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

6 months to
1 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,092 3,044 3,646
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.78% 12.56% 9.90%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.75% 36.90% 32.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,781 2,182 2,697
10th Percentile £350 £360 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £501 £545
Median % change year-on-year -0.10% -8.17% -0.91%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £767 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 57 54
10th Percentile £26.06 £21.30 £22.65
25th Percentile £34.01 £30.00 £27.28
Median hourly rate £47.15 £37.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +27.43% -12.94% -15.00%
75th Percentile £71.88 £58.75 £54.03
90th Percentile £82.70 £76.63 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £38.85 £42.50
% change year-on-year +28.72% -8.60% -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 11,136 8,250 11,117
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.63% 34.03% 30.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,325 5,721 8,030
10th Percentile £358 £360 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -3.23% -3.98%
75th Percentile £613 £644 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £514 £525
% change year-on-year -2.72% -2.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 532 195 471
10th Percentile £36.58 £28.27 £35.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.50 £48.84
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.84% -0.80% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.68 £85.00 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -7.26% -0.80%

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 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 1 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 1 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 -1 2,279 £525 -2.33% 803
Midlands +2 528 £468 +5.22% 185
North of England -8 496 £460 -3.16% 377
West Midlands +5 424 £460 - 106
South East -16 381 £475 -2.56% 448
North West -7 253 £460 -3.16% 219
Yorkshire -13 209 £475 - 105
South West -2 201 £475 - 135
East of England -18 102 £495 -1.00% 117
East Midlands -1 100 £525 +34.62% 79
North East -9 46 £438 -5.41% 58
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
1 230 (5.62%) Apache Spark
2 166 (4.06%) Apache Airflow
3 144 (3.52%) Apache
4 140 (3.42%) Confluence
5 82 (2.00%) SAS
6 64 (1.56%) SharePoint
7 39 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 31 (0.76%) IIS
9 30 (0.73%) Oracle Workflow
10 23 (0.56%) Tomcat
11 19 (0.46%) Jupyter
11 19 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
12 16 (0.39%) Appian
13 15 (0.37%) CMS
13 15 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.37%) Tuxedo
14 14 (0.34%) WebSphere
15 13 (0.32%) HCL Notes
15 13 (0.32%) Mendix
15 13 (0.32%) nginx
Applications
1 270 (6.60%) Microsoft Excel
2 44 (1.08%) MS Visio
3 41 (1.00%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 27 (0.66%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
9 4 (0.098%) Notion
10 3 (0.073%) Oracle Smart View
11 2 (0.049%) Trello
12 1 (0.024%) InDesign
12 1 (0.024%) Mingle
12 1 (0.024%) Weka
Business Applications
1 41 (1.00%) Oracle EBS
2 31 (0.76%) Dynamics CRM
3 26 (0.64%) Aladdin
4 21 (0.51%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.49%) Oracle EBS R12
5 20 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
6 19 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
6 19 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
7 15 (0.37%) Oracle Receivables
7 15 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
8 13 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
9 12 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 11 (0.27%) NetSuite
10 11 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
12 9 (0.22%) Endur
12 9 (0.22%) Findur
12 9 (0.22%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
14 7 (0.17%) Siebel CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,367 (33.41%) Azure
2 995 (24.32%) AWS
3 802 (19.60%) Power Platform
4 403 (9.85%) Azure DevOps
5 340 (8.31%) Azure Data Factory
6 337 (8.24%) GCP
7 308 (7.53%) GitHub
8 251 (6.13%) Serverless
9 249 (6.09%) Snowflake
10 229 (5.60%) Amazon S3
11 218 (5.33%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 192 (4.69%) dbt
13 161 (3.93%) GitHub Actions
14 155 (3.79%) AWS Lambda
