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

6 months to
2 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 9 7
Rank change year-on-year -6 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,483 1,916 2,307
As % of all contract jobs in London 12.39% 14.43% 14.20%
As % of the Programming Languages category 39.32% 37.44% 35.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,735 1,363 1,755
10th Percentile £366 £363 £363
25th Percentile £425 £413 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £563
Median % change year-on-year - -6.67% -2.17%
75th Percentile £631 £675 £694
90th Percentile £738 £788 £775
England median daily rate £500 £500 £540
% change year-on-year - -7.41% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 29 17
10th Percentile £26.51 £26.21 £25.99
25th Percentile £26.52 £32.50 £40.75
Median hourly rate £37.50 £42.82 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -12.41% -9.86% +29.99%
75th Percentile £52.49 £57.50 £53.75
90th Percentile £53.75 £65.30 £64.25
England median hourly rate £42.50 £50.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -15.00% +17.65% +6.25%

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 6,315 5,117 6,493
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 31.52% 38.54% 39.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,240 3,558 4,763
10th Percentile £381 £375 £370
25th Percentile £450 £428 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £663 £688 £706
90th Percentile £775 £825 £850
England median daily rate £525 £514 £550
% change year-on-year +2.14% -6.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 55 62 42
10th Percentile £26.52 £26.43 £25.32
25th Percentile £36.25 £33.25 £40.06
Median hourly rate £52.50 £44.70 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year +17.46% -7.84% -19.45%
75th Percentile £73.00 £63.06 £60.45
90th Percentile £88.75 £86.25 £78.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +3.17%

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 September 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 September 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 September 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 -6 303 £550 -4.35% 206
West London +12 71 £520 +15.36% 90
South London -7 44 £535 -2.73% 24
East London +3 13 £450 -1.66% 30
North London +6 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
1 166 (6.69%) Apache Airflow
2 136 (5.48%) Apache Spark
3 109 (4.39%) Apache
4 85 (3.42%) Confluence
5 56 (2.26%) SharePoint
6 25 (1.01%) IIS
7 24 (0.97%) SAS
8 15 (0.60%) nginx
8 15 (0.60%) Palantir Foundry
9 14 (0.56%) CMS
10 13 (0.52%) Camunda
10 13 (0.52%) Microsoft Exchange
10 13 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
11 12 (0.48%) Jupyter
12 8 (0.32%) Tomcat
13 7 (0.28%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 7 (0.28%) WebLogic
14 6 (0.24%) Appian
14 6 (0.24%) MTS
15 4 (0.16%) CICS
Applications
1 154 (6.20%) Microsoft Excel
2 26 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
3 22 (0.89%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 19 (0.77%) 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 2 (0.081%) Mingle
10 1 (0.040%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 1 (0.040%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 25 (1.01%) Aladdin
2 23 (0.93%) Oracle EBS
3 20 (0.81%) Dynamics CRM
4 18 (0.72%) Oracle ERP
5 16 (0.64%) Oracle Payables
6 14 (0.56%) Oracle General Ledger
6 14 (0.56%) Oracle Receivables
7 11 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
8 10 (0.40%) Finacle
8 10 (0.40%) Remedy ITSM
9 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
10 8 (0.32%) Findur
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle Assets
10 8 (0.32%) Oracle FAH
10 8 (0.32%) Summit
11 7 (0.28%) OpenText MBPM
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle BPM
11 7 (0.28%) Oracle Financials
11 7 (0.28%) Unit4 Business World
12 6 (0.24%) Fidessa
Cloud Services
1 826 (33.27%) Azure
2 597 (24.04%) AWS
3 466 (18.77%) Power Platform
4 274 (11.04%) Azure DevOps
5 265 (10.67%) GCP
6 247 (9.95%) Snowflake
7 225 (9.06%) GitHub
8 214 (8.62%) dbt
9 175 (7.05%) Azure Data Factory
10 166 (6.69%) Serverless
11 145 (5.84%) Amazon S3
