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 6 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
6 Mar 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 82 66
Rank change year-on-year -45 -16 -16
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 758 750 1,168
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.08% 2.94% 3.09%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.92% 15.53% 19.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 523 541 839
10th Percentile £355 £350 £325
25th Percentile £404 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £523 £525
Median % change year-on-year -7.18% -0.48% -4.55%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £675 £700 £725
UK median daily rate £485 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.86% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 6 27
10th Percentile £12.95 £42.63 £20.59
25th Percentile £20.38 £60.66 £38.81
Median hourly rate £26.72 £63.75 £40.25
Median % change year-on-year -58.08% +58.37% -7.61%
75th Percentile £53.19 £65.46 £58.74
90th Percentile £69.72 £65.62 £65.80
UK median hourly rate £28.68 £60.50 £40.25
% change year-on-year -52.60% +50.31% -13.10%

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 5,866 4,828 6,083
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 16.12% 18.89% 16.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,076 3,325 4,344
10th Percentile £344 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -4.55%
75th Percentile £600 £663 £663
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 110 85 154
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £15.54
25th Percentile £26.69 £24.75 £21.15
Median hourly rate £51.25 £38.11 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.48% -10.33% -24.95%
75th Percentile £74.92 £65.00 £61.69
90th Percentile £85.03 £70.00 £77.21
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £32.81 £42.50
% change year-on-year +60.01% -22.80% -23.70%

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 6 March 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 6 March 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 6 March 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 -30 468 £500 -9.09% 131
South East -43 96 £484 -3.20% 147
North of England -51 86 £439 -7.68% 111
North West -23 52 £450 +2.86% 72
Midlands -78 34 £450 -10.00% 56
Yorkshire -46 32 £400 -20.60% 30
South West -41 27 £550 - 56
West Midlands -64 25 £449 -20.90% 27
East of England -10 22 £600 +14.83% 32
East Midlands -34 7 £425 +11.70% 28
North East -12 3 £475 +14.11% 13
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 35 (4.62%) SharePoint
2 27 (3.56%) IIS
3 24 (3.17%) Confluence
3 24 (3.17%) Microsoft Exchange
4 14 (1.85%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 11 (1.45%) WebSphere
6 10 (1.32%) Apache Spark
6 10 (1.32%) Appian
7 9 (1.19%) Apache
7 9 (1.19%) Apache Airflow
7 9 (1.19%) CMS
8 7 (0.92%) WebLogic
9 6 (0.79%) Sitecore CMS
10 3 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
10 3 (0.40%) SharePoint Server
11 2 (0.26%) Camunda
11 2 (0.26%) NetWeaver
12 1 (0.13%) Anypoint
12 1 (0.13%) BizTalk Server
12 1 (0.13%) GeoServer
Applications
1 37 (4.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.85%) MS Visio
3 13 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (0.66%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.13%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 9 (1.19%) Advent Geneva
2 8 (1.06%) Dynamics CRM
3 7 (0.92%) BusinessWorks
4 6 (0.79%) Salesforce CRM
5 5 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
6 4 (0.53%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
7 3 (0.40%) Loan IQ
7 3 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 3 (0.40%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 2 (0.26%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle General Ledger
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Payables
8 2 (0.26%) Oracle Receivables
8 2 (0.26%) SystmOne
8 2 (0.26%) Veritas eDiscovery
9 1 (0.13%) Elite 3E
9 1 (0.13%) Orchestrade
9 1 (0.13%) RMDS
9 1 (0.13%) SAP R/3
Cloud Services
1 329 (43.40%) Azure
2 161 (21.24%) AWS
3 129 (17.02%) Power Platform
4 97 (12.80%) Azure DevOps
5 66 (8.71%) Azure Data Factory
6 62 (8.18%) GitHub
7 51 (6.73%) GCP
