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 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 110 105 53
Rank change year-on-year -5 -52 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,012 703 1,272
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.25% 2.55% 3.70%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.62% 13.97% 20.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 706 524 911
10th Percentile £358 £317 £331
25th Percentile £413 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £517 £505
Median % change year-on-year -5.75% +2.43% -3.81%
75th Percentile £600 £650 £637
90th Percentile £712 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £481 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.80% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 6 10
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £30.37
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £37.56
Median hourly rate £47.54 £23.80 £48.03
Median % change year-on-year +99.79% -50.46% +5.56%
75th Percentile £62.88 £64.71 £62.96
90th Percentile £74.80 £83.13 £82.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £70.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year -32.09% +47.37% +5.56%

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 6,924 5,032 6,231
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.38% 18.23% 18.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,646 3,485 4,480
10th Percentile £356 £350 £350
25th Percentile £418 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% -2.27%
75th Percentile £609 £638 £675
90th Percentile £700 £763 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £507 £525
% change year-on-year -1.28% -3.52% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 223 80 95
10th Percentile £16.70 £18.72 £13.91
25th Percentile £25.25 £23.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £39.50 £34.82 £38.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.46% -9.57% -30.00%
75th Percentile £68.47 £64.06 £58.73
90th Percentile £76.90 £77.62 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £41.71 £36.25 £37.50
% change year-on-year +15.06% -3.33% -31.82%

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 27 July 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 27 July 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 27 July 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 -30 482 £525 -8.10% 121
North of England +10 200 £473 +11.18% 85
South East -18 124 £465 +9.41% 91
North West -6 110 £478 +12.47% 46
Midlands -3 101 £475 +10.47% 50
Yorkshire +16 90 £450 -6.25% 27
West Midlands -24 56 £472 -14.27% 32
South West -14 50 £450 -2.70% 22
East Midlands +13 43 £525 +54.41% 18
East of England -6 34 £450 -10.00% 18
North East -44 1 - - 16
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 64 (6.32%) SharePoint
2 47 (4.64%) IIS
3 37 (3.66%) Confluence
4 22 (2.17%) Apache Spark
4 22 (2.17%) Microsoft Exchange
5 20 (1.98%) Apache
6 18 (1.78%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (1.28%) Camunda
8 11 (1.09%) Oracle Workflow
9 9 (0.89%) Appian
10 8 (0.79%) CMS
11 6 (0.59%) NetWeaver
12 5 (0.49%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.49%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
14 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
14 3 (0.30%) nginx
14 3 (0.30%) Sitecore CMS
15 2 (0.20%) Anypoint
Applications
1 46 (4.55%) Microsoft Excel
2 22 (2.17%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.099%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.099%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.099%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 21 (2.08%) Remedy ITSM
2 17 (1.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 17 (1.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 6 (0.59%) Dynamics AX
3 6 (0.59%) OpenText MBPM
3 6 (0.59%) Oracle BPM
4 5 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
5 4 (0.40%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.40%) Elite 3E
6 3 (0.30%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.099%) Endur
8 1 (0.099%) Findur
8 1 (0.099%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.099%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.099%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 419 (41.40%) Azure
2 215 (21.25%) AWS
3 143 (14.13%) Power Platform
4 110 (10.87%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (8.89%) GitHub
6 61 (6.03%) Azure Data Factory
