0.42%) Elite 3E
9 3 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.31%) Siebel CRM
10 2 (0.21%) Infor LN
10 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
11 1 (0.10%) Endur
11 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
11 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
11 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
11 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
11 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 417 (43.44%) Azure
2 201 (20.94%) AWS
3 160 (16.67%) Power Platform
4 119 (12.40%) Azure DevOps
5 94 (9.79%) GitHub
6 59 (6.15%) Entra ID
7 53 (5.52%) Serverless
8 49 (5.10%) Azure Data Factory
9 44 (4.58%) Dynamics 365
10 42 (4.38%) Power Automate
11 41 (4.27%) GCP
11 41 (4.27%) Microsoft 365
12 38 (3.96%) Azure Monitor
13 37 (3.85%) Snowflake
14 33 (3.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 32 (3.33%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (2.60%) Azure Functions
17 24 (2.50%) GitHub Copilot
17 24 (2.50%) PaaS
18 23 (2.40%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.58%) DNS
2 35 (3.65%) DHCP
3 33 (3.44%) Firewall
4 16 (1.67%) SAN
4 16 (1.67%) SSL
5 14 (1.46%) TCP/IP
5 14 (1.46%) VLAN
5 14 (1.46%) VPN
6 12 (1.25%) Internet
7 10 (1.04%) Network Security
8 9 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
9 8 (0.83%) SSH
10 6 (0.63%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.63%) LAN
11 5 (0.52%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.52%) VoIP
11 5 (0.52%) WAN
12 3 (0.31%) Reverse Proxy
12 3 (0.31%) Wireless
13 2 (0.21%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 160 (16.67%) PostgreSQL
2 133 (13.85%) Power BI
3 102 (10.63%) Relational Database
4 99 (10.31%) MySQL
5 93 (9.69%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 87 (9.06%) Data Warehouse
7 64 (6.67%) Oracle Database
8 57 (5.94%) Azure SQL Database
8 57 (5.94%) MongoDB
9 54 (5.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 33 (3.44%) Data Lake
11 29 (3.02%) Amazon RDS
12 25 (2.60%) NoSQL
13 23 (2.40%) Metadata
13 23 (2.40%) Redis
14 21 (2.19%) RDBMS
15 20 (2.08%) Tableau
16 19 (1.98%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 15 (1.56%) Amazon Aurora
18 13 (1.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 115 (11.98%) Git
2 78 (8.13%) JIRA
3 56 (5.83%) Jenkins
4 33 (3.44%) GitLab
5 25 (2.60%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 19 (1.98%) Maven
7 19 (1.98%) Sonatype Nexus
8 18 (1.88%) REST Assured
8 18 (1.88%) Selenium
8 18 (1.88%) Team Foundation Server
9 15 (1.56%) Gradle
10 14 (1.46%) Claude Code
10 14 (1.46%) JUnit
10 14 (1.46%) Mockito
10 14 (1.46%) Postman
11 13 (1.35%) Cypress.io
11 13 (1.35%) SonarQube
12 12 (1.25%) Cucumber
13 11 (1.15%) WebDriver
General
1 309 (32.19%) Social Skills
2 266 (27.71%) Finance
3 176 (18.33%) Analytical Skills
4 130 (13.54%) Banking
5 65 (6.77%) Public Sector
6 39 (4.06%) Front Office
7 36 (3.75%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (3.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (2.50%) Retail
10 23 (2.40%) Investment Banking
11 13 (1.35%) Back Office
11 13 (1.35%) Legal
12 12 (1.25%) Financial Institution
13 10 (1.04%) Manufacturing
14 7 (0.73%) Billing
14 7 (0.73%) Law
14 7 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.63%) Local Government
15 6 (0.63%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.63%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 308 (32.08%) Developer
2 159 (16.56%) Senior
3 131 (13.65%) DBA
4 76 (7.92%) SQL DBA
5 72 (7.50%) Administrator
6 67 (6.98%) .NET Developer
6 67 (6.98%) C# Developer
7 64 (6.67%) Data Engineer
8 63 (6.56%) Lead
9 56 (5.83%) Full-Stack Developer
10 55 (5.73%) Senior Developer
11 53 (5.52%) Analyst
12 48 (5.00%) Architect
13 46 (4.79%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 41 (4.27%) SQL Developer
15 34 (3.54%) Software Engineer
16 28 (2.92%) Applications Support
16 28 (2.92%) Cloud Engineer
17 27 (2.81%) Azure Engineer
17 27 (2.81%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (29.48%) .NET
2 141 (14.69%) REST
3 85 (8.85%) .NET Framework
4 84 (8.75%) React
5 80 (8.33%) Terraform
6 66 (6.88%) CSS
7 61 (6.35%) .NET Core
7 61 (6.35%) ASP.NET
8 60 (6.25%) HTML
9 59 (6.15%) AngularJS
10 56 (5.83%) Kafka
11 52 (5.42%) RESTful
12 51 (5.31%) JSON
13 46 (4.79%) Web Services
14 43 (4.48%) XML
15 40 (4.17%) SOAP
16 39 (4.06%) Spring Boot
17 33 (3.44%) OAuth
17 33 (3.44%) Spring
18 24 (2.50%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 63 (6.56%) Enterprise Software
2 61 (6.35%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.21%) Data Structures
3 50 (5.21%) Onboarding
4 46 (4.79%) Replication
5 45 (4.69%) Product Ownership
6 43 (4.48%) Clustering
7 41 (4.27%) Self-Motivation
8 39 (4.06%) Data Centre
9 37 (3.85%) Management Information System
10 33 (3.44%) Legacy Systems
11 20 (2.08%) Distributed Systems
12 19 (1.98%) PKI
13 14 (1.46%) Derivative
