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

6 months to
24 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 8 9 6
Rank change year-on-year +1 -3 0
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,105 1,960 2,421
As % of all contract jobs in London 14.37% 14.07% 13.12%
As % of the Programming Languages category 38.81% 36.53% 37.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,420 1,357 1,794
10th Percentile £358 £363 £388
25th Percentile £413 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year -6.95% -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £638 £663 £688
90th Percentile £738 £775 £788
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 22 27
10th Percentile £18.25 £36.00 £31.32
25th Percentile £26.50 £40.75 £36.27
Median hourly rate £40.49 £50.00 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -19.02% +11.11% -20.35%
75th Percentile £47.50 £63.94 £53.94
90th Percentile £64.35 £92.38 £64.51
England median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £43.00
% change year-on-year -4.76% +22.09% -14.00%

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 5,424 5,365 6,474
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 37.03% 38.51% 35.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,645 3,555 4,909
10th Percentile £363 £375 £390
25th Percentile £425 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £535 £563 £575
Median % change year-on-year -4.89% -2.17% -4.17%
75th Percentile £650 £695 £700
90th Percentile £775 £825 £800
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 63 36 68
10th Percentile £25.39 £35.00 £26.68
25th Percentile £35.75 £38.44 £37.02
Median hourly rate £55.00 £52.50 £50.25
Median % change year-on-year +4.76% +4.48% -12.61%
75th Percentile £67.10 £73.25 £61.94
90th Percentile £85.75 £97.50 £72.15
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £60.00
% change year-on-year +3.59% +4.58% -7.69%

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 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 24 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 24 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 -3 278 £525 -9.09% 189
South London +20 46 £492 -0.35% 47
West London -2 36 £575 +15.00% 42
East London -1 23 £469 +17.19% 22
North London +7 1 - - 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
1 131 (6.22%) Apache Spark
2 93 (4.42%) Apache Airflow
3 71 (3.37%) Confluence
4 54 (2.57%) Apache
5 42 (2.00%) SharePoint
6 18 (0.86%) IIS
7 14 (0.67%) nginx
8 13 (0.62%) Oracle SOA Suite
8 13 (0.62%) SAS
9 12 (0.57%) Jupyter
10 11 (0.52%) HCL Notes
10 11 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
11 9 (0.43%) Mendix
11 9 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
12 7 (0.33%) MQSeries
12 7 (0.33%) Skype for Business
13 6 (0.29%) Appian
13 6 (0.29%) Mattermost
13 6 (0.29%) Tomcat
14 4 (0.19%) Anypoint
Applications
1 145 (6.89%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
3 32 (1.52%) MS Visio
4 27 (1.28%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 11 (0.52%) Microsoft Project
6 8 (0.38%) Mozilla Thunderbird
