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 23 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 13
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,007 3,011 3,630
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.09% 12.25% 9.74%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.52% 36.27% 33.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,756 2,138 2,670
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
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 £688 £770 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 56 60
10th Percentile £27.62 £20.87 £22.52
25th Percentile £36.25 £29.77 £25.99
Median hourly rate £51.25 £49.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.53% +16.47% -15.00%
75th Percentile £73.95 £65.71 £53.75
90th Percentile £83.00 £79.72 £61.87
UK median hourly rate £54.75 £44.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +23.03% +4.71% -16.26%

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 10,971 8,301 10,852
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 27.63% 33.78% 29.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,291 5,731 7,898
10th Percentile £353 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £503 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -4.29% -2.78% -4.42%
75th Percentile £606 £650 £656
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 524 212 432
10th Percentile £42.50 £25.25 £35.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £38.97 £47.31
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £62.18
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +0.92% -0.52%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -1.54%

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 23 April 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 23 April 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 23 April 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 2,283 £513 -5.53% 728
Midlands +7 516 £465 +2.65% 256
North of England -9 471 £450 -5.26% 357
West Midlands +8 409 £460 -0.65% 146
South East -15 321 £500 - 507
North West 0 262 £450 -5.26% 207
South West -6 218 £475 -5.00% 152
Yorkshire -15 188 £463 -5.13% 103
East Midlands +2 105 £525 +34.87% 110
East of England -12 89 £503 +9.54% 141
North East -11 32 £475 +4.40% 50
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
1 230 (5.74%) Apache Spark
2 160 (3.99%) Apache Airflow
3 143 (3.57%) Apache
4 121 (3.02%) Confluence
5 82 (2.05%) SAS
6 81 (2.02%) SharePoint
7 47 (1.17%) WebLogic
8 33 (0.82%) IIS
9 24 (0.60%) Tomcat
10 20 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
10 20 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
11 15 (0.37%) Tuxedo
12 14 (0.35%) HCL Notes
12 14 (0.35%) nginx
13 13 (0.32%) Appian
13 13 (0.32%) CMS
13 13 (0.32%) Mendix
13 13 (0.32%) Palantir Foundry
14 12 (0.30%) Jupyter
14 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 273 (6.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 57 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 47 (1.17%) MS Visio
4 32 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.27%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
9 3 (0.075%) 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%) SPSS
10 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.05%) Oracle EBS
2 27 (0.67%) Aladdin
3 23 (0.57%) NEC Housing
4 21 (0.52%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.52%) Oracle EBS R12
4 21 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
5 19 (0.47%) Oracle Receivables
5 19 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
6 17 (0.42%) Oracle General Ledger
7 16 (0.40%) NetSuite
8 15 (0.37%) Oracle ERP
9 11 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
9 11 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 11 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 11 (0.27%) Remedy ITSM
10 10 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
11 9 (0.22%) Maximo
11 9 (0.22%) Oracle Cash Management
12 8 (0.20%) Endur
12 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,373 (34.27%) Azure
2 974 (24.31%) AWS
3 783 (19.54%) Power Platform
4 417 (10.41%) Azure DevOps
5 348 (8.68%) Azure Data Factory
6 321 (8.01%) GCP
7 299 (7.46%) GitHub
8 267 (6.66%) Serverless
9 234 (5.84%) Snowflake
10 233 (5.81%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 230 (5.74%) Amazon S3
12 176 (4.39%) dbt
