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 25 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 109 63
Rank change year-on-year -23 -46 -7
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 962 706 1,139
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 2.53% 3.47%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.87% 13.96% 19.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 674 520 809
10th Percentile £358 £313 £325
25th Percentile £413 £397 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -1.48% -5.58%
75th Percentile £604 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.40% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 5 7
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.86 £27.71
25th Percentile £17.97 £21.02 £34.00
Median hourly rate £47.54 £21.27 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +123.51% -55.22% -9.52%
75th Percentile £57.50 £77.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £84.25 £79.00
UK median hourly rate £36.02 £72.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year -50.32% +68.60% -6.89%

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 6,936 5,059 5,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.90% 18.16% 18.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,631 3,488 4,093
10th Percentile £352 £338 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £675
90th Percentile £713 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £532
% change year-on-year - -6.02% -1.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 75 84
10th Percentile £15.95 £21.02 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.00 £29.04 £21.81
Median hourly rate £39.50 £43.50 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -9.20% +20.00% -34.09%
75th Percentile £58.13 £65.00 £61.60
90th Percentile £74.68 £80.00 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £40.49 £35.00
% change year-on-year -0.77% +15.69% -36.36%

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 25 September 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 25 September 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 25 September 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 -34 470 £505 -10.34% 505
North of England +8 186 £475 +9.20% 179
Midlands +10 112 £460 +19.48% 139
North West -9 106 £485 +10.23% 102
South East -50 92 £475 +40.74% 151
West Midlands +6 76 £460 -10.24% 84
Yorkshire 0 76 £450 +5.88% 65
South West -26 42 £630 +36.22% 30
East Midlands +7 35 £525 +60.80% 55
East of England -38 26 £425 -15.00% 59
North East -42 4 £425 - 15
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 73 (7.59%) SharePoint
2 47 (4.89%) Confluence
3 38 (3.95%) IIS
4 25 (2.60%) Apache Airflow
5 22 (2.29%) Microsoft Exchange
6 21 (2.18%) Apache
7 19 (1.98%) Camunda
8 18 (1.87%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.94%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.62%) Appian
10 6 (0.62%) CMS
11 5 (0.52%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.52%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.52%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.42%) OpenEdge
12 4 (0.42%) Traefik
12 4 (0.42%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.31%) nginx
13 3 (0.31%) Tomcat
14 2 (0.21%) ArcGIS
Applications
1 50 (5.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.12%) 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%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 34 (3.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 20 (2.08%) Remedy ITSM
3 14 (1.46%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.73%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.73%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.62%) Aladdin
5 6 (0.62%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
6 4 (0.42%) Elite 3E
7 3 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.21%) Endur
8 2 (0.21%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
9 1 (0.10%) NetSuite
9 1 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
9 1 (0.10%) SAP Hybris
9 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
Cloud Services
1 410 (42.62%) Azure
2 201 (20.89%) AWS
3 153 (15.90%) Power Platform
4 117 (12.16%) Azure DevOps
5 88 (9.15%) GitHub
6 53 (5.51%) Azure Data Factory
7 52 (5.41%) Entra ID
8 51 (5.30%) Serverless
9 44 (4.57%) Dynamics 365
9 44 (4.57%) Power Automate
