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

6 months to
23 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,597 3,056 3,840
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.37% 11.91% 10.15%
As % of the Programming Languages category 34.97% 35.56% 34.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,487 2,059 2,795
10th Percentile £350 £354 £355
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £523 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.31% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £589 £625 £656
90th Percentile £709 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £539
% change year-on-year - -7.19% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 54 62
10th Percentile £19.83 £25.26 £21.65
25th Percentile £31.94 £30.74 £25.91
Median hourly rate £49.36 £52.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -6.43% +24.12% -15.00%
75th Percentile £68.13 £65.46 £53.63
90th Percentile £82.25 £79.16 £61.61
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £52.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year - +23.53% -15.42%

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 10,286 8,593 11,051
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 29.65% 33.49% 29.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,867 5,584 7,971
10th Percentile £351 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £614 £650 £660
90th Percentile £725 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £530
% change year-on-year -4.76% -0.94% -5.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 430 206 466
10th Percentile £41.25 £25.26 £35.51
25th Percentile £53.81 £41.75 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +4.58% -7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £69.62
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £76.53
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.16%

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 23 February 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 23 February 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 23 February 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 2,155 £510 -7.27% 672
Midlands -1 408 £494 +7.28% 273
North of England -7 390 £450 -5.26% 353
West Midlands 0 322 £485 -0.92% 176
South East -22 269 £478 -4.50% 551
North West -1 221 £425 -10.29% 213
South West -2 186 £475 -6.86% 128
Yorkshire -24 148 £500 -2.20% 102
East Midlands -9 86 £525 +35.92% 96
East of England -16 79 £550 +17.02% 111
North East -10 26 £475 +2.70% 42
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
1 190 (5.28%) Apache Spark
2 145 (4.03%) Apache Airflow
3 113 (3.14%) Apache
4 109 (3.03%) Confluence
5 81 (2.25%) SharePoint
6 75 (2.09%) SAS
7 53 (1.47%) WebLogic
8 24 (0.67%) IIS
9 22 (0.61%) Microsoft Exchange
10 19 (0.53%) Tomcat
11 18 (0.50%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 17 (0.47%) CMS
13 16 (0.44%) Jupyter
14 14 (0.39%) Palantir Foundry
14 14 (0.39%) Skype for Business
15 13 (0.36%) nginx
16 12 (0.33%) Appian
16 12 (0.33%) JBoss
16 12 (0.33%) Oracle Workflow
17 11 (0.31%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 225 (6.26%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (1.92%) Microsoft Office
3 45 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.33%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.25%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.11%) Trello
8 3 (0.083%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 3 (0.083%) Notion
8 3 (0.083%) Oracle Smart View
9 1 (0.028%) Maya
9 1 (0.028%) NUKE
9 1 (0.028%) SPSS
9 1 (0.028%) Weka
Business Applications
1 25 (0.70%) Aladdin
2 24 (0.67%) Oracle Payables
3 21 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.58%) Oracle Receivables
4 20 (0.56%) NEC Housing
4 20 (0.56%) Oracle EBS
4 20 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
5 15 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
6 14 (0.39%) Oracle ERP
6 14 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
6 14 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
7 13 (0.36%) Endur
7 13 (0.36%) NetSuite
7 13 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
8 11 (0.31%) Oracle Cash Management
8 11 (0.31%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 10 (0.28%) Advent Geneva
9 10 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 8 (0.22%) Maximo
10 8 (0.22%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 1,223 (34.00%) Azure
2 896 (24.91%) AWS
3 682 (18.96%) Power Platform
4 343 (9.54%) Azure DevOps
5 309 (8.59%) GCP
