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 8 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 11 9 8
Rank change year-on-year -2 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 276 261 289
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 12.45% 15.02% 12.76%
As % of the Programming Languages category 42.72% 36.92% 38.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 186 163 198
10th Percentile £355 £407 £388
25th Percentile £450 £472 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -
75th Percentile £638 £689 £675
90th Percentile £756 £763 £775
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% +4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 0 1
10th Percentile £31.30 - -
25th Percentile £38.50 - £46.75
Median hourly rate £48.75 - £48.50
75th Percentile £54.30 - £50.25
90th Percentile £57.55 - -
Central London median hourly rate £48.75 £29.07 £48.50
% change year-on-year +67.68% -40.06% -7.62%

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 646 707 753
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 29.15% 40.68% 33.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 456 465 533
10th Percentile £351 £413 £404
25th Percentile £439 £465 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -4.96%
75th Percentile £638 £690 £688
90th Percentile £763 £775 £800
Central London median daily rate £525 £575 £565
% change year-on-year -8.70% +1.77% -5.83%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 2
10th Percentile £28.77 - £46.30
25th Percentile £33.90 - £46.38
Median hourly rate £48.75 - £48.00
Median % change year-on-year - - -16.52%
75th Percentile £57.91 - £49.88
90th Percentile £67.36 - £50.10
Central London median hourly rate £48.75 £29.07 £48.00
% change year-on-year +67.68% -39.44% -16.52%

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 8 April 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 8 April 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in the City of 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 22 (7.97%) Apache Airflow
2 17 (6.16%) Apache Spark
3 11 (3.99%) Apache
4 6 (2.17%) Confluence
4 6 (2.17%) SharePoint
5 3 (1.09%) CICS
5 3 (1.09%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.36%) nginx
6 1 (0.36%) SAS
Applications
1 16 (5.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.17%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (2.17%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (1.45%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.45%) BambooHR
2 4 (1.45%) Endur
2 4 (1.45%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (1.09%) Bloomberg AIM
3 3 (1.09%) Fidessa
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle General Ledger
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
3 3 (1.09%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
4 2 (0.72%) Algo Collateral
4 2 (0.72%) BASE24
4 2 (0.72%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.72%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.72%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle E-Business Tax
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.36%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 92 (33.33%) Azure
2 78 (28.26%) AWS
3 64 (23.19%) Power Platform
4 37 (13.41%) GCP
5 31 (11.23%) Snowflake
6 26 (9.42%) dbt
7 25 (9.06%) GitHub
8 23 (8.33%) Azure Data Factory
8 23 (8.33%) Serverless
9 18 (6.52%) Azure DevOps
10 17 (6.16%) Amazon S3
11 16 (5.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 14 (5.07%) AWS Lambda
13 9 (3.26%) Prefect
14 8 (2.90%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (2.54%) Amazon EKS
15 7 (2.54%) Amazon SageMaker
15 7 (2.54%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 7 (2.54%) Azure Functions
