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

6 months to
1 May 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 103 63 52
Rank change year-on-year -40 -11 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 753 1,392 2,615
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 2.57% 3.20% 4.38%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 13.56% 19.02% 24.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 546 950 1,976
10th Percentile £341 £331 £375
25th Percentile £415 £400 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £509 £525
Median % change year-on-year +0.74% -3.10% +2.34%
75th Percentile £638 £638 £666
90th Percentile £738 £725 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £496 £475 £485
% change year-on-year +4.42% -2.06% +7.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 11 24 23
10th Percentile £25.00 £26.95 £26.30
25th Percentile £25.79 £39.41 £35.00
Median hourly rate £63.75 £40.13 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +58.87% -10.83% -3.58%
75th Percentile £80.63 £53.55 £78.75
90th Percentile £92.50 £62.96 £85.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £27.35 £40.13 £35.50
% change year-on-year -31.84% +13.03% -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 5,552 7,317 10,769
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 18.96% 16.80% 18.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,834 5,210 7,665
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% -1.64%
75th Percentile £640 £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 104 143 183
10th Percentile £19.97 £14.00 £21.24
25th Percentile £24.06 £20.98 £35.00
Median hourly rate £32.96 £40.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -17.60% -33.33% +41.18%
75th Percentile £65.15 £58.62 £70.88
90th Percentile £75.13 £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 1 May 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 May 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 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 -36 659 £525 +1.45% 2,719
London -43 409 £575 +6.98% 514
UK excluding London -23 267 £496 +4.42% 2,498
Work from Home -45 257 £500 - 1,560
North of England -5 78 £425 -10.53% 572
South East +20 75 £500 +8.11% 662
North West +8 58 £475 +2.70% 306
Scotland -6 37 £498 -5.14% 118
Midlands -15 35 £538 +13.16% 516
South West +6 29 £525 -4.55% 294
West Midlands -4 26 £582 +25.89% 272
Yorkshire -8 14 £400 -11.06% 206
East Midlands -8 8 £331 -31.43% 209
East of England +13 7 £501 +5.53% 339
North East -4 6 £450 -5.26% 61
Northern Ireland -5 4 £470 - 36
Wales -7 3 £275 -45.00% 56

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 (4.78%) IIS
2 36 (4.78%) Microsoft Exchange
3 27 (3.59%) 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 Workflow
11 3 (0.40%) Umbraco
12 2 (0.27%) GemFire
12 2 (0.27%) SAS
Applications
1 59 (7.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.73%) 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 (4.12%) 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 2 (0.27%) Actimize
4 2 (0.27%) Aladdin
4 2 (0.27%) Alphatax
4 2 (0.27%) Endur
4 2 (0.27%) Markit EDM
4 2 (0.27%) SAP ERP
4 2 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.13%) Dynamics AX
5 1 (0.13%) FastStats
5 1 (0.13%) IntelliMatch
5 1 (0.13%) Loan IQ
5 1 (0.13%) NEC Housing
5 1 (0.13%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.13%) Remedy ITSM
