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

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 130 112 61
Rank change year-on-year -18 -51 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 964 698 1,121
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.07% 2.53% 3.48%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.90% 13.91% 19.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 676 512 802
10th Percentile £360 £313 £326
25th Percentile £413 £387 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -1.40% -5.65%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £483 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -3.40% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 38 5 6
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.86 £26.83
25th Percentile £18.29 £21.02 £32.63
Median hourly rate £47.54 £21.27 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +123.51% -50.53% -18.10%
75th Percentile £57.50 £77.50 £60.94
90th Percentile £74.60 £84.25 £82.50
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £72.50 £38.50
% change year-on-year -34.43% +88.31% -16.63%

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 6,933 5,018 5,850
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.90% 18.18% 18.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,628 3,452 4,033
10th Percentile £356 £338 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.46% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £623 £638 £675
90th Percentile £712 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £530
% change year-on-year - -5.66% -1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 243 73 82
10th Percentile £15.95 £21.06 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.11 £29.07 £21.44
Median hourly rate £39.50 £43.50 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -9.20% +20.00% -34.09%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £61.19
90th Percentile £74.94 £80.00 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £40.25 £35.00
% change year-on-year -0.16% +14.99% -36.36%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 -26 470 £500 -12.66% 517
North of England -11 185 £475 +9.20% 179
Midlands +8 116 £463 +20.13% 142
North West -5 106 £485 +10.23% 103
South East -39 94 £475 +35.71% 152
West Midlands +5 75 £460 -10.24% 90
Yorkshire -8 75 £450 +5.88% 63
South West -27 41 £630 +40.00% 36
East Midlands +2 40 £550 +68.45% 52
East of England -34 26 £425 -15.00% 54
North East -37 4 £425 - 15
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 75 (7.78%) SharePoint
2 44 (4.56%) Confluence
3 39 (4.05%) IIS
4 25 (2.59%) Apache Airflow
5 24 (2.49%) Microsoft Exchange
6 21 (2.18%) Apache
7 18 (1.87%) Apache Spark
7 18 (1.87%) Camunda
8 9 (0.93%) Oracle Workflow
9 6 (0.62%) Appian
9 6 (0.62%) CMS
10 5 (0.52%) Apache Solr
10 5 (0.52%) NetWeaver
10 5 (0.52%) Tuxedo
11 4 (0.41%) OpenEdge
11 4 (0.41%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.31%) nginx
12 3 (0.31%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.21%) ArcGIS
13 2 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 51 (5.29%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.11%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.04%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.31%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.21%) Windchill
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 34 (3.53%) Dynamics CRM
2 22 (2.28%) Remedy ITSM
3 14 (1.45%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.73%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.73%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.62%) Dynamics AX
5 6 (0.62%) Oracle Payables
6 5 (0.52%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.41%) Elite 3E
8 3 (0.31%) Dynamics NAV
9 2 (0.21%) Endur
9 2 (0.21%) Infor LN
9 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
9 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
10 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
10 1 (0.10%) Oracle Retail
10 1 (0.10%) Payment Gateway
10 1 (0.10%) Salesforce CRM
10 1 (0.10%) SAP Hybris
10 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 412 (42.74%) Azure
2 199 (20.64%) AWS
3 154 (15.98%) Power Platform
4 121 (12.55%) Azure DevOps
5 87 (9.02%) GitHub
6 53 (5.50%) Azure Data Factory
6 53 (5.50%) Entra ID
7 51 (5.29%) Serverless
8 45 (4.67%) Power Automate
9 44 (4.56%) Dynamics 365
10 42 (4.36%) Microsoft 365
11 39 (4.05%) Snowflake
