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

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 119 68
Rank change year-on-year -16 -51 -8
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 965 671 1,050
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.06% 2.38% 3.27%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.21% 13.14% 18.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 665 491 743
10th Percentile £356 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £496 £510
Median % change year-on-year +0.91% -2.84% -5.12%
75th Percentile £610 £620 £625
90th Percentile £713 £723 £725
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £500
% change year-on-year - - -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 6,790 5,108 5,793
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.50% 18.11% 18.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,498 3,504 3,929
10th Percentile £350 £338 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.49% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £633 £663
90th Percentile £721 £750 £813
UK median daily rate £505 £500 £528
% change year-on-year +1.00% -5.21% -2.31%
Number of hourly rates quoted 274 72 83
10th Percentile £16.70 £20.67 £17.50
25th Percentile £21.25 £29.00 £22.20
Median hourly rate £41.36 £42.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.52% +19.99% -33.33%
75th Percentile £58.44 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.68 £80.00 £71.15
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £39.48 £33.22
% change year-on-year +1.77% +18.86% -34.94%

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 16 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 16 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 16 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 -19 504 £500 -9.09% 70
North of England +2 178 £475 +7.95% 61
North West +3 103 £485 +8.99% 31
Midlands +9 102 £463 +23.33% 33
South East -48 83 £534 +28.61% 49
West Midlands +5 75 £460 -1.60% 24
Yorkshire -5 67 £448 +5.29% 24
South West -30 38 £740 +64.44% 23
East Midlands +6 27 £525 +54.41% 9
East of England -40 19 £425 -15.00% 15
North East - 8 £425 - 7
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 (7.05%) SharePoint
2 53 (5.49%) Confluence
3 38 (3.94%) IIS
4 24 (2.49%) Apache Airflow
5 20 (2.07%) Apache
5 20 (2.07%) Microsoft Exchange
6 19 (1.97%) Camunda
7 17 (1.76%) Apache Spark
8 9 (0.93%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.83%) CMS
10 6 (0.62%) Traefik
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 (0.41%) OpenEdge
12 4 (0.41%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.31%) nginx
14 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 50 (5.18%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.11%) 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 (3.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (1.97%) Remedy ITSM
3 15 (1.55%) SAP S/4HANA
4 8 (0.83%) Aladdin
5 7 (0.73%) OpenText MBPM
5 7 (0.73%) Oracle BPM
6 6 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
7 5 (0.52%) Dynamics AX
8 4 (0.41%) 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%) FIS Private Capital Suite
11 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
11 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
11 1 (0.10%) SAP Hybris
11 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
11 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
11 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 422 (43.73%) Azure
2 202 (20.93%) AWS
3 162 (16.79%) Power Platform
4 126 (13.06%) Azure DevOps
5 92 (9.53%) GitHub
6 61 (6.32%) Entra ID
7 54 (5.60%) Serverless
8 49 (5.08%) Azure Data Factory
9 45 (4.66%) Dynamics 365
10 41 (4.25%) GCP
10 41 (4.25%) Power Automate
11 40 (4.15%) Microsoft 365
12 39 (4.04%) Snowflake
13 38 (3.94%) Azure Monitor
14 33 (3.42%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 28 (2.90%) GitHub Actions
16 26 (2.69%) Azure Functions
17 25 (2.59%) Amazon S3
18 24 (2.49%) PaaS
19 23 (2.38%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.87%) DNS
2 36 (3.73%) DHCP
3 34 (3.52%) Firewall
4 18 (1.87%) SSL
5 16 (1.66%) SAN
6 14 (1.45%) TCP/IP
