DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £492, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 January 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 409 297 343
Rank change year-on-year -112 +46 +37
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 173 241 269
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.76% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.51% 0.82% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 117 114 188
10th Percentile £316 £350 £363
25th Percentile £400 £413 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £481 £533
Median % change year-on-year +2.23% -9.71% +9.61%
75th Percentile £538 £579 £588
90th Percentile £606 £650 £641
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £533
% change year-on-year - -15.57% +12.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 2
10th Percentile £26.75 £30.36 £61.73
25th Percentile £27.50 £42.18 £64.78
Median hourly rate £28.75 £63.75 £71.03
Median % change year-on-year -54.90% -10.25% +77.56%
75th Percentile £31.00 £65.62 £76.10
90th Percentile - - £78.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £71.03
% change year-on-year -56.86% -10.25% +77.56%

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 34,093 29,528 40,309
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 92.82% 93.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,578 18,084 26,785
10th Percentile £300 £288 £279
25th Percentile £405 £408 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £477 £500
% change year-on-year -0.42% -4.60% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,999 895 1,806
10th Percentile £14.38 £15.68 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.22 £18.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £32.50 £41.37
Median % change year-on-year -15.38% -21.43% +18.19%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £64.52
90th Percentile £70.00 £73.75 £75.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £32.50 £44.20
% change year-on-year -22.62% -26.47% +52.41%

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 17 January 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 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 17 January 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 -107 146 £481 -3.75% 24
UK excluding London -63 86 £450 - 22
London -50 67 £500 - 6
Work from Home -70 46 £488 +9.55% 7
North of England -55 31 £425 -3.68% 8
North West -31 20 £450 +1.98% 5
West Midlands -20 18 £388 -18.08% 3
Midlands -35 18 £388 -3.13% 4
South East -39 17 £469 -8.49% 8
Yorkshire - 11 £358 - 1
Scotland +3 9 £500 +8.11% 1
South West -13 7 £606 -7.83% 1
Wales +1 1 - -
Northern Ireland -4 1 £675 -
East of England -19 1 £375 +16.68% 1
Channel Islands - 1 - -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 17 January 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 82 (47.40%) Oracle
2 80 (46.24%) SQL
3 59 (34.10%) Oracle Database
4 49 (28.32%) Performance Tuning
5 48 (27.75%) Azure
6 45 (26.01%) Security Cleared
7 43 (24.86%) PostgreSQL
8 39 (22.54%) AWS
9 37 (21.39%) SQL Server
10 32 (18.50%) DevOps
10 32 (18.50%) Migration
11 29 (16.76%) Disaster Recovery
12 28 (16.18%) SC Cleared
13 27 (15.61%) Python
14 26 (15.03%) High Availability
14 26 (15.03%) PL/SQL
15 24 (13.87%) Data Guard
15 24 (13.87%) MySQL
15 24 (13.87%) Oracle RAC
16 22 (12.72%) NoSQL
17 21 (12.14%) Linux
17 21 (12.14%) Serverless
18 20 (11.56%) Database Security
18 20 (11.56%) MongoDB
18 20 (11.56%) Oracle RMAN
19 19 (10.98%) Data Modelling
19 19 (10.98%) Problem-Solving
20 18 (10.40%) Agile
20 18 (10.40%) Microsoft
21 17 (9.83%) 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 4 (2.31%) WebLogic
2 2 (1.16%) Liferay
2 2 (1.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.16%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.58%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.73%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (3.47%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (2.89%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (1.16%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (1.16%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.58%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 48 (27.75%) Azure
2 39 (22.54%) AWS
3 21 (12.14%) Serverless
4 16 (9.25%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 10 (5.78%) Azure Monitor
6 9 (5.20%) Azure DevOps
6 9 (5.20%) Azure Functions
6 9 (5.20%) Azure Logic Apps
7 7 (4.05%) Azure AKS
8 6 (3.47%) Amazon S3
8 6 (3.47%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (3.47%) SaaS
8 6 (3.47%) Snowflake
9 5 (2.89%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 4 (2.31%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (2.31%) GCP
10 4 (2.31%) OCI
11 3 (1.73%) Azure Storage
11 3 (1.73%) PaaS
11 3 (1.73%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.73%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (34.10%) Oracle Database
2 43 (24.86%) PostgreSQL
3 37 (21.39%) SQL Server
4 24 (13.87%) MySQL
5 22 (12.72%) NoSQL
6 20 (11.56%) MongoDB
7 17 (9.83%) Amazon RDS
