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 27 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 93 58
Rank change year-on-year -24 -35 -5
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 959 673 1,308
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.21% 2.66% 3.51%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.42% 14.37% 20.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 671 503 923
10th Percentile £355 £325 £350
25th Percentile £410 £400 £416
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £510
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% +0.49% -2.86%
75th Percentile £615 £650 £638
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £491 £500 £505
% change year-on-year -1.80% -0.89% -3.90%
Number of hourly rates quoted 48 6 23
10th Percentile £13.51 £21.02 £25.55
25th Percentile £19.25 £22.02 £38.81
Median hourly rate £28.68 £25.66 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.77% -35.85% -6.98%
75th Percentile £62.44 £64.71 £47.47
90th Percentile £74.60 £83.13 £62.96
UK median hourly rate £37.50 £70.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -46.43% +75.00% -11.11%

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 6,649 4,683 6,506
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.30% 18.53% 17.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,490 3,243 4,684
10th Percentile £355 £358 £350
25th Percentile £415 £418 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £601 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £775 £800
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £525
% change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 214 86 140
10th Percentile £14.00 £19.00 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.05 £25.00 £20.77
Median hourly rate £38.25 £34.19 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +11.87% -14.53% -29.76%
75th Percentile £71.13 £63.31 £52.37
90th Percentile £77.50 £73.75 £71.60
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +12.86% -12.50% -29.08%

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 27 June 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 27 June 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 27 June 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 -27 486 £525 -8.70% 90
North of England -5 163 £475 +11.76% 90
South East -9 118 £450 - 98
North West -25 88 £477 +7.08% 50
Midlands -22 85 £487 +12.49% 57
Yorkshire +13 74 £455 +13.75% 30
South West -14 51 £481 -1.28% 23
West Midlands -46 42 £475 -13.64% 40
East Midlands +11 41 £525 +60.80% 17
East of England -4 37 £475 -5.00% 13
North East -39 2 £475 +4.11% 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 57 (5.94%) SharePoint
2 44 (4.59%) IIS
3 30 (3.13%) Confluence
4 23 (2.40%) Microsoft Exchange
5 22 (2.29%) Apache Spark
6 21 (2.19%) Apache
7 19 (1.98%) Apache Airflow
8 14 (1.46%) Appian
9 13 (1.36%) Camunda
10 12 (1.25%) CMS
10 12 (1.25%) Oracle Workflow
11 6 (0.63%) NetWeaver
11 6 (0.63%) Sitecore CMS
12 5 (0.52%) OpenEdge
12 5 (0.52%) Tuxedo
12 5 (0.52%) Umbraco
13 4 (0.42%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 4 (0.42%) Tomcat
14 3 (0.31%) Apache Superset
14 3 (0.31%) nginx
Applications
1 40 (4.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 19 (1.98%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.36%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.21%) Microsoft Project
4 2 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
5 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.10%) InDesign
5 1 (0.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 18 (1.88%) SAP S/4HANA
2 14 (1.46%) Dynamics CRM
2 14 (1.46%) Remedy ITSM
3 7 (0.73%) Oracle Payables
4 6 (0.63%) Dynamics AX
5 5 (0.52%) Elite 3E
5 5 (0.52%) OpenText MBPM
5 5 (0.52%) Oracle BPM
6 3 (0.31%) Aladdin
6 3 (0.31%) SystmOne
7 2 (0.21%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.21%) Loan IQ
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle General Ledger
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle Receivables
7 2 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
7 2 (0.21%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.21%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.10%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 399 (41.61%) Azure
2 219 (22.84%) AWS
3 143 (14.91%) Power Platform
4 99 (10.32%) Azure DevOps
5 86 (8.97%) GitHub
6 72 (7.51%) Azure Data Factory
7 40 (4.17%) GCP
