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 4 March 2026.

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

6 months to
4 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 391 329 329
Rank change year-on-year -62 0 +69
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 202 195 287
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.48% 0.65% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.52% 0.70% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 151 99 198
10th Percentile £350 £355 £363
25th Percentile £400 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £533
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -10.88% +9.90%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £600
90th Percentile £606 £658 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £450 £525
% change year-on-year -4.44% -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 38,703 27,889 41,142
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 92.83% 92.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,288 17,682 27,029
10th Percentile £310 £288 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,374 845 2,408
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.25 £13.05
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.46 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% - -16.05%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.75 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.40 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -10.88%

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 March 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 4 March 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 -68 173 £470 -6.00% 73
UK excluding London -62 115 £430 -4.44% 63
London -53 68 £500 - 17
Work from Home -45 53 £500 +12.11% 24
North of England -40 41 £401 -9.89% 29
West Midlands -32 26 £441 -6.77% 5
South East -41 26 £425 -17.17% 17
Midlands -46 26 £441 +7.56% 8
North West -35 23 £424 -4.63% 19
Yorkshire -43 19 £360 - 9
Scotland +8 11 £500 +8.11% 1
South West -24 7 £606 -19.20% 1
Wales -3 2 - - 4
Northern Ireland -2 1 £675 -
East of England -27 1 £375 -11.76% 4

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 4 March 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.

1 105 (51.98%) Oracle
2 92 (45.54%) SQL
3 71 (35.15%) Security Cleared
4 69 (34.16%) Oracle Database
5 65 (32.18%) SQL Server
6 63 (31.19%) Performance Tuning
7 53 (26.24%) PostgreSQL
8 51 (25.25%) SC Cleared
9 44 (21.78%) AWS
9 44 (21.78%) Azure
9 44 (21.78%) Disaster Recovery
10 38 (18.81%) Database Security
10 38 (18.81%) High Availability
11 37 (18.32%) Microsoft
12 35 (17.33%) MySQL
13 32 (15.84%) Migration
13 32 (15.84%) Problem-Solving
14 31 (15.35%) DevOps
15 27 (13.37%) Oracle RMAN
16 24 (11.88%) Oracle RAC
16 24 (11.88%) Python
17 23 (11.39%) Agile
17 23 (11.39%) Amazon RDS
18 22 (10.89%) MongoDB
18 22 (10.89%) NoSQL
18 22 (10.89%) PL/SQL
19 21 (10.40%) Capacity Planning
19 21 (10.40%) Unix
20 20 (9.90%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
20 20 (9.90%) PowerShell

