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

 6 months to
14 Feb 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 139 79 67
Rank change year-on-year -60 -12 -19
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 695 780 1,178
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.03% 2.99% 3.10%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.48% 16.10% 19.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 476 555 863
10th Percentile £350 £342 £325
25th Percentile £406 £406 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.88% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £700 £730
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 6 30
10th Percentile £12.95 £42.63 £20.17
25th Percentile £18.80 £60.66 £38.22
Median hourly rate £26.72 £63.75 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -58.08% +58.37% -7.47%
75th Percentile £35.83 £65.46 £55.94
90th Percentile £67.75 £65.62 £62.55
UK median hourly rate £27.88 £60.50 £40.25
% change year-on-year -53.92% +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 5,570 4,844 6,179
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.27% 18.59% 16.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,860 3,254 4,444
10th Percentile £338 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £538
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% - -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £650
90th Percentile £700 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 104 83 162
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £15.62
25th Percentile £27.06 £25.13 £21.66
Median hourly rate £52.00 £40.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +28.40% -4.71% -25.26%
75th Percentile £74.68 £65.00 £61.13
90th Percentile £85.78 £73.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £53.25 £38.11 £42.50
% change year-on-year +39.73% -10.33% -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 14 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 14 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 14 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 -35 432 £500 -9.09% 89
South East -46 80 £494 -1.25% 139
North of England -39 79 £425 -6.85% 91
North West -28 44 £449 +8.73% 58
Yorkshire -43 33 £393 -21.50% 24
South West -33 28 £550 - 32
Midlands -91 26 £455 -9.00% 57
East of England -11 24 £575 +10.05% 36
West Midlands -72 18 £455 -19.75% 30
East Midlands -42 7 £425 +16.44% 27
North East -11 3 £475 +28.38% 11
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 (4.46%) SharePoint
2 25 (3.60%) IIS
3 20 (2.88%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (2.59%) Confluence
5 14 (2.01%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 11 (1.58%) Apache
6 11 (1.58%) WebSphere
7 10 (1.44%) Apache Spark
7 10 (1.44%) Appian
8 9 (1.29%) Apache Airflow
8 9 (1.29%) CMS
9 7 (1.01%) WebLogic
10 6 (0.86%) Sitecore CMS
11 4 (0.58%) SharePoint Server
12 2 (0.29%) JBoss
13 1 (0.14%) ColdFusion
13 1 (0.14%) OpenEdge
13 1 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.14%) SAS
13 1 (0.14%) Tomcat
Applications
1 43 (6.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 12 (1.73%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.86%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.29%) Trello
5 2 (0.29%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 9 (1.29%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.01%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.86%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.58%) SAP S/4HANA
6 3 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.43%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.29%) Dynamics AX
7 2 (0.29%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.29%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle Payables
7 2 (0.29%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.29%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.29%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.14%) Aladdin
8 1 (0.14%) Elite 3E
8 1 (0.14%) Maximo
8 1 (0.14%) Orchestrade
Cloud Services
1 305 (43.88%) Azure
2 144 (20.72%) AWS
3 125 (17.99%) Power Platform
4 87 (12.52%) Azure DevOps
5 60 (8.63%) Azure Data Factory
6 54 (7.77%) GCP
7 53 (7.63%) GitHub
8 35 (5.04%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 33 (4.75%) Microsoft 365
10 29 (4.17%) SaaS
