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

6 months to
25 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,004 3,010 3,634
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.67% 12.56% 9.96%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.63% 37.04% 33.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,727 2,154 2,690
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -8.64% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £689 £767 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.19% -0.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 55 54
10th Percentile £26.50 £24.10 £23.13
25th Percentile £34.26 £30.75 £28.41
Median hourly rate £47.50 £42.82 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +10.94% -2.14% -12.12%
75th Percentile £70.99 £64.50 £56.66
90th Percentile £82.40 £80.23 £62.07
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £39.67 £43.75
% change year-on-year +29.17% -9.32% -12.50%

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 10,931 8,126 10,988
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.41% 33.90% 30.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,180 5,652 7,990
10th Percentile £356 £360 £350
25th Percentile £417 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £525 £549
Median % change year-on-year -2.45% -4.37% -2.40%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 528 189 454
10th Percentile £38.95 £28.14 £37.51
25th Percentile £54.55 £36.00 £49.28
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.84% -0.80% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £79.04
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% -

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 25 May 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 25 May 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 25 May 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 0 2,238 £522 -2.38% 836
Midlands +2 518 £469 +4.92% 277
North of England -7 484 £463 -2.63% 527
West Midlands +4 413 £460 - 147
South East -18 360 £500 +2.56% 554
North West -4 256 £460 -3.16% 274
South West -3 206 £475 -1.30% 175
Yorkshire -14 200 £475 - 166
East Midlands +1 101 £525 +35.05% 130
East of England -16 95 £495 +0.25% 145
North East -11 40 £450 -2.44% 95
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
1 224 (5.59%) Apache Spark
2 157 (3.92%) Apache Airflow
3 139 (3.47%) Apache
4 136 (3.40%) Confluence
5 80 (2.00%) SAS
6 61 (1.52%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 32 (0.80%) IIS
9 27 (0.67%) Oracle Workflow
10 23 (0.57%) Tomcat
11 17 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
12 16 (0.40%) Jupyter
13 15 (0.37%) Appian
13 15 (0.37%) Tuxedo
14 14 (0.35%) CMS
15 13 (0.32%) HCL Notes
15 13 (0.32%) Mendix
15 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
16 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 12 (0.30%) WebSphere
Applications
1 265 (6.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 46 (1.15%) MS Visio
3 45 (1.12%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.22%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
8 5 (0.12%) Notion
9 3 (0.075%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.075%) Trello
10 1 (0.025%) InDesign
10 1 (0.025%) Mingle
10 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 41 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
2 28 (0.70%) Aladdin
2 28 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.52%) NEC Housing
4 20 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
5 19 (0.47%) Oracle Payables
6 18 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
6 18 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
7 16 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
8 14 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
8 14 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
9 13 (0.32%) NetSuite
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 10 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
12 9 (0.22%) Endur
13 8 (0.20%) Findur
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,348 (33.67%) Azure
2 967 (24.15%) AWS
3 779 (19.46%) Power Platform
4 397 (9.92%) Azure DevOps
5 341 (8.52%) Azure Data Factory
6 326 (8.14%) GCP
7 301 (7.52%) GitHub
8 247 (6.17%) Serverless
9 228 (5.69%) Snowflake
10 226 (5.64%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 225 (5.62%) Amazon S3
12 179 (4.47%) dbt
13 156 (3.90%) GitHub Actions
14 148 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
