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 12 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 8 8
Rank change year-on-year -7 0 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 254 275 281
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 11.11% 15.75% 12.89%
As % of the Programming Languages category 41.50% 39.17% 37.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 170 176 194
10th Percentile £355 £404 £413
25th Percentile £450 £473 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £539 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -2.05% -4.35% -2.54%
75th Percentile £650 £720 £675
90th Percentile £751 £794 £773
Central London median daily rate £540 £550 £575
% change year-on-year -1.82% -4.35% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 1
10th Percentile £37.50 - -
25th Percentile £43.12 - £46.75
Median hourly rate £52.49 - £48.50
75th Percentile £56.11 - £50.25
90th Percentile £58.28 - -
Central London median hourly rate £52.49 £29.07 £48.50
% change year-on-year +80.56% -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 612 702 745
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 26.76% 40.21% 34.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 425 463 527
10th Percentile £355 £410 £400
25th Percentile £446 £463 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -8.00%
75th Percentile £638 £695 £693
90th Percentile £750 £799 £793
Central London median daily rate £525 £575 £563
% change year-on-year -8.70% +2.22% -10.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 6 0 1
10th Percentile £25.14 - -
25th Percentile £31.71 - £46.75
Median hourly rate £45.00 - £48.50
Median % change year-on-year - - -15.65%
75th Percentile £57.91 - £50.25
90th Percentile £67.36 - -
Central London median hourly rate £45.00 £29.07 £48.50
% change year-on-year +54.78% -40.06% -15.65%

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 12 May 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 12 May 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 19 (7.48%) Apache Airflow
2 9 (3.54%) Apache Spark
3 6 (2.36%) Apache
3 6 (2.36%) Confluence
3 6 (2.36%) SharePoint
4 4 (1.57%) CICS
5 3 (1.18%) Palantir Foundry
6 1 (0.39%) nginx
6 1 (0.39%) SAS
Applications
1 13 (5.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.76%) MS Visio
3 4 (1.57%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (1.18%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.39%) Chatbot
Business Applications
1 6 (2.36%) Oracle EBS
2 5 (1.97%) BambooHR
3 4 (1.57%) Endur
3 4 (1.57%) Oracle EBS R12
4 3 (1.18%) Aladdin
4 3 (1.18%) Bloomberg AIM
4 3 (1.18%) Fidessa
4 3 (1.18%) Oracle General Ledger
4 3 (1.18%) Oracle Payables
4 3 (1.18%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 3 (1.18%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 2 (0.79%) BASE24
5 2 (0.79%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.79%) Oracle Receivables
5 2 (0.79%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.39%) Magento
6 1 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
6 1 (0.39%) Oracle E-Business Tax
6 1 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
6 1 (0.39%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 82 (32.28%) Azure
2 64 (25.20%) AWS
3 54 (21.26%) Power Platform
4 32 (12.60%) GCP
5 28 (11.02%) Snowflake
6 24 (9.45%) Azure Data Factory
7 22 (8.66%) dbt
7 22 (8.66%) GitHub
7 22 (8.66%) Serverless
8 17 (6.69%) Azure DevOps
9 16 (6.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 15 (5.91%) Amazon S3
10 15 (5.91%) AWS Lambda
11 9 (3.54%) Prefect
