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

6 months to
14 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,238 1,839 2,283
As % of all contract jobs in London 12.57% 14.88% 13.01%
As % of the Programming Languages category 39.79% 37.89% 35.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,494 1,315 1,778
10th Percentile £361 £363 £400
25th Percentile £415 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £540 £575
Median % change year-on-year -3.70% -6.09% -
75th Percentile £632 £688 £688
90th Percentile £738 £800 £788
England median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 18 17 19
10th Percentile £31.58 £29.07 £25.99
25th Percentile £35.50 £39.25 £41.00
Median hourly rate £45.25 £52.50 £48.50
Median % change year-on-year -13.81% +8.25% -25.38%
75th Percentile £54.94 £65.00 £53.13
90th Percentile £61.30 £78.00 £62.31
England median hourly rate £48.72 £45.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +7.08% +1.11% -8.69%

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 5,625 4,854 6,393
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 31.59% 39.26% 36.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,786 3,422 4,883
10th Percentile £363 £380 £380
25th Percentile £431 £443 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.55% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £713 £700
90th Percentile £750 £825 £829
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -2.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 56 29 51
10th Percentile £32.39 £29.07 £23.80
25th Percentile £44.56 £33.25 £40.79
Median hourly rate £58.94 £44.50 £51.75
Median % change year-on-year +32.44% -14.01% -13.75%
75th Percentile £73.00 £61.50 £63.52
90th Percentile £88.75 £71.25 £72.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -

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 14 May 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 14 May 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 14 May 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 -9 271 £540 -1.82% 232
West London +9 61 £600 +8.70% 29
South London +4 41 £500 -25.93% 9
East London +4 22 £450 +8.39% 25
North London - 2 £336 - 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
1 157 (7.02%) Apache Spark
2 112 (5.00%) Apache Airflow
3 85 (3.80%) Apache
4 64 (2.86%) Confluence
5 42 (1.88%) SharePoint
6 22 (0.98%) IIS
7 18 (0.80%) SAS
8 13 (0.58%) HCL Notes
8 13 (0.58%) Palantir Foundry
9 12 (0.54%) Mendix
9 12 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
10 10 (0.45%) Appian
10 10 (0.45%) Tomcat
11 9 (0.40%) Jupyter
12 8 (0.36%) nginx
13 6 (0.27%) Camunda
13 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
14 5 (0.22%) CMS
15 4 (0.18%) Oracle Workflow
15 4 (0.18%) WebLogic
Applications
1 152 (6.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 38 (1.70%) MS Visio
3 31 (1.39%) Microsoft Office
4 30 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 5 (0.22%) Chatbot
7 5 (0.22%) Notion
8 3 (0.13%) Trello
9 1 (0.045%) Mingle
9 1 (0.045%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 25 (1.12%) Aladdin
2 19 (0.85%) Oracle EBS
3 13 (0.58%) Oracle General Ledger
4 11 (0.49%) NetSuite
4 11 (0.49%) Oracle Payables
5 10 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
6 9 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
6 9 (0.40%) Oracle Receivables
6 9 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
7 8 (0.36%) Endur
7 8 (0.36%) Findur
8 7 (0.31%) Fidessa
8 7 (0.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
9 6 (0.27%) Actimize
9 6 (0.27%) BASE24
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
9 6 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
9 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
9 6 (0.27%) Summit
10 5 (0.22%) BambooHR
Cloud Services
1 824 (36.82%) Azure
2 553 (24.71%) AWS
3 435 (19.44%) Power Platform
4 270 (12.06%) Azure DevOps
5 210 (9.38%) GitHub
6 202 (9.03%) Azure Data Factory
7 197 (8.80%) GCP
8 168 (7.51%) Snowflake
9 158 (7.06%) Serverless
10 156 (6.97%) Amazon S3
11 152 (6.79%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 129 (5.76%) dbt
13 105 (4.69%) AWS Lambda
