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 21 November 2025.

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

6 months to
21 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 435 306 356
Rank change year-on-year -129 +50 +42
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 144 281 280
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.40% 0.77% 0.61%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.44% 0.83% 0.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 94 152 203
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £381 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year - -5.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £569 £600 £575
90th Percentile £675 £650 £615
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £500
% change year-on-year - -10.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 1 2
10th Percentile £27.20 - £61.73
25th Percentile £29.00 - £64.78
Median hourly rate £30.00 £22.48 £71.03
Median % change year-on-year +33.45% -68.35% +29.14%
75th Percentile £31.00 - £76.10
90th Percentile £58.90 - £78.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 £22.48 £71.03
% change year-on-year +126.87% -68.35% +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 32,630 33,866 43,334
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.96% 92.82% 93.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 20,686 20,426 29,351
10th Percentile £280 £300 £292
25th Percentile £402 £410 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £645
90th Percentile £725 £738 £740
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £493 £500
% change year-on-year -3.65% -1.40% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,921 1,265 1,542
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.22 £15.16
25th Percentile £17.87 £20.75 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -30.14% -20.00% +50.00%
75th Percentile £55.85 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £71.00 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -28.14% -22.22% +83.67%

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 November 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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DBA over the 6 months to 21 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for DBA 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 21 November 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 -125 118 £475 -3.06% 59
UK excluding London -84 68 £450 - 35
London -84 52 £525 +4.30% 24
Work from Home -77 51 £465 +3.33% 43
North of England -45 27 £402 -9.66% 15
North West -30 15 £450 +1.12% 11
South West -3 12 £550 +22.22% 4
Yorkshire - 12 £365 - 3
Midlands -35 11 £365 -8.75% 9
West Midlands -14 10 £365 -22.83% 8
South East -28 10 £475 -12.64% 5
Scotland -6 5 - -
Wales -1 1 - -
East of England -13 1 £450 +20.00% 3
East Midlands -28 1 - - 1
Channel Islands - 1 - -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 21 November 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 71 (49.31%) Oracle
2 65 (45.14%) SQL
3 56 (38.89%) Oracle Database
4 48 (33.33%) SQL Server
5 46 (31.94%) Performance Tuning
6 41 (28.47%) Azure
7 38 (26.39%) Migration
8 33 (22.92%) AWS
9 32 (22.22%) Disaster Recovery
10 31 (21.53%) PostgreSQL
10 31 (21.53%) Security Cleared
11 27 (18.75%) Data Guard
12 26 (18.06%) DevOps
12 26 (18.06%) High Availability
13 24 (16.67%) Linux
13 24 (16.67%) MySQL
13 24 (16.67%) Oracle RMAN
13 24 (16.67%) Python
13 24 (16.67%) SC Cleared
14 22 (15.28%) Problem-Solving
15 21 (14.58%) Oracle RAC
16 20 (13.89%) CI/CD
16 20 (13.89%) Data Modelling
17 19 (13.19%) Microsoft
18 17 (11.81%) Database Security
18 17 (11.81%) PL/SQL
19 16 (11.11%) NoSQL
20 15 (10.42%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
21 14 (9.72%) Oracle GoldenGate
21 14 (9.72%) Serverless