15 7 (2.54%) Dagster
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.36%) 2G
1 1 (0.36%) 4G
1 1 (0.36%) 5G
1 1 (0.36%) DNS
1 1 (0.36%) HTTP
1 1 (0.36%) LAN
1 1 (0.36%) Multicast
1 1 (0.36%) NetScaler
1 1 (0.36%) Radio Access Network
1 1 (0.36%) SD-WAN
1 1 (0.36%) WAN
1 1 (0.36%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 57 (20.65%) Power BI
2 43 (15.58%) Data Warehouse
3 34 (12.32%) Tableau
4 32 (11.59%) SQL Server
5 21 (7.61%) Relational Database
6 20 (7.25%) Metadata
7 18 (6.52%) PostgreSQL
8 14 (5.07%) NoSQL
9 13 (4.71%) Data Lake
10 12 (4.35%) Amazon Redshift
10 12 (4.35%) Big Data
11 10 (3.62%) Looker
12 8 (2.90%) BigQuery
12 8 (2.90%) DB2
12 8 (2.90%) Oracle Reports
12 8 (2.90%) Snowflake Schema
12 8 (2.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 6 (2.17%) Azure SQL Database
13 6 (2.17%) DynamoDB
13 6 (2.17%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 26 (9.42%) Git
2 17 (6.16%) Jenkins
3 12 (4.35%) JIRA
4 9 (3.26%) GitLab
5 4 (1.45%) ERwin
6 3 (1.09%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.09%) JUnit
7 2 (0.72%) ER Studio
7 2 (0.72%) Gatling
7 2 (0.72%) Mockito
7 2 (0.72%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.72%) Postman
7 2 (0.72%) Selenium
7 2 (0.72%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.72%) Toad
8 1 (0.36%) Liquibase
8 1 (0.36%) MLflow
8 1 (0.36%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.36%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 107 (38.77%) Finance
2 66 (23.91%) Social Skills
3 54 (19.57%) Analytical Skills
4 51 (18.48%) Banking
5 14 (5.07%) Front Office
5 14 (5.07%) Legal
6 12 (4.35%) Investment Banking
7 7 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
7 7 (2.54%) Financial Institution
7 7 (2.54%) Public Sector
8 6 (2.17%) Marketing
8 6 (2.17%) Telecoms
9 5 (1.81%) Back Office
9 5 (1.81%) Law
9 5 (1.81%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.45%) General Ledger
10 4 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.45%) Retail
11 3 (1.09%) Publishing
12 2 (0.72%) Advertising
Job Titles
1 54 (19.57%) Data Engineer
2 48 (17.39%) Developer
3 41 (14.86%) Analyst
4 36 (13.04%) Senior
5 20 (7.25%) Lead
6 17 (6.16%) Data Analyst
7 16 (5.80%) Consultant
8 14 (5.07%) Snowflake Data Engineer
8 14 (5.07%) Snowflake Engineer
9 12 (4.35%) Business Analyst
10 11 (3.99%) Architect
10 11 (3.99%) DBA
11 10 (3.62%) Java Developer
11 10 (3.62%) Software Engineer
12 9 (3.26%) Data Scientist
12 9 (3.26%) Senior Developer
13 8 (2.90%) Senior Analyst
13 8 (2.90%) Senior Data Engineer
13 8 (2.90%) SQL DBA
14 7 (2.54%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (9.06%) Kafka
2 17 (6.16%) .NET
3 15 (5.43%) JSON
3 15 (5.43%) PySpark
4 13 (4.71%) React
4 13 (4.71%) REST
5 12 (4.35%) XML
6 11 (3.99%) scikit-learn
7 10 (3.62%) Pandas
7 10 (3.62%) PyTorch
7 10 (3.62%) RESTful
8 9 (3.26%) AngularJS
8 9 (3.26%) TensorFlow
9 8 (2.90%) HTML
9 8 (2.90%) Middleware
9 8 (2.90%) Spring
10 7 (2.54%) Web Services
11 6 (2.17%) Matplotlib
11 6 (2.17%) NumPy
11 6 (2.17%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 22 (7.97%) Cloud Native
2 16 (5.80%) Derivative
3 13 (4.71%) Fixed Income
4 12 (4.35%) Equities
5 11 (3.99%) Algorithms
5 11 (3.99%) Data Structures
5 11 (3.99%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 7 (2.54%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (2.54%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (1.81%) Analytical Mindset
7 5 (1.81%) Clustering
7 5 (1.81%) Market Risk
8 4 (1.45%) AI Agents
8 4 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
8 4 (1.45%) Mainframe
8 4 (1.45%) Management Information System
8 4 (1.45%) Reference Data
9 3 (1.09%) Onboarding
9 3 (1.09%) Product Ownership
