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

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,985 2,994 3,667
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.13% 12.25% 9.82%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.44% 36.19% 33.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,761 2,114 2,691
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.82% -6.45% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £688 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 56 60
10th Percentile £26.50 £24.13 £22.52
25th Percentile £35.25 £30.19 £25.99
Median hourly rate £52.49 £50.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.98% +17.65% -14.63%
75th Percentile £74.47 £65.71 £53.75
90th Percentile £83.45 £79.72 £61.87
UK median hourly rate £55.00 £47.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +17.02% +10.59% -15.00%

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 10,937 8,272 10,842
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 27.80% 33.85% 29.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,302 5,706 7,877
10th Percentile £353 £363 £350
25th Percentile £414 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -5.61%
75th Percentile £605 £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 516 211 429
10th Percentile £42.22 £25.26 £35.00
25th Percentile £55.61 £38.75 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +1.46% -1.44%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.63 £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% -4.00%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,277 £513 -5.09% 830
Midlands +7 521 £465 +1.09% 297
North of England -11 458 £450 -5.26% 421
West Midlands +8 415 £460 -3.16% 164
South East -18 309 £500 - 490
North West -3 259 £450 -5.26% 244
South West -7 217 £475 -5.00% 170
Yorkshire -19 180 £465 -4.62% 125
East Midlands +1 104 £525 +34.27% 133
East of England -14 90 £503 +9.54% 138
North East -14 30 £475 +4.40% 57
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
1 229 (5.75%) Apache Spark
2 160 (4.02%) Apache Airflow
3 141 (3.54%) Apache
4 123 (3.09%) Confluence
5 90 (2.26%) SAS
6 82 (2.06%) SharePoint
7 47 (1.18%) WebLogic
8 31 (0.78%) IIS
9 24 (0.60%) Tomcat
10 20 (0.50%) Microsoft Exchange
10 20 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
11 18 (0.45%) Jupyter
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) nginx
13 14 (0.35%) Palantir Foundry
14 13 (0.33%) Appian
15 12 (0.30%) CMS
15 12 (0.30%) HCL Notes
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 11 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 273 (6.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 55 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
3 50 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 34 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.13%) 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 41 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
2 29 (0.73%) Aladdin
3 21 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.53%) NEC Housing
3 21 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
3 21 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
4 19 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
5 17 (0.43%) Oracle General Ledger
5 17 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
6 15 (0.38%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.38%) Oracle ERP
7 11 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
7 11 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 10 (0.25%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.23%) Advent Geneva
9 9 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
10 8 (0.20%) Endur
10 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,372 (34.43%) Azure
2 978 (24.54%) AWS
3 779 (19.55%) Power Platform
4 416 (10.44%) Azure DevOps
5 342 (8.58%) Azure Data Factory
6 316 (7.93%) GCP
7 298 (7.48%) GitHub
8 275 (6.90%) Serverless
9 237 (5.95%) Amazon S3
10 236 (5.92%) Snowflake
11 231 (5.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 177 (4.44%) dbt
13 162 (4.07%) AWS Lambda
14 155 (3.89%) GitHub Actions
15 89 (2.23%) Power Automate
16 82 (2.06%) SaaS
17 77 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
18 76 (1.91%) Azure Functions
19 72 (1.81%) Entra ID
19 72 (1.81%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 47 (1.18%) Firewall