6 283 (7.87%) Azure Data Factory
7 268 (7.45%) GitHub
8 258 (7.17%) Serverless
9 244 (6.78%) Snowflake
10 190 (5.28%) Amazon S3
11 188 (5.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 147 (4.09%) dbt
13 139 (3.86%) GitHub Actions
14 133 (3.70%) AWS Lambda
15 95 (2.64%) SaaS
16 81 (2.25%) Azure Functions
17 80 (2.22%) Power Automate
18 66 (1.83%) PowerApps
19 64 (1.78%) AWS CloudFormation
20 60 (1.67%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.33%) Firewall
2 39 (1.08%) DNS
3 25 (0.70%) HTTP
4 17 (0.47%) Network Security
4 17 (0.47%) Skype
4 17 (0.47%) TCP/IP
5 14 (0.39%) Internet
6 13 (0.36%) DHCP
6 13 (0.36%) SSL
7 11 (0.31%) VPN
8 10 (0.28%) 5G
8 10 (0.28%) LAN
8 10 (0.28%) Unified Communications
8 10 (0.28%) WAN
9 9 (0.25%) 2G
10 8 (0.22%) SMS
11 7 (0.19%) 4G
11 7 (0.19%) Radio Access Network
12 6 (0.17%) Multicast
13 5 (0.14%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 617 (17.15%) Power BI
2 414 (11.51%) Data Warehouse
3 407 (11.31%) SQL Server
4 251 (6.98%) Relational Database
5 247 (6.87%) NoSQL
6 236 (6.56%) PostgreSQL
7 227 (6.31%) Data Lake
7 227 (6.31%) Tableau
8 180 (5.00%) Azure SQL Database
9 159 (4.42%) Metadata
10 148 (4.11%) Oracle Database
11 128 (3.56%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 115 (3.20%) BigQuery
13 110 (3.06%) Big Data
14 102 (2.84%) MySQL
15 97 (2.70%) MongoDB
16 94 (2.61%) Delta Lake
17 92 (2.56%) Amazon RDS
18 86 (2.39%) Amazon Redshift
19 75 (2.09%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 400 (11.12%) Git
2 284 (7.90%) JIRA
3 186 (5.17%) Jenkins
4 137 (3.81%) GitLab
5 59 (1.64%) JUnit
6 55 (1.53%) Selenium
7 43 (1.20%) Oracle APEX
8 42 (1.17%) Postman
9 34 (0.95%) Cucumber
10 29 (0.81%) MLflow
11 28 (0.78%) Maven
12 27 (0.75%) REST Assured
13 26 (0.72%) Bitbucket
14 25 (0.70%) ERwin
15 23 (0.64%) Mockito
16 22 (0.61%) Visual Studio
17 21 (0.58%) Cypress.io
17 21 (0.58%) SpecFlow
18 18 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
19 17 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,099 (30.55%) Social Skills
2 1,019 (28.33%) Finance
3 650 (18.07%) Analytical Skills
4 375 (10.43%) Banking
5 307 (8.53%) Public Sector
6 101 (2.81%) Investment Banking
7 96 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
8 92 (2.56%) Front Office
9 84 (2.34%) Marketing
10 62 (1.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 61 (1.70%) Retail
12 56 (1.56%) Financial Institution
13 40 (1.11%) Presentation Skills
14 38 (1.06%) Legal
15 35 (0.97%) Publishing
16 33 (0.92%) Organisational Skills
16 33 (0.92%) Telecoms
17 30 (0.83%) Law
17 30 (0.83%) Manufacturing
18 28 (0.78%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 873 (24.27%) Developer
2 623 (17.32%) Data Engineer
3 561 (15.60%) Analyst
4 475 (13.21%) Senior
5 254 (7.06%) Lead
6 235 (6.53%) Data Analyst
7 196 (5.45%) Business Analyst
8 179 (4.98%) Architect
9 145 (4.03%) Senior Developer
10 132 (3.67%) Java Developer
11 119 (3.31%) Consultant
12 113 (3.14%) Azure Engineer
13 107 (2.97%) Software Engineer
14 94 (2.61%) Senior Data Engineer
15 87 (2.42%) Data Scientist
16 85 (2.36%) Python Developer
17 82 (2.28%) C# Developer
17 82 (2.28%) Full-Stack Developer
18 75 (2.09%) Azure Data Engineer
19 73 (2.03%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 317 (8.81%) .NET
2 283 (7.87%) REST
3 231 (6.42%) Kafka
4 218 (6.06%) PySpark
5 172 (4.78%) React
6 165 (4.59%) RESTful
7 152 (4.23%) Spring
8 138 (3.84%) Spring Boot
9 131 (3.64%) XML
10 130 (3.61%) HTML
11 114 (3.17%) CSS
12 105 (2.92%) JSON
13 98 (2.72%) Pandas
14 94 (2.61%) AngularJS
15 91 (2.53%) Node.js
16 83 (2.31%) SOAP
17 79 (2.20%) .NET Framework
18 76 (2.11%) Middleware
19 68 (1.89%) Web Services
20 67 (1.86%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 222 (6.17%) Cloud Native
2 118 (3.28%) Data Structures
3 111 (3.09%) Legacy Systems
4 99 (2.75%) Product Ownership
5 81 (2.25%) Management Information System
6 76 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
7 73 (2.03%) Analytical Mindset
8 66 (1.83%) Derivative
8 66 (1.83%) Distributed Systems
9 59 (1.64%) Algorithms
10 58 (1.61%) Equities
11 53 (1.47%) Fixed Income
12 49 (1.36%) Onboarding
13 47 (1.31%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 41 (1.14%) Replication
15 37 (1.03%) Clustering
16 35 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
17 34 (0.95%) Market Risk
18 31 (0.86%) Distributed Computing
19 30 (0.83%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 288 (8.01%) Linux
2 207 (5.75%) Windows
3 188 (5.23%) Unix
4 66 (1.83%) Windows Server
