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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 72 51
Rank change year-on-year -31 -21 -9
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 404 472 730
As % of all contract jobs in London 2.81% 3.31% 4.05%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.62% 15.33% 21.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 282 341 538
10th Percentile £375 £325 £381
25th Percentile £413 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.14% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £675
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
England median daily rate £485 £505 £550
% change year-on-year -4.06% -8.18% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 2 0
10th Percentile - £64.23 -
25th Percentile £66.00 £70.19 -
Median hourly rate £68.00 £80.25 -
Median % change year-on-year -15.26% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 £90.19 -
90th Percentile - £96.08 -
England median hourly rate £58.36 £64.37 £52.50
% change year-on-year -9.34% +22.61% +45.83%

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 2,967 3,079 3,443
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 20.61% 21.61% 19.11%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,066 2,115 2,503
10th Percentile £360 £363 £382
25th Percentile £415 £455 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £570
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% -0.88% -5.00%
75th Percentile £650 £696 £688
90th Percentile £750 £825 £788
England median daily rate £500 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -9.09% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 32 26 35
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £22.30
25th Percentile £29.72 £26.21 £35.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £42.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £70.50 £59.50 £59.38
90th Percentile £87.50 £79.38 £64.52
England median hourly rate £54.70 £42.00 £46.18
% change year-on-year +30.24% -9.05% -16.04%

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 7 January 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 7 January 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 -43 43 £513 -11.64% 31
South London -1 7 £530 -26.90% 2
East London -1 3 £540 +35.00% 6
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 17 (4.21%) IIS
2 16 (3.96%) Confluence
2 16 (3.96%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 13 (3.22%) WebSphere
4 12 (2.97%) SharePoint
5 11 (2.72%) WebLogic
6 5 (1.24%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Exchange
7 4 (0.99%) Apache
7 4 (0.99%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.74%) Appian
9 2 (0.50%) CMS
9 2 (0.50%) HCL Notes
9 2 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.50%) Tomcat
9 2 (0.50%) WildFly
10 1 (0.25%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.25%) JBoss
10 1 (0.25%) MQSeries
10 1 (0.25%) SAS
Applications
1 32 (7.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.98%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.50%) Trello
6 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 7 (1.73%) BusinessWorks
1 7 (1.73%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (0.99%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 3 (0.74%) Fidessa
3 3 (0.74%) Oracle BPM
3 3 (0.74%) Oracle General Ledger
3 3 (0.74%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.74%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.74%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.50%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.50%) Endur
4 2 (0.50%) Loan IQ
4 2 (0.50%) Oracle FAH
4 2 (0.50%) thinkFolio
4 2 (0.50%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 1 (0.25%) ION Anvil
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.25%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 177 (43.81%) Azure
2 85 (21.04%) AWS
3 81 (20.05%) Power Platform
4 56 (13.86%) Azure DevOps
5 44 (10.89%) GitHub
6 34 (8.42%) Azure Data Factory
7 26 (6.44%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 26 (6.44%) GCP
8 20 (4.95%) GitHub Actions
8 20 (4.95%) SaaS
9 16 (3.96%) Snowflake
