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 16 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -6 -1 0
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,503 3,244 3,586
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.62% 11.50% 11.18%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.82% 35.22% 34.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,039 2,235 2,494
10th Percentile £352 £325 £350
25th Percentile £413 £408 £419
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -6.54% -2.73%
75th Percentile £600 £613 £638
90th Percentile £700 £735 £738
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 74 45
10th Percentile £20.95 £24.14 £25.26
25th Percentile £26.52 £32.85 £30.00
Median hourly rate £46.80 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -6.40% +25.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £75.00 - £60.00
UK median hourly rate £44.75 £50.00 £37.75
% change year-on-year -10.50% +32.45% -16.11%

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 12,229 9,210 10,426
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.12% 32.65% 32.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,910 6,136 6,903
10th Percentile £363 £350 £353
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £543
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -5.53% -1.36%
75th Percentile £631 £626 £650
90th Percentile £738 £748 £788
UK median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 536 272 287
10th Percentile £21.25 £31.25 £30.00
25th Percentile £47.88 £42.44 £47.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £59.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +10.17% -9.23% +4.00%
75th Percentile £70.63 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £82.40 £78.63 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £56.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +16.07% -13.85% +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 16 October 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 16 October 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 16 October 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 -7 2,547 £525 - 388
North of England +1 615 £475 +5.56% 214
Midlands -3 443 £469 -4.29% 132
South East -12 443 £475 -3.06% 231
West Midlands -1 356 £470 -7.93% 89
North West +5 312 £483 +12.33% 107
Yorkshire +9 250 £475 -1.30% 65
South West +1 242 £550 +15.79% 91
East of England -7 111 £509 +1.40% 58
East Midlands -8 85 £450 +9.76% 43
North East -2 63 £406 -14.47% 46
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
1 224 (4.97%) Apache Airflow
2 215 (4.77%) Confluence
3 199 (4.42%) Apache Spark
4 163 (3.62%) Apache
5 87 (1.93%) SharePoint
6 81 (1.80%) SAS
7 35 (0.78%) WebLogic
8 29 (0.64%) IIS
9 26 (0.58%) Microsoft Exchange
9 26 (0.58%) Oracle Workflow
10 25 (0.56%) Jupyter
11 24 (0.53%) Palantir Foundry
12 20 (0.44%) Camunda
12 20 (0.44%) CMS
13 15 (0.33%) nginx
13 15 (0.33%) WebSphere
14 12 (0.27%) ArcGIS
15 10 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 7 (0.16%) Tomcat
17 6 (0.13%) MTS
Applications
1 261 (5.80%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 37 (0.82%) Spreadsheet
4 25 (0.56%) MS Visio
5 23 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 11 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.18%) Windchill
