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

6 months to
22 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -3 0 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,607 3,081 3,855
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.37% 11.92% 10.16%
As % of the Programming Languages category 34.97% 35.60% 34.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,493 2,081 2,805
10th Percentile £350 £354 £355
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £591 £625 £658
90th Percentile £712 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% -1.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 54 63
10th Percentile £20.28 £25.26 £21.66
25th Percentile £33.32 £30.74 £26.02
Median hourly rate £50.00 £52.75 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.21% +24.12% -15.00%
75th Percentile £65.88 £65.46 £53.50
90th Percentile £82.25 £79.16 £61.48
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 10,315 8,654 11,095
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 29.65% 33.47% 29.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,881 5,629 7,996
10th Percentile £352 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.71% -4.55% -4.35%
75th Percentile £614 £650 £663
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 433 206 470
10th Percentile £41.32 £25.26 £35.62
25th Percentile £53.75 £41.75 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £60.32
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +4.03% -7.20%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%

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 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 22 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 22 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 2,160 £510 -7.27% 678
Midlands -1 409 £494 +7.28% 275
North of England -6 392 £450 -5.26% 356
West Midlands +1 323 £485 -0.92% 176
South East -23 271 £475 -5.00% 552
North West -1 221 £425 -10.29% 213
South West -1 187 £475 -6.86% 132
Yorkshire -25 150 £500 -2.20% 103
East Midlands -11 86 £525 +35.92% 98
East of England -15 78 £550 +17.02% 106
North East -14 26 £475 +2.70% 45
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
1 191 (5.30%) Apache Spark
2 145 (4.02%) Apache Airflow
3 113 (3.13%) Apache
4 108 (2.99%) Confluence
5 80 (2.22%) SharePoint
6 75 (2.08%) 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 (0.30%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 224 (6.21%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (1.91%) Microsoft Office
3 45 (1.25%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.91%) 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 2 (0.055%) Maya
9 2 (0.055%) NUKE
10 1 (0.028%) SPSS
10 1 (0.028%) Weka
Business Applications
1 25 (0.69%) Aladdin
2 24 (0.67%) Oracle Payables
3 21 (0.58%) Dynamics CRM
3 21 (0.58%) Oracle Receivables
4 20 (0.55%) NEC Housing
4 20 (0.55%) Oracle EBS
4 20 (0.55%) 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 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
8 11 (0.30%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 10 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 9 (0.25%) Advent Geneva
11 8 (0.22%) Maximo
11 8 (0.22%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,227 (34.02%) Azure
2 898 (24.90%) AWS
3 684 (18.96%) Power Platform
4 343 (9.51%) Azure DevOps
5 312 (8.65%) GCP
6 285 (7.90%) Azure Data Factory
7 268 (7.43%) GitHub
8 258 (7.15%) Serverless
9 245 (6.79%) Snowflake
10 192 (5.32%) Amazon S3
11 190 (5.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 147 (4.08%) dbt
13 139 (3.85%) GitHub Actions
14 133 (3.69%) AWS Lambda
15 95 (2.63%) SaaS
16 81 (2.25%) Azure Functions
17 80 (2.22%) Power Automate
18 66 (1.83%) PowerApps
19 63 (1.75%) AWS CloudFormation
20 59 (1.64%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 47 (1.30%) Firewall
2 38 (1.05%) DNS
3 25 (0.69%) 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
7 12 (0.33%) SSL
8 11 (0.30%) VPN
