SQL Contract Job Trends in the City of London

SQL (Structured Query Language)
Central London > City of London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the City of London requiring SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 8 8
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 287 290 308
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 12.57% 16.16% 14.77%
As % of the Programming Languages category 43.55% 43.48% 41.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 208 191 218
10th Percentile £400 £375 £400
25th Percentile £450 £438 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £585 £600
Median % change year-on-year -5.98% -2.50% +4.35%
75th Percentile £668 £700 £703
90th Percentile £738 £825 £775
Central London median daily rate £550 £575 £600
% change year-on-year -4.35% -4.13% +2.52%
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 6 0
10th Percentile £35.62 £21.13 -
25th Percentile £38.44 £27.44 -
Median hourly rate £45.00 £48.25 -
Median % change year-on-year -6.75% - -
75th Percentile £49.68 £63.75 -
90th Percentile £51.37 £76.25 -
Central London median hourly rate £45.00 £48.25 £41.50
% change year-on-year -6.75% +16.27% +232.00%

All Programming Languages
City of 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 the City of London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 659 667 738
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 28.87% 37.18% 35.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 464 458 510
10th Percentile £400 £385 £400
25th Percentile £460 £463 £484
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £600 £591
Median % change year-on-year -8.33% +1.48% -1.91%
75th Percentile £669 £688 £710
90th Percentile £775 £775 £825
Central London median daily rate £550 £577 £576
% change year-on-year -4.60% +0.04% -3.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 7 0
10th Percentile £25.14 £22.05 -
25th Percentile £31.71 £26.00 -
Median hourly rate £37.50 £34.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +10.29% - -
75th Percentile £49.68 £63.75 -
90th Percentile £63.75 £73.75 -
Central London median hourly rate £45.00 £42.72 £41.50
% change year-on-year +5.33% +2.94% +232.00%

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in the City of London

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

SQL job vacancy trend in the City of London

SQL
Daily Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SQL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SQL

SQL
Daily Rate Histogram in the City of London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL in the City of London over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL in the City of London

SQL
Hourly Rate Trend in the City of London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SQL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the City of London citing SQL

SQL
Hourly Rate Histogram in the City of London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in the City of London over the 6 months to 11 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in the City of London

SQL
Contract Job Locations in the City of 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 City of London region over the 6 months to 11 September 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
Moorgate - 1 £475 -
SQL
Central London

