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

6 months to
21 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 15 9 7
Rank change year-on-year -6 -2 +2
Contract jobs citing SQL 2,467 1,936 2,337
As % of all contract jobs in London 12.25% 14.48% 14.36%
As % of the Programming Languages category 39.25% 37.55% 35.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,715 1,356 1,744
10th Percentile £363 £363 £363
25th Percentile £425 £413 £462
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £565
Median % change year-on-year - -7.08% -1.74%
75th Percentile £625 £673 £688
90th Percentile £725 £775 £775
England median daily rate £500 £500 £543
% change year-on-year - -7.83% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 28 19
10th Percentile £26.51 £26.10 £25.99
25th Percentile £26.52 £31.25 £37.79
Median hourly rate £42.50 £39.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +8.99% -8.25% +14.80%
75th Percentile £53.75 £54.69 £52.75
90th Percentile £65.75 £64.05 £59.00
England median hourly rate £41.00 £50.00 £40.58
% change year-on-year -18.00% +23.22% -11.56%

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 6,286 5,156 6,554
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in London 31.21% 38.57% 40.26%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,235 3,539 4,685
10th Percentile £375 £375 £363
25th Percentile £450 £431 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £575
Median % change year-on-year - -4.35% -4.17%
75th Percentile £663 £688 £700
90th Percentile £775 £813 £850
England median daily rate £525 £514 £550
% change year-on-year +2.14% -6.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 64 45
10th Percentile £26.51 £26.60 £25.54
25th Percentile £36.25 £33.25 £35.00
Median hourly rate £52.50 £44.20 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +18.78% -6.95% -20.83%
75th Percentile £73.00 £63.38 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.75 £87.13 £90.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +16.07% -13.85% -

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 -6 305 £550 -4.35% 364
West London +6 67 £520 +27.14% 87
South London -9 39 £535 +12.63% 27
East London 0 15 £450 -11.76% 27
North London +5 6 £550 - 4
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
1 172 (6.97%) Apache Airflow
2 131 (5.31%) Apache Spark
3 100 (4.05%) Apache
4 87 (3.53%) Confluence
5 59 (2.39%) SharePoint
6 26 (1.05%) IIS
7 22 (0.89%) SAS
8 15 (0.61%) nginx
9 14 (0.57%) CMS
10 13 (0.53%) Camunda
10 13 (0.53%) Jupyter
10 13 (0.53%) Microsoft Exchange
10 13 (0.53%) Oracle Workflow
11 12 (0.49%) Palantir Foundry
12 9 (0.36%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 8 (0.32%) WebLogic
14 7 (0.28%) Tomcat
15 6 (0.24%) Appian
15 6 (0.24%) MTS
16 4 (0.16%) CICS
Applications
1 150 (6.08%) Microsoft Excel
2 28 (1.13%) Microsoft Office
3 18 (0.73%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 17 (0.69%) MS Visio
5 14 (0.57%) Spreadsheet
6 8 (0.32%) Chatbot
7 4 (0.16%) Acrobat
7 4 (0.16%) Notion
7 4 (0.16%) Photoshop
8 3 (0.12%) CPLEX