8 14 (8.09%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (7.51%) Relational Database
10 11 (6.36%) Oracle Exadata
11 10 (5.78%) RDBMS
12 9 (5.20%) Azure SQL Database
13 8 (4.62%) DynamoDB
14 7 (4.05%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (4.05%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 6 (3.47%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 6 (3.47%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 5 (2.89%) DB2
17 4 (2.31%) Snowflake Schema
17 4 (2.31%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 10 (5.78%) Oracle APEX
2 9 (5.20%) Git
3 2 (1.16%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.58%) GitLab
4 1 (0.58%) JIRA
4 1 (0.58%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.58%) Toad
General
1 22 (12.72%) Social Skills
2 20 (11.56%) Finance
3 18 (10.40%) Public Sector
4 17 (9.83%) Banking
5 6 (3.47%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.31%) Local Government
7 3 (1.73%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.16%) Aviation
8 2 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.16%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.16%) Legal
8 2 (1.16%) Military
9 1 (0.58%) Back Office
9 1 (0.58%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.36%) JSON
1 11 (6.36%) Node.js
1 11 (6.36%) XML
2 9 (5.20%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 7 (4.05%) .NET
4 6 (3.47%) .NET Core
4 6 (3.47%) ASP.NET
5 5 (2.89%) Kafka
6 3 (1.73%) PostGIS
7 2 (1.16%) ARM Templates
7 2 (1.16%) FastAPI
7 2 (1.16%) Oracle ADF
7 2 (1.16%) pgvector
8 1 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 15 (8.67%) Cloud Native
2 14 (8.09%) Replication
3 11 (6.36%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (5.78%) Enterprise Cloud
5 8 (4.62%) Data Structures
6 7 (4.05%) Clustering
6 7 (4.05%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.31%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (1.16%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.16%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.16%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.58%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.58%) Mainframe
9 1 (0.58%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.58%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 21 (12.14%) Linux
2 12 (6.94%) Unix
3 5 (2.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.73%) Solaris
4 3 (1.73%) Windows
5 2 (1.16%) Oracle Linux
5 2 (1.16%) VMS
6 1 (0.58%) AIX
6 1 (0.58%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (28.32%) Performance Tuning
2 32 (18.50%) DevOps
2 32 (18.50%) Migration
3 29 (16.76%) Disaster Recovery
4 26 (15.03%) High Availability
5 20 (11.56%) Database Security
6 19 (10.98%) Data Modelling
6 19 (10.98%) Problem-Solving
7 18 (10.40%) Agile
8 16 (9.25%) CI/CD
8 16 (9.25%) Task Automation
9 14 (8.09%) Data Migration
9 14 (8.09%) Performance Monitoring
10 12 (6.94%) Continuous Improvement
10 12 (6.94%) Performance Optimisation
11 11 (6.36%) Data Protection
12 10 (5.78%) Capacity Planning
13 9 (5.20%) Mentoring
13 9 (5.20%) Microservices
13 9 (5.20%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 80 (46.24%) SQL
2 27 (15.61%) Python
3 26 (15.03%) PL/SQL
4 17 (9.83%) Shell Script
5 8 (4.62%) PowerShell
6 7 (4.05%) C#
7 6 (3.47%) Bash
8 5 (2.89%) T-SQL
9 4 (2.31%) Bicep
9 4 (2.31%) Java
10 3 (1.73%) Perl
11 1 (0.58%) PHP
11 1 (0.58%) VB
Qualifications
1 45 (26.01%) Security Cleared
2 28 (16.18%) SC Cleared
3 11 (6.36%) DV Cleared
4 4 (2.31%) AWS Certification
4 4 (2.31%) Azure Certification
4 4 (2.31%) OCP
4 4 (2.31%) Oracle Certification
5 3 (1.73%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (1.16%) Degree
7 1 (0.58%) BC Cleared
7 1 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.62%) GDPR
2 7 (4.05%) SLA
3 3 (1.73%) QA
4 2 (1.16%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.58%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.58%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.58%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 24 (13.87%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (2.89%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.73%) NFS
3 3 (1.73%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.58%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 24 (13.87%) Data Guard
2 20 (11.56%) Oracle RMAN
3 14 (8.09%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 8 (4.62%) Ansible
5 5 (2.89%) Terraform
6 2 (1.16%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (1.16%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
6 2 (1.16%) Foglight
6 2 (1.16%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (1.16%) systemd
6 2 (1.16%) yum
7 1 (0.58%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 82 (47.40%) Oracle
2 18 (10.40%) Microsoft
3 6 (3.47%) Red Hat
4 4 (2.31%) Greenplum
4 4 (2.31%) Informatica
4 4 (2.31%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.31%) Talend
5 3 (1.73%) Google
6 1 (0.58%) Databricks
6 1 (0.58%) Delphix
6 1 (0.58%) EMC
6 1 (0.58%) IBM
6 1 (0.58%) NEC
6 1 (0.58%) SolarWinds
6 1 (0.58%) Sybase