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 22 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,000 3,006 3,636
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.69% 12.54% 10.00%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.67% 37.13% 33.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,732 2,141 2,694
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.96% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £588 £630 £650
90th Percentile £688 £769 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.61% +0.07%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 54 53
10th Percentile £26.50 £23.83 £23.00
25th Percentile £34.75 £30.50 £27.75
Median hourly rate £47.50 £43.66 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.80% +2.72% -14.63%
75th Percentile £71.88 £65.00 £57.50
90th Percentile £82.70 £80.73 £62.37
UK median hourly rate £52.49 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +29.60% -4.71% -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 10,909 8,095 10,924
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.41% 33.76% 30.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,182 5,616 7,946
10th Percentile £355 £361 £350
25th Percentile £416 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.81% -4.55% -2.22%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £651
90th Percentile £720 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £526
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.14% -4.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 524 197 446
10th Percentile £40.38 £28.32 £37.52
25th Percentile £55.00 £39.25 £49.53
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 £70.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.40 £79.59
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.84% -0.80% +2.97%

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 22 May 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 22 May 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 22 May 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 2,247 £520 -2.99% 860
Midlands +3 512 £468 +8.64% 211
North of England -7 478 £463 -2.63% 429
West Midlands +6 410 £461 +0.27% 117
South East -17 359 £500 +0.25% 493
North West -3 254 £460 -3.16% 250
South West -3 202 £475 -1.30% 150
Yorkshire -14 197 £475 - 125
East Midlands -1 98 £525 +35.92% 94
East of England -17 95 £498 +2.05% 126
North East -14 39 £450 -1.10% 62
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
1 226 (5.65%) Apache Spark
2 154 (3.85%) Apache Airflow
3 139 (3.48%) Confluence
4 136 (3.40%) Apache
5 80 (2.00%) SAS
6 62 (1.55%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 31 (0.78%) IIS
9 26 (0.65%) Oracle Workflow
10 23 (0.58%) Tomcat
11 17 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
12 15 (0.38%) Jupyter
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) Appian
14 13 (0.33%) CMS
14 13 (0.33%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.33%) Mendix
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 12 (0.30%) WebSphere
16 11 (0.28%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 264 (6.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 47 (1.18%) MS Visio
3 45 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.13%) Notepad++
8 5 (0.13%) 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%) Weka
Business Applications
1 41 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
2 28 (0.70%) Aladdin
3 27 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
4 21 (0.53%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
6 19 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
7 18 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
7 18 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
8 16 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
9 14 (0.35%) NetSuite
9 14 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
9 14 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 10 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
12 9 (0.23%) Endur
13 8 (0.20%) Findur
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,337 (33.43%) Azure
2 958 (23.95%) AWS
3 772 (19.30%) Power Platform
4 392 (9.80%) Azure DevOps
5 341 (8.53%) Azure Data Factory
6 325 (8.13%) GCP
7 295 (7.38%) GitHub
8 248 (6.20%) Serverless
9 227 (5.68%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 226 (5.65%) Snowflake
11 222 (5.55%) Amazon S3
12 179 (4.48%) dbt
