DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £488, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 June 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 364 405 325
Rank change year-on-year +41 -80 +60
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 315 126 291
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.62% 0.42% 0.67%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.67% 0.45% 0.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 247 86 200
10th Percentile £363 £374 £363
25th Percentile £403 £420 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £481 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.30% -3.75% -
75th Percentile £600 £568 £611
90th Percentile £675 £675 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +5.56% -5.26% -1.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 1 2
10th Percentile - - £32.45
25th Percentile - £72.50 £39.13
Median hourly rate £27.50 £75.00 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year -63.33% +45.63% +48.01%
75th Percentile - £77.50 £65.13
90th Percentile - - £72.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £75.00 £51.50
% change year-on-year -63.33% +45.63% +186.11%

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 47,008 27,876 40,382
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.38% 92.16% 92.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 28,552 17,889 25,942
10th Percentile £325 £288 £281
25th Percentile £415 £402 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -4.76% -2.33%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £493
% change year-on-year +5.26% -3.65% -1.40%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,155 1,223 2,887
10th Percentile £15.38 £13.76 £12.86
25th Percentile £21.08 £17.31 £16.58
Median hourly rate £43.61 £26.45 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +64.86% -29.47% -12.79%
75th Percentile £67.50 £55.37 £62.50
90th Percentile £80.00 £73.65 £74.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £45.00 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +78.93% -37.13% -

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 26 June 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 26 June 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 +33 272 £478 -4.40% 20
UK excluding London +28 214 £475 +5.56% 22
North of England +1 81 £450 +1.12% 8
London -38 75 £500 -4.76% 6
South East -9 62 £417 -7.28% 5
Work from Home -52 54 £500 +11.11% 7
North West -3 51 £463 +3.93% 8
Yorkshire -19 30 £400 -30.43%
Midlands -46 24 £463 - 1
South West -20 22 £750 +8.30% 1
West Midlands -46 18 £463 -
Scotland -4 16 £475 +2.70% 3
East Midlands -5 5 £463 - 1
East of England -31 4 £388 -8.82% 2
Wales - 3 £588 - 2
Northern Ireland +4 2 £675 -
North East - 1 £501 -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 June 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.

1 181 (57.46%) Oracle
2 168 (53.33%) SQL
3 144 (45.71%) Security Cleared
4 130 (41.27%) SQL Server
5 120 (38.10%) Oracle Database
6 100 (31.75%) Performance Tuning
7 96 (30.48%) SC Cleared
8 84 (26.67%) PostgreSQL
9 83 (26.35%) High Availability
10 74 (23.49%) Microsoft
11 63 (20.00%) Azure
12 61 (19.37%) AWS
13 55 (17.46%) Disaster Recovery
13 55 (17.46%) Migration
14 50 (15.87%) DV Cleared
15 48 (15.24%) Oracle RMAN
16 45 (14.29%) Database Security
16 45 (14.29%) Linux
16 45 (14.29%) MySQL
17 35 (11.11%) Unix
18 34 (10.79%) DevOps
18 34 (10.79%) Problem-Solving
18 34 (10.79%) Python
19 31 (9.84%) ITIL
19 31 (9.84%) Oracle RAC
20 29 (9.21%) Capacity Planning
20 29 (9.21%) Data Guard
20 29 (9.21%) PowerShell
21 26 (8.25%) Windows
22 25 (7.94%) SQL Server Integration Services

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 5 (1.59%) Confluence
2 4 (1.27%) WebLogic