7 43 (4.25%) Entra ID
8 41 (4.05%) Serverless
9 39 (3.85%) Azure Monitor
10 38 (3.75%) Microsoft 365
10 38 (3.75%) Snowflake
11 37 (3.66%) GitHub Actions
12 35 (3.46%) Power Automate
13 32 (3.16%) Dynamics 365
13 32 (3.16%) GCP
14 31 (3.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 29 (2.87%) SaaS
16 26 (2.57%) dbt
17 24 (2.37%) Amazon S3
17 24 (2.37%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 46 (4.55%) DNS
2 37 (3.66%) DHCP
3 28 (2.77%) Firewall
4 20 (1.98%) SAN
5 18 (1.78%) VLAN
6 15 (1.48%) VPN
7 14 (1.38%) Internet
8 12 (1.19%) Network Security
9 11 (1.09%) SSH
9 11 (1.09%) TCP/IP
9 11 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.89%) SSL
11 6 (0.59%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.59%) IPv4
11 6 (0.59%) IPv6
11 6 (0.59%) LAN
12 5 (0.49%) WAN
13 4 (0.40%) Kerberos
13 4 (0.40%) VoIP
14 3 (0.30%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (14.62%) PostgreSQL
2 119 (11.76%) Power BI
3 109 (10.77%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 103 (10.18%) Data Warehouse
5 102 (10.08%) Relational Database
6 77 (7.61%) Oracle Database
7 64 (6.32%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 63 (6.23%) MySQL
9 52 (5.14%) Azure SQL Database
10 42 (4.15%) MongoDB
11 41 (4.05%) Data Lake
12 35 (3.46%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 30 (2.96%) NoSQL
14 23 (2.27%) RDBMS
15 22 (2.17%) Tableau
16 16 (1.58%) Metadata
16 16 (1.58%) Redis
17 15 (1.48%) Big Data
17 15 (1.48%) Db2
18 14 (1.38%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 92 (9.09%) Git
2 56 (5.53%) Jenkins
3 52 (5.14%) JIRA
4 29 (2.87%) Visual Studio
5 27 (2.67%) GitLab
6 19 (1.88%) Team Foundation Server
6 19 (1.88%) TeamCity
7 18 (1.78%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 15 (1.48%) Maven
9 13 (1.28%) Cucumber
9 13 (1.28%) Sonatype Nexus
10 12 (1.19%) Octopus Deploy
10 12 (1.19%) Postman
11 11 (1.09%) Selenium
12 10 (0.99%) Artifactory
13 9 (0.89%) Chocolatey
13 9 (0.89%) Gatling
14 8 (0.79%) Cypress.io
14 8 (0.79%) MSTest
14 8 (0.79%) WebDriver
General
1 289 (28.56%) Social Skills
2 252 (24.90%) Finance
3 184 (18.18%) Analytical Skills
4 123 (12.15%) Banking
5 81 (8.00%) Public Sector
6 47 (4.64%) Documentation Skills
7 37 (3.66%) Front Office
8 23 (2.27%) Investment Banking
9 22 (2.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (1.58%) Legal
11 15 (1.48%) Organisational Skills
12 13 (1.28%) Financial Institution
13 10 (0.99%) Retail
14 9 (0.89%) Advertising
15 8 (0.79%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.59%) Back Office
16 6 (0.59%) Local Government
17 5 (0.49%) Law
17 5 (0.49%) Publishing
17 5 (0.49%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 302 (29.84%) Developer
2 153 (15.12%) Senior
3 145 (14.33%) DBA
4 93 (9.19%) SQL DBA
5 87 (8.60%) C# Developer
6 86 (8.50%) Data Engineer
7 76 (7.51%) .NET Developer
8 70 (6.92%) Lead
9 55 (5.43%) Administrator
9 55 (5.43%) Architect
10 53 (5.24%) SQL Developer
11 45 (4.45%) Senior Developer
12 44 (4.35%) Analyst
13 42 (4.15%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 42 (4.15%) Oracle DBA
14 40 (3.95%) Software Engineer
15 36 (3.56%) Full-Stack Developer
16 34 (3.36%) Azure Engineer
17 31 (3.06%) C# .NET Developer
18 30 (2.96%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 255 (25.20%) .NET
2 128 (12.65%) REST
3 105 (10.38%) .NET Framework
4 83 (8.20%) React
5 60 (5.93%) CSS
6 59 (5.83%) RESTful
7 58 (5.73%) AngularJS
8 56 (5.53%) ASP.NET
9 50 (4.94%) HTML
9 50 (4.94%) Kafka
10 48 (4.74%) .NET Core
11 38 (3.75%) Web Services
11 38 (3.75%) XML
12 37 (3.66%) JSON
13 32 (3.16%) SOAP
14 30 (2.96%) Entity Framework
15 25 (2.47%) Spring Boot
16 24 (2.37%) OAuth
17 22 (2.17%) Spring
18 20 (1.98%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 55 (5.43%) Onboarding
2 50 (4.94%) Cloud Native
3 48 (4.74%) Legacy Systems
4 46 (4.55%) Clustering
4 46 (4.55%) Data Structures
4 46 (4.55%) Replication
5 39 (3.85%) Self-Motivation
6 38 (3.75%) Enterprise Software
7 27 (2.67%) Management Information System
8 22 (2.17%) Product Ownership
9 21 (2.08%) PKI
10 17 (1.68%) Data Centre
10 17 (1.68%) Low-Code
11 16 (1.58%) Derivative
11 16 (1.58%) NHS
12 13 (1.28%) Distributed Systems
12 13 (1.28%) Fixed Income
13 12 (1.19%) Algorithms
14 11 (1.09%) Legacy Code
14 11 (1.09%) Linux Command Line
Operating Systems
1 256 (25.30%) Windows
2 148 (14.62%) Windows Server
3 100 (9.88%) Linux
4 56 (5.53%) Unix
5 13 (1.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.79%) AIX
