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 25 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 68 50
Rank change year-on-year -41 -18 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 441 464 738
As % of all contract jobs in London 2.79% 3.47% 4.06%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 14.32% 15.82% 20.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 307 329 541
10th Percentile £366 £363 £375
25th Percentile £407 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -4.35% -2.95%
75th Percentile £615 £650 £675
90th Percentile £700 £738 £750
England median daily rate £480 £518 £535
% change year-on-year -7.25% -3.27% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 0
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £66.00 £60.25 -
Median hourly rate £68.00 £60.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +12.40% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 £60.75 -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £26.72 £63.75 £40.25
% change year-on-year -58.08% +58.37% -3.59%

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 3,079 2,933 3,563
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 19.48% 21.94% 19.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,116 2,036 2,642
10th Percentile £361 £363 £385
25th Percentile £420 £454 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £565 £558
Median % change year-on-year -7.08% +1.35% -5.11%
75th Percentile £638 £700 £688
90th Percentile £738 £829 £788
England median daily rate £500 £538 £534
% change year-on-year -6.98% +0.75% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 31 38
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £20.98
25th Percentile £29.25 £28.84 £25.90
Median hourly rate £54.00 £41.50 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +30.12% -5.14% +0.28%
75th Percentile £75.00 £59.75 £54.03
90th Percentile £91.00 £78.75 £65.27
England median hourly rate £54.25 £41.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +32.32% -3.53% -22.73%

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 25 February 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 25 February 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 -38 44 £525 -9.48% 29
South London -9 7 £530 -26.90% 2
West London -20 3 £463 - 8
East London -6 2 £585 +46.25% 4
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 19 (4.31%) IIS
2 18 (4.08%) SharePoint
3 15 (3.40%) Confluence
4 14 (3.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 11 (2.49%) WebSphere
6 10 (2.27%) Microsoft Exchange
7 8 (1.81%) Appian
8 7 (1.59%) Apache
8 7 (1.59%) Apache Spark
8 7 (1.59%) WebLogic
9 6 (1.36%) Apache Airflow
10 2 (0.45%) CMS
11 1 (0.23%) Anypoint
11 1 (0.23%) Camunda
11 1 (0.23%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.23%) JBoss
11 1 (0.23%) Mule
11 1 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
11 1 (0.23%) Oracle Workflow
11 1 (0.23%) Tomcat
Applications
1 30 (6.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (2.72%) MS Visio
3 8 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.23%) Trello
Business Applications
1 7 (1.59%) BusinessWorks
1 7 (1.59%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (0.68%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
2 3 (0.68%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
2 3 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.45%) Loan IQ
3 2 (0.45%) Oracle General Ledger
3 2 (0.45%) Oracle Payables
3 2 (0.45%) Oracle Receivables
3 2 (0.45%) Veritas eDiscovery
4 1 (0.23%) Endur
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle BPM
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
4 1 (0.23%) Orchestrade
4 1 (0.23%) RMDS
4 1 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
4 1 (0.23%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.23%) SAP R/3
4 1 (0.23%) TIBCO BusinessEvents
Cloud Services
1 209 (47.39%) Azure
2 99 (22.45%) AWS
3 87 (19.73%) Power Platform
4 76 (17.23%) Azure DevOps
5 49 (11.11%) Azure Data Factory
5 49 (11.11%) GitHub
6 34 (7.71%) GCP
7 29 (6.58%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 21 (4.76%) SaaS
