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

6 months to
17 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,843 2,998 3,782
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.43% 12.20% 9.98%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.02% 35.96% 34.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,648 2,082 2,749
10th Percentile £350 £355 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -5.91% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £705 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 59 63
10th Percentile £18.93 £22.15 £21.66
25th Percentile £30.25 £29.07 £26.02
Median hourly rate £45.00 £46.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -3.23% +9.41% -16.26%
75th Percentile £69.86 £65.31 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £78.20 £61.48
UK median hourly rate £47.50 £45.75 £42.50
% change year-on-year +3.83% +7.65% -17.87%

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 10,669 8,336 10,959
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 28.96% 33.93% 28.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,095 5,607 7,917
10th Percentile £352 £358 £350
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -2.33% -6.52%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £656
90th Percentile £725 £775 £768
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 462 216 452
10th Percentile £41.94 £25.25 £35.05
25th Percentile £55.00 £39.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -6.80%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £67.63
90th Percentile £76.25 £85.00 £75.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.76%

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 17 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 17 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 17 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 2,287 £513 -6.82% 843
Midlands +4 465 £475 +2.98% 260
North of England -12 421 £450 -7.41% 418
West Midlands +5 372 £467 -4.07% 155
South East -20 287 £483 -3.50% 517
North West -1 242 £447 -5.89% 224
South West -4 199 £475 -7.32% 163
Yorkshire -21 157 £475 -5.00% 131
East Midlands -8 91 £537 +38.58% 105
East of England -24 78 £500 +6.95% 115
North East -1 31 £475 +5.56% 69
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 (5.65%) Apache Spark
2 156 (4.06%) Apache Airflow
3 131 (3.41%) Apache
4 120 (3.12%) Confluence
5 78 (2.03%) SharePoint
6 75 (1.95%) SAS
7 48 (1.25%) WebLogic
8 28 (0.73%) IIS
9 23 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
10 21 (0.55%) Tomcat
11 19 (0.49%) Jupyter
12 17 (0.44%) CMS
13 16 (0.42%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.39%) Tuxedo
15 13 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
16 12 (0.31%) Appian
16 12 (0.31%) HCL Notes
16 12 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 12 (0.31%) WebSphere
17 11 (0.29%) Mendix
Applications
1 270 (7.03%) Microsoft Excel
2 60 (1.56%) Microsoft Office
3 49 (1.28%) MS Visio
4 38 (0.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 4 (0.10%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.078%) Notion
9 3 (0.078%) Trello
10 1 (0.026%) InDesign
10 1 (0.026%) Mingle
10 1 (0.026%) SPSS
10 1 (0.026%) Weka
Business Applications
1 28 (0.73%) Aladdin
2 26 (0.68%) Oracle EBS
3 25 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
4 22 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
5 20 (0.52%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.52%) Oracle General Ledger
6 19 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
7 17 (0.44%) Oracle EBS R12
8 16 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
9 15 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
10 13 (0.34%) NetSuite
10 13 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
11 11 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
11 11 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 11 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
12 9 (0.23%) Advent Geneva
12 9 (0.23%) Endur
13 8 (0.21%) Oracle 11i
13 8 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
13 8 (0.21%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,346 (35.02%) Azure
2 940 (24.46%) AWS
3 742 (19.31%) Power Platform
4 399 (10.38%) Azure DevOps
5 321 (8.35%) GCP
6 320 (8.33%) Azure Data Factory
7 309 (8.04%) GitHub
8 279 (7.26%) Serverless
9 257 (6.69%) Snowflake
10 218 (5.67%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 205 (5.33%) Amazon S3
12 159 (4.14%) dbt
