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 18 September 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 18 13 11
Rank change year-on-year -5 -2 0
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,431 3,266 3,616
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.60% 11.74% 10.97%
As % of the Programming Languages category 37.01% 35.76% 33.70%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,987 2,286 2,605
10th Percentile £356 £335 £350
25th Percentile £413 £405 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -7.41% -1.82%
75th Percentile £600 £619 £650
90th Percentile £688 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 73 41
10th Percentile £21.74 £29.00 £25.99
25th Percentile £28.13 £33.91 £30.00
Median hourly rate £41.00 £50.00 £41.16
Median % change year-on-year -18.00% +21.49% -10.30%
75th Percentile £70.00 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £76.90 - £60.00
UK median hourly rate £44.50 £50.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year -11.00% +25.00% -12.93%

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 11,973 9,133 10,730
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 25.93% 32.84% 32.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,744 6,172 7,343
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £545
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -5.96% -0.91%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £738 £750 £788
UK median daily rate £523 £503 £525
% change year-on-year +3.98% -4.29% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 513 261 309
10th Percentile £27.75 £31.25 £30.40
25th Percentile £51.25 £42.50 £50.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.50 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year +15.04% -13.08% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £80.00 £79.34
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +3.17%

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 18 September 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 18 September 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 18 September 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 -6 2,486 £525 - 3,766
North of England -1 592 £475 +5.56% 767
Midlands -5 450 £469 +2.74% 482
South East -14 449 £475 -3.06% 750
West Midlands -3 350 £469 -6.20% 289
North West +2 290 £500 +13.96% 444
Yorkshire +5 253 £460 -3.16% 229
South West -4 232 £513 +17.14% 289
East of England -8 117 £495 -1.49% 213
East Midlands -6 98 £473 +17.84% 193
North East -14 56 £406 -12.63% 99
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
1 225 (5.08%) Apache Airflow
2 188 (4.24%) Confluence
3 186 (4.20%) Apache Spark
4 143 (3.23%) Apache
5 84 (1.90%) SharePoint
6 73 (1.65%) SAS
7 32 (0.72%) Oracle Workflow
8 30 (0.68%) IIS
8 30 (0.68%) WebLogic
9 25 (0.56%) Jupyter
9 25 (0.56%) Microsoft Exchange
10 22 (0.50%) Palantir Foundry
11 19 (0.43%) CMS
12 18 (0.41%) nginx
13 16 (0.36%) Camunda
14 15 (0.34%) WebSphere
15 12 (0.27%) ArcGIS
16 11 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 7 (0.16%) OpenStack
17 7 (0.16%) Tomcat
Applications
1 268 (6.05%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (1.26%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (0.90%) Spreadsheet
4 26 (0.59%) MS Visio
