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

6 months to
18 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 78 52
Rank change year-on-year -25 -26 -8
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 399 452 723
As % of all contract jobs in London 2.78% 3.23% 3.97%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.70% 14.96% 20.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 281 322 534
10th Percentile £369 £363 £385
25th Percentile £408 £416 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £580
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -5.17% -3.33%
75th Percentile £650 £650 £675
90th Percentile £738 £738 £750
England median daily rate £480 £510 £550
% change year-on-year -5.88% -7.27% -
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 £20.75 £64.37 £52.50
% change year-on-year -67.77% +22.61% +25.75%

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 2,913 3,022 3,488
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 20.31% 21.57% 19.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,025 2,066 2,548
10th Percentile £358 £363 £385
25th Percentile £415 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £568
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% -0.44% -5.42%
75th Percentile £650 £699 £688
90th Percentile £750 £825 £788
England median daily rate £500 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -9.09% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 33 26 39
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £23.20
25th Percentile £29.25 £26.21 £30.62
Median hourly rate £43.50 £42.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +1.75% -5.00% +6.98%
75th Percentile £70.00 £59.50 £56.44
90th Percentile £87.50 £79.38 £64.51
England median hourly rate £43.50 £39.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +11.54% -13.33% -18.18%

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 18 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 18 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 -37 42 £500 -14.53% 27
South London +3 7 £530 -26.90% 3
East London -8 1 £540 +35.00% 2
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 16 (4.01%) IIS
2 14 (3.51%) Confluence
2 14 (3.51%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 13 (3.26%) SharePoint
3 13 (3.26%) WebSphere
4 9 (2.26%) WebLogic
5 8 (2.01%) Microsoft Exchange
6 7 (1.75%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (1.75%) Apache Spark
7 6 (1.50%) Apache
8 4 (1.00%) Appian
9 2 (0.50%) CMS
9 2 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.50%) WildFly
10 1 (0.25%) ArcGIS
10 1 (0.25%) ColdFusion
10 1 (0.25%) HCL Notes
10 1 (0.25%) JBoss
10 1 (0.25%) SAS
10 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
Applications
1 32 (8.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (2.76%) MS Visio
3 6 (1.50%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.00%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.50%) Trello
6 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 7 (1.75%) BusinessWorks
1 7 (1.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 4 (1.00%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
3 3 (0.75%) Oracle General Ledger
3 3 (0.75%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (0.75%) Oracle Receivables
3 3 (0.75%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.50%) Loan IQ
4 2 (0.50%) Oracle FAH
4 2 (0.50%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 1 (0.25%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.25%) ION Anvil
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Internet Expenses
5 1 (0.25%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.25%) RMDS
5 1 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.25%) SAP ERP
5 1 (0.25%) thinkFolio
5 1 (0.25%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 181 (45.36%) Azure
2 88 (22.06%) AWS
3 86 (21.55%) Power Platform
4 60 (15.04%) Azure DevOps
5 42 (10.53%) GitHub
6 40 (10.03%) Azure Data Factory
7 30 (7.52%) GCP
