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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,997 3,034 3,635
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.83% 12.39% 9.89%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.78% 36.70% 33.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,750 2,164 2,698
10th Percentile £350 £356 £359
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -6.36% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 53 57
10th Percentile £27.40 £19.59 £23.50
25th Percentile £35.25 £29.07 £30.37
Median hourly rate £50.00 £44.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.36% -1.11% -8.69%
75th Percentile £73.00 £65.62 £57.50
90th Percentile £83.15 £81.24 £62.24
UK median hourly rate £53.50 £41.66 £45.00
% change year-on-year +28.43% -7.43% -10.00%

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 10,866 8,268 10,868
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.72% 33.77% 29.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,175 5,743 7,897
10th Percentile £354 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £420 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £607 £650 £656
90th Percentile £724 £788 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 537 220 443
10th Percentile £41.94 £26.20 £37.78
25th Percentile £55.00 £37.25 £50.38
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.43
% change year-on-year +4.00% +0.12% +0.95%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 2,260 £522 -5.09% 881
Midlands +4 524 £468 +4.06% 251
North of England -9 481 £450 -5.26% 386
West Midlands +5 421 £461 +0.27% 142
South East -18 334 £488 -2.50% 539
North West -2 266 £450 -5.26% 218
South West -7 198 £475 - 137
Yorkshire -14 191 £460 -8.00% 113
East Midlands +2 100 £525 +34.87% 109
East of England -16 90 £498 +6.42% 138
North East -9 36 £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
1 221 (5.53%) Apache Spark
2 147 (3.68%) Apache Airflow
3 137 (3.43%) Confluence
4 134 (3.35%) Apache
5 86 (2.15%) SAS
6 76 (1.90%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 31 (0.78%) IIS
9 23 (0.58%) Tomcat
10 21 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
11 19 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) Jupyter
14 13 (0.33%) Appian
14 13 (0.33%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.33%) Mendix
14 13 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.30%) CMS
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 11 (0.28%) nginx
Applications
1 273 (6.83%) Microsoft Excel
2 53 (1.33%) Microsoft Office
3 49 (1.23%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.20%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.13%) Notepad++
7 5 (0.13%) Notion
8 3 (0.075%) Oracle Smart View
8 3 (0.075%) Trello
9 1 (0.025%) InDesign
9 1 (0.025%) Mingle
9 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.05%) Oracle EBS
2 25 (0.63%) Aladdin
2 25 (0.63%) NEC Housing
3 23 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
4 22 (0.55%) Oracle Payables
5 20 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
6 19 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
6 19 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
7 17 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
7 17 (0.43%) Oracle General Ledger
8 16 (0.40%) NetSuite
9 13 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 11 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
12 10 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
12 10 (0.25%) Oracle Cash Management
13 9 (0.23%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
14 8 (0.20%) Endur
14 8 (0.20%) Findur
Cloud Services
1 1,352 (33.83%) Azure
2 955 (23.89%) AWS
3 774 (19.36%) Power Platform
4 394 (9.86%) Azure DevOps
5 341 (8.53%) Azure Data Factory
6 321 (8.03%) GCP
7 290 (7.26%) GitHub
8 250 (6.25%) Serverless
9 231 (5.78%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 224 (5.60%) Snowflake
11 220 (5.50%) Amazon S3
12 175 (4.38%) dbt
13 149 (3.73%) GitHub Actions
14 148 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
15 81 (2.03%) Power Automate
16 75 (1.88%) SaaS
17 70 (1.75%) Entra ID
18 67 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 65 (1.63%) AWS CloudFormation
20 64 (1.60%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 49 (1.23%) Firewall
