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 24 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 13 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,288 3,080 3,740
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.87% 12.30% 10.01%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.98% 36.30% 32.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,884 2,215 2,757
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -6.98% -0.46%
75th Percentile £600 £626 £650
90th Percentile £698 £766 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 74 61 56
10th Percentile £26.50 £23.00 £22.68
25th Percentile £33.82 £30.25 £29.06
Median hourly rate £45.90 £40.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +13.33% -4.71% -15.00%
75th Percentile £69.86 £50.00 £52.37
90th Percentile £82.78 £67.50 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £45.90 £39.67 £42.50
% change year-on-year +15.70% -6.65% -17.07%

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 11,596 8,484 11,395
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.69% 33.88% 30.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,566 5,895 8,143
10th Percentile £360 £356 £350
25th Percentile £423 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £516 £520 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.79% -3.70% -3.57%
75th Percentile £615 £638 £650
90th Percentile £726 £775 £788
UK median daily rate £510 £510 £525
% change year-on-year - -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 521 200 497
10th Percentile £36.25 £28.16 £35.52
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.75 £49.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.18% -12.00% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.00 £85.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +18.18% -12.00% -

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 24 June 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 24 June 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 24 June 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 -5 2,325 £525 -1.87% 694
North of England -6 546 £460 -3.16% 335
Midlands +3 543 £463 +8.06% 193
West Midlands +4 448 £459 +2.00% 102
South East -10 428 £475 -5.00% 433
North West -3 290 £463 -2.63% 209
South West -6 229 £500 +5.26% 115
Yorkshire -12 216 £475 - 83
East of England -13 108 £495 +1.54% 95
East Midlands 0 91 £525 +40.00% 91
North East -13 52 £425 -8.36% 48
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
1 215 (5.01%) Apache Spark
2 176 (4.10%) Apache Airflow
3 161 (3.75%) Confluence
4 143 (3.33%) Apache
5 92 (2.15%) SAS
6 55 (1.28%) SharePoint
7 33 (0.77%) Oracle Workflow
7 33 (0.77%) WebLogic
8 32 (0.75%) IIS
9 24 (0.56%) Tomcat
10 22 (0.51%) Jupyter
11 19 (0.44%) Microsoft Exchange
11 19 (0.44%) WebSphere
12 18 (0.42%) Palantir Foundry
13 17 (0.40%) Appian
14 16 (0.37%) CMS
14 16 (0.37%) nginx
15 13 (0.30%) Camunda
15 13 (0.30%) Tuxedo
16 9 (0.21%) Mendix
Applications
1 272 (6.34%) Microsoft Excel
2 53 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (0.93%) MS Visio
4 31 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.68%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
8 3 (0.070%) Acrobat
8 3 (0.070%) Oracle Smart View
8 3 (0.070%) Photoshop
9 2 (0.047%) Notion
10 1 (0.023%) Adobe XD
