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

6 months to
7 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 8
Rank change year-on-year 0 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 272 258 317
As % of all contract jobs in the City of London 13.28% 13.99% 13.35%
As % of the Programming Languages category 44.01% 36.03% 40.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 185 171 215
10th Percentile £343 £406 £413
25th Percentile £425 £463 £481
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £568 £595
Median % change year-on-year -7.49% -4.62% +3.48%
75th Percentile £638 £688 £688
90th Percentile £750 £788 £783
Central London median daily rate £525 £550 £600
% change year-on-year -4.55% -8.33% +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 £35.29 £48.50
% change year-on-year +27.53% -27.25% +136.59%

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 618 716 781
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the City of London 30.18% 38.83% 32.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 444 457 559
10th Percentile £350 £410 £413
25th Percentile £425 £465 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £575 £575
Median % change year-on-year -8.70% - -6.12%
75th Percentile £638 £690 £700
90th Percentile £775 £795 £825
Central London median daily rate £525 £575 £575
% change year-on-year -8.70% - -4.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 2
10th Percentile £29.70 £51.80 £46.30
25th Percentile £34.50 £74.38 £46.38
Median hourly rate £45.00 £112.00 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year -59.82% +133.33% -16.52%
75th Percentile £53.61 - £49.88
90th Percentile £57.28 - £50.10
Central London median hourly rate £45.00 £41.50 £48.00
% change year-on-year +8.43% -13.54% -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 7 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 7 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 19 (6.99%) Apache Airflow
2 15 (5.51%) Apache Spark
3 7 (2.57%) Apache
4 6 (2.21%) Confluence
5 5 (1.84%) SharePoint
6 3 (1.10%) Palantir Foundry
7 2 (0.74%) CICS
8 1 (0.37%) Anypoint
8 1 (0.37%) Mule
8 1 (0.37%) SAS
Applications
1 15 (5.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (2.21%) MS Visio
3 5 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.37%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 5 (1.84%) Oracle EBS
2 4 (1.47%) Aladdin
2 4 (1.47%) Endur
2 4 (1.47%) Oracle General Ledger
2 4 (1.47%) Oracle Payables
3 3 (1.10%) BambooHR
3 3 (1.10%) Bloomberg AIM
3 3 (1.10%) Fidessa
3 3 (1.10%) Oracle EBS R12
3 3 (1.10%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
4 2 (0.74%) Algo Collateral
4 2 (0.74%) BASE24
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle Assets
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle E-Business Tax
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle Financials
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 2 (0.74%) Oracle Receivables
4 2 (0.74%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.37%) Oracle FAH
5 1 (0.37%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 89 (32.72%) Azure
2 79 (29.04%) AWS
3 58 (21.32%) Power Platform
4 36 (13.24%) GCP
5 30 (11.03%) Snowflake
6 25 (9.19%) GitHub
7 23 (8.46%) Serverless
8 20 (7.35%) Azure Data Factory
8 20 (7.35%) dbt
9 19 (6.99%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (6.62%) Amazon S3
11 16 (5.88%) AWS Lambda
12 13 (4.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 9 (3.31%) SaaS
