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

6 months to
4 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,973 3,005 3,623
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.86% 12.33% 9.83%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.57% 36.38% 33.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,743 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 10,865 8,260 10,867
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.97% 33.88% 29.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,208 5,727 7,900
10th Percentile £354 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £542
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -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 526 219 442
10th Percentile £42.22 £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 4 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 4 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 4 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 2,241 £514 -6.59% 945
Midlands +5 518 £469 +2.18% 272
North of England -8 479 £450 -5.26% 388
West Midlands +7 413 £463 +0.27% 160
South East -18 327 £495 -0.75% 527
North West -1 262 £450 -5.26% 226
South West -9 200 £475 -1.30% 151
Yorkshire -14 193 £463 -2.63% 114
East Midlands +3 102 £525 +24.26% 112
East of England -13 92 £500 +8.99% 118
North East -11 36 £475 +5.56% 50
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 (5.66%) Apache Spark
2 149 (3.75%) Apache Airflow
3 134 (3.37%) Apache
4 127 (3.20%) Confluence
5 86 (2.16%) SAS
6 78 (1.96%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.96%) 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
1 274 (6.90%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (1.41%) Microsoft Office
3 48 (1.21%) 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 (0.076%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.076%) 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 1,355 (34.11%) Azure
2 940 (23.66%) AWS
3 783 (19.71%) Power Platform
4 397 (9.99%) Azure DevOps
5 342 (8.61%) Azure Data Factory
6 321 (8.08%) GCP
7 285 (7.17%) GitHub
8 249 (6.27%) Serverless
9 233 (5.86%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 223 (5.61%) Snowflake
11 219 (5.51%) Amazon S3
12 170 (4.28%) dbt
13 147 (3.70%) GitHub Actions
14 143 (3.60%) AWS Lambda
15 86 (2.16%) Power Automate
16 75 (1.89%) SaaS
17 71 (1.79%) Entra ID
18 68 (1.71%) Azure Functions
19 67 (1.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 67 (1.69%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.21%) Firewall
2 38 (0.96%) 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
1 716 (18.02%) Power BI
2 510 (12.84%) Data Warehouse
3 504 (12.69%) SQL Server
4 278 (7.00%) Tableau
5 266 (6.70%) Data Lake
6 251 (6.32%) Relational Database
7 247 (6.22%) PostgreSQL
8 242 (6.09%) NoSQL
9 212 (5.34%) Metadata
10 203 (5.11%) Azure SQL Database
11 145 (3.65%) Oracle Database
12 144 (3.62%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 120 (3.02%) BigQuery
14 116 (2.92%) Amazon Redshift
15 115 (2.89%) Delta Lake
16 111 (2.79%) MySQL
17 108 (2.72%) Big Data
18 101 (2.54%) Oracle Reports
19 92 (2.32%) Amazon RDS
19 92 (2.32%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 416 (10.47%) Git
2 314 (7.90%) JIRA
3 203 (5.11%) Jenkins
4 159 (4.00%) GitLab
5 58 (1.46%) Selenium
6 49 (1.23%) JUnit
7 47 (1.18%) Postman
8 40 (1.01%) Maven
9 37 (0.93%) Cucumber
10 35 (0.88%) MLflow
10 35 (0.88%) Mockito
11 28 (0.70%) REST Assured
11 28 (0.70%) SonarQube
12 26 (0.65%) ERwin
12 26 (0.65%) Gradle
13 24 (0.60%) Bitbucket
13 24 (0.60%) JMeter
14 22 (0.55%) TeamCity
15 21 (0.53%) SpecFlow
15 21 (0.53%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,088 (27.38%) Finance
2 1,055 (26.55%) Social Skills
3 746 (18.78%) Analytical Skills
4 380 (9.56%) Banking
5 335 (8.43%) Public Sector
6 100 (2.52%) Front Office
7 96 (2.42%) Marketing
8 95 (2.39%) Investment Banking
9 85 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
10 61 (1.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 56 (1.41%) Retail
12 55 (1.38%) Financial Institution
12 55 (1.38%) Legal
13 36 (0.91%) Publishing
13 36 (0.91%) Telecoms
14 35 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
16 33 (0.83%) Law
17 30 (0.76%) Local Government
18 28 (0.70%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 846 (21.29%) Developer
2 806 (20.29%) Data Engineer
3 587 (14.77%) Analyst
4 494 (12.43%) Senior
5 276 (6.95%) Lead
6 247 (6.22%) Data Analyst
7 226 (5.69%) Architect
8 190 (4.78%) Business Analyst
9 178 (4.48%) Consultant
10 147 (3.70%) Java Developer
11 136 (3.42%) Senior Data Engineer
12 123 (3.10%) DBA
13 121 (3.05%) Senior Developer
14 111 (2.79%) Azure Engineer
14 111 (2.79%) Software Engineer
15 100 (2.52%) C# Developer
16 87 (2.19%) Data Scientist
17 85 (2.14%) Data Architect
18 84 (2.11%) Python Developer
19 80 (2.01%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 350 (8.81%) .NET
2 312 (7.85%) REST
3 246 (6.19%) Kafka
