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 7 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

 6 months to
7 Aug 2026		 Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 111 106 54
Rank change year-on-year -5 -52 0
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,022 696 1,225
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.24% 2.52% 3.67%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.61% 13.85% 19.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 718 516 865
10th Percentile £358 £313 £331
25th Percentile £413 £400 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £503
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% -0.50% -4.29%
75th Percentile £600 £642 £625
90th Percentile £712 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £480 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -4.00% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 6 9
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.89 £29.48
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £36.75
Median hourly rate £47.54 £23.80 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +99.79% -51.00% +5.57%
75th Percentile £63.75 £64.71 £62.96
90th Percentile £76.30 £83.13 £84.00
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £70.00 £48.03
% change year-on-year -32.09% +45.74% +6.73%

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 6,997 5,027 6,129
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.33% 18.22% 18.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,682 3,483 4,369
10th Percentile £358 £343 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -4.28% -2.18%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £675
90th Percentile £701 £763 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £510 £525
% change year-on-year -1.96% -2.86% -3.67%
Number of hourly rates quoted 225 79 92
10th Percentile £15.96 £18.69 £14.33
25th Percentile £25.05 £23.50 £20.00
Median hourly rate £38.50 £34.65 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year +11.11% -4.41% -34.09%
75th Percentile £63.75 £62.88 £60.36
90th Percentile £76.80 £77.74 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year +12.86% - -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 7 August 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 7 August 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 7 August 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 -30 491 £525 -4.55% 213
North of England +4 204 £450 - 92
South East -13 127 £450 +8.43% 98
North West 0 113 £475 +7.95% 54
Midlands -9 101 £473 +10.64% 62
Yorkshire +15 91 £450 -6.25% 26
West Midlands -33 58 £450 -14.29% 41
South West -6 49 £513 +13.89% 23
East Midlands +10 41 £525 +54.41% 21
East of England -19 26 £475 -5.00% 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 70 (6.85%) SharePoint
2 48 (4.70%) IIS
3 42 (4.11%) Confluence
4 23 (2.25%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (1.86%) Apache
5 19 (1.86%) Apache Spark
6 17 (1.66%) Apache Airflow
7 13 (1.27%) Camunda
8 11 (1.08%) Oracle Workflow
9 8 (0.78%) Appian
10 7 (0.68%) CMS
11 6 (0.59%) NetWeaver
12 5 (0.49%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.49%) Tuxedo
13 4 (0.39%) Apache Solr
13 4 (0.39%) Tomcat
13 4 (0.39%) Umbraco
14 3 (0.29%) Apache Superset
14 3 (0.29%) nginx
15 2 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 50 (4.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 24 (2.35%) Microsoft Office
3 11 (1.08%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.20%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.098%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.098%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.098%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 26 (2.54%) Remedy ITSM
2 20 (1.96%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.57%) SAP S/4HANA
4 7 (0.68%) OpenText MBPM
4 7 (0.68%) Oracle BPM
5 6 (0.59%) Dynamics AX
6 5 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
7 4 (0.39%) Aladdin
7 4 (0.39%) Elite 3E
8 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
8 2 (0.20%) Endur
8 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
8 2 (0.20%) Loan IQ
8 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
8 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
9 1 (0.098%) Findur
9 1 (0.098%) Payment Gateway
9 1 (0.098%) SAP Business One
9 1 (0.098%) SAP CRM
9 1 (0.098%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 425 (41.59%) Azure
2 212 (20.74%) AWS
3 156 (15.26%) Power Platform
4 111 (10.86%) Azure DevOps