8 37 (3.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 37 (3.86%) GitHub Actions
8 37 (3.86%) Serverless
9 36 (3.75%) Power Automate
10 32 (3.34%) Snowflake
11 31 (3.23%) Microsoft 365
12 30 (3.13%) Azure Monitor
12 30 (3.13%) Dynamics 365
13 27 (2.82%) SaaS
14 25 (2.61%) Entra ID
15 23 (2.40%) Amazon S3
15 23 (2.40%) dbt
16 20 (2.09%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 37 (3.86%) DNS
2 29 (3.02%) DHCP
3 18 (1.88%) SAN
4 17 (1.77%) Firewall
5 13 (1.36%) Internet
6 12 (1.25%) VLAN
7 10 (1.04%) SSH
8 9 (0.94%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.94%) VPN
9 7 (0.73%) Network Security
10 6 (0.63%) HTTPS
10 6 (0.63%) IPv4
10 6 (0.63%) IPv6
10 6 (0.63%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (0.42%) LAN
12 3 (0.31%) NAS
12 3 (0.31%) NetScaler
12 3 (0.31%) RS-232
12 3 (0.31%) VoIP
12 3 (0.31%) X.400
Database & Business Intelligence
1 148 (15.43%) PostgreSQL
2 117 (12.20%) Power BI
3 109 (11.37%) Relational Database
4 108 (11.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 103 (10.74%) Data Warehouse
6 73 (7.61%) Oracle Database
7 59 (6.15%) MySQL
8 55 (5.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 50 (5.21%) Azure SQL Database
10 47 (4.90%) Data Lake
11 46 (4.80%) MongoDB
12 38 (3.96%) NoSQL
13 31 (3.23%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 29 (3.02%) RDBMS
15 20 (2.09%) Tableau
16 19 (1.98%) Metadata
17 17 (1.77%) Big Data
17 17 (1.77%) Redis
18 16 (1.67%) Delta Lake
19 15 (1.56%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 82 (8.55%) Git
2 53 (5.53%) JIRA
3 48 (5.01%) Jenkins
4 30 (3.13%) Visual Studio
5 24 (2.50%) GitLab
6 18 (1.88%) TeamCity
7 16 (1.67%) Team Foundation Server
8 15 (1.56%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 13 (1.36%) Maven
10 12 (1.25%) Octopus Deploy
11 11 (1.15%) Cucumber
12 9 (0.94%) Gatling
12 9 (0.94%) Postman
12 9 (0.94%) Sonatype Nexus
13 8 (0.83%) Artifactory
13 8 (0.83%) MSTest
13 8 (0.83%) Oracle Forms
14 7 (0.73%) Chocolatey
14 7 (0.73%) ERwin
15 6 (0.63%) MLflow
General
1 273 (28.47%) Social Skills
2 239 (24.92%) Finance
3 156 (16.27%) Analytical Skills
4 117 (12.20%) Banking
5 75 (7.82%) Public Sector
6 40 (4.17%) Documentation Skills
7 34 (3.55%) Front Office
8 25 (2.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 22 (2.29%) Investment Banking
10 18 (1.88%) Legal
11 15 (1.56%) Retail
12 14 (1.46%) Organisational Skills
13 9 (0.94%) Advertising
13 9 (0.94%) Financial Institution
14 8 (0.83%) Local Government
15 6 (0.63%) Back Office
15 6 (0.63%) Law
15 6 (0.63%) Manufacturing
16 5 (0.52%) Publishing
17 4 (0.42%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 291 (30.34%) Developer
2 141 (14.70%) Senior
3 115 (11.99%) DBA
4 103 (10.74%) Data Engineer
5 87 (9.07%) C# Developer
6 70 (7.30%) .NET Developer
7 69 (7.19%) Lead
8 68 (7.09%) SQL DBA
9 59 (6.15%) Architect
10 47 (4.90%) SQL Developer
11 44 (4.59%) Analyst
12 42 (4.38%) Senior Developer
13 37 (3.86%) Administrator
14 34 (3.55%) Software Engineer
15 33 (3.44%) Full-Stack Developer
16 31 (3.23%) Infrastructure Engineer
16 31 (3.23%) Senior Data Engineer
17 30 (3.13%) Azure Engineer
17 30 (3.13%) Oracle DBA
18 28 (2.92%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 246 (25.65%) .NET
2 122 (12.72%) REST
3 102 (10.64%) .NET Framework
4 82 (8.55%) React
5 64 (6.67%) CSS
6 63 (6.57%) RESTful
7 61 (6.36%) AngularJS
8 54 (5.63%) ASP.NET
8 54 (5.63%) HTML
9 50 (5.21%) Kafka
10 47 (4.90%) .NET Core
11 37 (3.86%) XML
12 36 (3.75%) Web Services
13 31 (3.23%) JSON
14 29 (3.02%) OAuth
15 28 (2.92%) SOAP
16 27 (2.82%) Entity Framework
17 24 (2.50%) Spring Boot
18 23 (2.40%) Spring
19 20 (2.09%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 53 (5.53%) Legacy Systems
2 51 (5.32%) Cloud Native
3 47 (4.90%) Onboarding
4 38 (3.96%) Data Structures
4 38 (3.96%) Replication
5 34 (3.55%) Clustering
5 34 (3.55%) Self-Motivation
6 32 (3.34%) Enterprise Software
7 24 (2.50%) Management Information System
8 21 (2.19%) Low-Code
9 20 (2.09%) Product Ownership
10 17 (1.77%) Derivative
10 17 (1.77%) PKI
11 16 (1.67%) NHS
12 14 (1.46%) Fixed Income
13 13 (1.36%) Algorithms
14 12 (1.25%) Distributed Systems
14 12 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
14 12 (1.25%) Linux Command Line
14 12 (1.25%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 224 (23.36%) Windows
2 125 (13.03%) Windows Server
3 91 (9.49%) Linux
4 60 (6.26%) Unix
5 11 (1.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 11 (1.15%) Windows 10
