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 1 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
1 Apr 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 128 97 63
Rank change year-on-year -31 -34 -14
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 796 665 1,222
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.09% 2.74% 3.24%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.06% 14.47% 19.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 554 495 863
10th Percentile £358 £347 £325
25th Percentile £408 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £513 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.88% -2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £675 £720 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -2.50% -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 6 29
10th Percentile £14.21 £25.66 £22.36
25th Percentile £21.75 £34.80 £40.00
Median hourly rate £29.48 £62.12 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -52.55% +54.34% +5.92%
75th Percentile £69.72 £65.62 £59.00
90th Percentile £76.00 £77.18 £64.40
UK median hourly rate £53.00 £43.93 £40.25
% change year-on-year +20.66% +9.13% -7.61%

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 6,095 4,595 6,160
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.97% 18.95% 16.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,246 3,243 4,420
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £665
90th Percentile £700 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 133 89 146
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.53 £14.00
25th Percentile £29.88 £24.25 £20.78
Median hourly rate £51.00 £32.81 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.44% -17.98% -31.91%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £53.44
90th Percentile £84.80 £71.25 £71.25
UK median hourly rate £51.75 £31.64 £40.00
% change year-on-year +63.56% -20.90% -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 1 April 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 1 April 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 1 April 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 -30 459 £500 -9.09% 115
North of England -29 118 £450 +7.27% 114
South East -29 100 £500 - 129
North West -30 65 £456 +5.80% 64
Yorkshire -16 51 £450 +12.50% 44
Midlands -68 44 £450 -10.00% 64
South West -31 32 £438 -20.45% 39
East of England -9 26 £588 +12.44% 45
West Midlands -64 23 £449 -22.00% 36
East Midlands -26 18 £494 +24.84% 28
North East -15 3 £475 +5.56% 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 35 (4.40%) IIS
1 35 (4.40%) SharePoint
2 23 (2.89%) Microsoft Exchange
3 17 (2.14%) Confluence
4 13 (1.63%) Apache
4 13 (1.63%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 12 (1.51%) Apache Spark
6 11 (1.38%) Appian
6 11 (1.38%) WebSphere
7 10 (1.26%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (1.13%) CMS
9 8 (1.01%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.75%) Camunda
10 6 (0.75%) Sitecore CMS
11 3 (0.38%) Oracle Workflow
12 2 (0.25%) Apache Superset
12 2 (0.25%) NetWeaver
12 2 (0.25%) OpenEdge
12 2 (0.25%) Tomcat
13 1 (0.13%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 42 (5.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.76%) MS Visio
3 13 (1.63%) Microsoft Office
4 7 (0.88%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.13%) InDesign
6 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 12 (1.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 8 (1.01%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.01%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.88%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.75%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.38%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 3 (0.38%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
7 2 (0.25%) Endur
7 2 (0.25%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.25%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.25%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.13%) Dynamics NAV
8 1 (0.13%) Findur
8 1 (0.13%) Oracle FAH
8 1 (0.13%) SAP R/3
Cloud Services
1 346 (43.47%) Azure
2 167 (20.98%) AWS
3 133 (16.71%) Power Platform
4 103 (12.94%) Azure DevOps
5 78 (9.80%) Azure Data Factory
6 63 (7.91%) GitHub
7 42 (5.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 42 (5.28%) GCP
