SQL Contract Job Trends in Central London

SQL (Structured Query Language)
London > Central London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Central London requiring SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 18 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 8 8
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 306 322 331
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 12.03% 15.73% 14.43%
As % of the Programming Languages category 41.46% 42.20% 40.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 224 212 235
10th Percentile £397 £363 £403
25th Percentile £462 £425 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £600
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% -4.09% +4.26%
75th Percentile £668 £700 £675
90th Percentile £738 £775 £772
London median daily rate £525 £530 £575
% change year-on-year -0.94% -7.83% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 6 1
10th Percentile £35.62 £21.13 -
25th Percentile £38.44 £26.58 £40.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 £45.79 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.73% +10.33% +232.00%
75th Percentile £49.68 £63.75 £42.25
90th Percentile £51.37 £76.25 -
London median hourly rate £37.50 £39.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year -3.83% -13.34% -28.57%

All Programming Languages
Central London

SQL falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills in Central London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 738 763 818
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 29.01% 37.27% 35.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 525 575
10th Percentile £394 £382 £413
25th Percentile £463 £438 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.35% - -4.21%
75th Percentile £656 £690 £707
90th Percentile £763 £775 £825
London median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 8 1
10th Percentile £27.50 £22.98 -
25th Percentile £33.07 £26.13 £40.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 £40.26 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +11.77% -3.00% -48.13%
75th Percentile £66.56 £63.75 £42.25
90th Percentile £79.13 £71.25 -
London median hourly rate £52.50 £44.00 £47.50
% change year-on-year +19.32% -7.37% -24.60%

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in Central London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London.

SQL job vacancy trend in Central London

SQL
Daily Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL

SQL
Daily Rate Histogram in Central London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL in Central London over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL in Central London

SQL
Hourly Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing SQL

SQL
Hourly Rate Histogram in Central London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in Central London over the 6 months to 18 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in Central London

SQL
Contract Job Locations in Central London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL within the Central London region over the 6 months to 18 August 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
City of London -4 289 £550 -4.35% 184
West End of London -1 8 £475 +90.00% 8
Southwark 0 4 £600 - 1
City of Westminster -13 3 £525 +10.53% 9
SQL
London

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Central London by Category

The following tables expand on the one above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. They cover the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each category:

Application Platforms
1 23 (7.52%) Apache Airflow
2 14 (4.58%) Apache
3 13 (4.25%) Apache Spark
4 12 (3.92%) Confluence
5 8 (2.61%) SharePoint
6 4 (1.31%) CICS
7 2 (0.65%) Exchange Server 2013
7 2 (0.65%) IIS
7 2 (0.65%) Microsoft Exchange
7 2 (0.65%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 2 (0.65%) SAS
8 1 (0.33%) MQSeries
8 1 (0.33%) nginx
8 1 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.33%) WordPress
Applications
1 16 (5.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (1.31%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.65%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.33%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.96%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (1.63%) BambooHR
3 4 (1.31%) Oracle EBS R12
3 4 (1.31%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (0.98%) Aladdin
4 3 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
4 3 (0.98%) Oracle Financials
4 3 (0.98%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (0.98%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (0.98%) Remedy ITSM
5 2 (0.65%) NEC Housing
5 2 (0.65%) Oracle Assets
5 2 (0.65%) Oracle E-Business Tax
5 2 (0.65%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.65%) SAP MDG
5 2 (0.65%) SAP S/4HANA
6 1 (0.33%) Magento
6 1 (0.33%) Oracle iProcurement
6 1 (0.33%) SAP ERP
6 1 (0.33%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 97 (31.70%) Azure
2 73 (23.86%) Power Platform
3 57 (18.63%) AWS
4 37 (12.09%) Azure Data Factory
5 31 (10.13%) Snowflake
6 27 (8.82%) Azure DevOps
7 26 (8.50%) dbt
8 22 (7.19%) GCP
8 22 (7.19%) GitHub
9 20 (6.54%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 20 (6.54%) Serverless
10 16 (5.23%) Amazon S3
10 16 (5.23%) AWS Lambda
11 12 (3.92%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (3.27%) Prefect
13 8 (2.61%) Amazon CloudWatch
13 8 (2.61%) PowerApps
13 8 (2.61%) SaaS
14 7 (2.29%) Amazon Kinesis
14 7 (2.29%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.63%) Multicast
2 3 (0.98%) VPN
3 2 (0.65%) DNS
3 2 (0.65%) Firewall
3 2 (0.65%) Internet
3 2 (0.65%) Intranet
3 2 (0.65%) SSH
3 2 (0.65%) SSL
4 1 (0.33%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (19.93%) Power BI
2 51 (16.67%) SQL Server
3 49 (16.01%) Data Warehouse
4 23 (7.52%) Tableau
5 19 (6.21%) Azure SQL Database
5 19 (6.21%) Relational Database
6 18 (5.88%) Metadata
7 16 (5.23%) Data Lake
8 15 (4.90%) Oracle Database
9 13 (4.25%) Amazon Redshift
9 13 (4.25%) BigQuery
10 11 (3.59%) Star Schema
11 10 (3.27%) Amazon Athena
11 10 (3.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 9 (2.94%) Looker
12 9 (2.94%) PostgreSQL
12 9 (2.94%) Power Query
12 9 (2.94%) Snowflake Schema
13 8 (2.61%) MongoDB
13 8 (2.61%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 18 (5.88%) JIRA
2 17 (5.56%) Git
3 14 (4.58%) Jenkins
4 11 (3.59%) GitLab
5 7 (2.29%) JUnit
6 6 (1.96%) Bitbucket
7 5 (1.63%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 5 (1.63%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.98%) Artifactory
8 3 (0.98%) Eclipse
8 3 (0.98%) eggPlant
8 3 (0.98%) Gradle
8 3 (0.98%) Mockito
8 3 (0.98%) Selenium
8 3 (0.98%) TeamCity
9 2 (0.65%) HP UFT
9 2 (0.65%) JMeter
9 2 (0.65%) Liquibase
9 2 (0.65%) LoadRunner
9 2 (0.65%) SoapUI
General
1 130 (42.48%) Finance
2 88 (28.76%) Social Skills
3 68 (22.22%) Banking
4 63 (20.59%) Analytical Skills
5 13 (4.25%) Marketing
6 12 (3.92%) Front Office
7 11 (3.59%) Investment Banking
7 11 (3.59%) Retail
8 10 (3.27%) Public Sector
9 8 (2.61%) Legal
10 6 (1.96%) Back Office
11 4 (1.31%) Law
11 4 (1.31%) Pharmaceutical
11 4 (1.31%) Telecoms
12 3 (0.98%) Corporate Banking
12 3 (0.98%) Documentation Skills
12 3 (0.98%) General Ledger
12 3 (0.98%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 3 (0.98%) Retail Banking
13 2 (0.65%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 65 (21.24%) Analyst
2 57 (18.63%) Developer
3 54 (17.65%) Data Engineer
4 45 (14.71%) Senior
5 35 (11.44%) Data Analyst
6 18 (5.88%) Lead
7 17 (5.56%) Consultant
8 16 (5.23%) Architect
8 16 (5.23%) Business Analyst
9 14 (4.58%) DBA
9 14 (4.58%) Senior Developer
10 12 (3.92%) C# Developer
11 11 (3.59%) Snowflake Data Engineer
11 11 (3.59%) Snowflake Engineer
11 11 (3.59%) SQL DBA
12 10 (3.27%) Applications Support
12 10 (3.27%) Java Developer
12 10 (3.27%) Senior Data Engineer
13 9 (2.94%) Data Architect
14 8 (2.61%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 38 (12.42%) .NET
2 27 (8.82%) PySpark
3 21 (6.86%) Kafka
4 19 (6.21%) REST
5 15 (4.90%) Web Services
