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

6 months to
18 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 16 12 11
Rank change year-on-year -4 -1 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 3,838 2,979 3,784
As % of all contract jobs in England 10.39% 12.16% 9.98%
As % of the Programming Languages category 36.01% 35.91% 34.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,643 2,071 2,751
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 £705 £750 £750
UK median daily rate £500 £500 £525
% change year-on-year - -4.76% -2.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 61 63
10th Percentile £21.01 £23.00 £21.66
25th Percentile £34.01 £29.07 £26.02
Median hourly rate £45.00 £45.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year - +5.88% -15.42%
75th Percentile £70.00 £65.00 £53.75
90th Percentile £82.25 £77.19 £61.48
UK median hourly rate £48.11 £44.75 £42.50
% change year-on-year +7.51% +5.29% -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 10,659 8,295 10,957
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 28.86% 33.85% 28.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,088 5,593 7,919
10th Percentile £351 £360 £350
25th Percentile £414 £425 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -3.81% -2.33% -6.44%
75th Percentile £613 £650 £656
90th Percentile £725 £775 £768
UK median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 459 216 449
10th Percentile £41.94 £25.25 £35.00
25th Percentile £55.00 £38.22 £46.25
Median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.76%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.40 £85.00 £75.00
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 18 March 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 18 March 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 18 March 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 2,280 £513 -6.82% 848
Midlands +4 462 £472 +2.61% 256
North of England -10 426 £450 -7.55% 414
West Midlands +7 371 £466 -3.74% 156
South East -20 287 £493 -1.50% 520
North West 0 244 £447 -5.89% 221
South West -5 199 £475 -7.32% 154
Yorkshire -23 160 £475 -5.00% 131
East Midlands -9 89 £537 +37.34% 99
East of England -20 78 £500 +6.95% 109
North East 0 33 £475 +5.56% 68
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
1 217 (5.65%) Apache Spark
2 157 (4.09%) Apache Airflow
3 130 (3.39%) Apache
4 120 (3.13%) Confluence
5 78 (2.03%) SharePoint
6 75 (1.95%) SAS
7 48 (1.25%) WebLogic
8 28 (0.73%) IIS
9 23 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
10 22 (0.57%) Tomcat
11 19 (0.50%) Jupyter
12 17 (0.44%) CMS
13 16 (0.42%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.39%) Tuxedo
15 13 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
16 12 (0.31%) Appian
16 12 (0.31%) HCL Notes
16 12 (0.31%) Oracle SOA Suite
16 12 (0.31%) WebSphere
17 11 (0.29%) Mendix
Applications
1 264 (6.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 59 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
3 47 (1.22%) MS Visio
4 37 (0.96%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 14 (0.36%) Spreadsheet
6 12 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 8 (0.21%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.078%) Notion
