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 26 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,384 3,079 3,859
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.49% 11.64% 10.25%
As % of the Programming Languages category 34.42% 35.06% 34.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,340 2,050 2,784
10th Percentile £350 £355 £363
25th Percentile £413 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
75th Percentile £600 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £738 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £513 £538
% change year-on-year -2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 51 69
10th Percentile £21.51 £25.26 £21.64
25th Percentile £31.25 £35.00 £32.32
Median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +23.53% -15.00%
75th Percentile £57.50 £65.31 £53.75
90th Percentile £74.51 £77.19 £64.51
UK median hourly rate £47.11 £52.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -10.27% +23.53% -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 9,832 8,783 11,183
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 30.47% 33.20% 29.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,547 5,612 8,066
10th Percentile £350 £358 £358
25th Percentile £413 £425 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
75th Percentile £625 £650 £662
90th Percentile £733 £774 £763
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.81% -2.78% -4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 406 213 466
10th Percentile £41.25 £25.26 £35.94
25th Percentile £52.50 £43.50 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% +5.00% -7.69%
75th Percentile £69.86 £68.75 £69.47
90th Percentile £75.00 £85.00 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%

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 26 January 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 26 January 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 26 January 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 2,081 £512 -6.95% 703
North of England -5 341 £450 -5.26% 489
Midlands -3 339 £515 +8.42% 378
South East -14 291 £475 -5.00% 903
West Midlands +2 254 £515 +3.00% 175
North West +2 193 £420 -10.16% 236
South West -5 165 £475 -5.00% 302
Yorkshire -22 129 £481 -3.75% 183
East Midlands -9 85 £525 +36.36% 196
East of England -9 72 £575 +14.71% 321
North East -11 22 £475 -4.52% 74
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
1 163 (4.82%) Apache Spark
2 136 (4.02%) Apache Airflow
3 107 (3.16%) Confluence
4 96 (2.84%) Apache
5 90 (2.66%) SharePoint
6 67 (1.98%) SAS
7 44 (1.30%) WebLogic
8 26 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
9 23 (0.68%) IIS
10 19 (0.56%) Skype for Business
11 17 (0.50%) nginx
11 17 (0.50%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 16 (0.47%) CMS
13 14 (0.41%) Oracle Workflow
13 14 (0.41%) Tomcat
14 13 (0.38%) Jupyter
14 13 (0.38%) Mattermost
15 12 (0.35%) JBoss
16 11 (0.33%) HCL Notes
17 9 (0.27%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 224 (6.62%) Microsoft Excel
2 68 (2.01%) Microsoft Office
3 40 (1.18%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.98%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.38%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.24%) Chatbot
6 8 (0.24%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 6 (0.18%) Trello
8 4 (0.12%) Spreadsheet
