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

 6 months to
1 Sep 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 110 57
Rank change year-on-year -16 -53 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 992 688 1,180
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.17% 2.49% 3.57%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.26% 13.90% 19.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 695 506 845
10th Percentile £363 £313 £330
25th Percentile £413 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £648 £625
90th Percentile £720 £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% +2.86%
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% -5.49%

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 6,955 4,948 6,095
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.23% 17.94% 18.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,636 3,408 4,285
10th Percentile £358 £335 £350
25th Percentile £423 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £675
90th Percentile £702 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 232 80 91
10th Percentile £14.96 £21.02 £14.25
25th Percentile £23.62 £29.05 £19.92
Median hourly rate £38.38 £38.23 £33.93
Median % change year-on-year +0.38% +12.67% -38.31%
75th Percentile £62.44 £65.00 £58.73
90th Percentile £75.00 £78.88 £71.50
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 1 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 1 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 1 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 -30 477 £525 -4.55% 457
North of England +10 200 £475 +10.47% 115
North West -7 110 £478 +9.89% 68
Midlands 0 108 £474 +10.88% 89
South East -29 104 £475 +35.71% 132
Yorkshire +14 89 £450 +9.02% 34
West Midlands -15 64 £467 -13.21% 47
South West -11 51 £519 +15.28% 52
East Midlands +11 43 £525 +60.80% 41
East of England -26 26 £425 -15.00% 35
North East -48 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 66 (6.65%) SharePoint
2 45 (4.54%) IIS
3 40 (4.03%) Confluence
4 22 (2.22%) Microsoft Exchange
5 21 (2.12%) Apache Airflow
6 20 (2.02%) Apache
7 19 (1.92%) Camunda
8 17 (1.71%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.91%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.60%) Appian
10 6 (0.60%) CMS
11 5 (0.50%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.50%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.50%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.40%) OpenEdge
12 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
12 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
13 3 (0.30%) nginx
14 2 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 51 (5.14%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.82%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.91%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.20%) Windchill
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 25 (2.52%) Dynamics CRM
2 23 (2.32%) Remedy ITSM
3 16 (1.61%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.71%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.71%) Oracle BPM
4 7 (0.71%) 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%) Payment Gateway
8 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
8 1 (0.10%) SAP Business One
8 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 414 (41.73%) Azure
2 212 (21.37%) AWS
3 154 (15.52%) Power Platform
4 113 (11.39%) Azure DevOps
5 88 (8.87%) GitHub
6 57 (5.75%) Azure Data Factory
7 49 (4.94%) Entra ID
8 48 (4.84%) Serverless
9 41 (4.13%) Azure Monitor
9 41 (4.13%) Power Automate
10 39 (3.93%) Microsoft 365
11 37 (3.73%) GitHub Actions
12 36 (3.63%) Dynamics 365
13 34 (3.43%) Snowflake
14 33 (3.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 29 (2.92%) GCP
16 25 (2.52%) SaaS
