DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 10 June 2026.

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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 365 395 327
Rank change year-on-year +30 -68 +41
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 298 132 278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.60% 0.45% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.65% 0.49% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 232 88 191
10th Percentile £363 £363 £363
25th Percentile £401 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £541 £611
90th Percentile £675 £625 £688
UK excluding London median daily rate £463 £450 £475
% change year-on-year +2.78% -5.26% -3.06%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 2 2
10th Percentile - - £32.45
25th Percentile - £61.87 £39.13
Median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £51.50
Median % change year-on-year -56.86% +23.78% +48.01%
75th Percentile - £65.62 £65.13
90th Percentile - - £72.55
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £51.50
% change year-on-year -56.86% +23.78% +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 45,686 27,116 40,535
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.32% 92.32% 92.89%
Number of daily rates quoted 27,799 17,461 26,079
10th Percentile £325 £288 £280
25th Percentile £413 £402 £408
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year +2.68% -4.76% -2.60%
75th Percentile £620 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +5.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3,044 1,132 2,932
10th Percentile £15.05 £13.87 £12.86
25th Percentile £20.65 £17.79 £16.30
Median hourly rate £42.50 £27.70 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year +53.43% -26.13% -16.67%
75th Percentile £67.50 £57.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £80.00 £75.00 £73.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £43.69 £25.15 £40.00
% change year-on-year +73.72% -37.13% -5.88%

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 10 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 10 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 +25 260 £475 +5.56% 33
UK excluding London +35 198 £463 +2.78% 29
London -48 76 £500 -2.44% 11
North of England -17 73 £429 -3.60% 8
South East -30 59 £417 -16.56% 2
Work from Home -47 49 £500 +11.11% 20
North West -6 45 £439 +1.53% 8
Midlands -39 29 £463 - 3
Yorkshire -29 28 £400 -30.43%
West Midlands -34 23 £475 - 2
South West -10 17 £740 +34.55% 4
Scotland -9 13 £500 +8.11% 6
East Midlands - 5 £463 - 1
Wales - 3 £588 -
Northern Ireland +4 2 £675 -
East of England -28 2 £388 -8.82% 7
North East - 1 £501 -

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 10 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.

1 168 (56.38%) Oracle
2 156 (52.35%) SQL
3 128 (42.95%) Security Cleared
4 118 (39.60%) Oracle Database
5 117 (39.26%) SQL Server
6 97 (32.55%) Performance Tuning
7 89 (29.87%) SC Cleared
8 83 (27.85%) High Availability
9 70 (23.49%) PostgreSQL
10 60 (20.13%) Microsoft
11 55 (18.46%) Migration
12 53 (17.79%) Azure
13 50 (16.78%) AWS
13 50 (16.78%) Disaster Recovery
14 49 (16.44%) Oracle RMAN
15 43 (14.43%) Database Security
15 43 (14.43%) DV Cleared
16 39 (13.09%) Linux
16 39 (13.09%) MySQL
17 32 (10.74%) DevOps
17 32 (10.74%) Oracle RAC
18 31 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
19 30 (10.07%) Data Guard
19 30 (10.07%) Unix
20 29 (9.73%) PowerShell
21 28 (9.40%) ITIL
21 28 (9.40%) Python
22 27 (9.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
23 26 (8.72%) PL/SQL
24 25 (8.39%) Capacity Planning

