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 3 months leading up to 20 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

3 months to
20 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 1,725 1,286 1,715
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.82% 11.84% 9.84%
As % of the Programming Languages category 34.04% 35.23% 35.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,231 911 1,196
10th Percentile £350 £350 £354
25th Percentile £413 £410 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £523 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £663
90th Percentile £725 £750 £766
UK median daily rate £488 £503 £550
% change year-on-year -2.99% -8.64% +1.85%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 25 37
10th Percentile £23.25 £27.45 £21.89
25th Percentile £39.75 £44.25 £25.79
Median hourly rate £47.11 £63.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -25.22% +48.24% -2.59%
75th Percentile £74.58 £66.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £80.23 £62.86
UK median hourly rate £55.61 £63.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -11.73% +48.24% -16.26%

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 5,068 3,650 4,878
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 28.85% 33.62% 27.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,434 2,485 3,514
10th Percentile £350 £363 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £502 £538 £548
Median % change year-on-year -6.70% -1.83% -4.78%
75th Percentile £619 £650 £659
90th Percentile £735 £788 £763
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £535
% change year-on-year -4.76% -1.87% -3.60%
Number of hourly rates quoted 253 118 194
10th Percentile £44.94 £24.43 £35.50
25th Percentile £54.55 £43.69 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year - +8.33% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £67.02
90th Percentile £74.26 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £63.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +1.97% +6.24% -1.92%

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 3 months to 20 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 3 months to 20 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 3 months to 20 January 2026. The 'Rank Change' column provides an indication of the change in demand within each location based on the same 3 month period last year.

Location Rank Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Matching
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 3 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
London 0 1,080 £500 -9.09% 664
Midlands 0 184 £495 +2.38% 337
North of England -7 177 £449 -1.43% 490
West Midlands +1 141 £495 -3.41% 157
South East -24 116 £475 -5.00% 837
North West 0 104 £415 -11.23% 237
South West -11 87 £475 -8.21% 275
Yorkshire -22 66 £455 +1.11% 181
East Midlands -14 43 £525 +44.63% 178
East of England -21 30 £625 +37.74% 281
North East -17 7 £475 +24.18% 80
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
1 157 (4.66%) Apache Spark
2 131 (3.89%) Apache Airflow
3 108 (3.20%) Confluence
4 98 (2.91%) Apache
5 91 (2.70%) SharePoint
6 66 (1.96%) SAS
7 50 (1.48%) WebLogic
8 26 (0.77%) Microsoft Exchange
9 20 (0.59%) IIS
10 19 (0.56%) Skype for Business
11 18 (0.53%) nginx
