DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £513, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 September 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 365 417 314
Rank change year-on-year +52 -103 +48
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 352 136 264
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.65% 0.42% 0.69%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.70% 0.46% 0.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 263 91 163
10th Percentile £363 £373 £350
25th Percentile £417 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +7.89% -5.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £578 £559 £625
90th Percentile £675 £670 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +3.35% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 2
10th Percentile - £27.20 £32.45
25th Percentile - £29.00 £39.13
Median hourly rate - £30.00 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year - -41.75% +17.99%
75th Percentile - £31.00 £65.13
90th Percentile - £58.90 £72.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate - £51.00 £51.50
% change year-on-year - -0.97% +48.01%

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 50,326 29,813 35,459
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.39% 91.05% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,971 18,780 22,045
10th Percentile £325 £280 £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 £625 £621 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,688 1,551 1,736
10th Percentile £14.82 £13.65 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.31 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +68.99% -41.51% +1.18%
75th Percentile £67.91 £53.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £70.16 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +11.35%

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 9 September 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 9 September 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 +58 293 £513 +7.89% 63
UK excluding London +45 232 £478 +3.35% 39
North of England +16 103 £481 +6.78% 15
London -54 82 £533 +6.77% 28
North West +15 77 £481 +8.09% 15
Work from Home -66 63 £500 +9.59% 18
South East -34 49 £548 +21.67% 9
Yorkshire -13 25 £454 -9.20%
Scotland -13 23 £401 -13.30% 3
Midlands -32 23 £450 - 5
South West -39 19 £750 +22.45% 2
West Midlands -33 17 £448 - 5
East of England -19 7 £413 -13.16% 5
East Midlands -11 5 £463 -
Wales - 5 £544 -
Northern Ireland +5 3 £675 -
North East - 1 £501 -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 September 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.

1 214 (60.80%) SQL
2 193 (54.83%) Security Cleared
3 188 (53.41%) Oracle
4 161 (45.74%) SQL Server
5 150 (42.61%) SC Cleared
6 141 (40.06%) Performance Tuning
7 113 (32.10%) Oracle Database
8 102 (28.98%) PostgreSQL
9 99 (28.13%) High Availability
10 98 (27.84%) Microsoft
11 82 (23.30%) Azure
12 78 (22.16%) Disaster Recovery
13 77 (21.88%) AWS
14 66 (18.75%) MySQL
15 60 (17.05%) Migration
16 54 (15.34%) Linux
17 52 (14.77%) Oracle RMAN
18 51 (14.49%) DV Cleared
19 49 (13.92%) Database Security
19 49 (13.92%) DevOps
20 46 (13.07%) Data Guard
20 46 (13.07%) PowerShell
21 44 (12.50%) ITIL
22 39 (11.08%) Oracle RAC
22 39 (11.08%) Unix
23 38 (10.80%) Windows
24 37 (10.51%) Python
25 36 (10.23%) Microsoft Certification
25 36 (10.23%) Problem-Solving
26 35 (9.94%) Data Modelling

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 11 (3.13%) WebLogic
2 10 (2.84%) Confluence
3 8 (2.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 5 (1.42%) WebLogic Portal
5 2 (0.57%) Oracle Service Bus
5 2 (0.57%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.28%) Mendix