12 7 (2.76%) Amazon EKS
12 7 (2.76%) Azure Cosmos DB
12 7 (2.76%) GitHub Actions
13 6 (2.36%) Amazon SageMaker
13 6 (2.36%) Dagster
14 5 (1.97%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 2 (0.79%) Multicast
2 1 (0.39%) DNS
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 47 (18.50%) Power BI
2 40 (15.75%) Data Warehouse
3 31 (12.20%) SQL Server
4 29 (11.42%) Tableau
5 21 (8.27%) Metadata
6 19 (7.48%) Relational Database
7 18 (7.09%) PostgreSQL
8 13 (5.12%) Amazon Redshift
9 12 (4.72%) NoSQL
10 11 (4.33%) Looker
11 10 (3.94%) Snowflake Schema
12 9 (3.54%) BigQuery
13 8 (3.15%) Big Data
13 8 (3.15%) Data Lake
13 8 (3.15%) DB2
13 8 (3.15%) DynamoDB
13 8 (3.15%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 7 (2.76%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (2.76%) Oracle Reports
15 5 (1.97%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 21 (8.27%) Git
2 13 (5.12%) Jenkins
3 10 (3.94%) JIRA
4 9 (3.54%) GitLab
5 4 (1.57%) ERwin
5 4 (1.57%) JUnit
6 3 (1.18%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.18%) Mockito
7 2 (0.79%) Eclipse
7 2 (0.79%) ER Studio
7 2 (0.79%) Gatling
7 2 (0.79%) Gradle
7 2 (0.79%) Liquibase
7 2 (0.79%) Selenium
7 2 (0.79%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.79%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
7 2 (0.79%) Toad
8 1 (0.39%) Octopus Deploy
8 1 (0.39%) Robot Framework
8 1 (0.39%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 102 (40.16%) Finance
2 61 (24.02%) Social Skills
3 45 (17.72%) Analytical Skills
3 45 (17.72%) Banking
4 14 (5.51%) Legal
5 13 (5.12%) Front Office
6 10 (3.94%) Investment Banking
7 8 (3.15%) Documentation Skills
7 8 (3.15%) Marketing
8 6 (2.36%) Financial Institution
9 5 (1.97%) Back Office
9 5 (1.97%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.57%) General Ledger
10 4 (1.57%) Law
10 4 (1.57%) Pharmaceutical
10 4 (1.57%) Public Sector
11 3 (1.18%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 3 (1.18%) Publishing
12 2 (0.79%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.79%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 51 (20.08%) Data Engineer
2 43 (16.93%) Developer
3 40 (15.75%) Analyst
4 29 (11.42%) Senior
5 19 (7.48%) Data Analyst
6 18 (7.09%) Lead
7 15 (5.91%) Snowflake Data Engineer
7 15 (5.91%) Snowflake Engineer
8 12 (4.72%) DBA
9 11 (4.33%) Architect
9 11 (4.33%) Consultant
10 10 (3.94%) Business Analyst
10 10 (3.94%) Java Developer
10 10 (3.94%) Software Engineer
11 9 (3.54%) Senior Developer
11 9 (3.54%) SQL DBA
12 8 (3.15%) Data Scientist
13 6 (2.36%) Administrator
13 6 (2.36%) Oracle Consultant
13 6 (2.36%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 24 (9.45%) Kafka
2 15 (5.91%) JSON
3 14 (5.51%) .NET
3 14 (5.51%) PySpark
3 14 (5.51%) React
3 14 (5.51%) REST
4 11 (4.33%) Spring
5 10 (3.94%) RESTful
6 9 (3.54%) AngularJS
6 9 (3.54%) Pandas
6 9 (3.54%) PyTorch
6 9 (3.54%) Spring Boot
6 9 (3.54%) XML
7 8 (3.15%) Middleware
7 8 (3.15%) scikit-learn
7 8 (3.15%) SOAP
7 8 (3.15%) TensorFlow
7 8 (3.15%) Web Services
8 7 (2.76%) HTML
9 5 (1.97%) Matplotlib
Miscellaneous
1 18 (7.09%) Cloud Native
2 13 (5.12%) Fixed Income
3 12 (4.72%) Derivative
3 12 (4.72%) Equities
3 12 (4.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
4 11 (4.33%) Data Structures
5 8 (3.15%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (2.76%) Algorithms
7 6 (2.36%) Clustering
8 5 (1.97%) AI Agents
8 5 (1.97%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.97%) Mainframe
9 4 (1.57%) DataPower
9 4 (1.57%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.57%) Market Risk