14 102 (4.56%) GitHub Actions
15 49 (2.19%) Collibra
16 46 (2.06%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 44 (1.97%) AWS CloudFormation
17 44 (1.97%) Entra ID
17 44 (1.97%) Power Automate
18 41 (1.83%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 16 (0.71%) Firewall
2 14 (0.63%) DNS
2 14 (0.63%) Network Security
3 13 (0.58%) Internet
4 11 (0.49%) HTTP
5 6 (0.27%) WAN
6 5 (0.22%) VPN
7 4 (0.18%) FIX Connectivity
7 4 (0.18%) LAN
7 4 (0.18%) NetScaler
7 4 (0.18%) SMS
8 3 (0.13%) FTP
8 3 (0.13%) Multicast
8 3 (0.13%) NAS
8 3 (0.13%) SAN
8 3 (0.13%) TCP/IP
8 3 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
9 2 (0.089%) NaaS
9 2 (0.089%) SD-WAN
9 2 (0.089%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 391 (17.47%) Power BI
2 305 (13.63%) Data Warehouse
3 302 (13.49%) SQL Server
4 190 (8.49%) Data Lake
5 167 (7.46%) Tableau
6 153 (6.84%) Relational Database
7 147 (6.57%) PostgreSQL
8 142 (6.34%) Metadata
9 129 (5.76%) NoSQL
10 117 (5.23%) Azure SQL Database
11 98 (4.38%) BigQuery
12 86 (3.84%) Oracle Database
13 85 (3.80%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 81 (3.62%) Delta Lake
15 78 (3.49%) Amazon Redshift
16 63 (2.82%) Big Data
17 60 (2.68%) Snowflake Schema
18 55 (2.46%) Amazon Athena
19 49 (2.19%) Oracle Reports
20 46 (2.06%) Looker
Development Applications
1 221 (9.87%) Git
2 153 (6.84%) JIRA
3 93 (4.16%) Jenkins
4 68 (3.04%) GitLab
5 33 (1.47%) JUnit
6 30 (1.34%) MLflow
7 26 (1.16%) Mockito
8 25 (1.12%) Selenium
9 19 (0.85%) ERwin
9 19 (0.85%) Gradle
10 18 (0.80%) Cucumber
10 18 (0.80%) Maven
10 18 (0.80%) SonarQube
10 18 (0.80%) SpecFlow
11 14 (0.63%) TeamCity
12 12 (0.54%) Oracle Forms
12 12 (0.54%) REST Assured
13 11 (0.49%) Liquibase
13 11 (0.49%) PowerDesigner
13 11 (0.49%) Visual Studio
General
1 794 (35.48%) Finance
2 595 (26.59%) Social Skills
3 440 (19.66%) Analytical Skills
4 307 (13.72%) Banking
5 134 (5.99%) Public Sector
6 102 (4.56%) Front Office
7 91 (4.07%) Investment Banking
8 67 (2.99%) Marketing
9 51 (2.28%) Documentation Skills
10 48 (2.14%) Financial Institution
11 46 (2.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 30 (1.34%) Retail
13 28 (1.25%) Legal
13 28 (1.25%) Publishing
14 27 (1.21%) Telecoms
15 22 (0.98%) Back Office
16 20 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
17 18 (0.80%) Presentation Skills
18 17 (0.76%) General Ledger
19 14 (0.63%) Law
Job Titles
1 472 (21.09%) Data Engineer
2 465 (20.78%) Developer
3 355 (15.86%) Analyst
4 310 (13.85%) Senior
5 160 (7.15%) Lead
6 148 (6.61%) Business Analyst
7 147 (6.57%) Data Analyst
8 131 (5.85%) Architect
9 89 (3.98%) Senior Data Engineer
10 83 (3.71%) C# Developer
11 79 (3.53%) Software Engineer
12 75 (3.35%) Consultant
13 74 (3.31%) Azure Engineer
14 73 (3.26%) Senior Developer
15 65 (2.90%) Python Developer
16 63 (2.82%) Java Developer
17 61 (2.73%) Data Scientist
18 54 (2.41%) Data Architect
18 54 (2.41%) Python Engineer
18 54 (2.41%) Snowflake Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 225 (10.05%) .NET
2 183 (8.18%) Kafka
3 167 (7.46%) PySpark
4 154 (6.88%) REST
5 122 (5.45%) React
6 97 (4.33%) RESTful
7 96 (4.29%) HTML
8 95 (4.24%) Pandas
9 84 (3.75%) Spring
10 75 (3.35%) CSS
11 72 (3.22%) AngularJS
11 72 (3.22%) Spring Boot
12 69 (3.08%) JSON
13 57 (2.55%) Middleware
14 55 (2.46%) .NET Framework
14 55 (2.46%) NumPy
15 51 (2.28%) FastAPI
16 48 (2.14%) XML
17 47 (2.10%) scikit-learn
18 45 (2.01%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 166 (7.42%) Cloud Native
2 82 (3.66%) Data Structures
3 77 (3.44%) Derivative
4 74 (3.31%) Legacy Systems
5 66 (2.95%) Distributed Systems
6 62 (2.77%) Product Ownership
7 53 (2.37%) Equities
8 52 (2.32%) Fixed Income
9 46 (2.06%) Onboarding
10 44 (1.97%) Management Information System
11 41 (1.83%) Algorithms
12 40 (1.79%) Data Protection Act
13 39 (1.74%) Analytical Mindset
14 37 (1.65%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
15 34 (1.52%) Self-Motivation
16 31 (1.39%) Market Risk
17 30 (1.34%) Greenfield Project
18 28 (1.25%) Credit Risk
18 28 (1.25%) Low-Code
19 26 (1.16%) Distributed Computing
Operating Systems
1 138 (6.17%) Linux
2 122 (5.45%) Windows
3 88 (3.93%) Unix
