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 24 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 9 7
Rank change year-on-year -6 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,486 1,953 2,298
As % of all contract jobs in London 12.39% 14.49% 14.13%
As % of the Programming Languages category 39.41% 37.65% 35.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,717 1,386 1,761
10th Percentile £367 £363 £363
25th Percentile £425 £413 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £565
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -6.19% -1.74%
75th Percentile £631 £675 £688
90th Percentile £736 £788 £775
England median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 27 16
10th Percentile £26.51 £26.09 £25.99
25th Percentile £26.52 £31.88 £40.71
Median hourly rate £40.00 £40.49 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -1.21% -10.02% -28.57%
75th Percentile £52.81 £53.75 £51.75
90th Percentile £53.75 £63.75 £53.75
England median hourly rate £43.75 £44.50 £42.00
% change year-on-year -1.69% +5.95% -8.46%

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 6,308 5,187 6,478
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 31.45% 38.47% 39.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,235 3,613 4,776
10th Percentile £382 £375 £373
25th Percentile £450 £430 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £659 £700 £710
90th Percentile £775 £825 £850
England median daily rate £525 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 60 40
10th Percentile £27.87 £26.31 £25.11
25th Percentile £36.25 £33.25 £38.31
Median hourly rate £52.50 £44.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +19.32% -7.37% -24.60%
75th Percentile £73.00 £62.31 £57.50
90th Percentile £88.75 £86.25 £75.13
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +4.00%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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 24 August 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 -6 310 £550 -4.35% 191
West London +9 70 £520 +4.79% 59
South London 0 40 £535 -14.40% 10
East London +4 13 £450 -1.66% 24
North London +3 6 £550 - 5
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
1 160 (6.44%) Apache Airflow
2 136 (5.47%) Apache Spark
3 104 (4.18%) Apache
4 81 (3.26%) Confluence
5 52 (2.09%) SharePoint
6 26 (1.05%) IIS
7 24 (0.97%) SAS
8 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Exchange
8 15 (0.60%) Oracle Workflow
9 14 (0.56%) Palantir Foundry
10 13 (0.52%) CMS
10 13 (0.52%) Jupyter
11 12 (0.48%) Camunda
11 12 (0.48%) nginx
12 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 7 (0.28%) Tomcat
13 6 (0.24%) Appian
13 6 (0.24%) CICS
13 6 (0.24%) WebLogic
14 4 (0.16%) MTS
Applications
1 155 (6.23%) Microsoft Excel
2 29 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
3 25 (1.01%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 23 (0.93%) MS Visio
5 16 (0.64%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.28%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Project
7 4 (0.16%) Notion
7 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
9 1 (0.040%) Mingle
9 1 (0.040%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 25 (1.01%) Oracle EBS
2 24 (0.97%) Aladdin
3 18 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.68%) Oracle ERP
5 15 (0.60%) Oracle Payables
6 13 (0.52%) Oracle General Ledger
7 12 (0.48%) Oracle Receivables
8 11 (0.44%) Oracle EBS R12
8 11 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
9 10 (0.40%) Finacle
9 10 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.32%) Findur
11 7 (0.28%) OpenText MBPM
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle BPM
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle FAH
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.28%) Summit
11 7 (0.28%) Unit4 Business World
12 6 (0.24%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 838 (33.71%) Azure
2 604 (24.30%) AWS
3 451 (18.14%) Power Platform
4 280 (11.26%) Azure DevOps
5 264 (10.62%) GCP
6 231 (9.29%) Snowflake
7 224 (9.01%) GitHub
8 204 (8.21%) dbt
9 172 (6.92%) Azure Data Factory
10 164 (6.60%) Serverless
11 143 (5.75%) Amazon S3
12 126 (5.07%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 117 (4.71%) GitHub Actions
