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 4 January 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 408 295 346
Rank change year-on-year -113 +51 +14
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 171 256 267
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.46% 0.79% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.51% 0.85% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 115 124 190
10th Percentile £316 £352 £363
25th Percentile £391 £413 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £491 £525
Median % change year-on-year -3.31% -6.43% +7.69%
75th Percentile £531 £594 £588
90th Percentile £588 £650 £631
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £525
% change year-on-year - -14.29% +10.53%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 3 2
10th Percentile £26.75 £30.36 £61.73
25th Percentile £27.50 £42.18 £64.78
Median hourly rate £28.75 £63.75 £71.03
Median % change year-on-year -54.90% -10.25% +77.56%
75th Percentile £31.00 £65.62 £76.10
90th Percentile - - £78.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £71.03
% change year-on-year -56.86% -10.25% +77.56%

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 33,575 30,034 40,144
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.24% 92.68% 93.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,287 18,380 26,866
10th Percentile £300 £291 £281
25th Percentile £405 £409 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £618 £638 £638
90th Percentile £719 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £480 £500
% change year-on-year -1.04% -4.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,949 935 1,589
10th Percentile £14.25 £15.51 £14.18
25th Percentile £18.25 £21.05 £19.06
Median hourly rate £26.50 £32.50 £44.50
Median % change year-on-year -18.46% -26.97% +36.92%
75th Percentile £60.00 £62.50 £65.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £73.75 £76.53
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £31.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -20.16% -30.00% +73.08%

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 4 January 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 4 January 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 -113 140 £469 -6.20% 27
UK excluding London -69 85 £450 - 23
London -63 63 £500 - 7
Work from Home -72 51 £464 +4.21% 9
North of England -47 31 £425 -3.68% 5
North West -30 20 £450 +1.98% 2
West Midlands -26 18 £388 -18.08% 5
Midlands -39 18 £388 -3.13% 6
South East -43 17 £469 -8.49% 5
Yorkshire - 11 £358 - 1
Scotland +5 10 £500 +11.11% 1
South West -9 5 £463 -18.14% 3
Wales -4 1 - -
Northern Ireland -11 1 £675 -
East of England -13 1 £375 - 4
Channel Islands - 1 - -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 January 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 78 (45.61%) SQL
2 77 (45.03%) Oracle
3 58 (33.92%) Oracle Database
4 54 (31.58%) Performance Tuning
5 51 (29.82%) Azure
6 41 (23.98%) PostgreSQL
7 39 (22.81%) Security Cleared
8 38 (22.22%) AWS
8 38 (22.22%) SQL Server
9 36 (21.05%) DevOps
10 33 (19.30%) Migration
11 31 (18.13%) Disaster Recovery
12 26 (15.20%) Python
12 26 (15.20%) SC Cleared
13 24 (14.04%) High Availability
14 23 (13.45%) PL/SQL
15 22 (12.87%) Data Guard
15 22 (12.87%) Linux
15 22 (12.87%) MySQL
15 22 (12.87%) NoSQL
15 22 (12.87%) Problem-Solving
16 21 (12.28%) Data Modelling
16 21 (12.28%) Database Security
16 21 (12.28%) Oracle RAC
16 21 (12.28%) Oracle RMAN
16 21 (12.28%) Serverless
17 20 (11.70%) CI/CD
18 18 (10.53%) Agile
18 18 (10.53%) Microsoft
19 17 (9.94%) Shell Script