8 38 (5.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 36 (4.75%) Microsoft 365
10 31 (4.09%) SaaS
11 28 (3.69%) Snowflake
12 26 (3.43%) Amazon S3
12 26 (3.43%) GitHub Actions
13 22 (2.90%) Power Automate
14 21 (2.77%) Amazon EC2
14 21 (2.77%) Dynamics 365
14 21 (2.77%) IaaS
15 18 (2.37%) AWS CloudFormation
16 17 (2.24%) Entra ID
16 17 (2.24%) Serverless
Communications & Networking
1 26 (3.43%) Firewall
2 22 (2.90%) DNS
3 15 (1.98%) DHCP
3 15 (1.98%) TCP/IP
4 12 (1.58%) Internet
5 11 (1.45%) HTTP
5 11 (1.45%) VPN
6 7 (0.92%) LAN
6 7 (0.92%) SAN
7 6 (0.79%) NetScaler
7 6 (0.79%) VLAN
7 6 (0.79%) Wi-Fi
8 4 (0.53%) FTP
8 4 (0.53%) RS-232
8 4 (0.53%) X.400
9 3 (0.40%) Skype
9 3 (0.40%) SSH
9 3 (0.40%) SSL
9 3 (0.40%) VoIP
9 3 (0.40%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 110 (14.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 109 (14.38%) PostgreSQL
3 107 (14.12%) Power BI
4 90 (11.87%) Data Warehouse
5 88 (11.61%) Relational Database
6 66 (8.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 64 (8.44%) Oracle Database
8 55 (7.26%) MySQL
9 52 (6.86%) Azure SQL Database
10 50 (6.60%) Data Lake
11 43 (5.67%) NoSQL
12 41 (5.41%) MongoDB
13 30 (3.96%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 27 (3.56%) DB2
15 26 (3.43%) RDBMS
16 23 (3.03%) Amazon RDS
16 23 (3.03%) Big Data
17 21 (2.77%) Metadata
18 19 (2.51%) Delta Lake
19 16 (2.11%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 63 (8.31%) Git
2 53 (6.99%) JIRA
3 35 (4.62%) Jenkins
4 26 (3.43%) Visual Studio
5 22 (2.90%) GitLab
6 14 (1.85%) Postman
7 12 (1.58%) TeamCity
8 11 (1.45%) Cucumber
8 11 (1.45%) Octopus Deploy
8 11 (1.45%) SpecFlow
8 11 (1.45%) Team Foundation Server
9 10 (1.32%) JUnit
10 9 (1.19%) ERwin
11 8 (1.06%) Maven
11 8 (1.06%) MLflow
11 8 (1.06%) Mockito
11 8 (1.06%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
12 7 (0.92%) Selenium
13 6 (0.79%) Chocolatey
13 6 (0.79%) REST Assured
General
1 227 (29.95%) Social Skills
2 191 (25.20%) Finance
3 117 (15.44%) Analytical Skills
4 101 (13.32%) Banking
5 60 (7.92%) Public Sector
6 37 (4.88%) Documentation Skills
7 24 (3.17%) Investment Banking
8 21 (2.77%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 17 (2.24%) Front Office
10 15 (1.98%) Financial Institution
11 13 (1.72%) Retail
12 9 (1.19%) Legal
13 7 (0.92%) Local Government
14 6 (0.79%) Law
14 6 (0.79%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (0.79%) Presentation Skills
14 6 (0.79%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.66%) Manufacturing
16 4 (0.53%) Advertising
16 4 (0.53%) Military
Job Titles
1 247 (32.59%) Developer
2 113 (14.91%) Senior
3 98 (12.93%) Data Engineer
4 79 (10.42%) C# Developer
5 69 (9.10%) Architect
6 67 (8.84%) DBA
7 57 (7.52%) .NET Developer
8 41 (5.41%) SQL DBA
9 39 (5.15%) Analyst
10 38 (5.01%) Senior Developer
11 35 (4.62%) Lead
12 31 (4.09%) Senior Data Engineer
13 28 (3.69%) Full-Stack Developer
14 27 (3.56%) Software Engineer
15 26 (3.43%) Azure Engineer
16 24 (3.17%) C# .NET Developer
17 22 (2.90%) Data Architect
18 21 (2.77%) Consultant
18 21 (2.77%) SQL Developer
19 19 (2.51%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 211 (27.84%) .NET
2 91 (12.01%) .NET Framework
3 83 (10.95%) REST
4 61 (8.05%) React
5 58 (7.65%) AngularJS
6 50 (6.60%) HTML
7 46 (6.07%) RESTful
8 44 (5.80%) CSS
9 40 (5.28%) .NET Core
10 37 (4.88%) Kafka
10 37 (4.88%) XML
11 35 (4.62%) ASP.NET
12 32 (4.22%) Entity Framework
13 30 (3.96%) Web Services
14 23 (3.03%) WPF
15 22 (2.90%) OAuth
16 21 (2.77%) Spring
17 20 (2.64%) JSON
18 19 (2.51%) SOAP
18 19 (2.51%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 47 (6.20%) Legacy Systems
2 33 (4.35%) Cloud Native
3 27 (3.56%) Replication
4 26 (3.43%) Enterprise Software
5 23 (3.03%) Management Information System
6 21 (2.77%) Data Structures
7 20 (2.64%) Onboarding
8 18 (2.37%) Clustering
9 12 (1.58%) Derivative
9 12 (1.58%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
9 12 (1.58%) Product Ownership
10 11 (1.45%) Low-Code
10 11 (1.45%) PKI
10 11 (1.45%) Reinsurance
10 11 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
11 10 (1.32%) Credit Risk
11 10 (1.32%) Data Protection Act
11 10 (1.32%) Greenfield Project
11 10 (1.32%) Linux Command Line
11 10 (1.32%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 147 (19.39%) Windows
2 77 (10.16%) Linux
3 76 (10.03%) Windows Server
