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

6 months to
6 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -3 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,787 3,081 3,807
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.41% 12.06% 10.08%
As % of the Programming Languages category 35.35% 35.76% 34.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,609 2,118 2,755
10th Percentile £350 £353 £356
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £520 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £658
90th Percentile £711 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £503 £538
% change year-on-year -0.50% -6.51% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 55 63
10th Percentile £18.25 £20.44 £21.66
25th Percentile £28.86 £29.07 £26.02
Median hourly rate £45.00 £47.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% +11.76% -19.05%
75th Percentile £69.72 £65.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £76.81 £61.75
UK median hourly rate £46.50 £46.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year - +9.41% -22.73%

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 10,714 8,615 10,995
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 29.44% 33.71% 29.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,142 5,680 7,915
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -3.23% -5.65%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £663
90th Percentile £726 £775 £766
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -6.25%
Number of hourly rates quoted 451 210 469
10th Percentile £41.59 £25.25 £35.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £41.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.56 £69.62
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £76.72
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 6 March 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 6 March 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 6 March 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 2,257 £511 -7.11% 869
Midlands 0 459 £481 +4.28% 284
North of England -8 408 £450 -8.81% 413
West Midlands +4 364 £472 -3.48% 178
South East -20 283 £500 - 554
North West +3 232 £425 -10.53% 233
South West -5 195 £475 -7.77% 161
Yorkshire -24 155 £488 -5.80% 128
East Midlands -7 94 £525 +35.92% 106
East of England -23 77 £500 +6.95% 124
North East -4 30 £475 +2.98% 57
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
1 201 (5.31%) Apache Spark
2 156 (4.12%) Apache Airflow
3 118 (3.12%) Apache
3 118 (3.12%) Confluence
4 82 (2.17%) SharePoint
5 78 (2.06%) SAS
6 52 (1.37%) WebLogic
7 27 (0.71%) IIS
8 25 (0.66%) Microsoft Exchange
9 20 (0.53%) Tomcat
10 18 (0.48%) Jupyter
10 18 (0.48%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 17 (0.45%) CMS
12 15 (0.40%) Oracle Workflow
12 15 (0.40%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
14 12 (0.32%) Appian
14 12 (0.32%) HCL Notes
14 12 (0.32%) JBoss
14 12 (0.32%) WebSphere
Applications
1 246 (6.50%) Microsoft Excel
2 69 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
3 50 (1.32%) MS Visio
4 37 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 12 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (0.32%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.21%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.079%) Notion
7 3 (0.079%) Oracle Smart View
7 3 (0.079%) Trello
8 1 (0.026%) InDesign
8 1 (0.026%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 1 (0.026%) SPSS
8 1 (0.026%) Weka
Business Applications
1 26 (0.69%) Aladdin
2 25 (0.66%) Oracle Payables
3 24 (0.63%) Oracle EBS
4 21 (0.55%) Oracle General Ledger
4 21 (0.55%) Oracle Receivables
5 20 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
5 20 (0.53%) NEC Housing
6 16 (0.42%) Oracle Assets
6 16 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 15 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
8 14 (0.37%) SAP S/4HANA
9 13 (0.34%) Endur
9 13 (0.34%) NetSuite
9 13 (0.34%) Remedy ITSM
10 11 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
10 11 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 10 (0.26%) Advent Geneva
11 10 (0.26%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 8 (0.21%) Maximo
12 8 (0.21%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,310 (34.59%) Azure
2 933 (24.64%) AWS
3 717 (18.93%) Power Platform
4 374 (9.88%) Azure DevOps
5 319 (8.42%) GCP
6 303 (8.00%) Azure Data Factory
7 286 (7.55%) GitHub
