DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £455, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 9 March 2026.

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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 394 334 321
Rank change year-on-year -60 -13 +79
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 223 193 306
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.53% 0.65% 0.68%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.57% 0.70% 0.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 101 208
10th Percentile £350 £356 £363
25th Percentile £381 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £455 £475 £533
Median % change year-on-year -4.21% -10.88% +9.33%
75th Percentile £525 £538 £600
90th Percentile £588 £650 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £425 £450 £503
% change year-on-year -5.56% -10.45% +5.79%
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 38,836 27,659 41,539
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.96% 92.95% 92.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,338 17,830 27,237
10th Percentile £310 £294 £270
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 £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £488
% change year-on-year +1.26% -2.56% -2.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,391 872 2,505
10th Percentile £14.82 £15.81 £13.00
25th Percentile £19.00 £21.25 £16.25
Median hourly rate £34.95 £33.75 £32.69
Median % change year-on-year +3.54% +3.24% -20.33%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £76.25 £71.89
UK excluding London median hourly rate £33.50 £32.50 £32.90
% change year-on-year +3.08% -1.20% -17.30%

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 9 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 9 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 -43 194 £447 -10.60% 69
UK excluding London -44 127 £425 -5.56% 55
London -30 78 £500 - 18
Work from Home -55 54 £500 +12.11% 25
North of England -30 49 £400 -10.11% 21
South East -51 30 £420 -18.05% 16
North West -20 27 £424 -4.78% 16
West Midlands -30 26 £441 -6.77% 5
Midlands -43 26 £441 +7.56% 8
Yorkshire -35 23 £365 - 5
Scotland +9 11 £500 +8.11% 2
South West -25 7 £606 -19.20% 2
Wales -5 2 - - 2
Northern Ireland -3 1 £675 -
East of England -35 1 £375 -11.76% 5

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 9 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.

1 112 (50.22%) Oracle
2 103 (46.19%) SQL
3 79 (35.43%) Security Cleared
4 76 (34.08%) SQL Server
5 72 (32.29%) Oracle Database
6 70 (31.39%) Performance Tuning
7 57 (25.56%) SC Cleared
8 56 (25.11%) PostgreSQL
9 45 (20.18%) AWS
9 45 (20.18%) Disaster Recovery
9 45 (20.18%) High Availability
10 44 (19.73%) Azure
11 40 (17.94%) Microsoft
12 38 (17.04%) Database Security
13 36 (16.14%) MySQL
14 34 (15.25%) Problem-Solving
15 33 (14.80%) DevOps
15 33 (14.80%) Migration
16 29 (13.00%) Oracle RMAN
17 25 (11.21%) Agile
17 25 (11.21%) Oracle RAC
18 24 (10.76%) Amazon RDS
19 23 (10.31%) Linux
19 23 (10.31%) MongoDB
20 22 (9.87%) Python
20 22 (9.87%) Unix
21 21 (9.42%) Capacity Planning
21 21 (9.42%) NoSQL
21 21 (9.42%) PL/SQL
22 20 (8.97%) Oracle Enterprise Manager