9 3 (1.09%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 14 (5.07%) Linux
2 11 (3.99%) Unix
3 10 (3.62%) Windows
4 3 (1.09%) Android
4 3 (1.09%) Apple iOS
4 3 (1.09%) zOS
5 2 (0.72%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.36%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (29.35%) Analytics
2 70 (25.36%) Data Modelling
3 68 (24.64%) ETL
4 62 (22.46%) Business Intelligence
5 58 (21.01%) AI
6 55 (19.93%) Data Pipeline
7 54 (19.57%) Data Engineering
8 53 (19.20%) CI/CD
9 49 (17.75%) DevOps
9 49 (17.75%) Problem-Solving
10 45 (16.30%) Agile
11 42 (15.22%) Performance Tuning
12 39 (14.13%) Migration
13 36 (13.04%) Machine Learning
14 35 (12.68%) Data Governance
14 35 (12.68%) Validation
15 34 (12.32%) Data Science
16 33 (11.96%) Test Automation
17 32 (11.59%) Visualisation
18 31 (11.23%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 140 (50.72%) Python
2 36 (13.04%) Java
3 21 (7.61%) C#
4 16 (5.80%) JavaScript
5 15 (5.43%) PL/SQL
6 11 (3.99%) TypeScript
7 9 (3.26%) Shell Script
8 8 (2.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (2.90%) R
9 7 (2.54%) Scala
10 4 (1.45%) C++
10 4 (1.45%) Perl
10 4 (1.45%) PHP
10 4 (1.45%) T-SQL
11 3 (1.09%) Bicep
11 3 (1.09%) C
11 3 (1.09%) JCL
11 3 (1.09%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.09%) ProC
12 2 (0.72%) Go
Qualifications
1 23 (8.33%) Degree
2 19 (6.88%) Security Cleared
3 14 (5.07%) SC Cleared
4 10 (3.62%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (2.54%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.09%) PhD
6 3 (1.09%) PMP
6 3 (1.09%) SnowPro
7 2 (0.72%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.72%) CFA
7 2 (0.72%) ISTQB
7 2 (0.72%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.72%) PMI Certification
8 1 (0.36%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 1 (0.36%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.36%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.36%) CCA
8 1 (0.36%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.36%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
8 1 (0.36%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (20.29%) Data Quality
2 21 (7.61%) QA
3 13 (4.71%) GDPR
4 4 (1.45%) ISO 8583
5 3 (1.09%) Basel III
5 3 (1.09%) GAAP
5 3 (1.09%) IFRS
5 3 (1.09%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.09%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (0.72%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.72%) NIST
6 2 (0.72%) PSD2
6 2 (0.72%) SEPA
7 1 (0.36%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.36%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.36%) Dodd-Frank
7 1 (0.36%) EMIR
7 1 (0.36%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.36%) PMO
System Software
1 22 (7.97%) Docker
2 2 (0.72%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.36%) GridGain
3 1 (0.36%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.36%) Varnish
3 1 (0.36%) XenApp
3 1 (0.36%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 21 (7.61%) Terraform
2 20 (7.25%) Kubernetes
3 7 (2.54%) Ansible
4 6 (2.17%) Grafana
5 4 (1.45%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.72%) Argo
6 2 (0.72%) ITRS Geneos
7 1 (0.36%) Control-M
7 1 (0.36%) Istio
7 1 (0.36%) SCCM
7 1 (0.36%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 50 (18.12%) Microsoft
2 38 (13.77%) Oracle
3 36 (13.04%) Databricks
4 17 (6.16%) Google
5 11 (3.99%) Informatica
6 8 (2.90%) SAP
6 8 (2.90%) Workday
7 7 (2.54%) IBM
8 6 (2.17%) Splunk
9 5 (1.81%) AppDynamics
9 5 (1.81%) Bloomberg
10 4 (1.45%) Amplitude
10 4 (1.45%) Charles River
10 4 (1.45%) ServiceNow
11 3 (1.09%) Cognos
11 3 (1.09%) Foundry
11 3 (1.09%) Palantir
11 3 (1.09%) Sage
11 3 (1.09%) Salesforce
11 3 (1.09%) Sparx