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

6 months to
3 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,932 2,922 3,717
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.25% 12.05% 9.89%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.19% 35.80% 34.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,732 2,057 2,710
10th Percentile £350 £351 £352
25th Percentile £413 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +0.09%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £705 £758 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 58 60
10th Percentile £26.24 £24.58 £21.64
25th Percentile £34.51 £30.06 £25.64
Median hourly rate £47.50 £50.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +17.65% -14.26%
75th Percentile £70.75 £65.62 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.55 £78.71 £61.87
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £47.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +11.70% +10.59% -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 10,864 8,162 10,880
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 28.33% 33.67% 28.95%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,253 5,585 7,873
10th Percentile £353 £358 £350
25th Percentile £414 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -2.42% -5.20%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £656
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 496 214 432
10th Percentile £41.76 £25.25 £35.00
25th Percentile £55.00 £39.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.59% +4.58% -4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.00%

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 3 April 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 3 April 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 3 April 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 2,273 £513 -4.65% 840
Midlands +2 490 £468 +1.74% 280
North of England -10 451 £460 -3.16% 459
West Midlands +8 392 £463 -2.63% 157
South East -17 303 £500 - 526
North West -1 259 £450 -5.26% 248
South West -7 221 £475 -5.94% 165
Yorkshire -20 172 £481 -3.75% 149
East Midlands 0 96 £525 +34.87% 123
East of England -23 84 £500 +6.67% 147
North East -6 32 £475 +3.26% 66
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
1 217 (5.52%) Apache Spark
2 155 (3.94%) Apache Airflow
3 138 (3.51%) Apache
4 119 (3.03%) Confluence
5 84 (2.14%) SAS
6 79 (2.01%) SharePoint
7 49 (1.25%) WebLogic
8 29 (0.74%) IIS
9 25 (0.64%) Tomcat
10 21 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
11 19 (0.48%) Jupyter
12 18 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
13 15 (0.38%) Palantir Foundry
13 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
14 14 (0.36%) CMS
15 13 (0.33%) Appian
15 13 (0.33%) nginx
16 12 (0.31%) HCL Notes
17 11 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 11 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 269 (6.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
3 47 (1.20%) MS Visio
4 34 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.15%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.10%) Notepad++
9 3 (0.076%) 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%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 37 (0.94%) Oracle EBS
2 27 (0.69%) Aladdin
3 25 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
4 23 (0.58%) Oracle Receivables
5 21 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
5 21 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
6 20 (0.51%) NEC Housing
6 20 (0.51%) Oracle General Ledger
7 16 (0.41%) Oracle ERP
8 15 (0.38%) NetSuite
8 15 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
9 13 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
10 12 (0.31%) Remedy ITSM
11 11 (0.28%) Oracle 11i
11 11 (0.28%) Oracle Cash Management
11 11 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 10 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
13 9 (0.23%) Advent Geneva
13 9 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
14 8 (0.20%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 1,368 (34.79%) Azure
2 961 (24.44%) AWS
3 767 (19.51%) Power Platform
4 411 (10.45%) Azure DevOps
5 333 (8.47%) Azure Data Factory
6 318 (8.09%) GCP
7 307 (7.81%) GitHub
8 274 (6.97%) Serverless
9 239 (6.08%) Snowflake
10 224 (5.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 217 (5.52%) Amazon S3
