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

6 months to
9 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 13
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,174 3,037 3,673
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.84% 12.46% 9.88%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.96% 36.68% 32.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,833 2,171 2,718
10th Percentile £350 £359 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £540
Median % change year-on-year - -7.41% -1.82%
75th Percentile £589 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £768 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 66 61 55
10th Percentile £26.50 £23.00 £22.66
25th Percentile £34.01 £30.25 £28.31
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.28% -4.71% -15.00%
75th Percentile £72.63 £58.75 £53.94
90th Percentile £83.00 £77.19 £60.00
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £38.85 £42.50
% change year-on-year +28.72% -8.60% -22.73%

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 11,292 8,280 11,241
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.63% 33.97% 30.23%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,403 5,727 8,077
10th Percentile £358 £358 £350
25th Percentile £420 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £523 £540
Median % change year-on-year -2.01% -3.15% -4.00%
75th Percentile £613 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £502 £513 £525
% change year-on-year -2.08% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 526 195 475
10th Percentile £37.25 £28.27 £35.52
25th Percentile £55.00 £36.13 £49.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £60.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.33% -4.00% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £78.38 £85.00 £77.80
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £56.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +14.54% -9.20% -

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 9 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 9 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 9 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 2,311 £523 -1.42% 732
Midlands +3 524 £465 +7.89% 211
North of England -6 519 £460 -3.16% 384
West Midlands +4 422 £459 +1.25% 130
South East -15 399 £475 -5.00% 432
North West -2 267 £460 -3.16% 233
South West -2 214 £500 +5.26% 133
Yorkshire -14 214 £475 - 100
East of England -19 103 £495 +1.54% 102
East Midlands -1 98 £525 +36.36% 81
North East -7 50 £425 -8.11% 54
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
1 227 (5.44%) Apache Spark
2 171 (4.10%) Apache Airflow
3 147 (3.52%) Confluence
4 144 (3.45%) Apache
5 87 (2.08%) SAS
6 62 (1.49%) SharePoint
7 30 (0.72%) IIS
7 30 (0.72%) WebLogic
8 28 (0.67%) Oracle Workflow
9 24 (0.57%) Tomcat
10 20 (0.48%) Jupyter
10 20 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
11 17 (0.41%) Palantir Foundry
12 16 (0.38%) Appian
13 15 (0.36%) WebSphere
14 14 (0.34%) CMS
14 14 (0.34%) nginx
15 11 (0.26%) Camunda
15 11 (0.26%) Mendix
15 11 (0.26%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 264 (6.32%) Microsoft Excel
2 42 (1.01%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (0.98%) MS Visio
4 30 (0.72%) Spreadsheet
5 29 (0.69%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 10 (0.24%) Chatbot