2 41 (1.03%) DNS
3 20 (0.50%) Network Security
4 18 (0.45%) TCP/IP
5 17 (0.43%) HTTP
6 15 (0.38%) Internet
6 15 (0.38%) SNMP
6 15 (0.38%) WAN
7 12 (0.30%) LAN
8 11 (0.28%) SSL
8 11 (0.28%) VPN
8 11 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.23%) DHCP
10 7 (0.18%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.15%) 3GPP
11 6 (0.15%) IPsec
11 6 (0.15%) VLAN
12 5 (0.13%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.13%) PuTTY
12 5 (0.13%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 708 (17.71%) Power BI
2 515 (12.88%) Data Warehouse
3 500 (12.51%) SQL Server
4 275 (6.88%) Tableau
5 269 (6.73%) Data Lake
6 259 (6.48%) Relational Database
7 250 (6.25%) PostgreSQL
8 236 (5.90%) NoSQL
9 216 (5.40%) Metadata
10 199 (4.98%) Azure SQL Database
11 150 (3.75%) Oracle Database
12 146 (3.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 123 (3.08%) BigQuery
14 119 (2.98%) Delta Lake
15 113 (2.83%) Amazon Redshift
16 107 (2.68%) MySQL
17 106 (2.65%) Big Data
18 103 (2.58%) Oracle Reports
19 91 (2.28%) MongoDB
20 90 (2.25%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 417 (10.43%) Git
2 320 (8.01%) JIRA
3 208 (5.20%) Jenkins
4 173 (4.33%) GitLab
5 55 (1.38%) Selenium
6 52 (1.30%) JUnit
7 44 (1.10%) Maven
7 44 (1.10%) Postman
8 38 (0.95%) Mockito
9 37 (0.93%) Cucumber
10 35 (0.88%) MLflow
11 33 (0.83%) Gradle
12 30 (0.75%) SonarQube
13 28 (0.70%) REST Assured
14 27 (0.68%) ERwin
15 24 (0.60%) Bitbucket
16 22 (0.55%) JMeter
17 21 (0.53%) SpecFlow
17 21 (0.53%) TeamCity
18 20 (0.50%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,093 (27.35%) Finance
2 1,050 (26.27%) Social Skills
3 747 (18.69%) Analytical Skills
4 381 (9.53%) Banking
5 339 (8.48%) Public Sector
6 101 (2.53%) Front Office
7 95 (2.38%) Investment Banking
8 93 (2.33%) Marketing
9 84 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
10 61 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 57 (1.43%) Retail
12 55 (1.38%) Financial Institution
13 53 (1.33%) Legal
14 38 (0.95%) Publishing
15 36 (0.90%) Telecoms
16 34 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
17 33 (0.83%) Law
18 32 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
19 29 (0.73%) Local Government
20 28 (0.70%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 834 (20.87%) Developer
2 824 (20.62%) Data Engineer
3 574 (14.36%) Analyst
4 496 (12.41%) Senior
5 279 (6.98%) Lead
6 243 (6.08%) Data Analyst
7 231 (5.78%) Architect
8 184 (4.60%) Business Analyst
9 181 (4.53%) Consultant
10 151 (3.78%) Java Developer
11 141 (3.53%) Senior Data Engineer
12 124 (3.10%) DBA
13 118 (2.95%) Software Engineer
14 117 (2.93%) Azure Engineer
14 117 (2.93%) Senior Developer
15 96 (2.40%) C# Developer
16 85 (2.13%) Data Architect
16 85 (2.13%) Python Developer
17 84 (2.10%) Data Scientist
18 82 (2.05%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 348 (8.71%) .NET
2 309 (7.73%) REST
3 253 (6.33%) Kafka
4 248 (6.20%) PySpark
5 193 (4.83%) Spring
6 186 (4.65%) React
7 185 (4.63%) Spring Boot
8 164 (4.10%) RESTful
9 136 (3.40%) HTML
10 133 (3.33%) XML
11 120 (3.00%) JSON
12 115 (2.88%) CSS
12 115 (2.88%) Pandas
13 103 (2.58%) AngularJS
14 94 (2.35%) Middleware
15 88 (2.20%) SOAP
16 78 (1.95%) .NET Framework
17 75 (1.88%) Web Services
18 71 (1.78%) Node.js
19 68 (1.70%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 259 (6.48%) Cloud Native
2 147 (3.68%) Data Structures
3 133 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
4 119 (2.98%) Product Ownership
5 102 (2.55%) Distributed Systems
6 90 (2.25%) Management Information System
7 75 (1.88%) Derivative
8 70 (1.75%) Onboarding
9 69 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
10 62 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
11 54 (1.35%) Equities
11 54 (1.35%) Fixed Income
12 51 (1.28%) Clustering
13 48 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
14 45 (1.13%) Algorithms
15 44 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
16 43 (1.08%) Greenfield Project
17 40 (1.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 39 (0.98%) Replication
19 37 (0.93%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 285 (7.13%) Linux
2 244 (6.10%) Windows
3 199 (4.98%) Unix
4 81 (2.03%) Windows Server
5 27 (0.68%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.20%) Windows 10
