DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 24 April 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 361 375 321
Rank change year-on-year +14 -54 +48
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 287 146 288
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.49% 0.66%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.67% 0.53% 0.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 87 192
10th Percentile £355 £325 £375
25th Percentile £400 £409 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £450 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.33% -14.29% +5.00%
75th Percentile £555 £525 £600
90th Percentile £646 £596 £686
UK excluding London median daily rate £445 £448 £500
% change year-on-year -0.67% -10.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 1
Median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £28.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.86% +127.66% -25.13%
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £28.00
% change year-on-year -56.86% +127.66% -19.53%

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 42,897 27,359 40,498
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.62% 92.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 26,528 17,903 26,435
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £413 £406 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -2.78%
75th Percentile £613 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £488 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +2.63% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,745 1,021 2,635
10th Percentile £15.00 £14.20 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.35 £18.51 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £29.23 £35.50
Median % change year-on-year +45.40% -17.66% -21.11%
75th Percentile £65.60 £62.50 £60.00
90th Percentile £78.43 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £44.00 £28.75 £37.50
% change year-on-year +53.04% -23.33% -11.76%

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 24 April 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 24 April 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 +22 253 £450 - 34
UK excluding London +20 176 £445 -0.67% 34
London -33 89 £500 +5.26% 3
North of England -12 75 £432 -2.92% 8
Work from Home -37 55 £500 +11.86% 15
North West -9 47 £449 +0.79% 5
South East -36 46 £417 -16.56% 12
Midlands -28 32 £456 +8.63% 9
Yorkshire -23 29 £400 - 2
West Midlands -32 27 £449 - 6
Scotland +11 11 £500 +3.90%
South West - 8 £606 - 3
East Midlands -31 4 £463 +10.12% 3
Wales -11 2 - -
Northern Ireland +1 1 £675 -
East of England -36 1 £375 -11.76% 2

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 24 April 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.

1 151 (52.61%) Oracle
2 142 (49.48%) SQL
3 110 (38.33%) Security Cleared
4 99 (34.49%) Oracle Database
5 98 (34.15%) SQL Server
6 87 (30.31%) Performance Tuning
6 87 (30.31%) SC Cleared
7 77 (26.83%) PostgreSQL
8 66 (23.00%) High Availability
9 53 (18.47%) Azure
10 51 (17.77%) Microsoft
11 50 (17.42%) AWS
11 50 (17.42%) Disaster Recovery
12 49 (17.07%) Migration
13 45 (15.68%) Database Security
14 43 (14.98%) Oracle RMAN
15 38 (13.24%) MySQL
16 37 (12.89%) DevOps
17 36 (12.54%) Linux
17 36 (12.54%) Problem-Solving
18 30 (10.45%) Oracle RAC
19 29 (10.10%) Unix
20 28 (9.76%) MongoDB
21 27 (9.41%) Python
22 25 (8.71%) Amazon RDS
22 25 (8.71%) Data Guard
22 25 (8.71%) PL/SQL
22 25 (8.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
23 24 (8.36%) ITIL
24 23 (8.01%) Agile