8 4 (0.089%) Acrobat
8 4 (0.089%) Notion
8 4 (0.089%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.067%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.067%) Microsoft Project
9 3 (0.067%) Mingle
10 1 (0.022%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.022%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 44 (0.98%) Dynamics CRM
2 29 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
3 27 (0.60%) Aladdin
4 26 (0.58%) Remedy ITSM
5 24 (0.53%) SAP S/4HANA
6 23 (0.51%) Oracle EBS
7 22 (0.49%) Oracle ERP
8 18 (0.40%) Oracle General Ledger
9 15 (0.33%) Oracle Receivables
10 13 (0.29%) Oracle Assets
10 13 (0.29%) Oracle Financials
11 11 (0.24%) Siebel CRM
12 10 (0.22%) NEC Housing
12 10 (0.22%) Oracle FAH
12 10 (0.22%) Salesforce CRM
13 8 (0.18%) Finacle
13 8 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
13 8 (0.18%) Summit
14 7 (0.16%) Maximo
14 7 (0.16%) OpenText MBPM
Cloud Services
1 1,374 (30.51%) Azure
2 1,093 (24.27%) AWS
3 855 (18.99%) Power Platform
4 459 (10.19%) GCP
5 363 (8.06%) Azure DevOps
6 361 (8.02%) Snowflake
7 324 (7.20%) GitHub
8 290 (6.44%) Azure Data Factory
9 285 (6.33%) dbt
10 260 (5.77%) Serverless
11 223 (4.95%) Amazon S3
12 181 (4.02%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 153 (3.40%) AWS Lambda
14 145 (3.22%) GitHub Actions
15 107 (2.38%) Entra ID
16 105 (2.33%) SaaS
17 98 (2.18%) Power Automate
18 93 (2.07%) Azure Databricks
18 93 (2.07%) PowerApps
19 75 (1.67%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 70 (1.55%) DNS
2 43 (0.95%) Firewall
3 30 (0.67%) Network Security
4 29 (0.64%) SSL
5 26 (0.58%) HTTP
6 22 (0.49%) Broadband
7 21 (0.47%) VPN
8 20 (0.44%) Internet
8 20 (0.44%) TCP/IP
9 16 (0.36%) DHCP
10 14 (0.31%) Reverse Proxy
11 12 (0.27%) SSH
12 11 (0.24%) SNMP
13 10 (0.22%) SAN
14 9 (0.20%) Kerberos
14 9 (0.20%) Multicast
15 7 (0.16%) 5G
16 6 (0.13%) 4G
16 6 (0.13%) MQTT
16 6 (0.13%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 781 (17.34%) Power BI
2 603 (13.39%) Data Warehouse
3 587 (13.04%) SQL Server
4 290 (6.44%) Relational Database
5 264 (5.86%) Data Lake
5 264 (5.86%) PostgreSQL
6 241 (5.35%) Tableau
7 235 (5.22%) Metadata
8 209 (4.64%) NoSQL
9 197 (4.37%) Oracle Database
10 195 (4.33%) BigQuery
11 156 (3.46%) Azure SQL Database
12 135 (3.00%) Delta Lake
13 124 (2.75%) Amazon Redshift
14 120 (2.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 116 (2.58%) MySQL
16 95 (2.11%) Amazon Athena
16 95 (2.11%) Power Query
17 92 (2.04%) Big Data
18 91 (2.02%) Looker
Development Applications
1 606 (13.46%) Git
2 387 (8.59%) JIRA
3 246 (5.46%) Jenkins
4 230 (5.11%) GitLab
5 95 (2.11%) Selenium
6 79 (1.75%) JUnit
7 77 (1.71%) Maven
8 75 (1.67%) Gradle
9 64 (1.42%) Postman
10 47 (1.04%) Mockito
11 41 (0.91%) Bitbucket
12 39 (0.87%) SonarQube
13 31 (0.69%) Visual Studio
13 31 (0.69%) Zephyr
14 29 (0.64%) REST Assured
15 26 (0.58%) Cucumber
15 26 (0.58%) Cypress.io
15 26 (0.58%) Team Foundation Server
16 24 (0.53%) Oracle Forms
17 23 (0.51%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
General
1 1,270 (28.20%) Social Skills
2 1,211 (26.89%) Finance
3 967 (21.47%) Analytical Skills
4 563 (12.50%) Banking
5 409 (9.08%) Public Sector
6 144 (3.20%) Marketing
7 140 (3.11%) Retail
8 132 (2.93%) Front Office