10 40 (4.16%) Microsoft 365
11 39 (4.05%) Snowflake
12 37 (3.85%) GCP
13 35 (3.64%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (3.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 32 (3.33%) GitHub Actions
15 23 (2.39%) Amazon S3
16 22 (2.29%) Azure Functions
16 22 (2.29%) dbt
16 22 (2.29%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 44 (4.57%) DNS
2 39 (4.05%) DHCP
3 32 (3.33%) Firewall
4 16 (1.66%) VLAN
5 15 (1.56%) SAN
6 14 (1.46%) Internet
6 14 (1.46%) SSL
7 13 (1.35%) TCP/IP
7 13 (1.35%) VPN
8 12 (1.25%) Network Security
9 9 (0.94%) SSH
9 9 (0.94%) Wi-Fi
10 6 (0.62%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.62%) LAN
11 5 (0.52%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.52%) VoIP
11 5 (0.52%) WAN
12 4 (0.42%) IPv4
12 4 (0.42%) IPv6
13 3 (0.31%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 152 (15.80%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (13.10%) Power BI
3 94 (9.77%) Relational Database
4 92 (9.56%) MySQL
5 90 (9.36%) Data Warehouse
6 88 (9.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 56 (5.82%) Oracle Database
8 55 (5.72%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 52 (5.41%) Azure SQL Database
9 52 (5.41%) MongoDB
10 33 (3.43%) Data Lake
11 24 (2.49%) Amazon RDS
12 23 (2.39%) NoSQL
13 22 (2.29%) Redis
14 20 (2.08%) RDBMS
14 20 (2.08%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 20 (2.08%) Tableau
15 17 (1.77%) Metadata
16 13 (1.35%) Amazon Aurora
16 13 (1.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 109 (11.33%) Git
2 73 (7.59%) JIRA
3 52 (5.41%) Jenkins
4 33 (3.43%) GitLab
5 23 (2.39%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 18 (1.87%) Sonatype Nexus
8 17 (1.77%) Maven
8 17 (1.77%) REST Assured
8 17 (1.77%) Selenium
9 16 (1.66%) Team Foundation Server
10 14 (1.46%) Postman
11 13 (1.35%) Gradle
11 13 (1.35%) JUnit
11 13 (1.35%) SonarQube
12 12 (1.25%) Claude Code
12 12 (1.25%) Cucumber
12 12 (1.25%) Cypress.io
12 12 (1.25%) Mockito
13 11 (1.14%) TeamCity
General
1 303 (31.50%) Social Skills
2 250 (25.99%) Finance
3 173 (17.98%) Analytical Skills
4 122 (12.68%) Banking
5 74 (7.69%) Public Sector
6 40 (4.16%) Front Office
7 39 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 29 (3.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 23 (2.39%) Investment Banking
10 21 (2.18%) Retail
11 12 (1.25%) Legal
12 11 (1.14%) Financial Institution
13 10 (1.04%) Back Office
14 8 (0.83%) Billing
14 8 (0.83%) Manufacturing
15 7 (0.73%) Law
15 7 (0.73%) Local Government
15 7 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
16 6 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
16 6 (0.62%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 314 (32.64%) Developer
2 161 (16.74%) Senior
3 126 (13.10%) DBA
4 78 (8.11%) SQL DBA
5 72 (7.48%) Lead
6 71 (7.38%) .NET Developer
6 71 (7.38%) Administrator
6 71 (7.38%) Data Engineer
7 70 (7.28%) C# Developer
8 56 (5.82%) Full-Stack Developer
9 55 (5.72%) Senior Developer
10 52 (5.41%) Analyst
11 47 (4.89%) Architect
12 46 (4.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 46 (4.78%) SQL Developer
13 33 (3.43%) Software Engineer
14 27 (2.81%) C# .NET Developer
14 27 (2.81%) Oracle DBA
15 26 (2.70%) SC Cleared DBA
16 25 (2.60%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 274 (28.48%) .NET
2 128 (13.31%) REST
3 88 (9.15%) .NET Framework
4 84 (8.73%) React
5 68 (7.07%) Terraform
6 65 (6.76%) CSS
7 58 (6.03%) .NET Core
7 58 (6.03%) ASP.NET
7 58 (6.03%) HTML
8 57 (5.93%) AngularJS
8 57 (5.93%) Kafka
9 48 (4.99%) JSON
9 48 (4.99%) RESTful
10 40 (4.16%) Web Services
11 39 (4.05%) XML
12 35 (3.64%) SOAP
12 35 (3.64%) Spring Boot
13 29 (3.01%) OAuth
13 29 (3.01%) Spring
14 25 (2.60%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.34%) Onboarding
2 60 (6.24%) Cloud Native
3 52 (5.41%) Enterprise Software
4 50 (5.20%) Data Structures
5 41 (4.26%) Clustering
6 39 (4.05%) Product Ownership
7 38 (3.95%) Self-Motivation
8 37 (3.85%) Replication
9 35 (3.64%) Management Information System
10 33 (3.43%) Data Centre
11 31 (3.22%) Legacy Systems
12 19 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
13 18 (1.87%) PKI
14 15 (1.56%) Virtual Team
15 14 (1.46%) Derivative
15 14 (1.46%) Low-Code
16 12 (1.25%) Algorithms
17 11 (1.14%) NHS
17 11 (1.14%) Taxonomies
18 10 (1.04%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 247 (25.68%) Windows
