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 8 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 13 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,521 3,283 3,505
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.88% 11.89% 10.51%
As % of the Programming Languages category 37.41% 36.25% 33.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,036 2,332 2,636
10th Percentile £355 £340 £350
25th Percentile £413 £405 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% -0.93%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 60 42
10th Percentile £23.23 £22.40 £24.20
25th Percentile £32.80 £29.07 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £37.25 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.81% -10.24% -9.55%
75th Percentile £70.00 £50.00 £56.56
90th Percentile £82.25 £63.75 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £38.85 £40.58
% change year-on-year +14.56% -4.27% -11.79%

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 12,084 9,056 10,554
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.40% 32.80% 31.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,826 6,227 7,560
10th Percentile £363 £347 £356
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £515 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.60% -6.36% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £655
90th Percentile £738 £763 £788
UK median daily rate £513 £503 £530
% change year-on-year +1.99% -5.19% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 500 234 361
10th Percentile £33.43 £29.07 £30.00
25th Percentile £52.88 £38.33 £51.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £84.85 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £65.00
% change year-on-year +14.54% -12.69% +8.33%

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 8 August 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 8 August 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 8 August 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 2,465 £525 -0.94% 1,455
North of England -3 594 £464 -1.12% 440
Midlands 0 543 £459 +2.91% 240
South East -9 476 £490 -2.00% 479
West Midlands +4 443 £459 +1.66% 128
North West -4 312 £475 +1.28% 236
Yorkshire -2 244 £474 -0.21% 138
South West -6 223 £500 +17.65% 184
East of England -2 118 £475 -5.00% 120
East Midlands -3 96 £463 +23.33% 112
North East -17 49 £413 -10.81% 76
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
1 205 (4.53%) Apache Airflow
2 197 (4.36%) Apache Spark
3 185 (4.09%) Confluence
4 151 (3.34%) Apache
5 97 (2.15%) SAS
6 64 (1.42%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.84%) Oracle Workflow
7 38 (0.84%) WebLogic
8 32 (0.71%) IIS
9 26 (0.58%) Jupyter
10 21 (0.46%) Palantir Foundry
11 20 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
12 18 (0.40%) CMS
12 18 (0.40%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.40%) WebSphere
13 17 (0.38%) nginx
14 12 (0.27%) Tuxedo
15 11 (0.24%) Camunda
16 8 (0.18%) Apache Superset
16 8 (0.18%) Appian
Applications
1 302 (6.68%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
3 39 (0.86%) MS Visio
4 37 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
5 25 (0.55%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.22%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.11%) Notepad++
8 4 (0.088%) Acrobat
8 4 (0.088%) Notion
