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 2 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 8 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,093 2,034 2,470
As % of all contract jobs in London 14.51% 14.04% 13.49%
As % of the Programming Languages category 38.74% 36.83% 37.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,414 1,417 1,837
10th Percentile £359 £363 £385
25th Percentile £413 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £506 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -7.95% -4.35% -3.36%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £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 26 22 26
10th Percentile £18.25 £36.00 £26.02
25th Percentile £27.62 £40.62 £35.79
Median hourly rate £40.50 £50.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -19.01% +5.26% -18.10%
75th Percentile £47.50 £60.25 £61.75
90th Percentile £64.25 £78.50 £66.00
England median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £45.88
% change year-on-year -4.76% +14.43% -0.26%

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 5,402 5,523 6,530
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 37.46% 38.11% 35.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,631 3,690 4,927
10th Percentile £363 £373 £395
25th Percentile £425 £463 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £564 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.70% -1.91% -4.17%
75th Percentile £671 £699 £700
90th Percentile £788 £825 £800
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 37 66
10th Percentile £25.93 £35.45 £26.25
25th Percentile £35.50 £40.06 £36.42
Median hourly rate £54.25 £52.50 £51.13
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% +2.69% -11.09%
75th Percentile £66.19 £68.75 £64.88
90th Percentile £81.38 £97.50 £72.25
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -3.47%

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 2 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 2 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 2 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 -1 288 £525 -10.26% 212
South London +20 49 £475 -5.00% 32
West London -10 29 £513 +2.50% 72
East London +1 21 £463 +15.63% 35
North London +4 1 - - 6
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
1 117 (5.59%) Apache Spark
2 92 (4.40%) Apache Airflow
3 76 (3.63%) Confluence
4 45 (2.15%) Apache
5 42 (2.01%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.86%) IIS
7 16 (0.76%) nginx
8 14 (0.67%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 14 (0.67%) Oracle Workflow
9 13 (0.62%) SAS
10 12 (0.57%) HCL Notes
10 12 (0.57%) Jupyter
11 8 (0.38%) Mendix
11 8 (0.38%) MQSeries
12 7 (0.33%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.29%) Mattermost
13 6 (0.29%) Microsoft Exchange
13 6 (0.29%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.19%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.19%) WebSphere
Applications
1 144 (6.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.58%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.34%) MS Visio
4 24 (1.15%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.48%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
7 4 (0.19%) Trello
8 3 (0.14%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.14%) Notion
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 25 (1.19%) Oracle EBS
2 24 (1.15%) Aladdin
2 24 (1.15%) Oracle General Ledger
2 24 (1.15%) Oracle Payables
3 20 (0.96%) Endur
4 19 (0.91%) Oracle Assets
5 16 (0.76%) Oracle EBS R12
6 15 (0.72%) Oracle Receivables
7 14 (0.67%) NetSuite
7 14 (0.67%) Oracle Financials
8 13 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
9 9 (0.43%) Oracle E-Business Tax
9 9 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 9 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
10 8 (0.38%) Oracle Cash Management
10 8 (0.38%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 8 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.38%) SAP HR
11 5 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 664 (31.72%) Azure
2 496 (23.70%) AWS
3 391 (18.68%) Power Platform
4 173 (8.27%) Azure DevOps
4 173 (8.27%) Snowflake
5 172 (8.22%) GitHub
6 152 (7.26%) Azure Data Factory
6 152 (7.26%) GCP
7 145 (6.93%) Serverless
8 133 (6.35%) Amazon S3
9 111 (5.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 83 (3.97%) dbt
