SQL Server Job Trends in the Thames Valley

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
South East > Thames Valley

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the Thames Valley requiring SQL Server skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 15 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 111 45 45
Rank change year-on-year -66 0 +3
Permanent jobs citing SQL Server 58 189 191
As % of all permanent jobs in the Thames Valley 1.43% 5.57% 4.83%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 12.37% 28.46% 24.46%
Number of salaries quoted 43 131 164
10th Percentile £30,500 £36,250 £38,550
25th Percentile £37,500 £40,000 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £47,000 £52,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -10.48% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £63,125 £64,563 £70,313
90th Percentile £69,840 £75,000 £82,500
South East median annual salary £51,250 £50,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year +2.50% -9.09% +3.77%

All Database & Business Intelligence Skills
Thames Valley

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 Thames Valley.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 469 664 781
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the Thames Valley 11.56% 19.58% 19.74%
Number of salaries quoted 226 382 549
10th Percentile £35,802 £36,250 £37,500
25th Percentile £42,813 £47,500 £45,000
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £62,500 £55,000
Median % change year-on-year -8.00% +13.64% -4.35%
75th Percentile £71,250 £77,500 £75,000
90th Percentile £75,625 £92,500 £90,000
South East median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend in the Thames Valley

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

SQL Server job vacancy trend in the Thames Valley

SQL Server
Salary Trend in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing SQL Server.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the Thames Valley citing SQL Server

SQL Server
Salary Histogram in the Thames Valley

Salary distribution for jobs citing SQL Server in the Thames Valley over the 6 months to 15 January 2026.

Salary histogram for SQL Server in the Thames Valley

SQL Server
Job Locations in the Thames Valley

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing SQL Server within the Thames Valley region over the 6 months to 15 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
Buckinghamshire -7 36 £41,250 -29.79% 20
Berkshire -64 16 £57,500 -2.75% 21
Oxfordshire -24 6 £45,000 +20.00% 3
SQL Server
South East

