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 25 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
25 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 10 8 8
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 275 258 304
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 13.01% 14.79% 13.01%
As % of the Programming Languages category 43.51% 37.23% 39.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 187 165 209
10th Percentile £353 £393 £411
25th Percentile £445 £463 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -
75th Percentile £644 £690 £675
90th Percentile £755 £770 £775
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £575
% change year-on-year - -4.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 1
10th Percentile £29.70 - -
25th Percentile £34.50 - £46.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £48.50
75th Percentile £53.61 - £50.25
90th Percentile £57.28 - -
Central London median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £48.50
% change year-on-year +54.80% -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 632 693 768
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 29.91% 39.71% 32.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 450 453 546
10th Percentile £350 £410 £402
25th Percentile £428 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -6.71%
75th Percentile £638 £688 £689
90th Percentile £764 £775 £800
Central London median daily rate £525 £575 £568
% change year-on-year -8.70% +1.32% -6.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 2
10th Percentile £29.70 - £46.30
25th Percentile £34.50 - £46.38
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £48.00
Median % change year-on-year - - -16.52%
75th Percentile £53.61 - £49.88
90th Percentile £57.28 - £50.10
Central London median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £48.00
% change year-on-year +54.80% -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 25 March 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 25 March 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 20 (7.27%) Apache Airflow
2 17 (6.18%) Apache Spark
3 9 (3.27%) Apache
4 6 (2.18%) Confluence
4 6 (2.18%) SharePoint
5 3 (1.09%) Palantir Foundry
6 2 (0.73%) CICS
7 1 (0.36%) SAS
Applications
1 15 (5.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.18%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (1.45%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.82%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (1.45%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.45%) Endur
3 3 (1.09%) BambooHR
3 3 (1.09%) Bloomberg AIM
3 3 (1.09%) Fidessa
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle General Ledger
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (1.09%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.73%) Algo Collateral
4 2 (0.73%) BASE24
4 2 (0.73%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.73%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.73%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle Assets
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle E-Business Tax
5 1 (0.36%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.36%) Payment Gateway
5 1 (0.36%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 96 (34.91%) Azure
2 79 (28.73%) AWS
3 62 (22.55%) Power Platform
4 37 (13.45%) GCP
5 31 (11.27%) Snowflake
6 25 (9.09%) GitHub
7 24 (8.73%) dbt
7 24 (8.73%) Serverless
8 23 (8.36%) Azure Data Factory
9 21 (7.64%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (6.55%) Amazon S3
11 16 (5.82%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 15 (5.45%) AWS Lambda
13 8 (2.91%) Azure Functions
13 8 (2.91%) GitHub Actions
13 8 (2.91%) SaaS
14 7 (2.55%) Amazon EKS
14 7 (2.55%) Amazon SageMaker
14 7 (2.55%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 7 (2.55%) Prefect
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 56 (20.36%) Power BI
2 43 (15.64%) Data Warehouse
3 35 (12.73%) Tableau
4 31 (11.27%) SQL Server
5 21 (7.64%) Metadata
5 21 (7.64%) Relational Database
6 17 (6.18%) PostgreSQL
7 14 (5.09%) NoSQL
8 13 (4.73%) Data Lake
9 11 (4.00%) Amazon Redshift
9 11 (4.00%) Big Data
10 10 (3.64%) Looker
11 9 (3.27%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 8 (2.91%) BigQuery
12 8 (2.91%) Snowflake Schema
13 7 (2.55%) DB2
13 7 (2.55%) Oracle Reports
14 6 (2.18%) MongoDB
14 6 (2.18%) MySQL
14 6 (2.18%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 27 (9.82%) Git
2 16 (5.82%) Jenkins
3 13 (4.73%) JIRA
4 8 (2.91%) GitLab
5 4 (1.45%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.09%) ERwin
7 2 (0.73%) ER Studio
7 2 (0.73%) Gatling
7 2 (0.73%) JUnit
7 2 (0.73%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.73%) Postman
7 2 (0.73%) Selenium
7 2 (0.73%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.73%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.73%) Toad
8 1 (0.36%) MLflow
8 1 (0.36%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.36%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.36%) Sonatype Nexus
8 1 (0.36%) TeamCity
General
1 106 (38.55%) Finance
2 69 (25.09%) Social Skills
