SQL Server Contracts

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for SQL Server skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited SQL Server over the 6 months to 15 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
15 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 60 51 51
Rank change year-on-year -9 0 +4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,385 2,469 4,197
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.25% 4.32% 4.80%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 19.07% 24.18% 23.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 965 1,881 3,185
10th Percentile £325 £371 £356
25th Percentile £405 £420 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% +1.94% +11.35%
75th Percentile £638 £666 £631
90th Percentile £725 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £450
% change year-on-year -2.06% +7.78% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 19 46
10th Percentile £25.55 £25.50 £20.75
25th Percentile £38.81 £33.70 £22.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £52.50 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year -23.81% +8.25% +86.54%
75th Percentile £49.04 £85.00 £63.24
90th Percentile £62.96 £85.50 £72.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £34.80 £51.03
% change year-on-year +14.96% -31.81% +96.26%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
UK

SQL Server is in the Databases and Business Intelligence category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 7,263 10,212 17,493
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.07% 17.88% 20.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,202 7,271 12,451
10th Percentile £350 £375 £375
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £545
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -0.92% +9.00%
75th Percentile £650 £663 £650
90th Percentile £775 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £495
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% +10.92%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 180 194
10th Percentile £14.00 £21.24 £15.37
25th Percentile £20.98 £32.30 £22.43
Median hourly rate £40.00 £60.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.33% +33.33% +69.81%
75th Percentile £61.60 £73.75 £64.94
90th Percentile £74.00 £82.55 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £56.95 £35.00
% change year-on-year -29.76% +62.71% +43.44%

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 15 May 2024.

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 15 May 2024.

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 15 May 2024. 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 -8 1,241 £510 -2.86% 1,025
London +5 824 £538 -6.52% 338
Work from Home -2 553 £500 -4.76% 783
UK excluding London -37 434 £475 -2.06% 728
North of England -17 109 £475 -5.00% 206
South East -52 103 £475 -5.00% 145
Midlands +1 83 £456 +7.35% 166
North West -15 72 £475 -1.02% 119
South West -19 70 £550 +8.64% 92
West Midlands -5 45 £518 +0.24% 99
Scotland -10 41 £475 +1.12% 43
East Midlands 0 35 £445 +14.84% 67
Yorkshire -11 27 £450 -10.00% 62
East of England -33 24 £475 +11.76% 57
North East +13 10 £475 -5.00% 26
Wales +5 10 £425 -19.05% 16
Northern Ireland -4 1 - - 11

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 71 (5.13%) SharePoint
2 37 (2.67%) IIS
3 29 (2.09%) Confluence
4 26 (1.88%) Microsoft Exchange
5 25 (1.81%) Apache
6 20 (1.44%) CMS
