SQL Server Contract Job Trends in London

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring SQL Server skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 27 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 87 41
Rank change year-on-year -30 -46 +7
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 482 432 863
As % of all contract jobs in London 2.42% 3.16% 5.23%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.70% 14.70% 22.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 356 326 613
10th Percentile £375 £375 £350
25th Percentile £415 £417 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £571 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.10% +8.81% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £689 £650
90th Percentile £738 £763 £750
England median daily rate £488 £517 £505
% change year-on-year -5.75% +2.43% -3.81%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £19.25 - -
Median hourly rate £19.50 £26.32 £100.00
Median % change year-on-year -25.91% -73.68% +90.48%
75th Percentile £19.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £47.54 £23.80 £48.03
% change year-on-year +99.79% -50.46% +5.56%

All Database & BI Skills
London

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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 3,518 2,938 3,906
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 17.68% 21.49% 23.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,374 2,065 2,898
10th Percentile £363 £378 £366
25th Percentile £438 £438 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £638 £700 £725
90th Percentile £750 £825 £850
England median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 27 32 23
10th Percentile £18.23 £25.14 £36.25
25th Percentile £25.25 £31.27 £41.88
Median hourly rate £39.50 £48.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.56% -3.96% -12.17%
75th Percentile £56.63 £63.75 £60.02
90th Percentile £60.75 £86.75 £78.00
England median hourly rate £39.50 £34.82 £38.50
% change year-on-year +13.46% -9.57% -30.00%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL Server relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

SQL Server job vacancy trend in London

SQL Server
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL Server.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in London over the 6 months to 27 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in London

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL Server.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Contract Job Locations in London

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 London region over the 6 months to 27 July 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
Central London -21 71 £575 +2.68% 26
South London -10 4 £700 +3.70% 7
West London -20 4 £550 -15.64% 6
East London +2 2 £565 +6.60% 1
SQL Server
England