8 4 (0.088%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.066%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.066%) Microsoft Project
9 3 (0.066%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.022%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.022%) InDesign
10 1 (0.022%) Mingle
10 1 (0.022%) Weka
Business Applications
1 44 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 42 (0.93%) Oracle EBS
3 28 (0.62%) Aladdin
4 27 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
5 26 (0.58%) Oracle ERP
6 23 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 23 (0.51%) SAP S/4HANA
7 18 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
8 16 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
9 13 (0.29%) NEC Housing
9 13 (0.29%) Oracle General Ledger
10 11 (0.24%) Findur
10 11 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
10 11 (0.24%) Siebel CRM
11 10 (0.22%) Finacle
12 8 (0.18%) Elite 3E
12 8 (0.18%) Fidessa
12 8 (0.18%) Unit4 Business World
13 7 (0.15%) Oracle Financials
13 7 (0.15%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 1,430 (31.63%) Azure
2 1,064 (23.53%) AWS
3 877 (19.40%) Power Platform
4 415 (9.18%) Azure DevOps
5 396 (8.76%) GCP
6 324 (7.17%) Azure Data Factory
7 323 (7.14%) GitHub
8 306 (6.77%) Snowflake
9 275 (6.08%) Serverless
10 260 (5.75%) dbt
11 229 (5.07%) Amazon S3
12 204 (4.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 179 (3.96%) AWS Lambda
14 163 (3.61%) GitHub Actions
15 92 (2.03%) Entra ID
16 91 (2.01%) Power Automate
17 87 (1.92%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 84 (1.86%) SaaS
19 80 (1.77%) PowerApps
20 69 (1.53%) Amazon EC2
Communications & Networking
1 57 (1.26%) DNS
2 45 (1.00%) Firewall
3 25 (0.55%) Network Security
4 24 (0.53%) VPN
5 23 (0.51%) SSL
6 21 (0.46%) HTTP
6 21 (0.46%) SNMP
7 20 (0.44%) Internet
8 19 (0.42%) TCP/IP
9 12 (0.27%) DHCP
9 12 (0.27%) WAN
10 10 (0.22%) Wireshark
11 9 (0.20%) Broadband
11 9 (0.20%) Wi-Fi
12 8 (0.18%) 3GPP
12 8 (0.18%) SAN
12 8 (0.18%) WinSCP
13 7 (0.15%) LAN
13 7 (0.15%) Multicast
13 7 (0.15%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 809 (17.89%) Power BI
2 641 (14.18%) Data Warehouse
3 575 (12.72%) SQL Server
4 288 (6.37%) Tableau
5 276 (6.10%) Relational Database
6 271 (5.99%) PostgreSQL
7 269 (5.95%) Data Lake
8 228 (5.04%) NoSQL
9 225 (4.98%) Metadata
10 186 (4.11%) Oracle Database
11 177 (3.92%) Azure SQL Database
12 165 (3.65%) BigQuery
13 152 (3.36%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 139 (3.07%) Amazon Redshift
15 125 (2.76%) Delta Lake
16 104 (2.30%) Oracle Reports
17 101 (2.23%) Big Data
18 99 (2.19%) MySQL
19 94 (2.08%) Snowflake Schema
20 90 (1.99%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 521 (11.52%) Git
2 355 (7.85%) JIRA
3 258 (5.71%) Jenkins
4 200 (4.42%) GitLab
5 72 (1.59%) JUnit
6 61 (1.35%) Maven
7 58 (1.28%) Selenium
8 57 (1.26%) Gradle
9 56 (1.24%) Postman
10 49 (1.08%) Mockito
11 38 (0.84%) SonarQube
12 36 (0.80%) Bitbucket
13 33 (0.73%) Oracle Forms
14 31 (0.69%) Zephyr
15 29 (0.64%) ERwin
15 29 (0.64%) Visual Studio
16 28 (0.62%) Liquibase
17 26 (0.58%) JMeter
17 26 (0.58%) MLflow
17 26 (0.58%) TeamCity
General
1 1,198 (26.50%) Social Skills
2 1,161 (25.68%) Finance
3 925 (20.46%) Analytical Skills
4 442 (9.78%) Banking
5 409 (9.05%) Public Sector
6 141 (3.12%) Marketing
7 127 (2.81%) Front Office