5 21 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 11 (0.25%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.11%) Notepad++
7 5 (0.11%) Windchill
8 4 (0.090%) Acrobat
8 4 (0.090%) Notion
8 4 (0.090%) Photoshop
9 3 (0.068%) CPLEX
9 3 (0.068%) Microsoft Project
10 2 (0.045%) Mingle
11 1 (0.023%) Adobe XD
11 1 (0.023%) Mozilla Thunderbird
11 1 (0.023%) Weka
Business Applications
1 46 (1.04%) Dynamics CRM
2 38 (0.86%) Oracle EBS
3 27 (0.61%) Oracle Payables
4 25 (0.56%) Aladdin
4 25 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
5 22 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
6 21 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
7 17 (0.38%) Oracle Receivables
8 16 (0.36%) Oracle General Ledger
9 15 (0.34%) Oracle EBS R12
10 11 (0.25%) NEC Housing
10 11 (0.25%) Siebel CRM
11 10 (0.23%) Finacle
11 10 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.23%) Oracle FAH
12 9 (0.20%) NetSuite
12 9 (0.20%) Oracle Financials
12 9 (0.20%) Salesforce CRM
12 9 (0.20%) Summit
13 8 (0.18%) Front Arena
Cloud Services
1 1,350 (30.47%) Azure
2 1,075 (24.26%) AWS
3 845 (19.07%) Power Platform
4 428 (9.66%) GCP
5 360 (8.12%) Azure DevOps
6 345 (7.79%) Snowflake
7 306 (6.91%) GitHub
8 296 (6.68%) Azure Data Factory
9 285 (6.43%) dbt
10 271 (6.12%) Serverless
11 234 (5.28%) Amazon S3
12 184 (4.15%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 175 (3.95%) AWS Lambda
14 147 (3.32%) GitHub Actions
15 100 (2.26%) Power Automate
16 95 (2.14%) SaaS
17 88 (1.99%) Entra ID
17 88 (1.99%) PowerApps
18 82 (1.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 82 (1.85%) Azure Databricks
Communications & Networking
1 59 (1.33%) DNS
2 38 (0.86%) Firewall
3 28 (0.63%) HTTP
4 25 (0.56%) SSL
5 23 (0.52%) Network Security
6 22 (0.50%) Internet
7 19 (0.43%) Broadband
7 19 (0.43%) TCP/IP
7 19 (0.43%) VPN
8 15 (0.34%) DHCP
8 15 (0.34%) SNMP
9 12 (0.27%) SSH
10 9 (0.20%) Kerberos
10 9 (0.20%) SAN
11 8 (0.18%) Reverse Proxy
11 8 (0.18%) RTP
11 8 (0.18%) WinSCP
12 7 (0.16%) 5G
12 7 (0.16%) Multicast
12 7 (0.16%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 777 (17.54%) Power BI
2 613 (13.83%) Data Warehouse
3 568 (12.82%) SQL Server
4 285 (6.43%) Relational Database
5 280 (6.32%) PostgreSQL
6 257 (5.80%) Tableau
7 255 (5.75%) Data Lake
8 230 (5.19%) Metadata
9 214 (4.83%) NoSQL
10 201 (4.54%) Oracle Database
11 183 (4.13%) BigQuery
12 149 (3.36%) Azure SQL Database
13 138 (3.11%) Amazon Redshift
14 130 (2.93%) Delta Lake
15 123 (2.78%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 119 (2.69%) MySQL
17 106 (2.39%) Amazon Athena
18 95 (2.14%) Big Data
19 92 (2.08%) Power Query
20 88 (1.99%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 560 (12.64%) Git
2 356 (8.03%) JIRA
3 247 (5.57%) Jenkins
4 212 (4.78%) GitLab
5 93 (2.10%) Selenium
6 76 (1.72%) JUnit
7 75 (1.69%) Gradle
8 70 (1.58%) Maven
9 59 (1.33%) Postman
10 47 (1.06%) Mockito
11 45 (1.02%) SonarQube
12 41 (0.93%) Bitbucket
13 35 (0.79%) Oracle Forms
14 29 (0.65%) Visual Studio
15 28 (0.63%) Zephyr
16 25 (0.56%) JMeter
17 23 (0.52%) Cypress.io
17 23 (0.52%) REST Assured
17 23 (0.52%) TeamCity
18 22 (0.50%) MLflow
General
1 1,241 (28.01%) Social Skills
2 1,185 (26.74%) Finance
3 929 (20.97%) Analytical Skills
4 522 (11.78%) Banking
5 381 (8.60%) Public Sector
6 149 (3.36%) Marketing
7 130 (2.93%) Front Office
8 126 (2.84%) Retail
9 121 (2.73%) Investment Banking
