DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 May 2026.

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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 357 393 316
Rank change year-on-year +36 -77 +44
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 302 133 273
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.47% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.67% 0.50% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 238 83 187
10th Percentile £363 £344 £363
25th Percentile £402 £409 £414
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £538 £611
90th Percentile £650 £575 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £447 £483
% change year-on-year +0.61% -7.31% -3.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 2
10th Percentile - - £32.45
25th Percentile - £61.87 £39.13
Median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year -56.86% +23.78% +48.01%
75th Percentile - £65.62 £65.13
90th Percentile - - £72.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £51.50
% change year-on-year -56.86% +23.78% +186.11%

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 44,822 26,395 39,583
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.33% 92.28% 92.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,378 17,183 25,758
10th Percentile £325 £289 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £508 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.99% -3.33% -2.78%
75th Percentile £619 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,956 1,008 2,746
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.49 £18.12 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.52 £36.50
Median % change year-on-year +54.46% -24.62% -18.89%
75th Percentile £67.06 £60.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -5.88%

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 26 May 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 26 May 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 +28 264 £463 +2.78% 34
UK excluding London +21 196 £450 +0.61% 35
London -36 84 £500 +2.56% 7
North of England -16 72 £432 -2.92% 9
South East -17 64 £417 -12.16% 15
Work from Home -50 54 £500 +11.11% 14
North West -5 44 £447 +3.50% 5
Midlands -34 32 £463 - 5
Yorkshire -30 28 £400 -30.43% 3
West Midlands -39 26 £481 - 2
Scotland +3 14 £500 +3.90% 4
South West - 8 £606 - 3
East Midlands - 5 £463 - 3
Northern Ireland +3 2 £675 -
Wales -10 2 - - 1
East of England -40 2 £388 -8.82%
North East - 1 £501 - 1

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 May 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.

1 166 (54.97%) Oracle
2 152 (50.33%) SQL
3 119 (39.40%) Security Cleared
4 116 (38.41%) Oracle Database
5 107 (35.43%) SQL Server
6 96 (31.79%) Performance Tuning
7 88 (29.14%) SC Cleared
8 77 (25.50%) High Availability
9 73 (24.17%) PostgreSQL
10 56 (18.54%) Azure
11 52 (17.22%) Oracle RMAN
12 51 (16.89%) Disaster Recovery
12 51 (16.89%) Microsoft
12 51 (16.89%) Migration
13 47 (15.56%) AWS
13 47 (15.56%) Database Security
14 41 (13.58%) DevOps
14 41 (13.58%) Linux
15 38 (12.58%) MySQL
16 33 (10.93%) DV Cleared
16 33 (10.93%) Oracle RAC
17 32 (10.60%) Problem-Solving
18 31 (10.26%) Data Guard
18 31 (10.26%) MongoDB
19 30 (9.93%) Unix
20 28 (9.27%) PL/SQL
20 28 (9.27%) Python
21 26 (8.61%) ITIL
21 26 (8.61%) PowerShell
21 26 (8.61%) SQL Server Integration Services

