DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £496, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 419 331 334
Rank change year-on-year -88 +3 +42
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 184 203 281
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.45% 0.66% 0.63%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.49% 0.71% 0.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 134 100 191
10th Percentile £338 £355 £363
25th Percentile £401 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £496 £485 £534
Median % change year-on-year +2.27% -9.18% +11.25%
75th Percentile £538 £554 £600
90th Percentile £606 £654 £675
UK excluding London median daily rate £441 £450 £525
% change year-on-year -2.06% -14.29% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 1
Median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.86% -20.32% +100.00%
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £80.00
% change year-on-year -56.86% -20.32% +204.76%

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 37,575 28,553 41,560
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.74% 92.90% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,586 17,823 27,337
10th Percentile £306 £288 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,283 827 2,341
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.25 £13.16
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.50
Median hourly rate £31.49 £34.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -7.38% -2.86% -10.26%
75th Percentile £63.75 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £32.50 £35.95
% change year-on-year -7.69% -9.60% +0.42%

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 21 February 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 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 21 February 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 -85 158 £488 -2.50% 54
UK excluding London -73 101 £441 -2.06% 56
London -56 66 £500 - 5
Work from Home -58 43 £500 +11.61% 25
North of England -46 36 £402 -9.66% 24
West Midlands -33 22 £449 -5.18% 6
Midlands -43 22 £449 +6.79% 8
South East -47 21 £432 -15.66% 16
North West -34 19 £432 -2.92% 11
Yorkshire -44 18 £360 - 12
Scotland +7 11 £500 +8.11%
South West -18 7 £606 -19.20% 1
Wales -1 2 - - 4
Northern Ireland -5 1 £675 -
East of England -24 1 £375 -11.76% 5

