DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 20 March 2026.

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

6 months to
20 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 376 348 302
Rank change year-on-year -28 -46 +93
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 248 178 306
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.57% 0.61% 0.69%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.62% 0.65% 0.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 184 95 208
10th Percentile £350 £352 £363
25th Percentile £371 £411 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £450 £533
Median % change year-on-year - -15.57% +7.68%
75th Percentile £525 £531 £600
90th Percentile £606 £673 £667
UK excluding London median daily rate £427 £447 £523
% change year-on-year -4.53% -14.40% +8.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 2
10th Percentile - £30.36 £33.20
25th Percentile - £42.18 £41.00
Median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £54.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.86% +18.05% +35.00%
75th Percentile - £65.62 £67.00
90th Percentile - - £74.80
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £54.00
% change year-on-year -56.86% +18.05% +105.71%

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 39,980 27,191 41,155
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.91% 92.93% 92.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 25,004 17,726 26,995
10th Percentile £313 £300 £275
25th Percentile £410 £406 £407
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £521 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.03% -0.76% -4.11%
75th Percentile £613 £630 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £475 £487
% change year-on-year +1.05% -2.46% -2.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,473 892 2,490
10th Percentile £15.00 £15.22 £12.86
25th Percentile £19.25 £21.01 £16.25
Median hourly rate £36.00 £32.50 £32.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.77% - -23.53%
75th Percentile £65.00 £65.00 £59.99
90th Percentile £76.25 £77.10 £71.30
UK excluding London median hourly rate £36.00 £32.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +12.50% -1.54% -19.92%

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 20 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 16 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 20 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 -21 218 £446 -0.89% 54
UK excluding London -20 146 £427 -4.53% 40
London -32 85 £500 - 18
North of England -33 63 £405 -9.04% 11
Work from Home -54 54 £500 +12.36% 13
North West -20 36 £432 -2.92% 8
South East -55 32 £419 -16.28% 12
Yorkshire -32 28 £365 - 3
Midlands -45 27 £445 +8.54% 9
West Midlands -40 26 £441 -6.77% 7
Scotland +9 11 £500 - 3
South West -22 8 £606 -19.20%
Wales -7 3 - -
Northern Ireland -5 1 £675 -
East of England -23 1 £375 -11.76% 5
East Midlands -41 1 £540 +35.00% 2

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 20 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.