7 5 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 5 (0.24%) Trello
8 4 (0.19%) Chatbot
9 3 (0.14%) Notion
10 1 (0.048%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 22 (1.05%) Aladdin
1 22 (1.05%) Oracle General Ledger
1 22 (1.05%) Oracle Payables
2 19 (0.90%) Oracle EBS
3 16 (0.76%) Oracle Assets
4 15 (0.71%) Oracle Receivables
5 14 (0.67%) Endur
5 14 (0.67%) Oracle Financials
6 13 (0.62%) Dynamics CRM
6 13 (0.62%) NetSuite
7 11 (0.52%) Oracle EBS R12
8 10 (0.48%) SAP S/4HANA
9 9 (0.43%) Oracle ERP
9 9 (0.43%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
10 8 (0.38%) Oracle E-Business Tax
10 8 (0.38%) Remedy ITSM
10 8 (0.38%) SAP HR
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Cash Management
11 7 (0.33%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
12 6 (0.29%) Markit EDM
Cloud Services
1 686 (32.59%) Azure
2 508 (24.13%) AWS
3 391 (18.57%) Power Platform
4 197 (9.36%) Azure DevOps
5 184 (8.74%) GitHub
6 175 (8.31%) Snowflake
7 164 (7.79%) Azure Data Factory
8 154 (7.32%) Serverless
9 153 (7.27%) GCP
10 134 (6.37%) Amazon S3
11 111 (5.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 92 (4.37%) GitHub Actions
13 85 (4.04%) dbt
14 82 (3.90%) AWS Lambda
15 62 (2.95%) SaaS
16 57 (2.71%) Azure Functions
17 43 (2.04%) Power Automate
18 42 (2.00%) Azure Logic Apps
19 41 (1.95%) AWS CloudFormation
20 40 (1.90%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 27 (1.28%) Firewall
2 20 (0.95%) HTTP
3 18 (0.86%) DNS
4 12 (0.57%) Internet
4 12 (0.57%) Network Security
4 12 (0.57%) SSH
5 10 (0.48%) SMTP
6 8 (0.38%) FTP
6 8 (0.38%) IMAP
6 8 (0.38%) OpenLDAP
6 8 (0.38%) SMS
6 8 (0.38%) VPN
7 7 (0.33%) Multicast
7 7 (0.33%) Skype
8 6 (0.29%) Unified Communications
9 5 (0.24%) LAN
9 5 (0.24%) WAN
10 4 (0.19%) 2G
10 4 (0.19%) 4G
10 4 (0.19%) NetScaler
Database & Business Intelligence
1 360 (17.10%) Power BI
2 252 (11.97%) Data Warehouse
3 250 (11.88%) SQL Server
4 155 (7.36%) PostgreSQL
5 150 (7.13%) NoSQL
6 149 (7.08%) Relational Database
7 147 (6.98%) Tableau
8 137 (6.51%) Data Lake
9 102 (4.85%) Metadata
10 100 (4.75%) Azure SQL Database
11 96 (4.56%) Oracle Database
12 79 (3.75%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 78 (3.71%) Big Data
14 68 (3.23%) BigQuery
15 58 (2.76%) Amazon Redshift
16 49 (2.33%) Delta Lake
17 48 (2.28%) MongoDB
18 47 (2.23%) Amazon Athena
19 42 (2.00%) Amazon RDS
19 42 (2.00%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 223 (10.59%) Git
2 159 (7.55%) JIRA
3 84 (3.99%) Jenkins
4 68 (3.23%) GitLab
5 38 (1.81%) JUnit
6 26 (1.24%) Selenium
7 21 (1.00%) ERwin
7 21 (1.00%) SpecFlow
8 19 (0.90%) Cypress.io
8 19 (0.90%) MLflow
9 18 (0.86%) Cucumber
10 17 (0.81%) Bitbucket
10 17 (0.81%) Postman
11 14 (0.67%) Maven
11 14 (0.67%) Mockito
11 14 (0.67%) Visual Studio
12 12 (0.57%) TeamCity
13 11 (0.52%) ER Studio
13 11 (0.52%) Oracle Forms
13 11 (0.52%) SonarQube
General
1 709 (33.68%) Finance
2 624 (29.64%) Social Skills
3 379 (18.00%) Analytical Skills
4 299 (14.20%) Banking
5 124 (5.89%) Public Sector
6 116 (5.51%) Investment Banking
7 96 (4.56%) Front Office
8 57 (2.71%) Marketing
9 52 (2.47%) Documentation Skills
