 <p>If you're using SQL Server 2005 or newer then your best option is to create a <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189876.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">user-defined CLR function</a> and use a regular expression to remove all non-numeric characters.</p> <p>If you don't want to use a CLR function then you could create a standard user-defined function. This will do the job although it won't be as efficient:</p> <pre><code>CREATE FUNCTION dbo.RemoveNonNumerics(@in VARCHAR(255)) RETURNS VARCHAR(255) AS BEGIN DECLARE @out VARCHAR(255) IF (@in IS NOT NULL) BEGIN SET @out = '' WHILE (@in &lt;&gt; '') BEGIN IF (@in LIKE '[0-9]%') SET @out = @out + SUBSTRING(@in, 1, 1) SET @in = SUBSTRING(@in, 2, LEN(@in) - 1) END END RETURN(@out) END </code></pre> <p>And then select from your table like so:</p> <pre><code>SELECT dbo.RemoveNonNumerics(your_column) AS your_tidy_column FROM your_table </code></pre>