9 10 (0.28%) 5G
9 10 (0.28%) Unified Communications
10 9 (0.25%) 2G
10 9 (0.25%) LAN
10 9 (0.25%) WAN
11 8 (0.22%) SMS
12 7 (0.19%) 4G
12 7 (0.19%) Multicast
12 7 (0.19%) Radio Access Network
13 5 (0.14%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 619 (17.16%) Power BI
2 414 (11.48%) Data Warehouse
3 407 (11.28%) SQL Server
4 252 (6.99%) Relational Database
5 248 (6.88%) NoSQL
6 236 (6.54%) PostgreSQL
7 227 (6.29%) Data Lake
8 226 (6.27%) Tableau
9 181 (5.02%) Azure SQL Database
10 159 (4.41%) Metadata
11 149 (4.13%) Oracle Database
12 128 (3.55%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 115 (3.19%) BigQuery
14 110 (3.05%) Big Data
15 102 (2.83%) MySQL
16 97 (2.69%) MongoDB
17 94 (2.61%) Delta Lake
18 92 (2.55%) Amazon RDS
19 87 (2.41%) Amazon Redshift
20 75 (2.08%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 402 (11.14%) Git
2 284 (7.87%) JIRA
3 186 (5.16%) Jenkins
4 137 (3.80%) GitLab
5 59 (1.64%) JUnit
6 55 (1.52%) Selenium
7 43 (1.19%) Oracle APEX
7 43 (1.19%) Postman
8 34 (0.94%) Cucumber
9 29 (0.80%) MLflow
10 28 (0.78%) Maven
11 27 (0.75%) REST Assured
12 26 (0.72%) Bitbucket
13 25 (0.69%) ERwin
14 23 (0.64%) Mockito
15 22 (0.61%) Visual Studio
16 21 (0.58%) Cypress.io
16 21 (0.58%) SpecFlow
17 18 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
18 17 (0.47%) Oracle Forms
General
1 1,104 (30.61%) Social Skills
2 1,019 (28.25%) Finance
3 653 (18.10%) Analytical Skills
4 375 (10.40%) Banking
5 309 (8.57%) Public Sector
6 101 (2.80%) Investment Banking
7 96 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
8 91 (2.52%) Front Office
9 85 (2.36%) Marketing
10 61 (1.69%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 61 (1.69%) Retail
11 56 (1.55%) Financial Institution
12 41 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
13 38 (1.05%) Legal
14 35 (0.97%) Publishing
15 34 (0.94%) Telecoms
16 33 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
17 32 (0.89%) Manufacturing
18 30 (0.83%) Law
19 28 (0.78%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 878 (24.34%) Developer
2 625 (17.33%) Data Engineer
3 561 (15.55%) Analyst
4 476 (13.20%) Senior
5 255 (7.07%) Lead
6 234 (6.49%) Data Analyst
7 196 (5.43%) Business Analyst
8 177 (4.91%) Architect
9 145 (4.02%) Senior Developer
10 132 (3.66%) Java Developer
11 118 (3.27%) Consultant
12 114 (3.16%) Azure Engineer
13 107 (2.97%) Software Engineer
14 94 (2.61%) Senior Data Engineer
15 90 (2.50%) Data Scientist
16 85 (2.36%) Python Developer
17 82 (2.27%) C# Developer
17 82 (2.27%) Full-Stack Developer
18 76 (2.11%) Azure Data Engineer
19 73 (2.02%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 318 (8.82%) .NET
2 283 (7.85%) REST
3 231 (6.40%) Kafka
4 217 (6.02%) PySpark
5 172 (4.77%) React
6 164 (4.55%) RESTful
7 152 (4.21%) Spring
8 138 (3.83%) Spring Boot
9 132 (3.66%) XML
10 131 (3.63%) HTML
11 115 (3.19%) CSS
12 105 (2.91%) JSON
13 98 (2.72%) Pandas
14 94 (2.61%) AngularJS
15 91 (2.52%) Node.js
16 83 (2.30%) SOAP
17 79 (2.19%) .NET Framework
18 75 (2.08%) Middleware
19 69 (1.91%) Web Services
20 68 (1.89%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 223 (6.18%) Cloud Native
2 119 (3.30%) Data Structures
3 111 (3.08%) Legacy Systems
4 100 (2.77%) Product Ownership
5 81 (2.25%) Management Information System
6 76 (2.11%) Data Protection Act
7 74 (2.05%) Analytical Mindset
8 67 (1.86%) Distributed Systems
9 65 (1.80%) Derivative
10 61 (1.69%) Algorithms
11 57 (1.58%) Equities
12 52 (1.44%) Fixed Income
13 50 (1.39%) Onboarding
14 48 (1.33%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 40 (1.11%) Replication
16 36 (1.00%) Clustering
16 36 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
17 34 (0.94%) Market Risk
18 32 (0.89%) Distributed Computing
19 30 (0.83%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 289 (8.01%) Linux
2 207 (5.74%) Windows
3 190 (5.27%) Unix
4 66 (1.83%) Windows Server
5 16 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.42%) Windows Server 2016
