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 17 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 117 95 43
Rank change year-on-year -22 -52 +5
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 492 395 798
As % of all contract jobs in London 2.45% 2.91% 4.94%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.65% 13.72% 20.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 366 295 571
10th Percentile £375 £375 £338
25th Percentile £415 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £554 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.23% +5.52% -4.55%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £650
90th Percentile £738 £775 £738
England median daily rate £488 £500 £501
% change year-on-year -2.50% -0.25% -4.52%
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% +80.18%
75th Percentile £19.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £47.54 £23.80 £48.56
% change year-on-year +99.79% -51.00% +7.91%

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 3,605 2,878 3,815
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 17.95% 21.22% 23.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,437 2,014 2,817
10th Percentile £363 £375 £363
25th Percentile £438 £427 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -
75th Percentile £638 £695 £725
90th Percentile £750 £825 £850
England median daily rate £500 £515 £550
% change year-on-year -2.91% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 34 24
10th Percentile £17.72 £25.40 £32.29
25th Percentile £25.25 £31.22 £41.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £48.00 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% -4.48% -16.25%
75th Percentile £57.50 £63.75 £55.00
90th Percentile £61.00 £85.25 £77.63
England median hourly rate £38.25 £34.82 £35.00
% change year-on-year +9.87% -0.53% -36.36%

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 17 August 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 17 August 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 -14 75 £575 +4.55% 26
South London +2 11 £550 -18.52% 5
East London -1 2 £565 +6.60% 6
West London -21 2 £550 -15.64% 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 39 (7.93%) SharePoint
2 28 (5.69%) IIS
3 15 (3.05%) Confluence
4 13 (2.64%) Apache Airflow
5 12 (2.44%) Apache Spark
5 12 (2.44%) Camunda
6 10 (2.03%) Apache
6 10 (2.03%) Microsoft Exchange
7 7 (1.42%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (1.22%) Appian
9 5 (1.02%) Apache Solr
10 2 (0.41%) ArcGIS
10 2 (0.41%) CMS
11 1 (0.20%) Blackberry Enterprise Server
11 1 (0.20%) HCL Domino
11 1 (0.20%) HCL Notes
11 1 (0.20%) Headless CMS
11 1 (0.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.20%) SharePoint Server
11 1 (0.20%) Sitecore CMS
Applications
1 28 (5.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.81%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 10 (2.03%) Remedy ITSM
2 8 (1.63%) SAP S/4HANA
3 7 (1.42%) OpenText MBPM
3 7 (1.42%) Oracle BPM
4 6 (1.22%) Dynamics AX
4 6 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
5 4 (0.81%) Aladdin
5 4 (0.81%) Elite 3E
6 2 (0.41%) Dynamics NAV
6 2 (0.41%) Endur
6 2 (0.41%) Infor LN
7 1 (0.20%) Findur
7 1 (0.20%) Loan IQ
7 1 (0.20%) Oracle General Ledger
7 1 (0.20%) SAP CRM
7 1 (0.20%) SDL Web 8
Cloud Services
1 209 (42.48%) Azure
2 103 (20.93%) AWS
3 82 (16.67%) Power Platform
4 56 (11.38%) Azure DevOps
5 47 (9.55%) GitHub
6 38 (7.72%) Azure Data Factory
7 30 (6.10%) Entra ID
8 27 (5.49%) Serverless
9 26 (5.28%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 25 (5.08%) Microsoft 365
11 24 (4.88%) GitHub Actions
12 23 (4.67%) Power Automate
12 23 (4.67%) Snowflake
13 21 (4.27%) Azure Monitor
14 19 (3.86%) SaaS
15 17 (3.46%) Azure AKS
15 17 (3.46%) PowerApps
16 16 (3.25%) Datadog
16 16 (3.25%) Dynamics 365
17 15 (3.05%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 31 (6.30%) DNS