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the City of 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 21 (7.32%) Apache Airflow
2 16 (5.57%) Apache Spark
3 12 (4.18%) Apache
3 12 (4.18%) Confluence
4 7 (2.44%) SharePoint
5 3 (1.05%) Microsoft Exchange
6 2 (0.70%) CICS
6 2 (0.70%) Exchange Server 2013
6 2 (0.70%) IIS
6 2 (0.70%) MQSeries
6 2 (0.70%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.35%) nginx
7 1 (0.35%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.35%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 13 (4.53%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (1.05%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.70%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.70%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.35%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.35%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 5 (1.74%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.05%) Oracle EBS
2 3 (1.05%) Oracle Payables
2 3 (1.05%) Oracle Receivables
2 3 (1.05%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.70%) Aladdin
3 2 (0.70%) BambooHR
3 2 (0.70%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.70%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.70%) Oracle Financials
3 2 (0.70%) Oracle General Ledger
3 2 (0.70%) SAP MDG
3 2 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
4 1 (0.35%) Magento
4 1 (0.35%) OneSumX
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle E-Business Tax
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle Internet Expenses
4 1 (0.35%) Oracle iProcurement
4 1 (0.35%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 98 (34.15%) Azure
2 67 (23.34%) Power Platform
3 57 (19.86%) AWS
4 38 (13.24%) Azure Data Factory
5 33 (11.50%) Snowflake
6 30 (10.45%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (8.71%) dbt
8 22 (7.67%) GCP
9 21 (7.32%) GitHub
10 20 (6.97%) Serverless
11 18 (6.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 15 (5.23%) Amazon S3
12 15 (5.23%) AWS Lambda
13 10 (3.48%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (2.79%) Azure Databricks
14 8 (2.79%) PowerApps
14 8 (2.79%) SaaS
15 7 (2.44%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 7 (2.44%) Dynamics 365
16 6 (2.09%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.74%) Multicast
1 5 (1.74%) VPN
2 4 (1.39%) Firewall
3 2 (0.70%) DNS
3 2 (0.70%) Internet
3 2 (0.70%) Intranet
3 2 (0.70%) Network Security
3 2 (0.70%) SSH
3 2 (0.70%) SSL
4 1 (0.35%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (19.16%) Power BI
2 47 (16.38%) Data Warehouse
2 47 (16.38%) SQL Server
3 21 (7.32%) Metadata
4 20 (6.97%) Relational Database
5 19 (6.62%) Data Lake
6 16 (5.57%) Azure SQL Database
7 14 (4.88%) Tableau
8 12 (4.18%) Amazon Athena
8 12 (4.18%) Oracle Database
9 11 (3.83%) Amazon Redshift
9 11 (3.83%) BigQuery
9 11 (3.83%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 10 (3.48%) Looker
10 10 (3.48%) PostgreSQL
10 10 (3.48%) Star Schema
11 8 (2.79%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 7 (2.44%) Amazon RDS
12 7 (2.44%) MongoDB
12 7 (2.44%) Semantic Layer
Development Applications
1 19 (6.62%) Git
2 18 (6.27%) JIRA
3 12 (4.18%) Jenkins
4 10 (3.48%) GitLab
5 8 (2.79%) Bitbucket
6 6 (2.09%) Visual Studio
7 5 (1.74%) JUnit
7 5 (1.74%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
8 3 (1.05%) Artifactory
8 3 (1.05%) Eclipse
8 3 (1.05%) eggPlant
8 3 (1.05%) Gradle
8 3 (1.05%) Selenium
8 3 (1.05%) Visual Studio Code
9 2 (0.70%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 2 (0.70%) HP UFT
9 2 (0.70%) LoadRunner
9 2 (0.70%) Mockito
9 2 (0.70%) SoapUI
9 2 (0.70%) TeamCity
General
1 129 (44.95%) Finance
2 84 (29.27%) Social Skills
3 66 (23.00%) Banking
4 64 (22.30%) Analytical Skills
5 16 (5.57%) Front Office
6 13 (4.53%) Marketing
7 12 (4.18%) Investment Banking
8 9 (3.14%) Retail
9 8 (2.79%) Back Office
10 6 (2.09%) Public Sector
11 5 (1.74%) Legal
12 4 (1.39%) Corporate Banking
12 4 (1.39%) Law
12 4 (1.39%) Retail Banking
13 3 (1.05%) Billing
13 3 (1.05%) Documentation Skills
13 3 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 3 (1.05%) Influencing Skills
13 3 (1.05%) Pharmaceutical
14 2 (0.70%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 60 (20.91%) Analyst
2 54 (18.82%) Data Engineer
3 50 (17.42%) Developer
3 50 (17.42%) Senior
4 32 (11.15%) Data Analyst
5 20 (6.97%) Architect
6 17 (5.92%) Business Analyst
7 16 (5.57%) Lead
7 16 (5.57%) Senior Data Engineer
8 15 (5.23%) Consultant
8 15 (5.23%) Senior Developer
9 12 (4.18%) C# Developer
10 11 (3.83%) Data Architect
11 10 (3.48%) AWS Engineer
12 8 (2.79%) Applications Support
12 8 (2.79%) Java Developer
13 7 (2.44%) AWS Data Engineer
13 7 (2.44%) DBA
13 7 (2.44%) Snowflake Engineer
