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

6 months to
3 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,106 3,011 3,647
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.85% 12.58% 9.88%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.99% 36.94% 32.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,790 2,162 2,698
10th Percentile £350 £359 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £545
Median % change year-on-year - -8.26% -0.91%
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £765 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -1.87%
Number of hourly rates quoted 67 57 54
10th Percentile £25.92 £21.30 £22.65
25th Percentile £34.01 £30.00 £27.28
Median hourly rate £47.50 £37.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +28.38% -12.94% -15.00%
75th Percentile £72.25 £58.75 £54.03
90th Percentile £82.85 £76.63 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £38.85 £42.50
% change year-on-year +31.92% -8.60% -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 11,099 8,150 11,133
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.62% 34.04% 30.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,296 5,656 8,040
10th Percentile £358 £360 £350
25th Percentile £419 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £543
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -3.23% -3.64%
75th Percentile £613 £640 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.44% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 527 195 471
10th Percentile £36.95 £28.27 £35.50
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.50 £48.84
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.84% -0.80% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.85 £85.00 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -7.26% -0.80%

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 3 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 3 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 3 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 -2 2,282 £525 -1.87% 1,036
Midlands +3 529 £465 +7.89% 216
North of England -10 501 £460 -3.16% 430
West Midlands +5 425 £460 +1.39% 133
South East -15 386 £475 -3.06% 468
North West -4 255 £460 -3.16% 253
Yorkshire -13 211 £475 - 114
South West -2 203 £475 - 163
East of England -14 102 £495 +1.54% 108
East Midlands -3 100 £525 +34.62% 83
North East -8 47 £425 -8.11% 67
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
1 231 (5.63%) Apache Spark
2 168 (4.09%) Apache Airflow
3 145 (3.53%) Apache
3 145 (3.53%) Confluence
4 83 (2.02%) SAS
5 60 (1.46%) SharePoint
6 32 (0.78%) IIS
6 32 (0.78%) WebLogic
7 28 (0.68%) Oracle Workflow
8 23 (0.56%) Tomcat
9 20 (0.49%) Jupyter
10 19 (0.46%) Microsoft Exchange
11 16 (0.39%) Appian
12 15 (0.37%) CMS
12 15 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
13 14 (0.34%) WebSphere
14 13 (0.32%) nginx
15 11 (0.27%) Camunda
15 11 (0.27%) Mendix
16 10 (0.24%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 265 (6.45%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.02%) MS Visio
3 40 (0.97%) Microsoft Office
4 29 (0.71%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 28 (0.68%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.15%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
9 3 (0.073%) Notion
9 3 (0.073%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.049%) Trello
11 1 (0.024%) InDesign
11 1 (0.024%) Mingle
11 1 (0.024%) Weka
Business Applications
1 39 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
2 30 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 26 (0.63%) Aladdin
4 21 (0.51%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
6 19 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
7 18 (0.44%) Oracle EBS R12
7 18 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
8 15 (0.37%) Oracle Receivables
8 15 (0.37%) Remedy ITSM
9 13 (0.32%) Oracle General Ledger
10 12 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 11 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
12 10 (0.24%) Findur
12 10 (0.24%) NetSuite
12 10 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
13 9 (0.22%) Endur
13 9 (0.22%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
14 8 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
15 7 (0.17%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,367 (33.29%) Azure
2 1,009 (24.57%) AWS
3 790 (19.24%) Power Platform
4 399 (9.72%) Azure DevOps
5 340 (8.28%) GCP
6 338 (8.23%) Azure Data Factory
7 309 (7.53%) GitHub
8 254 (6.19%) Serverless