12 159 (4.14%) GitHub Actions
13 144 (3.75%) AWS Lambda
14 96 (2.50%) SaaS
15 89 (2.32%) Azure Functions
16 85 (2.21%) Power Automate
17 72 (1.87%) AWS CloudFormation
17 72 (1.87%) Entra ID
18 70 (1.82%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 50 (1.30%) Firewall
2 41 (1.07%) DNS
3 22 (0.57%) Network Security
4 19 (0.49%) HTTP
5 18 (0.47%) TCP/IP
6 15 (0.39%) Internet
6 15 (0.39%) VPN
6 15 (0.39%) WAN
7 13 (0.34%) 5G
8 12 (0.31%) DHCP
8 12 (0.31%) LAN
9 11 (0.29%) SSL
10 10 (0.26%) 4G
11 9 (0.23%) 2G
11 9 (0.23%) Radio Access Network
12 8 (0.21%) SMS
13 7 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
14 6 (0.16%) Multicast
14 6 (0.16%) SNMP
14 6 (0.16%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 675 (17.56%) Power BI
2 475 (12.36%) Data Warehouse
3 451 (11.74%) SQL Server
4 268 (6.97%) NoSQL
5 259 (6.74%) Relational Database
6 252 (6.56%) PostgreSQL
7 246 (6.40%) Tableau
8 244 (6.35%) Data Lake
9 210 (5.46%) Azure SQL Database
10 187 (4.87%) Metadata
11 145 (3.77%) Oracle Database
12 140 (3.64%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 120 (3.12%) BigQuery
14 119 (3.10%) Big Data
15 111 (2.89%) MySQL
16 108 (2.81%) Delta Lake
17 104 (2.71%) Amazon Redshift
18 97 (2.52%) MongoDB
19 96 (2.50%) Amazon RDS
20 80 (2.08%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 437 (11.37%) Git
2 304 (7.91%) JIRA
3 209 (5.44%) Jenkins
4 156 (4.06%) GitLab
5 60 (1.56%) JUnit
6 58 (1.51%) Selenium
7 44 (1.14%) Postman
8 41 (1.07%) Oracle APEX
9 38 (0.99%) Cucumber
10 37 (0.96%) MLflow
11 32 (0.83%) Maven
12 29 (0.75%) REST Assured
13 28 (0.73%) Mockito
14 25 (0.65%) Bitbucket
15 24 (0.62%) Cypress.io
15 24 (0.62%) Visual Studio
16 23 (0.60%) ERwin
17 22 (0.57%) SpecFlow
18 20 (0.52%) JMeter
19 19 (0.49%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,116 (29.04%) Social Skills
2 1,053 (27.40%) Finance
3 700 (18.21%) Analytical Skills
4 391 (10.17%) Banking
5 341 (8.87%) Public Sector
6 104 (2.71%) Front Office
7 101 (2.63%) Investment Banking
8 97 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
9 81 (2.11%) Marketing
10 60 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 60 (1.56%) Retail
11 54 (1.41%) Legal
12 52 (1.35%) Financial Institution
13 39 (1.01%) Publishing
14 37 (0.96%) Presentation Skills
15 36 (0.94%) Telecoms
16 35 (0.91%) Organisational Skills
17 32 (0.83%) Law
18 31 (0.81%) Manufacturing
19 27 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 901 (23.45%) Developer
2 708 (18.42%) Data Engineer
3 554 (14.42%) Analyst
4 492 (12.80%) Senior
5 279 (7.26%) Lead
6 233 (6.06%) Data Analyst
7 207 (5.39%) Architect
8 200 (5.20%) Business Analyst
9 162 (4.22%) Consultant
10 143 (3.72%) Senior Developer
11 134 (3.49%) Java Developer
12 116 (3.02%) Azure Engineer
13 107 (2.78%) Software Engineer
14 104 (2.71%) Senior Data Engineer
15 99 (2.58%) C# Developer
16 98 (2.55%) DBA
17 88 (2.29%) Full-Stack Developer
17 88 (2.29%) Python Developer
18 86 (2.24%) Data Scientist
19 82 (2.13%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 335 (8.72%) .NET
2 306 (7.96%) REST
3 254 (6.61%) Kafka
4 239 (6.22%) PySpark
5 185 (4.81%) React
6 176 (4.58%) RESTful
7 162 (4.22%) Spring
8 148 (3.85%) XML
9 145 (3.77%) Spring Boot
10 131 (3.41%) HTML
11 117 (3.04%) Pandas
12 111 (2.89%) AngularJS
12 111 (2.89%) CSS
13 110 (2.86%) JSON
14 98 (2.55%) Node.js
15 83 (2.16%) .NET Framework
16 77 (2.00%) Middleware
17 75 (1.95%) SOAP
18 74 (1.93%) NumPy
19 72 (1.87%) scikit-learn
Miscellaneous
1 262 (6.82%) Cloud Native
2 128 (3.33%) Data Structures
3 127 (3.30%) Legacy Systems
4 110 (2.86%) Product Ownership
5 82 (2.13%) Management Information System
6 77 (2.00%) Distributed Systems
7 72 (1.87%) Derivative
8 71 (1.85%) Data Protection Act
9 67 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
10 63 (1.64%) Equities
11 59 (1.54%) Fixed Income
12 57 (1.48%) Algorithms
13 54 (1.41%) Onboarding
14 50 (1.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 41 (1.07%) Clustering
15 41 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
15 41 (1.07%) Self-Motivation
16 39 (1.01%) Replication
17 35 (0.91%) Market Risk
18 30 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 278 (7.23%) Linux
2 222 (5.78%) Windows
3 183 (4.76%) Unix
4 73 (1.90%) Windows Server
5 17 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 16 (0.42%) AIX
7 14 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
8 13 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