4 241 (6.07%) PySpark
5 185 (4.66%) React
6 184 (4.63%) Spring
7 176 (4.43%) Spring Boot
8 165 (4.15%) RESTful
9 134 (3.37%) HTML
10 133 (3.35%) XML
11 122 (3.07%) JSON
12 121 (3.05%) Pandas
13 113 (2.84%) CSS
14 103 (2.59%) AngularJS
15 90 (2.27%) Middleware
16 86 (2.16%) SOAP
17 84 (2.11%) .NET Framework
18 73 (1.84%) Node.js
18 73 (1.84%) Web Services
19 67 (1.69%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 257 (6.47%) Cloud Native
2 143 (3.60%) Data Structures
3 136 (3.42%) Legacy Systems
4 125 (3.15%) Product Ownership
5 99 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
6 90 (2.27%) Management Information System
7 76 (1.91%) Derivative
8 70 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
9 69 (1.74%) Onboarding
10 66 (1.66%) Analytical Mindset
11 55 (1.38%) Equities
12 54 (1.36%) Fixed Income
13 50 (1.26%) Clustering
14 47 (1.18%) Algorithms
14 47 (1.18%) Enterprise Software
15 45 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
16 41 (1.03%) Greenfield Project
17 40 (1.01%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 38 (0.96%) NHS
18 38 (0.96%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 279 (7.02%) Linux
2 245 (6.17%) Windows
3 191 (4.81%) Unix
4 80 (2.01%) 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 (0.076%) 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 1,069 (26.91%) CI/CD
2 1,029 (25.90%) Analytics
3 997 (25.09%) Agile
4 989 (24.89%) Data Modelling
5 953 (23.99%) ETL
6 927 (23.33%) Business Intelligence
7 891 (22.43%) DevOps
8 811 (20.41%) Problem-Solving
9 727 (18.30%) Data Pipeline
10 643 (16.18%) Data Engineering
11 504 (12.69%) AI
12 495 (12.46%) Migration
13 480 (12.08%) Data Governance
13 480 (12.08%) Validation
14 390 (9.82%) Decision-Making
15 385 (9.69%) Test Automation
16 379 (9.54%) Data Analysis
17 361 (9.09%) Performance Tuning
18 346 (8.71%) Microservices
19 338 (8.51%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 1,502 (37.81%) Python
2 538 (13.54%) Java
3 435 (10.95%) C#
4 298 (7.50%) JavaScript
5 295 (7.43%) PL/SQL
6 193 (4.86%) T-SQL
7 180 (4.53%) PowerShell
8 129 (3.25%) TypeScript
9 123 (3.10%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 120 (3.02%) R
11 118 (2.97%) Shell Script
12 88 (2.21%) Scala
13 73 (1.84%) Bash
14 61 (1.54%) C++
15 53 (1.33%) VBA
16 42 (1.06%) Bicep
16 42 (1.06%) Perl
17 28 (0.70%) VB
18 27 (0.68%) Go
19 22 (0.55%) C
Qualifications
1 835 (21.02%) Security Cleared
2 675 (16.99%) SC Cleared
3 319 (8.03%) Degree
4 111 (2.79%) Computer Science Degree
5 84 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 70 (1.76%) Azure Certification
7 60 (1.51%) DV Cleared
8 51 (1.28%) Master's Degree
9 48 (1.21%) ISTQB
10 38 (0.96%) Microsoft Certification
11 25 (0.63%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.40%) PhD
13 15 (0.38%) Oracle Certification
14 14 (0.35%) CBAP
15 11 (0.28%) CISSP
15 11 (0.28%) DBS Check
16 10 (0.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 10 (0.25%) PMI Certification
16 10 (0.25%) PMP
17 9 (0.23%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 716 (18.02%) Data Quality
2 307 (7.73%) QA
3 178 (4.48%) GDPR
4 40 (1.01%) Accessibility
5 36 (0.91%) SLA
6 33 (0.83%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 28 (0.70%) PMO
8 23 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 19 (0.48%) NIST
9 19 (0.48%) PCI DSS
10 18 (0.45%) MiFID
11 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
12 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 15 (0.38%) IFRS
13 14 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.33%) ISO 20022
15 12 (0.30%) HL7
16 10 (0.25%) GRC
16 10 (0.25%) SEPA
17 9 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 450 (11.33%) Docker
2 92 (2.32%) Active Directory
3 37 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
4 24 (0.60%) Oracle RAC
5 23 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
6 17 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.25%) KVM
8 8 (0.20%) Postfix
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.15%) HDFS
9 6 (0.15%) RACF
9 6 (0.15%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.13%) XenApp
10 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.076%) Oracle Clusterware
12 2 (0.050%) GridGain
12 2 (0.050%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.050%) vSphere
13 1 (0.025%) Lustre
13 1 (0.025%) vCloud
Systems Management
1 391 (9.84%) Kubernetes
2 328 (8.26%) Terraform
3 104 (2.62%) Grafana
4 65 (1.64%) Ansible
5 62 (1.56%) 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
1 652 (16.41%) Oracle
2 645 (16.23%) Microsoft
3 472 (11.88%) Databricks
4 157 (3.95%) Google
5 137 (3.45%) Informatica
6 125 (3.15%) ServiceNow
7 105 (2.64%) SAP
8 100 (2.52%) Talend
9 84 (2.11%) Splunk
10 66 (1.66%) IBM
11 60 (1.51%) Salesforce
12 51 (1.28%) Citrix
13 50 (1.26%) Denodo
14 40 (1.01%) OpenAI
15 36 (0.91%) VMware
16 35 (0.88%) Dynatrace
17 34 (0.86%) Bloomberg
18 32 (0.81%) HP
18 32 (0.81%) MuleSoft
19 29 (0.73%) BMC