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 6 (2.09%) WebLogic
2 3 (1.05%) Confluence
2 3 (1.05%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (0.70%) Liferay
3 2 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.35%) OpenEdge
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Application Server
4 1 (0.35%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.35%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.35%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 10 (3.48%) Oracle EBS
2 7 (2.44%) Oracle Applications
3 6 (2.09%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
4 2 (0.70%) Oracle Payables
4 2 (0.70%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.35%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 53 (18.47%) Azure
2 50 (17.42%) AWS
3 15 (5.23%) Azure Cosmos DB
4 14 (4.88%) Serverless
5 7 (2.44%) Azure DevOps
5 7 (2.44%) OCI
6 6 (2.09%) Amazon S3
6 6 (2.09%) Azure Data Factory
6 6 (2.09%) PaaS
6 6 (2.09%) Snowflake
7 5 (1.74%) GCP
7 5 (1.74%) SaaS
8 4 (1.39%) Amazon EC2
8 4 (1.39%) Azure AKS
8 4 (1.39%) Azure Functions
8 4 (1.39%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (1.39%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (1.05%) Azure Storage
9 3 (1.05%) Cloud Computing
10 2 (0.70%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.35%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 99 (34.49%) Oracle Database
2 98 (34.15%) SQL Server
3 77 (26.83%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (13.24%) MySQL
5 28 (9.76%) MongoDB
6 25 (8.71%) Amazon RDS
6 25 (8.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 21 (7.32%) Oracle Reports
8 19 (6.62%) Relational Database
9 18 (6.27%) NoSQL
10 17 (5.92%) Azure SQL Database
11 16 (5.57%) RDBMS
11 16 (5.57%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 15 (5.23%) Oracle Database 12c
13 12 (4.18%) Oracle Database 11g
14 8 (2.79%) SQL Server Analysis Services
15 7 (2.44%) Amazon Aurora
16 6 (2.09%) Big Data
16 6 (2.09%) DynamoDB
17 5 (1.74%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 8 (2.79%) Git
2 7 (2.44%) Oracle APEX
3 6 (2.09%) GitLab
4 4 (1.39%) Jenkins
4 4 (1.39%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 3 (1.05%) Flyway
6 2 (0.70%) Oracle Forms
7 1 (0.35%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.35%) Toad
General
1 38 (13.24%) Social Skills
2 34 (11.85%) Public Sector
3 29 (10.10%) Finance
4 20 (6.97%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (4.88%) Banking
6 7 (2.44%) Legal
7 5 (1.74%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.39%) Military
9 3 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.05%) Publishing
10 2 (0.70%) Aviation
10 2 (0.70%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.70%) Local Government
10 2 (0.70%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.35%) Advertising
11 1 (0.35%) Billing
11 1 (0.35%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.35%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.35%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (5.92%) JSON
2 15 (5.23%) XML
3 14 (4.88%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 9 (3.14%) Kafka
5 6 (2.09%) OLE
6 4 (1.39%) .NET
6 4 (1.39%) Node.js
7 3 (1.05%) .NET Core
7 3 (1.05%) ASP.NET
7 3 (1.05%) AWS CDK
7 3 (1.05%) GeoJSON
7 3 (1.05%) Matplotlib
7 3 (1.05%) Pandas
7 3 (1.05%) Polars
7 3 (1.05%) scikit-learn
8 2 (0.70%) Oracle ADF
8 2 (0.70%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (0.70%) PostGIS
9 1 (0.35%) REST
9 1 (0.35%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 24 (8.36%) Replication
2 16 (5.57%) Clustering
3 11 (3.83%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (2.79%) Cloud Native
4 8 (2.79%) Data Structures
4 8 (2.79%) Enterprise Cloud
5 4 (1.39%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (1.39%) Legacy Applications
5 4 (1.39%) Onboarding
6 2 (0.70%) Driving Licence
6 2 (0.70%) Mainframe
6 2 (0.70%) NHS
7 1 (0.35%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.35%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.35%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.35%) Life Science
7 1 (0.35%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.35%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.35%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.35%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 36 (12.54%) Linux
2 29 (10.10%) Unix
3 14 (4.88%) Windows
4 9 (3.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 9 (3.14%) Windows Server
5 5 (1.74%) Oracle Linux
6 1 (0.35%) AIX
6 1 (0.35%) Data ONTAP
6 1 (0.35%) HPUX
6 1 (0.35%) OpenVMS
6 1 (0.35%) Solaris
6 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
6 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (30.31%) Performance Tuning
2 66 (23.00%) High Availability
3 50 (17.42%) Disaster Recovery
4 49 (17.07%) Migration
5 45 (15.68%) Database Security
6 37 (12.89%) DevOps
7 36 (12.54%) Problem-Solving
8 24 (8.36%) ITIL
9 23 (8.01%) Agile
9 23 (8.01%) Capacity Planning
10 21 (7.32%) Task Automation
11 17 (5.92%) Database Tuning
12 16 (5.57%) Data Migration
12 16 (5.57%) Data Modelling
12 16 (5.57%) Data Protection
13 15 (5.23%) Mentoring
13 15 (5.23%) Performance Optimisation
14 14 (4.88%) Statistics
15 13 (4.53%) CI/CD
15 13 (4.53%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 142 (49.48%) SQL
2 27 (9.41%) Python
3 25 (8.71%) PL/SQL
4 21 (7.32%) PowerShell
5 19 (6.62%) Shell Script
6 16 (5.57%) T-SQL
7 10 (3.48%) Korn
8 6 (2.09%) Bash
9 4 (1.39%) C#
10 3 (1.05%) Bicep
10 3 (1.05%) Perl
10 3 (1.05%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.35%) JCL
11 1 (0.35%) PHP
11 1 (0.35%) RPG
11 1 (0.35%) Ruby
11 1 (0.35%) VB
Qualifications
1 110 (38.33%) Security Cleared
2 87 (30.31%) SC Cleared
3 20 (6.97%) DV Cleared
4 14 (4.88%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (3.48%) Oracle Certification
6 8 (2.79%) OCP
7 5 (1.74%) Degree
8 4 (1.39%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.39%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.39%) MCITP
8 4 (1.39%) MCTS
9 1 (0.35%) BC Cleared
9 1 (0.35%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 9 (3.14%) GDPR
1 9 (3.14%) SLA
2 8 (2.79%) Data Quality
2 8 (2.79%) QA
3 4 (1.39%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.35%) ISO 22301
4 1 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 1 (0.35%) NIST
4 1 (0.35%) NIST 800
4 1 (0.35%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 30 (10.45%) Oracle RAC
2 6 (2.09%) Virtual Machines
3 5 (1.74%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.05%) Oracle Clusterware
Systems Management
1 43 (14.98%) Oracle RMAN
2 25 (8.71%) Data Guard
3 20 (6.97%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 12 (4.18%) Ansible
5 8 (2.79%) Terraform
6 5 (1.74%) Foglight
7 3 (1.05%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.70%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
8 2 (0.70%) Grafana
8 2 (0.70%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.70%) systemd
9 1 (0.35%) EMC NetWorker
9 1 (0.35%) SCCM
9 1 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
Vendors
1 151 (52.61%) Oracle
2 51 (17.77%) Microsoft
3 8 (2.79%) ServiceNow
4 6 (2.09%) Red Hat
4 6 (2.09%) RedGate
4 6 (2.09%) SolarWinds
5 4 (1.39%) Databricks
5 4 (1.39%) Google
5 4 (1.39%) Greenplum
5 4 (1.39%) Informatica
5 4 (1.39%) Sybase
5 4 (1.39%) Talend
6 2 (0.70%) BMC
6 2 (0.70%) Remedy
7 1 (0.35%) Commvault
7 1 (0.35%) NEC
7 1 (0.35%) NetApp
7 1 (0.35%) NetCracker
7 1 (0.35%) Teradata
7 1 (0.35%) Wonderware