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

6 months to
16 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,840 3,023 3,782
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.44% 12.22% 9.98%
As % of the Programming Languages category 35.99% 35.97% 34.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,642 2,109 2,749
10th Percentile £350 £355 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.47% -5.82% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £708 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £503 £525
% change year-on-year -0.50% -4.29% -2.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 58 63
10th Percentile £18.93 £21.72 £21.66
25th Percentile £30.25 £29.07 £26.02
Median hourly rate £45.00 £47.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.26% +10.59% -16.67%
75th Percentile £69.86 £65.46 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £78.71 £61.48
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £46.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +2.15% +9.41% -19.05%

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 10,671 8,404 10,959
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 29.02% 33.97% 28.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,093 5,665 7,918
10th Percentile £352 £358 £350
25th Percentile £414 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -2.33% -6.52%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £656
90th Percentile £725 £775 £768
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 462 215 452
10th Percentile £41.94 £25.25 £35.05
25th Percentile £55.00 £39.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £67.63
90th Percentile £77.00 £85.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.76%

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 16 March 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 16 March 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 16 March 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 +1 2,277 £513 -6.82% 718
Midlands +3 467 £475 +2.98% 236
North of England -13 420 £450 -6.35% 389
West Midlands +6 372 £467 -4.14% 138
South East -18 293 £485 -3.00% 509
North West -1 241 £447 -5.89% 215
South West -8 199 £475 -6.86% 157
Yorkshire -23 157 £475 -5.00% 122
East Midlands -6 93 £537 +38.58% 97
East of England -22 77 £500 +6.95% 105
North East -1 31 £475 +5.56% 58
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
1 217 (5.65%) Apache Spark
2 153 (3.98%) Apache Airflow
3 131 (3.41%) Apache
4 121 (3.15%) Confluence
5 78 (2.03%) SharePoint
6 75 (1.95%) SAS
7 51 (1.33%) WebLogic
8 28 (0.73%) IIS
9 23 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
10 21 (0.55%) Tomcat
11 19 (0.49%) Jupyter
12 17 (0.44%) CMS
13 16 (0.42%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.39%) Tuxedo
15 13 (0.34%) WebSphere
16 12 (0.31%) Appian
16 12 (0.31%) HCL Notes
16 12 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 12 (0.31%) Oracle Workflow
17 11 (0.29%) Mendix
Applications
1 265 (6.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 59 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 49 (1.28%) MS Visio
4 36 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.10%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.078%) Notion
9 3 (0.078%) Trello
10 1 (0.026%) InDesign
10 1 (0.026%) Mingle
10 1 (0.026%) SPSS
10 1 (0.026%) Weka
Business Applications
1 29 (0.76%) Aladdin
2 25 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
3 24 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
4 22 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
5 20 (0.52%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.52%) Oracle General Ledger
6 19 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
7 17 (0.44%) Oracle EBS R12
8 16 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
9 15 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
10 13 (0.34%) NetSuite
10 13 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
11 11 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
11 11 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 11 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 9 (0.23%) Advent Geneva
12 9 (0.23%) Endur
13 8 (0.21%) Oracle 11i
13 8 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
13 8 (0.21%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,342 (34.95%) Azure
2 944 (24.58%) AWS
3 735 (19.14%) Power Platform
4 395 (10.29%) Azure DevOps
5 321 (8.36%) GCP
6 317 (8.26%) Azure Data Factory
7 307 (7.99%) GitHub
8 278 (7.24%) Serverless
9 258 (6.72%) Snowflake
10 207 (5.39%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 203 (5.29%) Amazon S3