3 3 (0.95%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 2 (0.63%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.32%) Mendix
5 1 (0.32%) OpenEdge
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Application Server
5 1 (0.32%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.32%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (0.95%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (0.32%) Adobe XD
Business Applications
1 11 (3.49%) Oracle Applications
2 10 (3.17%) Oracle EBS
3 6 (1.90%) Teamcenter
4 5 (1.59%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.95%) Oracle EBS R12
5 3 (0.95%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.32%) FLEXCUBE
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 63 (20.00%) Azure
2 61 (19.37%) AWS
3 9 (2.86%) Azure Data Factory
4 7 (2.22%) GCP
4 7 (2.22%) OCI
5 6 (1.90%) Azure Cosmos DB
6 5 (1.59%) SaaS
6 5 (1.59%) Serverless
7 4 (1.27%) Azure DevOps
7 4 (1.27%) Snowflake
8 3 (0.95%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (0.95%) GitHub
8 3 (0.95%) PaaS
9 2 (0.63%) Amazon EC2
9 2 (0.63%) Amazon S3
9 2 (0.63%) Azure AKS
9 2 (0.63%) Azure Monitor
9 2 (0.63%) IBM Cloud
9 2 (0.63%) Power Platform
10 1 (0.32%) Azure Logic Apps
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.32%) Firewall
1 1 (0.32%) HTTP
1 1 (0.32%) HTTPS
1 1 (0.32%) IPsec
1 1 (0.32%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (41.27%) SQL Server
2 120 (38.10%) Oracle Database
3 84 (26.67%) PostgreSQL
4 45 (14.29%) MySQL
5 25 (7.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 23 (7.30%) Amazon RDS
6 23 (7.30%) MongoDB
7 19 (6.03%) Oracle Database 11g
7 19 (6.03%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 18 (5.71%) Oracle Database 12c
9 17 (5.40%) Relational Database
10 16 (5.08%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (4.44%) RDBMS
12 13 (4.13%) Oracle Reports
13 12 (3.81%) Amazon Aurora
14 9 (2.86%) NoSQL
15 8 (2.54%) Oracle Exadata
15 8 (2.54%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 6 (1.90%) Big Data
16 6 (1.90%) Sybase ASE
Development Applications
1 10 (3.17%) Git
1 10 (3.17%) GitLab
2 6 (1.90%) Jenkins
2 6 (1.90%) Oracle APEX
3 5 (1.59%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 4 (1.27%) Flyway
4 4 (1.27%) Oracle Forms
5 3 (0.95%) JIRA
6 1 (0.32%) Oracle Developer 2000
General
1 50 (15.87%) Social Skills
2 34 (10.79%) Finance
3 31 (9.84%) Public Sector
4 24 (7.62%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (3.17%) Banking
6 8 (2.54%) Legal
7 5 (1.59%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.27%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.27%) Military
9 3 (0.95%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (0.95%) Publishing
10 2 (0.63%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.32%) Advertising
11 1 (0.32%) Aviation
11 1 (0.32%) Billing
11 1 (0.32%) International Banking
11 1 (0.32%) Local Government
11 1 (0.32%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.32%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.32%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.08%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 12 (3.81%) JSON
3 10 (3.17%) XML
4 7 (2.22%) Kafka
5 6 (1.90%) OLE
6 4 (1.27%) AWS CDK
7 3 (0.95%) GeoJSON
7 3 (0.95%) Matplotlib
7 3 (0.95%) Middleware
7 3 (0.95%) Pandas
7 3 (0.95%) Polars
7 3 (0.95%) scikit-learn
8 2 (0.63%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (0.63%) REST
9 1 (0.32%) .NET Core
9 1 (0.32%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.32%) Node.js
9 1 (0.32%) PostGIS
9 1 (0.32%) PySpark
9 1 (0.32%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 33 (10.48%) Replication
2 21 (6.67%) Clustering
3 12 (3.81%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (1.90%) Enterprise Cloud
5 4 (1.27%) Data Structures
5 4 (1.27%) Legacy Applications
6 3 (0.95%) Onboarding
7 2 (0.63%) Cloud Native
7 2 (0.63%) Mainframe