10 83 (3.97%) GitHub Actions
11 76 (3.63%) AWS Lambda
12 59 (2.82%) Azure Functions
13 56 (2.68%) SaaS
14 44 (2.10%) Azure Logic Apps
15 42 (2.01%) Power Automate
16 40 (1.91%) Azure Cosmos DB
16 40 (1.91%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.53%) Firewall
2 23 (1.10%) HTTP
3 21 (1.00%) DNS
4 14 (0.67%) SSH
5 12 (0.57%) Internet
6 11 (0.53%) Network Security
6 11 (0.53%) SMTP
7 10 (0.48%) FTP
7 10 (0.48%) IMAP
7 10 (0.48%) OpenLDAP
8 9 (0.43%) VPN
9 8 (0.38%) Multicast
9 8 (0.38%) SMS
10 7 (0.33%) Skype
11 6 (0.29%) Unified Communications
12 5 (0.24%) LAN
12 5 (0.24%) WAN
13 4 (0.19%) 2G
13 4 (0.19%) 4G
13 4 (0.19%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 360 (17.20%) Power BI
2 253 (12.09%) Data Warehouse
3 244 (11.66%) SQL Server
4 157 (7.50%) PostgreSQL
5 152 (7.26%) NoSQL
6 151 (7.21%) Relational Database
7 146 (6.98%) Tableau
8 132 (6.31%) Data Lake
9 104 (4.97%) Oracle Database
10 102 (4.87%) Azure SQL Database
11 94 (4.49%) Metadata
12 79 (3.77%) Big Data
13 78 (3.73%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 70 (3.34%) BigQuery
15 60 (2.87%) Amazon Redshift
16 50 (2.39%) MongoDB
17 45 (2.15%) Amazon RDS
18 43 (2.05%) Amazon Athena
18 43 (2.05%) Oracle Reports
19 41 (1.96%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 218 (10.42%) Git
2 162 (7.74%) JIRA
3 88 (4.20%) Jenkins
4 66 (3.15%) GitLab
5 41 (1.96%) JUnit
6 28 (1.34%) Selenium
7 21 (1.00%) Postman
8 20 (0.96%) Bitbucket
8 20 (0.96%) Cypress.io
8 20 (0.96%) SpecFlow
9 19 (0.91%) ERwin
10 18 (0.86%) Cucumber
10 18 (0.86%) Maven
11 16 (0.76%) Mockito
11 16 (0.76%) Oracle Forms
12 14 (0.67%) MLflow
12 14 (0.67%) SonarQube
12 14 (0.67%) TeamCity
13 12 (0.57%) Visual Studio
14 11 (0.53%) ER Studio
General
1 714 (34.11%) Finance
2 637 (30.43%) Social Skills
3 370 (17.68%) Analytical Skills
4 289 (13.81%) Banking
5 135 (6.45%) Public Sector
6 116 (5.54%) Investment Banking
7 97 (4.63%) Front Office
8 59 (2.82%) Marketing
9 48 (2.29%) Documentation Skills
10 40 (1.91%) Financial Institution
10 40 (1.91%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 35 (1.67%) Retail
12 31 (1.48%) Back Office
13 25 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
14 24 (1.15%) General Ledger
15 22 (1.05%) Legal
16 16 (0.76%) Law
16 16 (0.76%) Publishing
17 15 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
17 15 (0.72%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 539 (25.75%) Developer
2 380 (18.16%) Analyst
3 313 (14.95%) Data Engineer
4 282 (13.47%) Senior
5 158 (7.55%) Business Analyst
6 144 (6.88%) Data Analyst
7 136 (6.50%) Lead
8 98 (4.68%) Architect
9 85 (4.06%) Consultant
10 79 (3.77%) Java Developer
11 75 (3.58%) Senior Developer
12 67 (3.20%) Azure Engineer
13 62 (2.96%) C# Developer
14 61 (2.91%) Software Engineer
15 54 (2.58%) Python Developer
16 53 (2.53%) .NET Developer
17 50 (2.39%) Azure Data Engineer
18 48 (2.29%) Data Architect
18 48 (2.29%) Senior Analyst
18 48 (2.29%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 204 (9.75%) .NET
2 172 (8.22%) Kafka
3 142 (6.78%) REST
4 136 (6.50%) PySpark
5 88 (4.20%) RESTful
6 87 (4.16%) HTML
7 82 (3.92%) React
8 81 (3.87%) CSS
8 81 (3.87%) XML
9 72 (3.44%) Spring
10 70 (3.34%) Node.js
11 63 (3.01%) JSON
12 60 (2.87%) AngularJS
13 56 (2.68%) Pandas
14 51 (2.44%) .NET Framework
14 51 (2.44%) Spring Boot
15 44 (2.10%) Middleware
16 42 (2.01%) SOAP
17 40 (1.91%) NumPy
17 40 (1.91%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 112 (5.35%) Cloud Native
2 70 (3.34%) Data Structures
3 63 (3.01%) Derivative
4 56 (2.68%) Data Protection Act
5 55 (2.63%) Equities
5 55 (2.63%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 52 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
6 52 (2.48%) Product Ownership
7 50 (2.39%) Fixed Income
8 49 (2.34%) Analytical Mindset
8 49 (2.34%) Management Information System
9 40 (1.91%) Market Risk
10 37 (1.77%) Algorithms
10 37 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
11 36 (1.72%) Onboarding
12 29 (1.39%) Self-Motivation
13 27 (1.29%) Replication
14 26 (1.24%) Hedge funds
15 24 (1.15%) SWIFT Messaging Network
16 22 (1.05%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 193 (9.22%) Linux
2 128 (6.12%) Windows
3 126 (6.02%) Unix
4 28 (1.34%) Windows Server
5 15 (0.72%) VMS
6 12 (0.57%) Ubuntu
7 11 (0.53%) Android
