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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,966 3,007 3,612
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.76% 12.47% 9.88%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.72% 36.97% 33.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,717 2,130 2,677
10th Percentile £350 £358 £358
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% +0.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 52 57
10th Percentile £26.52 £19.17 £23.50
25th Percentile £35.25 £29.77 £30.37
Median hourly rate £48.72 £45.50 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year +7.08% +1.11% -8.69%
75th Percentile £73.00 £65.62 £57.50
90th Percentile £83.15 £81.74 £62.24
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £42.82 £45.00
% change year-on-year +22.62% -4.86% -10.00%

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 10,802 8,133 10,816
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.59% 33.72% 29.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,138 5,646 7,855
10th Percentile £352 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -2.48%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £659
90th Percentile £725 £780 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £530
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 528 209 441
10th Percentile £41.94 £26.31 £38.39
25th Percentile £55.00 £38.11 £50.75
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.50 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - +1.07%

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 14 May 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 2,238 £520 -3.70% 864
Midlands +4 516 £468 +3.89% 242
North of England -9 475 £450 -5.26% 379
West Midlands +5 415 £460 - 132
South East -18 342 £480 -4.00% 488
North West -1 262 £450 -5.26% 213
South West -9 198 £470 -2.34% 145
Yorkshire -16 189 £460 -5.64% 115
East Midlands +1 98 £525 +32.74% 110
East of England -21 89 £495 +5.88% 109
North East -12 36 £475 +5.56% 56
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
1 221 (5.57%) Apache Spark
2 150 (3.78%) Apache Airflow
3 135 (3.40%) Confluence
4 133 (3.35%) Apache
5 87 (2.19%) SAS
6 74 (1.87%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.96%) WebLogic
8 31 (0.78%) IIS
9 23 (0.58%) Tomcat
10 22 (0.55%) Oracle Workflow
11 19 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) Jupyter
14 13 (0.33%) Appian
14 13 (0.33%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.33%) Mendix
14 13 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.30%) CMS
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 11 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 268 (6.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (1.29%) Microsoft Office
3 47 (1.19%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.13%) Notepad++
8 5 (0.13%) Notion
9 3 (0.076%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.076%) Trello
10 1 (0.025%) InDesign
10 1 (0.025%) Mingle
10 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.06%) Oracle EBS
2 25 (0.63%) Aladdin
2 25 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
2 25 (0.63%) NEC Housing
3 20 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
3 20 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
4 17 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.43%) Oracle Receivables
4 17 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
5 15 (0.38%) NetSuite
5 15 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
6 14 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
7 12 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
7 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 11 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
9 9 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
10 8 (0.20%) Endur
10 8 (0.20%) Findur
10 8 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
10 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,329 (33.51%) Azure
2 942 (23.75%) AWS
3 770 (19.42%) Power Platform
4 393 (9.91%) Azure DevOps
5 337 (8.50%) Azure Data Factory
6 316 (7.97%) GCP
7 285 (7.19%) GitHub
8 247 (6.23%) Serverless
9 230 (5.80%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 223 (5.62%) Snowflake
11 218 (5.50%) Amazon S3
12 179 (4.51%) dbt
13 146 (3.68%) AWS Lambda
13 146 (3.68%) GitHub Actions
14 77 (1.94%) Power Automate
15 75 (1.89%) SaaS
16 70 (1.77%) Entra ID
