DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £525, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 15 September 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 366 423 311
Rank change year-on-year +57 -112 +60
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 347 134 270
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.64% 0.41% 0.71%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.69% 0.45% 0.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 258 91 166
10th Percentile £369 £373 £350
25th Percentile £418 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +10.53% -5.00% +2.67%
75th Percentile £575 £569 £625
90th Percentile £675 £670 £674
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £463 £475
% change year-on-year +3.89% -2.63% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 5 1
10th Percentile - £27.20 -
25th Percentile £36.75 £29.00 £72.50
Median hourly rate £38.50 £30.00 £75.00
Median % change year-on-year +28.33% -60.00% +71.83%
75th Percentile £40.25 £31.00 £77.50
90th Percentile - £58.90 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £38.50 £51.00 £75.00
% change year-on-year -24.51% -32.00% +115.55%

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 50,255 29,550 35,480
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.36% 91.04% 93.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 29,827 18,649 21,961
10th Percentile £325 £278 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -4.76% -0.94%
75th Percentile £625 £620 £638
90th Percentile £725 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,770 1,552 1,702
10th Percentile £14.59 £13.69 £14.73
25th Percentile £20.25 £17.00 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.15 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +67.59% -41.51% -1.96%
75th Percentile £67.50 £51.83 £65.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £70.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +6.95%

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 15 September 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 15 September 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 +36 285 £525 +5.00% 106
UK excluding London +48 228 £481 +3.89% 71
North of England +12 97 £483 +7.33% 27
London -58 79 £533 +2.90% 44
North West +19 74 £483 +7.33% 21
Work from Home -49 65 £500 +8.11% 48
South East -32 47 £548 +21.67% 12
Scotland +2 27 £401 -13.30% 8
Midlands -26 23 £450 - 13
Yorkshire -14 22 £454 -9.20% 4
South West -40 20 £750 +22.45% 1
West Midlands -38 17 £448 - 8
East of England -25 7 £413 -13.16% 5
East Midlands -7 5 £463 - 5
Wales - 4 £544 - 5
Northern Ireland - 3 £675 -
North East - 1 £501 - 2

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 September 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.

1 209 (60.23%) SQL
2 195 (56.20%) Security Cleared
3 186 (53.60%) Oracle
4 163 (46.97%) SQL Server
5 148 (42.65%) SC Cleared
6 139 (40.06%) Performance Tuning
7 114 (32.85%) Oracle Database
8 102 (29.39%) Microsoft
8 102 (29.39%) PostgreSQL
9 97 (27.95%) High Availability
10 79 (22.77%) Disaster Recovery
11 78 (22.48%) Azure
12 75 (21.61%) AWS
13 64 (18.44%) MySQL
14 57 (16.43%) Migration
15 54 (15.56%) Linux
16 51 (14.70%) DV Cleared
17 49 (14.12%) Oracle RMAN
18 48 (13.83%) Database Security
18 48 (13.83%) DevOps
18 48 (13.83%) PowerShell
19 47 (13.54%) Data Guard
20 44 (12.68%) ITIL
21 42 (12.10%) Unix
22 39 (11.24%) Oracle RAC
22 39 (11.24%) Windows
23 38 (10.95%) Microsoft Certification
24 36 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
25 35 (10.09%) Data Modelling
25 35 (10.09%) Python

