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

6 months to
14 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 104 73 49
Rank change year-on-year -31 -24 -5
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 399 452 722
As % of all contract jobs in London 2.79% 3.24% 4.02%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.59% 14.98% 20.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 279 326 533
10th Percentile £375 £319 £385
25th Percentile £411 £413 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.82% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £638 £675
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
England median daily rate £480 £501 £550
% change year-on-year -4.14% -8.95% -
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 £48.72 £64.37 £52.50
% change year-on-year -24.32% +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 2,935 3,018 3,450
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 20.50% 21.62% 19.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,043 2,068 2,508
10th Percentile £358 £363 £385
25th Percentile £415 £456 £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 39
10th Percentile £18.25 £22.27 £23.10
25th Percentile £29.72 £26.21 £30.62
Median hourly rate £45.00 £42.75 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% +6.98%
75th Percentile £70.50 £59.50 £56.44
90th Percentile £87.50 £79.38 £64.51
England median hourly rate £51.36 £41.50 £46.18
% change year-on-year +23.76% -10.13% -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 14 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 14 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 -46 40 £525 -9.48% 33
South London 0 7 £530 -26.90%
East London -8 1 £540 +35.00% 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 18 (4.51%) IIS
2 15 (3.76%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 14 (3.51%) Confluence
4 13 (3.26%) WebSphere
5 12 (3.01%) SharePoint
6 9 (2.26%) WebLogic
7 6 (1.50%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (1.50%) Microsoft Exchange
8 5 (1.25%) Apache Spark
9 4 (1.00%) Apache
9 4 (1.00%) Appian
10 2 (0.50%) CMS
10 2 (0.50%) HCL Notes
10 2 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.50%) Tomcat
10 2 (0.50%) WildFly
11 1 (0.25%) ArcGIS
11 1 (0.25%) GeoServer
11 1 (0.25%) Luigi
11 1 (0.25%) Mendix
Applications
1 33 (8.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (2.26%) 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%) Endur
4 2 (0.50%) Fidessa
4 2 (0.50%) Loan IQ
4 2 (0.50%) Oracle BPM
4 2 (0.50%) Oracle FAH
4 2 (0.50%) Veritas eDiscovery
5 1 (0.25%) ION Anvil
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle Internet Expenses
5 1 (0.25%) Orchestrade
5 1 (0.25%) Salesforce CRM
5 1 (0.25%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 175 (43.86%) Azure
2 85 (21.30%) Power Platform
3 84 (21.05%) AWS
4 55 (13.78%) Azure DevOps
5 44 (11.03%) GitHub
6 37 (9.27%) Azure Data Factory
7 27 (6.77%) GCP
8 26 (6.52%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 19 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
9 19 (4.76%) SaaS
10 17 (4.26%) Snowflake
11 14 (3.51%) Amazon S3
11 14 (3.51%) Microsoft 365
12 12 (3.01%) IaaS
13 10 (2.51%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 10 (2.51%) Power Automate
14 9 (2.26%) AWS CloudFormation
14 9 (2.26%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (2.26%) Azure Service Bus
15 8 (2.01%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 10 (2.51%) 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 73 (18.30%) Power BI
2 67 (16.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 60 (15.04%) PostgreSQL
4 52 (13.03%) Relational Database
5 41 (10.28%) Data Warehouse
6 33 (8.27%) Data Lake
7 32 (8.02%) MongoDB
8 29 (7.27%) Oracle Database
8 29 (7.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 28 (7.02%) NoSQL
10 24 (6.02%) Azure SQL Database
11 15 (3.76%) Big Data
11 15 (3.76%) Delta Lake
11 15 (3.76%) Redis
11 15 (3.76%) SQL Server Analysis Services
12 13 (3.26%) DB2
12 13 (3.26%) MySQL
12 13 (3.26%) RDBMS
13 12 (3.01%) Amazon RDS
14 10 (2.51%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 41 (10.28%) Git
2 27 (6.77%) JIRA
3 22 (5.51%) Jenkins
4 15 (3.76%) Visual Studio
5 12 (3.01%) SpecFlow
6 11 (2.76%) TeamCity
7 9 (2.26%) GitLab
8 8 (2.01%) JUnit
8 8 (2.01%) Maven
8 8 (2.01%) Octopus Deploy
9 5 (1.25%) Bitbucket
9 5 (1.25%) ERwin
9 5 (1.25%) Mockito
9 5 (1.25%) webpack
10 4 (1.00%) Cucumber
10 4 (1.00%) MLflow
10 4 (1.00%) Selenium
11 3 (0.75%) Eclipse
11 3 (0.75%) Team Foundation Server
11 3 (0.75%) Zephyr
General
1 153 (38.35%) Finance
2 121 (30.33%) Social Skills
3 81 (20.30%) Banking
4 45 (11.28%) Analytical Skills
5 23 (5.76%) Investment Banking
6 19 (4.76%) Public Sector
7 17 (4.26%) Documentation Skills
7 17 (4.26%) Front Office