8 36 (4.52%) Microsoft 365
9 29 (3.64%) SaaS
10 28 (3.52%) GitHub Actions
11 26 (3.27%) Amazon S3
12 24 (3.02%) Power Automate
12 24 (3.02%) Snowflake
13 22 (2.76%) Dynamics 365
13 22 (2.76%) IaaS
14 21 (2.64%) Serverless
15 19 (2.39%) Amazon EC2
16 17 (2.14%) Azure Monitor
16 17 (2.14%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 25 (3.14%) DNS
2 21 (2.64%) Firewall
3 18 (2.26%) DHCP
4 12 (1.51%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.51%) VPN
5 11 (1.38%) Internet
6 10 (1.26%) SAN
6 10 (1.26%) VLAN
7 7 (0.88%) LAN
7 7 (0.88%) Wi-Fi
8 6 (0.75%) HTTP
8 6 (0.75%) NetScaler
9 4 (0.50%) FTP
9 4 (0.50%) RS-232
9 4 (0.50%) X.400
10 3 (0.38%) IPv4
10 3 (0.38%) IPv6
10 3 (0.38%) SSH
10 3 (0.38%) VoIP
10 3 (0.38%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 111 (13.94%) Power BI
1 111 (13.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 109 (13.69%) PostgreSQL
3 93 (11.68%) Data Warehouse
4 87 (10.93%) Relational Database
5 62 (7.79%) Oracle Database
6 61 (7.66%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 58 (7.29%) Azure SQL Database
8 52 (6.53%) MySQL
9 51 (6.41%) Data Lake
10 36 (4.52%) NoSQL
11 34 (4.27%) MongoDB
12 33 (4.15%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 26 (3.27%) DB2
14 23 (2.89%) Metadata
15 20 (2.51%) Amazon RDS
16 18 (2.26%) RDBMS
17 17 (2.14%) Delta Lake
17 17 (2.14%) Tableau
18 16 (2.01%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 69 (8.67%) Git
2 50 (6.28%) JIRA
3 38 (4.77%) Jenkins
4 25 (3.14%) Visual Studio
5 21 (2.64%) GitLab
6 15 (1.88%) TeamCity
7 11 (1.38%) Cucumber
7 11 (1.38%) Maven
7 11 (1.38%) Team Foundation Server
8 10 (1.26%) Postman
9 9 (1.13%) ERwin
9 9 (1.13%) Octopus Deploy
10 8 (1.01%) JUnit
10 8 (1.01%) MLflow
10 8 (1.01%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 7 (0.88%) Chocolatey
11 7 (0.88%) Selenium
12 6 (0.75%) Mockito
12 6 (0.75%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.75%) TestRail
General
1 230 (28.89%) Social Skills
2 191 (23.99%) Finance
3 131 (16.46%) Analytical Skills
4 100 (12.56%) Banking
5 62 (7.79%) Public Sector
6 31 (3.89%) Documentation Skills
7 25 (3.14%) Investment Banking
8 24 (3.02%) Front Office
9 22 (2.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 17 (2.14%) Legal
11 13 (1.63%) Organisational Skills
11 13 (1.63%) Retail
12 12 (1.51%) Financial Institution
13 9 (1.13%) Advertising
14 8 (1.01%) Local Government
15 6 (0.75%) Telecoms
16 5 (0.63%) Law
17 4 (0.50%) Back Office
17 4 (0.50%) Influencing Skills
17 4 (0.50%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 249 (31.28%) Developer
2 115 (14.45%) Senior
3 99 (12.44%) Data Engineer
4 82 (10.30%) DBA
5 74 (9.30%) C# Developer
6 71 (8.92%) Architect
7 60 (7.54%) .NET Developer
8 46 (5.78%) SQL DBA
9 41 (5.15%) Lead
10 36 (4.52%) Analyst
10 36 (4.52%) Senior Developer
11 30 (3.77%) Full-Stack Developer
12 29 (3.64%) Senior Data Engineer
13 28 (3.52%) Azure Engineer
13 28 (3.52%) Software Engineer
14 26 (3.27%) SQL Developer
15 25 (3.14%) Administrator
16 22 (2.76%) Data Architect
17 21 (2.64%) Oracle DBA
18 20 (2.51%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 221 (27.76%) .NET
2 90 (11.31%) .NET Framework
2 90 (11.31%) REST
3 68 (8.54%) React
4 58 (7.29%) AngularJS
5 54 (6.78%) RESTful
6 49 (6.16%) HTML
7 45 (5.65%) CSS
8 39 (4.90%) .NET Core
8 39 (4.90%) ASP.NET
8 39 (4.90%) XML
9 36 (4.52%) Kafka
10 28 (3.52%) Web Services
11 23 (2.89%) Entity Framework
12 22 (2.76%) Spring
13 20 (2.51%) JSON
13 20 (2.51%) Node.js
13 20 (2.51%) SOAP
13 20 (2.51%) Spring Boot
13 20 (2.51%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 54 (6.78%) Legacy Systems
2 36 (4.52%) Cloud Native
3 31 (3.89%) Replication
4 30 (3.77%) Data Structures
5 24 (3.02%) Onboarding
6 23 (2.89%) Enterprise Software
7 18 (2.26%) Clustering
7 18 (2.26%) Management Information System
8 15 (1.88%) Self-Motivation
9 13 (1.63%) Product Ownership
10 12 (1.51%) Legacy Code
10 12 (1.51%) NHS
11 10 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.26%) Low-Code
11 10 (1.26%) Virtual Team
12 9 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
12 9 (1.13%) Derivative
12 9 (1.13%) Distributed Systems
12 9 (1.13%) PKI
12 9 (1.13%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 155 (19.47%) Windows
2 86 (10.80%) Windows Server
3 74 (9.30%) Linux