10 44 (2.09%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 41 (1.95%) Financial Institution
12 40 (1.90%) Retail
13 22 (1.05%) Back Office
13 22 (1.05%) General Ledger
13 22 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
14 21 (1.00%) Legal
15 17 (0.81%) Publishing
16 15 (0.71%) Law
17 14 (0.67%) Telecoms
18 12 (0.57%) Organisational Skills
Job Titles
1 526 (24.99%) Developer
2 366 (17.39%) Analyst
3 351 (16.67%) Data Engineer
4 282 (13.40%) Senior
5 159 (7.55%) Business Analyst
6 142 (6.75%) Lead
7 138 (6.56%) Data Analyst
8 104 (4.94%) Architect
9 81 (3.85%) Consultant
10 72 (3.42%) Azure Engineer
11 70 (3.33%) Java Developer
12 69 (3.28%) Senior Developer
13 67 (3.18%) C# Developer
14 62 (2.95%) Software Engineer
15 61 (2.90%) Python Developer
16 57 (2.71%) Senior Data Engineer
17 51 (2.42%) Azure Data Engineer
17 51 (2.42%) Senior Analyst
18 48 (2.28%) Data Architect
19 47 (2.23%) SQL Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 199 (9.45%) .NET
2 171 (8.12%) Kafka
3 146 (6.94%) PySpark
3 146 (6.94%) REST
4 96 (4.56%) RESTful
5 93 (4.42%) React
6 77 (3.66%) HTML
7 70 (3.33%) XML
8 68 (3.23%) Spring
9 67 (3.18%) CSS
10 66 (3.14%) Node.js
11 61 (2.90%) Pandas
12 55 (2.61%) AngularJS
13 53 (2.52%) Spring Boot
14 52 (2.47%) JSON
15 51 (2.42%) .NET Framework
16 49 (2.33%) Middleware
17 47 (2.23%) NumPy
18 39 (1.85%) SOAP
18 39 (1.85%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 126 (5.99%) Cloud Native
2 71 (3.37%) Data Structures
3 60 (2.85%) Derivative
4 58 (2.76%) Data Protection Act
5 56 (2.66%) Product Ownership
6 55 (2.61%) Legacy Systems
7 54 (2.57%) Equities
8 51 (2.42%) Analytical Mindset
9 49 (2.33%) Management Information System
10 47 (2.23%) Fixed Income
10 47 (2.23%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 41 (1.95%) Algorithms
12 40 (1.90%) Market Risk
13 37 (1.76%) Distributed Systems
13 37 (1.76%) Onboarding
14 26 (1.24%) Hedge funds
15 25 (1.19%) Credit Risk
15 25 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
16 24 (1.14%) Replication
17 22 (1.05%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 194 (9.22%) Linux
2 121 (5.75%) Windows
3 120 (5.70%) Unix
4 28 (1.33%) Windows Server
5 13 (0.62%) VMS
6 11 (0.52%) Android
7 10 (0.48%) Ubuntu
7 10 (0.48%) Windows Server 2016
8 8 (0.38%) Amazon Linux
9 7 (0.33%) Windows 10
10 5 (0.24%) AIX
10 5 (0.24%) Apple iOS
10 5 (0.24%) Windows Server 2019
11 3 (0.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
12 2 (0.095%) zOS
13 1 (0.048%) Alpine Linux
13 1 (0.048%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 578 (27.46%) Agile
2 517 (24.56%) Analytics
3 480 (22.80%) Data Modelling
4 471 (22.38%) CI/CD
5 468 (22.23%) Problem-Solving
6 464 (22.04%) Business Intelligence
7 432 (20.52%) ETL
8 418 (19.86%) DevOps
9 332 (15.77%) Data Pipeline
10 303 (14.39%) Data Engineering
11 260 (12.35%) Data Governance
12 252 (11.97%) Migration
13 247 (11.73%) AI
14 225 (10.69%) Data Analysis
15 213 (10.12%) Validation
16 202 (9.60%) Data Science
17 201 (9.55%) Visualisation
18 192 (9.12%) Decision-Making
19 181 (8.60%) Stakeholder Management