15 79 (1.97%) Power Automate
16 71 (1.77%) SaaS
17 70 (1.75%) Entra ID
18 69 (1.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 67 (1.67%) Amazon EC2
20 66 (1.65%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.15%) Firewall
2 43 (1.07%) DNS
3 20 (0.50%) SNMP
4 16 (0.40%) HTTP
4 16 (0.40%) Internet
4 16 (0.40%) Network Security
4 16 (0.40%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.37%) WAN
6 13 (0.32%) SSL
7 11 (0.27%) LAN
7 11 (0.27%) VPN
7 11 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (0.20%) Wireshark
9 7 (0.17%) 3GPP
10 6 (0.15%) DHCP
10 6 (0.15%) IPsec
10 6 (0.15%) SAN
11 5 (0.12%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.12%) PuTTY
11 5 (0.12%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 714 (17.83%) Power BI
2 512 (12.79%) Data Warehouse
3 504 (12.59%) SQL Server
4 283 (7.07%) Tableau
5 278 (6.94%) Data Lake
6 258 (6.44%) PostgreSQL
7 249 (6.22%) Relational Database
8 233 (5.82%) NoSQL
9 210 (5.24%) Metadata
10 191 (4.77%) Azure SQL Database
11 153 (3.82%) Oracle Database
12 146 (3.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 134 (3.35%) BigQuery
14 124 (3.10%) Delta Lake
15 108 (2.70%) Amazon Redshift
16 107 (2.67%) Big Data
17 105 (2.62%) MySQL
18 101 (2.52%) Oracle Reports
19 91 (2.27%) Snowflake Schema
20 90 (2.25%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 416 (10.39%) Git
2 309 (7.72%) JIRA
3 210 (5.24%) Jenkins
4 176 (4.40%) GitLab
5 59 (1.47%) JUnit
6 55 (1.37%) Selenium
7 50 (1.25%) Postman
8 47 (1.17%) Maven
9 44 (1.10%) Mockito
10 39 (0.97%) Cucumber
11 36 (0.90%) Gradle
12 34 (0.85%) SonarQube
13 33 (0.82%) MLflow
14 29 (0.72%) REST Assured
15 28 (0.70%) ERwin
16 24 (0.60%) JMeter
17 23 (0.57%) Bitbucket
17 23 (0.57%) Visual Studio
18 22 (0.55%) TeamCity
19 21 (0.52%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,069 (26.70%) Finance
2 1,033 (25.80%) Social Skills
3 735 (18.36%) Analytical Skills
4 380 (9.49%) Banking
5 333 (8.32%) Public Sector
6 104 (2.60%) Front Office
7 99 (2.47%) Marketing
8 97 (2.42%) Investment Banking
9 81 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
10 63 (1.57%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 61 (1.52%) Retail
12 54 (1.35%) Financial Institution
13 51 (1.27%) Legal
14 39 (0.97%) Publishing
15 35 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
16 34 (0.85%) Telecoms
17 32 (0.80%) Law
17 32 (0.80%) Manufacturing
17 32 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
18 25 (0.62%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 835 (20.85%) Data Engineer
2 829 (20.70%) Developer
3 573 (14.31%) Analyst
4 513 (12.81%) Senior
5 277 (6.92%) Lead
6 254 (6.34%) Data Analyst
7 225 (5.62%) Architect
8 176 (4.40%) Consultant
9 175 (4.37%) Business Analyst
10 162 (4.05%) Java Developer
11 149 (3.72%) Senior Data Engineer
12 127 (3.17%) DBA
13 126 (3.15%) Senior Developer
14 121 (3.02%) Software Engineer
15 112 (2.80%) Azure Engineer
16 99 (2.47%) C# Developer
17 87 (2.17%) Data Scientist
18 86 (2.15%) Data Architect
19 85 (2.12%) Python Developer
20 84 (2.10%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 345 (8.62%) .NET
2 321 (8.02%) REST
3 258 (6.44%) Kafka
4 254 (6.34%) PySpark
5 201 (5.02%) Spring
6 193 (4.82%) React
7 192 (4.80%) Spring Boot
8 174 (4.35%) RESTful
9 145 (3.62%) HTML
10 133 (3.32%) JSON
11 131 (3.27%) XML
12 121 (3.02%) CSS
13 119 (2.97%) Pandas
14 107 (2.67%) AngularJS
15 94 (2.35%) SOAP
16 88 (2.20%) Middleware
17 82 (2.05%) .NET Framework
18 79 (1.97%) Web Services
19 73 (1.82%) OAuth
20 72 (1.80%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 256 (6.39%) Cloud Native
2 142 (3.55%) Data Structures
3 130 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
4 126 (3.15%) Product Ownership
5 110 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
6 85 (2.12%) Management Information System
7 77 (1.92%) Derivative
8 74 (1.85%) Onboarding
9 68 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
10 66 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
11 53 (1.32%) Clustering
12 52 (1.30%) Equities
13 51 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
13 51 (1.27%) Fixed Income
14 49 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
14 49 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
15 46 (1.15%) Algorithms
16 40 (1.00%) Low-Code
16 40 (1.00%) Replication
17 38 (0.95%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 289 (7.22%) Linux
2 249 (6.22%) Windows
3 197 (4.92%) Unix