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 (1.68%) Confluence
1 5 (1.68%) WebLogic
2 3 (1.01%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 1 (0.34%) Liferay
3 1 (0.34%) OpenEdge
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle Application Server
3 1 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.34%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.34%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.34%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 11 (3.69%) Oracle Applications
1 11 (3.69%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (1.34%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (1.01%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (1.01%) Remedy ITSM
3 3 (1.01%) Teamcenter
4 1 (0.34%) FLEXCUBE
4 1 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
Cloud Services
1 53 (17.79%) Azure
2 50 (16.78%) AWS
3 8 (2.68%) Azure Cosmos DB
3 8 (2.68%) Azure Data Factory
4 7 (2.35%) OCI
5 5 (1.68%) SaaS
5 5 (1.68%) Serverless
6 4 (1.34%) Amazon S3
6 4 (1.34%) GCP
7 3 (1.01%) Azure DevOps
7 3 (1.01%) GitHub
7 3 (1.01%) PaaS
7 3 (1.01%) Snowflake
8 2 (0.67%) Amazon EC2
8 2 (0.67%) Cloud Computing
8 2 (0.67%) IBM Cloud
8 2 (0.67%) Power Platform
9 1 (0.34%) Azure Functions
9 1 (0.34%) Azure Logic Apps
9 1 (0.34%) Azure Sentinel
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.34%) Firewall
1 1 (0.34%) IPsec
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (39.60%) Oracle Database
2 117 (39.26%) SQL Server
3 70 (23.49%) PostgreSQL
4 39 (13.09%) MySQL
5 27 (9.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 23 (7.72%) Amazon RDS
6 23 (7.72%) MongoDB
7 21 (7.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 19 (6.38%) Azure SQL Database
8 19 (6.38%) Oracle Database 11g
9 18 (6.04%) Oracle Database 12c
10 15 (5.03%) Oracle Reports
10 15 (5.03%) Relational Database
11 12 (4.03%) RDBMS
12 10 (3.36%) Amazon Aurora
12 10 (3.36%) NoSQL
12 10 (3.36%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 7 (2.35%) Oracle Exadata
14 6 (2.01%) Big Data
14 6 (2.01%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 11 (3.69%) GitLab
2 10 (3.36%) Git
3 7 (2.35%) Oracle APEX
4 6 (2.01%) Jenkins
5 4 (1.34%) Flyway
5 4 (1.34%) Oracle Forms
5 4 (1.34%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 2 (0.67%) JIRA
7 1 (0.34%) Oracle Developer 2000
7 1 (0.34%) TeamCity
General
1 43 (14.43%) Social Skills
2 32 (10.74%) Public Sector
3 28 (9.40%) Finance
4 21 (7.05%) Analytical Skills
5 9 (3.02%) Banking
6 8 (2.68%) Legal
7 5 (1.68%) Military
8 4 (1.34%) Investment Banking
8 4 (1.34%) Organisational Skills
9 3 (1.01%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.01%) Publishing
10 2 (0.67%) Aviation
10 2 (0.67%) Telecoms
11 1 (0.34%) Advertising
11 1 (0.34%) Billing
11 1 (0.34%) International Banking
11 1 (0.34%) Local Government
11 1 (0.34%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.34%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.34%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (5.37%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 11 (3.69%) JSON
3 9 (3.02%) XML
4 7 (2.35%) Kafka
5 6 (2.01%) OLE
6 4 (1.34%) AWS CDK
7 3 (1.01%) GeoJSON
7 3 (1.01%) Matplotlib
7 3 (1.01%) Middleware
7 3 (1.01%) Pandas
7 3 (1.01%) Polars
7 3 (1.01%) scikit-learn
8 2 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
8 2 (0.67%) Oracle Fusion
8 2 (0.67%) REST
9 1 (0.34%) .NET Core
9 1 (0.34%) Node.js
9 1 (0.34%) Oracle ADF
9 1 (0.34%) PostGIS
9 1 (0.34%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 28 (9.40%) Replication
2 20 (6.71%) Clustering