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 February 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 93 (50.54%) Oracle
2 89 (48.37%) SQL
3 69 (37.50%) Oracle Database
4 66 (35.87%) Security Cleared
5 57 (30.98%) Performance Tuning
6 54 (29.35%) SQL Server
7 46 (25.00%) SC Cleared
8 44 (23.91%) Azure
8 44 (23.91%) PostgreSQL
9 43 (23.37%) AWS
10 37 (20.11%) Disaster Recovery
11 34 (18.48%) High Availability
12 31 (16.85%) MySQL
13 30 (16.30%) Microsoft
13 30 (16.30%) Migration
14 28 (15.22%) Database Security
14 28 (15.22%) Problem-Solving
15 26 (14.13%) DevOps
16 25 (13.59%) Oracle RMAN
16 25 (13.59%) Python
17 24 (13.04%) PL/SQL
18 23 (12.50%) Amazon RDS
19 22 (11.96%) Oracle RAC
20 21 (11.41%) Data Guard
21 20 (10.87%) Linux
22 18 (9.78%) MongoDB
22 18 (9.78%) NoSQL
22 18 (9.78%) PowerShell
22 18 (9.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
23 17 (9.24%) 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 4 (2.17%) WebLogic
2 2 (1.09%) Liferay
2 2 (1.09%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.09%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.54%) Confluence
3 1 (0.54%) OpenEdge
3 1 (0.54%) Oracle Application Server
3 1 (0.54%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.63%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.54%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (2.72%) Oracle EBS
1 5 (2.72%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (1.09%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.54%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.54%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 44 (23.91%) Azure
2 43 (23.37%) AWS
3 15 (8.15%) Serverless
4 14 (7.61%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 6 (3.26%) Amazon S3
5 6 (3.26%) AWS Lambda
5 6 (3.26%) SaaS
6 5 (2.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 5 (2.72%) Azure DevOps
6 5 (2.72%) Snowflake
7 4 (2.17%) Amazon EC2
7 4 (2.17%) Azure AKS
7 4 (2.17%) Azure Functions
7 4 (2.17%) Azure Logic Apps
7 4 (2.17%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (2.17%) GCP
7 4 (2.17%) OCI
8 3 (1.63%) Azure Storage
8 3 (1.63%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (1.63%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.54%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (37.50%) Oracle Database
2 54 (29.35%) SQL Server
3 44 (23.91%) PostgreSQL
4 31 (16.85%) MySQL
5 23 (12.50%) Amazon RDS
6 18 (9.78%) MongoDB
6 18 (9.78%) NoSQL
6 18 (9.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 13 (7.07%) Oracle Reports
8 12 (6.52%) Relational Database
9 11 (5.98%) SQL Server Reporting Services
10 10 (5.43%) DynamoDB
11 9 (4.89%) Azure SQL Database
11 9 (4.89%) RDBMS
12 8 (4.35%) Amazon Aurora
13 7 (3.80%) Oracle Exadata
13 7 (3.80%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 5 (2.72%) Oracle Database 12c
15 4 (2.17%) Data Lake
15 4 (2.17%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 6 (3.26%) Oracle APEX
2 5 (2.72%) Git
2 5 (2.72%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 3 (1.63%) GitLab
4 2 (1.09%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.54%) Flyway
5 1 (0.54%) JIRA
5 1 (0.54%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.54%) Toad
General
1 29 (15.76%) Public Sector
2 24 (13.04%) Social Skills
3 13 (7.07%) Finance
4 12 (6.52%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (5.98%) Banking
6 4 (2.17%) Legal
6 4 (2.17%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.63%) Military
8 2 (1.09%) Aviation
8 2 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.09%) Local Government
9 1 (0.54%) Back Office
9 1 (0.54%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.54%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.54%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.54%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.54%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.54%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (5.98%) JSON
1 11 (5.98%) XML
2 10 (5.43%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 8 (4.35%) Node.js
4 5 (2.72%) Kafka
5 4 (2.17%) .NET
6 3 (1.63%) .NET Core
6 3 (1.63%) ASP.NET
7 2 (1.09%) Oracle ADF
7 2 (1.09%) PostGIS
8 1 (0.54%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.54%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.54%) pgvector
Miscellaneous
1 21 (11.41%) Replication
2 14 (7.61%) Enterprise Cloud
3 10 (5.43%) Cloud Native
3 10 (5.43%) Clustering
3 10 (5.43%) Legacy Systems
4 8 (4.35%) Data Structures
4 8 (4.35%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (2.17%) Hybrid Cloud
5 4 (2.17%) Legacy Applications
6 2 (1.09%) Driving Licence
7 1 (0.54%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.54%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.54%) Life Science
7 1 (0.54%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.54%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.54%) Operational Technology
7 1 (0.54%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.54%) Public Cloud
7 1 (0.54%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 20 (10.87%) Linux
2 17 (9.24%) Unix
3 7 (3.80%) Windows
4 5 (2.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (2.17%) Solaris
6 3 (1.63%) Windows Server
7 2 (1.09%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (30.98%) Performance Tuning
2 37 (20.11%) Disaster Recovery
3 34 (18.48%) High Availability
4 30 (16.30%) Migration
5 28 (15.22%) Database Security
5 28 (15.22%) Problem-Solving
6 26 (14.13%) DevOps
7 17 (9.24%) Agile
7 17 (9.24%) Capacity Planning
8 15 (8.15%) Continuous Improvement
9 14 (7.61%) Data Migration
9 14 (7.61%) Task Automation
10 13 (7.07%) CI/CD
10 13 (7.07%) Data Modelling
10 13 (7.07%) Performance Monitoring
11 12 (6.52%) Statistics
12 11 (5.98%) Data Protection
12 11 (5.98%) Performance Optimisation
13 10 (5.43%) Mentoring
14 9 (4.89%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 89 (48.37%) SQL
2 25 (13.59%) Python
3 24 (13.04%) PL/SQL
4 18 (9.78%) PowerShell
5 15 (8.15%) Shell Script
6 7 (3.80%) T-SQL
7 6 (3.26%) Bash
8 4 (2.17%) C#
8 4 (2.17%) Java
9 3 (1.63%) Bicep
9 3 (1.63%) Korn
9 3 (1.63%) Perl
10 1 (0.54%) JCL
10 1 (0.54%) PHP
10 1 (0.54%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.54%) VB
Qualifications
1 66 (35.87%) Security Cleared
2 46 (25.00%) SC Cleared
3 14 (7.61%) DV Cleared
4 8 (4.35%) Oracle Certification
5 7 (3.80%) OCP
6 6 (3.26%) Microsoft Certification
7 4 (2.17%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.63%) Azure Certification
9 2 (1.09%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (1.09%) Degree
10 1 (0.54%) BC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.98%) SLA
2 9 (4.89%) GDPR
3 4 (2.17%) Disclosure Scotland
4 3 (1.63%) QA
5 2 (1.09%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.54%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.54%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.54%) NIST
6 1 (0.54%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.54%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 22 (11.96%) Oracle RAC
2 4 (2.17%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.63%) NFS
3 3 (1.63%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.54%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 25 (13.59%) Oracle RMAN
2 21 (11.41%) Data Guard
3 16 (8.70%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 8 (4.35%) Ansible
5 5 (2.72%) Terraform
6 4 (2.17%) Microsoft Clustering
7 3 (1.63%) Foglight
8 2 (1.09%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (1.09%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
8 2 (1.09%) systemd
9 1 (0.54%) SCCM
Vendors
1 93 (50.54%) Oracle
2 30 (16.30%) Microsoft
3 7 (3.80%) SolarWinds
4 6 (3.26%) RedGate
4 6 (3.26%) ServiceNow
5 5 (2.72%) Red Hat
6 4 (2.17%) Greenplum
6 4 (2.17%) Informatica
6 4 (2.17%) Talend
7 3 (1.63%) Google
8 2 (1.09%) Databricks
9 1 (0.54%) Cloudera
9 1 (0.54%) Commvault
9 1 (0.54%) EMC
9 1 (0.54%) IBM
9 1 (0.54%) NEC
9 1 (0.54%) Splunk
9 1 (0.54%) Sybase
9 1 (0.54%) Wonderware