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 26 January 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 423 321 346
Rank change year-on-year -102 +25 +21
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 166 223 274
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.44% 0.71% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.48% 0.77% 0.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 113 102 187
10th Percentile £321 £351 £363
25th Percentile £402 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £474 £534
Median % change year-on-year +5.49% -11.24% +10.10%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £588
90th Percentile £606 £650 £650
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £533
% change year-on-year - -15.57% +12.21%
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 34,502 29,046 41,229
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.46% 92.85% 93.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 21,791 17,729 27,311
10th Percentile £300 £291 £275
25th Percentile £406 £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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £478 £480 £495
% change year-on-year -0.52% -3.03% -1.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,057 865 2,093
10th Percentile £14.41 £15.95 £13.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £21.25 £17.25
Median hourly rate £28.88 £32.50 £37.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.14% -13.33% +8.49%
75th Percentile £61.18 £62.50 £62.50
90th Percentile £70.00 £74.26 £73.95
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £31.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -12.70% -21.25% +33.33%

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 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 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 26 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 -106 142 £488 +2.63% 80
UK excluding London -64 85 £450 - 83
London -41 63 £500 - 9
Work from Home -66 42 £488 +9.55% 21
North of England -42 30 £425 -4.49% 21
North West -23 20 £450 +1.12% 9
West Midlands -20 19 £388 -18.08% 5
Midlands -40 19 £388 -3.13% 13
South East -54 17 £469 -8.49% 23
Yorkshire - 10 £358 - 9
Scotland +7 9 £500 +8.11% 4
South West -16 7 £606 -7.83% 9
Wales -3 1 - - 3
Northern Ireland -6 1 £675 - 1
East of England -13 1 £375 +16.68% 12

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 26 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 80 (48.19%) Oracle
2 78 (46.99%) SQL
3 60 (36.14%) Oracle Database
4 47 (28.31%) Performance Tuning
5 46 (27.71%) Azure
5 46 (27.71%) Security Cleared
6 40 (24.10%) PostgreSQL
7 37 (22.29%) AWS
8 33 (19.88%) SQL Server
9 32 (19.28%) DevOps
10 31 (18.67%) Migration
11 29 (17.47%) SC Cleared
12 27 (16.27%) Disaster Recovery
13 26 (15.66%) PL/SQL
14 25 (15.06%) Python
15 24 (14.46%) High Availability
16 23 (13.86%) Data Guard
16 23 (13.86%) Oracle RAC
17 22 (13.25%) MySQL
18 21 (12.65%) NoSQL
18 21 (12.65%) Serverless
19 20 (12.05%) Linux
19 20 (12.05%) Oracle RMAN
20 19 (11.45%) MongoDB
21 18 (10.84%) Microsoft
22 17 (10.24%) Agile
22 17 (10.24%) Amazon RDS
22 17 (10.24%) Azure Cosmos DB
22 17 (10.24%) Data Modelling
22 17 (10.24%) Database Security