8 3 (0.078%) Oracle Smart View
8 3 (0.078%) Trello
9 1 (0.026%) InDesign
9 1 (0.026%) Mingle
9 1 (0.026%) SPSS
9 1 (0.026%) Weka
Business Applications
1 28 (0.73%) Aladdin
2 27 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
3 25 (0.65%) Oracle Payables
4 22 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
5 20 (0.52%) NEC Housing
5 20 (0.52%) Oracle General Ledger
6 19 (0.50%) Dynamics CRM
7 16 (0.42%) Oracle EBS R12
7 16 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
8 15 (0.39%) Oracle Assets
9 13 (0.34%) NetSuite
9 13 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
10 11 (0.29%) Oracle Cash Management
10 11 (0.29%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
10 11 (0.29%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
11 9 (0.23%) Advent Geneva
12 8 (0.21%) Endur
12 8 (0.21%) Oracle 11i
12 8 (0.21%) Remedy ITSM
12 8 (0.21%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,350 (35.17%) Azure
2 939 (24.47%) AWS
3 737 (19.20%) Power Platform
4 399 (10.40%) Azure DevOps
5 321 (8.36%) Azure Data Factory
6 320 (8.34%) GCP
7 311 (8.10%) GitHub
8 275 (7.17%) Serverless
9 259 (6.75%) Snowflake
10 216 (5.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 205 (5.34%) Amazon S3
12 161 (4.19%) dbt
13 158 (4.12%) GitHub Actions
14 143 (3.73%) AWS Lambda
15 96 (2.50%) SaaS
16 88 (2.29%) Azure Functions
17 85 (2.21%) Power Automate
18 73 (1.90%) AWS CloudFormation
19 70 (1.82%) Entra ID
20 68 (1.77%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 52 (1.35%) Firewall
2 41 (1.07%) DNS
3 22 (0.57%) Network Security
4 19 (0.50%) HTTP
5 18 (0.47%) TCP/IP
6 15 (0.39%) Internet
6 15 (0.39%) VPN
6 15 (0.39%) WAN
7 13 (0.34%) 5G
7 13 (0.34%) SSL
8 12 (0.31%) DHCP
8 12 (0.31%) LAN
9 10 (0.26%) 4G
10 9 (0.23%) 2G
10 9 (0.23%) Radio Access Network
11 8 (0.21%) SMS
12 7 (0.18%) SNMP
12 7 (0.18%) Wi-Fi
13 6 (0.16%) Multicast
13 6 (0.16%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 674 (17.56%) Power BI
2 478 (12.45%) Data Warehouse
3 449 (11.70%) SQL Server
4 264 (6.88%) NoSQL
5 258 (6.72%) Relational Database
6 249 (6.49%) PostgreSQL
7 244 (6.36%) Data Lake
8 242 (6.31%) Tableau
9 210 (5.47%) Azure SQL Database
10 188 (4.90%) Metadata
11 143 (3.73%) Oracle Database
12 140 (3.65%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 119 (3.10%) Big Data
13 119 (3.10%) BigQuery
14 110 (2.87%) MySQL
15 108 (2.81%) Delta Lake
16 104 (2.71%) Amazon Redshift
17 99 (2.58%) MongoDB
18 96 (2.50%) Amazon RDS
19 81 (2.11%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 432 (11.26%) Git
2 303 (7.89%) JIRA
3 209 (5.45%) Jenkins
4 156 (4.06%) GitLab
5 61 (1.59%) JUnit
6 58 (1.51%) Selenium
7 44 (1.15%) Postman
8 41 (1.07%) Oracle APEX
9 38 (0.99%) Cucumber
10 37 (0.96%) MLflow
11 32 (0.83%) Maven
12 29 (0.76%) Mockito
12 29 (0.76%) REST Assured
13 25 (0.65%) Bitbucket
13 25 (0.65%) ERwin
14 24 (0.63%) Cypress.io
15 23 (0.60%) Visual Studio
16 22 (0.57%) SpecFlow
17 21 (0.55%) JMeter
18 19 (0.50%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 1,109 (28.90%) Social Skills
2 1,057 (27.54%) Finance
3 704 (18.34%) Analytical Skills
4 394 (10.27%) Banking
5 343 (8.94%) Public Sector
6 101 (2.63%) Investment Banking
7 99 (2.58%) Front Office
8 96 (2.50%) Documentation Skills
9 82 (2.14%) Marketing