9 128 (2.84%) Investment Banking
10 88 (1.95%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 83 (1.84%) Manufacturing
12 73 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
13 59 (1.31%) Financial Institution
14 51 (1.13%) Influencing Skills
14 51 (1.13%) Legal
15 46 (1.02%) Back Office
16 45 (1.00%) Presentation Skills
17 41 (0.91%) Military
18 40 (0.89%) Law
19 38 (0.84%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 949 (21.07%) Developer
2 840 (18.65%) Data Engineer
3 674 (14.97%) Analyst
4 663 (14.72%) Senior
5 306 (6.80%) Lead
6 287 (6.37%) Data Analyst
7 219 (4.86%) Architect
8 200 (4.44%) Business Analyst
8 200 (4.44%) Senior Data Engineer
9 171 (3.80%) DBA
10 167 (3.71%) Consultant
11 152 (3.38%) Java Developer
12 149 (3.31%) Senior Developer
13 117 (2.60%) Software Engineer
14 107 (2.38%) Azure Engineer
15 101 (2.24%) Full-Stack Developer
16 98 (2.18%) Python Developer
17 97 (2.15%) SQL DBA
18 94 (2.09%) SQL Developer
19 92 (2.04%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 446 (9.90%) REST
2 395 (8.77%) Terraform
3 389 (8.64%) .NET
4 315 (7.00%) PySpark
5 308 (6.84%) Kafka
6 228 (5.06%) Spring
7 220 (4.89%) Spring Boot
8 216 (4.80%) React
9 175 (3.89%) JSON
10 172 (3.82%) HTML
11 164 (3.64%) RESTful
12 148 (3.29%) XML
13 139 (3.09%) CSS
14 113 (2.51%) SOAP
15 109 (2.42%) AngularJS
15 109 (2.42%) Web Services
16 93 (2.07%) Middleware
17 88 (1.95%) OAuth
18 83 (1.84%) Pandas
19 80 (1.78%) .NET Framework
Miscellaneous
1 301 (6.68%) Cloud Native
2 228 (5.06%) Data Structures
3 217 (4.82%) Product Ownership
4 153 (3.40%) Enterprise Software
5 145 (3.22%) Legacy Systems
6 124 (2.75%) Distributed Systems
6 124 (2.75%) Onboarding
7 105 (2.33%) Management Information System
8 98 (2.18%) AI Agents
9 77 (1.71%) Self-Motivation
10 75 (1.67%) Replication
11 72 (1.60%) Derivative
12 66 (1.47%) Reference Data
13 64 (1.42%) Data Protection Act
14 60 (1.33%) Analytical Mindset
15 58 (1.29%) Algorithms
16 55 (1.22%) Clustering
17 49 (1.09%) Data Centre
18 48 (1.07%) Fixed Income
19 43 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 321 (7.13%) Linux
2 266 (5.91%) Windows
3 201 (4.46%) Unix
4 110 (2.44%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 23 (0.51%) Solaris
7 13 (0.29%) Ubuntu
8 10 (0.22%) VMS
8 10 (0.22%) Windows Server 2019
9 9 (0.20%) AIX
10 7 (0.16%) Android
11 6 (0.13%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.13%) Windows 10
11 6 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
12 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
12 5 (0.11%) zOS
13 4 (0.089%) OpenVMS
14 2 (0.044%) CentOS
14 2 (0.044%) HPUX
14 2 (0.044%) macOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,263 (28.05%) CI/CD
2 1,242 (27.58%) Agile
3 1,175 (26.09%) Data Modelling
4 1,148 (25.49%) Analytics
5 986 (21.90%) ETL
6 963 (21.39%) Business Intelligence
7 897 (19.92%) Problem-Solving
8 879 (19.52%) Data Pipeline
9 860 (19.10%) DevOps
10 829 (18.41%) AI
11 828 (18.39%) Data Engineering
12 758 (16.83%) Validation
13 709 (15.75%) Stakeholder Management
14 668 (14.83%) Migration
15 573 (12.72%) Test Automation
16 555 (12.33%) Continuous Improvement
17 525 (11.66%) Data Governance
18 521 (11.57%) Data Analysis
19 506 (11.24%) Decision-Making
20 418 (9.28%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 1,626 (36.11%) Python