13 156 (3.89%) AWS Lambda
14 154 (3.84%) GitHub Actions
15 90 (2.25%) Power Automate
16 78 (1.95%) SaaS
17 74 (1.85%) AWS CloudFormation
17 74 (1.85%) Azure Functions
17 74 (1.85%) Entra ID
18 72 (1.80%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 47 (1.17%) Firewall
2 36 (0.90%) DNS
3 23 (0.57%) Network Security
4 18 (0.45%) HTTP
4 18 (0.45%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.37%) Internet
5 15 (0.37%) WAN
6 12 (0.30%) LAN
7 11 (0.27%) SNMP
7 11 (0.27%) SSL
8 10 (0.25%) VPN
9 9 (0.22%) DHCP
10 8 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (0.15%) IPsec
11 6 (0.15%) VLAN
11 6 (0.15%) Wireshark
12 5 (0.12%) 3GPP
12 5 (0.12%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.12%) PuTTY
12 5 (0.12%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 714 (17.82%) Power BI
2 515 (12.85%) Data Warehouse
3 497 (12.40%) SQL Server
4 283 (7.06%) Tableau
5 261 (6.51%) NoSQL
6 260 (6.49%) PostgreSQL
7 258 (6.44%) Data Lake
8 247 (6.16%) Relational Database
9 208 (5.19%) Metadata
10 205 (5.12%) Azure SQL Database
11 145 (3.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 143 (3.57%) Oracle Database
13 122 (3.04%) Amazon Redshift
14 121 (3.02%) BigQuery
15 119 (2.97%) MySQL
16 114 (2.85%) Delta Lake
17 112 (2.80%) Big Data
18 101 (2.52%) Oracle Reports
19 100 (2.50%) MongoDB
20 95 (2.37%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 432 (10.78%) Git
2 319 (7.96%) JIRA
3 209 (5.22%) Jenkins
4 164 (4.09%) GitLab
5 63 (1.57%) Selenium
6 57 (1.42%) JUnit
7 48 (1.20%) Postman
8 41 (1.02%) Maven
9 37 (0.92%) Cucumber
9 37 (0.92%) Oracle APEX
10 35 (0.87%) MLflow
11 34 (0.85%) Mockito
12 28 (0.70%) Bitbucket
12 28 (0.70%) REST Assured
13 27 (0.67%) SonarQube
14 25 (0.62%) ERwin
14 25 (0.62%) JMeter
15 22 (0.55%) Oracle Forms
15 22 (0.55%) SpecFlow
15 22 (0.55%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,106 (27.60%) Social Skills
2 1,093 (27.28%) Finance
3 754 (18.82%) Analytical Skills
4 382 (9.53%) Banking
5 340 (8.49%) Public Sector
6 103 (2.57%) Front Office
7 100 (2.50%) Investment Banking
8 93 (2.32%) Marketing
9 88 (2.20%) Documentation Skills
10 64 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 57 (1.42%) Retail
12 55 (1.37%) Legal
13 53 (1.32%) Financial Institution
14 39 (0.97%) Telecoms
15 35 (0.87%) Organisational Skills
16 34 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
16 34 (0.85%) Publishing
17 32 (0.80%) Law
18 31 (0.77%) Local Government
19 30 (0.75%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 870 (21.71%) Developer
2 803 (20.04%) Data Engineer
3 591 (14.75%) Analyst
4 504 (12.58%) Senior
5 275 (6.86%) Lead
6 249 (6.21%) Data Analyst
7 225 (5.62%) Architect
8 193 (4.82%) Business Analyst
9 181 (4.52%) Consultant
10 149 (3.72%) Java Developer
11 132 (3.29%) Senior Developer
12 130 (3.24%) Senior Data Engineer
13 119 (2.97%) Azure Engineer
13 119 (2.97%) DBA
14 112 (2.80%) Software Engineer
15 105 (2.62%) C# Developer
16 88 (2.20%) Python Developer
17 87 (2.17%) Data Architect
18 86 (2.15%) Full-Stack Developer
19 85 (2.12%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 347 (8.66%) .NET
2 314 (7.84%) REST
3 248 (6.19%) PySpark
4 245 (6.11%) Kafka
5 194 (4.84%) React
6 184 (4.59%) Spring
7 182 (4.54%) RESTful
8 172 (4.29%) Spring Boot
9 148 (3.69%) XML
10 142 (3.54%) HTML
11 124 (3.09%) CSS
12 123 (3.07%) JSON
13 120 (2.99%) Pandas
14 111 (2.77%) AngularJS
15 88 (2.20%) SOAP
16 87 (2.17%) Middleware
17 82 (2.05%) Node.js
18 81 (2.02%) .NET Framework
19 74 (1.85%) Web Services
20 72 (1.80%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 250 (6.24%) Cloud Native
2 141 (3.52%) Data Structures
3 134 (3.34%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (3.12%) Product Ownership
5 98 (2.45%) Distributed Systems
6 88 (2.20%) Management Information System
7 72 (1.80%) Derivative
8 68 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
9 62 (1.55%) Analytical Mindset
9 62 (1.55%) Onboarding
10 56 (1.40%) Equities
11 55 (1.37%) Fixed Income
12 49 (1.22%) Clustering
13 47 (1.17%) Enterprise Software
13 47 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
14 46 (1.15%) Algorithms
15 42 (1.05%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 38 (0.95%) NHS
17 37 (0.92%) Greenfield Project
17 37 (0.92%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 281 (7.01%) Linux
2 242 (6.04%) Windows
3 200 (4.99%) Unix