10 60 (1.56%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 60 (1.56%) Retail
11 53 (1.38%) Financial Institution
11 53 (1.38%) Legal
12 39 (1.02%) Publishing
13 38 (0.99%) Presentation Skills
14 36 (0.94%) Telecoms
15 34 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
16 31 (0.81%) Law
16 31 (0.81%) Manufacturing
17 27 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
Job Titles
1 894 (23.29%) Developer
2 714 (18.60%) Data Engineer
3 547 (14.25%) Analyst
4 496 (12.92%) Senior
5 283 (7.37%) Lead
6 233 (6.07%) Data Analyst
7 208 (5.42%) Architect
8 195 (5.08%) Business Analyst
9 163 (4.25%) Consultant
10 144 (3.75%) Senior Developer
11 134 (3.49%) Java Developer
12 116 (3.02%) Azure Engineer
13 107 (2.79%) Senior Data Engineer
14 106 (2.76%) Software Engineer
15 101 (2.63%) C# Developer
16 99 (2.58%) DBA
17 89 (2.32%) Full-Stack Developer
18 87 (2.27%) Data Scientist
19 86 (2.24%) Python Developer
20 84 (2.19%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 334 (8.70%) .NET
2 303 (7.89%) REST
3 255 (6.64%) Kafka
4 241 (6.28%) PySpark
5 184 (4.79%) React
6 177 (4.61%) RESTful
7 162 (4.22%) Spring
8 149 (3.88%) XML
9 145 (3.78%) Spring Boot
10 131 (3.41%) HTML
11 116 (3.02%) Pandas
12 115 (3.00%) JSON
13 112 (2.92%) AngularJS
13 112 (2.92%) CSS
14 95 (2.48%) Node.js
15 82 (2.14%) .NET Framework
16 77 (2.01%) Middleware
17 75 (1.95%) SOAP
18 73 (1.90%) scikit-learn
19 72 (1.88%) NumPy
Miscellaneous
1 258 (6.72%) Cloud Native
2 129 (3.36%) Data Structures
3 126 (3.28%) Legacy Systems
4 111 (2.89%) Product Ownership
5 82 (2.14%) Management Information System
6 78 (2.03%) Distributed Systems
7 73 (1.90%) Data Protection Act
8 72 (1.88%) Derivative
9 67 (1.75%) Analytical Mindset
10 62 (1.62%) Equities
11 58 (1.51%) Algorithms
11 58 (1.51%) Fixed Income
12 56 (1.46%) Onboarding
13 50 (1.30%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 42 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
15 41 (1.07%) Clustering
15 41 (1.07%) Enterprise Software
16 40 (1.04%) Replication
17 35 (0.91%) Market Risk
18 30 (0.78%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 281 (7.32%) Linux
2 224 (5.84%) Windows
3 183 (4.77%) Unix
4 75 (1.95%) Windows Server
5 17 (0.44%) AIX
5 17 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 13 (0.34%) Windows Server 2019
7 12 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
8 10 (0.26%) Windows 10
9 6 (0.16%) Android
9 6 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
10 5 (0.13%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.13%) zOS
11 4 (0.10%) Solaris
11 4 (0.10%) Windows Server 2008
12 3 (0.078%) CentOS
12 3 (0.078%) VMS
13 2 (0.052%) Data ONTAP
13 2 (0.052%) Oracle Linux
13 2 (0.052%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,029 (26.81%) Agile
2 1,026 (26.73%) CI/CD
3 1,002 (26.11%) Analytics
4 927 (24.15%) Data Modelling
5 891 (23.22%) Business Intelligence
6 890 (23.19%) DevOps
7 883 (23.01%) ETL
8 833 (21.70%) Problem-Solving
9 644 (16.78%) Data Pipeline
10 600 (15.63%) Data Engineering
11 465 (12.12%) Migration
12 461 (12.01%) AI
13 456 (11.88%) Data Governance
14 422 (11.00%) Validation
15 379 (9.87%) Data Analysis
16 366 (9.54%) Test Automation
17 349 (9.09%) Decision-Making
18 347 (9.04%) Data Science
19 338 (8.81%) Visualisation