11 22 (3.17%) Amazon S3
12 21 (3.02%) Power Automate
13 20 (2.88%) GitHub Actions
14 19 (2.73%) Dynamics 365
14 19 (2.73%) Snowflake
15 18 (2.59%) Azure Service Bus
16 16 (2.30%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 16 (2.30%) IaaS
17 15 (2.16%) Entra ID
17 15 (2.16%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 27 (3.88%) Firewall
2 21 (3.02%) DNS
3 14 (2.01%) TCP/IP
4 13 (1.87%) Internet
5 12 (1.73%) DHCP
6 10 (1.44%) HTTP
7 7 (1.01%) VPN
8 6 (0.86%) LAN
8 6 (0.86%) NetScaler
9 5 (0.72%) SAN
9 5 (0.72%) Skype
10 4 (0.58%) SSL
10 4 (0.58%) VLAN
10 4 (0.58%) VoIP
10 4 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
11 3 (0.43%) NAS
11 3 (0.43%) RS-232
11 3 (0.43%) SSH
11 3 (0.43%) WAN
11 3 (0.43%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (14.96%) Power BI
1 104 (14.96%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 91 (13.09%) PostgreSQL
3 83 (11.94%) Data Warehouse
3 83 (11.94%) Relational Database
4 65 (9.35%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 52 (7.48%) Oracle Database
6 48 (6.91%) Azure SQL Database
7 47 (6.76%) Data Lake
8 46 (6.62%) MySQL
9 36 (5.18%) MongoDB
10 34 (4.89%) NoSQL
11 27 (3.88%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 25 (3.60%) RDBMS
13 24 (3.45%) DB2
14 21 (3.02%) Amazon RDS
15 20 (2.88%) Big Data
15 20 (2.88%) Delta Lake
16 18 (2.59%) Tableau
17 16 (2.30%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 60 (8.63%) Git
2 49 (7.05%) JIRA
3 30 (4.32%) Jenkins
4 24 (3.45%) Visual Studio
5 18 (2.59%) GitLab
6 16 (2.30%) Postman
7 11 (1.58%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 10 (1.44%) SpecFlow
8 10 (1.44%) Team Foundation Server
9 9 (1.29%) Cucumber
9 9 (1.29%) Maven
9 9 (1.29%) Selenium
10 8 (1.15%) ERwin
10 8 (1.15%) MLflow
10 8 (1.15%) Octopus Deploy
11 7 (1.01%) JUnit
11 7 (1.01%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.86%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.86%) TestRail
13 5 (0.72%) Mockito
General
1 207 (29.78%) Social Skills
2 175 (25.18%) Finance
3 105 (15.11%) Analytical Skills
4 90 (12.95%) Banking
5 48 (6.91%) Public Sector
6 40 (5.76%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.45%) Investment Banking
8 18 (2.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 14 (2.01%) Front Office
9 14 (2.01%) Retail
10 12 (1.73%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.15%) Legal
12 7 (1.01%) Local Government
13 6 (0.86%) Law
13 6 (0.86%) Manufacturing
13 6 (0.86%) Telecoms
14 5 (0.72%) Influencing Skills
14 5 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
15 4 (0.58%) Military
15 4 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 239 (34.39%) Developer
2 99 (14.24%) Senior
3 97 (13.96%) Data Engineer
4 68 (9.78%) C# Developer
5 58 (8.35%) Architect
6 49 (7.05%) .NET Developer
7 46 (6.62%) Analyst
8 39 (5.61%) DBA
9 38 (5.47%) Senior Developer
10 31 (4.46%) Lead
10 31 (4.46%) Senior Data Engineer
11 27 (3.88%) Full-Stack Developer
11 27 (3.88%) SQL DBA
12 23 (3.31%) Software Engineer
13 22 (3.17%) Consultant
13 22 (3.17%) SQL Developer
14 20 (2.88%) C# .NET Developer
15 19 (2.73%) Data Architect
16 18 (2.59%) Azure Engineer
17 17 (2.45%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 197 (28.35%) .NET
2 83 (11.94%) .NET Framework
3 78 (11.22%) REST
4 50 (7.19%) React
5 49 (7.05%) HTML
6 48 (6.91%) AngularJS
7 41 (5.90%) .NET Core
8 40 (5.76%) CSS
8 40 (5.76%) RESTful
9 39 (5.61%) XML
10 35 (5.04%) Web Services
11 33 (4.75%) ASP.NET
11 33 (4.75%) Kafka
12 31 (4.46%) SOAP
13 26 (3.74%) Entity Framework
14 24 (3.45%) WPF
15 22 (3.17%) OAuth
16 20 (2.88%) JSON
16 20 (2.88%) Middleware
17 19 (2.73%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 39 (5.61%) Legacy Systems
2 31 (4.46%) Cloud Native
3 24 (3.45%) Enterprise Software
4 20 (2.88%) Management Information System
4 20 (2.88%) Onboarding
4 20 (2.88%) Replication
5 16 (2.30%) Data Structures
6 15 (2.16%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 14 (2.01%) Derivative
8 13 (1.87%) Clustering
8 13 (1.87%) Product Ownership
9 12 (1.73%) Credit Risk
9 12 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
9 12 (1.73%) PKI
10 11 (1.58%) Low-Code
10 11 (1.58%) Reinsurance
11 9 (1.29%) Greenfield Project
11 9 (1.29%) Linux Command Line
11 9 (1.29%) NHS
12 8 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 123 (17.70%) Windows
2 79 (11.37%) Linux