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 1 (0.69%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (0.69%) OpenEdge
1 1 (0.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
1 1 (0.69%) Oracle Workflow
1 1 (0.69%) SharePoint
1 1 (0.69%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Excel
1 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Office
1 1 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (1.39%) Oracle EBS R12
2 1 (0.69%) NEC Housing
2 1 (0.69%) Oracle Applications
2 1 (0.69%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 41 (28.47%) Azure
2 33 (22.92%) AWS
3 14 (9.72%) Serverless
4 11 (7.64%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 9 (6.25%) Azure Monitor
6 7 (4.86%) Amazon EC2
6 7 (4.86%) Azure DevOps
6 7 (4.86%) Power Platform
7 6 (4.17%) AWS Lambda
7 6 (4.17%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 6 (4.17%) Azure Functions
7 6 (4.17%) Azure Logic Apps
7 6 (4.17%) SaaS
8 5 (3.47%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (2.78%) AWS CloudFormation
9 4 (2.78%) Azure AKS
9 4 (2.78%) Datadog
9 4 (2.78%) OCI
9 4 (2.78%) Snowflake
9 4 (2.78%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.08%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 56 (38.89%) Oracle Database
2 48 (33.33%) SQL Server
3 31 (21.53%) PostgreSQL
4 24 (16.67%) MySQL
5 16 (11.11%) NoSQL
6 13 (9.03%) Amazon RDS
6 13 (9.03%) Azure SQL Database
6 13 (9.03%) Oracle Exadata
7 12 (8.33%) Relational Database
8 10 (6.94%) MongoDB
9 9 (6.25%) RDBMS
9 9 (6.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 8 (5.56%) Oracle Database 12c
11 7 (4.86%) Amazon Aurora
11 7 (4.86%) Power BI
12 6 (4.17%) Data Warehouse
12 6 (4.17%) DB2
12 6 (4.17%) DynamoDB
13 5 (3.47%) Data Lake
14 4 (2.78%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 6 (4.17%) Git
2 4 (2.78%) Oracle APEX
3 3 (2.08%) ERwin
4 2 (1.39%) Toad
5 1 (0.69%) JIRA
5 1 (0.69%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 26 (18.06%) Finance
2 21 (14.58%) Social Skills
3 12 (8.33%) Banking
4 11 (7.64%) Public Sector
5 8 (5.56%) Analytical Skills
6 7 (4.86%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 6 (4.17%) Telecoms
8 4 (2.78%) Local Government
9 3 (2.08%) Electronics
9 3 (2.08%) Investment Banking
9 3 (2.08%) Manufacturing
9 3 (2.08%) Marketing
10 2 (1.39%) Financial Institution
11 1 (0.69%) Automotive
11 1 (0.69%) Back Office
11 1 (0.69%) Law
11 1 (0.69%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 14 (9.72%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 8 (5.56%) Node.js
3 4 (2.78%) .NET
3 4 (2.78%) .NET Core
3 4 (2.78%) ASP.NET
4 3 (2.08%) JSON
4 3 (2.08%) XML
5 2 (1.39%) ARM Templates
5 2 (1.39%) FastAPI
5 2 (1.39%) pgvector
5 2 (1.39%) PostGIS
6 1 (0.69%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 22 (15.28%) Replication
2 15 (10.42%) Clustering
3 10 (6.94%) Cloud Native
3 10 (6.94%) Enterprise Cloud
4 8 (5.56%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (4.17%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (3.47%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.78%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (1.39%) Data Centre
8 2 (1.39%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.69%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.69%) Mainframe
9 1 (0.69%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.69%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 24 (16.67%) Linux
2 12 (8.33%) Unix
3 11 (7.64%) Windows
4 5 (3.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (2.08%) Solaris
6 2 (1.39%) AIX
6 2 (1.39%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (1.39%) VMS
6 2 (1.39%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 46 (31.94%) Performance Tuning
2 38 (26.39%) Migration
3 32 (22.22%) Disaster Recovery
4 26 (18.06%) DevOps
4 26 (18.06%) High Availability
5 22 (15.28%) Problem-Solving
6 20 (13.89%) CI/CD
6 20 (13.89%) Data Modelling
7 17 (11.81%) Database Security
8 14 (9.72%) Task Automation
9 13 (9.03%) Agile
10 12 (8.33%) Database Migration
11 11 (7.64%) Continuous Improvement
11 11 (7.64%) ETL
12 10 (6.94%) Capacity Planning
12 10 (6.94%) Line Management
12 10 (6.94%) Stakeholder Management
13 9 (6.25%) Business Intelligence
13 9 (6.25%) Infrastructure as Code
13 9 (6.25%) Performance Monitoring
Programming Languages
1 65 (45.14%) SQL
2 24 (16.67%) Python
3 17 (11.81%) PL/SQL
4 14 (9.72%) Shell Script
5 12 (8.33%) T-SQL
6 10 (6.94%) Bash
7 9 (6.25%) PowerShell
8 4 (2.78%) C#
8 4 (2.78%) Java
9 2 (1.39%) AWK
9 2 (1.39%) Bicep
9 2 (1.39%) Perl
9 2 (1.39%) sed
10 1 (0.69%) C
10 1 (0.69%) JavaScript
10 1 (0.69%) PHP
10 1 (0.69%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 31 (21.53%) Security Cleared
2 24 (16.67%) SC Cleared
3 8 (5.56%) Microsoft Certification
4 7 (4.86%) Azure Certification
4 7 (4.86%) DV Cleared
5 5 (3.47%) OCP
5 5 (3.47%) Oracle Certification
6 4 (2.78%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.39%) Degree
7 2 (1.39%) MCSE
7 2 (1.39%) OCA
8 1 (0.69%) BC Cleared
8 1 (0.69%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.69%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (3.47%) GDPR
1 5 (3.47%) PCI DSS
1 5 (3.47%) QA
1 5 (3.47%) SLA
2 2 (1.39%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.69%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.69%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.69%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (14.58%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (3.47%) NFS
3 2 (1.39%) GPFS
4 1 (0.69%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 27 (18.75%) Data Guard
2 24 (16.67%) Oracle RMAN
3 15 (10.42%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 8 (5.56%) Terraform
5 4 (2.78%) Ansible
6 2 (1.39%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (1.39%) yum
7 1 (0.69%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 1 (0.69%) Microsoft Clustering
7 1 (0.69%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 71 (49.31%) Oracle
2 19 (13.19%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.17%) Red Hat
4 4 (2.78%) ServiceNow
5 3 (2.08%) SAP
6 2 (1.39%) Delphix
6 2 (1.39%) IBM
6 2 (1.39%) Sybase
7 1 (0.69%) BMC
7 1 (0.69%) EMC
7 1 (0.69%) NEC
7 1 (0.69%) SolarWinds
7 1 (0.69%) Teradata