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

6 months to
20 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 9 9 7
Rank change year-on-year 0 -2 +1
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,249 1,843 2,301
As % of all contract jobs in London 12.49% 14.88% 13.17%
As % of the Programming Languages category 39.66% 38.01% 35.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,497 1,322 1,785
10th Percentile £363 £363 £388
25th Percentile £415 £425 £475
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £539 £575
Median % change year-on-year -3.48% -6.30% -
75th Percentile £626 £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 18 18
10th Percentile £31.58 £29.07 £25.99
25th Percentile £35.50 £36.81 £40.88
Median hourly rate £45.25 £49.50 £46.25
Median % change year-on-year -8.59% +7.03% -28.85%
75th Percentile £54.94 £63.44 £51.75
90th Percentile £61.30 £75.38 £57.25
England median hourly rate £47.50 £46.50 £44.25
% change year-on-year +2.15% +5.08% -11.12%

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 5,671 4,849 6,422
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 31.51% 39.14% 36.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 3,813 3,417 4,904
10th Percentile £364 £380 £380
25th Percentile £435 £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 £763 £825 £831
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 59 30 50
10th Percentile £33.21 £29.07 £23.80
25th Percentile £41.25 £33.25 £40.77
Median hourly rate £58.94 £41.66 £51.13
Median % change year-on-year +41.48% -18.52% -12.98%
75th Percentile £73.00 £57.50 £64.02
90th Percentile £88.75 £69.38 £72.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.75 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.59% +0.40% -

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 20 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 20 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 20 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 -8 269 £545 -0.91% 252
West London +5 60 £601 +20.25% 37
South London +3 42 £496 -26.52% 16
East London +3 22 £450 +1.11% 36
North London - 2 £336 - 6
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
1 162 (7.20%) Apache Spark
2 112 (4.98%) Apache Airflow
3 87 (3.87%) Apache
4 63 (2.80%) Confluence
5 37 (1.65%) SharePoint
6 23 (1.02%) IIS
7 18 (0.80%) SAS
8 13 (0.58%) HCL Notes
8 13 (0.58%) Palantir Foundry
9 12 (0.53%) Mendix
10 11 (0.49%) Appian
10 11 (0.49%) Microsoft Exchange
11 10 (0.44%) Jupyter
11 10 (0.44%) Tomcat
12 8 (0.36%) nginx
13 7 (0.31%) Camunda
13 7 (0.31%) CMS
14 6 (0.27%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 5 (0.22%) Oracle Workflow
16 4 (0.18%) WebLogic
Applications
1 147 (6.54%) Microsoft Excel
2 36 (1.60%) MS Visio
3 28 (1.24%) Microsoft Office
4 27 (1.20%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 16 (0.71%) Spreadsheet
6 7 (0.31%) Microsoft Project
7 6 (0.27%) Chatbot
8 5 (0.22%) Notion
9 3 (0.13%) Trello
10 1 (0.044%) Mingle
10 1 (0.044%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 27 (1.20%) Aladdin
2 19 (0.84%) Oracle EBS
3 12 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
3 12 (0.53%) Oracle General Ledger
4 10 (0.44%) NetSuite
4 10 (0.44%) Oracle Payables
5 9 (0.40%) Endur
5 9 (0.40%) Oracle EBS R12
5 9 (0.40%) SAP S/4HANA
6 8 (0.36%) Fidessa
6 8 (0.36%) Findur
6 8 (0.36%) Oracle Receivables
7 7 (0.31%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
8 6 (0.27%) BASE24
8 6 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
8 6 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
8 6 (0.27%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
8 6 (0.27%) Payment Gateway
8 6 (0.27%) SimCorp Dimension
8 6 (0.27%) Summit
Cloud Services
1 832 (36.99%) Azure
2 569 (25.30%) AWS
3 436 (19.39%) Power Platform
4 270 (12.01%) Azure DevOps
5 212 (9.43%) GitHub
6 203 (9.03%) Azure Data Factory
7 202 (8.98%) GCP
8 166 (7.38%) Snowflake
9 161 (7.16%) Serverless