12 123 (4.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 114 (4.59%) AWS Lambda
13 114 (4.59%) GitHub Actions
14 58 (2.34%) SaaS
15 56 (2.26%) Azure Databricks
16 54 (2.17%) PowerApps
17 50 (2.01%) Amazon CloudWatch
18 49 (1.97%) Power Automate
19 44 (1.77%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 17 (0.68%) HTTP
2 16 (0.64%) Internet
3 15 (0.60%) DNS
4 14 (0.56%) Firewall
4 14 (0.56%) VPN
5 11 (0.44%) Broadband
6 9 (0.36%) Network Security
7 8 (0.32%) Multicast
7 8 (0.32%) TCP/IP
8 7 (0.28%) SSH
8 7 (0.28%) SSL
9 6 (0.24%) DHCP
10 5 (0.20%) HTTPS
10 5 (0.20%) SAN
11 4 (0.16%) IPv4
11 4 (0.16%) SMS
12 3 (0.12%) FTP
12 3 (0.12%) Intranet
12 3 (0.12%) Kerberos
12 3 (0.12%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 419 (16.87%) Power BI
2 375 (15.10%) Data Warehouse
3 293 (11.80%) SQL Server
4 179 (7.21%) Relational Database
5 161 (6.48%) Data Lake
5 161 (6.48%) Tableau
6 154 (6.20%) Metadata
7 138 (5.56%) PostgreSQL
8 127 (5.11%) BigQuery
9 123 (4.95%) NoSQL
10 107 (4.31%) Oracle Database
11 99 (3.99%) Delta Lake
12 93 (3.75%) Azure SQL Database
13 86 (3.46%) Amazon Redshift
14 62 (2.50%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 62 (2.50%) Star Schema
15 61 (2.46%) Snowflake Schema
16 60 (2.42%) Power Query
17 58 (2.34%) Big Data
18 54 (2.17%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 281 (11.32%) Git
2 186 (7.49%) JIRA
3 130 (5.24%) Jenkins
4 82 (3.30%) GitLab
5 46 (1.85%) Selenium
6 43 (1.73%) Gradle
7 37 (1.49%) JUnit
8 26 (1.05%) Maven
8 26 (1.05%) Mockito
8 26 (1.05%) SonarQube
9 21 (0.85%) Bitbucket
9 21 (0.85%) Visual Studio
10 20 (0.81%) MLflow
11 19 (0.77%) ERwin
11 19 (0.77%) Liquibase
12 17 (0.68%) Oracle Forms
13 16 (0.64%) Cypress.io
13 16 (0.64%) JMeter
13 16 (0.64%) Postman
14 15 (0.60%) ER Studio
General
1 894 (36.00%) Finance
2 718 (28.92%) Social Skills
3 549 (22.11%) Analytical Skills
4 403 (16.23%) Banking
5 159 (6.40%) Public Sector
6 129 (5.20%) Front Office
7 113 (4.55%) Marketing
8 110 (4.43%) Investment Banking
9 72 (2.90%) Retail
10 63 (2.54%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 50 (2.01%) Financial Institution
12 40 (1.61%) Documentation Skills
13 34 (1.37%) Back Office
14 26 (1.05%) Telecoms
15 25 (1.01%) Publishing
16 24 (0.97%) Local Government
17 23 (0.93%) Legal
17 23 (0.93%) Organisational Skills
18 22 (0.89%) Influencing Skills
18 22 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 534 (21.51%) Developer
2 476 (19.17%) Data Engineer
3 425 (17.12%) Analyst
4 385 (15.51%) Senior
5 186 (7.49%) Lead
6 171 (6.89%) Data Analyst
7 150 (6.04%) Business Analyst
8 137 (5.52%) Architect
9 113 (4.55%) Senior Data Engineer
10 103 (4.15%) Consultant
11 92 (3.71%) Senior Developer
12 84 (3.38%) Java Developer
13 78 (3.14%) Python Engineer
13 78 (3.14%) Software Engineer
14 68 (2.74%) Azure Engineer
15 66 (2.66%) C# Developer
15 66 (2.66%) Python Developer
16 61 (2.46%) Data Architect
16 61 (2.46%) Snowflake Engineer
17 59 (2.38%) Full-Stack Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 267 (10.75%) .NET
2 236 (9.50%) REST
3 235 (9.46%) Terraform
4 204 (8.22%) PySpark
5 196 (7.89%) Kafka
6 140 (5.64%) React
7 126 (5.07%) Spring
8 108 (4.35%) JSON
8 108 (4.35%) Spring Boot
9 104 (4.19%) HTML
10 102 (4.11%) RESTful
11 93 (3.75%) CSS
12 88 (3.54%) XML
13 81 (3.26%) Pandas
14 79 (3.18%) AngularJS
15 64 (2.58%) Middleware
16 63 (2.54%) SOAP
17 62 (2.50%) Web Services
18 60 (2.42%) .NET Framework
19 54 (2.17%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 194 (7.81%) Cloud Native
2 129 (5.20%) Product Ownership
3 117 (4.71%) Data Structures
4 86 (3.46%) Legacy Systems
5 82 (3.30%) Distributed Systems
6 74 (2.98%) Derivative
6 74 (2.98%) Onboarding
7 55 (2.22%) Enterprise Software
7 55 (2.22%) Management Information System
7 55 (2.22%) Self-Motivation
8 51 (2.05%) Fixed Income
9 44 (1.77%) AI Agents
9 44 (1.77%) Analytical Mindset
10 42 (1.69%) Reference Data
11 40 (1.61%) Equities
12 39 (1.57%) Algorithms
12 39 (1.57%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
13 32 (1.29%) Greenfield Project
13 32 (1.29%) Replication
14 28 (1.13%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 164 (6.60%) Linux
2 134 (5.40%) Windows
3 106 (4.27%) Unix
4 32 (1.29%) Windows Server