4 36 (4.52%) Unix
5 11 (1.38%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.26%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (1.01%) AIX
7 8 (1.01%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.63%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 5 (0.63%) Windows Server 2012
9 3 (0.38%) Android
9 3 (0.38%) Windows Server 2003
10 2 (0.25%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.25%) VMS
10 2 (0.25%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.13%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 194 (24.37%) CI/CD
2 193 (24.25%) DevOps
3 173 (21.73%) ETL
4 169 (21.23%) Problem-Solving
5 167 (20.98%) Agile
6 149 (18.72%) Business Intelligence
7 139 (17.46%) Data Modelling
8 123 (15.45%) Migration
9 94 (11.81%) Analytics
10 87 (10.93%) Performance Tuning
11 86 (10.80%) Disaster Recovery
12 80 (10.05%) Data Pipeline
13 77 (9.67%) Data Engineering
14 73 (9.17%) AI
14 73 (9.17%) Test Automation
15 71 (8.92%) Data Analysis
16 67 (8.42%) Data Integration
17 66 (8.29%) Microservices
18 60 (7.54%) Data Governance
18 60 (7.54%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 469 (58.92%) SQL
2 201 (25.25%) C#
3 177 (22.24%) Python
4 113 (14.20%) T-SQL
5 95 (11.93%) PowerShell
6 72 (9.05%) Java
6 72 (9.05%) JavaScript
7 60 (7.54%) PL/SQL
8 50 (6.28%) TypeScript
9 31 (3.89%) Bash
10 24 (3.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 21 (2.64%) Shell Script
12 16 (2.01%) VB
13 15 (1.88%) Bicep
13 15 (1.88%) Korn
14 12 (1.51%) Scala
14 12 (1.51%) VBA
15 11 (1.38%) PHP
16 7 (0.88%) XPath
17 4 (0.50%) R
Qualifications
1 162 (20.35%) Security Cleared
2 123 (15.45%) SC Cleared
3 78 (9.80%) Degree
4 30 (3.77%) Microsoft Certification
5 28 (3.52%) Computer Science Degree
6 20 (2.51%) DV Cleared
7 19 (2.39%) Azure Certification
8 16 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.01%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.63%) CCA
10 5 (0.63%) Citrix Certification
10 5 (0.63%) DBS Check
10 5 (0.63%) ITIL Certification
10 5 (0.63%) OCP
10 5 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
11 4 (0.50%) CISSP
11 4 (0.50%) MCITP
11 4 (0.50%) MCTS
11 4 (0.50%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.38%) HNC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (11.31%) Data Quality
2 87 (10.93%) QA
3 20 (2.51%) GDPR
4 15 (1.88%) SLA
5 7 (0.88%) NIST
6 6 (0.75%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 4 (0.50%) IFRS
8 4 (0.50%) WCAG
9 3 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.38%) IFRS 17
9 3 (0.38%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.25%) Basel III
10 2 (0.25%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.25%) EMIR
10 2 (0.25%) GAAP
10 2 (0.25%) GRC
10 2 (0.25%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.25%) MiFID
System Software
1 87 (10.93%) Docker
2 58 (7.29%) Active Directory
3 18 (2.26%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (1.88%) Hyper-V
5 14 (1.76%) Oracle RAC
6 11 (1.38%) Virtual Desktop
6 11 (1.38%) Virtual Machines
7 6 (0.75%) KVM
8 5 (0.63%) XenApp
8 5 (0.63%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.38%) GridGain
10 2 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.25%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.13%) NFS
11 1 (0.13%) RACF
Systems Management
1 87 (10.93%) Kubernetes
2 57 (7.16%) Terraform
3 17 (2.14%) Ansible
4 15 (1.88%) Oracle RMAN
5 14 (1.76%) Grafana
5 14 (1.76%) SCCM
6 13 (1.63%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 10 (1.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 9 (1.13%) vCenter Server
9 8 (1.01%) Puppet
10 7 (0.88%) TIBCO Hawk
11 6 (0.75%) IBM BigFix
11 6 (0.75%) Single Sign-On
12 5 (0.63%) HAProxy
12 5 (0.63%) SCVMM
12 5 (0.63%) WSUS
13 3 (0.38%) Control-M
13 3 (0.38%) Foglight
13 3 (0.38%) Microsoft Clustering
13 3 (0.38%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 246 (30.90%) Microsoft
2 228 (28.64%) Oracle
3 67 (8.42%) Databricks
4 52 (6.53%) Citrix
5 39 (4.90%) ServiceNow
6 32 (4.02%) Informatica
6 32 (4.02%) VMware
7 22 (2.76%) SAP
8 20 (2.51%) Google
8 20 (2.51%) IBM
9 13 (1.63%) Sybase
10 12 (1.51%) CyberArk
10 12 (1.51%) UiPath
11 11 (1.38%) Dynatrace
12 10 (1.26%) OpenAI
13 9 (1.13%) Tenable
14 8 (1.01%) Advent
14 8 (1.01%) Automation Anywhere
14 8 (1.01%) PagerDuty
14 8 (1.01%) Sitecore
479 SQL Server jobs in England