10 160 (7.11%) Amazon S3
11 149 (6.63%) Azure Synapse Analytics
12 130 (5.78%) dbt
13 108 (4.80%) AWS Lambda
14 103 (4.58%) GitHub Actions
15 47 (2.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 47 (2.09%) Collibra
16 44 (1.96%) Entra ID
16 44 (1.96%) Power Automate
17 43 (1.91%) AWS CloudFormation
18 42 (1.87%) SaaS
Communications & Networking
1 15 (0.67%) Firewall
2 13 (0.58%) DNS
2 13 (0.58%) Internet
2 13 (0.58%) Network Security
3 12 (0.53%) HTTP
4 6 (0.27%) WAN
5 4 (0.18%) FIX Connectivity
5 4 (0.18%) NetScaler
5 4 (0.18%) SMS
5 4 (0.18%) VPN
6 3 (0.13%) FTP
6 3 (0.13%) LAN
6 3 (0.13%) Multicast
6 3 (0.13%) NAS
6 3 (0.13%) SAN
6 3 (0.13%) TCP/IP
6 3 (0.13%) Wi-Fi
7 2 (0.089%) NaaS
7 2 (0.089%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.089%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 391 (17.39%) Power BI
2 306 (13.61%) Data Warehouse
3 305 (13.56%) SQL Server
4 193 (8.58%) Data Lake
5 171 (7.60%) Tableau
6 155 (6.89%) Relational Database
7 150 (6.67%) PostgreSQL
8 144 (6.40%) Metadata
9 134 (5.96%) NoSQL
10 117 (5.20%) Azure SQL Database
11 101 (4.49%) BigQuery
12 90 (4.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
13 87 (3.87%) Oracle Database
14 84 (3.73%) Delta Lake
15 76 (3.38%) Amazon Redshift
16 66 (2.93%) Big Data
17 60 (2.67%) Snowflake Schema
18 56 (2.49%) Amazon Athena
19 47 (2.09%) Looker
20 46 (2.05%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 227 (10.09%) Git
2 152 (6.76%) JIRA
3 97 (4.31%) Jenkins
4 68 (3.02%) GitLab
5 34 (1.51%) JUnit
6 30 (1.33%) MLflow
7 27 (1.20%) Mockito
8 26 (1.16%) Selenium
9 20 (0.89%) ERwin
9 20 (0.89%) Gradle
10 19 (0.84%) Cucumber
10 19 (0.84%) Maven
11 18 (0.80%) SonarQube
12 17 (0.76%) SpecFlow
13 16 (0.71%) Team Foundation Server
14 14 (0.62%) TeamCity
15 12 (0.53%) Postman
15 12 (0.53%) REST Assured
16 11 (0.49%) ER Studio
16 11 (0.49%) Liquibase
General
1 794 (35.30%) Finance
2 593 (26.37%) Social Skills
3 437 (19.43%) Analytical Skills
4 309 (13.74%) Banking
5 135 (6.00%) Public Sector
6 104 (4.62%) Front Office
7 93 (4.14%) Investment Banking
8 69 (3.07%) Marketing
9 52 (2.31%) Documentation Skills
10 47 (2.09%) Financial Institution
11 44 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 32 (1.42%) Retail
13 29 (1.29%) Publishing
14 27 (1.20%) Legal
14 27 (1.20%) Telecoms
15 20 (0.89%) Back Office
15 20 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
16 19 (0.84%) Presentation Skills
17 16 (0.71%) General Ledger
18 14 (0.62%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 478 (21.25%) Developer
2 474 (21.08%) Data Engineer
3 342 (15.21%) Analyst
4 316 (14.05%) Senior
5 162 (7.20%) Lead
6 146 (6.49%) Data Analyst
7 142 (6.31%) Business Analyst
8 130 (5.78%) Architect
9 91 (4.05%) Senior Data Engineer
10 86 (3.82%) C# Developer
11 80 (3.56%) Software Engineer
12 76 (3.38%) Senior Developer
13 75 (3.33%) Azure Engineer
13 75 (3.33%) Consultant
14 69 (3.07%) Python Developer
15 64 (2.85%) Java Developer
16 62 (2.76%) Data Scientist
17 55 (2.45%) Data Architect
17 55 (2.45%) Python Engineer
18 52 (2.31%) Snowflake Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 229 (10.18%) .NET
2 187 (8.31%) Kafka
3 169 (7.51%) PySpark
4 161 (7.16%) REST
5 127 (5.65%) React
6 98 (4.36%) RESTful
7 97 (4.31%) HTML
8 95 (4.22%) Pandas
9 89 (3.96%) Spring
10 78 (3.47%) AngularJS
10 78 (3.47%) CSS
11 76 (3.38%) Spring Boot
12 75 (3.33%) JSON
13 57 (2.53%) Middleware
14 56 (2.49%) .NET Framework
15 54 (2.40%) NumPy
16 52 (2.31%) FastAPI
17 47 (2.09%) XML
18 46 (2.05%) OAuth
18 46 (2.05%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 167 (7.43%) Cloud Native
2 83 (3.69%) Data Structures
3 77 (3.42%) Derivative
4 75 (3.33%) Legacy Systems
5 69 (3.07%) Distributed Systems
6 66 (2.93%) Product Ownership
7 52 (2.31%) Equities
8 50 (2.22%) Fixed Income
9 48 (2.13%) Onboarding
10 45 (2.00%) Management Information System
11 42 (1.87%) Data Protection Act
12 41 (1.82%) Algorithms