8 3 (0.12%) Microsoft Project
9 2 (0.081%) Mingle
9 2 (0.081%) Windchill
10 1 (0.041%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 24 (0.97%) Aladdin
2 22 (0.89%) Oracle EBS
3 21 (0.85%) Dynamics CRM
4 17 (0.69%) Oracle ERP
4 17 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
5 16 (0.65%) Oracle General Ledger
6 14 (0.57%) Oracle Receivables
7 10 (0.41%) Finacle
7 10 (0.41%) Oracle FAH
7 10 (0.41%) Remedy ITSM
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle EBS R12
8 9 (0.36%) Oracle Financials
8 9 (0.36%) Summit
9 8 (0.32%) SAP S/4HANA
10 7 (0.28%) Front Arena
10 7 (0.28%) OpenText MBPM
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle Assets
10 7 (0.28%) Oracle BPM
10 7 (0.28%) Unit4 Business World
11 6 (0.24%) Actimize
Cloud Services
1 803 (32.55%) Azure
2 601 (24.36%) AWS
3 467 (18.93%) Power Platform
4 283 (11.47%) GCP
5 260 (10.54%) Snowflake
6 244 (9.89%) Azure DevOps
7 218 (8.84%) dbt
8 216 (8.76%) GitHub
9 162 (6.57%) Azure Data Factory
10 160 (6.49%) Serverless
11 150 (6.08%) Amazon S3
12 116 (4.70%) Azure Synapse Analytics
13 110 (4.46%) AWS Lambda
13 110 (4.46%) GitHub Actions
14 55 (2.23%) Azure Databricks
15 54 (2.19%) SaaS
16 52 (2.11%) PowerApps
17 51 (2.07%) Power Automate
18 49 (1.99%) Amazon CloudWatch
19 48 (1.95%) Entra ID
Communications & Networking
1 19 (0.77%) Internet
2 18 (0.73%) HTTP
3 17 (0.69%) DNS
4 15 (0.61%) Broadband
4 15 (0.61%) VPN
5 13 (0.53%) Firewall
6 9 (0.36%) Network Security
6 9 (0.36%) TCP/IP
7 8 (0.32%) SSH
8 7 (0.28%) Multicast
8 7 (0.28%) SSL
9 6 (0.24%) DHCP
9 6 (0.24%) SAN
10 5 (0.20%) HTTPS
11 4 (0.16%) IPv4
11 4 (0.16%) Kerberos
11 4 (0.16%) SMS
12 3 (0.12%) 4G
12 3 (0.12%) WinSCP
12 3 (0.12%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 420 (17.02%) Power BI
2 363 (14.71%) Data Warehouse
3 294 (11.92%) SQL Server
4 169 (6.85%) Relational Database
5 156 (6.32%) Tableau
6 154 (6.24%) Data Lake
7 146 (5.92%) PostgreSQL
8 142 (5.76%) Metadata
9 130 (5.27%) BigQuery
10 121 (4.90%) NoSQL
11 111 (4.50%) Oracle Database
12 99 (4.01%) Delta Lake
13 83 (3.36%) Amazon Redshift
13 83 (3.36%) Azure SQL Database
14 62 (2.51%) Amazon Athena
14 62 (2.51%) Power Query
14 62 (2.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 57 (2.31%) Star Schema
16 55 (2.23%) Big Data
17 54 (2.19%) Snowflake Schema
Development Applications
1 307 (12.44%) Git
2 184 (7.46%) JIRA
3 130 (5.27%) Jenkins
4 88 (3.57%) GitLab
5 53 (2.15%) Selenium
6 46 (1.86%) Gradle
7 35 (1.42%) JUnit
8 29 (1.18%) Maven
8 29 (1.18%) SonarQube
9 23 (0.93%) Bitbucket
10 22 (0.89%) Mockito
11 21 (0.85%) Visual Studio
12 19 (0.77%) Cypress.io
12 19 (0.77%) Postman
13 17 (0.69%) ERwin
13 17 (0.69%) MLflow
14 15 (0.61%) ER Studio
14 15 (0.61%) Liquibase
14 15 (0.61%) Oracle Forms
15 14 (0.57%) REST Assured
General
1 912 (36.97%) Finance
2 707 (28.66%) Social Skills
3 550 (22.29%) Analytical Skills
4 426 (17.27%) Banking
5 151 (6.12%) Public Sector
6 125 (5.07%) Front Office
7 112 (4.54%) Marketing
8 109 (4.42%) Investment Banking
9 76 (3.08%) Retail