10 1 (0.023%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.023%) InDesign
10 1 (0.023%) Mingle
10 1 (0.023%) Trello
10 1 (0.023%) Weka
Business Applications
1 36 (0.84%) Dynamics CRM
2 34 (0.79%) Oracle EBS
3 24 (0.56%) Aladdin
4 23 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
5 22 (0.51%) Oracle ERP
5 22 (0.51%) Oracle Payables
6 18 (0.42%) NEC Housing
7 16 (0.37%) Oracle EBS R12
8 15 (0.35%) Oracle Receivables
8 15 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.26%) Findur
9 11 (0.26%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 10 (0.23%) Oracle General Ledger
10 10 (0.23%) Siebel CRM
11 9 (0.21%) Elite 3E
11 9 (0.21%) Finacle
11 9 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
11 9 (0.21%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 9 (0.21%) Salesforce CRM
12 8 (0.19%) Payment Gateway
Cloud Services
1 1,386 (32.32%) Azure
2 1,044 (24.35%) AWS
3 822 (19.17%) Power Platform
4 398 (9.28%) Azure DevOps
5 343 (8.00%) GCP
6 326 (7.60%) Azure Data Factory
7 309 (7.21%) GitHub
8 279 (6.51%) Serverless
9 255 (5.95%) Snowflake
10 248 (5.78%) Amazon S3
11 212 (4.94%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 212 (4.94%) dbt
12 176 (4.10%) AWS Lambda
13 163 (3.80%) GitHub Actions
14 80 (1.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 79 (1.84%) Power Automate
16 74 (1.73%) Entra ID
17 73 (1.70%) SaaS
18 72 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
19 69 (1.61%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 47 (1.10%) DNS
2 40 (0.93%) Firewall
3 21 (0.49%) SNMP
4 20 (0.47%) Network Security
5 19 (0.44%) HTTP
6 18 (0.42%) Internet
7 17 (0.40%) VPN
8 16 (0.37%) WAN
9 14 (0.33%) SSL
10 11 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
11 10 (0.23%) TCP/IP
12 9 (0.21%) LAN
12 9 (0.21%) Wireshark
13 8 (0.19%) 3GPP
14 7 (0.16%) SAN
14 7 (0.16%) WinSCP
15 6 (0.14%) BGP
15 6 (0.14%) Reverse Proxy
15 6 (0.14%) RTP
16 5 (0.12%) DHCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 757 (17.65%) Power BI
2 563 (13.13%) Data Warehouse
3 535 (12.48%) SQL Server
4 284 (6.62%) Relational Database
4 284 (6.62%) Tableau
5 283 (6.60%) Data Lake
6 274 (6.39%) PostgreSQL
7 223 (5.20%) NoSQL
8 201 (4.69%) Metadata
9 185 (4.31%) Azure SQL Database
10 167 (3.89%) Oracle Database
11 146 (3.40%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 138 (3.22%) BigQuery
13 128 (2.99%) Amazon Redshift
14 125 (2.92%) Delta Lake
15 104 (2.43%) Big Data
15 104 (2.43%) MySQL
16 100 (2.33%) Oracle Reports
17 94 (2.19%) Snowflake Schema
18 90 (2.10%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 459 (10.70%) Git
2 338 (7.88%) JIRA
3 225 (5.25%) Jenkins
4 193 (4.50%) GitLab
5 67 (1.56%) JUnit
6 52 (1.21%) Maven
6 52 (1.21%) Postman
7 49 (1.14%) Mockito
7 49 (1.14%) Selenium
8 45 (1.05%) Gradle
9 33 (0.77%) Cucumber
9 33 (0.77%) SonarQube
10 30 (0.70%) MLflow
11 28 (0.65%) JMeter
12 27 (0.63%) Bitbucket
12 27 (0.63%) ERwin
12 27 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
13 26 (0.61%) Liquibase
13 26 (0.61%) Visual Studio
14 25 (0.58%) Zephyr
General
1 1,142 (26.63%) Finance
2 1,110 (25.89%) Social Skills
3 810 (18.89%) Analytical Skills
4 412 (9.61%) Banking
5 372 (8.68%) Public Sector
6 122 (2.85%) Front Office
7 117 (2.73%) Marketing
8 104 (2.43%) Investment Banking
