Database Administrator (DBA) Job Description Template for Recruiters

The Database Administrator (DBA) is responsible for the reliable operation, integrity and performance of an organisation's databases. This role suits experienced database professionals, technical leads and IT operations staff who can manage database lifecycles, maintain security and support development and business teams with data access and optimisation.

Database Administrator (DBA) Job Profile

The Database Administrator (DBA) ensures databases are available, secure and performing to business expectations. The role encompasses installation, configuration, maintenance, backup and recovery, capacity planning and performance tuning to support transactional and analytical workloads.

The post holder will work across technical and non-technical teams to deliver stable data services, implement governance and support change activities such as upgrades, migrations and schema changes while adhering to organisational policies and compliance requirements.

Database Administrator (DBA) Job Description

The Database Administrator will plan, deploy and maintain database environments to meet service level objectives. Responsibilities include establishing and testing backup and recovery procedures, applying patches and updates, monitoring system health and responding to incidents to restore service rapidly. The DBA will proactively identify performance bottlenecks and implement tuning and optimisation measures.

The role requires close collaboration with application developers, infrastructure teams and security or compliance stakeholders to manage schema changes, data migrations and access controls. The DBA will produce and maintain technical documentation and runbooks, contribute to capacity planning and participate in on-call rotations as required by the operational model.

Expectations include continuous improvement of database processes, participation in project work such as platform upgrades and migrations, and adherence to change management and audit requirements. The successful candidate will demonstrate methodical problem solving, clear communication and the ability to prioritise work under pressure.

Database Administrator (DBA): Duties and Responsibilities

• Manage database installation, configuration and upgrades throughout development, test and production environments
• Implement and validate backup and recovery strategies to ensure data integrity and availability
• Monitor database performance and implement optimisation measures to meet agreed service levels
• Perform capacity planning and resource forecasting to support growth and scalability
• Apply patches and security updates in accordance with maintenance windows and change control
• Design and maintain high availability and disaster recovery configurations and procedures
• Control and audit database security, access privileges and encryption where required
• Support application teams with schema changes, query tuning and data modelling advice
• Automate routine administration tasks and streamline deployment and maintenance processes
• Respond to incidents, troubleshoot faults and perform root cause analysis to prevent recurrence
• Manage data migrations, import/export activities and schema evolution during projects
• Produce and maintain technical documentation, runbooks and operational procedures
• Ensure compliance with regulatory, data protection and internal governance requirements
• Participate in on-call rotations and provide out of hours support when required

Database Administrator (DBA): Requirements and Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems or related technical discipline, or equivalent experience
• Proven experience administering production database environments in a professional setting
• Strong knowledge of SQL and database design principles, including indexing and query optimisation
• Practical experience with backup, recovery and disaster recovery planning and testing
• Familiarity with high availability, replication and clustering concepts and their operational management
• Competence in performance monitoring, capacity planning and tuning methodologies
• Good scripting skills for automation and operational tasks, such as scheduling and maintenance
• Understanding of security best practice, access management and data protection obligations
• Analytical problem solving and incident management skills with attention to detail
• Effective communication skills and ability to work collaboratively with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Experience producing technical documentation and operational runbooks
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and work in a change controlled environment
• Willingness to participate in on-call duties and support out of hours activity where required