10 92 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 77 (1.74%) Documentation Skills
12 75 (1.69%) Manufacturing
13 49 (1.11%) Financial Institution
14 48 (1.08%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (1.06%) Legal
16 42 (0.95%) Back Office
17 39 (0.88%) Influencing Skills
17 39 (0.88%) Local Government
18 37 (0.84%) Organisational Skills
19 34 (0.77%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 932 (21.03%) Developer
2 851 (19.21%) Data Engineer
3 654 (14.76%) Analyst
4 637 (14.38%) Senior
5 304 (6.86%) Lead
6 262 (5.91%) Data Analyst
7 222 (5.01%) Architect
8 198 (4.47%) Senior Data Engineer
9 195 (4.40%) Business Analyst
10 191 (4.31%) Consultant
11 172 (3.88%) DBA
12 161 (3.63%) Java Developer
13 148 (3.34%) Senior Developer
14 116 (2.62%) Software Engineer
15 104 (2.35%) SQL DBA
16 103 (2.32%) Full-Stack Developer
17 102 (2.30%) Azure Engineer
18 99 (2.23%) SQL Developer
19 98 (2.21%) Data Architect
20 95 (2.14%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 403 (9.10%) REST
2 380 (8.58%) .NET
3 371 (8.37%) Terraform
4 304 (6.86%) PySpark
5 284 (6.41%) Kafka
6 227 (5.12%) Spring
7 216 (4.87%) React
7 216 (4.87%) Spring Boot
8 184 (4.15%) HTML
9 166 (3.75%) RESTful
10 160 (3.61%) CSS
11 159 (3.59%) JSON
12 135 (3.05%) XML
13 107 (2.41%) AngularJS
14 104 (2.35%) SOAP
14 104 (2.35%) Web Services
15 95 (2.14%) Middleware
16 92 (2.08%) Pandas
17 82 (1.85%) .NET Framework
18 80 (1.81%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 278 (6.27%) Cloud Native
2 221 (4.99%) Data Structures
3 205 (4.63%) Product Ownership
4 140 (3.16%) Legacy Systems
5 123 (2.78%) Distributed Systems
6 122 (2.75%) Enterprise Software
7 119 (2.69%) Onboarding
8 95 (2.14%) Management Information System
9 80 (1.81%) AI Agents
10 77 (1.74%) Self-Motivation
11 73 (1.65%) Derivative
12 68 (1.53%) Replication
13 63 (1.42%) Analytical Mindset
14 60 (1.35%) Reference Data
15 58 (1.31%) Data Protection Act
16 55 (1.24%) Clustering
17 50 (1.13%) Algorithms
18 47 (1.06%) Greenfield Project
19 43 (0.97%) Fixed Income
20 40 (0.90%) Equities
Operating Systems
1 312 (7.04%) Linux
2 274 (6.18%) Windows
3 213 (4.81%) Unix
4 107 (2.41%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.54%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 24 (0.54%) Solaris
6 12 (0.27%) AIX
6 12 (0.27%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.23%) Windows Server 2019
8 9 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
9 8 (0.18%) VMS
10 6 (0.14%) Windows 10
11 5 (0.11%) Android
11 5 (0.11%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
11 5 (0.11%) zOS
12 4 (0.090%) Windows Server 2016
13 3 (0.068%) OpenVMS
14 2 (0.045%) HPUX
14 2 (0.045%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,211 (27.33%) CI/CD
2 1,166 (26.31%) Agile
3 1,128 (25.46%) Data Modelling
4 1,116 (25.19%) Analytics
5 976 (22.03%) ETL
6 974 (21.98%) Business Intelligence
7 891 (20.11%) Problem-Solving
8 864 (19.50%) Data Pipeline
9 846 (19.09%) DevOps
10 762 (17.20%) Data Engineering
11 746 (16.84%) AI
12 680 (15.35%) Validation
13 638 (14.40%) Migration
14 630 (14.22%) Stakeholder Management
15 511 (11.53%) Continuous Improvement
16 503 (11.35%) Test Automation
17 499 (11.26%) Data Governance
18 489 (11.04%) Data Analysis
19 475 (10.72%) Decision-Making
