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

 6 months to
28 Jan 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 138 83 67
Rank change year-on-year -55 -16 -20
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 666 765 1,160
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.03% 2.89% 3.09%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.36% 15.67% 19.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 457 535 849
10th Percentile £350 £331 £340
25th Percentile £404 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £505 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.95% -6.05% -2.27%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £700 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £525
% change year-on-year -4.00% -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 6 30
10th Percentile - £42.63 £20.17
25th Percentile £12.95 £60.66 £38.22
Median hourly rate £20.75 £63.75 £43.22
Median % change year-on-year -67.45% +47.51% +3.51%
75th Percentile £38.42 £65.46 £57.92
90th Percentile £59.55 £65.62 £63.14
UK median hourly rate £22.13 £60.50 £43.22
% change year-on-year -63.43% +40.00% -0.80%

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 5,389 4,882 6,084
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.43% 18.45% 16.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,753 3,231 4,371
10th Percentile £328 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £426 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £540
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% +1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £606 £663 £650
90th Percentile £710 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 98 77 168
10th Percentile £18.25 £21.86 £15.57
25th Percentile £29.00 £24.75 £21.64
Median hourly rate £47.61 £38.11 £42.35
Median % change year-on-year +24.93% -10.00% -29.43%
75th Percentile £74.58 £64.73 £61.75
90th Percentile £85.30 £69.10 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £48.72 £35.00 £42.35
% change year-on-year +39.20% -17.35% -29.43%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 -25 413 £500 -9.09% 114
North of England -34 80 £443 -6.84% 90
South East -44 76 £484 -2.27% 145
North West -23 41 £450 +2.86% 61
Yorkshire -31 37 £400 -20.00% 20
South West -37 28 £550 - 45
Midlands -100 21 £403 -17.44% 67
East of England -14 20 £550 +37.50% 42
West Midlands -68 15 £425 -25.83% 34
East Midlands -54 5 £313 -18.41% 33
North East -13 2 £475 +28.38% 10
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 (4.65%) SharePoint
2 23 (3.45%) IIS
3 20 (3.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 18 (2.70%) Confluence
5 14 (2.10%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 14 (2.10%) WebSphere
6 9 (1.35%) Apache
6 9 (1.35%) WebLogic
7 8 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
7 8 (1.20%) Apache Spark
8 7 (1.05%) Appian
9 6 (0.90%) CMS
10 4 (0.60%) SharePoint Server
11 3 (0.45%) Sitecore CMS
12 2 (0.30%) JBoss
12 2 (0.30%) Tomcat
12 2 (0.30%) WildFly
13 1 (0.15%) GeoServer
13 1 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
13 1 (0.15%) Umbraco
Applications
1 47 (7.06%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.95%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.65%) MS Visio
4 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 2 (0.30%) Trello
6 2 (0.30%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 9 (1.35%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.20%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (1.05%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.90%) Salesforce CRM
5 3 (0.45%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 3 (0.45%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 3 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
6 2 (0.30%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.30%) Dynamics NAV
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle General Ledger
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Payables
6 2 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
6 2 (0.30%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.30%) Veritas eDiscovery
7 1 (0.15%) Aladdin
7 1 (0.15%) Elite 3E
7 1 (0.15%) ION Anvil
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle FAH
7 1 (0.15%) Orchestrade
7 1 (0.15%) RMDS
Cloud Services
1 291 (43.69%) Azure
2 136 (20.42%) AWS
3 121 (18.17%) Power Platform
4 79 (11.86%) Azure DevOps
5 56 (8.41%) GCP
6 55 (8.26%) Azure Data Factory