9 4 (1.57%) Onboarding
9 4 (1.57%) Online Banking
9 4 (1.57%) Reference Data
10 3 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
10 3 (1.18%) Life Science
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.91%) Linux
2 10 (3.94%) Unix
3 9 (3.54%) Windows
4 4 (1.57%) zOS
5 3 (1.18%) Android
5 3 (1.18%) Apple iOS
5 3 (1.18%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.39%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 75 (29.53%) Analytics
2 60 (23.62%) AI
2 60 (23.62%) Data Modelling
2 60 (23.62%) ETL
3 54 (21.26%) Data Engineering
4 52 (20.47%) Business Intelligence
5 49 (19.29%) CI/CD
6 48 (18.90%) DevOps
7 46 (18.11%) Data Pipeline
8 43 (16.93%) Problem-Solving
9 39 (15.35%) Performance Tuning
10 38 (14.96%) Validation
11 37 (14.57%) Agile
11 37 (14.57%) Migration
12 32 (12.60%) Data Governance
13 31 (12.20%) Test Automation
14 29 (11.42%) Data Science
14 29 (11.42%) Machine Learning
15 27 (10.63%) Data Analysis
16 25 (9.84%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 129 (50.79%) Python
2 36 (14.17%) Java
3 16 (6.30%) C#
4 15 (5.91%) PL/SQL
5 12 (4.72%) JavaScript
6 10 (3.94%) TypeScript
7 9 (3.54%) Shell Script
8 6 (2.36%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (2.36%) R
9 4 (1.57%) JCL
9 4 (1.57%) Perl
9 4 (1.57%) Scala
9 4 (1.57%) T-SQL
10 3 (1.18%) Bicep
10 3 (1.18%) C
10 3 (1.18%) C++
10 3 (1.18%) PHP
10 3 (1.18%) PowerShell
11 2 (0.79%) ProC
12 1 (0.39%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 21 (8.27%) Degree
2 17 (6.69%) Security Cleared
3 12 (4.72%) SC Cleared
4 9 (3.54%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (2.76%) BPSS Clearance
6 3 (1.18%) DBS Check
6 3 (1.18%) PhD
6 3 (1.18%) PMI Certification
6 3 (1.18%) PMP
7 2 (0.79%) AWS Certification
7 2 (0.79%) CISM
7 2 (0.79%) CISSP
7 2 (0.79%) Master's Degree
7 2 (0.79%) SnowPro
8 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Developer
8 1 (0.39%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 1 (0.39%) CCA
8 1 (0.39%) Citrix Certification
8 1 (0.39%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (20.87%) Data Quality
2 16 (6.30%) GDPR
2 16 (6.30%) QA
3 4 (1.57%) ISO 8583
3 4 (1.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
4 3 (1.18%) Basel III
4 3 (1.18%) GAAP
4 3 (1.18%) IFRS
4 3 (1.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 2 (0.79%) EMIR
5 2 (0.79%) HIPAA
5 2 (0.79%) ISO 20022
5 2 (0.79%) MiFID
5 2 (0.79%) NIST
5 2 (0.79%) PSD2
5 2 (0.79%) SEPA
6 1 (0.39%) DICOM
6 1 (0.39%) HL7
6 1 (0.39%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.39%) Solvency II
System Software
1 26 (10.24%) Docker
2 2 (0.79%) Active Directory
2 2 (0.79%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (0.39%) GridGain
3 1 (0.39%) Hyper-V
3 1 (0.39%) Varnish
3 1 (0.39%) XenApp
3 1 (0.39%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 23 (9.06%) Kubernetes
2 16 (6.30%) Terraform
3 7 (2.76%) Ansible
4 6 (2.36%) Grafana
5 4 (1.57%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.18%) ITRS Geneos
7 2 (0.79%) Argo
8 1 (0.39%) Control-M
8 1 (0.39%) Istio
8 1 (0.39%) SCCM
8 1 (0.39%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 49 (19.29%) Microsoft
2 35 (13.78%) Oracle
3 28 (11.02%) Databricks
4 15 (5.91%) Google
5 10 (3.94%) Informatica
5 10 (3.94%) SAP
5 10 (3.94%) Workday
6 7 (2.76%) Splunk
7 5 (1.97%) AppDynamics
7 5 (1.97%) Bloomberg
7 5 (1.97%) ServiceNow
8 4 (1.57%) Amplitude
8 4 (1.57%) Charles River
8 4 (1.57%) IBM
8 4 (1.57%) Salesforce
9 3 (1.18%) Foundry
9 3 (1.18%) OpenAI
9 3 (1.18%) Palantir
9 3 (1.18%) Sparx
10 2 (0.79%) Confluent