2 565 (12.55%) Java
3 412 (9.15%) C#
4 388 (8.62%) JavaScript
5 308 (6.84%) PL/SQL
6 233 (5.17%) PowerShell
7 201 (4.46%) TypeScript
8 199 (4.42%) T-SQL
9 142 (3.15%) Shell Script
10 139 (3.09%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 112 (2.49%) Bash
12 69 (1.53%) R
13 63 (1.40%) Scala
14 37 (0.82%) Bicep
15 36 (0.80%) C++
16 34 (0.76%) Kotlin
17 33 (0.73%) Go
18 32 (0.71%) VBA
19 27 (0.60%) C
20 24 (0.53%) VB
Qualifications
1 975 (21.65%) Security Cleared
2 759 (16.86%) SC Cleared
3 338 (7.51%) Degree
4 145 (3.22%) DV Cleared
5 126 (2.80%) BPSS Clearance
6 116 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
7 76 (1.69%) Azure Certification
8 65 (1.44%) ISTQB
9 52 (1.15%) AWS Certification
10 49 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
11 39 (0.87%) Master's Degree
12 25 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 20 (0.44%) CISSP
13 20 (0.44%) ISEB
14 16 (0.36%) ACCA
14 16 (0.36%) CIMA
15 15 (0.33%) DBS Check
15 15 (0.33%) PMI Certification
16 14 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 13 (0.29%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 947 (21.03%) Data Quality
2 362 (8.04%) QA
3 120 (2.66%) GDPR
4 50 (1.11%) Accessibility
5 45 (1.00%) SLA
6 34 (0.76%) Actionable Recommendations
7 25 (0.56%) IFRS
7 25 (0.56%) NIST
8 21 (0.47%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 18 (0.40%) ISO 20022
10 17 (0.38%) MiFID
11 15 (0.33%) COBIT
12 14 (0.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 12 (0.27%) Basel III
14 10 (0.22%) PCI DSS
15 9 (0.20%) SEPA
16 8 (0.18%) GRC
16 8 (0.18%) HIPAA
16 8 (0.18%) SOC 2
16 8 (0.18%) Solvency II
System Software
1 423 (9.39%) Docker
2 120 (2.66%) Active Directory
3 49 (1.09%) VMware Infrastructure
4 33 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
5 32 (0.71%) Oracle RAC
6 18 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.36%) vCloud
7 16 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 13 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
9 12 (0.27%) Hyper-V
10 4 (0.089%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 4 (0.089%) Postfix
11 3 (0.067%) KVM
12 2 (0.044%) DFS Replication
12 2 (0.044%) Dovecot
12 2 (0.044%) Squid
13 1 (0.022%) HDFS
13 1 (0.022%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 396 (8.79%) Kubernetes
2 95 (2.11%) Ansible
3 82 (1.82%) Grafana
4 51 (1.13%) Prometheus
5 42 (0.93%) Control-M
6 39 (0.87%) SCOM
7 33 (0.73%) Kibana
8 31 (0.69%) Data Guard
9 26 (0.58%) Oracle RMAN
10 17 (0.38%) vCenter Server
11 16 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
12 13 (0.29%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 12 (0.27%) Microsoft Clustering
13 12 (0.27%) Microsoft Intune
13 12 (0.27%) Progress Chef
14 11 (0.24%) Istio
15 10 (0.22%) Argo
16 8 (0.18%) Podman
16 8 (0.18%) SCCM
16 8 (0.18%) WMI
Vendors
1 794 (17.63%) Microsoft
2 747 (16.59%) Oracle
3 607 (13.48%) Databricks
4 225 (5.00%) Google
5 131 (2.91%) Informatica
6 124 (2.75%) SAP
7 104 (2.31%) IBM
8 101 (2.24%) Talend
9 88 (1.95%) ServiceNow
10 74 (1.64%) Splunk
11 66 (1.47%) VMware
12 64 (1.42%) Salesforce
13 47 (1.04%) Denodo
14 45 (1.00%) OpenAI
15 43 (0.95%) Foundry
16 40 (0.89%) UiPath
17 39 (0.87%) Bloomberg
18 36 (0.80%) Dynatrace
18 36 (0.80%) Murex
19 34 (0.76%) Alteryx