17 24 (2.42%) dbt
17 24 (2.42%) PowerApps
18 19 (1.92%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 47 (4.74%) DNS
2 40 (4.03%) DHCP
3 31 (3.13%) Firewall
4 18 (1.81%) SAN
4 18 (1.81%) VLAN
5 14 (1.41%) VPN
6 13 (1.31%) Internet
6 13 (1.31%) Network Security
6 13 (1.31%) SSL
7 12 (1.21%) TCP/IP
8 10 (1.01%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.91%) 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
1 150 (15.12%) PostgreSQL
2 129 (13.00%) Power BI
3 103 (10.38%) Relational Database
4 97 (9.78%) Data Warehouse
5 93 (9.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 78 (7.86%) MySQL
7 58 (5.85%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 57 (5.75%) Oracle Database
9 55 (5.54%) Azure SQL Database
10 50 (5.04%) MongoDB
11 34 (3.43%) Data Lake
12 25 (2.52%) Redis
13 24 (2.42%) Amazon RDS
13 24 (2.42%) NoSQL
13 24 (2.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 21 (2.12%) RDBMS
14 21 (2.12%) Tableau
15 16 (1.61%) Metadata
16 15 (1.51%) Star Schema
17 12 (1.21%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 96 (9.68%) Git
2 62 (6.25%) Jenkins
3 57 (5.75%) JIRA
4 32 (3.23%) GitLab
5 26 (2.62%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.12%) Maven
7 20 (2.02%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 19 (1.92%) Sonatype Nexus
9 15 (1.51%) Team Foundation Server
10 14 (1.41%) REST Assured
10 14 (1.41%) Selenium
10 14 (1.41%) TeamCity
11 12 (1.21%) Octopus Deploy
11 12 (1.21%) Postman
12 11 (1.11%) Artifactory
12 11 (1.11%) Gradle
12 11 (1.11%) JUnit
13 10 (1.01%) Cucumber
13 10 (1.01%) Cypress.io
13 10 (1.01%) SonarQube
General
1 306 (30.85%) Social Skills
2 255 (25.71%) Finance
3 186 (18.75%) Analytical Skills
4 123 (12.40%) Banking
5 71 (7.16%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.44%) Front Office
7 38 (3.83%) Documentation Skills
8 25 (2.52%) Investment Banking
9 20 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 18 (1.81%) Legal
11 17 (1.71%) Retail
12 15 (1.51%) Organisational Skills
13 14 (1.41%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.81%) Back Office
14 8 (0.81%) Manufacturing
15 7 (0.71%) Billing
16 5 (0.50%) Advertising
16 5 (0.50%) Law
16 5 (0.50%) Local Government
16 5 (0.50%) Military
Job Titles
1 306 (30.85%) Developer
2 155 (15.63%) Senior
3 137 (13.81%) DBA
4 85 (8.57%) SQL DBA
5 80 (8.06%) .NET Developer
6 78 (7.86%) Data Engineer
7 73 (7.36%) C# Developer
8 70 (7.06%) Lead
9 68 (6.85%) Administrator
10 52 (5.24%) Full-Stack Developer
11 49 (4.94%) Architect
12 48 (4.84%) Senior Developer
13 47 (4.74%) Analyst
13 47 (4.74%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 47 (4.74%) SQL Developer
14 38 (3.83%) Software Engineer
15 31 (3.13%) Consultant
16 30 (3.02%) Azure Engineer
16 30 (3.02%) Oracle DBA
17 29 (2.92%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 279 (28.13%) .NET
2 125 (12.60%) REST
3 96 (9.68%) .NET Framework
4 82 (8.27%) React
5 73 (7.36%) Terraform
6 66 (6.65%) CSS
7 59 (5.95%) AngularJS
7 59 (5.95%) ASP.NET
8 56 (5.65%) HTML
9 55 (5.54%) Kafka
10 53 (5.34%) .NET Core
11 51 (5.14%) RESTful
12 42 (4.23%) JSON
13 37 (3.73%) Web Services
14 36 (3.63%) XML
15 33 (3.33%) Spring Boot
16 29 (2.92%) OAuth
16 29 (2.92%) SOAP
17 28 (2.82%) Spring
18 24 (2.42%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 62 (6.25%) Onboarding
2 59 (5.95%) Cloud Native
3 51 (5.14%) Data Structures
4 45 (4.54%) Clustering
5 44 (4.44%) Replication
6 43 (4.33%) Enterprise Software
7 39 (3.93%) Self-Motivation
8 36 (3.63%) Legacy Systems
9 33 (3.33%) Product Ownership
10 27 (2.72%) Management Information System
11 25 (2.52%) Data Centre
12 20 (2.02%) PKI
13 16 (1.61%) Derivative
13 16 (1.61%) Distributed Systems
14 14 (1.41%) Low-Code
15 12 (1.21%) NHS
16 11 (1.11%) Algorithms
16 11 (1.11%) Data Protection Act