14 6 (2.09%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (13.59%) .NET
2 27 (9.41%) PySpark
2 27 (9.41%) Terraform
3 19 (6.62%) Kafka
3 19 (6.62%) REST
4 14 (4.88%) XML
5 12 (4.18%) JSON
5 12 (4.18%) Middleware
5 12 (4.18%) Web Services
6 11 (3.83%) HTML
6 11 (3.83%) SOAP
7 10 (3.48%) .NET Framework
7 10 (3.48%) Spring
7 10 (3.48%) Spring Boot
8 8 (2.79%) AngularJS
9 7 (2.44%) RESTful
10 6 (2.09%) .NET Core
10 6 (2.09%) CSS
11 5 (1.74%) ASP.NET
11 5 (1.74%) ASP.NET Web API
Miscellaneous
1 32 (11.15%) Cloud Native
2 15 (5.23%) Data Structures
3 14 (4.88%) Product Ownership
4 13 (4.53%) Onboarding
5 9 (3.14%) Fixed Income
6 8 (2.79%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 8 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
7 7 (2.44%) AI Agents
7 7 (2.44%) Data Centre
7 7 (2.44%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (2.44%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (2.09%) Clustering
8 6 (2.09%) Derivative
8 6 (2.09%) Enterprise Software
8 6 (2.09%) Management Information System
8 6 (2.09%) Reinsurance
9 5 (1.74%) Market Risk
9 5 (1.74%) Replication
10 4 (1.39%) Equities
10 4 (1.39%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 22 (7.67%) Linux
1 22 (7.67%) Unix
2 18 (6.27%) Windows
3 8 (2.79%) Windows Server
4 3 (1.05%) VMS
4 3 (1.05%) Windows Server 2008
5 2 (0.70%) OpenVMS
5 2 (0.70%) Windows 7
5 2 (0.70%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.70%) Windows Server 2019
5 2 (0.70%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 100 (34.84%) Analytics
2 90 (31.36%) Data Modelling
3 85 (29.62%) CI/CD
4 74 (25.78%) DevOps
5 67 (23.34%) Business Intelligence
6 66 (23.00%) Agile
7 63 (21.95%) AI
8 62 (21.60%) Data Engineering
9 59 (20.56%) ETL
10 56 (19.51%) Data Pipeline
11 50 (17.42%) Data Governance
12 47 (16.38%) Stakeholder Management
13 45 (15.68%) Problem-Solving
14 43 (14.98%) Migration
15 36 (12.54%) Validation
16 34 (11.85%) Decision-Making
17 31 (10.80%) Data Analysis
17 31 (10.80%) Software Engineering
17 31 (10.80%) Stakeholder Engagement
17 31 (10.80%) Translating Business Requirements
Programming Languages
1 127 (44.25%) Python
2 42 (14.63%) C#
3 29 (10.10%) Java
4 19 (6.62%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 17 (5.92%) JavaScript
5 17 (5.92%) PL/SQL
6 13 (4.53%) PowerShell
7 12 (4.18%) TypeScript
8 10 (3.48%) Shell Script
8 10 (3.48%) T-SQL
9 8 (2.79%) R
10 6 (2.09%) LookML
11 3 (1.05%) C++
11 3 (1.05%) Korn
12 2 (0.70%) Bicep
12 2 (0.70%) C
12 2 (0.70%) JCL
12 2 (0.70%) ProC
12 2 (0.70%) Scala
12 2 (0.70%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 33 (11.50%) Security Cleared
2 24 (8.36%) SC Cleared
3 18 (6.27%) Degree
4 5 (1.74%) Computer Science Degree
4 5 (1.74%) DBS Check
5 4 (1.39%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (0.70%) AWS Certification
6 2 (0.70%) CISM
6 2 (0.70%) CISSP
6 2 (0.70%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.70%) ISTQB
6 2 (0.70%) PMI Certification
6 2 (0.70%) SnowPro
6 2 (0.70%) TOGAF Certification
7 1 (0.35%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 1 (0.35%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.35%) CBAP
7 1 (0.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 1 (0.35%) Master's Degree
7 1 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 69 (24.04%) Data Quality
2 34 (11.85%) QA
3 10 (3.48%) GDPR
4 5 (1.74%) Accessibility
4 5 (1.74%) SLA
5 3 (1.05%) PSD2
6 2 (0.70%) EMIR
6 2 (0.70%) MiFID
6 2 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.35%) Basel III
7 1 (0.35%) GAAP
7 1 (0.35%) HIPAA
7 1 (0.35%) IFRS
7 1 (0.35%) PERC
7 1 (0.35%) SEPA
System Software
1 16 (5.57%) Docker
2 8 (2.79%) Active Directory
3 6 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 2 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.35%) GridGain
5 1 (0.35%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.35%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.35%) Varnish
5 1 (0.35%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 16 (5.57%) Kubernetes
2 5 (1.74%) ITRS Geneos
3 4 (1.39%) SCOM
4 3 (1.05%) Ansible
4 3 (1.05%) Microsoft Clustering
5 2 (0.70%) HP Fortify
5 2 (0.70%) NetBackup
5 2 (0.70%) WSUS
6 1 (0.35%) Control-M
6 1 (0.35%) Data Guard
6 1 (0.35%) Packer
6 1 (0.35%) PowerCLI
6 1 (0.35%) SCOrch
6 1 (0.35%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.35%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 62 (21.60%) Microsoft
2 40 (13.94%) Databricks
3 39 (13.59%) Oracle
4 12 (4.18%) SAP
5 10 (3.48%) Google
6 8 (2.79%) IBM
6 8 (2.79%) Informatica
7 7 (2.44%) Murex
8 6 (2.09%) VMware
9 5 (1.74%) Salesforce
9 5 (1.74%) ServiceNow
10 4 (1.39%) Citrix
10 4 (1.39%) Sitecore
10 4 (1.39%) Solace
11 3 (1.05%) Adobe
11 3 (1.05%) BMC
11 3 (1.05%) Commvault
11 3 (1.05%) Guidewire
11 3 (1.05%) Remedy
11 3 (1.05%) Workday