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 9 June 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
9 Jun 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 60 54 54
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 +3
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,409 2,296 4,101
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.25% 4.13% 4.68%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 19.08% 23.49% 23.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 995 1,756 3,110
10th Percentile £325 £363 £360
25th Percentile £411 £420 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £520
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% +0.96% +11.83%
75th Percentile £638 £656 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £475
% change year-on-year -5.00% +5.26% +15.50%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 12 39
10th Percentile £36.84 £27.07 £19.50
25th Percentile £40.00 £35.10 £20.75
Median hourly rate £40.13 £48.75 £46.67
Median % change year-on-year -17.69% +4.46% +86.68%
75th Percentile £48.11 £75.63 £62.93
90th Percentile £62.96 £85.00 £75.17
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.13 £37.90 £46.25
% change year-on-year +5.88% -18.06% +86.34%

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 7,386 9,773 17,215
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 17.05% 17.59% 19.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,279 6,927 12,282
10th Percentile £350 £375 £375
25th Percentile £425 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £545 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.67% -0.91% +10.00%
75th Percentile £650 £663 £650
90th Percentile £775 £754 £750
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - +11.11%
Number of hourly rates quoted 152 178 181
10th Percentile £14.00 £21.24 £14.88
25th Percentile £20.77 £33.05 £21.25
Median hourly rate £40.00 £60.00 £43.95
Median % change year-on-year -33.33% +36.52% +62.90%
75th Percentile £55.63 £73.75 £63.60
90th Percentile £72.50 £80.75 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £35.00 £58.59 £35.00
% change year-on-year -40.26% +67.40% +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 9 June 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 9 June 2024.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL Server in the UK

SQL Server
Top 16 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 9 June 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 -5 1,275 £513 -2.38% 947
London +5 846 £538 -6.52% 311
Work from Home -5 554 £500 -4.76% 589
UK excluding London -36 443 £475 -5.00% 681
South East -49 111 £513 - 115
North of England -16 106 £475 -5.00% 213
Midlands +3 91 £450 +5.76% 156
North West -16 75 £463 -7.50% 119
South West -17 73 £538 +6.17% 72
West Midlands -17 45 £525 +2.44% 95
East Midlands +9 43 £445 +18.67% 61
Scotland -20 37 £475 -1.96% 44
East of England -35 24 £475 +5.56% 60
Yorkshire -15 21 £463 -7.50% 62
North East +18 10 £475 -13.64% 34
Wales +2 8 £494 -5.95% 13

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 73 (5.18%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.77%) IIS
3 29 (2.06%) Microsoft Exchange
4 26 (1.85%) Apache
5 24 (1.70%) Confluence
6 20 (1.42%) CMS
7 18 (1.28%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.85%) Tomcat
9 11 (0.78%) JBoss
10 9 (0.64%) nginx
11 7 (0.50%) SAS
11 7 (0.50%) SharePoint 2010
11 7 (0.50%) SharePoint Server