3 11 (3.69%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (2.01%) Enterprise Cloud
5 4 (1.34%) Legacy Applications
6 3 (1.01%) Onboarding
7 2 (0.67%) Data Structures
7 2 (0.67%) Driving Licence
7 2 (0.67%) Mainframe
7 2 (0.67%) NHS
7 2 (0.67%) Public Cloud
8 1 (0.34%) Cloud Native
8 1 (0.34%) Data Centre
8 1 (0.34%) Data Protection Act
8 1 (0.34%) Enterprise Storage
8 1 (0.34%) Life Science
8 1 (0.34%) Operational Technology
8 1 (0.34%) SCADA
8 1 (0.34%) Security Posture
8 1 (0.34%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 39 (13.09%) Linux
2 30 (10.07%) Unix
3 23 (7.72%) Windows
4 15 (5.03%) Windows Server
5 5 (1.68%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.34%) AIX
6 4 (1.34%) Oracle Linux
7 2 (0.67%) Solaris
8 1 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
8 1 (0.34%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.34%) HPUX
8 1 (0.34%) OpenVMS
8 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2012
8 1 (0.34%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 97 (32.55%) Performance Tuning
2 83 (27.85%) High Availability
3 55 (18.46%) Migration
4 50 (16.78%) Disaster Recovery
5 43 (14.43%) Database Security
6 32 (10.74%) DevOps
7 31 (10.40%) Problem-Solving
8 28 (9.40%) ITIL
9 25 (8.39%) Capacity Planning
10 19 (6.38%) Data Migration
10 19 (6.38%) Task Automation
11 18 (6.04%) Agile
11 18 (6.04%) Performance Optimisation
12 17 (5.70%) CI/CD
12 17 (5.70%) Database Tuning
13 15 (5.03%) Continuous Improvement
13 15 (5.03%) Data Protection
14 14 (4.70%) Database Migration
15 13 (4.36%) Data Modelling
16 12 (4.03%) Project Delivery
Programming Languages
1 156 (52.35%) SQL
2 29 (9.73%) PowerShell
3 28 (9.40%) Python
4 26 (8.72%) PL/SQL
5 20 (6.71%) T-SQL
6 16 (5.37%) Shell Script
7 10 (3.36%) Korn
8 6 (2.01%) Bash
9 4 (1.34%) TypeScript
10 3 (1.01%) Bicep
11 2 (0.67%) Java
12 1 (0.34%) C#
12 1 (0.34%) Groovy
12 1 (0.34%) JCL
12 1 (0.34%) Perl
12 1 (0.34%) RPG
12 1 (0.34%) Ruby
12 1 (0.34%) VB
Qualifications
1 128 (42.95%) Security Cleared
2 89 (29.87%) SC Cleared
3 43 (14.43%) DV Cleared
4 14 (4.70%) Microsoft Certification
5 7 (2.35%) Oracle Certification
6 6 (2.01%) Degree
7 5 (1.68%) OCP
8 4 (1.34%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.34%) MCITP
8 4 (1.34%) MCTS
9 2 (0.67%) Azure Certification
10 1 (0.34%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.34%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (2.68%) Data Quality
1 8 (2.68%) GDPR
1 8 (2.68%) QA
2 7 (2.35%) SLA
3 4 (1.34%) Disclosure Scotland
4 2 (0.67%) ISO 9000
5 1 (0.34%) ISO 22301
5 1 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 1 (0.34%) NIST
5 1 (0.34%) NIST 800
System Software
1 32 (10.74%) Oracle RAC
2 6 (2.01%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.01%) Virtual Machines
4 2 (0.67%) Oracle Clusterware
5 1 (0.34%) Docker
Systems Management
1 49 (16.44%) Oracle RMAN
2 30 (10.07%) Data Guard
3 16 (5.37%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 15 (5.03%) Terraform
5 12 (4.03%) Ansible
6 4 (1.34%) Foglight
7 3 (1.01%) Failover Clustering
7 3 (1.01%) Grafana
7 3 (1.01%) Prometheus
8 2 (0.67%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.34%) EMC NetWorker
9 1 (0.34%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
9 1 (0.34%) SCCM
Vendors
1 168 (56.38%) Oracle
2 60 (20.13%) Microsoft
3 9 (3.02%) SolarWinds
4 8 (2.68%) RedGate
4 8 (2.68%) ServiceNow
5 5 (1.68%) Databricks
5 5 (1.68%) Sybase
6 3 (1.01%) BMC
6 3 (1.01%) Google
6 3 (1.01%) Remedy
7 2 (0.67%) Greenplum
7 2 (0.67%) IBM
7 2 (0.67%) Informatica
7 2 (0.67%) Talend
8 1 (0.34%) Cloudera
8 1 (0.34%) Commvault
8 1 (0.34%) Dynatrace
8 1 (0.34%) EMC
8 1 (0.34%) NetApp
8 1 (0.34%) Red Hat