12 174 (4.43%) dbt
13 158 (4.02%) GitHub Actions
14 150 (3.81%) AWS Lambda
15 90 (2.29%) SaaS
16 87 (2.21%) Power Automate
17 81 (2.06%) Azure Functions
18 76 (1.93%) AWS CloudFormation
19 72 (1.83%) Entra ID
20 67 (1.70%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 49 (1.25%) Firewall
2 37 (0.94%) DNS
3 22 (0.56%) Network Security
4 21 (0.53%) HTTP
5 16 (0.41%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.36%) Internet
6 14 (0.36%) WAN
7 13 (0.33%) 5G
7 13 (0.33%) SSL
7 13 (0.33%) VPN
8 11 (0.28%) LAN
8 11 (0.28%) SNMP
9 10 (0.25%) 4G
10 9 (0.23%) 2G
10 9 (0.23%) DHCP
10 9 (0.23%) Radio Access Network
11 7 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
12 6 (0.15%) Multicast
12 6 (0.15%) VLAN
13 5 (0.13%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 702 (17.85%) Power BI
2 508 (12.92%) Data Warehouse
3 470 (11.95%) SQL Server
4 261 (6.64%) NoSQL
5 257 (6.54%) Tableau
6 255 (6.49%) Relational Database
7 253 (6.43%) PostgreSQL
8 251 (6.38%) Data Lake
9 208 (5.29%) Azure SQL Database
10 202 (5.14%) Metadata
11 141 (3.59%) Oracle Database
11 141 (3.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 123 (3.13%) MySQL
13 113 (2.87%) Amazon Redshift
13 113 (2.87%) BigQuery
14 111 (2.82%) Delta Lake
15 105 (2.67%) Big Data
16 100 (2.54%) Oracle Reports
17 97 (2.47%) Amazon RDS
18 91 (2.31%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 438 (11.14%) Git
2 316 (8.04%) JIRA
3 215 (5.47%) Jenkins
4 152 (3.87%) GitLab
5 59 (1.50%) Selenium
6 58 (1.48%) JUnit
7 46 (1.17%) Postman
8 40 (1.02%) Oracle APEX
9 37 (0.94%) Maven
10 36 (0.92%) Cucumber
11 35 (0.89%) MLflow
12 31 (0.79%) Mockito
13 29 (0.74%) REST Assured
14 26 (0.66%) Bitbucket
15 24 (0.61%) ERwin
16 23 (0.58%) JMeter
16 23 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
16 23 (0.58%) SonarQube
17 22 (0.56%) Cypress.io
17 22 (0.56%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,112 (28.28%) Social Skills
2 1,076 (27.37%) Finance
3 730 (18.57%) Analytical Skills
4 398 (10.12%) Banking
5 336 (8.55%) Public Sector
6 105 (2.67%) Investment Banking
7 103 (2.62%) Front Office
8 93 (2.37%) Documentation Skills
9 85 (2.16%) Marketing
10 64 (1.63%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 56 (1.42%) Retail
12 55 (1.40%) Financial Institution
13 54 (1.37%) Legal
14 43 (1.09%) Telecoms
15 38 (0.97%) Publishing
16 37 (0.94%) Organisational Skills
17 33 (0.84%) Law
17 33 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
18 28 (0.71%) Manufacturing
19 26 (0.66%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 891 (22.66%) Developer
2 757 (19.25%) Data Engineer
3 569 (14.47%) Analyst
4 498 (12.67%) Senior
5 269 (6.84%) Lead
6 242 (6.15%) Data Analyst
7 214 (5.44%) Architect
8 196 (4.98%) Business Analyst
9 182 (4.63%) Consultant
10 147 (3.74%) Senior Developer
11 145 (3.69%) Java Developer
12 114 (2.90%) Senior Data Engineer
13 113 (2.87%) Azure Engineer
14 111 (2.82%) DBA
15 105 (2.67%) Software Engineer
16 102 (2.59%) C# Developer
17 92 (2.34%) Python Developer
18 86 (2.19%) Full-Stack Developer
19 84 (2.14%) Data Architect
20 83 (2.11%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 343 (8.72%) .NET
2 315 (8.01%) REST
3 254 (6.46%) Kafka
4 239 (6.08%) PySpark
5 197 (5.01%) React
6 184 (4.68%) RESTful
7 176 (4.48%) Spring
8 161 (4.09%) Spring Boot
9 150 (3.81%) XML
10 142 (3.61%) HTML
11 124 (3.15%) Pandas
12 123 (3.13%) CSS
12 123 (3.13%) JSON
13 113 (2.87%) AngularJS
14 90 (2.29%) Node.js
15 82 (2.09%) .NET Framework
15 82 (2.09%) Middleware
15 82 (2.09%) SOAP
16 75 (1.91%) Web Services
17 73 (1.86%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 256 (6.51%) Cloud Native
2 137 (3.48%) Data Structures
3 127 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
4 120 (3.05%) Product Ownership
5 87 (2.21%) Distributed Systems
6 84 (2.14%) Management Information System
7 75 (1.91%) Derivative
8 69 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
9 64 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
9 64 (1.63%) Onboarding
10 59 (1.50%) Equities
10 59 (1.50%) Fixed Income
11 52 (1.32%) Algorithms
12 47 (1.20%) Clustering
13 45 (1.14%) Enterprise Software
14 44 (1.12%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 44 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
15 40 (1.02%) Replication
16 35 (0.89%) Market Risk
17 32 (0.81%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 275 (6.99%) Linux
