DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 11 November 2025.

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

6 months to
11 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 429 293 369
Rank change year-on-year -136 +76 +42
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 137 278 277
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.39% 0.77% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.43% 0.83% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 86 152 201
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £403 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £493
Median % change year-on-year - -3.55% -1.50%
75th Percentile £569 £608 £575
90th Percentile £675 £650 £621
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £484
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -1.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 2
10th Percentile £27.20 - £61.73
25th Percentile £29.00 - £64.78
Median hourly rate £30.00 - £71.03
75th Percentile £31.00 - £76.10
90th Percentile £58.90 - £78.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 - £71.03

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 31,731 33,449 44,055
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.90% 92.85% 93.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,141 20,162 29,928
10th Percentile £278 £300 £294
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,818 1,246 1,550
10th Percentile £14.00 £15.10 £15.00
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +63.30%
75th Percentile £51.52 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -28.14% -21.35% +90.25%

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 11 November 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 11 November 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 11 November 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 -139 111 £492 +2.23% 63
UK excluding London -97 64 £450 - 41
London -78 49 £525 +5.00% 22
Work from Home -72 46 £475 +5.56% 42
North of England -38 22 £450 +1.12% 17
Midlands -32 12 £365 -10.98% 12
South West -6 11 £613 +36.11% 4
West Midlands -21 11 £365 -25.74% 9
North West -37 11 £450 +1.12% 8
Yorkshire - 11 £358 - 3
South East -22 9 £475 -17.75% 6
Scotland -6 5 - -
East of England -17 3 £475 +26.67% 2
Wales -6 1 - -
East Midlands -26 1 - - 3
Channel Islands - 1 - -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 11 November 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 (49.64%) Oracle
2 62 (45.26%) SQL
3 56 (40.88%) Oracle Database
4 48 (35.04%) SQL Server
5 45 (32.85%) Performance Tuning
6 40 (29.20%) Azure
7 37 (27.01%) Migration
8 35 (25.55%) AWS
9 31 (22.63%) Disaster Recovery
10 28 (20.44%) Data Guard
10 28 (20.44%) PostgreSQL
10 28 (20.44%) Security Cleared
11 26 (18.98%) DevOps
11 26 (18.98%) High Availability
11 26 (18.98%) MySQL
12 25 (18.25%) Linux
13 24 (17.52%) Oracle RMAN
13 24 (17.52%) Python
14 23 (16.79%) Problem-Solving
14 23 (16.79%) SC Cleared
15 21 (15.33%) CI/CD
15 21 (15.33%) Oracle RAC
16 20 (14.60%) Data Modelling
17 18 (13.14%) Database Security
18 17 (12.41%) Microsoft
19 16 (11.68%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
20 15 (10.95%) Oracle Exadata
20 15 (10.95%) Oracle GoldenGate
20 15 (10.95%) PL/SQL
21 14 (10.22%) 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 1 (0.73%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (0.73%) OpenEdge
1 1 (0.73%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 1 (0.73%) Oracle Workflow
1 1 (0.73%) WebLogic
Business Applications
1 2 (1.46%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.73%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.73%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 40 (29.20%) Azure
2 35 (25.55%) AWS
3 14 (10.22%) Serverless
4 12 (8.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 9 (6.57%) Amazon EC2
5 9 (6.57%) Azure Monitor
6 7 (5.11%) Power Platform
7 6 (4.38%) Amazon S3
7 6 (4.38%) AWS Lambda
7 6 (4.38%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 6 (4.38%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (4.38%) Azure Functions
7 6 (4.38%) Azure Logic Apps
7 6 (4.38%) SaaS
7 6 (4.38%) Snowflake
8 5 (3.65%) AWS CloudFormation
8 5 (3.65%) Azure Data Factory
8 5 (3.65%) Datadog
8 5 (3.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 4 (2.92%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.19%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (40.88%) Oracle Database
2 48 (35.04%) SQL Server
3 28 (20.44%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (18.98%) MySQL
5 15 (10.95%) Oracle Exadata
6 14 (10.22%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (10.22%) NoSQL
7 12 (8.76%) Azure SQL Database
8 9 (6.57%) Relational Database
8 9 (6.57%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (5.84%) Amazon Aurora
9 8 (5.84%) MongoDB
9 8 (5.84%) Oracle Database 12c
