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 28 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -5 -1 0
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,414 3,263 3,598
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.57% 11.76% 11.03%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.95% 35.79% 33.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,967 2,270 2,539
10th Percentile £350 £328 £350
25th Percentile £413 £406 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -2.27%
75th Percentile £600 £617 £638
90th Percentile £700 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 79 72 45
10th Percentile £21.25 £26.53 £25.26
25th Percentile £26.68 £33.91 £30.00
Median hourly rate £45.00 £50.00 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year -10.00% +25.00% -11.11%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £78.05 - £60.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £50.00 £36.50
% change year-on-year -11.00% +36.99% -19.67%

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 11,945 9,116 10,613
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 25.89% 32.86% 32.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,742 6,148 7,133
10th Percentile £363 £350 £353
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £515 £545
Median % change year-on-year +1.94% -5.50% -0.91%
75th Percentile £630 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £525 £507 £525
% change year-on-year +3.65% -3.52% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 503 259 304
10th Percentile £26.51 £31.25 £30.00
25th Percentile £51.25 £42.38 £48.06
Median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +3.17%
75th Percentile £70.25 £67.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £81.80 £76.75 £79.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +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 28 September 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 28 September 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 28 September 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 2,490 £525 - 3,074
North of England -1 587 £475 +5.56% 745
Midlands -5 445 £469 +1.41% 448
South East -15 440 £475 -3.06% 575
West Midlands -5 347 £469 -6.20% 287
North West +1 290 £500 +14.03% 436
Yorkshire +6 245 £458 -3.68% 223
South West -2 229 £525 +16.67% 260
East of England -6 114 £495 -1.49% 205
East Midlands -4 96 £463 +13.81% 161
North East -4 58 £400 -15.79% 91
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
1 227 (5.14%) Apache Airflow
2 193 (4.37%) Confluence
3 188 (4.26%) Apache Spark
4 144 (3.26%) Apache
5 84 (1.90%) SharePoint
6 68 (1.54%) SAS
7 30 (0.68%) Oracle Workflow
8 29 (0.66%) WebLogic
9 28 (0.63%) IIS
10 26 (0.59%) Jupyter
11 24 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
12 23 (0.52%) Palantir Foundry
13 20 (0.45%) CMS
14 18 (0.41%) Camunda
15 17 (0.39%) nginx
16 15 (0.34%) WebSphere
17 11 (0.25%) ArcGIS
17 11 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
18 7 (0.16%) OpenStack
19 6 (0.14%) MTS
Applications
1 260 (5.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 58 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
3 35 (0.79%) Spreadsheet
4 24 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 20 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 12 (0.27%) Chatbot
7 8 (0.18%) Windchill
