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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 115 84 65
Rank change year-on-year -31 -19 -20
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 57 29 42
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.64% 1.74% 2.27%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 8.03% 10.55% 14.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 47 21 25
10th Percentile £306 £310 £342
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -14.29% - -
75th Percentile £563 £613 £638
90th Percentile £638 £663 -
England median daily rate £488 £513 £510
% change year-on-year -4.88% +0.49% -2.86%

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 710 275 299
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 20.43% 16.51% 16.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 533 174 216
10th Percentile £353 £275 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £463
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% +2.70% -11.90%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £625
90th Percentile £671 £625 £719
England median daily rate £500 £515 £538
% change year-on-year -2.91% -4.19% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 5 2
10th Percentile - £16.67 £34.59
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.74 £35.57
Median hourly rate £45.00 £29.33 £37.22
Median % change year-on-year +53.43% -21.19% +47.39%
75th Percentile £53.75 £33.88 £38.86
90th Percentile £74.50 £34.54 £39.84
England median hourly rate £38.38 £34.65 £37.50
% change year-on-year +10.75% -7.60% -31.82%

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 2 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 2 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
Shropshire -39 16 £450 +2.27% 2
Birmingham -11 14 £625 +108.33% 12
Coventry -17 11 £313 -32.07% 3
Warwickshire -16 8 £650 +6.12% 2
Solihull -19 3 £492 -17.21% 2
Herefordshire - 2 - -
Worcestershire - 2 £450 - 10
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 11 (19.30%) SharePoint
2 5 (8.77%) Tuxedo
3 2 (3.51%) Apache Spark
4 1 (1.75%) Apache
4 1 (1.75%) IIS
4 1 (1.75%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (1.75%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 2 (3.51%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 9 (15.79%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (1.75%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
2 1 (1.75%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 33 (57.89%) Azure
2 10 (17.54%) AWS
2 10 (17.54%) Power Automate
3 9 (15.79%) Azure DevOps
3 9 (15.79%) Dynamics 365
4 7 (12.28%) Serverless
5 6 (10.53%) Azure Functions
5 6 (10.53%) GitHub
5 6 (10.53%) GitHub Copilot
6 4 (7.02%) Azure Data Factory
6 4 (7.02%) PaaS
6 4 (7.02%) Power Platform
7 2 (3.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 2 (3.51%) GCP
7 2 (3.51%) PowerApps
8 1 (1.75%) Amazon Kinesis
8 1 (1.75%) dbt
8 1 (1.75%) Entra ID
8 1 (1.75%) Microsoft Purview
8 1 (1.75%) Snowflake
Database & Business Intelligence
1 21 (36.84%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (22.81%) MySQL
3 8 (14.04%) RDBMS
3 8 (14.04%) Relational Database
4 6 (10.53%) Ingres
5 5 (8.77%) Azure SQL Database
6 4 (7.02%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (7.02%) Power BI
7 3 (5.26%) Data Lake
7 3 (5.26%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 2 (3.51%) Delta Lake
8 2 (3.51%) NoSQL
8 2 (3.51%) Oracle Reports
9 1 (1.75%) Db2
9 1 (1.75%) Metadata
9 1 (1.75%) OLAP
9 1 (1.75%) OLTP
9 1 (1.75%) Oracle Database 12c
9 1 (1.75%) Power Query
9 1 (1.75%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 9 (15.79%) Cypress.io
1 9 (15.79%) Postman
1 9 (15.79%) Selenium
1 9 (15.79%) WebDriver
2 7 (12.28%) Git
3 6 (10.53%) Cucumber
3 6 (10.53%) Oracle Forms
3 6 (10.53%) Team Foundation Server
4 3 (5.26%) Protractor
