SQL Server lead

SQL Server Lead - Contract

Location: Glasgow | Hybrid - 2-3 days onsite

Rate: Up to £410/day Inside IR35

Contract until 31 December 2026 (renewable)

We’re looking for an experienced SQL Server Lead to join a major financial services environment, supporting the design, development and optimisation of data warehouse and data distribution platforms across security, risk, controls and records management.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end delivery of SQL Server components from technical design through to deployment and documentation.
• Develop and optimise complex T-SQL, including stored procedures, functions, views and data models.
• Own SQL Server performance tuning, including execution plans, indexing, partitioning, statistics and CPU/I/O optimisation.
• Build resilient batch and near-real-time data processing solutions.
• Implement testing, data quality checks and reconciliations for trusted reporting.
• Support production services, incident/problem management and root-cause analysis.
• Ensure database solutions meet security, access control, audit and records-management requirements.
• Work closely with analysts, engineers, architects and risk/governance stakeholders.
• Provide technical leadership through code reviews, engineering standards and mentoring.

Essential Skills

• Expert-level T-SQL / SQL Server development.
• Strong SQL Server performance engineering and troubleshooting experience.
• Excellent understanding of relational database principles and data modelling.
• Experience with database testing, automation and data quality controls.
• Strong understanding of secure database development, access management and auditing.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong problem-solving and ability to manage complex workloads.

Desirable

• Git/GitLab, branching strategies and pull requests.
• CI/CD and database release automation.
• Nexus or similar artefact repositories.
• PowerShell, Linux shell scripting and/or Python.
• Data governance and records-management experience.
• Java and/or Scala, particularly alongside Spark-based processing