17 66 (1.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 64 (1.61%) Azure Functions
19 63 (1.59%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.21%) Firewall
2 42 (1.06%) DNS
3 19 (0.48%) Network Security
4 18 (0.45%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.38%) Internet
5 15 (0.38%) SNMP
5 15 (0.38%) WAN
6 14 (0.35%) HTTP
7 12 (0.30%) LAN
8 11 (0.28%) SSL
8 11 (0.28%) VPN
8 11 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.23%) DHCP
10 7 (0.18%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.15%) 3GPP
11 6 (0.15%) IPsec
11 6 (0.15%) VLAN
12 5 (0.13%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.13%) PuTTY
12 5 (0.13%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 706 (17.80%) Power BI
2 513 (12.93%) Data Warehouse
3 494 (12.46%) SQL Server
4 275 (6.93%) Tableau
5 269 (6.78%) Data Lake
6 249 (6.28%) Relational Database
7 248 (6.25%) PostgreSQL
8 230 (5.80%) NoSQL
9 211 (5.32%) Metadata
10 195 (4.92%) Azure SQL Database
11 150 (3.78%) Oracle Database
12 142 (3.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 128 (3.23%) BigQuery
14 118 (2.98%) Delta Lake
15 112 (2.82%) Amazon Redshift
16 106 (2.67%) Big Data
17 103 (2.60%) MySQL
18 101 (2.55%) Oracle Reports
19 90 (2.27%) Snowflake Schema
20 88 (2.22%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 412 (10.39%) Git
2 315 (7.94%) JIRA
3 205 (5.17%) Jenkins
4 170 (4.29%) GitLab
5 55 (1.39%) Selenium
6 51 (1.29%) JUnit
7 44 (1.11%) Maven
7 44 (1.11%) Postman
8 39 (0.98%) Mockito
9 37 (0.93%) Cucumber
10 35 (0.88%) MLflow
11 34 (0.86%) Gradle
12 30 (0.76%) SonarQube
13 28 (0.71%) REST Assured
14 27 (0.68%) ERwin
15 23 (0.58%) Bitbucket
16 22 (0.55%) JMeter
17 21 (0.53%) SpecFlow
17 21 (0.53%) TeamCity
17 21 (0.53%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,074 (27.08%) Finance
2 1,026 (25.87%) Social Skills
3 736 (18.56%) Analytical Skills
4 384 (9.68%) Banking
5 337 (8.50%) Public Sector
6 102 (2.57%) Front Office
7 94 (2.37%) Investment Banking
7 94 (2.37%) Marketing
8 82 (2.07%) Documentation Skills
9 62 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (1.44%) Retail
11 56 (1.41%) Financial Institution
12 53 (1.34%) Legal
13 37 (0.93%) Publishing
14 36 (0.91%) Telecoms
15 35 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
16 32 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
17 31 (0.78%) Law
18 29 (0.73%) Local Government
19 28 (0.71%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 824 (20.78%) Data Engineer
2 814 (20.52%) Developer
3 582 (14.67%) Analyst
4 494 (12.46%) Senior
5 273 (6.88%) Lead
6 246 (6.20%) Data Analyst
7 223 (5.62%) Architect
8 182 (4.59%) Business Analyst
8 182 (4.59%) Consultant
9 151 (3.81%) Java Developer
10 144 (3.63%) Senior Data Engineer
11 125 (3.15%) DBA
12 119 (3.00%) Software Engineer
13 116 (2.92%) Azure Engineer
14 114 (2.87%) Senior Developer
15 97 (2.45%) C# Developer
16 86 (2.17%) Data Scientist
17 84 (2.12%) Data Architect
18 83 (2.09%) Python Developer
18 83 (2.09%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 339 (8.55%) .NET
2 308 (7.77%) REST
3 252 (6.35%) PySpark
4 245 (6.18%) Kafka
5 190 (4.79%) Spring
6 188 (4.74%) React
7 182 (4.59%) Spring Boot
8 164 (4.14%) RESTful
9 138 (3.48%) HTML
10 129 (3.25%) XML
11 121 (3.05%) JSON
12 116 (2.92%) Pandas
13 115 (2.90%) CSS
14 100 (2.52%) AngularJS
15 91 (2.29%) Middleware
16 84 (2.12%) SOAP
17 77 (1.94%) .NET Framework
18 73 (1.84%) Web Services
19 70 (1.77%) Node.js
20 67 (1.69%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 252 (6.35%) Cloud Native
2 145 (3.66%) Data Structures
3 129 (3.25%) Legacy Systems
4 117 (2.95%) Product Ownership
5 100 (2.52%) Distributed Systems
6 85 (2.14%) Management Information System
7 77 (1.94%) Derivative
8 71 (1.79%) Onboarding
9 69 (1.74%) Data Protection Act
10 63 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
11 53 (1.34%) Equities
12 52 (1.31%) Clustering
12 52 (1.31%) Fixed Income
13 47 (1.19%) Algorithms
13 47 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
14 45 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
15 44 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
16 39 (0.98%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 39 (0.98%) Replication
17 37 (0.93%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 283 (7.14%) Linux
2 243 (6.13%) Windows
3 197 (4.97%) Unix
4 85 (2.14%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.61%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.18%) Solaris
