SQL Contract Job Trends in England

SQL (Structured Query Language)
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in England requiring SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -5 -1 0
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,441 3,242 3,633
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.61% 11.54% 11.22%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.85% 35.22% 34.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,991 2,236 2,535
10th Percentile £353 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% -2.73%
75th Percentile £600 £622 £638
90th Percentile £700 £738 £749
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 75 46
10th Percentile £21.25 £24.37 £25.26
25th Percentile £26.60 £33.21 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.90 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -8.20% +25.00% -12.82%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £53.25
90th Percentile £75.90 - £60.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £50.00 £36.25
% change year-on-year -11.00% +37.93% -20.99%

All Programming Languages
England

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 England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 12,053 9,204 10,570
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.08% 32.76% 32.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,799 6,160 7,025
10th Percentile £363 £345 £351
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £543
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -5.07% -1.36%
75th Percentile £637 £633 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £525 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +3.96% -3.81% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 516 265 300
10th Percentile £22.75 £31.25 £30.00
25th Percentile £49.75 £41.94 £47.38
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +16.07% -13.85% -
75th Percentile £71.00 £67.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.63 £78.75 £78.79
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +3.17%

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

SQL job vacancy trend in England

SQL
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL

SQL
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL in England over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL in England

SQL
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing SQL

SQL
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in England over the 6 months to 9 October 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in England

SQL
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL within the England region over the 6 months to 9 October 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 6 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London -6 2,519 £525 - 4,181
North of England +2 597 £475 +5.56% 796
South East -13 442 £475 -5.00% 666
Midlands -5 433 £469 -2.60% 448
West Midlands -3 343 £469 -6.85% 285
North West +5 300 £500 +15.61% 475
Yorkshire +10 243 £475 - 217
South West +2 234 £538 +14.36% 261
East of England -7 115 £500 -0.30% 227
East Midlands -9 88 £450 +9.76% 160
North East -5 64 £400 -11.11% 109
SQL
UK

