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 18 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 13 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,242 3,068 3,759
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.87% 12.37% 9.97%
As % of the Programming Languages category 37.04% 36.53% 32.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,860 2,208 2,772
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% -1.38%
75th Percentile £598 £626 £650
90th Percentile £688 £766 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 62 58
10th Percentile £26.50 £23.05 £22.71
25th Percentile £34.01 £30.50 £30.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £41.66 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.03% -1.98% -15.00%
75th Percentile £72.63 £53.75 £53.29
90th Percentile £82.78 £77.10 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £48.75 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +20.37% -4.71% -20.93%

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 11,454 8,399 11,431
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.65% 33.85% 30.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,487 5,832 8,173
10th Percentile £360 £356 £350
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £522 £538
Median % change year-on-year -1.53% -2.97% -3.93%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £505 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -1.46% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 520 198 491
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.13 £35.52
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.25 £49.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £79.00 £85.00 £77.50
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 18 June 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 18 June 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 18 June 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 -2 2,301 £525 -1.87% 565
North of England -5 541 £460 -3.16% 338
Midlands +3 538 £463 +7.31% 203
West Midlands +5 440 £459 +1.32% 109
South East -10 416 £475 -5.00% 425
North West -2 286 £463 -2.63% 216
South West 0 232 £500 +5.26% 128
Yorkshire -11 215 £475 - 79
East of England -13 107 £495 +1.54% 100
East Midlands -1 94 £525 +38.16% 94
North East -12 52 £425 -8.36% 48
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
1 219 (5.16%) Apache Spark
2 175 (4.13%) Apache Airflow
3 160 (3.77%) Confluence
4 141 (3.32%) Apache
5 91 (2.15%) SAS
6 56 (1.32%) SharePoint
7 31 (0.73%) IIS
7 31 (0.73%) WebLogic
8 30 (0.71%) Oracle Workflow
9 25 (0.59%) Tomcat
10 22 (0.52%) Jupyter
11 19 (0.45%) Microsoft Exchange
12 17 (0.40%) Appian
12 17 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
12 17 (0.40%) WebSphere
13 16 (0.38%) CMS
14 14 (0.33%) nginx
15 13 (0.31%) Tuxedo
16 12 (0.28%) Camunda
17 10 (0.24%) Mendix
Applications
1 273 (6.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 48 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
3 42 (0.99%) MS Visio
4 31 (0.73%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
8 3 (0.071%) Oracle Smart View
9 2 (0.047%) Acrobat
9 2 (0.047%) Notion
9 2 (0.047%) Photoshop
10 1 (0.024%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.024%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.024%) InDesign
10 1 (0.024%) Mingle
10 1 (0.024%) Trello
10 1 (0.024%) Weka
Business Applications
1 33 (0.78%) Dynamics CRM
1 33 (0.78%) Oracle EBS
2 25 (0.59%) Aladdin
3 22 (0.52%) Oracle Payables
4 21 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
4 21 (0.50%) SAP S/4HANA
5 19 (0.45%) NEC Housing
6 16 (0.38%) Oracle EBS R12
7 15 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
7 15 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
8 11 (0.26%) Findur
8 11 (0.26%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 10 (0.24%) Endur
9 10 (0.24%) Oracle General Ledger
10 9 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
10 9 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 8 (0.19%) NetSuite
11 8 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
11 8 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
11 8 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,380 (32.53%) Azure
2 1,044 (24.61%) AWS
3 814 (19.19%) Power Platform
4 399 (9.41%) Azure DevOps
5 344 (8.11%) GCP
6 328 (7.73%) Azure Data Factory
7 309 (7.28%) GitHub
8 283 (6.67%) Serverless
9 252 (5.94%) Snowflake
