SQL Contract Job Trends in the North of England

SQL (Structured Query Language)
England > North of England

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the North of England requiring SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 1 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 27 15 22
Rank change year-on-year -12 +7 -9
Contract jobs citing SQL 321 337 330
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 7.02% 8.77% 6.96%
As % of the Programming Languages category 24.19% 34.64% 28.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 235 212 243
10th Percentile £313 £336 £308
25th Percentile £363 £406 £409
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £430 £485 £500
Median % change year-on-year -11.34% -3.00% +1.01%
75th Percentile £500 £550 £588
90th Percentile £625 £623 £650
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 8 9
10th Percentile £28.09 £26.25 £18.62
25th Percentile £36.00 £30.00 £21.31
Median hourly rate £64.50 £38.00 £26.78
Median % change year-on-year +69.74% +41.90% -40.06%
75th Percentile £74.26 £48.13 £45.88
90th Percentile £78.60 £65.00 -
England median hourly rate £50.00 £42.00 £45.44
% change year-on-year +19.05% -7.57% -1.22%

All Programming Languages
North of England

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 the North of England.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 1,327 973 1,166
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 29.02% 25.33% 24.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 933 614 867
10th Percentile £315 £335 £325
25th Percentile £375 £400 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £475 £495
Median % change year-on-year -5.26% -4.04% -5.71%
75th Percentile £538 £563 £582
90th Percentile £626 £648 £650
England median daily rate £513 £545 £550
% change year-on-year -5.96% -0.91% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 28 50
10th Percentile £36.00 £34.58 £36.47
25th Percentile £49.25 £40.51 -
Median hourly rate £66.50 £47.59 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year +39.74% +3.05% +11.28%
75th Percentile £74.26 £79.63 £50.19
90th Percentile £81.50 £100.00 £67.00
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £61.92
% change year-on-year - +4.97% -0.93%

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in the North of England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England.

SQL job vacancy trend in the North of England

SQL
Daily Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing SQL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing SQL

SQL
Daily Rate Histogram in the North of England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL in the North of England over the 6 months to 1 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SQL in the North of England

SQL
Hourly Rate Trend in the North of England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing SQL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the North of England citing SQL

SQL
Hourly Rate Histogram in the North of England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in the North of England over the 6 months to 1 December 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in the North of England

SQL
Contract Job Locations in the North of England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL within the North of England region over the 6 months to 1 December 2025. 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
North West -1 194 £425 -5.56% 237
Yorkshire -26 113 £470 -6.05% 144
North East -11 16 £500 +5.26% 59
SQL
England