13 149 (3.73%) GitHub Actions
14 148 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
15 79 (1.98%) Power Automate
16 71 (1.78%) Entra ID
16 71 (1.78%) SaaS
17 70 (1.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 66 (1.65%) Amazon EC2
19 65 (1.63%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.15%) Firewall
2 42 (1.05%) DNS
3 20 (0.50%) SNMP
4 16 (0.40%) HTTP
4 16 (0.40%) Internet
4 16 (0.40%) Network Security
4 16 (0.40%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.38%) WAN
6 12 (0.30%) SSL
6 12 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
7 11 (0.28%) LAN
7 11 (0.28%) VPN
8 8 (0.20%) Wireshark
9 7 (0.18%) 3GPP
10 6 (0.15%) DHCP
10 6 (0.15%) IPsec
11 5 (0.13%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.13%) PuTTY
11 5 (0.13%) RTP
11 5 (0.13%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 707 (17.68%) Power BI
2 512 (12.80%) Data Warehouse
3 503 (12.58%) SQL Server
4 283 (7.08%) Tableau
5 276 (6.90%) Data Lake
6 256 (6.40%) PostgreSQL
7 248 (6.20%) Relational Database
8 234 (5.85%) NoSQL
9 211 (5.28%) Metadata
10 192 (4.80%) Azure SQL Database
11 152 (3.80%) Oracle Database
12 147 (3.68%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 133 (3.33%) BigQuery
14 120 (3.00%) Delta Lake
15 110 (2.75%) Big Data
16 109 (2.73%) Amazon Redshift
17 105 (2.63%) MySQL
18 99 (2.48%) Oracle Reports
19 92 (2.30%) Amazon RDS
20 90 (2.25%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 418 (10.45%) Git
2 309 (7.73%) JIRA
3 208 (5.20%) Jenkins
4 170 (4.25%) GitLab
5 58 (1.45%) JUnit
6 57 (1.43%) Selenium
7 48 (1.20%) Postman
8 47 (1.18%) Maven
9 43 (1.08%) Mockito
10 40 (1.00%) Cucumber
11 35 (0.88%) Gradle
12 34 (0.85%) MLflow
12 34 (0.85%) SonarQube
13 29 (0.73%) REST Assured
14 28 (0.70%) ERwin
15 24 (0.60%) JMeter
16 23 (0.58%) Visual Studio
17 22 (0.55%) Bitbucket
17 22 (0.55%) Team Foundation Server
17 22 (0.55%) TeamCity
General
1 1,063 (26.58%) Finance
2 1,029 (25.73%) Social Skills
3 737 (18.43%) Analytical Skills
4 377 (9.43%) Banking
5 334 (8.35%) Public Sector
6 104 (2.60%) Front Office
7 99 (2.48%) Marketing
8 97 (2.43%) Investment Banking
9 79 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
10 62 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 62 (1.55%) Retail
11 54 (1.35%) Financial Institution
12 52 (1.30%) Legal
13 40 (1.00%) Publishing
14 35 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
14 35 (0.88%) Telecoms
15 32 (0.80%) Law
15 32 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
16 31 (0.78%) Manufacturing
17 25 (0.63%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 831 (20.78%) Developer
2 829 (20.73%) Data Engineer
3 573 (14.33%) Analyst
4 513 (12.83%) Senior
5 278 (6.95%) Lead
6 251 (6.28%) Data Analyst
7 226 (5.65%) Architect
8 177 (4.43%) Consultant
9 174 (4.35%) Business Analyst
10 158 (3.95%) Java Developer
11 147 (3.68%) Senior Data Engineer
12 126 (3.15%) DBA
13 125 (3.13%) Senior Developer
14 122 (3.05%) Software Engineer
15 114 (2.85%) Azure Engineer
16 99 (2.48%) C# Developer
17 87 (2.18%) Data Scientist
17 87 (2.18%) Python Developer
18 86 (2.15%) Data Architect
18 86 (2.15%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 344 (8.60%) .NET
2 320 (8.00%) REST
3 255 (6.38%) Kafka
4 253 (6.33%) PySpark
5 199 (4.98%) Spring
6 193 (4.83%) React
7 191 (4.78%) Spring Boot
8 171 (4.28%) RESTful
9 144 (3.60%) HTML
10 130 (3.25%) XML
11 129 (3.23%) JSON
12 121 (3.03%) CSS
13 118 (2.95%) Pandas
14 107 (2.68%) AngularJS
15 93 (2.33%) SOAP
16 90 (2.25%) Middleware
17 80 (2.00%) .NET Framework
18 79 (1.98%) Web Services
19 72 (1.80%) Node.js
19 72 (1.80%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 253 (6.33%) Cloud Native
2 146 (3.65%) Data Structures
3 130 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
4 122 (3.05%) Product Ownership
5 108 (2.70%) Distributed Systems
6 85 (2.13%) Management Information System
7 77 (1.93%) Derivative
8 74 (1.85%) Onboarding
9 69 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
10 64 (1.60%) Analytical Mindset
11 53 (1.33%) Clustering
12 52 (1.30%) Equities
13 51 (1.28%) Enterprise Software
13 51 (1.28%) Fixed Income
14 48 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
15 47 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
16 46 (1.15%) Algorithms
17 40 (1.00%) Low-Code
18 39 (0.98%) Replication
19 38 (0.95%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 290 (7.25%) Linux
2 248 (6.20%) Windows
3 196 (4.90%) Unix
