DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 October 2026.

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

6 months to
1 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 378 419 302
Rank change year-on-year +41 -117 +76
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 334 138 281
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.42% 0.74%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 0.46% 0.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 243 91 166
10th Percentile £371 £373 £350
25th Percentile £418 £428 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £491
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% +1.78% +2.99%
75th Percentile £575 £572 £621
90th Percentile £675 £675 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £483 £463 £450
% change year-on-year +4.43% +2.78% -5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 5 1
10th Percentile - £27.20 -
25th Percentile £36.75 £29.00 £72.50
Median hourly rate £38.50 £30.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.33% -60.00% +42.86%
75th Percentile £40.25 £31.00 £77.50
90th Percentile - £58.90 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.50 £51.00 £75.00
% change year-on-year -24.51% -32.00% +87.38%

All Contract IT Job Roles
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 50,623 30,078 35,169
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.20% 90.98% 92.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,851 19,013 21,316
10th Percentile £325 £276 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £630 £623 £638
90th Percentile £734 £725 £749
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,956 1,609 1,552
10th Percentile £14.50 £13.75 £14.86
25th Percentile £19.91 £17.30 £20.94
Median hourly rate £41.74 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +65.94% -41.51% -2.82%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.25 £65.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £68.31 £74.86
UK excluding London median hourly rate £41.87 £25.08 £43.00
% change year-on-year +66.97% -41.69% -2.05%

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 1 October 2026.

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
Top 17 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 1 October 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
England +40 272 £525 +5.00% 125
UK excluding London +57 222 £483 +4.43% 71
North of England +3 89 £493 +9.44% 28
London -63 77 £533 +4.41% 56
North West +14 71 £500 +11.11% 21
Work from Home -61 63 £500 +5.32% 49
South East -28 45 £548 +21.67% 16
Scotland +2 30 £400 -4.48% 6
Midlands -30 24 £450 - 12
South West -27 19 £750 +22.45% 2
Yorkshire -27 17 £454 -9.20% 4
West Midlands -26 16 £448 - 5
East of England -21 8 £425 -10.53% 2
East Midlands -9 7 £463 - 7
Wales - 4 £544 - 5
Northern Ireland - 3 £675 -
North East - 1 £501 - 3

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 October 2026, 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.

1 203 (60.78%) SQL
2 192 (57.49%) Security Cleared
3 178 (53.29%) Oracle
4 165 (49.40%) SQL Server
5 144 (43.11%) SC Cleared
6 139 (41.62%) Performance Tuning
7 105 (31.44%) Oracle Database
8 104 (31.14%) PostgreSQL
9 101 (30.24%) Microsoft
10 93 (27.84%) High Availability
11 79 (23.65%) Disaster Recovery
12 77 (23.05%) AWS
13 75 (22.46%) Azure
14 68 (20.36%) MySQL
15 55 (16.47%) Migration
16 50 (14.97%) DV Cleared
16 50 (14.97%) Linux
17 48 (14.37%) PowerShell
18 46 (13.77%) Database Security
18 46 (13.77%) DevOps
19 45 (13.47%) Oracle RMAN
20 44 (13.17%) Data Guard
21 42 (12.57%) ITIL
22 41 (12.28%) Unix
23 40 (11.98%) Microsoft Certification
24 39 (11.68%) Oracle RAC
24 39 (11.68%) Windows
25 35 (10.48%) CI/CD
25 35 (10.48%) Root Cause Analysis
26 34 (10.18%) Amazon RDS