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 12 (3.46%) WebLogic
2 10 (2.88%) Confluence
3 9 (2.59%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 5 (1.44%) WebLogic Portal
5 2 (0.58%) Oracle Service Bus
5 2 (0.58%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.29%) Mendix
6 1 (0.29%) Tomcat
Applications
1 4 (1.15%) Microsoft Excel
1 4 (1.15%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.58%) MS Visio
3 1 (0.29%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 14 (4.03%) Oracle EBS
2 11 (3.17%) Remedy ITSM
3 10 (2.88%) Oracle Applications
4 8 (2.31%) Oracle EBS R12
5 6 (1.73%) Oracle Payables
5 6 (1.73%) Teamcenter
6 2 (0.58%) Dynamics AX
7 1 (0.29%) FLEXCUBE
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 78 (22.48%) Azure
2 75 (21.61%) AWS
3 17 (4.90%) Power Platform
4 15 (4.32%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 15 (4.32%) AWS CloudFormation
5 13 (3.75%) AWS KMS
5 13 (3.75%) Azure DevOps
5 13 (3.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 12 (3.46%) Azure Monitor
7 11 (3.17%) GCP
8 10 (2.88%) Amazon EC2
9 9 (2.59%) Amazon S3
10 5 (1.44%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (1.44%) OCI
10 5 (1.44%) Serverless
11 4 (1.15%) Azure Data Factory
11 4 (1.15%) Snowflake
12 3 (0.86%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 3 (0.86%) GitHub
12 3 (0.86%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (3.75%) SSL
2 4 (1.15%) Firewall
3 1 (0.29%) HTTP
3 1 (0.29%) HTTPS
3 1 (0.29%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 163 (46.97%) SQL Server
2 114 (32.85%) Oracle Database
3 102 (29.39%) PostgreSQL
4 64 (18.44%) MySQL
5 33 (9.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 32 (9.22%) Amazon RDS
7 28 (8.07%) Oracle Database 11g
8 26 (7.49%) Amazon Aurora
9 21 (6.05%) Oracle Database 12c
10 19 (5.48%) MongoDB
10 19 (5.48%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 17 (4.90%) Power BI
12 14 (4.03%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 13 (3.75%) Oracle Database 10g
13 13 (3.75%) Relational Database
14 11 (3.17%) Azure SQL Database
15 10 (2.88%) Data Warehouse
15 10 (2.88%) RDBMS
16 8 (2.31%) Redis
16 8 (2.31%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 12 (3.46%) Git
2 11 (3.17%) JIRA
3 6 (1.73%) Flyway
3 6 (1.73%) GitLab
3 6 (1.73%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 5 (1.44%) Jenkins
4 5 (1.44%) Oracle APEX
5 4 (1.15%) Oracle Forms
6 3 (0.86%) Toad
7 1 (0.29%) Liquibase
7 1 (0.29%) Oracle Developer 2000
General
1 80 (23.05%) Social Skills
2 40 (11.53%) Finance
3 38 (10.95%) Public Sector
4 22 (6.34%) Analytical Skills
5 17 (4.90%) Banking
6 8 (2.31%) Legal
7 4 (1.15%) Investment Banking
8 3 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
8 3 (0.86%) Police
9 2 (0.58%) Financial Institution
10 1 (0.29%) Billing
10 1 (0.29%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.29%) International Banking
10 1 (0.29%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (7.49%) Terraform
2 9 (2.59%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 8 (2.31%) JSON
4 6 (1.73%) XML
5 5 (1.44%) Middleware
6 4 (1.15%) OLE
7 3 (0.86%) .NET
7 3 (0.86%) Kafka
7 3 (0.86%) Oracle Streams
8 2 (0.58%) REST
9 1 (0.29%) AWS CDK
9 1 (0.29%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.29%) Oracle Fusion
9 1 (0.29%) pgvector
9 1 (0.29%) PostGIS
9 1 (0.29%) PySpark
9 1 (0.29%) Spring
9 1 (0.29%) Spring Boot
9 1 (0.29%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 62 (17.87%) Replication
2 37 (10.66%) Clustering
3 15 (4.32%) Data Centre
4 10 (2.88%) Data Structures
5 6 (1.73%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (1.44%) Onboarding
7 4 (1.15%) NHS
8 3 (0.86%) Cloud Native
9 2 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.58%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (0.58%) Mainframe