5 15 (4.90%) XML
6 14 (4.58%) SOAP
7 13 (4.25%) JSON
8 12 (3.92%) AngularJS
8 12 (3.92%) HTML
8 12 (3.92%) Middleware
8 12 (3.92%) Spring
9 11 (3.59%) Spring Boot
10 10 (3.27%) RESTful
11 9 (2.94%) .NET Framework
12 5 (1.63%) CSS
12 5 (1.63%) RabbitMQ
12 5 (1.63%) React
13 4 (1.31%) .NET Core
13 4 (1.31%) TensorFlow
Miscellaneous
1 29 (9.48%) Cloud Native
2 16 (5.23%) Data Structures
3 11 (3.59%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
3 11 (3.59%) Legacy Systems
3 11 (3.59%) Onboarding
4 10 (3.27%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.94%) Clustering
5 9 (2.94%) Derivative
5 9 (2.94%) Distributed Systems
5 9 (2.94%) Fixed Income
5 9 (2.94%) Management Information System
6 7 (2.29%) AI Agents
7 6 (1.96%) Credit Risk
7 6 (1.96%) Data Centre
7 6 (1.96%) Market Risk
7 6 (1.96%) Self-Motivation
8 5 (1.63%) Equities
8 5 (1.63%) Mainframe
8 5 (1.63%) Reference Data
8 5 (1.63%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 24 (7.84%) Unix
2 22 (7.19%) Linux
3 19 (6.21%) Windows
4 9 (2.94%) Windows Server
5 4 (1.31%) zOS
6 3 (0.98%) VMS
6 3 (0.98%) Windows Server 2008
7 2 (0.65%) OpenVMS
7 2 (0.65%) Windows 7
7 2 (0.65%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 99 (32.35%) Analytics
2 85 (27.78%) Data Modelling
3 79 (25.82%) CI/CD
4 72 (23.53%) Business Intelligence
4 72 (23.53%) DevOps
5 66 (21.57%) AI
6 64 (20.92%) ETL
7 62 (20.26%) Data Engineering
8 60 (19.61%) Agile
9 52 (16.99%) Data Pipeline
10 51 (16.67%) Data Governance
11 50 (16.34%) Problem-Solving
12 45 (14.71%) Migration
13 43 (14.05%) Stakeholder Management
14 39 (12.75%) Decision-Making
15 38 (12.42%) Validation
16 34 (11.11%) Data Analysis
16 34 (11.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 31 (10.13%) Data Architecture
17 31 (10.13%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 131 (42.81%) Python
2 46 (15.03%) C#
3 32 (10.46%) Java
4 21 (6.86%) PL/SQL
5 19 (6.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 19 (6.21%) JavaScript
6 15 (4.90%) PowerShell
7 13 (4.25%) T-SQL
8 12 (3.92%) Shell Script
9 11 (3.59%) TypeScript
10 8 (2.61%) R
11 4 (1.31%) JCL
12 3 (0.98%) C++
12 3 (0.98%) Korn
13 2 (0.65%) Bicep
13 2 (0.65%) C
13 2 (0.65%) ProC
13 2 (0.65%) Scala
13 2 (0.65%) VB.NET
13 2 (0.65%) XMLA
Qualifications
1 41 (13.40%) Security Cleared
2 33 (10.78%) SC Cleared
3 19 (6.21%) Degree
4 5 (1.63%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (1.63%) DBS Check
5 4 (1.31%) DV Cleared
6 3 (0.98%) AWS Certification
6 3 (0.98%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (0.65%) BPSS Clearance
7 2 (0.65%) CISM
7 2 (0.65%) CISSP
7 2 (0.65%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.65%) SnowPro
8 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.33%) CBAP
8 1 (0.33%) ISEB
8 1 (0.33%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.33%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 59 (19.28%) Data Quality
2 39 (12.75%) QA
3 13 (4.25%) GDPR
4 6 (1.96%) Accessibility
5 4 (1.31%) SLA
6 3 (0.98%) GxP
7 2 (0.65%) 21 CFR Part 11
7 2 (0.65%) EMIR
7 2 (0.65%) GMP
7 2 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 17025
7 2 (0.65%) MiFID
7 2 (0.65%) PSD2
7 2 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.33%) IFRS
8 1 (0.33%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 20000
8 1 (0.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 1 (0.33%) PERC
8 1 (0.33%) Solvency II
System Software
1 19 (6.21%) Docker
2 7 (2.29%) Active Directory
3 5 (1.63%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (1.31%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.33%) GridGain
5 1 (0.33%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.33%) Varnish
5 1 (0.33%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 20 (6.54%) Kubernetes
1 20 (6.54%) Terraform
2 5 (1.63%) ITRS Geneos
3 4 (1.31%) Ansible
4 3 (0.98%) Microsoft Clustering
4 3 (0.98%) SCOM
5 2 (0.65%) Control-M
5 2 (0.65%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.65%) NetBackup
5 2 (0.65%) WSUS
6 1 (0.33%) Data Guard
6 1 (0.33%) Packer
6 1 (0.33%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 66 (21.57%) Microsoft
2 49 (16.01%) Oracle
3 37 (12.09%) Databricks
4 12 (3.92%) Google
4 12 (3.92%) SAP
5 10 (3.27%) Informatica
6 8 (2.61%) IBM
7 6 (1.96%) Murex
7 6 (1.96%) Salesforce
7 6 (1.96%) ServiceNow
7 6 (1.96%) Workday
8 5 (1.63%) Citrix
8 5 (1.63%) VMware
9 4 (1.31%) Adobe
9 4 (1.31%) Sitecore
9 4 (1.31%) Solace
10 3 (0.98%) Amplitude
10 3 (0.98%) BMC
10 3 (0.98%) Guidewire
10 3 (0.98%) OpenAI