9 12 (0.31%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.16%) Android
10 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.13%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.13%) zOS
12 4 (0.10%) Solaris
12 4 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.078%) CentOS
13 3 (0.078%) VMS
14 2 (0.052%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.052%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.026%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,035 (26.93%) Agile
2 1,025 (26.67%) CI/CD
3 1,003 (26.10%) Analytics
4 921 (23.97%) Data Modelling
5 893 (23.24%) Business Intelligence
6 891 (23.19%) DevOps
7 881 (22.92%) ETL
8 831 (21.62%) Problem-Solving
9 643 (16.73%) Data Pipeline
10 599 (15.59%) Data Engineering
11 466 (12.13%) Migration
12 459 (11.94%) AI
13 452 (11.76%) Data Governance
14 419 (10.90%) Validation
15 380 (9.89%) Data Analysis
16 364 (9.47%) Test Automation
17 351 (9.13%) Decision-Making
18 347 (9.03%) Data Science
19 343 (8.93%) Visualisation
20 326 (8.48%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 1,438 (37.42%) Python
2 532 (13.84%) Java
3 410 (10.67%) C#
4 316 (8.22%) JavaScript
5 271 (7.05%) PL/SQL
6 162 (4.22%) T-SQL
7 149 (3.88%) PowerShell
8 146 (3.80%) TypeScript
9 108 (2.81%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 108 (2.81%) Shell Script
10 101 (2.63%) R
11 95 (2.47%) Scala
12 67 (1.74%) Bash
13 66 (1.72%) C++
14 62 (1.61%) VBA
15 48 (1.25%) Bicep
16 46 (1.20%) Perl
17 41 (1.07%) VB
18 37 (0.96%) Go
19 26 (0.68%) PHP
Qualifications
1 767 (19.96%) Security Cleared
2 606 (15.77%) SC Cleared
3 332 (8.64%) Degree
4 112 (2.91%) Computer Science Degree
5 81 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 70 (1.82%) Azure Certification
7 58 (1.51%) Master's Degree
8 52 (1.35%) DV Cleared
9 51 (1.33%) ISTQB
10 43 (1.12%) Microsoft Certification
11 41 (1.07%) AWS Certification
12 21 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 16 (0.42%) CBAP
14 15 (0.39%) Oracle Certification
14 15 (0.39%) PhD
15 10 (0.26%) ISEB
15 10 (0.26%) PMP
16 9 (0.23%) PMI Certification
17 8 (0.21%) CFA
17 8 (0.21%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 676 (17.59%) Data Quality
2 283 (7.36%) QA
3 165 (4.29%) GDPR
4 61 (1.59%) Accessibility
5 28 (0.73%) SLA
6 25 (0.65%) PMO
6 25 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 22 (0.57%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 20 (0.52%) MiFID
9 17 (0.44%) NIST
10 16 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.39%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.36%) HIPAA
12 14 (0.36%) WCAG
13 13 (0.34%) SEPA
14 12 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 12 (0.31%) IFRS
15 11 (0.29%) EMIR
15 11 (0.29%) ISO 20022
16 10 (0.26%) Solvency II
System Software
1 446 (11.61%) Docker
2 95 (2.47%) Active Directory
3 29 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
4 15 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
4 15 (0.39%) VMware Infrastructure
5 12 (0.31%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.21%) HDFS
6 8 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.16%) KVM
8 5 (0.13%) RACF
8 5 (0.13%) XenApp
8 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
9 4 (0.10%) Postfix
10 3 (0.078%) Oracle Clusterware
10 3 (0.078%) VMware ESXi
11 2 (0.052%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.052%) vSphere
11 2 (0.052%) zsh
12 1 (0.026%) GPFS
12 1 (0.026%) Lustre
Systems Management
1 405 (10.54%) Kubernetes
2 304 (7.91%) Terraform
3 84 (2.19%) Grafana
4 63 (1.64%) Ansible
5 61 (1.59%) Prometheus
6 22 (0.57%) Oracle RMAN
6 22 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
7 18 (0.47%) SCCM
8 17 (0.44%) Progress Chef
9 14 (0.36%) Data Guard
10 12 (0.31%) Control-M
10 12 (0.31%) Kibana
11 10 (0.26%) Puppet
12 9 (0.23%) HP Quality Center
12 9 (0.23%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 8 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 8 (0.21%) Kiali
13 8 (0.21%) Microsoft Intune
14 7 (0.18%) vCenter Server
14 7 (0.18%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 627 (16.32%) Microsoft
2 619 (16.11%) Oracle
3 468 (12.18%) Databricks
4 164 (4.27%) Google
5 110 (2.86%) Informatica
6 107 (2.78%) ServiceNow
7 96 (2.50%) SAP
8 95 (2.47%) Talend
9 65 (1.69%) Splunk
10 61 (1.59%) Salesforce
11 56 (1.46%) IBM
12 50 (1.30%) Citrix
13 47 (1.22%) OpenAI
14 41 (1.07%) MuleSoft
15 39 (1.01%) Denodo
16 36 (0.94%) Bloomberg
17 29 (0.75%) VMware
18 28 (0.73%) Foundry
19 25 (0.65%) Dynatrace
19 25 (0.65%) Palantir