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

6 months to
26 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 4,045 2,974 3,633
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.74% 12.49% 9.94%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.79% 36.95% 33.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,755 2,130 2,689
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £503 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.50% -8.64% -
75th Percentile £588 £625 £650
90th Percentile £688 £768 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £533
% change year-on-year - -6.19% -0.37%
Number of hourly rates quoted 68 53 54
10th Percentile £26.50 £23.55 £23.13
25th Percentile £34.01 £30.25 £28.41
Median hourly rate £47.50 £40.50 £43.75
Median % change year-on-year +17.28% -7.43% -12.12%
75th Percentile £71.88 £63.75 £56.66
90th Percentile £82.70 £77.00 £62.07
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £38.85 £43.75
% change year-on-year +31.92% -11.21% -12.50%

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 10,996 8,048 10,986
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.49% 33.81% 30.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,223 5,594 7,988
10th Percentile £356 £360 £350
25th Percentile £417 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £525 £549
Median % change year-on-year -2.38% -4.37% -2.40%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -3.38% -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 531 186 453
10th Percentile £39.25 £28.09 £37.51
25th Percentile £55.00 £35.25 £49.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £61.75 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% -1.20% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £78.75
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +13.04% -8.00% -

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 26 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 26 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 26 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 2,258 £523 -2.43% 888
Midlands +2 529 £469 +5.16% 206
North of England -8 486 £460 -3.16% 433
West Midlands +5 424 £460 - 108
South East -18 371 £483 -0.52% 445
North West -2 257 £460 -3.16% 247
South West -4 205 £475 -1.30% 138
Yorkshire -13 200 £475 -2.56% 132
East Midlands -1 101 £525 +35.05% 98
East of England -18 95 £495 +1.54% 113
North East -8 41 £450 -2.44% 60
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 (5.61%) Apache Spark
2 161 (3.98%) Apache Airflow
3 141 (3.49%) Apache
4 139 (3.44%) Confluence
5 85 (2.10%) SAS
6 62 (1.53%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.94%) WebLogic
8 32 (0.79%) IIS
9 28 (0.69%) Oracle Workflow
10 23 (0.57%) Tomcat
11 17 (0.42%) Jupyter
11 17 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
12 15 (0.37%) Appian
12 15 (0.37%) Palantir Foundry
12 15 (0.37%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) CMS
14 13 (0.32%) HCL Notes
14 13 (0.32%) Mendix
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 12 (0.30%) WebSphere
Applications
1 266 (6.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 45 (1.11%) MS Visio
3 44 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
4 30 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 25 (0.62%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.22%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.17%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.12%) Notepad++
8 5 (0.12%) Notion
9 3 (0.074%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.074%) Trello
10 1 (0.025%) InDesign
10 1 (0.025%) Mingle
10 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.04%) Oracle EBS
2 29 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
3 27 (0.67%) Aladdin
4 21 (0.52%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.49%) Oracle EBS R12
5 20 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
6 19 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
7 18 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
8 16 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
9 14 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
9 14 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
10 12 (0.30%) NetSuite
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
10 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
11 10 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
12 9 (0.22%) Endur
12 9 (0.22%) Oracle Cash Management
12 9 (0.22%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 8 (0.20%) Findur
13 8 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