14 114 (4.59%) AWS Lambda
15 56 (2.25%) SaaS
16 51 (2.05%) Entra ID
17 50 (2.01%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 46 (1.85%) PowerApps
19 42 (1.69%) Power Automate
20 39 (1.57%) Collibra
Communications & Networking
1 17 (0.68%) Internet
2 15 (0.60%) DNS
2 15 (0.60%) Firewall
2 15 (0.60%) VPN
3 12 (0.48%) HTTP
3 12 (0.48%) Network Security
4 8 (0.32%) Multicast
4 8 (0.32%) TCP/IP
5 7 (0.28%) Broadband
5 7 (0.28%) SAN
5 7 (0.28%) SSL
6 6 (0.24%) DHCP
7 4 (0.16%) HTTPS
7 4 (0.16%) IPv4
7 4 (0.16%) SSH
8 3 (0.12%) Intranet
8 3 (0.12%) Kerberos
8 3 (0.12%) NAS
8 3 (0.12%) SMS
8 3 (0.12%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 408 (16.41%) Power BI
2 367 (14.76%) Data Warehouse
3 304 (12.23%) SQL Server
4 179 (7.20%) Relational Database
5 163 (6.56%) Data Lake
5 163 (6.56%) Tableau
6 152 (6.11%) Metadata
7 139 (5.59%) PostgreSQL
8 130 (5.23%) NoSQL
9 128 (5.15%) BigQuery
10 102 (4.10%) Oracle Database
11 99 (3.98%) Azure SQL Database
12 89 (3.58%) Amazon Redshift
12 89 (3.58%) Delta Lake
13 65 (2.61%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 59 (2.37%) Star Schema
15 58 (2.33%) Amazon Athena
16 57 (2.29%) Snowflake Schema
17 56 (2.25%) Big Data
17 56 (2.25%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 270 (10.86%) Git
2 184 (7.40%) JIRA
3 126 (5.07%) Jenkins
4 79 (3.18%) GitLab
5 42 (1.69%) Selenium
6 39 (1.57%) Gradle
7 37 (1.49%) JUnit
8 26 (1.05%) Maven
8 26 (1.05%) Mockito
9 24 (0.97%) SonarQube
10 21 (0.84%) Visual Studio
11 20 (0.80%) Bitbucket
12 19 (0.76%) ERwin
13 18 (0.72%) Liquibase
13 18 (0.72%) TeamCity
14 17 (0.68%) MLflow
15 16 (0.64%) Cypress.io
15 16 (0.64%) Oracle Forms
16 15 (0.60%) ER Studio
16 15 (0.60%) JMeter
General
1 897 (36.08%) Finance
2 708 (28.48%) Social Skills
3 537 (21.60%) Analytical Skills
4 402 (16.17%) Banking
5 163 (6.56%) Public Sector
6 129 (5.19%) Front Office
7 107 (4.30%) Marketing
8 103 (4.14%) Investment Banking
9 72 (2.90%) Retail
10 61 (2.45%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 52 (2.09%) Financial Institution
12 40 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
13 33 (1.33%) Back Office
14 29 (1.17%) Legal
15 28 (1.13%) Telecoms
16 25 (1.01%) Organisational Skills
17 24 (0.97%) Publishing
18 22 (0.88%) Local Government
19 20 (0.80%) General Ledger
19 20 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 549 (22.08%) Developer
2 457 (18.38%) Data Engineer
3 414 (16.65%) Analyst
4 376 (15.12%) Senior
5 186 (7.48%) Lead
6 164 (6.60%) Data Analyst
7 152 (6.11%) Business Analyst
8 144 (5.79%) Architect
9 105 (4.22%) Senior Data Engineer
10 100 (4.02%) Consultant
11 93 (3.74%) Senior Developer
12 86 (3.46%) Java Developer
13 84 (3.38%) C# Developer
14 82 (3.30%) Software Engineer
15 81 (3.26%) Python Engineer
16 68 (2.74%) Python Developer
17 67 (2.70%) Azure Engineer
18 61 (2.45%) Data Architect
19 58 (2.33%) Snowflake Engineer
20 55 (2.21%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 275 (11.06%) .NET
2 243 (9.77%) Terraform
3 232 (9.33%) REST
4 197 (7.92%) PySpark
5 193 (7.76%) Kafka
6 133 (5.35%) React
7 126 (5.07%) Spring
8 110 (4.42%) RESTful
9 108 (4.34%) HTML
9 108 (4.34%) JSON
10 106 (4.26%) Spring Boot
11 95 (3.82%) AngularJS
12 84 (3.38%) CSS
13 82 (3.30%) XML
14 79 (3.18%) Pandas
15 66 (2.65%) Web Services
16 64 (2.57%) Middleware
16 64 (2.57%) SOAP
17 63 (2.53%) .NET Framework
18 50 (2.01%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 195 (7.84%) Cloud Native
2 123 (4.95%) Product Ownership
3 109 (4.38%) Data Structures
4 87 (3.50%) Distributed Systems
5 84 (3.38%) Legacy Systems
6 78 (3.14%) Derivative
7 71 (2.86%) Onboarding
8 59 (2.37%) Self-Motivation
9 54 (2.17%) Management Information System
10 50 (2.01%) Enterprise Software
10 50 (2.01%) Fixed Income
11 44 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
12 41 (1.65%) Equities
12 41 (1.65%) Reference Data
13 37 (1.49%) Algorithms
13 37 (1.49%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 34 (1.37%) AI Agents
14 34 (1.37%) Greenfield Project
15 29 (1.17%) Data Protection Act
16 28 (1.13%) Credit Risk
Operating Systems
1 161 (6.48%) Linux
2 145 (5.83%) Windows
3 105 (4.22%) Unix
4 36 (1.45%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2008