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 8 (2.65%) WebLogic
2 5 (1.66%) Confluence
3 4 (1.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 3 (0.99%) Oracle Workflow
5 2 (0.66%) Liferay
6 1 (0.33%) OpenEdge
6 1 (0.33%) Oracle Application Server
6 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
Applications
1 2 (0.66%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 14 (4.64%) Oracle EBS
2 11 (3.64%) Oracle Applications
3 8 (2.65%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (0.99%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.99%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.99%) Teamcenter
5 2 (0.66%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 56 (18.54%) Azure
2 47 (15.56%) AWS
3 15 (4.97%) Azure Cosmos DB
4 12 (3.97%) Serverless
5 8 (2.65%) Azure Data Factory
5 8 (2.65%) OCI
6 7 (2.32%) Amazon S3
7 6 (1.99%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (1.99%) PaaS
8 5 (1.66%) Amazon EC2
8 5 (1.66%) GCP
8 5 (1.66%) SaaS
8 5 (1.66%) Snowflake
9 4 (1.32%) Azure AKS
9 4 (1.32%) Azure Functions
9 4 (1.32%) Azure Logic Apps
9 4 (1.32%) Azure Monitor
10 3 (0.99%) Azure Storage
10 3 (0.99%) Cloud Computing
10 3 (0.99%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.33%) Firewall
1 1 (0.33%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 116 (38.41%) Oracle Database
2 107 (35.43%) SQL Server
3 73 (24.17%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (12.58%) MySQL
5 31 (10.26%) MongoDB
6 26 (8.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 25 (8.28%) Amazon RDS
8 22 (7.28%) Oracle Reports
9 19 (6.29%) Oracle Database 12c
9 19 (6.29%) Relational Database
9 19 (6.29%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 18 (5.96%) NoSQL
10 18 (5.96%) Oracle Database 11g
11 17 (5.63%) Azure SQL Database
12 16 (5.30%) RDBMS
13 9 (2.98%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 8 (2.65%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (2.65%) Oracle Exadata
15 6 (1.99%) Big Data
15 6 (1.99%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 13 (4.30%) Git
2 10 (3.31%) GitLab
3 8 (2.65%) Oracle APEX
4 6 (1.99%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.32%) Flyway
5 4 (1.32%) Oracle Forms
5 4 (1.32%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.66%) JIRA
7 1 (0.33%) Oracle Developer 2000
7 1 (0.33%) TeamCity
General
1 38 (12.58%) Social Skills
2 34 (11.26%) Public Sector
3 28 (9.27%) Finance
4 20 (6.62%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (4.64%) Banking
6 9 (2.98%) Legal
7 4 (1.32%) Investment Banking
7 4 (1.32%) Military
8 3 (0.99%) Documentation Skills
8 3 (0.99%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (0.99%) Publishing
9 2 (0.66%) Aviation
9 2 (0.66%) Telecoms
10 1 (0.33%) Advertising
10 1 (0.33%) Billing
10 1 (0.33%) Local Government
10 1 (0.33%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.33%) Pharmaceutical
10 1 (0.33%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.63%) JSON
2 15 (4.97%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 15 (4.97%) XML
3 11 (3.64%) Kafka
4 6 (1.99%) OLE
5 4 (1.32%) .NET
5 4 (1.32%) AWS CDK
5 4 (1.32%) Node.js
6 3 (0.99%) .NET Core
6 3 (0.99%) ASP.NET
6 3 (0.99%) GeoJSON
6 3 (0.99%) Matplotlib
6 3 (0.99%) Middleware
6 3 (0.99%) Pandas
6 3 (0.99%) Polars
6 3 (0.99%) scikit-learn
7 2 (0.66%) Elastic Stack
7 2 (0.66%) Oracle ADF
7 2 (0.66%) Oracle Fusion
7 2 (0.66%) PostGIS
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.27%) Replication
2 18 (5.96%) Clustering
3 11 (3.64%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (2.65%) Cloud Native
4 8 (2.65%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.99%) Enterprise Cloud
6 4 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.32%) Legacy Applications
7 3 (0.99%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.66%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.66%) Mainframe
8 2 (0.66%) NHS
9 1 (0.33%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.33%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.33%) Life Science
9 1 (0.33%) Operational Technology
9 1 (0.33%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.33%) SCADA
9 1 (0.33%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.33%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 41 (13.58%) Linux
2 30 (9.93%) Unix
3 19 (6.29%) Windows
4 12 (3.97%) Windows Server
5 7 (2.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.99%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.66%) AIX
7 2 (0.66%) Solaris
8 1 (0.33%) Amazon Linux
8 1 (0.33%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.33%) HPUX
8 1 (0.33%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.33%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 96 (31.79%) Performance Tuning
2 77 (25.50%) High Availability
3 51 (16.89%) Disaster Recovery
3 51 (16.89%) Migration
4 47 (15.56%) Database Security
5 41 (13.58%) DevOps
6 32 (10.60%) Problem-Solving
7 26 (8.61%) ITIL
8 25 (8.28%) Capacity Planning
9 24 (7.95%) Agile
10 23 (7.62%) Task Automation
11 21 (6.95%) CI/CD
12 18 (5.96%) Data Modelling
12 18 (5.96%) Database Tuning
13 17 (5.63%) Data Protection
13 17 (5.63%) Performance Optimisation
14 16 (5.30%) Data Migration
15 15 (4.97%) Mentoring
16 14 (4.64%) Statistics
17 13 (4.30%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 152 (50.33%) SQL
2 28 (9.27%) PL/SQL
2 28 (9.27%) Python
3 26 (8.61%) PowerShell
4 18 (5.96%) Shell Script
5 17 (5.63%) T-SQL
6 10 (3.31%) Korn
7 6 (1.99%) Bash
8 4 (1.32%) C#
8 4 (1.32%) TypeScript
9 3 (0.99%) Bicep
9 3 (0.99%) Perl
10 2 (0.66%) Java
11 1 (0.33%) Groovy
11 1 (0.33%) JCL
11 1 (0.33%) RPG
11 1 (0.33%) Ruby
11 1 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 119 (39.40%) Security Cleared
2 88 (29.14%) SC Cleared
3 33 (10.93%) DV Cleared
4 13 (4.30%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (3.31%) Oracle Certification
6 8 (2.65%) OCP
7 6 (1.99%) Degree
8 5 (1.66%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.32%) MCITP
9 4 (1.32%) MCTS
10 1 (0.33%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.33%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.33%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (2.98%) GDPR
2 8 (2.65%) Data Quality
2 8 (2.65%) QA
3 7 (2.32%) SLA
4 4 (1.32%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.33%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.33%) NIST
5 1 (0.33%) NIST 800
5 1 (0.33%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 33 (10.93%) Oracle RAC
2 6 (1.99%) Active Directory
2 6 (1.99%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (0.99%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 52 (17.22%) Oracle RMAN
2 31 (10.26%) Data Guard
3 19 (6.29%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 14 (4.64%) Terraform
5 12 (3.97%) Ansible
6 5 (1.66%) Foglight
7 3 (0.99%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 3 (0.99%) Grafana
7 3 (0.99%) Microsoft Clustering
7 3 (0.99%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.66%) systemd
9 1 (0.33%) EMC NetWorker
9 1 (0.33%) Failover Clustering
9 1 (0.33%) SCCM
Vendors
1 166 (54.97%) Oracle
2 51 (16.89%) Microsoft
3 8 (2.65%) RedGate
3 8 (2.65%) SolarWinds
4 7 (2.32%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.66%) Databricks
6 4 (1.32%) Google
6 4 (1.32%) Greenplum
6 4 (1.32%) Informatica
6 4 (1.32%) Red Hat
6 4 (1.32%) Sybase
6 4 (1.32%) Talend
7 3 (0.99%) BMC
7 3 (0.99%) Remedy
8 2 (0.66%) IBM
9 1 (0.33%) Commvault
9 1 (0.33%) EMC
9 1 (0.33%) NetCracker
9 1 (0.33%) Teradata
9 1 (0.33%) Wonderware