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 1 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 13 12
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,331 3,135 3,781
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.88% 12.23% 10.18%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.96% 36.25% 33.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,896 2,237 2,782
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -0.46%
75th Percentile £600 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £763 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 75 63 54
10th Percentile £26.50 £23.09 £23.13
25th Percentile £31.86 £30.75 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £42.82 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.10% +0.74% -15.00%
75th Percentile £69.72 £51.88 £51.87
90th Percentile £82.70 £67.20 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £44.75 £41.66 £42.50
% change year-on-year +7.42% -1.98% -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 11,717 8,649 11,405
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.73% 33.74% 30.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,622 5,974 8,150
10th Percentile £360 £354 £350
25th Percentile £424 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £518 £520 £543
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% -4.15% -2.25%
75th Percentile £614 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £510 £510 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 511 213 484
10th Percentile £35.25 £28.18 £35.60
25th Percentile £55.25 £36.25 £50.47
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £64.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -12.02% +3.20%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.75 £82.37 £75.88
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +18.18% -12.00% -

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 1 July 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 1 July 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 1 July 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 -5 2,326 £525 -1.87% 1,109
North of England -6 569 £463 -2.63% 431
Midlands +3 547 £460 +8.24% 263
West Midlands +5 449 £459 +2.00% 134
South East -10 440 £483 -3.50% 495
North West -1 301 £466 -1.95% 254
South West -4 231 £500 +7.53% 159
Yorkshire -9 230 £475 - 115
East of England -11 108 £495 +1.54% 126
East Midlands 0 94 £525 +38.16% 129
North East -10 50 £419 -9.70% 66
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
1 211 (4.87%) Apache Spark
2 180 (4.16%) Apache Airflow
3 174 (4.02%) Confluence
4 144 (3.32%) Apache
5 93 (2.15%) SAS
6 53 (1.22%) SharePoint
7 34 (0.79%) WebLogic
8 33 (0.76%) IIS
8 33 (0.76%) Oracle Workflow
9 24 (0.55%) Tomcat
10 22 (0.51%) Jupyter
11 19 (0.44%) CMS
12 18 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
12 18 (0.42%) Palantir Foundry
12 18 (0.42%) WebSphere
13 16 (0.37%) Appian
13 16 (0.37%) nginx
14 13 (0.30%) Tuxedo
15 12 (0.28%) Camunda
16 9 (0.21%) Oracle Self-Service HR
Applications
1 273 (6.30%) Microsoft Excel
2 55 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (0.92%) MS Visio
4 34 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.67%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
8 4 (0.092%) Acrobat
8 4 (0.092%) Microsoft Project
8 4 (0.092%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.069%) Notion
9 3 (0.069%) Oracle Smart View
10 1 (0.023%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.023%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.023%) InDesign
10 1 (0.023%) Mingle
10 1 (0.023%) Trello
10 1 (0.023%) Weka
Business Applications
1 38 (0.88%) Dynamics CRM
2 34 (0.79%) Oracle EBS
3 25 (0.58%) Aladdin
4 23 (0.53%) Oracle ERP
4 23 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
5 20 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
6 18 (0.42%) NEC Housing
7 16 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
8 15 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
9 13 (0.30%) Oracle Receivables
10 11 (0.25%) Findur
10 11 (0.25%) Siebel CRM
11 10 (0.23%) Finacle
12 9 (0.21%) Elite 3E
12 9 (0.21%) Fidessa
12 9 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
12 9 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
13 8 (0.18%) Oracle Cash Management
13 8 (0.18%) Oracle General Ledger
13 8 (0.18%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 1,391 (32.12%) Azure
2 1,046 (24.15%) AWS
3 818 (18.89%) Power Platform
4 405 (9.35%) Azure DevOps