6 1 (0.28%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.14%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (1.14%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.57%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.28%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 13 (3.69%) Oracle EBS
2 11 (3.13%) Remedy ITSM
3 10 (2.84%) Oracle Applications
4 8 (2.27%) Oracle EBS R12
5 7 (1.99%) Oracle Payables
6 6 (1.70%) Teamcenter
7 1 (0.28%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.28%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 82 (23.30%) Azure
2 77 (21.88%) AWS
3 17 (4.83%) Power Platform
4 15 (4.26%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 15 (4.26%) AWS CloudFormation
5 13 (3.69%) AWS KMS
5 13 (3.69%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (3.69%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 12 (3.41%) Azure Monitor
7 11 (3.13%) GCP
8 10 (2.84%) Amazon EC2
9 9 (2.56%) Amazon S3
10 7 (1.99%) Azure Data Factory
11 5 (1.42%) AWS Lambda
11 5 (1.42%) OCI
11 5 (1.42%) Serverless
12 4 (1.14%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 4 (1.14%) Snowflake
13 3 (0.85%) GitHub
13 3 (0.85%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 12 (3.41%) SSL
2 4 (1.14%) Firewall
3 1 (0.28%) HTTP
3 1 (0.28%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.28%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 161 (45.74%) SQL Server
2 113 (32.10%) Oracle Database
3 102 (28.98%) PostgreSQL
4 66 (18.75%) MySQL
5 34 (9.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 33 (9.38%) Amazon RDS
7 28 (7.95%) Oracle Database 11g
8 25 (7.10%) Amazon Aurora
8 25 (7.10%) Oracle Database 12c
9 20 (5.68%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 19 (5.40%) MongoDB
11 17 (4.83%) Power BI
12 14 (3.98%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 13 (3.69%) Azure SQL Database
13 13 (3.69%) Oracle Database 10g
13 13 (3.69%) Relational Database
14 10 (2.84%) RDBMS
15 9 (2.56%) Data Warehouse
16 8 (2.27%) Redis
17 7 (1.99%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 13 (3.69%) Git
2 10 (2.84%) JIRA
3 7 (1.99%) Flyway
3 7 (1.99%) GitLab
4 6 (1.70%) Jenkins
4 6 (1.70%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 5 (1.42%) Oracle APEX
6 4 (1.14%) Oracle Forms
7 3 (0.85%) Toad
8 1 (0.28%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.28%) Oracle Developer 2000
General
1 83 (23.58%) Social Skills
2 40 (11.36%) Finance
3 37 (10.51%) Public Sector
4 27 (7.67%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (4.55%) Banking
6 9 (2.56%) Legal
7 4 (1.14%) Investment Banking
8 3 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (0.85%) Police
8 3 (0.85%) Publishing
9 2 (0.57%) Documentation Skills
9 2 (0.57%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.28%) Billing
10 1 (0.28%) International Banking
10 1 (0.28%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (7.39%) Terraform
2 9 (2.56%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 8 (2.27%) JSON
4 6 (1.70%) XML
5 4 (1.14%) Middleware
5 4 (1.14%) OLE
6 3 (0.85%) .NET
6 3 (0.85%) GeoJSON
6 3 (0.85%) Kafka
6 3 (0.85%) Matplotlib
6 3 (0.85%) Oracle Streams
6 3 (0.85%) Pandas
6 3 (0.85%) Polars
6 3 (0.85%) scikit-learn
7 2 (0.57%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.57%) REST
8 1 (0.28%) Oracle Fusion
8 1 (0.28%) PostGIS
8 1 (0.28%) Spring Boot
8 1 (0.28%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 61 (17.33%) Replication
2 36 (10.23%) Clustering
3 14 (3.98%) Data Centre
4 10 (2.84%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.70%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (1.14%) NHS
7 3 (0.85%) Cloud Native
8 2 (0.57%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.57%) Enterprise Cloud
8 2 (0.57%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (0.57%) Mainframe