10 66 (2.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 46 (1.86%) Financial Institution
12 39 (1.58%) Documentation Skills
13 38 (1.54%) Back Office
14 30 (1.22%) Influencing Skills
15 28 (1.13%) Legal
16 25 (1.01%) Local Government
17 24 (0.97%) General Ledger
18 22 (0.89%) Organisational Skills
18 22 (0.89%) Presentation Skills
18 22 (0.89%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 534 (21.65%) Developer
2 457 (18.52%) Data Engineer
3 430 (17.43%) Analyst
4 395 (16.01%) Senior
5 185 (7.50%) Lead
6 167 (6.77%) Data Analyst
7 151 (6.12%) Business Analyst
8 130 (5.27%) Architect
9 123 (4.99%) Senior Data Engineer
10 99 (4.01%) Consultant
11 88 (3.57%) Senior Developer
12 82 (3.32%) Java Developer
13 74 (3.00%) Python Engineer
14 70 (2.84%) Python Developer
15 68 (2.76%) Azure Engineer
15 68 (2.76%) Software Engineer
16 66 (2.68%) Full-Stack Developer
17 63 (2.55%) Data Architect
18 61 (2.47%) C# Developer
19 60 (2.43%) Snowflake Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 271 (10.99%) .NET
2 247 (10.01%) Terraform
3 237 (9.61%) REST
4 199 (8.07%) PySpark
5 192 (7.78%) Kafka
6 137 (5.55%) React
7 128 (5.19%) Spring
8 112 (4.54%) Spring Boot
9 105 (4.26%) HTML
10 100 (4.05%) RESTful
11 96 (3.89%) JSON
12 95 (3.85%) CSS
13 80 (3.24%) XML
14 74 (3.00%) Pandas
15 73 (2.96%) AngularJS
16 66 (2.68%) Middleware
16 66 (2.68%) SOAP
17 65 (2.63%) Web Services
18 59 (2.39%) .NET Framework
19 54 (2.19%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 188 (7.62%) Cloud Native
2 144 (5.84%) Product Ownership
3 122 (4.95%) Data Structures
4 82 (3.32%) Distributed Systems
5 81 (3.28%) Legacy Systems
6 79 (3.20%) Onboarding
7 70 (2.84%) Derivative
8 68 (2.76%) Enterprise Software
9 56 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
10 53 (2.15%) AI Agents
11 52 (2.11%) Management Information System
12 44 (1.78%) Analytical Mindset
13 43 (1.74%) Fixed Income
14 42 (1.70%) Reference Data
15 38 (1.54%) Algorithms
15 38 (1.54%) Equities
16 37 (1.50%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
17 32 (1.30%) Replication
18 31 (1.26%) Data Centre
18 31 (1.26%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 164 (6.65%) Linux
2 140 (5.67%) Windows
3 103 (4.18%) Unix
4 37 (1.50%) Windows Server
5 14 (0.57%) 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%) Android
10 4 (0.16%) Apple iOS
10 4 (0.16%) Solaris
10 4 (0.16%) Windows 10
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 (0.041%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 740 (30.00%) CI/CD
2 671 (27.20%) Analytics
3 663 (26.87%) Agile
4 656 (26.59%) Data Modelling
5 510 (20.67%) AI
6 507 (20.55%) DevOps
7 503 (20.39%) Data Pipeline
8 501 (20.31%) Business Intelligence
9 500 (20.27%) ETL
10 474 (19.21%) Problem-Solving
11 472 (19.13%) Data Engineering
12 425 (17.23%) Stakeholder Management
13 381 (15.44%) Validation
14 334 (13.54%) Data Analysis
14 334 (13.54%) Data Governance
15 324 (13.13%) Migration
16 282 (11.43%) Decision-Making
17 272 (11.03%) Continuous Improvement
18 257 (10.42%) Test Automation