12 16 (0.47%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 14 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.39%) Jupyter
14 13 (0.39%) Mattermost
14 13 (0.39%) Tomcat
15 12 (0.36%) CMS
16 11 (0.33%) HCL Notes
16 11 (0.33%) JBoss
17 9 (0.27%) Mendix
Applications
1 222 (6.59%) Microsoft Excel
2 65 (1.93%) Microsoft Office
3 41 (1.22%) MS Visio
4 35 (1.04%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 13 (0.39%) Microsoft Project
6 11 (0.33%) Chatbot
7 9 (0.27%) Mozilla Thunderbird
8 6 (0.18%) Trello
9 5 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
10 3 (0.089%) Notion
11 2 (0.059%) Maya
11 2 (0.059%) NUKE
11 2 (0.059%) Oracle Smart View
12 1 (0.030%) SPSS
12 1 (0.030%) Weka
Business Applications
1 30 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
1 30 (0.89%) Oracle Payables
2 28 (0.83%) Oracle General Ledger
3 23 (0.68%) Aladdin
4 22 (0.65%) Oracle Receivables
5 20 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
5 20 (0.59%) Oracle Assets
6 19 (0.56%) Oracle EBS R12
7 17 (0.50%) Remedy ITSM
8 14 (0.42%) Endur
8 14 (0.42%) NetSuite
8 14 (0.42%) Oracle Financials
8 14 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
9 12 (0.36%) Oracle ERP
9 12 (0.36%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 11 (0.33%) NEC Housing
11 10 (0.30%) Oracle Cash Management
12 9 (0.27%) Advent Geneva
12 9 (0.27%) Maximo
12 9 (0.27%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
Cloud Services
1 1,115 (33.09%) Azure
2 797 (23.65%) AWS
3 643 (19.08%) Power Platform
4 305 (9.05%) Azure DevOps
5 281 (8.34%) GCP
6 245 (7.27%) GitHub
7 236 (7.00%) Azure Data Factory
8 229 (6.80%) Serverless
9 227 (6.74%) Snowflake
10 168 (4.99%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 167 (4.96%) Amazon S3
12 126 (3.74%) dbt
13 121 (3.59%) GitHub Actions
14 108 (3.20%) AWS Lambda
15 89 (2.64%) SaaS
16 83 (2.46%) Azure Functions
17 79 (2.34%) Power Automate
18 70 (2.08%) PowerApps
19 56 (1.66%) Azure Monitor
19 56 (1.66%) Dynamics 365
Communications & Networking
1 56 (1.66%) Firewall
2 40 (1.19%) DNS
3 37 (1.10%) HTTP
4 25 (0.74%) Skype
5 17 (0.50%) Network Security
6 16 (0.47%) TCP/IP
7 14 (0.42%) DHCP
7 14 (0.42%) Internet
8 13 (0.39%) SSH
9 12 (0.36%) Unified Communications
10 10 (0.30%) SMTP
10 10 (0.30%) VPN
11 9 (0.27%) 2G
11 9 (0.27%) 5G
11 9 (0.27%) FTP
11 9 (0.27%) IMAP
11 9 (0.27%) LAN
11 9 (0.27%) OpenLDAP
11 9 (0.27%) WAN
12 8 (0.24%) SMS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 583 (17.30%) Power BI
2 370 (10.98%) SQL Server
3 348 (10.33%) Data Warehouse
4 245 (7.27%) Relational Database
5 241 (7.15%) PostgreSQL
6 238 (7.06%) NoSQL
7 204 (6.05%) Tableau
8 200 (5.93%) Data Lake
9 166 (4.93%) Azure SQL Database
10 154 (4.57%) Oracle Database
11 131 (3.89%) Metadata
12 107 (3.18%) Big Data
13 104 (3.09%) MySQL
14 101 (3.00%) MongoDB
15 98 (2.91%) BigQuery
16 94 (2.79%) SQL Server Integration Services
17 83 (2.46%) Amazon RDS
18 72 (2.14%) Amazon Redshift
19 68 (2.02%) Delta Lake
20 64 (1.90%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 378 (11.22%) Git
2 305 (9.05%) JIRA
3 184 (5.46%) Jenkins
4 129 (3.83%) GitLab
5 57 (1.69%) JUnit
5 57 (1.69%) Selenium
6 46 (1.36%) Oracle APEX
7 36 (1.07%) Cucumber
8 34 (1.01%) Postman
9 32 (0.95%) Bitbucket
10 23 (0.68%) REST Assured
11 22 (0.65%) Cypress.io
11 22 (0.65%) ERwin
11 22 (0.65%) Maven
11 22 (0.65%) SpecFlow
12 21 (0.62%) Mockito
