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

6 months to
15 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 7 6
Rank change year-on-year -1 -1 0
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,068 1,986 2,383
As % of all contract jobs in London 14.40% 14.14% 13.38%
As % of the Programming Languages category 38.49% 36.97% 37.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,397 1,382 1,756
10th Percentile £363 £363 £389
25th Percentile £413 £444 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £510 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -7.27% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £665 £688
90th Percentile £738 £774 £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 £29.75
25th Percentile £26.50 £40.75 £36.25
Median hourly rate £40.49 £50.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.02% +11.11% -18.18%
75th Percentile £47.50 £60.25 £54.13
90th Percentile £64.35 £78.50 £64.52
England median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -4.76% +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 5,373 5,372 6,293
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 37.40% 38.25% 35.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,617 3,576 4,741
10th Percentile £363 £375 £400
25th Percentile £425 £460 £468
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £563 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.44% -2.17% -4.17%
75th Percentile £668 £699 £700
90th Percentile £775 £825 £800
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 35 64
10th Percentile £26.03 £35.00 £26.44
25th Percentile £35.75 £39.54 £36.70
Median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £50.50
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +3.96% -12.17%
75th Percentile £66.50 £68.00 £63.94
90th Percentile £78.75 £97.50 £72.35
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.59% +0.40% -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 15 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 15 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 15 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 -4 272 £538 -7.33% 178
South London +22 48 £484 -3.30% 27
West London -5 32 £525 +5.00% 38
East London -1 19 £450 +12.50% 28
North London +4 1 - - 3
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
1 119 (5.75%) Apache Spark
2 88 (4.26%) Apache Airflow
3 73 (3.53%) Confluence
4 45 (2.18%) Apache
5 42 (2.03%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.87%) IIS
7 15 (0.73%) nginx
8 13 (0.63%) SAS
9 12 (0.58%) HCL Notes
9 12 (0.58%) Jupyter
9 12 (0.58%) Oracle SOA Suite
9 12 (0.58%) Oracle Workflow
10 9 (0.44%) Mendix
11 8 (0.39%) Microsoft Exchange
11 8 (0.39%) MQSeries
12 7 (0.34%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.29%) Mattermost
13 6 (0.29%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.19%) Anypoint
14 4 (0.19%) Appian
Applications
1 150 (7.25%) Microsoft Excel
2 35 (1.69%) Microsoft Office
3 31 (1.50%) MS Visio
4 25 (1.21%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.53%) Microsoft Project
6 9 (0.44%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 5 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.24%) Trello
8 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.15%) Notion
10 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 24 (1.16%) Aladdin
2 23 (1.11%) Oracle General Ledger
2 23 (1.11%) Oracle Payables
3 20 (0.97%) Oracle EBS
4 17 (0.82%) Oracle Assets
5 15 (0.73%) Endur
5 15 (0.73%) Oracle Receivables
6 14 (0.68%) Oracle Financials
7 13 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
7 13 (0.63%) NetSuite
8 12 (0.58%) 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 6 (0.29%) Markit EDM
Cloud Services
1 663 (32.06%) Azure
2 492 (23.79%) AWS
3 391 (18.91%) Power Platform
4 179 (8.66%) Azure DevOps
5 176 (8.51%) GitHub
6 170 (8.22%) Snowflake
7 159 (7.69%) Azure Data Factory
8 150 (7.25%) GCP
9 147 (7.11%) Serverless
10 132 (6.38%) Amazon S3
11 112 (5.42%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 86 (4.16%) GitHub Actions
13 81 (3.92%) dbt
14 80 (3.87%) AWS Lambda
15 57 (2.76%) SaaS
