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 30 April 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Apr 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 99 62 52
Rank change year-on-year -37 -10 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 754 1,393 2,613
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.58% 3.20% 4.38%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.60% 19.07% 24.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 547 949 1,975
10th Percentile £342 £331 £375
25th Percentile £415 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £518 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.16% -1.43% +2.34%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £666
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £494 £480 £485
% change year-on-year +2.92% -1.03% +7.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 25 23
10th Percentile £25.03 £20.77 £26.30
25th Percentile £26.05 £37.63 £35.00
Median hourly rate £62.12 £40.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +55.31% -11.11% -3.58%
75th Percentile £76.56 £51.91 £78.75
90th Percentile £92.13 £62.96 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.35 £40.00 £35.50
% change year-on-year -31.63% +12.68% -24.60%

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 5,544 7,303 10,767
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.96% 16.75% 18.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,832 5,193 7,664
10th Percentile £356 £350 £375
25th Percentile £420 £425 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -2.78% -1.78%
75th Percentile £638 £650 £660
90th Percentile £763 £763 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £489 £480 £500
% change year-on-year +1.88% -4.00% +2.56%
Number of hourly rates quoted 105 144 183
10th Percentile £20.09 £14.00 £21.24
25th Percentile £24.25 £20.98 £35.00
Median hourly rate £33.11 £40.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.23% -33.33% +41.18%
75th Percentile £65.00 £58.55 £70.88
90th Percentile £74.75 £72.50 £79.19
UK excluding London median hourly rate £30.00 £40.00 £58.05
% change year-on-year -25.00% -31.09% +65.84%

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 30 April 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 30 April 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 30 April 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 -34 660 £525 - 969
London -37 411 £575 +5.99% 346
UK excluding London -20 265 £494 +2.92% 657
Work from Home -43 258 £500 - 606
North of England +1 78 £425 -10.53% 184
South East +19 75 £500 +8.11% 159
North West +6 58 £475 - 128
Scotland -10 36 £496 -5.52% 41
Midlands -12 34 £538 +11.51% 147
South West +5 29 £525 -4.55% 70
West Midlands -1 26 £582 +25.89% 84
Yorkshire -3 14 £400 -11.06% 44
East of England +15 7 £501 +5.53% 47
East Midlands -6 7 £331 -32.48% 62
North East -4 6 £450 -5.26% 12
Northern Ireland -5 4 £470 - 11
Wales -3 3 £275 -45.00% 7

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 41 (5.44%) SharePoint
2 36 (4.77%) IIS
2 36 (4.77%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (3.58%) Apache
4 18 (2.39%) Confluence
5 16 (2.12%) Apache Spark
6 11 (1.46%) Tomcat
7 8 (1.06%) CMS
8 6 (0.80%) BizTalk Server
8 6 (0.80%) Jupyter
8 6 (0.80%) Skype for Business
9 5 (0.66%) nginx
10 4 (0.53%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.53%) Drupal
10 4 (0.53%) WordPress
11 3 (0.40%) OpenEdge
11 3 (0.40%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
11 3 (0.40%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.27%) SAS
Applications
1 60 (7.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.72%) Microsoft Office
3 8 (1.06%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.27%) Notepad++
5 1 (0.13%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.13%) SPSS
5 1 (0.13%) Stata
5 1 (0.13%) Trello
Business Applications
1 31 (4.11%) Dynamics CRM
2 5 (0.66%) Kondor
2 5 (0.66%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
3 4 (0.53%) Cognos Business Intelligence
3 4 (0.53%) Fidessa
4 3 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
5 2 (0.27%) Actimize
5 2 (0.27%) Aladdin
5 2 (0.27%) Alphatax
5 2 (0.27%) Endur
5 2 (0.27%) Markit EDM
5 2 (0.27%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
6 1 (0.13%) FastStats
6 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
6 1 (0.13%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy AR System
6 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
6 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 355 (47.08%) Azure
2 125 (16.58%) AWS
