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

6 months to
10 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 126 110 60
Rank change year-on-year -16 -50 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,000 683 1,160
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.16% 2.46% 3.54%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.25% 13.68% 19.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 701 497 830
10th Percentile £363 £313 £330
25th Percentile £413 £385 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £600 £638 £625
90th Percentile £713 £750 £725
UK median daily rate £488 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -2.50% - -4.76%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 5 6
10th Percentile £13.51 £20.86 £26.83
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.02 £32.63
Median hourly rate £47.54 £21.27 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +123.51% -50.53% -12.85%
75th Percentile £63.75 £77.50 £51.12
90th Percentile £76.00 £84.25 £75.95
UK median hourly rate £47.54 £72.50 £38.50
% change year-on-year -34.43% +88.31% -16.47%

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 7,018 4,993 5,967
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 15.16% 17.96% 18.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,678 3,432 4,157
10th Percentile £358 £334 £350
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £502 £508 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.06% -7.73% -
75th Percentile £619 £638 £675
90th Percentile £703 £750 £825
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 241 80 80
10th Percentile £15.93 £21.25 £17.50
25th Percentile £23.21 £31.45 £21.25
Median hourly rate £38.50 £42.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.32% +19.99% -36.36%
75th Percentile £62.00 £65.00 £60.36
90th Percentile £76.00 £80.00 £71.85
UK median hourly rate £39.50 £39.48 £34.47
% change year-on-year +0.05% +14.55% -35.58%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -26 482 £520 -5.45% 191
North of England +10 202 £475 +10.47% 80
North West 0 114 £483 +12.33% 44
Midlands -1 111 £473 +22.86% 86
South East -32 102 £475 +45.48% 100
Yorkshire +8 86 £450 +5.88% 30
West Midlands -4 67 £460 -10.24% 55
South West -19 50 £525 +16.67% 30
East Midlands +9 43 £525 +60.80% 30
East of England -31 26 £425 -15.00% 23
North East -48 2 - - 8
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 (7.00%) SharePoint
2 46 (4.60%) IIS
3 43 (4.30%) Confluence
4 25 (2.50%) Apache Airflow
5 24 (2.40%) Microsoft Exchange
6 20 (2.00%) Apache
7 19 (1.90%) Camunda
8 18 (1.80%) Apache Spark
9 9 (0.90%) Oracle Workflow
10 6 (0.60%) Appian
10 6 (0.60%) CMS
11 5 (0.50%) Apache Solr
11 5 (0.50%) NetWeaver
11 5 (0.50%) Tuxedo
12 4 (0.40%) OpenEdge
12 4 (0.40%) Tomcat
12 4 (0.40%) Umbraco
13 3 (0.30%) Apache Superset
13 3 (0.30%) nginx
14 2 (0.20%) Jupyter
Applications
1 54 (5.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.80%) Microsoft Office
3 9 (0.90%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.30%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.20%) Windchill
6 1 (0.10%) Adobe XD
6 1 (0.10%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.10%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 27 (2.70%) Dynamics CRM
2 23 (2.30%) Remedy ITSM
3 16 (1.60%) SAP S/4HANA
4 8 (0.80%) Oracle Payables
5 7 (0.70%) OpenText MBPM
5 7 (0.70%) Oracle BPM
6 4 (0.40%) Aladdin
6 4 (0.40%) Dynamics AX
6 4 (0.40%) Elite 3E
7 2 (0.20%) Dynamics NAV
7 2 (0.20%) Endur
7 2 (0.20%) Infor LN
7 2 (0.20%) Siebel CRM
7 2 (0.20%) Teamcenter
8 1 (0.10%) Findur
8 1 (0.10%) Oracle General Ledger
8 1 (0.10%) SAP CRM
8 1 (0.10%) SAP MDG
8 1 (0.10%) SDL Web 8
8 1 (0.10%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 425 (42.50%) Azure
2 214 (21.40%) AWS
3 160 (16.00%) Power Platform
4 113 (11.30%) Azure DevOps
5 90 (9.00%) GitHub
6 60 (6.00%) Azure Data Factory
7 52 (5.20%) Entra ID
8 48 (4.80%) Serverless
9 43 (4.30%) Microsoft 365
10 42 (4.20%) Power Automate
11 41 (4.10%) Azure Monitor
12 40 (4.00%) Snowflake
13 38 (3.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
14 37 (3.70%) Dynamics 365
15 35 (3.50%) GCP
15 35 (3.50%) GitHub Actions
16 25 (2.50%) dbt
17 24 (2.40%) PowerApps
