SQL Contract Job Trends in London

SQL (Structured Query Language)
England > London

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in London requiring SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 9 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
9 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,043 1,993 2,392
As % of all contract jobs in London 14.35% 14.12% 13.33%
As % of the Programming Languages category 38.63% 37.09% 37.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,377 1,389 1,774
10th Percentile £363 £363 £385
25th Percentile £413 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -9.09% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £688
90th Percentile £738 £769 £775
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 22 25
10th Percentile £18.25 £36.00 £25.97
25th Percentile £26.50 £40.62 £35.63
Median hourly rate £40.49 £50.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.02% +11.11% -20.35%
75th Percentile £47.50 £60.25 £54.13
90th Percentile £64.35 £78.50 £64.52
England median hourly rate £49.36 £52.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -5.98% +16.67% -2.17%

All Programming Languages
London

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 London.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 5,289 5,373 6,332
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 37.15% 38.08% 35.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,549 3,587 4,783
10th Percentile £363 £374 £392
25th Percentile £425 £461 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £563 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.44% -2.17% -4.17%
75th Percentile £670 £697 £700
90th Percentile £781 £825 £800
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 34 63
10th Percentile £25.82 £35.23 £26.24
25th Percentile £35.25 £40.62 £36.27
Median hourly rate £54.00 £52.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year +2.86% +3.96% -12.17%
75th Percentile £66.50 £69.50 £63.13
90th Percentile £82.25 £97.50 £72.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -3.85%

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in London.

SQL job vacancy trend in London

SQL
Daily Rate Trend in London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL

SQL
Daily Rate Histogram in London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL in London over the 6 months to 9 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL in London

SQL
Hourly Rate Trend in London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in London citing SQL

SQL
Hourly Rate Histogram in London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in London over the 6 months to 9 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in London

SQL
Contract Job Locations in London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL within the London region over the 6 months to 9 January 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
Central London 0 276 £531 -8.80% 227
South London +21 49 £475 -5.00% 32
West London -7 29 £513 +2.50% 34
East London 0 19 £450 +12.50% 25
North London +4 1 - - 2
SQL
England