1 126 (50.81%) Oracle
2 122 (49.19%) SQL
3 91 (36.69%) Security Cleared
4 87 (35.08%) SQL Server
5 79 (31.85%) Oracle Database
6 78 (31.45%) Performance Tuning
7 69 (27.82%) SC Cleared
8 65 (26.21%) PostgreSQL
9 53 (21.37%) Azure
9 53 (21.37%) High Availability
10 47 (18.95%) AWS
10 47 (18.95%) Microsoft
11 44 (17.74%) Disaster Recovery
12 42 (16.94%) MySQL
13 40 (16.13%) Database Security
13 40 (16.13%) Migration
14 37 (14.92%) Problem-Solving
15 36 (14.52%) DevOps
16 33 (13.31%) Oracle RMAN
17 29 (11.69%) Linux
18 27 (10.89%) Python
19 26 (10.48%) Agile
20 25 (10.08%) MongoDB
20 25 (10.08%) Oracle RAC
21 24 (9.68%) Amazon RDS
21 24 (9.68%) Unix
22 21 (8.47%) Capacity Planning
22 21 (8.47%) PL/SQL
23 20 (8.06%) NoSQL
23 20 (8.06%) 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 (1.61%) WebLogic
2 3 (1.21%) Confluence
2 3 (1.21%) Oracle Workflow
3 2 (0.81%) Liferay
3 2 (0.81%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.40%) OpenEdge
4 1 (0.40%) Oracle Application Server
4 1 (0.40%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.40%) Tomcat
Applications
1 3 (1.21%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.40%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 7 (2.82%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (2.02%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.81%) Oracle Applications
3 2 (0.81%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.81%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.40%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 53 (21.37%) Azure
2 47 (18.95%) AWS
3 17 (6.85%) Serverless
4 15 (6.05%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 7 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
5 7 (2.82%) SaaS
6 6 (2.42%) Amazon S3
7 5 (2.02%) Azure Data Factory
7 5 (2.02%) GCP
7 5 (2.02%) OCI
7 5 (2.02%) PaaS
7 5 (2.02%) Snowflake
8 4 (1.61%) Amazon EC2
8 4 (1.61%) AWS Lambda
8 4 (1.61%) Azure AKS
8 4 (1.61%) Azure Functions
8 4 (1.61%) Azure Logic Apps
8 4 (1.61%) Azure Monitor
9 3 (1.21%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 3 (1.21%) Cloud Computing
Database & Business Intelligence
1 87 (35.08%) SQL Server
2 79 (31.85%) Oracle Database
3 65 (26.21%) PostgreSQL
4 42 (16.94%) MySQL
5 25 (10.08%) MongoDB
6 24 (9.68%) Amazon RDS
7 20 (8.06%) NoSQL
7 20 (8.06%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 19 (7.66%) Relational Database
9 18 (7.26%) Oracle Reports
10 16 (6.45%) Azure SQL Database
11 15 (6.05%) RDBMS
12 12 (4.84%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 11 (4.44%) Oracle Database 12c
14 8 (3.23%) Amazon Aurora
14 8 (3.23%) DynamoDB
15 6 (2.42%) SQL Server Analysis Services
16 5 (2.02%) Big Data
17 4 (1.61%) Oracle BI EE
17 4 (1.61%) Oracle Exadata
Development Applications
1 8 (3.23%) Git
2 6 (2.42%) GitLab
2 6 (2.42%) Oracle APEX
3 4 (1.61%) Jenkins
3 4 (1.61%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 3 (1.21%) Flyway
5 1 (0.40%) JIRA
5 1 (0.40%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.40%) Toad
General
1 37 (14.92%) Social Skills
2 34 (13.71%) Public Sector
3 25 (10.08%) Finance
4 22 (8.87%) Analytical Skills
5 11 (4.44%) Banking
6 6 (2.42%) Legal
7 5 (2.02%) Telecoms
8 4 (1.61%) Military
9 3 (1.21%) Publishing
10 2 (0.81%) Aviation
10 2 (0.81%) Documentation Skills
10 2 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.81%) Investment Banking
10 2 (0.81%) Local Government
10 2 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.40%) Advertising
11 1 (0.40%) Back Office
11 1 (0.40%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.40%) Pharmaceutical
11 1 (0.40%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (6.85%) JSON
2 15 (6.05%) XML
3 13 (5.24%) Oracle GoldenGate
4 9 (3.63%) Kafka
5 6 (2.42%) Node.js