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 (1.79%) WebLogic
2 3 (1.35%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (0.90%) Confluence
3 2 (0.90%) Liferay
3 2 (0.90%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.45%) OpenEdge
4 1 (0.45%) Oracle Application Server
4 1 (0.45%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (3.14%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (2.24%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.90%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.90%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.45%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 45 (20.18%) AWS
2 44 (19.73%) Azure
3 18 (8.07%) Serverless
4 14 (6.28%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 9 (4.04%) SaaS
6 6 (2.69%) Amazon S3
7 5 (2.24%) AWS Lambda
7 5 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (2.24%) OCI
7 5 (2.24%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 4 (1.79%) Amazon EC2
8 4 (1.79%) Azure AKS
8 4 (1.79%) Azure Functions
8 4 (1.79%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (1.79%) Azure Monitor
8 4 (1.79%) GCP
9 3 (1.35%) Azure Storage
9 3 (1.35%) PaaS
9 3 (1.35%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.45%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (34.08%) SQL Server
2 72 (32.29%) Oracle Database
3 56 (25.11%) PostgreSQL
4 36 (16.14%) MySQL
5 24 (10.76%) Amazon RDS
6 23 (10.31%) MongoDB
7 21 (9.42%) NoSQL
8 19 (8.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 18 (8.07%) Oracle Reports
10 17 (7.62%) Relational Database
11 14 (6.28%) RDBMS
12 11 (4.93%) Azure SQL Database
12 11 (4.93%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 9 (4.04%) Amazon Aurora
13 9 (4.04%) DynamoDB
14 7 (3.14%) Oracle Database 12c
15 6 (2.69%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 4 (1.79%) Oracle BI EE
16 4 (1.79%) Snowflake Schema
16 4 (1.79%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 7 (3.14%) Git
2 6 (2.69%) Oracle APEX
3 5 (2.24%) GitLab
4 4 (1.79%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 3 (1.35%) Jenkins
6 2 (0.90%) Flyway
7 1 (0.45%) JIRA
7 1 (0.45%) TeamCity
7 1 (0.45%) Toad
General
1 34 (15.25%) Public Sector
2 31 (13.90%) Social Skills
3 24 (10.76%) Finance
4 15 (6.73%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (5.38%) Banking
6 5 (2.24%) Legal
6 5 (2.24%) Telecoms
7 4 (1.79%) Military
8 2 (0.90%) Aviation
8 2 (0.90%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.90%) Local Government
8 2 (0.90%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.45%) Advertising
9 1 (0.45%) Back Office
9 1 (0.45%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.45%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.45%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.45%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.45%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (6.73%) JSON
1 15 (6.73%) XML
2 13 (5.83%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 9 (4.04%) Kafka
4 7 (3.14%) Node.js
5 4 (1.79%) .NET
6 3 (1.35%) .NET Core
6 3 (1.35%) ASP.NET
7 2 (0.90%) AWS CDK
7 2 (0.90%) OLE
7 2 (0.90%) Oracle ADF
8 1 (0.45%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.45%) Oracle Fusion
8 1 (0.45%) PostGIS
Miscellaneous
1 18 (8.07%) Replication
2 14 (6.28%) Enterprise Cloud
3 13 (5.83%) Clustering
4 12 (5.38%) Legacy Systems
5 10 (4.48%) Cloud Native
6 8 (3.59%) Data Structures
7 7 (3.14%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.79%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (0.90%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.90%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.90%) NHS
9 2 (0.90%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.90%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.45%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.45%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.45%) Life Science
10 1 (0.45%) Operational Technology
10 1 (0.45%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.45%) SCADA
10 1 (0.45%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 23 (10.31%) Linux
2 22 (9.87%) Unix
3 12 (5.38%) Windows
4 8 (3.59%) Windows Server
5 7 (3.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.79%) Solaris
7 3 (1.35%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.45%) AIX
8 1 (0.45%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 70 (31.39%) Performance Tuning
2 45 (20.18%) Disaster Recovery
2 45 (20.18%) High Availability
3 38 (17.04%) Database Security
4 34 (15.25%) Problem-Solving
5 33 (14.80%) DevOps
5 33 (14.80%) Migration
6 25 (11.21%) Agile
7 21 (9.42%) Capacity Planning
8 19 (8.52%) Task Automation
9 15 (6.73%) Continuous Improvement
9 15 (6.73%) Data Migration
9 15 (6.73%) ITIL
9 15 (6.73%) Mentoring
10 14 (6.28%) CI/CD
10 14 (6.28%) Performance Optimisation
11 13 (5.83%) Data Modelling
12 12 (5.38%) Data Protection
13 11 (4.93%) Performance Monitoring
13 11 (4.93%) Statistics
Programming Languages
1 103 (46.19%) SQL
2 22 (9.87%) Python
3 21 (9.42%) PL/SQL
4 20 (8.97%) PowerShell
4 20 (8.97%) Shell Script
5 10 (4.48%) T-SQL
6 9 (4.04%) Korn
7 4 (1.79%) Bash
7 4 (1.79%) C#
8 3 (1.35%) Bicep
8 3 (1.35%) Java
8 3 (1.35%) Perl
9 2 (0.90%) TypeScript
10 1 (0.45%) JCL
10 1 (0.45%) PHP
10 1 (0.45%) Ruby
10 1 (0.45%) VB
Qualifications
1 79 (35.43%) Security Cleared
2 57 (25.56%) SC Cleared
3 13 (5.83%) DV Cleared
4 12 (5.38%) Microsoft Certification
5 9 (4.04%) Oracle Certification
6 8 (3.59%) OCP
7 4 (1.79%) Azure Certification
7 4 (1.79%) Degree
7 4 (1.79%) MCITP
7 4 (1.79%) MCTS
8 3 (1.35%) AWS Certification
8 3 (1.35%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.45%) BC Cleared
9 1 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (4.93%) SLA
2 8 (3.59%) GDPR
3 4 (1.79%) Disclosure Scotland
4 3 (1.35%) QA
5 2 (0.90%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.45%) NIST
6 1 (0.45%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.45%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 25 (11.21%) Oracle RAC
2 6 (2.69%) Active Directory
3 5 (2.24%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.35%) NFS
4 3 (1.35%) Oracle Clusterware
Systems Management
1 29 (13.00%) Oracle RMAN
2 20 (8.97%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
3 18 (8.07%) Data Guard
4 9 (4.04%) Ansible
5 8 (3.59%) Terraform
6 4 (1.79%) Foglight
7 3 (1.35%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.90%) EMC NetWorker
8 2 (0.90%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
8 2 (0.90%) systemd
9 1 (0.45%) Grafana
9 1 (0.45%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.45%) SCCM
Vendors
1 112 (50.22%) Oracle
2 40 (17.94%) Microsoft
3 7 (3.14%) ServiceNow
4 6 (2.69%) Red Hat
4 6 (2.69%) RedGate
4 6 (2.69%) SolarWinds
5 4 (1.79%) Greenplum
5 4 (1.79%) Informatica
5 4 (1.79%) Talend
6 3 (1.35%) Databricks
6 3 (1.35%) Google
7 1 (0.45%) Cloudera
7 1 (0.45%) Commvault
7 1 (0.45%) EMC
7 1 (0.45%) IBM
7 1 (0.45%) NEC
7 1 (0.45%) Splunk
7 1 (0.45%) Sybase
7 1 (0.45%) Teradata
7 1 (0.45%) Wonderware