4 85 (2.12%) Windows Server
5 25 (0.62%) AIX
6 19 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.20%) Solaris
9 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.17%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.17%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.075%) VMS
12 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.050%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.025%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,098 (27.42%) CI/CD
2 1,015 (25.35%) Analytics
3 997 (24.90%) Data Modelling
4 973 (24.30%) Agile
5 972 (24.28%) ETL
6 909 (22.70%) Business Intelligence
7 879 (21.95%) DevOps
8 789 (19.71%) Problem-Solving
9 742 (18.53%) Data Pipeline
10 657 (16.41%) Data Engineering
11 531 (13.26%) AI
12 505 (12.61%) Migration
13 493 (12.31%) Validation
14 469 (11.71%) Data Governance
15 408 (10.19%) Test Automation
16 399 (9.97%) Decision-Making
17 379 (9.47%) Data Analysis
18 365 (9.12%) Performance Tuning
19 361 (9.02%) Microservices
20 348 (8.69%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,507 (37.64%) Python
2 544 (13.59%) Java
3 436 (10.89%) C#
4 309 (7.72%) JavaScript
5 284 (7.09%) PL/SQL
6 203 (5.07%) T-SQL
7 192 (4.80%) PowerShell
8 132 (3.30%) TypeScript
9 125 (3.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 112 (2.80%) R
11 109 (2.72%) Shell Script
12 84 (2.10%) Scala
13 78 (1.95%) Bash
14 59 (1.47%) C++
15 43 (1.07%) VBA
16 40 (1.00%) Bicep
17 36 (0.90%) Perl
18 29 (0.72%) VB
19 24 (0.60%) C
19 24 (0.60%) Go
Qualifications
1 840 (20.98%) Security Cleared
2 674 (16.83%) SC Cleared
3 324 (8.09%) Degree
4 105 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
5 89 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 71 (1.77%) Azure Certification
6 71 (1.77%) DV Cleared
7 50 (1.25%) Master's Degree
8 48 (1.20%) ISTQB
9 36 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
10 23 (0.57%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.42%) DBS Check
12 16 (0.40%) PhD
13 14 (0.35%) CBAP
14 11 (0.27%) CISSP
14 11 (0.27%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 11 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
15 10 (0.25%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.25%) PMP
16 9 (0.22%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 732 (18.28%) Data Quality
2 304 (7.59%) QA
3 176 (4.40%) GDPR
4 41 (1.02%) SLA
5 38 (0.95%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 26 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.60%) PMO
9 19 (0.47%) NIST
9 19 (0.47%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.40%) MiFID
11 15 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 15 (0.37%) HIPAA
12 13 (0.32%) IFRS
13 12 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.30%) HL7
13 12 (0.30%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.27%) Solvency II
15 10 (0.25%) GRC
16 8 (0.20%) NCSC
System Software
1 456 (11.39%) Docker
2 93 (2.32%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
4 27 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
5 25 (0.62%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.25%) KVM
9 9 (0.22%) Postfix
9 9 (0.22%) VMware NSX
10 8 (0.20%) vCloud
10 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.15%) HDFS
11 6 (0.15%) RACF
12 4 (0.100%) XenApp
12 4 (0.100%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
14 2 (0.050%) Apache ZooKeeper
14 2 (0.050%) GridGain
14 2 (0.050%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 382 (9.54%) Kubernetes
2 322 (8.04%) Terraform
3 106 (2.65%) Grafana
4 66 (1.65%) Ansible
5 62 (1.55%) Prometheus
6 40 (1.00%) Oracle RMAN
7 29 (0.72%) Data Guard
8 18 (0.45%) Kibana
8 18 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.37%) vCenter Server
9 15 (0.37%) ZABBIX
10 14 (0.35%) Nagios
10 14 (0.35%) Netcool
10 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
11 13 (0.32%) Control-M
11 13 (0.32%) OpenView
11 13 (0.32%) SCCM
11 13 (0.32%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 10 (0.25%) SCOM
13 9 (0.22%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 654 (16.33%) Oracle
2 623 (15.56%) Microsoft
3 491 (12.26%) Databricks
4 157 (3.92%) Google
5 139 (3.47%) Informatica
6 132 (3.30%) ServiceNow
7 106 (2.65%) Talend
8 103 (2.57%) SAP
9 86 (2.15%) Splunk
10 63 (1.57%) IBM
11 54 (1.35%) Denodo
12 50 (1.25%) Salesforce
13 45 (1.12%) Citrix
14 42 (1.05%) VMware
15 36 (0.90%) Dynatrace
16 33 (0.82%) OpenAI
17 31 (0.77%) Bloomberg
18 30 (0.75%) HP
18 30 (0.75%) MuleSoft
19 28 (0.70%) BMC