16 56 (2.71%) Azure Functions
17 43 (2.08%) Azure Logic Apps
17 43 (2.08%) Power Automate
18 40 (1.93%) Microsoft 365
19 38 (1.84%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 28 (1.35%) Firewall
2 22 (1.06%) HTTP
3 19 (0.92%) DNS
4 13 (0.63%) SSH
5 12 (0.58%) Internet
6 11 (0.53%) Network Security
7 10 (0.48%) SMTP
8 9 (0.44%) FTP
8 9 (0.44%) IMAP
8 9 (0.44%) OpenLDAP
9 8 (0.39%) SMS
9 8 (0.39%) VPN
10 7 (0.34%) Multicast
10 7 (0.34%) 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%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 358 (17.31%) Power BI
2 250 (12.09%) Data Warehouse
3 242 (11.70%) SQL Server
4 153 (7.40%) NoSQL
5 151 (7.30%) PostgreSQL
6 150 (7.25%) Relational Database
7 146 (7.06%) Tableau
8 136 (6.58%) Data Lake
9 100 (4.84%) Azure SQL Database
9 100 (4.84%) Oracle Database
10 97 (4.69%) Metadata
11 77 (3.72%) Big Data
11 77 (3.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 64 (3.09%) BigQuery
13 57 (2.76%) Amazon Redshift
14 48 (2.32%) MongoDB
15 45 (2.18%) Delta Lake
16 44 (2.13%) Amazon RDS
17 43 (2.08%) Amazon Athena
18 41 (1.98%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 212 (10.25%) Git
2 158 (7.64%) JIRA
3 84 (4.06%) Jenkins
4 68 (3.29%) GitLab
5 37 (1.79%) JUnit
6 25 (1.21%) Selenium
7 21 (1.02%) SpecFlow
8 20 (0.97%) ERwin
9 19 (0.92%) Cypress.io
10 17 (0.82%) Bitbucket
10 17 (0.82%) MLflow
10 17 (0.82%) Postman
11 16 (0.77%) Cucumber
12 14 (0.68%) TeamCity
12 14 (0.68%) Visual Studio
13 13 (0.63%) Maven
13 13 (0.63%) Oracle Forms
14 12 (0.58%) Mockito
15 11 (0.53%) ER Studio
15 11 (0.53%) SonarQube
General
1 700 (33.85%) Finance
2 623 (30.13%) Social Skills
3 368 (17.79%) Analytical Skills
4 288 (13.93%) Banking
5 129 (6.24%) Public Sector
6 112 (5.42%) Investment Banking
7 93 (4.50%) Front Office
8 57 (2.76%) Marketing
9 50 (2.42%) Documentation Skills
10 42 (2.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 41 (1.98%) Financial Institution
12 35 (1.69%) Retail
13 25 (1.21%) Back Office
14 24 (1.16%) Presentation Skills
15 23 (1.11%) Legal
16 22 (1.06%) General Ledger
17 16 (0.77%) Publishing
18 15 (0.73%) Law
18 15 (0.73%) Pharmaceutical
19 14 (0.68%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 525 (25.39%) Developer
2 367 (17.75%) Analyst
3 323 (15.62%) Data Engineer
4 282 (13.64%) Senior
5 153 (7.40%) Business Analyst
6 142 (6.87%) Data Analyst
7 138 (6.67%) Lead
8 100 (4.84%) Architect
9 81 (3.92%) Consultant
10 74 (3.58%) Java Developer
10 74 (3.58%) Senior Developer
11 69 (3.34%) Azure Engineer
12 66 (3.19%) C# Developer
13 62 (3.00%) Software Engineer
14 55 (2.66%) Python Developer
15 52 (2.51%) Azure Data Engineer
15 52 (2.51%) Senior Data Engineer
16 49 (2.37%) .NET Developer
16 49 (2.37%) Data Architect
17 48 (2.32%) Senior Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 202 (9.77%) .NET
2 174 (8.41%) Kafka
3 142 (6.87%) REST
4 141 (6.82%) PySpark
5 90 (4.35%) RESTful
6 84 (4.06%) React
7 78 (3.77%) HTML
8 74 (3.58%) XML
9 72 (3.48%) CSS
10 71 (3.43%) Spring
11 68 (3.29%) Node.js
12 56 (2.71%) JSON
13 53 (2.56%) AngularJS
13 53 (2.56%) Pandas
14 52 (2.51%) .NET Framework
14 52 (2.51%) Spring Boot
15 48 (2.32%) Middleware
16 41 (1.98%) NumPy
17 39 (1.89%) SOAP
18 37 (1.79%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 115 (5.56%) Cloud Native
2 70 (3.38%) Data Structures
3 57 (2.76%) Derivative
4 56 (2.71%) Legacy Systems
5 55 (2.66%) Data Protection Act
6 52 (2.51%) Analytical Mindset
6 52 (2.51%) Product Ownership
7 51 (2.47%) Equities
7 51 (2.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
8 49 (2.37%) Management Information System
9 45 (2.18%) Fixed Income
10 39 (1.89%) Market Risk
10 39 (1.89%) Onboarding
11 38 (1.84%) Algorithms
12 36 (1.74%) Distributed Systems
13 26 (1.26%) Hedge funds
13 26 (1.26%) Replication
14 25 (1.21%) Self-Motivation
15 23 (1.11%) SWIFT Messaging Network
16 22 (1.06%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 190 (9.19%) Linux
2 127 (6.14%) Windows
3 120 (5.80%) Unix
4 29 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.68%) VMS
6 11 (0.53%) Android
6 11 (0.53%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
8 9 (0.44%) Amazon Linux
