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 5 March 2026.

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

6 months to
5 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 405 326 325
Rank change year-on-year -79 -1 +63
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 211 196 285
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.50% 0.65% 0.65%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.54% 0.70% 0.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 156 100 196
10th Percentile £350 £355 £363
25th Percentile £392 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £533
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -10.88% +9.90%
75th Percentile £538 £541 £600
90th Percentile £598 £654 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £430 £450 £524
% change year-on-year -4.44% -14.08% +10.26%
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 39,102 28,091 40,933
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.86% 92.82% 92.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 24,515 17,820 26,884
10th Percentile £310 £290 £275
25th Percentile £409 £406 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £638
90th Percentile £723 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £481 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.32% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,389 852 2,408
10th Percentile £14.64 £16.23 £13.04
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.39 £16.25
Median hourly rate £33.50 £34.00 £34.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.47% - -16.05%
75th Percentile £64.00 £64.57 £60.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £75.23 £71.90
UK excluding London median hourly rate £32.50 £32.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year - -7.14% -10.26%

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 5 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 5 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 -60 182 £467 -6.60% 78
UK excluding London -62 117 £430 -4.44% 61
London -52 75 £500 - 21
Work from Home -54 53 £500 +12.11% 26
North of England -38 42 £400 -10.11% 27
South East -56 27 £425 -17.17% 18
West Midlands -31 26 £441 -6.77% 4
Midlands -45 26 £441 +7.56% 7
North West -32 23 £424 -4.63% 18
Yorkshire -47 20 £365 - 8
Scotland +14 11 £500 +8.11% 1
South West -24 7 £606 -19.20% 1
Wales -2 2 - - 2
Northern Ireland -2 1 £675 -
East of England -29 1 £375 -11.76% 6

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 5 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.

1 107 (50.71%) Oracle
2 98 (46.45%) SQL
3 76 (36.02%) Security Cleared
4 71 (33.65%) Oracle Database
5 70 (33.18%) SQL Server
6 66 (31.28%) Performance Tuning
7 54 (25.59%) SC Cleared
8 53 (25.12%) PostgreSQL
9 47 (22.27%) Disaster Recovery
10 46 (21.80%) Azure
11 44 (20.85%) AWS
12 42 (19.91%) High Availability
13 40 (18.96%) Microsoft
14 38 (18.01%) Database Security
15 35 (16.59%) MySQL
16 34 (16.11%) Problem-Solving
17 33 (15.64%) DevOps
18 32 (15.17%) Migration
19 28 (13.27%) Oracle RMAN
20 25 (11.85%) Oracle RAC
21 24 (11.37%) Agile
21 24 (11.37%) Python
22 23 (10.90%) Amazon RDS
22 23 (10.90%) MongoDB
22 23 (10.90%) NoSQL
23 22 (10.43%) PL/SQL
24 21 (9.95%) Capacity Planning
24 21 (9.95%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
24 21 (9.95%) Unix
25 20 (9.48%) Linux