8 5 (0.11%) Notepad++
9 4 (0.091%) Acrobat
9 4 (0.091%) Notion
9 4 (0.091%) Photoshop
10 3 (0.068%) CPLEX
10 3 (0.068%) Microsoft Project
11 2 (0.045%) Mingle
12 1 (0.023%) Adobe XD
12 1 (0.023%) Mozilla Thunderbird
12 1 (0.023%) Weka
Business Applications
1 43 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 30 (0.68%) Oracle EBS
3 27 (0.61%) Aladdin
4 26 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
5 25 (0.57%) Remedy ITSM
6 24 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
7 19 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
8 16 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
9 14 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
10 11 (0.25%) NEC Housing
10 11 (0.25%) Siebel CRM
11 10 (0.23%) Finacle
11 10 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.23%) Oracle EBS R12
11 10 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
11 10 (0.23%) Salesforce CRM
12 9 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
12 9 (0.20%) Summit
13 8 (0.18%) Maximo
13 8 (0.18%) NetSuite
Cloud Services
1 1,345 (30.47%) Azure
2 1,069 (24.22%) AWS
3 850 (19.26%) Power Platform
4 441 (9.99%) GCP
5 357 (8.09%) Azure DevOps
6 354 (8.02%) Snowflake
7 304 (6.89%) GitHub
8 291 (6.59%) Azure Data Factory
8 291 (6.59%) dbt
9 263 (5.96%) Serverless
10 235 (5.32%) Amazon S3
11 181 (4.10%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 170 (3.85%) AWS Lambda
13 144 (3.26%) GitHub Actions
14 101 (2.29%) Power Automate
15 97 (2.20%) SaaS
16 90 (2.04%) PowerApps
17 87 (1.97%) Entra ID
18 85 (1.93%) Azure Databricks
19 78 (1.77%) Amazon CloudWatch
Communications & Networking
1 60 (1.36%) DNS
2 37 (0.84%) Firewall
3 28 (0.63%) HTTP
4 24 (0.54%) SSL
5 22 (0.50%) Internet
5 22 (0.50%) Network Security
6 20 (0.45%) TCP/IP
7 19 (0.43%) Broadband
7 19 (0.43%) VPN
8 15 (0.34%) DHCP
9 13 (0.29%) SNMP
10 12 (0.27%) SSH
11 9 (0.20%) Kerberos
11 9 (0.20%) SAN
12 8 (0.18%) Reverse Proxy
12 8 (0.18%) RTP
12 8 (0.18%) WinSCP
12 8 (0.18%) Wireshark
13 7 (0.16%) 5G
13 7 (0.16%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 779 (17.65%) Power BI
2 606 (13.73%) Data Warehouse
3 566 (12.82%) SQL Server
4 282 (6.39%) Relational Database
5 273 (6.18%) PostgreSQL
6 255 (5.78%) Data Lake
6 255 (5.78%) Tableau
7 226 (5.12%) Metadata
8 207 (4.69%) NoSQL
9 198 (4.49%) BigQuery
10 195 (4.42%) Oracle Database
11 144 (3.26%) Azure SQL Database
12 135 (3.06%) Amazon Redshift
13 127 (2.88%) Delta Lake
14 121 (2.74%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 114 (2.58%) MySQL
16 106 (2.40%) Amazon Athena
17 94 (2.13%) Big Data
18 90 (2.04%) Power Query
19 88 (1.99%) Looker
Development Applications
1 570 (12.91%) Git
2 355 (8.04%) JIRA
3 240 (5.44%) Jenkins
4 216 (4.89%) GitLab
5 95 (2.15%) Selenium
6 79 (1.79%) JUnit
7 74 (1.68%) Gradle
8 72 (1.63%) Maven
9 60 (1.36%) Postman
10 49 (1.11%) Mockito
11 41 (0.93%) SonarQube
12 39 (0.88%) Bitbucket
13 30 (0.68%) Visual Studio
14 29 (0.66%) Oracle Forms
14 29 (0.66%) Zephyr
15 25 (0.57%) REST Assured
16 24 (0.54%) JMeter
16 24 (0.54%) Team Foundation Server
17 23 (0.52%) Cypress.io
18 22 (0.50%) MLflow
General
1 1,230 (27.87%) Social Skills
2 1,183 (26.80%) Finance
3 919 (20.82%) Analytical Skills
4 521 (11.80%) Banking
5 388 (8.79%) Public Sector
6 147 (3.33%) Marketing
7 132 (2.99%) Retail
8 129 (2.92%) Front Office
9 115 (2.61%) Investment Banking
