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

6 months to
19 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,342 3,117 3,834
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.55% 11.69% 10.45%
As % of the Programming Languages category 34.52% 35.38% 34.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,306 2,086 2,746
10th Percentile £345 £350 £363
25th Percentile £413 £415 £429
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £515 £550
% change year-on-year -2.91% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 50 65
10th Percentile £21.26 £25.26 £22.03
25th Percentile £31.18 £35.00 £27.75
Median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £43.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +20.69% -12.12%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £74.55 £77.47 £64.52
UK median hourly rate £47.11 £47.50 £44.25
% change year-on-year -0.82% +7.34% -11.06%

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 9,680 8,810 11,036
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 30.56% 33.05% 30.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,444 5,653 7,956
10th Percentile £350 £357 £363
25th Percentile £413 £425 £432
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £663
90th Percentile £735 £775 £763
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -3.17%
Number of hourly rates quoted 385 214 424
10th Percentile £39.76 £25.26 £35.50
25th Percentile £52.50 £44.44 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £61.92
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +0.94% -4.74%
75th Percentile £68.75 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% +3.31% -3.97%

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 19 January 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 19 January 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 19 January 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 2,055 £510 -7.27% 664
North of England -3 346 £443 -6.84% 485
Midlands -3 329 £515 +9.81% 339
South East -15 287 £475 -5.94% 850
West Midlands -1 247 £515 +3.00% 152
North West -1 197 £418 -9.73% 234
South West -4 154 £475 -5.00% 283
Yorkshire -23 132 £472 -5.70% 180
East Midlands -9 82 £500 +29.87% 184
East of England -7 74 £575 +11.92% 285
North East -15 19 £475 -4.04% 78
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
1 154 (4.61%) Apache Spark
2 131 (3.92%) Apache Airflow
3 108 (3.23%) Confluence
4 95 (2.84%) Apache
5 91 (2.72%) SharePoint
6 66 (1.97%) SAS
7 50 (1.50%) WebLogic
8 26 (0.78%) Microsoft Exchange
9 20 (0.60%) IIS
10 19 (0.57%) Skype for Business
11 18 (0.54%) nginx
12 16 (0.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 14 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.39%) Jupyter
14 13 (0.39%) Mattermost
14 13 (0.39%) Tomcat
15 12 (0.36%) CMS
16 11 (0.33%) HCL Notes
16 11 (0.33%) JBoss
17 9 (0.27%) Mendix
Applications
1 222 (6.64%) Microsoft Excel
2 65 (1.94%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (1.23%) MS Visio
4 35 (1.05%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
6 11 (0.33%) Chatbot
7 9 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.18%) Trello
9 5 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
10 3 (0.090%) Notion
11 2 (0.060%) Maya
11 2 (0.060%) NUKE
11 2 (0.060%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.030%) SPSS
12 1 (0.030%) Weka
Business Applications
1 30 (0.90%) Oracle EBS
1 30 (0.90%) Oracle Payables
2 28 (0.84%) Oracle General Ledger
3 22 (0.66%) Aladdin
3 22 (0.66%) Oracle Receivables
4 20 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.60%) Oracle Assets
5 19 (0.57%) Oracle EBS R12
6 17 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
7 14 (0.42%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
7 14 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
8 12 (0.36%) Endur
8 12 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
8 12 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 10 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
10 9 (0.27%) Advent Geneva
10 9 (0.27%) Maximo
10 9 (0.27%) NEC Housing
10 9 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 1,104 (33.03%) Azure
2 794 (23.76%) AWS
3 635 (19.00%) Power Platform
4 302 (9.04%) Azure DevOps
5 280 (8.38%) GCP
6 244 (7.30%) GitHub
7 234 (7.00%) Azure Data Factory
8 227 (6.79%) Snowflake
9 226 (6.76%) Serverless
10 166 (4.97%) Amazon S3
11 165 (4.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 126 (3.77%) dbt
