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

6 months to
5 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,991 3,005 3,623
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.84% 12.33% 9.83%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.49% 36.38% 33.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,753 2,143 2,682
10th Percentile £350 £358 £358
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 £688 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% +0.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 54 58
10th Percentile £29.73 £20.02 £23.63
25th Percentile £35.75 £29.30 £26.63
Median hourly rate £50.00 £43.66 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +14.53% +2.72% -14.26%
75th Percentile £73.84 £65.46 £56.66
90th Percentile £83.45 £80.73 £62.11
UK median hourly rate £54.75 £42.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +28.82% - -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 10,936 8,260 10,867
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.95% 33.88% 29.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,251 5,727 7,900
10th Percentile £355 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £507 £525 £542
Median % change year-on-year -3.43% -3.05% -4.13%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £788 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 530 219 442
10th Percentile £42.44 £25.26 £35.65
25th Percentile £55.00 £36.99 £48.11
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - +2.56%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year +4.00% +1.46% +1.73%

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 5 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 5 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 5 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 2,254 £519 -5.59% 966
Midlands +5 521 £469 +2.18% 278
North of England -9 479 £450 -5.26% 418
West Midlands +7 416 £463 +0.27% 162
South East -17 329 £500 +0.25% 531
North West -1 262 £450 -5.26% 232
South West -9 200 £475 -1.30% 167
Yorkshire -15 193 £463 -2.63% 128
East Midlands +2 102 £525 +24.26% 116
East of England -20 92 £500 +8.99% 130
North East -10 36 £475 +5.56% 60
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
1 227 (5.69%) Apache Spark
2 149 (3.73%) Apache Airflow
3 134 (3.36%) Apache
4 131 (3.28%) Confluence
5 86 (2.15%) SAS
6 78 (1.95%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 33 (0.83%) IIS
9 24 (0.60%) Tomcat
10 21 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
11 20 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.33%) Appian
14 13 (0.33%) Jupyter
14 13 (0.33%) Mendix
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 12 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
16 11 (0.28%) CMS
16 11 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 275 (6.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
3 49 (1.23%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.23%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.20%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.13%) Notepad++
8 5 (0.13%) Notion
9 3 (0.075%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.075%) Trello
10 1 (0.025%) InDesign
10 1 (0.025%) Mingle
10 1 (0.025%) SPSS
10 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 41 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
2 24 (0.60%) Aladdin
2 24 (0.60%) NEC Housing
3 21 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
4 20 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
4 20 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
5 19 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
5 19 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
6 17 (0.43%) NetSuite
6 17 (0.43%) Oracle General Ledger
7 16 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
8 13 (0.33%) Remedy ITSM
9 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 11 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
10 11 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
11 10 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
12 9 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
13 8 (0.20%) Endur
13 8 (0.20%) Findur
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,358 (34.03%) Azure
2 948 (23.75%) AWS
3 785 (19.67%) Power Platform
4 398 (9.97%) Azure DevOps
5 342 (8.57%) Azure Data Factory
6 321 (8.04%) GCP
7 285 (7.14%) GitHub
8 253 (6.34%) Serverless
9 233 (5.84%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 223 (5.59%) Snowflake