5 349 (8.06%) GCP
6 319 (7.37%) Azure Data Factory
7 312 (7.20%) GitHub
8 275 (6.35%) Serverless
9 264 (6.10%) Snowflake
10 244 (5.63%) Amazon S3
11 224 (5.17%) dbt
12 206 (4.76%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 173 (3.99%) AWS Lambda
14 163 (3.76%) GitHub Actions
15 79 (1.82%) Entra ID
16 78 (1.80%) Power Automate
17 77 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 75 (1.73%) SaaS
19 72 (1.66%) Amazon EC2
20 69 (1.59%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 43 (0.99%) DNS
2 40 (0.92%) Firewall
3 21 (0.48%) Network Security
3 21 (0.48%) SNMP
4 19 (0.44%) HTTP
4 19 (0.44%) Internet
4 19 (0.44%) SSL
5 18 (0.42%) VPN
6 14 (0.32%) WAN
7 10 (0.23%) TCP/IP
8 9 (0.21%) Wi-Fi
8 9 (0.21%) Wireshark
9 8 (0.18%) 3GPP
10 7 (0.16%) Kerberos
10 7 (0.16%) LAN
10 7 (0.16%) SAN
10 7 (0.16%) WinSCP
11 6 (0.14%) BGP
11 6 (0.14%) Reverse Proxy
11 6 (0.14%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 753 (17.39%) Power BI
2 577 (13.32%) Data Warehouse
3 555 (12.81%) SQL Server
4 289 (6.67%) Relational Database
4 289 (6.67%) Tableau
5 276 (6.37%) Data Lake
5 276 (6.37%) PostgreSQL
6 221 (5.10%) NoSQL
7 198 (4.57%) Metadata
8 179 (4.13%) Azure SQL Database
9 168 (3.88%) Oracle Database
10 150 (3.46%) SQL Server Integration Services
11 144 (3.32%) BigQuery
12 134 (3.09%) Amazon Redshift
13 127 (2.93%) Delta Lake
14 107 (2.47%) MySQL
15 103 (2.38%) Big Data
16 99 (2.29%) Oracle Reports
17 98 (2.26%) Snowflake Schema
18 88 (2.03%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 464 (10.71%) Git
2 344 (7.94%) JIRA
3 235 (5.43%) Jenkins
4 188 (4.34%) GitLab
5 69 (1.59%) JUnit
6 53 (1.22%) Postman
7 51 (1.18%) Maven
8 50 (1.15%) Selenium
9 49 (1.13%) Mockito
10 45 (1.04%) Gradle
11 33 (0.76%) SonarQube
12 32 (0.74%) Cucumber
13 30 (0.69%) MLflow
14 29 (0.67%) Visual Studio
15 27 (0.62%) Bitbucket
15 27 (0.62%) ERwin
15 27 (0.62%) JMeter
15 27 (0.62%) Oracle Forms
16 26 (0.60%) Liquibase
16 26 (0.60%) Zephyr
General
1 1,151 (26.58%) Finance
2 1,124 (25.95%) Social Skills
3 828 (19.12%) Analytical Skills
4 421 (9.72%) Banking
5 371 (8.57%) Public Sector
6 123 (2.84%) Front Office
7 122 (2.82%) Marketing
8 104 (2.40%) Investment Banking
9 99 (2.29%) Retail
10 88 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
11 75 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 54 (1.25%) Financial Institution
12 54 (1.25%) Legal
13 53 (1.22%) Manufacturing
14 49 (1.13%) Presentation Skills
15 37 (0.85%) Publishing
16 36 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
17 35 (0.81%) Back Office
18 34 (0.79%) Telecoms
19 27 (0.62%) Law
Job Titles
1 912 (21.06%) Developer
2 876 (20.23%) Data Engineer
3 621 (14.34%) Analyst
4 562 (12.98%) Senior
5 301 (6.95%) Lead
6 263 (6.07%) Data Analyst
7 236 (5.45%) Architect
8 204 (4.71%) Consultant
9 185 (4.27%) Business Analyst
10 174 (4.02%) Java Developer
11 164 (3.79%) Senior Data Engineer
12 147 (3.39%) DBA
13 133 (3.07%) Senior Developer
13 133 (3.07%) Software Engineer
14 107 (2.47%) Azure Engineer
15 103 (2.38%) SQL Developer
16 102 (2.36%) C# Developer
17 91 (2.10%) SQL DBA
18 88 (2.03%) Python Developer
19 84 (1.94%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 362 (8.36%) .NET
2 339 (7.83%) REST
3 265 (6.12%) Kafka
4 263 (6.07%) PySpark
5 222 (5.13%) Spring
6 208 (4.80%) Spring Boot
7 204 (4.71%) React
8 185 (4.27%) RESTful
9 155 (3.58%) JSON
10 150 (3.46%) XML
11 138 (3.19%) HTML
12 125 (2.89%) CSS
13 120 (2.77%) AngularJS
14 111 (2.56%) Pandas
15 102 (2.36%) SOAP
16 101 (2.33%) Web Services
17 98 (2.26%) Middleware
18 88 (2.03%) .NET Framework
19 70 (1.62%) OAuth
20 68 (1.57%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 279 (6.44%) Cloud Native
2 173 (3.99%) Data Structures
3 151 (3.49%) Legacy Systems
4 142 (3.28%) Product Ownership
5 126 (2.91%) Distributed Systems
6 82 (1.89%) Derivative
7 81 (1.87%) Onboarding
8 74 (1.71%) Management Information System
9 72 (1.66%) Enterprise Software
10 71 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
11 64 (1.48%) Self-Motivation
12 63 (1.45%) Data Protection Act
13 60 (1.39%) Clustering
14 53 (1.22%) Algorithms
14 53 (1.22%) Equities
15 51 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
16 49 (1.13%) Fixed Income
16 49 (1.13%) Replication
17 41 (0.95%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 41 (0.95%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 286 (6.60%) Linux
2 263 (6.07%) Windows
3 206 (4.76%) Unix
4 94 (2.17%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.55%) AIX
