SQL Server Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring SQL Server skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 78 71
Rank change year-on-year -43 -7 -18
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 47 28 43
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.39% 1.81% 2.09%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 6.80% 10.65% 14.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 39 20 28
10th Percentile £361 £346 £325
25th Percentile £435 £418 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £550 £493
Median % change year-on-year -12.55% +11.68% -3.43%
75th Percentile £638 £613 £638
90th Percentile - £651 £684
England median daily rate £500 £510 £509
% change year-on-year -1.96% +0.25% -3.10%

All Database & BI Skills
West Midlands

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 in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 691 263 301
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 20.42% 17.04% 14.60%
Number of daily rates quoted 535 170 221
10th Percentile £351 £293 £308
25th Percentile £413 £408 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £485 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.06% +7.78% -10.00%
75th Percentile £573 £588 £588
90th Percentile £668 £638 £706
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 5 2
10th Percentile £34.90 £16.67 £34.59
25th Percentile £42.50 £18.74 £35.57
Median hourly rate £48.75 £29.33 £37.22
Median % change year-on-year +66.21% -21.19% +47.39%
75th Percentile £68.75 £33.88 £38.86
90th Percentile £75.63 £34.54 £39.84
England median hourly rate £38.25 £34.00 £39.25
% change year-on-year +12.50% -13.38% -32.38%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL Server relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

SQL Server job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

SQL Server
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL Server.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 5 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in the West Midlands

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL Server.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

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 West Midlands region over the 6 months to 5 July 2026. 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
Birmingham -16 14 £625 +31.58% 7
Shropshire -41 12 £472 +7.16% 4
Warwickshire -18 8 £575 -4.17% 5
Coventry -19 7 £313 -32.07% 4
Solihull -16 3 £492 -17.21% 3
Herefordshire - 2 - - 2
SQL Server
England