13 37 (1.65%) Analytical Mindset
14 35 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
15 33 (1.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
16 32 (1.42%) Greenfield Project
17 30 (1.33%) Low-Code
17 30 (1.33%) Market Risk
18 28 (1.24%) Credit Risk
19 26 (1.16%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 140 (6.22%) Linux
2 120 (5.34%) Windows
3 87 (3.87%) Unix
4 37 (1.65%) Windows Server
5 10 (0.44%) 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
10 1 (0.044%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 640 (28.46%) CI/CD
2 615 (27.35%) Analytics
3 607 (26.99%) Data Modelling
4 563 (25.03%) Agile
5 538 (23.92%) ETL
6 514 (22.85%) DevOps
7 500 (22.23%) Business Intelligence
8 445 (19.79%) Data Pipeline
9 440 (19.56%) Problem-Solving
10 434 (19.30%) Data Engineering
11 385 (17.12%) AI
12 322 (14.32%) Data Governance
13 297 (13.21%) Validation
14 263 (11.69%) Migration
15 250 (11.12%) Data Analysis
16 236 (10.49%) Decision-Making
17 221 (9.83%) Machine Learning
18 220 (9.78%) Data Science
19 208 (9.25%) Performance Tuning
19 208 (9.25%) Test Automation
Programming Languages
1 1,007 (44.78%) Python
2 310 (13.78%) C#
3 284 (12.63%) Java
4 176 (7.83%) JavaScript
5 151 (6.71%) PL/SQL
6 109 (4.85%) T-SQL
7 92 (4.09%) TypeScript
8 81 (3.60%) PowerShell
9 76 (3.38%) Scala
10 74 (3.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 73 (3.25%) R
12 61 (2.71%) Shell Script
13 47 (2.09%) C++
14 29 (1.29%) VBA
15 27 (1.20%) Bash
16 24 (1.07%) Bicep
17 18 (0.80%) C
18 16 (0.71%) VB
19 11 (0.49%) Go
20 10 (0.44%) Perl
Qualifications
1 355 (15.78%) Security Cleared
2 295 (13.12%) SC Cleared
3 177 (7.87%) Degree
4 59 (2.62%) Computer Science Degree
5 53 (2.36%) Azure Certification
6 46 (2.05%) BPSS Clearance
7 28 (1.24%) Master's Degree
8 19 (0.84%) Microsoft Certification
9 17 (0.76%) AWS Certification
10 14 (0.62%) CBAP
10 14 (0.62%) ISTQB
11 12 (0.53%) PhD
12 11 (0.49%) PMI Certification
13 9 (0.40%) PMP
14 8 (0.36%) CISM
14 8 (0.36%) CISSP
14 8 (0.36%) DBS Check
15 7 (0.31%) DV Cleared
16 6 (0.27%) Oracle Certification
16 6 (0.27%) SnowPro
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 445 (19.79%) Data Quality
2 182 (8.09%) QA
3 113 (5.02%) GDPR
4 24 (1.07%) Accessibility
4 24 (1.07%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 18 (0.80%) SLA
6 16 (0.71%) MiFID
6 16 (0.71%) PMO
7 13 (0.58%) IFRS
7 13 (0.58%) NIST
8 12 (0.53%) PCI DSS
9 11 (0.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 9 (0.40%) Actionable Recommendations
11 8 (0.36%) ISO 8583
11 8 (0.36%) Solvency II
12 7 (0.31%) Basel III
12 7 (0.31%) EMIR
12 7 (0.31%) HIPAA
12 7 (0.31%) ISO 20022
12 7 (0.31%) NCSC
System Software
1 251 (11.16%) Docker
2 42 (1.87%) Active Directory
3 17 (0.76%) 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%) Postfix
7 3 (0.13%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.089%) GridGain
9 1 (0.044%) Apache ZooKeeper
9 1 (0.044%) RACF
9 1 (0.044%) Varnish
9 1 (0.044%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 217 (9.65%) Terraform
2 199 (8.85%) Kubernetes
3 43 (1.91%) Grafana
4 22 (0.98%) Ansible
5 19 (0.84%) Prometheus
6 13 (0.58%) Kibana
7 11 (0.49%) Control-M
8 10 (0.44%) Oracle RMAN
9 9 (0.40%) Single Sign-On
10 7 (0.31%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 6 (0.27%) Data Guard
11 6 (0.27%) ITRS Geneos
12 5 (0.22%) Packer
12 5 (0.22%) SCCM
13 4 (0.18%) Kubeflow
13 4 (0.18%) SCVMM
14 3 (0.13%) Microsoft Clustering
15 2 (0.089%) Amdocs OSS
15 2 (0.089%) Argo
15 2 (0.089%) Knative
Vendors
1 337 (14.98%) Microsoft
2 309 (13.74%) Databricks
2 309 (13.74%) Oracle
3 83 (3.69%) Google
4 59 (2.62%) Informatica
5 57 (2.53%) SAP
6 56 (2.49%) ServiceNow
7 43 (1.91%) Citrix
8 35 (1.56%) Salesforce
9 31 (1.38%) Bloomberg
9 31 (1.38%) IBM
10 27 (1.20%) Murex
11 26 (1.16%) OpenAI
12 20 (0.89%) Splunk
12 20 (0.89%) Workday
13 19 (0.84%) MuleSoft
14 16 (0.71%) Adobe
15 15 (0.67%) Palantir
15 15 (0.67%) VMware
16 14 (0.62%) Alteryx