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

6 months to
10 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 13
Rank change year-on-year -4 +1 -2
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,999 2,968 3,682
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.20% 12.19% 9.83%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.37% 36.04% 34.00%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,783 2,099 2,695
10th Percentile £350 £353 £356
25th Percentile £413 £410 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £513 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% +1.85%
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £700 £757 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.33%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 55 59
10th Percentile £26.50 £23.90 £21.71
25th Percentile £34.75 £30.13 £26.02
Median hourly rate £48.11 £52.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -8.36% +23.53% -13.26%
75th Percentile £72.19 £65.81 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.40 £80.23 £61.99
UK median hourly rate £52.50 £47.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +10.53% +11.76% -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 10,995 8,236 10,831
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 28.03% 33.83% 28.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,343 5,673 7,869
10th Percentile £353 £360 £350
25th Percentile £413 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £501 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -2.42% -4.78%
75th Percentile £609 £650 £656
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 513 209 430
10th Percentile £41.94 £25.26 £35.00
25th Percentile £55.00 £41.25 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +3.17% +5.00% -4.00%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £68.75
90th Percentile £77.40 £85.00 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -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 10 April 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 10 April 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 10 April 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 2,290 £510 -5.56% 840
Midlands +4 508 £465 +1.09% 280
North of England -10 461 £450 -5.26% 459
West Midlands +7 405 £460 -2.54% 157
South East -19 310 £500 - 526
North West -1 257 £450 -5.26% 248
South West -7 225 £475 -5.00% 165
Yorkshire -17 183 £475 -5.00% 149
East Midlands +2 101 £525 +32.74% 123
East of England -23 86 £510 +9.09% 147
North East -8 33 £475 +3.26% 66
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
1 216 (5.40%) Apache Spark
2 151 (3.78%) Apache Airflow
3 136 (3.40%) Apache
4 121 (3.03%) Confluence
5 89 (2.23%) SAS
6 80 (2.00%) SharePoint
7 50 (1.25%) WebLogic
8 30 (0.75%) IIS
9 25 (0.63%) Tomcat
10 21 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
11 20 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
12 19 (0.48%) Jupyter
13 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
14 14 (0.35%) nginx
14 14 (0.35%) Palantir Foundry
15 13 (0.33%) Appian
15 13 (0.33%) CMS
16 12 (0.30%) HCL Notes
16 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
17 11 (0.28%) WebSphere
Applications
1 269 (6.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 54 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 49 (1.23%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 21 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
6 11 (0.28%) Microsoft Project
7 7 (0.18%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.13%) Notepad++
9 3 (0.075%) 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%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 38 (0.95%) Oracle EBS
2 27 (0.68%) Aladdin
3 25 (0.63%) Oracle Payables
4 23 (0.58%) Oracle Receivables
5 21 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
5 21 (0.53%) NEC Housing
5 21 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
6 20 (0.50%) Oracle General Ledger
7 17 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
8 16 (0.40%) Oracle ERP
9 15 (0.38%) NetSuite
10 13 (0.33%) Oracle Assets
11 12 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
12 11 (0.28%) Oracle Cash Management
12 11 (0.28%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
13 10 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
13 10 (0.25%) Payment Gateway
14 9 (0.23%) Advent Geneva
14 9 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
15 8 (0.20%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 1,390 (34.76%) Azure
