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

6 months to
28 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 12 12
Rank change year-on-year -5 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,989 3,002 3,629
As % of all contract jobs in England 9.93% 12.27% 9.82%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.38% 36.32% 33.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,746 2,133 2,668
10th Percentile £350 £356 £350
25th Percentile £413 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £518 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.38% -5.91% -
75th Percentile £588 £638 £650
90th Percentile £688 £775 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 58 58
10th Percentile £29.73 £21.72 £22.71
25th Percentile £35.75 £30.06 £26.05
Median hourly rate £50.00 £49.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +1.01% +16.47% -14.63%
75th Percentile £73.84 £65.62 £54.03
90th Percentile £83.45 £78.71 £62.11
UK median hourly rate £54.75 £44.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +23.03% +4.71% -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 10,966 8,265 10,821
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 27.31% 33.79% 29.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,281 5,712 7,859
10th Percentile £355 £363 £350
25th Percentile £415 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -3.90% -2.78% -4.42%
75th Percentile £610 £650 £650
90th Percentile £725 £788 £775
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 528 216 434
10th Percentile £41.94 £25.25 £35.51
25th Percentile £55.00 £37.96 £47.63
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% - +1.07%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £77.50 £85.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.07
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.05% -1.04%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 2,257 £513 -6.82% 789
Midlands +5 520 £467 +1.60% 264
North of England -9 478 £450 -5.26% 373
West Midlands +7 412 £460 -0.81% 155
South East -17 321 £500 - 602
North West 0 267 £450 -5.26% 223
South West -7 209 £475 -5.00% 143
Yorkshire -18 189 £460 -3.16% 97
East Midlands +5 105 £525 +25.00% 108
East of England -16 90 £500 +6.95% 120
North East -11 33 £475 +4.40% 55
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
1 228 (5.72%) Apache Spark
2 157 (3.94%) Apache Airflow
3 136 (3.41%) Apache
4 127 (3.18%) Confluence
5 85 (2.13%) SAS
6 81 (2.03%) SharePoint
7 44 (1.10%) WebLogic
8 34 (0.85%) IIS
9 24 (0.60%) Tomcat
10 21 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
11 20 (0.50%) Oracle Workflow
12 15 (0.38%) Tuxedo
13 14 (0.35%) HCL Notes
13 14 (0.35%) nginx
14 13 (0.33%) Appian
14 13 (0.33%) CMS
14 13 (0.33%) Mendix
15 12 (0.30%) Jupyter
15 12 (0.30%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 12 (0.30%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 275 (6.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 56 (1.40%) Microsoft Office
3 48 (1.20%) MS Visio
4 33 (0.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 23 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
6 10 (0.25%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.20%) 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
10 1 (0.025%) Weka
Business Applications
1 42 (1.05%) Oracle EBS
2 25 (0.63%) Aladdin
3 24 (0.60%) NEC Housing
4 22 (0.55%) Dynamics CRM
5 21 (0.53%) Oracle EBS R12
5 21 (0.53%) Oracle Payables
6 19 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
6 19 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
7 17 (0.43%) NetSuite
7 17 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
7 17 (0.43%) Oracle General Ledger
8 12 (0.30%) Remedy ITSM
9 11 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
9 11 (0.28%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 11 (0.28%) Payment Gateway
10 10 (0.25%) Oracle 11i
11 9 (0.23%) Maximo
11 9 (0.23%) Oracle Cash Management
12 8 (0.20%) Endur
12 8 (0.20%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
Cloud Services
1 1,369 (34.32%) Azure
2 962 (24.12%) AWS
3 778 (19.50%) Power Platform
4 411 (10.30%) Azure DevOps
5 345 (8.65%) Azure Data Factory
6 319 (8.00%) GCP
7 301 (7.55%) GitHub