9 3 (0.089%) Notion
10 2 (0.059%) Maya
10 2 (0.059%) NUKE
10 2 (0.059%) Oracle Smart View
11 1 (0.030%) SPSS
11 1 (0.030%) Weka
Business Applications
1 29 (0.86%) Oracle Payables
2 27 (0.80%) Oracle EBS
3 26 (0.77%) Oracle General Ledger
4 22 (0.65%) Aladdin
5 21 (0.62%) Oracle Receivables
6 20 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
6 20 (0.59%) Oracle Assets
7 18 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
8 17 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
9 16 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
10 14 (0.41%) Endur
10 14 (0.41%) NetSuite
11 13 (0.38%) NEC Housing
12 12 (0.35%) Oracle ERP
12 12 (0.35%) Oracle Financials
12 12 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 11 (0.33%) Oracle Cash Management
14 9 (0.27%) Advent Geneva
14 9 (0.27%) Maximo
15 8 (0.24%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,123 (33.19%) Azure
2 800 (23.64%) AWS
3 639 (18.88%) Power Platform
4 317 (9.37%) Azure DevOps
5 281 (8.30%) GCP
6 254 (7.51%) GitHub
7 241 (7.12%) Azure Data Factory
8 233 (6.89%) Serverless
8 233 (6.89%) Snowflake
9 169 (4.99%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 168 (4.96%) Amazon S3
11 132 (3.90%) GitHub Actions
12 128 (3.78%) dbt
13 109 (3.22%) AWS Lambda
14 91 (2.69%) SaaS
15 83 (2.45%) Azure Functions
16 77 (2.28%) Power Automate
17 68 (2.01%) PowerApps
18 57 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
19 56 (1.65%) Azure AKS
Communications & Networking
1 55 (1.63%) Firewall
2 39 (1.15%) DNS
3 35 (1.03%) HTTP
4 25 (0.74%) Skype
5 18 (0.53%) Network Security
6 16 (0.47%) TCP/IP
7 15 (0.44%) Internet
8 14 (0.41%) DHCP
9 12 (0.35%) SSH
9 12 (0.35%) Unified Communications
10 10 (0.30%) LAN
10 10 (0.30%) SMTP
10 10 (0.30%) VPN
10 10 (0.30%) WAN
11 9 (0.27%) 2G
11 9 (0.27%) 5G
12 8 (0.24%) FTP
12 8 (0.24%) Multicast
12 8 (0.24%) SMS
12 8 (0.24%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 579 (17.11%) Power BI
2 376 (11.11%) SQL Server
3 353 (10.43%) Data Warehouse
4 249 (7.36%) Relational Database
5 244 (7.21%) PostgreSQL
6 239 (7.06%) NoSQL
7 204 (6.03%) Tableau
8 198 (5.85%) Data Lake
9 172 (5.08%) Azure SQL Database
10 149 (4.40%) Oracle Database
11 135 (3.99%) Metadata
12 108 (3.19%) Big Data
13 106 (3.13%) MySQL
14 100 (2.96%) BigQuery
15 98 (2.90%) MongoDB
16 97 (2.87%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 83 (2.45%) Amazon RDS
18 72 (2.13%) Delta Lake
19 70 (2.07%) Amazon Redshift
20 63 (1.86%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 384 (11.35%) Git
2 301 (8.89%) JIRA
3 182 (5.38%) Jenkins
4 128 (3.78%) GitLab
5 57 (1.68%) JUnit
6 55 (1.63%) Selenium
7 46 (1.36%) Oracle APEX
8 36 (1.06%) Cucumber
9 35 (1.03%) Postman
10 29 (0.86%) Bitbucket
11 25 (0.74%) REST Assured
12 23 (0.68%) ERwin
12 23 (0.68%) Maven
13 21 (0.62%) Cypress.io
13 21 (0.62%) MLflow
13 21 (0.62%) Mockito
13 21 (0.62%) SpecFlow
14 20 (0.59%) Visual Studio
15 19 (0.56%) Oracle Forms
16 17 (0.50%) Gradle
General
1 1,054 (31.15%) Social Skills
2 976 (28.84%) Finance
3 593 (17.52%) Analytical Skills
4 393 (11.61%) Banking
5 263 (7.77%) Public Sector
6 116 (3.43%) Investment Banking
7 96 (2.84%) Front Office
8 86 (2.54%) Documentation Skills
9 82 (2.42%) Marketing
10 60 (1.77%) Retail
11 54 (1.60%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 52 (1.54%) Financial Institution
13 40 (1.18%) Presentation Skills