14 8 (2.94%) GitHub Actions
15 7 (2.57%) Amazon EKS
15 7 (2.57%) Amazon SageMaker
15 7 (2.57%) Azure Cosmos DB
15 7 (2.57%) Azure Functions
16 6 (2.21%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.37%) 2G
1 1 (0.37%) 4G
1 1 (0.37%) 5G
1 1 (0.37%) DNS
1 1 (0.37%) HTTP
1 1 (0.37%) LAN
1 1 (0.37%) NetScaler
1 1 (0.37%) Radio Access Network
1 1 (0.37%) SD-WAN
1 1 (0.37%) WAN
1 1 (0.37%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 53 (19.49%) Power BI
2 41 (15.07%) Data Warehouse
3 33 (12.13%) Tableau
4 27 (9.93%) SQL Server
5 19 (6.99%) Metadata
6 18 (6.62%) Relational Database
7 17 (6.25%) PostgreSQL
8 14 (5.15%) NoSQL
9 12 (4.41%) Amazon Redshift
9 12 (4.41%) Data Lake
10 10 (3.68%) Looker
11 9 (3.31%) Big Data
12 8 (2.94%) BigQuery
12 8 (2.94%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 7 (2.57%) DB2
13 7 (2.57%) Snowflake Schema
14 6 (2.21%) Mixpanel
14 6 (2.21%) MongoDB
14 6 (2.21%) MySQL
14 6 (2.21%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 28 (10.29%) Git
2 14 (5.15%) Jenkins
3 12 (4.41%) JIRA
4 8 (2.94%) GitLab
5 5 (1.84%) Cucumber
6 3 (1.10%) ERwin
6 3 (1.10%) Postman
6 3 (1.10%) Visual Website Optimizer
7 2 (0.74%) ER Studio
7 2 (0.74%) Gatling
7 2 (0.74%) JUnit
7 2 (0.74%) Oracle Forms
7 2 (0.74%) Selenium
7 2 (0.74%) SonarQube
7 2 (0.74%) Team Foundation Server
7 2 (0.74%) Toad
8 1 (0.37%) LoadRunner
8 1 (0.37%) PowerBuilder
8 1 (0.37%) SpecFlow
8 1 (0.37%) TeamCity
General
1 102 (37.50%) Finance
2 73 (26.84%) Social Skills
3 58 (21.32%) Analytical Skills
4 47 (17.28%) Banking
5 13 (4.78%) Front Office
5 13 (4.78%) Legal
6 10 (3.68%) Investment Banking
7 9 (3.31%) Public Sector
8 6 (2.21%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (2.21%) Financial Institution
8 6 (2.21%) Marketing
9 5 (1.84%) General Ledger
9 5 (1.84%) Law
9 5 (1.84%) Retail
9 5 (1.84%) Telecoms
10 4 (1.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 4 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (1.47%) Pharmaceutical
11 3 (1.10%) Back Office
11 3 (1.10%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 57 (20.96%) Developer
2 51 (18.75%) Data Engineer
3 44 (16.18%) Analyst
4 31 (11.40%) Senior
5 22 (8.09%) Lead
6 18 (6.62%) Data Analyst
7 15 (5.51%) Consultant
8 13 (4.78%) Business Analyst
9 12 (4.41%) Architect
10 10 (3.68%) Java Developer
10 10 (3.68%) Snowflake Data Engineer
10 10 (3.68%) Snowflake Engineer
11 9 (3.31%) Senior Analyst
12 8 (2.94%) Data Scientist
12 8 (2.94%) Senior Data Engineer
13 7 (2.57%) DBA
13 7 (2.57%) Senior Developer
14 6 (2.21%) Python Developer
14 6 (2.21%) Software Engineer
15 5 (1.84%) Business Intelligence Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 23 (8.46%) .NET
2 22 (8.09%) Kafka
3 15 (5.51%) PySpark
3 15 (5.51%) REST
4 14 (5.15%) XML
5 13 (4.78%) JSON
5 13 (4.78%) React
6 12 (4.41%) AngularJS
6 12 (4.41%) HTML
7 11 (4.04%) scikit-learn
8 10 (3.68%) Pandas
8 10 (3.68%) PyTorch
8 10 (3.68%) Web Services
9 9 (3.31%) RESTful
9 9 (3.31%) TensorFlow
10 8 (2.94%) Middleware
10 8 (2.94%) Spring
11 7 (2.57%) CSS
12 6 (2.21%) Matplotlib
12 6 (2.21%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 23 (8.46%) Cloud Native
2 14 (5.15%) Derivative
3 11 (4.04%) Algorithms
4 10 (3.68%) Data Structures
4 10 (3.68%) Equities
4 10 (3.68%) Fixed Income
5 9 (3.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 7 (2.57%) Analytical Mindset
6 7 (2.57%) Legacy Systems
7 6 (2.21%) Onboarding
8 5 (1.84%) Distributed Systems
8 5 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
8 5 (1.84%) Greenfield Project
