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 10 May 2024 with a comparison to the same period in the previous 2 years.

6 months to
10 May 2024
Same period 2023 Same period 2022
Rank 62 51 51
Rank change year-on-year -11 0 +4
Contract jobs citing SQL Server 1,393 2,515 4,176
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the UK 3.24% 4.34% 4.78%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 19.12% 24.19% 23.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 970 1,911 3,155
10th Percentile £331 £375 £356
25th Percentile £408 £420 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £525 £515
Median % change year-on-year -3.57% +1.94% +13.81%
75th Percentile £638 £666 £638
90th Percentile £725 £750 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £480 £485 £450
% change year-on-year -1.03% +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% +73.21%
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 7,285 10,396 17,514
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 16.94% 17.96% 20.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,209 7,401 12,423
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 £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 145 187 197
10th Percentile £14.00 £21.24 £15.00
25th Percentile £20.98 £35.00 £22.40
Median hourly rate £40.00 £60.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -33.33% +33.33% +66.79%
75th Percentile £61.60 £73.73 £65.00
90th Percentile £74.00 £81.00 £75.00
UK excluding London median hourly rate £40.00 £57.50 £35.00
% change year-on-year -30.43% +64.29% +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 10 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 10 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 10 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 -9 1,244 £513 -2.38% 982
London +3 830 £538 -6.52% 319
Work from Home -7 562 £500 -4.76% 759
UK excluding London -37 436 £480 -1.03% 698
North of England -13 109 £475 -5.00% 183
South East -51 104 £475 -5.00% 141
Midlands -6 78 £463 +8.82% 167
North West -17 71 £463 -6.07% 104
South West -23 71 £550 +4.76% 91
Scotland -13 45 £525 +10.53% 42
West Midlands -8 43 £525 +1.69% 101
East Midlands +5 31 £445 +11.25% 66
Yorkshire -8 28 £450 -10.00% 60
East of England -35 24 £475 +5.56% 62
Wales 0 11 £500 -4.76% 14
North East +17 10 £475 -5.00% 20
Northern Ireland -5 1 - - 9

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 (5.17%) SharePoint
2 39 (2.80%) IIS
3 29 (2.08%) Microsoft Exchange
4 27 (1.94%) Confluence
5 23 (1.65%) Apache
6 20 (1.44%) CMS
7 17 (1.22%) Apache Spark
8 12 (0.86%) nginx
9 11 (0.79%) Tomcat
10 10 (0.72%) JBoss
11 8 (0.57%) SAS
12 7 (0.50%) SharePoint 2010
12 7 (0.50%) SharePoint Server
13 6 (0.43%) 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 70 (5.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (1.58%) MS Visio
4 8 (0.57%) CATIA
5 3 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.072%) Chatbot
6 1 (0.072%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 19 (1.36%) Teamcenter
2 17 (1.22%) Dynamics CRM
3 16 (1.15%) Endur
4 10 (0.72%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 9 (0.65%) Temenos T24
6 8 (0.57%) 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 (0.14%) BusinessWorks
10 2 (0.14%) Remedy AR System
10 2 (0.14%) Remedy ITSM
10 2 (0.14%) Visualfiles
11 1 (0.072%) Epicor Tropos
11 1 (0.072%) Oracle Retail
11 1 (0.072%) Shopify
Cloud Services
1 646 (46.37%) Azure
2 284 (20.39%) Azure DevOps
3 219 (15.72%) Power Platform
4 172 (12.35%) AWS
5 91 (6.53%) Entra ID
6 85 (6.10%) Microsoft 365
7 82 (5.89%) Azure Data Factory
7 82 (5.89%) Azure Service Bus
8 78 (5.60%) Azure Cosmos DB
9 72 (5.17%) GitHub
10 59 (4.24%) PowerApps
10 59 (4.24%) Serverless
11 55 (3.95%) Power Automate
12 51 (3.66%) Azure Functions
13 49 (3.52%) Azure Monitor
14 40 (2.87%) PaaS
15 34 (2.44%) Azure Logic Apps
16 30 (2.15%) Snowflake
17 27 (1.94%) Dynamics 365
