DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 28 October 2025.

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

6 months to
28 Oct 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 447 307 362
Rank change year-on-year -140 +55 +29
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 136 276 278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.75% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.44% 0.81% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 85 159 199
10th Percentile £363 £350 £358
25th Percentile £425 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -1.04% -4.00%
75th Percentile £575 £625 £572
90th Percentile £675 £650 £616
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 4
10th Percentile £27.20 - £27.28
25th Percentile £29.00 £72.50 £42.69
Median hourly rate £30.00 £75.00 £57.28
Median % change year-on-year -60.00% +30.95% +4.14%
75th Percentile £31.00 £77.50 £68.30
90th Percentile £58.90 - £75.32
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £75.00 £62.05
% change year-on-year -32.00% +20.87% +24.10%

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 30,820 33,990 44,445
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.86% 92.88% 93.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,489 20,492 30,296
10th Percentile £280 £300 £300
25th Percentile £402 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £620 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £745
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,712 1,308 1,539
10th Percentile £13.84 £15.05 £14.73
25th Percentile £17.30 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £39.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -36.33% -12.22% +64.38%
75th Percentile £50.00 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.43 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £40.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -37.50% -10.11% +93.48%

DBA
Job Vacancy Trend

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

DBA job vacancy trend in the UK

DBA
Daily Rate Trend

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

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for DBA job vacancies in the UK

DBA
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing DBA over the 6 months to 28 October 2025.

Daily rate histogram for DBA in the UK

DBA
Hourly Rate Trend

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

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for DBA job vacancies in the UK

DBA
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DBA over the 6 months to 28 October 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for DBA in the UK

DBA
Top 16 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing DBA within the UK over the 6 months to 28 October 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
England -122 108 £500 +1.52% 50
UK excluding London -83 61 £450 - 42
Work from Home -59 53 £475 +5.56% 18
London -56 49 £525 +5.00% 18
North of England -39 18 £425 -2.58% 11
South East -25 12 £500 -16.67% 18
South West +7 11 £613 +36.11% 4
Midlands -38 10 £333 -16.88% 8
Yorkshire - 10 £365 - 5
West Midlands -12 9 £333 -1.19% 6
North West -37 8 £450 +3.15% 1
Scotland -5 5 - -
East of England -14 3 £475 +26.67%
Wales -1 1 - - 1
East Midlands -30 1 - - 2
Channel Islands - 1 - -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 28 October 2025, DBA 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 DBA in the job title.

1 68 (50.00%) SQL
2 67 (49.26%) Oracle
3 57 (41.91%) Oracle Database
4 51 (37.50%) Performance Tuning
5 46 (33.82%) SQL Server
6 39 (28.68%) Azure
7 38 (27.94%) Migration
8 36 (26.47%) AWS
9 34 (25.00%) Disaster Recovery
10 29 (21.32%) Data Guard
10 29 (21.32%) High Availability
11 28 (20.59%) Security Cleared
12 27 (19.85%) DevOps
12 27 (19.85%) Oracle RMAN
13 26 (19.12%) Linux
13 26 (19.12%) Oracle RAC
13 26 (19.12%) PostgreSQL
14 25 (18.38%) SC Cleared
15 23 (16.91%) Python
16 21 (15.44%) CI/CD
16 21 (15.44%) Problem-Solving
17 20 (14.71%) Data Modelling
17 20 (14.71%) Database Security
17 20 (14.71%) MySQL
17 20 (14.71%) PL/SQL
18 18 (13.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
18 18 (13.24%) Task Automation
19 16 (11.76%) Database Migration
19 16 (11.76%) Oracle GoldenGate
20 15 (11.03%) Capacity Planning

DBA 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:

