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 30 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
30 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 103 95 76
Rank change year-on-year -8 -19 -26
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 65 29 37
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.88% 1.64% 1.95%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 10.00% 9.45% 11.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 53 22 17
10th Percentile £306 £314 £322
25th Percentile £415 £414 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -12.00% +2.38% +1.69%
75th Percentile £588 £609 £638
90th Percentile £638 £658 £645
England median daily rate £492 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -1.60% - -4.76%

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 650 307 321
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 18.76% 17.39% 16.96%
Number of daily rates quoted 479 198 214
10th Percentile £360 £291 £313
25th Percentile £413 £408 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £494
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +1.27% -3.19%
75th Percentile £588 £572 £625
90th Percentile £675 £625 £713
England median daily rate £501 £510 £550
% change year-on-year -1.86% -7.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 4 2
10th Percentile - £30.70 £34.04
25th Percentile £21.25 £32.74 £34.20
Median hourly rate £36.15 £34.43 £34.47
Median % change year-on-year +5.00% -0.10% +22.46%
75th Percentile £58.75 £35.24 £34.73
90th Percentile £74.88 £35.69 £34.89
England median hourly rate £38.50 £38.23 £33.22
% change year-on-year +0.71% +15.10% -39.61%

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 30 August 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 30 August 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 -3 15 £625 +108.33% 8
Coventry -10 15 £313 -32.07% 4
Shropshire -33 15 £450 +2.27% 2
Warwickshire -6 8 £650 +6.12% 5
Worcestershire - 6 £575 - 5
Solihull -16 3 £492 -17.21% 1
Herefordshire - 3 - -
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 15 (23.08%) SharePoint
2 5 (7.69%) Tuxedo
3 2 (3.08%) Apache Spark
3 2 (3.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 1 (1.54%) Apache
4 1 (1.54%) IIS
4 1 (1.54%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (1.54%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (1.54%) Skype for Business
Applications
1 2 (3.08%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 11 (16.92%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.54%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (1.54%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 37 (56.92%) Azure
2 13 (20.00%) Power Automate
3 11 (16.92%) Azure DevOps
3 11 (16.92%) Dynamics 365
3 11 (16.92%) Serverless
4 10 (15.38%) AWS
5 8 (12.31%) Azure Functions
6 7 (10.77%) GitHub
6 7 (10.77%) GitHub Copilot
7 6 (9.23%) Power Platform
8 4 (6.15%) Azure Data Factory
8 4 (6.15%) PaaS
9 2 (3.08%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 2 (3.08%) ChatGPT
9 2 (3.08%) Copilot Studio
9 2 (3.08%) GCP
9 2 (3.08%) GitHub Actions
9 2 (3.08%) Microsoft 365
9 2 (3.08%) Microsoft Copilot
9 2 (3.08%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 2 (3.08%) DHCP
1 2 (3.08%) DNS
1 2 (3.08%) Firewall
2 1 (1.54%) SAN
2 1 (1.54%) Skype
2 1 (1.54%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (30.77%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (15.38%) MySQL
3 7 (10.77%) RDBMS
3 7 (10.77%) Relational Database
4 5 (7.69%) Azure SQL Database
4 5 (7.69%) Ingres
5 4 (6.15%) Data Lake
5 4 (6.15%) Data Warehouse
5 4 (6.15%) Power BI
5 4 (6.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (3.08%) Delta Lake
6 2 (3.08%) MongoDB
6 2 (3.08%) NoSQL
6 2 (3.08%) Redis
7 1 (1.54%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (1.54%) Oracle Database
7 1 (1.54%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (1.54%) PowerPivot
7 1 (1.54%) Spark SQL
7 1 (1.54%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 9 (13.85%) Cypress.io
1 9 (13.85%) Postman
1 9 (13.85%) Selenium
1 9 (13.85%) WebDriver
2 8 (12.31%) Git
3 6 (9.23%) Cucumber
4 5 (7.69%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (7.69%) Team Foundation Server
5 3 (4.62%) Protractor
6 1 (1.54%) MLflow
6 1 (1.54%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 26 (40.00%) Social Skills
2 19 (29.23%) Public Sector
3 16 (24.62%) Analytical Skills
4 11 (16.92%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 9 (13.85%) Finance