SQL Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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 36 (7.47%) SharePoint
2 28 (5.81%) IIS
3 13 (2.70%) Apache Airflow
3 13 (2.70%) Apache Spark
3 13 (2.70%) Confluence
4 12 (2.49%) Camunda
5 11 (2.28%) Apache
6 9 (1.87%) Microsoft Exchange
7 8 (1.66%) Appian
8 7 (1.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.41%) Apache Solr
9 2 (0.41%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.21%) Anypoint
10 1 (0.21%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.21%) CMS
10 1 (0.21%) HCL Notes
10 1 (0.21%) Mule
10 1 (0.21%) OpenEdge
10 1 (0.21%) Oracle Application Server
10 1 (0.21%) SharePoint Server
Applications
1 27 (5.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.45%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 9 (1.87%) SAP S/4HANA
2 6 (1.24%) Dynamics AX
2 6 (1.24%) OpenText MBPM
2 6 (1.24%) Oracle BPM
3 4 (0.83%) Aladdin
3 4 (0.83%) Dynamics CRM
3 4 (0.83%) Elite 3E
3 4 (0.83%) Remedy ITSM
4 2 (0.41%) Dynamics NAV
4 2 (0.41%) Infor LN
4 2 (0.41%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.21%) Endur
5 1 (0.21%) Findur
5 1 (0.21%) Oracle General Ledger
5 1 (0.21%) SAP CRM
5 1 (0.21%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 209 (43.36%) Azure
2 101 (20.95%) AWS
3 70 (14.52%) Power Platform
4 62 (12.86%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (9.75%) GitHub
6 36 (7.47%) Azure Data Factory
7 27 (5.60%) Serverless
8 24 (4.98%) Entra ID
8 24 (4.98%) Microsoft 365
9 23 (4.77%) Power Automate
9 23 (4.77%) Snowflake
10 22 (4.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 22 (4.56%) GitHub Actions
10 22 (4.56%) SaaS
11 20 (4.15%) Azure Monitor
12 18 (3.73%) Amazon EC2
12 18 (3.73%) Amazon S3
12 18 (3.73%) Datadog
13 17 (3.53%) AWS Lambda
13 17 (3.53%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.60%) DNS
2 21 (4.36%) DHCP
3 17 (3.53%) Firewall
4 13 (2.70%) Internet
5 12 (2.49%) VPN
6 11 (2.28%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (2.07%) SAN
8 9 (1.87%) VLAN
9 8 (1.66%) TCP/IP
10 6 (1.24%) HTTPS
10 6 (1.24%) SSH
11 3 (0.62%) LAN
11 3 (0.62%) Network Security
11 3 (0.62%) SSL
11 3 (0.62%) WAN
12 2 (0.41%) FTP
12 2 (0.41%) Intranet
12 2 (0.41%) WinSCP
13 1 (0.21%) MQTT
13 1 (0.21%) Remote Desktop
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (12.24%) Relational Database
2 58 (12.03%) PostgreSQL
3 52 (10.79%) Data Warehouse
4 51 (10.58%) Power BI
5 45 (9.34%) Oracle Database
6 42 (8.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 31 (6.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 30 (6.22%) Azure SQL Database
9 28 (5.81%) MongoDB
10 21 (4.36%) Data Lake
11 19 (3.94%) NoSQL
11 19 (3.94%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 15 (3.11%) Redis
13 10 (2.07%) MySQL
14 9 (1.87%) Big Data
14 9 (1.87%) Metadata
14 9 (1.87%) Star Schema
15 8 (1.66%) Db2
15 8 (1.66%) Snowflake Schema
16 7 (1.45%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 46 (9.54%) Git
2 25 (5.19%) JIRA
3 20 (4.15%) Jenkins
4 19 (3.94%) TeamCity
5 18 (3.73%) Visual Studio
6 12 (2.49%) GitLab
7 11 (2.28%) Octopus Deploy
8 10 (2.07%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 9 (1.87%) Chocolatey
10 8 (1.66%) MSTest
11 7 (1.45%) Cucumber
11 7 (1.45%) Maven
12 6 (1.24%) Bitbucket
12 6 (1.24%) JUnit
12 6 (1.24%) Mocha
12 6 (1.24%) Mockito
12 6 (1.24%) tSQLt
13 5 (1.04%) REST Assured
13 5 (1.04%) Sonatype Nexus
13 5 (1.04%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 199 (41.29%) Finance
2 139 (28.84%) Social Skills
3 109 (22.61%) Banking
4 99 (20.54%) Analytical Skills
5 37 (7.68%) Front Office
6 21 (4.36%) Investment Banking
7 19 (3.94%) Public Sector
8 17 (3.53%) Documentation Skills
9 13 (2.70%) Financial Institution
10 7 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.24%) Back Office
11 6 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
12 4 (0.83%) Legal
12 4 (0.83%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.62%) Law
13 3 (0.62%) Manufacturing
13 3 (0.62%) Publishing
14 2 (0.41%) Prime Brokerage
15 1 (0.21%) Pharmaceutical
15 1 (0.21%) Retail
Job Titles
1 183 (37.97%) Developer
2 80 (16.60%) C# Developer
3 77 (15.98%) Senior
4 50 (10.37%) Data Engineer
5 45 (9.34%) .NET Developer
6 34 (7.05%) DBA
7 32 (6.64%) Architect
8 30 (6.22%) Senior Developer
9 29 (6.02%) Lead
10 27 (5.60%) Software Engineer
11 26 (5.39%) SQL DBA
11 26 (5.39%) SQL Developer
12 25 (5.19%) C# .NET Developer
13 24 (4.98%) Infrastructure Engineer
14 22 (4.56%) Azure Engineer
14 22 (4.56%) Full-Stack Developer
15 18 (3.73%) Consultant
16 17 (3.53%) Solutions Architect
17 15 (3.11%) Cloud Engineer
17 15 (3.11%) Front Office Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 155 (32.16%) .NET
2 77 (15.98%) REST
3 68 (14.11%) .NET Framework
4 51 (10.58%) React
5 45 (9.34%) CSS
6 38 (7.88%) HTML