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the North of England 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 28 (8.72%) Apache Airflow
2 13 (4.05%) Confluence
3 10 (3.12%) Apache
3 10 (3.12%) Apache Spark
4 9 (2.80%) SharePoint
5 6 (1.87%) SAS
5 6 (1.87%) WebSphere
6 5 (1.56%) Apache Pig
7 4 (1.25%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.62%) CICS
8 2 (0.62%) JBoss
8 2 (0.62%) Mule
8 2 (0.62%) Mule ESB
8 2 (0.62%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.31%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.31%) IIS
9 1 (0.31%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.31%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.31%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 33 (10.28%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.18%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.87%) Chatbot
3 6 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.62%) Maple
4 2 (0.62%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.62%) SPSS
5 1 (0.31%) Stata
Business Applications
1 9 (2.80%) Advent Geneva
2 2 (0.62%) Maximo
3 1 (0.31%) Finacle
3 1 (0.31%) Magento
3 1 (0.31%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 102 (31.78%) AWS
2 92 (28.66%) Azure
3 76 (23.68%) Power Platform
4 42 (13.08%) GCP
5 30 (9.35%) GitHub
6 27 (8.41%) Serverless
7 19 (5.92%) Snowflake
8 15 (4.67%) AWS Lambda
8 15 (4.67%) dbt
9 12 (3.74%) Azure DevOps
9 12 (3.74%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (3.43%) Amazon S3
10 11 (3.43%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 10 (3.12%) Azure Data Factory
12 8 (2.49%) PaaS
13 7 (2.18%) Amazon ECS
14 6 (1.87%) Amazon EC2
14 6 (1.87%) Amazon EKS
14 6 (1.87%) Azure Functions
14 6 (1.87%) Prefect
Communications & Networking
1 5 (1.56%) Firewall
2 4 (1.25%) SAN
3 3 (0.93%) HTTP
3 3 (0.93%) HTTPS
4 1 (0.31%) Cisco Nexus
4 1 (0.31%) FCoE
4 1 (0.31%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (0.31%) IP Telephony
4 1 (0.31%) iSCSI
4 1 (0.31%) LAN
4 1 (0.31%) Multicast
4 1 (0.31%) NAS
4 1 (0.31%) TCP/IP
4 1 (0.31%) VoIP
4 1 (0.31%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (23.68%) Power BI
2 41 (12.77%) SQL Server
3 40 (12.46%) NoSQL
4 28 (8.72%) Data Warehouse
5 26 (8.10%) Relational Database
6 23 (7.17%) PostgreSQL
7 22 (6.85%) Data Lake
8 21 (6.54%) Tableau
9 20 (6.23%) Power Query
10 18 (5.61%) MySQL
11 16 (4.98%) BigQuery
12 15 (4.67%) MongoDB
13 14 (4.36%) DB2
14 13 (4.05%) SQL Server Reporting Services
15 11 (3.43%) Azure SQL Database
15 11 (3.43%) Delta Lake
15 11 (3.43%) Snowflake Schema
16 10 (3.12%) Redis
17 9 (2.80%) Amazon Redshift
17 9 (2.80%) Hadoop
Development Applications
1 47 (14.64%) Git
2 37 (11.53%) JIRA
3 30 (9.35%) GitLab
3 30 (9.35%) Jenkins
4 13 (4.05%) JUnit
5 12 (3.74%) Cucumber
6 8 (2.49%) Mockito
7 6 (1.87%) Mocha
8 5 (1.56%) Maven
8 5 (1.56%) Selenium
8 5 (1.56%) Sonatype Nexus
9 4 (1.25%) Bitbucket
9 4 (1.25%) Liquibase
10 3 (0.93%) Postman
10 3 (0.93%) SonarQube
11 2 (0.62%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.62%) Gradle
11 2 (0.62%) PyCharm
11 2 (0.62%) REST Assured
11 2 (0.62%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 96 (29.91%) Social Skills
2 84 (26.17%) Finance
3 68 (21.18%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (15.58%) Banking
5 32 (9.97%) Public Sector
6 13 (4.05%) Documentation Skills
7 10 (3.12%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (2.18%) Marketing
9 6 (1.87%) Organisational Skills
10 5 (1.56%) Financial Institution
10 5 (1.56%) Local Government
10 5 (1.56%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.25%) Billing
11 4 (1.25%) Wholesale Banking
12 3 (0.93%) Military
13 2 (0.62%) Law
13 2 (0.62%) Legal
13 2 (0.62%) Retail
13 2 (0.62%) Retail Banking
13 2 (0.62%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 97 (30.22%) Developer
2 59 (18.38%) Analyst
3 49 (15.26%) Data Engineer
4 40 (12.46%) Senior
5 35 (10.90%) Data Analyst
6 29 (9.03%) Java Developer
7 20 (6.23%) Software Engineer
8 14 (4.36%) Lead
8 14 (4.36%) Senior Developer
9 13 (4.05%) AWS Engineer
9 13 (4.05%) Data Scientist
10 12 (3.74%) Architect
10 12 (3.74%) Business Analyst
11 11 (3.43%) DevOps Engineer
12 10 (3.12%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 10 (3.12%) Full-Stack Developer
13 9 (2.80%) Azure Engineer
14 8 (2.49%) AWS DevOps
14 8 (2.49%) AWS DevOps Engineer
14 8 (2.49%) Power BI Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (12.46%) REST