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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
1 235 (5.29%) Apache Airflow
2 201 (4.53%) Apache Spark
3 200 (4.50%) Confluence
4 158 (3.56%) Apache
5 85 (1.91%) SharePoint
6 59 (1.33%) SAS
7 34 (0.77%) WebLogic
8 28 (0.63%) IIS
9 27 (0.61%) Jupyter
9 27 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
10 26 (0.59%) Oracle Workflow
11 24 (0.54%) Palantir Foundry
12 19 (0.43%) Camunda
12 19 (0.43%) CMS
13 15 (0.34%) nginx
13 15 (0.34%) WebSphere
14 11 (0.25%) ArcGIS
15 10 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 7 (0.16%) OpenStack
16 7 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 257 (5.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 58 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
4 23 (0.52%) MS Visio
5 19 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 11 (0.25%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.18%) Windchill
8 4 (0.090%) Acrobat
8 4 (0.090%) Notion
8 4 (0.090%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.068%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.068%) Microsoft Project
9 3 (0.068%) Mingle
10 1 (0.023%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.023%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 1 (0.023%) Weka
Business Applications
1 44 (0.99%) Dynamics CRM
2 27 (0.61%) Aladdin
3 26 (0.59%) Oracle EBS
3 26 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
4 25 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
5 23 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
6 19 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
7 15 (0.34%) Oracle General Ledger
7 15 (0.34%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
8 11 (0.25%) Siebel CRM
9 10 (0.23%) NEC Housing
9 10 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
9 10 (0.23%) Oracle Financials
9 10 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
10 9 (0.20%) Finacle
11 8 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
11 8 (0.18%) Summit
12 7 (0.16%) Maximo
12 7 (0.16%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 1,352 (30.44%) Azure
2 1,083 (24.39%) AWS
3 849 (19.12%) Power Platform
4 453 (10.20%) GCP
5 359 (8.08%) Snowflake
6 358 (8.06%) Azure DevOps
7 317 (7.14%) GitHub
8 292 (6.58%) dbt
9 286 (6.44%) Azure Data Factory
10 263 (5.92%) Serverless
11 235 (5.29%) Amazon S3
12 177 (3.99%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 163 (3.67%) AWS Lambda
14 144 (3.24%) GitHub Actions
15 103 (2.32%) Entra ID
16 102 (2.30%) SaaS
17 96 (2.16%) Power Automate
18 91 (2.05%) Azure Databricks
18 91 (2.05%) PowerApps
19 74 (1.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 66 (1.49%) DNS
2 41 (0.92%) Firewall
3 29 (0.65%) Network Security
4 27 (0.61%) HTTP
4 27 (0.61%) SSL
5 21 (0.47%) Internet
5 21 (0.47%) TCP/IP
5 21 (0.47%) VPN
6 20 (0.45%) Broadband
7 16 (0.36%) DHCP
8 12 (0.27%) Reverse Proxy
8 12 (0.27%) SSH
9 11 (0.25%) SNMP
10 10 (0.23%) SAN
11 9 (0.20%) Kerberos
12 8 (0.18%) Multicast
13 7 (0.16%) 5G
13 7 (0.16%) RTP
13 7 (0.16%) Wireshark
14 6 (0.14%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 777 (17.50%) Power BI
2 597 (13.44%) Data Warehouse
3 576 (12.97%) SQL Server
4 282 (6.35%) Relational Database
5 267 (6.01%) PostgreSQL
6 254 (5.72%) Data Lake
7 246 (5.54%) Tableau
8 230 (5.18%) Metadata
9 218 (4.91%) NoSQL
10 202 (4.55%) Oracle Database
11 197 (4.44%) BigQuery
12 156 (3.51%) Azure SQL Database
13 132 (2.97%) Delta Lake
14 130 (2.93%) Amazon Redshift
15 120 (2.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 111 (2.50%) MySQL
17 101 (2.27%) Amazon Athena
18 100 (2.25%) Big Data
19 95 (2.14%) Power Query
20 91 (2.05%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 593 (13.35%) Git
2 368 (8.29%) JIRA
3 239 (5.38%) Jenkins
4 228 (5.13%) GitLab
5 93 (2.09%) Selenium
6 79 (1.78%) JUnit
7 77 (1.73%) Maven
8 75 (1.69%) Gradle
9 61 (1.37%) Postman
10 47 (1.06%) Mockito
11 42 (0.95%) Bitbucket
12 40 (0.90%) SonarQube
13 31 (0.70%) Visual Studio
13 31 (0.70%) Zephyr
14 28 (0.63%) REST Assured
15 26 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
16 25 (0.56%) Cucumber
16 25 (0.56%) Team Foundation Server
17 22 (0.50%) Artifactory
17 22 (0.50%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,256 (28.28%) Social Skills
2 1,194 (26.89%) Finance
3 937 (21.10%) Analytical Skills
4 545 (12.27%) Banking
5 404 (9.10%) Public Sector
6 145 (3.27%) Marketing
7 139 (3.13%) Retail
8 129 (2.90%) Front Office
9 124 (2.79%) Investment Banking
10 87 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 81 (1.82%) Manufacturing
12 74 (1.67%) Documentation Skills
13 55 (1.24%) Financial Institution
14 49 (1.10%) Legal
15 45 (1.01%) Back Office
15 45 (1.01%) Presentation Skills
16 44 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
17 41 (0.92%) Local Government
18 40 (0.90%) Military
19 37 (0.83%) Law
Job Titles
1 945 (21.28%) Developer
2 838 (18.87%) Data Engineer
3 657 (14.79%) Senior
4 653 (14.70%) Analyst
5 311 (7.00%) Lead
6 267 (6.01%) Data Analyst
7 218 (4.91%) Architect
8 205 (4.62%) Senior Data Engineer
9 195 (4.39%) Business Analyst
10 174 (3.92%) Consultant
11 170 (3.83%) DBA
12 153 (3.45%) Java Developer
13 148 (3.33%) Senior Developer
14 112 (2.52%) Software Engineer
15 104 (2.34%) Azure Engineer
15 104 (2.34%) Full-Stack Developer
16 100 (2.25%) Python Developer
17 97 (2.18%) SQL DBA
18 95 (2.14%) Data Architect
19 93 (2.09%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 432 (9.73%) REST
2 395 (8.89%) Terraform
3 385 (8.67%) .NET
4 311 (7.00%) PySpark
5 306 (6.89%) Kafka
6 224 (5.04%) Spring
7 216 (4.86%) React
8 214 (4.82%) Spring Boot