2 979 (24.48%) AWS
3 783 (19.58%) Power Platform
4 419 (10.48%) Azure DevOps
5 338 (8.45%) Azure Data Factory
6 320 (8.00%) GCP
7 305 (7.63%) GitHub
8 271 (6.78%) Serverless
9 241 (6.03%) Snowflake
10 230 (5.75%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 224 (5.60%) Amazon S3
12 179 (4.48%) dbt
13 157 (3.93%) GitHub Actions
14 150 (3.75%) AWS Lambda
15 89 (2.23%) SaaS
16 88 (2.20%) Power Automate
17 78 (1.95%) Azure Functions
18 76 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
19 73 (1.83%) Entra ID
20 71 (1.78%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 50 (1.25%) Firewall
2 37 (0.93%) DNS
3 22 (0.55%) Network Security
4 21 (0.53%) HTTP
5 16 (0.40%) TCP/IP
6 15 (0.38%) Internet
7 14 (0.35%) WAN
8 13 (0.33%) SSL
9 12 (0.30%) 5G
9 12 (0.30%) VPN
10 11 (0.28%) LAN
10 11 (0.28%) SNMP
11 10 (0.25%) 4G
12 9 (0.23%) DHCP
13 8 (0.20%) 2G
13 8 (0.20%) Radio Access Network
14 7 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
15 6 (0.15%) VLAN
16 5 (0.13%) NetScaler
16 5 (0.13%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 715 (17.88%) Power BI
2 524 (13.10%) Data Warehouse
3 484 (12.10%) SQL Server
4 267 (6.68%) NoSQL
5 265 (6.63%) Tableau
6 262 (6.55%) PostgreSQL
6 262 (6.55%) Relational Database
7 256 (6.40%) Data Lake
8 210 (5.25%) Azure SQL Database
8 210 (5.25%) Metadata
9 143 (3.58%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 141 (3.53%) Oracle Database
11 124 (3.10%) MySQL
12 118 (2.95%) Amazon Redshift
13 115 (2.88%) BigQuery
14 114 (2.85%) Delta Lake
15 101 (2.53%) Big Data
16 100 (2.50%) Oracle Reports
17 96 (2.40%) Amazon RDS
18 94 (2.35%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 439 (10.98%) Git
2 324 (8.10%) JIRA
3 214 (5.35%) Jenkins
4 156 (3.90%) GitLab
5 62 (1.55%) Selenium
6 61 (1.53%) JUnit
7 47 (1.18%) Postman
8 40 (1.00%) Oracle APEX
9 38 (0.95%) Maven
10 37 (0.93%) Cucumber
11 35 (0.88%) MLflow
12 33 (0.83%) Mockito
13 29 (0.73%) REST Assured
14 27 (0.68%) Bitbucket
15 26 (0.65%) ERwin
16 25 (0.63%) SonarQube
17 24 (0.60%) JMeter
18 23 (0.58%) Oracle Forms
19 22 (0.55%) Cypress.io
19 22 (0.55%) SpecFlow
General
1 1,123 (28.08%) Social Skills
2 1,089 (27.23%) Finance
3 750 (18.75%) Analytical Skills
4 400 (10.00%) Banking
5 344 (8.60%) Public Sector
6 103 (2.58%) Investment Banking
7 102 (2.55%) Front Office
8 95 (2.38%) Documentation Skills
9 86 (2.15%) Marketing
10 67 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 56 (1.40%) Legal
12 55 (1.38%) Retail
13 54 (1.35%) Financial Institution
14 44 (1.10%) Telecoms
15 38 (0.95%) Publishing
16 34 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
17 33 (0.83%) Organisational Skills
18 32 (0.80%) Law
19 29 (0.73%) Manufacturing
20 28 (0.70%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 899 (22.48%) Developer
2 783 (19.58%) Data Engineer
3 580 (14.50%) Analyst
4 504 (12.60%) Senior
5 271 (6.78%) Lead
6 249 (6.23%) Data Analyst
7 219 (5.48%) Architect
8 198 (4.95%) Business Analyst
9 184 (4.60%) Consultant
10 153 (3.83%) Java Developer
11 150 (3.75%) Senior Developer
12 120 (3.00%) Senior Data Engineer
13 117 (2.93%) Azure Engineer
14 113 (2.83%) DBA
15 108 (2.70%) Software Engineer
16 102 (2.55%) C# Developer
17 94 (2.35%) Python Developer
18 87 (2.18%) Data Architect
18 87 (2.18%) Full-Stack Developer
19 85 (2.13%) Data Scientist
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 350 (8.75%) .NET
2 319 (7.98%) REST
3 254 (6.35%) Kafka
4 245 (6.13%) PySpark
5 198 (4.95%) React
6 184 (4.60%) RESTful
6 184 (4.60%) Spring
7 170 (4.25%) Spring Boot
8 149 (3.73%) XML
9 144 (3.60%) HTML
10 127 (3.18%) Pandas
11 123 (3.08%) CSS
12 122 (3.05%) JSON
13 114 (2.85%) AngularJS
14 93 (2.33%) Node.js
15 84 (2.10%) Middleware
16 82 (2.05%) SOAP
17 81 (2.03%) .NET Framework
18 78 (1.95%) Web Services
19 74 (1.85%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 252 (6.30%) Cloud Native
2 140 (3.50%) Data Structures
3 129 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
4 118 (2.95%) Product Ownership
5 89 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
6 86 (2.15%) Management Information System
7 73 (1.83%) Derivative
8 68 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
9 66 (1.65%) Onboarding
10 63 (1.58%) Analytical Mindset
11 59 (1.48%) Equities
12 57 (1.43%) Fixed Income
13 52 (1.30%) Algorithms
14 49 (1.23%) Clustering
15 46 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
15 46 (1.15%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 44 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
17 40 (1.00%) Replication