2 232 (5.90%) Windows
3 193 (4.91%) Unix
4 77 (1.96%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.53%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
10 6 (0.15%) Android
10 6 (0.15%) Solaris
10 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.15%) zOS
11 5 (0.13%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.076%) CentOS
12 3 (0.076%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.076%) VMS
13 2 (0.051%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.025%) Alpine Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,054 (26.81%) CI/CD
2 1,032 (26.25%) Agile
3 1,021 (25.97%) Analytics
4 968 (24.62%) Data Modelling
5 936 (23.80%) ETL
6 926 (23.55%) Business Intelligence
7 908 (23.09%) DevOps
8 844 (21.46%) Problem-Solving
9 688 (17.50%) Data Pipeline
10 618 (15.72%) Data Engineering
11 483 (12.28%) AI
12 481 (12.23%) Data Governance
13 472 (12.00%) Migration
14 457 (11.62%) Validation
15 376 (9.56%) Data Analysis
16 375 (9.54%) Test Automation
17 359 (9.13%) Performance Tuning
18 356 (9.05%) Decision-Making
19 350 (8.90%) Visualisation
20 345 (8.77%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 1,483 (37.72%) Python
2 543 (13.81%) Java
3 425 (10.81%) C#
4 320 (8.14%) JavaScript
5 301 (7.66%) PL/SQL
6 172 (4.37%) PowerShell
7 171 (4.35%) T-SQL
8 141 (3.59%) TypeScript
9 116 (2.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 114 (2.90%) Shell Script
11 110 (2.80%) R
12 89 (2.26%) Scala
13 65 (1.65%) Bash
14 60 (1.53%) C++
14 60 (1.53%) VBA
15 46 (1.17%) Bicep
15 46 (1.17%) Perl
16 30 (0.76%) Go
17 29 (0.74%) VB
18 22 (0.56%) PHP
Qualifications
1 810 (20.60%) Security Cleared
2 647 (16.45%) SC Cleared
3 317 (8.06%) Degree
4 114 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 65 (1.65%) Azure Certification
7 51 (1.30%) ISTQB
8 50 (1.27%) DV Cleared
8 50 (1.27%) Master's Degree
9 41 (1.04%) Microsoft Certification
10 32 (0.81%) AWS Certification
11 18 (0.46%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 15 (0.38%) Oracle Certification
12 15 (0.38%) PhD
13 14 (0.36%) CBAP
14 10 (0.25%) PMP
15 9 (0.23%) PMI Certification
16 8 (0.20%) DBS Check
16 8 (0.20%) ISEB
16 8 (0.20%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 710 (18.06%) Data Quality
2 299 (7.60%) QA
3 177 (4.50%) GDPR
4 55 (1.40%) Accessibility
5 33 (0.84%) SLA
6 29 (0.74%) PMO
6 29 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 22 (0.56%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 19 (0.48%) MiFID
9 17 (0.43%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.41%) NIST
11 15 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.38%) HIPAA
12 14 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 13 (0.33%) IFRS
14 12 (0.31%) SEPA
14 12 (0.31%) WCAG
15 11 (0.28%) EMIR
15 11 (0.28%) ISO 20022
16 10 (0.25%) Solvency II
System Software
1 451 (11.47%) Docker
2 96 (2.44%) Active Directory
3 33 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
4 19 (0.48%) Oracle RAC
5 16 (0.41%) VMware Infrastructure
6 12 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.15%) HDFS
8 6 (0.15%) KVM
8 6 (0.15%) Postfix
8 6 (0.15%) RACF
9 5 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.13%) XenApp
9 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.076%) Oracle Clusterware
11 2 (0.051%) GridGain
11 2 (0.051%) vSphere
12 1 (0.025%) Microsoft App-V
12 1 (0.025%) Varnish
12 1 (0.025%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 405 (10.30%) Kubernetes
2 313 (7.96%) Terraform
3 92 (2.34%) Grafana
4 62 (1.58%) Ansible
4 62 (1.58%) Prometheus
5 33 (0.84%) Oracle RMAN
6 22 (0.56%) Single Sign-On
7 20 (0.51%) Data Guard
8 18 (0.46%) Progress Chef
9 15 (0.38%) Control-M
9 15 (0.38%) SCCM
10 11 (0.28%) ZABBIX
11 10 (0.25%) Nagios
11 10 (0.25%) Netcool
11 10 (0.25%) OpenView
11 10 (0.25%) Tivoli
11 10 (0.25%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 9 (0.23%) Kibana
13 8 (0.20%) HP Quality Center
13 8 (0.20%) Puppet
Vendors
1 656 (16.68%) Oracle
2 647 (16.45%) Microsoft
3 479 (12.18%) Databricks
4 160 (4.07%) Google
5 122 (3.10%) Informatica
6 119 (3.03%) ServiceNow
7 104 (2.64%) Talend
8 98 (2.49%) SAP
9 68 (1.73%) Splunk
10 61 (1.55%) IBM
11 60 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 52 (1.32%) Denodo
13 50 (1.27%) Citrix
14 42 (1.07%) OpenAI
15 35 (0.89%) MuleSoft
16 34 (0.86%) Bloomberg
17 29 (0.74%) HP
18 28 (0.71%) VMware
19 27 (0.69%) Dynatrace
19 27 (0.69%) Foundry