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

6 months to
19 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,993 3,034 3,638
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.73% 12.47% 9.99%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.70% 36.97% 33.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,734 2,157 2,686
10th Percentile £350 £358 £356
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £588 £636 £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 66 54 56
10th Percentile £26.52 £20.02 £23.38
25th Percentile £35.25 £30.06 £29.72
Median hourly rate £48.11 £48.25 £44.25
Median % change year-on-year -0.29% +9.04% -10.73%
75th Percentile £72.63 £65.46 £57.50
90th Percentile £83.00 £80.73 £61.68
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £43.66 £44.25
% change year-on-year +20.25% -1.34% -11.50%

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 10,881 8,206 10,885
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.51% 33.73% 29.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,185 5,697 7,901
10th Percentile £355 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -2.48%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £656
90th Percentile £720 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £530
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 525 210 446
10th Percentile £41.25 £26.31 £37.59
25th Percentile £55.00 £37.65 £50.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.10 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.25 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.42% -0.40% +1.46%

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 19 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 19 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 19 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 2,245 £520 -3.48% 882
Midlands +3 513 £469 +4.22% 361
North of England -5 477 £460 -2.90% 638
West Midlands +5 411 £463 +0.54% 194
South East -17 352 £500 - 627
North West -3 259 £460 -3.16% 306
South West -5 204 £475 - 201
Yorkshire -13 192 £467 -1.79% 222
East Midlands 0 99 £525 +34.27% 167
East of England -18 93 £498 +3.38% 153
North East -13 38 £463 +2.78% 115
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
1 226 (5.66%) Apache Spark
2 151 (3.78%) Apache Airflow
3 135 (3.38%) Confluence
4 134 (3.36%) Apache
5 82 (2.05%) SAS
6 66 (1.65%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 32 (0.80%) IIS
9 26 (0.65%) Oracle Workflow
10 23 (0.58%) Tomcat
11 17 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
12 15 (0.38%) Jupyter
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) Appian
13 14 (0.35%) CMS
14 13 (0.33%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.33%) Mendix
14 13 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 11 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 262 (6.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 49 (1.23%) Microsoft Office
3 46 (1.15%) MS Visio
4 32 (0.80%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
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%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.05%) Oracle EBS
2 26 (0.65%) Aladdin
2 26 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.63%) NEC Housing
4 20 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
5 19 (0.48%) Oracle Payables
6 17 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
6 17 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
7 16 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
8 14 (0.35%) NetSuite
8 14 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
8 14 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
9 12 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
9 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 10 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
11 8 (0.20%) Endur
11 8 (0.20%) Findur
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle Cash Management
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,335 (33.43%) Azure
2 957 (23.97%) AWS
3 762 (19.08%) Power Platform
4 391 (9.79%) Azure DevOps
5 337 (8.44%) Azure Data Factory
6 330 (8.26%) GCP
7 291 (7.29%) GitHub
8 249 (6.24%) Serverless
9 226 (5.66%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 222 (5.56%) Snowflake
11 219 (5.48%) Amazon S3
12 180 (4.51%) dbt
13 149 (3.73%) AWS Lambda
