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

6 months to
7 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 7 7
Rank change year-on-year -2 0 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,069 2,010 2,403
As % of all contract jobs in London 14.38% 14.11% 13.33%
As % of the Programming Languages category 38.67% 37.00% 37.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,397 1,401 1,782
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% -3.77%
75th Percentile £638 £669 £688
90th Percentile £738 £770 £775
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 22 24
10th Percentile £18.25 £36.00 £25.93
25th Percentile £26.50 £40.62 £35.47
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 £56.03
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% -1.10%

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 5,350 5,432 6,367
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 37.17% 38.12% 35.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,593 3,631 4,811
10th Percentile £364 £375 £391
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 £671 £699 £700
90th Percentile £787 £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 36 62
10th Percentile £25.93 £35.38 £26.24
25th Percentile £35.50 £40.45 £36.26
Median hourly rate £54.25 £52.50 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year +3.33% +4.48% -12.61%
75th Percentile £66.19 £69.31 £63.44
90th Percentile £81.38 £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 7 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 7 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 7 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 -1 283 £525 -10.26% 216
South London +22 49 £475 -5.00% 26
West London -7 29 £513 +2.50% 35
East London +3 22 £456 +14.06% 32
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
1 117 (5.65%) Apache Spark
2 91 (4.40%) Apache Airflow
3 74 (3.58%) Confluence
4 46 (2.22%) Apache
5 41 (1.98%) SharePoint
6 17 (0.82%) IIS
7 16 (0.77%) nginx
8 14 (0.68%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 14 (0.68%) Oracle Workflow
9 13 (0.63%) SAS
10 12 (0.58%) Jupyter
11 11 (0.53%) HCL Notes
12 8 (0.39%) 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 (0.19%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 4 (0.19%) Anypoint
Applications
1 142 (6.86%) Microsoft Excel
2 33 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
3 28 (1.35%) MS Visio
4 24 (1.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 10 (0.48%) Microsoft Project
5 10 (0.48%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 5 (0.24%) Trello
7 4 (0.19%) Spreadsheet
8 3 (0.14%) Chatbot
8 3 (0.14%) Notion
9 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 24 (1.16%) Aladdin
1 24 (1.16%) Oracle EBS
2 23 (1.11%) Oracle General Ledger
2 23 (1.11%) Oracle Payables
3 20 (0.97%) Endur
4 18 (0.87%) Oracle Assets
5 15 (0.72%) Oracle EBS R12
6 14 (0.68%) Oracle Financials
6 14 (0.68%) Oracle Receivables
7 13 (0.63%) Dynamics CRM
7 13 (0.63%) NetSuite
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle E-Business Tax
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
8 9 (0.43%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 9 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
9 8 (0.39%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 8 (0.39%) Remedy ITSM
9 8 (0.39%) SAP HR
10 7 (0.34%) Oracle Cash Management
11 5 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 657 (31.75%) Azure
2 488 (23.59%) AWS
3 388 (18.75%) Power Platform
4 173 (8.36%) Azure DevOps
5 172 (8.31%) Snowflake
6 171 (8.26%) GitHub
7 152 (7.35%) Azure Data Factory
8 150 (7.25%) GCP
9 143 (6.91%) Serverless
10 131 (6.33%) Amazon S3
11 109 (5.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 82 (3.96%) GitHub Actions
13 81 (3.91%) dbt
14 76 (3.67%) AWS Lambda
