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 15 February 2026.

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

6 months to
15 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 425 331 338
Rank change year-on-year -94 +7 +40
Contract jobs requiring a DBA 172 210 278
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.43% 0.68% 0.62%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.47% 0.73% 0.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 122 102 188
10th Percentile £322 £357 £363
25th Percentile £404 £413 £444
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £498 £534
Median % change year-on-year +0.50% -6.84% +12.42%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £600
90th Percentile £606 £650 £669
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £454 £533
% change year-on-year -0.83% -14.87% +12.21%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 1
10th Percentile - £30.36 -
25th Percentile - £42.18 -
Median hourly rate £27.50 £63.75 £80.00
Median % change year-on-year -56.86% -20.32% +100.00%
75th Percentile £29.25 £65.62 -
90th Percentile £30.30 - -
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 36,606 28,720 41,783
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 92.93% 93.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 23,016 17,759 27,499
10th Percentile £303 £290 £275
25th Percentile £406 £406 £410
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £638
90th Percentile £720 £738 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £477 £475 £490
% change year-on-year +0.32% -3.06% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2,236 814 2,315
10th Percentile £14.61 £16.07 £13.14
25th Percentile £18.87 £21.30 £16.30
Median hourly rate £30.00 £33.25 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -9.77% -5.00% -2.78%
75th Percentile £61.84 £63.75 £60.75
90th Percentile £72.52 £75.00 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £29.60 £31.76 £35.00
% change year-on-year -6.80% -9.26% -

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 15 February 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 15 February 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 -102 144 £492 -1.60% 56
UK excluding London -74 92 £450 -0.83% 57
London -43 62 £500 - 12
Work from Home -60 41 £488 +8.57% 30
North of England -49 34 £413 -7.22% 17
West Midlands -26 20 £438 -7.51% 6
Midlands -45 20 £438 +4.17% 10
North West -31 19 £432 -2.92% 6
Yorkshire -49 16 £353 - 11
South East -54 15 £469 -8.49% 13
Scotland +6 12 £500 +8.11% 3
South West -21 7 £606 -19.20% 3
Wales +1 2 - - 5
Northern Ireland -4 1 £675 -
East of England -24 1 £375 -11.76% 9

DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 15 February 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 86 (50.00%) Oracle
2 84 (48.84%) SQL
3 65 (37.79%) Oracle Database
4 59 (34.30%) Security Cleared
5 53 (30.81%) Performance Tuning
6 44 (25.58%) SQL Server
7 42 (24.42%) Azure
8 40 (23.26%) PostgreSQL
9 39 (22.67%) AWS
9 39 (22.67%) SC Cleared
10 35 (20.35%) Disaster Recovery
11 32 (18.60%) High Availability
12 29 (16.86%) Migration
13 26 (15.12%) DevOps
14 25 (14.53%) Database Security
14 25 (14.53%) MySQL
15 24 (13.95%) Microsoft
15 24 (13.95%) PL/SQL
15 24 (13.95%) Problem-Solving
16 22 (12.79%) Oracle RAC
16 22 (12.79%) Oracle RMAN
16 22 (12.79%) Python
17 21 (12.21%) Data Guard
18 20 (11.63%) Amazon RDS
19 19 (11.05%) Linux
20 18 (10.47%) NoSQL
21 16 (9.30%) Agile
21 16 (9.30%) MongoDB
21 16 (9.30%) PowerShell
21 16 (9.30%) SQL Server Integration Services