10 89 (2.02%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 78 (1.77%) Manufacturing
12 77 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
13 49 (1.11%) Legal
14 48 (1.09%) Financial Institution
15 47 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
16 44 (1.00%) Back Office
17 43 (0.97%) Local Government
18 42 (0.95%) Influencing Skills
19 37 (0.84%) Law
20 36 (0.82%) Military
Job Titles
1 935 (21.18%) Developer
2 844 (19.12%) Data Engineer
3 647 (14.66%) Analyst
4 642 (14.54%) Senior
5 309 (7.00%) Lead
6 262 (5.94%) Data Analyst
7 219 (4.96%) Architect
8 202 (4.58%) Senior Data Engineer
9 193 (4.37%) Business Analyst
10 180 (4.08%) Consultant
11 164 (3.72%) DBA
12 155 (3.51%) Java Developer
13 149 (3.38%) Senior Developer
14 111 (2.51%) Software Engineer
15 102 (2.31%) Azure Engineer
15 102 (2.31%) Full-Stack Developer
15 102 (2.31%) SQL DBA
16 100 (2.27%) SQL Developer
17 97 (2.20%) Data Architect
17 97 (2.20%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 408 (9.24%) REST
2 380 (8.61%) .NET
3 370 (8.38%) Terraform
4 300 (6.80%) PySpark
5 289 (6.55%) Kafka
6 221 (5.01%) Spring
7 210 (4.76%) Spring Boot
8 208 (4.71%) React
9 178 (4.03%) HTML
10 161 (3.65%) RESTful
11 159 (3.60%) JSON
12 152 (3.44%) CSS
13 142 (3.22%) XML
14 109 (2.47%) SOAP
15 108 (2.45%) AngularJS
16 104 (2.36%) Web Services
17 96 (2.17%) Middleware
18 89 (2.02%) Pandas
19 82 (1.86%) .NET Framework
20 78 (1.77%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 281 (6.37%) Cloud Native
2 216 (4.89%) Data Structures
3 207 (4.69%) Product Ownership
4 138 (3.13%) Legacy Systems
5 124 (2.81%) Enterprise Software
6 123 (2.79%) Onboarding
7 122 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
8 94 (2.13%) Management Information System
9 83 (1.88%) AI Agents
10 80 (1.81%) Self-Motivation
11 71 (1.61%) Derivative
12 64 (1.45%) Replication
13 61 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
14 60 (1.36%) Data Protection Act
15 59 (1.34%) Reference Data
16 56 (1.27%) Clustering
17 49 (1.11%) Algorithms
17 49 (1.11%) Greenfield Project
18 44 (1.00%) Data Centre
18 44 (1.00%) Fixed Income
Operating Systems
1 315 (7.14%) Linux
2 269 (6.09%) Windows
3 213 (4.83%) Unix
4 107 (2.42%) Windows Server
5 23 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 23 (0.52%) Solaris
6 12 (0.27%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.23%) AIX
8 9 (0.20%) Windows Server 2019
9 8 (0.18%) VMS
9 8 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.16%) Android
11 6 (0.14%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.14%) Windows 10
12 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
13 4 (0.091%) zOS
14 3 (0.068%) OpenVMS
14 3 (0.068%) Windows Server 2016
15 2 (0.045%) Amazon Linux
15 2 (0.045%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,203 (27.25%) CI/CD
2 1,179 (26.71%) Agile
3 1,125 (25.49%) Data Modelling
4 1,119 (25.35%) Analytics
5 969 (21.95%) Business Intelligence
6 959 (21.73%) ETL
7 874 (19.80%) Problem-Solving
8 848 (19.21%) Data Pipeline
9 831 (18.83%) DevOps
10 770 (17.44%) Data Engineering
11 759 (17.20%) AI
12 682 (15.45%) Validation
13 654 (14.82%) Stakeholder Management
14 649 (14.70%) Migration
15 511 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
15 511 (11.58%) Test Automation
16 500 (11.33%) Data Analysis
17 495 (11.21%) Data Governance
18 488 (11.06%) Decision-Making