15 57 (2.75%) Azure Functions
16 56 (2.71%) SaaS
17 43 (2.08%) Azure Logic Apps
18 41 (1.98%) Power Automate
19 39 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
20 37 (1.79%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 32 (1.55%) Firewall
2 23 (1.11%) HTTP
3 20 (0.97%) DNS
4 14 (0.68%) SSH
5 12 (0.58%) 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 (0.39%) Multicast
9 8 (0.39%) SMS
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%) Radio Access Network
Database & Business Intelligence
1 357 (17.25%) Power BI
2 254 (12.28%) Data Warehouse
3 239 (11.55%) SQL Server
4 154 (7.44%) PostgreSQL
5 149 (7.20%) NoSQL
5 149 (7.20%) Relational Database
6 146 (7.06%) Tableau
7 131 (6.33%) Data Lake
8 104 (5.03%) Oracle Database
9 102 (4.93%) Azure SQL Database
10 92 (4.45%) Metadata
11 77 (3.72%) Big Data
11 77 (3.72%) SQL Server Integration Services
12 68 (3.29%) BigQuery
13 60 (2.90%) Amazon Redshift
14 48 (2.32%) MongoDB
15 44 (2.13%) Amazon RDS
16 42 (2.03%) Amazon Athena
16 42 (2.03%) Oracle Reports
17 40 (1.93%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 219 (10.58%) Git
2 162 (7.83%) JIRA
3 88 (4.25%) Jenkins
4 65 (3.14%) GitLab
5 40 (1.93%) JUnit
6 28 (1.35%) Selenium
7 20 (0.97%) Bitbucket
7 20 (0.97%) Cypress.io
7 20 (0.97%) Postman
7 20 (0.97%) SpecFlow
8 18 (0.87%) Cucumber
8 18 (0.87%) ERwin
8 18 (0.87%) Maven
9 16 (0.77%) Mockito
10 15 (0.72%) Oracle Forms
11 14 (0.68%) MLflow
11 14 (0.68%) SonarQube
11 14 (0.68%) TeamCity
12 13 (0.63%) Visual Studio
13 11 (0.53%) SoapUI
General
1 703 (33.98%) Finance
2 629 (30.40%) Social Skills
3 365 (17.64%) Analytical Skills
4 285 (13.77%) Banking
5 135 (6.52%) Public Sector
6 113 (5.46%) Investment Banking
7 95 (4.59%) Front Office
8 59 (2.85%) Marketing
9 48 (2.32%) Documentation Skills
10 40 (1.93%) Financial Institution
10 40 (1.93%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 35 (1.69%) Retail
12 29 (1.40%) Back Office
13 25 (1.21%) Presentation Skills
14 23 (1.11%) General Ledger
15 22 (1.06%) Legal
16 16 (0.77%) Publishing
17 15 (0.72%) Law
17 15 (0.72%) Pharmaceutical
17 15 (0.72%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 526 (25.42%) Developer
2 374 (18.08%) Analyst
3 310 (14.98%) Data Engineer
4 280 (13.53%) Senior
5 155 (7.49%) Business Analyst
6 142 (6.86%) Data Analyst
7 135 (6.52%) Lead
8 97 (4.69%) Architect
9 83 (4.01%) Consultant
10 76 (3.67%) Java Developer
11 73 (3.53%) Senior Developer
12 67 (3.24%) Azure Engineer
13 63 (3.04%) C# Developer
14 61 (2.95%) Software Engineer
15 53 (2.56%) Python Developer
16 50 (2.42%) .NET Developer
16 50 (2.42%) Azure Data Engineer
17 49 (2.37%) Senior Analyst
18 48 (2.32%) Senior Data Engineer
19 47 (2.27%) Data Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 200 (9.67%) .NET
2 167 (8.07%) Kafka
3 143 (6.91%) REST
4 135 (6.52%) PySpark
5 87 (4.20%) RESTful
6 84 (4.06%) HTML
7 81 (3.91%) React
8 79 (3.82%) XML
9 78 (3.77%) CSS
10 71 (3.43%) Spring
11 69 (3.33%) Node.js
12 61 (2.95%) JSON
13 57 (2.75%) AngularJS
14 56 (2.71%) Pandas
15 51 (2.46%) .NET Framework
15 51 (2.46%) Spring Boot
16 45 (2.17%) Middleware
17 43 (2.08%) SOAP
18 40 (1.93%) NumPy
18 40 (1.93%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 112 (5.41%) Cloud Native
2 69 (3.33%) Data Structures
3 60 (2.90%) Derivative
4 56 (2.71%) Data Protection Act
5 53 (2.56%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 52 (2.51%) Equities
6 52 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
7 51 (2.46%) Product Ownership
8 50 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
9 49 (2.37%) Management Information System
10 48 (2.32%) Fixed Income
11 39 (1.88%) Market Risk
12 38 (1.84%) Onboarding
13 37 (1.79%) Algorithms
13 37 (1.79%) Distributed Systems
14 28 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
