Database Engineer Contract Job Trends

Database Engineer
UK

The median Database Engineer daily rate in the UK is £458, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 13 December 2025.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 553 485 542
Rank change year-on-year -68 +57 +217
Contract jobs requiring a Database Engineer 29 58 66
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.080% 0.16% 0.15%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.088% 0.18% 0.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 12 37 43
10th Percentile £258 £400 £176
25th Percentile £367 £469 £203
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £458 £520 £525
Median % change year-on-year -12.02% -0.95% +5.00%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £628
90th Percentile £698 £631 £674
UK excluding London median daily rate £426 £476 £255
% change year-on-year -10.45% +86.67% -41.71%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 1 0
10th Percentile £50.25 - -
25th Percentile £50.63 - -
Median hourly rate £52.50 £40.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +31.25% - -
75th Percentile £55.63 - -
90th Percentile £56.75 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £52.50 £40.00 -
% change year-on-year +31.25% - -

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
UK

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the UK with a recognized job title 32,988 33,120 42,501
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.74% 93.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,924 20,243 28,641
10th Percentile £285 £300 £294
25th Percentile £403 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £495 £500
% change year-on-year -4.04% -1.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,924 1,136 1,517
10th Percentile £14.22 £15.36 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £34.75 £44.00
Median % change year-on-year -27.63% -21.02% +40.98%
75th Percentile £56.81 £63.75 £65.00
90th Percentile £70.75 £73.66 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.50
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.97% +78.00%

Database Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Database Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Database Engineer job vacancy trend in the UK

Database Engineer
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Database Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Database Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Database Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Database Engineer over the 6 months to 13 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for Database Engineer in the UK

Database Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Database Engineer job vacancies in the UK.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Database Engineer job vacancies in the UK

Database Engineer
Top 11 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Database Engineer within the UK over the 6 months to 13 December 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
UK excluding London -48 19 £426 -10.45% 80
England -59 15 £450 -11.76% 76
Scotland 0 14 £465 -20.00% 5
London -21 10 £550 +4.76% 5
Work from Home -12 3 - - 76
South East -15 2 £365 -26.26% 23
North of England - 2 £350 - 16
West Midlands -27 1 £250 +31.58% 7
Midlands -33 1 £250 +31.58% 14
North West - 1 £350 - 8
Yorkshire - 1 - - 7

Database Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 13 December 2025, Database Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring Database Engineer in the job title.

1 19 (65.52%) Python
2 15 (51.72%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (41.38%) Azure
3 12 (41.38%) CI/CD
4 11 (37.93%) Terraform
5 10 (34.48%) Infrastructure as Code
5 10 (34.48%) SQL
6 9 (31.03%) AWS
6 9 (31.03%) DevOps
7 8 (27.59%) Ansible
7 8 (27.59%) Linux
8 7 (24.14%) Kubernetes
8 7 (24.14%) Performance Tuning
8 7 (24.14%) Problem-Solving
8 7 (24.14%) Snowflake
8 7 (24.14%) SQL Server
9 6 (20.69%) NewSQL
10 5 (17.24%) Agile
10 5 (17.24%) Data Governance
10 5 (17.24%) High Availability
10 5 (17.24%) Migration
10 5 (17.24%) Shell Script
10 5 (17.24%) Task Automation
11 4 (13.79%) Azure DevOps
11 4 (13.79%) Containerisation
11 4 (13.79%) Data Engineering
11 4 (13.79%) Greenplum
11 4 (13.79%) Oracle
11 4 (13.79%) Platform Engineering
12 3 (10.34%) AI

Database Engineer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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:

Cloud Services
1 12 (41.38%) Azure
2 9 (31.03%) AWS
3 7 (24.14%) Snowflake
4 4 (13.79%) Azure DevOps
5 3 (10.34%) Serverless
6 1 (3.45%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 1 (3.45%) Azure Data Factory
6 1 (3.45%) Azure Event Grid
6 1 (3.45%) Azure Key Vault
6 1 (3.45%) Azure Logic Apps
6 1 (3.45%) IaaS
6 1 (3.45%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (10.34%) Kerberos
2 1 (3.45%) Structured Cabling
2 1 (3.45%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (51.72%) PostgreSQL
2 7 (24.14%) SQL Server
3 6 (20.69%) NewSQL
4 3 (10.34%) CockroachDB
4 3 (10.34%) MySQL
4 3 (10.34%) OLTP
5 2 (6.90%) Data Warehouse
6 1 (3.45%) Big Data
6 1 (3.45%) Neo4j
6 1 (3.45%) NoSQL
6 1 (3.45%) Oracle Database
6 1 (3.45%) SSDT
6 1 (3.45%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 3 (10.34%) Git
2 1 (3.45%) GitLab
2 1 (3.45%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 7 (24.14%) Social Skills
2 6 (20.69%) Finance
3 2 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
3 2 (6.90%) Banking
3 2 (6.90%) Investment Banking
3 2 (6.90%) Public Sector
4 1 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (10.34%) OAuth
1 3 (10.34%) OpenID
1 3 (10.34%) SAML
2 1 (3.45%) .NET
2 1 (3.45%) ARM Templates
2 1 (3.45%) FastAPI
2 1 (3.45%) Node.js
2 1 (3.45%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 6 (20.69%) Cloud Native
2 4 (13.79%) Distributed Systems
3 1 (3.45%) Algorithms
3 1 (3.45%) Clustering
3 1 (3.45%) Data Protection Act
3 1 (3.45%) Data Structures
3 1 (3.45%) Hybrid Cloud
3 1 (3.45%) Legacy Systems
3 1 (3.45%) Linked Data
3 1 (3.45%) Management Information System
3 1 (3.45%) Semantic Web
3 1 (3.45%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (27.59%) Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 12 (41.38%) CI/CD
2 10 (34.48%) Infrastructure as Code
3 9 (31.03%) DevOps
4 7 (24.14%) Performance Tuning
4 7 (24.14%) Problem-Solving
5 5 (17.24%) Agile
5 5 (17.24%) Data Governance
5 5 (17.24%) High Availability
5 5 (17.24%) Migration
5 5 (17.24%) Task Automation
6 4 (13.79%) Containerisation
6 4 (13.79%) Data Engineering
6 4 (13.79%) Platform Engineering
7 3 (10.34%) AI
7 3 (10.34%) Auto-Scaling
7 3 (10.34%) Design Patterns
7 3 (10.34%) Machine Learning
8 2 (6.90%) Analytics
8 2 (6.90%) Build Automation
8 2 (6.90%) Database Security
Programming Languages
1 19 (65.52%) Python
2 10 (34.48%) SQL
3 5 (17.24%) Shell Script
4 3 (10.34%) ANSI SQL
5 1 (3.45%) Bash
5 1 (3.45%) Bicep
5 1 (3.45%) C#
5 1 (3.45%) Cypher
5 1 (3.45%) JavaScript
5 1 (3.45%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 3 (10.34%) Security Cleared
2 2 (6.90%) SC Cleared
3 1 (3.45%) DBS Check
System Software
1 1 (3.45%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 11 (37.93%) Terraform
2 8 (27.59%) Ansible
3 7 (24.14%) Kubernetes
4 1 (3.45%) Data Guard
4 1 (3.45%) yum
Vendors
1 4 (13.79%) Greenplum
1 4 (13.79%) Oracle
2 2 (6.90%) Sybase