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 (1.90%) WebLogic
2 3 (1.42%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (0.95%) Liferay
3 2 (0.95%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.47%) Confluence
4 1 (0.47%) OpenEdge
4 1 (0.47%) Oracle Application Server
4 1 (0.47%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (3.32%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (2.37%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.95%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.95%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.47%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 46 (21.80%) Azure
2 44 (20.85%) AWS
3 20 (9.48%) Serverless
4 15 (7.11%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 7 (3.32%) SaaS
6 6 (2.84%) Amazon S3
6 6 (2.84%) AWS Lambda
6 6 (2.84%) Azure DevOps
7 5 (2.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 5 (2.37%) Azure AKS
7 5 (2.37%) Azure Functions
7 5 (2.37%) Azure Logic Apps
7 5 (2.37%) Azure Monitor
7 5 (2.37%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.90%) Amazon EC2
8 4 (1.90%) GCP
8 4 (1.90%) OCI
9 3 (1.42%) Cloud Computing
9 3 (1.42%) PaaS
9 3 (1.42%) Power Platform
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.47%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (33.65%) Oracle Database
2 70 (33.18%) SQL Server
3 53 (25.12%) PostgreSQL
4 35 (16.59%) MySQL
5 23 (10.90%) Amazon RDS
5 23 (10.90%) MongoDB
5 23 (10.90%) NoSQL
6 18 (8.53%) Oracle Reports
6 18 (8.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 16 (7.58%) Relational Database
8 13 (6.16%) RDBMS
9 11 (5.21%) Azure SQL Database
10 10 (4.74%) DynamoDB
10 10 (4.74%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 9 (4.27%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (2.84%) Oracle Database 12c
12 6 (2.84%) SQL Server Analysis Services
13 5 (2.37%) Oracle Exadata
14 4 (1.90%) Data Lake
14 4 (1.90%) Oracle BI EE
Development Applications
1 7 (3.32%) Git
2 6 (2.84%) Oracle APEX
3 4 (1.90%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 3 (1.42%) GitLab
5 2 (0.95%) Jenkins
6 1 (0.47%) Flyway
6 1 (0.47%) JIRA
6 1 (0.47%) TeamCity
6 1 (0.47%) Toad
General
1 33 (15.64%) Public Sector
2 30 (14.22%) Social Skills
3 22 (10.43%) Finance
4 14 (6.64%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (5.69%) Banking
6 4 (1.90%) Legal
6 4 (1.90%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.42%) Military
8 2 (0.95%) Aviation
8 2 (0.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (0.95%) Local Government
8 2 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.47%) Advertising
9 1 (0.47%) Back Office
9 1 (0.47%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.47%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.47%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.47%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.47%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 15 (7.11%) JSON
1 15 (7.11%) XML
2 13 (6.16%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 9 (4.27%) Kafka
3 9 (4.27%) Node.js
4 5 (2.37%) .NET
5 4 (1.90%) .NET Core
5 4 (1.90%) ASP.NET
6 2 (0.95%) Oracle ADF
7 1 (0.47%) AWS CDK
7 1 (0.47%) Elastic Stack
7 1 (0.47%) OLE
7 1 (0.47%) Oracle Fusion
7 1 (0.47%) PostGIS
Miscellaneous
1 19 (9.00%) Replication
2 14 (6.64%) Enterprise Cloud
3 13 (6.16%) Clustering
4 12 (5.69%) Legacy Systems
5 11 (5.21%) Cloud Native
6 9 (4.27%) Distributed Systems
7 8 (3.79%) Data Structures
8 4 (1.90%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (0.95%) Driving Licence
9 2 (0.95%) Hybrid Cloud
9 2 (0.95%) Mainframe
10 1 (0.47%) Data Centre
10 1 (0.47%) Enterprise Software
10 1 (0.47%) Life Science
10 1 (0.47%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.47%) Operational Technology
10 1 (0.47%) Product Ownership
10 1 (0.47%) Public Cloud
10 1 (0.47%) SCADA
10 1 (0.47%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 21 (9.95%) Unix
2 20 (9.48%) Linux
3 11 (5.21%) Windows
4 7 (3.32%) Windows Server
5 6 (2.84%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.90%) Solaris
7 2 (0.95%) Oracle Linux
8 1 (0.47%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 66 (31.28%) Performance Tuning
2 47 (22.27%) Disaster Recovery
3 42 (19.91%) High Availability
4 38 (18.01%) Database Security
5 34 (16.11%) Problem-Solving
6 33 (15.64%) DevOps
7 32 (15.17%) Migration
8 24 (11.37%) Agile
9 21 (9.95%) Capacity Planning
10 18 (8.53%) Task Automation
11 16 (7.58%) Mentoring
12 15 (7.11%) Continuous Improvement
12 15 (7.11%) Data Modelling
13 14 (6.64%) CI/CD
13 14 (6.64%) Data Migration
13 14 (6.64%) Performance Optimisation
14 13 (6.16%) ITIL
15 12 (5.69%) Data Protection
16 11 (5.21%) Performance Monitoring
16 11 (5.21%) Statistics
Programming Languages
1 98 (46.45%) SQL
2 24 (11.37%) Python
3 22 (10.43%) PL/SQL
4 20 (9.48%) PowerShell
5 19 (9.00%) Shell Script
6 10 (4.74%) T-SQL
7 8 (3.79%) Korn
8 5 (2.37%) Bash
8 5 (2.37%) C#
9 4 (1.90%) Java
10 3 (1.42%) Bicep
10 3 (1.42%) Perl
11 1 (0.47%) JCL
11 1 (0.47%) PHP
11 1 (0.47%) Ruby
11 1 (0.47%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.47%) VB
Qualifications
1 76 (36.02%) Security Cleared
2 54 (25.59%) SC Cleared
3 13 (6.16%) DV Cleared
4 11 (5.21%) Microsoft Certification
5 10 (4.74%) Oracle Certification
6 9 (4.27%) OCP
7 4 (1.90%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.90%) Azure Certification
8 3 (1.42%) Degree
8 3 (1.42%) MCITP
8 3 (1.42%) MCTS
9 2 (0.95%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.47%) BC Cleared
10 1 (0.47%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 11 (5.21%) SLA
2 9 (4.27%) GDPR
3 4 (1.90%) Disclosure Scotland
4 3 (1.42%) QA
5 2 (0.95%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.47%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.47%) NIST
6 1 (0.47%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.47%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 25 (11.85%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (2.37%) Active Directory
2 5 (2.37%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.42%) NFS
3 3 (1.42%) Oracle Clusterware
Systems Management
1 28 (13.27%) Oracle RMAN
2 21 (9.95%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
3 19 (9.00%) Data Guard
4 8 (3.79%) Ansible
5 7 (3.32%) Terraform
6 3 (1.42%) Foglight
6 3 (1.42%) Microsoft Clustering
7 2 (0.95%) EMC NetWorker
7 2 (0.95%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 2 (0.95%) systemd
8 1 (0.47%) SCCM
Vendors
1 107 (50.71%) Oracle
2 40 (18.96%) Microsoft
3 6 (2.84%) Red Hat
3 6 (2.84%) RedGate
3 6 (2.84%) ServiceNow
3 6 (2.84%) SolarWinds
4 4 (1.90%) Greenplum
4 4 (1.90%) Informatica
4 4 (1.90%) Talend
5 3 (1.42%) Google
6 2 (0.95%) Databricks
7 1 (0.47%) Cloudera
7 1 (0.47%) Commvault
7 1 (0.47%) EMC
7 1 (0.47%) IBM
7 1 (0.47%) NEC
7 1 (0.47%) Splunk
7 1 (0.47%) Sybase
7 1 (0.47%) Teradata
7 1 (0.47%) Wonderware