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 18 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
18 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 136 76 68
Rank change year-on-year -60 -8 -19
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 704 771 1,154
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.04% 2.99% 3.06%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.54% 16.10% 18.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 477 547 846
10th Percentile £350 £335 £325
25th Percentile £406 £403 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.34% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £680 £700 £728
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 6 29
10th Percentile £12.95 £42.63 £20.71
25th Percentile £20.75 £60.66 £40.00
Median hourly rate £26.44 £63.75 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -58.52% +58.37% -7.47%
75th Percentile £30.24 £65.46 £56.25
90th Percentile £66.07 £65.62 £62.60
UK median hourly rate £27.44 £60.50 £40.25
% change year-on-year -54.64% +50.31% -7.75%

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 5,615 4,788 6,085
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.24% 18.55% 16.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,890 3,219 4,361
10th Percentile £338 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £535
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +0.47% -2.73%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £656
90th Percentile £700 £780 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 82 161
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £15.89
25th Percentile £26.50 £25.06 £21.73
Median hourly rate £50.00 £41.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +21.95% -3.53% -25.26%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.00 £61.75
90th Percentile £85.70 £73.38 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £38.31 £42.50
% change year-on-year +37.06% -9.87% -25.26%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 -39 433 £500 -9.09% 111
North of England -36 84 £425 -10.53% 99
South East -52 80 £488 -2.50% 164
North West -24 48 £450 +5.88% 65
Yorkshire -37 34 £385 -23.00% 24
South West -37 28 £550 - 37
Midlands -93 26 £455 -9.00% 61
East of England -13 25 £575 +10.05% 38
West Midlands -74 17 £450 -20.63% 30
East Midlands -39 7 £425 +16.44% 31
North East -10 3 £475 +28.38% 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 31 (4.40%) SharePoint
2 25 (3.55%) IIS
3 20 (2.84%) Microsoft Exchange
4 19 (2.70%) Confluence
5 14 (1.99%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 11 (1.56%) Apache
6 11 (1.56%) WebSphere
7 10 (1.42%) Apache Spark
7 10 (1.42%) Appian
8 9 (1.28%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (1.28%) CMS
9 7 (0.99%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.85%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.57%) SharePoint Server
12 2 (0.28%) JBoss
13 1 (0.14%) Mule
13 1 (0.14%) Oracle Application Server
13 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
13 1 (0.14%) Umbraco
Applications
1 42 (5.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.99%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.70%) MS Visio
4 5 (0.71%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.28%) Windchill
6 1 (0.14%) Trello
Business Applications
1 9 (1.28%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.14%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.99%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.85%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.57%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.43%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.28%) Dynamics AX
7 2 (0.28%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.28%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.28%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.28%) Remedy ITSM
7 2 (0.28%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.28%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.28%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.14%) RMDS
8 1 (0.14%) thinkFolio
8 1 (0.14%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 306 (43.47%) Azure
2 145 (20.60%) AWS
3 130 (18.47%) Power Platform
4 89 (12.64%) Azure DevOps
5 62 (8.81%) Azure Data Factory
6 54 (7.67%) GitHub
7 53 (7.53%) GCP
8 37 (5.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 33 (4.69%) Microsoft 365