10 1 (0.29%) Analytical Mindset
10 1 (0.29%) Enterprise Cloud
10 1 (0.29%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.29%) Enterprise Storage
10 1 (0.29%) Hybrid Cloud
10 1 (0.29%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.29%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.29%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 54 (15.56%) Linux
2 42 (12.10%) Unix
3 39 (11.24%) Windows
4 22 (6.34%) Windows Server
5 18 (5.19%) Solaris
6 6 (1.73%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.15%) Amazon Linux
8 3 (0.86%) AIX
8 3 (0.86%) Windows Server 2008
9 2 (0.58%) Oracle Linux
9 2 (0.58%) Windows Server 2012
10 1 (0.29%) Data ONTAP
10 1 (0.29%) HPUX
10 1 (0.29%) VMS
10 1 (0.29%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.29%) Windows Server 2016
10 1 (0.29%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 139 (40.06%) Performance Tuning
2 97 (27.95%) High Availability
3 79 (22.77%) Disaster Recovery
4 57 (16.43%) Migration
5 48 (13.83%) Database Security
5 48 (13.83%) DevOps
6 44 (12.68%) ITIL
7 36 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
8 35 (10.09%) Data Modelling
9 34 (9.80%) Root Cause Analysis
10 33 (9.51%) CI/CD
10 33 (9.51%) Database Tuning
11 32 (9.22%) Stakeholder Management
12 28 (8.07%) Capacity Planning
13 26 (7.49%) Performance Optimisation
14 24 (6.92%) Continuous Improvement
15 22 (6.34%) Infrastructure as Code
16 21 (6.05%) Change Management
17 19 (5.48%) Database Migration
17 19 (5.48%) Incident Management
Programming Languages
1 209 (60.23%) SQL
2 48 (13.83%) PowerShell
3 35 (10.09%) Python
4 32 (9.22%) T-SQL
5 31 (8.93%) PL/SQL
6 8 (2.31%) Bash
6 8 (2.31%) Shell Script
7 7 (2.02%) Perl
8 6 (1.73%) Java
9 4 (1.15%) Groovy
10 2 (0.58%) Bicep
10 2 (0.58%) Korn
11 1 (0.29%) Cypher
11 1 (0.29%) RPG
11 1 (0.29%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 195 (56.20%) Security Cleared
2 148 (42.65%) SC Cleared
3 51 (14.70%) DV Cleared
4 38 (10.95%) Microsoft Certification
5 19 (5.48%) Oracle Certification
6 17 (4.90%) Degree
7 15 (4.32%) Azure Certification
7 15 (4.32%) BPSS Clearance
8 14 (4.03%) OCP
9 13 (3.75%) AWS Certification
10 10 (2.88%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
11 8 (2.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 5 (1.44%) DBS Check
13 4 (1.15%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (3.46%) Data Quality
1 12 (3.46%) QA
2 7 (2.02%) GDPR
2 7 (2.02%) SLA
3 5 (1.44%) ISO 9000
4 1 (0.29%) Accessibility
4 1 (0.29%) Disclosure Scotland
4 1 (0.29%) ISO 20022
4 1 (0.29%) ISO 22301
4 1 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 39 (11.24%) Oracle RAC
2 13 (3.75%) Virtual Machines
3 9 (2.59%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.59%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.44%) Docker
5 3 (0.86%) ACF2
5 3 (0.86%) RACF
Systems Management
1 49 (14.12%) Oracle RMAN
2 47 (13.54%) Data Guard
3 17 (4.90%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 16 (4.61%) SCOM
5 14 (4.03%) Ansible
6 9 (2.59%) Microsoft Clustering
7 6 (1.73%) Failover Clustering
7 6 (1.73%) Prometheus
8 5 (1.44%) Grafana
9 4 (1.15%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
10 3 (0.86%) Nagios
11 2 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
12 1 (0.29%) EMC NetWorker
12 1 (0.29%) Kubernetes
12 1 (0.29%) SQL Sentry
Vendors
1 186 (53.60%) Oracle
2 102 (29.39%) Microsoft
3 23 (6.63%) ServiceNow
4 13 (3.75%) Remedy
5 11 (3.17%) BMC
6 9 (2.59%) Sybase
6 9 (2.59%) VMware
7 7 (2.02%) SolarWinds
8 6 (1.73%) RedGate
9 5 (1.44%) Google
10 4 (1.15%) Cerner
10 4 (1.15%) Commvault
11 3 (0.86%) Dynatrace
11 3 (0.86%) Greenplum
11 3 (0.86%) IBM
11 3 (0.86%) Informatica
11 3 (0.86%) Red Hat
11 3 (0.86%) Talend
12 1 (0.29%) Databricks
12 1 (0.29%) Splunk