6 14 (1.45%) VLAN
6 14 (1.45%) VPN
7 11 (1.14%) Internet
8 10 (1.04%) Network Security
9 9 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.83%) SSH
11 6 (0.62%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.62%) LAN
12 5 (0.52%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.52%) Reverse Proxy
12 5 (0.52%) VoIP
12 5 (0.52%) WAN
13 3 (0.31%) Wireless
14 2 (0.21%) Intranet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 157 (16.27%) PostgreSQL
2 135 (13.99%) Power BI
3 106 (10.98%) Relational Database
4 102 (10.57%) MySQL
5 93 (9.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 84 (8.70%) Data Warehouse
7 61 (6.32%) Oracle Database
8 59 (6.11%) Azure SQL Database
9 58 (6.01%) MongoDB
10 54 (5.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 32 (3.32%) Data Lake
12 28 (2.90%) Amazon RDS
13 25 (2.59%) Metadata
13 25 (2.59%) NoSQL
14 24 (2.49%) Redis
15 21 (2.18%) RDBMS
16 20 (2.07%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 19 (1.97%) Tableau
18 15 (1.55%) Amazon Aurora
18 15 (1.55%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 115 (11.92%) Git
2 83 (8.60%) JIRA
3 53 (5.49%) Jenkins
4 33 (3.42%) GitLab
5 24 (2.49%) Visual Studio
6 23 (2.38%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 19 (1.97%) REST Assured
7 19 (1.97%) Sonatype Nexus
7 19 (1.97%) Team Foundation Server
8 18 (1.87%) Selenium
9 17 (1.76%) Maven
10 15 (1.55%) Gradle
11 14 (1.45%) JUnit
11 14 (1.45%) Mockito
11 14 (1.45%) Postman
12 13 (1.35%) Claude Code
12 13 (1.35%) Cypress.io
12 13 (1.35%) SonarQube
13 12 (1.24%) Cucumber
14 11 (1.14%) WebDriver
General
1 304 (31.50%) Social Skills
2 267 (27.67%) Finance
3 177 (18.34%) Analytical Skills
4 133 (13.78%) Banking
5 68 (7.05%) Public Sector
6 39 (4.04%) Front Office
7 36 (3.73%) Documentation Skills
8 34 (3.52%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 24 (2.49%) Investment Banking
10 23 (2.38%) Retail
11 14 (1.45%) Financial Institution
12 13 (1.35%) Back Office
12 13 (1.35%) Legal
13 10 (1.04%) Manufacturing
14 7 (0.73%) Billing
14 7 (0.73%) Law
14 7 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.62%) Influencing Skills
15 6 (0.62%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.62%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 312 (32.33%) Developer
2 159 (16.48%) Senior
3 131 (13.58%) DBA
4 75 (7.77%) SQL DBA
5 73 (7.56%) Administrator
6 68 (7.05%) .NET Developer
6 68 (7.05%) C# Developer
7 63 (6.53%) Lead
8 61 (6.32%) Data Engineer
9 57 (5.91%) Full-Stack Developer
9 57 (5.91%) Senior Developer
10 53 (5.49%) Analyst
10 53 (5.49%) Architect
11 46 (4.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 41 (4.25%) SQL Developer
13 33 (3.42%) Software Engineer
14 29 (3.01%) C# .NET Developer
15 28 (2.90%) Applications Support
15 28 (2.90%) Cloud Engineer
16 27 (2.80%) Oracle DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 282 (29.22%) .NET
2 149 (15.44%) REST
3 85 (8.81%) React
4 83 (8.60%) .NET Framework
5 78 (8.08%) Terraform
6 66 (6.84%) CSS
7 63 (6.53%) .NET Core
8 61 (6.32%) AngularJS
9 60 (6.22%) ASP.NET
9 60 (6.22%) HTML
10 56 (5.80%) Kafka
11 54 (5.60%) RESTful
12 53 (5.49%) JSON
13 49 (5.08%) Web Services
14 45 (4.66%) SOAP
14 45 (4.66%) XML
15 40 (4.15%) Spring Boot
16 36 (3.73%) OAuth
17 34 (3.52%) Spring
18 25 (2.59%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 67 (6.94%) Enterprise Software
2 64 (6.63%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.18%) Data Structures
3 50 (5.18%) Onboarding
4 46 (4.77%) Replication
5 45 (4.66%) Product Ownership
6 42 (4.35%) Clustering
7 39 (4.04%) Data Centre
8 38 (3.94%) Self-Motivation
9 37 (3.83%) Management Information System
10 31 (3.21%) Legacy Systems
11 21 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
11 21 (2.18%) PKI
12 15 (1.55%) Virtual Team
13 14 (1.45%) Derivative
14 13 (1.35%) Legacy Applications
14 13 (1.35%) Low-Code
15 12 (1.24%) Algorithms
15 12 (1.24%) Reinsurance
16 11 (1.14%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 241 (24.97%) Windows
2 144 (14.92%) Windows Server
3 91 (9.43%) Linux
4 27 (2.80%) Unix
5 17 (1.76%) Solaris
6 14 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 11 (1.14%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.83%) VMS
