SQL Server Contracts in the UK excluding London

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the UK excluding London requiring SQL Server skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SQL Server over the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 122 99 57
Rank change year-on-year -23 -42 -17
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 267 435 952
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 2.09% 2.09% 3.96%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.22% 16.77% 25.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 199 309 711
10th Percentile £324 £313 £325
25th Percentile £403 £394 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £475 £485
Median % change year-on-year +4.42% -2.06% +7.78%
75th Percentile £566 £600 £575
90th Percentile £640 £675 £675
UK median daily rate £513 £509 £525
% change year-on-year +0.74% -3.10% +2.34%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 24 12
10th Percentile £23.99 £26.95 £22.88
25th Percentile £25.13 £39.41 £26.42
Median hourly rate £27.35 £40.13 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year -31.84% +13.03% -24.60%
75th Percentile £65.62 £53.55 £46.13
90th Percentile £74.87 £62.96 £67.95
UK median hourly rate £63.75 £40.13 £45.00
% change year-on-year +58.87% -10.83% -3.58%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
UK excluding 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 the UK excluding London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 2,019 2,594 3,714
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 15.82% 12.49% 15.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,400 1,827 2,673
10th Percentile £315 £325 £350
25th Percentile £400 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £489 £480 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.88% -4.00% +2.56%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £594
90th Percentile £660 £675 £688
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £540
% change year-on-year - -2.78% -1.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 61 96 114
10th Percentile £18.74 £13.50 £21.96
25th Percentile £22.98 £18.03 £32.32
Median hourly rate £30.00 £40.00 £58.05
Median % change year-on-year -25.00% -31.09% +65.84%
75th Percentile £65.62 £58.61 £66.00
90th Percentile £70.00 £77.50 £75.35
UK median hourly rate £32.96 £40.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -17.60% -33.33% +41.18%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Job postings citing SQL Server as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

Job vacancy trend for SQL Server in the UK excluding London

SQL Server
Contractor Daily Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SQL Server in the UK excluding London.

Daily rate trend for SQL Server in the UK excluding London

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK excluding London

SQL Server
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend in the UK excluding London

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SQL Server in the UK excluding London.

Hourly rate trend for SQL Server in the UK excluding London

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Histogram in the UK excluding London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL Server in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 1 May 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK excluding London

SQL Server
Contract Job Locations in the UK excluding 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 UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 1 May 2025. 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
North of England -5 78 £425 -10.53% 235
South East +20 75 £500 +8.11% 300
North West +8 58 £475 +2.70% 156
Scotland -6 37 £498 -5.14% 55
Midlands -15 35 £538 +13.16% 199
South West +6 29 £525 -4.55% 105
West Midlands -4 26 £582 +25.89% 104
Yorkshire -8 14 £400 -11.06% 61
East Midlands -8 8 £331 -31.43% 81
East of England +13 7 £501 +5.53% 87
North East -4 6 £450 -5.26% 19
Northern Ireland -5 4 £470 - 13
Wales -7 3 £275 -45.00% 14
SQL Server
UK

