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 4 July 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jul 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 106 59 54
Rank change year-on-year -47 -5 +1
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 787 1,458 2,268
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.49% 3.36% 4.04%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.60% 19.18% 23.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 583 1,025 1,704
10th Percentile £325 £325 £363
25th Percentile £400 £413 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £504 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £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 10 23 14
10th Percentile £20.99 £25.55 £26.14
25th Percentile £22.02 £38.81 £33.30
Median hourly rate £48.16 £40.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +20.40% -11.11% -10.00%
75th Percentile £85.94 £47.47 £74.38
90th Percentile £92.50 £62.96 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £23.14 £40.00 £34.80
% change year-on-year -42.16% +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 5,786 7,603 9,669
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.31% 17.50% 17.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,920 5,424 6,797
10th Percentile £356 £350 £374
25th Percentile £413 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -2.30% -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 102 150 172
10th Percentile £19.71 £14.00 £21.24
25th Percentile £25.20 £20.76 £32.30
Median hourly rate £34.99 £39.25 £55.70
Median % change year-on-year -10.85% -29.53% +47.35%
75th Percentile £63.31 £51.87 £73.75
90th Percentile £77.00 £72.50 £82.25
UK excluding London median hourly rate £31.64 £31.50 £55.00
% change year-on-year +0.44% -42.73% +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 4 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 4 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 4 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 -39 687 £509 -0.25% 3,002
London -43 423 £575 +7.48% 1,266
UK excluding London -33 280 £450 -5.26% 1,944
Work from Home -49 254 £500 - 1,417
North of England -20 85 £425 -8.60% 528
South East -6 65 £450 -10.00% 589
North West -15 61 £425 -5.56% 314
Midlands -34 46 £433 -2.81% 266
Scotland +2 35 £475 - 147
West Midlands -4 28 £550 +11.68% 164
South West -11 26 £475 -11.63% 187
Yorkshire -2 19 £400 -15.79% 174
East of England +17 17 £500 +5.26% 158
East Midlands -23 17 £327 -24.94% 101
Northern Ireland - 6 £470 - 39
North East -1 5 £456 -3.95% 41
Wales -1 4 £226 -46.03% 48

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 43 (5.46%) IIS
2 37 (4.70%) Apache
3 28 (3.56%) SharePoint
4 23 (2.92%) Microsoft Exchange
5 21 (2.67%) Confluence
6 16 (2.03%) Apache Spark
7 7 (0.89%) Tomcat
7 7 (0.89%) WebSphere
8 6 (0.76%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (0.76%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.64%) nginx
9 5 (0.64%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 4 (0.51%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.51%) BizTalk Server
10 4 (0.51%) CMS
10 4 (0.51%) Drupal
10 4 (0.51%) Jupyter
10 4 (0.51%) SAS
10 4 (0.51%) WordPress
11 3 (0.38%) OpenEdge
Applications
1 70 (8.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.14%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (0.89%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.25%) 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 (3.94%) Dynamics CRM
2 7 (0.89%) Kondor
2 7 (0.89%) Maximo
2 7 (0.89%) OpenText MBPM
2 7 (0.89%) Oracle BPM
3 5 (0.64%) Aladdin
3 5 (0.64%) Endur
3 5 (0.64%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.64%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 4 (0.51%) Cognos Business Intelligence
4 4 (0.51%) Fidessa
5 3 (0.38%) Oracle EBS
5 3 (0.38%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.25%) Alphatax
6 2 (0.25%) Bloomberg AIM
6 2 (0.25%) Dynamics AX
6 2 (0.25%) Markit EDM
6 2 (0.25%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.25%) Temenos T24
6 2 (0.25%) thinkFolio
Cloud Services
1 350 (44.47%) Azure
2 124 (15.76%) Power Platform
3 122 (15.50%) AWS
4 64 (8.13%) Azure DevOps
5 53 (6.73%) Azure Data Factory
6 44 (5.59%) Microsoft 365
7 42 (5.34%) Entra ID
8 35 (4.45%) Dynamics 365
9 33 (4.19%) Azure Service Bus
9 33 (4.19%) PowerApps
10 32 (4.07%) Serverless
11 31 (3.94%) Power Automate