10 30 (4.26%) SaaS
11 22 (3.13%) Amazon S3
12 21 (2.98%) Power Automate
12 21 (2.98%) Snowflake
13 20 (2.84%) GitHub Actions
14 19 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
15 18 (2.56%) Azure Service Bus
16 17 (2.41%) IaaS
17 16 (2.27%) Azure Cosmos DB
17 16 (2.27%) Serverless
18 15 (2.13%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 28 (3.98%) Firewall
2 21 (2.98%) DNS
3 15 (2.13%) TCP/IP
4 13 (1.85%) DHCP
4 13 (1.85%) Internet
5 10 (1.42%) HTTP
6 8 (1.14%) VPN
7 7 (0.99%) LAN
8 6 (0.85%) NetScaler
9 5 (0.71%) Skype
9 5 (0.71%) VLAN
9 5 (0.71%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (0.57%) RS-232
10 4 (0.57%) SAN
10 4 (0.57%) SSL
10 4 (0.57%) VoIP
10 4 (0.57%) X.400
11 3 (0.43%) SSH
11 3 (0.43%) WAN
12 2 (0.28%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 108 (15.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 107 (15.20%) Power BI
3 92 (13.07%) PostgreSQL
4 86 (12.22%) Data Warehouse
5 83 (11.79%) Relational Database
6 67 (9.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 54 (7.67%) Oracle Database
8 49 (6.96%) Data Lake
9 47 (6.68%) Azure SQL Database
10 46 (6.53%) MySQL
11 37 (5.26%) MongoDB
12 34 (4.83%) NoSQL
13 29 (4.12%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 27 (3.84%) DB2
15 25 (3.55%) RDBMS
16 20 (2.84%) Amazon RDS
16 20 (2.84%) Big Data
16 20 (2.84%) Delta Lake
17 18 (2.56%) Tableau
18 16 (2.27%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 60 (8.52%) Git
2 49 (6.96%) JIRA
3 30 (4.26%) Jenkins
4 24 (3.41%) Visual Studio
5 18 (2.56%) GitLab
6 16 (2.27%) Postman
7 11 (1.56%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 10 (1.42%) Cucumber
8 10 (1.42%) SpecFlow
8 10 (1.42%) Team Foundation Server
9 9 (1.28%) Maven
10 8 (1.14%) ERwin
10 8 (1.14%) MLflow
10 8 (1.14%) Octopus Deploy
10 8 (1.14%) Selenium
11 7 (0.99%) JUnit
11 7 (0.99%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.85%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.85%) TestRail
13 5 (0.71%) Bitbucket
General
1 207 (29.40%) Social Skills
2 175 (24.86%) Finance
3 106 (15.06%) Analytical Skills
4 91 (12.93%) Banking
5 49 (6.96%) Public Sector
6 39 (5.54%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.41%) Investment Banking
8 20 (2.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (1.99%) Retail
10 13 (1.85%) Front Office
11 12 (1.70%) Financial Institution
12 8 (1.14%) Legal
13 7 (0.99%) Local Government
13 7 (0.99%) Manufacturing
14 6 (0.85%) Law
14 6 (0.85%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.71%) Influencing Skills
16 4 (0.57%) Military
16 4 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
16 4 (0.57%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 241 (34.23%) Developer
2 104 (14.77%) Senior
3 98 (13.92%) Data Engineer
4 67 (9.52%) C# Developer
5 58 (8.24%) Architect
6 49 (6.96%) .NET Developer
7 46 (6.53%) Analyst
8 41 (5.82%) DBA
9 38 (5.40%) Senior Developer
10 31 (4.40%) Lead
10 31 (4.40%) Senior Data Engineer
11 28 (3.98%) SQL DBA
12 27 (3.84%) Full-Stack Developer
13 24 (3.41%) Software Engineer
14 23 (3.27%) SQL Developer
15 22 (3.13%) Consultant
16 20 (2.84%) Azure Engineer
16 20 (2.84%) C# .NET Developer
17 19 (2.70%) Data Architect
18 17 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (28.13%) .NET
2 83 (11.79%) .NET Framework
3 79 (11.22%) REST
4 51 (7.24%) React
5 50 (7.10%) AngularJS
5 50 (7.10%) HTML
6 41 (5.82%) .NET Core
6 41 (5.82%) CSS
6 41 (5.82%) RESTful
7 38 (5.40%) XML
8 35 (4.97%) Web Services
9 33 (4.69%) ASP.NET
10 32 (4.55%) Kafka
11 30 (4.26%) SOAP
12 26 (3.69%) Entity Framework
13 24 (3.41%) WPF
14 22 (3.13%) OAuth
15 20 (2.84%) JSON
15 20 (2.84%) Middleware
16 19 (2.70%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 40 (5.68%) Legacy Systems
2 31 (4.40%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.41%) Enterprise Software
4 21 (2.98%) Replication
5 20 (2.84%) Management Information System
5 20 (2.84%) Onboarding
6 16 (2.27%) Data Structures
7 15 (2.13%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 13 (1.85%) Clustering
8 13 (1.85%) Derivative
8 13 (1.85%) Product Ownership
9 12 (1.70%) Credit Risk
9 12 (1.70%) Linux Command Line
9 12 (1.70%) PKI
10 11 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
10 11 (1.56%) Low-Code
10 11 (1.56%) Reinsurance
11 9 (1.28%) Greenfield Project
11 9 (1.28%) NHS