6 2 (3.08%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.54%) Aerospace
7 1 (1.54%) Law
7 1 (1.54%) Legal
7 1 (1.54%) Military
7 1 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.54%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 18 (27.69%) Senior
2 11 (16.92%) DBA
3 10 (15.38%) Administrator
4 9 (13.85%) Analyst
4 9 (13.85%) Test Analyst
5 8 (12.31%) Developer
5 8 (12.31%) SharePoint Engineer
6 7 (10.77%) Lead
7 6 (9.23%) Data Engineer
7 6 (9.23%) Lead Test Analyst
7 6 (9.23%) Senior Analyst
7 6 (9.23%) Senior Test Analyst
7 6 (9.23%) Test Leader
8 4 (6.15%) Database Engineer
8 4 (6.15%) Oracle Database Engineer
8 4 (6.15%) Principal Engineer
8 4 (6.15%) SC Cleared DBA
8 4 (6.15%) Senior Developer
9 3 (4.62%) Architect
9 3 (4.62%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (13.85%) Gherkin
2 6 (9.23%) .NET
3 5 (7.69%) ADO
3 5 (7.69%) COM
3 5 (7.69%) JSON
3 5 (7.69%) ODBC
3 5 (7.69%) XML
3 5 (7.69%) XSLT
4 3 (4.62%) CSS
4 3 (4.62%) REST
5 2 (3.08%) .NET Framework
5 2 (3.08%) GraphQL
5 2 (3.08%) LangChain
5 2 (3.08%) Next.js
5 2 (3.08%) OAuth
5 2 (3.08%) OpenID
5 2 (3.08%) PySpark
5 2 (3.08%) React
5 2 (3.08%) Semantic Kernel
5 2 (3.08%) Tailwind CSS
Miscellaneous
1 8 (12.31%) Management Information System
2 5 (7.69%) Low-Code
2 5 (7.69%) Onboarding
2 5 (7.69%) Taxonomies
2 5 (7.69%) Virtual Team
3 2 (3.08%) AI Agents
3 2 (3.08%) Cloud Native
3 2 (3.08%) Enterprise Storage
3 2 (3.08%) Replication
4 1 (1.54%) Algorithms
4 1 (1.54%) Data Centre
4 1 (1.54%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (1.54%) Linux Command Line
4 1 (1.54%) PKI
4 1 (1.54%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 7 (10.77%) Windows
2 3 (4.62%) Linux
3 2 (3.08%) CentOS
3 2 (3.08%) Ubuntu
3 2 (3.08%) Windows Server
4 1 (1.54%) AIX
4 1 (1.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (1.54%) Solaris
4 1 (1.54%) VMS
4 1 (1.54%) Windows Server 2003
4 1 (1.54%) Windows Server 2012
4 1 (1.54%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 23 (35.38%) Agile
2 21 (32.31%) Problem-Solving
3 20 (30.77%) Technical Leadership
4 19 (29.23%) DevOps
5 15 (23.08%) Continuous Improvement
6 14 (21.54%) Mentoring
7 13 (20.00%) AI
7 13 (20.00%) Stakeholder Management
8 12 (18.46%) Performance Tuning
8 12 (18.46%) Test Automation
9 11 (16.92%) CRM
9 11 (16.92%) Data Modelling
9 11 (16.92%) Database Security
9 11 (16.92%) Information Security
9 11 (16.92%) Migration
10 10 (15.38%) Data Management
10 10 (15.38%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 9 (13.85%) BDD
11 9 (13.85%) Capacity Planning
11 9 (13.85%) Load Testing
Programming Languages
1 23 (35.38%) SQL
2 11 (16.92%) C#
3 9 (13.85%) JavaScript
4 5 (7.69%) VB
4 5 (7.69%) VB6
5 4 (6.15%) C
5 4 (6.15%) Python
6 2 (3.08%) PowerShell
6 2 (3.08%) T-SQL
6 2 (3.08%) TypeScript
7 1 (1.54%) Ada
7 1 (1.54%) Bicep
7 1 (1.54%) C++
7 1 (1.54%) Java
Qualifications
1 19 (29.23%) Security Cleared
2 17 (26.15%) Microsoft Certification
3 11 (16.92%) SC Cleared
4 9 (13.85%) ISTQB
4 9 (13.85%) OCP
4 9 (13.85%) Oracle Certification
5 6 (9.23%) DV Cleared
6 4 (6.15%) Degree
7 3 (4.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 2 (3.08%) Azure Certification
8 2 (3.08%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (1.54%) AWS Certification
9 1 (1.54%) BPSS Clearance
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (18.46%) GDPR
1 12 (18.46%) QA
2 11 (16.92%) Accessibility
2 11 (16.92%) WCAG
3 2 (3.08%) Data Quality
4 1 (1.54%) HL7
4 1 (1.54%) ISO 22301
4 1 (1.54%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 3 (4.62%) Active Directory
1 3 (4.62%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (3.08%) Docker
2 2 (3.08%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (1.54%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.54%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.54%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.54%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 4 (6.15%) Kubernetes
2 3 (4.62%) Single Sign-On
3 1 (1.54%) Data Guard
3 1 (1.54%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (1.54%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 36 (55.38%) Microsoft
2 21 (32.31%) Oracle
3 5 (7.69%) Actian
3 5 (7.69%) Databricks
4 4 (6.15%) SolarWinds
4 4 (6.15%) Splunk
5 3 (4.62%) VMware
6 2 (3.08%) Cisco
6 2 (3.08%) EMC
6 2 (3.08%) OpenAI
6 2 (3.08%) SYSPRO
7 1 (1.54%) CheckPoint
7 1 (1.54%) Dell
7 1 (1.54%) Fortinet
7 1 (1.54%) IBM
7 1 (1.54%) Isilon
7 1 (1.54%) NetApp
7 1 (1.54%) Palo Alto
7 1 (1.54%) ServiceNow
7 1 (1.54%) Sparx