12 30 (3.81%) GCP
13 29 (3.68%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 28 (3.56%) Azure Logic Apps
15 27 (3.43%) GitHub
16 24 (3.05%) Azure Functions
17 21 (2.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 21 (2.67%) SaaS
18 20 (2.54%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 35 (4.45%) Firewall
2 30 (3.81%) DNS
3 21 (2.67%) Internet
4 19 (2.41%) TCP/IP
5 12 (1.52%) HTTP
6 11 (1.40%) DHCP
6 11 (1.40%) Network Security
7 8 (1.02%) Intrusion Detection
7 8 (1.02%) LAN
8 7 (0.89%) VPN
9 6 (0.76%) WAN
10 4 (0.51%) Skype
10 4 (0.51%) SSH
10 4 (0.51%) VLAN
10 4 (0.51%) VoIP
11 3 (0.38%) SSL
12 2 (0.25%) iSCSI
12 2 (0.25%) Remote Desktop
12 2 (0.25%) SAN
12 2 (0.25%) VSAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 94 (11.94%) Power BI
2 73 (9.28%) Relational Database
3 72 (9.15%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 71 (9.02%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 62 (7.88%) Data Warehouse
6 61 (7.75%) Oracle Database
7 60 (7.62%) PostgreSQL
8 55 (6.99%) Azure SQL Database
9 52 (6.61%) MySQL
10 44 (5.59%) NoSQL
11 42 (5.34%) MongoDB
12 27 (3.43%) DB2
13 24 (3.05%) Amazon RDS
14 23 (2.92%) Big Data
15 19 (2.41%) Tableau
16 17 (2.16%) Metadata
16 17 (2.16%) RDBMS
17 16 (2.03%) Hadoop
18 15 (1.91%) Redis
19 14 (1.78%) Data Lake
Development Applications
1 54 (6.86%) Git
1 54 (6.86%) JIRA
2 26 (3.30%) GitLab
3 23 (2.92%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.29%) Bitbucket
4 18 (2.29%) Visual Studio
5 15 (1.91%) Selenium
6 13 (1.65%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 11 (1.40%) Cucumber
7 11 (1.40%) JUnit
7 11 (1.40%) Maven
7 11 (1.40%) SonarQube
7 11 (1.40%) Sonatype Nexus
7 11 (1.40%) Team Foundation Server
8 9 (1.14%) ERwin
8 9 (1.14%) Mockito
9 8 (1.02%) Octopus Deploy
10 7 (0.89%) TeamCity
11 6 (0.76%) Liquibase
11 6 (0.76%) WinRunner
General
1 246 (31.26%) Finance
2 229 (29.10%) Social Skills
3 105 (13.34%) Banking
4 92 (11.69%) Analytical Skills
5 49 (6.23%) Public Sector
6 28 (3.56%) Front Office
6 28 (3.56%) Investment Banking
7 16 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
8 13 (1.65%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 12 (1.52%) Back Office
9 12 (1.52%) Legal
9 12 (1.52%) Organisational Skills
9 12 (1.52%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.27%) Financial Institution
11 8 (1.02%) Law
12 6 (0.76%) Local Government
12 6 (0.76%) Retail
13 4 (0.51%) Marketing
13 4 (0.51%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.51%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 296 (37.61%) Developer
2 87 (11.05%) Analyst
3 77 (9.78%) C# Developer
4 76 (9.66%) Senior
5 73 (9.28%) Architect
6 57 (7.24%) .NET Developer
7 56 (7.12%) Data Engineer
8 48 (6.10%) DBA
9 38 (4.83%) Senior Developer
10 34 (4.32%) SQL Developer
11 32 (4.07%) Data Analyst
12 30 (3.81%) Consultant
12 30 (3.81%) SQL DBA
13 27 (3.43%) Azure Engineer
14 25 (3.18%) Data Architect
14 25 (3.18%) Software Engineer
15 24 (3.05%) Full-Stack Developer
15 24 (3.05%) Solutions Architect
16 23 (2.92%) C# .NET Developer
16 23 (2.92%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 218 (27.70%) .NET
2 95 (12.07%) .NET Framework
3 76 (9.66%) HTML
4 69 (8.77%) CSS
5 59 (7.50%) REST
6 54 (6.86%) XML
7 53 (6.73%) AngularJS
7 53 (6.73%) React
8 52 (6.61%) .NET Core
9 48 (6.10%) ASP.NET
10 46 (5.84%) Web Services
11 44 (5.59%) RESTful
12 38 (4.83%) SOAP
13 36 (4.57%) JSON
13 36 (4.57%) WCF
14 35 (4.45%) Kafka
15 33 (4.19%) Entity Framework
16 32 (4.07%) ASP.NET Web API
17 24 (3.05%) Spring Boot
17 24 (3.05%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 33 (4.19%) Replication
2 32 (4.07%) Derivative
3 28 (3.56%) Legacy Systems
4 24 (3.05%) Clustering
5 22 (2.80%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 21 (2.67%) Distributed Systems
7 19 (2.41%) Product Ownership
8 18 (2.29%) Data Structures
9 17 (2.16%) Data Centre
10 16 (2.03%) Onboarding
11 15 (1.91%) Enterprise Software
12 13 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
12 13 (1.65%) Public Cloud
13 11 (1.40%) Management Information System
14 10 (1.27%) Linux Command Line
14 10 (1.27%) N-Tier
15 9 (1.14%) PKI
15 9 (1.14%) Reference Data
15 9 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
16 8 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 161 (20.46%) Windows
2 109 (13.85%) Linux
3 72 (9.15%) Windows Server
4 31 (3.94%) Unix