7 17 (1.23%) Apache Spark
8 11 (0.79%) Tomcat
9 10 (0.72%) JBoss
10 9 (0.65%) nginx
11 8 (0.58%) SAS
12 7 (0.51%) SharePoint 2010
12 7 (0.51%) SharePoint Server
13 6 (0.43%) Tornado
14 5 (0.36%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 4 (0.29%) ArcGIS
16 3 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
16 3 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 3 (0.22%) WordPress
Applications
1 69 (4.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.02%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.59%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.58%) CATIA
5 3 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.072%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.072%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 19 (1.37%) Teamcenter
2 17 (1.23%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.16%) Endur
4 10 (0.72%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 9 (0.65%) Temenos T24
6 8 (0.58%) DELMIA
7 5 (0.36%) OPENHousing
8 4 (0.29%) Elite 3E
8 4 (0.29%) NEC Housing
9 3 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.22%) MIS ActiveH
9 3 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
10 2 (0.14%) BusinessWorks
10 2 (0.14%) Relativity
10 2 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
10 2 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
10 2 (0.14%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 2 (0.14%) Visualfiles
11 1 (0.072%) Payment Gateway
11 1 (0.072%) SystmOne
Cloud Services
1 638 (46.06%) Azure
2 279 (20.14%) Azure DevOps
3 222 (16.03%) Power Platform
4 171 (12.35%) AWS
5 93 (6.71%) Entra ID
6 83 (5.99%) Microsoft 365
7 82 (5.92%) Azure Service Bus
8 80 (5.78%) Azure Data Factory
9 78 (5.63%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 72 (5.20%) GitHub
11 62 (4.48%) PowerApps
12 56 (4.04%) Power Automate
12 56 (4.04%) Serverless
13 49 (3.54%) Azure Monitor
14 48 (3.47%) Azure Functions
15 41 (2.96%) PaaS
16 34 (2.45%) Azure Logic Apps
17 28 (2.02%) SaaS
17 28 (2.02%) Snowflake
18 27 (1.95%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 52 (3.75%) Firewall
2 45 (3.25%) DNS
3 27 (1.95%) SAN
4 23 (1.66%) DHCP
5 20 (1.44%) Internet
6 18 (1.30%) LAN
6 18 (1.30%) WAN
7 15 (1.08%) NAS
8 14 (1.01%) FTP
9 12 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.65%) VPN
11 8 (0.58%) MPLS
12 7 (0.51%) TCP/IP
13 6 (0.43%) SSL
13 6 (0.43%) Wireless
14 5 (0.36%) Network Security
14 5 (0.36%) SSH
14 5 (0.36%) VLAN
15 4 (0.29%) Cisco IOS
15 4 (0.29%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 196 (14.15%) Power BI
2 145 (10.47%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 138 (9.96%) Relational Database
4 137 (9.89%) Data Warehouse
5 116 (8.38%) MySQL
6 97 (7.00%) PostgreSQL
6 97 (7.00%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 60 (4.33%) NoSQL
8 59 (4.26%) SQL Server Analysis Services
9 58 (4.19%) Azure SQL Database
10 52 (3.75%) Oracle Database
11 45 (3.25%) Metadata
12 42 (3.03%) MongoDB
12 42 (3.03%) RDBMS
13 39 (2.82%) Data Lake
14 36 (2.60%) Oracle Reports
15 31 (2.24%) Microsoft Analysis Services
16 29 (2.09%) Tableau
17 25 (1.81%) Big Data
18 21 (1.52%) Redis
Development Applications
1 140 (10.11%) Git
2 87 (6.28%) JIRA
3 59 (4.26%) Visual Studio
4 47 (3.39%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 41 (2.96%) SpecFlow
6 38 (2.74%) Selenium
7 33 (2.38%) TeamCity
8 31 (2.24%) GitLab
8 31 (2.24%) Jenkins
9 23 (1.66%) Team Foundation Server
