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 19 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
19 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,619 3,064 3,813
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.42% 11.83% 10.18%
As % of the Programming Languages category 34.88% 35.43% 34.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,496 2,063 2,770
10th Percentile £350 £354 £355
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £599 £625 £651
90th Percentile £713 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% -1.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 52 63
10th Percentile £21.26 £25.26 £21.66
25th Percentile £32.19 £34.12 £26.29
Median hourly rate £49.36 £55.25 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.66% +30.00% -15.00%
75th Percentile £60.30 £65.62 £53.75
90th Percentile £81.11 £79.72 £61.75
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £52.75 £42.50
% change year-on-year -5.21% +24.12% -15.84%

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 10,377 8,647 10,967
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 29.89% 33.38% 29.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,908 5,618 7,878
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.52% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £617 £650 £658
90th Percentile £725 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £532
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.36% -5.38%
Number of hourly rates quoted 438 201 474
10th Percentile £41.25 £25.26 £36.26
25th Percentile £53.31 £42.50 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £61.05
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% +3.19% -6.08%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% +3.31% -6.92%

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 19 February 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 19 February 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 19 February 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 2,184 £510 -7.27% 676
Midlands -5 394 £495 +6.45% 287
North of England -6 385 £450 -5.26% 348
West Midlands 0 308 £488 -1.52% 176
South East -16 280 £480 -4.00% 563
North West +1 219 £424 -7.49% 213
South West -2 187 £475 -5.94% 139
Yorkshire -22 145 £500 - 96
East Midlands -9 86 £525 +35.48% 110
East of England -17 79 £550 +14.88% 116
North East -7 26 £475 -1.04% 42
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
1 188 (5.19%) Apache Spark
2 142 (3.92%) Apache Airflow
3 113 (3.12%) Apache
4 107 (2.96%) Confluence
5 82 (2.27%) SharePoint
6 65 (1.80%) SAS
7 52 (1.44%) WebLogic
8 25 (0.69%) IIS
9 23 (0.64%) Microsoft Exchange
10 18 (0.50%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 17 (0.47%) CMS
11 17 (0.47%) Tomcat
12 16 (0.44%) Jupyter
12 16 (0.44%) Skype for Business
13 15 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
14 13 (0.36%) nginx
15 12 (0.33%) Appian
15 12 (0.33%) JBoss
15 12 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
16 11 (0.30%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 230 (6.36%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
3 43 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 34 (0.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.25%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.11%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 4 (0.11%) Trello
8 3 (0.083%) Notion
8 3 (0.083%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.055%) Maya
9 2 (0.055%) NUKE
10 1 (0.028%) SPSS
10 1 (0.028%) Weka
Business Applications
1 25 (0.69%) Aladdin
1 25 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
2 22 (0.61%) Dynamics CRM
2 22 (0.61%) Oracle Receivables
3 20 (0.55%) NEC Housing
3 20 (0.55%) Oracle General Ledger
4 19 (0.53%) Oracle EBS
5 15 (0.41%) Oracle Assets
6 14 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
6 14 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
7 13 (0.36%) Endur
7 13 (0.36%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
8 12 (0.33%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 11 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
10 10 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 9 (0.25%) Advent Geneva
11 9 (0.25%) Maximo
12 8 (0.22%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,221 (33.74%) Azure
2 885 (24.45%) AWS
3 685 (18.93%) Power Platform
4 342 (9.45%) Azure DevOps
5 311 (8.59%) GCP
6 284 (7.85%) Azure Data Factory
7 264 (7.29%) GitHub
8 259 (7.16%) Serverless
9 248 (6.85%) Snowflake