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 (2.34%) WebLogic
2 2 (1.17%) Liferay
2 2 (1.17%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.17%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.58%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.75%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 6 (3.51%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (2.92%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (1.17%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (1.17%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.58%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 51 (29.82%) Azure
2 38 (22.22%) AWS
3 21 (12.28%) Serverless
4 16 (9.36%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 10 (5.85%) Azure DevOps
5 10 (5.85%) Azure Monitor
6 9 (5.26%) Azure Functions
6 9 (5.26%) Azure Logic Apps
7 7 (4.09%) Amazon S3
7 7 (4.09%) Azure AKS
7 7 (4.09%) Snowflake
8 6 (3.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 6 (3.51%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (3.51%) OCI
8 6 (3.51%) SaaS
9 5 (2.92%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (2.34%) GCP
11 3 (1.75%) Azure Storage
11 3 (1.75%) PaaS
11 3 (1.75%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.75%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (33.92%) Oracle Database
2 41 (23.98%) PostgreSQL
3 38 (22.22%) SQL Server
4 22 (12.87%) MySQL
4 22 (12.87%) NoSQL
5 16 (9.36%) MongoDB
6 14 (8.19%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (8.19%) Oracle Reports
7 13 (7.60%) Relational Database
8 10 (5.85%) Azure SQL Database
8 10 (5.85%) Oracle Exadata
8 10 (5.85%) RDBMS
9 8 (4.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 7 (4.09%) Oracle Database 12c
10 7 (4.09%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 6 (3.51%) DB2
11 6 (3.51%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 4 (2.34%) Oracle BI EE
12 4 (2.34%) Snowflake Schema
12 4 (2.34%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 9 (5.26%) Git
2 6 (3.51%) Oracle APEX
3 2 (1.17%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.58%) GitLab
4 1 (0.58%) JIRA
4 1 (0.58%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.58%) Toad
General
1 25 (14.62%) Social Skills
2 19 (11.11%) Finance
3 18 (10.53%) Public Sector
4 17 (9.94%) Banking
5 6 (3.51%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.34%) Local Government
7 3 (1.75%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.17%) Aviation
8 2 (1.17%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.17%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.17%) Legal
8 2 (1.17%) Military
9 1 (0.58%) Automotive
9 1 (0.58%) Back Office
9 1 (0.58%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.43%) JSON
1 11 (6.43%) Node.js
1 11 (6.43%) XML
2 10 (5.85%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 7 (4.09%) .NET
4 6 (3.51%) .NET Core
4 6 (3.51%) ASP.NET
5 5 (2.92%) Kafka
6 3 (1.75%) PostGIS
7 2 (1.17%) ARM Templates
7 2 (1.17%) FastAPI
7 2 (1.17%) Oracle ADF
7 2 (1.17%) pgvector
8 1 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 17 (9.94%) Cloud Native
1 17 (9.94%) Replication
2 11 (6.43%) Distributed Systems
3 10 (5.85%) Enterprise Cloud
4 8 (4.68%) Clustering
4 8 (4.68%) Data Structures
5 7 (4.09%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (2.34%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (1.17%) Driving Licence
7 2 (1.17%) Legacy Applications
7 2 (1.17%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.58%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.58%) Mainframe
8 1 (0.58%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.58%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 22 (12.87%) Linux
2 12 (7.02%) Unix
3 5 (2.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 4 (2.34%) Windows
5 3 (1.75%) Solaris
6 2 (1.17%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (1.17%) VMS
7 1 (0.58%) AIX
7 1 (0.58%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 54 (31.58%) Performance Tuning
2 36 (21.05%) DevOps
3 33 (19.30%) Migration
4 31 (18.13%) Disaster Recovery
5 24 (14.04%) High Availability
6 22 (12.87%) Problem-Solving
7 21 (12.28%) Data Modelling
7 21 (12.28%) Database Security
8 20 (11.70%) CI/CD
9 18 (10.53%) Agile
10 16 (9.36%) Task Automation
11 14 (8.19%) Performance Monitoring
12 13 (7.60%) Performance Optimisation
13 12 (7.02%) Continuous Improvement
14 11 (6.43%) Capacity Planning
14 11 (6.43%) Data Migration
15 10 (5.85%) ETL
16 9 (5.26%) Data Protection
16 9 (5.26%) Mentoring
16 9 (5.26%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 78 (45.61%) SQL
2 26 (15.20%) Python
3 23 (13.45%) PL/SQL
4 17 (9.94%) Shell Script
5 8 (4.68%) PowerShell
6 7 (4.09%) C#
7 6 (3.51%) Bash
8 5 (2.92%) T-SQL
9 4 (2.34%) Bicep
9 4 (2.34%) Java
10 3 (1.75%) Perl
11 1 (0.58%) PHP
11 1 (0.58%) VB
Qualifications
1 39 (22.81%) Security Cleared
2 26 (15.20%) SC Cleared
3 7 (4.09%) DV Cleared
4 6 (3.51%) OCP
4 6 (3.51%) Oracle Certification
5 4 (2.34%) AWS Certification
5 4 (2.34%) Azure Certification
6 3 (1.75%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.17%) OCA
8 1 (0.58%) BC Cleared
8 1 (0.58%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (4.09%) GDPR
2 6 (3.51%) SLA
3 3 (1.75%) QA
4 2 (1.17%) Data Quality
4 2 (1.17%) PCI DSS
5 1 (0.58%) Accessibility
5 1 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
5 1 (0.58%) Disclosure Scotland
5 1 (0.58%) HIPAA
5 1 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 21 (12.28%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (2.92%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.75%) NFS
3 3 (1.75%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.58%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 22 (12.87%) Data Guard
2 21 (12.28%) Oracle RMAN
3 13 (7.60%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 8 (4.68%) Ansible
5 7 (4.09%) Terraform
6 2 (1.17%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (1.17%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
6 2 (1.17%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (1.17%) systemd
6 2 (1.17%) yum
7 1 (0.58%) Foglight
7 1 (0.58%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 77 (45.03%) Oracle
2 18 (10.53%) Microsoft
3 6 (3.51%) Red Hat
4 4 (2.34%) Greenplum
4 4 (2.34%) Informatica
4 4 (2.34%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.34%) Talend
5 3 (1.75%) Google
6 1 (0.58%) Delphix
6 1 (0.58%) EMC
6 1 (0.58%) IBM
6 1 (0.58%) NEC
6 1 (0.58%) SolarWinds
6 1 (0.58%) Sybase