2 23 (4.67%) DHCP
3 18 (3.66%) Firewall
4 13 (2.64%) VPN
5 12 (2.44%) Internet
5 12 (2.44%) Wi-Fi
6 10 (2.03%) SAN
6 10 (2.03%) TCP/IP
6 10 (2.03%) VLAN
7 6 (1.22%) HTTPS
7 6 (1.22%) SSH
8 4 (0.81%) LAN
8 4 (0.81%) Network Security
8 4 (0.81%) WAN
9 3 (0.61%) SSL
10 2 (0.41%) FTP
10 2 (0.41%) Intranet
10 2 (0.41%) WinSCP
11 1 (0.20%) Kerberos
11 1 (0.20%) MQTT
Database & Business Intelligence
1 64 (13.01%) Power BI
2 61 (12.40%) Relational Database
3 59 (11.99%) PostgreSQL
4 54 (10.98%) Data Warehouse
5 39 (7.93%) Oracle Database
6 38 (7.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 35 (7.11%) Azure SQL Database
7 35 (7.11%) MongoDB
8 32 (6.50%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 21 (4.27%) Redis
10 20 (4.07%) Data Lake
11 19 (3.86%) MySQL
11 19 (3.86%) NoSQL
11 19 (3.86%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 13 (2.64%) Star Schema
13 11 (2.24%) Metadata
14 9 (1.83%) Amazon RDS
15 8 (1.63%) Amazon Aurora
15 8 (1.63%) Big Data
15 8 (1.63%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 51 (10.37%) Git
2 29 (5.89%) JIRA
3 19 (3.86%) Jenkins
4 18 (3.66%) TeamCity
4 18 (3.66%) Visual Studio
5 14 (2.85%) GitLab
6 12 (2.44%) Octopus Deploy
7 9 (1.83%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 8 (1.63%) Bitbucket
8 8 (1.63%) Chocolatey
8 8 (1.63%) REST Assured
9 7 (1.42%) Maven
10 6 (1.22%) JUnit
10 6 (1.22%) Mockito
10 6 (1.22%) MSTest
11 5 (1.02%) Artifactory
11 5 (1.02%) Sonatype Nexus
12 4 (0.81%) JetBrains Rider
12 4 (0.81%) Mocha
12 4 (0.81%) tSQLt
General
1 202 (41.06%) Finance
2 154 (31.30%) Social Skills
3 115 (23.37%) Banking
4 98 (19.92%) Analytical Skills
5 42 (8.54%) Front Office
6 26 (5.28%) Investment Banking
7 25 (5.08%) Public Sector
8 14 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
8 14 (2.85%) Financial Institution
9 9 (1.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 8 (1.63%) Back Office
11 6 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
12 5 (1.02%) Retail
13 4 (0.81%) Legal
13 4 (0.81%) Telecoms
14 3 (0.61%) Law
14 3 (0.61%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.61%) Publishing
15 2 (0.41%) Marketing
15 2 (0.41%) Prime Brokerage
Job Titles
1 183 (37.20%) Developer
2 83 (16.87%) Senior
3 76 (15.45%) C# Developer
4 50 (10.16%) .NET Developer
5 46 (9.35%) Data Engineer
6 41 (8.33%) DBA
7 34 (6.91%) Senior Developer
8 32 (6.50%) Architect
9 29 (5.89%) Lead
10 28 (5.69%) Infrastructure Engineer
11 27 (5.49%) Full-Stack Developer
11 27 (5.49%) Software Engineer
12 26 (5.28%) C# .NET Developer
13 25 (5.08%) SQL DBA
14 23 (4.67%) SQL Developer
15 22 (4.47%) Azure Engineer
16 20 (4.07%) Administrator
17 19 (3.86%) Consultant
18 17 (3.46%) Cloud Engineer
18 17 (3.46%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 166 (33.74%) .NET
2 75 (15.24%) REST
3 66 (13.41%) .NET Framework
4 46 (9.35%) React
5 38 (7.72%) AngularJS
5 38 (7.72%) CSS
6 36 (7.32%) ASP.NET
7 32 (6.50%) Kafka
8 30 (6.10%) .NET Core
8 30 (6.10%) HTML
9 28 (5.69%) RESTful
10 24 (4.88%) SOAP
11 23 (4.67%) Web Services
12 22 (4.47%) WinForms
13 21 (4.27%) XML
14 20 (4.07%) WPF
15 16 (3.25%) JSON
15 16 (3.25%) OAuth
16 15 (3.05%) Spring Boot
17 13 (2.64%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 36 (7.32%) Cloud Native
2 30 (6.10%) Self-Motivation
3 22 (4.47%) Onboarding
4 21 (4.27%) Replication
5 20 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
6 17 (3.46%) Clustering
6 17 (3.46%) Derivative
7 16 (3.25%) Data Centre
7 16 (3.25%) Data Structures
8 15 (3.05%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (2.24%) Distributed Systems
9 11 (2.24%) Fixed Income
10 10 (2.03%) Product Ownership
11 9 (1.83%) Equities
12 8 (1.63%) Cyber Threat
12 8 (1.63%) Low-Code
13 6 (1.22%) Management Information System
13 6 (1.22%) Market Risk
14 5 (1.02%) Hedge funds
14 5 (1.02%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 138 (28.05%) Windows
