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 27 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 98 97 72
Rank change year-on-year -1 -25 -23
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 76 28 43
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 2.13% 1.52% 2.26%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 11.66% 7.93% 13.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 61 21 18
10th Percentile £306 £263 £419
25th Percentile £405 £350 £519
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £513 £567
Median % change year-on-year -10.24% -9.61% +11.18%
75th Percentile £588 £599 £606
90th Percentile £638 £625 £629
England median daily rate £488 £500 £505
% change year-on-year -2.50% -0.99% -5.83%

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 652 353 318
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 18.28% 19.14% 16.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 467 228 204
10th Percentile £359 £350 £316
25th Percentile £413 £418 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £600 £589 £625
90th Percentile £675 £642 £721
England median daily rate £510 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -0.49% -6.82% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 4 2
10th Percentile £20.45 £30.70 £34.04
25th Percentile £21.25 £32.74 £34.20
Median hourly rate £21.50 £34.43 £34.47
Median % change year-on-year -37.55% -0.10% +11.03%
75th Percentile £40.53 £35.24 £34.73
90th Percentile £61.75 £35.69 £34.89
England median hourly rate £38.50 £43.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -11.49% +24.29% -36.07%

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 27 September 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 27 September 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
Coventry -1 24 £313 -10.71% 1
Birmingham +1 16 £625 +42.86% 24
Shropshire -31 15 £450 +2.27%
Warwickshire -4 9 £650 -3.70% 17
Worcestershire - 7 £575 - 3
Herefordshire - 4 - - 1
Solihull -18 1 £600 +0.97% 6
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 22 (28.95%) SharePoint
2 5 (6.58%) Tuxedo
3 3 (3.95%) Microsoft Exchange
4 2 (2.63%) Apache Spark
4 2 (2.63%) Skype for Business
5 1 (1.32%) Apache
5 1 (1.32%) IIS
5 1 (1.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (1.32%) Oracle Workflow
Business Applications
1 19 (25.00%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (1.32%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 47 (61.84%) Azure
2 21 (27.63%) Power Automate
3 20 (26.32%) Azure DevOps
4 19 (25.00%) Dynamics 365
4 19 (25.00%) Serverless
5 16 (21.05%) Azure Functions
6 13 (17.11%) Power Platform
7 10 (13.16%) AWS
8 7 (9.21%) GitHub
8 7 (9.21%) GitHub Copilot
9 4 (5.26%) Azure Data Factory
9 4 (5.26%) PaaS
10 3 (3.95%) Microsoft 365
11 2 (2.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 2 (2.63%) ChatGPT
11 2 (2.63%) Copilot Studio
11 2 (2.63%) GCP
11 2 (2.63%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (2.63%) Microsoft Copilot
11 2 (2.63%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 3 (3.95%) DHCP
1 3 (3.95%) DNS
1 3 (3.95%) Firewall
2 2 (2.63%) SAN
2 2 (2.63%) Skype
2 2 (2.63%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (25.00%) PostgreSQL
2 10 (13.16%) MySQL
3 7 (9.21%) RDBMS
3 7 (9.21%) Relational Database
4 5 (6.58%) Azure SQL Database
4 5 (6.58%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (6.58%) Ingres
4 5 (6.58%) Power BI
5 4 (5.26%) Data Lake
5 4 (5.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 2 (2.63%) Db2
6 2 (2.63%) Delta Lake
6 2 (2.63%) MongoDB
6 2 (2.63%) Redis
7 1 (1.32%) Elasticsearch
7 1 (1.32%) IBM InfoSphere
7 1 (1.32%) Oracle Database
7 1 (1.32%) Oracle Database 12c
7 1 (1.32%) PowerPivot
7 1 (1.32%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 15 (19.74%) Git
2 11 (14.47%) Cypress.io
2 11 (14.47%) Postman
2 11 (14.47%) Selenium
2 11 (14.47%) WebDriver
3 8 (10.53%) Cucumber
4 5 (6.58%) Oracle Forms
4 5 (6.58%) Team Foundation Server
5 3 (3.95%) Protractor
6 1 (1.32%) MLflow
6 1 (1.32%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 30 (39.47%) Social Skills
2 26 (34.21%) Public Sector
3 19 (25.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
4 18 (23.68%) Analytical Skills
5 10 (13.16%) Finance
6 1 (1.32%) Aerospace
6 1 (1.32%) Law
6 1 (1.32%) Legal
6 1 (1.32%) Local Government