2 125 (16.58%) Power Platform
3 63 (8.36%) Microsoft 365
4 62 (8.22%) Entra ID
5 52 (6.90%) Azure Data Factory
6 47 (6.23%) Azure DevOps
7 39 (5.17%) GitHub
8 35 (4.64%) PowerApps
9 34 (4.51%) Dynamics 365
10 31 (4.11%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 31 (4.11%) GCP
11 29 (3.85%) Power Automate
12 27 (3.58%) Serverless
13 25 (3.32%) Azure Service Bus
14 23 (3.05%) IaaS
15 22 (2.92%) Azure Functions
16 20 (2.65%) Azure Logic Apps
17 18 (2.39%) GitHub Actions
18 17 (2.25%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 43 (5.70%) Firewall
2 35 (4.64%) DNS
3 19 (2.52%) Network Security
4 18 (2.39%) Internet
4 18 (2.39%) TCP/IP
5 15 (1.99%) DHCP
6 14 (1.86%) Intrusion Detection
7 13 (1.72%) VPN
8 9 (1.19%) HTTP
9 7 (0.93%) LAN
9 7 (0.93%) WAN
10 6 (0.80%) Skype
10 6 (0.80%) SSH
11 4 (0.53%) Remote Desktop
11 4 (0.53%) SAN
11 4 (0.53%) VoIP
11 4 (0.53%) Wireless
12 3 (0.40%) VLAN
12 3 (0.40%) Wi-Fi
12 3 (0.40%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 90 (11.94%) Power BI
2 85 (11.27%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 81 (10.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 76 (10.08%) PostgreSQL
5 64 (8.49%) Data Warehouse
6 60 (7.96%) Relational Database
7 53 (7.03%) Azure SQL Database
8 49 (6.50%) Oracle Database
9 48 (6.37%) MySQL
10 45 (5.97%) MongoDB
11 39 (5.17%) NoSQL
12 27 (3.58%) Big Data
13 22 (2.92%) Tableau
14 21 (2.79%) Data Lake
14 21 (2.79%) RDBMS
15 17 (2.25%) DB2
16 16 (2.12%) Redis
17 15 (1.99%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 12 (1.59%) Hadoop
19 11 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 62 (8.22%) Git
2 47 (6.23%) JIRA
3 30 (3.98%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.39%) GitLab
5 16 (2.12%) Bitbucket
6 12 (1.59%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
6 12 (1.59%) Visual Studio
7 9 (1.19%) Octopus Deploy
7 9 (1.19%) TeamCity
8 8 (1.06%) SonarQube
9 7 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
9 7 (0.93%) Team Foundation Server
10 6 (0.80%) ERwin
10 6 (0.80%) Postman
10 6 (0.80%) QARun
10 6 (0.80%) RStudio
10 6 (0.80%) Selenium
10 6 (0.80%) WinRunner
11 5 (0.66%) LoadRunner
11 5 (0.66%) Subversion
General
1 204 (27.06%) Social Skills
2 199 (26.39%) Finance
3 105 (13.93%) Banking
4 74 (9.81%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (7.16%) Public Sector
6 26 (3.45%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.18%) Front Office
8 23 (3.05%) Legal
9 16 (2.12%) Telecoms
10 15 (1.99%) Back Office
10 15 (1.99%) Organisational Skills
11 10 (1.33%) Documentation Skills
11 10 (1.33%) Law
12 6 (0.80%) Financial Institution
12 6 (0.80%) Retail Banking
13 5 (0.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 5 (0.66%) Marketing
14 4 (0.53%) Local Government
14 4 (0.53%) Police
15 3 (0.40%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 259 (34.35%) Developer
2 77 (10.21%) Senior
3 75 (9.95%) Analyst
4 72 (9.55%) C# Developer
5 61 (8.09%) Architect
6 58 (7.69%) .NET Developer
7 57 (7.56%) DBA
8 53 (7.03%) Data Engineer
9 44 (5.84%) SQL DBA
10 35 (4.64%) Software Engineer
11 33 (4.38%) Azure Engineer
12 29 (3.85%) Consultant
13 27 (3.58%) Data Analyst
14 26 (3.45%) Full-Stack Developer
14 26 (3.45%) Lead
14 26 (3.45%) Senior Developer
15 24 (3.18%) Administrator
16 23 (3.05%) SQL Developer
17 22 (2.92%) C# .NET Developer
18 20 (2.65%) Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 195 (25.86%) .NET
2 76 (10.08%) .NET Framework
3 70 (9.28%) HTML
4 58 (7.69%) CSS
4 58 (7.69%) REST
5 53 (7.03%) AngularJS
6 50 (6.63%) React
7 49 (6.50%) ASP.NET
8 47 (6.23%) RESTful
9 45 (5.97%) Web Services
10 42 (5.57%) .NET Core
11 36 (4.77%) XML
12 35 (4.64%) Kafka
12 35 (4.64%) SOAP
13 34 (4.51%) WCF
14 33 (4.38%) JSON
15 32 (4.24%) ASP.NET Web API
16 30 (3.98%) OAuth
17 24 (3.18%) Node.js
18 22 (2.92%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.24%) Derivative
1 32 (4.24%) Replication
2 24 (3.18%) Legacy Systems
3 23 (3.05%) Clustering
4 19 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
5 17 (2.25%) Data Structures
5 17 (2.25%) Product Ownership
5 17 (2.25%) Public Cloud
6 16 (2.12%) Data Centre
6 16 (2.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 12 (1.59%) Reference Data
8 11 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
8 11 (1.46%) Management Information System
8 11 (1.46%) Onboarding
9 9 (1.19%) Linux Command Line
9 9 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.06%) NHS
10 8 (1.06%) SWIFT Messaging Network
11 7 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
11 7 (0.93%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 172 (22.81%) Windows