5 91 (8.90%) GitHub
6 65 (6.36%) Azure Data Factory
7 50 (4.89%) Entra ID
8 42 (4.11%) Azure Monitor
8 42 (4.11%) Serverless
9 41 (4.01%) Microsoft 365
9 41 (4.01%) Power Automate
10 40 (3.91%) GitHub Actions
11 38 (3.72%) Snowflake
12 35 (3.42%) Dynamics 365
13 34 (3.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 31 (3.03%) GCP
15 26 (2.54%) dbt
16 25 (2.45%) SaaS
17 23 (2.25%) PowerApps
18 22 (2.15%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 49 (4.79%) DNS
2 39 (3.82%) DHCP
3 30 (2.94%) Firewall
4 19 (1.86%) SAN
5 18 (1.76%) VLAN
6 15 (1.47%) VPN
7 14 (1.37%) Internet
8 13 (1.27%) Network Security
9 12 (1.17%) SSH
9 12 (1.17%) TCP/IP
10 11 (1.08%) Wi-Fi
11 10 (0.98%) SSL
12 7 (0.68%) LAN
13 6 (0.59%) HTTPS
13 6 (0.59%) IPv4
13 6 (0.59%) IPv6
14 5 (0.49%) Kerberos
14 5 (0.49%) VoIP
14 5 (0.49%) WAN
15 3 (0.29%) NAS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 143 (13.99%) PostgreSQL
2 132 (12.92%) Power BI
3 103 (10.08%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 101 (9.88%) Data Warehouse
4 101 (9.88%) Relational Database
5 72 (7.05%) Oracle Database
6 66 (6.46%) MySQL
7 63 (6.16%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 57 (5.58%) Azure SQL Database
9 43 (4.21%) MongoDB
10 38 (3.72%) Data Lake
11 32 (3.13%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 29 (2.84%) NoSQL
13 23 (2.25%) RDBMS
14 20 (1.96%) Tableau
15 17 (1.66%) Redis
16 16 (1.57%) Star Schema
17 15 (1.47%) Amazon RDS
18 14 (1.37%) Metadata
19 12 (1.17%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 91 (8.90%) Git
2 54 (5.28%) Jenkins
2 54 (5.28%) JIRA
3 28 (2.74%) GitLab
4 24 (2.35%) Visual Studio
5 18 (1.76%) TeamCity
6 17 (1.66%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 17 (1.66%) Team Foundation Server
7 15 (1.47%) Maven
8 14 (1.37%) Sonatype Nexus
9 13 (1.27%) Octopus Deploy
9 13 (1.27%) Postman
10 12 (1.17%) Cucumber
11 11 (1.08%) Selenium
12 10 (0.98%) Artifactory
13 9 (0.88%) Cypress.io
13 9 (0.88%) Gatling
13 9 (0.88%) WebDriver
14 8 (0.78%) Chocolatey
14 8 (0.78%) REST Assured
General
1 298 (29.16%) Social Skills
2 258 (25.24%) Finance
3 186 (18.20%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (12.52%) Banking
5 81 (7.93%) Public Sector
6 45 (4.40%) Documentation Skills
7 40 (3.91%) Front Office
8 26 (2.54%) Investment Banking
9 20 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 16 (1.57%) Legal
10 16 (1.57%) Organisational Skills
11 14 (1.37%) Financial Institution
11 14 (1.37%) Retail
12 9 (0.88%) Advertising
13 8 (0.78%) Back Office
13 8 (0.78%) Manufacturing
14 6 (0.59%) Local Government
14 6 (0.59%) Telecoms
15 5 (0.49%) Law
15 5 (0.49%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 300 (29.35%) Developer
2 158 (15.46%) Senior
3 149 (14.58%) DBA
4 94 (9.20%) SQL DBA
5 88 (8.61%) Data Engineer
6 85 (8.32%) C# Developer
7 79 (7.73%) .NET Developer
8 73 (7.14%) Lead
9 61 (5.97%) Administrator
10 52 (5.09%) Architect
11 50 (4.89%) SQL Developer
12 48 (4.70%) Senior Developer
13 47 (4.60%) Analyst
14 45 (4.40%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 43 (4.21%) Oracle DBA
16 39 (3.82%) Full-Stack Developer
16 39 (3.82%) Software Engineer
17 35 (3.42%) Azure Engineer
18 33 (3.23%) Consultant
19 32 (3.13%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 262 (25.64%) .NET
2 124 (12.13%) REST
3 102 (9.98%) .NET Framework
4 76 (7.44%) React
5 60 (5.87%) ASP.NET
6 55 (5.38%) AngularJS
6 55 (5.38%) RESTful
7 53 (5.19%) CSS
8 52 (5.09%) Kafka
9 46 (4.50%) .NET Core
10 43 (4.21%) HTML
11 36 (3.52%) JSON
11 36 (3.52%) Web Services
12 34 (3.33%) XML
13 29 (2.84%) SOAP
14 28 (2.74%) Entity Framework
15 23 (2.25%) WinForms
16 22 (2.15%) OAuth
16 22 (2.15%) Spring Boot
17 21 (2.05%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 61 (5.97%) Onboarding
2 50 (4.89%) Cloud Native
3 49 (4.79%) Clustering
4 48 (4.70%) Data Structures
5 45 (4.40%) Replication
6 44 (4.31%) Legacy Systems
7 41 (4.01%) Self-Motivation
8 38 (3.72%) Enterprise Software
9 26 (2.54%) Management Information System
10 22 (2.15%) Data Centre
10 22 (2.15%) PKI
10 22 (2.15%) Product Ownership
11 17 (1.66%) Derivative
12 15 (1.47%) Low-Code
13 14 (1.37%) Distributed Systems
14 13 (1.27%) NHS
15 12 (1.17%) Algorithms
16 11 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
16 11 (1.08%) Fixed Income
16 11 (1.08%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 267 (26.13%) Windows
2 152 (14.87%) Windows Server
3 99 (9.69%) Linux
4 54 (5.28%) Unix
5 13 (1.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.78%) Ubuntu