15 79 (1.93%) SaaS
16 76 (1.86%) Power Automate
17 75 (1.83%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 71 (1.74%) Entra ID
19 67 (1.64%) Amazon EC2
20 63 (1.54%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.12%) Firewall
2 45 (1.10%) DNS
3 19 (0.46%) SNMP
4 17 (0.42%) Network Security
5 16 (0.39%) TCP/IP
6 15 (0.37%) HTTP
6 15 (0.37%) Internet
7 14 (0.34%) SSL
7 14 (0.34%) WAN
8 13 (0.32%) VPN
9 11 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
10 10 (0.24%) LAN
11 9 (0.22%) Wireshark
12 8 (0.20%) 3GPP
13 6 (0.15%) IPsec
13 6 (0.15%) RTP
13 6 (0.15%) SAN
14 5 (0.12%) DHCP
14 5 (0.12%) PuTTY
14 5 (0.12%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 736 (17.99%) Power BI
2 528 (12.90%) Data Warehouse
3 512 (12.51%) SQL Server
4 285 (6.96%) Tableau
5 281 (6.87%) Data Lake
6 264 (6.45%) PostgreSQL
7 257 (6.28%) Relational Database
8 227 (5.55%) NoSQL
9 207 (5.06%) Metadata
10 191 (4.67%) Azure SQL Database
11 159 (3.89%) Oracle Database
12 154 (3.76%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 135 (3.30%) BigQuery
14 125 (3.05%) Delta Lake
15 112 (2.74%) Big Data
16 110 (2.69%) Amazon Redshift
17 102 (2.49%) MySQL
17 102 (2.49%) Oracle Reports
18 92 (2.25%) Amazon RDS
19 91 (2.22%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 423 (10.34%) Git
2 319 (7.80%) JIRA
3 215 (5.25%) Jenkins
4 197 (4.81%) GitLab
5 62 (1.52%) JUnit
6 56 (1.37%) Selenium
7 53 (1.30%) Postman
8 49 (1.20%) Maven
9 47 (1.15%) Mockito
10 41 (1.00%) Cucumber
11 39 (0.95%) Gradle
12 35 (0.86%) SonarQube
13 31 (0.76%) MLflow
14 29 (0.71%) REST Assured
15 28 (0.68%) ERwin
16 25 (0.61%) JMeter
17 24 (0.59%) Bitbucket
18 23 (0.56%) Liquibase
18 23 (0.56%) TeamCity
19 22 (0.54%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,097 (26.81%) Finance
2 1,054 (25.76%) Social Skills
3 756 (18.48%) Analytical Skills
4 386 (9.43%) Banking
5 338 (8.26%) Public Sector
6 112 (2.74%) Marketing
7 108 (2.64%) Front Office
8 97 (2.37%) Investment Banking
9 81 (1.98%) Documentation Skills
10 68 (1.66%) Retail
11 63 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 59 (1.44%) Financial Institution
13 52 (1.27%) Legal
14 41 (1.00%) Publishing
15 37 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
16 36 (0.88%) Manufacturing
17 34 (0.83%) Law
17 34 (0.83%) Telecoms
18 33 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
19 28 (0.68%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 855 (20.89%) Data Engineer
2 846 (20.67%) Developer
3 576 (14.08%) Analyst
4 519 (12.68%) Senior
5 279 (6.82%) Lead
6 258 (6.30%) Data Analyst
7 229 (5.60%) Architect
8 185 (4.52%) Consultant
9 172 (4.20%) Business Analyst
10 163 (3.98%) Java Developer
11 152 (3.71%) Senior Data Engineer
12 129 (3.15%) DBA
13 127 (3.10%) Senior Developer
14 123 (3.01%) Software Engineer
15 107 (2.61%) Azure Engineer
16 101 (2.47%) C# Developer
17 87 (2.13%) Data Architect
17 87 (2.13%) Data Scientist
18 85 (2.08%) Python Developer
18 85 (2.08%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 354 (8.65%) .NET
2 337 (8.24%) REST
3 256 (6.26%) PySpark
4 254 (6.21%) Kafka
5 206 (5.03%) Spring
6 197 (4.81%) React
7 194 (4.74%) Spring Boot
8 181 (4.42%) RESTful
9 145 (3.54%) HTML
10 141 (3.45%) JSON
11 137 (3.35%) XML
12 124 (3.03%) CSS
13 121 (2.96%) Pandas
14 106 (2.59%) AngularJS
15 99 (2.42%) SOAP
16 86 (2.10%) Middleware
16 86 (2.10%) Web Services
17 83 (2.03%) .NET Framework
18 76 (1.86%) OAuth
19 71 (1.74%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 270 (6.60%) Cloud Native
2 146 (3.57%) Data Structures
3 133 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
4 127 (3.10%) Product Ownership
5 116 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
6 85 (2.08%) Management Information System
7 79 (1.93%) Derivative
8 78 (1.91%) Onboarding
9 67 (1.64%) Data Protection Act
10 65 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
11 56 (1.37%) Clustering
12 54 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
13 53 (1.30%) Equities
13 53 (1.30%) Self-Motivation
14 49 (1.20%) Fixed Income
14 49 (1.20%) Greenfield Project
15 43 (1.05%) Algorithms
16 41 (1.00%) Low-Code
16 41 (1.00%) Replication
17 38 (0.93%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 289 (7.06%) Linux
2 252 (6.16%) Windows
3 201 (4.91%) Unix
4 84 (2.05%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.59%) AIX
6 21 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.22%) Solaris
9 9 (0.22%) zOS