7 6 (0.14%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
9 3 (0.072%) Oracle Smart View
10 2 (0.048%) Notion
10 2 (0.048%) Trello
11 1 (0.024%) Acrobat
11 1 (0.024%) InDesign
11 1 (0.024%) Mingle
11 1 (0.024%) Photoshop
11 1 (0.024%) Weka
Business Applications
1 37 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
2 28 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
3 26 (0.62%) Aladdin
4 21 (0.50%) Oracle ERP
4 21 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
5 20 (0.48%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
6 17 (0.41%) Oracle EBS R12
7 16 (0.38%) Oracle Receivables
8 15 (0.36%) Remedy ITSM
9 13 (0.31%) Oracle General Ledger
10 12 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 10 (0.24%) Findur
11 10 (0.24%) Oracle Assets
11 10 (0.24%) Payment Gateway
12 9 (0.22%) Endur
12 9 (0.22%) NetSuite
12 9 (0.22%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 8 (0.19%) Oracle Cash Management
13 8 (0.19%) Salesforce CRM
Cloud Services
1 1,377 (32.99%) Azure
2 1,033 (24.75%) AWS
3 801 (19.19%) Power Platform
4 401 (9.61%) Azure DevOps
5 348 (8.34%) GCP
6 335 (8.03%) Azure Data Factory
7 313 (7.50%) GitHub
8 268 (6.42%) Serverless
9 250 (5.99%) Snowflake
10 243 (5.82%) Amazon S3
11 216 (5.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 202 (4.84%) dbt
13 172 (4.12%) AWS Lambda
14 164 (3.93%) GitHub Actions
15 77 (1.84%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 76 (1.82%) SaaS
17 73 (1.75%) Entra ID
17 73 (1.75%) Power Automate
18 71 (1.70%) Amazon EC2
19 61 (1.46%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.10%) DNS
1 46 (1.10%) Firewall
2 20 (0.48%) SNMP
3 17 (0.41%) HTTP
3 17 (0.41%) Internet
3 17 (0.41%) Network Security
4 15 (0.36%) TCP/IP
4 15 (0.36%) VPN
5 14 (0.34%) SSL
5 14 (0.34%) WAN
6 11 (0.26%) Wi-Fi
7 10 (0.24%) LAN
8 9 (0.22%) Wireshark
9 8 (0.19%) 3GPP
10 7 (0.17%) SAN
11 6 (0.14%) IPsec
11 6 (0.14%) RTP
12 5 (0.12%) BGP
12 5 (0.12%) PuTTY
12 5 (0.12%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 738 (17.68%) Power BI
2 545 (13.06%) Data Warehouse
3 527 (12.63%) SQL Server
4 296 (7.09%) Data Lake
5 280 (6.71%) Tableau
6 266 (6.37%) PostgreSQL
6 266 (6.37%) Relational Database
7 224 (5.37%) NoSQL
8 206 (4.94%) Metadata
9 189 (4.53%) Azure SQL Database
10 161 (3.86%) Oracle Database
11 155 (3.71%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 134 (3.21%) BigQuery
13 125 (2.99%) Delta Lake
14 124 (2.97%) Amazon Redshift
15 113 (2.71%) Big Data
16 106 (2.54%) MySQL
17 103 (2.47%) Oracle Reports
18 93 (2.23%) Amazon RDS
19 91 (2.18%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 445 (10.66%) Git
2 330 (7.91%) JIRA
3 224 (5.37%) Jenkins
4 201 (4.82%) GitLab
5 65 (1.56%) JUnit
6 58 (1.39%) Selenium
7 57 (1.37%) Postman
8 49 (1.17%) Maven
9 47 (1.13%) Mockito
10 42 (1.01%) Gradle
11 41 (0.98%) Cucumber
12 34 (0.81%) SonarQube
13 31 (0.74%) MLflow
14 30 (0.72%) REST Assured
15 28 (0.67%) ERwin
16 25 (0.60%) Bitbucket
16 25 (0.60%) JMeter
17 24 (0.57%) Team Foundation Server
17 24 (0.57%) Visual Studio
17 24 (0.57%) Zephyr
General
1 1,118 (26.78%) Finance
2 1,076 (25.78%) Social Skills
3 771 (18.47%) Analytical Skills
4 401 (9.61%) Banking
5 356 (8.53%) Public Sector
6 116 (2.78%) Marketing
7 115 (2.76%) Front Office
8 102 (2.44%) Investment Banking
9 87 (2.08%) Documentation Skills
10 73 (1.75%) Retail