20 328 (8.55%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 1,443 (37.60%) Python
2 532 (13.86%) Java
3 411 (10.71%) C#
4 314 (8.18%) JavaScript
5 273 (7.11%) PL/SQL
6 161 (4.19%) T-SQL
7 149 (3.88%) PowerShell
8 145 (3.78%) TypeScript
9 110 (2.87%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 108 (2.81%) Shell Script
11 102 (2.66%) R
12 95 (2.48%) Scala
13 66 (1.72%) Bash
13 66 (1.72%) C++
14 60 (1.56%) VBA
15 47 (1.22%) Bicep
16 46 (1.20%) Perl
17 40 (1.04%) VB
18 37 (0.96%) Go
19 26 (0.68%) PHP
Qualifications
1 769 (20.04%) Security Cleared
2 609 (15.87%) SC Cleared
3 332 (8.65%) Degree
4 112 (2.92%) Computer Science Degree
5 81 (2.11%) BPSS Clearance
6 67 (1.75%) Azure Certification
7 57 (1.49%) Master's Degree
8 51 (1.33%) DV Cleared
8 51 (1.33%) ISTQB
9 41 (1.07%) Microsoft Certification
10 40 (1.04%) AWS Certification
11 21 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 16 (0.42%) CBAP
13 15 (0.39%) PhD
14 14 (0.36%) Oracle Certification
15 10 (0.26%) ISEB
15 10 (0.26%) PMP
16 9 (0.23%) PMI Certification
17 8 (0.21%) CFA
17 8 (0.21%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 676 (17.61%) Data Quality
2 285 (7.43%) QA
3 164 (4.27%) GDPR
4 60 (1.56%) Accessibility
5 28 (0.73%) SLA
6 25 (0.65%) PMO
6 25 (0.65%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 21 (0.55%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 20 (0.52%) MiFID
9 17 (0.44%) NIST
10 16 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
11 15 (0.39%) PCI DSS
12 14 (0.36%) HIPAA
12 14 (0.36%) WCAG
13 12 (0.31%) California Consumer Privacy Act
13 12 (0.31%) IFRS
13 12 (0.31%) SEPA
14 11 (0.29%) EMIR
15 10 (0.26%) ISO 20022
15 10 (0.26%) Solvency II
System Software
1 446 (11.62%) Docker
2 95 (2.48%) Active Directory
3 31 (0.81%) Virtual Machines
4 17 (0.44%) VMware Infrastructure
5 16 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
6 12 (0.31%) Hyper-V
7 8 (0.21%) HDFS
7 8 (0.21%) Virtual Desktop
8 6 (0.16%) KVM
9 5 (0.13%) RACF
9 5 (0.13%) XenApp
9 5 (0.13%) XenDesktop
10 4 (0.10%) Postfix
11 3 (0.078%) Oracle Clusterware
11 3 (0.078%) VMware ESXi
12 2 (0.052%) VMware NSX
12 2 (0.052%) vSphere
13 1 (0.026%) GPFS
13 1 (0.026%) Lustre
13 1 (0.026%) Slurm Workload Manager
Systems Management
1 405 (10.55%) Kubernetes
2 305 (7.95%) Terraform
3 85 (2.21%) Grafana
4 65 (1.69%) Ansible
5 61 (1.59%) Prometheus
6 23 (0.60%) Oracle RMAN
7 22 (0.57%) Single Sign-On
8 17 (0.44%) Progress Chef
9 16 (0.42%) SCCM
10 15 (0.39%) Data Guard
11 12 (0.31%) Control-M
11 12 (0.31%) Kibana
12 10 (0.26%) Puppet
13 9 (0.23%) HP Quality Center
13 9 (0.23%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
14 8 (0.21%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 8 (0.21%) Kiali
14 8 (0.21%) Microsoft Intune
14 8 (0.21%) ZABBIX
15 7 (0.18%) vCenter Server
Vendors
1 624 (16.26%) Microsoft
2 617 (16.08%) Oracle
3 469 (12.22%) Databricks
4 164 (4.27%) Google
5 110 (2.87%) Informatica
6 107 (2.79%) ServiceNow
7 98 (2.55%) SAP
8 95 (2.48%) Talend
9 67 (1.75%) Splunk
10 61 (1.59%) Salesforce
11 57 (1.49%) IBM
12 50 (1.30%) Citrix
13 47 (1.22%) OpenAI
14 41 (1.07%) MuleSoft
15 40 (1.04%) Denodo
16 35 (0.91%) Bloomberg
17 29 (0.76%) Foundry
17 29 (0.76%) VMware
18 26 (0.68%) Dynatrace
18 26 (0.68%) Palantir