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

6 months to
15 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -4 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,983 3,030 3,618
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.78% 12.52% 9.92%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.79% 37.08% 33.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,729 2,147 2,679
10th Percentile £350 £358 £356
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% +0.47%
Number of hourly rates quoted 65 54 56
10th Percentile £26.52 £20.02 £23.38
25th Percentile £35.25 £30.06 £29.72
Median hourly rate £48.72 £48.25 £44.25
Median % change year-on-year +0.97% +9.04% -10.73%
75th Percentile £73.00 £65.46 £57.50
90th Percentile £83.15 £80.73 £61.68
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £43.66 £44.25
% change year-on-year +20.25% -1.34% -11.50%

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 10,826 8,172 10,826
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 26.58% 33.77% 29.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,151 5,672 7,859
10th Percentile £353 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -2.65%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £656
90th Percentile £720 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £530
% change year-on-year -3.85% -1.89% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 524 212 443
10th Percentile £41.94 £26.34 £37.63
25th Percentile £55.00 £38.97 £50.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 2,243 £520 -3.70% 881
Midlands +4 519 £469 +4.22% 368
North of England -9 478 £460 -3.16% 591
West Midlands +4 417 £463 +0.54% 194
South East -17 343 £485 -3.00% 580
North West -1 262 £450 -5.26% 287
South West -6 201 £473 -0.53% 188
Yorkshire -13 191 £465 -4.62% 218
East Midlands -2 99 £525 +34.27% 174
East of England -21 90 £495 +5.60% 141
North East -11 37 £463 +2.78% 92
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
1 222 (5.57%) Apache Spark
2 149 (3.74%) Apache Airflow
3 135 (3.39%) Confluence
4 133 (3.34%) Apache
5 87 (2.18%) SAS
6 74 (1.86%) SharePoint
7 38 (0.95%) WebLogic
8 31 (0.78%) IIS
9 23 (0.58%) Tomcat
10 22 (0.55%) Oracle Workflow
11 19 (0.48%) Microsoft Exchange
12 15 (0.38%) Jupyter
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 13 (0.33%) Appian
13 13 (0.33%) HCL Notes
13 13 (0.33%) Mendix
13 13 (0.33%) Palantir Foundry
14 12 (0.30%) CMS
14 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 11 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 268 (6.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 51 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
3 47 (1.18%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 9 (0.23%) Chatbot
7 7 (0.18%) Microsoft Project
8 5 (0.13%) Notepad++
8 5 (0.13%) Notion
9 3 (0.075%) Oracle Smart View
9 3 (0.075%) Trello
10 1 (0.025%) InDesign
10 1 (0.025%) Mingle
10 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.05%) Oracle EBS
2 26 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
3 25 (0.63%) Aladdin
3 25 (0.63%) NEC Housing
4 20 (0.50%) Oracle EBS R12
4 20 (0.50%) Oracle Payables
5 17 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
5 17 (0.43%) Oracle Receivables
5 17 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
6 15 (0.38%) NetSuite
6 15 (0.38%) Oracle General Ledger
7 14 (0.35%) Remedy ITSM
8 12 (0.30%) Oracle Assets
8 12 (0.30%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 11 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
10 9 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
11 8 (0.20%) Endur
11 8 (0.20%) Findur
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle 11i
11 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,335 (33.52%) Azure
2 949 (23.83%) AWS
3 774 (19.43%) Power Platform
4 395 (9.92%) Azure DevOps
5 335 (8.41%) Azure Data Factory
6 323 (8.11%) GCP
7 287 (7.21%) GitHub
8 244 (6.13%) Serverless
9 227 (5.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 225 (5.65%) Snowflake
11 215 (5.40%) Amazon S3
12 178 (4.47%) dbt
13 147 (3.69%) GitHub Actions
14 144 (3.62%) AWS Lambda
15 79 (1.98%) Power Automate
16 76 (1.91%) SaaS
17 70 (1.76%) Entra ID
18 66 (1.66%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 63 (1.58%) Azure Functions