9 180 (4.05%) HTML
10 169 (3.81%) JSON
11 162 (3.65%) RESTful
12 147 (3.31%) CSS
13 143 (3.22%) XML
14 110 (2.48%) AngularJS
15 107 (2.41%) SOAP
16 104 (2.34%) Web Services
17 92 (2.07%) Middleware
18 88 (1.98%) OAuth
19 84 (1.89%) Pandas
20 83 (1.87%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 287 (6.46%) Cloud Native
2 224 (5.04%) Data Structures
3 217 (4.89%) Product Ownership
4 140 (3.15%) Legacy Systems
5 135 (3.04%) Enterprise Software
6 124 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
7 123 (2.77%) Onboarding
8 100 (2.25%) Management Information System
9 90 (2.03%) AI Agents
10 82 (1.85%) Self-Motivation
11 74 (1.67%) Replication
12 72 (1.62%) Derivative
13 64 (1.44%) Reference Data
14 62 (1.40%) Data Protection Act
15 61 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
16 59 (1.33%) Algorithms
17 55 (1.24%) Clustering
18 49 (1.10%) Data Centre
19 45 (1.01%) Fixed Income
19 45 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 316 (7.12%) Linux
2 269 (6.06%) Windows
3 200 (4.50%) Unix
4 113 (2.54%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.52%) Solaris
7 13 (0.29%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.23%) VMS
8 10 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.20%) AIX
10 7 (0.16%) Android
11 6 (0.14%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.14%) Windows 10
11 6 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
12 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.090%) OpenVMS
13 4 (0.090%) zOS
14 2 (0.045%) CentOS
14 2 (0.045%) HPUX
14 2 (0.045%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,236 (27.83%) CI/CD
2 1,217 (27.40%) Agile
3 1,157 (26.05%) Data Modelling
4 1,124 (25.31%) Analytics
5 967 (21.77%) ETL
6 963 (21.68%) Business Intelligence
7 880 (19.82%) Problem-Solving
8 857 (19.30%) Data Pipeline
9 841 (18.94%) DevOps
10 805 (18.13%) Data Engineering
11 800 (18.01%) AI
12 714 (16.08%) Validation
13 681 (15.33%) Stakeholder Management
14 648 (14.59%) Migration
15 558 (12.56%) Test Automation
16 538 (12.11%) Continuous Improvement
17 518 (11.66%) Data Analysis
18 497 (11.19%) Decision-Making
19 494 (11.12%) Data Governance
20 407 (9.16%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 1,592 (35.85%) Python
2 556 (12.52%) Java
3 409 (9.21%) C#
4 387 (8.71%) JavaScript
5 319 (7.18%) PL/SQL
6 231 (5.20%) PowerShell
7 206 (4.64%) T-SQL
8 199 (4.48%) TypeScript
9 138 (3.11%) Shell Script
10 136 (3.06%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 113 (2.54%) Bash
12 72 (1.62%) Scala
13 64 (1.44%) R
14 35 (0.79%) C++
15 34 (0.77%) Bicep
16 33 (0.74%) VBA
17 32 (0.72%) Kotlin
18 28 (0.63%) Go
19 26 (0.59%) C
20 25 (0.56%) VB
Qualifications
1 950 (21.39%) Security Cleared
2 736 (16.57%) SC Cleared
3 338 (7.61%) Degree
4 137 (3.08%) DV Cleared
5 124 (2.79%) BPSS Clearance
6 115 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 74 (1.67%) Azure Certification
8 55 (1.24%) ISTQB
9 50 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
10 42 (0.95%) AWS Certification
11 40 (0.90%) Master's Degree
12 20 (0.45%) CISSP
13 18 (0.41%) ISEB
14 17 (0.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 15 (0.34%) ACCA
15 15 (0.34%) CIMA
15 15 (0.34%) DBS Check
16 14 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 14 (0.32%) PMI Certification
17 13 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 909 (20.47%) Data Quality
2 359 (8.08%) QA
3 107 (2.41%) GDPR
4 49 (1.10%) Accessibility
5 46 (1.04%) SLA
6 29 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
7 24 (0.54%) NIST
8 23 (0.52%) IFRS
9 21 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 20 (0.45%) ISO 20022
11 17 (0.38%) MiFID
12 15 (0.34%) COBIT
13 14 (0.32%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 12 (0.27%) Basel III
15 10 (0.23%) PCI DSS
16 8 (0.18%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.18%) SEPA
16 8 (0.18%) Solvency II
16 8 (0.18%) WCAG
17 7 (0.16%) EMIR
System Software
1 413 (9.30%) Docker
2 119 (2.68%) Active Directory
3 49 (1.10%) VMware Infrastructure
4 34 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
5 33 (0.74%) Oracle RAC
6 18 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.36%) vCloud
7 16 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.29%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
9 5 (0.11%) Postfix
10 4 (0.090%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 4 (0.090%) KVM
11 2 (0.045%) DFS Replication
11 2 (0.045%) Dovecot
11 2 (0.045%) Squid
12 1 (0.023%) GPFS
12 1 (0.023%) HDFS
12 1 (0.023%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.023%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 373 (8.40%) Kubernetes
2 96 (2.16%) Ansible
3 87 (1.96%) Grafana
4 52 (1.17%) Prometheus
5 41 (0.92%) Control-M
6 39 (0.88%) SCOM
7 38 (0.86%) Kibana
8 32 (0.72%) Data Guard
9 27 (0.61%) Oracle RMAN
10 17 (0.38%) vCenter Server
11 14 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.29%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 12 (0.27%) Microsoft Clustering
13 12 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
14 11 (0.25%) Progress Chef
15 10 (0.23%) Argo
16 9 (0.20%) Istio
17 8 (0.18%) Podman
17 8 (0.18%) Puppet
17 8 (0.18%) SCCM
Vendors
1 777 (17.50%) Microsoft
2 743 (16.73%) Oracle
3 590 (13.29%) Databricks
4 219 (4.93%) Google
5 128 (2.88%) Informatica
6 118 (2.66%) SAP
7 101 (2.27%) IBM
8 98 (2.21%) Talend
9 86 (1.94%) ServiceNow
10 74 (1.67%) Splunk
11 66 (1.49%) VMware
12 62 (1.40%) Salesforce
13 39 (0.88%) Bloomberg
13 39 (0.88%) Denodo
13 39 (0.88%) Foundry
14 38 (0.86%) OpenAI
14 38 (0.86%) UiPath
15 35 (0.79%) Murex
16 32 (0.72%) Alteryx
17 30 (0.68%) Dynatrace