13 14 (1.46%) Low-Code
14 13 (1.35%) Legacy Applications
14 13 (1.35%) Virtual Team
15 12 (1.25%) Algorithms
16 11 (1.15%) Taxonomies
17 10 (1.04%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 243 (25.31%) Windows
2 145 (15.10%) Windows Server
3 90 (9.38%) Linux
4 27 (2.81%) Unix
5 17 (1.77%) Solaris
6 14 (1.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (1.15%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.83%) VMS
9 7 (0.73%) CentOS
9 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.63%) Android
10 6 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
12 2 (0.21%) AIX
12 2 (0.21%) Windows 10
12 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
12 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.10%) SUSE
13 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 260 (27.08%) DevOps
2 254 (26.46%) Agile
3 249 (25.94%) CI/CD
4 189 (19.69%) Problem-Solving
5 183 (19.06%) Migration
6 145 (15.10%) Business Intelligence
7 136 (14.17%) Performance Tuning
8 131 (13.65%) Data Modelling
9 130 (13.54%) ETL
10 129 (13.44%) AI
11 124 (12.92%) Stakeholder Management
12 119 (12.40%) Continuous Improvement
13 109 (11.35%) Disaster Recovery
14 95 (9.90%) Test Automation
15 93 (9.69%) Microservices
16 89 (9.27%) Analytics
17 87 (9.06%) Software Engineering
18 84 (8.75%) Validation
19 75 (7.81%) Mentoring
19 75 (7.81%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 585 (60.94%) SQL
2 281 (29.27%) C#
3 166 (17.29%) PowerShell
4 164 (17.08%) Python
5 157 (16.35%) T-SQL
6 147 (15.31%) JavaScript
7 86 (8.96%) Java
8 65 (6.77%) TypeScript
9 55 (5.73%) PL/SQL
10 35 (3.65%) Bash
11 16 (1.67%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (1.56%) VB
13 13 (1.35%) VBA
14 12 (1.25%) Shell Script
15 10 (1.04%) Bicep
16 8 (0.83%) PHP
16 8 (0.83%) Scala
17 7 (0.73%) Go
17 7 (0.73%) VB.NET
18 6 (0.63%) XPath
Qualifications
1 232 (24.17%) Security Cleared
2 169 (17.60%) SC Cleared
3 101 (10.52%) Degree
4 58 (6.04%) Microsoft Certification
5 52 (5.42%) DV Cleared
6 33 (3.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 31 (3.23%) Azure Certification
8 24 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
9 15 (1.56%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.35%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.25%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.15%) OCP
13 9 (0.94%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 9 (0.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 9 (0.94%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.52%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.52%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.42%) CISSP
15 4 (0.42%) PhD
16 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 96 (10.00%) QA
2 88 (9.17%) Data Quality
3 35 (3.65%) Accessibility
3 35 (3.65%) GDPR
4 25 (2.60%) WCAG
5 16 (1.67%) SLA
6 12 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 11 (1.15%) NIST
8 5 (0.52%) ISO 9000
9 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.31%) Basel III
9 3 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
10 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.21%) COREP
10 2 (0.21%) FINREP
10 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.21%) ITGC
10 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.10%) HL7
System Software
1 118 (12.29%) Active Directory
2 70 (7.29%) Docker
3 36 (3.75%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (3.54%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (1.67%) Oracle RAC
6 9 (0.94%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.63%) vSphere
9 5 (0.52%) VMware ESXi
10 4 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
11 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.31%) Postfix
12 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
12 1 (0.10%) HDFS
12 1 (0.10%) SRDF
12 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 83 (8.65%) Kubernetes
2 46 (4.79%) Ansible
3 20 (2.08%) SCOM
4 15 (1.56%) Data Guard
5 14 (1.46%) Microsoft Intune
6 12 (1.25%) Grafana
7 11 (1.15%) Microsoft Clustering
7 11 (1.15%) SCCM
8 9 (0.94%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 8 (0.83%) HAProxy
9 8 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.73%) Istio
11 6 (0.63%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.63%) ITRS Geneos
11 6 (0.63%) Prometheus
12 5 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.52%) WSUS
13 3 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
13 3 (0.31%) PowerCLI
13 3 (0.31%) Puppet
Vendors
1 355 (36.98%) Microsoft
2 264 (27.50%) Oracle
3 73 (7.60%) Databricks
4 64 (6.67%) VMware
5 46 (4.79%) ServiceNow
6 36 (3.75%) CyberArk
6 36 (3.75%) SAP
7 32 (3.33%) Citrix
8 27 (2.81%) IBM
9 21 (2.19%) Cisco
10 20 (2.08%) BeyondTrust
10 20 (2.08%) Informatica
11 19 (1.98%) BMC
11 19 (1.98%) Remedy
12 18 (1.88%) Dynatrace
13 17 (1.77%) Google
14 16 (1.67%) Red Hat
15 15 (1.56%) Splunk
16 12 (1.25%) Commvault
16 12 (1.25%) Sybase