SQL Server Job Trends in the South East

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
England > South East

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the South East requiring SQL Server skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 109 51 29
Rank change year-on-year -58 -22 +11
Permanent jobs citing SQL Server 183 417 612
As % of all permanent jobs in the South East 1.77% 4.63% 6.89%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 19.53% 25.55% 36.39%
Number of salaries quoted 158 278 549
10th Percentile £29,000 £31,775 £36,250
25th Percentile £37,688 £40,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £51,250 £50,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -9.09% +3.77%
75th Percentile £65,000 £60,000 £65,000
90th Percentile £88,500 £73,750 £75,000
England median annual salary £55,217 £55,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +0.39% - -4.35%

All Database & Business Intelligence Skills
South East

SQL Server falls under the Databases and Business Intelligence category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring database or business intelligence skills in the South East.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 937 1,632 1,682
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the South East 9.08% 18.11% 18.95%
Number of salaries quoted 526 855 1,263
10th Percentile £31,250 £36,250 £36,250
25th Percentile £41,250 £46,090 £43,750
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £58,000 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -0.86% +5.45% -
75th Percentile £69,840 £75,000 £69,500
90th Percentile £83,750 £86,070 £83,750
England median annual salary £60,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year -7.69% +8.33% -4.76%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in the South East

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing SQL Server relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the South East.

SQL Server job vacancy trend in the South East

SQL Server
Salary Trend in the South East

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing SQL Server.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the South East citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Salary Histogram in the South East

Salary distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in the South East over the 6 months to 12 January 2026.

Salary histogram for SQL Server in the South East

SQL Server
Job Locations in the South East

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing SQL Server within the South East region over the 6 months to 12 January 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Thames Valley -70 59 £46,000 -12.38% 57
Surrey -17 39 £65,000 +36.84% 14
Hampshire +10 36 £55,650 +11.30% 27
Buckinghamshire -3 36 £41,250 -29.79% 25
Isle of Wight - 17 £41,500 - 9
Berkshire -62 16 £57,500 -2.75% 26
East Sussex -21 14 £41,750 -12.11% 11
Kent -11 12 £60,000 -11.11% 18
Oxfordshire -25 7 £42,500 +13.33% 6
West Sussex -17 3 £63,750 +34.21% 13
Middlesex 0 2 - - 1
SQL Server
England

