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 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
12 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 79 64
Rank change year-on-year -53 -15 -18
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 637 771 1,168
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.05% 2.89% 3.21%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.17% 15.74% 19.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 438 548 852
10th Percentile £350 £313 £358
25th Percentile £404 £400 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £508 £550
Median % change year-on-year -5.58% -7.57% -
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £730
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.00% -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 6 17
10th Percentile £19.33 £61.06 £17.79
25th Percentile £28.90 £61.87 £20.82
Median hourly rate £48.72 £64.37 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.32% +22.61% +31.25%
75th Percentile £61.29 £65.62 £62.50
90th Percentile £66.52 £82.81 £63.56
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £63.75 £52.50
% change year-on-year -23.57% +21.42% +25.75%

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 5,236 4,897 5,985
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.88% 18.33% 16.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,645 3,248 4,274
10th Percentile £326 £351 £356
25th Percentile £413 £425 £440
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% - -
75th Percentile £613 £663 £660
90th Percentile £707 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 68 139
10th Percentile £18.93 £20.82 £18.18
25th Percentile £29.06 £24.25 £23.00
Median hourly rate £51.36 £42.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +22.29% -9.05% -16.04%
75th Percentile £70.00 £64.79 £64.50
90th Percentile £84.70 £74.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £35.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +39.20% -24.21% -16.04%

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 12 January 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 12 January 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 12 January 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 -32 389 £516 -6.14% 98
North of England -21 80 £450 -6.49% 115
South East -34 78 £480 -3.08% 183
Yorkshire -14 41 £425 -24.31% 44
North West -28 37 £450 +5.88% 56
South West -39 24 £550 - 52
Midlands -94 21 £403 -15.26% 65
East of England -24 18 £494 +23.44% 71
West Midlands -65 15 £403 -29.01% 28
East Midlands -45 5 £373 -2.74% 36
North East -6 2 £475 +28.38% 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 30 (4.71%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.61%) IIS
3 19 (2.98%) Confluence
4 16 (2.51%) Microsoft Exchange
5 15 (2.35%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 14 (2.20%) WebSphere
7 9 (1.41%) WebLogic
8 7 (1.10%) Apache Spark
9 6 (0.94%) Apache
10 5 (0.78%) Apache Airflow
11 4 (0.63%) Appian
11 4 (0.63%) SharePoint Server
11 4 (0.63%) Tomcat
12 3 (0.47%) CMS
13 2 (0.31%) HCL Notes
13 2 (0.31%) JBoss
13 2 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
13 2 (0.31%) WildFly
14 1 (0.16%) Skype for Business
14 1 (0.16%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 44 (6.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.73%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (1.41%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
5 4 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.31%) Trello
6 2 (0.31%) Windchill
7 1 (0.16%) ProjectWise
Business Applications
1 9 (1.41%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.26%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.10%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.94%) Salesforce CRM
5 4 (0.63%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 3 (0.47%) Oracle General Ledger
6 3 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 3 (0.47%) Oracle Receivables
6 3 (0.47%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.31%) Dynamics AX
7 2 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.31%) Endur
7 2 (0.31%) Fidessa
7 2 (0.31%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.31%) Oracle BPM
7 2 (0.31%) Oracle FAH
7 2 (0.31%) Teamcenter
7 2 (0.31%) Veritas eDiscovery
8 1 (0.16%) Orchestrade
8 1 (0.16%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 274 (43.01%) Azure
2 123 (19.31%) AWS
3 118 (18.52%) Power Platform