8 117 (2.59%) Retail
9 102 (2.26%) Investment Banking
10 84 (1.86%) Documentation Skills
11 79 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 71 (1.57%) Manufacturing
13 55 (1.22%) Financial Institution
14 54 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
15 48 (1.06%) Legal
16 46 (1.02%) Organisational Skills
17 42 (0.93%) Telecoms
18 39 (0.86%) Publishing
19 38 (0.84%) Back Office
20 32 (0.71%) Law
Job Titles
1 958 (21.19%) Developer
2 896 (19.82%) Data Engineer
3 656 (14.51%) Analyst
4 600 (13.27%) Senior
5 311 (6.88%) Lead
6 275 (6.08%) Data Analyst
7 234 (5.18%) Architect
8 225 (4.98%) Consultant
9 195 (4.31%) Business Analyst
10 183 (4.05%) DBA
11 173 (3.83%) Senior Data Engineer
12 169 (3.74%) Java Developer
13 150 (3.32%) Senior Developer
14 129 (2.85%) Software Engineer
15 120 (2.65%) SQL DBA
16 112 (2.48%) SQL Developer
17 105 (2.32%) Azure Engineer
18 96 (2.12%) C# Developer
19 93 (2.06%) Full-Stack Developer
19 93 (2.06%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 377 (8.34%) REST
2 374 (8.27%) .NET
3 283 (6.26%) PySpark
4 271 (5.99%) Kafka
5 224 (4.95%) Spring
6 201 (4.45%) Spring Boot
7 199 (4.40%) React
8 181 (4.00%) RESTful
9 168 (3.72%) JSON
10 158 (3.49%) XML
11 152 (3.36%) HTML
12 130 (2.88%) AngularJS
13 128 (2.83%) CSS
14 110 (2.43%) Pandas
15 100 (2.21%) Web Services
16 99 (2.19%) SOAP
17 93 (2.06%) Middleware
18 91 (2.01%) .NET Framework
19 74 (1.64%) Node.js
20 70 (1.55%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 296 (6.55%) Cloud Native
2 205 (4.53%) Data Structures
3 171 (3.78%) Product Ownership
4 153 (3.38%) Legacy Systems
5 129 (2.85%) Distributed Systems
6 99 (2.19%) Onboarding
7 92 (2.03%) Enterprise Software
8 82 (1.81%) Derivative
8 82 (1.81%) Management Information System
9 79 (1.75%) Self-Motivation
10 71 (1.57%) Analytical Mindset
11 66 (1.46%) Clustering
12 64 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
13 63 (1.39%) Replication
14 53 (1.17%) Algorithms
15 52 (1.15%) Fixed Income
16 49 (1.08%) Reference Data
17 48 (1.06%) Equities
17 48 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
18 46 (1.02%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 307 (6.79%) Linux
2 279 (6.17%) Windows
3 203 (4.49%) Unix
4 106 (2.34%) Windows Server
5 25 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 21 (0.46%) AIX
7 16 (0.35%) Solaris
8 14 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
9 12 (0.27%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (0.18%) VMS
11 7 (0.15%) Ubuntu
11 7 (0.15%) Windows 10
11 7 (0.15%) zOS
12 6 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
12 6 (0.13%) Windows Server 2016
13 5 (0.11%) Android
13 5 (0.11%) Apple iOS
14 4 (0.088%) Oracle Linux
15 3 (0.066%) OpenVMS
16 2 (0.044%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,213 (26.83%) CI/CD
2 1,174 (25.97%) Analytics
3 1,168 (25.83%) Agile
4 1,157 (25.59%) Data Modelling
5 1,045 (23.11%) ETL
6 1,033 (22.85%) Business Intelligence
7 921 (20.37%) DevOps
8 881 (19.49%) Data Pipeline
8 881 (19.49%) Problem-Solving
9 768 (16.99%) Data Engineering
10 654 (14.47%) AI
11 631 (13.96%) Migration
12 613 (13.56%) Validation
13 496 (10.97%) Stakeholder Management
14 495 (10.95%) Data Governance
15 479 (10.60%) Decision-Making
16 473 (10.46%) Test Automation
17 470 (10.40%) Continuous Improvement
18 441 (9.75%) Data Analysis