2 144 (14.97%) Windows Server
3 87 (9.04%) Linux
4 35 (3.64%) Unix
5 16 (1.66%) Solaris
6 12 (1.25%) 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 2012
9 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.62%) Android
11 5 (0.52%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
12 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
13 2 (0.21%) AIX
13 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
14 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (26.09%) DevOps
2 237 (24.64%) Agile
3 234 (24.32%) CI/CD
4 188 (19.54%) Problem-Solving
5 175 (18.19%) Migration
6 141 (14.66%) ETL
7 137 (14.24%) Business Intelligence
8 136 (14.14%) Data Modelling
9 127 (13.20%) Performance Tuning
10 123 (12.79%) AI
11 116 (12.06%) Stakeholder Management
12 103 (10.71%) Continuous Improvement
13 98 (10.19%) Disaster Recovery
14 92 (9.56%) Microservices
15 89 (9.25%) Test Automation
16 87 (9.04%) Analytics
17 84 (8.73%) Software Engineering
18 76 (7.90%) Validation
19 75 (7.80%) Mentoring
20 74 (7.69%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 567 (58.94%) SQL
2 275 (28.59%) C#
3 177 (18.40%) Python
4 170 (17.67%) PowerShell
5 156 (16.22%) T-SQL
6 147 (15.28%) JavaScript
7 81 (8.42%) Java
8 61 (6.34%) TypeScript
9 57 (5.93%) PL/SQL
10 32 (3.33%) Bash
11 17 (1.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 17 (1.77%) VB
12 15 (1.56%) VBA
13 9 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.83%) PHP
14 8 (0.83%) Scala
15 7 (0.73%) VB.NET
16 6 (0.62%) Bicep
16 6 (0.62%) Go
16 6 (0.62%) XPath
Qualifications
1 243 (25.26%) Security Cleared
2 182 (18.92%) SC Cleared
3 107 (11.12%) Degree
4 56 (5.82%) Microsoft Certification
5 50 (5.20%) DV Cleared
6 32 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.81%) Azure Certification
8 26 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.46%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.35%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.25%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.14%) OCP
13 9 (0.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 9 (0.94%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.52%) CISSP
15 5 (0.52%) DBS Check
16 4 (0.42%) PhD
17 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (9.77%) QA
2 91 (9.46%) Data Quality
3 36 (3.74%) GDPR
4 34 (3.53%) Accessibility
5 26 (2.70%) WCAG
6 22 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (2.08%) NIST
8 16 (1.66%) SLA
9 5 (0.52%) ISO 9000
10 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.31%) Basel III
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%) GRC
11 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
12 1 (0.10%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 123 (12.79%) Active Directory
2 68 (7.07%) Docker
3 39 (4.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.43%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (1.77%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.04%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.73%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.62%) vSphere
9 4 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.42%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.31%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) HDFS
11 1 (0.10%) RACF
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 83 (8.63%) Kubernetes
2 41 (4.26%) Ansible
3 20 (2.08%) SCOM
4 14 (1.46%) Data Guard
5 13 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
6 11 (1.14%) Microsoft Clustering
6 11 (1.14%) SCCM
7 10 (1.04%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 8 (0.83%) HAProxy
8 8 (0.83%) WSUS
9 7 (0.73%) Grafana
9 7 (0.73%) Istio
10 6 (0.62%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.52%) ITRS Geneos
11 5 (0.52%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.31%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 3 (0.31%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 342 (35.55%) Microsoft
2 251 (26.09%) Oracle
3 74 (7.69%) Databricks
4 63 (6.55%) VMware
5 48 (4.99%) ServiceNow
6 45 (4.68%) CyberArk
7 37 (3.85%) Citrix
8 30 (3.12%) BeyondTrust
9 29 (3.01%) SAP
10 24 (2.49%) IBM
11 21 (2.18%) Cisco
12 20 (2.08%) BMC
12 20 (2.08%) Remedy
13 19 (1.98%) Informatica
14 17 (1.77%) Google
15 15 (1.56%) Dynatrace
15 15 (1.56%) Red Hat
16 13 (1.35%) Alteryx
16 13 (1.35%) Splunk
17 11 (1.14%) Sybase