SQL Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 10 (21.28%) SharePoint
2 5 (10.64%) Tuxedo
3 1 (2.13%) Apache Spark
3 1 (2.13%) IIS
3 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Exchange
3 1 (2.13%) Oracle SOA Suite
3 1 (2.13%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 2 (4.26%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 4 (8.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (2.13%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (2.13%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 25 (53.19%) Azure
2 8 (17.02%) AWS
3 6 (12.77%) GitHub
3 6 (12.77%) GitHub Copilot
4 5 (10.64%) Power Automate
5 4 (8.51%) Azure DevOps
5 4 (8.51%) Dynamics 365
6 3 (6.38%) Power Platform
6 3 (6.38%) Serverless
7 2 (4.26%) Azure Data Factory
7 2 (4.26%) Azure Functions
7 2 (4.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 2 (4.26%) PaaS
7 2 (4.26%) PowerApps
8 1 (2.13%) Amazon S3
8 1 (2.13%) Azure Service Bus
8 1 (2.13%) dbt
8 1 (2.13%) Microsoft 365
8 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (2.13%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 13 (27.66%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (23.40%) Relational Database
3 10 (21.28%) RDBMS
4 8 (17.02%) Ingres
5 7 (14.89%) MySQL
6 4 (8.51%) Data Warehouse
7 3 (6.38%) Azure SQL Database
7 3 (6.38%) Power BI
7 3 (6.38%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (6.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 2 (4.26%) Data Lake
8 2 (4.26%) NoSQL
9 1 (2.13%) Amazon Athena
9 1 (2.13%) Elasticsearch
9 1 (2.13%) OLTP
9 1 (2.13%) Oracle Database
9 1 (2.13%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (2.13%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (2.13%) Spark SQL
9 1 (2.13%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 9 (19.15%) Git
2 8 (17.02%) Team Foundation Server
3 7 (14.89%) Oracle Forms
4 4 (8.51%) Cypress.io
4 4 (8.51%) Postman
4 4 (8.51%) Selenium
4 4 (8.51%) WebDriver
5 2 (4.26%) Cucumber
5 2 (4.26%) Protractor
6 1 (2.13%) JIRA
6 1 (2.13%) MLflow
6 1 (2.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 14 (29.79%) Public Sector
2 12 (25.53%) Social Skills
3 8 (17.02%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (12.77%) Finance
5 4 (8.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 2 (4.26%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (2.13%) Advertising
7 1 (2.13%) Law
7 1 (2.13%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (2.13%) Police
7 1 (2.13%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 13 (27.66%) Senior
2 8 (17.02%) DBA
2 8 (17.02%) SharePoint Engineer
3 7 (14.89%) Developer
4 4 (8.51%) Administrator
4 4 (8.51%) Analyst
4 4 (8.51%) Senior Developer
4 4 (8.51%) Test Analyst
5 3 (6.38%) Architect
5 3 (6.38%) Data Engineer
5 3 (6.38%) Database Engineer
5 3 (6.38%) Lead
5 3 (6.38%) SC Cleared DBA
5 3 (6.38%) Senior Data Engineer
5 3 (6.38%) SQL DBA
6 2 (4.26%) Enterprise Architect
6 2 (4.26%) Senior Analyst
6 2 (4.26%) Senior Test Analyst
6 2 (4.26%) SQL Developer
6 2 (4.26%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 7 (14.89%) ADO
1 7 (14.89%) COM
1 7 (14.89%) ODBC
2 6 (12.77%) .NET
3 4 (8.51%) Gherkin
4 3 (6.38%) REST
4 3 (6.38%) XML
5 2 (4.26%) .NET Framework
5 2 (4.26%) ActiveX
5 2 (4.26%) JSON
5 2 (4.26%) PySpark
5 2 (4.26%) XSLT
6 1 (2.13%) .NET Core
6 1 (2.13%) AngularJS
6 1 (2.13%) Itk
6 1 (2.13%) JDBC
6 1 (2.13%) LDAP
6 1 (2.13%) React
6 1 (2.13%) SailPoint
6 1 (2.13%) Spring
Miscellaneous
1 6 (12.77%) Low-Code
2 3 (6.38%) Virtual Team
3 2 (4.26%) Management Information System
3 2 (4.26%) Taxonomies
4 1 (2.13%) Algorithms
4 1 (2.13%) Data Centre
4 1 (2.13%) Enterprise Storage
4 1 (2.13%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (2.13%) Onboarding
4 1 (2.13%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (2.13%) AIX
1 1 (2.13%) Linux
1 1 (2.13%) Solaris
1 1 (2.13%) Unix
1 1 (2.13%) VMS
1 1 (2.13%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (36.17%) Agile
2 12 (25.53%) Technical Leadership
3 11 (23.40%) DevOps
3 11 (23.40%) Migration
3 11 (23.40%) Problem-Solving
3 11 (23.40%) User Acceptance Testing
4 10 (21.28%) Data Migration
4 10 (21.28%) Performance Tuning
5 9 (19.15%) Continuous Improvement
5 9 (19.15%) Data Modelling
5 9 (19.15%) Data Protection
5 9 (19.15%) Validation
6 8 (17.02%) CI/CD
6 8 (17.02%) Data Management
6 8 (17.02%) Knowledge Transfer
6 8 (17.02%) Operational Acceptance Testing
6 8 (17.02%) Runbook
6 8 (17.02%) System Integration Testing
6 8 (17.02%) Vulnerability Remediation
7 7 (14.89%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 23 (48.94%) SQL
2 7 (14.89%) VB
2 7 (14.89%) VB6
3 5 (10.64%) C#
3 5 (10.64%) Python
4 4 (8.51%) C
5 2 (4.26%) Java
5 2 (4.26%) JavaScript
5 2 (4.26%) PowerShell
6 1 (2.13%) Bicep
6 1 (2.13%) C++
6 1 (2.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 1 (2.13%) PL/SQL
6 1 (2.13%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 11 (23.40%) Security Cleared
2 9 (19.15%) SC Cleared
3 6 (12.77%) Microsoft Certification
4 4 (8.51%) ISTQB
4 4 (8.51%) OCP
4 4 (8.51%) Oracle Certification
5 3 (6.38%) Degree
6 2 (4.26%) BPSS Clearance
6 2 (4.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 2 (4.26%) ITIL Certification
7 1 (2.13%) AWS Certification
7 1 (2.13%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (25.53%) QA
2 5 (10.64%) GDPR
3 4 (8.51%) Accessibility
3 4 (8.51%) WCAG
4 2 (4.26%) Data Quality
5 1 (2.13%) ISO 22301
5 1 (2.13%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 2 (4.26%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (2.13%) Active Directory
2 1 (2.13%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (2.13%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (4.26%) Kubernetes
2 1 (2.13%) Data Guard
2 1 (2.13%) Oracle RMAN
2 1 (2.13%) PowerCLI
2 1 (2.13%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (2.13%) Terraform
Vendors
1 19 (40.43%) Microsoft
1 19 (40.43%) Oracle
2 7 (14.89%) Actian
3 3 (6.38%) Databricks
4 2 (4.26%) ServiceNow
5 1 (2.13%) Cisco
5 1 (2.13%) Dell
5 1 (2.13%) EMC
5 1 (2.13%) IBM
5 1 (2.13%) Isilon
5 1 (2.13%) Okta
5 1 (2.13%) SAP
5 1 (2.13%) Sparx
5 1 (2.13%) VMware