13 20 (0.59%) MLflow
13 20 (0.59%) Oracle Forms
14 18 (0.53%) Visual Studio
15 17 (0.50%) Gradle
General
1 1,048 (31.10%) Social Skills
2 970 (28.78%) Finance
3 590 (17.51%) Analytical Skills
4 389 (11.54%) Banking
5 261 (7.74%) Public Sector
6 116 (3.44%) Investment Banking
7 94 (2.79%) Front Office
8 86 (2.55%) Marketing
9 85 (2.52%) Documentation Skills
10 63 (1.87%) Retail
11 54 (1.60%) Financial Institution
12 51 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 43 (1.28%) Presentation Skills
14 37 (1.10%) Legal
15 33 (0.98%) Manufacturing
16 28 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
17 27 (0.80%) Back Office
17 27 (0.80%) General Ledger
17 27 (0.80%) Local Government
17 27 (0.80%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 856 (25.40%) Developer
2 534 (15.85%) Analyst
3 509 (15.10%) Data Engineer
4 430 (12.76%) Senior
5 215 (6.38%) Data Analyst
6 208 (6.17%) Lead
7 192 (5.70%) Business Analyst
8 152 (4.51%) Architect
9 134 (3.98%) Senior Developer
10 124 (3.68%) Consultant
11 119 (3.53%) Java Developer
12 111 (3.29%) Software Engineer
13 101 (3.00%) Azure Engineer
14 84 (2.49%) Python Developer
15 79 (2.34%) Data Scientist
16 78 (2.31%) Senior Data Engineer
17 77 (2.28%) Full-Stack Developer
18 75 (2.23%) C# Developer
19 70 (2.08%) Azure Data Engineer
20 64 (1.90%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 306 (9.08%) .NET
2 280 (8.31%) REST
3 214 (6.35%) Kafka
4 192 (5.70%) PySpark
5 159 (4.72%) React
6 148 (4.39%) RESTful
7 142 (4.21%) Spring
8 137 (4.07%) HTML
9 127 (3.77%) XML
10 120 (3.56%) Spring Boot
11 116 (3.44%) CSS
12 100 (2.97%) JSON
12 100 (2.97%) Node.js
13 90 (2.67%) AngularJS
14 79 (2.34%) SOAP
15 74 (2.20%) Pandas
16 72 (2.14%) .NET Framework
16 72 (2.14%) Middleware
17 57 (1.69%) Web Services
18 54 (1.60%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 200 (5.93%) Cloud Native
2 100 (2.97%) Data Structures
3 94 (2.79%) Product Ownership
4 87 (2.58%) Legacy Systems
5 84 (2.49%) Data Protection Act
6 74 (2.20%) Management Information System
7 73 (2.17%) Analytical Mindset
8 62 (1.84%) Derivative
9 59 (1.75%) Algorithms
10 53 (1.57%) Distributed Systems
10 53 (1.57%) Equities
10 53 (1.57%) Onboarding
11 50 (1.48%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 49 (1.45%) Fixed Income
13 40 (1.19%) Market Risk
13 40 (1.19%) Replication
14 35 (1.04%) Self-Motivation
15 34 (1.01%) Greenfield Project
15 34 (1.01%) SWIFT Messaging Network
16 31 (0.92%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 315 (9.35%) Linux
2 236 (7.00%) Windows
3 196 (5.82%) Unix
4 61 (1.81%) Windows Server
5 16 (0.47%) Windows Server 2019
6 15 (0.45%) VMS
7 14 (0.42%) Windows 10
8 12 (0.36%) Android
8 12 (0.36%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 12 (0.36%) Ubuntu
8 12 (0.36%) Windows Server 2016
9 9 (0.27%) Amazon Linux
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%) MVS
14 1 (0.030%) Windows Server 2003
Processes & Methodologies
1 941 (27.92%) Agile
2 801 (23.77%) CI/CD
3 799 (23.71%) Analytics
4 787 (23.35%) Problem-Solving
5 762 (22.61%) Business Intelligence
6 746 (22.14%) DevOps
7 715 (21.22%) Data Modelling
8 638 (18.93%) ETL
9 491 (14.57%) Data Pipeline
10 406 (12.05%) Data Engineering
11 357 (10.59%) Migration
12 355 (10.53%) Data Governance
13 340 (10.09%) Validation
14 337 (10.00%) Visualisation
15 327 (9.70%) AI