10 250 (5.89%) Amazon S3
11 208 (4.90%) dbt
12 207 (4.88%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 177 (4.17%) AWS Lambda
14 162 (3.82%) GitHub Actions
15 81 (1.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 77 (1.82%) Power Automate
17 76 (1.79%) Entra ID
18 73 (1.72%) Amazon EC2
19 67 (1.58%) SaaS
20 66 (1.56%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.13%) DNS
2 43 (1.01%) Firewall
3 21 (0.50%) SNMP
4 19 (0.45%) HTTP
4 19 (0.45%) Network Security
5 17 (0.40%) Internet
5 17 (0.40%) VPN
5 17 (0.40%) WAN
6 15 (0.35%) SSL
7 12 (0.28%) TCP/IP
8 11 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.21%) LAN
9 9 (0.21%) Wireshark
10 8 (0.19%) 3GPP
11 7 (0.17%) SAN
12 6 (0.14%) BGP
12 6 (0.14%) IPsec
12 6 (0.14%) RTP
13 5 (0.12%) DHCP
13 5 (0.12%) Kerberos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 751 (17.70%) Power BI
2 553 (13.04%) Data Warehouse
3 530 (12.49%) SQL Server
4 292 (6.88%) Data Lake
5 284 (6.69%) Tableau
6 277 (6.53%) PostgreSQL
7 276 (6.51%) Relational Database
8 224 (5.28%) NoSQL
9 207 (4.88%) Metadata
10 184 (4.34%) Azure SQL Database
11 163 (3.84%) Oracle Database
12 153 (3.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 139 (3.28%) BigQuery
14 131 (3.09%) Amazon Redshift
15 123 (2.90%) Delta Lake
16 108 (2.55%) Big Data
17 105 (2.48%) MySQL
18 100 (2.36%) Oracle Reports
19 93 (2.19%) Snowflake Schema
20 91 (2.15%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 456 (10.75%) Git
2 333 (7.85%) JIRA
3 223 (5.26%) Jenkins
4 195 (4.60%) GitLab
5 66 (1.56%) JUnit
6 51 (1.20%) Maven
7 50 (1.18%) Postman
8 48 (1.13%) Mockito
9 47 (1.11%) Selenium
10 45 (1.06%) Gradle
11 33 (0.78%) SonarQube
12 32 (0.75%) Cucumber
13 31 (0.73%) MLflow
14 27 (0.64%) ERwin
15 26 (0.61%) Bitbucket
15 26 (0.61%) Liquibase
15 26 (0.61%) Visual Studio
16 25 (0.59%) JMeter
16 25 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
16 25 (0.59%) Zephyr
General
1 1,131 (26.66%) Finance
2 1,084 (25.55%) Social Skills
3 797 (18.79%) Analytical Skills
4 401 (9.45%) Banking
5 368 (8.68%) Public Sector
6 117 (2.76%) Front Office
7 113 (2.66%) Marketing
8 99 (2.33%) Investment Banking
9 89 (2.10%) Documentation Skills
10 83 (1.96%) Retail
11 69 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 51 (1.20%) Financial Institution
13 50 (1.18%) Legal
14 44 (1.04%) Publishing
15 41 (0.97%) Presentation Skills
16 40 (0.94%) Manufacturing
17 34 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
18 33 (0.78%) Telecoms
19 29 (0.68%) Back Office
20 27 (0.64%) Law
Job Titles
1 882 (20.79%) Data Engineer
2 876 (20.65%) Developer
3 600 (14.14%) Analyst
4 550 (12.97%) Senior
5 289 (6.81%) Lead
6 269 (6.34%) Data Analyst
7 234 (5.52%) Architect
8 201 (4.74%) Consultant
9 172 (4.05%) Java Developer
10 171 (4.03%) Business Analyst
11 165 (3.89%) Senior Data Engineer
12 142 (3.35%) DBA
13 134 (3.16%) Software Engineer
14 129 (3.04%) Senior Developer
15 105 (2.48%) Azure Engineer
16 101 (2.38%) C# Developer
17 97 (2.29%) SQL Developer
18 86 (2.03%) Python Developer
18 86 (2.03%) SQL DBA
19 82 (1.93%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 346 (8.16%) .NET
2 334 (7.87%) REST
3 260 (6.13%) Kafka
4 257 (6.06%) PySpark
5 220 (5.19%) Spring
6 211 (4.97%) Spring Boot
7 201 (4.74%) React
8 186 (4.38%) RESTful
9 146 (3.44%) JSON
10 143 (3.37%) XML
11 140 (3.30%) HTML
12 125 (2.95%) CSS
13 117 (2.76%) Pandas
14 108 (2.55%) AngularJS
15 104 (2.45%) SOAP
16 94 (2.22%) Middleware
16 94 (2.22%) Web Services
17 82 (1.93%) .NET Framework
18 77 (1.82%) OAuth
19 70 (1.65%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 275 (6.48%) Cloud Native
2 164 (3.87%) Data Structures
3 154 (3.63%) Legacy Systems
4 131 (3.09%) Product Ownership
5 128 (3.02%) Distributed Systems
6 86 (2.03%) Management Information System
7 81 (1.91%) Onboarding
8 79 (1.86%) Derivative
9 67 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
9 67 (1.58%) Data Protection Act
10 61 (1.44%) Self-Motivation
11 59 (1.39%) Enterprise Software
12 57 (1.34%) Clustering
13 50 (1.18%) Greenfield Project
14 48 (1.13%) Algorithms
14 48 (1.13%) Equities
15 46 (1.08%) Fixed Income
16 43 (1.01%) Low-Code
17 42 (0.99%) Replication
18 41 (0.97%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 285 (6.72%) Linux
2 252 (5.94%) Windows
3 206 (4.86%) Unix
4 89 (2.10%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.57%) AIX
6 18 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.35%) Windows Server 2019