10 15 (3.71%) Amazon S3
11 13 (3.22%) IaaS
11 13 (3.22%) Microsoft 365
12 11 (2.72%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 10 (2.48%) Azure Service Bus
13 10 (2.48%) Serverless
14 9 (2.23%) AWS CloudFormation
14 9 (2.23%) Azure Logic Apps
14 9 (2.23%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.48%) Internet
2 7 (1.73%) Firewall
3 6 (1.49%) NetScaler
4 4 (0.99%) DNS
5 3 (0.74%) HTTP
5 3 (0.74%) TCP/IP
6 2 (0.50%) DHCP
6 2 (0.50%) FTP
6 2 (0.50%) Software-Defined Networking
6 2 (0.50%) VSAN
7 1 (0.25%) BGP
7 1 (0.25%) DMZ
7 1 (0.25%) Ethernet VPN
7 1 (0.25%) Intranet
7 1 (0.25%) NAS
7 1 (0.25%) Network Security
7 1 (0.25%) SSL
7 1 (0.25%) VPN
7 1 (0.25%) VXLAN
7 1 (0.25%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (17.08%) Power BI
2 68 (16.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 64 (15.84%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (12.62%) Relational Database
5 42 (10.40%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (8.17%) MongoDB
7 31 (7.67%) Data Lake
7 31 (7.67%) Oracle Database
7 31 (7.67%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 27 (6.68%) Azure SQL Database
8 27 (6.68%) NoSQL
9 16 (3.96%) MySQL
9 16 (3.96%) Redis
10 15 (3.71%) Big Data
11 14 (3.47%) Delta Lake
11 14 (3.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 13 (3.22%) Amazon RDS
12 13 (3.22%) DB2
13 12 (2.97%) RDBMS
14 10 (2.48%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 41 (10.15%) Git
2 29 (7.18%) JIRA
3 24 (5.94%) Jenkins
4 13 (3.22%) Visual Studio
5 12 (2.97%) SpecFlow
6 11 (2.72%) TeamCity
7 10 (2.48%) GitLab
8 9 (2.23%) Maven
9 8 (1.98%) JUnit
9 8 (1.98%) Octopus Deploy
10 6 (1.49%) Bitbucket
10 6 (1.49%) webpack
11 5 (1.24%) Cucumber
11 5 (1.24%) Mockito
11 5 (1.24%) Selenium
12 4 (0.99%) Eclipse
12 4 (0.99%) ERwin
12 4 (0.99%) Gradle
13 3 (0.74%) SoapUI
13 3 (0.74%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 154 (38.12%) Finance
2 128 (31.68%) Social Skills
3 79 (19.55%) Banking
4 47 (11.63%) Analytical Skills
5 24 (5.94%) Investment Banking
6 20 (4.95%) Public Sector
7 18 (4.46%) Front Office
8 16 (3.96%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (3.96%) Financial Institution
9 11 (2.72%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (1.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.49%) Retail
12 5 (1.24%) Local Government
13 4 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.74%) Back Office
14 3 (0.74%) General Ledger
14 3 (0.74%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.74%) Law
14 3 (0.74%) Legal
14 3 (0.74%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 167 (41.34%) Developer
2 68 (16.83%) Senior
3 63 (15.59%) Data Engineer
4 60 (14.85%) C# Developer
5 39 (9.65%) .NET Developer
6 32 (7.92%) Senior Developer
7 28 (6.93%) Analyst
8 26 (6.44%) Architect
9 23 (5.69%) Senior Data Engineer
10 19 (4.70%) Angular Developer
10 19 (4.70%) C# .NET Developer
10 19 (4.70%) Lead
11 14 (3.47%) DBA
11 14 (3.47%) Full-Stack Developer
11 14 (3.47%) Java Developer
12 13 (3.22%) SQL DBA
13 12 (2.97%) Business Analyst
13 12 (2.97%) Consultant
13 12 (2.97%) SQL Developer
14 11 (2.72%) Azure Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 122 (30.20%) .NET
2 55 (13.61%) .NET Framework
3 36 (8.91%) REST
4 35 (8.66%) HTML
5 34 (8.42%) Kafka
6 32 (7.92%) RESTful
6 32 (7.92%) XML
7 30 (7.43%) AngularJS
8 27 (6.68%) React
9 24 (5.94%) CSS
10 23 (5.69%) .NET Core
10 23 (5.69%) Web Services
11 19 (4.70%) Entity Framework
11 19 (4.70%) WPF
12 17 (4.21%) SOAP
13 16 (3.96%) NHibernate
13 16 (3.96%) WinForms
14 15 (3.71%) Middleware
15 14 (3.47%) Playwright
16 13 (3.22%) ASP.NET
Miscellaneous
1 24 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
2 18 (4.46%) Cloud Native
2 18 (4.46%) Derivative
3 17 (4.21%) Enterprise Software
4 16 (3.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 16 (3.96%) Management Information System
4 16 (3.96%) Onboarding
5 14 (3.47%) Credit Risk
6 11 (2.72%) Distributed Systems
7 10 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
7 10 (2.48%) Hedge funds
8 9 (2.23%) Reinsurance
9 8 (1.98%) Fixed Income
9 8 (1.98%) Linux Command Line
9 8 (1.98%) Market Risk