16 11 (1.11%) Fixed Income
16 11 (1.11%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 256 (25.81%) Windows
2 148 (14.92%) Windows Server
3 88 (8.87%) Linux
4 36 (3.63%) Unix
5 13 (1.31%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 11 (1.11%) Ubuntu
7 9 (0.91%) Solaris
8 8 (0.81%) VMS
9 7 (0.71%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.71%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.60%) Android
10 6 (0.60%) CentOS
10 6 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.20%) AIX
13 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 261 (26.31%) DevOps
2 241 (24.29%) CI/CD
3 232 (23.39%) Agile
4 195 (19.66%) Problem-Solving
5 184 (18.55%) Migration
6 151 (15.22%) ETL
7 141 (14.21%) Business Intelligence
8 135 (13.61%) Data Modelling
9 129 (13.00%) Performance Tuning
10 116 (11.69%) AI
11 110 (11.09%) Disaster Recovery
12 100 (10.08%) Stakeholder Management
13 91 (9.17%) Analytics
13 91 (9.17%) Microservices
14 90 (9.07%) Continuous Improvement
15 85 (8.57%) Software Engineering
16 82 (8.27%) High Availability
16 82 (8.27%) Test Automation
17 80 (8.06%) Validation
18 77 (7.76%) Data Pipeline
Programming Languages
1 573 (57.76%) SQL
2 270 (27.22%) C#
3 195 (19.66%) Python
4 175 (17.64%) PowerShell
5 154 (15.52%) T-SQL
6 130 (13.10%) JavaScript
7 90 (9.07%) Java
8 60 (6.05%) PL/SQL
9 56 (5.65%) TypeScript
10 32 (3.23%) Bash
11 17 (1.71%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (1.61%) VB
13 14 (1.41%) Scala
13 14 (1.41%) Shell Script
13 14 (1.41%) VBA
14 7 (0.71%) VB.NET
15 6 (0.60%) Bicep
15 6 (0.60%) Korn
15 6 (0.60%) XPath
16 5 (0.50%) VB6
Qualifications
1 255 (25.71%) Security Cleared
2 193 (19.46%) SC Cleared
3 103 (10.38%) Degree
4 51 (5.14%) DV Cleared
5 45 (4.54%) Microsoft Certification
6 32 (3.23%) Computer Science Degree
7 25 (2.52%) BPSS Clearance
8 22 (2.22%) Azure Certification
9 12 (1.21%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.21%) ISTQB
10 10 (1.01%) Oracle Certification
11 9 (0.91%) DBS Check
11 9 (0.91%) OCP
12 8 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 8 (0.81%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 7 (0.71%) Master's Degree
14 4 (0.40%) CISSP
14 4 (0.40%) PhD
15 3 (0.30%) MCITP
15 3 (0.30%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 94 (9.48%) Data Quality
2 88 (8.87%) QA
3 28 (2.82%) GDPR
4 26 (2.62%) Accessibility
5 21 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (2.02%) NIST
7 18 (1.81%) WCAG
8 17 (1.71%) 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%) Software Quality Assurance
System Software
1 126 (12.70%) Active Directory
2 74 (7.46%) Docker
3 40 (4.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 32 (3.23%) Virtual Machines
5 19 (1.92%) Oracle RAC
6 8 (0.81%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.81%) 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 93 (9.38%) Kubernetes
2 45 (4.54%) Ansible
3 19 (1.92%) SCOM
4 15 (1.51%) Microsoft Intune
5 14 (1.41%) Data Guard
6 13 (1.31%) HAProxy
7 12 (1.21%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 12 (1.21%) SCCM
8 11 (1.11%) Microsoft Clustering
9 10 (1.01%) WSUS
10 8 (0.81%) Grafana
10 8 (0.81%) Oracle RMAN
11 7 (0.71%) 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
1 345 (34.78%) Microsoft
2 251 (25.30%) Oracle
3 71 (7.16%) Databricks
4 64 (6.45%) VMware
5 53 (5.34%) ServiceNow
6 44 (4.44%) CyberArk
7 38 (3.83%) Citrix
8 35 (3.53%) SAP
9 29 (2.92%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.32%) BMC
10 23 (2.32%) Remedy
11 21 (2.12%) Cisco
11 21 (2.12%) IBM
11 21 (2.12%) Informatica
12 17 (1.71%) Dynatrace
13 16 (1.61%) Sybase
14 15 (1.51%) Google
14 15 (1.51%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.31%) Alteryx
15 13 (1.31%) Splunk
833 SQL Server jobs in England