8 5 (1.84%) Reference Data
9 4 (1.47%) AI Agents
9 4 (1.47%) Management Information System
9 4 (1.47%) Product Ownership
10 3 (1.10%) Clustering
10 3 (1.10%) Security Posture
10 3 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 15 (5.51%) Linux
2 13 (4.78%) Windows
3 9 (3.31%) Unix
4 3 (1.10%) Android
4 3 (1.10%) Apple iOS
5 2 (0.74%) Windows Server
5 2 (0.74%) zOS
6 1 (0.37%) Windows 10
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 76 (27.94%) Analytics
2 65 (23.90%) Data Modelling
2 65 (23.90%) ETL
3 58 (21.32%) Business Intelligence
4 55 (20.22%) Problem-Solving
5 51 (18.75%) Agile
6 49 (18.01%) Data Pipeline
7 47 (17.28%) Data Engineering
8 44 (16.18%) AI
8 44 (16.18%) CI/CD
9 41 (15.07%) DevOps
10 40 (14.71%) Migration
11 38 (13.97%) Performance Tuning
12 35 (12.87%) Visualisation
13 34 (12.50%) Validation
14 33 (12.13%) Data Governance
14 33 (12.13%) Machine Learning
15 31 (11.40%) Data Analysis
15 31 (11.40%) Test Automation
16 29 (10.66%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 133 (48.90%) Python
2 40 (14.71%) Java
3 23 (8.46%) C#
4 22 (8.09%) JavaScript
5 14 (5.15%) PL/SQL
6 9 (3.31%) TypeScript
7 7 (2.57%) Shell Script
8 6 (2.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 6 (2.21%) PowerShell
8 6 (2.21%) Scala
9 5 (1.84%) C++
9 5 (1.84%) R
9 5 (1.84%) T-SQL
10 4 (1.47%) Perl
10 4 (1.47%) PHP
11 3 (1.10%) Bicep
11 3 (1.10%) C
11 3 (1.10%) ProC
12 2 (0.74%) Go
12 2 (0.74%) JCL
Qualifications
1 24 (8.82%) Degree
2 23 (8.46%) Security Cleared
3 17 (6.25%) SC Cleared
4 11 (4.04%) Computer Science Degree
5 7 (2.57%) BPSS Clearance
6 4 (1.47%) AWS Certification
7 3 (1.10%) ISTQB
7 3 (1.10%) PhD
7 3 (1.10%) PMP
8 2 (0.74%) CBAP
8 2 (0.74%) CFA
8 2 (0.74%) ISEB
8 2 (0.74%) Master's Degree
8 2 (0.74%) PMI Certification
8 2 (0.74%) SnowPro
9 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (0.37%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 1 (0.37%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
9 1 (0.37%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (19.85%) Data Quality
2 19 (6.99%) QA
3 13 (4.78%) GDPR
4 4 (1.47%) ISO 8583
5 3 (1.10%) Basel III
5 3 (1.10%) GAAP
5 3 (1.10%) IFRS
5 3 (1.10%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 3 (1.10%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 2 (0.74%) ISO 20022
6 2 (0.74%) NIST
6 2 (0.74%) PSD2
6 2 (0.74%) SEPA
7 1 (0.37%) Accessibility
7 1 (0.37%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.37%) Cyber Essentials
7 1 (0.37%) Dodd-Frank
7 1 (0.37%) EMIR
7 1 (0.37%) IFRS 9
7 1 (0.37%) Solvency II
System Software
1 20 (7.35%) Docker
2 3 (1.10%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.37%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.37%) XenApp
4 1 (0.37%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 19 (6.99%) Kubernetes
2 18 (6.62%) Terraform
3 11 (4.04%) Ansible
4 6 (2.21%) Grafana
5 4 (1.47%) Prometheus
6 3 (1.10%) ITRS Geneos
7 2 (0.74%) Argo
8 1 (0.37%) Istio
8 1 (0.37%) Kibana
8 1 (0.37%) logstash
8 1 (0.37%) SCCM
8 1 (0.37%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 48 (17.65%) Microsoft
2 40 (14.71%) Oracle
3 35 (12.87%) Databricks
4 18 (6.62%) Google
5 10 (3.68%) SAP
6 8 (2.94%) Informatica
6 8 (2.94%) Workday
7 7 (2.57%) Amplitude
8 6 (2.21%) IBM
8 6 (2.21%) Splunk
9 5 (1.84%) AppDynamics
9 5 (1.84%) Bloomberg
10 4 (1.47%) Charles River
10 4 (1.47%) ServiceNow
11 3 (1.10%) Cognos
11 3 (1.10%) Foundry
11 3 (1.10%) Hotjar
11 3 (1.10%) Optimizely
11 3 (1.10%) Palantir
11 3 (1.10%) Sage