9 19 (4.31%) Amazon S3
10 18 (4.08%) GitHub Actions
10 18 (4.08%) Microsoft 365
11 16 (3.63%) Amazon EC2
11 16 (3.63%) Snowflake
12 15 (3.40%) AWS CloudFormation
13 14 (3.17%) Power Automate
14 13 (2.95%) IaaS
15 11 (2.49%) Dynamics 365
16 10 (2.27%) Azure Key Vault
16 10 (2.27%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.72%) Internet
2 11 (2.49%) DNS
3 9 (2.04%) Firewall
4 6 (1.36%) DHCP
4 6 (1.36%) NetScaler
4 6 (1.36%) VPN
5 4 (0.91%) FTP
5 4 (0.91%) SAN
5 4 (0.91%) TCP/IP
5 4 (0.91%) VLAN
5 4 (0.91%) Wi-Fi
6 3 (0.68%) HTTP
7 2 (0.45%) Software-Defined Networking
7 2 (0.45%) VSAN
8 1 (0.23%) BGP
8 1 (0.23%) Ethernet VPN
8 1 (0.23%) Network Security
8 1 (0.23%) Remote Desktop
8 1 (0.23%) VXLAN
8 1 (0.23%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 77 (17.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
2 70 (15.87%) Power BI
3 65 (14.74%) PostgreSQL
4 53 (12.02%) Data Warehouse
5 52 (11.79%) Relational Database
6 38 (8.62%) Oracle Database
7 36 (8.16%) Data Lake
8 31 (7.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 27 (6.12%) Azure SQL Database
10 26 (5.90%) MongoDB
11 24 (5.44%) NoSQL
12 20 (4.54%) Delta Lake
13 18 (4.08%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 16 (3.63%) Big Data
15 13 (2.95%) Amazon RDS
15 13 (2.95%) RDBMS
16 12 (2.72%) BigQuery
16 12 (2.72%) Redis
17 11 (2.49%) Metadata
17 11 (2.49%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 39 (8.84%) Git
2 36 (8.16%) JIRA
3 21 (4.76%) Jenkins
4 18 (4.08%) Visual Studio
5 11 (2.49%) SpecFlow
6 9 (2.04%) GitLab
7 8 (1.81%) ERwin
7 8 (1.81%) JUnit
7 8 (1.81%) Maven
7 8 (1.81%) MLflow
8 7 (1.59%) Octopus Deploy
8 7 (1.59%) Team Foundation Server
8 7 (1.59%) TeamCity
9 6 (1.36%) Mockito
10 5 (1.13%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
11 4 (0.91%) Chocolatey
11 4 (0.91%) Cucumber
12 3 (0.68%) Gradle
12 3 (0.68%) Sonatype Nexus
13 2 (0.45%) tSQLt
General
1 154 (34.92%) Finance
2 124 (28.12%) Social Skills
3 84 (19.05%) Banking
4 54 (12.24%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (5.22%) Public Sector
6 21 (4.76%) Investment Banking
7 17 (3.85%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (2.95%) Financial Institution
8 13 (2.95%) Front Office
9 12 (2.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 9 (2.04%) Retail
11 6 (1.36%) Local Government
12 4 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
12 4 (0.91%) Telecoms
13 3 (0.68%) General Ledger
13 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (0.68%) Law
13 3 (0.68%) Legal
13 3 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
14 2 (0.45%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 175 (39.68%) Developer
2 82 (18.59%) Data Engineer
3 79 (17.91%) Senior
4 69 (15.65%) C# Developer
5 41 (9.30%) .NET Developer
6 30 (6.80%) Architect
6 30 (6.80%) Senior Developer
7 27 (6.12%) Senior Data Engineer
8 22 (4.99%) Lead
9 21 (4.76%) Analyst
10 20 (4.54%) C# .NET Developer
11 17 (3.85%) Azure Engineer
11 17 (3.85%) DBA
11 17 (3.85%) Full-Stack Developer
12 16 (3.63%) SQL DBA
13 15 (3.40%) SQL Developer
14 13 (2.95%) Angular Developer
14 13 (2.95%) Java Developer
14 13 (2.95%) Solutions Architect
15 11 (2.49%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 131 (29.71%) .NET
2 68 (15.42%) .NET Framework
3 44 (9.98%) REST
4 34 (7.71%) RESTful
5 32 (7.26%) AngularJS
6 31 (7.03%) HTML
6 31 (7.03%) React
7 30 (6.80%) Kafka
8 29 (6.58%) .NET Core
8 29 (6.58%) XML
9 25 (5.67%) Web Services
10 21 (4.76%) WPF
11 20 (4.54%) CSS
12 19 (4.31%) OAuth
12 19 (4.31%) WinForms
13 17 (3.85%) ASP.NET
13 17 (3.85%) Spring
14 16 (3.63%) Entity Framework
14 16 (3.63%) SOAP
15 15 (3.40%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 38 (8.62%) Legacy Systems
2 23 (5.22%) Cloud Native
3 16 (3.63%) Enterprise Software
4 14 (3.17%) Replication
5 12 (2.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
5 12 (2.72%) Management Information System
5 12 (2.72%) Onboarding
5 12 (2.72%) Reinsurance
6 11 (2.49%) Credit Risk
6 11 (2.49%) Data Structures
6 11 (2.49%) Derivative
7 10 (2.27%) Distributed Systems
7 10 (2.27%) Greenfield Project
