SQL Server Contracts

Microsoft SQL Server (MS SQL)
UK

The following table provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies with a requirement for SQL Server skills. Included is a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered in vacancies that have cited SQL Server over the 6 months to 13 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
13 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 61 51 51
Rank change year-on-year -10 0 +4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,374 2,527 4,223
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.21% 4.34% 4.79%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 18.95% 24.26% 23.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 956 1,920 3,203
10th Percentile £332 £370 £356
25th Percentile £408 £420 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% +1.94% +11.96%
75th Percentile £638 £666 £631
90th Percentile £725 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £485 £450
% change year-on-year -2.06% +7.78% +9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 23 46
10th Percentile £25.55 £26.30 £20.75
25th Percentile £38.81 £35.00 £22.50
Median hourly rate £40.00 £45.00 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% -7.22% +79.63%
75th Percentile £49.04 £78.75 £63.24
90th Percentile £62.96 £85.00 £72.03
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £35.50 £51.03
% change year-on-year +12.68% -30.43% +96.26%

All Database and Business Intelligence Skills
UK

SQL Server is in the Databases and Business Intelligence category. The following table is for comparison with the above and provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 7,252 10,418 17,647
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.96% 17.91% 20.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,185 7,415 12,556
10th Percentile £350 £375 £375
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £540 £546
Median % change year-on-year -2.78% -1.10% +9.20%
75th Percentile £650 £663 £650
90th Percentile £775 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £495
% change year-on-year -5.00% +1.01% +11.24%
Number of hourly rates quoted 145 186 194
10th Percentile £14.00 £21.24 £15.37
25th Percentile £20.98 £33.05 £22.43
Median hourly rate £40.00 £58.59 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -31.73% +30.20% +66.79%
75th Percentile £61.60 £73.74 £64.94
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.25 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £55.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -27.27% +57.14% +42.86%

SQL Server
Job Vacancy Trend

Job postings citing SQL Server as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised.

Job vacancy trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Contractor Daily Rate Trend

3-month moving average daily rate quoted in jobs citing SQL Server.

Daily rate trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL Server over the 6 months to 13 May 2024.

Daily rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Contractor Hourly Rate Trend

3-month moving average hourly rates quoted in jobs citing SQL Server.

Hourly rate trend for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL Server over the 6 months to 13 May 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Top 17 Contract Locations

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 UK over the 6 months to 13 May 2024. 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
England -7 1,230 £511 -2.62% 1,091
London +2 820 £535 -6.96% 374
Work from Home -7 553 £500 -4.76% 785
UK excluding London -33 428 £475 -2.06% 761
North of England -21 107 £475 -5.00% 199
South East -57 103 £469 -6.25% 153
Midlands -6 77 £463 +8.82% 186
South West -18 71 £550 +4.76% 99
North West -16 70 £475 -2.01% 108
West Midlands -7 42 £525 +1.69% 113
Scotland -8 41 £490 +3.16% 46
East Midlands +6 31 £445 +11.25% 73
Yorkshire -11 27 £450 -10.00% 65
East of England -40 24 £475 +5.56% 60
Wales +4 11 £500 -4.76% 17
North East +14 10 £475 -5.00% 27
Northern Ireland -3 1 - - 11

