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 5 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 9 8
Rank change year-on-year -7 -1 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 259 274 299
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 11.00% 16.22% 13.89%
As % of the Programming Languages category 41.84% 40.53% 38.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 175 177 207
10th Percentile £355 £404 £413
25th Percentile £448 £475 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £530 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -3.64% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £651 £725 £675
90th Percentile £749 £775 £763
Central London median daily rate £530 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -3.64% -4.35% -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 1 1
10th Percentile £37.50 - -
25th Percentile £43.12 £16.50 £46.75
Median hourly rate £52.49 £17.00 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year +208.76% -64.95% +49.23%
75th Percentile £56.11 £17.50 £50.25
90th Percentile £58.28 - -
Central London median hourly rate £52.49 £23.04 £48.50
% change year-on-year +127.87% -52.51% +49.23%

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 619 676 768
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 26.28% 40.02% 35.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 428 451 538
10th Percentile £355 £404 £400
25th Percentile £450 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £534 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -7.17% - -8.00%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £688
90th Percentile £763 £800 £800
Central London median daily rate £550 £550 £555
% change year-on-year - -0.81% -11.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 7 1 1
10th Percentile £26.32 - -
25th Percentile £32.39 £16.50 £46.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £17.00 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year +120.59% -64.95% -7.62%
75th Percentile £56.11 £17.50 £50.25
90th Percentile £65.83 - -
Central London median hourly rate £37.50 £23.04 £48.50
% change year-on-year +62.80% -52.51% -7.62%

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 5 June 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 5 June 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 21 (8.11%) Apache Airflow
2 11 (4.25%) Apache Spark
3 8 (3.09%) Apache
4 5 (1.93%) Confluence
5 4 (1.54%) CICS
6 3 (1.16%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.77%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.39%) IIS
8 1 (0.39%) nginx
Applications
1 8 (3.09%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.93%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.77%) Chatbot
3 2 (0.77%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.39%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 6 (2.32%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (1.93%) BambooHR
3 4 (1.54%) Endur
3 4 (1.54%) Oracle EBS R12
3 4 (1.54%) Oracle General Ledger
3 4 (1.54%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (1.16%) Aladdin
4 3 (1.16%) Bloomberg AIM
4 3 (1.16%) Fidessa
4 3 (1.16%) Oracle Receivables
4 3 (1.16%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
5 2 (0.77%) BASE24
5 2 (0.77%) Oracle ERP
5 2 (0.77%) Oracle Financials
5 2 (0.77%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.77%) Payment Gateway
5 2 (0.77%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 1 (0.39%) Magento
6 1 (0.39%) Oracle Applications
6 1 (0.39%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 84 (32.43%) Azure
2 63 (24.32%) AWS
3 57 (22.01%) Power Platform
4 31 (11.97%) GCP