12 37 (3.84%) GCP
13 35 (3.63%) Azure Monitor
14 32 (3.32%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 32 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
15 22 (2.28%) Azure Functions
15 22 (2.28%) dbt
15 22 (2.28%) GitHub Copilot
15 22 (2.28%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 48 (4.98%) DNS
2 42 (4.36%) DHCP
3 34 (3.53%) Firewall
4 19 (1.97%) VLAN
5 16 (1.66%) SAN
6 15 (1.56%) Internet
6 15 (1.56%) VPN
7 14 (1.45%) SSL
7 14 (1.45%) TCP/IP
8 13 (1.35%) Network Security
9 10 (1.04%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.93%) SSH
11 6 (0.62%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.62%) IPv4
11 6 (0.62%) IPv6
11 6 (0.62%) Kerberos
11 6 (0.62%) LAN
12 5 (0.52%) VoIP
12 5 (0.52%) WAN
13 3 (0.31%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 155 (16.08%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (13.07%) Power BI
3 94 (9.75%) Relational Database
4 91 (9.44%) Data Warehouse
5 90 (9.34%) MySQL
5 90 (9.34%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 57 (5.91%) Oracle Database
7 55 (5.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 54 (5.60%) MongoDB
9 52 (5.39%) Azure SQL Database
10 33 (3.42%) Data Lake
11 24 (2.49%) Amazon RDS
12 23 (2.39%) NoSQL
13 22 (2.28%) Redis
14 21 (2.18%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 20 (2.07%) RDBMS
15 20 (2.07%) Tableau
16 18 (1.87%) Metadata
17 13 (1.35%) Amazon Aurora
17 13 (1.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 106 (11.00%) Git
2 68 (7.05%) JIRA
3 51 (5.29%) Jenkins
4 32 (3.32%) GitLab
5 23 (2.39%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.18%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 17 (1.76%) Selenium
7 17 (1.76%) Sonatype Nexus
8 16 (1.66%) Maven
8 16 (1.66%) REST Assured
9 15 (1.56%) Team Foundation Server
10 14 (1.45%) Postman
11 12 (1.24%) Claude Code
11 12 (1.24%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.24%) Cypress.io
11 12 (1.24%) Gradle
11 12 (1.24%) JUnit
11 12 (1.24%) SonarQube
12 11 (1.14%) Mockito
12 11 (1.14%) TeamCity
General
1 306 (31.74%) Social Skills
2 249 (25.83%) Finance
3 175 (18.15%) Analytical Skills
4 123 (12.76%) Banking
5 73 (7.57%) Public Sector
6 41 (4.25%) Front Office
7 39 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
8 29 (3.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 23 (2.39%) Investment Banking
10 21 (2.18%) Retail
11 11 (1.14%) Financial Institution
11 11 (1.14%) Legal
12 10 (1.04%) Back Office
13 8 (0.83%) Billing
13 8 (0.83%) Manufacturing
14 7 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
15 6 (0.62%) Law
15 6 (0.62%) Local Government
15 6 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
15 6 (0.62%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 314 (32.57%) Developer
2 160 (16.60%) Senior
3 127 (13.17%) DBA
4 79 (8.20%) SQL DBA
5 73 (7.57%) .NET Developer
6 71 (7.37%) C# Developer
6 71 (7.37%) Data Engineer
7 70 (7.26%) Administrator
7 70 (7.26%) Lead
8 55 (5.71%) Full-Stack Developer
9 53 (5.50%) Senior Developer
10 52 (5.39%) Analyst
11 48 (4.98%) Architect
11 48 (4.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 46 (4.77%) SQL Developer
13 33 (3.42%) Software Engineer
14 27 (2.80%) C# .NET Developer
14 27 (2.80%) Oracle DBA
15 26 (2.70%) Azure Engineer
15 26 (2.70%) SC Cleared DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 275 (28.53%) .NET
2 127 (13.17%) REST
3 87 (9.02%) .NET Framework
4 82 (8.51%) React
5 69 (7.16%) Terraform
6 64 (6.64%) CSS
7 57 (5.91%) ASP.NET
7 57 (5.91%) HTML
7 57 (5.91%) Kafka
8 56 (5.81%) .NET Core
9 55 (5.71%) AngularJS
10 47 (4.88%) RESTful
11 46 (4.77%) JSON
12 39 (4.05%) Web Services
13 37 (3.84%) XML
14 34 (3.53%) Spring Boot
15 32 (3.32%) SOAP
16 29 (3.01%) OAuth
16 29 (3.01%) Spring
17 26 (2.70%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 62 (6.43%) Onboarding
2 59 (6.12%) Cloud Native
3 52 (5.39%) Enterprise Software
4 50 (5.19%) Data Structures
5 43 (4.46%) Clustering
6 40 (4.15%) Self-Motivation
7 38 (3.94%) Replication
8 36 (3.73%) Product Ownership
9 34 (3.53%) Management Information System
10 33 (3.42%) Data Centre
11 31 (3.22%) Legacy Systems
12 19 (1.97%) Distributed Systems
12 19 (1.97%) PKI
13 16 (1.66%) Virtual Team
14 14 (1.45%) Derivative
14 14 (1.45%) Low-Code
15 12 (1.24%) Algorithms
16 11 (1.14%) NHS
16 11 (1.14%) Taxonomies
17 10 (1.04%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 254 (26.35%) Windows
2 149 (15.46%) Windows Server