SQL Server
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 72 (5.24%) SharePoint
2 37 (2.69%) IIS
3 28 (2.04%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.97%) Confluence
5 23 (1.67%) Apache
6 20 (1.46%) CMS
7 17 (1.24%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.87%) nginx
9 11 (0.80%) Tomcat
10 10 (0.73%) JBoss
11 8 (0.58%) SAS
12 7 (0.51%) SharePoint 2010
12 7 (0.51%) SharePoint Server
13 6 (0.44%) Tornado
14 5 (0.36%) Oracle Self-Service HR
15 4 (0.29%) ArcGIS
16 3 (0.22%) Apache Airflow
16 3 (0.22%) Exchange Server 2010
16 3 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 3 (0.22%) WordPress
Applications
1 69 (5.02%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.04%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.60%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.58%) CATIA
5 3 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.073%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.073%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 19 (1.38%) Teamcenter
2 17 (1.24%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.16%) Endur
4 10 (0.73%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 9 (0.66%) Temenos T24
6 8 (0.58%) DELMIA
7 5 (0.36%) OPENHousing
8 4 (0.29%) Elite 3E
8 4 (0.29%) NEC Housing
9 3 (0.22%) Dynamics NAV
9 3 (0.22%) MIS ActiveH
9 3 (0.22%) Sage X3
9 3 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
10 2 (0.15%) BusinessWorks
10 2 (0.15%) Remedy AR System
10 2 (0.15%) Remedy ITSM
10 2 (0.15%) Visualfiles
11 1 (0.073%) Dynamics GP
11 1 (0.073%) Oracle EBS
11 1 (0.073%) Oracle Retail
Cloud Services
1 632 (46.00%) Azure
2 279 (20.31%) Azure DevOps
3 218 (15.87%) Power Platform
4 169 (12.30%) AWS
5 91 (6.62%) Entra ID
6 84 (6.11%) Microsoft 365
7 82 (5.97%) Azure Service Bus
8 81 (5.90%) Azure Data Factory
9 78 (5.68%) Azure Cosmos DB
10 72 (5.24%) GitHub
11 59 (4.29%) PowerApps
12 57 (4.15%) Serverless
13 55 (4.00%) Power Automate
14 49 (3.57%) Azure Functions
14 49 (3.57%) Azure Monitor
15 40 (2.91%) PaaS
16 34 (2.47%) Azure Logic Apps
17 29 (2.11%) Snowflake
18 27 (1.97%) Dynamics 365
19 26 (1.89%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 55 (4.00%) Firewall
2 44 (3.20%) DNS
3 30 (2.18%) SAN
4 23 (1.67%) DHCP
5 21 (1.53%) WAN
6 19 (1.38%) Internet
6 19 (1.38%) LAN
7 15 (1.09%) NAS
8 13 (0.95%) FTP
9 12 (0.87%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (0.80%) VPN
11 9 (0.66%) Wireless
12 8 (0.58%) MPLS
12 8 (0.58%) TCP/IP
13 7 (0.51%) Cisco IOS
14 6 (0.44%) SSL
15 5 (0.36%) Network Security
15 5 (0.36%) SSH
15 5 (0.36%) VLAN
16 4 (0.29%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 192 (13.97%) Power BI
2 145 (10.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 139 (10.12%) Relational Database
4 138 (10.04%) Data Warehouse
5 118 (8.59%) MySQL
6 98 (7.13%) PostgreSQL
6 98 (7.13%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 60 (4.37%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 59 (4.29%) NoSQL
9 57 (4.15%) Azure SQL Database
10 52 (3.78%) Oracle Database
11 45 (3.28%) Metadata
12 44 (3.20%) RDBMS
13 40 (2.91%) Data Lake
13 40 (2.91%) MongoDB
14 36 (2.62%) Oracle Reports
15 31 (2.26%) Microsoft Analysis Services
16 28 (2.04%) Tableau
17 25 (1.82%) Big Data
18 21 (1.53%) Redis
Development Applications
1 138 (10.04%) Git
2 84 (6.11%) JIRA
3 56 (4.08%) Visual Studio
4 46 (3.35%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 41 (2.98%) SpecFlow
6 38 (2.77%) Selenium
7 33 (2.40%) TeamCity
8 31 (2.26%) Jenkins
9 29 (2.11%) GitLab
