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

6 months to
20 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 135 108 60
Rank change year-on-year -27 -48 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 961 702 1,174
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.08% 2.53% 3.56%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.93% 13.91% 19.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 678 513 843
10th Percentile £363 £313 £331
25th Percentile £413 £385 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £496 £513
Median % change year-on-year -1.61% -3.32% -4.65%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £725 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £485 £496 £503
% change year-on-year -2.22% -1.29% -4.29%
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 6,898 5,046 5,992
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 14.89% 18.17% 18.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,613 3,465 4,141
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 £625 £638 £675
90th Percentile £713 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.19% -1.84%
Number of hourly rates quoted 240 76 82
10th Percentile £15.82 £21.11 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.16 £29.21 £21.44
Median hourly rate £38.50 £44.25 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year -12.99% +22.07% -34.09%
75th Percentile £60.75 £65.00 £61.19
90th Percentile £75.00 £80.00 £71.50
UK median hourly rate £40.18 £43.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -7.63% +24.29% -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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -33 472 £505 -8.18% 547
North of England -5 184 £475 +10.47% 154
Midlands +11 115 £463 +21.71% 125
North West -3 106 £485 +12.79% 89
South East -37 93 £475 +35.71% 147
West Midlands -3 74 £460 -8.68% 74
Yorkshire -10 74 £450 +5.88% 54
South West -25 41 £630 +40.00% 34
East Midlands +5 40 £550 +68.45% 51
East of England -33 25 £425 -15.00% 34
North East -42 4 £425 -5.56% 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 75 (7.80%) SharePoint
2 43 (4.47%) Confluence
3 40 (4.16%) IIS
4 25 (2.60%) Apache Airflow
5 24 (2.50%) Microsoft Exchange
6 21 (2.19%) Apache
7 18 (1.87%) Apache Spark
7 18 (1.87%) Camunda
8 9 (0.94%) 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 (0.42%) OpenEdge
11 4 (0.42%) Umbraco
12 3 (0.31%) nginx
12 3 (0.31%) Tomcat
13 2 (0.21%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 2 (0.21%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 50 (5.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 30 (3.12%) 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 (3.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 22 (2.29%) Remedy ITSM
3 14 (1.46%) 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 (0.42%) 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%) Findur
10 1 (0.10%) FIS Private Capital Suite
10 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
10 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
10 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
10 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 409 (42.56%) Azure
2 199 (20.71%) AWS
3 154 (16.02%) Power Platform
4 118 (12.28%) Azure DevOps
5 86 (8.95%) GitHub
6 53 (5.52%) Azure Data Factory
6 53 (5.52%) Entra ID
7 50 (5.20%) Serverless
8 45 (4.68%) Power Automate
9 44 (4.58%) Dynamics 365
10 42 (4.37%) Microsoft 365
11 39 (4.06%) Snowflake
12 37 (3.85%) GCP
13 35 (3.64%) Azure Monitor
14 33 (3.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 32 (3.33%) GitHub Actions
16 22 (2.29%) dbt
16 22 (2.29%) GitHub Copilot
16 22 (2.29%) SaaS
17 21 (2.19%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 48 (4.99%) DNS
2 42 (4.37%) DHCP
3 34 (3.54%) Firewall
4 19 (1.98%) VLAN
5 16 (1.66%) SAN
6 15 (1.56%) Internet
6 15 (1.56%) VPN
7 14 (1.46%) SSL
7 14 (1.46%) TCP/IP