7 7 (0.28%) zOS
8 6 (0.24%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
9 4 (0.16%) Solaris
9 4 (0.16%) Windows 10
10 3 (0.12%) Android
10 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
10 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
10 3 (0.12%) Ubuntu
10 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
11 2 (0.080%) Windows 7
11 2 (0.080%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.040%) AIX
12 1 (0.040%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 759 (30.53%) CI/CD
2 670 (26.95%) Agile
3 665 (26.75%) Analytics
4 651 (26.19%) Data Modelling
5 555 (22.33%) DevOps
6 508 (20.43%) ETL
7 499 (20.07%) Data Pipeline
8 494 (19.87%) Business Intelligence
9 478 (19.23%) AI
10 474 (19.07%) Problem-Solving
11 470 (18.91%) Data Engineering
12 356 (14.32%) Stakeholder Management
13 352 (14.16%) Validation
14 328 (13.19%) Migration
15 320 (12.87%) Data Governance
16 312 (12.55%) Data Analysis
17 274 (11.02%) Decision-Making
18 256 (10.30%) Continuous Improvement
19 252 (10.14%) Test Automation
20 234 (9.41%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 1,060 (42.64%) Python
2 340 (13.68%) Java
3 330 (13.27%) C#
4 218 (8.77%) JavaScript
5 181 (7.28%) PL/SQL
6 127 (5.11%) TypeScript
7 117 (4.71%) PowerShell
8 115 (4.63%) T-SQL
9 92 (3.70%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 80 (3.22%) Shell Script
11 56 (2.25%) R
12 48 (1.93%) Scala
13 40 (1.61%) C++
14 34 (1.37%) VBA
15 32 (1.29%) Bash
16 18 (0.72%) VB.NET
17 17 (0.68%) Go
18 16 (0.64%) Bicep
19 13 (0.52%) Groovy
20 12 (0.48%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 407 (16.37%) Security Cleared
2 348 (14.00%) SC Cleared
3 194 (7.80%) Degree
4 71 (2.86%) Computer Science Degree
5 43 (1.73%) Azure Certification
6 39 (1.57%) BPSS Clearance
7 31 (1.25%) Master's Degree
8 27 (1.09%) AWS Certification
9 18 (0.72%) ISTQB
10 15 (0.60%) DV Cleared
10 15 (0.60%) Microsoft Certification
11 13 (0.52%) FFIEC
12 12 (0.48%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
13 10 (0.40%) ISEB
14 9 (0.36%) DBS Check
15 8 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
15 8 (0.32%) PhD
16 7 (0.28%) ACCA
16 7 (0.28%) CIMA
16 7 (0.28%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 472 (18.99%) Data Quality
2 196 (7.88%) QA
3 88 (3.54%) GDPR
4 32 (1.29%) Accessibility
5 26 (1.05%) SLA
6 19 (0.76%) NIST
7 18 (0.72%) ISO 20022
8 15 (0.60%) IFRS
8 15 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 14 (0.56%) MiFID
10 13 (0.52%) Actionable Recommendations
11 12 (0.48%) COBIT
12 10 (0.40%) Solvency II
13 9 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 8 (0.32%) PMO
15 7 (0.28%) HIPAA
16 6 (0.24%) Basel III
16 6 (0.24%) EMIR
17 5 (0.20%) NCSC
17 5 (0.20%) SEPA
System Software
1 238 (9.57%) Docker
2 52 (2.09%) Active Directory
3 22 (0.88%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
6 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 3 (0.12%) Postfix
7 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.080%) GridGain
9 1 (0.040%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.040%) RACF
9 1 (0.040%) Varnish
9 1 (0.040%) Virtual Servers
9 1 (0.040%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 220 (8.85%) Kubernetes
2 38 (1.53%) Grafana
3 33 (1.33%) Ansible
4 29 (1.17%) Control-M
5 18 (0.72%) Prometheus
6 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Clustering
7 10 (0.40%) Kibana
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle RMAN
8 9 (0.36%) ITRS Geneos
9 7 (0.28%) Data Guard
10 6 (0.24%) Kubeflow
10 6 (0.24%) Packer
10 6 (0.24%) SCOM
11 5 (0.20%) HP Fortify
11 5 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.16%) Argo
12 4 (0.16%) Istio
12 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (0.16%) SCCM
12 4 (0.16%) Thomson Reuters DACS
Vendors
1 351 (14.12%) Microsoft
2 327 (13.15%) Oracle
3 305 (12.27%) Databricks
4 106 (4.26%) Google
5 65 (2.61%) Informatica
6 47 (1.89%) SAP
7 42 (1.69%) IBM
8 38 (1.53%) Bloomberg
8 38 (1.53%) ServiceNow
9 37 (1.49%) Salesforce
10 34 (1.37%) Citrix
11 32 (1.29%) Murex
12 25 (1.01%) VMware
13 22 (0.88%) Adobe
14 21 (0.84%) Splunk
15 20 (0.80%) Foundry
16 19 (0.76%) Alteryx
16 19 (0.76%) Sybase
17 18 (0.72%) Dynatrace
17 18 (0.72%) UiPath