14 34 (1.00%) Legal
15 29 (0.86%) Manufacturing
16 28 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
16 28 (0.83%) Publishing
17 27 (0.80%) General Ledger
17 27 (0.80%) Local Government
17 27 (0.80%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 871 (25.74%) Developer
2 528 (15.60%) Analyst
3 514 (15.19%) Data Engineer
4 432 (12.77%) Senior
5 212 (6.26%) Lead
6 205 (6.06%) Data Analyst
7 194 (5.73%) Business Analyst
8 164 (4.85%) Architect
9 136 (4.02%) Senior Developer
10 123 (3.63%) Consultant
11 116 (3.43%) Java Developer
12 106 (3.13%) Software Engineer
13 103 (3.04%) Azure Engineer
14 85 (2.51%) Python Developer
15 84 (2.48%) Full-Stack Developer
16 80 (2.36%) C# Developer
17 78 (2.30%) Senior Data Engineer
18 77 (2.28%) Data Scientist
19 70 (2.07%) Azure Data Engineer
20 62 (1.83%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 321 (9.49%) .NET
2 285 (8.42%) REST
3 211 (6.24%) Kafka
4 189 (5.59%) PySpark
5 165 (4.88%) React
6 155 (4.58%) RESTful
7 139 (4.11%) HTML
7 139 (4.11%) Spring
8 127 (3.75%) XML
9 120 (3.55%) Spring Boot
10 119 (3.52%) CSS
11 100 (2.96%) JSON
12 99 (2.93%) Node.js
13 93 (2.75%) AngularJS
14 80 (2.36%) SOAP
15 76 (2.25%) .NET Framework
15 76 (2.25%) Pandas
16 72 (2.13%) Middleware
17 58 (1.71%) Web Services
18 57 (1.68%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 206 (6.09%) Cloud Native
2 101 (2.98%) Data Structures
3 99 (2.93%) Product Ownership
4 90 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
5 79 (2.33%) Data Protection Act
6 76 (2.25%) Management Information System
7 70 (2.07%) Analytical Mindset
8 62 (1.83%) Derivative
9 61 (1.80%) Algorithms
10 54 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
10 54 (1.60%) Equities
11 51 (1.51%) Onboarding
12 48 (1.42%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 47 (1.39%) Fixed Income
14 40 (1.18%) Market Risk
14 40 (1.18%) Replication
15 35 (1.03%) Credit Risk
16 34 (1.00%) SWIFT Messaging Network
17 33 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
18 32 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 311 (9.19%) Linux
2 223 (6.59%) Windows
3 191 (5.64%) Unix
4 60 (1.77%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.41%) VMS
5 14 (0.41%) Windows 10
5 14 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
6 13 (0.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 12 (0.35%) Windows Server 2016
8 11 (0.33%) Ubuntu
9 8 (0.24%) Amazon Linux
9 8 (0.24%) Android
10 7 (0.21%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.15%) AIX
11 5 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
12 4 (0.12%) CentOS
12 4 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
13 3 (0.089%) zOS
14 1 (0.030%) Mac OS X
14 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 961 (28.40%) Agile
2 821 (24.26%) CI/CD
3 792 (23.40%) Analytics
3 792 (23.40%) Problem-Solving
4 761 (22.49%) DevOps
5 753 (22.25%) Business Intelligence
6 724 (21.39%) Data Modelling
7 653 (19.30%) ETL
8 498 (14.72%) Data Pipeline
9 410 (12.12%) Data Engineering
10 366 (10.82%) Migration
11 358 (10.58%) Data Governance
12 344 (10.17%) Validation
13 339 (10.02%) AI
14 330 (9.75%) Data Analysis
15 326 (9.63%) Visualisation
16 302 (8.92%) Test Automation
17 299 (8.84%) Microservices
18 291 (8.60%) Data Science
19 285 (8.42%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 1,239 (36.61%) Python
2 511 (15.10%) Java