9 1 (0.28%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.28%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.28%) Enterprise Storage
9 1 (0.28%) Hybrid Cloud
9 1 (0.28%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.28%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.28%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 54 (15.34%) Linux
2 39 (11.08%) Unix
3 38 (10.80%) Windows
4 23 (6.53%) Windows Server
5 13 (3.69%) Solaris
6 6 (1.70%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.14%) Amazon Linux
8 3 (0.85%) AIX
8 3 (0.85%) Oracle Linux
8 3 (0.85%) Windows Server 2008
9 1 (0.28%) Data ONTAP
9 1 (0.28%) HPUX
9 1 (0.28%) VMS
9 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2012
9 1 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (40.06%) Performance Tuning
2 99 (28.13%) High Availability
3 78 (22.16%) Disaster Recovery
4 60 (17.05%) Migration
5 49 (13.92%) Database Security
5 49 (13.92%) DevOps
6 44 (12.50%) ITIL
7 36 (10.23%) Problem-Solving
8 35 (9.94%) Data Modelling
8 35 (9.94%) Root Cause Analysis
9 33 (9.38%) CI/CD
9 33 (9.38%) Database Tuning
10 32 (9.09%) Stakeholder Management
11 28 (7.95%) Capacity Planning
12 26 (7.39%) Continuous Improvement
12 26 (7.39%) Performance Optimisation
13 22 (6.25%) Infrastructure as Code
14 20 (5.68%) Change Management
15 19 (5.40%) Database Migration
15 19 (5.40%) Task Automation
Programming Languages
1 214 (60.80%) SQL
2 46 (13.07%) PowerShell
3 37 (10.51%) Python
4 31 (8.81%) PL/SQL
5 30 (8.52%) T-SQL
6 8 (2.27%) Bash
6 8 (2.27%) Shell Script
7 6 (1.70%) Java
7 6 (1.70%) Perl
8 4 (1.14%) Groovy
9 2 (0.57%) Bicep
9 2 (0.57%) Korn
9 2 (0.57%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.28%) Cypher
10 1 (0.28%) RPG
Qualifications
1 193 (54.83%) Security Cleared
2 150 (42.61%) SC Cleared
3 51 (14.49%) DV Cleared
4 36 (10.23%) Microsoft Certification
5 18 (5.11%) Degree
6 17 (4.83%) Oracle Certification
7 16 (4.55%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (4.26%) Azure Certification
9 13 (3.69%) AWS Certification
10 12 (3.41%) OCP
11 10 (2.84%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
12 8 (2.27%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 5 (1.42%) Computer Science Degree
13 5 (1.42%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 16 (4.55%) QA
2 15 (4.26%) Data Quality
3 7 (1.99%) GDPR
3 7 (1.99%) SLA
4 5 (1.42%) ISO 9000
5 1 (0.28%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.28%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.28%) ISO 20022
5 1 (0.28%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 39 (11.08%) Oracle RAC
2 13 (3.69%) Virtual Machines
3 9 (2.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (2.27%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.42%) Docker
6 3 (0.85%) ACF2
6 3 (0.85%) RACF
Systems Management
1 52 (14.77%) Oracle RMAN
2 46 (13.07%) Data Guard
3 17 (4.83%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 16 (4.55%) SCOM
5 14 (3.98%) Ansible
6 9 (2.56%) Microsoft Clustering
7 6 (1.70%) Prometheus
8 5 (1.42%) Failover Clustering
8 5 (1.42%) Grafana
9 4 (1.14%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
10 3 (0.85%) Nagios
11 2 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.28%) EMC NetWorker
12 1 (0.28%) Foglight
12 1 (0.28%) Kubernetes
12 1 (0.28%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 188 (53.41%) Oracle
2 98 (27.84%) Microsoft
3 24 (6.82%) ServiceNow
4 13 (3.69%) Remedy
5 11 (3.13%) BMC
6 9 (2.56%) VMware
7 8 (2.27%) Sybase
8 7 (1.99%) SolarWinds
9 6 (1.70%) RedGate
10 5 (1.42%) Google
11 4 (1.14%) Cerner
11 4 (1.14%) Commvault
12 3 (0.85%) Dynatrace
12 3 (0.85%) Greenplum
12 3 (0.85%) IBM
12 3 (0.85%) Informatica
12 3 (0.85%) Red Hat
12 3 (0.85%) Talend
13 2 (0.57%) Databricks
14 1 (0.28%) Splunk