9 249 (6.06%) Snowflake
10 236 (5.75%) Amazon S3
11 215 (5.24%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 196 (4.77%) dbt
13 160 (3.90%) AWS Lambda
13 160 (3.90%) GitHub Actions
14 78 (1.90%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 78 (1.90%) SaaS
15 73 (1.78%) Entra ID
16 72 (1.75%) Amazon EC2
17 71 (1.73%) Power Automate
18 59 (1.44%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.12%) Firewall
2 45 (1.10%) DNS
3 19 (0.46%) SNMP
4 16 (0.39%) Network Security
4 16 (0.39%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.37%) HTTP
5 15 (0.37%) Internet
6 14 (0.34%) SSL
6 14 (0.34%) VPN
6 14 (0.34%) WAN
7 11 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
8 10 (0.24%) LAN
9 9 (0.22%) Wireshark
10 8 (0.19%) 3GPP
11 7 (0.17%) SAN
12 6 (0.15%) IPsec
12 6 (0.15%) RTP
13 5 (0.12%) DHCP
13 5 (0.12%) Kerberos
13 5 (0.12%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 724 (17.63%) Power BI
2 534 (13.01%) Data Warehouse
3 516 (12.57%) SQL Server
4 279 (6.79%) Data Lake
4 279 (6.79%) Tableau
5 266 (6.48%) PostgreSQL
6 256 (6.23%) Relational Database
7 227 (5.53%) NoSQL
8 207 (5.04%) Metadata
9 190 (4.63%) Azure SQL Database
10 157 (3.82%) Oracle Database
11 152 (3.70%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 135 (3.29%) BigQuery
13 125 (3.04%) Delta Lake
14 115 (2.80%) Amazon Redshift
15 112 (2.73%) Big Data
16 105 (2.56%) Oracle Reports
17 104 (2.53%) MySQL
18 92 (2.24%) Amazon RDS
19 90 (2.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 433 (10.55%) Git
2 327 (7.96%) JIRA
3 218 (5.31%) Jenkins
4 204 (4.97%) GitLab
5 62 (1.51%) JUnit
6 56 (1.36%) Selenium
7 55 (1.34%) Postman
8 49 (1.19%) Maven
9 47 (1.14%) Mockito
10 41 (1.00%) Cucumber
11 39 (0.95%) Gradle
12 35 (0.85%) SonarQube
13 31 (0.75%) MLflow
14 29 (0.71%) REST Assured
15 28 (0.68%) ERwin
16 25 (0.61%) JMeter
17 24 (0.58%) Bitbucket
17 24 (0.58%) Zephyr
18 23 (0.56%) Liquibase
18 23 (0.56%) TeamCity
General
1 1,102 (26.84%) Finance
2 1,051 (25.60%) Social Skills
3 758 (18.46%) Analytical Skills
4 381 (9.28%) Banking
5 342 (8.33%) Public Sector
6 113 (2.75%) Marketing
7 111 (2.70%) Front Office
8 98 (2.39%) Investment Banking
9 82 (2.00%) Documentation Skills
10 69 (1.68%) Retail
11 63 (1.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 58 (1.41%) Financial Institution
13 52 (1.27%) Legal
14 42 (1.02%) Publishing
15 37 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
16 36 (0.88%) Manufacturing
17 34 (0.83%) Telecoms
18 32 (0.78%) Law
18 32 (0.78%) Organisational Skills
19 28 (0.68%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 864 (21.04%) Data Engineer
2 849 (20.68%) Developer
3 572 (13.93%) Analyst
4 525 (12.79%) Senior
5 281 (6.84%) Lead
6 255 (6.21%) Data Analyst
7 230 (5.60%) Architect
8 188 (4.58%) Consultant
9 168 (4.09%) Business Analyst
10 162 (3.95%) Java Developer
11 157 (3.82%) Senior Data Engineer
12 131 (3.19%) Senior Developer
13 128 (3.12%) DBA
14 123 (3.00%) Software Engineer
15 107 (2.61%) Azure Engineer
16 102 (2.48%) C# Developer
17 86 (2.09%) Data Architect
17 86 (2.09%) Python Developer
17 86 (2.09%) SQL Developer
18 84 (2.05%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 356 (8.67%) .NET
2 337 (8.21%) REST
3 260 (6.33%) PySpark
4 253 (6.16%) Kafka
5 205 (4.99%) Spring
6 194 (4.72%) React
7 193 (4.70%) Spring Boot
8 181 (4.41%) RESTful
9 146 (3.56%) HTML
10 140 (3.41%) JSON
11 137 (3.34%) XML
12 125 (3.04%) CSS
13 120 (2.92%) Pandas
14 106 (2.58%) AngularJS
15 100 (2.44%) SOAP
16 88 (2.14%) Web Services
17 87 (2.12%) Middleware
18 83 (2.02%) .NET Framework
19 76 (1.85%) OAuth
20 71 (1.73%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 272 (6.62%) Cloud Native
2 147 (3.58%) Data Structures
3 133 (3.24%) Legacy Systems
4 127 (3.09%) Product Ownership
5 116 (2.83%) Distributed Systems
6 84 (2.05%) Management Information System
7 79 (1.92%) Derivative
8 78 (1.90%) Onboarding
9 67 (1.63%) Data Protection Act
10 66 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
11 56 (1.36%) Clustering
12 54 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
13 52 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
14 51 (1.24%) Equities
15 49 (1.19%) Greenfield Project
16 48 (1.17%) Fixed Income
17 43 (1.05%) Algorithms
18 41 (1.00%) Replication
19 38 (0.93%) NHS
19 38 (0.93%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 291 (7.09%) Linux
2 251 (6.11%) Windows
3 198 (4.82%) Unix
4 87 (2.12%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.58%) AIX