4 76 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.52%) AIX
6 19 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.32%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
9 7 (0.17%) zOS
10 6 (0.15%) Android
10 6 (0.15%) Solaris
10 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.100%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.050%) CentOS
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.025%) VME
14 1 (0.025%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,080 (26.95%) CI/CD
2 1,045 (26.08%) Agile
3 1,032 (25.75%) Analytics
4 986 (24.61%) Data Modelling
5 944 (23.56%) ETL
6 935 (23.33%) Business Intelligence
7 918 (22.91%) DevOps
8 830 (20.71%) Problem-Solving
9 717 (17.89%) Data Pipeline
10 637 (15.90%) Data Engineering
11 495 (12.35%) AI
12 492 (12.28%) Migration
13 488 (12.18%) Validation
14 486 (12.13%) Data Governance
15 386 (9.63%) Decision-Making
16 382 (9.53%) Test Automation
17 377 (9.41%) Data Analysis
18 360 (8.98%) Performance Tuning
19 343 (8.56%) Microservices
20 335 (8.36%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,514 (37.78%) Python
2 541 (13.50%) Java
3 435 (10.86%) C#
4 323 (8.06%) JavaScript
5 311 (7.76%) PL/SQL
6 187 (4.67%) T-SQL
7 172 (4.29%) PowerShell
8 133 (3.32%) TypeScript
9 120 (2.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 118 (2.94%) Shell Script
11 116 (2.89%) R
12 96 (2.40%) Scala
13 73 (1.82%) Bash
14 60 (1.50%) C++
15 59 (1.47%) VBA
16 45 (1.12%) Bicep
17 43 (1.07%) Perl
18 28 (0.70%) Go
19 26 (0.65%) VB
20 22 (0.55%) C
Qualifications
1 850 (21.21%) Security Cleared
2 697 (17.39%) SC Cleared
3 322 (8.04%) Degree
4 114 (2.85%) Computer Science Degree
5 86 (2.15%) BPSS Clearance
6 69 (1.72%) Azure Certification
7 52 (1.30%) ISTQB
7 52 (1.30%) Master's Degree
8 50 (1.25%) DV Cleared
9 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
10 32 (0.80%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.42%) Oracle Certification
12 16 (0.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 16 (0.40%) PhD
13 13 (0.32%) CBAP
14 11 (0.27%) CISSP
15 10 (0.25%) DBS Check
15 10 (0.25%) PMP
16 9 (0.22%) CISM
16 9 (0.22%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 715 (17.84%) Data Quality
2 307 (7.66%) QA
3 182 (4.54%) GDPR
4 43 (1.07%) Accessibility
5 35 (0.87%) SLA
6 32 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 29 (0.72%) PMO
8 23 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 17 (0.42%) NIST
9 17 (0.42%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
11 15 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 14 (0.35%) IFRS
12 14 (0.35%) MiFID
13 13 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.30%) HL7
14 12 (0.30%) ISO 20022
15 10 (0.25%) GRC
15 10 (0.25%) SEPA
15 10 (0.25%) Solvency II
System Software
1 456 (11.38%) Docker
2 95 (2.37%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
4 23 (0.57%) Oracle RAC
5 19 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
6 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 9 (0.22%) KVM
8 8 (0.20%) Postfix
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.15%) HDFS
9 6 (0.15%) RACF
10 5 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.12%) XenApp
10 5 (0.12%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
12 2 (0.050%) GridGain
12 2 (0.050%) vSphere
13 1 (0.025%) GPFS
13 1 (0.025%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.025%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 397 (9.91%) Kubernetes
2 334 (8.34%) Terraform
3 99 (2.47%) Grafana
4 64 (1.60%) Ansible
5 62 (1.55%) Prometheus
6 36 (0.90%) Oracle RMAN
7 25 (0.62%) Data Guard
8 20 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.40%) Kibana
9 16 (0.40%) SCCM
10 15 (0.37%) Progress Chef
11 14 (0.35%) Control-M
12 11 (0.27%) ZABBIX
13 10 (0.25%) Nagios
13 10 (0.25%) Netcool
13 10 (0.25%) OpenView
13 10 (0.25%) Tivoli
13 10 (0.25%) Tivoli Monitoring
14 9 (0.22%) Kiali
14 9 (0.22%) Puppet
Vendors
1 669 (16.70%) Oracle
2 649 (16.20%) Microsoft
3 487 (12.15%) Databricks
4 156 (3.89%) Google
5 127 (3.17%) Informatica
6 123 (3.07%) ServiceNow
7 111 (2.77%) SAP
8 102 (2.55%) Talend
9 82 (2.05%) Splunk
10 62 (1.55%) IBM
11 60 (1.50%) Salesforce
12 52 (1.30%) Citrix
13 45 (1.12%) Denodo
14 42 (1.05%) OpenAI
15 33 (0.82%) MuleSoft
16 32 (0.80%) Bloomberg
16 32 (0.80%) Dynatrace
16 32 (0.80%) VMware
17 29 (0.72%) HP
18 28 (0.70%) Sage