2 114 (15.12%) Linux
3 87 (11.54%) Windows Server
4 35 (4.64%) Unix
5 30 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.59%) Windows 10
6 12 (1.59%) Windows Server 2016
7 9 (1.19%) Windows Server 2019
8 8 (1.06%) Solaris
8 8 (1.06%) VMS
9 7 (0.93%) AIX
9 7 (0.93%) Android
9 7 (0.93%) CentOS
10 6 (0.80%) Windows Server 2012
11 3 (0.40%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.40%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.27%) Mac OS
12 2 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
12 2 (0.27%) Rocky
12 2 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 189 (25.07%) Agile
2 171 (22.68%) Problem-Solving
3 159 (21.09%) DevOps
4 122 (16.18%) CI/CD
5 111 (14.72%) Migration
6 96 (12.73%) Business Intelligence
7 76 (10.08%) Software Engineering
8 74 (9.81%) ETL
9 70 (9.28%) Performance Tuning
10 69 (9.15%) Test Automation
11 64 (8.49%) Disaster Recovery
12 63 (8.36%) Data Modelling
13 57 (7.56%) Scrum
14 56 (7.43%) High Availability
15 55 (7.29%) ITIL
16 54 (7.16%) Data Migration
17 53 (7.03%) Data Analysis
18 50 (6.63%) Microservices
19 48 (6.37%) TDD
20 47 (6.23%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 383 (50.80%) SQL
2 213 (28.25%) C#
3 154 (20.42%) Python
4 101 (13.40%) JavaScript
5 91 (12.07%) PowerShell
6 64 (8.49%) Java
7 59 (7.82%) T-SQL
8 44 (5.84%) TypeScript
9 38 (5.04%) PL/SQL
10 28 (3.71%) Bash
11 26 (3.45%) VB
12 21 (2.79%) VBA
13 16 (2.12%) Scala
14 15 (1.99%) Perl
15 12 (1.59%) R
16 10 (1.33%) PHP
17 7 (0.93%) Shell Script
18 5 (0.66%) Bicep
18 5 (0.66%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 3 (0.40%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 112 (14.85%) Security Cleared
2 84 (11.14%) Degree
3 77 (10.21%) SC Cleared
4 34 (4.51%) Microsoft Certification
5 29 (3.85%) Azure Certification
6 26 (3.45%) DV Cleared
7 16 (2.12%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (0.93%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.66%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.53%) ITIL Certification
10 4 (0.53%) MCPD
10 4 (0.53%) MCSD
11 3 (0.40%) MCSE
12 2 (0.27%) Master's Degree
12 2 (0.27%) MCSA
12 2 (0.27%) OCP
12 2 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
12 2 (0.27%) PRINCE2 Certification
12 2 (0.27%) VCAP
12 2 (0.27%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (7.29%) QA
2 40 (5.31%) GDPR
3 34 (4.51%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.52%) Accessibility
5 17 (2.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 11 (1.46%) MiFID
7 8 (1.06%) SLA
8 7 (0.93%) Government Security Classifications
9 6 (0.80%) Disclosure Scotland
9 6 (0.80%) EMIR
9 6 (0.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 5 (0.66%) Basel III
10 5 (0.66%) HIPAA
11 3 (0.40%) Cyber Essentials
11 3 (0.40%) WCAG
12 2 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
12 2 (0.27%) HL7
12 2 (0.27%) HMG Security Policy Framework
13 1 (0.13%) ISO 20022
13 1 (0.13%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 90 (11.94%) Active Directory
2 59 (7.82%) Docker
3 35 (4.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (2.65%) vSphere
5 9 (1.19%) Virtual Machines
6 8 (1.06%) VMware ESXi
7 7 (0.93%) Hyper-V
7 7 (0.93%) Oracle RAC
8 4 (0.53%) Virtual Desktop
9 3 (0.40%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 3 (0.40%) KVM
9 3 (0.40%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 3 (0.40%) vCloud
9 3 (0.40%) Virtual Servers
9 3 (0.40%) VMware Workstation
10 1 (0.13%) Terminal Services
10 1 (0.13%) Xen
Systems Management
1 68 (9.02%) Kubernetes
2 57 (7.56%) Terraform
3 24 (3.18%) Ansible
4 17 (2.25%) Microsoft Intune
5 12 (1.59%) SCCM
6 8 (1.06%) SCOM
7 7 (0.93%) Data Guard
7 7 (0.93%) Kibana
7 7 (0.93%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
8 6 (0.80%) Grafana
9 5 (0.66%) Progress Chef
10 4 (0.53%) Failover Clustering
10 4 (0.53%) Microsoft Clustering
10 4 (0.53%) Oracle Flashback
10 4 (0.53%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.40%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 3 (0.40%) FortiGate
11 3 (0.40%) Rundeck
11 3 (0.40%) SCSM
11 3 (0.40%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 266 (35.28%) Microsoft
2 214 (28.38%) Oracle
3 49 (6.50%) VMware
4 46 (6.10%) Databricks
5 28 (3.71%) Sybase
6 24 (3.18%) ServiceNow
7 21 (2.79%) Cisco
7 21 (2.79%) SAP
8 19 (2.52%) Red Hat
9 17 (2.25%) Citrix
9 17 (2.25%) Google
10 16 (2.12%) IBM
11 15 (1.99%) Informatica
12 11 (1.46%) CyberArk
12 11 (1.46%) Salesforce
12 11 (1.46%) Splunk
13 9 (1.19%) UiPath
14 7 (0.93%) AppDynamics
14 7 (0.93%) TIBCO
15 6 (0.80%) Bloomberg