SQL Server Contract Job Trends in the South West

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
England > South West

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the South West requiring SQL Server skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 113 73 86
Rank change year-on-year -40 +13 -12
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 28 44 65
As % of all contract jobs in the South West 0.99% 2.51% 2.05%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 10.77% 17.19% 18.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 16 36 37
10th Percentile £375 £412 £323
25th Percentile £441 £472 £505
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £620
Median % change year-on-year - -11.29% +24.00%
75th Percentile £578 £675 £680
90th Percentile £663 £794 £720
England median daily rate £480 £523 £533
% change year-on-year -8.13% -1.88% -3.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 11
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £19.25 - -
Median hourly rate £19.50 £25.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -22.00% -37.50% +18.52%
75th Percentile £19.75 - £48.13
90th Percentile - - £62.50
England median hourly rate £26.72 £63.75 £40.25
% change year-on-year -58.08% +58.37% -7.47%

All Database & BI Skills
South West

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 the South West.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 260 256 345
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West 9.18% 14.60% 10.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 181 228
10th Percentile £375 £357 £359
25th Percentile £416 £450 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £539 £575 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.30% +4.55% +0.55%
75th Percentile £645 £675 £650
90th Percentile £700 £750 £725
England median daily rate £500 £538 £530
% change year-on-year -6.98% +1.42% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 9 18
10th Percentile £28.78 £25.21 £14.36
25th Percentile £61.50 £25.26 £17.33
Median hourly rate £65.00 £27.13 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +139.63% -32.19% -33.33%
75th Percentile £74.68 £68.75 -
90th Percentile - £69.00 £64.75
England median hourly rate £52.50 £38.50 £42.35
% change year-on-year +36.36% -9.08% -24.29%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in the South West

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL Server relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the South West.

SQL Server job vacancy trend in the South West

SQL Server
Daily Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing SQL Server.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram in the South West

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in the South West over the 6 months to 1 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in the South West

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Trend in the South West

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing SQL Server.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the South West citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Contract Job Locations in the South West

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 South West region over the 6 months to 1 March 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
Bristol -9 10 £450 -16.28% 20
Somerset -4 7 £575 +15.00% 8
Wiltshire -26 7 £550 -4.35% 9
Dorset -8 2 - - 4
Gloucestershire -12 1 - - 6
SQL Server
England