6 10 (1.04%) AIX
7 9 (0.94%) Android
7 9 (0.94%) Windows Server 2019
8 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2012
8 7 (0.73%) Windows Server 2016
9 5 (0.52%) Solaris
9 5 (0.52%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.52%) VMS
10 3 (0.31%) CentOS
11 2 (0.21%) OpenVMS
11 2 (0.21%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.21%) Windows Server 2003
12 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
12 1 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 238 (24.82%) DevOps
2 227 (23.67%) CI/CD
3 226 (23.57%) Agile
4 192 (20.02%) Problem-Solving
5 167 (17.41%) ETL
6 151 (15.75%) Migration
7 144 (15.02%) Business Intelligence
8 139 (14.49%) Data Modelling
9 118 (12.30%) Performance Tuning
10 108 (11.26%) AI
11 105 (10.95%) Disaster Recovery
12 103 (10.74%) Analytics
13 87 (9.07%) Data Pipeline
14 85 (8.86%) Microservices
15 82 (8.55%) High Availability
16 81 (8.45%) Data Analysis
17 78 (8.13%) Validation
18 77 (8.03%) Data Engineering
18 77 (8.03%) Data Integration
19 74 (7.72%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 546 (56.93%) SQL
2 257 (26.80%) C#
3 229 (23.88%) Python
4 162 (16.89%) PowerShell
5 159 (16.58%) T-SQL
6 96 (10.01%) JavaScript
7 78 (8.13%) Java
8 65 (6.78%) PL/SQL
9 57 (5.94%) TypeScript
10 31 (3.23%) Bash
11 25 (2.61%) Shell Script
12 23 (2.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 19 (1.98%) Scala
13 19 (1.98%) VB
14 16 (1.67%) Korn
15 13 (1.36%) VBA
16 10 (1.04%) Bicep
17 7 (0.73%) VB.NET
17 7 (0.73%) VB6
18 5 (0.52%) XPath
Qualifications
1 217 (22.63%) Security Cleared
2 164 (17.10%) SC Cleared
3 104 (10.84%) Degree
4 39 (4.07%) DV Cleared
5 33 (3.44%) Microsoft Certification
6 25 (2.61%) Computer Science Degree
7 18 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.56%) Azure Certification
9 10 (1.04%) Master's Degree
10 9 (0.94%) DBS Check
11 6 (0.63%) ISTQB
11 6 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
12 5 (0.52%) CISSP
12 5 (0.52%) OCP
13 4 (0.42%) AWS Certification
13 4 (0.42%) MCITP
13 4 (0.42%) MCTS
13 4 (0.42%) PhD
14 3 (0.31%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 3 (0.31%) Microsoft Certified Professional
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 100 (10.43%) QA
2 96 (10.01%) Data Quality
3 27 (2.82%) GDPR
4 26 (2.71%) NIST
5 24 (2.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (1.67%) SLA
7 15 (1.56%) Accessibility
8 11 (1.15%) WCAG
9 7 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 4 (0.42%) ISO 9000
11 3 (0.31%) Basel III
11 3 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 3 (0.31%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.21%) COREP
12 2 (0.21%) FINREP
12 2 (0.21%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.21%) GRC
12 2 (0.21%) IFRS
12 2 (0.21%) SOC 2
System Software
1 96 (10.01%) Active Directory
2 83 (8.65%) Docker
3 27 (2.82%) Virtual Machines
4 22 (2.29%) VMware Infrastructure
5 19 (1.98%) Oracle RAC
6 13 (1.36%) Hyper-V
7 6 (0.63%) KVM
7 6 (0.63%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.31%) Dovecot
8 3 (0.31%) GridGain
8 3 (0.31%) Postfix
8 3 (0.31%) Virtual Servers
8 3 (0.31%) XenApp
8 3 (0.31%) XenDesktop
9 2 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
9 2 (0.21%) vSphere
10 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
10 1 (0.10%) Citrix Hypervisor
10 1 (0.10%) RACF
10 1 (0.10%) SRDF
Systems Management
1 107 (11.16%) Kubernetes
2 69 (7.19%) Terraform
3 31 (3.23%) Ansible
4 20 (2.09%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
5 19 (1.98%) Oracle RMAN
6 15 (1.56%) SCCM
7 13 (1.36%) HAProxy
8 10 (1.04%) WSUS
9 8 (0.83%) Microsoft Intune
9 8 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.73%) Grafana
10 7 (0.73%) vCenter Server
11 6 (0.63%) Failover Clustering
11 6 (0.63%) IBM BigFix
12 4 (0.42%) Data Guard
13 3 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 3 (0.31%) Foglight
13 3 (0.31%) Prometheus
13 3 (0.31%) SCVMM
14 2 (0.21%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 277 (28.88%) Microsoft
2 263 (27.42%) Oracle
3 69 (7.19%) Databricks
4 52 (5.42%) Citrix
5 43 (4.48%) ServiceNow
6 37 (3.86%) CyberArk
7 35 (3.65%) VMware
8 34 (3.55%) SAP
9 32 (3.34%) Informatica
10 23 (2.40%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.40%) Google
10 23 (2.40%) Sybase
11 18 (1.88%) IBM
12 16 (1.67%) Dynatrace
13 14 (1.46%) Remedy
14 13 (1.36%) BMC
14 13 (1.36%) Cisco
15 12 (1.25%) Red Hat
16 10 (1.04%) Alteryx
16 10 (1.04%) OpenAI