9 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.18%) Solaris
10 7 (0.18%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.050%) VMS
14 1 (0.025%) HPUX
14 1 (0.025%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,083 (27.10%) CI/CD
2 1,017 (25.44%) Analytics
3 1,008 (25.22%) Data Modelling
4 989 (24.74%) Agile
5 977 (24.44%) ETL
6 917 (22.94%) Business Intelligence
7 883 (22.09%) DevOps
8 821 (20.54%) Problem-Solving
9 739 (18.49%) Data Pipeline
10 652 (16.31%) Data Engineering
11 513 (12.83%) AI
12 499 (12.48%) Migration
13 483 (12.08%) Validation
14 479 (11.98%) Data Governance
15 400 (10.01%) Test Automation
16 392 (9.81%) Decision-Making
17 377 (9.43%) Data Analysis
18 366 (9.16%) Performance Tuning
19 351 (8.78%) Microservices
20 340 (8.51%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,504 (37.63%) Python
2 541 (13.54%) Java
3 437 (10.93%) C#
4 295 (7.38%) PL/SQL
5 291 (7.28%) JavaScript
6 197 (4.93%) T-SQL
7 184 (4.60%) PowerShell
8 131 (3.28%) TypeScript
9 126 (3.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 117 (2.93%) Shell Script
11 115 (2.88%) R
12 88 (2.20%) Scala
13 75 (1.88%) Bash
14 61 (1.53%) C++
15 50 (1.25%) VBA
16 42 (1.05%) Perl
17 41 (1.03%) Bicep
18 29 (0.73%) VB
19 26 (0.65%) Go
20 23 (0.58%) C
Qualifications
1 842 (21.07%) Security Cleared
2 679 (16.99%) SC Cleared
3 317 (7.93%) Degree
4 109 (2.73%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 72 (1.80%) Azure Certification
7 63 (1.58%) DV Cleared
8 52 (1.30%) Master's Degree
9 47 (1.18%) ISTQB
10 36 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
11 21 (0.53%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.38%) CBAP
12 15 (0.38%) Oracle Certification
12 15 (0.38%) PhD
13 12 (0.30%) DBS Check
14 11 (0.28%) CISSP
14 11 (0.28%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.25%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.25%) PMP
16 9 (0.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 733 (18.34%) Data Quality
2 309 (7.73%) QA
3 180 (4.50%) GDPR
4 37 (0.93%) Accessibility
4 37 (0.93%) SLA
5 34 (0.85%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 26 (0.65%) PMO
7 23 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 19 (0.48%) NIST
8 19 (0.48%) PCI DSS
9 18 (0.45%) MiFID
10 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
11 15 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 14 (0.35%) IFRS
13 13 (0.33%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.30%) HL7
15 10 (0.25%) GRC
15 10 (0.25%) SEPA
16 9 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 455 (11.38%) Docker
2 91 (2.28%) Active Directory
3 38 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
4 26 (0.65%) VMware Infrastructure
5 24 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
6 17 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.25%) KVM
8 9 (0.23%) VMware ESXi
9 8 (0.20%) Postfix
9 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.15%) HDFS
10 6 (0.15%) RACF
11 5 (0.13%) VMware NSX
11 5 (0.13%) XenApp
11 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
12 4 (0.10%) vCloud
13 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
14 2 (0.050%) GridGain
14 2 (0.050%) vSphere
15 1 (0.025%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 392 (9.81%) Kubernetes
2 330 (8.26%) Terraform
3 105 (2.63%) Grafana
4 65 (1.63%) Ansible
5 63 (1.58%) Prometheus
6 37 (0.93%) Oracle RMAN
7 26 (0.65%) Data Guard
8 19 (0.48%) Kibana
8 19 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.43%) SCCM
10 15 (0.38%) ZABBIX
11 14 (0.35%) Control-M
11 14 (0.35%) Nagios
11 14 (0.35%) Netcool
11 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
12 13 (0.33%) OpenView
12 13 (0.33%) Progress Chef
12 13 (0.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 11 (0.28%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.23%) Kiali
Vendors
1 655 (16.39%) Oracle
2 633 (15.84%) Microsoft
3 474 (11.86%) Databricks
4 154 (3.85%) Google
5 141 (3.53%) Informatica
6 124 (3.10%) ServiceNow
7 113 (2.83%) Talend
8 106 (2.65%) SAP
9 87 (2.18%) Splunk
10 66 (1.65%) IBM
11 58 (1.45%) Denodo
12 51 (1.28%) Salesforce
13 50 (1.25%) Citrix
14 40 (1.00%) VMware
15 38 (0.95%) Dynatrace
16 35 (0.88%) Bloomberg
16 35 (0.88%) OpenAI
17 32 (0.80%) HP
18 31 (0.78%) MuleSoft
19 29 (0.73%) BMC