8 272 (7.18%) Serverless
9 264 (6.97%) Snowflake
10 203 (5.36%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 197 (5.20%) Amazon S3
12 157 (4.15%) dbt
13 149 (3.93%) GitHub Actions
14 137 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
15 95 (2.51%) SaaS
16 89 (2.35%) Azure Functions
17 84 (2.22%) Power Automate
18 72 (1.90%) Entra ID
19 69 (1.82%) PowerApps
20 68 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.27%) Firewall
2 41 (1.08%) DNS
3 23 (0.61%) HTTP
4 20 (0.53%) Network Security
5 18 (0.48%) TCP/IP
6 14 (0.37%) Internet
6 14 (0.37%) Skype
7 13 (0.34%) SSL
7 13 (0.34%) VPN
8 12 (0.32%) 5G
8 12 (0.32%) DHCP
9 11 (0.29%) WAN
10 10 (0.26%) LAN
11 9 (0.24%) 2G
11 9 (0.24%) 4G
11 9 (0.24%) Radio Access Network
12 8 (0.21%) SMS
12 8 (0.21%) Unified Communications
13 6 (0.16%) Multicast
13 6 (0.16%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 654 (17.27%) Power BI
2 460 (12.15%) Data Warehouse
3 444 (11.72%) SQL Server
4 266 (7.02%) NoSQL
5 258 (6.81%) Relational Database
6 251 (6.63%) PostgreSQL
7 236 (6.23%) Data Lake
8 232 (6.13%) Tableau
9 195 (5.15%) Azure SQL Database
10 173 (4.57%) Metadata
11 145 (3.83%) Oracle Database
12 137 (3.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 119 (3.14%) BigQuery
14 113 (2.98%) Big Data
15 109 (2.88%) MySQL
16 102 (2.69%) Amazon Redshift
17 101 (2.67%) MongoDB
18 96 (2.53%) Delta Lake
19 94 (2.48%) Amazon RDS
20 82 (2.17%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 439 (11.59%) Git
2 307 (8.11%) JIRA
3 206 (5.44%) Jenkins
4 154 (4.07%) GitLab
5 63 (1.66%) JUnit
6 58 (1.53%) Selenium
7 47 (1.24%) Postman
8 42 (1.11%) Oracle APEX
9 37 (0.98%) Cucumber
10 34 (0.90%) Maven
11 29 (0.77%) Bitbucket
11 29 (0.77%) MLflow
11 29 (0.77%) REST Assured
12 27 (0.71%) Mockito
13 23 (0.61%) ERwin
13 23 (0.61%) Visual Studio
14 22 (0.58%) Cypress.io
14 22 (0.58%) SpecFlow
15 18 (0.48%) SonarQube
15 18 (0.48%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,133 (29.92%) Social Skills
2 1,060 (27.99%) Finance
3 666 (17.59%) Analytical Skills
4 400 (10.56%) Banking
5 330 (8.71%) Public Sector
6 102 (2.69%) Investment Banking
7 101 (2.67%) Front Office
8 97 (2.56%) Documentation Skills
9 87 (2.30%) Marketing
10 62 (1.64%) Retail
11 61 (1.61%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 59 (1.56%) Financial Institution
13 45 (1.19%) Legal
14 37 (0.98%) Presentation Skills
15 36 (0.95%) Publishing
16 34 (0.90%) Telecoms
17 32 (0.84%) Manufacturing
18 31 (0.82%) Influencing Skills
18 31 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
19 30 (0.79%) Law
Job Titles
1 913 (24.11%) Developer
2 673 (17.77%) Data Engineer
3 563 (14.87%) Analyst
4 490 (12.94%) Senior
5 271 (7.16%) Lead
6 230 (6.07%) Data Analyst
7 199 (5.25%) Architect
8 198 (5.23%) Business Analyst
9 149 (3.93%) Senior Developer
10 145 (3.83%) Consultant
11 139 (3.67%) Java Developer
12 117 (3.09%) Azure Engineer
13 110 (2.90%) Software Engineer
14 102 (2.69%) Senior Data Engineer
15 100 (2.64%) C# Developer
16 89 (2.35%) Python Developer
17 87 (2.30%) Data Scientist
18 85 (2.24%) Full-Stack Developer
19 82 (2.17%) DBA
20 78 (2.06%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 344 (9.08%) .NET
2 303 (8.00%) REST
3 240 (6.34%) Kafka
4 224 (5.91%) PySpark
5 183 (4.83%) React
6 178 (4.70%) RESTful
7 160 (4.22%) Spring
8 145 (3.83%) Spring Boot
9 143 (3.78%) HTML
10 142 (3.75%) XML
11 115 (3.04%) CSS
12 114 (3.01%) AngularJS
13 111 (2.93%) JSON
14 104 (2.75%) Pandas
15 99 (2.61%) Node.js
16 85 (2.24%) .NET Framework
17 84 (2.22%) SOAP
18 79 (2.09%) Middleware
19 71 (1.87%) Web Services
20 68 (1.80%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 241 (6.36%) Cloud Native
2 123 (3.25%) Data Structures
3 119 (3.14%) Legacy Systems
4 107 (2.83%) Product Ownership
5 79 (2.09%) Management Information System
6 78 (2.06%) Data Protection Act
7 72 (1.90%) Distributed Systems
8 71 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
8 71 (1.87%) Derivative
9 61 (1.61%) Algorithms
10 59 (1.56%) Equities
11 56 (1.48%) Onboarding
12 53 (1.40%) Fixed Income
13 47 (1.24%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 43 (1.14%) Clustering
15 41 (1.08%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (1.08%) Replication
16 36 (0.95%) Self-Motivation
17 35 (0.92%) Market Risk
18 32 (0.84%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 287 (7.58%) Linux
2 229 (6.05%) Windows
3 188 (4.96%) Unix
4 75 (1.98%) Windows Server