9 89 (2.08%) Retail
10 88 (2.05%) Documentation Skills
11 74 (1.73%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 53 (1.24%) Legal
13 52 (1.21%) Financial Institution
14 48 (1.12%) Presentation Skills
15 47 (1.10%) Manufacturing
16 38 (0.89%) Publishing
17 35 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
18 34 (0.79%) Back Office
19 33 (0.77%) Telecoms
20 27 (0.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 890 (20.76%) Developer
2 884 (20.62%) Data Engineer
3 611 (14.25%) Analyst
4 555 (12.94%) Senior
5 298 (6.95%) Lead
6 266 (6.20%) Data Analyst
7 233 (5.43%) Architect
8 201 (4.69%) Consultant
9 176 (4.10%) Business Analyst
10 173 (4.03%) Java Developer
11 165 (3.85%) Senior Data Engineer
12 144 (3.36%) DBA
13 135 (3.15%) Software Engineer
14 130 (3.03%) Senior Developer
15 106 (2.47%) Azure Engineer
16 100 (2.33%) C# Developer
17 98 (2.29%) SQL Developer
18 87 (2.03%) Python Developer
18 87 (2.03%) SQL DBA
19 82 (1.91%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 348 (8.12%) .NET
2 334 (7.79%) REST
3 262 (6.11%) Kafka
3 262 (6.11%) PySpark
4 221 (5.15%) Spring
5 209 (4.87%) Spring Boot
6 205 (4.78%) React
7 187 (4.36%) RESTful
8 151 (3.52%) JSON
9 147 (3.43%) XML
10 136 (3.17%) HTML
11 124 (2.89%) CSS
12 114 (2.66%) AngularJS
13 112 (2.61%) Pandas
14 105 (2.45%) SOAP
15 97 (2.26%) Middleware
16 93 (2.17%) Web Services
17 86 (2.01%) .NET Framework
18 77 (1.80%) OAuth
19 68 (1.59%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 277 (6.46%) Cloud Native
2 167 (3.89%) Data Structures
3 153 (3.57%) Legacy Systems
4 136 (3.17%) Product Ownership
5 129 (3.01%) Distributed Systems
6 82 (1.91%) Onboarding
7 81 (1.89%) Derivative
8 79 (1.84%) Management Information System
9 68 (1.59%) Analytical Mindset
10 65 (1.52%) Data Protection Act
11 62 (1.45%) Enterprise Software
11 62 (1.45%) Self-Motivation
12 57 (1.33%) Clustering
13 51 (1.19%) Equities
14 50 (1.17%) Algorithms
14 50 (1.17%) Greenfield Project
15 47 (1.10%) Fixed Income
16 43 (1.00%) Replication
17 42 (0.98%) Low-Code
18 41 (0.96%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
Operating Systems
1 285 (6.65%) Linux
2 260 (6.06%) Windows
3 204 (4.76%) Unix
4 92 (2.15%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.56%) AIX
6 19 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 14 (0.33%) Solaris
7 14 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
8 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (0.19%) zOS
9 7 (0.16%) Android
9 7 (0.16%) Apple iOS
9 7 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 4 (0.093%) Oracle Linux
10 4 (0.093%) VMS
11 3 (0.070%) Ubuntu
11 3 (0.070%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.047%) Data ONTAP
12 2 (0.047%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,180 (27.52%) CI/CD
2 1,094 (25.51%) Analytics
3 1,085 (25.30%) Agile
4 1,042 (24.30%) Data Modelling
5 1,001 (23.34%) ETL
6 955 (22.27%) Business Intelligence
7 891 (20.78%) DevOps
8 855 (19.94%) Problem-Solving
9 819 (19.10%) Data Pipeline
10 713 (16.63%) Data Engineering
11 616 (14.37%) AI
12 569 (13.27%) Migration
13 560 (13.06%) Validation
14 448 (10.45%) Data Governance
15 441 (10.28%) Test Automation
16 434 (10.12%) Decision-Making
17 420 (9.79%) Data Analysis
18 406 (9.47%) Stakeholder Management
19 404 (9.42%) Continuous Improvement