16 323 (9.58%) Data Analysis
17 304 (9.02%) Test Automation
18 296 (8.78%) Microservices
19 290 (8.61%) Data Science
20 281 (8.34%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,247 (37.00%) Python
2 510 (15.13%) Java
3 361 (10.71%) C#
4 309 (9.17%) JavaScript
5 258 (7.66%) PL/SQL
6 145 (4.30%) PowerShell
7 127 (3.77%) TypeScript
8 105 (3.12%) R
9 94 (2.79%) T-SQL
10 91 (2.70%) Shell Script
11 88 (2.61%) Scala
12 87 (2.58%) C++
13 75 (2.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 73 (2.17%) VBA
15 62 (1.84%) VB
16 54 (1.60%) Bash
17 46 (1.36%) Perl
18 41 (1.22%) Go
19 40 (1.19%) Bicep
20 34 (1.01%) PHP
Qualifications
1 572 (16.97%) Security Cleared
2 437 (12.97%) SC Cleared
3 327 (9.70%) Degree
4 121 (3.59%) Computer Science Degree
5 74 (2.20%) Azure Certification
6 61 (1.81%) DV Cleared
7 55 (1.63%) BPSS Clearance
8 54 (1.60%) AWS Certification
8 54 (1.60%) Master's Degree
9 44 (1.31%) Microsoft Certification
10 36 (1.07%) ISTQB
11 23 (0.68%) ITIL Certification
12 22 (0.65%) Oracle Certification
13 19 (0.56%) CBAP
14 16 (0.47%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 14 (0.42%) MCSE
16 12 (0.36%) Cisco Certification
16 12 (0.36%) PMI Certification
17 11 (0.33%) CCNA
17 11 (0.33%) CFA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 500 (14.84%) Data Quality
2 237 (7.03%) QA
3 126 (3.74%) GDPR
4 57 (1.69%) Accessibility
5 25 (0.74%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 22 (0.65%) SLA
7 19 (0.56%) MiFID
8 18 (0.53%) SEPA
9 17 (0.50%) ISO 20022
10 15 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
10 15 (0.45%) PSD2
11 14 (0.42%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 14 (0.42%) WCAG
12 13 (0.39%) IFRS
13 12 (0.36%) EMIR
13 12 (0.36%) HIPAA
14 11 (0.33%) PCI DSS
14 11 (0.33%) PMO
15 9 (0.27%) NIST
16 8 (0.24%) ISO 8583
System Software
1 402 (11.93%) Docker
2 96 (2.85%) Active Directory
3 29 (0.86%) VMware Infrastructure
4 18 (0.53%) Oracle RAC
5 17 (0.50%) Virtual Machines
6 9 (0.27%) DFS Replication
6 9 (0.27%) Dovecot
6 9 (0.27%) Postfix
6 9 (0.27%) Squid
7 8 (0.24%) HDFS
7 8 (0.24%) Hyper-V
8 7 (0.21%) VMware ESXi
8 7 (0.21%) zsh
9 6 (0.18%) Virtual Desktop
10 5 (0.15%) Microsoft Virtual Server
10 5 (0.15%) NFS
10 5 (0.15%) Virtual Servers
10 5 (0.15%) vSphere
11 4 (0.12%) VMware Workstation
11 4 (0.12%) XenApp
Systems Management
1 367 (10.89%) Kubernetes
2 240 (7.12%) Terraform
3 70 (2.08%) Grafana
4 61 (1.81%) Ansible
5 56 (1.66%) Prometheus
6 24 (0.71%) SCCM
6 24 (0.71%) SCOM
7 21 (0.62%) HP SiteScope
8 18 (0.53%) Data Guard
8 18 (0.53%) Kibana
8 18 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
8 18 (0.53%) Progress Chef
8 18 (0.53%) Puppet
9 15 (0.45%) Control-M
10 14 (0.42%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 14 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
11 12 (0.36%) Proxmox
12 11 (0.33%) WSUS
13 10 (0.30%) ITRS Geneos
14 9 (0.27%) Nessus
Vendors
1 597 (17.72%) Oracle
2 565 (16.77%) Microsoft
3 366 (10.86%) Databricks
4 134 (3.98%) Google
5 103 (3.06%) Splunk
6 92 (2.73%) SAP
7 71 (2.11%) ServiceNow
8 70 (2.08%) Salesforce
9 64 (1.90%) Talend
10 57 (1.69%) Informatica
11 46 (1.36%) IBM
12 42 (1.25%) OpenAI
13 41 (1.22%) Dynatrace
14 39 (1.16%) Citrix
14 39 (1.16%) Denodo
14 39 (1.16%) VMware
15 35 (1.04%) MuleSoft
16 31 (0.92%) AppDynamics
17 29 (0.86%) Cisco
18 28 (0.83%) Bloomberg