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 14 (4.19%) WebLogic
2 11 (3.29%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 10 (2.99%) Confluence
4 6 (1.80%) WebLogic Portal
5 2 (0.60%) Oracle Service Bus
5 2 (0.60%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.30%) Mendix
6 1 (0.30%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.20%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (1.20%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.60%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.30%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 16 (4.79%) Oracle EBS
2 11 (3.29%) Remedy ITSM
3 9 (2.69%) Oracle Applications
4 8 (2.40%) Oracle EBS R12
5 6 (1.80%) Oracle Payables
5 6 (1.80%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.60%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.30%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.30%) Maximo
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 77 (23.05%) AWS
2 75 (22.46%) Azure
3 18 (5.39%) AWS CloudFormation
4 17 (5.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 17 (5.09%) Power Platform
5 15 (4.49%) AWS KMS
5 15 (4.49%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 12 (3.59%) Azure Monitor
7 11 (3.29%) Amazon EC2
7 11 (3.29%) Azure DevOps
7 11 (3.29%) GCP
8 10 (2.99%) Amazon S3
9 6 (1.80%) AWS Lambda
9 6 (1.80%) Serverless
10 5 (1.50%) OCI
11 4 (1.20%) Azure Data Factory
11 4 (1.20%) Snowflake
12 3 (0.90%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 3 (0.90%) Cloud Computing
12 3 (0.90%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.89%) SSL
2 4 (1.20%) Firewall
3 1 (0.30%) HTTP
3 1 (0.30%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.30%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 165 (49.40%) SQL Server
2 105 (31.44%) Oracle Database
3 104 (31.14%) PostgreSQL
4 68 (20.36%) MySQL
5 34 (10.18%) Amazon RDS
6 33 (9.88%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 28 (8.38%) Amazon Aurora
8 24 (7.19%) Oracle Database 11g
9 19 (5.69%) Oracle Database 12c
9 19 (5.69%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 18 (5.39%) MongoDB
11 17 (5.09%) Power BI
12 14 (4.19%) Oracle Database 10g
12 14 (4.19%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 11 (3.29%) Relational Database
14 10 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
14 10 (2.99%) RDBMS
15 9 (2.69%) Redis
16 8 (2.40%) Azure SQL Database
16 8 (2.40%) Db2
Development Applications
1 12 (3.59%) Git
2 11 (3.29%) JIRA
3 6 (1.80%) Flyway
3 6 (1.80%) GitLab
3 6 (1.80%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 5 (1.50%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.50%) Oracle APEX
5 4 (1.20%) Oracle Forms
6 3 (0.90%) Toad
7 1 (0.30%) Liquibase
7 1 (0.30%) Oracle Developer 2000
General
1 81 (24.25%) Social Skills
2 42 (12.57%) Public Sector
3 38 (11.38%) Finance
4 19 (5.69%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (4.79%) Banking
6 8 (2.40%) Legal
7 3 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
7 3 (0.90%) Police
8 2 (0.60%) Financial Institution
8 2 (0.60%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.30%) Billing
9 1 (0.30%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.30%) International Banking
9 1 (0.30%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (8.68%) Terraform
2 9 (2.69%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 6 (1.80%) JSON
3 6 (1.80%) Middleware
3 6 (1.80%) XML
4 3 (0.90%) .NET
4 3 (0.90%) Kafka
4 3 (0.90%) Oracle Streams
5 2 (0.60%) OLE
5 2 (0.60%) REST
6 1 (0.30%) AWS CDK
6 1 (0.30%) Elastic Stack
6 1 (0.30%) Oracle Fusion
6 1 (0.30%) PySpark
6 1 (0.30%) Spring
6 1 (0.30%) Spring Boot
6 1 (0.30%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 63 (18.86%) Replication
2 38 (11.38%) Clustering
3 15 (4.49%) Data Centre
4 10 (2.99%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.80%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.50%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.20%) Cloud Native
