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 29 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 124 109 58
Rank change year-on-year -15 -51 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 999 689 1,177
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.18% 2.48% 3.57%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.29% 13.82% 19.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 700 507 847
10th Percentile £363 £313 £337
25th Percentile £413 £400 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.80% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £647 £625
90th Percentile £714 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 42 6 7
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £27.71
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £34.00
Median hourly rate £50.02 £23.80 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +110.21% -49.91% +3.06%
75th Percentile £63.31 £64.71 £57.43
90th Percentile £75.80 £83.13 £77.78
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £70.00 £43.00
% change year-on-year -32.09% +62.79% -4.44%

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 6,991 4,984 6,075
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.23% 17.96% 18.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,668 3,433 4,288
10th Percentile £360 £335 £350
25th Percentile £423 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.86% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £675
90th Percentile £709 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -3.23%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 80 90
10th Percentile £14.85 £21.02 £14.19
25th Percentile £23.75 £29.05 £19.87
Median hourly rate £38.50 £38.23 £33.22
Median % change year-on-year +0.71% +15.10% -39.61%
75th Percentile £62.00 £65.00 £56.88
90th Percentile £75.20 £78.88 £69.93
UK median hourly rate £38.50 £38.85 £32.50
% change year-on-year -0.89% +19.52% -40.91%

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 29 August 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 29 August 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 29 August 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 -25 487 £525 -4.55% 456
North of England +4 195 £475 +7.95% 127
Midlands +5 109 £475 +11.11% 100
South East -30 106 £475 +35.71% 130
North West -10 105 £478 +8.64% 79
Yorkshire +4 89 £450 +5.88% 35
West Midlands -4 65 £473 -12.00% 51
South West -13 50 £525 +16.67% 46
East Midlands +12 43 £525 +60.80% 48
East of England -26 26 £425 -15.00% 36
North East -40 1 - - 14
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 67 (6.71%) SharePoint
2 45 (4.50%) IIS
3 40 (4.00%) Confluence
4 23 (2.30%) Microsoft Exchange
5 20 (2.00%) Apache
5 20 (2.00%) Apache Airflow
6 19 (1.90%) Camunda
7 17 (1.70%) Apache Spark
8 10 (1.00%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.60%) Appian
9 6 (0.60%) CMS
10 5 (0.50%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.50%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.50%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.40%) OpenEdge
11 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
11 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
12 3 (0.30%) nginx
13 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 52 (5.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.80%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.10%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.10%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 23 (2.30%) Dynamics CRM
1 23 (2.30%) Remedy ITSM
2 16 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (0.70%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (0.70%) Oracle BPM
4 6 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
5 5 (0.50%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.40%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.20%) Endur
7 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.10%) Findur
8 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
8 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
8 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 414 (41.44%) Azure
2 214 (21.42%) AWS
3 150 (15.02%) Power Platform
4 108 (10.81%) Azure DevOps
5 92 (9.21%) GitHub
6 60 (6.01%) Azure Data Factory
7 49 (4.90%) Entra ID
8 46 (4.60%) Serverless
9 40 (4.00%) Azure Monitor
9 40 (4.00%) GitHub Actions