6 8 (0.78%) VMS
6 8 (0.78%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.68%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.59%) AIX
8 6 (0.59%) Android
8 6 (0.59%) Windows Server 2012
9 5 (0.49%) Solaris
9 5 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (0.39%) Windows Server 2008
11 3 (0.29%) CentOS
12 2 (0.20%) OpenVMS
13 1 (0.098%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.098%) Windows 7
13 1 (0.098%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 256 (25.05%) DevOps
2 227 (22.21%) Agile
3 226 (22.11%) CI/CD
4 205 (20.06%) Problem-Solving
5 187 (18.30%) Migration
6 159 (15.56%) ETL
7 153 (14.97%) Business Intelligence
8 138 (13.50%) Performance Tuning
9 136 (13.31%) Data Modelling
10 119 (11.64%) Disaster Recovery
11 114 (11.15%) AI
12 100 (9.78%) Analytics
13 93 (9.10%) High Availability
14 90 (8.81%) Data Pipeline
15 83 (8.12%) Continuous Improvement
16 82 (8.02%) Microservices
17 81 (7.93%) Test Automation
18 79 (7.73%) Stakeholder Management
19 78 (7.63%) Data Analysis
20 77 (7.53%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 574 (56.16%) SQL
2 267 (26.13%) C#
3 203 (19.86%) Python
4 189 (18.49%) PowerShell
5 168 (16.44%) T-SQL
6 114 (11.15%) JavaScript
7 73 (7.14%) Java
8 64 (6.26%) PL/SQL
9 50 (4.89%) TypeScript
10 37 (3.62%) Bash
11 26 (2.54%) Shell Script
12 24 (2.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 18 (1.76%) Korn
14 17 (1.66%) Scala
14 17 (1.66%) VB
15 15 (1.47%) VBA
16 10 (0.98%) Bicep
17 8 (0.78%) VB.NET
18 6 (0.59%) XPath
19 5 (0.49%) VB6
Qualifications
1 260 (25.44%) Security Cleared
2 197 (19.28%) SC Cleared
3 102 (9.98%) Degree
4 43 (4.21%) DV Cleared
5 42 (4.11%) Microsoft Certification
6 26 (2.54%) Computer Science Degree
7 21 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
8 19 (1.86%) Azure Certification
9 12 (1.17%) ISTQB
9 12 (1.17%) Oracle Certification
10 11 (1.08%) OCP
11 9 (0.88%) DBS Check
12 6 (0.59%) CISSP
12 6 (0.59%) Master's Degree
13 5 (0.49%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.49%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
14 4 (0.39%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 4 (0.39%) MCITP
14 4 (0.39%) MCTS
14 4 (0.39%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (9.49%) QA
2 89 (8.71%) Data Quality
3 29 (2.84%) GDPR
4 27 (2.64%) NIST
5 25 (2.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 24 (2.35%) Accessibility
7 20 (1.96%) SLA
8 16 (1.57%) WCAG
9 6 (0.59%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 5 (0.49%) ISO 9000
11 4 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 3 (0.29%) HIPAA
13 2 (0.20%) Basel III
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 (0.098%) IFRS
System Software
1 130 (12.72%) Active Directory
2 74 (7.24%) Docker
3 36 (3.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.23%) Virtual Machines
5 30 (2.94%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (0.98%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.68%) Virtual Desktop
8 4 (0.39%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.29%) Dovecot
9 3 (0.29%) GridGain
9 3 (0.29%) KVM
9 3 (0.29%) Postfix
9 3 (0.29%) VMware ESXi
9 3 (0.29%) vSphere
10 1 (0.098%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.098%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.098%) SRDF
10 1 (0.098%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.098%) XenApp
10 1 (0.098%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 101 (9.88%) Kubernetes
2 76 (7.44%) Terraform
3 40 (3.91%) Ansible
4 23 (2.25%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 21 (2.05%) Oracle RMAN
6 15 (1.47%) Data Guard
6 15 (1.47%) Microsoft Intune
7 14 (1.37%) SCCM
8 13 (1.27%) HAProxy
8 13 (1.27%) SCOM
9 10 (0.98%) Microsoft Clustering
9 10 (0.98%) WSUS
10 9 (0.88%) Grafana
11 7 (0.68%) Failover Clustering
11 7 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.39%) ITRS Geneos
12 4 (0.39%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.39%) vCenter Server
13 3 (0.29%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
13 3 (0.29%) Foglight
Vendors
1 331 (32.39%) Microsoft
2 277 (27.10%) Oracle
3 63 (6.16%) Databricks
4 61 (5.97%) VMware
5 52 (5.09%) ServiceNow
6 50 (4.89%) CyberArk
7 48 (4.70%) Citrix
8 36 (3.52%) SAP
9 32 (3.13%) BeyondTrust
10 26 (2.54%) Remedy
11 25 (2.45%) BMC
12 20 (1.96%) Cisco
13 19 (1.86%) Informatica
13 19 (1.86%) Sybase
14 18 (1.76%) Dynatrace
15 17 (1.66%) Red Hat
16 16 (1.57%) IBM
17 14 (1.37%) Google
18 13 (1.27%) Alteryx
19 10 (0.98%) AppDynamics
480 SQL Server jobs in England