DBA Contract Job Trends

Database Administrator
UK

The median Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 6 November 2025.

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

6 months to
6 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 434 291 369
Rank change year-on-year -143 +78 +34
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 141 277 276
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.41% 0.76% 0.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.45% 0.82% 0.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 88 155 202
10th Percentile £350 £350 £363
25th Percentile £394 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -5.00%
75th Percentile £569 £610 £575
90th Percentile £675 £650 £625
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £450 £475
% change year-on-year - -5.26% -4.04%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 0 2
10th Percentile £27.20 - £61.73
25th Percentile £29.00 - £64.78
Median hourly rate £30.00 - £71.03
75th Percentile £31.00 - £76.10
90th Percentile £58.90 - £78.44
UK excluding London median hourly rate £51.00 - £71.03

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 31,481 33,928 43,540
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.93% 92.88% 93.81%
Number of daily rates quoted 19,970 20,456 29,619
10th Percentile £279 £300 £299
25th Percentile £402 £412 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £743
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £490 £500
% change year-on-year -3.06% -2.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,790 1,271 1,517
10th Percentile £14.09 £15.10 £14.90
25th Percentile £17.69 £20.22 £19.06
Median hourly rate £25.15 £37.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -32.03% -17.78% +55.71%
75th Percentile £51.19 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £69.65 £73.75 £77.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.15 £36.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -30.14% -19.10% +85.42%

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 6 November 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing DBA over the 6 months to 6 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for DBA 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 6 November 2025. 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 -111 114 £492 +3.58% 88
UK excluding London -90 67 £450 - 71
Work from Home -66 49 £475 +5.56% 52
London -82 49 £525 +5.00% 37
North of England -40 22 £450 +1.12% 19
South East -24 12 £500 -14.53% 31
Midlands -39 12 £365 -8.75% 13
South West +6 11 £613 +36.11% 3
West Midlands -17 11 £365 -22.83% 9
North West -33 11 £450 +1.12% 10
Yorkshire - 11 £358 - 3
Scotland +1 5 - -
East of England -14 3 £475 +26.67%
Wales -2 1 - -
East Midlands -32 1 - - 4
Channel Islands - 1 - - 5

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 6 November 2025, 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 72 (51.06%) Oracle
2 65 (46.10%) SQL
3 59 (41.84%) Oracle Database
4 49 (34.75%) Performance Tuning
5 48 (34.04%) SQL Server
6 40 (28.37%) Azure
7 36 (25.53%) Migration
8 35 (24.82%) AWS
9 34 (24.11%) Disaster Recovery
10 29 (20.57%) Data Guard
10 29 (20.57%) Security Cleared
11 28 (19.86%) PostgreSQL
12 27 (19.15%) Oracle RMAN
13 26 (18.44%) DevOps
13 26 (18.44%) High Availability
13 26 (18.44%) MySQL
14 25 (17.73%) Linux
15 24 (17.02%) Oracle RAC
15 24 (17.02%) Python
15 24 (17.02%) SC Cleared
16 23 (16.31%) Problem-Solving
17 21 (14.89%) CI/CD
18 20 (14.18%) Data Modelling
18 20 (14.18%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
19 19 (13.48%) Database Security
20 18 (12.77%) PL/SQL
21 17 (12.06%) Microsoft
21 17 (12.06%) Task Automation
22 16 (11.35%) Oracle GoldenGate
23 15 (10.64%) Oracle Exadata