4 72 (11.30%) Azure DevOps
5 51 (8.01%) GitHub
6 49 (7.69%) Azure Data Factory
7 48 (7.54%) GCP
8 33 (5.18%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 31 (4.87%) Microsoft 365
10 29 (4.55%) SaaS
11 23 (3.61%) GitHub Actions
12 21 (3.30%) Snowflake
13 18 (2.83%) Amazon S3
13 18 (2.83%) Power Automate
14 17 (2.67%) Dynamics 365
14 17 (2.67%) IaaS
14 17 (2.67%) Serverless
15 16 (2.51%) Azure Service Bus
16 15 (2.35%) PowerApps
17 14 (2.20%) Azure Cosmos DB
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.55%) Firewall
2 21 (3.30%) DNS
3 16 (2.51%) TCP/IP
4 11 (1.73%) DHCP
4 11 (1.73%) Internet
5 10 (1.57%) HTTP
6 7 (1.10%) LAN
6 7 (1.10%) NetScaler
7 6 (0.94%) VPN
8 5 (0.78%) Skype
9 4 (0.63%) NAS
9 4 (0.63%) SAN
9 4 (0.63%) SSL
9 4 (0.63%) VoIP
10 3 (0.47%) WAN
11 2 (0.31%) FTP
11 2 (0.31%) SMTP
11 2 (0.31%) VLAN
11 2 (0.31%) Wi-Fi
11 2 (0.31%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 101 (15.86%) Power BI
2 83 (13.03%) PostgreSQL
3 81 (12.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 78 (12.24%) Relational Database
5 63 (9.89%) Data Warehouse
6 60 (9.42%) Oracle Database
7 52 (8.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 45 (7.06%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (6.75%) MySQL
10 41 (6.44%) MongoDB
11 38 (5.97%) Data Lake
12 33 (5.18%) NoSQL
13 24 (3.77%) DB2
14 21 (3.30%) Amazon RDS
15 19 (2.98%) Big Data
15 19 (2.98%) RDBMS
16 18 (2.83%) SQL Server Analysis Services
17 17 (2.67%) Tableau
18 15 (2.35%) Redis
19 14 (2.20%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 64 (10.05%) Git
2 40 (6.28%) JIRA
3 32 (5.02%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.83%) GitLab
5 17 (2.67%) Visual Studio
6 13 (2.04%) Postman
7 12 (1.88%) SpecFlow
7 12 (1.88%) TeamCity
8 11 (1.73%) Selenium
8 11 (1.73%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 10 (1.57%) Cucumber
10 9 (1.41%) Maven
10 9 (1.41%) Octopus Deploy
11 8 (1.26%) Bitbucket
11 8 (1.26%) JUnit
12 6 (0.94%) REST Assured
12 6 (0.94%) TestRail
13 5 (0.78%) ERwin
13 5 (0.78%) Mockito
13 5 (0.78%) webpack
General
1 207 (32.50%) Social Skills
2 173 (27.16%) Finance
3 88 (13.81%) Banking
4 85 (13.34%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (5.81%) Public Sector
6 35 (5.49%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.77%) Investment Banking
8 19 (2.98%) Front Office
9 16 (2.51%) Financial Institution
10 12 (1.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 11 (1.73%) Retail
12 10 (1.57%) Presentation Skills
13 7 (1.10%) Local Government
14 6 (0.94%) Legal
14 6 (0.94%) Manufacturing
14 6 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
15 5 (0.78%) Back Office
15 5 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
15 5 (0.78%) Law
16 4 (0.63%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 228 (35.79%) Developer
2 88 (13.81%) Senior
3 75 (11.77%) Data Engineer
4 64 (10.05%) C# Developer
5 46 (7.22%) .NET Developer
6 45 (7.06%) Architect
7 44 (6.91%) Analyst
8 37 (5.81%) Senior Developer
9 32 (5.02%) DBA
10 27 (4.24%) Senior Data Engineer
11 25 (3.92%) Consultant
11 25 (3.92%) Lead
12 24 (3.77%) Full-Stack Developer
13 21 (3.30%) Software Engineer
14 20 (3.14%) C# .NET Developer
15 19 (2.98%) Angular Developer
15 19 (2.98%) SQL DBA
16 18 (2.83%) SQL Developer
17 17 (2.67%) Azure Engineer
18 16 (2.51%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 179 (28.10%) .NET
2 68 (10.68%) .NET Framework
3 57 (8.95%) REST
4 44 (6.91%) HTML
5 43 (6.75%) AngularJS
6 39 (6.12%) React
7 37 (5.81%) RESTful
7 37 (5.81%) XML
8 36 (5.65%) Kafka
9 33 (5.18%) .NET Core
9 33 (5.18%) CSS
10 27 (4.24%) Entity Framework
10 27 (4.24%) Web Services
11 26 (4.08%) SOAP
12 24 (3.77%) ASP.NET
13 23 (3.61%) Middleware
14 22 (3.45%) WPF
15 17 (2.67%) Playwright
16 16 (2.51%) JSON
16 16 (2.51%) NHibernate
Miscellaneous
1 31 (4.87%) Legacy Systems
2 26 (4.08%) Cloud Native
3 18 (2.83%) Enterprise Software
4 17 (2.67%) Derivative
4 17 (2.67%) Management Information System
5 16 (2.51%) Onboarding
6 14 (2.20%) Credit Risk
6 14 (2.20%) Data Protection Act
6 14 (2.20%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 14 (2.20%) Product Ownership
7 12 (1.88%) Data Structures
8 11 (1.73%) Distributed Systems
8 11 (1.73%) NHS
8 11 (1.73%) PKI
8 11 (1.73%) Replication
9 9 (1.41%) Virtual Team
10 8 (1.26%) Clustering
10 8 (1.26%) Linux Command Line
10 8 (1.26%) Low-Code
10 8 (1.26%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 109 (17.11%) Windows
2 82 (12.87%) Linux
