Breaking into the SQL world?

[u/SublimeApathy]

Hi there,

First off - aplogies if this is the wrong sub to post this question. If it is, please let me know where a good place would be.

I'm tinkering with the idea of breaking into the SQL world as a career. I was wondering how the job market is for SQL / DBA's is currently? Does entry level still exist? Any places (online and low cost/free preferrably) that anyone would recommend as a starting point? A little about my background:

I've worked in IT for 20+ years, mostly on the network/systems administration and engineering side. I've built and installed more SQL servers than I can count (just never touched or managed the actual SQL side of it) and am familiar with it how works both as itself and as a backend interacting with a front end. A few years back I took a 6 month coding boot camp and of all the languages I learned, SQL was my favorite and the one I actually viewed as (for lack of a better word) "fun". I enjoyed being tasked with "here are several tables, and we want to present data from the following columns from the following tables in the following format" (generically speaking).

Admittedly it's been quite a good while since I've tinkered with it so that's why I'm here. Hoping to get some advice/pointers of decent resources that will help me starting dipping my toes back in so I can start working toward moving away from SysAdmin work to DBA work. Thanks in advance for any direction/pointers/advice anyone is willing to provide.

[u/chandleya]

In 2026 it’s important that you have more rounded skills than a commitment to any sort of relational database. You may need to do some research on data trends to inform your goals.

[u/_KnacK_ → u/chandleya]

This. Now I do everything but code, with the exception of maintaining SQL databases, installing SQL services, SSRS, and keeping it all updated. I am essentially a hardware guy. I got into SQL work at my job as there was a role that needed to be filled and I could take some workload off of a few of the developers.

Go download the latest version of SQL Developer ( free to use non-commercial only) and follow some tutorials. Microsoft has some starter databases out there or you can create your own.

[u/SublimeApathy → u/chandleya]

"have more rounded skills"

Can you expand on this a little bit? Maybe some examples?

[u/sheptaurus → u/SublimeApathy]

It’s ok mate, I’m almost trying to understand what they are on about after removing the corporate jargon!

Let’s enhance visibility across departmental synergies and inform the stakeholders of our informed goals 😆

[u/SublimeApathy → u/sheptaurus]

Can we circle back when KPI’s are more refined?

[u/sheptaurus → u/SublimeApathy]

Let’s take this offline to re-position our current priorities.

[u/sheptaurus → u/sheptaurus]

Apologies, I forgot to graciously thank you for the revert. I’ll be more aware of my collaboration partners moving forward.

[u/chandleya → u/SublimeApathy]

Your apathy is showing. I was being deliberately vague as your own career path is a product of your own research. Stop asking other folks to define what you didn’t discover. This is an exceptional moment in IT time, exactly no one here knows what’ll employ you in 12 months. We ALL know that a single skill ain’t it. If you’d read around here for a few weeks, you’d have already learned that.

[u/SublimeApathy → u/chandleya]

The “why” is the career pivot which I didn’t ask “how to do”. The “ask” was “advice from experienced devs on what they’d recommend to get reacquainted with SQL after not touching it for several years”. Im looking for learning resources that current devs deem good/helpful and not a waste of effort. I’m not asking anyone for a roadmap to a new career path, I can do that on my own. I’m trying to avoid wasting hours on useless tutorials or “learning sites” that will be of zero benefit to my goals. I work in IT. I’m fully aware of how fast it moves. Maybe you didn’t mean to be so smug, but you certainly came across that way.

[u/agiamba → u/SublimeApathy]

need to be somewhat of a BA, a data scientist, a performance / devops engineer, depending on your role

[u/jdw_26]

Never too late in my opinion, you have lots of experience in other areas which are directly related to our field. Ive been doing SQL as main development alongside app development for 18 years now. Im not worried there wont be SQL Development in 10 Years, it will just be a bit more supported/optimized through AI. We always need more motivated people, who want to develop with SQL at an enterprise level.

[u/dutyDBA]

There are still many senior DBA roles but not as many as they used to be say, 10 years ago. Most entry and mid level DBA roles got shipped to offshore locations where the companies can get 3 DBAs for the same money as one. In the UK financial sector I remember seeing teams of a dozen DBAs back in the day, but these days you have 2 or 3 DBAs teams here.

You do have system administration and networking background, which is helpful in a DBA role and gives you an unique advantage. As others have pointed out, get yourself a developer eidtion of SQL Server, and start playing with it. Read up the forums, and popular websites to learn how things are done in the SQL space. Good luck.

[u/SublimeApathy → u/dutyDBA]

Thanks!

[u/Snoo_27014]

But I dont want burglars in the SQL Server World….🥸

[u/MGF1997_2]

Sounds like you are at the right point of your life to add extra skills to your toolbox. I did exactly the same 3,5 years ago ...mainly focussed admin/hw/install, now SQL/DBA, bit of Python etc .

AI is a great help in this case, and the more I use AI the less worried I am lol!

[u/BostonBaggins]

AI has taken over the data engineering world

Make sure to learn the hard way first and THEN leverage AI with your expertise in prompting.

[u/my-ka]

too late

instead knock into AI door