SQL Server
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the Thames Valley 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 9 (15.52%) IIS
2 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Exchange
3 2 (3.45%) CMS
Applications
1 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (3.45%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (1.72%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 3 (5.17%) Salesforce CRM
2 2 (3.45%) Dynamics CRM
Cloud Services
1 24 (41.38%) Azure
2 10 (17.24%) Power Platform
3 8 (13.79%) AWS
3 8 (13.79%) Azure DevOps
3 8 (13.79%) GCP
4 4 (6.90%) Azure Data Factory
4 4 (6.90%) Microsoft 365
5 3 (5.17%) dbt
5 3 (5.17%) GitHub
5 3 (5.17%) Microsoft Purview
5 3 (5.17%) SaaS
6 2 (3.45%) Amazon SageMaker
6 2 (3.45%) Azure Machine Learning
6 2 (3.45%) Dynamics 365
6 2 (3.45%) Fivetran
6 2 (3.45%) GitHub Actions
6 2 (3.45%) Google Data Studio
6 2 (3.45%) Snowflake
7 1 (1.72%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 5 (8.62%) Firewall
2 4 (6.90%) DHCP
2 4 (6.90%) DNS
2 4 (6.90%) VPN
3 2 (3.45%) TCP/IP
3 2 (3.45%) VLAN
3 2 (3.45%) Wi-Fi
4 1 (1.72%) iSCSI
4 1 (1.72%) Remote Desktop
4 1 (1.72%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 10 (17.24%) Power BI
2 9 (15.52%) MySQL
3 8 (13.79%) SQL Server Reporting Services
4 5 (8.62%) Data Warehouse
4 5 (8.62%) Relational Database
5 4 (6.90%) Azure SQL Database
5 4 (6.90%) PostgreSQL
5 4 (6.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 3 (5.17%) Looker
6 3 (5.17%) Tableau
7 2 (3.45%) Amazon Redshift
7 2 (3.45%) BigQuery
7 2 (3.45%) Metadata
7 2 (3.45%) Oracle Database
8 1 (1.72%) Data Lake
8 1 (1.72%) MongoDB
8 1 (1.72%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 6 (10.34%) Git
2 1 (1.72%) Postman
2 1 (1.72%) SpecFlow
2 1 (1.72%) TeamCity
2 1 (1.72%) Visual Studio
General
1 22 (37.93%) Social Skills
2 8 (13.79%) Finance
3 4 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
4 3 (5.17%) Games
4 3 (5.17%) Retail
5 2 (3.45%) Humanities
5 2 (3.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
5 2 (3.45%) Manufacturing
5 2 (3.45%) Marketing
6 1 (1.72%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 20 (34.48%) Developer
2 17 (29.31%) Software Engineer
3 15 (25.86%) Senior
4 12 (20.69%) Senior Software Engineer
5 7 (12.07%) Data Engineer
5 7 (12.07%) Full-Stack Developer
5 7 (12.07%) IT Engineer
5 7 (12.07%) IT Support
5 7 (12.07%) IT Support Engineer
5 7 (12.07%) Support Engineer
6 6 (10.34%) .NET Developer
6 6 (10.34%) ASP.NET Developer
6 6 (10.34%) Integration Developer
6 6 (10.34%) Lead
6 6 (10.34%) SQL Developer
7 5 (8.62%) Full-Stack Engineer
7 5 (8.62%) Full-Stack Software Engineer
7 5 (8.62%) Senior Full-Stack Engineer
7 5 (8.62%) Senior Full-Stack Software Engineer
7 5 (8.62%) Software Support Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (53.45%) .NET
2 12 (20.69%) ASP.NET
3 10 (17.24%) .NET Framework
3 10 (17.24%) REST
4 6 (10.34%) ASP.NET Core
4 6 (10.34%) Entity Framework
4 6 (10.34%) Middleware
4 6 (10.34%) React
5 5 (8.62%) AngularJS
5 5 (8.62%) ASP.NET MVC
5 5 (8.62%) WinForms
6 4 (6.90%) gRPC
6 4 (6.90%) htmx
6 4 (6.90%) JSON
6 4 (6.90%) Kendo UI
6 4 (6.90%) Razor View Engine
6 4 (6.90%) Sass
6 4 (6.90%) SignalR
6 4 (6.90%) XML
7 3 (5.17%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 3 (5.17%) Cloud Native
1 3 (5.17%) Clustering
1 3 (5.17%) Distributed Systems
1 3 (5.17%) Enterprise Software
1 3 (5.17%) N-Tier
2 2 (3.45%) Data Centre
2 2 (3.45%) Onboarding
2 2 (3.45%) Replication
3 1 (1.72%) Management Information System
3 1 (1.72%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 12 (20.69%) Windows
2 4 (6.90%) Windows Server
3 3 (5.17%) Linux
3 3 (5.17%) Windows Server 2019
4 2 (3.45%) Windows Server 2012
4 2 (3.45%) Windows Server 2016
5 1 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 20 (34.48%) Software Engineering
2 16 (27.59%) Agile
3 15 (25.86%) DevOps
4 13 (22.41%) Full-Stack Development
5 12 (20.69%) Data Management
5 12 (20.69%) Problem-Solving
6 10 (17.24%) Business Intelligence
6 10 (17.24%) ETL
7 9 (15.52%) CI/CD
7 9 (15.52%) MVC
8 7 (12.07%) Computer Science
8 7 (12.07%) CRM
8 7 (12.07%) Scrum
9 6 (10.34%) Analytics
9 6 (10.34%) Continuous Improvement
9 6 (10.34%) Data Integration
9 6 (10.34%) Data Pipeline
9 6 (10.34%) Data Security
9 6 (10.34%) SDLC
10 5 (8.62%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 24 (41.38%) SQL
2 21 (36.21%) C#
3 13 (22.41%) T-SQL
4 5 (8.62%) Python
4 5 (8.62%) TypeScript
5 4 (6.90%) JavaScript
5 4 (6.90%) PowerShell
6 2 (3.45%) C
6 2 (3.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 2 (3.45%) VB.NET
7 1 (1.72%) Bash
7 1 (1.72%) C++
7 1 (1.72%) Java
7 1 (1.72%) Korn
7 1 (1.72%) PHP
7 1 (1.72%) R
Qualifications
1 14 (24.14%) Degree
2 7 (12.07%) Computer Science Degree
2 7 (12.07%) Microsoft Certification
3 2 (3.45%) CISSP
3 2 (3.45%) DBS Check
3 2 (3.45%) MCP
3 2 (3.45%) MCSA
3 2 (3.45%) MCSE
3 2 (3.45%) OCP
3 2 (3.45%) Oracle Certification
4 1 (1.72%) SC Cleared
4 1 (1.72%) Security Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (13.79%) Data Quality
2 7 (12.07%) Accessibility
3 2 (3.45%) GDPR
3 2 (3.45%) QA
3 2 (3.45%) SLA
System Software
1 5 (8.62%) Active Directory
2 4 (6.90%) Docker
2 4 (6.90%) Hyper-V
3 1 (1.72%) Citrix Hypervisor
Systems Management
1 2 (3.45%) Failover Clustering
2 1 (1.72%) Kubernetes
2 1 (1.72%) Terraform
Vendors
1 26 (44.83%) Microsoft
2 7 (12.07%) Google
2 7 (12.07%) Zoho
3 5 (8.62%) Sage
3 5 (8.62%) Salesforce
3 5 (8.62%) Xamarin
4 4 (6.90%) OpenAI
4 4 (6.90%) Telerik
5 3 (5.17%) Oracle
6 2 (3.45%) Alteryx
6 2 (3.45%) Cisco
6 2 (3.45%) HubSpot
6 2 (3.45%) Talend
6 2 (3.45%) VMware
7 1 (1.72%) Dell
7 1 (1.72%) Informatica
7 1 (1.72%) IONA
7 1 (1.72%) Red Hat
7 1 (1.72%) ServiceNow
7 1 (1.72%) Splunk