SQL Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the South East 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 17 (9.29%) IIS
2 6 (3.28%) Microsoft Exchange
3 3 (1.64%) CMS
4 2 (1.09%) Confluence
4 2 (1.09%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.55%) Apache
5 1 (0.55%) Kentico
5 1 (0.55%) SAS
Applications
1 6 (3.28%) Microsoft Office
2 5 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
3 2 (1.09%) S-PLUS
4 1 (0.55%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 13 (7.10%) Dynamics NAV
2 3 (1.64%) Salesforce CRM
3 2 (1.09%) Dynamics CRM
4 1 (0.55%) Oracle 11i
4 1 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.55%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.55%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 74 (40.44%) Azure
2 30 (16.39%) Power Platform
3 25 (13.66%) AWS
3 25 (13.66%) Azure DevOps
4 16 (8.74%) SaaS
5 9 (4.92%) Dynamics 365
5 9 (4.92%) GCP
6 8 (4.37%) Azure Data Factory
6 8 (4.37%) GitHub
7 7 (3.83%) Microsoft 365
8 5 (2.73%) Azure Logic Apps
9 4 (2.19%) Fivetran
9 4 (2.19%) Snowflake
10 3 (1.64%) dbt
10 3 (1.64%) Microsoft Purview
11 2 (1.09%) Amazon SageMaker
11 2 (1.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 2 (1.09%) GitHub Actions
11 2 (1.09%) Google Data Studio
11 2 (1.09%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (8.20%) WAN
2 14 (7.65%) LAN
3 13 (7.10%) Firewall
4 12 (6.56%) TCP/IP
5 8 (4.37%) VoIP
6 7 (3.83%) DNS
6 7 (3.83%) Network Security
7 6 (3.28%) DHCP
8 5 (2.73%) VPN
9 4 (2.19%) VLAN
10 3 (1.64%) SAN
11 2 (1.09%) Internet
11 2 (1.09%) Wi-Fi
12 1 (0.55%) Cisco ASA
12 1 (0.55%) iSCSI
12 1 (0.55%) MPLS
12 1 (0.55%) NAS
12 1 (0.55%) NetScaler
12 1 (0.55%) Remote Desktop
12 1 (0.55%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (15.30%) Power BI
2 24 (13.11%) Relational Database
3 14 (7.65%) MySQL
3 14 (7.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
4 11 (6.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
5 9 (4.92%) Oracle Database
5 9 (4.92%) PostgreSQL
6 6 (3.28%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (3.28%) Tableau
7 5 (2.73%) Looker
7 5 (2.73%) Oracle Database 12c
8 4 (2.19%) Azure SQL Database
8 4 (2.19%) MongoDB
8 4 (2.19%) Oracle Database 10g
8 4 (2.19%) Oracle Database 11g
9 2 (1.09%) Amazon Redshift
9 2 (1.09%) BigQuery
9 2 (1.09%) Crystal Reports
9 2 (1.09%) Metadata
10 1 (0.55%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 18 (9.84%) Git
2 5 (2.73%) Visual Studio
3 3 (1.64%) JIRA
3 3 (1.64%) Selenium
4 2 (1.09%) Ranorex
4 2 (1.09%) Team Foundation Server
5 1 (0.55%) Bitbucket
5 1 (0.55%) GitLab
5 1 (0.55%) Jenkins
5 1 (0.55%) Postman
5 1 (0.55%) SpecFlow
5 1 (0.55%) TeamCity
General
1 59 (32.24%) Social Skills
2 35 (19.13%) Finance
3 18 (9.84%) Analytical Skills
4 7 (3.83%) Retail
5 5 (2.73%) Banking
6 4 (2.19%) Law
6 4 (2.19%) Marketing
7 3 (1.64%) Back Office
7 3 (1.64%) Games
7 3 (1.64%) Public Sector
8 2 (1.09%) Advertising
8 2 (1.09%) French Language
8 2 (1.09%) Humanities
8 2 (1.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 2 (1.09%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.55%) Billing
9 1 (0.55%) Financial Institution
9 1 (0.55%) Legal
9 1 (0.55%) Local Government
9 1 (0.55%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 46 (25.14%) Developer
2 25 (13.66%) Support Engineer
3 23 (12.57%) Senior
4 22 (12.02%) Full-Stack Developer
5 20 (10.93%) Software Engineer
6 18 (9.84%) .NET Developer
7 16 (8.74%) IT Support
8 15 (8.20%) Software Support Engineer
9 13 (7.10%) Analyst
9 13 (7.10%) Full-Stack .NET Developer
10 12 (6.56%) Senior Software Engineer
11 11 (6.01%) Lead
12 10 (5.46%) DBA
12 10 (5.46%) Software Developer
13 9 (4.92%) Administrator
13 9 (4.92%) Software Manager
13 9 (4.92%) SQL Developer
14 8 (4.37%) C# Developer
14 8 (4.37%) Development Manager
14 8 (4.37%) Software Development Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 73 (39.89%) .NET
2 25 (13.66%) ASP.NET
3 18 (9.84%) AngularJS
4 17 (9.29%) React
5 14 (7.65%) .NET Core
5 14 (7.65%) .NET Framework
5 14 (7.65%) XML
6 13 (7.10%) CSS
6 13 (7.10%) JSON
6 13 (7.10%) Vue