19 239 (9.69%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 1,065 (43.17%) Python
2 331 (13.42%) Java
3 299 (12.12%) C#
4 226 (9.16%) JavaScript
5 178 (7.22%) PL/SQL
6 133 (5.39%) TypeScript
7 118 (4.78%) T-SQL
8 106 (4.30%) PowerShell
9 93 (3.77%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 80 (3.24%) Shell Script
11 60 (2.43%) Scala
12 51 (2.07%) R
13 45 (1.82%) Bash
14 33 (1.34%) C++
14 33 (1.34%) VBA
15 19 (0.77%) Go
16 16 (0.65%) VB.NET
17 15 (0.61%) Korn
18 14 (0.57%) Groovy
19 13 (0.53%) VB
Qualifications
1 355 (14.39%) Security Cleared
2 298 (12.08%) SC Cleared
3 196 (7.94%) Degree
4 62 (2.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 45 (1.82%) BPSS Clearance
6 42 (1.70%) Azure Certification
7 28 (1.13%) AWS Certification
7 28 (1.13%) Master's Degree
8 17 (0.69%) DV Cleared
8 17 (0.69%) ISTQB
9 12 (0.49%) FFIEC
9 12 (0.49%) Microsoft Certification
10 11 (0.45%) ACCA
10 11 (0.45%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 11 (0.45%) CIMA
10 11 (0.45%) PMI Certification
11 10 (0.41%) DBS Check
11 10 (0.41%) ISEB
12 8 (0.32%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 6 (0.24%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 519 (21.04%) Data Quality
2 197 (7.99%) QA
3 71 (2.88%) GDPR
4 29 (1.18%) Accessibility
4 29 (1.18%) SLA
5 20 (0.81%) Actionable Recommendations
6 19 (0.77%) ISO 20022
7 18 (0.73%) IFRS
8 17 (0.69%) NIST
9 15 (0.61%) MiFID
10 14 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 11 (0.45%) COBIT
12 10 (0.41%) Basel III
13 7 (0.28%) EMIR
13 7 (0.28%) HIPAA
14 6 (0.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
14 6 (0.24%) PSD2
14 6 (0.24%) SEPA
14 6 (0.24%) Solvency II
15 5 (0.20%) GAAP
System Software
1 237 (9.61%) Docker
2 34 (1.38%) Active Directory
3 23 (0.93%) VMware Infrastructure
4 13 (0.53%) Virtual Machines
5 6 (0.24%) Oracle RAC
6 4 (0.16%) Apache ZooKeeper
6 4 (0.16%) Postfix
6 4 (0.16%) Virtual Desktop
7 3 (0.12%) VMware ESXi
8 2 (0.081%) DFS Replication
8 2 (0.081%) Dovecot
8 2 (0.081%) Hyper-V
8 2 (0.081%) Squid
9 1 (0.041%) KVM
9 1 (0.041%) RACF
9 1 (0.041%) Varnish
9 1 (0.041%) Virtual Servers
Systems Management
1 209 (8.47%) Kubernetes
2 46 (1.86%) Grafana
3 33 (1.34%) Ansible
4 27 (1.09%) Control-M
5 22 (0.89%) Prometheus
6 17 (0.69%) Kibana
7 11 (0.45%) Microsoft Clustering
7 11 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
8 8 (0.32%) ITRS Geneos
8 8 (0.32%) SCOM
8 8 (0.32%) Single Sign-On
9 7 (0.28%) Data Guard
10 5 (0.20%) HP Fortify
10 5 (0.20%) Istio
10 5 (0.20%) systemd
11 4 (0.16%) Argo
11 4 (0.16%) HP ALM
11 4 (0.16%) Kubeflow
11 4 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
11 4 (0.16%) Packer
Vendors
1 362 (14.67%) Microsoft
2 345 (13.98%) Databricks
3 328 (13.30%) Oracle
4 113 (4.58%) Google
5 55 (2.23%) Informatica
6 51 (2.07%) IBM
7 45 (1.82%) SAP
8 38 (1.54%) Bloomberg
8 38 (1.54%) Salesforce
9 32 (1.30%) Murex
10 31 (1.26%) Citrix
11 27 (1.09%) ServiceNow
12 26 (1.05%) Splunk
13 25 (1.01%) Foundry
13 25 (1.01%) UiPath
13 25 (1.01%) VMware
14 24 (0.97%) OpenAI
15 23 (0.93%) Adobe
16 22 (0.89%) Alteryx
16 22 (0.89%) Talend