12 6 (0.43%) Oracle Self-Service HR
13 3 (0.21%) Apache Airflow
13 3 (0.21%) Exchange Server 2010
13 3 (0.21%) WebSphere
14 2 (0.14%) Jadu
14 2 (0.14%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 2 (0.14%) WordPress
Applications
1 62 (4.40%) Microsoft Excel
2 25 (1.77%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (1.28%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.57%) CATIA
5 4 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.071%) Adobe Captivate
6 1 (0.071%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.071%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 1 (0.071%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.071%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 29 (2.06%) Dynamics CRM
2 19 (1.35%) Endur
2 19 (1.35%) Teamcenter
3 10 (0.71%) NEC Housing
3 10 (0.71%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 9 (0.64%) Temenos T24
5 8 (0.57%) DELMIA
6 7 (0.50%) OPENHousing
7 5 (0.35%) MIS ActiveH
8 4 (0.28%) Elite 3E
9 3 (0.21%) SAP S/4HANA
10 2 (0.14%) BusinessWorks
10 2 (0.14%) Relativity
10 2 (0.14%) SAP ERP
10 2 (0.14%) Veritas eDiscovery
10 2 (0.14%) Visualfiles
11 1 (0.071%) Academy Housing
11 1 (0.071%) Dynamics GP
11 1 (0.071%) Dynamics NAV
11 1 (0.071%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 669 (47.48%) Azure
2 289 (20.51%) Azure DevOps
3 228 (16.18%) Power Platform
4 169 (11.99%) AWS
5 102 (7.24%) Entra ID
6 87 (6.17%) Azure Service Bus
6 87 (6.17%) Microsoft 365
7 78 (5.54%) Azure Cosmos DB
7 78 (5.54%) Azure Data Factory
8 75 (5.32%) GitHub
9 67 (4.76%) PowerApps
10 55 (3.90%) Power Automate
11 54 (3.83%) Serverless
12 48 (3.41%) Azure Monitor
13 46 (3.26%) Azure Functions
13 46 (3.26%) PaaS
14 36 (2.56%) Azure Logic Apps
15 35 (2.48%) Dynamics 365
16 29 (2.06%) SaaS
16 29 (2.06%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 47 (3.34%) Firewall
2 42 (2.98%) DNS
3 27 (1.92%) SAN
4 23 (1.63%) Internet
5 21 (1.49%) DHCP
6 16 (1.14%) FTP
6 16 (1.14%) LAN
7 15 (1.06%) WAN
8 14 (0.99%) NAS
9 11 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
10 8 (0.57%) MPLS
11 7 (0.50%) SSL
11 7 (0.50%) TCP/IP
11 7 (0.50%) VPN
12 6 (0.43%) SSH
13 4 (0.28%) Cisco IOS
13 4 (0.28%) HTTP
13 4 (0.28%) VLAN
13 4 (0.28%) Wireless
14 3 (0.21%) Fibre Channel
Database & Business Intelligence
1 200 (14.19%) Power BI
2 148 (10.50%) Relational Database
3 147 (10.43%) Data Warehouse
4 141 (10.01%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 117 (8.30%) MySQL
6 104 (7.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 90 (6.39%) PostgreSQL
8 69 (4.90%) Azure SQL Database
9 68 (4.83%) NoSQL
10 58 (4.12%) Oracle Database
10 58 (4.12%) SQL Server Analysis Services
11 46 (3.26%) RDBMS
12 44 (3.12%) MongoDB
13 43 (3.05%) Metadata
14 42 (2.98%) Data Lake
15 37 (2.63%) Oracle Reports
16 32 (2.27%) Tableau
17 31 (2.20%) Microsoft Analysis Services
18 25 (1.77%) Redis
19 24 (1.70%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 135 (9.58%) Git
2 75 (5.32%) JIRA
3 65 (4.61%) Visual Studio
4 48 (3.41%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 42 (2.98%) SpecFlow
6 37 (2.63%) Selenium
7 31 (2.20%) GitLab
7 31 (2.20%) TeamCity
8 29 (2.06%) Jenkins
9 23 (1.63%) Team Foundation Server
10 19 (1.35%) WebDriver
11 16 (1.14%) JMeter
11 16 (1.14%) Visual Studio Team System
12 15 (1.06%) Bitbucket
13 14 (0.99%) Octopus Deploy
14 10 (0.71%) NUnit
14 10 (0.71%) Postman
14 10 (0.71%) SonarQube
15 9 (0.64%) Cucumber