12 159 (4.14%) dbt
13 158 (4.11%) GitHub Actions
14 143 (3.72%) AWS Lambda
15 96 (2.50%) SaaS
16 89 (2.32%) Azure Functions
17 84 (2.19%) Power Automate
18 77 (2.01%) Entra ID
19 71 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
20 69 (1.80%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 53 (1.38%) Firewall
2 41 (1.07%) DNS
3 22 (0.57%) Network Security
4 21 (0.55%) HTTP
5 20 (0.52%) TCP/IP
6 15 (0.39%) Internet
6 15 (0.39%) VPN
6 15 (0.39%) WAN
7 13 (0.34%) 5G
7 13 (0.34%) SSL
8 12 (0.31%) DHCP
8 12 (0.31%) LAN
9 10 (0.26%) 4G
10 9 (0.23%) 2G
10 9 (0.23%) Radio Access Network
11 8 (0.21%) SMS
12 7 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (0.16%) Multicast
13 6 (0.16%) VLAN
14 5 (0.13%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 669 (17.42%) Power BI
2 467 (12.16%) Data Warehouse
3 454 (11.82%) SQL Server
4 266 (6.93%) NoSQL
5 255 (6.64%) PostgreSQL
5 255 (6.64%) Relational Database
6 242 (6.30%) Tableau
7 239 (6.22%) Data Lake
8 204 (5.31%) Azure SQL Database
9 186 (4.84%) Metadata
10 143 (3.72%) Oracle Database
11 141 (3.67%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 120 (3.13%) BigQuery
13 119 (3.10%) Big Data
14 113 (2.94%) MySQL
15 105 (2.73%) Delta Lake
16 104 (2.71%) Amazon Redshift
17 101 (2.63%) MongoDB
18 96 (2.50%) Amazon RDS
19 79 (2.06%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 437 (11.38%) Git
2 305 (7.94%) JIRA
3 208 (5.42%) Jenkins
4 157 (4.09%) GitLab
5 63 (1.64%) JUnit
6 61 (1.59%) Selenium
7 46 (1.20%) Postman
8 41 (1.07%) Oracle APEX
9 38 (0.99%) Cucumber
10 34 (0.89%) MLflow
11 32 (0.83%) Maven
12 28 (0.73%) Bitbucket
12 28 (0.73%) REST Assured
13 27 (0.70%) Mockito
14 24 (0.63%) Cypress.io
14 24 (0.63%) Visual Studio
15 23 (0.60%) ERwin
16 22 (0.57%) SpecFlow
17 20 (0.52%) JMeter
18 19 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,118 (29.11%) Social Skills
2 1,051 (27.37%) Finance
3 693 (18.05%) Analytical Skills
4 395 (10.29%) Banking
5 340 (8.85%) Public Sector
6 104 (2.71%) Investment Banking
7 103 (2.68%) Front Office
8 97 (2.53%) Documentation Skills
9 81 (2.11%) Marketing
10 61 (1.59%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 61 (1.59%) Retail
11 54 (1.41%) Legal
12 53 (1.38%) Financial Institution
13 39 (1.02%) Publishing
14 37 (0.96%) Telecoms
15 36 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
16 35 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
17 32 (0.83%) Law
18 31 (0.81%) Manufacturing
19 30 (0.78%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 907 (23.62%) Developer
2 702 (18.28%) Data Engineer
3 553 (14.40%) Analyst
4 491 (12.79%) Senior
5 276 (7.19%) Lead
6 230 (5.99%) Data Analyst
7 206 (5.36%) Architect
8 198 (5.16%) Business Analyst
9 160 (4.17%) Consultant
10 144 (3.75%) Senior Developer
11 137 (3.57%) Java Developer
12 117 (3.05%) Azure Engineer
13 107 (2.79%) Software Engineer
14 104 (2.71%) Senior Data Engineer
15 98 (2.55%) C# Developer
15 98 (2.55%) DBA
16 88 (2.29%) Python Developer
17 87 (2.27%) Full-Stack Developer
18 85 (2.21%) Data Scientist
19 79 (2.06%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 338 (8.80%) .NET
2 308 (8.02%) REST
3 251 (6.54%) Kafka
4 239 (6.22%) PySpark
5 183 (4.77%) React
6 177 (4.61%) RESTful
7 165 (4.30%) Spring
8 152 (3.96%) XML
9 144 (3.75%) Spring Boot
10 137 (3.57%) HTML
11 115 (2.99%) Pandas
12 113 (2.94%) CSS
13 112 (2.92%) AngularJS
14 111 (2.89%) JSON
15 99 (2.58%) Node.js
16 83 (2.16%) .NET Framework
17 79 (2.06%) Middleware
18 78 (2.03%) SOAP
19 73 (1.90%) scikit-learn
19 73 (1.90%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 263 (6.85%) Cloud Native
2 127 (3.31%) Data Structures
3 125 (3.26%) Legacy Systems
4 108 (2.81%) Product Ownership
5 83 (2.16%) Management Information System
6 77 (2.01%) Distributed Systems
7 73 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
7 73 (1.90%) Derivative
8 68 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
9 64 (1.67%) Equities
10 59 (1.54%) Fixed Income
11 57 (1.48%) Algorithms
12 55 (1.43%) Onboarding
13 49 (1.28%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 42 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (1.07%) Clustering
16 40 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
17 39 (1.02%) Replication
18 36 (0.94%) Market Risk
19 30 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 282 (7.34%) Linux
2 225 (5.86%) Windows
3 186 (4.84%) Unix
4 73 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 17 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.39%) AIX