5 26 (3.30%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 9 (1.14%) Windows 10
7 7 (0.89%) Android
7 7 (0.89%) Windows Server 2016
8 6 (0.76%) AIX
8 6 (0.76%) Solaris
8 6 (0.76%) VMS
8 6 (0.76%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.64%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.51%) CentOS
10 4 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.38%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.25%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.25%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.25%) Ubuntu
13 1 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (25.16%) Agile
2 187 (23.76%) Problem-Solving
3 186 (23.63%) DevOps
4 130 (16.52%) CI/CD
5 119 (15.12%) Migration
6 109 (13.85%) Business Intelligence
7 108 (13.72%) ETL
8 85 (10.80%) Test Automation
9 80 (10.17%) Performance Tuning
10 72 (9.15%) Data Modelling
11 69 (8.77%) Microservices
12 68 (8.64%) Data Analysis
13 66 (8.39%) High Availability
14 65 (8.26%) Disaster Recovery
15 63 (8.01%) Data Migration
15 63 (8.01%) Scrum
16 58 (7.37%) Software Engineering
17 54 (6.86%) Analytics
18 51 (6.48%) SDLC
19 48 (6.10%) Data Integration
Programming Languages
1 420 (53.37%) SQL
2 253 (32.15%) C#
3 156 (19.82%) Python
4 110 (13.98%) JavaScript
5 79 (10.04%) Java
5 79 (10.04%) PowerShell
6 67 (8.51%) T-SQL
7 45 (5.72%) PL/SQL
8 42 (5.34%) TypeScript
9 34 (4.32%) VBA
10 33 (4.19%) VB
11 25 (3.18%) Bash
12 15 (1.91%) Scala
13 14 (1.78%) Perl
14 8 (1.02%) Bicep
14 8 (1.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 8 (1.02%) PHP
14 8 (1.02%) R
14 8 (1.02%) Shell Script
15 7 (0.89%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 88 (11.18%) Security Cleared
2 81 (10.29%) Degree
3 69 (8.77%) SC Cleared
4 27 (3.43%) Azure Certification
5 26 (3.30%) Microsoft Certification
6 22 (2.80%) Computer Science Degree
7 13 (1.65%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.64%) ITIL Certification
9 4 (0.51%) AWS Certification
9 4 (0.51%) MCPD
9 4 (0.51%) MCSD
9 4 (0.51%) MCSE
10 3 (0.38%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (0.38%) PMP
10 3 (0.38%) SAP Certification
10 3 (0.38%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
11 2 (0.25%) ISEB
11 2 (0.25%) OCP
11 2 (0.25%) Oracle Certification
11 2 (0.25%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 74 (9.40%) QA
2 49 (6.23%) Data Quality
3 33 (4.19%) GDPR
4 17 (2.16%) Accessibility
5 15 (1.91%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 14 (1.78%) MiFID
7 7 (0.89%) Basel III
8 6 (0.76%) HIPAA
8 6 (0.76%) PCI DSS
8 6 (0.76%) SLA
9 5 (0.64%) EMIR
9 5 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.51%) Disclosure Scotland
11 3 (0.38%) GAAP
12 2 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
12 2 (0.25%) HL7
12 2 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
12 2 (0.25%) ISO 15022
12 2 (0.25%) ISO 20022
12 2 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 62 (7.88%) Active Directory
2 46 (5.84%) Docker
3 34 (4.32%) VMware Infrastructure
4 14 (1.78%) Virtual Machines
5 13 (1.65%) vSphere
6 7 (0.89%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.89%) Oracle RAC
6 7 (0.89%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.76%) Virtual Desktop
8 3 (0.38%) KVM
8 3 (0.38%) vCloud
8 3 (0.38%) VMware Workstation
9 2 (0.25%) GPFS
9 2 (0.25%) NFS
9 2 (0.25%) 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 (7.37%) Kubernetes
2 45 (5.72%) Terraform
3 21 (2.67%) Ansible
4 13 (1.65%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (1.52%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
6 9 (1.14%) Data Guard
7 7 (0.89%) Kibana
8 6 (0.76%) Grafana
8 6 (0.76%) Oracle RMAN
8 6 (0.76%) Progress Chef
8 6 (0.76%) SCOM
9 5 (0.64%) SCCM
9 5 (0.64%) WMI
10 4 (0.51%) Failover Clustering
10 4 (0.51%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (0.51%) Oracle Flashback
10 4 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.38%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.38%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 262 (33.29%) Microsoft
2 235 (29.86%) Oracle
3 47 (5.97%) VMware
4 40 (5.08%) Databricks
5 33 (4.19%) IBM
6 23 (2.92%) ServiceNow
7 22 (2.80%) Cisco
8 20 (2.54%) Citrix
9 19 (2.41%) Informatica
9 19 (2.41%) Sybase
10 18 (2.29%) SAP
11 17 (2.16%) Red Hat
12 14 (1.78%) Google
13 11 (1.40%) Talend
14 10 (1.27%) CyberArk
15 9 (1.14%) Cognos
15 9 (1.14%) Salesforce
15 9 (1.14%) UiPath
16 8 (1.02%) TIBCO
16 8 (1.02%) Veracode