7 12 (6.56%) REST
8 11 (6.01%) ASP.NET Core
9 10 (5.46%) DCOM
9 10 (5.46%) RESTful
10 9 (4.92%) HTML
11 7 (3.83%) Entity Framework
11 7 (3.83%) Web Services
12 6 (3.28%) ASP.NET MVC
12 6 (3.28%) Blazor
12 6 (3.28%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 10 (5.46%) Client/Server
1 10 (5.46%) Driving Licence
2 8 (4.37%) Legacy Systems
3 7 (3.83%) Cloud Native
3 7 (3.83%) Data Centre
3 7 (3.83%) EPoS
3 7 (3.83%) Replication
4 4 (2.19%) Distributed Systems
4 4 (2.19%) Onboarding
4 4 (2.19%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
5 3 (1.64%) Clustering
5 3 (1.64%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.64%) N-Tier
6 2 (1.09%) Legacy Applications
6 2 (1.09%) Virtual Team
7 1 (0.55%) Enterprise Storage
7 1 (0.55%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.55%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.55%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 42 (22.95%) Windows
2 14 (7.65%) Windows Server
3 7 (3.83%) Linux
4 3 (1.64%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.64%) Windows Server 2016
4 3 (1.64%) Windows Server 2019
5 2 (1.09%) Windows Server 2012
6 1 (0.55%) Android
6 1 (0.55%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.55%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.55%) Unix
6 1 (0.55%) VMS
6 1 (0.55%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (25.68%) Agile
2 41 (22.40%) Problem-Solving
3 37 (20.22%) DevOps
4 35 (19.13%) Software Engineering
5 32 (17.49%) Full-Stack Development
6 31 (16.94%) CI/CD
7 30 (16.39%) Business Intelligence
8 27 (14.75%) Continuous Improvement
9 21 (11.48%) ETL
10 19 (10.38%) MVC
11 18 (9.84%) SDLC
12 16 (8.74%) Migration
13 15 (8.20%) Computer Science
13 15 (8.20%) Scrum
14 14 (7.65%) Data Governance
15 13 (7.10%) Customer Service
15 13 (7.10%) Data Management
16 12 (6.56%) Data Pipeline
16 12 (6.56%) ERP
17 11 (6.01%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 88 (48.09%) SQL
2 61 (33.33%) C#
3 19 (10.38%) T-SQL
4 18 (9.84%) Python
5 16 (8.74%) PowerShell
6 12 (6.56%) JavaScript
7 11 (6.01%) TypeScript
8 7 (3.83%) Java
9 4 (2.19%) C++
9 4 (2.19%) PHP
10 3 (1.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 2 (1.09%) Bash
11 2 (1.09%) Bicep
11 2 (1.09%) C
11 2 (1.09%) VB
11 2 (1.09%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.55%) Delphi
12 1 (0.55%) R
12 1 (0.55%) VB6
12 1 (0.55%) VBA
Qualifications
1 40 (21.86%) Degree
2 11 (6.01%) Computer Science Degree
3 9 (4.92%) Microsoft Certification
4 3 (1.64%) DBS Check
4 3 (1.64%) MCSE
4 3 (1.64%) SC Cleared
4 3 (1.64%) Security Cleared
5 2 (1.09%) Azure Certification
5 2 (1.09%) CISSP
5 2 (1.09%) ISTQB
5 2 (1.09%) MCP
5 2 (1.09%) MCSA
5 2 (1.09%) OCP
5 2 (1.09%) Oracle Certification
6 1 (0.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 1 (0.55%) RHCE
6 1 (0.55%) RHCSA
6 1 (0.55%) TOGAF Certification
6 1 (0.55%) VERITAS Certified Professional (VCP)
6 1 (0.55%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (6.56%) Data Quality
2 10 (5.46%) QA
3 7 (3.83%) Accessibility
4 5 (2.73%) SLA
5 2 (1.09%) GDPR
6 1 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 9 (4.92%) Active Directory
1 9 (4.92%) Docker
2 7 (3.83%) Hyper-V
3 5 (2.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.55%) Citrix Hypervisor
4 1 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.55%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 6 (3.28%) Terraform
2 5 (2.73%) Kubernetes
3 2 (1.09%) Failover Clustering
3 2 (1.09%) Microsoft Intune
3 2 (1.09%) SCCM
4 1 (0.55%) AirWatch
4 1 (0.55%) Ansible
4 1 (0.55%) CASB
4 1 (0.55%) Red Hat Satellite
4 1 (0.55%) SCOM
4 1 (0.55%) WSUS
4 1 (0.55%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 70 (38.25%) Microsoft
2 16 (8.74%) Oracle
3 7 (3.83%) Google
3 7 (3.83%) VMware
3 7 (3.83%) Zoho
4 5 (2.73%) Sage
4 5 (2.73%) Salesforce
4 5 (2.73%) Xamarin
5 4 (2.19%) OpenAI
5 4 (2.19%) Red Hat
5 4 (2.19%) Telerik
6 3 (1.64%) Cisco
6 3 (1.64%) Citrix
6 3 (1.64%) ServiceNow
7 2 (1.09%) Alteryx
7 2 (1.09%) Dynatrace
7 2 (1.09%) HubSpot
7 2 (1.09%) New Relic
7 2 (1.09%) SolarWinds
7 2 (1.09%) Talend