10 7 (1.73%) Product Ownership
11 6 (1.49%) Data Structures
11 6 (1.49%) Low-Code
11 6 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
12 5 (1.24%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 63 (15.59%) Windows
2 39 (9.65%) Linux
3 26 (6.44%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.98%) Unix
5 5 (1.24%) Windows 10
5 5 (1.24%) Windows Server 2016
6 3 (0.74%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.25%) AIX
8 1 (0.25%) Solaris
8 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 107 (26.49%) CI/CD
2 105 (25.99%) Agile
3 92 (22.77%) DevOps
4 85 (21.04%) ETL
5 79 (19.55%) Business Intelligence
6 75 (18.56%) Problem-Solving
7 65 (16.09%) Data Modelling
7 65 (16.09%) Migration
8 56 (13.86%) Microservices
9 53 (13.12%) Analytics
10 46 (11.39%) Test Automation
11 41 (10.15%) Data Analysis
11 41 (10.15%) Data Engineering
12 39 (9.65%) Data Migration
13 33 (8.17%) Full-Stack Development
14 32 (7.92%) Clean Code
15 31 (7.67%) Infrastructure as Code
15 31 (7.67%) Scrum
15 31 (7.67%) Software Engineering
16 30 (7.43%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 239 (59.16%) SQL
2 126 (31.19%) C#
3 86 (21.29%) Python
4 59 (14.60%) T-SQL
5 47 (11.63%) PL/SQL
6 44 (10.89%) Java
7 42 (10.40%) JavaScript
8 21 (5.20%) PowerShell
9 18 (4.46%) Bash
10 15 (3.71%) VB
10 15 (3.71%) VBA
11 12 (2.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 10 (2.48%) TypeScript
13 7 (1.73%) XPath
14 5 (1.24%) Bicep
15 4 (0.99%) COBOL
16 3 (0.74%) Shell Script
17 2 (0.50%) C++
17 2 (0.50%) R
18 1 (0.25%) C
Qualifications
1 47 (11.63%) Degree
2 45 (11.14%) Security Cleared
3 34 (8.42%) SC Cleared
4 22 (5.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (2.72%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (2.23%) Master's Degree
7 8 (1.98%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (1.24%) DV Cleared
9 4 (0.99%) Azure Certification
10 3 (0.74%) CCA
10 3 (0.74%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.74%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (0.74%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.74%) PMP
11 2 (0.50%) CCNP
11 2 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.50%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 2 (0.50%) MCITP
12 1 (0.25%) AWS Certification
12 1 (0.25%) CCSM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (13.61%) Data Quality
2 46 (11.39%) QA
3 9 (2.23%) Accessibility
4 7 (1.73%) GDPR
5 6 (1.49%) MiFID
5 6 (1.49%) SLA
6 4 (0.99%) EMIR
6 4 (0.99%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.74%) IFRS
7 3 (0.74%) IFRS 17
8 2 (0.50%) Basel III
8 2 (0.50%) GAAP
8 2 (0.50%) IFRS 9
8 2 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 2 (0.50%) Solvency II
9 1 (0.25%) HL7
9 1 (0.25%) NCSC
9 1 (0.25%) NIST
9 1 (0.25%) NIST 800
9 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 48 (11.88%) Docker
2 16 (3.96%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.98%) zsh
4 3 (0.74%) Hyper-V
4 3 (0.74%) XenApp
4 3 (0.74%) XenDesktop
5 2 (0.50%) GridGain
5 2 (0.50%) Virtual Desktop
5 2 (0.50%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.50%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.25%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 44 (10.89%) Kubernetes
2 25 (6.19%) Terraform
3 13 (3.22%) Grafana
4 11 (2.72%) Puppet
5 10 (2.48%) Ansible
6 7 (1.73%) TIBCO Hawk
7 5 (1.24%) Control-M
7 5 (1.24%) Prometheus
7 5 (1.24%) SCCM
8 4 (0.99%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (0.99%) ZABBIX
9 3 (0.74%) Ambari
9 3 (0.74%) SCVMM
10 2 (0.50%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.50%) SCOM
10 2 (0.50%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 1 (0.25%) BladeLogic
11 1 (0.25%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 138 (34.16%) Oracle
2 90 (22.28%) Microsoft
3 38 (9.41%) Databricks
4 29 (7.18%) Citrix
5 14 (3.47%) SAP
6 12 (2.97%) IBM
7 11 (2.72%) Informatica
8 9 (2.23%) VMware
9 8 (1.98%) ServiceNow
9 8 (1.98%) UiPath
10 7 (1.73%) BEA
10 7 (1.73%) TIBCO
11 6 (1.49%) Atlassian
11 6 (1.49%) Google
11 6 (1.49%) PagerDuty
12 5 (1.24%) Salesforce
13 4 (0.99%) HP
13 4 (0.99%) Palo Alto
13 4 (0.99%) Solace
13 4 (0.99%) Sybase