5 12 (0.48%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 8 (0.32%) Windows Server 2008
7 7 (0.28%) VMS
8 6 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
9 5 (0.20%) Ubuntu
9 5 (0.20%) zOS
10 4 (0.16%) Solaris
10 4 (0.16%) Windows 10
11 3 (0.12%) Android
11 3 (0.12%) Apple iOS
11 3 (0.12%) OpenVMS
11 3 (0.12%) Windows Server 2012
12 2 (0.081%) Amazon Linux
12 2 (0.081%) Windows 7
12 2 (0.081%) Windows Server 2016
13 1 (0.040%) Oracle Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 750 (30.21%) CI/CD
2 679 (27.35%) Analytics
3 669 (26.94%) Agile
3 669 (26.94%) Data Modelling
4 539 (21.71%) DevOps
5 522 (21.02%) ETL
6 511 (20.58%) Data Pipeline
7 503 (20.26%) Business Intelligence
8 498 (20.06%) AI
9 488 (19.65%) Data Engineering
10 468 (18.85%) Problem-Solving
11 381 (15.34%) Stakeholder Management
12 365 (14.70%) Validation
13 332 (13.37%) Data Governance
14 324 (13.05%) Migration
15 315 (12.69%) Data Analysis
16 278 (11.20%) Decision-Making
17 254 (10.23%) Continuous Improvement
18 247 (9.95%) Test Automation
19 240 (9.67%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 1,082 (43.58%) Python
2 338 (13.61%) Java
3 307 (12.36%) C#
4 218 (8.78%) JavaScript
5 181 (7.29%) PL/SQL
6 130 (5.24%) TypeScript
7 113 (4.55%) T-SQL
8 109 (4.39%) PowerShell
9 98 (3.95%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 82 (3.30%) Shell Script
11 55 (2.22%) R
12 52 (2.09%) Scala
13 37 (1.49%) Bash
13 37 (1.49%) C++
14 33 (1.33%) VBA
15 18 (0.72%) Go
16 16 (0.64%) VB.NET
17 15 (0.60%) Groovy
18 12 (0.48%) Korn
18 12 (0.48%) VB
Qualifications
1 377 (15.18%) Security Cleared
2 322 (12.97%) SC Cleared
3 200 (8.05%) Degree
4 73 (2.94%) Computer Science Degree
5 45 (1.81%) BPSS Clearance
6 40 (1.61%) Azure Certification
7 30 (1.21%) Master's Degree
8 29 (1.17%) AWS Certification
9 18 (0.72%) ISTQB
10 16 (0.64%) DV Cleared
11 12 (0.48%) FFIEC
12 11 (0.44%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Certification
13 10 (0.40%) ISEB
14 9 (0.36%) DBS Check
15 8 (0.32%) ACCA
15 8 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
15 8 (0.32%) CIMA
16 7 (0.28%) CISM
16 7 (0.28%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 500 (20.14%) Data Quality
2 196 (7.89%) QA
3 83 (3.34%) GDPR
4 29 (1.17%) Accessibility
5 28 (1.13%) SLA
6 19 (0.77%) ISO 20022
7 17 (0.68%) Actionable Recommendations
7 17 (0.68%) NIST
8 15 (0.60%) IFRS
8 15 (0.60%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 14 (0.56%) MiFID
10 11 (0.44%) COBIT
11 9 (0.36%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 9 (0.36%) Solvency II
12 8 (0.32%) PMO
13 7 (0.28%) Basel III
13 7 (0.28%) EMIR
13 7 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 5 (0.20%) GAAP
14 5 (0.20%) SEPA
System Software
1 235 (9.46%) Docker
2 36 (1.45%) Active Directory
3 23 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 15 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
6 4 (0.16%) Postfix
6 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.12%) Apache ZooKeeper
7 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.081%) DFS Replication
8 2 (0.081%) Dovecot
8 2 (0.081%) GridGain
8 2 (0.081%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.081%) Squid
9 1 (0.040%) RACF
9 1 (0.040%) Varnish
9 1 (0.040%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 207 (8.34%) Kubernetes
2 40 (1.61%) Grafana
3 34 (1.37%) Ansible
4 29 (1.17%) Control-M
5 19 (0.77%) Prometheus
6 11 (0.44%) Kibana
6 11 (0.44%) Microsoft Clustering
7 10 (0.40%) Oracle RMAN
8 9 (0.36%) ITRS Geneos
9 8 (0.32%) SCOM
10 7 (0.28%) Data Guard
11 5 (0.20%) HP Fortify
11 5 (0.20%) Istio
11 5 (0.20%) Packer
11 5 (0.20%) Single Sign-On
12 4 (0.16%) Argo
12 4 (0.16%) HP ALM
12 4 (0.16%) Kubeflow
12 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
12 4 (0.16%) SCCM
Vendors
1 361 (14.54%) Microsoft
2 334 (13.45%) Oracle
3 324 (13.05%) Databricks
4 107 (4.31%) Google
5 65 (2.62%) Informatica
6 46 (1.85%) SAP
7 44 (1.77%) IBM
8 39 (1.57%) Bloomberg
9 38 (1.53%) Salesforce
10 34 (1.37%) Murex
11 32 (1.29%) ServiceNow
12 30 (1.21%) Citrix
13 25 (1.01%) VMware
14 24 (0.97%) Foundry
15 22 (0.89%) Adobe
15 22 (0.89%) Splunk
16 21 (0.85%) Talend
17 20 (0.81%) Alteryx
17 20 (0.81%) Sybase
18 19 (0.77%) OpenAI