3 57 (8.95%) Windows Server
4 13 (2.04%) Windows 10
4 13 (2.04%) Windows Server 2016
5 8 (1.26%) Unix
5 8 (1.26%) Windows Server 2019
6 6 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.47%) VMS
7 3 (0.47%) Windows Server 2012
8 2 (0.31%) Android
9 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.16%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.16%) MVS
9 1 (0.16%) Solaris
9 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
9 1 (0.16%) Windows Server 2003
9 1 (0.16%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (24.33%) Agile
2 139 (21.82%) CI/CD
3 137 (21.51%) DevOps
3 137 (21.51%) Problem-Solving
4 117 (18.37%) Business Intelligence
5 113 (17.74%) ETL
6 91 (14.29%) Data Modelling
6 91 (14.29%) Migration
7 68 (10.68%) Analytics
8 63 (9.89%) Microservices
9 56 (8.79%) Test Automation
10 54 (8.48%) Full-Stack Development
11 52 (8.16%) Software Engineering
12 51 (8.01%) Performance Tuning
13 49 (7.69%) Containerisation
14 46 (7.22%) Data Governance
15 45 (7.06%) Data Engineering
15 45 (7.06%) Data Migration
16 44 (6.91%) Data Analysis
16 44 (6.91%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 360 (56.51%) SQL
2 159 (24.96%) C#
3 136 (21.35%) Python
4 74 (11.62%) T-SQL
5 67 (10.52%) Java
5 67 (10.52%) JavaScript
6 53 (8.32%) PL/SQL
7 49 (7.69%) PowerShell
8 33 (5.18%) Bash
9 17 (2.67%) TypeScript
10 16 (2.51%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 16 (2.51%) VB
11 15 (2.35%) VBA
12 14 (2.20%) PHP
12 14 (2.20%) Shell Script
13 12 (1.88%) Bicep
14 7 (1.10%) XPath
15 5 (0.78%) X++
16 4 (0.63%) COBOL
16 4 (0.63%) Delphi
Qualifications
1 81 (12.72%) Security Cleared
2 74 (11.62%) Degree
3 56 (8.79%) SC Cleared
4 28 (4.40%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (3.30%) Microsoft Certification
6 16 (2.51%) Azure Certification
7 14 (2.20%) DV Cleared
8 10 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
8 10 (1.57%) Master's Degree
9 5 (0.78%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.63%) AWS Certification
10 4 (0.63%) CCA
10 4 (0.63%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.63%) Citrix Certification
10 4 (0.63%) HNC
10 4 (0.63%) HND
10 4 (0.63%) MCP
10 4 (0.63%) MCSE
11 3 (0.47%) CCNP
11 3 (0.47%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 62 (9.73%) Data Quality
2 57 (8.95%) QA
3 14 (2.20%) GDPR
4 12 (1.88%) Accessibility
5 9 (1.41%) SLA
6 6 (0.94%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.78%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.78%) MiFID
8 4 (0.63%) EMIR
8 4 (0.63%) WCAG
9 3 (0.47%) IFRS
9 3 (0.47%) IFRS 17
10 2 (0.31%) Basel III
10 2 (0.31%) GAAP
10 2 (0.31%) IFRS 9
10 2 (0.31%) Solvency II
11 1 (0.16%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.16%) HL7
11 1 (0.16%) JSP 440
11 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 76 (11.93%) Docker
2 48 (7.54%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.24%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (2.20%) Hyper-V
5 12 (1.88%) Oracle RAC
6 8 (1.26%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (1.26%) zsh
7 7 (1.10%) VMware NSX
8 6 (0.94%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.63%) vSphere
9 4 (0.63%) XenApp
9 4 (0.63%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.47%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.31%) GridGain
11 2 (0.31%) NDS
11 2 (0.31%) NetIQ eDirectory
12 1 (0.16%) KVM
12 1 (0.16%) NFS
12 1 (0.16%) Veritas Cluster Server
12 1 (0.16%) Xen
Systems Management
1 56 (8.79%) Kubernetes
2 38 (5.97%) Terraform
3 26 (4.08%) Ansible
4 14 (2.20%) Grafana
5 13 (2.04%) Puppet
6 12 (1.88%) SCCM
7 11 (1.73%) Data Guard
8 10 (1.57%) yum
9 9 (1.41%) Microsoft Intune
10 8 (1.26%) NetBackup
10 8 (1.26%) vCenter Server
11 7 (1.10%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 7 (1.10%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (1.10%) TIBCO Hawk
12 5 (0.78%) SCOM
12 5 (0.78%) Single Sign-On
13 4 (0.63%) Control-M
13 4 (0.63%) SCVMM
13 4 (0.63%) WSUS
14 3 (0.47%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 201 (31.55%) Oracle
2 200 (31.40%) Microsoft
3 45 (7.06%) Databricks
4 41 (6.44%) Citrix
5 38 (5.97%) VMware
6 21 (3.30%) Google
6 21 (3.30%) ServiceNow
7 18 (2.83%) SAP
8 17 (2.67%) IBM
9 16 (2.51%) Informatica
10 13 (2.04%) Salesforce
11 11 (1.73%) Cisco
11 11 (1.73%) CyberArk
12 10 (1.57%) Veritas
13 9 (1.41%) Advent
13 9 (1.41%) UiPath
14 8 (1.26%) Atlassian
14 8 (1.26%) PagerDuty
15 7 (1.10%) BEA
15 7 (1.10%) TIBCO
556 SQL Server jobs in England