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 27 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 13 11
Rank change year-on-year -4 -2 0
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,445 3,278 3,599
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.59% 11.74% 11.01%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.96% 35.75% 33.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,992 2,284 2,546
10th Percentile £350 £329 £350
25th Percentile £413 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £638
90th Percentile £700 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 72 45
10th Percentile £21.25 £26.53 £25.26
25th Percentile £26.68 £33.91 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +25.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £78.05 - £60.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £50.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year -11.00% +36.99% -20.44%

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 12,027 9,170 10,633
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 25.94% 32.84% 32.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,804 6,185 7,158
10th Percentile £363 £349 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £545
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -5.50% -0.91%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £525 £505 £525
% change year-on-year +3.88% -3.74% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 506 260 309
10th Percentile £26.51 £31.25 £30.00
25th Percentile £51.25 £42.44 £48.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +14.04% -12.31% -
75th Percentile £70.88 £67.63 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.13 £76.50 £79.34
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 27 September 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 27 September 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 27 September 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 2,509 £525 - 3,273
North of England 0 588 £475 +5.56% 860
Midlands -4 447 £469 +1.41% 522
South East -15 442 £475 -3.06% 815
West Midlands -4 349 £469 -6.20% 321
North West +1 289 £500 +14.03% 490
Yorkshire +3 247 £456 -4.05% 273
South West 0 234 £525 +16.67% 304
East of England -5 115 £498 -1.00% 250
East Midlands -5 96 £463 +13.81% 201
North East -4 58 £400 -15.79% 104
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
1 228 (5.13%) Apache Airflow
2 194 (4.36%) Confluence
3 190 (4.27%) Apache Spark
4 147 (3.31%) Apache
5 84 (1.89%) SharePoint
6 69 (1.55%) SAS
7 30 (0.67%) Oracle Workflow
7 30 (0.67%) WebLogic
8 28 (0.63%) IIS
9 26 (0.58%) Jupyter
10 24 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
11 23 (0.52%) Palantir Foundry
12 20 (0.45%) CMS
13 18 (0.40%) Camunda
13 18 (0.40%) nginx
14 15 (0.34%) WebSphere
15 11 (0.25%) ArcGIS
15 11 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 7 (0.16%) OpenStack
16 7 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 265 (5.96%) Microsoft Excel
2 58 (1.30%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
4 25 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 21 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.27%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.18%) Windchill
8 5 (0.11%) Notepad++
9 4 (0.090%) Acrobat
9 4 (0.090%) Notion
9 4 (0.090%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.067%) CPLEX
10 3 (0.067%) Microsoft Project
11 2 (0.045%) Mingle
12 1 (0.022%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.022%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 1 (0.022%) Weka
Business Applications
1 43 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 32 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
3 27 (0.61%) Aladdin
4 26 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
5 25 (0.56%) Remedy ITSM
6 24 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
7 19 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
8 16 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
9 14 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
10 11 (0.25%) NEC Housing
10 11 (0.25%) Oracle EBS R12
10 11 (0.25%) Siebel CRM
11 10 (0.22%) Finacle
11 10 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.22%) Oracle FAH
11 10 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
12 9 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
12 9 (0.20%) Summit
13 8 (0.18%) Maximo
13 8 (0.18%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 1,353 (30.44%) Azure
2 1,080 (24.30%) AWS
3 857 (19.28%) Power Platform
4 446 (10.03%) GCP