11 222 (5.56%) Amazon S3
12 172 (4.31%) dbt
13 147 (3.68%) AWS Lambda
13 147 (3.68%) GitHub Actions
14 86 (2.15%) Power Automate
15 75 (1.88%) SaaS
16 72 (1.80%) Entra ID
17 68 (1.70%) Azure Functions
18 67 (1.68%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 67 (1.68%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.20%) Firewall
2 38 (0.95%) DNS
3 21 (0.53%) Network Security
4 18 (0.45%) TCP/IP
5 16 (0.40%) HTTP
6 15 (0.38%) Internet
6 15 (0.38%) SNMP
6 15 (0.38%) WAN
7 12 (0.30%) LAN
8 11 (0.28%) SSL
8 11 (0.28%) VPN
9 10 (0.25%) Wi-Fi
10 9 (0.23%) DHCP
11 7 (0.18%) Wireshark
12 6 (0.15%) 3GPP
12 6 (0.15%) IPsec
12 6 (0.15%) VLAN
13 5 (0.13%) Kerberos
13 5 (0.13%) PuTTY
13 5 (0.13%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 718 (17.99%) Power BI
2 513 (12.85%) Data Warehouse
3 506 (12.68%) SQL Server
4 279 (6.99%) Tableau
5 267 (6.69%) Data Lake
6 251 (6.29%) Relational Database
7 248 (6.21%) PostgreSQL
8 242 (6.06%) NoSQL
9 215 (5.39%) Metadata
10 203 (5.09%) Azure SQL Database
11 146 (3.66%) Oracle Database
12 145 (3.63%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 120 (3.01%) BigQuery
14 118 (2.96%) Amazon Redshift
14 118 (2.96%) Delta Lake
15 111 (2.78%) MySQL
16 108 (2.71%) Big Data
17 101 (2.53%) Oracle Reports
18 92 (2.31%) Amazon RDS
18 92 (2.31%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 417 (10.45%) Git
2 318 (7.97%) JIRA
3 204 (5.11%) Jenkins
4 161 (4.03%) GitLab
5 58 (1.45%) Selenium
6 50 (1.25%) JUnit
7 47 (1.18%) Postman
8 40 (1.00%) Maven
9 38 (0.95%) Cucumber
10 36 (0.90%) Mockito
11 35 (0.88%) MLflow
12 29 (0.73%) REST Assured
13 28 (0.70%) SonarQube
14 27 (0.68%) ERwin
14 27 (0.68%) Gradle
15 24 (0.60%) Bitbucket
15 24 (0.60%) JMeter
16 22 (0.55%) TeamCity
17 21 (0.53%) SpecFlow
17 21 (0.53%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,094 (27.41%) Finance
2 1,061 (26.58%) Social Skills
3 751 (18.82%) Analytical Skills
4 384 (9.62%) Banking
5 337 (8.44%) Public Sector
6 101 (2.53%) Front Office
7 96 (2.41%) Investment Banking
7 96 (2.41%) Marketing
8 85 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
9 61 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 57 (1.43%) Retail
11 55 (1.38%) Financial Institution
11 55 (1.38%) Legal
12 36 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
12 36 (0.90%) Publishing
12 36 (0.90%) Telecoms
13 34 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
14 33 (0.83%) Law
15 30 (0.75%) Local Government
16 29 (0.73%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 846 (21.20%) Developer
2 809 (20.27%) Data Engineer
3 589 (14.76%) Analyst
4 497 (12.45%) Senior
5 278 (6.97%) Lead
6 247 (6.19%) Data Analyst
7 229 (5.74%) Architect
8 191 (4.79%) Business Analyst
9 178 (4.46%) Consultant
10 147 (3.68%) Java Developer
11 137 (3.43%) Senior Data Engineer
12 123 (3.08%) DBA
13 121 (3.03%) Senior Developer
14 113 (2.83%) Software Engineer
15 112 (2.81%) Azure Engineer
16 100 (2.51%) C# Developer
17 87 (2.18%) Data Scientist
18 86 (2.15%) Data Architect
19 84 (2.10%) Python Developer
20 80 (2.00%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 352 (8.82%) .NET
2 312 (7.82%) REST
3 250 (6.26%) Kafka
4 244 (6.11%) PySpark
5 186 (4.66%) React
6 185 (4.64%) Spring
7 177 (4.43%) Spring Boot
8 167 (4.18%) RESTful
9 135 (3.38%) HTML
10 133 (3.33%) XML
11 122 (3.06%) JSON
12 121 (3.03%) Pandas
13 114 (2.86%) CSS
14 104 (2.61%) AngularJS
15 91 (2.28%) Middleware
16 86 (2.15%) SOAP
17 84 (2.10%) .NET Framework
18 73 (1.83%) Node.js
18 73 (1.83%) Web Services
19 68 (1.70%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 258 (6.46%) Cloud Native
2 143 (3.58%) Data Structures
3 136 (3.41%) Legacy Systems
4 126 (3.16%) Product Ownership
5 99 (2.48%) Distributed Systems
6 90 (2.26%) Management Information System
7 77 (1.93%) Derivative
8 70 (1.75%) Data Protection Act
8 70 (1.75%) Onboarding
9 66 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
10 56 (1.40%) Equities
11 55 (1.38%) Fixed Income
12 50 (1.25%) Clustering
13 47 (1.18%) Algorithms
13 47 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
14 45 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
15 41 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
16 40 (1.00%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 38 (0.95%) NHS
17 38 (0.95%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 280 (7.02%) Linux
2 246 (6.16%) Windows
3 193 (4.84%) Unix
4 80 (2.00%) Windows Server
5 27 (0.68%) AIX
6 18 (0.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