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 (1.98%) WebLogic
2 3 (1.49%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (0.99%) Liferay
3 2 (0.99%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.50%) Confluence
4 1 (0.50%) OpenEdge
4 1 (0.50%) Oracle Application Server
4 1 (0.50%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (3.47%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (2.48%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.99%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.99%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.50%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 44 (21.78%) AWS
1 44 (21.78%) Azure
2 19 (9.41%) Serverless
3 14 (6.93%) Azure Cosmos DB
4 6 (2.97%) Amazon S3
4 6 (2.97%) AWS Lambda
4 6 (2.97%) SaaS
5 5 (2.48%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 5 (2.48%) Azure DevOps
5 5 (2.48%) Snowflake
6 4 (1.98%) Amazon EC2
6 4 (1.98%) Azure AKS
6 4 (1.98%) Azure Functions
6 4 (1.98%) Azure Logic Apps
6 4 (1.98%) Azure Monitor
6 4 (1.98%) GCP
6 4 (1.98%) OCI
7 3 (1.49%) Cloud Computing
7 3 (1.49%) PaaS
7 3 (1.49%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.50%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 69 (34.16%) Oracle Database
2 65 (32.18%) SQL Server
3 53 (26.24%) PostgreSQL
4 35 (17.33%) MySQL
5 23 (11.39%) Amazon RDS
6 22 (10.89%) MongoDB
6 22 (10.89%) NoSQL
7 18 (8.91%) Oracle Reports
7 18 (8.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 16 (7.92%) Relational Database
9 13 (6.44%) RDBMS
10 11 (5.45%) Azure SQL Database
11 10 (4.95%) DynamoDB
11 10 (4.95%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 9 (4.46%) Amazon Aurora
13 6 (2.97%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 5 (2.48%) Oracle Database 12c
14 5 (2.48%) Oracle Exadata
15 4 (1.98%) Data Lake
15 4 (1.98%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 6 (2.97%) Git
1 6 (2.97%) Oracle APEX
2 4 (1.98%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 3 (1.49%) GitLab
4 2 (0.99%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.50%) Flyway
5 1 (0.50%) JIRA
5 1 (0.50%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.50%) Toad
General
1 33 (16.34%) Public Sector
2 28 (13.86%) Social Skills
3 19 (9.41%) Finance
4 12 (5.94%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (5.45%) Banking
6 4 (1.98%) Legal
6 4 (1.98%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.49%) Military
8 2 (0.99%) Aviation
8 2 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.99%) Local Government
9 1 (0.50%) Advertising
9 1 (0.50%) Back Office
9 1 (0.50%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.50%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.50%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.50%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.50%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.50%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.43%) JSON
1 15 (7.43%) XML
2 12 (5.94%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 9 (4.46%) Kafka
4 8 (3.96%) Node.js
5 4 (1.98%) .NET
6 3 (1.49%) .NET Core
6 3 (1.49%) ASP.NET
7 2 (0.99%) Oracle ADF
8 1 (0.50%) AWS CDK
8 1 (0.50%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.50%) Oracle Fusion
8 1 (0.50%) PostGIS
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.41%) Replication
2 14 (6.93%) Enterprise Cloud
3 12 (5.94%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (4.95%) Cloud Native
4 10 (4.95%) Clustering
5 8 (3.96%) Data Structures
5 8 (3.96%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.98%) Legacy Applications
7 2 (0.99%) Driving Licence
7 2 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
7 2 (0.99%) Mainframe
8 1 (0.50%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.50%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.50%) Life Science
8 1 (0.50%) Onboarding
8 1 (0.50%) Operational Technology
8 1 (0.50%) Product Ownership
8 1 (0.50%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.50%) SCADA
8 1 (0.50%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 21 (10.40%) Unix
2 19 (9.41%) Linux
3 8 (3.96%) Windows
4 5 (2.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (1.98%) Solaris
5 4 (1.98%) Windows Server
6 2 (0.99%) Oracle Linux
7 1 (0.50%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (31.19%) Performance Tuning
2 44 (21.78%) Disaster Recovery
3 38 (18.81%) Database Security
3 38 (18.81%) High Availability
4 32 (15.84%) Migration
4 32 (15.84%) Problem-Solving
5 31 (15.35%) DevOps
6 23 (11.39%) Agile
7 21 (10.40%) Capacity Planning
8 16 (7.92%) Mentoring
8 16 (7.92%) Task Automation
9 15 (7.43%) Continuous Improvement
10 14 (6.93%) Data Migration
10 14 (6.93%) Data Modelling
11 13 (6.44%) CI/CD
11 13 (6.44%) Performance Optimisation
12 12 (5.94%) ITIL
13 11 (5.45%) Data Protection
13 11 (5.45%) Performance Monitoring
13 11 (5.45%) Statistics
Programming Languages
1 92 (45.54%) SQL
2 24 (11.88%) Python
3 22 (10.89%) PL/SQL
4 20 (9.90%) PowerShell
5 19 (9.41%) Shell Script
6 10 (4.95%) T-SQL
7 7 (3.47%) Korn
8 5 (2.48%) Bash
9 4 (1.98%) C#
9 4 (1.98%) Java
10 3 (1.49%) Bicep
10 3 (1.49%) Perl
11 1 (0.50%) JCL
11 1 (0.50%) PHP
11 1 (0.50%) Ruby
11 1 (0.50%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.50%) VB
Qualifications
1 71 (35.15%) Security Cleared
2 51 (25.25%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.44%) DV Cleared
4 10 (4.95%) Oracle Certification
5 9 (4.46%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (4.46%) OCP
6 4 (1.98%) AWS Certification
6 4 (1.98%) Azure Certification
7 3 (1.49%) Degree
8 2 (0.99%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.50%) BC Cleared
9 1 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.50%) MCITP
9 1 (0.50%) MCTS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.45%) SLA
2 9 (4.46%) GDPR
3 4 (1.98%) Disclosure Scotland
4 3 (1.49%) QA
5 2 (0.99%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.50%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.50%) NIST
6 1 (0.50%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.50%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 24 (11.88%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (2.48%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.49%) NFS
3 3 (1.49%) Oracle Clusterware
4 2 (0.99%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 27 (13.37%) Oracle RMAN
2 20 (9.90%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
3 19 (9.41%) Data Guard
4 8 (3.96%) Ansible
5 7 (3.47%) Terraform
6 3 (1.49%) Foglight
6 3 (1.49%) Microsoft Clustering
7 2 (0.99%) EMC NetWorker
7 2 (0.99%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 2 (0.99%) systemd
8 1 (0.50%) SCCM
Vendors
1 105 (51.98%) Oracle
2 37 (18.32%) Microsoft
3 6 (2.97%) RedGate
3 6 (2.97%) ServiceNow
3 6 (2.97%) SolarWinds
4 5 (2.48%) Red Hat
5 4 (1.98%) Greenplum
5 4 (1.98%) Informatica
5 4 (1.98%) Talend
6 3 (1.49%) Google
7 2 (0.99%) Databricks
8 1 (0.50%) Cloudera
8 1 (0.50%) Commvault
8 1 (0.50%) EMC
8 1 (0.50%) IBM
8 1 (0.50%) NEC
8 1 (0.50%) Splunk
8 1 (0.50%) Sybase
8 1 (0.50%) Teradata
8 1 (0.50%) Wonderware