20 179 (8.50%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 874 (41.52%) Python
2 284 (13.49%) Java
3 269 (12.78%) C#
4 166 (7.89%) JavaScript
5 130 (6.18%) PL/SQL
6 96 (4.56%) PowerShell
7 92 (4.37%) TypeScript
8 71 (3.37%) C++
9 67 (3.18%) Scala
10 66 (3.14%) T-SQL
11 58 (2.76%) R
12 51 (2.42%) Shell Script
13 47 (2.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
14 46 (2.19%) VBA
15 41 (1.95%) VB
16 35 (1.66%) Bash
17 29 (1.38%) Bicep
18 22 (1.05%) Perl
19 20 (0.95%) Go
20 19 (0.90%) Korn
Qualifications
1 278 (13.21%) Security Cleared
2 221 (10.50%) SC Cleared
3 188 (8.93%) Degree
4 67 (3.18%) Computer Science Degree
5 50 (2.38%) Azure Certification
6 34 (1.62%) AWS Certification
7 29 (1.38%) Master's Degree
8 27 (1.28%) BPSS Clearance
9 26 (1.24%) ISTQB
10 20 (0.95%) Microsoft Certification
11 18 (0.86%) CBAP
12 16 (0.76%) DV Cleared
13 12 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 12 (0.57%) PMI Certification
14 10 (0.48%) CFA
15 9 (0.43%) PMP
16 8 (0.38%) ITIL Certification
17 6 (0.29%) Cisco Certification
17 6 (0.29%) ISEB
17 6 (0.29%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 340 (16.15%) Data Quality
2 160 (7.60%) QA
3 84 (3.99%) GDPR
4 32 (1.52%) Accessibility
5 19 (0.90%) MiFID
5 19 (0.90%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 12 (0.57%) EMIR
6 12 (0.57%) IFRS
7 10 (0.48%) SLA
8 9 (0.43%) ISO/IEC 27001
8 9 (0.43%) NIST
8 9 (0.43%) PCI DSS
9 8 (0.38%) HIPAA
9 8 (0.38%) ISO 8583
10 7 (0.33%) Actionable Recommendations
10 7 (0.33%) Basel III
10 7 (0.33%) GAAP
11 6 (0.29%) IFRS 9
12 5 (0.24%) PMO
12 5 (0.24%) SEPA
System Software
1 222 (10.55%) Docker
2 51 (2.42%) Active Directory
3 11 (0.52%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (0.38%) DFS Replication
4 8 (0.38%) Dovecot
4 8 (0.38%) HDFS
4 8 (0.38%) Postfix
4 8 (0.38%) Squid
5 7 (0.33%) VMware Infrastructure
5 7 (0.33%) zsh
6 5 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
7 4 (0.19%) Hyper-V
7 4 (0.19%) VMware Workstation
7 4 (0.19%) XenApp
7 4 (0.19%) XenDesktop
8 2 (0.095%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.048%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.048%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 182 (8.65%) Kubernetes
2 171 (8.12%) Terraform
3 26 (1.24%) Grafana
4 23 (1.09%) Ansible
5 19 (0.90%) Prometheus
6 14 (0.67%) HP SiteScope
6 14 (0.67%) SCOM
7 12 (0.57%) SCCM
8 11 (0.52%) Control-M
9 9 (0.43%) ITRS Geneos
9 9 (0.43%) Kibana
10 8 (0.38%) Nessus
10 8 (0.38%) Proxmox
10 8 (0.38%) Single Sign-On
11 6 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.29%) logstash
12 5 (0.24%) Progress Chef
12 5 (0.24%) Puppet
13 4 (0.19%) Data Guard
13 4 (0.19%) SCVMM
Vendors
1 316 (15.01%) Oracle
2 301 (14.30%) Microsoft
3 270 (12.83%) Databricks
4 66 (3.14%) Google
5 56 (2.66%) SAP
6 47 (2.23%) Salesforce
7 37 (1.76%) Citrix
7 37 (1.76%) ServiceNow
8 35 (1.66%) IBM
9 34 (1.62%) Splunk
10 33 (1.57%) Informatica
11 32 (1.52%) OpenAI
12 27 (1.28%) Bloomberg
13 23 (1.09%) MuleSoft
14 17 (0.81%) Palantir
14 17 (0.81%) Sybase
15 16 (0.76%) Murex
16 15 (0.71%) Foundry
17 14 (0.67%) Adobe
17 14 (0.67%) UiPath