18 37 (0.93%) NHS
19 35 (0.88%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 279 (6.98%) Linux
2 239 (5.98%) Windows
3 198 (4.95%) Unix
4 77 (1.93%) Windows Server
5 21 (0.53%) AIX
6 19 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 13 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
8 10 (0.25%) Windows 10
8 10 (0.25%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
10 6 (0.15%) Android
10 6 (0.15%) Solaris
10 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
10 6 (0.15%) zOS
11 5 (0.13%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.075%) CentOS
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.050%) VMS
14 1 (0.025%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,090 (27.26%) CI/CD
2 1,057 (26.43%) Agile
3 1,049 (26.23%) Analytics
4 995 (24.88%) Data Modelling
5 960 (24.01%) ETL
6 949 (23.73%) Business Intelligence
7 926 (23.16%) DevOps
8 861 (21.53%) Problem-Solving
9 704 (17.60%) Data Pipeline
10 625 (15.63%) Data Engineering
11 491 (12.28%) AI
12 487 (12.18%) Data Governance
13 485 (12.13%) Migration
14 472 (11.80%) Validation
15 380 (9.50%) Data Analysis
15 380 (9.50%) Test Automation
16 369 (9.23%) Decision-Making
17 365 (9.13%) Performance Tuning
18 358 (8.95%) Microservices
19 350 (8.75%) Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 1,506 (37.66%) Python
2 551 (13.78%) Java
3 429 (10.73%) C#
4 322 (8.05%) JavaScript
5 305 (7.63%) PL/SQL
6 178 (4.45%) T-SQL
7 171 (4.28%) PowerShell
8 142 (3.55%) TypeScript
9 119 (2.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 117 (2.93%) Shell Script
11 112 (2.80%) R
12 92 (2.30%) Scala
13 67 (1.68%) Bash
14 61 (1.53%) C++
14 61 (1.53%) VBA
15 46 (1.15%) Bicep
16 44 (1.10%) Perl
17 29 (0.73%) Go
18 26 (0.65%) VB
19 22 (0.55%) PHP
Qualifications
1 837 (20.93%) Security Cleared
2 673 (16.83%) SC Cleared
3 321 (8.03%) Degree
4 116 (2.90%) Computer Science Degree
5 85 (2.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 67 (1.68%) Azure Certification
7 51 (1.28%) DV Cleared
8 50 (1.25%) ISTQB
8 50 (1.25%) Master's Degree
9 42 (1.05%) Microsoft Certification
10 32 (0.80%) AWS Certification
11 18 (0.45%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 16 (0.40%) Oracle Certification
12 16 (0.40%) PhD
13 13 (0.33%) CBAP
14 10 (0.25%) PMP
15 9 (0.23%) DBS Check
15 9 (0.23%) PMI Certification
16 8 (0.20%) ISEB
17 7 (0.18%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 725 (18.13%) Data Quality
2 303 (7.58%) QA
3 180 (4.50%) GDPR
4 57 (1.43%) Accessibility
5 34 (0.85%) SLA
6 30 (0.75%) PMO
7 29 (0.73%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 23 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 17 (0.43%) PCI DSS
10 16 (0.40%) NIST
11 15 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.38%) MiFID
11 15 (0.38%) WCAG
12 14 (0.35%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 14 (0.35%) HIPAA
13 13 (0.33%) IFRS
14 11 (0.28%) HL7
14 11 (0.28%) ISO 20022
14 11 (0.28%) SEPA
15 10 (0.25%) Solvency II
System Software
1 463 (11.58%) Docker
2 97 (2.43%) Active Directory
3 34 (0.85%) Virtual Machines
4 20 (0.50%) Oracle RAC
5 17 (0.43%) VMware Infrastructure
6 13 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
8 7 (0.18%) KVM
9 6 (0.15%) HDFS
9 6 (0.15%) Postfix
9 6 (0.15%) RACF
10 5 (0.13%) VMware ESXi
10 5 (0.13%) XenApp
10 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
11 3 (0.075%) Oracle Clusterware
12 2 (0.050%) GridGain
12 2 (0.050%) vSphere
13 1 (0.025%) Microsoft App-V
13 1 (0.025%) Varnish
13 1 (0.025%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 412 (10.30%) Kubernetes
2 318 (7.95%) Terraform
3 93 (2.33%) Grafana
4 63 (1.58%) Ansible
5 61 (1.53%) Prometheus
6 32 (0.80%) Oracle RMAN
7 21 (0.53%) Data Guard
8 20 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
9 17 (0.43%) Progress Chef
10 15 (0.38%) SCCM
11 14 (0.35%) Control-M
12 11 (0.28%) ZABBIX
13 10 (0.25%) Nagios
13 10 (0.25%) Netcool
13 10 (0.25%) OpenView
13 10 (0.25%) Tivoli
13 10 (0.25%) Tivoli Monitoring
14 9 (0.23%) Kiali
14 9 (0.23%) Kibana
15 8 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 665 (16.63%) Oracle
2 658 (16.45%) Microsoft
3 486 (12.15%) Databricks
4 157 (3.93%) Google
5 123 (3.08%) Informatica
6 122 (3.05%) ServiceNow
7 104 (2.60%) Talend
8 102 (2.55%) SAP
9 75 (1.88%) Splunk
10 61 (1.53%) Salesforce
11 59 (1.48%) IBM
12 55 (1.38%) Denodo
13 51 (1.28%) Citrix
14 44 (1.10%) OpenAI
15 34 (0.85%) MuleSoft
16 30 (0.75%) Bloomberg
16 30 (0.75%) VMware
17 29 (0.73%) Dynatrace
17 29 (0.73%) HP
18 26 (0.65%) Foundry