11 65 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 57 (1.37%) Financial Institution
13 53 (1.27%) Legal
14 42 (1.01%) Publishing
15 38 (0.91%) Presentation Skills
16 37 (0.89%) Manufacturing
17 34 (0.81%) Organisational Skills
17 34 (0.81%) Telecoms
18 32 (0.77%) Law
19 31 (0.74%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 866 (20.75%) Data Engineer
2 865 (20.72%) Developer
3 584 (13.99%) Analyst
4 532 (12.75%) Senior
5 289 (6.92%) Lead
6 254 (6.09%) Data Analyst
7 230 (5.51%) Architect
8 192 (4.60%) Consultant
9 175 (4.19%) Business Analyst
10 167 (4.00%) Java Developer
11 157 (3.76%) Senior Data Engineer
12 134 (3.21%) DBA
13 131 (3.14%) Senior Developer
14 127 (3.04%) Software Engineer
15 104 (2.49%) Azure Engineer
16 101 (2.42%) C# Developer
17 94 (2.25%) SQL Developer
18 85 (2.04%) Data Architect
18 85 (2.04%) SQL DBA
19 84 (2.01%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 355 (8.51%) .NET
2 342 (8.19%) REST
3 258 (6.18%) PySpark
4 256 (6.13%) Kafka
5 210 (5.03%) Spring
6 200 (4.79%) Spring Boot
7 195 (4.67%) React
8 182 (4.36%) RESTful
9 150 (3.59%) HTML
10 144 (3.45%) JSON
11 139 (3.33%) XML
12 133 (3.19%) CSS
13 119 (2.85%) Pandas
14 108 (2.59%) AngularJS
15 102 (2.44%) SOAP
16 93 (2.23%) Web Services
17 90 (2.16%) Middleware
18 82 (1.96%) .NET Framework
19 77 (1.84%) OAuth
20 69 (1.65%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 272 (6.52%) Cloud Native
2 150 (3.59%) Data Structures
3 140 (3.35%) Legacy Systems
4 128 (3.07%) Product Ownership
5 117 (2.80%) Distributed Systems
6 84 (2.01%) Management Information System
7 81 (1.94%) Derivative
8 77 (1.84%) Onboarding
9 69 (1.65%) Data Protection Act
10 67 (1.61%) Analytical Mindset
11 56 (1.34%) Clustering
12 54 (1.29%) Equities
13 53 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
13 53 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
14 51 (1.22%) Greenfield Project
15 50 (1.20%) Fixed Income
16 42 (1.01%) Algorithms
16 42 (1.01%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 42 (1.01%) Replication
17 41 (0.98%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 291 (6.97%) Linux
2 251 (6.01%) Windows
3 205 (4.91%) Unix
4 86 (2.06%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.57%) AIX
6 19 (0.46%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.24%) Solaris
9 9 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
10 8 (0.19%) Windows Server 2008
10 8 (0.19%) zOS
11 7 (0.17%) Android
11 7 (0.17%) Apple iOS
11 7 (0.17%) Windows 10
12 4 (0.096%) Oracle Linux
12 4 (0.096%) VMS
13 3 (0.072%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.048%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.048%) HPUX
14 2 (0.048%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,174 (28.13%) CI/CD
2 1,058 (25.35%) Analytics
3 1,035 (24.80%) Data Modelling
4 1,021 (24.46%) Agile
5 1,006 (24.10%) ETL
6 942 (22.57%) Business Intelligence
7 893 (21.39%) DevOps
8 816 (19.55%) Problem-Solving
9 792 (18.97%) Data Pipeline
10 693 (16.60%) Data Engineering
11 584 (13.99%) AI
12 547 (13.10%) Migration
13 518 (12.41%) Validation
14 455 (10.90%) Data Governance
15 434 (10.40%) Test Automation
16 406 (9.73%) Decision-Making
17 401 (9.61%) Data Analysis
18 375 (8.98%) Continuous Improvement
19 373 (8.94%) Stakeholder Management
20 372 (8.91%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 1,550 (37.13%) Python
2 555 (13.30%) Java
3 441 (10.57%) C#
4 314 (7.52%) JavaScript