10 189 (5.22%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 188 (5.19%) Amazon S3
12 148 (4.09%) dbt
13 137 (3.79%) GitHub Actions
14 131 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
15 100 (2.76%) SaaS
16 81 (2.24%) Azure Functions
17 80 (2.21%) Power Automate
18 65 (1.80%) PowerApps
19 61 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
20 59 (1.63%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.33%) Firewall
2 37 (1.02%) DNS
3 25 (0.69%) HTTP
4 19 (0.53%) Network Security
4 19 (0.53%) Skype
5 17 (0.47%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.39%) Internet
7 13 (0.36%) DHCP
8 12 (0.33%) SSL
8 12 (0.33%) Unified Communications
9 10 (0.28%) 5G
9 10 (0.28%) VPN
10 9 (0.25%) 2G
10 9 (0.25%) LAN
10 9 (0.25%) WAN
11 8 (0.22%) SMS
12 7 (0.19%) 4G
12 7 (0.19%) Multicast
12 7 (0.19%) Radio Access Network
13 6 (0.17%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 622 (17.19%) Power BI
2 412 (11.38%) SQL Server
3 407 (11.25%) Data Warehouse
4 259 (7.16%) Relational Database
5 248 (6.85%) PostgreSQL
6 245 (6.77%) NoSQL
7 229 (6.33%) Tableau
8 227 (6.27%) Data Lake
9 179 (4.95%) Azure SQL Database
10 158 (4.37%) Metadata
11 149 (4.12%) Oracle Database
12 129 (3.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 112 (3.09%) BigQuery
14 110 (3.04%) Big Data
15 106 (2.93%) MySQL
16 100 (2.76%) MongoDB
17 94 (2.60%) Delta Lake
18 86 (2.38%) Amazon RDS
19 85 (2.35%) Amazon Redshift
20 74 (2.04%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 396 (10.94%) Git
2 283 (7.82%) JIRA
3 171 (4.73%) Jenkins
4 134 (3.70%) GitLab
5 56 (1.55%) JUnit
5 56 (1.55%) Selenium
6 43 (1.19%) Oracle APEX
7 40 (1.11%) Postman
8 35 (0.97%) Cucumber
9 29 (0.80%) MLflow
10 28 (0.77%) REST Assured
11 27 (0.75%) Bitbucket
12 26 (0.72%) Maven
13 24 (0.66%) ERwin
14 23 (0.64%) Mockito
15 22 (0.61%) Visual Studio
16 21 (0.58%) Cypress.io
16 21 (0.58%) SpecFlow
17 18 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
18 17 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,116 (30.84%) Social Skills
2 1,021 (28.21%) Finance
3 662 (18.29%) Analytical Skills
4 381 (10.53%) Banking
5 300 (8.29%) Public Sector
6 108 (2.98%) Investment Banking
7 97 (2.68%) Front Office
8 96 (2.65%) Documentation Skills
9 86 (2.38%) Marketing
10 62 (1.71%) Retail
11 61 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 56 (1.55%) Financial Institution
13 40 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
14 36 (0.99%) Legal
15 35 (0.97%) Publishing
16 34 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
16 34 (0.94%) Telecoms
17 33 (0.91%) Manufacturing
18 30 (0.83%) Law
19 29 (0.80%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 893 (24.68%) Developer
2 610 (16.86%) Data Engineer
3 568 (15.69%) Analyst
4 479 (13.24%) Senior
5 251 (6.94%) Lead
6 235 (6.49%) Data Analyst
7 199 (5.50%) Business Analyst
8 181 (5.00%) Architect
9 147 (4.06%) Senior Developer
10 132 (3.65%) Java Developer
11 120 (3.32%) Consultant
12 112 (3.09%) Azure Engineer
13 106 (2.93%) Software Engineer
14 94 (2.60%) Data Scientist
14 94 (2.60%) Senior Data Engineer
15 89 (2.46%) Python Developer
16 84 (2.32%) Full-Stack Developer
17 82 (2.27%) C# Developer
18 74 (2.04%) Azure Data Engineer
19 72 (1.99%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 325 (8.98%) .NET
2 287 (7.93%) REST
3 233 (6.44%) Kafka
4 217 (6.00%) PySpark
5 170 (4.70%) React
6 165 (4.56%) RESTful
7 152 (4.20%) Spring
8 136 (3.76%) HTML
8 136 (3.76%) Spring Boot
9 133 (3.68%) XML
10 119 (3.29%) CSS
11 106 (2.93%) JSON
12 100 (2.76%) Pandas
13 95 (2.63%) AngularJS
14 91 (2.51%) Node.js
15 86 (2.38%) SOAP
16 78 (2.16%) .NET Framework
17 75 (2.07%) Middleware
18 71 (1.96%) Web Services
19 69 (1.91%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 214 (5.91%) Cloud Native
2 119 (3.29%) Data Structures
3 106 (2.93%) Legacy Systems
4 101 (2.79%) Product Ownership
5 81 (2.24%) Data Protection Act
6 80 (2.21%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.02%) Analytical Mindset
8 66 (1.82%) Derivative
9 64 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
10 63 (1.74%) Algorithms
11 57 (1.58%) Equities
12 52 (1.44%) Fixed Income
13 50 (1.38%) Onboarding
14 49 (1.35%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 41 (1.13%) Replication
16 37 (1.02%) Market Risk
17 36 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
18 35 (0.97%) Clustering
19 33 (0.91%) Credit Risk
19 33 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 295 (8.15%) Linux
2 210 (5.80%) Windows