13 121 (3.62%) GitHub Actions
14 108 (3.23%) AWS Lambda
15 88 (2.63%) SaaS
16 82 (2.45%) Azure Functions
17 77 (2.30%) Power Automate
18 69 (2.06%) PowerApps
19 56 (1.68%) Azure Logic Apps
19 56 (1.68%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 56 (1.68%) Firewall
2 40 (1.20%) DNS
3 37 (1.11%) HTTP
4 25 (0.75%) Skype
5 17 (0.51%) Network Security
6 16 (0.48%) TCP/IP
7 14 (0.42%) DHCP
7 14 (0.42%) Internet
8 13 (0.39%) SSH
9 12 (0.36%) Unified Communications
10 10 (0.30%) SMTP
10 10 (0.30%) VPN
11 9 (0.27%) 2G
11 9 (0.27%) 5G
11 9 (0.27%) FTP
11 9 (0.27%) IMAP
11 9 (0.27%) LAN
11 9 (0.27%) OpenLDAP
11 9 (0.27%) WAN
12 8 (0.24%) Multicast
Database & Business Intelligence
1 576 (17.24%) Power BI
2 365 (10.92%) SQL Server
3 345 (10.32%) Data Warehouse
4 243 (7.27%) Relational Database
5 241 (7.21%) PostgreSQL
6 238 (7.12%) NoSQL
7 202 (6.04%) Tableau
8 197 (5.89%) Data Lake
9 165 (4.94%) Azure SQL Database
10 154 (4.61%) Oracle Database
11 129 (3.86%) Metadata
12 107 (3.20%) Big Data
13 104 (3.11%) MySQL
14 100 (2.99%) MongoDB
15 97 (2.90%) BigQuery
16 92 (2.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 83 (2.48%) Amazon RDS
18 72 (2.15%) Amazon Redshift
19 68 (2.03%) Delta Lake
20 64 (1.92%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 376 (11.25%) Git
2 305 (9.13%) JIRA
3 183 (5.48%) Jenkins
4 129 (3.86%) GitLab
5 57 (1.71%) JUnit
5 57 (1.71%) Selenium
6 46 (1.38%) Oracle APEX
7 35 (1.05%) Cucumber
8 34 (1.02%) Postman
9 32 (0.96%) Bitbucket
10 23 (0.69%) REST Assured
11 22 (0.66%) Cypress.io
11 22 (0.66%) ERwin
11 22 (0.66%) Maven
11 22 (0.66%) SpecFlow
12 21 (0.63%) Mockito
13 20 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
14 19 (0.57%) MLflow
15 18 (0.54%) Visual Studio
16 17 (0.51%) Gradle
General
1 1,045 (31.27%) Social Skills
2 961 (28.76%) Finance
3 587 (17.56%) Analytical Skills
4 385 (11.52%) Banking
5 260 (7.78%) Public Sector
6 113 (3.38%) Investment Banking
7 93 (2.78%) Front Office
8 86 (2.57%) Marketing
9 85 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
10 63 (1.89%) Retail
11 54 (1.62%) Financial Institution
12 51 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 43 (1.29%) Presentation Skills
14 36 (1.08%) Legal
15 33 (0.99%) Manufacturing
16 28 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
17 27 (0.81%) Back Office
17 27 (0.81%) Publishing
18 26 (0.78%) General Ledger
18 26 (0.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 851 (25.46%) Developer
2 528 (15.80%) Analyst
3 504 (15.08%) Data Engineer
4 428 (12.81%) Senior
5 213 (6.37%) Data Analyst
6 204 (6.10%) Lead
7 188 (5.63%) Business Analyst
8 151 (4.52%) Architect
9 134 (4.01%) Senior Developer
10 124 (3.71%) Consultant
11 119 (3.56%) Java Developer
12 110 (3.29%) Software Engineer
13 99 (2.96%) Azure Engineer
14 83 (2.48%) Python Developer
15 78 (2.33%) Data Scientist
15 78 (2.33%) Senior Data Engineer
16 77 (2.30%) Full-Stack Developer
17 75 (2.24%) C# Developer
18 70 (2.09%) Azure Data Engineer
19 64 (1.92%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 303 (9.07%) .NET
2 276 (8.26%) REST
3 213 (6.37%) Kafka
4 190 (5.69%) PySpark
5 158 (4.73%) React
6 146 (4.37%) RESTful
7 140 (4.19%) Spring
8 136 (4.07%) HTML
9 125 (3.74%) XML
10 118 (3.53%) Spring Boot
11 116 (3.47%) CSS
12 100 (2.99%) JSON
12 100 (2.99%) Node.js
13 90 (2.69%) AngularJS
14 78 (2.33%) SOAP
15 72 (2.15%) .NET Framework
15 72 (2.15%) Pandas
16 69 (2.06%) Middleware
17 56 (1.68%) Web Services
18 52 (1.56%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 197 (5.89%) Cloud Native
2 99 (2.96%) Data Structures
3 94 (2.81%) Product Ownership
4 84 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
5 83 (2.48%) Data Protection Act
6 74 (2.21%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.18%) Analytical Mindset
8 59 (1.77%) Derivative
9 58 (1.74%) Algorithms
10 53 (1.59%) Onboarding
11 52 (1.56%) Distributed Systems
12 50 (1.50%) Equities
12 50 (1.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 46 (1.38%) Fixed Income
14 40 (1.20%) Replication
15 39 (1.17%) Market Risk
16 35 (1.05%) Self-Motivation
17 34 (1.02%) Greenfield Project
17 34 (1.02%) SWIFT Messaging Network
18 31 (0.93%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 311 (9.31%) Linux
2 236 (7.06%) Windows
3 194 (5.80%) Unix
4 61 (1.83%) Windows Server
5 16 (0.48%) Windows Server 2019
6 15 (0.45%) VMS