SQL Server
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the UK excluding London by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 22 (8.24%) Microsoft Exchange
2 16 (5.99%) SharePoint
3 13 (4.87%) IIS
4 10 (3.75%) Apache
4 10 (3.75%) Tomcat
5 8 (3.00%) Confluence
6 6 (2.25%) CMS
7 4 (1.50%) BizTalk Server
7 4 (1.50%) Drupal
7 4 (1.50%) WordPress
8 3 (1.12%) Apache Airflow
8 3 (1.12%) nginx
8 3 (1.12%) OpenEdge
8 3 (1.12%) Skype for Business
8 3 (1.12%) Umbraco
9 2 (0.75%) GemFire
10 1 (0.37%) SAS
10 1 (0.37%) SharePoint 2010
Applications
1 10 (3.75%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (3.00%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.75%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 5 (1.87%) Kondor
2 2 (0.75%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.75%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.37%) Dynamics AX
3 1 (0.37%) Remedy AR System
3 1 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
3 1 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 139 (52.06%) Azure
2 46 (17.23%) AWS
3 40 (14.98%) Power Platform
4 31 (11.61%) Microsoft 365
5 28 (10.49%) Entra ID
6 21 (7.87%) Azure Data Factory
7 20 (7.49%) Azure DevOps
8 16 (5.99%) GCP
8 16 (5.99%) IaaS
9 12 (4.49%) Dynamics 365
9 12 (4.49%) Serverless
10 11 (4.12%) PaaS
11 10 (3.75%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 9 (3.37%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 7 (2.62%) Azure API Management
13 7 (2.62%) Azure Functions
14 6 (2.25%) Amazon S3
14 6 (2.25%) Azure Logic Apps
14 6 (2.25%) Google Workspace
14 6 (2.25%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 24 (8.99%) Firewall
2 12 (4.49%) Intrusion Detection
2 12 (4.49%) Network Security
3 7 (2.62%) Internet
4 6 (2.25%) DNS
4 6 (2.25%) TCP/IP
5 5 (1.87%) DHCP
5 5 (1.87%) VPN
6 4 (1.50%) LAN
6 4 (1.50%) WAN
7 3 (1.12%) HTTP
7 3 (1.12%) iSCSI
7 3 (1.12%) Remote Desktop
7 3 (1.12%) Skype
7 3 (1.12%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (1.12%) Wireless
8 1 (0.37%) FTP
8 1 (0.37%) VLAN
8 1 (0.37%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (14.61%) PostgreSQL
2 30 (11.24%) Power BI
3 28 (10.49%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 28 (10.49%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 26 (9.74%) MySQL
5 25 (9.36%) Data Warehouse
5 25 (9.36%) Relational Database
6 19 (7.12%) Azure SQL Database
7 15 (5.62%) MongoDB
8 13 (4.87%) Oracle Database
9 12 (4.49%) Data Lake
10 10 (3.75%) Metadata
11 9 (3.37%) NoSQL
12 8 (3.00%) Big Data
12 8 (3.00%) RDBMS
13 7 (2.62%) Tableau
14 6 (2.25%) Amazon RDS
14 6 (2.25%) OLAP
14 6 (2.25%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 5 (1.87%) GIS
Development Applications
1 26 (9.74%) Git
2 15 (5.62%) JIRA
3 8 (3.00%) Visual Studio
4 5 (1.87%) GitLab
4 5 (1.87%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.87%) Selenium
4 5 (1.87%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 4 (1.50%) Bitbucket Server
5 4 (1.50%) Postman
6 3 (1.12%) Bitbucket
6 3 (1.12%) MSI
6 3 (1.12%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.75%) ERwin
7 2 (0.75%) Introscope
7 2 (0.75%) JMeter
7 2 (0.75%) JUnit
7 2 (0.75%) LoadRunner
7 2 (0.75%) Maven
7 2 (0.75%) Mockito
7 2 (0.75%) WinRunner
General
1 79 (29.59%) Social Skills
2 44 (16.48%) Finance
3 31 (11.61%) Public Sector
4 28 (10.49%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (5.99%) Legal
6 15 (5.62%) Banking
7 14 (5.24%) Telecoms
8 5 (1.87%) Back Office
9 4 (1.50%) Law
10 3 (1.12%) Military
10 3 (1.12%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.75%) Billing
11 2 (0.75%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.75%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.75%) Investment Banking
11 2 (0.75%) Korean Language
12 1 (0.37%) French Language
12 1 (0.37%) Local Government
12 1 (0.37%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 60 (22.47%) Developer
2 32 (11.99%) DBA
3 23 (8.61%) Senior
4 20 (7.49%) Data Engineer
5 19 (7.12%) Analyst
5 19 (7.12%) Architect
5 19 (7.12%) SQL DBA
6 18 (6.74%) Administrator
7 16 (5.99%) Support Engineer
8 14 (5.24%) Software Engineer
9 13 (4.87%) .NET Developer
10 12 (4.49%) Azure Engineer
11 9 (3.37%) Consultant
11 9 (3.37%) Database Engineer
11 9 (3.37%) DevOps Engineer
11 9 (3.37%) Infrastructure Specialist
12 7 (2.62%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 7 (2.62%) C# Developer
12 7 (2.62%) Lead
13 6 (2.25%) Azure Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (19.48%) .NET
2 28 (10.49%) HTML
3 22 (8.24%) AngularJS
4 20 (7.49%) CSS
5 17 (6.37%) SOAP
6 16 (5.99%) REST
7 15 (5.62%) .NET Framework
8 14 (5.24%) ASP.NET
9 13 (4.87%) React
9 13 (4.87%) Web Services
10 10 (3.75%) Node.js