7 2 (0.63%) NHS
7 2 (0.63%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.32%) Analytical Mindset
8 1 (0.32%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.32%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.32%) Driving Licence
8 1 (0.32%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.32%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (0.32%) Life Science
8 1 (0.32%) SCADA
8 1 (0.32%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 45 (14.29%) Linux
2 35 (11.11%) Unix
3 26 (8.25%) Windows
4 18 (5.71%) Windows Server
5 6 (1.90%) Solaris
6 5 (1.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 4 (1.27%) AIX
7 4 (1.27%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.32%) Amazon Linux
8 1 (0.32%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.32%) HPUX
8 1 (0.32%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.32%) VMS
8 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.32%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (31.75%) Performance Tuning
2 83 (26.35%) High Availability
3 55 (17.46%) Disaster Recovery
3 55 (17.46%) Migration
4 45 (14.29%) Database Security
5 34 (10.79%) DevOps
5 34 (10.79%) Problem-Solving
6 31 (9.84%) ITIL
7 29 (9.21%) Capacity Planning
8 21 (6.67%) Task Automation
9 20 (6.35%) CI/CD
9 20 (6.35%) Data Migration
9 20 (6.35%) Performance Optimisation
10 19 (6.03%) Agile
11 17 (5.40%) Continuous Improvement
11 17 (5.40%) Data Protection
11 17 (5.40%) Database Tuning
12 16 (5.08%) Database Migration
13 14 (4.44%) Data Modelling
14 13 (4.13%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 168 (53.33%) SQL
2 34 (10.79%) Python
3 29 (9.21%) PowerShell
4 22 (6.98%) PL/SQL
4 22 (6.98%) T-SQL
5 17 (5.40%) Shell Script
6 10 (3.17%) Korn
7 8 (2.54%) Bash
8 4 (1.27%) TypeScript
9 3 (0.95%) Bicep
10 2 (0.63%) Java
11 1 (0.32%) C#
11 1 (0.32%) Cypher
11 1 (0.32%) Groovy
11 1 (0.32%) JCL
11 1 (0.32%) Perl
11 1 (0.32%) RPG
11 1 (0.32%) Ruby
11 1 (0.32%) VB
Qualifications
1 144 (45.71%) Security Cleared
2 96 (30.48%) SC Cleared
3 50 (15.87%) DV Cleared
4 20 (6.35%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (2.86%) Oracle Certification
6 6 (1.90%) Degree
7 5 (1.59%) OCP
8 4 (1.27%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.27%) MCITP
8 4 (1.27%) MCTS
9 3 (0.95%) Azure Certification
10 2 (0.63%) AWS Certification
10 2 (0.63%) BPSS Clearance
11 1 (0.32%) ITIL Certification
11 1 (0.32%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (3.17%) GDPR
2 9 (2.86%) Data Quality
3 8 (2.54%) QA
4 7 (2.22%) SLA
5 4 (1.27%) Disclosure Scotland
5 4 (1.27%) ISO 9000
6 1 (0.32%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.32%) ISO 22301
6 1 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.32%) NIST
6 1 (0.32%) NIST 800
System Software
1 31 (9.84%) Oracle RAC
2 6 (1.90%) Active Directory
3 3 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.63%) Docker
Systems Management
1 48 (15.24%) Oracle RMAN
2 29 (9.21%) Data Guard
3 19 (6.03%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 17 (5.40%) Terraform
5 16 (5.08%) Ansible
6 4 (1.27%) Foglight
6 4 (1.27%) Prometheus
7 3 (0.95%) Failover Clustering
7 3 (0.95%) Grafana
8 2 (0.63%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.63%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.32%) EMC NetWorker
9 1 (0.32%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
9 1 (0.32%) Kubernetes
9 1 (0.32%) SCCM
Vendors
1 181 (57.46%) Oracle
2 74 (23.49%) Microsoft
3 10 (3.17%) SolarWinds
4 9 (2.86%) RedGate
5 8 (2.54%) ServiceNow
6 7 (2.22%) Sybase
7 5 (1.59%) Databricks
8 4 (1.27%) Google
9 3 (0.95%) BMC
9 3 (0.95%) Dynatrace
9 3 (0.95%) Greenplum
9 3 (0.95%) Informatica
9 3 (0.95%) Remedy
9 3 (0.95%) Talend
10 2 (0.63%) IBM
10 2 (0.63%) Splunk
11 1 (0.32%) NetApp
11 1 (0.32%) NetCracker
11 1 (0.32%) Teradata
11 1 (0.32%) Wonderware