18 23 (2.30%) SaaS
19 20 (2.00%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 49 (4.90%) DNS
2 42 (4.20%) DHCP
3 34 (3.40%) Firewall
4 19 (1.90%) VLAN
5 18 (1.80%) SAN
6 15 (1.50%) VPN
7 14 (1.40%) Internet
7 14 (1.40%) SSL
7 14 (1.40%) TCP/IP
8 13 (1.30%) Network Security
9 10 (1.00%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.90%) SSH
11 6 (0.60%) HTTPS
11 6 (0.60%) IPv4
11 6 (0.60%) IPv6
11 6 (0.60%) Kerberos
11 6 (0.60%) LAN
12 5 (0.50%) VoIP
12 5 (0.50%) WAN
13 3 (0.30%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 164 (16.40%) PostgreSQL
2 133 (13.30%) Power BI
3 101 (10.10%) Relational Database
4 99 (9.90%) Data Warehouse
5 95 (9.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 90 (9.00%) MySQL
7 60 (6.00%) Azure SQL Database
8 57 (5.70%) Oracle Database
8 57 (5.70%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 55 (5.50%) MongoDB
10 34 (3.40%) Data Lake
11 25 (2.50%) NoSQL
12 24 (2.40%) Amazon RDS
12 24 (2.40%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 22 (2.20%) Redis
14 21 (2.10%) RDBMS
14 21 (2.10%) Tableau
15 18 (1.80%) Metadata
16 17 (1.70%) Star Schema
17 13 (1.30%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 103 (10.30%) Git
2 64 (6.40%) JIRA
3 61 (6.10%) Jenkins
4 34 (3.40%) GitLab
5 23 (2.30%) Visual Studio
6 22 (2.20%) Maven
7 20 (2.00%) Sonatype Nexus
7 20 (2.00%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 15 (1.50%) REST Assured
8 15 (1.50%) Team Foundation Server
9 14 (1.40%) Selenium
10 12 (1.20%) Gradle
10 12 (1.20%) JUnit
10 12 (1.20%) TeamCity
11 11 (1.10%) Artifactory
11 11 (1.10%) Mockito
11 11 (1.10%) Postman
11 11 (1.10%) SonarQube
12 10 (1.00%) Claude Code
12 10 (1.00%) Cucumber
General
1 318 (31.80%) Social Skills
2 263 (26.30%) Finance
3 186 (18.60%) Analytical Skills
4 129 (12.90%) Banking
5 70 (7.00%) Public Sector
6 44 (4.40%) Front Office
7 40 (4.00%) Documentation Skills
8 26 (2.60%) Investment Banking
9 24 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 20 (2.00%) Retail
11 18 (1.80%) Legal
12 13 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
13 12 (1.20%) Financial Institution
14 9 (0.90%) Back Office
15 8 (0.80%) Billing
15 8 (0.80%) Manufacturing
16 6 (0.60%) Presentation Skills
17 5 (0.50%) Law
17 5 (0.50%) Local Government
17 5 (0.50%) Military
Job Titles
1 315 (31.50%) Developer
2 159 (15.90%) Senior
3 133 (13.30%) DBA
4 82 (8.20%) SQL DBA
5 78 (7.80%) .NET Developer
5 78 (7.80%) Data Engineer
6 73 (7.30%) C# Developer
7 72 (7.20%) Administrator
8 69 (6.90%) Lead
9 56 (5.60%) Full-Stack Developer
10 52 (5.20%) Senior Developer
11 50 (5.00%) Architect
12 49 (4.90%) Analyst
13 48 (4.80%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 46 (4.60%) SQL Developer
15 35 (3.50%) Software Engineer
16 32 (3.20%) Azure Engineer
17 29 (2.90%) Oracle DBA
17 29 (2.90%) Software Developer
18 28 (2.80%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 283 (28.30%) .NET
2 126 (12.60%) REST
3 94 (9.40%) .NET Framework
4 85 (8.50%) React
5 75 (7.50%) Terraform
6 67 (6.70%) CSS
7 60 (6.00%) ASP.NET
7 60 (6.00%) HTML
7 60 (6.00%) Kafka
8 56 (5.60%) AngularJS
9 54 (5.40%) .NET Core
10 51 (5.10%) RESTful
11 43 (4.30%) JSON
12 38 (3.80%) Web Services
12 38 (3.80%) XML
13 33 (3.30%) Spring Boot
14 30 (3.00%) OAuth
15 28 (2.80%) SOAP
15 28 (2.80%) Spring
16 25 (2.50%) WinForms
Miscellaneous
1 62 (6.20%) Onboarding
2 61 (6.10%) Cloud Native
3 54 (5.40%) Data Structures
4 46 (4.60%) Enterprise Software
5 45 (4.50%) Replication
6 43 (4.30%) Clustering
7 40 (4.00%) Self-Motivation
8 37 (3.70%) Legacy Systems
8 37 (3.70%) Product Ownership
9 29 (2.90%) Data Centre
10 28 (2.80%) Management Information System
11 20 (2.00%) PKI
12 18 (1.80%) Distributed Systems
13 14 (1.40%) Derivative
13 14 (1.40%) Low-Code
14 13 (1.30%) Virtual Team
15 12 (1.20%) Algorithms
15 12 (1.20%) Fixed Income
16 11 (1.10%) Data Protection Act
16 11 (1.10%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 260 (26.00%) Windows
2 152 (15.20%) Windows Server
3 92 (9.20%) Linux
4 37 (3.70%) Unix
5 14 (1.40%) Solaris
6 13 (1.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (1.20%) Ubuntu
8 8 (0.80%) VMS
9 7 (0.70%) CentOS
9 7 (0.70%) Windows 10
9 7 (0.70%) Windows Server 2012
9 7 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
