SQL Server Contracts

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies requiring SQL Server skills. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that cited SQL Server over the 6 months leading up to 1 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 105 57 54
Rank change year-on-year -48 -3 0
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 767 1,438 2,244
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.49% 3.33% 4.02%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.58% 19.08% 23.35%
Number of daily rates quoted 568 1,008 1,688
10th Percentile £325 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £413 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.65% -4.14% -
75th Percentile £625 £628 £650
90th Percentile £750 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £450 £475 £500
% change year-on-year -5.26% -5.00% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 23 14
10th Percentile £21.02 £25.55 £26.14
25th Percentile £25.00 £38.81 £33.30
Median hourly rate £70.00 £40.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £88.75 £47.47 £74.38
90th Percentile £92.50 £62.96 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £25.00 £40.00 £34.80
% change year-on-year -37.50% +14.96% -31.81%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
UK

SQL Server falls under the Databases and Business Intelligence category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring database or business intelligence skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 5,649 7,536 9,609
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.33% 17.46% 17.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,829 5,379 6,750
10th Percentile £356 £350 £372
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £650 £650
90th Percentile £751 £788 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £500
% change year-on-year - -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 100 150 171
10th Percentile £19.56 £14.00 £21.24
25th Percentile £25.57 £20.82 £32.30
Median hourly rate £34.99 £40.00 £56.40
Median % change year-on-year -12.53% -29.08% +40.47%
75th Percentile £63.94 £53.29 £73.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £72.50 £82.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.64 £33.00 £55.00
% change year-on-year -4.12% -40.00% +57.14%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SQL Server as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SQL Server.

Daily rate trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server over the 6 months to 1 July 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SQL Server.

Hourly rate trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL Server over the 6 months to 1 July 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Top 17 Contract Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL Server within the UK over the 6 months to 1 July 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 -42 670 £510 +0.99% 3,458
London -40 412 £575 +9.52% 1,407
UK excluding London -32 274 £450 -5.26% 2,321
Work from Home -52 248 £500 - 1,729
North of England -11 84 £425 -6.08% 587
South East +5 64 £450 -11.11% 699
North West -10 59 £435 -3.33% 382
Midlands -27 45 £425 -4.92% 326
Scotland +3 35 £475 - 171
West Midlands -9 27 £525 +2.94% 191
South West -12 26 £475 -11.63% 238
Yorkshire -3 20 £400 -13.51% 165
East Midlands -21 17 £327 -26.63% 128
East of England +15 15 £500 +5.26% 219
Northern Ireland - 6 £470 - 46
North East -1 5 £456 -3.95% 42
Wales +2 3 £226 -48.34% 53