10 20 (1.46%) Team Foundation Server
11 19 (1.38%) WebDriver
12 17 (1.24%) Bitbucket
13 15 (1.09%) Octopus Deploy
14 14 (1.02%) JMeter
15 10 (0.73%) Cucumber
15 10 (0.73%) ERwin
15 10 (0.73%) NUnit
15 10 (0.73%) Postman
15 10 (0.73%) SonarQube
16 9 (0.66%) Visual Studio Team System
General
1 310 (22.56%) Social Skills
2 288 (20.96%) Finance
3 153 (11.14%) Analytical Skills
4 140 (10.19%) Public Sector
5 126 (9.17%) Banking
6 49 (3.57%) Back Office
7 36 (2.62%) Front Office
8 32 (2.33%) Manufacturing
9 30 (2.18%) Investment Banking
10 28 (2.04%) Financial Institution
11 26 (1.89%) Presentation Skills
12 25 (1.82%) Marketing
12 25 (1.82%) Telecoms
13 19 (1.38%) Local Government
14 18 (1.31%) Retail
15 16 (1.16%) Electronics
15 16 (1.16%) Publishing
16 15 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
17 13 (0.95%) Legal
18 11 (0.80%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 546 (39.74%) Developer
2 231 (16.81%) Senior
3 147 (10.70%) Senior Developer
4 133 (9.68%) .NET Developer
5 126 (9.17%) C# Developer
6 93 (6.77%) Analyst
6 93 (6.77%) Architect
7 90 (6.55%) DBA
8 87 (6.33%) Data Engineer
9 72 (5.24%) SQL DBA
10 68 (4.95%) Software Developer
11 61 (4.44%) Lead
12 58 (4.22%) Infrastructure Engineer
12 58 (4.22%) SQL Developer
13 55 (4.00%) Azure Developer
14 50 (3.64%) Senior Software Developer
15 49 (3.57%) Consultant
16 48 (3.49%) Full Stack Developer
17 47 (3.42%) Administrator
18 44 (3.20%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 434 (31.59%) .NET
2 167 (12.15%) XML
3 149 (10.84%) .NET Core
4 140 (10.19%) HTML
5 136 (9.90%) .NET Framework
6 110 (8.01%) AngularJS
7 108 (7.86%) ASP.NET
8 101 (7.35%) React
9 100 (7.28%) CSS
10 65 (4.73%) Web Services
11 59 (4.29%) REST
12 48 (3.49%) Entity Framework
12 48 (3.49%) SOAP
13 47 (3.42%) JSON
14 46 (3.35%) Kafka
15 41 (2.98%) RESTful
16 38 (2.77%) WCF
17 35 (2.55%) jQuery
17 35 (2.55%) SailPoint
18 33 (2.40%) ASP.NET MVC
Miscellaneous
1 72 (5.24%) Product Ownership
2 66 (4.80%) Onboarding
3 58 (4.22%) Replication
4 47 (3.42%) Clustering
5 30 (2.18%) Public Cloud
6 25 (1.82%) Data Centre
7 23 (1.67%) Management Information System
8 22 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
8 22 (1.60%) Hedge funds
9 21 (1.53%) Client/Server
9 21 (1.53%) Cloud Native
10 19 (1.38%) Derivative
11 18 (1.31%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.24%) Linux Command Line
13 15 (1.09%) PKI
13 15 (1.09%) Renewable Energy
14 14 (1.02%) NHS
15 13 (0.95%) Blog
15 13 (0.95%) Data Structures
15 13 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 269 (19.58%) Windows
2 132 (9.61%) Windows Server
3 128 (9.32%) Linux
4 59 (4.29%) Unix
5 46 (3.35%) Windows Server 2019
6 44 (3.20%) Windows Server 2016
7 36 (2.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 23 (1.67%) Windows 10
9 21 (1.53%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.87%) Android
11 11 (0.80%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.80%) Windows Server 2008
12 9 (0.66%) VMS
12 9 (0.66%) Windows 7
13 8 (0.58%) Apple iOS
13 8 (0.58%) zOS
14 5 (0.36%) CentOS
14 5 (0.36%) Mac OS
15 2 (0.15%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.15%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 447 (32.53%) Agile
2 405 (29.48%) DevOps
3 229 (16.67%) Business Intelligence
4 202 (14.70%) CI/CD
5 201 (14.63%) Problem-Solving
6 197 (14.34%) Scrum
7 191 (13.90%) Migration
8 170 (12.37%) ETL
9 141 (10.26%) Data Modelling
10 120 (8.73%) TDD
11 98 (7.13%) OO
12 93 (6.77%) Disaster Recovery
13 84 (6.11%) Software Engineering