8 26 (6.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 19 (4.76%) SaaS
10 18 (4.51%) GitHub Actions
11 16 (4.01%) Snowflake
12 14 (3.51%) Amazon S3
12 14 (3.51%) Microsoft 365
13 12 (3.01%) IaaS
14 11 (2.76%) AWS CloudFormation
15 10 (2.51%) Power Automate
16 9 (2.26%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 9 (2.26%) Azure Key Vault
16 9 (2.26%) Azure Service Bus
17 8 (2.01%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.26%) Internet
2 7 (1.75%) Firewall
2 7 (1.75%) NetScaler
3 4 (1.00%) DNS
4 3 (0.75%) HTTP
4 3 (0.75%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.50%) DHCP
5 2 (0.50%) FTP
5 2 (0.50%) Software-Defined Networking
5 2 (0.50%) VSAN
6 1 (0.25%) BGP
6 1 (0.25%) DMZ
6 1 (0.25%) Ethernet VPN
6 1 (0.25%) Network Security
6 1 (0.25%) SSL
6 1 (0.25%) VPN
6 1 (0.25%) VXLAN
6 1 (0.25%) WebEx
6 1 (0.25%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 74 (18.55%) Power BI
2 67 (16.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 61 (15.29%) PostgreSQL
4 51 (12.78%) Relational Database
5 46 (11.53%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (8.27%) Data Lake
7 31 (7.77%) MongoDB
8 29 (7.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 28 (7.02%) NoSQL
10 26 (6.52%) Oracle Database
11 24 (6.02%) Azure SQL Database
12 20 (5.01%) Delta Lake
13 17 (4.26%) Big Data
14 15 (3.76%) RDBMS
15 14 (3.51%) MySQL
15 14 (3.51%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 13 (3.26%) Amazon RDS
16 13 (3.26%) DB2
16 13 (3.26%) Redis
17 11 (2.76%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 37 (9.27%) Git
2 31 (7.77%) JIRA
3 21 (5.26%) Jenkins
4 15 (3.76%) Visual Studio
5 12 (3.01%) SpecFlow
6 9 (2.26%) TeamCity
7 8 (2.01%) GitLab
7 8 (2.01%) JUnit
7 8 (2.01%) Maven
7 8 (2.01%) Octopus Deploy
8 7 (1.75%) ERwin
9 5 (1.25%) Mockito
10 4 (1.00%) Bitbucket
10 4 (1.00%) MLflow
10 4 (1.00%) Selenium
11 3 (0.75%) Gradle
11 3 (0.75%) Sonatype Nexus
11 3 (0.75%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 3 (0.75%) webpack
11 3 (0.75%) Zephyr
General
1 152 (38.10%) Finance
2 121 (30.33%) Social Skills
3 79 (19.80%) Banking
4 44 (11.03%) Analytical Skills
5 22 (5.51%) Investment Banking
6 18 (4.51%) Public Sector
7 17 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
8 16 (4.01%) Financial Institution
9 14 (3.51%) Front Office
10 10 (2.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 8 (2.01%) Retail
12 7 (1.75%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (1.25%) Local Government
14 4 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
15 3 (0.75%) General Ledger
15 3 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
15 3 (0.75%) Law
15 3 (0.75%) Legal
15 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
16 2 (0.50%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 161 (40.35%) Developer
2 74 (18.55%) Data Engineer
3 71 (17.79%) Senior
4 63 (15.79%) C# Developer
5 40 (10.03%) .NET Developer
6 31 (7.77%) Senior Developer
7 27 (6.77%) Analyst
7 27 (6.77%) Senior Data Engineer
8 22 (5.51%) Architect
8 22 (5.51%) C# .NET Developer
9 18 (4.51%) Angular Developer
9 18 (4.51%) Lead
10 15 (3.76%) Full-Stack Developer
11 14 (3.51%) DBA
12 13 (3.26%) Java Developer
13 12 (3.01%) Azure Engineer
13 12 (3.01%) SQL DBA
14 11 (2.76%) Business Analyst
14 11 (2.76%) SQL Developer
15 10 (2.51%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 119 (29.82%) .NET
2 57 (14.29%) .NET Framework
3 35 (8.77%) REST
4 33 (8.27%) Kafka
5 31 (7.77%) RESTful
6 29 (7.27%) AngularJS
7 28 (7.02%) HTML
8 27 (6.77%) XML
9 23 (5.76%) React
10 22 (5.51%) .NET Core
10 22 (5.51%) Web Services
11 20 (5.01%) Entity Framework
12 19 (4.76%) WPF
13 18 (4.51%) CSS
14 17 (4.26%) SOAP
15 16 (4.01%) NHibernate
15 16 (4.01%) WinForms
16 14 (3.51%) ASP.NET
16 14 (3.51%) Middleware
16 14 (3.51%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 23 (5.76%) Legacy Systems
2 18 (4.51%) Cloud Native
3 16 (4.01%) Derivative
3 16 (4.01%) Enterprise Software
4 15 (3.76%) Onboarding
5 14 (3.51%) Credit Risk
5 14 (3.51%) Management Information System