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in London 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
1 113 (5.53%) Apache Spark
2 89 (4.36%) Apache Airflow
3 74 (3.62%) Confluence
4 44 (2.15%) Apache
5 42 (2.06%) SharePoint
6 17 (0.83%) IIS
7 16 (0.78%) nginx
8 14 (0.69%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 13 (0.64%) Oracle Workflow
9 13 (0.64%) SAS
10 12 (0.59%) HCL Notes
10 12 (0.59%) Jupyter
11 9 (0.44%) Mendix
12 8 (0.39%) MQSeries
13 7 (0.34%) Skype for Business
14 6 (0.29%) Mattermost
14 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
14 6 (0.29%) Tomcat
15 4 (0.20%) Anypoint
15 4 (0.20%) Appian
Applications
1 143 (7.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 34 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (1.42%) MS Visio
4 24 (1.17%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.49%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (0.49%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
6 5 (0.24%) Trello
7 3 (0.15%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.15%) Notion
8 1 (0.049%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 24 (1.17%) Oracle General Ledger
2 23 (1.13%) Oracle Payables
3 22 (1.08%) Aladdin
4 21 (1.03%) Oracle EBS
5 18 (0.88%) Oracle Assets
6 17 (0.83%) Endur
7 14 (0.69%) Oracle Financials
7 14 (0.69%) Oracle Receivables
8 13 (0.64%) Dynamics CRM
8 13 (0.64%) NetSuite
8 13 (0.64%) Oracle EBS R12
9 9 (0.44%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 9 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.44%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 9 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
10 8 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.39%) SAP HR
11 7 (0.34%) Oracle Cash Management
11 7 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 5 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 648 (31.72%) Azure
2 485 (23.74%) AWS
3 384 (18.80%) Power Platform
4 170 (8.32%) GitHub
5 169 (8.27%) Azure DevOps
5 169 (8.27%) Snowflake
6 153 (7.49%) Azure Data Factory
7 148 (7.24%) GCP
8 143 (7.00%) Serverless
9 131 (6.41%) Amazon S3
10 106 (5.19%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 82 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
12 80 (3.92%) dbt
13 75 (3.67%) AWS Lambda
14 57 (2.79%) Azure Functions
14 57 (2.79%) SaaS
15 44 (2.15%) Azure Logic Apps
16 43 (2.10%) Power Automate
17 41 (2.01%) Microsoft 365
18 38 (1.86%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.57%) Firewall
2 23 (1.13%) HTTP
3 20 (0.98%) DNS
4 14 (0.69%) SSH
5 11 (0.54%) Internet
5 11 (0.54%) Network Security
5 11 (0.54%) SMTP
6 10 (0.49%) FTP
6 10 (0.49%) IMAP
6 10 (0.49%) OpenLDAP
7 9 (0.44%) VPN
8 8 (0.39%) Multicast
8 8 (0.39%) SMS
9 7 (0.34%) Skype
10 6 (0.29%) Unified Communications
11 5 (0.24%) LAN
11 5 (0.24%) WAN
12 4 (0.20%) 2G
12 4 (0.20%) 4G
12 4 (0.20%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 353 (17.28%) Power BI
2 250 (12.24%) Data Warehouse
3 237 (11.60%) SQL Server
4 149 (7.29%) PostgreSQL
5 148 (7.24%) NoSQL
5 148 (7.24%) Relational Database
6 144 (7.05%) Tableau
7 130 (6.36%) Data Lake
8 101 (4.94%) Oracle Database
9 100 (4.89%) Azure SQL Database
10 91 (4.45%) Metadata
11 76 (3.72%) Big Data
11 76 (3.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 66 (3.23%) BigQuery
13 58 (2.84%) Amazon Redshift
14 47 (2.30%) MongoDB
15 44 (2.15%) Amazon RDS
16 41 (2.01%) Amazon Athena
17 40 (1.96%) Oracle Reports
17 40 (1.96%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 211 (10.33%) Git
2 159 (7.78%) JIRA
3 84 (4.11%) Jenkins
4 65 (3.18%) GitLab
5 38 (1.86%) JUnit
6 25 (1.22%) Selenium
7 20 (0.98%) Bitbucket
7 20 (0.98%) SpecFlow
8 19 (0.93%) Cypress.io
8 19 (0.93%) ERwin
9 17 (0.83%) Postman
10 16 (0.78%) Cucumber
11 15 (0.73%) Maven
11 15 (0.73%) MLflow
12 14 (0.69%) Mockito
12 14 (0.69%) Oracle Forms
12 14 (0.69%) TeamCity
13 13 (0.64%) Visual Studio
14 12 (0.59%) SonarQube
15 11 (0.54%) ER Studio
General
1 693 (33.92%) Finance
2 618 (30.25%) Social Skills
3 364 (17.82%) Analytical Skills
4 282 (13.80%) Banking
5 132 (6.46%) Public Sector
6 112 (5.48%) Investment Banking
7 94 (4.60%) Front Office
8 58 (2.84%) Marketing
9 47 (2.30%) Documentation Skills
10 41 (2.01%) Financial Institution
11 39 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 35 (1.71%) Retail
13 25 (1.22%) Back Office
13 25 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
14 23 (1.13%) General Ledger
15 22 (1.08%) Legal
16 16 (0.78%) Publishing
17 15 (0.73%) Law
17 15 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
18 14 (0.69%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 517 (25.31%) Developer
2 368 (18.01%) Analyst
3 309 (15.12%) Data Engineer
4 277 (13.56%) Senior
5 152 (7.44%) Business Analyst
6 140 (6.85%) Data Analyst
7 136 (6.66%) Lead
8 98 (4.80%) Architect
9 82 (4.01%) Consultant
10 74 (3.62%) Java Developer
11 72 (3.52%) Senior Developer
12 67 (3.28%) Azure Engineer
13 62 (3.03%) C# Developer
14 61 (2.99%) Software Engineer
15 52 (2.55%) Python Developer
16 50 (2.45%) Azure Data Engineer
17 49 (2.40%) .NET Developer
18 48 (2.35%) Data Architect
18 48 (2.35%) Senior Analyst
18 48 (2.35%) Senior Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 198 (9.69%) .NET
2 163 (7.98%) Kafka
3 139 (6.80%) REST
4 132 (6.46%) PySpark
5 86 (4.21%) RESTful
6 81 (3.96%) React
7 78 (3.82%) XML
8 76 (3.72%) HTML
9 70 (3.43%) CSS
10 69 (3.38%) Node.js
11 68 (3.33%) Spring
12 58 (2.84%) JSON
13 55 (2.69%) AngularJS