8 265 (6.64%) Serverless
9 235 (5.89%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 226 (5.67%) Snowflake
11 225 (5.64%) Amazon S3
12 170 (4.26%) dbt
13 155 (3.89%) AWS Lambda
14 154 (3.86%) GitHub Actions
15 91 (2.28%) Power Automate
16 77 (1.93%) SaaS
17 73 (1.83%) Azure Functions
18 72 (1.80%) AWS CloudFormation
18 72 (1.80%) Entra ID
19 71 (1.78%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 47 (1.18%) Firewall
2 36 (0.90%) DNS
3 22 (0.55%) Network Security
4 18 (0.45%) TCP/IP
5 16 (0.40%) Internet
6 15 (0.38%) HTTP
6 15 (0.38%) WAN
7 12 (0.30%) LAN
8 11 (0.28%) SNMP
8 11 (0.28%) SSL
8 11 (0.28%) VPN
9 9 (0.23%) DHCP
9 9 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
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%) PuTTY
12 5 (0.13%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 708 (17.75%) Power BI
2 515 (12.91%) Data Warehouse
3 497 (12.46%) SQL Server
4 275 (6.89%) Tableau
5 259 (6.49%) Data Lake
6 258 (6.47%) PostgreSQL
7 254 (6.37%) NoSQL
8 243 (6.09%) Relational Database
9 209 (5.24%) Metadata
10 203 (5.09%) Azure SQL Database
11 146 (3.66%) Oracle Database
11 146 (3.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 121 (3.03%) Amazon Redshift
13 118 (2.96%) BigQuery
14 115 (2.88%) Delta Lake
15 114 (2.86%) MySQL
16 110 (2.76%) Big Data
17 101 (2.53%) Oracle Reports
18 97 (2.43%) Amazon RDS
19 96 (2.41%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 426 (10.68%) Git
2 319 (8.00%) JIRA
3 209 (5.24%) Jenkins
4 162 (4.06%) GitLab
5 62 (1.55%) Selenium
6 55 (1.38%) JUnit
7 48 (1.20%) Postman
8 40 (1.00%) Maven
9 38 (0.95%) Cucumber
10 36 (0.90%) MLflow
11 35 (0.88%) Mockito
12 30 (0.75%) Bitbucket
12 30 (0.75%) Oracle APEX
13 29 (0.73%) REST Assured
14 28 (0.70%) SonarQube
15 24 (0.60%) ERwin
15 24 (0.60%) JMeter
16 22 (0.55%) Oracle Forms
16 22 (0.55%) SpecFlow
16 22 (0.55%) Visual Studio
General
1 1,092 (27.38%) Social Skills
2 1,088 (27.28%) Finance
3 746 (18.70%) Analytical Skills
4 381 (9.55%) Banking
5 340 (8.52%) Public Sector
6 99 (2.48%) Front Office
7 98 (2.46%) Investment Banking
8 93 (2.33%) Marketing
9 86 (2.16%) Documentation Skills
10 62 (1.55%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 58 (1.45%) Retail
12 54 (1.35%) Legal
13 52 (1.30%) Financial Institution
14 38 (0.95%) Telecoms
15 34 (0.85%) Organisational Skills
15 34 (0.85%) Presentation Skills
15 34 (0.85%) Publishing
16 32 (0.80%) Local Government
17 31 (0.78%) Law
18 28 (0.70%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 870 (21.81%) Developer
2 795 (19.93%) Data Engineer
3 587 (14.72%) Analyst
4 493 (12.36%) Senior
5 275 (6.89%) Lead
6 248 (6.22%) Data Analyst
7 225 (5.64%) Architect
8 189 (4.74%) Business Analyst
9 178 (4.46%) Consultant
10 151 (3.79%) Java Developer
11 130 (3.26%) Senior Data Engineer
12 125 (3.13%) Senior Developer
13 122 (3.06%) DBA
14 115 (2.88%) Azure Engineer
15 111 (2.78%) Software Engineer
16 105 (2.63%) C# Developer
17 87 (2.18%) Data Scientist
18 86 (2.16%) Data Architect
19 84 (2.11%) Python Developer
20 83 (2.08%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 351 (8.80%) .NET
2 312 (7.82%) REST
3 247 (6.19%) Kafka
4 243 (6.09%) PySpark
5 192 (4.81%) React
6 187 (4.69%) Spring
7 176 (4.41%) Spring Boot
8 174 (4.36%) RESTful
9 142 (3.56%) HTML
10 141 (3.53%) XML
11 123 (3.08%) CSS
12 122 (3.06%) JSON
13 119 (2.98%) Pandas
14 110 (2.76%) AngularJS
15 89 (2.23%) Middleware
16 86 (2.16%) SOAP
17 85 (2.13%) .NET Framework
18 81 (2.03%) Node.js
19 72 (1.80%) Web Services
20 69 (1.73%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 256 (6.42%) Cloud Native
2 141 (3.53%) Data Structures
3 137 (3.43%) Legacy Systems
4 128 (3.21%) Product Ownership
5 98 (2.46%) Distributed Systems
6 88 (2.21%) Management Information System
7 73 (1.83%) Derivative
8 68 (1.70%) Data Protection Act
9 65 (1.63%) Onboarding
10 61 (1.53%) Analytical Mindset
11 55 (1.38%) Fixed Income
12 54 (1.35%) Equities
13 49 (1.23%) Clustering
14 48 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
15 47 (1.18%) Self-Motivation
16 45 (1.13%) Algorithms
17 41 (1.03%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
18 38 (0.95%) Greenfield Project
18 38 (0.95%) NHS