12 8 (1.14%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 126 (17.90%) Windows
2 83 (11.79%) Linux
3 65 (9.23%) Windows Server
4 22 (3.13%) Unix
5 15 (2.13%) Windows 10
6 13 (1.85%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (1.14%) AIX
7 8 (1.14%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (0.71%) Windows Server 2012
9 4 (0.57%) Android
9 4 (0.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
10 3 (0.43%) Windows Server 2003
11 2 (0.28%) VMS
11 2 (0.28%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (23.15%) CI/CD
2 159 (22.59%) Agile
3 155 (22.02%) Problem-Solving
4 150 (21.31%) DevOps
5 141 (20.03%) ETL
6 138 (19.60%) Business Intelligence
7 115 (16.34%) Data Modelling
8 105 (14.91%) Migration
9 76 (10.80%) Analytics
10 67 (9.52%) Data Engineering
11 66 (9.38%) Microservices
12 63 (8.95%) Data Pipeline
13 62 (8.81%) Performance Tuning
13 62 (8.81%) Test Automation
14 61 (8.66%) Data Analysis
15 59 (8.38%) Containerisation
16 58 (8.24%) Disaster Recovery
17 55 (7.81%) Data Governance
18 53 (7.53%) Data Migration
18 53 (7.53%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 409 (58.10%) SQL
2 179 (25.43%) C#
3 164 (23.30%) Python
4 94 (13.35%) T-SQL
5 72 (10.23%) JavaScript
5 72 (10.23%) PowerShell
6 66 (9.38%) Java
7 60 (8.52%) PL/SQL
8 37 (5.26%) Bash
9 33 (4.69%) TypeScript
10 24 (3.41%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 18 (2.56%) VB
12 15 (2.13%) VBA
13 14 (1.99%) Bicep
13 14 (1.99%) PHP
14 7 (0.99%) XPath
15 5 (0.71%) R
15 5 (0.71%) Scala
15 5 (0.71%) Shell Script
15 5 (0.71%) X++
Qualifications
1 103 (14.63%) Security Cleared
2 75 (10.65%) Degree
3 71 (10.09%) SC Cleared
4 24 (3.41%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (2.84%) Azure Certification
5 20 (2.84%) Microsoft Certification
6 19 (2.70%) DV Cleared
7 14 (1.99%) BPSS Clearance
8 9 (1.28%) Master's Degree
9 6 (0.85%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.71%) CCA
10 5 (0.71%) Citrix Certification
11 4 (0.57%) Cisco Certification
12 3 (0.43%) CCNP
12 3 (0.43%) HNC
12 3 (0.43%) HND
12 3 (0.43%) MCSE
12 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 3 (0.43%) OCP
12 3 (0.43%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 77 (10.94%) QA
2 76 (10.80%) Data Quality
3 16 (2.27%) GDPR
4 10 (1.42%) SLA
5 7 (0.99%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (0.85%) NIST
7 5 (0.71%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 4 (0.57%) MiFID
8 4 (0.57%) WCAG
9 3 (0.43%) EMIR
9 3 (0.43%) IFRS
9 3 (0.43%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.28%) Basel III
10 2 (0.28%) GAAP
10 2 (0.28%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.28%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.28%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.14%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 84 (11.93%) Docker
2 51 (7.24%) Active Directory
3 26 (3.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (2.56%) Hyper-V
5 12 (1.70%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (0.99%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.85%) KVM
7 6 (0.85%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.85%) zsh
8 5 (0.71%) XenApp
8 5 (0.71%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.43%) vSphere
10 2 (0.28%) GridGain
10 2 (0.28%) NDS
10 2 (0.28%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 65 (9.23%) Kubernetes
2 40 (5.68%) Terraform
3 18 (2.56%) Ansible
4 14 (1.99%) SCCM
5 13 (1.85%) Grafana
5 13 (1.85%) vCenter Server
6 10 (1.42%) Puppet
7 9 (1.28%) Microsoft Intune
7 9 (1.28%) Oracle RMAN
8 8 (1.14%) NetBackup
9 7 (0.99%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (0.99%) TIBCO Hawk
10 6 (0.85%) IBM BigFix
10 6 (0.85%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.71%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.71%) SCVMM
12 4 (0.57%) Microsoft Clustering
12 4 (0.57%) WSUS
13 3 (0.43%) Control-M
13 3 (0.43%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 215 (30.54%) Microsoft
2 214 (30.40%) Oracle
3 58 (8.24%) Databricks
4 45 (6.39%) Citrix
5 40 (5.68%) VMware
6 27 (3.84%) Informatica
7 25 (3.55%) Google
7 25 (3.55%) ServiceNow
8 22 (3.13%) IBM
9 20 (2.84%) SAP
10 15 (2.13%) CyberArk
11 13 (1.85%) UiPath
12 12 (1.70%) Salesforce
12 12 (1.70%) SolarWinds
13 10 (1.42%) Cisco
13 10 (1.42%) Veritas
14 9 (1.28%) Advent
14 9 (1.28%) OpenAI
14 9 (1.28%) Sybase
15 8 (1.14%) Automation Anywhere
458 SQL Server jobs in England