14 148 (3.71%) GitHub Actions
15 78 (1.95%) Power Automate
16 75 (1.88%) SaaS
17 70 (1.75%) Entra ID
18 66 (1.65%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 65 (1.63%) Amazon EC2
20 64 (1.60%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.20%) Firewall
2 39 (0.98%) DNS
3 20 (0.50%) SNMP
4 19 (0.48%) Network Security
5 16 (0.40%) TCP/IP
6 15 (0.38%) HTTP
6 15 (0.38%) Internet
6 15 (0.38%) WAN
7 12 (0.30%) Wi-Fi
8 11 (0.28%) LAN
8 11 (0.28%) SSL
9 10 (0.25%) VPN
10 8 (0.20%) Wireshark
11 7 (0.18%) 3GPP
12 6 (0.15%) DHCP
12 6 (0.15%) IPsec
13 5 (0.13%) Kerberos
13 5 (0.13%) PuTTY
13 5 (0.13%) RTP
13 5 (0.13%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 697 (17.46%) Power BI
2 516 (12.92%) Data Warehouse
3 501 (12.55%) SQL Server
4 279 (6.99%) Tableau
5 269 (6.74%) Data Lake
6 254 (6.36%) Relational Database
7 251 (6.29%) PostgreSQL
8 236 (5.91%) NoSQL
9 209 (5.23%) Metadata
10 193 (4.83%) Azure SQL Database
11 156 (3.91%) Oracle Database
12 146 (3.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 137 (3.43%) BigQuery
14 120 (3.01%) Delta Lake
15 111 (2.78%) Amazon Redshift
16 107 (2.68%) Big Data
17 103 (2.58%) MySQL
18 99 (2.48%) Oracle Reports
19 90 (2.25%) Amazon RDS
19 90 (2.25%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 412 (10.32%) Git
2 306 (7.66%) JIRA
3 207 (5.18%) Jenkins
4 171 (4.28%) GitLab
5 56 (1.40%) Selenium
6 53 (1.33%) JUnit
7 47 (1.18%) Postman
8 45 (1.13%) Maven
9 39 (0.98%) Mockito
10 38 (0.95%) Cucumber
11 35 (0.88%) Gradle
11 35 (0.88%) MLflow
12 30 (0.75%) SonarQube
13 29 (0.73%) REST Assured
14 28 (0.70%) ERwin
15 23 (0.58%) Bitbucket
15 23 (0.58%) JMeter
16 22 (0.55%) TeamCity
16 22 (0.55%) Visual Studio
17 21 (0.53%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,068 (26.75%) Finance
2 1,027 (25.72%) Social Skills
3 729 (18.26%) Analytical Skills
4 381 (9.54%) Banking
5 335 (8.39%) Public Sector
6 102 (2.55%) Front Office
7 99 (2.48%) Marketing
8 95 (2.38%) Investment Banking
9 81 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
10 60 (1.50%) Retail
11 58 (1.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 57 (1.43%) Financial Institution
13 51 (1.28%) Legal
14 39 (0.98%) Publishing
15 36 (0.90%) Telecoms
16 35 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
17 31 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
18 30 (0.75%) Law
19 29 (0.73%) Local Government
20 28 (0.70%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 832 (20.84%) Developer
2 827 (20.71%) Data Engineer
3 569 (14.25%) Analyst
4 508 (12.72%) Senior
5 274 (6.86%) Lead
6 247 (6.19%) Data Analyst
7 223 (5.58%) Architect
8 179 (4.48%) Consultant
9 176 (4.41%) Business Analyst
10 155 (3.88%) Java Developer
11 149 (3.73%) Senior Data Engineer
12 127 (3.18%) DBA
13 122 (3.06%) Software Engineer
14 121 (3.03%) Senior Developer
15 117 (2.93%) Azure Engineer
16 98 (2.45%) C# Developer
17 88 (2.20%) Python Developer
18 87 (2.18%) Data Scientist
19 86 (2.15%) Data Architect
20 84 (2.10%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 343 (8.59%) .NET
2 313 (7.84%) REST
3 254 (6.36%) PySpark
4 251 (6.29%) Kafka
5 191 (4.78%) React
5 191 (4.78%) Spring
6 183 (4.58%) Spring Boot
7 168 (4.21%) RESTful
8 141 (3.53%) HTML
9 126 (3.16%) JSON
9 126 (3.16%) XML
10 118 (2.96%) CSS
11 117 (2.93%) Pandas
12 105 (2.63%) AngularJS
13 91 (2.28%) Middleware
14 86 (2.15%) SOAP
15 80 (2.00%) .NET Framework
16 74 (1.85%) Web Services
17 69 (1.73%) Node.js
18 68 (1.70%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 251 (6.29%) Cloud Native
2 149 (3.73%) Data Structures
3 126 (3.16%) Legacy Systems
4 124 (3.11%) Product Ownership
5 103 (2.58%) Distributed Systems
6 84 (2.10%) Management Information System
7 79 (1.98%) Derivative
8 74 (1.85%) Onboarding
9 69 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
10 61 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
11 53 (1.33%) Clustering
12 52 (1.30%) Equities
12 52 (1.30%) Fixed Income
13 50 (1.25%) Enterprise Software
14 48 (1.20%) Algorithms
15 47 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
16 45 (1.13%) Greenfield Project
17 39 (0.98%) Replication
18 38 (0.95%) Low-Code
18 38 (0.95%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 292 (7.31%) Linux
2 248 (6.21%) Windows
3 199 (4.98%) Unix