10 7 (5.11%) Data Warehouse
10 7 (5.11%) Power BI
11 6 (4.38%) DB2
11 6 (4.38%) DynamoDB
11 6 (4.38%) RDBMS
12 5 (3.65%) Data Lake
12 5 (3.65%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 6 (4.38%) Git
2 4 (2.92%) Oracle APEX
3 3 (2.19%) ERwin
4 1 (0.73%) JIRA
4 1 (0.73%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.73%) Toad
General
1 24 (17.52%) Finance
2 20 (14.60%) Social Skills
3 12 (8.76%) Banking
4 10 (7.30%) Public Sector
5 8 (5.84%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (5.84%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 6 (4.38%) Telecoms
7 3 (2.19%) Electronics
7 3 (2.19%) Investment Banking
7 3 (2.19%) Local Government
7 3 (2.19%) Manufacturing
7 3 (2.19%) Marketing
8 2 (1.46%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.73%) Automotive
9 1 (0.73%) Law
9 1 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (10.95%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 8 (5.84%) Node.js
3 4 (2.92%) .NET
3 4 (2.92%) .NET Core
3 4 (2.92%) ASP.NET
4 2 (1.46%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.46%) FastAPI
4 2 (1.46%) pgvector
4 2 (1.46%) PostGIS
5 1 (0.73%) JSON
5 1 (0.73%) Kafka
5 1 (0.73%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (18.25%) Replication
2 16 (11.68%) Clustering
3 10 (7.30%) Cloud Native
3 10 (7.30%) Enterprise Cloud
4 8 (5.84%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (4.38%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (3.65%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.92%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (1.46%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.73%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.73%) Mainframe
9 1 (0.73%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.73%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.73%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.73%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 25 (18.25%) Linux
2 11 (8.03%) Unix
2 11 (8.03%) Windows
3 5 (3.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (2.19%) Solaris
5 2 (1.46%) AIX
5 2 (1.46%) Oracle Linux
5 2 (1.46%) VMS
5 2 (1.46%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 45 (32.85%) Performance Tuning
2 37 (27.01%) Migration
3 31 (22.63%) Disaster Recovery
4 26 (18.98%) DevOps
4 26 (18.98%) High Availability
5 23 (16.79%) Problem-Solving
6 21 (15.33%) CI/CD
7 20 (14.60%) Data Modelling
8 18 (13.14%) Database Security
9 14 (10.22%) Task Automation
10 13 (9.49%) Agile
10 13 (9.49%) Database Migration
11 11 (8.03%) Continuous Improvement
12 10 (7.30%) Capacity Planning
12 10 (7.30%) ETL
12 10 (7.30%) Infrastructure as Code
12 10 (7.30%) Line Management
12 10 (7.30%) Stakeholder Management
13 9 (6.57%) Analytics
13 9 (6.57%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 62 (45.26%) SQL
2 24 (17.52%) Python
3 15 (10.95%) PL/SQL
4 14 (10.22%) Shell Script
5 10 (7.30%) Bash
5 10 (7.30%) T-SQL
6 9 (6.57%) PowerShell
7 4 (2.92%) C#
7 4 (2.92%) Java
8 2 (1.46%) AWK
8 2 (1.46%) Bicep
8 2 (1.46%) sed
9 1 (0.73%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.73%) C
9 1 (0.73%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.73%) Perl
9 1 (0.73%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 28 (20.44%) Security Cleared
2 23 (16.79%) SC Cleared
3 8 (5.84%) Microsoft Certification
4 7 (5.11%) Azure Certification
4 7 (5.11%) DV Cleared
5 5 (3.65%) OCP
5 5 (3.65%) Oracle Certification
6 4 (2.92%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.46%) Degree
7 2 (1.46%) MCSE
7 2 (1.46%) OCA
8 1 (0.73%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.73%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (4.38%) PCI DSS
2 5 (3.65%) GDPR
2 5 (3.65%) QA
2 5 (3.65%) SLA
3 1 (0.73%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.73%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.73%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.73%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (15.33%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (3.65%) NFS
3 2 (1.46%) GPFS
4 1 (0.73%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 28 (20.44%) Data Guard
2 24 (17.52%) Oracle RMAN
3 16 (11.68%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 10 (7.30%) Terraform
5 5 (3.65%) Ansible
6 2 (1.46%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (1.46%) yum
7 1 (0.73%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 1 (0.73%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (0.73%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 68 (49.64%) Oracle
2 17 (12.41%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.38%) Red Hat
4 3 (2.19%) SAP
4 3 (2.19%) Teradata
5 2 (1.46%) Delphix
5 2 (1.46%) IBM
5 2 (1.46%) ServiceNow
5 2 (1.46%) Sybase
6 1 (0.73%) BMC
6 1 (0.73%) Cisco
6 1 (0.73%) EMC
6 1 (0.73%) Google
6 1 (0.73%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.73%) SolarWinds