3 191 (5.28%) Unix
4 66 (1.82%) Windows Server
5 16 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 14 (0.39%) Windows Server 2016
6 14 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (0.30%) AIX
7 11 (0.30%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.28%) Android
8 10 (0.28%) VMS
9 9 (0.25%) Apple iOS
10 6 (0.17%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.11%) Amazon Linux
13 3 (0.083%) CentOS
13 3 (0.083%) zOS
14 2 (0.055%) Solaris
14 2 (0.055%) Windows Server 2008
15 1 (0.028%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 973 (26.89%) Agile
2 899 (24.84%) Analytics
3 886 (24.48%) CI/CD
4 835 (23.07%) Problem-Solving
5 821 (22.69%) Business Intelligence
6 801 (22.13%) Data Modelling
7 787 (21.75%) DevOps
8 751 (20.75%) ETL
9 545 (15.06%) Data Pipeline
10 513 (14.18%) Data Engineering
11 416 (11.49%) Migration
12 399 (11.03%) Data Governance
13 393 (10.86%) AI
14 381 (10.53%) Validation
15 360 (9.95%) Data Analysis
16 350 (9.67%) Visualisation
17 344 (9.51%) Data Science
18 316 (8.73%) Decision-Making
18 316 (8.73%) Stakeholder Management
19 312 (8.62%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 1,365 (37.72%) Python
2 540 (14.92%) Java
3 384 (10.61%) C#
4 312 (8.62%) JavaScript
5 272 (7.52%) PL/SQL
6 146 (4.03%) PowerShell
7 135 (3.73%) TypeScript
8 119 (3.29%) T-SQL
9 104 (2.87%) Shell Script
10 103 (2.85%) R
11 93 (2.57%) Scala
12 87 (2.40%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 79 (2.18%) C++
14 68 (1.88%) VBA
15 60 (1.66%) Bash
16 53 (1.46%) VB
17 47 (1.30%) Perl
18 43 (1.19%) Go
19 41 (1.13%) Bicep
20 28 (0.77%) PHP
Qualifications
1 633 (17.49%) Security Cleared
2 493 (13.62%) SC Cleared
3 345 (9.53%) Degree
4 114 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 77 (2.13%) Azure Certification
6 76 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
7 61 (1.69%) Master's Degree
8 57 (1.58%) DV Cleared
9 53 (1.46%) AWS Certification
10 46 (1.27%) Microsoft Certification
11 39 (1.08%) ISTQB
12 21 (0.58%) Oracle Certification
13 19 (0.53%) CBAP
13 19 (0.53%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 16 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
15 12 (0.33%) Cisco Certification
15 12 (0.33%) MCSE
16 11 (0.30%) CCNA
16 11 (0.30%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.28%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 583 (16.11%) Data Quality
2 265 (7.32%) QA
3 145 (4.01%) GDPR
4 55 (1.52%) Accessibility
5 27 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 26 (0.72%) SLA
7 20 (0.55%) MiFID
7 20 (0.55%) PMO
8 18 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
9 16 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 14 (0.39%) EMIR
10 14 (0.39%) HIPAA
10 14 (0.39%) PCI DSS
10 14 (0.39%) SEPA
11 12 (0.33%) IFRS
11 12 (0.33%) ISO 20022
11 12 (0.33%) NIST
11 12 (0.33%) WCAG
12 11 (0.30%) PSD2
13 8 (0.22%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 415 (11.47%) Docker
2 95 (2.63%) Active Directory
3 28 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
4 17 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
5 13 (0.36%) Hyper-V
6 7 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.17%) KVM
7 6 (0.17%) zsh
8 5 (0.14%) HDFS
8 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 5 (0.14%) Postfix
8 5 (0.14%) RACF
8 5 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.14%) XenApp
8 5 (0.14%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.11%) DFS Replication
9 4 (0.11%) Dovecot
9 4 (0.11%) Squid
9 4 (0.11%) VMware ESXi
Systems Management
1 370 (10.22%) Kubernetes
2 275 (7.60%) Terraform
3 79 (2.18%) Grafana
4 63 (1.74%) Prometheus
5 55 (1.52%) Ansible
6 21 (0.58%) SCCM
6 21 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
8 17 (0.47%) Control-M
8 17 (0.47%) Progress Chef
8 17 (0.47%) SCOM
9 16 (0.44%) Data Guard
10 15 (0.41%) HP SiteScope
11 14 (0.39%) Kibana
11 14 (0.39%) Puppet
12 12 (0.33%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 11 (0.30%) WSUS
14 8 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.22%) ITRS Geneos
14 8 (0.22%) Kiali
Vendors
1 603 (16.66%) Oracle
2 590 (16.30%) Microsoft
3 432 (11.94%) Databricks
4 148 (4.09%) Google
5 99 (2.74%) SAP
6 83 (2.29%) ServiceNow
7 80 (2.21%) Splunk
8 78 (2.16%) Informatica
9 74 (2.04%) Talend
10 65 (1.80%) Salesforce
11 51 (1.41%) IBM
12 47 (1.30%) OpenAI
13 44 (1.22%) Citrix
14 40 (1.11%) MuleSoft
15 32 (0.88%) Bloomberg
15 32 (0.88%) VMware
16 26 (0.72%) Denodo
16 26 (0.72%) Foundry
17 23 (0.64%) Dynatrace
17 23 (0.64%) NEC