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 16 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 9 7
Rank change year-on-year -6 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,357 1,966 2,362
As % of all contract jobs in London 11.93% 14.50% 13.62%
As % of the Programming Languages category 38.37% 37.33% 35.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,595 1,397 1,838
10th Percentile £365 £363 £363
25th Percentile £425 £421 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £563
Median % change year-on-year - -6.67% -2.17%
75th Percentile £630 £681 £680
90th Percentile £738 £788 £775
England median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% -0.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 25 15
10th Percentile £29.41 £25.98 £25.99
25th Percentile £35.25 £29.07 £33.37
Median hourly rate £47.50 £42.82 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +10.94% +0.74% -34.62%
75th Percentile £54.75 £58.75 £49.50
90th Percentile £60.04 £66.00 £51.75
England median hourly rate £45.00 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +11.11% -4.71% -14.26%

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 6,143 5,266 6,743
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 31.09% 38.83% 38.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,097 3,686 5,115
10th Percentile £379 £374 £375
25th Percentile £450 £431 £458
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £550 £570
Median % change year-on-year -1.82% -3.51% -5.00%
75th Percentile £650 £700 £700
90th Percentile £775 £825 £850
England median daily rate £520 £520 £540
% change year-on-year - -3.70% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 49 50
10th Percentile £33.21 £27.18 £23.80
25th Percentile £36.25 £33.25 £34.82
Median hourly rate £55.00 £43.50 £48.00
Median % change year-on-year +26.44% -9.38% -20.28%
75th Percentile £75.00 £62.50 £60.45
90th Percentile £89.00 £86.25 £71.94
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +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 16 July 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 16 July 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 16 July 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 -10 277 £550 - 103
West London +11 66 £520 +4.00% 31
South London -2 35 £500 -25.93% 9
East London 0 15 £450 -5.26% 19
North London - 6 £495 - 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
1 136 (5.77%) Apache Airflow
2 131 (5.56%) Apache Spark
3 96 (4.07%) Apache
4 78 (3.31%) Confluence
5 35 (1.48%) SharePoint
6 27 (1.15%) IIS
7 24 (1.02%) SAS
8 17 (0.72%) Palantir Foundry
9 15 (0.64%) nginx
9 15 (0.64%) Oracle Workflow
10 14 (0.59%) CMS
11 11 (0.47%) Appian
11 11 (0.47%) Camunda
11 11 (0.47%) Tomcat
12 10 (0.42%) Jupyter
12 10 (0.42%) Microsoft Exchange
13 8 (0.34%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.25%) CICS
15 5 (0.21%) ArcGIS
16 4 (0.17%) HCL Notes
Applications
1 146 (6.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 31 (1.32%) Microsoft Office
3 29 (1.23%) MS Visio
4 26 (1.10%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 20 (0.85%) Spreadsheet