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 (3.55%) Oracle Workflow
2 4 (2.84%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 4 (2.84%) WebLogic
3 1 (0.71%) Apache Airflow
3 1 (0.71%) OpenEdge
Business Applications
1 6 (4.26%) Oracle EBS R12
2 5 (3.55%) Oracle EBS
3 4 (2.84%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.71%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 40 (28.37%) Azure
2 35 (24.82%) AWS
3 14 (9.93%) Serverless
4 12 (8.51%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 9 (6.38%) Amazon EC2
5 9 (6.38%) Azure Monitor
6 8 (5.67%) OCI
7 7 (4.96%) Power Platform
8 6 (4.26%) Amazon S3
8 6 (4.26%) AWS Lambda
8 6 (4.26%) Azure Cosmos DB
8 6 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
8 6 (4.26%) Azure Functions
8 6 (4.26%) Azure Logic Apps
8 6 (4.26%) SaaS
8 6 (4.26%) Snowflake
9 5 (3.55%) AWS CloudFormation
9 5 (3.55%) Azure Data Factory
9 5 (3.55%) Datadog
9 5 (3.55%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 3 (2.13%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 59 (41.84%) Oracle Database
2 48 (34.04%) SQL Server
3 28 (19.86%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (18.44%) MySQL
5 15 (10.64%) Oracle Exadata
6 14 (9.93%) Amazon RDS
6 14 (9.93%) NoSQL
7 12 (8.51%) Azure SQL Database
8 9 (6.38%) Relational Database
8 9 (6.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 8 (5.67%) Amazon Aurora
9 8 (5.67%) MongoDB
9 8 (5.67%) Oracle Database 12c
10 7 (4.96%) Data Warehouse
10 7 (4.96%) Power BI
11 6 (4.26%) DB2
11 6 (4.26%) DynamoDB
11 6 (4.26%) Oracle Reports
11 6 (4.26%) RDBMS
12 5 (3.55%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 6 (4.26%) Git
2 4 (2.84%) Oracle APEX
3 3 (2.13%) ERwin
4 1 (0.71%) GitLab
4 1 (0.71%) JIRA
4 1 (0.71%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
4 1 (0.71%) Toad
General
1 24 (17.02%) Finance
2 20 (14.18%) Social Skills
3 12 (8.51%) Banking
4 10 (7.09%) Public Sector
5 8 (5.67%) Analytical Skills
5 8 (5.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 6 (4.26%) Telecoms
7 3 (2.13%) Electronics
7 3 (2.13%) Investment Banking
7 3 (2.13%) Local Government
7 3 (2.13%) Manufacturing
7 3 (2.13%) Marketing
8 2 (1.42%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.71%) Automotive
9 1 (0.71%) Law
9 1 (0.71%) Organisational Skills
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 16 (11.35%) Oracle GoldenGate
2 8 (5.67%) Node.js
3 4 (2.84%) .NET
3 4 (2.84%) .NET Core
3 4 (2.84%) ASP.NET
4 2 (1.42%) ARM Templates
4 2 (1.42%) FastAPI
4 2 (1.42%) pgvector
4 2 (1.42%) PostGIS
5 1 (0.71%) JSON
5 1 (0.71%) Kafka
5 1 (0.71%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 25 (17.73%) Replication
2 16 (11.35%) Clustering
3 10 (7.09%) Cloud Native
3 10 (7.09%) Enterprise Cloud
4 8 (5.67%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (4.26%) Enterprise Software
6 5 (3.55%) Legacy Systems
7 4 (2.84%) Hybrid Cloud
8 2 (1.42%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.71%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.71%) Mainframe
9 1 (0.71%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.71%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.71%) Public Cloud
9 1 (0.71%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 25 (17.73%) Linux
2 14 (9.93%) Unix
3 11 (7.80%) Windows
4 5 (3.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (2.13%) Solaris
6 2 (1.42%) AIX
6 2 (1.42%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (1.42%) VMS
6 2 (1.42%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 49 (34.75%) Performance Tuning
2 36 (25.53%) Migration
3 34 (24.11%) Disaster Recovery
4 26 (18.44%) DevOps
4 26 (18.44%) High Availability
5 23 (16.31%) Problem-Solving
6 21 (14.89%) CI/CD
7 20 (14.18%) Data Modelling
8 19 (13.48%) Database Security
9 17 (12.06%) Task Automation
10 14 (9.93%) Capacity Planning
11 13 (9.22%) Agile
11 13 (9.22%) Database Migration
12 11 (7.80%) Continuous Improvement
12 11 (7.80%) Database Tuning
13 10 (7.09%) ETL
13 10 (7.09%) Infrastructure as Code
13 10 (7.09%) Line Management
13 10 (7.09%) Stakeholder Management
14 9 (6.38%) Business Intelligence
Programming Languages
1 65 (46.10%) SQL
2 24 (17.02%) Python
3 18 (12.77%) PL/SQL
4 14 (9.93%) Shell Script
5 10 (7.09%) Bash
5 10 (7.09%) T-SQL
6 9 (6.38%) PowerShell
7 4 (2.84%) C#
7 4 (2.84%) Java
7 4 (2.84%) Perl
8 2 (1.42%) AWK
8 2 (1.42%) Bicep
8 2 (1.42%) sed
9 1 (0.71%) ANSI SQL
9 1 (0.71%) C
9 1 (0.71%) JavaScript
9 1 (0.71%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 29 (20.57%) Security Cleared
2 24 (17.02%) SC Cleared
3 8 (5.67%) Microsoft Certification
4 7 (4.96%) Azure Certification
4 7 (4.96%) DV Cleared
5 5 (3.55%) OCP
5 5 (3.55%) Oracle Certification
6 4 (2.84%) AWS Certification
7 2 (1.42%) Degree
7 2 (1.42%) MCSE
7 2 (1.42%) OCA
8 1 (0.71%) BPSS Clearance
8 1 (0.71%) Computer Science Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (4.26%) PCI DSS
2 5 (3.55%) GDPR
2 5 (3.55%) QA
2 5 (3.55%) SLA
3 1 (0.71%) Accessibility
3 1 (0.71%) Actionable Recommendations
3 1 (0.71%) Data Quality
3 1 (0.71%) HIPAA
3 1 (0.71%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 24 (17.02%) Oracle RAC
2 5 (3.55%) NFS
3 2 (1.42%) GPFS
4 1 (0.71%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 29 (20.57%) Data Guard
2 27 (19.15%) Oracle RMAN
3 20 (14.18%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 11 (7.80%) Terraform
5 6 (4.26%) Ansible
6 4 (2.84%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 2 (1.42%) EMC NetWorker
7 2 (1.42%) yum
8 1 (0.71%) Microsoft Clustering
8 1 (0.71%) Oracle ZFS
Vendors
1 72 (51.06%) Oracle
2 17 (12.06%) Microsoft
3 6 (4.26%) Red Hat
4 3 (2.13%) SAP
4 3 (2.13%) Teradata
5 2 (1.42%) Delphix
5 2 (1.42%) IBM
5 2 (1.42%) ServiceNow
5 2 (1.42%) Sybase
6 1 (0.71%) BMC
6 1 (0.71%) Cisco
6 1 (0.71%) EMC
6 1 (0.71%) Google
6 1 (0.71%) Salesforce
6 1 (0.71%) SolarWinds