SQL Server
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 42 (5.48%) IIS
2 37 (4.82%) Apache
3 28 (3.65%) SharePoint
4 24 (3.13%) Microsoft Exchange
5 19 (2.48%) Confluence
6 16 (2.09%) Apache Spark
7 7 (0.91%) Tomcat
7 7 (0.91%) WebSphere
8 6 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.78%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.65%) nginx
9 5 (0.65%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.52%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.52%) BizTalk Server
10 4 (0.52%) CMS
10 4 (0.52%) Drupal
10 4 (0.52%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.52%) SAS
10 4 (0.52%) WordPress
11 3 (0.39%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 68 (8.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.91%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.26%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Project
5 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.13%) SPSS
5 1 (0.13%) Stata
5 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 31 (4.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.91%) Kondor
2 7 (0.91%) Maximo
2 7 (0.91%) OpenText MBPM
2 7 (0.91%) Oracle BPM
3 5 (0.65%) Endur
3 5 (0.65%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 4 (0.52%) Cognos Business Intelligence
4 4 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
5 3 (0.39%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.39%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.26%) Aladdin
6 2 (0.26%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.26%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.26%) Fidessa
6 2 (0.26%) Markit EDM
6 2 (0.26%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.26%) SAP ERP
7 1 (0.13%) Bloomberg AIM
7 1 (0.13%) Loan IQ
Cloud Services
1 341 (44.46%) Azure
2 124 (16.17%) Power Platform
3 119 (15.51%) AWS
4 62 (8.08%) Azure DevOps
5 53 (6.91%) Azure Data Factory
6 44 (5.74%) Microsoft 365
7 42 (5.48%) Entra ID
8 35 (4.56%) Dynamics 365
9 33 (4.30%) PowerApps
10 31 (4.04%) Azure Service Bus
10 31 (4.04%) Power Automate
11 30 (3.91%) GCP
11 30 (3.91%) Serverless
12 27 (3.52%) GitHub
13 26 (3.39%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 26 (3.39%) Azure Logic Apps
14 24 (3.13%) Azure Functions
15 21 (2.74%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 21 (2.74%) SaaS
16 19 (2.48%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 35 (4.56%) Firewall
2 30 (3.91%) DNS
3 21 (2.74%) Internet
4 17 (2.22%) TCP/IP
5 12 (1.56%) HTTP
6 11 (1.43%) DHCP
6 11 (1.43%) Network Security
7 8 (1.04%) Intrusion Detection
8 7 (0.91%) VPN
9 6 (0.78%) LAN
9 6 (0.78%) WAN
10 4 (0.52%) Skype
10 4 (0.52%) SSH
10 4 (0.52%) VLAN
10 4 (0.52%) VoIP
11 3 (0.39%) SSL
12 2 (0.26%) iSCSI
12 2 (0.26%) Remote Desktop
12 2 (0.26%) SAN
12 2 (0.26%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (12.26%) Power BI
2 73 (9.52%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 72 (9.39%) Relational Database
4 71 (9.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 61 (7.95%) Data Warehouse
6 58 (7.56%) Oracle Database
6 58 (7.56%) PostgreSQL
7 54 (7.04%) Azure SQL Database
8 50 (6.52%) MySQL
9 43 (5.61%) NoSQL
10 41 (5.35%) MongoDB
11 27 (3.52%) DB2
12 23 (3.00%) Amazon RDS
12 23 (3.00%) Big Data
13 19 (2.48%) Tableau
14 17 (2.22%) Metadata
14 17 (2.22%) RDBMS
15 16 (2.09%) Hadoop
16 14 (1.83%) Data Lake
16 14 (1.83%) Redis
Development Applications
1 54 (7.04%) Git
2 51 (6.65%) JIRA
3 24 (3.13%) GitLab
4 23 (3.00%) Jenkins
5 18 (2.35%) Visual Studio
6 16 (2.09%) Bitbucket
7 13 (1.69%) Selenium
7 13 (1.69%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 11 (1.43%) Team Foundation Server
9 9 (1.17%) Cucumber
9 9 (1.17%) ERwin
9 9 (1.17%) JUnit
9 9 (1.17%) Maven
9 9 (1.17%) SonarQube
9 9 (1.17%) Sonatype Nexus
10 8 (1.04%) Octopus Deploy
11 7 (0.91%) Mockito
11 7 (0.91%) TeamCity
12 6 (0.78%) QARun
12 6 (0.78%) SpecFlow
General
1 236 (30.77%) Finance
2 216 (28.16%) Social Skills
3 102 (13.30%) Banking
4 88 (11.47%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (6.39%) Public Sector
6 27 (3.52%) Front Office
6 27 (3.52%) Investment Banking
7 16 (2.09%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 12 (1.56%) Back Office
9 12 (1.56%) Legal
9 12 (1.56%) Telecoms
10 11 (1.43%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.17%) Financial Institution
12 8 (1.04%) Law
13 6 (0.78%) Local Government
13 6 (0.78%) Retail
14 4 (0.52%) Marketing
14 4 (0.52%) Retail Banking
15 3 (0.39%) Corporate Banking
Job Titles
1 289 (37.68%) Developer
2 85 (11.08%) Analyst
3 76 (9.91%) C# Developer
4 75 (9.78%) Senior
5 71 (9.26%) Architect
6 56 (7.30%) .NET Developer
7 55 (7.17%) Data Engineer
8 47 (6.13%) DBA
9 38 (4.95%) Senior Developer
10 34 (4.43%) SQL Developer
11 31 (4.04%) Data Analyst
12 30 (3.91%) SQL DBA
13 28 (3.65%) Consultant
14 27 (3.52%) Azure Engineer
15 25 (3.26%) Data Architect
16 24 (3.13%) Software Engineer
16 24 (3.13%) Solutions Architect
17 23 (3.00%) C# .NET Developer
17 23 (3.00%) Full-Stack Developer
17 23 (3.00%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 213 (27.77%) .NET
2 92 (11.99%) .NET Framework
3 72 (9.39%) HTML
4 65 (8.47%) CSS
5 57 (7.43%) REST
6 53 (6.91%) XML
7 52 (6.78%) AngularJS
8 50 (6.52%) React
9 48 (6.26%) .NET Core
10 46 (6.00%) ASP.NET
10 46 (6.00%) Web Services
11 44 (5.74%) RESTful
12 38 (4.95%) SOAP
13 36 (4.69%) JSON
13 36 (4.69%) WCF
14 35 (4.56%) Kafka
15 33 (4.30%) Entity Framework
16 32 (4.17%) ASP.NET Web API
17 24 (3.13%) WPF
18 22 (2.87%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.17%) Replication
2 30 (3.91%) Derivative
3 27 (3.52%) Legacy Systems
4 23 (3.00%) Clustering