3 87 (9.02%) Linux
4 35 (3.63%) Unix
5 16 (1.66%) Solaris
6 13 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.24%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.83%) VMS
9 7 (0.73%) CentOS
9 7 (0.73%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.62%) Android
11 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.41%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.21%) AIX
12 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (26.04%) DevOps
2 238 (24.69%) Agile
3 236 (24.48%) CI/CD
4 193 (20.02%) Problem-Solving
5 174 (18.05%) Migration
6 141 (14.63%) ETL
7 138 (14.32%) Data Modelling
8 137 (14.21%) Business Intelligence
9 128 (13.28%) Performance Tuning
10 125 (12.97%) AI
11 115 (11.93%) Stakeholder Management
12 102 (10.58%) Continuous Improvement
12 102 (10.58%) Disaster Recovery
13 92 (9.54%) Microservices
14 87 (9.02%) Analytics
15 86 (8.92%) Test Automation
16 83 (8.61%) Software Engineering
17 75 (7.78%) Validation
18 74 (7.68%) Full-Stack Development
18 74 (7.68%) Mentoring
Programming Languages
1 567 (58.82%) SQL
2 277 (28.73%) C#
3 179 (18.57%) Python
4 171 (17.74%) PowerShell
5 158 (16.39%) T-SQL
6 146 (15.15%) JavaScript
7 80 (8.30%) Java
8 60 (6.22%) TypeScript
9 59 (6.12%) PL/SQL
10 31 (3.22%) Bash
11 18 (1.87%) VB
12 17 (1.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 16 (1.66%) VBA
14 8 (0.83%) Scala
14 8 (0.83%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.73%) PHP
15 7 (0.73%) VB.NET
16 6 (0.62%) Bicep
16 6 (0.62%) Go
16 6 (0.62%) XPath
Qualifications
1 241 (25.00%) Security Cleared
2 179 (18.57%) SC Cleared
3 106 (11.00%) Degree
4 56 (5.81%) Microsoft Certification
5 51 (5.29%) DV Cleared
6 31 (3.22%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.80%) Azure Certification
8 26 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.45%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.35%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.24%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.14%) OCP
13 9 (0.93%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 9 (0.93%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.52%) CISSP
15 5 (0.52%) DBS Check
16 4 (0.41%) PhD
17 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 92 (9.54%) QA
2 90 (9.34%) Data Quality
3 35 (3.63%) GDPR
4 34 (3.53%) Accessibility
5 26 (2.70%) WCAG
6 22 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 20 (2.07%) NIST
8 17 (1.76%) SLA
9 5 (0.52%) ISO 9000
10 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.31%) Basel III
11 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.21%) COREP
11 2 (0.21%) FINREP
11 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.21%) GRC
11 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
11 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
12 1 (0.10%) HL7
System Software
1 126 (13.07%) Active Directory
2 65 (6.74%) Docker
3 42 (4.36%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.42%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (1.76%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.04%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.62%) vSphere
9 4 (0.41%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.31%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) HDFS
11 1 (0.10%) NFS
11 1 (0.10%) RACF
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 84 (8.71%) Kubernetes
2 41 (4.25%) Ansible
3 20 (2.07%) SCOM
4 14 (1.45%) Data Guard
4 14 (1.45%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (1.24%) SCCM
6 11 (1.14%) Microsoft Clustering
7 10 (1.04%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
7 10 (1.04%) WSUS
8 8 (0.83%) HAProxy
9 7 (0.73%) Grafana
10 6 (0.62%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.62%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.52%) Istio
11 5 (0.52%) ITRS Geneos
11 5 (0.52%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.31%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 3 (0.31%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 342 (35.48%) Microsoft
2 251 (26.04%) Oracle
3 73 (7.57%) Databricks
4 66 (6.85%) VMware
5 49 (5.08%) ServiceNow
6 45 (4.67%) CyberArk
7 40 (4.15%) Citrix
8 30 (3.11%) BeyondTrust
8 30 (3.11%) SAP
9 23 (2.39%) IBM
10 22 (2.28%) BMC
10 22 (2.28%) Remedy
11 21 (2.18%) Cisco
12 19 (1.97%) Informatica
13 17 (1.76%) Google
14 16 (1.66%) Dynatrace
15 15 (1.56%) Red Hat
16 13 (1.35%) Alteryx
16 13 (1.35%) Splunk
17 11 (1.14%) Sybase