15 9 (0.64%) ERwin
General
1 315 (22.36%) Social Skills
2 283 (20.09%) Finance
3 150 (10.65%) Analytical Skills
4 138 (9.79%) Public Sector
5 123 (8.73%) Banking
6 50 (3.55%) Back Office
7 39 (2.77%) Front Office
8 32 (2.27%) Investment Banking
9 29 (2.06%) Financial Institution
10 26 (1.85%) Manufacturing
11 23 (1.63%) Local Government
11 23 (1.63%) Marketing
12 21 (1.49%) Telecoms
13 20 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
14 17 (1.21%) Legal
15 16 (1.14%) Retail
16 15 (1.06%) Documentation Skills
16 15 (1.06%) Publishing
17 13 (0.92%) Electronics
17 13 (0.92%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 579 (41.09%) Developer
2 230 (16.32%) Senior
3 153 (10.86%) Senior Developer
4 139 (9.87%) .NET Developer
5 127 (9.01%) C# Developer
6 98 (6.96%) Architect
6 98 (6.96%) Data Engineer
7 96 (6.81%) Analyst
8 83 (5.89%) DBA
9 69 (4.90%) SQL DBA
10 67 (4.76%) Software Developer
11 63 (4.47%) SQL Developer
12 61 (4.33%) Lead
13 55 (3.90%) Administrator
13 55 (3.90%) Azure Developer
13 55 (3.90%) Full Stack Developer
14 51 (3.62%) Infrastructure Engineer
15 49 (3.48%) Consultant
16 48 (3.41%) Senior Software Developer
17 44 (3.12%) Business Intelligence Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 467 (33.14%) .NET
2 170 (12.07%) XML
3 165 (11.71%) HTML
4 161 (11.43%) .NET Framework
5 145 (10.29%) .NET Core
6 125 (8.87%) ASP.NET
7 115 (8.16%) CSS
8 108 (7.67%) AngularJS
9 101 (7.17%) React
10 70 (4.97%) Web Services
11 61 (4.33%) Entity Framework
12 60 (4.26%) REST
13 49 (3.48%) SOAP
14 46 (3.26%) Kafka
14 46 (3.26%) RESTful
15 45 (3.19%) WCF
16 44 (3.12%) JSON
17 39 (2.77%) jQuery
18 37 (2.63%) SailPoint
19 33 (2.34%) ASP.NET MVC
Miscellaneous
1 72 (5.11%) Onboarding
2 68 (4.83%) Product Ownership
3 52 (3.69%) Replication
4 46 (3.26%) Clustering
5 29 (2.06%) Public Cloud
6 27 (1.92%) Data Centre
6 27 (1.92%) Management Information System
7 25 (1.77%) Enterprise Software
8 24 (1.70%) Client/Server
9 22 (1.56%) Hedge funds
10 19 (1.35%) Distributed Systems
11 17 (1.21%) Legacy Systems
11 17 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
12 16 (1.14%) Cloud Native
12 16 (1.14%) Derivative
12 16 (1.14%) Linux Command Line
13 15 (1.06%) Data Structures
13 15 (1.06%) PKI
14 14 (0.99%) Renewable Energy
15 13 (0.92%) Blog
Operating Systems
1 282 (20.01%) Windows
2 137 (9.72%) Linux
3 132 (9.37%) Windows Server
4 66 (4.68%) Unix
5 40 (2.84%) Windows Server 2016
5 40 (2.84%) Windows Server 2019
6 36 (2.56%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 23 (1.63%) Windows 10
8 15 (1.06%) Windows Server 2012
9 11 (0.78%) Android
10 10 (0.71%) VMS
10 10 (0.71%) zOS
11 7 (0.50%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.50%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.50%) Windows 7
12 6 (0.43%) CentOS
13 5 (0.35%) Windows Server 2008
14 3 (0.21%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.14%) Mac OS
15 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 433 (30.73%) Agile
2 404 (28.67%) DevOps
3 223 (15.83%) Business Intelligence
4 197 (13.98%) Problem-Solving
5 194 (13.77%) Scrum
6 193 (13.70%) CI/CD
7 187 (13.27%) Migration
8 170 (12.07%) ETL
9 150 (10.65%) Data Modelling
10 118 (8.37%) TDD
11 98 (6.96%) MVC
12 96 (6.81%) OO
13 93 (6.60%) Disaster Recovery
14 88 (6.25%) Analytics
15 87 (6.17%) SDLC
16 84 (5.96%) Test Automation
17 82 (5.82%) Software Engineering
18 81 (5.75%) Computer Science