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 (2.41%) WebLogic
2 2 (1.20%) Liferay
2 2 (1.20%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.20%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.60%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.81%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (3.01%) Oracle EBS
1 5 (3.01%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (1.20%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.60%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.60%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 46 (27.71%) Azure
2 37 (22.29%) AWS
3 21 (12.65%) Serverless
4 17 (10.24%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 10 (6.02%) Azure Monitor
6 9 (5.42%) Azure DevOps
6 9 (5.42%) Azure Functions
6 9 (5.42%) Azure Logic Apps
7 7 (4.22%) Azure AKS
8 6 (3.61%) Amazon S3
8 6 (3.61%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (3.61%) SaaS
8 6 (3.61%) Snowflake
9 5 (3.01%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 4 (2.41%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (2.41%) GCP
10 4 (2.41%) OCI
11 3 (1.81%) Cloud Computing
11 3 (1.81%) PaaS
11 3 (1.81%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 3 (1.81%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (36.14%) Oracle Database
2 40 (24.10%) PostgreSQL
3 33 (19.88%) SQL Server
4 22 (13.25%) MySQL
5 21 (12.65%) NoSQL
6 19 (11.45%) MongoDB
7 17 (10.24%) Amazon RDS
8 14 (8.43%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (7.23%) Relational Database
10 11 (6.63%) Oracle Exadata
11 9 (5.42%) Azure SQL Database
11 9 (5.42%) RDBMS
12 8 (4.82%) DynamoDB
13 7 (4.22%) Amazon Aurora
14 6 (3.61%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 6 (3.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 5 (3.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
16 4 (2.41%) Oracle BI EE
16 4 (2.41%) Snowflake Schema
16 4 (2.41%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 10 (6.02%) Oracle APEX
2 8 (4.82%) Git
3 2 (1.20%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.60%) GitLab
4 1 (0.60%) JIRA
4 1 (0.60%) TeamCity
4 1 (0.60%) Toad
General
1 21 (12.65%) Social Skills
2 19 (11.45%) Public Sector
3 18 (10.84%) Finance
4 16 (9.64%) Banking
5 6 (3.61%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.41%) Local Government
7 3 (1.81%) Telecoms
8 2 (1.20%) Aviation
8 2 (1.20%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.20%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.20%) Legal
8 2 (1.20%) Military
9 1 (0.60%) Back Office
9 1 (0.60%) Financial Institution
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.63%) JSON
1 11 (6.63%) Node.js
1 11 (6.63%) XML
2 9 (5.42%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 7 (4.22%) .NET
4 6 (3.61%) .NET Core
4 6 (3.61%) ASP.NET
5 5 (3.01%) Kafka
6 3 (1.81%) PostGIS
7 2 (1.20%) ARM Templates
7 2 (1.20%) Oracle ADF
7 2 (1.20%) pgvector
8 1 (0.60%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.60%) FastAPI
Miscellaneous
1 15 (9.04%) Cloud Native
2 14 (8.43%) Replication
3 11 (6.63%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (6.02%) Enterprise Cloud
5 8 (4.82%) Data Structures
5 8 (4.82%) Legacy Systems
6 6 (3.61%) Clustering
7 4 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
8 3 (1.81%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (1.20%) Driving Licence
9 2 (1.20%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.60%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.60%) Data Protection Act
10 1 (0.60%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.60%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.60%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 20 (12.05%) Linux
2 12 (7.23%) Unix
3 5 (3.01%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.81%) Solaris
4 3 (1.81%) Windows
5 2 (1.20%) Oracle Linux
5 2 (1.20%) VMS
6 1 (0.60%) AIX
6 1 (0.60%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (28.31%) Performance Tuning
2 32 (19.28%) DevOps
3 31 (18.67%) Migration
4 27 (16.27%) Disaster Recovery
5 24 (14.46%) High Availability
6 17 (10.24%) Agile
6 17 (10.24%) Data Modelling
6 17 (10.24%) Database Security
7 16 (9.64%) CI/CD
7 16 (9.64%) Problem-Solving
8 15 (9.04%) Data Migration
8 15 (9.04%) Task Automation
9 14 (8.43%) Performance Monitoring
10 13 (7.83%) Continuous Improvement
11 12 (7.23%) Data Protection
12 11 (6.63%) Performance Optimisation
13 9 (5.42%) Capacity Planning
13 9 (5.42%) Mentoring
13 9 (5.42%) Microservices
13 9 (5.42%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 78 (46.99%) SQL
2 26 (15.66%) PL/SQL
3 25 (15.06%) Python
4 16 (9.64%) Shell Script
5 8 (4.82%) PowerShell
6 7 (4.22%) C#
7 6 (3.61%) Bash
8 5 (3.01%) Bicep
9 4 (2.41%) Java
9 4 (2.41%) T-SQL
10 3 (1.81%) Perl
11 1 (0.60%) PHP
11 1 (0.60%) VB
Qualifications
1 46 (27.71%) Security Cleared
2 29 (17.47%) SC Cleared
3 11 (6.63%) DV Cleared
4 4 (2.41%) AWS Certification
4 4 (2.41%) OCP
4 4 (2.41%) Oracle Certification
5 3 (1.81%) Azure Certification
5 3 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
6 1 (0.60%) BC Cleared
6 1 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 1 (0.60%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.82%) GDPR
2 7 (4.22%) SLA
3 2 (1.20%) Data Quality
3 2 (1.20%) Disclosure Scotland
3 2 (1.20%) QA
4 1 (0.60%) Actionable Recommendations
4 1 (0.60%) HIPAA
4 1 (0.60%) PCI DSS
4 1 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 23 (13.86%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (3.01%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.81%) NFS
3 3 (1.81%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.60%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 23 (13.86%) Data Guard
2 20 (12.05%) Oracle RMAN
3 14 (8.43%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 7 (4.22%) Ansible
5 6 (3.61%) Terraform
6 2 (1.20%) EMC NetWorker
6 2 (1.20%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
6 2 (1.20%) Foglight
6 2 (1.20%) Microsoft Clustering
6 2 (1.20%) systemd
7 1 (0.60%) Oracle ZFS
7 1 (0.60%) yum
Vendors
1 80 (48.19%) Oracle
2 18 (10.84%) Microsoft
3 6 (3.61%) Red Hat
4 4 (2.41%) Greenplum
4 4 (2.41%) Informatica
4 4 (2.41%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.41%) Talend
5 3 (1.81%) Google
6 1 (0.60%) Databricks
6 1 (0.60%) Delphix
6 1 (0.60%) EMC
6 1 (0.60%) IBM
6 1 (0.60%) NEC
6 1 (0.60%) SolarWinds
6 1 (0.60%) Sybase