7 14 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 13 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 12 (0.31%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.16%) Android
10 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.13%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.13%) zOS
12 4 (0.10%) Solaris
12 4 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.078%) CentOS
13 3 (0.078%) VMS
14 2 (0.052%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.052%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.026%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,034 (26.93%) Agile
2 1,029 (26.80%) CI/CD
3 1,003 (26.12%) Analytics
4 913 (23.78%) Data Modelling
5 892 (23.23%) DevOps
6 886 (23.07%) Business Intelligence
7 869 (22.63%) ETL
8 838 (21.82%) Problem-Solving
9 636 (16.56%) Data Pipeline
10 590 (15.36%) Data Engineering
11 468 (12.19%) Migration
12 452 (11.77%) Data Governance
13 448 (11.67%) AI
14 414 (10.78%) Validation
15 380 (9.90%) Data Analysis
16 362 (9.43%) Test Automation
17 344 (8.96%) Data Science
18 341 (8.88%) Decision-Making
18 341 (8.88%) Visualisation
19 329 (8.57%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 1,441 (37.53%) Python
2 540 (14.06%) Java
3 411 (10.70%) C#
4 322 (8.39%) JavaScript
5 267 (6.95%) PL/SQL
6 159 (4.14%) T-SQL
7 152 (3.96%) PowerShell
8 145 (3.78%) TypeScript
9 108 (2.81%) Shell Script
10 105 (2.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 100 (2.60%) R
12 98 (2.55%) Scala
13 68 (1.77%) Bash
13 68 (1.77%) C++
14 62 (1.61%) VBA
15 49 (1.28%) Bicep
16 46 (1.20%) Perl
17 41 (1.07%) VB
18 38 (0.99%) Go
19 29 (0.76%) PHP
Qualifications
1 760 (19.79%) Security Cleared
2 600 (15.63%) SC Cleared
3 332 (8.65%) Degree
4 111 (2.89%) Computer Science Degree
5 82 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 72 (1.88%) Azure Certification
7 57 (1.48%) Master's Degree
8 53 (1.38%) DV Cleared
9 51 (1.33%) ISTQB
10 44 (1.15%) Microsoft Certification
11 42 (1.09%) AWS Certification
12 21 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 17 (0.44%) Oracle Certification
14 16 (0.42%) CBAP
15 14 (0.36%) PhD
16 10 (0.26%) ISEB
16 10 (0.26%) PMP
17 9 (0.23%) PMI Certification
18 8 (0.21%) CFA
18 8 (0.21%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 663 (17.27%) Data Quality
2 282 (7.34%) QA
3 165 (4.30%) GDPR
4 62 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 28 (0.73%) SLA
6 27 (0.70%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 25 (0.65%) PMO
8 21 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 20 (0.52%) MiFID
10 17 (0.44%) NIST
11 16 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.42%) HIPAA
12 15 (0.39%) PCI DSS
13 14 (0.36%) WCAG
14 13 (0.34%) SEPA
15 12 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 12 (0.31%) IFRS
16 11 (0.29%) EMIR
16 11 (0.29%) ISO 20022
17 10 (0.26%) PSD2
System Software
1 451 (11.74%) Docker
2 100 (2.60%) Active Directory
3 31 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
4 15 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
4 15 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
5 12 (0.31%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.21%) HDFS
6 8 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.16%) KVM
8 5 (0.13%) RACF
8 5 (0.13%) XenApp
8 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.10%) Postfix
10 3 (0.078%) Oracle Clusterware
10 3 (0.078%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.052%) NDS
11 2 (0.052%) NetIQ eDirectory
11 2 (0.052%) Slurm Workload Manager
11 2 (0.052%) vSphere
11 2 (0.052%) zsh
Systems Management
1 410 (10.68%) Kubernetes
2 308 (8.02%) Terraform
3 85 (2.21%) Grafana
4 63 (1.64%) Ansible
5 62 (1.61%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.57%) Oracle RMAN
6 22 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (0.47%) SCCM
8 17 (0.44%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.36%) Data Guard
10 13 (0.34%) Control-M
10 13 (0.34%) Kibana
10 13 (0.34%) Puppet
11 9 (0.23%) HP Quality Center
11 9 (0.23%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 8 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 8 (0.21%) Kiali
12 8 (0.21%) Microsoft Intune
13 7 (0.18%) ITRS Geneos
13 7 (0.18%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 626 (16.30%) Microsoft
2 618 (16.09%) Oracle
3 468 (12.19%) Databricks
4 164 (4.27%) Google
5 106 (2.76%) ServiceNow
6 104 (2.71%) Informatica
7 99 (2.58%) SAP
8 95 (2.47%) Talend
9 64 (1.67%) Splunk
10 61 (1.59%) Salesforce
11 57 (1.48%) IBM
12 50 (1.30%) Citrix
13 47 (1.22%) OpenAI
14 41 (1.07%) MuleSoft
15 39 (1.02%) Denodo
16 35 (0.91%) Bloomberg
17 29 (0.76%) VMware
18 28 (0.73%) Foundry
19 25 (0.65%) Dynatrace
19 25 (0.65%) Palantir