6 21 (0.51%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.39%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.24%) Solaris
8 10 (0.24%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.22%) zOS
10 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
11 7 (0.17%) Android
11 7 (0.17%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.17%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.097%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.097%) VMS
13 3 (0.073%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.049%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.049%) HPUX
14 2 (0.049%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,152 (28.06%) CI/CD
2 1,032 (25.13%) Analytics
3 1,022 (24.89%) Data Modelling
4 1,001 (24.38%) Agile
5 995 (24.23%) ETL
6 920 (22.41%) Business Intelligence
7 896 (21.82%) DevOps
8 798 (19.43%) Problem-Solving
9 778 (18.95%) Data Pipeline
10 670 (16.32%) Data Engineering
11 558 (13.59%) AI
12 536 (13.05%) Migration
13 503 (12.25%) Validation
14 457 (11.13%) Data Governance
15 432 (10.52%) Test Automation
16 402 (9.79%) Decision-Making
17 398 (9.69%) Data Analysis
18 370 (9.01%) Performance Tuning
19 365 (8.89%) Microservices
20 363 (8.84%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,528 (37.21%) Python
2 549 (13.37%) Java
3 440 (10.72%) C#
4 311 (7.57%) JavaScript
5 294 (7.16%) PL/SQL
6 217 (5.28%) T-SQL
7 206 (5.02%) PowerShell
8 139 (3.39%) TypeScript
9 122 (2.97%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 112 (2.73%) Shell Script
11 102 (2.48%) R
12 82 (2.00%) Bash
13 79 (1.92%) Scala
14 61 (1.49%) C++
15 40 (0.97%) VBA
16 38 (0.93%) Bicep
17 31 (0.75%) Perl
18 29 (0.71%) VB
19 25 (0.61%) C
19 25 (0.61%) Go
Qualifications
1 858 (20.90%) Security Cleared
2 694 (16.90%) SC Cleared
3 326 (7.94%) Degree
4 106 (2.58%) Computer Science Degree
5 92 (2.24%) BPSS Clearance
6 73 (1.78%) DV Cleared
7 70 (1.70%) Azure Certification
8 50 (1.22%) Master's Degree
9 48 (1.17%) ISTQB
10 34 (0.83%) Microsoft Certification
11 25 (0.61%) AWS Certification
12 18 (0.44%) DBS Check
13 16 (0.39%) PhD
14 11 (0.27%) CISSP
14 11 (0.27%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 10 (0.24%) Oracle Certification
15 10 (0.24%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.24%) PMP
16 9 (0.22%) CISM
16 9 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 741 (18.05%) Data Quality
2 309 (7.53%) QA
3 175 (4.26%) GDPR
4 42 (1.02%) SLA
5 39 (0.95%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.78%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 28 (0.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.58%) PMO
9 22 (0.54%) NIST
10 19 (0.46%) PCI DSS
11 17 (0.41%) IFRS
12 15 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 14 (0.34%) HIPAA
13 14 (0.34%) MiFID
14 12 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
14 12 (0.29%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.29%) Solvency II
15 11 (0.27%) HL7
16 10 (0.24%) GRC
17 8 (0.19%) NCSC
System Software
1 469 (11.42%) Docker
2 92 (2.24%) Active Directory
3 36 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
4 28 (0.68%) VMware Infrastructure
5 23 (0.56%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.39%) Hyper-V
7 14 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.24%) KVM
8 10 (0.24%) VMware NSX
9 9 (0.22%) Postfix
9 9 (0.22%) vCloud
10 6 (0.15%) HDFS
10 6 (0.15%) RACF
11 4 (0.097%) Virtual Desktop
11 4 (0.097%) XenApp
11 4 (0.097%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.073%) Oracle Clusterware
13 2 (0.049%) Apache ZooKeeper
13 2 (0.049%) GridGain
13 2 (0.049%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 380 (9.25%) Kubernetes
2 332 (8.09%) Terraform
3 107 (2.61%) Grafana
4 67 (1.63%) Ansible
5 62 (1.51%) Prometheus
6 38 (0.93%) Oracle RMAN
7 29 (0.71%) Data Guard
8 20 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.44%) Kibana
10 16 (0.39%) vCenter Server
11 15 (0.37%) Control-M
11 15 (0.37%) ZABBIX
12 14 (0.34%) Nagios
12 14 (0.34%) Netcool
12 14 (0.34%) Tivoli
13 13 (0.32%) OpenView
13 13 (0.32%) Tivoli Monitoring
14 10 (0.24%) SCOM
15 9 (0.22%) Progress Chef
15 9 (0.22%) SCCM
Vendors
1 684 (16.66%) Oracle
2 636 (15.49%) Microsoft
3 497 (12.10%) Databricks
4 155 (3.77%) Google
5 146 (3.56%) Informatica
6 129 (3.14%) ServiceNow
7 118 (2.87%) Talend
8 106 (2.58%) SAP
9 85 (2.07%) Splunk
10 64 (1.56%) IBM
11 62 (1.51%) Denodo
12 50 (1.22%) Salesforce
13 46 (1.12%) Citrix
14 43 (1.05%) VMware
15 35 (0.85%) Dynatrace
16 32 (0.78%) OpenAI
17 31 (0.75%) Bloomberg
18 30 (0.73%) HP
18 30 (0.73%) MuleSoft
19 29 (0.71%) Murex