15 27 (1.30%) Replication
16 26 (1.26%) Hedge funds
17 24 (1.16%) SWIFT Messaging Network
18 22 (1.06%) AI Agents
Operating Systems
1 191 (9.23%) Linux
2 128 (6.19%) Windows
3 124 (5.99%) Unix
4 28 (1.35%) Windows Server
5 15 (0.72%) VMS
6 12 (0.58%) 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
1 573 (27.69%) Agile
2 497 (24.02%) Analytics
3 462 (22.33%) Business Intelligence
3 462 (22.33%) Data Modelling
4 445 (21.51%) Problem-Solving
5 434 (20.98%) CI/CD
6 412 (19.91%) ETL
7 399 (19.28%) DevOps
8 308 (14.89%) Data Pipeline
9 285 (13.77%) Data Engineering
10 254 (12.28%) Data Governance
11 246 (11.89%) Migration
12 218 (10.54%) AI
13 217 (10.49%) Data Analysis
14 197 (9.52%) Validation
14 197 (9.52%) Visualisation
15 190 (9.18%) Data Science
16 176 (8.51%) Stakeholder Management
17 173 (8.36%) Decision-Making
18 166 (8.02%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 832 (40.21%) Python
2 291 (14.06%) Java
3 267 (12.90%) C#
4 174 (8.41%) JavaScript
5 138 (6.67%) PL/SQL
6 95 (4.59%) PowerShell
7 88 (4.25%) TypeScript
8 72 (3.48%) C++
9 68 (3.29%) T-SQL
10 63 (3.04%) R
11 58 (2.80%) Scala
12 51 (2.46%) VBA
13 48 (2.32%) Shell Script
14 46 (2.22%) Data Analysis Expressions
15 44 (2.13%) VB
16 37 (1.79%) Bash
17 31 (1.50%) Bicep
18 23 (1.11%) Groovy
19 22 (1.06%) Perl
20 19 (0.92%) Go
Qualifications
1 268 (12.95%) Security Cleared
2 209 (10.10%) SC Cleared
3 180 (8.70%) Degree
4 64 (3.09%) Computer Science Degree
5 48 (2.32%) Azure Certification
6 36 (1.74%) AWS Certification
7 31 (1.50%) Master's Degree
8 24 (1.16%) ISTQB
9 20 (0.97%) BPSS Clearance
10 18 (0.87%) CBAP
10 18 (0.87%) Microsoft Certification
11 17 (0.82%) DV Cleared
12 12 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 11 (0.53%) CFA
13 11 (0.53%) PMI Certification
14 8 (0.39%) ITIL Certification
14 8 (0.39%) PMP
15 6 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
15 6 (0.29%) ISEB
15 6 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 324 (15.66%) Data Quality
2 158 (7.64%) QA
3 82 (3.96%) GDPR
4 38 (1.84%) Accessibility
5 23 (1.11%) MiFID
6 18 (0.87%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 17 (0.82%) EMIR
8 10 (0.48%) IFRS
8 10 (0.48%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 9 (0.43%) HIPAA
9 9 (0.43%) NIST
10 8 (0.39%) Actionable Recommendations
10 8 (0.39%) Basel III
10 8 (0.39%) SLA
11 7 (0.34%) IFRS 9
11 7 (0.34%) 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 (10.00%) Docker
2 53 (2.56%) Active Directory
3 10 (0.48%) DFS Replication
3 10 (0.48%) Dovecot
3 10 (0.48%) Postfix
3 10 (0.48%) Squid
3 10 (0.48%) 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 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
8 3 (0.14%) Hyper-V
8 3 (0.14%) XenApp
8 3 (0.14%) XenDesktop
9 2 (0.097%) Virtual Desktop
10 1 (0.048%) Apache ZooKeeper
10 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 170 (8.22%) Kubernetes
2 156 (7.54%) Terraform
3 31 (1.50%) Grafana
4 24 (1.16%) Ansible
5 22 (1.06%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.68%) HP SiteScope
6 14 (0.68%) SCOM
7 13 (0.63%) Control-M
8 11 (0.53%) ITRS Geneos
8 11 (0.53%) SCCM
9 10 (0.48%) Kibana
9 10 (0.48%) Nessus
9 10 (0.48%) Proxmox
10 8 (0.39%) Single Sign-On
11 7 (0.34%) logstash
11 7 (0.34%) Puppet
12 6 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
12 6 (0.29%) ZABBIX
13 5 (0.24%) HP ALM
14 4 (0.19%) Progress Chef
Vendors
1 311 (15.03%) Oracle
2 290 (14.02%) Microsoft
3 251 (12.13%) Databricks
4 69 (3.33%) Google
5 59 (2.85%) SAP
6 49 (2.37%) Salesforce
7 38 (1.84%) Splunk
8 37 (1.79%) ServiceNow
9 35 (1.69%) Citrix
10 30 (1.45%) IBM
10 30 (1.45%) OpenAI
11 26 (1.26%) Bloomberg
12 25 (1.21%) Informatica
13 23 (1.11%) MuleSoft
14 17 (0.82%) Adobe
15 16 (0.77%) Dynatrace
16 15 (0.72%) Murex
16 15 (0.72%) Palantir
16 15 (0.72%) Sybase
17 14 (0.68%) VMware