6 6 (0.25%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.17%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.17%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.13%) Notion
9 2 (0.085%) Microsoft Project
10 1 (0.042%) CPLEX
10 1 (0.042%) Mingle
10 1 (0.042%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 28 (1.19%) Aladdin
2 24 (1.02%) Oracle EBS
3 14 (0.59%) Dynamics CRM
3 14 (0.59%) Oracle ERP
3 14 (0.59%) Oracle Payables
4 11 (0.47%) Findur
4 11 (0.47%) Oracle EBS R12
4 11 (0.47%) Oracle General Ledger
4 11 (0.47%) Oracle Receivables
4 11 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
5 10 (0.42%) Finacle
6 8 (0.34%) Fidessa
6 8 (0.34%) Summit
7 7 (0.30%) Oracle FAH
7 7 (0.30%) Oracle Financials
8 6 (0.25%) OpenText MBPM
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.25%) Oracle BPM
9 5 (0.21%) Endur
9 5 (0.21%) SimCorp Dimension
Cloud Services
1 813 (34.49%) Azure
2 584 (24.78%) AWS
3 442 (18.75%) Power Platform
4 272 (11.54%) Azure DevOps
5 241 (10.22%) GCP
6 215 (9.12%) GitHub
7 206 (8.74%) Snowflake
8 173 (7.34%) dbt
9 172 (7.30%) Azure Data Factory
10 162 (6.87%) Serverless
11 160 (6.79%) Amazon S3
12 125 (5.30%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 115 (4.88%) AWS Lambda
14 110 (4.67%) GitHub Actions
15 50 (2.12%) Entra ID
16 49 (2.08%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 45 (1.91%) Amazon EC2
18 44 (1.87%) Collibra
19 42 (1.78%) SaaS
20 40 (1.70%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 17 (0.72%) Internet
2 16 (0.68%) Firewall
3 13 (0.55%) HTTP
4 11 (0.47%) Network Security
4 11 (0.47%) VPN
5 9 (0.38%) DNS
6 6 (0.25%) SAN
7 5 (0.21%) Multicast
7 5 (0.21%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.13%) Broadband
8 3 (0.13%) FTP
8 3 (0.13%) Intranet
8 3 (0.13%) IPv4
8 3 (0.13%) NAS
8 3 (0.13%) SSL
8 3 (0.13%) WinSCP
9 2 (0.085%) DMZ
9 2 (0.085%) NaaS
9 2 (0.085%) SMS
9 2 (0.085%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 399 (16.93%) Power BI
2 337 (14.30%) Data Warehouse
3 292 (12.39%) SQL Server
4 179 (7.59%) Data Lake
5 176 (7.47%) Tableau
6 169 (7.17%) Relational Database
7 144 (6.11%) PostgreSQL
8 141 (5.98%) Metadata
9 120 (5.09%) BigQuery
10 118 (5.01%) NoSQL
11 96 (4.07%) Azure SQL Database
12 90 (3.82%) Oracle Database
13 84 (3.56%) Amazon Redshift
14 79 (3.35%) Delta Lake
15 67 (2.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 65 (2.76%) Snowflake Schema
17 57 (2.42%) Amazon Athena
18 54 (2.29%) Big Data
19 49 (2.08%) Star Schema
20 48 (2.04%) Power Query
Development Applications
1 244 (10.35%) Git
2 172 (7.30%) JIRA
3 106 (4.50%) Jenkins
4 70 (2.97%) GitLab
5 35 (1.48%) Gradle
6 34 (1.44%) JUnit
7 29 (1.23%) Mockito
8 26 (1.10%) Maven
9 22 (0.93%) Selenium
10 21 (0.89%) MLflow
11 18 (0.76%) SonarQube
11 18 (0.76%) Visual Studio
12 17 (0.72%) ERwin
13 16 (0.68%) Cucumber
13 16 (0.68%) Oracle Forms
13 16 (0.68%) TeamCity
14 15 (0.64%) Liquibase
14 15 (0.64%) REST Assured
15 14 (0.59%) Team Foundation Server
16 11 (0.47%) Bitbucket
General
1 850 (36.06%) Finance
2 624 (26.47%) Social Skills
3 512 (21.72%) Analytical Skills
4 343 (14.55%) Banking
5 164 (6.96%) Public Sector
6 118 (5.01%) Front Office
7 92 (3.90%) Marketing
8 90 (3.82%) Investment Banking