6 8 (0.79%) Ubuntu
6 8 (0.79%) Windows 10
6 8 (0.79%) Windows Server 2019
7 6 (0.59%) Android
7 6 (0.59%) VMS
8 5 (0.49%) Solaris
8 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2012
8 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
9 3 (0.30%) CentOS
10 2 (0.20%) OpenVMS
11 1 (0.099%) Data ONTAP
11 1 (0.099%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2003
11 1 (0.099%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 252 (24.90%) DevOps
2 228 (22.53%) Agile
3 220 (21.74%) CI/CD
4 211 (20.85%) Problem-Solving
5 178 (17.59%) Migration
6 157 (15.51%) ETL
7 147 (14.53%) Business Intelligence
8 139 (13.74%) Performance Tuning
9 132 (13.04%) Data Modelling
10 121 (11.96%) Disaster Recovery
11 111 (10.97%) AI
12 96 (9.49%) Analytics
13 93 (9.19%) High Availability
14 91 (8.99%) Data Pipeline
15 87 (8.60%) Microservices
16 85 (8.40%) Continuous Improvement
17 79 (7.81%) Test Automation
18 76 (7.51%) Data Analysis
18 76 (7.51%) Software Engineering
19 74 (7.31%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 575 (56.82%) SQL
2 263 (25.99%) C#
3 205 (20.26%) Python
4 183 (18.08%) PowerShell
5 168 (16.60%) T-SQL
6 112 (11.07%) JavaScript
7 78 (7.71%) Java
8 65 (6.42%) PL/SQL
9 55 (5.43%) TypeScript
10 36 (3.56%) Bash
11 26 (2.57%) Shell Script
12 22 (2.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 18 (1.78%) Scala
13 18 (1.78%) VB
14 16 (1.58%) Korn
15 15 (1.48%) VBA
16 11 (1.09%) Bicep
17 8 (0.79%) VB.NET
18 6 (0.59%) VB6
18 6 (0.59%) XPath
Qualifications
1 250 (24.70%) Security Cleared
2 187 (18.48%) SC Cleared
3 104 (10.28%) Degree
4 46 (4.55%) DV Cleared
5 37 (3.66%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
7 19 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 18 (1.78%) Azure Certification
9 11 (1.09%) ISTQB
10 10 (0.99%) Oracle Certification
11 9 (0.89%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.89%) Master's Degree
11 9 (0.89%) OCP
12 5 (0.49%) CISSP
13 4 (0.40%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 4 (0.40%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 4 (0.40%) MCITP
13 4 (0.40%) MCTS
13 4 (0.40%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (9.58%) QA
2 90 (8.89%) Data Quality
3 29 (2.87%) GDPR
4 26 (2.57%) NIST
5 24 (2.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 23 (2.27%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.98%) SLA
8 15 (1.48%) WCAG
9 6 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.49%) ISO 9000
11 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.30%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.20%) Basel III
13 2 (0.20%) COREP
13 2 (0.20%) FINREP
13 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
13 2 (0.20%) GRC
13 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
14 1 (0.099%) IFRS
System Software
1 118 (11.66%) Active Directory
2 74 (7.31%) Docker
3 31 (3.06%) Virtual Machines
4 30 (2.96%) Oracle RAC
5 29 (2.87%) VMware Infrastructure
6 12 (1.19%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.69%) Virtual Desktop
8 5 (0.49%) KVM
9 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.30%) GridGain
9 3 (0.30%) Postfix
9 3 (0.30%) Virtual Servers
10 2 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
10 2 (0.20%) vSphere
11 1 (0.099%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.099%) NFS
11 1 (0.099%) RACF
11 1 (0.099%) Terminal Services
11 1 (0.099%) XenApp
11 1 (0.099%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 100 (9.88%) Kubernetes
2 72 (7.11%) Terraform
3 37 (3.66%) Ansible
4 23 (2.27%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 21 (2.08%) Oracle RMAN
6 15 (1.48%) Data Guard
6 15 (1.48%) Microsoft Intune
6 15 (1.48%) SCCM
7 13 (1.28%) HAProxy
8 10 (0.99%) WSUS
9 9 (0.89%) Grafana
9 9 (0.89%) SCOM
10 7 (0.69%) Failover Clustering
10 7 (0.69%) Microsoft Clustering
10 7 (0.69%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.59%) vCenter Server
12 5 (0.49%) IBM BigFix
13 4 (0.40%) ITRS Geneos
13 4 (0.40%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
Vendors
1 318 (31.42%) Microsoft
2 282 (27.87%) Oracle
3 55 (5.43%) Databricks
3 55 (5.43%) VMware
4 51 (5.04%) ServiceNow
5 50 (4.94%) Citrix
6 46 (4.55%) CyberArk
7 36 (3.56%) SAP
8 29 (2.87%) BeyondTrust
9 23 (2.27%) Sybase
10 21 (2.08%) Informatica
10 21 (2.08%) Remedy
11 20 (1.98%) BMC
11 20 (1.98%) Dynatrace
12 19 (1.88%) Cisco
13 18 (1.78%) IBM
14 17 (1.68%) Red Hat
15 15 (1.48%) Google
16 12 (1.19%) Alteryx
17 11 (1.09%) AppDynamics