18 38 (0.95%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 284 (7.12%) Linux
2 245 (6.14%) Windows
3 199 (4.99%) Unix
4 77 (1.93%) Windows Server
5 23 (0.58%) 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
9 7 (0.18%) zOS
10 6 (0.15%) Solaris
10 6 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
11 4 (0.10%) Android
11 4 (0.10%) Apple iOS
12 3 (0.075%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.050%) CentOS
13 2 (0.050%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.050%) VMS
14 1 (0.025%) HPUX
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,083 (27.15%) CI/CD
2 1,029 (25.80%) Agile
3 1,028 (25.77%) Analytics
4 984 (24.67%) Data Modelling
5 944 (23.67%) ETL
6 924 (23.16%) Business Intelligence
7 912 (22.86%) DevOps
8 823 (20.63%) Problem-Solving
9 723 (18.12%) Data Pipeline
10 636 (15.94%) Data Engineering
11 497 (12.46%) AI
12 489 (12.26%) Migration
13 484 (12.13%) Validation
14 482 (12.08%) Data Governance
15 389 (9.75%) Decision-Making
16 382 (9.58%) Test Automation
17 369 (9.25%) Data Analysis
18 361 (9.05%) Performance Tuning
19 349 (8.75%) Microservices
20 336 (8.42%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 1,507 (37.78%) Python
2 541 (13.56%) Java
3 434 (10.88%) C#
4 316 (7.92%) JavaScript
5 306 (7.67%) PL/SQL
6 191 (4.79%) T-SQL
7 174 (4.36%) PowerShell
8 130 (3.26%) TypeScript
9 121 (3.03%) Shell Script
10 119 (2.98%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 117 (2.93%) R
12 91 (2.28%) Scala
13 73 (1.83%) Bash
14 59 (1.48%) C++
15 57 (1.43%) VBA
16 44 (1.10%) Bicep
17 42 (1.05%) Perl
18 29 (0.73%) VB
19 27 (0.68%) Go
20 22 (0.55%) C
Qualifications
1 844 (21.16%) Security Cleared
2 691 (17.32%) SC Cleared
3 320 (8.02%) Degree
4 112 (2.81%) Computer Science Degree
5 86 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 69 (1.73%) Azure Certification
7 52 (1.30%) Master's Degree
8 50 (1.25%) DV Cleared
9 49 (1.23%) ISTQB
10 40 (1.00%) Microsoft Certification
11 29 (0.73%) AWS Certification
12 17 (0.43%) PhD
13 15 (0.38%) Oracle Certification
14 14 (0.35%) CBAP
15 13 (0.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
16 11 (0.28%) CISSP
16 11 (0.28%) DBS Check
17 10 (0.25%) PMI Certification
17 10 (0.25%) PMP
18 9 (0.23%) CISM
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 713 (17.87%) Data Quality
2 307 (7.70%) QA
3 181 (4.54%) GDPR
4 42 (1.05%) Accessibility
5 35 (0.88%) SLA
6 32 (0.80%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 28 (0.70%) PMO
8 23 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 19 (0.48%) NIST
10 18 (0.45%) PCI DSS
11 16 (0.40%) HIPAA
12 15 (0.38%) California Consumer Privacy Act
12 15 (0.38%) MiFID
13 14 (0.35%) Actionable Recommendations
14 13 (0.33%) IFRS
15 12 (0.30%) HL7
15 12 (0.30%) ISO 20022
16 10 (0.25%) GRC
16 10 (0.25%) SEPA
17 9 (0.23%) Solvency II
System Software
1 459 (11.51%) Docker
2 93 (2.33%) Active Directory
3 35 (0.88%) Virtual Machines
4 23 (0.58%) Oracle RAC
5 20 (0.50%) VMware Infrastructure
6 17 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 10 (0.25%) KVM
8 8 (0.20%) Postfix
8 8 (0.20%) Virtual Desktop
9 6 (0.15%) HDFS
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%) GPFS
13 1 (0.025%) Slurm Workload Manager
13 1 (0.025%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 397 (9.95%) Kubernetes
2 333 (8.35%) Terraform
3 104 (2.61%) Grafana
4 64 (1.60%) Ansible
5 63 (1.58%) Prometheus
6 36 (0.90%) Oracle RMAN
7 25 (0.63%) Data Guard
8 19 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
9 18 (0.45%) Kibana
10 16 (0.40%) SCCM
11 15 (0.38%) Progress Chef
12 14 (0.35%) Control-M
13 11 (0.28%) ZABBIX
14 10 (0.25%) Nagios
14 10 (0.25%) Netcool
14 10 (0.25%) OpenView
14 10 (0.25%) Tivoli
14 10 (0.25%) Tivoli Monitoring
15 9 (0.23%) Kiali
16 8 (0.20%) Active Directory Federation Services
Vendors
1 663 (16.62%) Oracle
2 649 (16.27%) Microsoft
3 479 (12.01%) Databricks
4 156 (3.91%) Google
5 131 (3.28%) Informatica
6 122 (3.06%) ServiceNow
7 110 (2.76%) SAP
8 101 (2.53%) Talend
9 81 (2.03%) Splunk
10 65 (1.63%) IBM
11 61 (1.53%) Salesforce
12 53 (1.33%) Citrix
13 49 (1.23%) Denodo
14 42 (1.05%) OpenAI
15 36 (0.90%) Dynatrace
16 33 (0.83%) Bloomberg
16 33 (0.83%) MuleSoft
16 33 (0.83%) VMware
17 29 (0.73%) HP
18 28 (0.70%) Sage