19 381 (8.63%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 1,591 (36.04%) Python
2 540 (12.23%) Java
3 402 (9.11%) C#
4 369 (8.36%) JavaScript
5 328 (7.43%) PL/SQL
6 227 (5.14%) PowerShell
7 209 (4.73%) T-SQL
8 192 (4.35%) TypeScript
9 137 (3.10%) Shell Script
10 131 (2.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 110 (2.49%) Bash
12 71 (1.61%) Scala
13 68 (1.54%) R
14 36 (0.82%) C++
15 34 (0.77%) VBA
16 27 (0.61%) Bicep
16 27 (0.61%) Kotlin
17 26 (0.59%) C
17 26 (0.59%) Go
18 25 (0.57%) VB
Qualifications
1 932 (21.11%) Security Cleared
2 734 (16.63%) SC Cleared
3 332 (7.52%) Degree
4 124 (2.81%) DV Cleared
5 120 (2.72%) BPSS Clearance
6 113 (2.56%) Computer Science Degree
7 70 (1.59%) Azure Certification
8 54 (1.22%) ISTQB
9 49 (1.11%) Microsoft Certification
10 41 (0.93%) AWS Certification
11 40 (0.91%) Master's Degree
12 20 (0.45%) CISSP
13 17 (0.39%) ISEB
14 16 (0.36%) ACCA
14 16 (0.36%) CIMA
14 16 (0.36%) DBS Check
15 15 (0.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 14 (0.32%) Oracle Certification
17 13 (0.29%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 13 (0.29%) PMI Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 885 (20.05%) Data Quality
2 365 (8.27%) QA
3 114 (2.58%) GDPR
4 50 (1.13%) SLA
5 44 (1.00%) Accessibility
6 29 (0.66%) Actionable Recommendations
7 23 (0.52%) NIST
8 22 (0.50%) IFRS
9 21 (0.48%) ISO 20022
9 21 (0.48%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 17 (0.39%) MiFID
11 15 (0.34%) COBIT
11 15 (0.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
12 11 (0.25%) Basel III
13 9 (0.20%) PCI DSS
13 9 (0.20%) PMO
14 8 (0.18%) GRC
14 8 (0.18%) HIPAA
14 8 (0.18%) SEPA
14 8 (0.18%) Solvency II
System Software
1 413 (9.36%) Docker
2 109 (2.47%) Active Directory
3 49 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 36 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
5 35 (0.79%) Oracle RAC
6 18 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.36%) vCloud
7 16 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 14 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
10 6 (0.14%) Postfix
11 5 (0.11%) KVM
12 4 (0.091%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 2 (0.045%) DFS Replication
13 2 (0.045%) Dovecot
13 2 (0.045%) Squid
14 1 (0.023%) GPFS
14 1 (0.023%) HDFS
14 1 (0.023%) RACF
14 1 (0.023%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 352 (7.97%) Kubernetes
2 87 (1.97%) Ansible
3 85 (1.93%) Grafana
4 49 (1.11%) Prometheus
5 39 (0.88%) Control-M
5 39 (0.88%) SCOM
6 36 (0.82%) Kibana
7 34 (0.77%) Data Guard
8 31 (0.70%) Oracle RMAN
9 16 (0.36%) vCenter Server
10 12 (0.27%) Microsoft Clustering
10 12 (0.27%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 11 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
11 11 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
12 9 (0.20%) Argo
12 9 (0.20%) Istio
12 9 (0.20%) Tivoli
13 8 (0.18%) Nagios
13 8 (0.18%) Netcool
13 8 (0.18%) Podman
Vendors
1 749 (16.97%) Microsoft
2 736 (16.67%) Oracle
3 573 (12.98%) Databricks
4 207 (4.69%) Google
5 122 (2.76%) Informatica
6 119 (2.70%) SAP
7 99 (2.24%) IBM
8 96 (2.17%) Talend
9 85 (1.93%) ServiceNow
10 78 (1.77%) Splunk
11 66 (1.50%) VMware
12 65 (1.47%) Salesforce
13 47 (1.06%) Denodo
14 39 (0.88%) Bloomberg
15 37 (0.84%) Foundry
16 36 (0.82%) OpenAI
17 35 (0.79%) Adobe
17 35 (0.79%) UiPath
18 34 (0.77%) Alteryx
18 34 (0.77%) Murex