2 35 (0.88%) DNS
3 22 (0.55%) HTTP
3 22 (0.55%) Network Security
4 17 (0.43%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.38%) Internet
6 14 (0.35%) WAN
7 11 (0.28%) LAN
7 11 (0.28%) SNMP
7 11 (0.28%) SSL
8 10 (0.25%) VPN
9 8 (0.20%) DHCP
10 7 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
11 6 (0.15%) IPsec
11 6 (0.15%) VLAN
12 5 (0.13%) 5G
12 5 (0.13%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.13%) PuTTY
12 5 (0.13%) WinSCP
12 5 (0.13%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 710 (17.82%) Power BI
2 514 (12.90%) Data Warehouse
3 490 (12.30%) SQL Server
4 274 (6.88%) Tableau
5 264 (6.62%) NoSQL
5 264 (6.62%) PostgreSQL
6 253 (6.35%) Relational Database
7 252 (6.32%) Data Lake
8 214 (5.37%) Azure SQL Database
9 208 (5.22%) Metadata
10 144 (3.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 143 (3.59%) Oracle Database
12 122 (3.06%) Amazon Redshift
12 122 (3.06%) MySQL
13 120 (3.01%) BigQuery
14 114 (2.86%) Delta Lake
15 107 (2.69%) Big Data
16 101 (2.53%) Oracle Reports
17 100 (2.51%) MongoDB
18 99 (2.48%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 445 (11.17%) Git
2 330 (8.28%) JIRA
3 221 (5.55%) Jenkins
4 162 (4.07%) GitLab
5 63 (1.58%) Selenium
6 62 (1.56%) JUnit
7 51 (1.28%) Postman
8 40 (1.00%) Maven
8 40 (1.00%) Oracle APEX
9 38 (0.95%) Cucumber
10 35 (0.88%) MLflow
10 35 (0.88%) Mockito
11 29 (0.73%) REST Assured
12 27 (0.68%) Bitbucket
12 27 (0.68%) SonarQube
13 25 (0.63%) ERwin
14 24 (0.60%) JMeter
14 24 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
15 23 (0.58%) SpecFlow
16 22 (0.55%) Cypress.io
General
1 1,106 (27.75%) Social Skills
2 1,080 (27.10%) Finance
3 749 (18.80%) Analytical Skills
4 382 (9.59%) Banking
5 344 (8.63%) Public Sector
6 102 (2.56%) Front Office
7 100 (2.51%) Investment Banking
8 92 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
9 91 (2.28%) Marketing
10 63 (1.58%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 58 (1.46%) Retail
12 55 (1.38%) Legal
13 53 (1.33%) Financial Institution
14 39 (0.98%) Telecoms
15 37 (0.93%) Publishing
16 34 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
17 33 (0.83%) Presentation Skills
18 32 (0.80%) Law
19 30 (0.75%) Local Government
20 29 (0.73%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 874 (21.93%) Developer
2 799 (20.05%) Data Engineer
3 589 (14.78%) Analyst
4 496 (12.45%) Senior
5 277 (6.95%) Lead
6 248 (6.22%) Data Analyst
7 219 (5.50%) Architect
8 198 (4.97%) Business Analyst
9 181 (4.54%) Consultant
10 152 (3.81%) Java Developer
11 139 (3.49%) Senior Developer
12 123 (3.09%) Senior Data Engineer
13 118 (2.96%) Azure Engineer
14 116 (2.91%) DBA
15 108 (2.71%) Software Engineer
16 102 (2.56%) C# Developer
17 92 (2.31%) Python Developer
18 86 (2.16%) Data Architect
19 85 (2.13%) Full-Stack Developer
20 84 (2.11%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 344 (8.63%) .NET
2 314 (7.88%) REST
3 251 (6.30%) Kafka
4 248 (6.22%) PySpark
5 195 (4.89%) React
6 186 (4.67%) RESTful
7 185 (4.64%) Spring
8 171 (4.29%) Spring Boot
9 147 (3.69%) XML
10 145 (3.64%) HTML
11 126 (3.16%) JSON
12 124 (3.11%) CSS
12 124 (3.11%) Pandas
13 116 (2.91%) AngularJS
14 89 (2.23%) Node.js
15 86 (2.16%) Middleware
16 82 (2.06%) SOAP
17 80 (2.01%) .NET Framework
17 80 (2.01%) Web Services
18 73 (1.83%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 252 (6.32%) Cloud Native
2 138 (3.46%) Data Structures
3 130 (3.26%) Legacy Systems
4 124 (3.11%) Product Ownership
5 94 (2.36%) Distributed Systems
6 87 (2.18%) Management Information System
7 72 (1.81%) Derivative
8 68 (1.71%) Data Protection Act
9 65 (1.63%) Onboarding
10 62 (1.56%) Analytical Mindset
11 58 (1.46%) Equities
12 57 (1.43%) Fixed Income
13 50 (1.25%) Algorithms
14 49 (1.23%) Clustering
15 45 (1.13%) Enterprise Software
16 44 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
17 43 (1.08%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 37 (0.93%) NHS
18 37 (0.93%) Replication
19 35 (0.88%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 278 (6.98%) Linux
2 237 (5.95%) Windows
3 198 (4.97%) Unix
4 75 (1.88%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.53%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.23%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.18%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Solaris
