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 30 May 2026.

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

6 months to
30 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 366 393 320
Rank change year-on-year +27 -73 +40
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 299 132 277
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.61% 0.46% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.66% 0.50% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 233 84 190
10th Percentile £363 £344 £363
25th Percentile £401 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £450 £500
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -10.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £538 £612
90th Percentile £650 £600 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £449 £475
% change year-on-year +0.28% -5.53% -4.04%
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 45,367 26,659 39,830
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.31% 92.33% 92.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,689 17,296 25,850
10th Percentile £325 £290 £280
25th Percentile £413 £405 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year +1.69% -4.00% -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 3,009 1,048 2,796
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.00 £12.81
25th Percentile £20.50 £17.87 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £28.00 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +51.79% -25.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.25 £59.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £78.75 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.61 £25.31 £40.00
% change year-on-year +72.28% -36.73% -6.98%

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 30 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 30 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 +14 260 £472 +4.89% 43
UK excluding London +30 195 £450 +0.28% 40
London -39 81 £500 +1.27% 5
North of England -22 70 £430 -3.48% 7
South East -18 66 £417 -16.56% 13
Work from Home -63 54 £500 +11.11% 19
North West -17 42 £447 +3.50% 5
Midlands -33 31 £463 - 6
Yorkshire -38 28 £400 -30.43% 2
West Midlands -47 25 £481 - 3
Scotland +3 14 £500 +3.90% 3
South West - 7 £606 - 8
East Midlands - 5 £463 - 3
Wales -10 3 £588 +113.64%
Northern Ireland +6 2 £675 -
East of England -36 2 £388 -8.82% 5
North East - 1 £501 -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 30 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 (55.52%) Oracle
2 155 (51.84%) SQL
3 121 (40.47%) Oracle Database
4 120 (40.13%) Security Cleared
5 111 (37.12%) SQL Server
6 99 (33.11%) Performance Tuning
7 88 (29.43%) SC Cleared
8 79 (26.42%) High Availability
9 67 (22.41%) PostgreSQL
10 56 (18.73%) Microsoft
11 55 (18.39%) Migration
12 54 (18.06%) Azure
12 54 (18.06%) Oracle RMAN
13 50 (16.72%) Disaster Recovery
14 47 (15.72%) AWS
15 43 (14.38%) Linux
16 41 (13.71%) Database Security
17 39 (13.04%) MySQL
18 37 (12.37%) DevOps
19 35 (11.71%) Oracle RAC
20 34 (11.37%) DV Cleared
21 33 (11.04%) Data Guard
22 32 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
23 31 (10.37%) Unix
24 29 (9.70%) PL/SQL
25 28 (9.36%) PowerShell
25 28 (9.36%) Python
25 28 (9.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
26 27 (9.03%) Capacity Planning
26 27 (9.03%) ITIL