20 380 (8.86%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 1,559 (36.36%) Python
2 547 (12.76%) Java
3 436 (10.17%) C#
4 320 (7.46%) PL/SQL
5 308 (7.18%) JavaScript
6 231 (5.39%) T-SQL
7 218 (5.08%) PowerShell
8 160 (3.73%) TypeScript
9 132 (3.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 110 (2.57%) Shell Script
11 95 (2.22%) R
12 83 (1.94%) Bash
13 72 (1.68%) Scala
14 54 (1.26%) C++
15 43 (1.00%) VBA
16 36 (0.84%) Bicep
17 33 (0.77%) C
18 32 (0.75%) VB
19 24 (0.56%) Go
20 23 (0.54%) Perl
Qualifications
1 905 (21.11%) Security Cleared
2 730 (17.02%) SC Cleared
3 322 (7.51%) Degree
4 105 (2.45%) Computer Science Degree
5 99 (2.31%) BPSS Clearance
6 90 (2.10%) DV Cleared
7 69 (1.61%) Azure Certification
8 53 (1.24%) Master's Degree
9 51 (1.19%) ISTQB
10 41 (0.96%) Microsoft Certification
11 32 (0.75%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.40%) DBS Check
12 17 (0.40%) PhD
13 14 (0.33%) CISSP
14 13 (0.30%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.23%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.23%) TOGAF Certification
16 9 (0.21%) CISM
17 8 (0.19%) PMP
17 8 (0.19%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 769 (17.93%) Data Quality
2 324 (7.56%) QA
3 173 (4.03%) GDPR
4 42 (0.98%) Accessibility
5 40 (0.93%) SLA
6 28 (0.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 28 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 26 (0.61%) NIST
8 23 (0.54%) PMO
9 18 (0.42%) IFRS
10 16 (0.37%) PCI DSS
11 15 (0.35%) MiFID
11 15 (0.35%) Solvency II
12 14 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
12 14 (0.33%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 14 (0.33%) HIPAA
13 13 (0.30%) ISO 20022
14 10 (0.23%) HL7
14 10 (0.23%) NCSC
15 9 (0.21%) GRC
System Software
1 460 (10.73%) Docker
2 92 (2.15%) Active Directory
3 40 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
4 29 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 22 (0.51%) Oracle RAC
6 17 (0.40%) VMware ESXi
7 15 (0.35%) Hyper-V
8 13 (0.30%) VMware NSX
9 12 (0.28%) vCloud
10 10 (0.23%) KVM
11 9 (0.21%) Postfix
12 8 (0.19%) Virtual Desktop
13 5 (0.12%) RACF
14 4 (0.093%) HDFS
15 3 (0.070%) XenApp
15 3 (0.070%) XenDesktop
16 2 (0.047%) Apache ZooKeeper
16 2 (0.047%) GridGain
17 1 (0.023%) Varnish
17 1 (0.023%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 382 (8.91%) Kubernetes
2 353 (8.23%) Terraform
3 100 (2.33%) Grafana
4 73 (1.70%) Ansible
5 56 (1.31%) Prometheus
6 33 (0.77%) Oracle RMAN
7 24 (0.56%) Data Guard
8 23 (0.54%) Control-M
9 22 (0.51%) Kibana
10 19 (0.44%) vCenter Server
11 16 (0.37%) Single Sign-On
11 16 (0.37%) ZABBIX
12 15 (0.35%) Tivoli
13 14 (0.33%) Nagios
13 14 (0.33%) Netcool
14 13 (0.30%) OpenView
14 13 (0.30%) SCOM
14 13 (0.30%) Tivoli Monitoring
15 9 (0.21%) Progress Chef
16 8 (0.19%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 732 (17.07%) Oracle
2 668 (15.58%) Microsoft
3 494 (11.52%) Databricks
4 160 (3.73%) Google
5 155 (3.61%) Informatica
6 123 (2.87%) Talend
7 122 (2.85%) ServiceNow
8 110 (2.57%) SAP
9 84 (1.96%) Splunk
10 68 (1.59%) IBM
11 63 (1.47%) Denodo
12 50 (1.17%) Salesforce
13 46 (1.07%) VMware
14 44 (1.03%) Citrix
15 38 (0.89%) Dynatrace
16 37 (0.86%) Bloomberg
17 34 (0.79%) OpenAI
18 33 (0.77%) Murex
19 28 (0.65%) BMC
19 28 (0.65%) SolarWinds