4 38 (1.70%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
6 7 (0.31%) Solaris
6 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
6 7 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
6 7 (0.31%) zOS
7 6 (0.27%) Android
7 6 (0.27%) Apple iOS
7 6 (0.27%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 4 (0.18%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.089%) AIX
Processes & Methodologies
1 623 (27.84%) CI/CD
2 619 (27.66%) Analytics
3 607 (27.12%) Data Modelling
4 553 (24.71%) Agile
5 541 (24.17%) ETL
6 509 (22.74%) DevOps
7 504 (22.52%) Business Intelligence
8 444 (19.84%) Problem-Solving
9 437 (19.53%) Data Pipeline
10 432 (19.30%) Data Engineering
11 383 (17.11%) AI
12 315 (14.08%) Data Governance
13 294 (13.14%) Validation
14 265 (11.84%) Migration
15 247 (11.04%) Data Analysis
16 234 (10.46%) Decision-Making
17 221 (9.87%) Machine Learning
18 220 (9.83%) Data Science
19 209 (9.34%) Performance Tuning
20 207 (9.25%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 1,001 (44.73%) Python
2 309 (13.81%) C#
3 275 (12.29%) Java
4 167 (7.46%) JavaScript
5 150 (6.70%) PL/SQL
6 107 (4.78%) T-SQL
7 92 (4.11%) TypeScript
8 81 (3.62%) PowerShell
9 75 (3.35%) Scala
10 74 (3.31%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 74 (3.31%) R
11 61 (2.73%) Shell Script
12 49 (2.19%) C++
13 31 (1.39%) VBA
14 27 (1.21%) Bash
15 24 (1.07%) Bicep
16 17 (0.76%) C
17 16 (0.71%) VB
18 13 (0.58%) Perl
19 10 (0.45%) Go
Qualifications
1 353 (15.77%) Security Cleared
2 293 (13.09%) SC Cleared
3 173 (7.73%) Degree
4 60 (2.68%) Computer Science Degree
5 51 (2.28%) Azure Certification
6 42 (1.88%) BPSS Clearance
7 29 (1.30%) Master's Degree
8 19 (0.85%) Microsoft Certification
9 15 (0.67%) AWS Certification
10 14 (0.63%) CBAP
10 14 (0.63%) ISTQB
11 11 (0.49%) PhD
11 11 (0.49%) PMI Certification
12 9 (0.40%) PMP
13 8 (0.36%) CISM
13 8 (0.36%) CISSP
14 7 (0.31%) DBS Check
14 7 (0.31%) DV Cleared
15 6 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
15 6 (0.27%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 442 (19.75%) Data Quality
2 187 (8.36%) QA
3 112 (5.00%) GDPR
4 23 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 21 (0.94%) Accessibility
6 18 (0.80%) SLA
7 17 (0.76%) MiFID
8 16 (0.71%) PMO
9 13 (0.58%) IFRS
9 13 (0.58%) NIST
9 13 (0.58%) PCI DSS
10 11 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 10 (0.45%) Actionable Recommendations
12 8 (0.36%) EMIR
12 8 (0.36%) ISO 8583
13 7 (0.31%) Basel III
13 7 (0.31%) HIPAA
13 7 (0.31%) NCSC
13 7 (0.31%) Solvency II
14 6 (0.27%) California Consumer Privacy Act
System Software
1 240 (10.72%) Docker
2 43 (1.92%) Active Directory
3 18 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
4 7 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
5 5 (0.22%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.22%) VMware Infrastructure
6 4 (0.18%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.18%) XenApp
6 4 (0.18%) XenDesktop
7 3 (0.13%) HDFS
7 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.089%) GridGain
8 2 (0.089%) Postfix
9 1 (0.045%) RACF
9 1 (0.045%) Varnish
9 1 (0.045%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 219 (9.79%) Terraform
2 191 (8.53%) Kubernetes
3 41 (1.83%) Grafana
4 22 (0.98%) Ansible
5 18 (0.80%) Prometheus
6 12 (0.54%) Kibana
7 11 (0.49%) Control-M
8 10 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
9 8 (0.36%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 7 (0.31%) ITRS Geneos
11 6 (0.27%) Data Guard
11 6 (0.27%) SCCM
12 5 (0.22%) Kubeflow
12 5 (0.22%) Packer
13 4 (0.18%) SCVMM
14 3 (0.13%) HP ALM
14 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Clustering
15 2 (0.089%) Istio
15 2 (0.089%) Knative
Vendors
1 339 (15.15%) Microsoft
2 309 (13.81%) Databricks
3 305 (13.63%) Oracle
4 82 (3.66%) Google
5 59 (2.64%) SAP
6 58 (2.59%) Informatica
7 56 (2.50%) ServiceNow
8 42 (1.88%) Citrix
9 37 (1.65%) Salesforce
10 33 (1.47%) Bloomberg
11 30 (1.34%) IBM
12 28 (1.25%) Murex
13 26 (1.16%) OpenAI
14 21 (0.94%) Splunk
15 20 (0.89%) Workday
16 19 (0.85%) MuleSoft
17 15 (0.67%) Adobe
17 15 (0.67%) Charles River
17 15 (0.67%) Palantir
17 15 (0.67%) VMware