6 15 (0.42%) Windows Server 2019
7 11 (0.30%) AIX
7 11 (0.30%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.28%) Android
9 9 (0.25%) VMS
10 8 (0.22%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.14%) Ubuntu
11 5 (0.14%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.11%) Solaris
12 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.083%) Amazon Linux
13 3 (0.083%) CentOS
13 3 (0.083%) zOS
14 1 (0.028%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 975 (27.03%) Agile
2 919 (25.48%) Analytics
3 901 (24.98%) CI/CD
4 829 (22.98%) Business Intelligence
5 821 (22.76%) Problem-Solving
6 817 (22.65%) Data Modelling
7 801 (22.21%) DevOps
8 774 (21.46%) ETL
9 559 (15.50%) Data Pipeline
10 521 (14.44%) Data Engineering
11 416 (11.53%) Migration
12 412 (11.42%) Data Governance
13 398 (11.03%) AI
14 378 (10.48%) Validation
15 359 (9.95%) Data Analysis
16 345 (9.56%) Visualisation
17 343 (9.51%) Data Science
18 318 (8.82%) Test Automation
19 317 (8.79%) Decision-Making
20 316 (8.76%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 1,357 (37.62%) Python
2 528 (14.64%) Java
3 379 (10.51%) C#
4 305 (8.46%) JavaScript
5 273 (7.57%) PL/SQL
6 145 (4.02%) PowerShell
7 132 (3.66%) TypeScript
8 117 (3.24%) T-SQL
9 103 (2.86%) Shell Script
10 100 (2.77%) R
11 91 (2.52%) Scala
12 89 (2.47%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 76 (2.11%) C++
14 64 (1.77%) VBA
15 60 (1.66%) Bash
16 51 (1.41%) VB
17 45 (1.25%) Perl
18 43 (1.19%) Go
19 41 (1.14%) Bicep
20 28 (0.78%) PHP
Qualifications
1 657 (18.21%) Security Cleared
2 516 (14.31%) SC Cleared
3 334 (9.26%) Degree
4 108 (2.99%) Computer Science Degree
5 76 (2.11%) Azure Certification
6 75 (2.08%) BPSS Clearance
7 61 (1.69%) Master's Degree
8 55 (1.52%) DV Cleared
9 53 (1.47%) AWS Certification
10 46 (1.28%) Microsoft Certification
11 42 (1.16%) ISTQB
12 20 (0.55%) 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 (0.30%) Cisco Certification
16 11 (0.30%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.28%) CCNA
17 10 (0.28%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 591 (16.38%) Data Quality
2 258 (7.15%) QA
3 147 (4.08%) GDPR
4 56 (1.55%) Accessibility
5 27 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 26 (0.72%) 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 (0.30%) ISO 20022
15 10 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
15 10 (0.28%) PSD2
System Software
1 425 (11.78%) Docker
2 93 (2.58%) Active Directory
3 28 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
4 18 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
5 17 (0.47%) VMware Infrastructure
6 12 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.17%) KVM
8 6 (0.17%) Postfix
9 5 (0.14%) HDFS
9 5 (0.14%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 5 (0.14%) RACF
9 5 (0.14%) Virtual Servers
9 5 (0.14%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.14%) XenApp
9 5 (0.14%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.11%) zsh
11 3 (0.083%) DFS Replication
11 3 (0.083%) Dovecot
11 3 (0.083%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 379 (10.51%) Kubernetes
2 276 (7.65%) Terraform
3 79 (2.19%) Grafana
4 63 (1.75%) Prometheus
5 56 (1.55%) Ansible
6 21 (0.58%) SCCM
6 21 (0.58%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (0.55%) 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 12 (0.33%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 11 (0.30%) WSUS
14 8 (0.22%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.22%) ITRS Geneos
14 8 (0.22%) Kiali
Vendors
1 606 (16.80%) Oracle
2 585 (16.22%) Microsoft
3 435 (12.06%) Databricks
4 149 (4.13%) Google
5 97 (2.69%) SAP
6 85 (2.36%) ServiceNow
7 83 (2.30%) Talend
8 81 (2.25%) Informatica
9 79 (2.19%) Splunk
10 63 (1.75%) Salesforce
11 52 (1.44%) IBM
12 47 (1.30%) OpenAI
13 45 (1.25%) Citrix
14 40 (1.11%) MuleSoft
15 32 (0.89%) Denodo
15 32 (0.89%) VMware
16 31 (0.86%) Bloomberg
17 25 (0.69%) Foundry
18 23 (0.64%) Dynatrace
18 23 (0.64%) NEC