3 55 (20.00%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (18.18%) Banking
5 14 (5.09%) Front Office
6 12 (4.36%) Investment Banking
6 12 (4.36%) Legal
7 8 (2.91%) Public Sector
8 7 (2.55%) Documentation Skills
8 7 (2.55%) Financial Institution
9 5 (1.82%) Law
9 5 (1.82%) Marketing
9 5 (1.82%) Pharmaceutical
9 5 (1.82%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.45%) Back Office
10 4 (1.45%) General Ledger
10 4 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.45%) Retail
11 3 (1.09%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 53 (19.27%) Developer
2 52 (18.91%) Data Engineer
3 45 (16.36%) Analyst
4 36 (13.09%) Senior
5 20 (7.27%) Lead
6 17 (6.18%) Data Analyst
7 16 (5.82%) Consultant
8 13 (4.73%) Business Analyst
9 12 (4.36%) Architect
9 12 (4.36%) Snowflake Data Engineer
9 12 (4.36%) Snowflake Engineer
10 11 (4.00%) DBA
11 10 (3.64%) Java Developer
11 10 (3.64%) Senior Developer
12 9 (3.27%) Data Scientist
12 9 (3.27%) Senior Analyst
13 8 (2.91%) Senior Data Engineer
13 8 (2.91%) Software Engineer
14 7 (2.55%) SQL DBA
15 6 (2.18%) Oracle Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (8.73%) Kafka
2 21 (7.64%) .NET
3 15 (5.45%) PySpark
3 15 (5.45%) REST
4 14 (5.09%) JSON
5 13 (4.73%) React
6 12 (4.36%) XML
7 11 (4.00%) AngularJS
7 11 (4.00%) scikit-learn
8 10 (3.64%) Pandas
8 10 (3.64%) PyTorch
9 9 (3.27%) RESTful
9 9 (3.27%) TensorFlow
10 8 (2.91%) HTML
10 8 (2.91%) Web Services
11 7 (2.55%) Middleware
11 7 (2.55%) Spring
12 6 (2.18%) Matplotlib
12 6 (2.18%) NumPy
13 5 (1.82%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 24 (8.73%) Cloud Native
2 16 (5.82%) Derivative
3 13 (4.73%) Fixed Income
4 12 (4.36%) Equities
5 11 (4.00%) Algorithms
5 11 (4.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 9 (3.27%) Data Structures
7 7 (2.55%) Legacy Systems
8 6 (2.18%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.82%) Analytical Mindset
9 5 (1.82%) Clustering
9 5 (1.82%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.82%) Market Risk
10 4 (1.45%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.45%) Greenfield Project
10 4 (1.45%) Management Information System
10 4 (1.45%) Product Ownership
10 4 (1.45%) Reference Data
11 3 (1.09%) Onboarding
11 3 (1.09%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 16 (5.82%) Linux
2 13 (4.73%) Windows
3 11 (4.00%) Unix
4 3 (1.09%) Android
4 3 (1.09%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.73%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.73%) zOS
6 1 (0.36%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 79 (28.73%) Analytics
2 66 (24.00%) Data Modelling
2 66 (24.00%) ETL
3 61 (22.18%) Business Intelligence
4 54 (19.64%) AI
5 53 (19.27%) Data Engineering
6 52 (18.91%) Data Pipeline
7 51 (18.55%) Problem-Solving
8 50 (18.18%) CI/CD
9 49 (17.82%) DevOps
10 48 (17.45%) Agile
11 40 (14.55%) Performance Tuning
12 38 (13.82%) Migration
13 35 (12.73%) Validation
14 34 (12.36%) Machine Learning
15 33 (12.00%) Data Governance
15 33 (12.00%) Visualisation
16 32 (11.64%) Data Science
16 32 (11.64%) Test Automation
17 31 (11.27%) Data Analysis
Programming Languages
1 137 (49.82%) Python
2 39 (14.18%) Java
3 21 (7.64%) C#
4 18 (6.55%) JavaScript
5 15 (5.45%) PL/SQL
6 10 (3.64%) TypeScript
7 8 (2.91%) R
7 8 (2.91%) Shell Script
8 7 (2.55%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 7 (2.55%) Scala
9 4 (1.45%) C++
9 4 (1.45%) Perl
9 4 (1.45%) PHP
9 4 (1.45%) T-SQL
10 3 (1.09%) Bicep
10 3 (1.09%) C
10 3 (1.09%) PowerShell
10 3 (1.09%) ProC
11 2 (0.73%) Go
11 2 (0.73%) JCL
Qualifications
1 25 (9.09%) Degree
2 22 (8.00%) Security Cleared
3 17 (6.18%) SC Cleared
4 12 (4.36%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (2.55%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.09%) ISTQB
6 3 (1.09%) PhD
6 3 (1.09%) PMP
6 3 (1.09%) SnowPro
7 2 (0.73%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.73%) CBAP
7 2 (0.73%) CFA
7 2 (0.73%) ISEB
7 2 (0.73%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.73%) 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%) DBS Check
8 1 (0.36%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 56 (20.36%) Data Quality
2 20 (7.27%) QA
3 11 (4.00%) 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 (0.73%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.73%) NIST
6 2 (0.73%) PSD2
6 2 (0.73%) 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 20 (7.27%) Docker
2 2 (0.73%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.36%) GridGain
3 1 (0.36%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.36%) XenApp
3 1 (0.36%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 20 (7.27%) Terraform
2 19 (6.91%) Kubernetes
3 10 (3.64%) Ansible
4 6 (2.18%) Grafana
5 4 (1.45%) Prometheus
6 2 (0.73%) Argo
6 2 (0.73%) 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 (18.18%) Microsoft
2 39 (14.18%) Oracle
3 36 (13.09%) Databricks
4 18 (6.55%) Google
5 11 (4.00%) Informatica
6 8 (2.91%) SAP
7 7 (2.55%) Workday
8 6 (2.18%) IBM
8 6 (2.18%) Splunk
9 5 (1.82%) AppDynamics
9 5 (1.82%) 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%) Confluent
11 3 (1.09%) Foundry
11 3 (1.09%) Palantir
11 3 (1.09%) Sage
11 3 (1.09%) Salesforce