8 16 (4.01%) Financial Institution
9 10 (2.51%) Presentation Skills
10 8 (2.01%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 6 (1.50%) Retail
12 5 (1.25%) Local Government
13 4 (1.00%) Organisational Skills
14 3 (0.75%) Back Office
14 3 (0.75%) General Ledger
14 3 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
14 3 (0.75%) Law
14 3 (0.75%) Legal
14 3 (0.75%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 168 (42.11%) Developer
2 71 (17.79%) Senior
3 66 (16.54%) Data Engineer
4 64 (16.04%) C# Developer
5 40 (10.03%) .NET Developer
6 33 (8.27%) Senior Developer
7 28 (7.02%) Analyst
8 25 (6.27%) Senior Data Engineer
9 23 (5.76%) Architect
10 21 (5.26%) C# .NET Developer
11 19 (4.76%) Angular Developer
12 18 (4.51%) Lead
13 15 (3.76%) DBA
14 14 (3.51%) Full-Stack Developer
15 13 (3.26%) Java Developer
15 13 (3.26%) SQL DBA
16 12 (3.01%) Business Analyst
17 11 (2.76%) Consultant
17 11 (2.76%) Senior C# Developer
17 11 (2.76%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 123 (30.83%) .NET
2 58 (14.54%) .NET Framework
3 36 (9.02%) REST
4 35 (8.77%) Kafka
5 32 (8.02%) RESTful
6 31 (7.77%) HTML
7 30 (7.52%) AngularJS
8 29 (7.27%) XML
9 26 (6.52%) React
10 24 (6.02%) Web Services
11 23 (5.76%) .NET Core
12 20 (5.01%) CSS
12 20 (5.01%) Entity Framework
12 20 (5.01%) WPF
13 17 (4.26%) SOAP
13 17 (4.26%) WinForms
14 16 (4.01%) NHibernate
15 15 (3.76%) Middleware
16 14 (3.51%) ASP.NET
16 14 (3.51%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 24 (6.02%) Legacy Systems
2 17 (4.26%) Derivative
2 17 (4.26%) Enterprise Software
3 16 (4.01%) Cloud Native
3 16 (4.01%) Onboarding
4 14 (3.51%) Credit Risk
4 14 (3.51%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 14 (3.51%) Management Information System
5 10 (2.51%) Data Protection Act
5 10 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
6 9 (2.26%) Reinsurance
7 8 (2.01%) Hedge funds
7 8 (2.01%) Linux Command Line
7 8 (2.01%) Market Risk
8 7 (1.75%) Data Structures
8 7 (1.75%) Fixed Income
8 7 (1.75%) Low-Code
9 6 (1.50%) Greenfield Project
9 6 (1.50%) Product Ownership
10 5 (1.25%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 64 (16.04%) Windows
2 38 (9.52%) Linux
3 27 (6.77%) Windows Server
4 7 (1.75%) 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
1 108 (27.07%) CI/CD
2 101 (25.31%) Agile
3 88 (22.06%) DevOps
4 86 (21.55%) ETL
5 84 (21.05%) Business Intelligence
6 74 (18.55%) Problem-Solving
7 67 (16.79%) Data Modelling
8 60 (15.04%) Migration
9 58 (14.54%) Analytics
10 54 (13.53%) Microservices
11 44 (11.03%) Test Automation
12 43 (10.78%) Data Engineering
13 41 (10.28%) Data Analysis
14 37 (9.27%) Data Migration
15 33 (8.27%) Full-Stack Development
16 32 (8.02%) Clean Code
16 32 (8.02%) Data Pipeline
16 32 (8.02%) Scrum
17 31 (7.77%) Containerisation
18 30 (7.52%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 239 (59.90%) SQL
2 128 (32.08%) C#
3 91 (22.81%) Python
4 58 (14.54%) T-SQL
5 47 (11.78%) PL/SQL
6 43 (10.78%) Java
7 38 (9.52%) JavaScript
8 22 (5.51%) PowerShell
9 18 (4.51%) Bash
10 15 (3.76%) VB
10 15 (3.76%) 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 44 (11.03%) Security Cleared
3 33 (8.27%) SC Cleared
4 22 (5.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 12 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (2.26%) Master's Degree
7 6 (1.50%) BPSS Clearance
8 5 (1.25%) 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%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (14.54%) Data Quality
2 47 (11.78%) QA
3 8 (2.01%) Accessibility
3 8 (2.01%) GDPR
4 6 (1.50%) SLA
5 5 (1.25%) MiFID
6 4 (1.00%) EMIR
6 4 (1.00%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 3 (0.75%) IFRS
7 3 (0.75%) 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 50 (12.53%) Docker
2 14 (3.51%) Active Directory
3 8 (2.01%) 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 44 (11.03%) Kubernetes
2 24 (6.02%) Terraform
3 11 (2.76%) Grafana
4 10 (2.51%) Ansible
4 10 (2.51%) Puppet
5 7 (1.75%) TIBCO Hawk
6 6 (1.50%) SCCM
7 4 (1.00%) Control-M
7 4 (1.00%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (1.00%) SCVMM
8 3 (0.75%) Prometheus
8 3 (0.75%) ZABBIX
9 2 (0.50%) Ambari
9 2 (0.50%) Progress Chef
9 2 (0.50%) SCOM
10 1 (0.25%) FortiGate
10 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Clustering
10 1 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Management
10 1 (0.25%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 136 (34.09%) Oracle
2 89 (22.31%) Microsoft
3 42 (10.53%) Databricks
4 32 (8.02%) Citrix
5 14 (3.51%) SAP
6 13 (3.26%) Informatica
7 12 (3.01%) IBM
8 9 (2.26%) ServiceNow
8 9 (2.26%) UiPath
9 8 (2.01%) VMware
10 7 (1.75%) BEA
10 7 (1.75%) TIBCO
11 6 (1.50%) Atlassian
11 6 (1.50%) Google
11 6 (1.50%) PagerDuty
12 5 (1.25%) Salesforce
13 4 (1.00%) HP
13 4 (1.00%) Palo Alto
13 4 (1.00%) Solace
13 4 (1.00%) Sybase