5 304 (7.28%) PL/SQL
6 222 (5.32%) T-SQL
7 212 (5.08%) PowerShell
8 142 (3.40%) TypeScript
9 126 (3.02%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 115 (2.76%) Shell Script
11 102 (2.44%) R
12 80 (1.92%) Bash
13 77 (1.84%) Scala
14 59 (1.41%) C++
15 41 (0.98%) VBA
16 38 (0.91%) Bicep
17 31 (0.74%) VB
18 30 (0.72%) Perl
19 28 (0.67%) C
20 25 (0.60%) Go
Qualifications
1 869 (20.82%) Security Cleared
2 699 (16.75%) SC Cleared
3 328 (7.86%) Degree
4 108 (2.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 94 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
6 81 (1.94%) DV Cleared
7 70 (1.68%) Azure Certification
8 51 (1.22%) Master's Degree
9 50 (1.20%) ISTQB
10 35 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
11 25 (0.60%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.41%) DBS Check
13 16 (0.38%) PhD
14 13 (0.31%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 11 (0.26%) CISSP
16 10 (0.24%) PMI Certification
16 10 (0.24%) PMP
17 9 (0.22%) CISM
17 9 (0.22%) TOGAF Certification
18 8 (0.19%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 754 (18.06%) Data Quality
2 319 (7.64%) QA
3 175 (4.19%) GDPR
4 44 (1.05%) SLA
5 38 (0.91%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.77%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 28 (0.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.57%) PMO
9 23 (0.55%) NIST
10 18 (0.43%) PCI DSS
11 17 (0.41%) IFRS
12 15 (0.36%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 15 (0.36%) MiFID
13 14 (0.34%) HIPAA
14 13 (0.31%) Solvency II
15 12 (0.29%) Actionable Recommendations
15 12 (0.29%) ISO 20022
16 11 (0.26%) GRC
17 10 (0.24%) HL7
18 8 (0.19%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 473 (11.33%) Docker
2 94 (2.25%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.84%) Virtual Machines
4 29 (0.69%) VMware Infrastructure
5 24 (0.57%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.38%) Hyper-V
7 15 (0.36%) VMware ESXi
8 11 (0.26%) VMware NSX
9 10 (0.24%) KVM
9 10 (0.24%) vCloud
10 9 (0.22%) Postfix
11 6 (0.14%) HDFS
11 6 (0.14%) RACF
12 4 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
12 4 (0.096%) XenApp
12 4 (0.096%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.072%) Oracle Clusterware
14 2 (0.048%) Apache ZooKeeper
14 2 (0.048%) GridGain
15 1 (0.024%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 382 (9.15%) Kubernetes
2 347 (8.31%) Terraform
3 109 (2.61%) Grafana
4 69 (1.65%) Ansible
5 64 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 37 (0.89%) Oracle RMAN
7 28 (0.67%) Data Guard
8 19 (0.46%) Kibana
8 19 (0.46%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.41%) vCenter Server
10 16 (0.38%) Control-M
11 15 (0.36%) ZABBIX
12 14 (0.34%) Nagios
12 14 (0.34%) Netcool
12 14 (0.34%) Tivoli
13 13 (0.31%) OpenView
13 13 (0.31%) Tivoli Monitoring
14 11 (0.26%) SCOM
15 9 (0.22%) Kiali
15 9 (0.22%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 699 (16.75%) Oracle
2 643 (15.40%) Microsoft
3 501 (12.00%) Databricks
4 163 (3.91%) Google
5 146 (3.50%) Informatica
6 131 (3.14%) ServiceNow
7 118 (2.83%) Talend
8 107 (2.56%) SAP
9 87 (2.08%) Splunk
10 66 (1.58%) IBM
11 62 (1.49%) Denodo
12 49 (1.17%) Salesforce
13 45 (1.08%) VMware
14 43 (1.03%) Citrix
15 37 (0.89%) Dynatrace
16 33 (0.79%) Bloomberg
17 32 (0.77%) OpenAI
18 31 (0.74%) Murex
19 30 (0.72%) HP
19 30 (0.72%) MuleSoft