10 7 (0.18%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.18%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.076%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.076%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.050%) VMS
14 1 (0.025%) HPUX
14 1 (0.025%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,075 (27.11%) CI/CD
2 1,014 (25.57%) Analytics
3 1,004 (25.32%) Data Modelling
4 969 (24.43%) Agile
5 968 (24.41%) ETL
6 912 (23.00%) Business Intelligence
7 871 (21.96%) DevOps
8 803 (20.25%) Problem-Solving
9 735 (18.53%) Data Pipeline
10 649 (16.36%) Data Engineering
11 512 (12.91%) AI
12 496 (12.51%) Migration
13 478 (12.05%) Validation
14 469 (11.83%) Data Governance
15 396 (9.98%) Test Automation
16 390 (9.83%) Decision-Making
17 372 (9.38%) Data Analysis
18 366 (9.23%) Performance Tuning
19 350 (8.83%) Microservices
20 337 (8.50%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,497 (37.75%) Python
2 528 (13.31%) Java
3 434 (10.94%) C#
4 292 (7.36%) JavaScript
5 290 (7.31%) PL/SQL
6 203 (5.12%) T-SQL
7 187 (4.72%) PowerShell
8 127 (3.20%) TypeScript
9 124 (3.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 116 (2.92%) R
11 114 (2.87%) Shell Script
12 87 (2.19%) Scala
13 76 (1.92%) Bash
14 61 (1.54%) C++
15 47 (1.19%) VBA
16 41 (1.03%) Bicep
17 39 (0.98%) Perl
18 29 (0.73%) VB
19 26 (0.66%) Go
20 23 (0.58%) C
Qualifications
1 835 (21.05%) Security Cleared
2 668 (16.84%) SC Cleared
3 320 (8.07%) Degree
4 109 (2.75%) Computer Science Degree
5 86 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 71 (1.79%) Azure Certification
7 66 (1.66%) DV Cleared
8 51 (1.29%) Master's Degree
9 47 (1.19%) ISTQB
10 36 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
11 21 (0.53%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.38%) CBAP
12 15 (0.38%) PhD
13 14 (0.35%) Oracle Certification
14 12 (0.30%) DBS Check
15 11 (0.28%) CISSP
15 11 (0.28%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 11 (0.28%) PMI Certification
16 10 (0.25%) PMP
17 9 (0.23%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 731 (18.43%) Data Quality
2 306 (7.72%) QA
3 177 (4.46%) GDPR
4 37 (0.93%) SLA
5 36 (0.91%) Accessibility
6 31 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 26 (0.66%) PMO
8 24 (0.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 19 (0.48%) NIST
9 19 (0.48%) PCI DSS
10 17 (0.43%) MiFID
11 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
12 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 14 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
13 14 (0.35%) IFRS
14 13 (0.33%) ISO 20022
15 12 (0.30%) HL7
16 10 (0.25%) GRC
17 9 (0.23%) SEPA
17 9 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 449 (11.32%) Docker
2 94 (2.37%) Active Directory
3 37 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
4 28 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
5 25 (0.63%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.25%) KVM
7 10 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.20%) Postfix
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.15%) HDFS
9 6 (0.15%) RACF
9 6 (0.15%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.13%) vCloud
11 4 (0.10%) XenApp
11 4 (0.10%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.076%) Oracle Clusterware
13 2 (0.050%) GridGain
13 2 (0.050%) vSphere
14 1 (0.025%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 382 (9.63%) Kubernetes
2 323 (8.14%) Terraform
3 102 (2.57%) Grafana
4 65 (1.64%) Ansible
5 61 (1.54%) Prometheus
6 38 (0.96%) Oracle RMAN
7 27 (0.68%) Data Guard
8 18 (0.45%) Kibana
8 18 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
9 16 (0.40%) SCCM
10 15 (0.38%) ZABBIX
11 14 (0.35%) Control-M
11 14 (0.35%) Nagios
11 14 (0.35%) Netcool
11 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
12 13 (0.33%) OpenView
12 13 (0.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
13 12 (0.30%) Progress Chef
13 12 (0.30%) vCenter Server
14 9 (0.23%) Kiali
Vendors
1 648 (16.34%) Oracle
2 627 (15.81%) Microsoft
3 480 (12.10%) Databricks
4 155 (3.91%) Google
5 135 (3.40%) Informatica
6 124 (3.13%) ServiceNow
7 109 (2.75%) Talend
8 105 (2.65%) SAP
9 84 (2.12%) Splunk
10 62 (1.56%) IBM
11 58 (1.46%) Denodo
12 50 (1.26%) Salesforce
13 47 (1.19%) Citrix
14 42 (1.06%) VMware
15 37 (0.93%) Dynatrace
16 35 (0.88%) Bloomberg
17 34 (0.86%) OpenAI
18 32 (0.81%) HP
19 31 (0.78%) MuleSoft
20 30 (0.76%) BMC