Application Platforms
1 5 (3.68%) Oracle Workflow
2 4 (2.94%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 4 (2.94%) WebLogic
3 2 (1.47%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (1.47%) OpenEdge
Business Applications
1 6 (4.41%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (3.68%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (2.94%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.74%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 39 (28.68%) Azure
2 36 (26.47%) AWS
3 13 (9.56%) Serverless
4 12 (8.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 10 (7.35%) OCI
6 9 (6.62%) Amazon EC2
6 9 (6.62%) Azure Monitor
7 7 (5.15%) Power Platform
8 6 (4.41%) Amazon S3
8 6 (4.41%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 6 (4.41%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (4.41%) Azure Functions
8 6 (4.41%) Azure Logic Apps
8 6 (4.41%) SaaS
9 5 (3.68%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (3.68%) AWS Lambda
9 5 (3.68%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (3.68%) Datadog
9 5 (3.68%) Snowflake
9 5 (3.68%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.21%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (41.91%) Oracle Database
2 46 (33.82%) SQL Server
3 26 (19.12%) PostgreSQL
4 20 (14.71%) MySQL
5 15 (11.03%) Oracle Exadata
6 14 (10.29%) Amazon RDS
7 13 (9.56%) NoSQL
7 13 (9.56%) Relational Database
8 11 (8.09%) Azure SQL Database
9 10 (7.35%) Amazon Aurora
10 9 (6.62%) RDBMS
10 9 (6.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 8 (5.88%) MongoDB
11 8 (5.88%) Oracle Database 12c
12 7 (5.15%) Data Warehouse
12 7 (5.15%) Power BI
13 6 (4.41%) DB2
13 6 (4.41%) DynamoDB
13 6 (4.41%) Oracle Reports
14 5 (3.68%) MariaDB
Development Applications
1 6 (4.41%) Git
2 4 (2.94%) Oracle APEX
3 3 (2.21%) ERwin
4 1 (0.74%) GitLab
4 1 (0.74%) JIRA
4 1 (0.74%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.74%) Toad
General
1 23 (16.91%) Finance
2 20 (14.71%) Social Skills
3 12 (8.82%) Banking
4 10 (7.35%) Public Sector
5 8 (5.88%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 7 (5.15%) Analytical Skills
7 6 (4.41%) Telecoms
8 3 (2.21%) Electronics
8 3 (2.21%) Local Government
8 3 (2.21%) Manufacturing
8 3 (2.21%) Marketing
9 2 (1.47%) Financial Institution
9 2 (1.47%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.74%) Automotive
10 1 (0.74%) Back Office
10 1 (0.74%) French Language
10 1 (0.74%) Front Office
10 1 (0.74%) Law
10 1 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (11.76%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 8 (5.88%) Node.js
3 4 (2.94%) .NET
3 4 (2.94%) .NET Core
3 4 (2.94%) ASP.NET
4 2 (1.47%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.47%) FastAPI
4 2 (1.47%) pgvector
4 2 (1.47%) PostGIS
5 1 (0.74%) JSON
5 1 (0.74%) Kafka
5 1 (0.74%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 26 (19.12%) Replication
2 17 (12.50%) Clustering
3 10 (7.35%) Cloud Native
4 8 (5.88%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (5.88%) Enterprise Cloud
5 5 (3.68%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (2.94%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.47%) Data Centre
7 2 (1.47%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (1.47%) Virtual Team
8 1 (0.74%) Mainframe
8 1 (0.74%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.74%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.74%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 26 (19.12%) Linux
2 12 (8.82%) Unix
3 11 (8.09%) Windows
4 3 (2.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (2.21%) Solaris
5 2 (1.47%) AIX
5 2 (1.47%) VMS
5 2 (1.47%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 51 (37.50%) Performance Tuning
2 38 (27.94%) Migration
3 34 (25.00%) Disaster Recovery
4 29 (21.32%) High Availability
5 27 (19.85%) DevOps
6 21 (15.44%) CI/CD
6 21 (15.44%) Problem-Solving
7 20 (14.71%) Data Modelling
7 20 (14.71%) Database Security
8 18 (13.24%) Task Automation
9 16 (11.76%) Database Migration
10 15 (11.03%) Capacity Planning
11 13 (9.56%) Database Tuning
12 11 (8.09%) Agile
13 10 (7.35%) Data Protection
13 10 (7.35%) ETL
13 10 (7.35%) Infrastructure as Code
14 9 (6.62%) Analytics
14 9 (6.62%) Business Intelligence
14 9 (6.62%) Proactive Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 68 (50.00%) SQL
2 23 (16.91%) Python
3 20 (14.71%) PL/SQL
4 12 (8.82%) Shell Script
5 11 (8.09%) Bash
6 10 (7.35%) PowerShell
6 10 (7.35%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.94%) C#
7 4 (2.94%) Java
7 4 (2.94%) Perl
8 2 (1.47%) AWK
8 2 (1.47%) Bicep
8 2 (1.47%) sed
9 1 (0.74%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.74%) C
9 1 (0.74%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.74%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 28 (20.59%) Security Cleared
2 25 (18.38%) SC Cleared
3 7 (5.15%) Azure Certification
4 5 (3.68%) Microsoft Certification
4 5 (3.68%) OCP
4 5 (3.68%) Oracle Certification
5 4 (2.94%) AWS Certification
5 4 (2.94%) DV Cleared
6 2 (1.47%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (1.47%) Degree
6 2 (1.47%) MCSE
6 2 (1.47%) OCA
7 1 (0.74%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (4.41%) PCI DSS
2 5 (3.68%) GDPR
2 5 (3.68%) QA
2 5 (3.68%) SLA
3 1 (0.74%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.74%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.74%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.74%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 26 (19.12%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (3.68%) NFS
3 2 (1.47%) GPFS
4 1 (0.74%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 29 (21.32%) Data Guard
2 27 (19.85%) Oracle RMAN
3 18 (13.24%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 11 (8.09%) Terraform
5 6 (4.41%) Ansible
6 4 (2.94%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 2 (1.47%) EMC NetWorker
7 2 (1.47%) yum
8 1 (0.74%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (0.74%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 67 (49.26%) Oracle
2 15 (11.03%) Microsoft
3 4 (2.94%) Red Hat
4 3 (2.21%) Delphix
4 3 (2.21%) SAP
4 3 (2.21%) Teradata
5 2 (1.47%) Cisco
5 2 (1.47%) Google
5 2 (1.47%) IBM
5 2 (1.47%) Salesforce
5 2 (1.47%) Sybase
6 1 (0.74%) BMC
6 1 (0.74%) EMC
6 1 (0.74%) SolarWinds