7 14 (0.42%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.36%) Android
8 12 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 12 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.27%) Amazon Linux
10 7 (0.21%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.15%) AIX
11 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.12%) CentOS
12 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.090%) zOS
14 1 (0.030%) MVS
14 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 940 (28.13%) Agile
2 793 (23.73%) CI/CD
3 790 (23.64%) Analytics
4 781 (23.37%) Problem-Solving
5 755 (22.59%) Business Intelligence
6 739 (22.11%) DevOps
7 712 (21.30%) Data Modelling
8 633 (18.94%) ETL
9 488 (14.60%) Data Pipeline
10 400 (11.97%) Data Engineering
11 353 (10.56%) Migration
12 352 (10.53%) Data Governance
13 339 (10.14%) Validation
14 335 (10.02%) Visualisation
15 322 (9.63%) AI
16 315 (9.43%) Data Analysis
17 303 (9.07%) Test Automation
18 293 (8.77%) Microservices
19 289 (8.65%) Data Science
20 279 (8.35%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,239 (37.07%) Python
2 507 (15.17%) Java
3 359 (10.74%) C#
4 309 (9.25%) JavaScript
5 258 (7.72%) PL/SQL
6 143 (4.28%) PowerShell
7 127 (3.80%) TypeScript
8 105 (3.14%) R
9 92 (2.75%) T-SQL
10 89 (2.66%) Shell Script
11 87 (2.60%) C++
12 86 (2.57%) Scala
13 74 (2.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 73 (2.18%) VBA
15 62 (1.86%) VB
16 54 (1.62%) Bash
17 46 (1.38%) Perl
18 41 (1.23%) Go
19 40 (1.20%) Bicep
20 34 (1.02%) PHP
Qualifications
1 569 (17.03%) Security Cleared
2 435 (13.02%) SC Cleared
3 326 (9.75%) Degree
4 120 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 73 (2.18%) Azure Certification
6 60 (1.80%) DV Cleared
7 54 (1.62%) AWS Certification
7 54 (1.62%) BPSS Clearance
7 54 (1.62%) Master's Degree
8 44 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
9 36 (1.08%) ISTQB
10 23 (0.69%) ITIL Certification
11 22 (0.66%) Oracle Certification
12 19 (0.57%) CBAP
13 16 (0.48%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
14 14 (0.42%) MCSE
15 12 (0.36%) Cisco Certification
15 12 (0.36%) PMI Certification
16 11 (0.33%) CCNA
16 11 (0.33%) CFA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 495 (14.81%) Data Quality
2 237 (7.09%) QA
3 124 (3.71%) GDPR
4 57 (1.71%) Accessibility
5 25 (0.75%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 20 (0.60%) SLA
7 19 (0.57%) MiFID
8 18 (0.54%) SEPA
9 17 (0.51%) ISO 20022
10 15 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.45%) PSD2
11 14 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 14 (0.42%) WCAG
12 12 (0.36%) EMIR
12 12 (0.36%) HIPAA
12 12 (0.36%) IFRS
13 11 (0.33%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.33%) PMO
14 9 (0.27%) NIST
15 8 (0.24%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 399 (11.94%) Docker
2 96 (2.87%) Active Directory
3 29 (0.87%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.54%) Oracle RAC
5 16 (0.48%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.27%) DFS Replication
6 9 (0.27%) Dovecot
6 9 (0.27%) Postfix
6 9 (0.27%) Squid
7 8 (0.24%) HDFS
7 8 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.21%) zsh
9 6 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.15%) NFS
10 5 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.15%) vSphere
11 4 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 4 (0.12%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 364 (10.89%) Kubernetes
2 235 (7.03%) Terraform
3 69 (2.06%) Grafana
4 60 (1.80%) Ansible
5 55 (1.65%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.72%) SCCM
6 24 (0.72%) SCOM
7 21 (0.63%) HP SiteScope
8 18 (0.54%) Data Guard
8 18 (0.54%) Kibana
8 18 (0.54%) Oracle RMAN
8 18 (0.54%) Puppet
9 17 (0.51%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.45%) Control-M
11 14 (0.42%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 14 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
12 12 (0.36%) Proxmox
13 11 (0.33%) WSUS
14 10 (0.30%) ITRS Geneos
15 9 (0.27%) Nessus
Vendors
1 593 (17.74%) Oracle
2 560 (16.76%) Microsoft
3 361 (10.80%) Databricks
4 132 (3.95%) Google
5 103 (3.08%) Splunk
6 92 (2.75%) SAP
7 71 (2.12%) ServiceNow
8 70 (2.09%) Salesforce
9 64 (1.92%) Talend
10 57 (1.71%) Informatica
11 43 (1.29%) IBM
12 41 (1.23%) Dynatrace
12 41 (1.23%) OpenAI
13 39 (1.17%) Citrix
13 39 (1.17%) Denodo
13 39 (1.17%) VMware
14 35 (1.05%) MuleSoft
15 31 (0.93%) AppDynamics
16 29 (0.87%) Cisco
17 27 (0.81%) Bloomberg