3 62 (8.92%) Windows Server
4 18 (2.59%) Unix
5 15 (2.16%) Windows 10
6 13 (1.87%) Windows Server 2016
7 8 (1.15%) Windows Server 2019
8 4 (0.58%) AIX
8 4 (0.58%) Android
8 4 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.29%) VMS
9 2 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
10 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
10 1 (0.14%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 159 (22.88%) CI/CD
2 156 (22.45%) Agile
3 153 (22.01%) Problem-Solving
4 146 (21.01%) DevOps
5 138 (19.86%) ETL
6 134 (19.28%) Business Intelligence
7 114 (16.40%) Data Modelling
8 103 (14.82%) Migration
9 75 (10.79%) Analytics
10 66 (9.50%) Data Engineering
11 65 (9.35%) Microservices
12 62 (8.92%) Test Automation
13 61 (8.78%) Data Analysis
13 61 (8.78%) Data Pipeline
14 59 (8.49%) Containerisation
15 58 (8.35%) Performance Tuning
16 57 (8.20%) Disaster Recovery
17 56 (8.06%) Data Governance
18 53 (7.63%) Full-Stack Development
19 52 (7.48%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 405 (58.27%) SQL
2 178 (25.61%) C#
3 162 (23.31%) Python
4 90 (12.95%) T-SQL
5 70 (10.07%) JavaScript
6 69 (9.93%) PowerShell
7 66 (9.50%) Java
8 60 (8.63%) PL/SQL
9 34 (4.89%) Bash
10 32 (4.60%) TypeScript
11 22 (3.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 19 (2.73%) VB
13 15 (2.16%) VBA
14 14 (2.01%) Bicep
15 13 (1.87%) PHP
16 7 (1.01%) XPath
17 5 (0.72%) R
17 5 (0.72%) Shell Script
17 5 (0.72%) X++
18 4 (0.58%) Scala
Qualifications
1 102 (14.68%) Security Cleared
2 76 (10.94%) Degree
3 71 (10.22%) SC Cleared
4 25 (3.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (2.88%) Azure Certification
6 19 (2.73%) DV Cleared
7 18 (2.59%) Microsoft Certification
8 14 (2.01%) BPSS Clearance
9 9 (1.29%) Master's Degree
10 6 (0.86%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.72%) CCA
11 5 (0.72%) Citrix Certification
12 4 (0.58%) Cisco Certification
13 3 (0.43%) CCNP
13 3 (0.43%) PMI Certification
13 3 (0.43%) PMP
14 2 (0.29%) CCIE
14 2 (0.29%) ITIL Certification
14 2 (0.29%) OCP
14 2 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 75 (10.79%) Data Quality
2 74 (10.65%) QA
3 17 (2.45%) GDPR
4 9 (1.29%) SLA
5 7 (1.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.72%) Accessibility
7 5 (0.72%) NIST
8 4 (0.58%) MiFID
8 4 (0.58%) WCAG
9 3 (0.43%) EMIR
9 3 (0.43%) IFRS
9 3 (0.43%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.29%) Basel III
10 2 (0.29%) GAAP
10 2 (0.29%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.29%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.14%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.14%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 83 (11.94%) Docker
2 51 (7.34%) Active Directory
3 26 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.45%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.29%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.01%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.86%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.86%) zsh
8 5 (0.72%) XenApp
8 5 (0.72%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.43%) KVM
9 3 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
9 3 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.43%) vSphere
10 2 (0.29%) GridGain
10 2 (0.29%) NDS
10 2 (0.29%) NetIQ eDirectory
Systems Management
1 62 (8.92%) Kubernetes
2 39 (5.61%) Terraform
3 17 (2.45%) Ansible
4 14 (2.01%) SCCM
5 13 (1.87%) Grafana
6 10 (1.44%) Puppet
6 10 (1.44%) vCenter Server
7 9 (1.29%) Microsoft Intune
8 8 (1.15%) NetBackup
8 8 (1.15%) Oracle RMAN
9 7 (1.01%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 7 (1.01%) TIBCO Hawk
10 6 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.72%) Progress Chef
11 5 (0.72%) SCVMM
12 4 (0.58%) Microsoft Clustering
12 4 (0.58%) WSUS
13 3 (0.43%) Control-M
13 3 (0.43%) IBM BigFix
13 3 (0.43%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 212 (30.50%) Oracle
2 211 (30.36%) Microsoft
3 56 (8.06%) Databricks
4 44 (6.33%) Citrix
5 42 (6.04%) VMware
6 27 (3.88%) Informatica
7 25 (3.60%) Google
8 24 (3.45%) ServiceNow
9 20 (2.88%) SAP
10 19 (2.73%) IBM
11 15 (2.16%) CyberArk
12 13 (1.87%) UiPath
13 12 (1.73%) Salesforce
13 12 (1.73%) SolarWinds
14 10 (1.44%) Cisco
14 10 (1.44%) Veritas
15 9 (1.29%) Advent
15 9 (1.29%) Sybase
16 8 (1.15%) PagerDuty
16 8 (1.15%) Sitecore
411 SQL Server jobs in England