19 63 (1.58%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 48 (1.21%) Firewall
2 42 (1.05%) DNS
3 19 (0.48%) Network Security
4 18 (0.45%) SNMP
4 18 (0.45%) TCP/IP
5 15 (0.38%) Internet
5 15 (0.38%) WAN
6 14 (0.35%) HTTP
7 12 (0.30%) LAN
8 11 (0.28%) SSL
8 11 (0.28%) VPN
8 11 (0.28%) Wi-Fi
9 9 (0.23%) DHCP
10 7 (0.18%) Wireshark
11 6 (0.15%) 3GPP
11 6 (0.15%) IPsec
11 6 (0.15%) VLAN
12 5 (0.13%) Kerberos
12 5 (0.13%) SAN
12 5 (0.13%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 709 (17.80%) Power BI
2 514 (12.90%) Data Warehouse
3 499 (12.53%) SQL Server
4 280 (7.03%) Tableau
5 271 (6.80%) Data Lake
6 252 (6.33%) Relational Database
7 249 (6.25%) PostgreSQL
8 232 (5.82%) NoSQL
9 210 (5.27%) Metadata
10 192 (4.82%) Azure SQL Database
11 152 (3.82%) Oracle Database
12 143 (3.59%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 134 (3.36%) BigQuery
14 118 (2.96%) Delta Lake
15 111 (2.79%) Amazon Redshift
16 106 (2.66%) Big Data
17 102 (2.56%) MySQL
18 98 (2.46%) Oracle Reports
19 89 (2.23%) MongoDB
19 89 (2.23%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 411 (10.32%) Git
2 315 (7.91%) JIRA
3 207 (5.20%) Jenkins
4 168 (4.22%) GitLab
5 55 (1.38%) Selenium
6 51 (1.28%) JUnit
7 44 (1.10%) Maven
7 44 (1.10%) Postman
8 39 (0.98%) Mockito
9 37 (0.93%) Cucumber
10 35 (0.88%) MLflow
11 34 (0.85%) Gradle
12 30 (0.75%) SonarQube
13 28 (0.70%) ERwin
13 28 (0.70%) REST Assured
14 23 (0.58%) Bitbucket
15 22 (0.55%) JMeter
15 22 (0.55%) Visual Studio
16 21 (0.53%) SpecFlow
16 21 (0.53%) TeamCity
General
1 1,078 (27.07%) Finance
2 1,035 (25.99%) Social Skills
3 733 (18.40%) Analytical Skills
4 386 (9.69%) Banking
5 339 (8.51%) Public Sector
6 104 (2.61%) Front Office
7 98 (2.46%) Marketing
8 96 (2.41%) Investment Banking
9 82 (2.06%) Documentation Skills
10 60 (1.51%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 59 (1.48%) Retail
12 58 (1.46%) Financial Institution
13 52 (1.31%) Legal
14 38 (0.95%) Publishing
15 36 (0.90%) Telecoms
16 35 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
17 32 (0.80%) Law
17 32 (0.80%) Organisational Skills
18 29 (0.73%) Local Government
19 28 (0.70%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 826 (20.74%) Data Engineer
2 821 (20.61%) Developer
3 579 (14.54%) Analyst
4 497 (12.48%) Senior
5 271 (6.80%) Lead
6 247 (6.20%) Data Analyst
7 224 (5.62%) Architect
8 182 (4.57%) Business Analyst
8 182 (4.57%) Consultant
9 151 (3.79%) Java Developer
10 144 (3.62%) Senior Data Engineer
11 126 (3.16%) DBA
12 118 (2.96%) Software Engineer
13 116 (2.91%) Azure Engineer
14 115 (2.89%) Senior Developer
15 98 (2.46%) C# Developer
16 87 (2.18%) Data Scientist
17 86 (2.16%) Data Architect
18 84 (2.11%) Python Developer
19 83 (2.08%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 340 (8.54%) .NET
2 314 (7.88%) REST
3 251 (6.30%) PySpark
4 247 (6.20%) Kafka
5 190 (4.77%) Spring
6 189 (4.75%) React
7 182 (4.57%) Spring Boot
8 165 (4.14%) RESTful
9 139 (3.49%) HTML
10 129 (3.24%) XML
11 122 (3.06%) JSON
12 116 (2.91%) CSS
12 116 (2.91%) Pandas
13 98 (2.46%) AngularJS
14 92 (2.31%) Middleware
15 86 (2.16%) SOAP
16 78 (1.96%) .NET Framework
17 73 (1.83%) Web Services
18 70 (1.76%) Node.js
19 68 (1.71%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 251 (6.30%) Cloud Native
2 145 (3.64%) Data Structures
3 128 (3.21%) Legacy Systems
4 118 (2.96%) Product Ownership
5 100 (2.51%) Distributed Systems
6 84 (2.11%) Management Information System
7 77 (1.93%) Derivative
8 72 (1.81%) Onboarding
9 69 (1.73%) Data Protection Act
10 63 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
11 54 (1.36%) Equities
12 53 (1.33%) Fixed Income
13 52 (1.31%) Clustering
14 47 (1.18%) Algorithms
15 46 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
15 46 (1.15%) Greenfield Project
15 46 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
16 40 (1.00%) Replication
17 39 (0.98%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 37 (0.93%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 290 (7.28%) Linux
2 248 (6.23%) Windows
3 199 (5.00%) Unix
4 85 (2.13%) Windows Server
5 24 (0.60%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 15 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 8 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