20 384 (8.67%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 1,609 (36.31%) Python
2 546 (12.32%) Java
3 405 (9.14%) C#
4 361 (8.15%) JavaScript
5 350 (7.90%) PL/SQL
6 235 (5.30%) PowerShell
7 204 (4.60%) T-SQL
8 188 (4.24%) TypeScript
9 140 (3.16%) Shell Script
10 133 (3.00%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 104 (2.35%) Bash
12 76 (1.72%) R
13 69 (1.56%) Scala
14 38 (0.86%) C++
15 37 (0.84%) VBA
16 28 (0.63%) Bicep
17 27 (0.61%) Kotlin
18 26 (0.59%) C
18 26 (0.59%) VB
19 25 (0.56%) Go
Qualifications
1 939 (21.19%) Security Cleared
2 737 (16.63%) SC Cleared
3 332 (7.49%) Degree
4 127 (2.87%) DV Cleared
5 115 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
6 111 (2.51%) BPSS Clearance
7 72 (1.62%) Azure Certification
8 56 (1.26%) ISTQB
9 52 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
10 44 (0.99%) AWS Certification
11 39 (0.88%) Master's Degree
12 18 (0.41%) CISSP
13 17 (0.38%) ACCA
13 17 (0.38%) CIMA
13 17 (0.38%) ISEB
14 16 (0.36%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 15 (0.34%) DBS Check
15 15 (0.34%) Oracle Certification
16 14 (0.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
17 12 (0.27%) FFIEC
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 883 (19.93%) Data Quality
2 367 (8.28%) QA
3 121 (2.73%) GDPR
4 47 (1.06%) Accessibility
5 44 (0.99%) SLA
6 28 (0.63%) Actionable Recommendations
7 24 (0.54%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 23 (0.52%) IFRS
9 21 (0.47%) ISO 20022
10 19 (0.43%) NIST
11 17 (0.38%) MiFID
12 13 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
13 11 (0.25%) COBIT
13 11 (0.25%) PCI DSS
13 11 (0.25%) PMO
14 10 (0.23%) Basel III
14 10 (0.23%) HIPAA
15 8 (0.18%) Solvency II
16 7 (0.16%) EMIR
16 7 (0.16%) HL7
System Software
1 425 (9.59%) Docker
2 114 (2.57%) Active Directory
3 51 (1.15%) VMware Infrastructure
4 37 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
5 36 (0.81%) Oracle RAC
6 19 (0.43%) VMware ESXi
7 16 (0.36%) vCloud
7 16 (0.36%) VMware NSX
8 14 (0.32%) Hyper-V
9 13 (0.29%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (0.16%) Postfix
11 4 (0.090%) Apache ZooKeeper
11 4 (0.090%) KVM
12 2 (0.045%) DFS Replication
12 2 (0.045%) Dovecot
12 2 (0.045%) Squid
13 1 (0.023%) GPFS
13 1 (0.023%) HDFS
13 1 (0.023%) RACF
13 1 (0.023%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 357 (8.06%) Kubernetes
2 90 (2.03%) Ansible
3 88 (1.99%) Grafana
4 51 (1.15%) Prometheus
5 40 (0.90%) Control-M
5 40 (0.90%) SCOM
6 38 (0.86%) Data Guard
6 38 (0.86%) Oracle RMAN
7 29 (0.65%) Kibana
8 16 (0.36%) vCenter Server
9 12 (0.27%) Microsoft Clustering
9 12 (0.27%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 11 (0.25%) Single Sign-On
11 10 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
11 10 (0.23%) Nagios
11 10 (0.23%) ZABBIX
12 9 (0.20%) Argo
12 9 (0.20%) ITRS Geneos
12 9 (0.20%) Progress Chef
12 9 (0.20%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 755 (17.04%) Oracle
2 747 (16.86%) Microsoft
3 568 (12.82%) Databricks
4 194 (4.38%) Google
5 128 (2.89%) Informatica
6 125 (2.82%) SAP
7 100 (2.26%) Talend
8 92 (2.08%) IBM
9 86 (1.94%) ServiceNow
10 77 (1.74%) Splunk
11 67 (1.51%) VMware
12 61 (1.38%) Salesforce
13 50 (1.13%) Denodo
14 39 (0.88%) Bloomberg
15 36 (0.81%) Alteryx
16 34 (0.77%) Adobe
16 34 (0.77%) Foundry
16 34 (0.77%) Murex
17 33 (0.74%) BMC
17 33 (0.74%) Citrix