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 18 December 2025.

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

6 months to
18 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 436 295 338
Rank change year-on-year -141 +43 +44
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 161 269 282
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.79% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.48% 0.85% 0.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 105 132 206
10th Percentile £343 £350 £363
25th Percentile £402 £405 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £514
Median % change year-on-year - -7.54% +3.79%
75th Percentile £538 £594 £587
90th Percentile £618 £650 £631
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £525
% change year-on-year - -14.29% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 3 2
10th Percentile £26.90 £30.36 £61.73
25th Percentile £28.25 £42.18 £64.78
Median hourly rate £30.00 £63.75 £71.03
Median % change year-on-year -52.94% -10.25% +49.53%
75th Percentile £31.00 £65.62 £76.10
90th Percentile - - £78.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.00 £63.75 £71.03
% change year-on-year -57.64% -10.25% +77.56%

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 33,289 31,718 41,239
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.98% 92.78% 93.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,068 19,534 27,738
10th Percentile £290 £300 £288
25th Percentile £404 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £644
90th Percentile £720 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £489 £500
% change year-on-year -2.86% -2.20% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,959 999 1,468
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.52 £15.14
25th Percentile £18.19 £21.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.47 £34.00 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.09% -23.60% +48.33%
75th Percentile £57.50 £62.84 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.46 £72.55 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -22.62% -27.78% +80.76%

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 18 December 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
Top 15 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 18 December 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 -117 133 £473 -5.50% 106
UK excluding London -81 75 £450 - 98
London -61 62 £513 +2.50% 17
Work from Home -87 51 £465 +4.14% 69
North of England -48 32 £430 -3.48% 19
North West -28 20 £450 +1.12% 11
South East -44 16 £510 +1.90% 18
Midlands -42 13 £365 -8.75% 25
West Midlands -22 12 £365 -22.83% 17
Yorkshire - 12 £365 - 4
Scotland +4 7 £500 +11.11% 8
South West -7 5 £463 -15.91% 10
Wales +6 1 - - 1
East Midlands -29 1 - - 8
Channel Islands - 1 - -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 18 December 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 73 (45.34%) Oracle
2 70 (43.48%) SQL
3 54 (33.54%) Performance Tuning
4 53 (32.92%) Oracle Database
5 48 (29.81%) Azure
6 43 (26.71%) PostgreSQL
7 40 (24.84%) SQL Server
8 34 (21.12%) AWS
8 34 (21.12%) DevOps
9 33 (20.50%) Migration
10 32 (19.88%) Disaster Recovery
10 32 (19.88%) Security Cleared
11 25 (15.53%) Linux
12 23 (14.29%) Data Guard
12 23 (14.29%) Python
13 22 (13.66%) CI/CD
13 22 (13.66%) High Availability
13 22 (13.66%) MySQL
13 22 (13.66%) Oracle RAC
13 22 (13.66%) Oracle RMAN
13 22 (13.66%) SC Cleared
14 21 (13.04%) NoSQL
14 21 (13.04%) Serverless
15 19 (11.80%) Data Modelling
15 19 (11.80%) PL/SQL
15 19 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
16 18 (11.18%) Agile
17 17 (10.56%) Database Security
17 17 (10.56%) MongoDB
17 17 (10.56%) Shell Script