10 19 (1.37%) WebDriver
11 17 (1.23%) Bitbucket
12 15 (1.08%) Octopus Deploy
13 14 (1.01%) JMeter
14 10 (0.72%) Cucumber
14 10 (0.72%) ERwin
14 10 (0.72%) NUnit
14 10 (0.72%) Postman
14 10 (0.72%) SonarQube
15 9 (0.65%) Visual Studio Team System
General
1 308 (22.24%) Social Skills
2 291 (21.01%) Finance
3 152 (10.97%) Analytical Skills
4 142 (10.25%) Public Sector
5 126 (9.10%) Banking
6 49 (3.54%) Back Office
7 36 (2.60%) Front Office
8 31 (2.24%) Manufacturing
9 30 (2.17%) Investment Banking
10 29 (2.09%) Financial Institution
11 25 (1.81%) Marketing
11 25 (1.81%) Telecoms
12 24 (1.73%) Presentation Skills
13 19 (1.37%) Local Government
14 18 (1.30%) Retail
15 16 (1.16%) Documentation Skills
15 16 (1.16%) Electronics
15 16 (1.16%) Legal
15 16 (1.16%) Publishing
16 13 (0.94%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 555 (40.07%) Developer
2 230 (16.61%) Senior
3 147 (10.61%) Senior Developer
4 134 (9.68%) .NET Developer
5 126 (9.10%) C# Developer
6 94 (6.79%) Analyst
7 93 (6.71%) Architect
8 90 (6.50%) DBA
9 84 (6.06%) Data Engineer
10 71 (5.13%) SQL DBA
11 70 (5.05%) Software Developer
12 62 (4.48%) Lead
13 60 (4.33%) SQL Developer
14 57 (4.12%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 55 (3.97%) Azure Developer
16 52 (3.75%) Consultant
17 50 (3.61%) Senior Software Developer
18 48 (3.47%) Administrator
18 48 (3.47%) Full Stack Developer
19 44 (3.18%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 440 (31.77%) .NET
2 169 (12.20%) XML
3 151 (10.90%) .NET Core
4 144 (10.40%) HTML
5 139 (10.04%) .NET Framework
6 110 (7.94%) AngularJS
7 108 (7.80%) ASP.NET
8 103 (7.44%) React
9 102 (7.36%) CSS
10 66 (4.77%) Web Services
11 60 (4.33%) REST
12 51 (3.68%) Entity Framework
13 48 (3.47%) SOAP
14 47 (3.39%) Kafka
15 46 (3.32%) JSON
16 44 (3.18%) RESTful
17 38 (2.74%) WCF
18 37 (2.67%) jQuery
19 36 (2.60%) SailPoint
20 33 (2.38%) ASP.NET MVC
Miscellaneous
1 71 (5.13%) Product Ownership
2 69 (4.98%) Onboarding
3 57 (4.12%) Replication
4 47 (3.39%) Clustering
5 30 (2.17%) Public Cloud
6 25 (1.81%) Data Centre
7 24 (1.73%) Management Information System
8 23 (1.66%) Distributed Systems
8 23 (1.66%) Hedge funds
9 21 (1.52%) Client/Server
10 20 (1.44%) Cloud Native
10 20 (1.44%) Enterprise Software
11 19 (1.37%) Derivative
12 17 (1.23%) Linux Command Line
13 15 (1.08%) PKI
13 15 (1.08%) Renewable Energy
14 14 (1.01%) Data Structures
14 14 (1.01%) NHS
15 13 (0.94%) Blog
16 12 (0.87%) Equity Derivative
Operating Systems
1 273 (19.71%) Windows
2 134 (9.68%) Windows Server
3 131 (9.46%) Linux
4 62 (4.48%) Unix
5 44 (3.18%) Windows Server 2016
6 43 (3.10%) Windows Server 2019
7 34 (2.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 24 (1.73%) Windows 10
9 17 (1.23%) Windows Server 2012
10 9 (0.65%) Android
10 9 (0.65%) VMS
10 9 (0.65%) Windows 7
11 8 (0.58%) Apple iOS
11 8 (0.58%) Ubuntu
11 8 (0.58%) Windows Server 2008
11 8 (0.58%) zOS
12 5 (0.36%) CentOS
13 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
13 2 (0.14%) Mac OS X
13 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 445 (32.13%) Agile
2 406 (29.31%) DevOps
3 231 (16.68%) Business Intelligence
4 203 (14.66%) Problem-Solving
5 201 (14.51%) CI/CD
6 195 (14.08%) Scrum
7 188 (13.57%) Migration
8 170 (12.27%) ETL
9 140 (10.11%) Data Modelling
10 120 (8.66%) TDD
11 98 (7.08%) OO
12 93 (6.71%) Disaster Recovery
13 87 (6.28%) Test Automation
14 85 (6.14%) Analytics
14 85 (6.14%) SDLC
15 84 (6.06%) MVC