6 4 (1.61%) .NET
7 3 (1.21%) .NET Core
7 3 (1.21%) ASP.NET
7 3 (1.21%) AWS CDK
7 3 (1.21%) GeoJSON
7 3 (1.21%) Matplotlib
7 3 (1.21%) OLE
7 3 (1.21%) Pandas
7 3 (1.21%) Polars
7 3 (1.21%) scikit-learn
8 2 (0.81%) Oracle ADF
8 2 (0.81%) PostGIS
9 1 (0.40%) Elastic Stack
9 1 (0.40%) Oracle Fusion
9 1 (0.40%) pgvector
Miscellaneous
1 20 (8.06%) Replication
2 16 (6.45%) Enterprise Cloud
3 14 (5.65%) Clustering
4 12 (4.84%) Legacy Systems
5 9 (3.63%) Cloud Native
6 8 (3.23%) Data Structures
7 6 (2.42%) Distributed Systems
8 4 (1.61%) Legacy Applications
9 3 (1.21%) Onboarding
10 2 (0.81%) Driving Licence
10 2 (0.81%) Mainframe
10 2 (0.81%) NHS
10 2 (0.81%) Public Cloud
11 1 (0.40%) Data Centre
11 1 (0.40%) Enterprise Software
11 1 (0.40%) Life Science
11 1 (0.40%) Operational Technology
11 1 (0.40%) Product Ownership
11 1 (0.40%) SCADA
11 1 (0.40%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 29 (11.69%) Linux
2 24 (9.68%) Unix
3 14 (5.65%) Windows
4 9 (3.63%) Windows Server
5 8 (3.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 4 (1.61%) Oracle Linux
7 3 (1.21%) Solaris
8 1 (0.40%) AIX
8 1 (0.40%) Data ONTAP
8 1 (0.40%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 78 (31.45%) Performance Tuning
2 53 (21.37%) High Availability
3 44 (17.74%) Disaster Recovery
4 40 (16.13%) Database Security
4 40 (16.13%) Migration
5 37 (14.92%) Problem-Solving
6 36 (14.52%) DevOps
7 26 (10.48%) Agile
8 21 (8.47%) Capacity Planning
9 20 (8.06%) Task Automation
10 18 (7.26%) Continuous Improvement
11 17 (6.85%) Data Migration
12 16 (6.45%) ITIL
13 15 (6.05%) CI/CD
13 15 (6.05%) Data Modelling
13 15 (6.05%) Mentoring
14 14 (5.65%) Data Protection
14 14 (5.65%) Performance Optimisation
14 14 (5.65%) Statistics
15 11 (4.44%) Database Tuning
Programming Languages
1 122 (49.19%) SQL
2 27 (10.89%) Python
3 21 (8.47%) PL/SQL
4 20 (8.06%) PowerShell
4 20 (8.06%) Shell Script
5 10 (4.03%) T-SQL
6 9 (3.63%) Korn
7 4 (1.61%) C#
8 3 (1.21%) Bash
8 3 (1.21%) Bicep
8 3 (1.21%) Perl
8 3 (1.21%) TypeScript
9 2 (0.81%) Java
10 1 (0.40%) JCL
10 1 (0.40%) PHP
10 1 (0.40%) Ruby
10 1 (0.40%) VB
Qualifications
1 91 (36.69%) Security Cleared
2 69 (27.82%) SC Cleared
3 14 (5.65%) Microsoft Certification
4 13 (5.24%) DV Cleared
5 9 (3.63%) Oracle Certification
6 8 (3.23%) OCP
7 5 (2.02%) Degree
8 4 (1.61%) Azure Certification
8 4 (1.61%) Computer Science Degree
8 4 (1.61%) MCITP
8 4 (1.61%) MCTS
9 2 (0.81%) AWS Certification
10 1 (0.40%) BC Cleared
10 1 (0.40%) BPSS Clearance
10 1 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (4.84%) SLA
2 8 (3.23%) GDPR
3 7 (2.82%) Data Quality
4 5 (2.02%) QA
5 4 (1.61%) Disclosure Scotland
6 1 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.40%) NIST
6 1 (0.40%) NIST 800
6 1 (0.40%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 25 (10.08%) Oracle RAC
2 6 (2.42%) Active Directory
3 5 (2.02%) Virtual Machines
4 3 (1.21%) Oracle Clusterware
5 2 (0.81%) NFS
Systems Management
1 33 (13.31%) Oracle RMAN
2 20 (8.06%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
3 18 (7.26%) Data Guard
4 11 (4.44%) Ansible
5 8 (3.23%) Terraform
6 5 (2.02%) Foglight
7 3 (1.21%) EMC NetWorker
7 3 (1.21%) Microsoft Clustering
8 2 (0.81%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
8 2 (0.81%) systemd
9 1 (0.40%) Grafana
9 1 (0.40%) Prometheus
9 1 (0.40%) SCCM
Vendors
1 126 (50.81%) Oracle
2 47 (18.95%) Microsoft
3 8 (3.23%) ServiceNow
4 6 (2.42%) Red Hat
4 6 (2.42%) RedGate
4 6 (2.42%) SolarWinds
5 4 (1.61%) Databricks
5 4 (1.61%) Google
5 4 (1.61%) Greenplum
5 4 (1.61%) Informatica
5 4 (1.61%) Talend
6 2 (0.81%) EMC
6 2 (0.81%) Sybase
7 1 (0.40%) Cloudera
7 1 (0.40%) Commvault
7 1 (0.40%) IBM
7 1 (0.40%) NEC
7 1 (0.40%) NetApp
7 1 (0.40%) Teradata
7 1 (0.40%) Wonderware