5 1 (0.13%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 357 (47.41%) Azure
2 125 (16.60%) Power Platform
3 124 (16.47%) AWS
4 63 (8.37%) Entra ID
4 63 (8.37%) Microsoft 365
5 53 (7.04%) Azure Data Factory
6 49 (6.51%) Azure DevOps
7 38 (5.05%) GitHub
8 35 (4.65%) PowerApps
9 34 (4.52%) Dynamics 365
10 31 (4.12%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 30 (3.98%) GCP
12 29 (3.85%) Power Automate
13 27 (3.59%) Serverless
14 26 (3.45%) Azure Service Bus
15 23 (3.05%) IaaS
16 22 (2.92%) Azure Functions
17 20 (2.66%) Azure Logic Apps
18 17 (2.26%) Azure AKS
18 17 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 43 (5.71%) Firewall
2 35 (4.65%) 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 (1.73%) VPN
8 8 (1.06%) 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 (11.95%) Power BI
2 86 (11.42%) SQL Server Reporting Services
3 81 (10.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 76 (10.09%) PostgreSQL
5 63 (8.37%) Data Warehouse
6 58 (7.70%) Relational Database
7 52 (6.91%) Azure SQL Database
8 49 (6.51%) Oracle Database
9 48 (6.37%) MySQL
10 44 (5.84%) MongoDB
11 39 (5.18%) NoSQL
12 27 (3.59%) Big Data
13 22 (2.92%) Tableau
14 21 (2.79%) Data Lake
15 19 (2.52%) RDBMS
16 17 (2.26%) DB2
16 17 (2.26%) Redis
17 15 (1.99%) SQL Server Analysis Services
18 12 (1.59%) Hadoop
19 11 (1.46%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 62 (8.23%) Git
2 47 (6.24%) JIRA
3 30 (3.98%) Jenkins
4 18 (2.39%) GitLab
5 16 (2.12%) Bitbucket
6 13 (1.73%) Visual Studio
7 12 (1.59%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 9 (1.20%) Octopus Deploy
8 9 (1.20%) TeamCity
9 8 (1.06%) SonarQube
10 7 (0.93%) Selenium
10 7 (0.93%) Sonatype Nexus
10 7 (0.93%) Team Foundation Server
11 6 (0.80%) ERwin
11 6 (0.80%) Postman
11 6 (0.80%) QARun
11 6 (0.80%) RStudio
11 6 (0.80%) WinRunner
12 5 (0.66%) Liquibase
12 5 (0.66%) LoadRunner
General
1 204 (27.09%) Social Skills
2 196 (26.03%) Finance
3 103 (13.68%) Banking
4 73 (9.69%) Analytical Skills
5 54 (7.17%) Public Sector
6 26 (3.45%) Investment Banking
7 24 (3.19%) 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
14 4 (0.53%) Local Government
14 4 (0.53%) Marketing
14 4 (0.53%) Police
15 3 (0.40%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 260 (34.53%) Developer
2 78 (10.36%) Senior
3 74 (9.83%) Analyst
4 73 (9.69%) C# Developer
5 61 (8.10%) Architect
6 59 (7.84%) .NET Developer
7 57 (7.57%) DBA
8 54 (7.17%) Data Engineer
9 44 (5.84%) SQL DBA
10 35 (4.65%) Software Engineer
11 34 (4.52%) Azure Engineer
12 29 (3.85%) Consultant
13 27 (3.59%) Lead
13 27 (3.59%) Senior Developer
14 26 (3.45%) Data Analyst
14 26 (3.45%) Full-Stack Developer
15 24 (3.19%) Administrator
16 23 (3.05%) C# .NET Developer
16 23 (3.05%) SQL Developer
17 20 (2.66%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 196 (26.03%) .NET
2 76 (10.09%) .NET Framework
3 71 (9.43%) HTML
4 59 (7.84%) CSS
5 58 (7.70%) REST
6 53 (7.04%) AngularJS
7 51 (6.77%) React
8 50 (6.64%) ASP.NET
9 47 (6.24%) RESTful
10 44 (5.84%) Web Services
11 43 (5.71%) .NET Core
12 37 (4.91%) XML
13 35 (4.65%) SOAP
14 34 (4.52%) JSON
14 34 (4.52%) Kafka
14 34 (4.52%) WCF
15 32 (4.25%) ASP.NET Web API
16 30 (3.98%) OAuth
17 23 (3.05%) Node.js
18 22 (2.92%) WPF
Miscellaneous
1 33 (4.38%) Replication
2 32 (4.25%) Derivative
3 24 (3.19%) Legacy Systems
4 23 (3.05%) Clustering