6 21 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.32%) Solaris
8 13 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
9 8 (0.18%) zOS
10 7 (0.16%) Android
10 7 (0.16%) Apple iOS
10 7 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
11 6 (0.14%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.092%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.092%) Ubuntu
12 4 (0.092%) VMS
13 3 (0.069%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.046%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.046%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,188 (27.43%) CI/CD
2 1,109 (25.61%) Analytics
3 1,101 (25.42%) Agile
4 1,047 (24.17%) Data Modelling
5 1,005 (23.20%) ETL
6 955 (22.05%) Business Intelligence
7 896 (20.69%) DevOps
8 857 (19.79%) Problem-Solving
9 816 (18.84%) Data Pipeline
10 716 (16.53%) Data Engineering
11 627 (14.48%) AI
12 577 (13.32%) Migration
13 557 (12.86%) Validation
14 451 (10.41%) Data Governance
15 449 (10.37%) Test Automation
16 442 (10.21%) Decision-Making
17 429 (9.91%) Data Analysis
18 412 (9.51%) Continuous Improvement
19 410 (9.47%) Stakeholder Management
20 381 (8.80%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 1,568 (36.20%) Python
2 546 (12.61%) Java
3 444 (10.25%) C#
4 325 (7.50%) PL/SQL
5 303 (7.00%) JavaScript
6 240 (5.54%) T-SQL
7 226 (5.22%) PowerShell
8 163 (3.76%) TypeScript
9 133 (3.07%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 112 (2.59%) Shell Script
11 95 (2.19%) R
12 84 (1.94%) Bash
13 74 (1.71%) Scala
14 54 (1.25%) C++
15 42 (0.97%) VBA
16 36 (0.83%) Bicep
17 35 (0.81%) C
18 32 (0.74%) VB
19 24 (0.55%) Go
20 21 (0.48%) Perl
Qualifications
1 903 (20.85%) Security Cleared
2 727 (16.79%) SC Cleared
3 334 (7.71%) Degree
4 107 (2.47%) Computer Science Degree
5 98 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
6 90 (2.08%) DV Cleared
7 68 (1.57%) Azure Certification
8 51 (1.18%) Master's Degree
9 48 (1.11%) ISTQB
10 41 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
11 31 (0.72%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.39%) DBS Check
12 17 (0.39%) PhD
13 14 (0.32%) CISSP
14 10 (0.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.23%) TOGAF Certification
15 9 (0.21%) ACCA
15 9 (0.21%) CIMA
15 9 (0.21%) CISM
16 8 (0.18%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 767 (17.71%) Data Quality
2 328 (7.57%) QA
3 172 (3.97%) GDPR
4 44 (1.02%) Accessibility
5 40 (0.92%) SLA
6 23 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 22 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 21 (0.48%) PMO
9 20 (0.46%) NIST
10 16 (0.37%) IFRS
10 16 (0.37%) Solvency II
11 15 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 15 (0.35%) MiFID
12 14 (0.32%) HIPAA
13 13 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.30%) ISO 20022
13 13 (0.30%) PCI DSS
14 10 (0.23%) HL7
15 9 (0.21%) GRC
15 9 (0.21%) NCSC
System Software
1 457 (10.55%) Docker
2 99 (2.29%) Active Directory
3 45 (1.04%) Virtual Machines
4 29 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
5 22 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
6 17 (0.39%) VMware ESXi
7 14 (0.32%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.30%) VMware NSX
9 12 (0.28%) vCloud
10 10 (0.23%) KVM
11 9 (0.21%) Postfix
12 7 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.12%) RACF
14 4 (0.092%) HDFS
15 2 (0.046%) Apache ZooKeeper
15 2 (0.046%) GridGain
15 2 (0.046%) XenApp
15 2 (0.046%) XenDesktop
16 1 (0.023%) Varnish
16 1 (0.023%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 380 (8.77%) Kubernetes
2 353 (8.15%) Terraform
3 99 (2.29%) Grafana
4 81 (1.87%) Ansible
5 54 (1.25%) Prometheus
6 33 (0.76%) Oracle RMAN
7 24 (0.55%) Data Guard
8 22 (0.51%) Kibana
9 21 (0.48%) Control-M
10 19 (0.44%) vCenter Server
11 18 (0.42%) SCOM
12 17 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
13 16 (0.37%) ZABBIX
14 15 (0.35%) Tivoli
15 14 (0.32%) Nagios
15 14 (0.32%) Netcool
16 13 (0.30%) OpenView
16 13 (0.30%) Tivoli Monitoring
17 9 (0.21%) Progress Chef
18 8 (0.18%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 737 (17.02%) Oracle
2 678 (15.65%) Microsoft
3 502 (11.59%) Databricks
4 165 (3.81%) Google
5 153 (3.53%) Informatica
6 125 (2.89%) ServiceNow
7 123 (2.84%) Talend
8 110 (2.54%) SAP
9 83 (1.92%) Splunk
10 69 (1.59%) IBM
11 62 (1.43%) Denodo
12 52 (1.20%) Salesforce
13 45 (1.04%) VMware
14 42 (0.97%) Citrix
15 39 (0.90%) Bloomberg
15 39 (0.90%) Dynatrace
16 34 (0.79%) Murex
17 32 (0.74%) OpenAI
18 30 (0.69%) Alteryx
19 28 (0.65%) SolarWinds