10 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
11 7 (0.17%) Android
11 7 (0.17%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.17%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.098%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.098%) VMS
13 3 (0.073%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.049%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.049%) HPUX
14 2 (0.049%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,138 (27.81%) CI/CD
2 1,035 (25.29%) Analytics
3 1,016 (24.83%) Data Modelling
4 994 (24.29%) Agile
5 984 (24.05%) ETL
6 930 (22.73%) Business Intelligence
7 894 (21.85%) DevOps
8 801 (19.57%) Problem-Solving
9 768 (18.77%) Data Pipeline
10 671 (16.40%) Data Engineering
11 554 (13.54%) AI
12 528 (12.90%) Migration
13 497 (12.15%) Validation
14 457 (11.17%) Data Governance
15 420 (10.26%) Test Automation
16 403 (9.85%) Decision-Making
17 399 (9.75%) Data Analysis
18 371 (9.07%) Performance Tuning
19 367 (8.97%) Microservices
20 358 (8.75%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,525 (37.27%) Python
2 550 (13.44%) Java
3 440 (10.75%) C#
4 313 (7.65%) JavaScript
5 296 (7.23%) PL/SQL
6 214 (5.23%) T-SQL
7 202 (4.94%) PowerShell
8 140 (3.42%) TypeScript
9 125 (3.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 111 (2.71%) Shell Script
11 105 (2.57%) R
12 81 (1.98%) Bash
13 80 (1.96%) Scala
14 61 (1.49%) C++
15 41 (1.00%) VBA
16 39 (0.95%) Bicep
17 32 (0.78%) Perl
18 28 (0.68%) VB
19 25 (0.61%) C
20 24 (0.59%) Go
Qualifications
1 851 (20.80%) Security Cleared
2 689 (16.84%) SC Cleared
3 326 (7.97%) Degree
4 106 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 90 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
6 72 (1.76%) Azure Certification
6 72 (1.76%) DV Cleared
7 50 (1.22%) Master's Degree
8 45 (1.10%) ISTQB
9 36 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
10 22 (0.54%) AWS Certification
11 18 (0.44%) DBS Check
12 16 (0.39%) PhD
13 11 (0.27%) CBAP
13 11 (0.27%) CISSP
14 10 (0.24%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 10 (0.24%) Oracle Certification
14 10 (0.24%) PMI Certification
14 10 (0.24%) PMP
15 9 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 737 (18.01%) Data Quality
2 306 (7.48%) QA
3 177 (4.33%) GDPR
4 42 (1.03%) SLA
5 38 (0.93%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 27 (0.66%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.59%) PMO
9 21 (0.51%) NIST
10 19 (0.46%) PCI DSS
11 17 (0.42%) IFRS
12 15 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 15 (0.37%) MiFID
13 14 (0.34%) HIPAA
14 12 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.29%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.29%) Solvency II
15 11 (0.27%) HL7
16 10 (0.24%) GRC
17 8 (0.20%) NCSC
System Software
1 470 (11.49%) Docker
2 91 (2.22%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.86%) Virtual Machines
4 27 (0.66%) VMware Infrastructure
5 26 (0.64%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.39%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.24%) KVM
8 10 (0.24%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.22%) Postfix
9 9 (0.22%) vCloud
10 6 (0.15%) HDFS
10 6 (0.15%) RACF
11 4 (0.098%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.098%) XenApp
11 4 (0.098%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.073%) Oracle Clusterware
13 2 (0.049%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 2 (0.049%) GridGain
13 2 (0.049%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 384 (9.38%) Kubernetes
2 329 (8.04%) Terraform
3 107 (2.61%) Grafana
4 67 (1.64%) Ansible
5 63 (1.54%) Prometheus
6 41 (1.00%) Oracle RMAN
7 30 (0.73%) Data Guard
8 19 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.44%) Kibana
10 16 (0.39%) vCenter Server
11 15 (0.37%) ZABBIX
12 14 (0.34%) Nagios
12 14 (0.34%) Netcool
12 14 (0.34%) Tivoli
13 13 (0.32%) Control-M
13 13 (0.32%) OpenView
13 13 (0.32%) Tivoli Monitoring
14 10 (0.24%) SCOM
15 9 (0.22%) Progress Chef
15 9 (0.22%) SCCM
Vendors
1 680 (16.62%) Oracle
2 635 (15.52%) Microsoft
3 497 (12.15%) Databricks
4 157 (3.84%) Google
5 143 (3.49%) Informatica
6 127 (3.10%) ServiceNow
7 114 (2.79%) Talend
8 106 (2.59%) SAP
9 85 (2.08%) Splunk
10 62 (1.52%) IBM
11 60 (1.47%) Denodo
12 50 (1.22%) Salesforce
13 46 (1.12%) Citrix
14 42 (1.03%) VMware
15 36 (0.88%) Dynatrace
16 32 (0.78%) OpenAI
17 31 (0.76%) Bloomberg
17 31 (0.76%) MuleSoft
18 30 (0.73%) HP
19 29 (0.71%) BMC