5 360 (8.10%) Azure DevOps
6 357 (8.03%) Snowflake
7 305 (6.86%) GitHub
8 292 (6.57%) Azure Data Factory
9 291 (6.55%) dbt
10 265 (5.96%) Serverless
11 237 (5.33%) Amazon S3
12 182 (4.09%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 171 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
14 145 (3.26%) GitHub Actions
15 101 (2.27%) Power Automate
16 97 (2.18%) SaaS
17 91 (2.05%) PowerApps
18 87 (1.96%) Entra ID
19 85 (1.91%) Azure Databricks
20 78 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 60 (1.35%) DNS
2 37 (0.83%) Firewall
3 29 (0.65%) HTTP
4 24 (0.54%) SSL
5 22 (0.49%) Internet
5 22 (0.49%) Network Security
6 20 (0.45%) TCP/IP
7 19 (0.43%) Broadband
7 19 (0.43%) VPN
8 15 (0.34%) DHCP
9 14 (0.31%) SNMP
10 12 (0.27%) SSH
11 9 (0.20%) Kerberos
11 9 (0.20%) SAN
12 8 (0.18%) Reverse Proxy
12 8 (0.18%) RTP
12 8 (0.18%) WinSCP
12 8 (0.18%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.16%) 5G
13 7 (0.16%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 786 (17.68%) Power BI
2 609 (13.70%) Data Warehouse
3 568 (12.78%) SQL Server
4 284 (6.39%) Relational Database
5 274 (6.16%) PostgreSQL
6 257 (5.78%) Tableau
7 256 (5.76%) Data Lake
8 227 (5.11%) Metadata
9 210 (4.72%) NoSQL
10 198 (4.45%) Oracle Database
11 197 (4.43%) BigQuery
12 144 (3.24%) Azure SQL Database
13 136 (3.06%) Amazon Redshift
14 128 (2.88%) Delta Lake
15 121 (2.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 115 (2.59%) MySQL
17 107 (2.41%) Amazon Athena
18 95 (2.14%) Big Data
19 90 (2.02%) Power Query
20 88 (1.98%) Looker
Development Applications
1 573 (12.89%) Git
2 356 (8.01%) JIRA
3 243 (5.47%) Jenkins
4 218 (4.90%) GitLab
5 95 (2.14%) Selenium
6 79 (1.78%) JUnit
7 75 (1.69%) Gradle
8 73 (1.64%) Maven
9 60 (1.35%) Postman
10 49 (1.10%) Mockito
11 42 (0.94%) SonarQube
12 39 (0.88%) Bitbucket
13 31 (0.70%) Oracle Forms
14 30 (0.67%) Visual Studio
15 29 (0.65%) Zephyr
16 25 (0.56%) REST Assured
17 24 (0.54%) JMeter
17 24 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
18 23 (0.52%) Cypress.io
19 22 (0.49%) MLflow
General
1 1,238 (27.85%) Social Skills
2 1,189 (26.75%) Finance
3 928 (20.88%) Analytical Skills
4 523 (11.77%) Banking
5 389 (8.75%) Public Sector
6 148 (3.33%) Marketing
7 132 (2.97%) Retail
8 129 (2.90%) Front Office
9 115 (2.59%) Investment Banking
10 89 (2.00%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 78 (1.75%) Manufacturing
12 77 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
13 50 (1.12%) Financial Institution
14 49 (1.10%) Legal
15 48 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
16 44 (0.99%) Back Office
16 44 (0.99%) Influencing Skills
17 43 (0.97%) Local Government
18 37 (0.83%) Law
19 36 (0.81%) Military
Job Titles
1 944 (21.24%) Developer
2 851 (19.15%) Data Engineer
3 650 (14.62%) Analyst
4 646 (14.53%) Senior
5 310 (6.97%) Lead
6 265 (5.96%) Data Analyst
7 220 (4.95%) Architect
8 203 (4.57%) Senior Data Engineer
9 194 (4.36%) Business Analyst
10 183 (4.12%) Consultant
11 166 (3.73%) DBA
12 158 (3.55%) Java Developer
13 152 (3.42%) Senior Developer
14 112 (2.52%) Software Engineer
15 103 (2.32%) Azure Engineer
15 103 (2.32%) Full-Stack Developer
16 102 (2.29%) SQL DBA
17 101 (2.27%) SQL Developer
18 98 (2.20%) Python Developer
19 97 (2.18%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 411 (9.25%) REST
2 384 (8.64%) .NET
3 371 (8.35%) Terraform
4 300 (6.75%) PySpark
5 290 (6.52%) Kafka
6 225 (5.06%) Spring
7 214 (4.81%) Spring Boot
8 211 (4.75%) React
9 180 (4.05%) HTML
10 162 (3.64%) RESTful
11 161 (3.62%) JSON
12 154 (3.46%) CSS
13 143 (3.22%) XML
14 109 (2.45%) SOAP
15 108 (2.43%) AngularJS
16 104 (2.34%) Web Services
17 96 (2.16%) Middleware
18 89 (2.00%) Pandas
19 83 (1.87%) .NET Framework
20 79 (1.78%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 283 (6.37%) Cloud Native
2 219 (4.93%) Data Structures
3 207 (4.66%) Product Ownership
4 139 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
5 125 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
6 124 (2.79%) Distributed Systems
7 123 (2.77%) Onboarding
8 95 (2.14%) Management Information System
9 83 (1.87%) AI Agents
10 80 (1.80%) Self-Motivation
11 71 (1.60%) Derivative
12 64 (1.44%) Replication
13 61 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
14 60 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
15 59 (1.33%) Reference Data
16 56 (1.26%) Clustering
17 49 (1.10%) Algorithms
17 49 (1.10%) Greenfield Project
18 44 (0.99%) Fixed Income
19 43 (0.97%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 319 (7.18%) Linux
2 270 (6.07%) Windows
3 215 (4.84%) Unix