Cloud Services
1 1,362 (33.67%) Azure
2 987 (24.40%) AWS
3 785 (19.41%) Power Platform
4 401 (9.91%) Azure DevOps
5 346 (8.55%) Azure Data Factory
6 333 (8.23%) GCP
7 305 (7.54%) GitHub
8 250 (6.18%) Serverless
9 233 (5.76%) Snowflake
10 228 (5.64%) Amazon S3
11 225 (5.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 181 (4.47%) dbt
13 159 (3.93%) GitHub Actions
14 151 (3.73%) AWS Lambda
15 80 (1.98%) Power Automate
16 72 (1.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 72 (1.78%) SaaS
17 70 (1.73%) Entra ID
18 68 (1.68%) Amazon EC2
19 67 (1.66%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 46 (1.14%) Firewall
2 43 (1.06%) DNS
3 20 (0.49%) SNMP
4 16 (0.40%) HTTP
4 16 (0.40%) Internet
4 16 (0.40%) Network Security
4 16 (0.40%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.37%) WAN
6 13 (0.32%) SSL
7 11 (0.27%) LAN
7 11 (0.27%) VPN
7 11 (0.27%) Wi-Fi
8 8 (0.20%) Wireshark
9 7 (0.17%) 3GPP
10 6 (0.15%) DHCP
10 6 (0.15%) IPsec
10 6 (0.15%) SAN
11 5 (0.12%) Kerberos
11 5 (0.12%) PuTTY
11 5 (0.12%) RTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 720 (17.80%) Power BI
2 514 (12.71%) Data Warehouse
3 505 (12.48%) SQL Server
4 284 (7.02%) Tableau
5 280 (6.92%) Data Lake
6 260 (6.43%) PostgreSQL
7 253 (6.25%) Relational Database
8 234 (5.78%) NoSQL
9 212 (5.24%) Metadata
10 194 (4.80%) Azure SQL Database
11 154 (3.81%) Oracle Database
12 146 (3.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 136 (3.36%) BigQuery
14 126 (3.11%) Delta Lake
15 109 (2.69%) Amazon Redshift
16 108 (2.67%) Big Data
17 105 (2.60%) MySQL
18 103 (2.55%) Oracle Reports
19 92 (2.27%) Snowflake Schema
20 90 (2.22%) Amazon RDS
Development Applications
1 419 (10.36%) Git
2 314 (7.76%) JIRA
3 212 (5.24%) Jenkins
4 188 (4.65%) GitLab
5 60 (1.48%) JUnit
6 55 (1.36%) Selenium
7 51 (1.26%) Postman
8 48 (1.19%) Maven
9 45 (1.11%) Mockito
10 39 (0.96%) Cucumber
11 36 (0.89%) Gradle
12 34 (0.84%) SonarQube
13 33 (0.82%) MLflow
14 29 (0.72%) REST Assured
15 28 (0.69%) ERwin
16 24 (0.59%) JMeter
17 23 (0.57%) Bitbucket
17 23 (0.57%) Visual Studio
18 22 (0.54%) TeamCity
19 21 (0.52%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,080 (26.70%) Finance
2 1,043 (25.78%) Social Skills
3 739 (18.27%) Analytical Skills
4 381 (9.42%) Banking
5 337 (8.33%) Public Sector
6 105 (2.60%) Front Office
7 103 (2.55%) Marketing
8 97 (2.40%) Investment Banking
9 82 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
10 63 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 61 (1.51%) Retail
12 54 (1.33%) Financial Institution
13 51 (1.26%) Legal
14 40 (0.99%) Publishing
15 35 (0.87%) Presentation Skills
16 34 (0.84%) Telecoms
17 33 (0.82%) Manufacturing
17 33 (0.82%) Organisational Skills
18 32 (0.79%) Law
19 25 (0.62%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 849 (20.99%) Data Engineer
2 839 (20.74%) Developer
3 574 (14.19%) Analyst
4 517 (12.78%) Senior
5 280 (6.92%) Lead
6 257 (6.35%) Data Analyst
7 228 (5.64%) Architect
8 179 (4.43%) Consultant
9 175 (4.33%) Business Analyst
10 166 (4.10%) Java Developer
11 151 (3.73%) Senior Data Engineer
12 127 (3.14%) DBA
12 127 (3.14%) Senior Developer
13 122 (3.02%) Software Engineer
14 112 (2.77%) Azure Engineer
15 101 (2.50%) C# Developer
16 90 (2.22%) Data Scientist
17 87 (2.15%) Data Architect
18 86 (2.13%) Python Developer
19 85 (2.10%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 346 (8.55%) .NET
2 326 (8.06%) REST
3 259 (6.40%) Kafka
3 259 (6.40%) PySpark
4 204 (5.04%) Spring
5 195 (4.82%) React
6 194 (4.80%) Spring Boot
7 178 (4.40%) RESTful
8 145 (3.58%) HTML
9 138 (3.41%) JSON
10 134 (3.31%) XML
11 121 (2.99%) CSS
12 120 (2.97%) Pandas
13 108 (2.67%) AngularJS
14 98 (2.42%) SOAP
15 87 (2.15%) Middleware
16 82 (2.03%) .NET Framework
16 82 (2.03%) Web Services
17 73 (1.80%) OAuth
18 72 (1.78%) Node.js
Miscellaneous
1 259 (6.40%) Cloud Native
2 144 (3.56%) Data Structures
3 131 (3.24%) Legacy Systems
4 129 (3.19%) Product Ownership
5 111 (2.74%) Distributed Systems
6 85 (2.10%) Management Information System
7 79 (1.95%) Derivative
8 74 (1.83%) Onboarding
9 68 (1.68%) Data Protection Act
10 66 (1.63%) Analytical Mindset
11 53 (1.31%) Equities
12 52 (1.29%) Clustering
12 52 (1.29%) Fixed Income
13 51 (1.26%) Enterprise Software
14 49 (1.21%) Greenfield Project
14 49 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
15 46 (1.14%) Algorithms
16 40 (0.99%) Low-Code
16 40 (0.99%) Replication
17 38 (0.94%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 289 (7.14%) Linux
2 249 (6.16%) Windows
3 203 (5.02%) Unix
4 85 (2.10%) Windows Server