19 392 (8.67%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 1,611 (35.63%) Python
2 555 (12.28%) Java
3 446 (9.87%) C#
4 362 (8.01%) PL/SQL
5 336 (7.43%) JavaScript
6 247 (5.46%) PowerShell
7 241 (5.33%) T-SQL
8 165 (3.65%) TypeScript
9 145 (3.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 129 (2.85%) Shell Script
11 105 (2.32%) Bash
12 87 (1.92%) R
13 68 (1.50%) Scala
14 44 (0.97%) C++
14 44 (0.97%) VBA
15 40 (0.88%) Bicep
16 30 (0.66%) C
17 27 (0.60%) VB
18 21 (0.46%) Go
18 21 (0.46%) Perl
Qualifications
1 1,008 (22.30%) Security Cleared
2 807 (17.85%) SC Cleared
3 323 (7.14%) Degree
4 113 (2.50%) Computer Science Degree
5 104 (2.30%) DV Cleared
6 102 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 71 (1.57%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.19%) ISTQB
9 44 (0.97%) Master's Degree
10 42 (0.93%) Microsoft Certification
11 32 (0.71%) AWS Certification
12 19 (0.42%) CISSP
13 17 (0.38%) DBS Check
14 15 (0.33%) PhD
15 12 (0.27%) FFIEC
15 12 (0.27%) ISEB
15 12 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
16 10 (0.22%) ACCA
16 10 (0.22%) CIMA
17 9 (0.20%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 841 (18.60%) Data Quality
2 338 (7.48%) QA
3 156 (3.45%) GDPR
4 46 (1.02%) Accessibility
5 43 (0.95%) SLA
6 24 (0.53%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 23 (0.51%) NIST
8 22 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 21 (0.46%) PMO
10 19 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 16 (0.35%) IFRS
11 16 (0.35%) ISO 20022
11 16 (0.35%) Solvency II
12 15 (0.33%) MiFID
13 13 (0.29%) COBIT
13 13 (0.29%) PCI DSS
14 12 (0.27%) HIPAA
15 10 (0.22%) California Consumer Privacy Act
16 9 (0.20%) HL7
16 9 (0.20%) WCAG
System Software
1 453 (10.02%) Docker
2 126 (2.79%) Active Directory
3 47 (1.04%) VMware Infrastructure
4 44 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
5 37 (0.82%) Oracle RAC
6 17 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.29%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.29%) vCloud
9 9 (0.20%) Postfix
9 9 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (0.15%) KVM
11 4 (0.088%) HDFS
12 2 (0.044%) Apache ZooKeeper
12 2 (0.044%) GridGain
13 1 (0.022%) GPFS
13 1 (0.022%) Varnish
13 1 (0.022%) vSphere
13 1 (0.022%) XenApp
13 1 (0.022%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 392 (8.67%) Kubernetes
2 359 (7.94%) Terraform
3 90 (1.99%) Ansible
3 90 (1.99%) Grafana
4 46 (1.02%) Prometheus
5 44 (0.97%) Oracle RMAN
6 39 (0.86%) Data Guard
7 31 (0.69%) Control-M
8 28 (0.62%) SCOM
9 18 (0.40%) Kibana
10 17 (0.38%) vCenter Server
11 16 (0.35%) Nagios
11 16 (0.35%) ZABBIX
12 15 (0.33%) Tivoli
13 14 (0.31%) Netcool
14 13 (0.29%) OpenView
14 13 (0.29%) Tivoli Monitoring
15 11 (0.24%) Microsoft Clustering
16 10 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
17 9 (0.20%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
Vendors
1 768 (16.99%) Oracle
2 736 (16.28%) Microsoft
3 524 (11.59%) Databricks
4 176 (3.89%) Google
5 154 (3.41%) Informatica
6 124 (2.74%) Talend
7 123 (2.72%) SAP
8 122 (2.70%) ServiceNow
9 82 (1.81%) Splunk
10 80 (1.77%) IBM
11 66 (1.46%) Denodo
12 64 (1.42%) VMware
13 56 (1.24%) Salesforce
14 40 (0.88%) BMC
14 40 (0.88%) Citrix
15 38 (0.84%) Bloomberg
15 38 (0.84%) Dynatrace
16 34 (0.75%) Murex
17 33 (0.73%) Alteryx
18 32 (0.71%) Adobe