SQL Server DBA Contracts

SQL Server Database Administrator
UK

The median SQL Server Database Administrator daily rate in the UK is £360, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 1 May 2025.

The table below provides contractor rate benchmarking and summary statistics, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 506 557 682
Rank change year-on-year +51 +125 +112
Contract jobs requiring a SQL Server DBA 14 25 36
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 0.048% 0.057% 0.060%
As % of the Job Titles category 0.052% 0.062% 0.064%
Number of daily rates quoted 6 11 30
10th Percentile £288 £350 £413
25th Percentile £305 £395 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £360 £575 £570
Median % change year-on-year -37.39% +0.88% +20.00%
75th Percentile £415 £600 £666
90th Percentile £494 - -
UK excluding London median daily rate £360 £600 £425
% change year-on-year -40.00% +41.18% -2.86%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 0
Median hourly rate £22.48 - -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £22.48 - -

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 27,084 40,415 56,464
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.52% 92.78% 94.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 17,692 26,309 39,470
10th Percentile £300 £275 £313
25th Percentile £406 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -1.90% -2.78% +2.86%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £492 £500
% change year-on-year -3.46% -1.60% +5.26%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,035 2,664 1,570
10th Percentile £14.07 £12.86 £14.29
25th Percentile £18.50 £16.30 £19.50
Median hourly rate £29.00 £36.42 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -20.37% -19.07% +91.49%
75th Percentile £62.50 £60.75 £65.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £72.50 £75.75
UK excluding London median hourly rate £28.00 £39.55 £42.50
% change year-on-year -29.20% -6.94% +117.95%

SQL Server DBA
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings that featured SQL Server DBA in the job title as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SQL Server DBA in the UK

SQL Server DBA
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

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

Daily rate trend for SQL Server DBA in the UK

SQL Server DBA
Daily Rate Histogram

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

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server DBA in the UK

SQL Server DBA
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

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

Hourly rate trend for SQL Server DBA in the UK

SQL Server DBA
Top 10 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 DBA within the UK over the 6 months to 1 May 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 +58 13 £360 -15.29%
Work from Home +38 7 £420 -9.19% 1
UK excluding London +54 6 £360 -40.00%
London +35 6 £300 -38.46%
South East +46 2 £400 -21.95%
North West - 2 £298 -
North of England - 2 £298 -
Midlands +22 1 £420 +7.69%
East Midlands - 1 £420 -
Northern Ireland - 1 - -

SQL Server DBA Skill Set
Top 30 Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities

For the 6 months to 1 May 2025, SQL Server DBA contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads featuring SQL Server DBA in the job title.

1 14 (100.00%) SQL Server
2 10 (71.43%) SQL
3 6 (42.86%) Disaster Recovery
3 6 (42.86%) Migration
3 6 (42.86%) Performance Tuning
4 5 (35.71%) PowerShell
4 5 (35.71%) Microsoft
4 5 (35.71%) ITIL
4 5 (35.71%) Agile
4 5 (35.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 4 (28.57%) Clustering
5 4 (28.57%) QA
5 4 (28.57%) Windows
5 4 (28.57%) Replication
5 4 (28.57%) High Availability
6 3 (21.43%) Capacity Planning
6 3 (21.43%) Windows Server
6 3 (21.43%) PostgreSQL
6 3 (21.43%) Oracle
6 3 (21.43%) Security Cleared
6 3 (21.43%) Azure
7 2 (14.29%) SC Cleared
7 2 (14.29%) DV Cleared
7 2 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
7 2 (14.29%) T-SQL
7 2 (14.29%) .NET
7 2 (14.29%) Linux
7 2 (14.29%) CRM
7 2 (14.29%) SharePoint
7 2 (14.29%) MSDE

SQL Server DBA Skill Set
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 2 (14.29%) BizTalk Server
1 2 (14.29%) SharePoint
Cloud Services
1 3 (21.43%) Azure
2 1 (7.14%) AWS
2 1 (7.14%) Azure Data Factory
Database & Business Intelligence
1 14 (100.00%) SQL Server
2 5 (35.71%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 3 (21.43%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (14.29%) GIS
4 2 (14.29%) MariaDB
4 2 (14.29%) MSDE
5 1 (7.14%) Azure SQL Database
5 1 (7.14%) DTS
5 1 (7.14%) MongoDB
5 1 (7.14%) MySQL
5 1 (7.14%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 1 (7.14%) Sybase ASE
General
1 1 (7.14%) Banking
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 2 (14.29%) .NET
1 2 (14.29%) ASP.NET
2 1 (7.14%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 4 (28.57%) Clustering
1 4 (28.57%) Replication
2 1 (7.14%) Data Centre
2 1 (7.14%) Management Information System
2 1 (7.14%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 4 (28.57%) Windows
2 3 (21.43%) Windows Server
3 2 (14.29%) Linux
4 1 (7.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (7.14%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 6 (42.86%) Disaster Recovery
1 6 (42.86%) Migration
1 6 (42.86%) Performance Tuning
2 5 (35.71%) Agile
2 5 (35.71%) ITIL
3 4 (28.57%) High Availability
4 3 (21.43%) Capacity Planning
5 2 (14.29%) CRM
5 2 (14.29%) Database Migration
5 2 (14.29%) Database Security
5 2 (14.29%) Quality Management
5 2 (14.29%) User Acceptance Testing
6 1 (7.14%) BCP
6 1 (7.14%) Change Management
6 1 (7.14%) Data Security
6 1 (7.14%) ETL
6 1 (7.14%) Performance Management
6 1 (7.14%) Problem Management
6 1 (7.14%) Project Management
6 1 (7.14%) Release Management
Programming Languages
1 10 (71.43%) SQL
2 5 (35.71%) PowerShell
3 2 (14.29%) T-SQL
4 1 (7.14%) Bash
4 1 (7.14%) Korn
4 1 (7.14%) PL/SQL
4 1 (7.14%) Python
4 1 (7.14%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 3 (21.43%) Security Cleared
2 2 (14.29%) DV Cleared
2 2 (14.29%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 4 (28.57%) QA
2 1 (7.14%) SLA
System Software
1 1 (7.14%) Active Directory
1 1 (7.14%) VMware Infrastructure
1 1 (7.14%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 1 (7.14%) Perfmon
1 1 (7.14%) SCOM
1 1 (7.14%) VxRail
Vendors
1 5 (35.71%) Microsoft
2 3 (21.43%) Oracle
3 1 (7.14%) Red Hat
3 1 (7.14%) Sybase
3 1 (7.14%) VMware