3 365 (10.79%) C#
4 313 (9.25%) JavaScript
5 255 (7.54%) PL/SQL
6 143 (4.23%) PowerShell
7 128 (3.78%) TypeScript
8 99 (2.93%) R
9 97 (2.87%) T-SQL
10 94 (2.78%) Scala
10 94 (2.78%) Shell Script
11 79 (2.33%) C++
12 75 (2.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 72 (2.13%) VBA
14 63 (1.86%) VB
15 53 (1.57%) Bash
16 48 (1.42%) Perl
17 46 (1.36%) Go
18 39 (1.15%) Bicep
19 28 (0.83%) PHP
Qualifications
1 577 (17.05%) Security Cleared
2 444 (13.12%) SC Cleared
3 338 (9.99%) Degree
4 121 (3.58%) Computer Science Degree
5 74 (2.19%) Azure Certification
6 59 (1.74%) BPSS Clearance
6 59 (1.74%) DV Cleared
7 56 (1.65%) AWS Certification
8 54 (1.60%) Master's Degree
9 44 (1.30%) Microsoft Certification
10 38 (1.12%) ISTQB
11 23 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
12 22 (0.65%) Oracle Certification
13 19 (0.56%) CBAP
14 17 (0.50%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 12 (0.35%) Cisco Certification
15 12 (0.35%) MCSE
15 12 (0.35%) PMI Certification
16 11 (0.33%) CCNA
17 10 (0.30%) ISEB
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 495 (14.63%) Data Quality
2 245 (7.24%) QA
3 124 (3.66%) GDPR
4 57 (1.68%) Accessibility
5 27 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 23 (0.68%) SLA
7 19 (0.56%) MiFID
8 18 (0.53%) SEPA
9 17 (0.50%) ISO 20022
10 15 (0.44%) PSD2
11 14 (0.41%) HIPAA
11 14 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 14 (0.41%) WCAG
12 13 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
13 12 (0.35%) EMIR
13 12 (0.35%) IFRS
14 11 (0.33%) PCI DSS
14 11 (0.33%) PMO
15 9 (0.27%) NIST
16 8 (0.24%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 409 (12.09%) Docker
2 99 (2.93%) Active Directory
3 28 (0.83%) VMware Infrastructure
4 20 (0.59%) Virtual Machines
5 18 (0.53%) Oracle RAC
6 8 (0.24%) DFS Replication
6 8 (0.24%) Dovecot
6 8 (0.24%) HDFS
6 8 (0.24%) Hyper-V
6 8 (0.24%) Postfix
6 8 (0.24%) Squid
7 6 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
7 6 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
7 6 (0.18%) zsh
8 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
8 5 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
9 4 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
9 4 (0.12%) XenApp
9 4 (0.12%) XenDesktop
10 3 (0.089%) NFS
Systems Management
1 374 (11.05%) Kubernetes
2 245 (7.24%) Terraform
3 72 (2.13%) Grafana
4 59 (1.74%) Ansible
5 58 (1.71%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.71%) SCCM
6 24 (0.71%) SCOM
7 21 (0.62%) HP SiteScope
8 19 (0.56%) Kibana
9 18 (0.53%) Data Guard
9 18 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
9 18 (0.53%) Progress Chef
10 16 (0.47%) Puppet
11 15 (0.44%) Control-M
11 15 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
12 14 (0.41%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
13 11 (0.33%) Proxmox
13 11 (0.33%) WSUS
14 9 (0.27%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 9 (0.27%) ITRS Geneos
Vendors
1 594 (17.55%) Oracle
2 568 (16.78%) Microsoft
3 366 (10.82%) Databricks
4 139 (4.11%) Google
5 95 (2.81%) SAP
6 93 (2.75%) Splunk
7 70 (2.07%) ServiceNow
8 67 (1.98%) Salesforce
9 64 (1.89%) Talend
10 58 (1.71%) Informatica
11 45 (1.33%) IBM
12 43 (1.27%) OpenAI
13 41 (1.21%) Citrix
14 39 (1.15%) Denodo
14 39 (1.15%) VMware
15 34 (1.00%) MuleSoft
16 33 (0.98%) Dynatrace
17 27 (0.80%) Bloomberg
18 26 (0.77%) Foundry
19 24 (0.71%) AppDynamics