12 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.10%) Apple iOS
14 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
15 2 (0.050%) CentOS
15 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
16 1 (0.025%) VME
16 1 (0.025%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,086 (27.25%) CI/CD
2 1,058 (26.55%) Agile
3 1,034 (25.95%) Analytics
4 992 (24.89%) Data Modelling
5 952 (23.89%) ETL
6 942 (23.64%) Business Intelligence
7 923 (23.16%) DevOps
8 846 (21.23%) Problem-Solving
9 713 (17.89%) Data Pipeline
10 635 (15.93%) Data Engineering
11 492 (12.35%) Migration
12 491 (12.32%) AI
13 486 (12.20%) Data Governance
14 479 (12.02%) Validation
15 390 (9.79%) Test Automation
16 377 (9.46%) Data Analysis
17 374 (9.39%) Decision-Making
18 361 (9.06%) Performance Tuning
19 350 (8.78%) Microservices
20 342 (8.58%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,504 (37.74%) Python
2 547 (13.73%) Java
3 425 (10.66%) C#
4 324 (8.13%) JavaScript
5 311 (7.80%) PL/SQL
6 188 (4.72%) T-SQL
7 167 (4.19%) PowerShell
8 140 (3.51%) TypeScript
9 117 (2.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 115 (2.89%) Shell Script
11 112 (2.81%) R
12 100 (2.51%) Scala
13 72 (1.81%) Bash
14 61 (1.53%) C++
15 60 (1.51%) VBA
16 44 (1.10%) Bicep
17 43 (1.08%) Perl
18 28 (0.70%) Go
19 25 (0.63%) VB
20 22 (0.55%) C
Qualifications
1 844 (21.18%) Security Cleared
2 687 (17.24%) SC Cleared
3 319 (8.01%) Degree
4 112 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
5 86 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 68 (1.71%) Azure Certification
7 53 (1.33%) ISTQB
8 52 (1.30%) Master's Degree
9 48 (1.20%) DV Cleared
10 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
11 32 (0.80%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.43%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 16 (0.40%) Oracle Certification
13 16 (0.40%) PhD
14 13 (0.33%) CBAP
15 10 (0.25%) PMP
16 9 (0.23%) DBS Check
16 9 (0.23%) PMI Certification
17 8 (0.20%) CISSP
17 8 (0.20%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 721 (18.09%) Data Quality
2 308 (7.73%) QA
3 178 (4.47%) GDPR
4 51 (1.28%) Accessibility
5 32 (0.80%) SLA
6 30 (0.75%) PMO
7 29 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 23 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 17 (0.43%) NIST
9 17 (0.43%) PCI DSS
10 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 14 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
11 14 (0.35%) MiFID
12 13 (0.33%) HIPAA
12 13 (0.33%) IFRS
13 12 (0.30%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.28%) HL7
15 10 (0.25%) SEPA
15 10 (0.25%) Solvency II
15 10 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 462 (11.59%) Docker
2 93 (2.33%) Active Directory
3 33 (0.83%) Virtual Machines
4 21 (0.53%) Oracle RAC
5 17 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
6 14 (0.35%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.20%) KVM
7 8 (0.20%) Postfix
7 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.15%) HDFS
8 6 (0.15%) RACF
9 5 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.13%) XenApp
9 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
11 2 (0.050%) GridGain
11 2 (0.050%) vSphere
12 1 (0.025%) GPFS
12 1 (0.025%) Slurm Workload Manager
12 1 (0.025%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 404 (10.14%) Kubernetes
2 328 (8.23%) Terraform
3 100 (2.51%) Grafana
4 63 (1.58%) Ansible
5 61 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 33 (0.83%) Oracle RMAN
7 22 (0.55%) Data Guard
8 20 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.38%) Kibana
9 15 (0.38%) Progress Chef
9 15 (0.38%) SCCM
10 14 (0.35%) Control-M
11 11 (0.28%) ZABBIX
12 10 (0.25%) Nagios
12 10 (0.25%) Netcool
12 10 (0.25%) OpenView
12 10 (0.25%) Tivoli
12 10 (0.25%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 9 (0.23%) Kiali
13 9 (0.23%) Puppet
Vendors
1 667 (16.74%) Oracle
2 652 (16.36%) Microsoft
3 488 (12.25%) Databricks
4 159 (3.99%) Google
5 123 (3.09%) Informatica
6 122 (3.06%) ServiceNow
7 109 (2.74%) Talend
8 102 (2.56%) SAP
9 81 (2.03%) Splunk
10 63 (1.58%) Salesforce
11 60 (1.51%) IBM
12 56 (1.41%) Denodo
13 52 (1.30%) Citrix
14 44 (1.10%) OpenAI
15 33 (0.83%) MuleSoft
16 31 (0.78%) Bloomberg
17 30 (0.75%) Dynatrace
17 30 (0.75%) VMware
18 28 (0.70%) HP
19 27 (0.68%) Atlassian