5 29 (11.20%) Snowflake
6 25 (9.65%) Azure Data Factory
7 23 (8.88%) GitHub
7 23 (8.88%) Serverless
8 21 (8.11%) dbt
9 18 (6.95%) Azure DevOps
10 16 (6.18%) AWS Lambda
11 15 (5.79%) Amazon S3
12 14 (5.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 9 (3.47%) Prefect
14 7 (2.70%) Azure Cosmos DB
14 7 (2.70%) GitHub Actions
15 6 (2.32%) Dagster
15 6 (2.32%) SaaS
16 5 (1.93%) Amazon EKS
16 5 (1.93%) OCI
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.77%) Multicast
2 1 (0.39%) DNS
2 1 (0.39%) Internet
2 1 (0.39%) Intranet
2 1 (0.39%) LAN
2 1 (0.39%) NetScaler
2 1 (0.39%) SD-WAN
2 1 (0.39%) VPN
2 1 (0.39%) WAN
2 1 (0.39%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 50 (19.31%) Power BI
2 38 (14.67%) Data Warehouse
3 35 (13.51%) SQL Server
4 32 (12.36%) Tableau
5 19 (7.34%) Metadata
6 18 (6.95%) Relational Database
7 15 (5.79%) PostgreSQL
8 14 (5.41%) Amazon Redshift
9 13 (5.02%) NoSQL
10 12 (4.63%) Looker
11 11 (4.25%) BigQuery
12 9 (3.47%) Data Lake
13 8 (3.09%) Big Data
13 8 (3.09%) Db2
13 8 (3.09%) DynamoDB
13 8 (3.09%) Oracle Database
13 8 (3.09%) Snowflake Schema
13 8 (3.09%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 6 (2.32%) Azure SQL Database
14 6 (2.32%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 18 (6.95%) Git
2 12 (4.63%) Jenkins
3 9 (3.47%) JIRA
4 8 (3.09%) GitLab
5 4 (1.54%) JUnit
6 3 (1.16%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.16%) Eclipse
6 3 (1.16%) ERwin
6 3 (1.16%) Mockito
7 2 (0.77%) Gatling
7 2 (0.77%) Gradle
7 2 (0.77%) Liquibase
7 2 (0.77%) Selenium
7 2 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.77%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.77%) TeamCity
8 1 (0.39%) ER Studio
8 1 (0.39%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.39%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.39%) Zephyr
General
1 109 (42.08%) Finance
2 58 (22.39%) Social Skills
3 49 (18.92%) Analytical Skills
3 49 (18.92%) Banking
4 16 (6.18%) Front Office
5 12 (4.63%) Legal
6 10 (3.86%) Marketing
7 9 (3.47%) Investment Banking
8 8 (3.09%) Documentation Skills
9 5 (1.93%) Back Office
9 5 (1.93%) General Ledger
9 5 (1.93%) Public Sector
9 5 (1.93%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.54%) Financial Institution
10 4 (1.54%) Law
11 3 (1.16%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.16%) Publishing
12 2 (0.77%) Billing
12 2 (0.77%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.77%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 54 (20.85%) Data Engineer
2 45 (17.37%) Developer
3 39 (15.06%) Analyst
4 28 (10.81%) Senior
5 21 (8.11%) Lead
6 20 (7.72%) Data Analyst
7 14 (5.41%) Snowflake Data Engineer
7 14 (5.41%) Snowflake Engineer
8 13 (5.02%) Consultant
9 12 (4.63%) Architect
10 11 (4.25%) DBA
11 10 (3.86%) Java Developer
11 10 (3.86%) Senior Developer
11 10 (3.86%) Software Engineer
12 8 (3.09%) Business Analyst
12 8 (3.09%) SQL DBA
13 7 (2.70%) Data Scientist
13 7 (2.70%) Oracle Consultant
13 7 (2.70%) Python Engineer
14 6 (2.32%) C# Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (9.65%) Kafka
2 20 (7.72%) .NET
3 18 (6.95%) REST
4 16 (6.18%) PySpark
5 14 (5.41%) JSON
5 14 (5.41%) React
6 11 (4.25%) Spring
6 11 (4.25%) XML
7 10 (3.86%) AngularJS
7 10 (3.86%) PyTorch
7 10 (3.86%) RESTful
7 10 (3.86%) Web Services
8 9 (3.47%) SOAP
8 9 (3.47%) Spring Boot
8 9 (3.47%) TensorFlow
9 8 (3.09%) Middleware
9 8 (3.09%) Pandas
10 7 (2.70%) HTML
10 7 (2.70%) scikit-learn
11 5 (1.93%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 22 (8.49%) Cloud Native
2 13 (5.02%) Equities
3 12 (4.63%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 11 (4.25%) Data Structures
4 11 (4.25%) Derivative
5 10 (3.86%) Fixed Income