4 83 (2.08%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.60%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.18%) Solaris
10 7 (0.18%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.15%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.075%) VMS
12 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
14 1 (0.025%) HPUX
14 1 (0.025%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,082 (27.10%) CI/CD
2 1,010 (25.29%) Analytics
3 1,007 (25.22%) Data Modelling
4 972 (24.34%) ETL
5 966 (24.19%) Agile
6 899 (22.51%) Business Intelligence
7 869 (21.76%) DevOps
8 791 (19.81%) Problem-Solving
9 743 (18.61%) Data Pipeline
10 651 (16.30%) Data Engineering
11 516 (12.92%) AI
12 502 (12.57%) Migration
13 477 (11.95%) Validation
14 470 (11.77%) Data Governance
15 395 (9.89%) Test Automation
16 394 (9.87%) Decision-Making
17 369 (9.24%) Data Analysis
18 365 (9.14%) Performance Tuning
19 355 (8.89%) Microservices
20 341 (8.54%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,507 (37.74%) Python
2 538 (13.47%) Java
3 437 (10.94%) C#
4 303 (7.59%) JavaScript
5 293 (7.34%) PL/SQL
6 206 (5.16%) T-SQL
7 186 (4.66%) PowerShell
8 130 (3.26%) TypeScript
9 123 (3.08%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 115 (2.88%) R
10 115 (2.88%) Shell Script
11 88 (2.20%) Scala
12 78 (1.95%) Bash
13 61 (1.53%) C++
14 43 (1.08%) VBA
15 40 (1.00%) Bicep
16 39 (0.98%) Perl
17 29 (0.73%) VB
18 27 (0.68%) Go
19 24 (0.60%) C
Qualifications
1 835 (20.91%) Security Cleared
2 669 (16.75%) SC Cleared
3 322 (8.06%) Degree
4 104 (2.60%) Computer Science Degree
5 89 (2.23%) BPSS Clearance
6 72 (1.80%) DV Cleared
7 71 (1.78%) Azure Certification
8 52 (1.30%) Master's Degree
9 47 (1.18%) ISTQB
10 36 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
11 22 (0.55%) AWS Certification
12 16 (0.40%) PhD
13 15 (0.38%) CBAP
14 13 (0.33%) DBS Check
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle Certification
16 11 (0.28%) CISSP
16 11 (0.28%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
16 11 (0.28%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.25%) PMP
18 9 (0.23%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 737 (18.46%) Data Quality
2 300 (7.51%) QA
3 176 (4.41%) GDPR
4 38 (0.95%) SLA
5 37 (0.93%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 25 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.60%) PMO
9 20 (0.50%) PCI DSS
10 19 (0.48%) NIST
11 17 (0.43%) MiFID
12 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
13 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
14 14 (0.35%) IFRS
15 13 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
16 12 (0.30%) HL7
16 12 (0.30%) ISO 20022
17 11 (0.28%) GRC
18 10 (0.25%) Solvency II
19 8 (0.20%) EMIR
System Software
1 454 (11.37%) Docker
2 90 (2.25%) Active Directory
3 37 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
4 27 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 25 (0.63%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 11 (0.28%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.25%) KVM
9 8 (0.20%) Postfix
9 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
10 7 (0.18%) VMware NSX
11 6 (0.15%) HDFS
11 6 (0.15%) RACF
11 6 (0.15%) vCloud
12 4 (0.10%) XenApp
12 4 (0.10%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
14 2 (0.050%) GridGain
14 2 (0.050%) vSphere
15 1 (0.025%) Apache ZooKeeper
Systems Management
1 384 (9.62%) Kubernetes
2 322 (8.06%) Terraform
3 103 (2.58%) Grafana
4 67 (1.68%) Ansible
5 62 (1.55%) Prometheus
6 38 (0.95%) Oracle RMAN
7 27 (0.68%) Data Guard
8 19 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.45%) Kibana
10 15 (0.38%) ZABBIX
11 14 (0.35%) Control-M
11 14 (0.35%) Nagios
11 14 (0.35%) Netcool
11 14 (0.35%) SCCM
11 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
12 13 (0.33%) OpenView
12 13 (0.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 13 (0.33%) vCenter Server
13 12 (0.30%) Progress Chef
14 9 (0.23%) Kiali
Vendors
1 651 (16.30%) Oracle
2 628 (15.73%) Microsoft
3 484 (12.12%) Databricks
4 160 (4.01%) Google
5 135 (3.38%) Informatica
6 131 (3.28%) ServiceNow
7 105 (2.63%) Talend
8 103 (2.58%) SAP
9 89 (2.23%) Splunk
10 61 (1.53%) IBM
11 53 (1.33%) Denodo
11 53 (1.33%) Salesforce
12 48 (1.20%) Citrix
13 41 (1.03%) VMware
14 36 (0.90%) Dynatrace
15 35 (0.88%) OpenAI
16 34 (0.85%) Bloomberg
17 32 (0.80%) HP
18 31 (0.78%) MuleSoft
19 30 (0.75%) BMC