Sql Server & Data Warehouse Consultant

SQL Server Warehouse Consultant (Contract)

3-Month Initial Contract

Pay up to £595/day

Hybrid - Manchester Area

Outside IR35

We're looking for a SQL Server Performance & Data Warehouse Consultant to lead a critical optimisation programme across a large‑scale Microsoft SQL Server estate. This is a hands‑on consultancy engagement focused on identifying and resolving performance, storage, and scalability challenges within an enterprise data platform. The headline environment is an 80TB SQL Server 2022 Data Warehouse, and we're looking for someone who can quickly assess the landscape, identify root causes, implement improvements, and leave the team with a clear roadmap for the future.

This isn't a role for someone who only looks at SQL Server in isolation. You'll be expected to investigate performance across the entire stack, including infrastructure, storage, virtualisation, networking, and operating systems, ensuring bottlenecks are identified wherever they exist.

The platform continues to grow rapidly, bringing new challenges around performance, storage consumption, maintenance windows, and operational efficiency. The team needs a consultant who can bring structure, expertise, and pragmatic recommendations that deliver measurable improvements.

You’ll take ownership of a full technical assessment, implement agreed optimisation initiatives, and produce a prioritised remediation roadmap that supports long‑term platform growth and scalability.

• Reviewing database architecture, filegroup design, storage configuration, and maintenance strategies
• Analysing workload characteristics to identify performance, capacity, and storage bottlenecks
• Optimising query performance through execution plan analysis, indexing, statistics management, and workload tuning
• Diagnosing complex SQL Server issues including blocking, deadlocking, parameter sensitivity, TempDB contention, memory grants, parallelism, and execution plan instability
• Leveraging modern SQL Server 2022 capabilities including Query Store, Intelligent Query Processing, Parameter Sensitive Plan Optimisation, partitioning, compression, and column store technologies
• Producing a prioritised remediation roadmap balancing risk, effort, and technical value
• Delivering documentation and knowledge transfer to ensure the internal team can continue the optimisation journey

• Extensive experience supporting and optimising large-scale, multi-terabyte SQL Server environments
• Deep expertise in SQL Server performance tuning, query optimisation, indexing, and statistics management
• Strong understanding of SQL Server internals, storage architecture, transaction logs, and capacity planning
• Proven experience using Query Store, DMVs, Extended Events, wait statistics, and performance baselining techniques
• Experience optimising data warehouse environments, including partitioning, compression, and column store strategies
• A consultant mindset with the ability to assess, recommend, implement, and communicate effectively with both technical and leadership stakeholders

By the end of the engagement, you’ll have delivered a comprehensive technical assessment, implemented key performance improvements, created a prioritised optimisation roadmap, and equipped the Data Engineering team with the knowledge and documentation needed to support future growth.

If you’re an experienced SQL Server specialist who enjoys solving complex performance challenges at enterprise scale, we’d love to hear from you.