8 9 (2.04%) Low-Code
9 7 (1.59%) Data Protection Act
9 7 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
10 6 (1.36%) Fixed Income
10 6 (1.36%) Market Risk
11 5 (1.13%) Client/Server
12 4 (0.91%) Wiki
Operating Systems
1 75 (17.01%) Windows
2 39 (8.84%) Linux
3 26 (5.90%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.81%) Unix
5 7 (1.59%) Windows Server 2016
6 6 (1.36%) Windows 10
7 5 (1.13%) Windows Server 2019
8 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.23%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 121 (27.44%) CI/CD
2 110 (24.94%) DevOps
3 102 (23.13%) Agile
4 98 (22.22%) ETL
5 95 (21.54%) Business Intelligence
6 86 (19.50%) Data Modelling
7 85 (19.27%) Problem-Solving
8 75 (17.01%) Migration
9 61 (13.83%) Analytics
10 58 (13.15%) Data Engineering
11 51 (11.56%) Data Analysis
11 51 (11.56%) Data Pipeline
12 48 (10.88%) Microservices
13 45 (10.20%) Test Automation
14 43 (9.75%) Containerisation
15 41 (9.30%) AI
16 40 (9.07%) Data Migration
17 38 (8.62%) Disaster Recovery
18 37 (8.39%) Performance Tuning
19 36 (8.16%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 269 (61.00%) SQL
2 137 (31.07%) C#
3 119 (26.98%) Python
4 71 (16.10%) T-SQL
5 50 (11.34%) PL/SQL
6 45 (10.20%) Java
7 40 (9.07%) JavaScript
8 30 (6.80%) PowerShell
9 24 (5.44%) TypeScript
10 15 (3.40%) VB
10 15 (3.40%) VBA
11 14 (3.17%) Bash
12 13 (2.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 9 (2.04%) Bicep
14 7 (1.59%) XPath
15 4 (0.91%) Scala
16 3 (0.68%) R
16 3 (0.68%) Shell Script
17 2 (0.45%) C++
18 1 (0.23%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 50 (11.34%) Security Cleared
2 47 (10.66%) Degree
3 36 (8.16%) SC Cleared
4 18 (4.08%) Computer Science Degree
5 10 (2.27%) Azure Certification
5 10 (2.27%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
6 8 (1.81%) DV Cleared
7 6 (1.36%) Master's Degree
8 5 (1.13%) CCA
8 5 (1.13%) Citrix Certification
9 3 (0.68%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.45%) CCNP
10 2 (0.45%) CISSP
10 2 (0.45%) PMI Certification
10 2 (0.45%) PMP
11 1 (0.23%) CCNA
11 1 (0.23%) ISEB
11 1 (0.23%) Postgraduate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (14.97%) Data Quality
2 60 (13.61%) QA
3 8 (1.81%) GDPR
3 8 (1.81%) SLA
4 3 (0.68%) Accessibility
4 3 (0.68%) IFRS
4 3 (0.68%) IFRS 17
4 3 (0.68%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 2 (0.45%) Basel III
5 2 (0.45%) EMIR
5 2 (0.45%) GAAP
5 2 (0.45%) IFRS 9
5 2 (0.45%) MiFID
5 2 (0.45%) Solvency II
6 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.23%) NCSC
6 1 (0.23%) NIST
6 1 (0.23%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 62 (14.06%) Docker
2 16 (3.63%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.13%) Hyper-V
3 5 (1.13%) Virtual Desktop
3 5 (1.13%) XenApp
3 5 (1.13%) XenDesktop
4 4 (0.91%) zsh
5 2 (0.45%) GridGain
5 2 (0.45%) VMware ESXi
5 2 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.45%) VMware NSX
6 1 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
6 1 (0.23%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 60 (13.61%) Kubernetes
2 34 (7.71%) Terraform
3 12 (2.72%) Ansible
4 11 (2.49%) Grafana
5 10 (2.27%) SCCM
6 8 (1.81%) Puppet
7 7 (1.59%) TIBCO Hawk
8 5 (1.13%) Microsoft Intune
8 5 (1.13%) SCVMM
9 4 (0.91%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.68%) Control-M
10 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Clustering
10 3 (0.68%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 1 (0.23%) Ambari
11 1 (0.23%) BladeLogic
11 1 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
11 1 (0.23%) FortiGate
11 1 (0.23%) VxRail
11 1 (0.23%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 151 (34.24%) Oracle
2 113 (25.62%) Microsoft
3 50 (11.34%) Databricks
4 39 (8.84%) Citrix
5 22 (4.99%) Informatica
6 15 (3.40%) SAP
6 15 (3.40%) VMware
7 13 (2.95%) IBM
7 13 (2.95%) UiPath
8 10 (2.27%) Google
9 9 (2.04%) ServiceNow
10 8 (1.81%) Automation Anywhere
10 8 (1.81%) OpenAI
11 7 (1.59%) BEA
11 7 (1.59%) Dynatrace
11 7 (1.59%) Sybase
11 7 (1.59%) TIBCO
12 6 (1.36%) PagerDuty
13 5 (1.13%) AppDynamics
13 5 (1.13%) Tenable