5 20 (2.61%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 19 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
7 17 (2.22%) Data Centre
7 17 (2.22%) Data Structures
8 16 (2.09%) Product Ownership
9 15 (1.96%) Onboarding
10 14 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
11 13 (1.69%) Public Cloud
12 12 (1.56%) Data Protection Act
13 11 (1.43%) Management Information System
14 10 (1.30%) Linux Command Line
14 10 (1.30%) N-Tier
15 9 (1.17%) PKI
15 9 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
16 8 (1.04%) Greenfield Project
16 8 (1.04%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 159 (20.73%) Windows
2 109 (14.21%) Linux
3 71 (9.26%) Windows Server
4 32 (4.17%) Unix
5 26 (3.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (1.17%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.91%) Android
7 7 (0.91%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (0.78%) AIX
8 6 (0.78%) Solaris
8 6 (0.78%) VMS
8 6 (0.78%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.65%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.52%) CentOS
10 4 (0.52%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.39%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.26%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.26%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.26%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.13%) OpenVMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 191 (24.90%) Agile
2 179 (23.34%) DevOps
3 178 (23.21%) Problem-Solving
4 124 (16.17%) CI/CD
5 113 (14.73%) Migration
6 108 (14.08%) Business Intelligence
7 104 (13.56%) ETL
8 81 (10.56%) Test Automation
9 78 (10.17%) Performance Tuning
10 71 (9.26%) Data Modelling
11 65 (8.47%) Data Analysis
11 65 (8.47%) High Availability
12 64 (8.34%) Disaster Recovery
12 64 (8.34%) Microservices
13 62 (8.08%) Scrum
14 60 (7.82%) Data Migration
15 56 (7.30%) Software Engineering
16 54 (7.04%) Analytics
17 49 (6.39%) SDLC
18 47 (6.13%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 409 (53.32%) SQL
2 245 (31.94%) C#
3 154 (20.08%) Python
4 107 (13.95%) JavaScript
5 79 (10.30%) PowerShell
6 75 (9.78%) Java
7 67 (8.74%) T-SQL
8 46 (6.00%) PL/SQL
9 41 (5.35%) TypeScript
10 32 (4.17%) VB
10 32 (4.17%) VBA
11 25 (3.26%) Bash
12 15 (1.96%) Scala
13 14 (1.83%) Perl
14 8 (1.04%) Bicep
14 8 (1.04%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (1.04%) PHP
14 8 (1.04%) R
14 8 (1.04%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.91%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 87 (11.34%) Security Cleared
2 77 (10.04%) Degree
3 68 (8.87%) SC Cleared
4 26 (3.39%) Azure Certification
5 25 (3.26%) Microsoft Certification
6 19 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.69%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.65%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (0.52%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.52%) MCPD
9 4 (0.52%) MCSD
10 3 (0.39%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.39%) MCSE
10 3 (0.39%) PMP
10 3 (0.39%) SAP Certification
10 3 (0.39%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (0.26%) ISEB
11 2 (0.26%) OCP
11 2 (0.26%) Oracle Certification
11 2 (0.26%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 73 (9.52%) QA
2 45 (5.87%) Data Quality
3 32 (4.17%) GDPR
4 16 (2.09%) Accessibility
5 15 (1.96%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 12 (1.56%) MiFID
7 7 (0.91%) Basel III
8 6 (0.78%) HIPAA
9 5 (0.65%) EMIR
9 5 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 5 (0.65%) PCI DSS
9 5 (0.65%) SLA
10 4 (0.52%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.39%) GAAP
12 2 (0.26%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.26%) HL7
12 2 (0.26%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 2 (0.26%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.26%) ISO 20022
12 2 (0.26%) WCAG
System Software
1 62 (8.08%) Active Directory
2 46 (6.00%) Docker
3 34 (4.43%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.83%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (1.69%) vSphere
6 7 (0.91%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.91%) Oracle RAC
6 7 (0.91%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.78%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.39%) KVM
8 3 (0.39%) vCloud
8 3 (0.39%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.26%) GPFS
9 2 (0.26%) NFS
9 2 (0.26%) zsh
10 1 (0.13%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 1 (0.13%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.13%) Virtual Servers
10 1 (0.13%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 58 (7.56%) Kubernetes
2 44 (5.74%) Terraform
3 21 (2.74%) Ansible
4 13 (1.69%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (1.56%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 9 (1.17%) Data Guard
7 7 (0.91%) Kibana
8 6 (0.78%) Grafana
8 6 (0.78%) Oracle RMAN
8 6 (0.78%) Progress Chef
8 6 (0.78%) SCOM
9 5 (0.65%) SCCM
9 5 (0.65%) WMI
10 4 (0.52%) Failover Clustering
10 4 (0.52%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (0.52%) Oracle Flashback
10 4 (0.52%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.39%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.39%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.39%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 254 (33.12%) Microsoft
2 228 (29.73%) Oracle
3 47 (6.13%) VMware
4 39 (5.08%) Databricks
5 33 (4.30%) IBM
6 23 (3.00%) ServiceNow
7 22 (2.87%) Cisco
8 19 (2.48%) Citrix
8 19 (2.48%) Sybase
9 18 (2.35%) Informatica
9 18 (2.35%) SAP
10 17 (2.22%) Red Hat
11 14 (1.83%) Google
12 10 (1.30%) CyberArk
12 10 (1.30%) Talend
13 9 (1.17%) Cognos
13 9 (1.17%) Salesforce
13 9 (1.17%) UiPath
14 8 (1.04%) TIBCO
15 7 (0.91%) Teradata