10 6 (0.60%) Android
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2008
11 4 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
12 2 (0.20%) AIX
12 2 (0.20%) Windows Server 2003
13 1 (0.10%) Data ONTAP
13 1 (0.10%) Windows XP
Processes & Methodologies
1 261 (26.10%) DevOps
2 243 (24.30%) CI/CD
3 236 (23.60%) Agile
4 198 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
5 187 (18.70%) Migration
6 154 (15.40%) ETL
7 146 (14.60%) Business Intelligence
8 142 (14.20%) Data Modelling
9 127 (12.70%) Performance Tuning
10 122 (12.20%) AI
11 111 (11.10%) Stakeholder Management
12 107 (10.70%) Disaster Recovery
13 95 (9.50%) Continuous Improvement
14 93 (9.30%) Analytics
14 93 (9.30%) Microservices
15 87 (8.70%) Software Engineering
16 84 (8.40%) Test Automation
17 82 (8.20%) Validation
18 78 (7.80%) Data Pipeline
19 76 (7.60%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 584 (58.40%) SQL
2 272 (27.20%) C#
3 195 (19.50%) Python
4 177 (17.70%) PowerShell
5 160 (16.00%) T-SQL
6 139 (13.90%) JavaScript
7 90 (9.00%) Java
8 61 (6.10%) PL/SQL
9 56 (5.60%) TypeScript
10 32 (3.20%) Bash
11 19 (1.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 17 (1.70%) VB
13 15 (1.50%) VBA
14 13 (1.30%) Scala
15 12 (1.20%) Shell Script
16 7 (0.70%) VB.NET
17 6 (0.60%) Bicep
17 6 (0.60%) XPath
18 5 (0.50%) Go
18 5 (0.50%) VB6
Qualifications
1 255 (25.50%) Security Cleared
2 193 (19.30%) SC Cleared
3 107 (10.70%) Degree
4 52 (5.20%) DV Cleared
5 51 (5.10%) Microsoft Certification
6 33 (3.30%) Computer Science Degree
7 27 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
8 24 (2.40%) Azure Certification
9 12 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 12 (1.20%) ISTQB
9 12 (1.20%) Oracle Certification
10 11 (1.10%) OCP
11 10 (1.00%) DBS Check
12 9 (0.90%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
13 8 (0.80%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 8 (0.80%) Master's Degree
14 5 (0.50%) CISSP
15 4 (0.40%) PhD
16 3 (0.30%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 3 (0.30%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 97 (9.70%) Data Quality
2 94 (9.40%) QA
3 31 (3.10%) GDPR
4 27 (2.70%) Accessibility
5 22 (2.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 20 (2.00%) NIST
6 20 (2.00%) WCAG
7 18 (1.80%) SLA
8 5 (0.50%) ISO 9000
9 4 (0.40%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
10 3 (0.30%) Basel III
10 3 (0.30%) GRC
11 2 (0.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 2 (0.20%) COREP
11 2 (0.20%) FINREP
11 2 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
11 2 (0.20%) SOC 2
12 1 (0.10%) ISO 20022
12 1 (0.10%) SEPA
System Software
1 128 (12.80%) Active Directory
2 76 (7.60%) Docker
3 42 (4.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (3.30%) Virtual Machines
5 17 (1.70%) Oracle RAC
6 10 (1.00%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.60%) vSphere
9 4 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
10 3 (0.30%) Dovecot
10 3 (0.30%) GridGain
10 3 (0.30%) Postfix
11 1 (0.10%) BitLocker
11 1 (0.10%) NFS
11 1 (0.10%) RACF
11 1 (0.10%) SRDF
11 1 (0.10%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 93 (9.30%) Kubernetes
2 44 (4.40%) Ansible
3 20 (2.00%) SCOM
4 14 (1.40%) Data Guard
4 14 (1.40%) Microsoft Intune
5 13 (1.30%) HAProxy
6 12 (1.20%) SCCM
7 11 (1.10%) Microsoft Clustering
8 10 (1.00%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 10 (1.00%) WSUS
9 8 (0.80%) Grafana
10 6 (0.60%) Failover Clustering
10 6 (0.60%) Oracle RMAN
10 6 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.50%) ITRS Geneos
11 5 (0.50%) Prometheus
12 3 (0.30%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 3 (0.30%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 3 (0.30%) Istio
12 3 (0.30%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 360 (36.00%) Microsoft
2 254 (25.40%) Oracle
3 76 (7.60%) Databricks
4 65 (6.50%) VMware
5 54 (5.40%) ServiceNow
6 45 (4.50%) CyberArk
7 39 (3.90%) Citrix
8 34 (3.40%) SAP
9 30 (3.00%) BeyondTrust
10 23 (2.30%) BMC
10 23 (2.30%) Remedy
11 22 (2.20%) IBM
11 22 (2.20%) Informatica
12 21 (2.10%) Cisco
13 17 (1.70%) Google
14 16 (1.60%) Dynatrace
14 16 (1.60%) Sybase
15 15 (1.50%) Red Hat
16 13 (1.30%) Alteryx
16 13 (1.30%) Splunk