9 56 (2.38%) Retail
10 49 (2.08%) Financial Institution
10 49 (2.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.95%) Documentation Skills
12 35 (1.48%) Back Office
13 31 (1.32%) Publishing
14 28 (1.19%) Legal
15 27 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
16 26 (1.10%) Telecoms
17 22 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
18 19 (0.81%) Pharmaceutical
19 17 (0.72%) Law
Job Titles
1 522 (22.15%) Developer
2 463 (19.64%) Data Engineer
3 382 (16.21%) Analyst
4 329 (13.96%) Senior
5 175 (7.42%) Lead
6 163 (6.92%) Data Analyst
7 146 (6.19%) Business Analyst
8 128 (5.43%) Architect
9 96 (4.07%) Senior Data Engineer
10 89 (3.78%) Consultant
11 87 (3.69%) C# Developer
12 83 (3.52%) Software Engineer
13 82 (3.48%) Senior Developer
14 81 (3.44%) Java Developer
15 71 (3.01%) Data Scientist
16 66 (2.80%) Azure Engineer
17 64 (2.72%) Python Developer
17 64 (2.72%) Snowflake Engineer
18 62 (2.63%) Python Engineer
18 62 (2.63%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 243 (10.31%) .NET
2 188 (7.98%) REST
3 176 (7.47%) Kafka
4 157 (6.66%) PySpark
5 126 (5.35%) React
6 108 (4.58%) Spring
7 96 (4.07%) RESTful
8 95 (4.03%) Pandas
9 92 (3.90%) HTML
10 91 (3.86%) JSON
10 91 (3.86%) Spring Boot
11 85 (3.61%) AngularJS
12 76 (3.22%) CSS
13 71 (3.01%) XML
14 63 (2.67%) .NET Framework
15 57 (2.42%) SOAP
16 55 (2.33%) Middleware
17 54 (2.29%) Web Services
18 53 (2.25%) NumPy
19 47 (1.99%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 189 (8.02%) Cloud Native
2 102 (4.33%) Data Structures
3 91 (3.86%) Legacy Systems
4 86 (3.65%) Distributed Systems
5 81 (3.44%) Derivative
6 80 (3.39%) Product Ownership
7 52 (2.21%) Onboarding
7 52 (2.21%) Self-Motivation
8 51 (2.16%) Fixed Income
9 48 (2.04%) Equities
10 44 (1.87%) Analytical Mindset
11 43 (1.82%) Algorithms
12 39 (1.65%) Management Information System
13 35 (1.48%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 34 (1.44%) Greenfield Project
15 30 (1.27%) Data Protection Act
16 29 (1.23%) Reference Data
17 27 (1.15%) Credit Risk
17 27 (1.15%) Enterprise Software
18 23 (0.98%) Market Risk
Operating Systems
1 134 (5.69%) Linux
2 132 (5.60%) Windows
3 89 (3.78%) Unix
4 35 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 11 (0.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.34%) zOS
7 7 (0.30%) Solaris
7 7 (0.30%) Windows Server 2008
7 7 (0.30%) Windows Server 2019
8 6 (0.25%) Android
8 6 (0.25%) Apple iOS
9 4 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.085%) VMS
10 2 (0.085%) Windows 10
11 1 (0.042%) AIX
11 1 (0.042%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 678 (28.77%) CI/CD
2 664 (28.17%) Analytics
3 618 (26.22%) Data Modelling
4 600 (25.46%) Agile
5 518 (21.98%) DevOps
6 508 (21.55%) ETL
7 489 (20.75%) Business Intelligence
8 488 (20.70%) Data Pipeline
9 456 (19.35%) Data Engineering
10 449 (19.05%) Problem-Solving
11 438 (18.58%) AI
12 311 (13.19%) Validation
13 303 (12.86%) Data Governance
14 292 (12.39%) Migration
15 283 (12.01%) Data Analysis
16 254 (10.78%) Decision-Making
17 252 (10.69%) Stakeholder Management
18 247 (10.48%) Machine Learning
19 222 (9.42%) Continuous Improvement