9 40 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
10 39 (3.90%) Power Automate
11 35 (3.50%) Dynamics 365
12 33 (3.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 33 (3.30%) Snowflake
13 29 (2.90%) GCP
14 25 (2.50%) SaaS
15 23 (2.30%) dbt
16 22 (2.20%) PowerApps
17 20 (2.00%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.70%) DNS
2 40 (4.00%) DHCP
3 31 (3.10%) Firewall
4 18 (1.80%) SAN
4 18 (1.80%) VLAN
5 14 (1.40%) VPN
6 13 (1.30%) Internet
6 13 (1.30%) Network Security
7 12 (1.20%) TCP/IP
8 10 (1.00%) SSL
8 10 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.90%) SSH
10 6 (0.60%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.60%) IPv4
10 6 (0.60%) IPv6
10 6 (0.60%) LAN
11 5 (0.50%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.50%) VoIP
11 5 (0.50%) WAN
12 3 (0.30%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 149 (14.91%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (12.61%) Power BI
3 105 (10.51%) Relational Database
4 96 (9.61%) Data Warehouse
5 89 (8.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 71 (7.11%) MySQL
7 59 (5.91%) Oracle Database
8 56 (5.61%) Azure SQL Database
8 56 (5.61%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 51 (5.11%) MongoDB
10 34 (3.40%) Data Lake
11 27 (2.70%) NoSQL
12 26 (2.60%) Redis
13 24 (2.40%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 23 (2.30%) Amazon RDS
15 22 (2.20%) Tableau
16 21 (2.10%) RDBMS
17 16 (1.60%) Star Schema
18 15 (1.50%) Metadata
19 11 (1.10%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 97 (9.71%) Git
2 63 (6.31%) Jenkins
3 55 (5.51%) JIRA
4 34 (3.40%) GitLab
5 26 (2.60%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.10%) Maven
7 20 (2.00%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 19 (1.90%) Sonatype Nexus
9 16 (1.60%) TeamCity
10 15 (1.50%) Team Foundation Server
11 14 (1.40%) REST Assured
11 14 (1.40%) Selenium
12 13 (1.30%) JUnit
12 13 (1.30%) Octopus Deploy
13 12 (1.20%) Mockito
13 12 (1.20%) Postman
14 11 (1.10%) Artifactory
14 11 (1.10%) Gradle
15 10 (1.00%) Cypress.io
15 10 (1.00%) SonarQube
General
1 309 (30.93%) Social Skills
2 260 (26.03%) Finance
3 186 (18.62%) Analytical Skills
4 127 (12.71%) Banking
5 74 (7.41%) Public Sector
6 45 (4.50%) Front Office
7 39 (3.90%) Documentation Skills
8 27 (2.70%) Investment Banking
9 21 (2.10%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (1.80%) Legal
11 17 (1.70%) Retail
12 15 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.40%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.80%) Back Office
14 8 (0.80%) Manufacturing
15 6 (0.60%) Billing
16 5 (0.50%) Advertising
16 5 (0.50%) Law
16 5 (0.50%) Local Government
16 5 (0.50%) Military
Job Titles
1 311 (31.13%) Developer
2 156 (15.62%) Senior
3 138 (13.81%) DBA
4 84 (8.41%) SQL DBA
5 81 (8.11%) .NET Developer
6 79 (7.91%) C# Developer
6 79 (7.91%) Data Engineer
7 68 (6.81%) Lead
8 67 (6.71%) Administrator
9 51 (5.11%) Full-Stack Developer
10 50 (5.01%) Architect
10 50 (5.01%) Senior Developer
11 49 (4.90%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 47 (4.70%) Analyst
13 46 (4.60%) SQL Developer
14 39 (3.90%) Software Engineer
15 32 (3.20%) Azure Engineer
15 32 (3.20%) Consultant
15 32 (3.20%) Oracle DBA
16 31 (3.10%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 279 (27.93%) .NET
2 125 (12.51%) REST
3 99 (9.91%) .NET Framework
4 82 (8.21%) React
5 76 (7.61%) Terraform
6 63 (6.31%) CSS
7 60 (6.01%) ASP.NET
8 59 (5.91%) AngularJS
9 57 (5.71%) Kafka
10 53 (5.31%) .NET Core
10 53 (5.31%) HTML
10 53 (5.31%) RESTful
11 40 (4.00%) JSON
12 38 (3.80%) Web Services
13 35 (3.50%) Spring Boot
14 34 (3.40%) XML
15 30 (3.00%) Spring
16 29 (2.90%) SOAP
17 27 (2.70%) OAuth
18 24 (2.40%) Entity Framework
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.11%) Onboarding
2 58 (5.81%) Cloud Native
3 52 (5.21%) Data Structures
4 43 (4.30%) Enterprise Software
5 42 (4.20%) Clustering
5 42 (4.20%) Self-Motivation
6 40 (4.00%) Replication
7 37 (3.70%) Legacy Systems
8 30 (3.00%) Product Ownership
9 26 (2.60%) Management Information System
10 24 (2.40%) Data Centre
11 20 (2.00%) PKI
12 17 (1.70%) Derivative
13 16 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
14 14 (1.40%) Low-Code
15 13 (1.30%) NHS
16 11 (1.10%) Algorithms
16 11 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
16 11 (1.10%) Fixed Income
16 11 (1.10%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 256 (25.63%) Windows