8 13 (1.35%) Network Security
9 10 (1.04%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.94%) 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
1 154 (16.02%) PostgreSQL
2 126 (13.11%) Power BI
3 94 (9.78%) Relational Database
4 91 (9.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 90 (9.37%) Data Warehouse
6 89 (9.26%) MySQL
7 58 (6.04%) Oracle Database
8 54 (5.62%) MongoDB
8 54 (5.62%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 52 (5.41%) Azure SQL Database
10 33 (3.43%) Data Lake
11 24 (2.50%) Amazon RDS
11 24 (2.50%) NoSQL
12 22 (2.29%) Redis
13 21 (2.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 20 (2.08%) RDBMS
14 20 (2.08%) Tableau
15 18 (1.87%) Metadata
16 13 (1.35%) Amazon Aurora
16 13 (1.35%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 105 (10.93%) Git
2 66 (6.87%) JIRA
3 51 (5.31%) Jenkins
4 32 (3.33%) GitLab
5 23 (2.39%) Visual Studio
6 21 (2.19%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 17 (1.77%) Selenium
7 17 (1.77%) Sonatype Nexus
8 16 (1.66%) Maven
9 15 (1.56%) REST Assured
9 15 (1.56%) Team Foundation Server
10 14 (1.46%) Postman
11 12 (1.25%) Claude Code
11 12 (1.25%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.25%) Cypress.io
11 12 (1.25%) Gradle
11 12 (1.25%) JUnit
11 12 (1.25%) SonarQube
11 12 (1.25%) TeamCity
12 11 (1.14%) Mockito
General
1 306 (31.84%) Social Skills
2 251 (26.12%) Finance
3 177 (18.42%) Analytical Skills
4 127 (13.22%) Banking
5 73 (7.60%) Public Sector
6 42 (4.37%) Front Office
7 39 (4.06%) Documentation Skills
8 29 (3.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 25 (2.60%) Investment Banking
10 21 (2.19%) Retail
11 11 (1.14%) Legal
12 10 (1.04%) Back Office
12 10 (1.04%) Financial Institution
13 8 (0.83%) Billing
13 8 (0.83%) Manufacturing
13 8 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
14 6 (0.62%) Presentation Skills
15 5 (0.52%) Local Government
15 5 (0.52%) Military
15 5 (0.52%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 311 (32.36%) Developer
2 160 (16.65%) Senior
3 128 (13.32%) DBA
4 78 (8.12%) SQL DBA
5 72 (7.49%) Data Engineer
6 71 (7.39%) .NET Developer
6 71 (7.39%) Administrator
6 71 (7.39%) C# Developer
7 69 (7.18%) Lead
8 55 (5.72%) Full-Stack Developer
9 52 (5.41%) Senior Developer
10 51 (5.31%) Analyst
11 48 (4.99%) Architect
11 48 (4.99%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 45 (4.68%) SQL Developer
13 34 (3.54%) Software Engineer
14 28 (2.91%) Oracle DBA
15 26 (2.71%) Azure Engineer
15 26 (2.71%) C# .NET Developer
15 26 (2.71%) SC Cleared DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 273 (28.41%) .NET
2 121 (12.59%) REST
3 85 (8.84%) .NET Framework
4 83 (8.64%) React
5 69 (7.18%) Terraform
6 65 (6.76%) CSS
7 58 (6.04%) ASP.NET
7 58 (6.04%) HTML
8 57 (5.93%) Kafka
9 55 (5.72%) AngularJS
10 54 (5.62%) .NET Core
11 48 (4.99%) RESTful
12 45 (4.68%) JSON
13 38 (3.95%) Web Services
14 36 (3.75%) XML
15 34 (3.54%) Spring Boot
16 30 (3.12%) SOAP
17 29 (3.02%) OAuth
17 29 (3.02%) Spring
18 26 (2.71%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 61 (6.35%) Onboarding
2 59 (6.14%) Cloud Native
3 50 (5.20%) Data Structures
3 50 (5.20%) Enterprise Software
4 43 (4.47%) Clustering
5 40 (4.16%) Self-Motivation
6 39 (4.06%) Replication
7 34 (3.54%) Management Information System
7 34 (3.54%) Product Ownership
8 33 (3.43%) Data Centre
9 32 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
10 19 (1.98%) Distributed Systems
10 19 (1.98%) PKI
11 16 (1.66%) Virtual Team
12 14 (1.46%) Derivative
12 14 (1.46%) Low-Code
13 12 (1.25%) Algorithms
14 11 (1.14%) NHS
14 11 (1.14%) Taxonomies
15 10 (1.04%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 255 (26.53%) Windows
2 149 (15.50%) Windows Server
3 87 (9.05%) Linux
4 35 (3.64%) Unix
5 16 (1.66%) Solaris
6 13 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.25%) 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 (0.42%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.21%) AIX