8 14 (0.33%) Solaris
9 9 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (0.19%) zOS
11 7 (0.17%) Android
11 7 (0.17%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.17%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.094%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.094%) VMS
13 3 (0.071%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.047%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.047%) HPUX
14 2 (0.047%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,175 (27.70%) CI/CD
2 1,073 (25.29%) Analytics
3 1,052 (24.80%) Agile
4 1,041 (24.54%) Data Modelling
5 1,001 (23.60%) ETL
6 952 (22.44%) Business Intelligence
7 887 (20.91%) DevOps
8 838 (19.75%) Problem-Solving
9 805 (18.98%) Data Pipeline
10 700 (16.50%) Data Engineering
11 607 (14.31%) AI
12 561 (13.22%) Migration
13 549 (12.94%) Validation
14 450 (10.61%) Data Governance
15 440 (10.37%) Test Automation
16 431 (10.16%) Decision-Making
17 416 (9.81%) Data Analysis
18 394 (9.29%) Continuous Improvement
19 393 (9.26%) Stakeholder Management
20 379 (8.93%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 1,558 (36.73%) Python
2 549 (12.94%) Java
3 439 (10.35%) C#
4 315 (7.43%) PL/SQL
5 304 (7.17%) JavaScript
6 230 (5.42%) T-SQL
7 217 (5.12%) PowerShell
8 151 (3.56%) TypeScript
9 132 (3.11%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 109 (2.57%) Shell Script
11 100 (2.36%) R
12 82 (1.93%) Bash
13 72 (1.70%) Scala
14 57 (1.34%) C++
15 43 (1.01%) VBA
16 36 (0.85%) Bicep
17 33 (0.78%) VB
18 32 (0.75%) C
19 29 (0.68%) Perl
20 23 (0.54%) Go
Qualifications
1 898 (21.17%) Security Cleared
2 728 (17.16%) SC Cleared
3 326 (7.69%) Degree
4 105 (2.48%) Computer Science Degree
5 96 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
6 86 (2.03%) DV Cleared
7 69 (1.63%) Azure Certification
8 51 (1.20%) ISTQB
8 51 (1.20%) Master's Degree
9 43 (1.01%) Microsoft Certification
10 31 (0.73%) AWS Certification
11 17 (0.40%) DBS Check
12 16 (0.38%) PhD
13 13 (0.31%) CISSP
13 13 (0.31%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.24%) PMI Certification
15 9 (0.21%) CISM
15 9 (0.21%) TOGAF Certification
16 8 (0.19%) PMP
17 7 (0.17%) ACCA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 769 (18.13%) Data Quality
2 314 (7.40%) QA
3 172 (4.05%) GDPR
4 43 (1.01%) Accessibility
5 41 (0.97%) SLA
6 28 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (0.66%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 25 (0.59%) NIST
8 23 (0.54%) PMO
9 17 (0.40%) IFRS
10 16 (0.38%) PCI DSS
11 15 (0.35%) Solvency II
12 14 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
12 14 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 14 (0.33%) HIPAA
12 14 (0.33%) MiFID
13 13 (0.31%) ISO 20022
14 10 (0.24%) GRC
14 10 (0.24%) HL7
14 10 (0.24%) NCSC
System Software
1 468 (11.03%) Docker
2 93 (2.19%) Active Directory
3 39 (0.92%) Virtual Machines
4 29 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 23 (0.54%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.38%) Hyper-V
6 16 (0.38%) VMware ESXi
7 12 (0.28%) VMware NSX
8 11 (0.26%) vCloud
9 10 (0.24%) KVM
10 9 (0.21%) Postfix
11 8 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
12 6 (0.14%) HDFS
12 6 (0.14%) RACF
13 4 (0.094%) XenApp
13 4 (0.094%) XenDesktop
14 2 (0.047%) Apache ZooKeeper
14 2 (0.047%) GridGain
15 1 (0.024%) Varnish
15 1 (0.024%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 380 (8.96%) Kubernetes
2 354 (8.35%) Terraform
3 103 (2.43%) Grafana
4 73 (1.72%) Ansible
5 58 (1.37%) Prometheus
6 34 (0.80%) Oracle RMAN
7 25 (0.59%) Data Guard
8 23 (0.54%) Control-M
9 21 (0.50%) Kibana
10 20 (0.47%) Single Sign-On
11 18 (0.42%) vCenter Server
12 16 (0.38%) ZABBIX
13 15 (0.35%) Tivoli
14 14 (0.33%) Nagios
14 14 (0.33%) Netcool
15 13 (0.31%) OpenView
15 13 (0.31%) Tivoli Monitoring
16 12 (0.28%) SCOM
17 8 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
17 8 (0.19%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 723 (17.04%) Oracle
2 659 (15.54%) Microsoft
3 493 (11.62%) Databricks
4 163 (3.84%) Google
5 154 (3.63%) Informatica
6 123 (2.90%) ServiceNow
7 122 (2.88%) Talend
8 110 (2.59%) SAP
9 85 (2.00%) Splunk
10 68 (1.60%) IBM
11 63 (1.49%) Denodo
12 47 (1.11%) Salesforce
13 45 (1.06%) VMware
14 44 (1.04%) Citrix
15 36 (0.85%) Bloomberg
15 36 (0.85%) Dynatrace
16 35 (0.83%) OpenAI
17 33 (0.78%) Murex
18 28 (0.66%) BMC
18 28 (0.66%) SolarWinds