17 27 (1.94%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 56 (4.02%) Firewall
2 45 (3.23%) DNS
3 32 (2.30%) SAN
4 24 (1.72%) DHCP
5 23 (1.65%) WAN
6 21 (1.51%) LAN
7 19 (1.36%) Internet
8 15 (1.08%) FTP
8 15 (1.08%) NAS
9 12 (0.86%) Wi-Fi
10 11 (0.79%) VPN
11 9 (0.65%) TCP/IP
11 9 (0.65%) Wireless
12 8 (0.57%) MPLS
13 7 (0.50%) Cisco IOS
14 6 (0.43%) 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
1 193 (13.85%) Power BI
2 149 (10.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
3 141 (10.12%) Data Warehouse
3 141 (10.12%) Relational Database
4 118 (8.47%) MySQL
5 101 (7.25%) SQL Server Reporting Services
6 100 (7.18%) PostgreSQL
7 62 (4.45%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 59 (4.24%) Azure SQL Database
8 59 (4.24%) NoSQL
9 55 (3.95%) Oracle Database
10 45 (3.23%) Metadata
10 45 (3.23%) RDBMS
11 44 (3.16%) Data Lake
12 40 (2.87%) MongoDB
13 36 (2.58%) Oracle Reports
14 31 (2.23%) Microsoft Analysis Services
15 28 (2.01%) Tableau
16 25 (1.79%) Big Data
17 21 (1.51%) Redis
Development Applications
1 142 (10.19%) Git
2 86 (6.17%) JIRA
3 56 (4.02%) Visual Studio
4 46 (3.30%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
5 41 (2.94%) SpecFlow
6 38 (2.73%) Selenium
7 33 (2.37%) TeamCity
8 32 (2.30%) Jenkins
9 29 (2.08%) GitLab
10 20 (1.44%) Team Foundation Server
11 19 (1.36%) WebDriver
12 17 (1.22%) Bitbucket
13 15 (1.08%) Octopus Deploy
14 14 (1.01%) JMeter
15 11 (0.79%) Postman
16 10 (0.72%) Cucumber
16 10 (0.72%) ERwin
16 10 (0.72%) NUnit
16 10 (0.72%) SonarQube
17 9 (0.65%) Visual Studio Team System
General
1 311 (22.33%) Social Skills
2 295 (21.18%) Finance
3 154 (11.06%) Analytical Skills
4 144 (10.34%) Public Sector
5 128 (9.19%) Banking
6 49 (3.52%) Back Office
7 36 (2.58%) Front Office
8 34 (2.44%) Manufacturing
9 31 (2.23%) Investment Banking
10 28 (2.01%) Financial Institution
11 27 (1.94%) Marketing
11 27 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
11 27 (1.94%) Telecoms
12 19 (1.36%) Local Government
13 18 (1.29%) Electronics
13 18 (1.29%) Retail
14 16 (1.15%) Publishing
15 15 (1.08%) Documentation Skills
16 13 (0.93%) Legal
17 11 (0.79%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 552 (39.63%) Developer
2 233 (16.73%) Senior
3 147 (10.55%) Senior Developer
4 138 (9.91%) .NET Developer
5 129 (9.26%) C# Developer
6 96 (6.89%) Architect
7 93 (6.68%) Analyst
7 93 (6.68%) DBA
8 89 (6.39%) Data Engineer
9 75 (5.38%) SQL DBA
10 68 (4.88%) Software Developer
11 63 (4.52%) Lead
12 59 (4.24%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 58 (4.16%) Azure Developer
13 58 (4.16%) SQL Developer
14 50 (3.59%) Senior Software Developer
15 49 (3.52%) Consultant
15 49 (3.52%) Full Stack Developer
16 48 (3.45%) Administrator
17 47 (3.37%) C# .NET Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 440 (31.59%) .NET
2 167 (11.99%) XML
3 149 (10.70%) .NET Core
4 142 (10.19%) .NET Framework
5 140 (10.05%) HTML
6 112 (8.04%) AngularJS
7 109 (7.82%) ASP.NET
8 101 (7.25%) React
9 100 (7.18%) CSS
10 65 (4.67%) Web Services
11 59 (4.24%) REST
12 50 (3.59%) Entity Framework
13 48 (3.45%) SOAP
14 47 (3.37%) JSON
15 46 (3.30%) Kafka
16 42 (3.02%) RESTful
17 38 (2.73%) WCF
18 35 (2.51%) jQuery
18 35 (2.51%) SailPoint
19 34 (2.44%) ASP.NET MVC
Miscellaneous
1 73 (5.24%) Product Ownership
2 66 (4.74%) Onboarding
3 58 (4.16%) Replication
4 47 (3.37%) Clustering
5 31 (2.23%) Public Cloud
6 26 (1.87%) Data Centre
7 23 (1.65%) Cloud Native
7 23 (1.65%) Management Information System
8 22 (1.58%) Distributed Systems
8 22 (1.58%) Hedge funds
9 21 (1.51%) Client/Server
10 19 (1.36%) Derivative
11 18 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
12 17 (1.22%) Linux Command Line
13 16 (1.15%) PKI
14 15 (1.08%) Renewable Energy
15 14 (1.01%) NHS
15 14 (1.01%) Self-Motivation
16 13 (0.93%) Blog
16 13 (0.93%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 274 (19.67%) Windows
2 136 (9.76%) Windows Server
3 130 (9.33%) Linux