12 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (26.01%) DevOps
2 235 (24.45%) Agile
3 234 (24.35%) CI/CD
4 194 (20.19%) Problem-Solving
5 174 (18.11%) Migration
6 141 (14.67%) ETL
7 137 (14.26%) Business Intelligence
7 137 (14.26%) Data Modelling
8 130 (13.53%) Performance Tuning
9 126 (13.11%) AI
10 115 (11.97%) Stakeholder Management
11 102 (10.61%) Continuous Improvement
11 102 (10.61%) Disaster Recovery
12 91 (9.47%) Microservices
13 87 (9.05%) Analytics
14 86 (8.95%) Test Automation
15 84 (8.74%) Software Engineering
16 75 (7.80%) Mentoring
16 75 (7.80%) Validation
17 74 (7.70%) Full-Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 566 (58.90%) SQL
2 276 (28.72%) C#
3 181 (18.83%) Python
4 171 (17.79%) PowerShell
5 157 (16.34%) T-SQL
6 145 (15.09%) JavaScript
7 80 (8.32%) Java
8 59 (6.14%) PL/SQL
8 59 (6.14%) TypeScript
9 31 (3.23%) Bash
10 18 (1.87%) VB
11 17 (1.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 16 (1.66%) VBA
13 9 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 8 (0.83%) Scala
15 7 (0.73%) VB.NET
16 6 (0.62%) Bicep
16 6 (0.62%) Go
16 6 (0.62%) PHP
16 6 (0.62%) XPath
Qualifications
1 241 (25.08%) Security Cleared
2 179 (18.63%) SC Cleared
3 107 (11.13%) Degree
4 56 (5.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 51 (5.31%) DV Cleared
6 32 (3.33%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.81%) Azure Certification
8 26 (2.71%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (1.46%) AWS Certification
10 13 (1.35%) ISTQB
11 12 (1.25%) Oracle Certification
12 11 (1.14%) OCP
13 9 (0.94%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 9 (0.94%) Master's Degree
14 8 (0.83%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
15 5 (0.52%) CISSP
15 5 (0.52%) DBS Check
16 4 (0.42%) PhD
17 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
17 3 (0.31%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 90 (9.37%) Data Quality
1 90 (9.37%) QA
2 34 (3.54%) Accessibility
2 34 (3.54%) GDPR
3 26 (2.71%) WCAG
4 22 (2.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 20 (2.08%) NIST
6 17 (1.77%) SLA
7 5 (0.52%) ISO 9000
8 3 (0.31%) Actionable Recommendations
8 3 (0.31%) Basel III
9 2 (0.21%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 2 (0.21%) COREP
9 2 (0.21%) FINREP
9 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.21%) GRC
9 2 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
9 2 (0.21%) Software Quality Assurance
10 1 (0.10%) GMP
System Software
1 126 (13.11%) Active Directory
2 66 (6.87%) Docker
3 42 (4.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.43%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (1.77%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.04%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.83%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.62%) vSphere
9 4 (0.42%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.42%) 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 85 (8.84%) Kubernetes
2 42 (4.37%) Ansible
3 20 (2.08%) SCOM
4 14 (1.46%) Data Guard
4 14 (1.46%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (1.25%) 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%) ITRS Geneos
11 5 (0.52%) Prometheus
12 4 (0.42%) Istio
13 3 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.31%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
13 3 (0.31%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 338 (35.17%) Microsoft
2 251 (26.12%) Oracle
3 74 (7.70%) Databricks
4 66 (6.87%) VMware
5 49 (5.10%) ServiceNow
6 45 (4.68%) CyberArk
7 40 (4.16%) Citrix
8 30 (3.12%) BeyondTrust
8 30 (3.12%) SAP
9 22 (2.29%) BMC
9 22 (2.29%) IBM
9 22 (2.29%) Remedy
10 21 (2.19%) Cisco
11 20 (2.08%) Informatica
12 17 (1.77%) Google
13 16 (1.66%) Dynatrace
14 15 (1.56%) Red Hat
15 13 (1.35%) Alteryx
15 13 (1.35%) Splunk
16 12 (1.25%) Sybase