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 (2.68%) WebLogic
2 5 (1.67%) Confluence
2 5 (1.67%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 3 (1.00%) Oracle Workflow
4 2 (0.67%) Liferay
5 1 (0.33%) OpenEdge
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle Application Server
5 1 (0.33%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.33%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 15 (5.02%) Oracle EBS
2 11 (3.68%) Oracle Applications
3 8 (2.68%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (1.00%) Oracle ERP
4 3 (1.00%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (1.00%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (1.00%) Teamcenter
5 1 (0.33%) FLEXCUBE
Cloud Services
1 54 (18.06%) Azure
2 47 (15.72%) AWS
3 12 (4.01%) Azure Cosmos DB
4 10 (3.34%) OCI
5 8 (2.68%) Azure Data Factory
6 7 (2.34%) Amazon S3
6 7 (2.34%) Serverless
7 5 (1.67%) Amazon EC2
7 5 (1.67%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (1.67%) GCP
7 5 (1.67%) PaaS
7 5 (1.67%) SaaS
7 5 (1.67%) Snowflake
8 3 (1.00%) Azure AKS
8 3 (1.00%) Azure Functions
8 3 (1.00%) Azure Logic Apps
8 3 (1.00%) Azure Monitor
8 3 (1.00%) Azure Storage
8 3 (1.00%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (1.00%) GitHub
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.33%) Firewall
1 1 (0.33%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 121 (40.47%) Oracle Database
2 111 (37.12%) SQL Server
3 67 (22.41%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (13.04%) MySQL
5 28 (9.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 25 (8.36%) MongoDB
7 24 (8.03%) Amazon RDS
8 22 (7.36%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 19 (6.35%) Azure SQL Database
9 19 (6.35%) Oracle Database 12c
10 18 (6.02%) Oracle Database 11g
10 18 (6.02%) Oracle Reports
11 15 (5.02%) Relational Database
12 12 (4.01%) NoSQL
12 12 (4.01%) RDBMS
13 11 (3.68%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 8 (2.68%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (2.68%) Oracle Exadata
15 6 (2.01%) Big Data
15 6 (2.01%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 12 (4.01%) Git
2 11 (3.68%) GitLab
3 8 (2.68%) Oracle APEX
4 6 (2.01%) Jenkins
5 5 (1.67%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 4 (1.34%) Flyway
6 4 (1.34%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.67%) JIRA
8 1 (0.33%) Oracle Developer 2000
8 1 (0.33%) TeamCity
General
1 41 (13.71%) Social Skills
2 33 (11.04%) Public Sector
3 27 (9.03%) Finance
4 20 (6.69%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (4.01%) Banking
6 8 (2.68%) Legal
7 5 (1.67%) Military
8 4 (1.34%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.00%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.00%) Publishing
10 2 (0.67%) Aviation
10 2 (0.67%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.33%) Advertising
11 1 (0.33%) Billing
11 1 (0.33%) International Banking
11 1 (0.33%) Local Government
11 1 (0.33%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.33%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.33%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.69%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 12 (4.01%) JSON
3 10 (3.34%) XML
4 7 (2.34%) Kafka
5 6 (2.01%) OLE
6 4 (1.34%) AWS CDK
7 3 (1.00%) .NET
7 3 (1.00%) GeoJSON
7 3 (1.00%) Matplotlib
7 3 (1.00%) Middleware
7 3 (1.00%) Node.js
7 3 (1.00%) Pandas
7 3 (1.00%) Polars
7 3 (1.00%) scikit-learn
8 2 (0.67%) .NET Core
8 2 (0.67%) ASP.NET
8 2 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.67%) Oracle ADF
8 2 (0.67%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (0.67%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.36%) Replication
2 20 (6.69%) Clustering
3 11 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
4 7 (2.34%) Cloud Native
5 6 (2.01%) Enterprise Cloud
6 4 (1.34%) Legacy Applications
7 3 (1.00%) Data Structures
7 3 (1.00%) Distributed Systems
7 3 (1.00%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.67%) Driving Licence
8 2 (0.67%) Mainframe
8 2 (0.67%) NHS
8 2 (0.67%) Public Cloud
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%) SCADA
9 1 (0.33%) Security Posture
9 1 (0.33%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 43 (14.38%) Linux
2 31 (10.37%) Unix
3 19 (6.35%) Windows
4 12 (4.01%) Windows Server
5 8 (2.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.34%) AIX
6 4 (1.34%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.67%) 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 99 (33.11%) Performance Tuning
2 79 (26.42%) High Availability
3 55 (18.39%) Migration
4 50 (16.72%) Disaster Recovery
5 41 (13.71%) Database Security
6 37 (12.37%) DevOps
7 32 (10.70%) Problem-Solving
8 27 (9.03%) Capacity Planning
8 27 (9.03%) ITIL
9 24 (8.03%) Task Automation
10 22 (7.36%) CI/CD
11 19 (6.35%) Agile
11 19 (6.35%) Data Migration
12 18 (6.02%) Database Tuning
13 17 (5.69%) Data Modelling
13 17 (5.69%) Performance Optimisation
14 16 (5.35%) Data Protection
15 14 (4.68%) Database Migration
15 14 (4.68%) Statistics
16 13 (4.35%) Runbook
Programming Languages
1 155 (51.84%) SQL
2 29 (9.70%) PL/SQL
3 28 (9.36%) PowerShell
3 28 (9.36%) Python
4 19 (6.35%) Shell Script
4 19 (6.35%) T-SQL
5 10 (3.34%) Korn
6 6 (2.01%) Bash
7 4 (1.34%) TypeScript
8 3 (1.00%) Bicep
8 3 (1.00%) C#
8 3 (1.00%) Perl
9 2 (0.67%) Java
10 1 (0.33%) Groovy
10 1 (0.33%) JCL
10 1 (0.33%) RPG
10 1 (0.33%) Ruby
10 1 (0.33%) VB
Qualifications
1 120 (40.13%) Security Cleared
2 88 (29.43%) SC Cleared
3 34 (11.37%) DV Cleared
4 14 (4.68%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (3.34%) Oracle Certification
6 8 (2.68%) OCP
7 6 (2.01%) Degree
8 5 (1.67%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
9 4 (1.34%) MCITP
9 4 (1.34%) MCTS
10 1 (0.33%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.33%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.33%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (3.68%) GDPR
2 8 (2.68%) Data Quality
2 8 (2.68%) QA
3 6 (2.01%) SLA
4 4 (1.34%) 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
System Software
1 35 (11.71%) Oracle RAC
2 6 (2.01%) Active Directory
2 6 (2.01%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.00%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.33%) Docker
Systems Management
1 54 (18.06%) Oracle RMAN
2 33 (11.04%) Data Guard
3 19 (6.35%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 15 (5.02%) Terraform
5 13 (4.35%) Ansible
6 5 (1.67%) Foglight
7 3 (1.00%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 3 (1.00%) Failover Clustering
7 3 (1.00%) Grafana
7 3 (1.00%) Microsoft Clustering
7 3 (1.00%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
8 2 (0.67%) systemd
9 1 (0.33%) EMC NetWorker
9 1 (0.33%) SCCM
Vendors
1 166 (55.52%) Oracle
2 56 (18.73%) Microsoft
3 8 (2.68%) RedGate
3 8 (2.68%) SolarWinds
4 7 (2.34%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.67%) Databricks
6 4 (1.34%) Google
6 4 (1.34%) Greenplum
6 4 (1.34%) Informatica
6 4 (1.34%) Red Hat
6 4 (1.34%) Sybase
6 4 (1.34%) Talend
7 3 (1.00%) BMC
7 3 (1.00%) Remedy
8 2 (0.67%) 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