10 10 (3.75%) RESTful
11 9 (3.37%) XML
12 8 (3.00%) .NET Core
12 8 (3.00%) Spring
12 8 (3.00%) Spring Boot
13 7 (2.62%) Middleware
14 6 (2.25%) JSON
14 6 (2.25%) LAMP
14 6 (2.25%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 21 (7.87%) Replication
2 10 (3.75%) Clustering
3 9 (3.37%) Product Ownership
4 5 (1.87%) Data Centre
4 5 (1.87%) Derivative
4 5 (1.87%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 5 (1.87%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (1.87%) Management Information System
4 5 (1.87%) PKI
5 4 (1.50%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (1.50%) Enterprise Software
5 4 (1.50%) Legacy Code
6 3 (1.12%) Data Structures
6 3 (1.12%) IVR
6 3 (1.12%) Mobile App
6 3 (1.12%) NHS
6 3 (1.12%) Onboarding
6 3 (1.12%) Operational Technology
6 3 (1.12%) Public Cloud
6 3 (1.12%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 66 (24.72%) Windows
2 48 (17.98%) Linux
3 38 (14.23%) Windows Server
4 16 (5.99%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 13 (4.87%) Unix
6 7 (2.62%) AIX
6 7 (2.62%) Windows 10
6 7 (2.62%) Windows Server 2016
7 6 (2.25%) Android
7 6 (2.25%) Windows Server 2019
8 5 (1.87%) Solaris
9 3 (1.12%) Apple iOS
9 3 (1.12%) Windows Server 2012
10 2 (0.75%) Mac OS
10 2 (0.75%) Windows 7
11 1 (0.37%) CentOS
11 1 (0.37%) Oracle Linux
11 1 (0.37%) Ubuntu
11 1 (0.37%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (29.59%) Problem-Solving
2 72 (26.97%) Agile
3 59 (22.10%) DevOps
4 53 (19.85%) CI/CD
5 45 (16.85%) Migration
6 39 (14.61%) Business Intelligence
7 34 (12.73%) Performance Tuning
8 33 (12.36%) Disaster Recovery
8 33 (12.36%) ITIL
9 32 (11.99%) ETL
10 28 (10.49%) High Availability
10 28 (10.49%) Software Engineering
11 25 (9.36%) Scrum
12 24 (8.99%) Change Management
13 23 (8.61%) Data Migration
14 22 (8.24%) Cybersecurity
15 19 (7.12%) Analytics
15 19 (7.12%) Continuous Improvement
16 17 (6.37%) Data Modelling
16 17 (6.37%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 145 (54.31%) SQL
2 48 (17.98%) PowerShell
3 45 (16.85%) Python
4 32 (11.99%) C#
5 30 (11.24%) JavaScript
6 22 (8.24%) Java
7 13 (4.87%) TypeScript
8 11 (4.12%) PL/SQL
8 11 (4.12%) T-SQL
9 9 (3.37%) PHP
10 7 (2.62%) Bash
11 6 (2.25%) Perl
12 4 (1.50%) R
13 3 (1.12%) Scala
14 2 (0.75%) Bicep
14 2 (0.75%) C
14 2 (0.75%) Go
14 2 (0.75%) VB
14 2 (0.75%) X++
15 1 (0.37%) ANSI SQL
Qualifications
1 49 (18.35%) Security Cleared
2 27 (10.11%) Degree
3 26 (9.74%) SC Cleared
4 25 (9.36%) Microsoft Certification
5 18 (6.74%) Azure Certification
5 18 (6.74%) DV Cleared
6 6 (2.25%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (1.50%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.50%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 2 (0.75%) ITIL Certification
8 2 (0.75%) MCSA
8 2 (0.75%) MCSE
8 2 (0.75%) OCP
8 2 (0.75%) Oracle Certification
8 2 (0.75%) Tableau Certification
9 1 (0.37%) CITP
9 1 (0.37%) Master's Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.12%) GDPR
2 10 (3.75%) QA
3 8 (3.00%) Data Quality
4 6 (2.25%) Disclosure Scotland
4 6 (2.25%) SLA
5 5 (1.87%) Accessibility
5 5 (1.87%) Basel III
5 5 (1.87%) MiFID
6 3 (1.12%) Cyber Essentials
7 2 (0.75%) HIPAA
7 2 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.37%) HL7
8 1 (0.37%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 47 (17.60%) Active Directory
2 20 (7.49%) Docker
3 17 (6.37%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (5.62%) vSphere
5 6 (2.25%) Oracle RAC
6 3 (1.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
6 3 (1.12%) Hyper-V
6 3 (1.12%) Microsoft Virtual Server
6 3 (1.12%) Virtual Servers
7 2 (0.75%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.37%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.37%) Virtual Machines
8 1 (0.37%) Xen
Systems Management
1 22 (8.24%) Kubernetes
2 17 (6.37%) Terraform
3 13 (4.87%) Microsoft Intune
4 9 (3.37%) SCCM
5 8 (3.00%) Ansible
6 7 (2.62%) SCOM
7 6 (2.25%) Data Guard
8 5 (1.87%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 5 (1.87%) Progress Chef
9 4 (1.50%) Failover Clustering
9 4 (1.50%) Grafana
9 4 (1.50%) Microsoft Clustering
9 4 (1.50%) Oracle Flashback
10 3 (1.12%) Kibana
10 3 (1.12%) SCSM
10 3 (1.12%) Single Sign-On
10 3 (1.12%) WMI
11 2 (0.75%) CA Wily
11 2 (0.75%) Foglight
11 2 (0.75%) Puppet
Vendors
1 121 (45.32%) Microsoft
2 77 (28.84%) Oracle
3 23 (8.61%) VMware
4 15 (5.62%) Databricks
5 11 (4.12%) Sybase
6 10 (3.75%) Google
6 10 (3.75%) Red Hat
7 7 (2.62%) Splunk
8 6 (2.25%) Dynatrace
8 6 (2.25%) IBM
9 5 (1.87%) AppDynamics
9 5 (1.87%) Cisco
9 5 (1.87%) Dell
9 5 (1.87%) SAP
10 4 (1.50%) Zend
11 3 (1.12%) Apple
11 3 (1.12%) CyberArk
11 3 (1.12%) HP
11 3 (1.12%) Informatica
11 3 (1.12%) Teradata