7 52 (7.81%) GitHub
8 32 (4.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 31 (4.65%) Microsoft 365
10 29 (4.35%) SaaS
11 21 (3.15%) GitHub Actions
11 21 (3.15%) Snowflake
12 19 (2.85%) Amazon S3
12 19 (2.85%) Power Automate
13 18 (2.70%) Dynamics 365
14 17 (2.55%) IaaS
15 16 (2.40%) Azure Service Bus
15 16 (2.40%) Serverless
16 14 (2.10%) AWS CloudFormation
17 13 (1.95%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 29 (4.35%) Firewall
2 20 (3.00%) DNS
3 15 (2.25%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.80%) Internet
5 11 (1.65%) DHCP
6 10 (1.50%) HTTP
7 7 (1.05%) LAN
7 7 (1.05%) NetScaler
8 5 (0.75%) Skype
8 5 (0.75%) VPN
9 4 (0.60%) NAS
9 4 (0.60%) SAN
9 4 (0.60%) SSL
9 4 (0.60%) VoIP
10 3 (0.45%) RS-232
10 3 (0.45%) WAN
10 3 (0.45%) X.400
11 2 (0.30%) Software-Defined Networking
11 2 (0.30%) VSAN
11 2 (0.30%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 104 (15.62%) Power BI
2 87 (13.06%) PostgreSQL
3 86 (12.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 84 (12.61%) Relational Database
5 72 (10.81%) Data Warehouse
6 55 (8.26%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 52 (7.81%) Oracle Database
8 47 (7.06%) Azure SQL Database
8 47 (7.06%) MySQL
9 40 (6.01%) Data Lake
10 38 (5.71%) MongoDB
11 35 (5.26%) NoSQL
12 24 (3.60%) RDBMS
13 23 (3.45%) DB2
14 21 (3.15%) Amazon RDS
15 20 (3.00%) Delta Lake
15 20 (3.00%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 19 (2.85%) Tableau
17 18 (2.70%) Big Data
18 14 (2.10%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 58 (8.71%) Git
2 45 (6.76%) JIRA
3 30 (4.50%) Jenkins
4 22 (3.30%) Visual Studio
5 17 (2.55%) GitLab
6 14 (2.10%) Postman
7 12 (1.80%) SpecFlow
7 12 (1.80%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 10 (1.50%) Selenium
9 9 (1.35%) Cucumber
9 9 (1.35%) Maven
9 9 (1.35%) Octopus Deploy
10 8 (1.20%) ERwin
10 8 (1.20%) JUnit
10 8 (1.20%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.90%) Bitbucket
11 6 (0.90%) MLflow
11 6 (0.90%) REST Assured
11 6 (0.90%) Team Foundation Server
11 6 (0.90%) TestRail
General
1 211 (31.68%) Social Skills
2 176 (26.43%) Finance
3 92 (13.81%) Analytical Skills
4 89 (13.36%) Banking
5 39 (5.86%) Public Sector
6 34 (5.11%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.60%) Investment Banking
8 16 (2.40%) Financial Institution
8 16 (2.40%) Front Office
8 16 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 15 (2.25%) Retail
10 8 (1.20%) Legal
10 8 (1.20%) Local Government
11 6 (0.90%) Law
11 6 (0.90%) Manufacturing
11 6 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
11 6 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
12 5 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
13 4 (0.60%) Military
13 4 (0.60%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 232 (34.83%) Developer
2 90 (13.51%) Senior
3 89 (13.36%) Data Engineer
4 71 (10.66%) C# Developer
5 50 (7.51%) Architect
6 49 (7.36%) .NET Developer
7 47 (7.06%) Analyst
8 37 (5.56%) Senior Developer
9 32 (4.80%) DBA
9 32 (4.80%) Lead
10 29 (4.35%) Senior Data Engineer
11 28 (4.20%) Full-Stack Developer
12 23 (3.45%) Consultant
12 23 (3.45%) Software Engineer
13 22 (3.30%) C# .NET Developer
14 20 (3.00%) SQL DBA
15 18 (2.70%) Azure Engineer
16 17 (2.55%) Angular Developer
16 17 (2.55%) SQL Developer
17 16 (2.40%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 190 (28.53%) .NET
2 79 (11.86%) .NET Framework
3 65 (9.76%) REST
4 47 (7.06%) AngularJS
5 44 (6.61%) React
6 43 (6.46%) HTML
7 40 (6.01%) RESTful
8 39 (5.86%) .NET Core
9 34 (5.11%) CSS
9 34 (5.11%) Kafka
9 34 (5.11%) XML
10 31 (4.65%) ASP.NET
11 29 (4.35%) Web Services
12 28 (4.20%) Entity Framework
13 27 (4.05%) SOAP
14 23 (3.45%) Middleware
14 23 (3.45%) WPF
15 18 (2.70%) OAuth
16 17 (2.55%) Playwright
16 17 (2.55%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 37 (5.56%) Legacy Systems
2 31 (4.65%) Cloud Native
3 21 (3.15%) Enterprise Software
4 17 (2.55%) Management Information System
5 16 (2.40%) Derivative
5 16 (2.40%) Onboarding
6 15 (2.25%) Data Structures
6 15 (2.25%) Product Ownership
7 14 (2.10%) Credit Risk
8 13 (1.95%) Data Protection Act
8 13 (1.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 13 (1.95%) Replication
9 12 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
10 11 (1.65%) PKI
11 10 (1.50%) Reinsurance
12 8 (1.20%) Clustering
12 8 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
12 8 (1.20%) Low-Code
12 8 (1.20%) Market Risk