4 30 (3.96%) Unix
5 12 (1.58%) Windows 10
5 12 (1.58%) Windows Server 2016
6 8 (1.06%) AIX
6 8 (1.06%) Windows Server 2019
7 5 (0.66%) Windows Server 2012
8 4 (0.53%) Android
8 4 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 3 (0.40%) Windows Server 2003
10 2 (0.26%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.26%) VMS
10 2 (0.26%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.13%) Mac OS X
11 1 (0.13%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 177 (23.35%) CI/CD
2 176 (23.22%) Agile
3 168 (22.16%) DevOps
4 166 (21.90%) Problem-Solving
5 158 (20.84%) ETL
6 144 (19.00%) Business Intelligence
7 128 (16.89%) Data Modelling
8 116 (15.30%) Migration
9 89 (11.74%) Analytics
10 84 (11.08%) Performance Tuning
11 78 (10.29%) Disaster Recovery
12 73 (9.63%) Microservices
13 71 (9.37%) Data Engineering
13 71 (9.37%) Data Pipeline
14 69 (9.10%) Test Automation
15 66 (8.71%) Data Governance
16 63 (8.31%) Data Analysis
17 60 (7.92%) Containerisation
18 58 (7.65%) AI
19 55 (7.26%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 444 (58.58%) SQL
2 195 (25.73%) C#
3 173 (22.82%) Python
4 104 (13.72%) T-SQL
5 85 (11.21%) PowerShell
6 68 (8.97%) JavaScript
7 62 (8.18%) Java
7 62 (8.18%) PL/SQL
8 44 (5.80%) TypeScript
9 37 (4.88%) Bash
10 23 (3.03%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 17 (2.24%) VB
12 15 (1.98%) Bicep
12 15 (1.98%) Shell Script
13 13 (1.72%) Korn
13 13 (1.72%) PHP
13 13 (1.72%) VBA
14 7 (0.92%) Scala
14 7 (0.92%) XPath
15 4 (0.53%) R
Qualifications
1 137 (18.07%) Security Cleared
2 99 (13.06%) SC Cleared
3 82 (10.82%) Degree
4 29 (3.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 26 (3.43%) Computer Science Degree
6 22 (2.90%) Azure Certification
7 18 (2.37%) DV Cleared
8 15 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
9 8 (1.06%) Master's Degree
10 7 (0.92%) OCP
10 7 (0.92%) Oracle Certification
11 5 (0.66%) AWS Certification
11 5 (0.66%) CCA
11 5 (0.66%) Citrix Certification
11 5 (0.66%) ITIL Certification
12 4 (0.53%) Cisco Certification
12 4 (0.53%) CISSP
12 4 (0.53%) MCITP
12 4 (0.53%) MCTS
12 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 85 (11.21%) QA
2 81 (10.69%) Data Quality
3 19 (2.51%) GDPR
4 13 (1.72%) SLA
5 8 (1.06%) NIST
6 7 (0.92%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.79%) Accessibility
8 4 (0.53%) IFRS
8 4 (0.53%) WCAG
9 3 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
9 3 (0.40%) HIPAA
9 3 (0.40%) IFRS 17
9 3 (0.40%) IFRS 9
9 3 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 2 (0.26%) Basel III
10 2 (0.26%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 2 (0.26%) EMIR
10 2 (0.26%) GAAP
10 2 (0.26%) NIST 800
10 2 (0.26%) Solvency II
System Software
1 85 (11.21%) Docker
2 60 (7.92%) Active Directory
3 21 (2.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (2.24%) Hyper-V
5 12 (1.58%) Oracle RAC
5 12 (1.58%) Virtual Machines
6 10 (1.32%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.79%) KVM
8 5 (0.66%) VMware NSX
8 5 (0.66%) XenApp
8 5 (0.66%) XenDesktop
9 3 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.40%) zsh
10 2 (0.26%) NDS
10 2 (0.26%) NetIQ eDirectory
10 2 (0.26%) vSphere
11 1 (0.13%) Citrix Hypervisor
11 1 (0.13%) GridGain
Systems Management
1 80 (10.55%) Kubernetes
2 49 (6.46%) Terraform
3 17 (2.24%) Ansible
4 15 (1.98%) Grafana
4 15 (1.98%) Oracle RMAN
4 15 (1.98%) SCCM
5 11 (1.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 11 (1.45%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 11 (1.45%) vCenter Server
6 10 (1.32%) Puppet
7 7 (0.92%) Single Sign-On
7 7 (0.92%) TIBCO Hawk
8 6 (0.79%) IBM BigFix
9 5 (0.66%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 5 (0.66%) SCVMM
10 4 (0.53%) NetBackup
10 4 (0.53%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.53%) WSUS
11 3 (0.40%) Control-M
11 3 (0.40%) SCOM
Vendors
1 232 (30.61%) Oracle
2 223 (29.42%) Microsoft
3 60 (7.92%) Databricks
4 49 (6.46%) Citrix
5 36 (4.75%) VMware
6 29 (3.83%) Informatica
6 29 (3.83%) ServiceNow
7 21 (2.77%) Google
8 20 (2.64%) IBM
9 17 (2.24%) SAP
10 13 (1.72%) CyberArk
10 13 (1.72%) UiPath
11 10 (1.32%) Dynatrace
11 10 (1.32%) OpenAI
11 10 (1.32%) Sybase
12 9 (1.19%) Advent
12 9 (1.19%) Salesforce
12 9 (1.19%) SolarWinds
13 8 (1.06%) PagerDuty
13 8 (1.06%) Sitecore
490 SQL Server jobs in England