9 7 (0.34%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.24%) AIX
10 5 (0.24%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.097%) zOS
13 1 (0.048%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 568 (27.47%) Agile
2 501 (24.23%) Analytics
3 467 (22.58%) Data Modelling
4 464 (22.44%) Business Intelligence
5 453 (21.91%) Problem-Solving
6 445 (21.52%) CI/CD
7 417 (20.16%) ETL
8 402 (19.44%) DevOps
9 318 (15.38%) Data Pipeline
10 293 (14.17%) Data Engineering
11 256 (12.38%) Data Governance
12 244 (11.80%) Migration
13 229 (11.07%) AI
14 218 (10.54%) Data Analysis
15 209 (10.11%) Validation
16 196 (9.48%) Visualisation
17 190 (9.19%) Data Science
18 183 (8.85%) Decision-Making
19 174 (8.41%) Stakeholder Management
20 167 (8.08%) Microservices
Programming Languages
1 838 (40.52%) Python
2 282 (13.64%) Java
3 271 (13.10%) C#
4 168 (8.12%) JavaScript
5 137 (6.62%) PL/SQL
6 96 (4.64%) PowerShell
7 91 (4.40%) TypeScript
8 73 (3.53%) C++
9 68 (3.29%) T-SQL
10 61 (2.95%) R
11 59 (2.85%) Scala
12 50 (2.42%) VBA
13 46 (2.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
13 46 (2.22%) Shell Script
14 44 (2.13%) VB
15 35 (1.69%) Bash
16 29 (1.40%) Bicep
17 22 (1.06%) Perl
18 19 (0.92%) Groovy
18 19 (0.92%) Korn
Qualifications
1 272 (13.15%) Security Cleared
2 213 (10.30%) SC Cleared
3 183 (8.85%) Degree
4 65 (3.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 49 (2.37%) Azure Certification
6 34 (1.64%) AWS Certification
7 30 (1.45%) Master's Degree
8 25 (1.21%) ISTQB
9 20 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
10 19 (0.92%) Microsoft Certification
11 18 (0.87%) CBAP
12 17 (0.82%) DV Cleared
13 12 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 12 (0.58%) PMI Certification
14 11 (0.53%) CFA
15 9 (0.44%) PMP
16 8 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
17 6 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
17 6 (0.29%) ISEB
17 6 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 332 (16.05%) Data Quality
2 158 (7.64%) QA
3 86 (4.16%) GDPR
4 37 (1.79%) Accessibility
5 21 (1.02%) MiFID
6 19 (0.92%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 15 (0.73%) EMIR
8 11 (0.53%) IFRS
8 11 (0.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 11 (0.53%) SLA
9 9 (0.44%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.44%) NIST
10 8 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.39%) PCI DSS
11 7 (0.34%) Basel III
11 7 (0.34%) GAAP
11 7 (0.34%) IFRS 9
11 7 (0.34%) ISO 8583
11 7 (0.34%) SEPA
12 6 (0.29%) ISO 20022
System Software
1 212 (10.25%) Docker
2 50 (2.42%) Active Directory
3 9 (0.44%) DFS Replication
3 9 (0.44%) Dovecot
3 9 (0.44%) Postfix
3 9 (0.44%) Squid
3 9 (0.44%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (0.39%) HDFS
5 7 (0.34%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.34%) zsh
6 5 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.19%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
7 4 (0.19%) XenApp
7 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
8 2 (0.097%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.048%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 176 (8.51%) Kubernetes
2 161 (7.79%) Terraform
3 30 (1.45%) Grafana
4 24 (1.16%) Ansible
5 20 (0.97%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.68%) HP SiteScope
6 14 (0.68%) SCOM
7 12 (0.58%) SCCM
8 11 (0.53%) Control-M
9 10 (0.48%) ITRS Geneos
10 9 (0.44%) Kibana
10 9 (0.44%) Nessus
10 9 (0.44%) Proxmox
11 8 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
12 6 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.29%) logstash
12 6 (0.29%) Puppet
13 4 (0.19%) Data Guard
13 4 (0.19%) Oracle RMAN
13 4 (0.19%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 308 (14.89%) Oracle
2 299 (14.46%) Microsoft
3 258 (12.48%) Databricks
4 66 (3.19%) Google
5 56 (2.71%) SAP
6 50 (2.42%) Salesforce
7 38 (1.84%) ServiceNow
8 37 (1.79%) Citrix
9 36 (1.74%) Splunk
10 32 (1.55%) IBM
11 31 (1.50%) OpenAI
12 28 (1.35%) Informatica
13 26 (1.26%) Bloomberg
14 23 (1.11%) MuleSoft
15 18 (0.87%) Sybase
16 16 (0.77%) Adobe
16 16 (0.77%) Murex
17 15 (0.73%) Palantir
18 14 (0.68%) Alteryx
19 13 (0.63%) Dynatrace