4 84 (2.10%) Windows Server
5 25 (0.63%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.20%) Solaris
9 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.18%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.15%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.075%) VMS
12 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.050%) Ubuntu
14 1 (0.025%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,092 (27.30%) CI/CD
2 1,012 (25.30%) Analytics
3 1,003 (25.08%) Data Modelling
4 971 (24.28%) Agile
5 969 (24.23%) ETL
6 908 (22.70%) Business Intelligence
7 874 (21.85%) DevOps
8 793 (19.83%) Problem-Solving
9 741 (18.53%) Data Pipeline
10 651 (16.28%) Data Engineering
11 524 (13.10%) AI
12 506 (12.65%) Migration
13 486 (12.15%) Validation
14 469 (11.73%) Data Governance
15 402 (10.05%) Decision-Making
16 401 (10.03%) Test Automation
17 370 (9.25%) Data Analysis
18 367 (9.18%) Performance Tuning
19 361 (9.03%) Microservices
20 348 (8.70%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,506 (37.65%) Python
2 543 (13.58%) Java
3 436 (10.90%) C#
4 309 (7.73%) JavaScript
5 288 (7.20%) PL/SQL
6 204 (5.10%) T-SQL
7 191 (4.78%) PowerShell
8 131 (3.28%) TypeScript
9 125 (3.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 112 (2.80%) R
11 109 (2.73%) Shell Script
12 85 (2.13%) Scala
13 78 (1.95%) Bash
14 59 (1.48%) C++
15 43 (1.08%) VBA
16 40 (1.00%) Bicep
17 35 (0.88%) Perl
18 29 (0.73%) VB
19 24 (0.60%) C
19 24 (0.60%) Go
Qualifications
1 835 (20.88%) Security Cleared
2 670 (16.75%) SC Cleared
3 324 (8.10%) Degree
4 104 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 89 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 71 (1.78%) Azure Certification
7 70 (1.75%) DV Cleared
8 50 (1.25%) Master's Degree
9 46 (1.15%) ISTQB
10 36 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
11 23 (0.58%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.40%) PhD
13 15 (0.38%) DBS Check
14 14 (0.35%) CBAP
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (0.28%) CISSP
16 11 (0.28%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
17 10 (0.25%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.25%) PMP
18 9 (0.23%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 733 (18.33%) Data Quality
2 302 (7.55%) QA
3 177 (4.43%) GDPR
4 41 (1.03%) SLA
5 38 (0.95%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 26 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.60%) PMO
9 19 (0.48%) NIST
9 19 (0.48%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
10 16 (0.40%) MiFID
11 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 14 (0.35%) IFRS
13 12 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.30%) HL7
13 12 (0.30%) ISO 20022
14 10 (0.25%) GRC
14 10 (0.25%) Solvency II
15 8 (0.20%) SEPA
System Software
1 456 (11.40%) Docker
2 94 (2.35%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
4 28 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
5 26 (0.65%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.33%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.25%) KVM
9 9 (0.23%) Postfix
9 9 (0.23%) VMware NSX
10 8 (0.20%) vCloud
10 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.15%) HDFS
11 6 (0.15%) RACF
12 4 (0.10%) XenApp
12 4 (0.10%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
14 2 (0.050%) GridGain
14 2 (0.050%) vSphere
15 1 (0.025%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 382 (9.55%) Kubernetes
2 317 (7.93%) Terraform
3 106 (2.65%) Grafana
4 65 (1.63%) Ansible
5 62 (1.55%) Prometheus
6 39 (0.98%) Oracle RMAN
7 28 (0.70%) Data Guard
8 19 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.45%) Kibana
10 15 (0.38%) Control-M
10 15 (0.38%) vCenter Server
10 15 (0.38%) ZABBIX
11 14 (0.35%) Nagios
11 14 (0.35%) Netcool
11 14 (0.35%) SCCM
11 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
12 13 (0.33%) OpenView
12 13 (0.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 10 (0.25%) SCOM
14 9 (0.23%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 651 (16.28%) Oracle
2 625 (15.63%) Microsoft
3 485 (12.13%) Databricks
4 157 (3.93%) Google
5 137 (3.43%) Informatica
6 132 (3.30%) ServiceNow
7 107 (2.68%) Talend
8 103 (2.58%) SAP
9 86 (2.15%) Splunk
10 63 (1.58%) IBM
11 54 (1.35%) Denodo
12 50 (1.25%) Salesforce
13 46 (1.15%) Citrix
14 43 (1.08%) VMware
15 36 (0.90%) Dynatrace
16 34 (0.85%) OpenAI
17 31 (0.78%) Bloomberg
17 31 (0.78%) HP
18 30 (0.75%) BMC
18 30 (0.75%) MuleSoft