Database Administrator
Career information and advice on being a Database Administrator

As a Database Administrator you would plan, build and maintain computerised information systems. Any organised body of related information is technically a database and consequently the size, nature and application of a database under your administration could vary greatly. An upshot of this diversity is the wide range of employer opportunities it presents.

You would normally work between 37 and 40 hours a week, Monday to Friday. However, you may have on-call duties to deal with technical problems outside of normal office hours. You could work at one site if you are employed by a company to manage their particular databases but working for a company that builds databases for other organisations may require you to travel.

Your Functions May include

Your work could range from upgrading an existing database to creating a completely new system. On a new system, you would work with an organisation to:

• establish what the database is for, who will use it and which other systems it will link to (for example telephony)
• plan the structure of the database, showing how to organise, find and display the data
• build a test version and check the results to iron out technical problems
• populate the database with new information or transfer existing data into it
• draw up plans for updating information, creating back-up copies, reporting errors and putting in security measures.

You may have extra duties, like supervising technical support staff, training users and producing performance reports for IT Managers. You would need to work closely with Analysts, Programmers and IT Project Managers.

Increasingly, you could be working with web-based technologies and would need to understand how databases integrate with these systems. Database security is another area of growing importance.

In a senior position you would normally be responsible for strategic planning, information policy, budgets and managing client relationships.