8 11 (0.28%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.23%) Windows 10
10 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.18%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.15%) Solaris
12 5 (0.13%) Windows Server 2012
13 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
14 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.050%) VMS
15 1 (0.025%) CentOS
15 1 (0.025%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,076 (26.96%) CI/CD
2 1,031 (25.83%) Analytics
3 1,002 (25.11%) Agile
4 997 (24.98%) Data Modelling
5 957 (23.98%) ETL
6 929 (23.28%) Business Intelligence
7 893 (22.38%) DevOps
8 816 (20.45%) Problem-Solving
9 729 (18.27%) Data Pipeline
10 645 (16.16%) Data Engineering
11 508 (12.73%) AI
12 495 (12.40%) Migration
13 483 (12.10%) Data Governance
14 482 (12.08%) Validation
15 392 (9.82%) Decision-Making
16 390 (9.77%) Test Automation
17 380 (9.52%) Data Analysis
18 362 (9.07%) Performance Tuning
19 348 (8.72%) Microservices
20 342 (8.57%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,506 (37.73%) Python
2 539 (13.51%) Java
3 437 (10.95%) C#
4 299 (7.49%) JavaScript
4 299 (7.49%) PL/SQL
5 195 (4.89%) T-SQL
6 181 (4.54%) PowerShell
7 130 (3.26%) TypeScript
8 123 (3.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 120 (3.01%) R
10 118 (2.96%) Shell Script
11 88 (2.20%) Scala
12 73 (1.83%) Bash
13 61 (1.53%) C++
14 53 (1.33%) VBA
15 42 (1.05%) Bicep
15 42 (1.05%) Perl
16 28 (0.70%) VB
17 27 (0.68%) Go
18 22 (0.55%) C
Qualifications
1 840 (21.05%) Security Cleared
2 679 (17.01%) SC Cleared
3 320 (8.02%) Degree
4 111 (2.78%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (2.10%) BPSS Clearance
6 70 (1.75%) Azure Certification
7 61 (1.53%) DV Cleared
8 51 (1.28%) Master's Degree
9 49 (1.23%) ISTQB
10 38 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
11 25 (0.63%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.40%) PhD
13 15 (0.38%) CBAP
13 15 (0.38%) Oracle Certification
14 11 (0.28%) CISSP
14 11 (0.28%) DBS Check
14 11 (0.28%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.25%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 10 (0.25%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 721 (18.07%) Data Quality
2 308 (7.72%) QA
3 179 (4.49%) GDPR
4 40 (1.00%) Accessibility
5 36 (0.90%) SLA
6 33 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 28 (0.70%) PMO
8 23 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 19 (0.48%) MiFID
9 19 (0.48%) NIST
9 19 (0.48%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
11 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 15 (0.38%) IFRS
12 14 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.33%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.30%) HL7
15 10 (0.25%) GRC
15 10 (0.25%) SEPA
16 9 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 454 (11.38%) Docker
2 92 (2.31%) Active Directory
3 38 (0.95%) Virtual Machines
4 24 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
4 24 (0.60%) VMware Infrastructure
5 17 (0.43%) Hyper-V
6 10 (0.25%) KVM
7 8 (0.20%) Postfix
7 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.15%) HDFS
8 6 (0.15%) RACF
8 6 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
9 5 (0.13%) XenApp
9 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
11 2 (0.050%) GridGain
11 2 (0.050%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.050%) vSphere
12 1 (0.025%) Lustre
12 1 (0.025%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 391 (9.80%) Kubernetes
2 329 (8.24%) Terraform
3 104 (2.61%) Grafana
4 65 (1.63%) Ansible
5 62 (1.55%) Prometheus
6 37 (0.93%) Oracle RMAN
7 26 (0.65%) Data Guard
8 19 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.45%) Kibana
10 17 (0.43%) SCCM
11 15 (0.38%) ZABBIX
12 14 (0.35%) Control-M
12 14 (0.35%) Nagios
12 14 (0.35%) Netcool
12 14 (0.35%) Progress Chef
12 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
13 13 (0.33%) OpenView
13 13 (0.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
14 9 (0.23%) Kiali
15 8 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 656 (16.44%) Oracle
2 645 (16.16%) Microsoft
3 475 (11.90%) Databricks
4 157 (3.93%) Google
5 137 (3.43%) Informatica
6 125 (3.13%) ServiceNow
7 105 (2.63%) SAP
8 102 (2.56%) Talend
9 84 (2.10%) Splunk
10 66 (1.65%) IBM
11 60 (1.50%) Salesforce
12 52 (1.30%) Denodo
13 51 (1.28%) Citrix
14 40 (1.00%) OpenAI
15 37 (0.93%) VMware
16 35 (0.88%) Dynatrace
17 34 (0.85%) Bloomberg
18 32 (0.80%) HP
18 32 (0.80%) MuleSoft
19 29 (0.73%) BMC