5 19 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
6 17 (2.26%) Data Structures
6 17 (2.26%) Product Ownership
6 17 (2.26%) Public Cloud
7 16 (2.12%) Data Centre
7 16 (2.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 12 (1.59%) Reference Data
9 11 (1.46%) Enterprise Software
9 11 (1.46%) Management Information System
10 10 (1.33%) Onboarding
11 9 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
11 9 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.06%) NHS
12 8 (1.06%) SWIFT Messaging Network
13 7 (0.93%) Data Protection Act
13 7 (0.93%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 172 (22.84%) Windows
2 114 (15.14%) Linux
3 87 (11.55%) Windows Server
4 34 (4.52%) Unix
5 30 (3.98%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 12 (1.59%) Windows 10
6 12 (1.59%) Windows Server 2016
7 9 (1.20%) Windows Server 2019
8 8 (1.06%) Android
8 8 (1.06%) Solaris
8 8 (1.06%) VMS
9 7 (0.93%) AIX
9 7 (0.93%) CentOS
10 6 (0.80%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.53%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.40%) Windows 7
13 2 (0.27%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.27%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.27%) Rocky
13 2 (0.27%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 190 (25.23%) Agile
2 170 (22.58%) Problem-Solving
3 161 (21.38%) DevOps
4 122 (16.20%) CI/CD
5 111 (14.74%) Migration
6 96 (12.75%) Business Intelligence
7 76 (10.09%) Software Engineering
8 73 (9.69%) ETL
9 70 (9.30%) Performance Tuning
10 69 (9.16%) Test Automation
11 64 (8.50%) Disaster Recovery
12 62 (8.23%) Data Modelling
13 58 (7.70%) Scrum
14 56 (7.44%) High Availability
15 55 (7.30%) ITIL
16 54 (7.17%) Data Migration
17 52 (6.91%) Data Analysis
18 50 (6.64%) Microservices
19 48 (6.37%) TDD
20 46 (6.11%) Analytics
Programming Languages
1 382 (50.73%) SQL
2 215 (28.55%) C#
3 153 (20.32%) Python
4 102 (13.55%) JavaScript
5 93 (12.35%) PowerShell
6 63 (8.37%) Java
7 59 (7.84%) T-SQL
8 45 (5.98%) TypeScript
9 39 (5.18%) PL/SQL
10 28 (3.72%) Bash
11 26 (3.45%) VB
12 21 (2.79%) VBA
13 16 (2.12%) Perl
13 16 (2.12%) Scala
14 11 (1.46%) R
15 10 (1.33%) PHP
16 7 (0.93%) Shell Script
17 6 (0.80%) Bicep
18 4 (0.53%) Data Analysis Expressions
19 3 (0.40%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 113 (15.01%) Security Cleared
2 83 (11.02%) Degree
3 77 (10.23%) SC Cleared
4 34 (4.52%) Microsoft Certification
5 29 (3.85%) Azure Certification
6 27 (3.59%) 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 (7.30%) QA
2 40 (5.31%) GDPR
3 34 (4.52%) Data Quality
4 19 (2.52%) Accessibility
5 17 (2.26%) 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 (11.95%) Active Directory
2 59 (7.84%) Docker
3 35 (4.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (2.66%) vSphere
5 9 (1.20%) 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 (9.03%) Kubernetes
2 57 (7.57%) Terraform
3 24 (3.19%) Ansible
4 17 (2.26%) 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 (35.33%) Microsoft
2 212 (28.15%) Oracle
3 49 (6.51%) VMware
4 46 (6.11%) Databricks
5 28 (3.72%) Sybase
6 24 (3.19%) ServiceNow
7 21 (2.79%) Cisco
8 20 (2.66%) SAP
9 19 (2.52%) Red Hat
10 17 (2.26%) Citrix
11 16 (2.12%) Google
11 16 (2.12%) IBM
12 15 (1.99%) Informatica
13 11 (1.46%) Salesforce
13 11 (1.46%) Splunk
14 10 (1.33%) CyberArk
15 9 (1.20%) UiPath
16 7 (0.93%) AppDynamics
16 7 (0.93%) TIBCO
17 6 (0.80%) Bloomberg