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 (2.33%) WebLogic
2 2 (1.16%) Liferay
2 2 (1.16%) Oracle SOA Suite
2 2 (1.16%) Oracle Workflow
3 1 (0.58%) OpenEdge
3 1 (0.58%) SharePoint
Applications
1 3 (1.74%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.58%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 5 (2.91%) Oracle EBS
1 5 (2.91%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (1.16%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.58%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.58%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 42 (24.42%) Azure
2 39 (22.67%) AWS
3 15 (8.72%) Serverless
4 14 (8.14%) Azure Cosmos DB
5 6 (3.49%) Amazon S3
5 6 (3.49%) AWS Lambda
5 6 (3.49%) Azure DevOps
5 6 (3.49%) SaaS
6 5 (2.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 5 (2.91%) Snowflake
7 4 (2.33%) Amazon EC2
7 4 (2.33%) Azure AKS
7 4 (2.33%) Azure Functions
7 4 (2.33%) Azure Logic Apps
7 4 (2.33%) Azure Monitor
7 4 (2.33%) GCP
7 4 (2.33%) OCI
8 3 (1.74%) Azure Storage
8 3 (1.74%) Cloud Computing
8 3 (1.74%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.58%) Firewall
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (37.79%) Oracle Database
2 44 (25.58%) SQL Server
3 40 (23.26%) PostgreSQL
4 25 (14.53%) MySQL
5 20 (11.63%) Amazon RDS
6 18 (10.47%) NoSQL
7 16 (9.30%) MongoDB
7 16 (9.30%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 13 (7.56%) Oracle Reports
9 12 (6.98%) Relational Database
10 10 (5.81%) DynamoDB
11 9 (5.23%) RDBMS
11 9 (5.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 8 (4.65%) Amazon Aurora
12 8 (4.65%) Azure SQL Database
12 8 (4.65%) Oracle Exadata
13 7 (4.07%) SQL Server Analysis Services
14 4 (2.33%) Data Lake
14 4 (2.33%) Oracle BI EE
14 4 (2.33%) SQLPlus
Development Applications
1 8 (4.65%) Oracle APEX
2 5 (2.91%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
3 4 (2.33%) Git
4 2 (1.16%) GitLab
5 1 (0.58%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.58%) JIRA
5 1 (0.58%) TeamCity
5 1 (0.58%) Toad
General
1 27 (15.70%) Public Sector
2 20 (11.63%) Social Skills
3 13 (7.56%) Finance
4 11 (6.40%) Banking
5 10 (5.81%) Analytical Skills
6 4 (2.33%) Telecoms
7 3 (1.74%) Local Government
7 3 (1.74%) Military
8 2 (1.16%) Aviation
8 2 (1.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.16%) Legal
9 1 (0.58%) Back Office
9 1 (0.58%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.58%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.58%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.58%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (6.40%) JSON
1 11 (6.40%) XML
2 9 (5.23%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 8 (4.65%) Node.js
4 5 (2.91%) Kafka
5 4 (2.33%) .NET
6 3 (1.74%) .NET Core
6 3 (1.74%) ASP.NET
7 2 (1.16%) Oracle ADF
7 2 (1.16%) PostGIS
8 1 (0.58%) Elastic Stack
8 1 (0.58%) pgvector
Miscellaneous
1 19 (11.05%) Replication
2 13 (7.56%) Enterprise Cloud
3 10 (5.81%) Cloud Native
3 10 (5.81%) Clustering
4 8 (4.65%) Data Structures
4 8 (4.65%) Distributed Systems
5 7 (4.07%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (2.33%) Hybrid Cloud
7 3 (1.74%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (1.16%) Driving Licence
8 2 (1.16%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.58%) Data Centre
9 1 (0.58%) Data Protection Act
9 1 (0.58%) Enterprise Software
9 1 (0.58%) Product Ownership
9 1 (0.58%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 19 (11.05%) Linux
2 14 (8.14%) Unix
3 6 (3.49%) Windows
4 5 (2.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 4 (2.33%) Solaris
6 2 (1.16%) Oracle Linux
6 2 (1.16%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 53 (30.81%) Performance Tuning
2 35 (20.35%) Disaster Recovery
3 32 (18.60%) High Availability
4 29 (16.86%) Migration
5 26 (15.12%) DevOps
6 25 (14.53%) Database Security
7 24 (13.95%) Problem-Solving
8 16 (9.30%) Agile
9 15 (8.72%) Continuous Improvement
10 14 (8.14%) Capacity Planning
10 14 (8.14%) Data Migration
10 14 (8.14%) Performance Monitoring
11 13 (7.56%) CI/CD
12 12 (6.98%) Data Modelling
12 12 (6.98%) Statistics
12 12 (6.98%) Task Automation
13 11 (6.40%) Performance Optimisation
14 10 (5.81%) Data Protection
14 10 (5.81%) Mentoring
15 9 (5.23%) Patch Management
Programming Languages
1 84 (48.84%) SQL
2 24 (13.95%) PL/SQL
3 22 (12.79%) Python
4 16 (9.30%) PowerShell
5 15 (8.72%) Shell Script
6 5 (2.91%) T-SQL
7 4 (2.33%) Bash
7 4 (2.33%) C#
7 4 (2.33%) Java
8 3 (1.74%) Bicep
8 3 (1.74%) Perl
9 2 (1.16%) Korn
10 1 (0.58%) JCL
10 1 (0.58%) PHP
10 1 (0.58%) VB
Qualifications
1 59 (34.30%) Security Cleared
2 39 (22.67%) SC Cleared
3 14 (8.14%) DV Cleared
4 5 (2.91%) Oracle Certification
5 4 (2.33%) AWS Certification
5 4 (2.33%) OCP
6 3 (1.74%) Azure Certification
6 3 (1.74%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.58%) BC Cleared
7 1 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.58%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (5.81%) SLA
2 9 (5.23%) GDPR
3 4 (2.33%) Disclosure Scotland
4 3 (1.74%) QA
5 2 (1.16%) Data Quality
6 1 (0.58%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.58%) HIPAA
6 1 (0.58%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.58%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 22 (12.79%) Oracle RAC
2 4 (2.33%) Virtual Machines
3 3 (1.74%) NFS
3 3 (1.74%) Oracle Clusterware
4 1 (0.58%) Active Directory
Systems Management
1 22 (12.79%) Oracle RMAN
2 21 (12.21%) Data Guard
3 15 (8.72%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
4 8 (4.65%) Ansible
5 5 (2.91%) Terraform
6 4 (2.33%) Microsoft Clustering
7 2 (1.16%) EMC NetWorker
7 2 (1.16%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
7 2 (1.16%) Foglight
7 2 (1.16%) systemd
8 1 (0.58%) Oracle ZFS
8 1 (0.58%) SCCM
Vendors
1 86 (50.00%) Oracle
2 24 (13.95%) Microsoft
3 7 (4.07%) SolarWinds
4 6 (3.49%) Red Hat
4 6 (3.49%) RedGate
5 5 (2.91%) ServiceNow
6 4 (2.33%) Greenplum
6 4 (2.33%) Informatica
6 4 (2.33%) Talend
7 3 (1.74%) Google
8 1 (0.58%) Commvault
8 1 (0.58%) Databricks
8 1 (0.58%) Delphix
8 1 (0.58%) EMC
8 1 (0.58%) IBM
8 1 (0.58%) NEC
8 1 (0.58%) Splunk
8 1 (0.58%) Sybase