5 16 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 16 (0.44%) Windows Server 2019
6 15 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
7 11 (0.31%) AIX
7 11 (0.31%) Windows 10
8 9 (0.25%) Android
8 9 (0.25%) VMS
9 7 (0.19%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.14%) Ubuntu
10 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.11%) Solaris
11 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.083%) Amazon Linux
12 3 (0.083%) CentOS
12 3 (0.083%) zOS
13 1 (0.028%) Data ONTAP
Processes & Methodologies
1 972 (27.02%) Agile
2 919 (25.55%) Analytics
3 898 (24.97%) CI/CD
4 826 (22.96%) Business Intelligence
5 819 (22.77%) Problem-Solving
6 817 (22.71%) Data Modelling
7 801 (22.27%) DevOps
8 772 (21.46%) ETL
9 559 (15.54%) Data Pipeline
10 517 (14.37%) Data Engineering
11 417 (11.59%) Migration
12 412 (11.45%) Data Governance
13 396 (11.01%) AI
14 376 (10.45%) Validation
15 358 (9.95%) Data Analysis
16 345 (9.59%) Visualisation
17 338 (9.40%) Data Science
18 316 (8.79%) Decision-Making
18 316 (8.79%) Test Automation
19 315 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 1,354 (37.64%) Python
2 526 (14.62%) Java
3 379 (10.54%) C#
4 305 (8.48%) JavaScript
5 271 (7.53%) PL/SQL
6 147 (4.09%) PowerShell
7 132 (3.67%) TypeScript
8 117 (3.25%) T-SQL
9 101 (2.81%) Shell Script
10 100 (2.78%) R
11 90 (2.50%) Scala
12 88 (2.45%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 74 (2.06%) C++
14 65 (1.81%) VBA
15 60 (1.67%) Bash
16 50 (1.39%) VB
17 45 (1.25%) Perl
18 43 (1.20%) Go
19 41 (1.14%) Bicep
20 28 (0.78%) PHP
Qualifications
1 658 (18.29%) Security Cleared
2 517 (14.37%) SC Cleared
3 335 (9.31%) Degree
4 108 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
5 76 (2.11%) Azure Certification
6 75 (2.09%) BPSS Clearance
7 61 (1.70%) Master's Degree
8 56 (1.56%) DV Cleared
9 53 (1.47%) AWS Certification
10 46 (1.28%) Microsoft Certification
11 42 (1.17%) ISTQB
12 20 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 19 (0.53%) CBAP
13 19 (0.53%) Oracle Certification
14 16 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
15 12 (0.33%) MCSE
16 11 (0.31%) Cisco Certification
16 11 (0.31%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.28%) PhD
17 10 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 593 (16.49%) Data Quality
2 257 (7.14%) QA
3 148 (4.11%) GDPR
4 56 (1.56%) Accessibility
5 27 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 25 (0.70%) SLA
7 21 (0.58%) PMO
8 19 (0.53%) MiFID
9 17 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
9 17 (0.47%) HIPAA
10 16 (0.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 14 (0.39%) PCI DSS
12 13 (0.36%) NIST
12 13 (0.36%) SEPA
13 12 (0.33%) EMIR
13 12 (0.33%) IFRS
13 12 (0.33%) WCAG
14 11 (0.31%) ISO 20022
15 10 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 10 (0.28%) PSD2
System Software
1 425 (11.82%) Docker
2 94 (2.61%) Active Directory
3 28 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
4 18 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
4 18 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
5 12 (0.33%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.17%) KVM
7 6 (0.17%) Postfix
8 5 (0.14%) HDFS
8 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 5 (0.14%) RACF
8 5 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
8 5 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.14%) XenApp
8 5 (0.14%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.11%) vSphere
9 4 (0.11%) zsh
10 3 (0.083%) Oracle Clusterware
10 3 (0.083%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 379 (10.54%) Kubernetes
2 278 (7.73%) Terraform
3 79 (2.20%) Grafana
4 63 (1.75%) Prometheus
5 57 (1.58%) Ansible
6 21 (0.58%) SCCM
6 21 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (0.56%) Oracle RMAN
8 17 (0.47%) Control-M
8 17 (0.47%) Data Guard
8 17 (0.47%) Progress Chef
9 15 (0.42%) SCOM
10 14 (0.39%) Kibana
10 14 (0.39%) Puppet
11 13 (0.36%) HP SiteScope
12 11 (0.31%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 11 (0.31%) WSUS
13 8 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.22%) ITRS Geneos
13 8 (0.22%) Kiali
Vendors
1 605 (16.82%) Oracle
2 585 (16.26%) Microsoft
3 434 (12.07%) Databricks
4 149 (4.14%) Google
5 96 (2.67%) SAP
6 85 (2.36%) ServiceNow
7 83 (2.31%) Talend
8 81 (2.25%) Informatica
9 78 (2.17%) Splunk
10 63 (1.75%) Salesforce
11 52 (1.45%) IBM
12 46 (1.28%) OpenAI
13 45 (1.25%) Citrix
14 40 (1.11%) MuleSoft
15 33 (0.92%) VMware
16 32 (0.89%) Denodo
17 31 (0.86%) Bloomberg
18 25 (0.70%) Foundry
19 23 (0.64%) Dynatrace
19 23 (0.64%) NEC