7 4 (1.20%) NHS
8 2 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
8 2 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (0.60%) Mainframe
9 1 (0.30%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.30%) Cyber Threat
9 1 (0.30%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.30%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.30%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.30%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.30%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 50 (14.97%) Linux
2 41 (12.28%) Unix
3 39 (11.68%) Windows
4 22 (6.59%) Windows Server
5 20 (5.99%) Solaris
6 5 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.20%) Amazon Linux
8 3 (0.90%) AIX
8 3 (0.90%) Windows Server 2008
9 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.30%) HPUX
10 1 (0.30%) Oracle Linux
10 1 (0.30%) VMS
10 1 (0.30%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.30%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (41.62%) Performance Tuning
2 93 (27.84%) High Availability
3 79 (23.65%) Disaster Recovery
4 55 (16.47%) Migration
5 46 (13.77%) Database Security
5 46 (13.77%) DevOps
6 42 (12.57%) ITIL
7 35 (10.48%) CI/CD
7 35 (10.48%) Root Cause Analysis
8 34 (10.18%) Stakeholder Management
9 33 (9.88%) Data Modelling
9 33 (9.88%) Problem-Solving
10 28 (8.38%) Database Tuning
11 27 (8.08%) Capacity Planning
12 25 (7.49%) Performance Optimisation
13 24 (7.19%) Continuous Improvement
13 24 (7.19%) Infrastructure as Code
14 20 (5.99%) Incident Management
15 19 (5.69%) Change Management
16 18 (5.39%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 203 (60.78%) SQL
2 48 (14.37%) PowerShell
3 33 (9.88%) T-SQL
4 31 (9.28%) PL/SQL
5 30 (8.98%) Python
6 8 (2.40%) Bash
7 7 (2.10%) Perl
8 6 (1.80%) Java
8 6 (1.80%) Shell Script
9 4 (1.20%) Groovy
10 2 (0.60%) Bicep
10 2 (0.60%) Korn
11 1 (0.30%) Cypher
11 1 (0.30%) RPG
11 1 (0.30%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 192 (57.49%) Security Cleared
2 144 (43.11%) SC Cleared
3 50 (14.97%) DV Cleared
4 40 (11.98%) Microsoft Certification
5 19 (5.69%) Oracle Certification
6 17 (5.09%) BPSS Clearance
6 17 (5.09%) Degree
7 16 (4.79%) Azure Certification
8 15 (4.49%) AWS Certification
9 14 (4.19%) OCP
10 10 (2.99%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 9 (2.69%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (1.50%) DBS Check
13 4 (1.20%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.29%) Data Quality
2 10 (2.99%) QA
3 8 (2.40%) SLA
4 7 (2.10%) GDPR
5 5 (1.50%) ISO 9000
6 1 (0.30%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.30%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.30%) ISO 20022
6 1 (0.30%) ISO 22301
6 1 (0.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 39 (11.68%) Oracle RAC
2 13 (3.89%) Virtual Machines
3 9 (2.69%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.69%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.50%) Docker
5 3 (0.90%) ACF2
5 3 (0.90%) RACF
Systems Management
1 45 (13.47%) Oracle RMAN
2 44 (13.17%) Data Guard
3 17 (5.09%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 16 (4.79%) SCOM
5 13 (3.89%) Ansible
6 9 (2.69%) Microsoft Clustering
7 7 (2.10%) Prometheus
8 6 (1.80%) Failover Clustering
9 5 (1.50%) Grafana
10 4 (1.20%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
11 3 (0.90%) Nagios
12 2 (0.60%) Single Sign-On
13 1 (0.30%) Kubernetes
13 1 (0.30%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 178 (53.29%) Oracle
2 101 (30.24%) Microsoft
3 23 (6.89%) ServiceNow
4 13 (3.89%) Remedy
5 11 (3.29%) BMC
6 9 (2.69%) VMware
7 7 (2.10%) SolarWinds
7 7 (2.10%) Sybase
8 6 (1.80%) RedGate
9 4 (1.20%) Cerner
9 4 (1.20%) Commvault
9 4 (1.20%) Dynatrace
9 4 (1.20%) Google
10 3 (0.90%) Greenplum
10 3 (0.90%) IBM
10 3 (0.90%) Informatica
10 3 (0.90%) Red Hat
10 3 (0.90%) Talend
11 2 (0.60%) Splunk
12 1 (0.30%) NetCracker