14 53 (2.59%) Pandas
15 49 (2.40%) .NET Framework
16 48 (2.35%) Spring Boot
17 46 (2.25%) Middleware
18 41 (2.01%) NumPy
19 39 (1.91%) SOAP
20 37 (1.81%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 112 (5.48%) Cloud Native
2 69 (3.38%) Data Structures
3 58 (2.84%) Derivative
4 54 (2.64%) Data Protection Act
5 52 (2.55%) Legacy Systems
6 51 (2.50%) Analytical Mindset
6 51 (2.50%) Equities
6 51 (2.50%) Product Ownership
7 50 (2.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 48 (2.35%) Management Information System
9 47 (2.30%) Fixed Income
10 39 (1.91%) Market Risk
11 38 (1.86%) Onboarding
12 37 (1.81%) Algorithms
13 36 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
14 27 (1.32%) Replication
15 26 (1.27%) Hedge funds
15 26 (1.27%) Self-Motivation
16 23 (1.13%) SWIFT Messaging Network
17 22 (1.08%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 191 (9.35%) Linux
2 128 (6.27%) Windows
3 121 (5.92%) Unix
4 28 (1.37%) Windows Server
5 15 (0.73%) VMS
6 12 (0.59%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.54%) Android
8 10 (0.49%) Amazon Linux
8 10 (0.49%) Windows Server 2016
9 7 (0.34%) Windows 10
10 6 (0.29%) AIX
11 5 (0.24%) Apple iOS
11 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
12 4 (0.20%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
13 1 (0.049%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.049%) Solaris
13 1 (0.049%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.049%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 558 (27.31%) Agile
2 491 (24.03%) Analytics
3 457 (22.37%) Business Intelligence
4 454 (22.22%) Data Modelling
5 439 (21.49%) Problem-Solving
6 429 (21.00%) CI/CD
7 407 (19.92%) ETL
8 393 (19.24%) DevOps
9 305 (14.93%) Data Pipeline
10 281 (13.75%) Data Engineering
11 249 (12.19%) Data Governance
12 241 (11.80%) Migration
13 217 (10.62%) AI
14 209 (10.23%) Data Analysis
15 195 (9.54%) Validation
16 192 (9.40%) Visualisation
17 185 (9.06%) Data Science
18 174 (8.52%) Stakeholder Management
19 173 (8.47%) Decision-Making
20 163 (7.98%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 822 (40.23%) Python
2 284 (13.90%) Java
3 265 (12.97%) C#
4 166 (8.13%) JavaScript
5 133 (6.51%) PL/SQL
6 96 (4.70%) PowerShell
7 88 (4.31%) TypeScript
8 72 (3.52%) C++
9 66 (3.23%) T-SQL
10 61 (2.99%) R
11 56 (2.74%) Scala
12 50 (2.45%) VBA
13 46 (2.25%) Shell Script
14 44 (2.15%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 43 (2.10%) VB
16 36 (1.76%) Bash
17 31 (1.52%) Bicep
18 22 (1.08%) Perl
19 21 (1.03%) Groovy
20 18 (0.88%) Korn
Qualifications
1 267 (13.07%) Security Cleared
2 208 (10.18%) SC Cleared
3 179 (8.76%) Degree
4 63 (3.08%) Computer Science Degree
5 49 (2.40%) Azure Certification
6 36 (1.76%) AWS Certification
7 30 (1.47%) Master's Degree
8 24 (1.17%) ISTQB
9 19 (0.93%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (0.88%) CBAP
10 18 (0.88%) Microsoft Certification
11 17 (0.83%) DV Cleared
12 12 (0.59%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 12 (0.59%) PMI Certification
13 11 (0.54%) CFA
14 9 (0.44%) PMP
15 8 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
16 6 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
16 6 (0.29%) ISEB
16 6 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 318 (15.57%) Data Quality
2 154 (7.54%) QA
3 82 (4.01%) GDPR
4 37 (1.81%) Accessibility
5 23 (1.13%) MiFID
6 18 (0.88%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 17 (0.83%) EMIR
8 10 (0.49%) IFRS
8 10 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 9 (0.44%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.44%) NIST
10 8 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.39%) SLA
11 7 (0.34%) Basel III
11 7 (0.34%) IFRS 9
11 7 (0.34%) SEPA
12 6 (0.29%) GAAP
12 6 (0.29%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 203 (9.94%) Docker
2 51 (2.50%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.49%) DFS Replication
3 10 (0.49%) Dovecot
3 10 (0.49%) Postfix
3 10 (0.49%) Squid
3 10 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (0.39%) HDFS
4 8 (0.39%) zsh
5 7 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
6 5 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.20%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.20%) VMware Workstation
7 4 (0.20%) XenApp
7 4 (0.20%) XenDesktop
8 2 (0.098%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.049%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.049%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 168 (8.22%) Kubernetes
2 155 (7.59%) Terraform
3 30 (1.47%) Grafana
4 24 (1.17%) Ansible
5 21 (1.03%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.69%) HP SiteScope
6 14 (0.69%) SCOM
7 13 (0.64%) Control-M
8 12 (0.59%) SCCM
9 11 (0.54%) ITRS Geneos
10 10 (0.49%) Nessus
10 10 (0.49%) Proxmox
11 9 (0.44%) Kibana
12 8 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
13 7 (0.34%) Puppet
14 6 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
14 6 (0.29%) logstash
14 6 (0.29%) ZABBIX
15 4 (0.20%) HP ALM
15 4 (0.20%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 303 (14.83%) Oracle
2 289 (14.15%) Microsoft
3 249 (12.19%) Databricks
4 68 (3.33%) Google
5 57 (2.79%) SAP
6 49 (2.40%) Salesforce
7 37 (1.81%) ServiceNow
8 36 (1.76%) Citrix
9 35 (1.71%) Splunk
10 31 (1.52%) OpenAI
11 30 (1.47%) IBM
12 25 (1.22%) Informatica
13 24 (1.17%) Bloomberg
14 23 (1.13%) MuleSoft
15 17 (0.83%) Adobe
16 15 (0.73%) Palantir
16 15 (0.73%) Sybase
17 14 (0.69%) Alteryx
17 14 (0.69%) Dynatrace
17 14 (0.69%) Murex