19 80 (5.68%) Full Stack Development
20 76 (5.39%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 747 (53.02%) SQL
2 538 (38.18%) C#
3 275 (19.52%) PowerShell
4 190 (13.48%) JavaScript
5 157 (11.14%) T-SQL
6 140 (9.94%) Python
7 127 (9.01%) Java
8 99 (7.03%) Bicep
9 87 (6.17%) PL/SQL
10 60 (4.26%) TypeScript
11 31 (2.20%) VBA
12 29 (2.06%) Bash
12 29 (2.06%) Shell Script
13 26 (1.85%) VB.NET
14 24 (1.70%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 24 (1.70%) VB
15 23 (1.63%) C
16 17 (1.21%) PHP
17 16 (1.14%) C++
18 10 (0.71%) Perl
Qualifications
1 192 (13.63%) Security Cleared
2 164 (11.64%) Degree
3 112 (7.95%) SC Cleared
4 62 (4.40%) DV Cleared
5 50 (3.55%) Computer Science Degree
6 35 (2.48%) Microsoft Certification
7 19 (1.35%) Master's Degree
8 16 (1.14%) Azure Certification
8 16 (1.14%) BPSS Clearance
9 14 (0.99%) MCSE
10 11 (0.78%) ISTQB
11 8 (0.57%) MCITP
11 8 (0.57%) MCTS
12 6 (0.43%) AWS Certification
12 6 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (0.35%) CISSP
13 5 (0.35%) SAP Certification
14 4 (0.28%) ISEB
14 4 (0.28%) TOGAF Certification
15 3 (0.21%) SANS
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 117 (8.30%) QA
2 48 (3.41%) Data Quality
3 38 (2.70%) Accessibility
4 26 (1.85%) WCAG
5 14 (0.99%) SLA
6 13 (0.92%) MiFID
7 12 (0.85%) GDPR
8 7 (0.50%) EMIR
9 5 (0.35%) Dodd-Frank
9 5 (0.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 4 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
10 4 (0.28%) NIST
11 3 (0.21%) ISO/IEC 12207
11 3 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
12 2 (0.14%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 2 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials
12 2 (0.14%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 2 (0.14%) GxP
12 2 (0.14%) HIPAA
12 2 (0.14%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 275 (19.52%) Active Directory
2 51 (3.62%) VMware Infrastructure
3 45 (3.19%) Docker
4 28 (1.99%) IAG
5 25 (1.77%) ACF2
5 25 (1.77%) RACF
6 24 (1.70%) Virtual Machines
7 12 (0.85%) Hyper-V
8 11 (0.78%) Virtual Servers
9 10 (0.71%) vSphere
10 9 (0.64%) VMware ESXi
11 8 (0.57%) VMware Workstation
12 3 (0.21%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.14%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 2 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
13 2 (0.14%) VirtualBox
14 1 (0.071%) Citrix Presentation Server
14 1 (0.071%) vCloud
14 1 (0.071%) Virtual Desktop
14 1 (0.071%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 55 (3.90%) Kubernetes
2 54 (3.83%) Terraform
3 45 (3.19%) Ansible
4 40 (2.84%) SCCM
5 31 (2.20%) Single Sign-On
6 22 (1.56%) Puppet
7 20 (1.42%) Microsoft Clustering
7 20 (1.42%) Progress Chef
8 19 (1.35%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 15 (1.06%) Grafana
10 14 (0.99%) Nagios
10 14 (0.99%) Prometheus
11 13 (0.92%) Microsoft Intune
12 11 (0.78%) Nessus
13 10 (0.71%) Graylog
13 10 (0.71%) SCOM
14 9 (0.64%) Jamf Pro
15 8 (0.57%) NetBackup
15 8 (0.57%) Red Hat Satellite
16 6 (0.43%) WebInspect
Vendors
1 557 (39.53%) Microsoft
2 313 (22.21%) Oracle
3 73 (5.18%) VMware
4 53 (3.76%) SAP
4 53 (3.76%) ServiceNow
5 45 (3.19%) Sybase
6 43 (3.05%) Databricks
7 36 (2.56%) Red Hat
8 33 (2.34%) Informatica
9 31 (2.20%) Citrix
10 23 (1.63%) Veeam
11 22 (1.56%) Splunk
12 21 (1.49%) CyberArk
13 19 (1.35%) Sparx
14 18 (1.28%) CA
14 18 (1.28%) Salesforce
15 17 (1.21%) IBM
16 15 (1.06%) Qualys
17 13 (0.92%) AVEVA
17 13 (0.92%) OpenLink