9 7 (0.73%) CentOS
9 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.62%) Android
10 6 (0.62%) 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
1 264 (27.36%) DevOps
2 253 (26.22%) Agile
3 251 (26.01%) CI/CD
4 187 (19.38%) Problem-Solving
5 185 (19.17%) Migration
6 144 (14.92%) Business Intelligence
7 134 (13.89%) Performance Tuning
8 132 (13.68%) Data Modelling
8 132 (13.68%) ETL
9 129 (13.37%) AI
10 125 (12.95%) Stakeholder Management
11 123 (12.75%) Continuous Improvement
12 108 (11.19%) Disaster Recovery
13 99 (10.26%) Microservices
14 95 (9.84%) Test Automation
15 94 (9.74%) Analytics
16 87 (9.02%) Software Engineering
17 86 (8.91%) Validation
18 79 (8.19%) SDLC
19 76 (7.88%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 587 (60.83%) SQL
2 278 (28.81%) C#
3 165 (17.10%) PowerShell
4 157 (16.27%) Python
5 151 (15.65%) T-SQL
6 149 (15.44%) JavaScript
7 83 (8.60%) Java
8 68 (7.05%) TypeScript
9 50 (5.18%) PL/SQL
10 35 (3.63%) Bash
11 18 (1.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 15 (1.55%) VB
13 13 (1.35%) Shell Script
13 13 (1.35%) VBA
14 10 (1.04%) Bicep
15 8 (0.83%) PHP
16 7 (0.73%) Go
16 7 (0.73%) VB.NET
17 6 (0.62%) XPath
18 5 (0.52%) VB6
Qualifications
1 236 (24.46%) Security Cleared
2 172 (17.82%) SC Cleared
3 101 (10.47%) Degree
4 58 (6.01%) Microsoft Certification
5 53 (5.49%) DV Cleared
6 33 (3.42%) Computer Science Degree
7 32 (3.32%) Azure Certification
8 23 (2.38%) BPSS Clearance
9 17 (1.76%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.35%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.24%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.14%) OCP
13 9 (0.93%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 9 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 9 (0.93%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.52%) DBS Check
14 5 (0.52%) TOGAF Certification
15 4 (0.41%) CISSP
15 4 (0.41%) PhD
16 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 99 (10.26%) QA
2 86 (8.91%) Data Quality
3 35 (3.63%) Accessibility
4 34 (3.52%) GDPR
5 25 (2.59%) WCAG
6 16 (1.66%) SLA
7 12 (1.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 11 (1.14%) NIST
9 5 (0.52%) ISO 9000
10 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.31%) Basel III
10 3 (0.31%) Software Quality Assurance
11 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.21%) COREP
11 2 (0.21%) FINREP
11 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.21%) ITGC
11 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.10%) GMP
System Software
1 121 (12.54%) Active Directory
2 75 (7.77%) Docker
3 37 (3.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (3.52%) Virtual Machines
5 16 (1.66%) Oracle RAC
6 9 (0.93%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.62%) VMware ESXi
8 6 (0.62%) vSphere
9 4 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
10 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.31%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) HDFS
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.10%) VMware Workstation
Systems Management
1 83 (8.60%) Kubernetes
2 46 (4.77%) Ansible
3 20 (2.07%) SCOM
4 15 (1.55%) Data Guard
5 14 (1.45%) Microsoft Intune
6 13 (1.35%) Grafana
7 11 (1.14%) Microsoft Clustering
7 11 (1.14%) SCCM
8 10 (1.04%) Single Sign-On
9 9 (0.93%) Istio
9 9 (0.93%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 7 (0.73%) Prometheus
11 6 (0.62%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.62%) ITRS Geneos
12 5 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
12 5 (0.52%) WSUS
13 4 (0.41%) HAProxy
14 3 (0.31%) EMC NetWorker
14 3 (0.31%) Puppet
14 3 (0.31%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 360 (37.31%) Microsoft
2 265 (27.46%) Oracle
3 71 (7.36%) Databricks
4 65 (6.74%) VMware
5 46 (4.77%) ServiceNow
6 36 (3.73%) CyberArk
7 35 (3.63%) SAP
8 31 (3.21%) Citrix
9 27 (2.80%) IBM
10 21 (2.18%) Cisco
11 20 (2.07%) BeyondTrust
11 20 (2.07%) Informatica
12 19 (1.97%) BMC
12 19 (1.97%) Remedy
13 18 (1.87%) Dynatrace
14 17 (1.76%) Google
15 16 (1.66%) Red Hat
15 16 (1.66%) Splunk
16 12 (1.24%) Commvault
16 12 (1.24%) Sybase