5 25 (0.62%) AIX
6 19 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 16 (0.40%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.22%) zOS
10 8 (0.20%) Solaris
10 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
11 7 (0.17%) Windows 10
12 6 (0.15%) Android
12 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
13 3 (0.074%) Oracle Linux
13 3 (0.074%) VMS
13 3 (0.074%) Windows Server 2012
14 2 (0.049%) Data ONTAP
14 2 (0.049%) Ubuntu
15 1 (0.025%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,110 (27.44%) CI/CD
2 1,025 (25.34%) Analytics
3 1,013 (25.04%) Data Modelling
4 983 (24.30%) Agile
5 978 (24.18%) ETL
6 919 (22.72%) Business Intelligence
7 885 (21.88%) DevOps
8 794 (19.63%) Problem-Solving
9 756 (18.69%) Data Pipeline
10 664 (16.42%) Data Engineering
11 538 (13.30%) AI
12 511 (12.63%) Migration
13 497 (12.29%) Validation
14 472 (11.67%) Data Governance
15 411 (10.16%) Test Automation
16 404 (9.99%) Decision-Making
17 385 (9.52%) Data Analysis
18 370 (9.15%) Performance Tuning
19 364 (9.00%) Microservices
20 354 (8.75%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,521 (37.60%) Python
2 548 (13.55%) Java
3 437 (10.80%) C#
4 310 (7.66%) JavaScript
5 292 (7.22%) PL/SQL
6 204 (5.04%) T-SQL
7 193 (4.77%) PowerShell
8 132 (3.26%) TypeScript
9 128 (3.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 113 (2.79%) R
11 111 (2.74%) Shell Script
12 84 (2.08%) Scala
13 78 (1.93%) Bash
14 59 (1.46%) C++
15 42 (1.04%) VBA
16 40 (0.99%) Bicep
17 36 (0.89%) Perl
18 29 (0.72%) VB
19 25 (0.62%) Go
20 24 (0.59%) C
Qualifications
1 851 (21.04%) Security Cleared
2 684 (16.91%) SC Cleared
3 325 (8.03%) Degree
4 106 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
5 90 (2.22%) BPSS Clearance
6 72 (1.78%) Azure Certification
7 71 (1.76%) DV Cleared
8 50 (1.24%) Master's Degree
9 47 (1.16%) ISTQB
10 37 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
11 23 (0.57%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.42%) DBS Check
13 16 (0.40%) PhD
14 13 (0.32%) CBAP
15 11 (0.27%) CISSP
15 11 (0.27%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
15 11 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
16 10 (0.25%) PMI Certification
16 10 (0.25%) PMP
17 9 (0.22%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 739 (18.27%) Data Quality
2 306 (7.56%) QA
3 178 (4.40%) GDPR
4 42 (1.04%) SLA
5 38 (0.94%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.79%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 26 (0.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 24 (0.59%) PMO
9 19 (0.47%) NIST
9 19 (0.47%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.40%) IFRS
10 16 (0.40%) MiFID
11 15 (0.37%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 15 (0.37%) HIPAA
12 12 (0.30%) Actionable Recommendations
12 12 (0.30%) HL7
12 12 (0.30%) ISO 20022
12 12 (0.30%) Solvency II
13 10 (0.25%) GRC
14 8 (0.20%) NCSC
System Software
1 458 (11.32%) Docker
2 93 (2.30%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.87%) Virtual Machines
4 27 (0.67%) VMware Infrastructure
5 25 (0.62%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 13 (0.32%) VMware ESXi
8 10 (0.25%) KVM
9 9 (0.22%) Postfix
9 9 (0.22%) VMware NSX
10 8 (0.20%) vCloud
10 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
11 6 (0.15%) HDFS
11 6 (0.15%) RACF
12 4 (0.099%) XenApp
12 4 (0.099%) XenDesktop
13 3 (0.074%) Oracle Clusterware
14 2 (0.049%) Apache ZooKeeper
14 2 (0.049%) GridGain
14 2 (0.049%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 382 (9.44%) Kubernetes
2 327 (8.08%) Terraform
3 106 (2.62%) Grafana
4 66 (1.63%) Ansible
5 62 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 40 (0.99%) Oracle RMAN
7 29 (0.72%) Data Guard
8 18 (0.44%) Kibana
8 18 (0.44%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.37%) vCenter Server
9 15 (0.37%) ZABBIX
10 14 (0.35%) Nagios
10 14 (0.35%) Netcool
10 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
11 13 (0.32%) Control-M
11 13 (0.32%) OpenView
11 13 (0.32%) SCCM
11 13 (0.32%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 10 (0.25%) SCOM
13 9 (0.22%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 669 (16.54%) Oracle
2 635 (15.70%) Microsoft
3 498 (12.31%) Databricks
4 159 (3.93%) Google
5 142 (3.51%) Informatica
6 132 (3.26%) ServiceNow
7 113 (2.79%) Talend
8 103 (2.55%) SAP
9 86 (2.13%) Splunk
10 61 (1.51%) IBM
11 58 (1.43%) Denodo
12 52 (1.29%) Salesforce
13 45 (1.11%) Citrix
14 42 (1.04%) VMware
15 36 (0.89%) Dynatrace
16 34 (0.84%) OpenAI
17 32 (0.79%) Bloomberg
18 31 (0.77%) MuleSoft
19 30 (0.74%) HP
20 28 (0.69%) BMC