2 147 (14.71%) Windows Server
3 89 (8.91%) Linux
4 38 (3.80%) Unix
5 13 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.10%) Ubuntu
7 8 (0.80%) VMS
8 7 (0.70%) Solaris
8 7 (0.70%) Windows 10
8 7 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
9 6 (0.60%) Android
9 6 (0.60%) CentOS
9 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
10 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
11 2 (0.20%) AIX
12 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.10%) OpenVMS
12 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 259 (25.93%) DevOps
2 246 (24.62%) CI/CD
3 235 (23.52%) Agile
4 199 (19.92%) Problem-Solving
5 184 (18.42%) Migration
6 151 (15.12%) ETL
7 140 (14.01%) Business Intelligence
8 135 (13.51%) Data Modelling
9 129 (12.91%) Performance Tuning
10 117 (11.71%) AI
11 115 (11.51%) Disaster Recovery
12 99 (9.91%) Stakeholder Management
13 92 (9.21%) Analytics
13 92 (9.21%) Microservices
14 89 (8.91%) Continuous Improvement
15 87 (8.71%) Test Automation
16 86 (8.61%) High Availability
16 86 (8.61%) Software Engineering
17 79 (7.91%) Data Pipeline
17 79 (7.91%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 575 (57.56%) SQL
2 272 (27.23%) C#
3 195 (19.52%) Python
4 176 (17.62%) PowerShell
5 153 (15.32%) T-SQL
6 127 (12.71%) JavaScript
7 91 (9.11%) Java
8 61 (6.11%) PL/SQL
9 54 (5.41%) TypeScript
10 32 (3.20%) Bash
11 18 (1.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (1.60%) Shell Script
12 16 (1.60%) VB
13 14 (1.40%) Scala
13 14 (1.40%) VBA
14 8 (0.80%) Korn
14 8 (0.80%) VB.NET
15 6 (0.60%) Bicep
15 6 (0.60%) XPath
16 5 (0.50%) Rust
Qualifications
1 257 (25.73%) Security Cleared
2 195 (19.52%) SC Cleared
3 104 (10.41%) Degree
4 50 (5.01%) DV Cleared
5 43 (4.30%) Microsoft Certification
6 33 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
7 23 (2.30%) BPSS Clearance
8 20 (2.00%) Azure Certification
9 12 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.20%) ISTQB
10 10 (1.00%) Oracle Certification
11 9 (0.90%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.90%) OCP
12 8 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 7 (0.70%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
15 4 (0.40%) CISSP
15 4 (0.40%) MCITP
15 4 (0.40%) MCTS
15 4 (0.40%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 93 (9.31%) Data Quality
2 90 (9.01%) QA
3 28 (2.80%) GDPR
4 26 (2.60%) Accessibility
5 21 (2.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (2.00%) NIST
7 18 (1.80%) WCAG
8 17 (1.70%) SLA
9 6 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.50%) ISO 9000
11 4 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.30%) Basel III
13 2 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
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 (0.10%) ISO 20022
14 1 (0.10%) SEPA
System Software
1 128 (12.81%) Active Directory
2 76 (7.61%) Docker
3 40 (4.00%) VMware Infrastructure
4 31 (3.10%) Virtual Machines
5 21 (2.10%) Oracle RAC
6 8 (0.80%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.60%) vSphere
8 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
8 4 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.30%) GridGain
9 3 (0.30%) Postfix
10 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.10%) NFS
10 1 (0.10%) RACF
10 1 (0.10%) SRDF
10 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 99 (9.91%) Kubernetes
2 45 (4.50%) Ansible
3 16 (1.60%) SCOM
4 15 (1.50%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (1.40%) Data Guard
5 14 (1.40%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 13 (1.30%) HAProxy
7 12 (1.20%) SCCM
8 11 (1.10%) Microsoft Clustering
9 10 (1.00%) Oracle RMAN
9 10 (1.00%) WSUS
10 8 (0.80%) Grafana
11 7 (0.70%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
13 5 (0.50%) ITRS Geneos
13 5 (0.50%) Prometheus
14 3 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
14 3 (0.30%) Istio
14 3 (0.30%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 342 (34.23%) Microsoft
2 250 (25.03%) Oracle
3 69 (6.91%) Databricks
4 64 (6.41%) VMware
5 50 (5.01%) ServiceNow
6 44 (4.40%) CyberArk
7 41 (4.10%) Citrix
8 36 (3.60%) SAP
9 29 (2.90%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.30%) BMC
10 23 (2.30%) Remedy
11 21 (2.10%) Cisco
11 21 (2.10%) IBM
12 20 (2.00%) Informatica
13 17 (1.70%) Dynatrace
14 16 (1.60%) Sybase
15 15 (1.50%) Red Hat
16 14 (1.40%) Google
17 13 (1.30%) Alteryx
18 12 (1.20%) Splunk