6 1 (1.32%) Military
6 1 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
6 1 (1.32%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 23 (30.26%) Senior
2 15 (19.74%) Developer
3 12 (15.79%) Lead
4 11 (14.47%) Analyst
4 11 (14.47%) DBA
4 11 (14.47%) Test Analyst
5 10 (13.16%) Administrator
6 8 (10.53%) Dynamics 365 Developer
6 8 (10.53%) Lead Test Analyst
6 8 (10.53%) Senior Analyst
6 8 (10.53%) Senior Test Analyst
6 8 (10.53%) SharePoint Engineer
6 8 (10.53%) Test Leader
7 7 (9.21%) Senior Developer
8 6 (7.89%) Data Engineer
9 5 (6.58%) Principal Engineer
10 4 (5.26%) Database Engineer
10 4 (5.26%) Lead Developer
10 4 (5.26%) Oracle Database Engineer
10 4 (5.26%) SC Cleared DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 11 (14.47%) Gherkin
1 11 (14.47%) JSON
1 11 (14.47%) XML
1 11 (14.47%) XSLT
2 5 (6.58%) ADO
2 5 (6.58%) COM
2 5 (6.58%) ODBC
3 4 (5.26%) .NET
4 3 (3.95%) CSS
4 3 (3.95%) REST
5 2 (2.63%) GraphQL
5 2 (2.63%) LangChain
5 2 (2.63%) Next.js
5 2 (2.63%) OAuth
5 2 (2.63%) OpenID
5 2 (2.63%) PySpark
5 2 (2.63%) React
5 2 (2.63%) Semantic Kernel
5 2 (2.63%) Tailwind CSS
6 1 (1.32%) Terraform
Miscellaneous
1 17 (22.37%) Management Information System
2 11 (14.47%) Taxonomies
3 8 (10.53%) Virtual Team
4 6 (7.89%) Onboarding
5 5 (6.58%) Low-Code
6 2 (2.63%) AI Agents
6 2 (2.63%) Cloud Native
6 2 (2.63%) Enterprise Storage
6 2 (2.63%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (2.63%) Replication
7 1 (1.32%) Algorithms
7 1 (1.32%) Data Centre
7 1 (1.32%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.32%) PKI
7 1 (1.32%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 10 (13.16%) Windows
2 5 (6.58%) Linux
3 4 (5.26%) Windows Server
4 3 (3.95%) CentOS
4 3 (3.95%) Ubuntu
5 1 (1.32%) AIX
5 1 (1.32%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 1 (1.32%) Solaris
5 1 (1.32%) Unix
5 1 (1.32%) VMS
5 1 (1.32%) Windows Server 2003
5 1 (1.32%) Windows Server 2012
5 1 (1.32%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 30 (39.47%) Agile
2 26 (34.21%) DevOps
3 25 (32.89%) Technical Leadership
4 23 (30.26%) Problem-Solving
5 21 (27.63%) AI
6 20 (26.32%) Continuous Improvement
7 19 (25.00%) CRM
7 19 (25.00%) Information Security
7 19 (25.00%) Mentoring
8 18 (23.68%) Stakeholder Management
9 17 (22.37%) Data Modelling
10 13 (17.11%) Performance Tuning
11 12 (15.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
11 12 (15.79%) Test Automation
12 11 (14.47%) API Testing
12 11 (14.47%) BDD
12 11 (14.47%) Data Management
12 11 (14.47%) Database Security
12 11 (14.47%) Load Testing
12 11 (14.47%) Migration
Programming Languages
1 24 (31.58%) SQL
2 19 (25.00%) C#
3 17 (22.37%) JavaScript
4 5 (6.58%) VB
4 5 (6.58%) VB6
5 4 (5.26%) C
5 4 (5.26%) Python
6 3 (3.95%) PowerShell
7 2 (2.63%) T-SQL
7 2 (2.63%) TypeScript
8 1 (1.32%) Ada
8 1 (1.32%) Bicep
8 1 (1.32%) C++
8 1 (1.32%) Java
Qualifications
1 25 (32.89%) Microsoft Certification
2 19 (25.00%) Security Cleared
3 11 (14.47%) ISTQB
3 11 (14.47%) SC Cleared
4 9 (11.84%) OCP
4 9 (11.84%) Oracle Certification
5 7 (9.21%) DV Cleared
6 5 (6.58%) Azure Certification
6 5 (6.58%) Degree
7 3 (3.95%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 1 (1.32%) AWS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (26.32%) GDPR
2 19 (25.00%) Accessibility
2 19 (25.00%) WCAG
3 15 (19.74%) QA
4 3 (3.95%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.32%) HL7
5 1 (1.32%) ISO 22301
5 1 (1.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 4 (5.26%) Active Directory
1 4 (5.26%) VMware Infrastructure
2 2 (2.63%) Docker
2 2 (2.63%) Hyper-V
2 2 (2.63%) Oracle RAC
3 1 (1.32%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
3 1 (1.32%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 3 (3.95%) Single Sign-On
2 2 (2.63%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.32%) Data Guard
3 1 (1.32%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (1.32%) PowerCLI
Vendors
1 43 (56.58%) Microsoft
2 22 (28.95%) Oracle
3 5 (6.58%) Actian
3 5 (6.58%) Databricks
3 5 (6.58%) SolarWinds
3 5 (6.58%) Splunk
3 5 (6.58%) VMware
4 2 (2.63%) Cisco
4 2 (2.63%) EMC
4 2 (2.63%) IBM
4 2 (2.63%) OpenAI
4 2 (2.63%) SYSPRO
5 1 (1.32%) CheckPoint
5 1 (1.32%) Dell
5 1 (1.32%) Fortinet
5 1 (1.32%) Isilon
5 1 (1.32%) NetApp
5 1 (1.32%) Palo Alto
5 1 (1.32%) ServiceNow
5 1 (1.32%) Sparx