10 7 (0.18%) Solaris
10 7 (0.18%) zOS
11 6 (0.15%) Android
11 6 (0.15%) Apple iOS
11 6 (0.15%) Windows 10
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
12 3 (0.075%) Windows Server 2012
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.050%) VMS
14 1 (0.025%) HPUX
14 1 (0.025%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,073 (26.94%) CI/CD
2 1,012 (25.41%) Analytics
3 1,006 (25.26%) Data Modelling
4 972 (24.40%) Agile
4 972 (24.40%) ETL
5 911 (22.87%) Business Intelligence
6 876 (21.99%) DevOps
7 801 (20.11%) Problem-Solving
8 735 (18.45%) Data Pipeline
9 647 (16.24%) Data Engineering
10 514 (12.90%) AI
11 496 (12.45%) Migration
12 479 (12.03%) Validation
13 469 (11.78%) Data Governance
14 396 (9.94%) Test Automation
15 395 (9.92%) Decision-Making
16 372 (9.34%) Data Analysis
17 367 (9.21%) Performance Tuning
18 350 (8.79%) Microservices
19 339 (8.51%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,502 (37.71%) Python
2 528 (13.26%) Java
3 437 (10.97%) C#
4 295 (7.41%) JavaScript
5 291 (7.31%) PL/SQL
6 205 (5.15%) T-SQL
7 188 (4.72%) PowerShell
8 128 (3.21%) TypeScript
9 123 (3.09%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 117 (2.94%) R
11 115 (2.89%) Shell Script
12 88 (2.21%) Scala
13 78 (1.96%) Bash
14 62 (1.56%) C++
15 46 (1.15%) VBA
16 40 (1.00%) Bicep
17 39 (0.98%) Perl
18 29 (0.73%) VB
19 27 (0.68%) Go
20 23 (0.58%) C
Qualifications
1 840 (21.09%) Security Cleared
2 673 (16.90%) SC Cleared
3 322 (8.08%) Degree
4 108 (2.71%) Computer Science Degree
5 86 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 71 (1.78%) Azure Certification
7 69 (1.73%) DV Cleared
8 52 (1.31%) Master's Degree
9 47 (1.18%) ISTQB
10 36 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
11 22 (0.55%) AWS Certification
12 15 (0.38%) CBAP
12 15 (0.38%) PhD
13 12 (0.30%) DBS Check
13 12 (0.30%) Oracle Certification
14 11 (0.28%) CISSP
14 11 (0.28%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
14 11 (0.28%) PMI Certification
15 10 (0.25%) PMP
16 9 (0.23%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 733 (18.40%) Data Quality
2 303 (7.61%) QA
3 177 (4.44%) GDPR
4 38 (0.95%) SLA
5 36 (0.90%) Accessibility
6 32 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 25 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 25 (0.63%) PMO
8 19 (0.48%) NIST
8 19 (0.48%) PCI DSS
9 18 (0.45%) MiFID
10 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
11 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 14 (0.35%) IFRS
13 13 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
13 13 (0.33%) ISO 20022
14 12 (0.30%) HL7
15 11 (0.28%) GRC
16 9 (0.23%) SEPA
16 9 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 452 (11.35%) Docker
2 93 (2.33%) Active Directory
3 37 (0.93%) Virtual Machines
4 28 (0.70%) VMware Infrastructure
5 25 (0.63%) Oracle RAC
6 16 (0.40%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.25%) KVM
7 10 (0.25%) VMware ESXi
8 8 (0.20%) Postfix
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.15%) HDFS
9 6 (0.15%) RACF
9 6 (0.15%) VMware NSX
10 5 (0.13%) vCloud
11 4 (0.10%) XenApp
11 4 (0.10%) XenDesktop
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
13 2 (0.050%) GridGain
13 2 (0.050%) vSphere
14 1 (0.025%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 385 (9.67%) Kubernetes
2 322 (8.08%) Terraform
3 103 (2.59%) Grafana
4 66 (1.66%) Ansible
5 62 (1.56%) Prometheus
6 38 (0.95%) Oracle RMAN
7 27 (0.68%) Data Guard
8 18 (0.45%) Kibana
8 18 (0.45%) Single Sign-On
9 15 (0.38%) SCCM
9 15 (0.38%) ZABBIX
10 14 (0.35%) Control-M
10 14 (0.35%) Nagios
10 14 (0.35%) Netcool
10 14 (0.35%) Tivoli
11 13 (0.33%) OpenView
11 13 (0.33%) Tivoli Monitoring
12 12 (0.30%) Progress Chef
12 12 (0.30%) vCenter Server
13 9 (0.23%) Kiali
Vendors
1 647 (16.24%) Oracle
2 628 (15.77%) Microsoft
3 481 (12.08%) Databricks
4 159 (3.99%) Google
5 135 (3.39%) Informatica
6 128 (3.21%) ServiceNow
7 110 (2.76%) Talend
8 106 (2.66%) SAP
9 87 (2.18%) Splunk
10 62 (1.56%) IBM
11 58 (1.46%) Denodo
12 53 (1.33%) Salesforce
13 47 (1.18%) Citrix
14 42 (1.05%) VMware
15 37 (0.93%) Dynatrace
16 36 (0.90%) Bloomberg
17 34 (0.85%) OpenAI
18 33 (0.83%) MuleSoft
19 32 (0.80%) HP
20 30 (0.75%) BMC