6 8 (3.09%) Distributed Systems
6 8 (3.09%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.32%) AI Agents
7 6 (2.32%) Algorithms
7 6 (2.32%) Clustering
7 6 (2.32%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.93%) Analytical Mindset
8 5 (1.93%) Mainframe
8 5 (1.93%) Market Risk
9 4 (1.54%) DataPower
9 4 (1.54%) Online Banking
9 4 (1.54%) Reinsurance
10 3 (1.16%) Credit Risk
10 3 (1.16%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 16 (6.18%) Linux
2 11 (4.25%) Unix
3 10 (3.86%) Windows
4 4 (1.54%) Windows Server
4 4 (1.54%) zOS
5 3 (1.16%) Android
5 3 (1.16%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 83 (32.05%) Analytics
2 67 (25.87%) AI
3 64 (24.71%) Data Modelling
4 61 (23.55%) ETL
5 60 (23.17%) Data Engineering
6 54 (20.85%) Business Intelligence
7 51 (19.69%) CI/CD
8 50 (19.31%) Data Pipeline
9 48 (18.53%) DevOps
10 41 (15.83%) Migration
11 40 (15.44%) Agile
11 40 (15.44%) Validation
12 39 (15.06%) Problem-Solving
13 33 (12.74%) Data Governance
13 33 (12.74%) Performance Tuning
14 32 (12.36%) Machine Learning
15 29 (11.20%) Data Analysis
15 29 (11.20%) Data Science
15 29 (11.20%) Test Automation
16 26 (10.04%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 134 (51.74%) Python
2 35 (13.51%) Java
3 21 (8.11%) C#
4 17 (6.56%) PL/SQL
5 14 (5.41%) JavaScript
6 9 (3.47%) R
6 9 (3.47%) TypeScript
7 8 (3.09%) T-SQL
8 7 (2.70%) Shell Script
9 5 (1.93%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 4 (1.54%) C
10 4 (1.54%) C++
10 4 (1.54%) JCL
10 4 (1.54%) Scala
11 3 (1.16%) Bicep
11 3 (1.16%) PowerShell
11 3 (1.16%) ProC
12 1 (0.39%) Groovy
12 1 (0.39%) Korn
12 1 (0.39%) SOQL
Qualifications
1 24 (9.27%) Degree
2 19 (7.34%) Security Cleared
3 14 (5.41%) SC Cleared
4 9 (3.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 5 (1.93%) DBS Check
7 3 (1.16%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.16%) PhD
7 3 (1.16%) PMI Certification
7 3 (1.16%) PMP
8 2 (0.77%) CISM
8 2 (0.77%) CISSP
8 2 (0.77%) SnowPro
9 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.39%) CCA
9 1 (0.39%) Citrix Certification
9 1 (0.39%) Master's Degree
9 1 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 52 (20.08%) Data Quality
2 22 (8.49%) QA
3 16 (6.18%) GDPR
4 4 (1.54%) GAAP
4 4 (1.54%) IFRS
4 4 (1.54%) ISO 8583
4 4 (1.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 3 (1.16%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.77%) Basel III
6 2 (0.77%) EMIR
6 2 (0.77%) HIPAA
6 2 (0.77%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.77%) MiFID
6 2 (0.77%) NIST
6 2 (0.77%) PSD2
6 2 (0.77%) SEPA
7 1 (0.39%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.39%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
7 1 (0.39%) IFRS 9
System Software
1 27 (10.42%) Docker
2 3 (1.16%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.39%) GridGain
4 1 (0.39%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.39%) Varnish
4 1 (0.39%) XenApp
4 1 (0.39%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 23 (8.88%) Kubernetes
2 12 (4.63%) Terraform
3 5 (1.93%) Ansible
3 5 (1.93%) Grafana
4 3 (1.16%) Prometheus
5 2 (0.77%) Argo
6 1 (0.39%) Control-M
6 1 (0.39%) ITRS Geneos
6 1 (0.39%) SCCM
6 1 (0.39%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 48 (18.53%) Microsoft
2 39 (15.06%) Oracle
3 31 (11.97%) Databricks
4 14 (5.41%) Google
5 10 (3.86%) Informatica
5 10 (3.86%) SAP
5 10 (3.86%) Workday
6 5 (1.93%) Amplitude
6 5 (1.93%) Murex
6 5 (1.93%) Salesforce
6 5 (1.93%) ServiceNow
6 5 (1.93%) Splunk
7 4 (1.54%) Charles River
7 4 (1.54%) Citrix
7 4 (1.54%) IBM
7 4 (1.54%) OpenAI
8 3 (1.16%) AppDynamics
8 3 (1.16%) Bloomberg
8 3 (1.16%) Guidewire
8 3 (1.16%) Palantir