2 63 (12.80%) Windows Server
3 41 (8.33%) Linux
4 8 (1.63%) Unix
5 5 (1.02%) VMS
6 4 (0.81%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.61%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.61%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 133 (27.03%) DevOps
2 129 (26.22%) CI/CD
3 115 (23.37%) Agile
4 99 (20.12%) Migration
5 93 (18.90%) Problem-Solving
6 84 (17.07%) Disaster Recovery
7 80 (16.26%) ETL
8 76 (15.45%) AI
9 72 (14.63%) Business Intelligence
10 71 (14.43%) Data Modelling
11 66 (13.41%) Performance Tuning
12 55 (11.18%) Software Engineering
13 54 (10.98%) Analytics
14 53 (10.77%) Data Analysis
15 51 (10.37%) Data Pipeline
15 51 (10.37%) Microservices
16 50 (10.16%) Stakeholder Management
17 48 (9.76%) Continuous Improvement
17 48 (9.76%) Validation
18 45 (9.15%) High Availability
Programming Languages
1 297 (60.37%) SQL
2 186 (37.80%) C#
3 101 (20.53%) Python
4 92 (18.70%) T-SQL
5 76 (15.45%) PowerShell
6 74 (15.04%) JavaScript
7 58 (11.79%) PL/SQL
8 41 (8.33%) Java
9 30 (6.10%) TypeScript
10 18 (3.66%) Bash
11 12 (2.44%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 11 (2.24%) VBA
13 10 (2.03%) VB
14 7 (1.42%) Shell Script
15 6 (1.22%) VB.NET
15 6 (1.22%) XPath
16 5 (1.02%) Scala
17 3 (0.61%) C++
17 3 (0.61%) Groovy
17 3 (0.61%) Korn
Qualifications
1 81 (16.46%) Security Cleared
2 65 (13.21%) SC Cleared
3 45 (9.15%) Degree
4 22 (4.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 11 (2.24%) AWS Certification
5 11 (2.24%) Azure Certification
6 9 (1.83%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (1.63%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 5 (1.02%) DV Cleared
8 5 (1.02%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.81%) BPSS Clearance
9 4 (0.81%) DBS Check
9 4 (0.81%) ISTQB
9 4 (0.81%) MCITP
9 4 (0.81%) MCTS
9 4 (0.81%) PhD
10 2 (0.41%) ISEB
10 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Certified Professional
10 2 (0.41%) Postgraduate
10 2 (0.41%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (11.99%) QA
2 48 (9.76%) Data Quality
3 16 (3.25%) SLA
4 8 (1.63%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.81%) Actionable Recommendations
5 4 (0.81%) GDPR
5 4 (0.81%) WCAG
6 2 (0.41%) Basel III
6 2 (0.41%) COREP
6 2 (0.41%) FINREP
6 2 (0.41%) Government Security Classifications
6 2 (0.41%) SOC 2
7 1 (0.20%) IFRS
7 1 (0.20%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 1 (0.20%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 52 (10.57%) Active Directory
2 31 (6.30%) Docker
3 21 (4.27%) VMware Infrastructure
4 17 (3.46%) Virtual Machines
5 5 (1.02%) Virtual Desktop
6 4 (0.81%) Virtual Servers
7 3 (0.61%) GridGain
8 2 (0.41%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.20%) NFS
9 1 (0.20%) RACF
9 1 (0.20%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.20%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 53 (10.77%) Kubernetes
2 49 (9.96%) Terraform
3 13 (2.64%) Microsoft Intune
4 11 (2.24%) Microsoft Clustering
5 10 (2.03%) Ansible
6 9 (1.83%) SCCM
7 6 (1.22%) SCOM
8 5 (1.02%) Grafana
8 5 (1.02%) ITRS Geneos
9 3 (0.61%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.41%) Failover Clustering
10 2 (0.41%) Packer
10 2 (0.41%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.41%) Prometheus
11 1 (0.20%) Argo
11 1 (0.20%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.20%) Istio
11 1 (0.20%) PowerCLI
11 1 (0.20%) Puppet
Vendors
1 134 (27.24%) Oracle
2 123 (25.00%) Microsoft
3 43 (8.74%) VMware
4 37 (7.52%) Citrix
5 35 (7.11%) Databricks
6 19 (3.86%) Informatica
7 18 (3.66%) CyberArk
8 15 (3.05%) Dynatrace
9 14 (2.85%) SAP
10 13 (2.64%) ServiceNow
11 10 (2.03%) BeyondTrust
11 10 (2.03%) BMC
11 10 (2.03%) Cisco
11 10 (2.03%) Remedy
11 10 (2.03%) Sybase
12 9 (1.83%) IBM
12 9 (1.83%) WALLIX
13 8 (1.63%) AppDynamics
13 8 (1.63%) OutSystems
13 8 (1.63%) Tenable