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 4 (2.48%) WebLogic
2 2 (1.24%) Liferay
2 2 (1.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.24%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.62%) SharePoint
Applications
1 1 (0.62%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.62%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.62%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (3.73%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (3.11%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (1.24%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.62%) NEC Housing
4 1 (0.62%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 48 (29.81%) Azure
2 34 (21.12%) AWS
3 21 (13.04%) Serverless
4 16 (9.94%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 10 (6.21%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (6.21%) Azure Monitor
6 9 (5.59%) Azure Functions
6 9 (5.59%) Azure Logic Apps
7 7 (4.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 7 (4.35%) Azure AKS
8 6 (3.73%) Amazon EC2
8 6 (3.73%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (3.73%) OCI
8 6 (3.73%) SaaS
9 5 (3.11%) Amazon S3
9 5 (3.11%) Snowflake
10 3 (1.86%) Azure Storage
10 3 (1.86%) PaaS
10 3 (1.86%) Power Platform
11 2 (1.24%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.86%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (32.92%) Oracle Database
2 43 (26.71%) PostgreSQL
3 40 (24.84%) SQL Server
4 22 (13.66%) MySQL
5 21 (13.04%) NoSQL
6 17 (10.56%) MongoDB
7 13 (8.07%) Oracle Exadata
7 13 (8.07%) Relational Database
8 12 (7.45%) Amazon RDS
9 11 (6.83%) Oracle Reports
10 10 (6.21%) Azure SQL Database
10 10 (6.21%) RDBMS
11 8 (4.97%) Oracle Database 12c
11 8 (4.97%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 7 (4.35%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 6 (3.73%) DB2
13 6 (3.73%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 5 (3.11%) Amazon Aurora
15 4 (2.48%) DynamoDB
15 4 (2.48%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 9 (5.59%) Git
2 6 (3.73%) Oracle APEX
3 2 (1.24%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.62%) JIRA
4 1 (0.62%) Toad
General
1 22 (13.66%) Finance
2 21 (13.04%) Social Skills
3 18 (11.18%) Banking
4 13 (8.07%) Public Sector
5 6 (3.73%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.48%) Local Government
7 3 (1.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 3 (1.86%) Investment Banking
7 3 (1.86%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.24%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.62%) Automotive
9 1 (0.62%) Back Office
9 1 (0.62%) Legal
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (8.07%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 11 (6.83%) Node.js
3 9 (5.59%) JSON
3 9 (5.59%) XML
4 7 (4.35%) .NET
5 6 (3.73%) .NET Core
5 6 (3.73%) ASP.NET
6 5 (3.11%) Kafka
7 3 (1.86%) PostGIS
8 2 (1.24%) ARM Templates
8 2 (1.24%) FastAPI
8 2 (1.24%) Oracle ADF
8 2 (1.24%) pgvector
Miscellaneous
1 17 (10.56%) Cloud Native
1 17 (10.56%) Replication
2 11 (6.83%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (6.21%) Clustering
3 10 (6.21%) Enterprise Cloud
4 7 (4.35%) Legacy Systems
5 6 (3.73%) Data Structures
6 4 (2.48%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.24%) Legacy Applications
7 2 (1.24%) Onboarding
7 2 (1.24%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.62%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.62%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.62%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.62%) Mainframe
8 1 (0.62%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.62%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 25 (15.53%) Linux
2 12 (7.45%) Unix
3 6 (3.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.48%) Windows
5 3 (1.86%) Solaris
6 2 (1.24%) AIX
6 2 (1.24%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (1.24%) VMS
7 1 (0.62%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (33.54%) Performance Tuning
2 34 (21.12%) DevOps
3 33 (20.50%) Migration
4 32 (19.88%) Disaster Recovery
5 22 (13.66%) CI/CD
5 22 (13.66%) High Availability
6 19 (11.80%) Data Modelling
6 19 (11.80%) Problem-Solving
7 18 (11.18%) Agile
8 17 (10.56%) Database Security
9 14 (8.70%) Performance Monitoring
10 13 (8.07%) Task Automation
11 12 (7.45%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (6.83%) Capacity Planning
13 10 (6.21%) Data Protection
14 9 (5.59%) Data Migration
14 9 (5.59%) Mentoring
14 9 (5.59%) Stakeholder Management
15 8 (4.97%) Microservices
15 8 (4.97%) Performance Optimisation
Programming Languages
1 70 (43.48%) SQL
2 23 (14.29%) Python
3 19 (11.80%) PL/SQL
4 17 (10.56%) Shell Script
5 7 (4.35%) Bash
5 7 (4.35%) C#
5 7 (4.35%) PowerShell
6 6 (3.73%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.48%) Bicep
7 4 (2.48%) Java
8 3 (1.86%) Perl
9 1 (0.62%) AWK
9 1 (0.62%) C
9 1 (0.62%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.62%) PHP
9 1 (0.62%) sed
9 1 (0.62%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 32 (19.88%) Security Cleared
2 22 (13.66%) SC Cleared
3 6 (3.73%) DV Cleared
3 6 (3.73%) OCP
3 6 (3.73%) Oracle Certification
4 4 (2.48%) AWS Certification
4 4 (2.48%) Azure Certification
5 3 (1.86%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (1.24%) OCA
7 1 (0.62%) BC Cleared
7 1 (0.62%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (0.62%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.97%) GDPR
2 6 (3.73%) SLA
3 4 (2.48%) QA
4 3 (1.86%) PCI DSS
5 2 (1.24%) Actionable Recommendations
5 2 (1.24%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.62%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.62%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.62%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.62%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 22 (13.66%) Oracle RAC
2 4 (2.48%) NFS
2 4 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
3 2 (1.24%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.62%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.62%) GPFS
Systems Management
1 23 (14.29%) Data Guard
2 22 (13.66%) Oracle RMAN
3 15 (9.32%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 8 (4.97%) Terraform
5 6 (3.73%) Ansible
6 2 (1.24%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (1.24%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
6 2 (1.24%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (1.24%) systemd
6 2 (1.24%) yum
7 1 (0.62%) Foglight
7 1 (0.62%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 73 (45.34%) Oracle
2 14 (8.70%) Microsoft
3 7 (4.35%) Red Hat
4 4 (2.48%) ServiceNow
5 2 (1.24%) Greenplum
5 2 (1.24%) Informatica
5 2 (1.24%) Sybase
5 2 (1.24%) Talend
6 1 (0.62%) Delphix
6 1 (0.62%) EMC
6 1 (0.62%) Google
6 1 (0.62%) IBM
6 1 (0.62%) NEC
6 1 (0.62%) SolarWinds