13 84 (6.11%) Test Automation
14 83 (6.04%) SDLC
15 82 (5.97%) Analytics
15 82 (5.97%) MVC
16 80 (5.82%) High Availability
17 79 (5.75%) Data Analysis
18 74 (5.39%) Full Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 728 (52.98%) SQL
2 511 (37.19%) C#
3 278 (20.23%) PowerShell
4 176 (12.81%) JavaScript
5 147 (10.70%) Python
6 145 (10.55%) T-SQL
7 130 (9.46%) Java
8 101 (7.35%) Bicep
9 83 (6.04%) PL/SQL
10 65 (4.73%) TypeScript
11 28 (2.04%) VBA
12 27 (1.97%) Bash
13 24 (1.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 23 (1.67%) Shell Script
15 21 (1.53%) C
16 19 (1.38%) VB
16 19 (1.38%) VB.NET
17 15 (1.09%) PHP
18 14 (1.02%) C++
19 10 (0.73%) XPath
Qualifications
1 194 (14.12%) Security Cleared
2 142 (10.33%) Degree
3 116 (8.44%) SC Cleared
4 62 (4.51%) DV Cleared
5 47 (3.42%) Computer Science Degree
6 34 (2.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (1.16%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.09%) Master's Degree
9 14 (1.02%) MCSE
10 12 (0.87%) Azure Certification
10 12 (0.87%) ISTQB
11 8 (0.58%) MCITP
11 8 (0.58%) MCTS
12 6 (0.44%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.36%) SAP Certification
14 4 (0.29%) CISSP
14 4 (0.29%) ISEB
15 3 (0.22%) PRINCE2 Certification
15 3 (0.22%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 118 (8.59%) QA
2 51 (3.71%) Data Quality
3 38 (2.77%) Accessibility
4 26 (1.89%) WCAG
5 14 (1.02%) GDPR
6 13 (0.95%) SLA
7 12 (0.87%) MiFID
8 6 (0.44%) EMIR
9 5 (0.36%) Dodd-Frank
10 4 (0.29%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 4 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 3 (0.22%) IFRS
11 3 (0.22%) IFRS 17
11 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 12207
11 3 (0.22%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 3 (0.22%) NIST
11 3 (0.22%) Solvency II
12 2 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 269 (19.58%) Active Directory
2 48 (3.49%) VMware Infrastructure
3 46 (3.35%) Docker
4 28 (2.04%) IAG
5 25 (1.82%) ACF2
5 25 (1.82%) RACF
6 21 (1.53%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (1.02%) vSphere
8 9 (0.66%) Hyper-V
8 9 (0.66%) Virtual Servers
8 9 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.58%) VMware Workstation
10 4 (0.29%) VMware NSX
11 3 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
12 2 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
12 2 (0.15%) VirtualBox
13 1 (0.073%) Firmware
13 1 (0.073%) NFS
13 1 (0.073%) Terminal Server
13 1 (0.073%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 60 (4.37%) Terraform
2 58 (4.22%) Kubernetes
3 50 (3.64%) Ansible
4 37 (2.69%) SCCM
5 29 (2.11%) Single Sign-On
6 24 (1.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 21 (1.53%) Microsoft Clustering
8 20 (1.46%) Puppet
9 17 (1.24%) Grafana
9 17 (1.24%) Progress Chef
10 16 (1.16%) Nagios
11 15 (1.09%) Prometheus
12 11 (0.80%) Graylog
12 11 (0.80%) Microsoft Intune
12 11 (0.80%) Nessus
13 9 (0.66%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.58%) NetBackup
15 7 (0.51%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.44%) HP Fortify
16 6 (0.44%) WebInspect
Vendors
1 532 (38.72%) Microsoft
2 300 (21.83%) Oracle
3 75 (5.46%) VMware
4 57 (4.15%) SAP
5 53 (3.86%) Databricks
6 52 (3.78%) ServiceNow
7 40 (2.91%) Sybase
8 36 (2.62%) Red Hat
9 31 (2.26%) Veeam
10 30 (2.18%) Informatica
11 27 (1.97%) Citrix
12 22 (1.60%) Splunk
13 19 (1.38%) Sparx
14 17 (1.24%) Cisco
14 17 (1.24%) CyberArk
14 17 (1.24%) IBM
15 15 (1.09%) Salesforce
16 13 (0.95%) AVEVA
17 12 (0.87%) HP
17 12 (0.87%) Qualys