6 13 (3.26%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 11 (2.76%) Reinsurance
8 10 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
8 10 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
9 9 (2.26%) Data Structures
10 8 (2.01%) Market Risk
11 7 (1.75%) Hedge funds
11 7 (1.75%) Linux Command Line
12 6 (1.50%) Fixed Income
12 6 (1.50%) Low-Code
12 6 (1.50%) Product Ownership
13 5 (1.25%) Greenfield Project
13 5 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 61 (15.29%) Windows
2 38 (9.52%) Linux
3 25 (6.27%) Windows Server
4 8 (2.01%) Unix
5 6 (1.50%) Windows 10
5 6 (1.50%) Windows Server 2016
6 4 (1.00%) Windows Server 2019
7 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.25%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (27.82%) CI/CD
2 98 (24.56%) Agile
3 92 (23.06%) DevOps
3 92 (23.06%) ETL
4 85 (21.30%) Business Intelligence
5 77 (19.30%) Problem-Solving
6 75 (18.80%) Data Modelling
7 62 (15.54%) Migration
8 60 (15.04%) Analytics
9 54 (13.53%) Microservices
10 47 (11.78%) Data Engineering
11 44 (11.03%) Data Analysis
12 40 (10.03%) Test Automation
13 39 (9.77%) Data Migration
13 39 (9.77%) Data Pipeline
14 36 (9.02%) Containerisation
14 36 (9.02%) Scrum
15 34 (8.52%) Full-Stack Development
16 32 (8.02%) Decision-Making
17 31 (7.77%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 240 (60.15%) SQL
2 123 (30.83%) C#
3 98 (24.56%) Python
4 54 (13.53%) T-SQL
5 46 (11.53%) PL/SQL
6 43 (10.78%) Java
7 35 (8.77%) JavaScript
8 23 (5.76%) PowerShell
9 18 (4.51%) Bash
10 14 (3.51%) VB
10 14 (3.51%) VBA
11 11 (2.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 9 (2.26%) TypeScript
13 7 (1.75%) XPath
14 6 (1.50%) Bicep
15 3 (0.75%) COBOL
15 3 (0.75%) R
15 3 (0.75%) Shell Script
16 2 (0.50%) C++
16 2 (0.50%) Scala
Qualifications
1 48 (12.03%) Degree
2 43 (10.78%) Security Cleared
3 32 (8.02%) SC Cleared
4 22 (5.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
6 7 (1.75%) BPSS Clearance
6 7 (1.75%) Master's Degree
7 6 (1.50%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.25%) DV Cleared
9 4 (1.00%) CCA
9 4 (1.00%) Citrix Certification
10 3 (0.75%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.75%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.75%) 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 65 (16.29%) Data Quality
2 45 (11.28%) QA
3 8 (2.01%) GDPR
4 6 (1.50%) Accessibility
5 4 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 4 (1.00%) SLA
6 3 (0.75%) IFRS
6 3 (0.75%) IFRS 17
6 3 (0.75%) MiFID
7 2 (0.50%) Basel III
7 2 (0.50%) EMIR
7 2 (0.50%) GAAP
7 2 (0.50%) IFRS 9
7 2 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.50%) Solvency II
8 1 (0.25%) NCSC
8 1 (0.25%) NIST
8 1 (0.25%) NIST 800
8 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 55 (13.78%) Docker
2 14 (3.51%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.75%) zsh
4 4 (1.00%) Hyper-V
4 4 (1.00%) XenApp
4 4 (1.00%) 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 48 (12.03%) Kubernetes
2 26 (6.52%) Terraform
3 11 (2.76%) Ansible
4 10 (2.51%) Grafana
5 9 (2.26%) Puppet
6 7 (1.75%) TIBCO Hawk
7 6 (1.50%) SCCM
8 4 (1.00%) Control-M
8 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
8 4 (1.00%) Progress Chef
8 4 (1.00%) SCVMM
9 3 (0.75%) Prometheus
10 2 (0.50%) SCOM
11 1 (0.25%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 1 (0.25%) BladeLogic
11 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Clustering
11 1 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Management
11 1 (0.25%) vCenter Server
11 1 (0.25%) VxRail
11 1 (0.25%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 137 (34.34%) Oracle
2 91 (22.81%) Microsoft
3 48 (12.03%) Databricks
4 31 (7.77%) Citrix
5 20 (5.01%) Informatica
6 13 (3.26%) SAP
7 12 (3.01%) IBM
8 9 (2.26%) ServiceNow
8 9 (2.26%) UiPath
9 8 (2.01%) Google
9 8 (2.01%) VMware
10 7 (1.75%) BEA
10 7 (1.75%) TIBCO
11 6 (1.50%) Atlassian
11 6 (1.50%) PagerDuty
12 5 (1.25%) Salesforce
12 5 (1.25%) Splunk
13 4 (1.00%) HP
13 4 (1.00%) Solace
13 4 (1.00%) Sybase