5 1 (1.75%) MLflow
General
1 24 (42.11%) Social Skills
2 18 (31.58%) Public Sector
3 14 (24.56%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (15.79%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 8 (14.04%) Finance
6 2 (3.51%) Presentation Skills
7 1 (1.75%) Advertising
7 1 (1.75%) Law
7 1 (1.75%) Military
7 1 (1.75%) Organisational Skills
7 1 (1.75%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 16 (28.07%) Senior
2 13 (22.81%) DBA
3 10 (17.54%) Administrator
4 9 (15.79%) Analyst
4 9 (15.79%) Test Analyst
5 8 (14.04%) SharePoint Engineer
6 7 (12.28%) Lead
7 6 (10.53%) Lead Test Analyst
7 6 (10.53%) SC Cleared DBA
7 6 (10.53%) Senior Analyst
7 6 (10.53%) Senior Test Analyst
7 6 (10.53%) Test Leader
8 5 (8.77%) Data Engineer
8 5 (8.77%) Database Engineer
8 5 (8.77%) Developer
9 4 (7.02%) Oracle Database Engineer
10 3 (5.26%) Architect
10 3 (5.26%) Oracle DBA
10 3 (5.26%) Senior Developer
10 3 (5.26%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 9 (15.79%) Gherkin
2 6 (10.53%) ADO
2 6 (10.53%) COM
2 6 (10.53%) ODBC
3 5 (8.77%) .NET
4 3 (5.26%) JSON
4 3 (5.26%) XML
4 3 (5.26%) XSLT
5 2 (3.51%) .NET Framework
5 2 (3.51%) PySpark
6 1 (1.75%) ActiveX
6 1 (1.75%) Itk
6 1 (1.75%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 6 (10.53%) Low-Code
1 6 (10.53%) Management Information System
2 4 (7.02%) Virtual Team
3 3 (5.26%) Taxonomies
4 2 (3.51%) Replication
5 1 (1.75%) Algorithms
5 1 (1.75%) Data Centre
5 1 (1.75%) Enterprise Storage
5 1 (1.75%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (1.75%) Onboarding
5 1 (1.75%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.75%) AIX
1 1 (1.75%) Linux
1 1 (1.75%) Solaris
1 1 (1.75%) VMS
1 1 (1.75%) Windows
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (35.09%) Agile
2 18 (31.58%) Problem-Solving
3 16 (28.07%) Technical Leadership
4 15 (26.32%) DevOps
5 14 (24.56%) Performance Tuning
6 13 (22.81%) Continuous Improvement
6 13 (22.81%) Database Security
7 12 (21.05%) Migration
7 12 (21.05%) Stakeholder Management
7 12 (21.05%) Test Automation
8 11 (19.30%) Capacity Planning
8 11 (19.30%) Data Management
9 10 (17.54%) Data Migration
9 10 (17.54%) Mentoring
10 9 (15.79%) AI
10 9 (15.79%) CRM
10 9 (15.79%) Data Modelling
10 9 (15.79%) Information Security
10 9 (15.79%) Load Testing
10 9 (15.79%) User Acceptance Testing
Programming Languages
1 22 (38.60%) SQL
2 8 (14.04%) C#
3 6 (10.53%) JavaScript
3 6 (10.53%) VB
3 6 (10.53%) VB6
4 5 (8.77%) Python
5 4 (7.02%) C
6 2 (3.51%) T-SQL
7 1 (1.75%) Ada
7 1 (1.75%) Bicep
7 1 (1.75%) C++
7 1 (1.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (1.75%) Java
7 1 (1.75%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 16 (28.07%) Microsoft Certification
2 15 (26.32%) Security Cleared
3 13 (22.81%) SC Cleared
4 10 (17.54%) OCP
4 10 (17.54%) Oracle Certification
5 9 (15.79%) ISTQB
6 3 (5.26%) Degree
6 3 (5.26%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (3.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (3.51%) ITIL Certification
8 1 (1.75%) AWS Certification
8 1 (1.75%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (22.81%) QA
2 10 (17.54%) GDPR
3 9 (15.79%) Accessibility
3 9 (15.79%) WCAG
4 2 (3.51%) Data Quality
5 1 (1.75%) ISO 22301
5 1 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 2 (3.51%) Oracle RAC
2 1 (1.75%) Active Directory
2 1 (1.75%) Virtual Machines
2 1 (1.75%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 2 (3.51%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.75%) Data Guard
2 1 (1.75%) Oracle RMAN
2 1 (1.75%) PowerCLI
2 1 (1.75%) Single Sign-On
2 1 (1.75%) Terraform
Vendors
1 29 (50.88%) Microsoft
2 25 (43.86%) Oracle
3 6 (10.53%) Actian
4 4 (7.02%) Databricks
5 2 (3.51%) SYSPRO
6 1 (1.75%) Cisco
6 1 (1.75%) Dell
6 1 (1.75%) EMC
6 1 (1.75%) IBM
6 1 (1.75%) Isilon
6 1 (1.75%) ServiceNow
6 1 (1.75%) Sparx
6 1 (1.75%) VMware