4 60 (4.31%) Unix
5 46 (3.30%) Windows Server 2019
6 44 (3.16%) Windows Server 2016
7 36 (2.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 24 (1.72%) Windows 10
9 22 (1.58%) Windows Server 2012
10 12 (0.86%) Android
11 11 (0.79%) Ubuntu
11 11 (0.79%) Windows Server 2008
12 9 (0.65%) VMS
12 9 (0.65%) Windows 7
13 8 (0.57%) Apple iOS
13 8 (0.57%) zOS
14 5 (0.36%) CentOS
14 5 (0.36%) Mac OS
15 2 (0.14%) Mac OS X
15 2 (0.14%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 454 (32.59%) Agile
2 411 (29.50%) DevOps
3 232 (16.65%) Business Intelligence
4 205 (14.72%) CI/CD
5 203 (14.57%) Problem-Solving
6 201 (14.43%) Scrum
7 191 (13.71%) Migration
8 172 (12.35%) ETL
9 141 (10.12%) Data Modelling
10 122 (8.76%) TDD
11 100 (7.18%) OO
12 94 (6.75%) Disaster Recovery
13 86 (6.17%) Software Engineering
14 85 (6.10%) SDLC
14 85 (6.10%) Test Automation
15 83 (5.96%) Analytics
15 83 (5.96%) MVC
16 80 (5.74%) Data Analysis
16 80 (5.74%) High Availability
17 75 (5.38%) Full Stack Development
Programming Languages
1 735 (52.76%) SQL
2 517 (37.11%) C#
3 283 (20.32%) PowerShell
4 177 (12.71%) JavaScript
5 149 (10.70%) Python
6 147 (10.55%) T-SQL
7 130 (9.33%) Java
8 102 (7.32%) Bicep
9 84 (6.03%) PL/SQL
10 65 (4.67%) TypeScript
11 30 (2.15%) VBA
12 29 (2.08%) Bash
13 24 (1.72%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 23 (1.65%) Shell Script
15 21 (1.51%) C
15 21 (1.51%) VB
16 20 (1.44%) VB.NET
17 15 (1.08%) PHP
18 14 (1.01%) C++
19 10 (0.72%) XPath
Qualifications
1 197 (14.14%) Security Cleared
2 142 (10.19%) Degree
3 117 (8.40%) SC Cleared
4 63 (4.52%) DV Cleared
5 47 (3.37%) Computer Science Degree
6 34 (2.44%) Microsoft Certification
7 16 (1.15%) BPSS Clearance
8 15 (1.08%) Master's Degree
9 14 (1.01%) MCSE
10 12 (0.86%) Azure Certification
10 12 (0.86%) ISTQB
11 8 (0.57%) MCITP
11 8 (0.57%) MCTS
12 6 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 5 (0.36%) AWS Certification
13 5 (0.36%) SAP Certification
14 4 (0.29%) CCNP
14 4 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
14 4 (0.29%) CISSP
14 4 (0.29%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 119 (8.54%) QA
2 52 (3.73%) Data Quality
3 38 (2.73%) Accessibility
4 26 (1.87%) WCAG
5 14 (1.01%) GDPR
6 13 (0.93%) SLA
7 12 (0.86%) MiFID
8 6 (0.43%) 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 (0.14%) HL7
12 2 (0.14%) PCI DSS
12 2 (0.14%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 272 (19.53%) Active Directory
2 49 (3.52%) VMware Infrastructure
3 47 (3.37%) Docker
4 28 (2.01%) IAG
5 25 (1.79%) ACF2
5 25 (1.79%) RACF
6 21 (1.51%) Virtual Machines
7 14 (1.01%) vSphere
8 11 (0.79%) VMware ESXi
9 9 (0.65%) Hyper-V
9 9 (0.65%) Virtual Servers
10 8 (0.57%) VMware Workstation
11 4 (0.29%) VMware NSX
12 3 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
13 2 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
13 2 (0.14%) VirtualBox
14 1 (0.072%) Apache ZooKeeper
14 1 (0.072%) HDFS
14 1 (0.072%) KVM
14 1 (0.072%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 63 (4.52%) Terraform
2 58 (4.16%) Kubernetes
3 50 (3.59%) Ansible
4 39 (2.80%) SCCM
5 29 (2.08%) Single Sign-On
6 25 (1.79%) Active Directory Federation Services
7 21 (1.51%) Microsoft Clustering
7 21 (1.51%) Puppet
8 18 (1.29%) Progress Chef
9 17 (1.22%) Grafana
10 16 (1.15%) Nagios
11 15 (1.08%) Prometheus
12 11 (0.79%) Graylog
12 11 (0.79%) Microsoft Intune
12 11 (0.79%) Nessus
13 9 (0.65%) Jamf Pro
14 8 (0.57%) NetBackup
15 7 (0.50%) vCenter Server
16 6 (0.43%) HP Fortify
16 6 (0.43%) WebInspect
Vendors
1 537 (38.55%) Microsoft
2 304 (21.82%) Oracle
3 78 (5.60%) VMware
4 59 (4.24%) SAP
5 54 (3.88%) Databricks
6 52 (3.73%) ServiceNow
7 40 (2.87%) Sybase
8 36 (2.58%) Red Hat
9 31 (2.23%) Veeam
10 30 (2.15%) Informatica
11 28 (2.01%) Citrix
12 22 (1.58%) Splunk
13 19 (1.36%) Sparx
14 18 (1.29%) Cisco
15 17 (1.22%) CyberArk
15 17 (1.22%) IBM
16 15 (1.08%) Salesforce
17 13 (0.93%) AVEVA
18 12 (0.86%) CA
18 12 (0.86%) Qualys