7 37 (7.68%) AngularJS
8 34 (7.05%) RESTful
9 32 (6.64%) .NET Core
10 31 (6.43%) ASP.NET
11 30 (6.22%) Kafka
12 26 (5.39%) SOAP
13 25 (5.19%) Web Services
14 24 (4.98%) XML
15 20 (4.15%) OAuth
15 20 (4.15%) WinForms
16 18 (3.73%) JSON
16 18 (3.73%) WPF
17 17 (3.53%) Spring Boot
18 14 (2.90%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 37 (7.68%) Cloud Native
2 27 (5.60%) Legacy Systems
2 27 (5.60%) Self-Motivation
3 18 (3.73%) Data Structures
3 18 (3.73%) Replication
4 17 (3.53%) Onboarding
5 16 (3.32%) Derivative
6 14 (2.90%) Enterprise Software
7 13 (2.70%) Clustering
7 13 (2.70%) Fixed Income
8 10 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
8 10 (2.07%) Low-Code
9 9 (1.87%) Cyber Threat
9 9 (1.87%) Data Centre
9 9 (1.87%) Equities
9 9 (1.87%) Product Ownership
10 8 (1.66%) Greenfield Project
11 6 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 6 (1.24%) Reinsurance
12 5 (1.04%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 123 (25.52%) Windows
2 55 (11.41%) Windows Server
3 38 (7.88%) Linux
4 9 (1.87%) Unix
5 4 (0.83%) Ubuntu
6 3 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.62%) VMS
7 1 (0.21%) Windows 10
7 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
7 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 136 (28.22%) DevOps
2 119 (24.69%) CI/CD
3 116 (24.07%) Agile
4 102 (21.16%) Problem-Solving
5 86 (17.84%) Migration
6 76 (15.77%) Disaster Recovery
7 74 (15.35%) AI
7 74 (15.35%) ETL
8 68 (14.11%) Business Intelligence
9 65 (13.49%) Data Modelling
10 63 (13.07%) Performance Tuning
11 56 (11.62%) Data Analysis
12 53 (11.00%) Software Engineering
13 52 (10.79%) Data Pipeline
14 50 (10.37%) Microservices
15 49 (10.17%) Analytics
15 49 (10.17%) Test Automation
16 48 (9.96%) Continuous Improvement
17 42 (8.71%) Validation
18 40 (8.30%) Unit Testing
Programming Languages
1 289 (59.96%) SQL
2 178 (36.93%) C#
3 108 (22.41%) Python
4 103 (21.37%) T-SQL
5 72 (14.94%) JavaScript
6 63 (13.07%) PowerShell
7 58 (12.03%) PL/SQL
8 44 (9.13%) Java
9 35 (7.26%) TypeScript
10 13 (2.70%) Bash
11 12 (2.49%) VBA
12 11 (2.28%) VB
13 10 (2.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 7 (1.45%) Shell Script
15 6 (1.24%) Scala
15 6 (1.24%) VB.NET
15 6 (1.24%) XPath
16 4 (0.83%) Bicep
16 4 (0.83%) Groovy
17 2 (0.41%) R
Qualifications
1 64 (13.28%) Security Cleared
2 48 (9.96%) SC Cleared
3 46 (9.54%) Degree
4 20 (4.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 9 (1.87%) Azure Certification
6 8 (1.66%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.24%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.24%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.83%) DBS Check
8 4 (0.83%) MCITP
8 4 (0.83%) MCTS
8 4 (0.83%) PhD
9 3 (0.62%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.62%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.41%) ISEB
10 2 (0.41%) Postgraduate
10 2 (0.41%) Tableau Certification
11 1 (0.21%) CCA
11 1 (0.21%) CISSP
11 1 (0.21%) Citrix Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 63 (13.07%) QA
2 43 (8.92%) Data Quality
3 15 (3.11%) SLA
4 8 (1.66%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.04%) GDPR
6 4 (0.83%) Actionable Recommendations
6 4 (0.83%) WCAG
7 2 (0.41%) Basel III
7 2 (0.41%) COREP
7 2 (0.41%) FINREP
7 2 (0.41%) Government Security Classifications
7 2 (0.41%) SOC 2
8 1 (0.21%) EMIR
8 1 (0.21%) IFRS
8 1 (0.21%) IFRS 9
8 1 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.21%) MiFID
System Software
1 43 (8.92%) Active Directory
2 37 (7.68%) Docker
3 14 (2.90%) Virtual Machines
4 11 (2.28%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (1.04%) Virtual Desktop
6 3 (0.62%) GridGain
6 3 (0.62%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
8 1 (0.21%) Hyper-V
8 1 (0.21%) NFS
8 1 (0.21%) RACF
8 1 (0.21%) XenApp
8 1 (0.21%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 58 (12.03%) Kubernetes
2 39 (8.09%) Terraform
3 12 (2.49%) Microsoft Intune
4 10 (2.07%) SCCM
5 7 (1.45%) Ansible
5 7 (1.45%) Microsoft Clustering
6 4 (0.83%) Grafana
6 4 (0.83%) ITRS Geneos
7 3 (0.62%) SCOM
7 3 (0.62%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.41%) Failover Clustering
8 2 (0.41%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.21%) Argo
9 1 (0.21%) Data Guard
9 1 (0.21%) Packer
9 1 (0.21%) PowerCLI
9 1 (0.21%) Progress Chef
9 1 (0.21%) Puppet
9 1 (0.21%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 141 (29.25%) Oracle
2 120 (24.90%) Microsoft
3 40 (8.30%) Citrix
4 34 (7.05%) VMware
5 28 (5.81%) Databricks
6 18 (3.73%) Informatica
7 16 (3.32%) Dynatrace
8 15 (3.11%) CyberArk
8 15 (3.11%) SAP
9 13 (2.70%) Sybase
10 12 (2.49%) ServiceNow
11 9 (1.87%) AppDynamics
11 9 (1.87%) Cisco
11 9 (1.87%) IBM
11 9 (1.87%) Tenable
12 8 (1.66%) OutSystems
13 7 (1.45%) BeyondTrust
14 6 (1.24%) WALLIX
15 5 (1.04%) OpenText
15 5 (1.04%) Red Hat