4 107 (2.41%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.54%) Solaris
6 12 (0.27%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.25%) AIX
8 10 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (0.18%) VMS
11 7 (0.16%) Android
12 6 (0.13%) Apple iOS
12 6 (0.13%) Windows 10
13 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
14 4 (0.090%) Windows Server 2016
14 4 (0.090%) zOS
15 3 (0.067%) OpenVMS
16 2 (0.045%) CentOS
16 2 (0.045%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,211 (27.24%) CI/CD
2 1,183 (26.61%) Agile
3 1,135 (25.53%) Data Modelling
4 1,126 (25.33%) Analytics
5 978 (22.00%) Business Intelligence
6 966 (21.73%) ETL
7 882 (19.84%) Problem-Solving
8 856 (19.26%) Data Pipeline
9 839 (18.88%) DevOps
10 773 (17.39%) Data Engineering
11 761 (17.12%) AI
12 685 (15.41%) Validation
13 656 (14.76%) Stakeholder Management
14 650 (14.62%) Migration
15 519 (11.68%) Continuous Improvement
16 513 (11.54%) Test Automation
17 501 (11.27%) Data Analysis
18 498 (11.20%) Data Governance
19 490 (11.02%) Decision-Making
20 385 (8.66%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 1,607 (36.15%) Python
2 547 (12.31%) Java
3 407 (9.16%) C#
4 372 (8.37%) JavaScript
5 334 (7.51%) PL/SQL
6 228 (5.13%) PowerShell
7 208 (4.68%) T-SQL
8 193 (4.34%) TypeScript
9 138 (3.10%) Shell Script
10 132 (2.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 110 (2.47%) Bash
12 72 (1.62%) R
13 71 (1.60%) Scala
14 36 (0.81%) C++
14 36 (0.81%) VBA
15 27 (0.61%) Bicep
15 27 (0.61%) Kotlin
16 26 (0.58%) C
16 26 (0.58%) Go
17 25 (0.56%) VB
Qualifications
1 940 (21.15%) Security Cleared
2 742 (16.69%) SC Cleared
3 334 (7.51%) Degree
4 126 (2.83%) DV Cleared
5 120 (2.70%) BPSS Clearance
6 115 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
7 71 (1.60%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.21%) ISTQB
9 49 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
10 42 (0.94%) AWS Certification
11 40 (0.90%) Master's Degree
12 20 (0.45%) CISSP
13 17 (0.38%) ACCA
13 17 (0.38%) CIMA
13 17 (0.38%) ISEB
14 16 (0.36%) DBS Check
15 15 (0.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 15 (0.34%) Oracle Certification
16 13 (0.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
16 13 (0.29%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 894 (20.11%) Data Quality
2 367 (8.26%) QA
3 114 (2.56%) GDPR
4 50 (1.12%) SLA
5 45 (1.01%) Accessibility
6 29 (0.65%) Actionable Recommendations
7 23 (0.52%) IFRS
7 23 (0.52%) NIST
8 21 (0.47%) ISO 20022
8 21 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 17 (0.38%) MiFID
10 15 (0.34%) COBIT
10 15 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 11 (0.25%) Basel III
12 9 (0.20%) PCI DSS
12 9 (0.20%) PMO
13 8 (0.18%) GRC
13 8 (0.18%) HIPAA
13 8 (0.18%) SEPA
13 8 (0.18%) Solvency II
System Software
1 422 (9.49%) Docker
2 109 (2.45%) Active Directory
3 50 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (0.83%) Oracle RAC
5 36 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
6 19 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.36%) vCloud
7 16 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 14 (0.31%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.13%) Postfix
11 5 (0.11%) KVM
12 4 (0.090%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 2 (0.045%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.045%) Dovecot
13 2 (0.045%) Squid
14 1 (0.022%) GPFS
14 1 (0.022%) HDFS
14 1 (0.022%) RACF
14 1 (0.022%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 357 (8.03%) Kubernetes
2 88 (1.98%) Ansible
3 85 (1.91%) Grafana
4 49 (1.10%) Prometheus
5 39 (0.88%) Control-M
5 39 (0.88%) SCOM
6 37 (0.83%) Data Guard
7 36 (0.81%) Kibana
8 35 (0.79%) Oracle RMAN
9 16 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.27%) Microsoft Clustering
10 12 (0.27%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 11 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
11 11 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
12 10 (0.22%) Tivoli
13 9 (0.20%) Argo
13 9 (0.20%) Istio
13 9 (0.20%) Nagios
13 9 (0.20%) Netcool
13 9 (0.20%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 754 (16.96%) Microsoft
2 742 (16.69%) Oracle
3 575 (12.94%) Databricks
4 207 (4.66%) Google
5 122 (2.74%) Informatica
6 121 (2.72%) SAP
7 101 (2.27%) IBM
8 97 (2.18%) Talend
9 85 (1.91%) ServiceNow
10 79 (1.78%) Splunk
11 67 (1.51%) VMware
12 65 (1.46%) Salesforce
13 48 (1.08%) Denodo
14 39 (0.88%) Bloomberg
15 37 (0.83%) Foundry
16 35 (0.79%) Adobe
16 35 (0.79%) Alteryx
16 35 (0.79%) OpenAI
16 35 (0.79%) UiPath
17 34 (0.76%) Murex