SQL Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South West 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 7 (25.00%) SharePoint
2 6 (21.43%) Microsoft Exchange
3 4 (14.29%) SharePoint Server
4 2 (7.14%) IIS
5 1 (3.57%) Apache
5 1 (3.57%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (3.57%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 1 (3.57%) InDesign
1 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (3.57%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 1 (3.57%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (3.57%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 11 (39.29%) Azure
2 6 (21.43%) AWS
3 4 (14.29%) Azure Monitor
3 4 (14.29%) Power Platform
4 3 (10.71%) Azure DevOps
4 3 (10.71%) Azure Sentinel
4 3 (10.71%) GCP
4 3 (10.71%) IaaS
4 3 (10.71%) Microsoft 365
4 3 (10.71%) PaaS
5 2 (7.14%) Dynamics 365
5 2 (7.14%) Entra ID
5 2 (7.14%) PowerApps
6 1 (3.57%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 1 (3.57%) AWS CloudFormation
6 1 (3.57%) AWS CloudTrail
6 1 (3.57%) Azure Key Vault
6 1 (3.57%) Figma
6 1 (3.57%) Microsoft Purview
6 1 (3.57%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 9 (32.14%) DNS
2 4 (14.29%) DHCP
2 4 (14.29%) Skype
2 4 (14.29%) VPN
3 3 (10.71%) Firewall
4 2 (7.14%) HTTP
4 2 (7.14%) LAN
4 2 (7.14%) SMTP
4 2 (7.14%) WAN
5 1 (3.57%) Fibre Channel
5 1 (3.57%) iSCSI
5 1 (3.57%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 5 (17.86%) PostgreSQL
2 4 (14.29%) MongoDB
2 4 (14.29%) Power BI
3 3 (10.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 3 (10.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 2 (7.14%) Amazon RDS
4 2 (7.14%) DynamoDB
4 2 (7.14%) MySQL
4 2 (7.14%) NoSQL
4 2 (7.14%) SQL Server Analysis Services
5 1 (3.57%) Amazon Aurora
5 1 (3.57%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (3.57%) Data Warehouse
5 1 (3.57%) GIS
5 1 (3.57%) Oracle BI EE
5 1 (3.57%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 4 (14.29%) Git
2 2 (7.14%) Artifactory
2 2 (7.14%) Jenkins
3 1 (3.57%) Bitbucket
3 1 (3.57%) GitLab
3 1 (3.57%) JIRA
3 1 (3.57%) Maven
3 1 (3.57%) MSI
3 1 (3.57%) SonarQube
3 1 (3.57%) webpack
General
1 12 (42.86%) Social Skills
2 6 (21.43%) Analytical Skills
2 6 (21.43%) Finance
3 2 (7.14%) Legal
3 2 (7.14%) Public Sector
4 1 (3.57%) Banking
4 1 (3.57%) Documentation Skills
4 1 (3.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 1 (3.57%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 6 (21.43%) Developer
2 3 (10.71%) Architect
2 3 (10.71%) Consultant
2 3 (10.71%) Infrastructure Engineer
2 3 (10.71%) Platform Engineer
3 2 (7.14%) .NET Developer
3 2 (7.14%) C++ Developer
3 2 (7.14%) Senior
3 2 (7.14%) Senior Developer
3 2 (7.14%) Software Engineer
3 2 (7.14%) Technical Architect
4 1 (3.57%) Analyst
4 1 (3.57%) AWS DevOps Engineer
4 1 (3.57%) Database Consultant
4 1 (3.57%) Full-Stack .NET Developer
4 1 (3.57%) Lead
4 1 (3.57%) Lead Consultant
4 1 (3.57%) Power Apps Developer
4 1 (3.57%) Senior Power Apps Developer
4 1 (3.57%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (25.00%) .NET
2 4 (14.29%) React
3 3 (10.71%) .NET Framework
3 3 (10.71%) ASP.NET
3 3 (10.71%) Entity Framework
3 3 (10.71%) Node.js
3 3 (10.71%) REST
4 2 (7.14%) AngularJS
4 2 (7.14%) ASP.NET MVC
4 2 (7.14%) ASP.NET Web API
4 2 (7.14%) Blazor
4 2 (7.14%) Bootstrap
4 2 (7.14%) CSS
4 2 (7.14%) CSS3
4 2 (7.14%) HTML
4 2 (7.14%) HTML5
4 2 (7.14%) WPF
5 1 (3.57%) .NET Core
5 1 (3.57%) GeoJSON
5 1 (3.57%) Universal Windows Platform
Miscellaneous
1 4 (14.29%) PKI
2 3 (10.71%) Enterprise Software
3 2 (7.14%) Cloud Native
3 2 (7.14%) Legacy Applications
3 2 (7.14%) Legacy Systems
3 2 (7.14%) Product Ownership
4 1 (3.57%) Clustering
4 1 (3.57%) Cyber Threat
4 1 (3.57%) Data Centre
4 1 (3.57%) Data Structures
4 1 (3.57%) Low-Code
4 1 (3.57%) Mobile App
4 1 (3.57%) Replication
4 1 (3.57%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 13 (46.43%) Windows
2 7 (25.00%) Windows Server
3 6 (21.43%) Linux
4 4 (14.29%) Windows 10
4 4 (14.29%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (3.57%) Android
5 1 (3.57%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (3.57%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 10 (35.71%) Problem-Solving
2 8 (28.57%) Agile
3 6 (21.43%) ITIL
3 6 (21.43%) Migration
4 5 (17.86%) Business Intelligence
4 5 (17.86%) Capacity Planning
4 5 (17.86%) Change Management
4 5 (17.86%) Full-Stack Development
4 5 (17.86%) Runbook
4 5 (17.86%) Software Testing
5 4 (14.29%) Business Continuity
5 4 (14.29%) CI/CD
5 4 (14.29%) Configuration Management
5 4 (14.29%) DevOps
5 4 (14.29%) Disaster Recovery
5 4 (14.29%) Knowledge Transfer
5 4 (14.29%) Service Management
5 4 (14.29%) Zero Trust
6 3 (10.71%) Logistics
6 3 (10.71%) MVC
Programming Languages
1 12 (42.86%) SQL
2 7 (25.00%) C#
2 7 (25.00%) PowerShell
3 6 (21.43%) JavaScript
4 5 (17.86%) T-SQL
4 5 (17.86%) TypeScript
5 4 (14.29%) Bicep
6 2 (7.14%) C++
6 2 (7.14%) Java
6 2 (7.14%) Python
7 1 (3.57%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 10 (35.71%) Security Cleared
2 8 (28.57%) SC Cleared
3 3 (10.71%) Azure Certification
3 3 (10.71%) Degree
4 2 (7.14%) DV Cleared
4 2 (7.14%) ITIL Certification
5 1 (3.57%) AWS Certification
5 1 (3.57%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 1 (3.57%) Accessibility
1 1 (3.57%) Cyber Essentials
1 1 (3.57%) Data Quality
1 1 (3.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
1 1 (3.57%) WCAG
System Software
1 12 (42.86%) Active Directory
2 9 (32.14%) VMware Infrastructure
3 4 (14.29%) VMware NSX
4 3 (10.71%) Hyper-V
4 3 (10.71%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (3.57%) Docker
5 1 (3.57%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 6 (21.43%) Terraform
2 4 (14.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
2 4 (14.29%) vCenter Server
3 3 (10.71%) WSUS
4 2 (7.14%) NetBackup
5 1 (3.57%) Ansible
5 1 (3.57%) EMC VPLEX
5 1 (3.57%) Grafana
5 1 (3.57%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 17 (60.71%) Microsoft
2 10 (35.71%) VMware
3 4 (14.29%) Cisco
3 4 (14.29%) Oracle
3 4 (14.29%) SolarWinds
3 4 (14.29%) Veeam
4 2 (7.14%) Commvault
4 2 (7.14%) Veritas
5 1 (3.57%) Adobe
5 1 (3.57%) Alteryx
5 1 (3.57%) Atlassian
5 1 (3.57%) Citrix
5 1 (3.57%) CyberArk
5 1 (3.57%) Dell
5 1 (3.57%) Google
5 1 (3.57%) PTC