12 8 (1.20%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 113 (16.97%) Windows
2 81 (12.16%) Linux
3 58 (8.71%) Windows Server
4 14 (2.10%) Windows 10
5 13 (1.95%) Windows Server 2016
6 11 (1.65%) Unix
7 8 (1.20%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.90%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 4 (0.60%) Android
9 4 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 3 (0.45%) VMS
11 2 (0.30%) AIX
11 2 (0.30%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.15%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.15%) MVS
12 1 (0.15%) Solaris
12 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
12 1 (0.15%) Windows 7
12 1 (0.15%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (23.27%) CI/CD
2 153 (22.97%) Agile
3 145 (21.77%) Problem-Solving
4 142 (21.32%) DevOps
5 126 (18.92%) ETL
6 124 (18.62%) Business Intelligence
7 104 (15.62%) Data Modelling
8 100 (15.02%) Migration
9 74 (11.11%) Analytics
10 64 (9.61%) Microservices
11 58 (8.71%) Full-Stack Development
11 58 (8.71%) Performance Tuning
12 57 (8.56%) Test Automation
13 56 (8.41%) Containerisation
13 56 (8.41%) Data Analysis
14 55 (8.26%) Data Pipeline
15 53 (7.96%) Data Migration
16 52 (7.81%) Data Engineering
17 51 (7.66%) Data Governance
17 51 (7.66%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 387 (58.11%) SQL
2 171 (25.68%) C#
3 150 (22.52%) Python
4 75 (11.26%) T-SQL
5 66 (9.91%) Java
5 66 (9.91%) JavaScript
6 56 (8.41%) PL/SQL
7 52 (7.81%) PowerShell
8 33 (4.95%) Bash
9 26 (3.90%) TypeScript
10 17 (2.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 17 (2.55%) VB
11 14 (2.10%) PHP
11 14 (2.10%) VBA
12 12 (1.80%) Bicep
13 8 (1.20%) Shell Script
14 7 (1.05%) XPath
15 5 (0.75%) R
15 5 (0.75%) X++
16 4 (0.60%) Scala
Qualifications
1 86 (12.91%) Security Cleared
2 76 (11.41%) Degree
3 59 (8.86%) SC Cleared
4 29 (4.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 21 (3.15%) Microsoft Certification
6 18 (2.70%) Azure Certification
7 17 (2.55%) DV Cleared
8 11 (1.65%) BPSS Clearance
9 7 (1.05%) Master's Degree
10 5 (0.75%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
11 4 (0.60%) CCA
11 4 (0.60%) Cisco Certification
11 4 (0.60%) Citrix Certification
12 3 (0.45%) CCNP
12 3 (0.45%) HNC
12 3 (0.45%) HND
12 3 (0.45%) MCP
12 3 (0.45%) MCSE
12 3 (0.45%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (10.81%) Data Quality
2 65 (9.76%) QA
3 15 (2.25%) GDPR
4 9 (1.35%) SLA
5 8 (1.20%) Accessibility
6 6 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (0.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 5 (0.75%) WCAG
8 3 (0.45%) IFRS
8 3 (0.45%) IFRS 17
8 3 (0.45%) MiFID
9 2 (0.30%) Basel III
9 2 (0.30%) EMIR
9 2 (0.30%) GAAP
9 2 (0.30%) IFRS 9
9 2 (0.30%) Solvency II
10 1 (0.15%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
10 1 (0.15%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 83 (12.46%) Docker
2 48 (7.21%) Active Directory
3 27 (4.05%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (2.25%) Hyper-V
5 9 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
6 7 (1.05%) VMware NSX
7 6 (0.90%) Oracle RAC
7 6 (0.90%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.90%) zsh
8 4 (0.60%) XenApp
8 4 (0.60%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.45%) vSphere
10 2 (0.30%) GridGain
10 2 (0.30%) KVM
10 2 (0.30%) NDS
10 2 (0.30%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 1 (0.15%) SRDF
11 1 (0.15%) Veritas Cluster Server
11 1 (0.15%) Xen
Systems Management
1 60 (9.01%) Kubernetes
2 40 (6.01%) Terraform
3 21 (3.15%) Ansible
4 13 (1.95%) Grafana
5 12 (1.80%) Puppet
5 12 (1.80%) SCCM
6 9 (1.35%) Microsoft Intune
7 8 (1.20%) NetBackup
7 8 (1.20%) vCenter Server
8 7 (1.05%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 7 (1.05%) Oracle RMAN
8 7 (1.05%) TIBCO Hawk
9 6 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
10 5 (0.75%) Data Guard
10 5 (0.75%) Progress Chef
10 5 (0.75%) SCOM
11 4 (0.60%) Microsoft Clustering
11 4 (0.60%) SCVMM
11 4 (0.60%) WSUS
11 4 (0.60%) yum
Vendors
1 206 (30.93%) Microsoft
2 205 (30.78%) Oracle
3 54 (8.11%) Databricks
4 43 (6.46%) Citrix
5 38 (5.71%) VMware
6 27 (4.05%) Google
6 27 (4.05%) Informatica
7 23 (3.45%) ServiceNow
8 20 (3.00%) SAP
9 19 (2.85%) IBM
10 13 (1.95%) Salesforce
11 11 (1.65%) Cisco
11 11 (1.65%) CyberArk
11 11 (1.65%) UiPath
12 10 (1.50%) Veritas
13 9 (1.35%) Advent
14 8 (1.20%) PagerDuty
15 7 (1.05%) BEA
15 7 (1.05%) SolarWinds
15 7 (1.05%) Splunk
458 SQL Server jobs in England