8 10 (0.48%) Amazon Linux
9 9 (0.43%) Windows Server 2016
10 6 (0.29%) AIX
10 6 (0.29%) Windows 10
11 5 (0.24%) Apple iOS
12 4 (0.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 4 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
13 1 (0.048%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.048%) Solaris
13 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2008
13 1 (0.048%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 577 (27.57%) Agile
2 499 (23.84%) Analytics
3 464 (22.17%) Business Intelligence
4 460 (21.98%) Data Modelling
5 449 (21.45%) Problem-Solving
6 440 (21.02%) CI/CD
7 415 (19.83%) ETL
8 400 (19.11%) DevOps
9 310 (14.81%) Data Pipeline
10 283 (13.52%) Data Engineering
11 255 (12.18%) Data Governance
12 248 (11.85%) Migration
13 220 (10.51%) Data Analysis
14 216 (10.32%) AI
15 199 (9.51%) Validation
16 198 (9.46%) Visualisation
17 193 (9.22%) Data Science
18 174 (8.31%) Decision-Making
18 174 (8.31%) Stakeholder Management
19 168 (8.03%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 848 (40.52%) Python
2 295 (14.09%) Java
3 274 (13.09%) C#
4 177 (8.46%) JavaScript
5 137 (6.55%) PL/SQL
6 95 (4.54%) PowerShell
7 90 (4.30%) TypeScript
8 72 (3.44%) C++
9 69 (3.30%) T-SQL
10 64 (3.06%) R
11 57 (2.72%) Scala
12 52 (2.48%) VBA
13 49 (2.34%) Shell Script
14 46 (2.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 44 (2.10%) VB
16 37 (1.77%) Bash
17 31 (1.48%) Bicep
18 23 (1.10%) Groovy
19 22 (1.05%) Perl
20 19 (0.91%) Go
Qualifications
1 268 (12.80%) Security Cleared
2 209 (9.99%) SC Cleared
3 184 (8.79%) Degree
4 66 (3.15%) Computer Science Degree
5 48 (2.29%) Azure Certification
6 36 (1.72%) AWS Certification
7 32 (1.53%) Master's Degree
8 23 (1.10%) ISTQB
9 20 (0.96%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (0.86%) CBAP
10 18 (0.86%) Microsoft Certification
11 17 (0.81%) DV Cleared
12 12 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 11 (0.53%) CFA
13 11 (0.53%) PMI Certification
14 8 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
14 8 (0.38%) PMP
15 6 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
15 6 (0.29%) ISEB
15 6 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 327 (15.62%) Data Quality
2 157 (7.50%) QA
3 82 (3.92%) GDPR
4 38 (1.82%) Accessibility
5 24 (1.15%) MiFID
6 18 (0.86%) EMIR
6 18 (0.86%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 11 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 10 (0.48%) IFRS
9 9 (0.43%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.43%) SLA
10 8 (0.38%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.38%) Basel III
10 8 (0.38%) NIST
11 7 (0.33%) IFRS 9
11 7 (0.33%) SEPA
12 6 (0.29%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.29%) ISO 8583
12 6 (0.29%) PCI DSS
12 6 (0.29%) WCAG
System Software
1 207 (9.89%) Docker
2 53 (2.53%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.48%) DFS Replication
3 10 (0.48%) Dovecot
3 10 (0.48%) Postfix
3 10 (0.48%) Squid
4 9 (0.43%) Virtual Machines
5 8 (0.38%) HDFS
5 8 (0.38%) zsh
6 7 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
7 4 (0.19%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
8 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.14%) XenApp
8 3 (0.14%) XenDesktop
9 2 (0.096%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.048%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 171 (8.17%) Kubernetes
2 160 (7.64%) Terraform
3 31 (1.48%) Grafana
4 24 (1.15%) Ansible
5 22 (1.05%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.67%) Control-M
6 14 (0.67%) HP SiteScope
6 14 (0.67%) SCOM
7 11 (0.53%) ITRS Geneos
7 11 (0.53%) SCCM
8 10 (0.48%) Kibana
8 10 (0.48%) Nessus
8 10 (0.48%) Proxmox
9 8 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.33%) logstash
10 7 (0.33%) Puppet
11 6 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.29%) ZABBIX
12 5 (0.24%) HP ALM
12 5 (0.24%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 313 (14.95%) Oracle
2 294 (14.05%) Microsoft
3 257 (12.28%) Databricks
4 71 (3.39%) Google
5 58 (2.77%) SAP
6 49 (2.34%) Salesforce
7 38 (1.82%) Splunk
8 36 (1.72%) ServiceNow
9 34 (1.62%) Citrix
10 30 (1.43%) IBM
10 30 (1.43%) OpenAI
11 26 (1.24%) Bloomberg
11 26 (1.24%) Informatica
12 23 (1.10%) MuleSoft
13 17 (0.81%) Adobe
14 16 (0.76%) Dynatrace
14 16 (0.76%) Sybase
15 15 (0.72%) Murex
15 15 (0.72%) Palantir
15 15 (0.72%) VMware