15 84 (6.06%) Software Engineering
16 81 (5.85%) High Availability
17 79 (5.70%) Data Analysis
18 74 (5.34%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 731 (52.78%) SQL
2 517 (37.33%) C#
3 281 (20.29%) PowerShell
4 178 (12.85%) JavaScript
5 149 (10.76%) Python
6 147 (10.61%) T-SQL
7 134 (9.68%) Java
8 101 (7.29%) Bicep
9 83 (5.99%) PL/SQL
10 65 (4.69%) TypeScript
11 28 (2.02%) VBA
12 27 (1.95%) Bash
13 23 (1.66%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 23 (1.66%) Shell Script
14 21 (1.52%) C
15 19 (1.37%) VB
15 19 (1.37%) VB.NET
16 16 (1.16%) PHP
17 14 (1.01%) C++
18 10 (0.72%) XPath
Qualifications
1 193 (13.94%) Security Cleared
2 146 (10.54%) Degree
3 116 (8.38%) SC Cleared
4 61 (4.40%) DV Cleared
5 49 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
6 35 (2.53%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.08%) Master's Degree
9 14 (1.01%) MCSE
10 12 (0.87%) Azure Certification
10 12 (0.87%) ISTQB
11 8 (0.58%) MCITP
11 8 (0.58%) MCTS
12 6 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.36%) CISSP
13 5 (0.36%) SAP Certification
14 4 (0.29%) ISEB
15 3 (0.22%) PRINCE2 Certification
15 3 (0.22%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (8.52%) QA
2 50 (3.61%) Data Quality
3 38 (2.74%) Accessibility
4 26 (1.88%) WCAG
5 14 (1.01%) GDPR
6 13 (0.94%) MiFID
6 13 (0.94%) SLA
7 7 (0.51%) EMIR
8 5 (0.36%) Dodd-Frank
9 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
9 4 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 12207
10 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 3 (0.22%) NIST
10 3 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 2 (0.14%) GxP
11 2 (0.14%) HIPAA
11 2 (0.14%) HL7
11 2 (0.14%) PCI DSS
11 2 (0.14%) Solvency II
System Software
1 271 (19.57%) Active Directory
2 48 (3.47%) VMware Infrastructure
3 47 (3.39%) Docker
4 28 (2.02%) IAG
5 25 (1.81%) ACF2
5 25 (1.81%) RACF
6 21 (1.52%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.87%) vSphere
8 9 (0.65%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.65%) Virtual Servers
8 9 (0.65%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.58%) VMware Workstation
10 3 (0.22%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 3 (0.22%) Oracle RAC
10 3 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
10 3 (0.22%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.14%) VirtualBox
12 1 (0.072%) HDFS
12 1 (0.072%) KVM
12 1 (0.072%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 60 (4.33%) Kubernetes
2 58 (4.19%) Terraform
3 50 (3.61%) Ansible
4 37 (2.67%) SCCM
5 30 (2.17%) Single Sign-On
6 22 (1.59%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 21 (1.52%) Microsoft Clustering
8 20 (1.44%) Puppet
9 17 (1.23%) Progress Chef
10 16 (1.16%) Grafana
11 15 (1.08%) Nagios
11 15 (1.08%) Prometheus
12 11 (0.79%) Graylog
12 11 (0.79%) Nessus
13 9 (0.65%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
14 8 (0.58%) NetBackup
15 7 (0.51%) SCOM
15 7 (0.51%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.43%) HP Fortify
Vendors
1 539 (38.92%) Microsoft
2 308 (22.24%) Oracle
3 73 (5.27%) VMware
4 57 (4.12%) SAP
5 52 (3.75%) Databricks
5 52 (3.75%) ServiceNow
6 40 (2.89%) Sybase
7 33 (2.38%) Red Hat
8 30 (2.17%) Informatica
9 28 (2.02%) Citrix
9 28 (2.02%) Veeam
10 22 (1.59%) Splunk
11 19 (1.37%) CyberArk
11 19 (1.37%) Sparx
12 17 (1.23%) IBM
13 15 (1.08%) Salesforce
14 14 (1.01%) Cisco
15 13 (0.94%) AVEVA
15 13 (0.94%) CA
15 13 (0.94%) Qualys