20 219 (9.29%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 1,041 (44.17%) Python
2 317 (13.45%) C#
3 302 (12.81%) Java
4 175 (7.42%) JavaScript
5 167 (7.09%) PL/SQL
6 125 (5.30%) T-SQL
7 117 (4.96%) TypeScript
8 100 (4.24%) PowerShell
9 82 (3.48%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 68 (2.89%) Shell Script
11 63 (2.67%) R
12 59 (2.50%) Scala
13 42 (1.78%) C++
14 30 (1.27%) VBA
15 25 (1.06%) Bash
16 16 (0.68%) Bicep
16 16 (0.68%) Groovy
17 15 (0.64%) Go
18 14 (0.59%) C
19 13 (0.55%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 357 (15.15%) Security Cleared
2 301 (12.77%) SC Cleared
3 190 (8.06%) Degree
4 60 (2.55%) Computer Science Degree
5 51 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.78%) Azure Certification
7 31 (1.32%) Master's Degree
8 20 (0.85%) AWS Certification
9 12 (0.51%) Microsoft Certification
10 11 (0.47%) DV Cleared
11 10 (0.42%) PhD
12 9 (0.38%) DBS Check
13 8 (0.34%) CISM
13 8 (0.34%) CISSP
13 8 (0.34%) ISTQB
14 7 (0.30%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
14 7 (0.30%) FFIEC
15 6 (0.25%) SnowPro
16 5 (0.21%) CBAP
16 5 (0.21%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 435 (18.46%) Data Quality
2 177 (7.51%) QA
3 103 (4.37%) GDPR
4 33 (1.40%) Accessibility
5 22 (0.93%) SLA
6 15 (0.64%) PMO
7 12 (0.51%) MiFID
7 12 (0.51%) NIST
7 12 (0.51%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 12 (0.51%) Solvency II
8 11 (0.47%) Actionable Recommendations
9 10 (0.42%) IFRS
10 9 (0.38%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 8 (0.34%) ISO 20022
12 6 (0.25%) COBIT
12 6 (0.25%) EMIR
12 6 (0.25%) GMP
12 6 (0.25%) HIPAA
13 5 (0.21%) Cyber Essentials
13 5 (0.21%) NCSC
System Software
1 224 (9.50%) Docker
2 39 (1.65%) Active Directory
3 17 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.30%) Oracle RAC
5 5 (0.21%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
7 3 (0.13%) Postfix
8 2 (0.085%) Apache ZooKeeper
8 2 (0.085%) GridGain
8 2 (0.085%) Hyper-V
9 1 (0.042%) HDFS
9 1 (0.042%) RACF
9 1 (0.042%) Varnish
9 1 (0.042%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.042%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.042%) XenApp
9 1 (0.042%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 224 (9.50%) Terraform
2 198 (8.40%) Kubernetes
3 41 (1.74%) Grafana
4 20 (0.85%) Ansible
5 16 (0.68%) Control-M
6 15 (0.64%) Prometheus
7 14 (0.59%) Kibana
8 10 (0.42%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.34%) ITRS Geneos
10 7 (0.30%) Data Guard
10 7 (0.30%) Single Sign-On
11 5 (0.21%) Packer
12 4 (0.17%) Kubeflow
13 3 (0.13%) HP ALM
13 3 (0.13%) Podman
14 2 (0.085%) Microsoft Clustering
14 2 (0.085%) Microsoft Intune
14 2 (0.085%) SCCM
14 2 (0.085%) Thomson Reuters DACS
14 2 (0.085%) ZABBIX
Vendors
1 323 (13.70%) Oracle
2 316 (13.41%) Microsoft
3 286 (12.13%) Databricks
4 104 (4.41%) Google
5 62 (2.63%) Informatica
6 45 (1.91%) ServiceNow
7 44 (1.87%) SAP
8 39 (1.65%) Citrix
9 36 (1.53%) IBM
10 35 (1.48%) Bloomberg
11 32 (1.36%) Murex
12 29 (1.23%) Salesforce
13 21 (0.89%) Foundry
14 20 (0.85%) OpenAI
14 20 (0.85%) Splunk
15 18 (0.76%) Adobe
15 18 (0.76%) Alteryx
15 18 (0.76%) Palantir
16 16 (0.68%) Dynatrace
16 16 (0.68%) Sybase