5 16 (0.42%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 15 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
7 14 (0.37%) Windows Server 2016
8 13 (0.34%) AIX
9 11 (0.29%) Windows 10
10 8 (0.21%) Android
11 7 (0.18%) VMS
12 6 (0.16%) Apple iOS
13 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
13 5 (0.13%) zOS
14 4 (0.11%) Solaris
14 4 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
15 3 (0.079%) CentOS
15 3 (0.079%) Ubuntu
16 1 (0.026%) OpenVMS
16 1 (0.026%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,018 (26.88%) Agile
2 987 (26.06%) CI/CD
3 982 (25.93%) Analytics
4 881 (23.26%) Data Modelling
5 878 (23.18%) Business Intelligence
6 864 (22.81%) DevOps
7 849 (22.42%) Problem-Solving
8 844 (22.29%) ETL
9 616 (16.27%) Data Pipeline
10 552 (14.58%) Data Engineering
11 446 (11.78%) Migration
12 439 (11.59%) Data Governance
13 426 (11.25%) AI
14 400 (10.56%) Validation
15 368 (9.72%) Data Analysis
16 361 (9.53%) Test Automation
17 343 (9.06%) Data Science
18 340 (8.98%) Visualisation
19 337 (8.90%) Decision-Making
20 334 (8.82%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,406 (37.13%) Python
2 540 (14.26%) Java
3 416 (10.98%) C#
4 320 (8.45%) JavaScript
5 281 (7.42%) PL/SQL
6 159 (4.20%) PowerShell
7 147 (3.88%) T-SQL
8 142 (3.75%) TypeScript
9 102 (2.69%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 102 (2.69%) Shell Script
10 97 (2.56%) R
11 95 (2.51%) Scala
12 75 (1.98%) C++
13 66 (1.74%) VBA
14 65 (1.72%) Bash
15 47 (1.24%) Bicep
16 45 (1.19%) Perl
17 43 (1.14%) VB
18 41 (1.08%) Go
19 28 (0.74%) PHP
Qualifications
1 736 (19.43%) Security Cleared
2 584 (15.42%) SC Cleared
3 335 (8.85%) Degree
4 107 (2.83%) Computer Science Degree
5 81 (2.14%) BPSS Clearance
6 76 (2.01%) Azure Certification
7 57 (1.51%) Master's Degree
8 54 (1.43%) DV Cleared
9 49 (1.29%) Microsoft Certification
10 48 (1.27%) ISTQB
11 47 (1.24%) AWS Certification
12 21 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 19 (0.50%) Oracle Certification
14 16 (0.42%) CBAP
15 13 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
16 11 (0.29%) MCSE
16 11 (0.29%) PhD
17 10 (0.26%) Cisco Certification
17 10 (0.26%) ISEB
17 10 (0.26%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 637 (16.82%) Data Quality
2 274 (7.24%) QA
3 161 (4.25%) GDPR
4 61 (1.61%) Accessibility
5 27 (0.71%) SLA
6 26 (0.69%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 23 (0.61%) PMO
8 20 (0.53%) MiFID
9 19 (0.50%) HIPAA
10 17 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 17 (0.45%) NIST
11 15 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
12 14 (0.37%) PCI DSS
13 13 (0.34%) IFRS
13 13 (0.34%) SEPA
13 13 (0.34%) WCAG
14 12 (0.32%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 12 (0.32%) EMIR
15 11 (0.29%) ISO 20022
16 10 (0.26%) PSD2
System Software
1 447 (11.80%) Docker
2 109 (2.88%) Active Directory
3 29 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (0.45%) Oracle RAC
4 17 (0.45%) VMware Infrastructure
5 12 (0.32%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.21%) HDFS
6 8 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.16%) KVM
8 5 (0.13%) Postfix
8 5 (0.13%) RACF
8 5 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.13%) XenApp
8 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.11%) Microsoft Virtual Server
9 4 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.11%) VMware NSX
9 4 (0.11%) vSphere
10 3 (0.079%) Oracle Clusterware
10 3 (0.079%) zsh
Systems Management
1 405 (10.69%) Kubernetes
2 303 (8.00%) Terraform
3 86 (2.27%) Grafana
4 64 (1.69%) Ansible
4 64 (1.69%) Prometheus
5 21 (0.55%) Single Sign-On
6 20 (0.53%) SCCM
7 19 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
8 17 (0.45%) Control-M
8 17 (0.45%) Progress Chef
9 16 (0.42%) Data Guard
10 14 (0.37%) Kibana
10 14 (0.37%) Puppet
11 11 (0.29%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 11 (0.29%) SCOM
12 10 (0.26%) WSUS
13 9 (0.24%) HP SiteScope
14 8 (0.21%) HP Quality Center
14 8 (0.21%) ITRS Geneos
14 8 (0.21%) Kiali
Vendors
1 630 (16.64%) Oracle
2 618 (16.32%) Microsoft
3 455 (12.01%) Databricks
4 159 (4.20%) Google
5 101 (2.67%) ServiceNow
6 96 (2.53%) SAP
6 96 (2.53%) Talend
7 95 (2.51%) Informatica
8 76 (2.01%) Splunk
9 65 (1.72%) Salesforce
10 56 (1.48%) IBM
11 49 (1.29%) Citrix
12 46 (1.21%) OpenAI
13 43 (1.14%) Denodo
14 40 (1.06%) MuleSoft
15 35 (0.92%) Bloomberg
16 33 (0.87%) VMware
17 25 (0.66%) Foundry
18 23 (0.61%) NEC
18 23 (0.61%) Sage