2 36 (11.21%) Spring
3 35 (10.90%) Spring Boot
4 32 (9.97%) .NET
5 26 (8.10%) Kafka
5 26 (8.10%) React
6 21 (6.54%) RESTful
7 19 (5.92%) Node.js
8 16 (4.98%) PySpark
9 15 (4.67%) HTML
10 14 (4.36%) CSS
11 13 (4.05%) JMS
12 12 (3.74%) XML
13 11 (3.43%) Jest
14 9 (2.80%) Hibernate
15 8 (2.49%) AngularJS
15 8 (2.49%) Express.js
15 8 (2.49%) Middleware
15 8 (2.49%) OAuth
15 8 (2.49%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.97%) Cloud Native
2 18 (5.61%) Data Protection Act
3 11 (3.43%) Data Structures
3 11 (3.43%) SWIFT Messaging Network
4 10 (3.12%) Clustering
4 10 (3.12%) Data Centre
4 10 (3.12%) Product Ownership
5 9 (2.80%) Algorithms
5 9 (2.80%) Virtual Team
6 8 (2.49%) Distributed Systems
7 7 (2.18%) Mainframe
8 6 (1.87%) NHS
8 6 (1.87%) Public Cloud
9 5 (1.56%) Distributed Computing
9 5 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
9 5 (1.56%) Onboarding
9 5 (1.56%) Self-Motivation
10 4 (1.25%) AI Agents
10 4 (1.25%) Legacy Applications
10 4 (1.25%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 19 (5.92%) Linux
2 12 (3.74%) Windows
3 7 (2.18%) Windows Server
4 5 (1.56%) Unix
5 3 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.31%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.31%) Mac OS X
6 1 (0.31%) MVS
6 1 (0.31%) Solaris
6 1 (0.31%) VMS
6 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
6 1 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.31%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 102 (31.78%) Agile
2 85 (26.48%) Business Intelligence
3 84 (26.17%) CI/CD
4 77 (23.99%) Analytics
5 75 (23.36%) Problem-Solving
6 69 (21.50%) DevOps
7 66 (20.56%) Data Modelling
8 50 (15.58%) Microservices
9 44 (13.71%) Data Governance
9 44 (13.71%) ETL
10 43 (13.40%) Visualisation
11 41 (12.77%) Data Engineering
11 41 (12.77%) Data Pipeline
11 41 (12.77%) Stakeholder Management
12 40 (12.46%) Actionable Insight
13 38 (11.84%) Data Analysis
14 37 (11.53%) Containerisation
15 34 (10.59%) Data Science
15 34 (10.59%) Decision-Making
16 33 (10.28%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 109 (33.96%) Python
2 63 (19.63%) Java
3 22 (6.85%) JavaScript
4 19 (5.92%) C#
5 13 (4.05%) Scala
6 12 (3.74%) PL/SQL
6 12 (3.74%) T-SQL
6 12 (3.74%) VBA
7 10 (3.12%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 10 (3.12%) TypeScript
8 6 (1.87%) R
9 5 (1.56%) Bash
9 5 (1.56%) Bicep
9 5 (1.56%) Go
10 4 (1.25%) PHP
11 3 (0.93%) Delphi
12 1 (0.31%) COBOL
12 1 (0.31%) JCL
12 1 (0.31%) VB
12 1 (0.31%) VB6
Qualifications
1 33 (10.28%) Degree
2 28 (8.72%) Security Cleared
3 19 (5.92%) Computer Science Degree
4 16 (4.98%) SC Cleared
5 8 (2.49%) BPSS Clearance
5 8 (2.49%) Master's Degree
6 5 (1.56%) AWS Certification
7 4 (1.25%) Azure Certification
8 3 (0.93%) CBAP
8 3 (0.93%) CEH
8 3 (0.93%) GIAC
8 3 (0.93%) GWAPT
8 3 (0.93%) MCP
9 2 (0.62%) AWS Certified Developer
9 2 (0.62%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 2 (0.62%) ISTQB
9 2 (0.62%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (0.62%) Postgraduate
10 1 (0.31%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 1 (0.31%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 41 (12.77%) Data Quality
2 29 (9.03%) QA
3 11 (3.43%) Accessibility
3 11 (3.43%) ISO 20022
3 11 (3.43%) PSD2
3 11 (3.43%) SEPA
4 7 (2.18%) WCAG
5 3 (0.93%) Actionable Recommendations
5 3 (0.93%) PMO
6 2 (0.62%) COBIT
6 2 (0.62%) GDPR
7 1 (0.31%) PERC
7 1 (0.31%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.31%) SLA
System Software
1 49 (15.26%) Docker
2 4 (1.25%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.62%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.31%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.31%) KVM
4 1 (0.31%) NFS
4 1 (0.31%) SRDF
4 1 (0.31%) Veritas Cluster Server
4 1 (0.31%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.31%) Xen
Systems Management
1 38 (11.84%) Kubernetes
2 33 (10.28%) Terraform
3 9 (2.80%) Ansible
4 8 (2.49%) Grafana
4 8 (2.49%) Prometheus
5 3 (0.93%) SCCM
5 3 (0.93%) Single Sign-On
6 2 (0.62%) Control-M
7 1 (0.31%) Oracle Identity Manager
7 1 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
7 1 (0.31%) Progress Chef
7 1 (0.31%) Puppet
Vendors
1 60 (18.69%) Microsoft
2 35 (10.90%) Oracle
3 30 (9.35%) Databricks
4 23 (7.17%) Google
5 16 (4.98%) Splunk
6 9 (2.80%) Advent
6 9 (2.80%) IBM
6 9 (2.80%) ServiceNow
7 7 (2.18%) F5
8 5 (1.56%) Citrix
8 5 (1.56%) Informatica
8 5 (1.56%) Salesforce
8 5 (1.56%) SAP
8 5 (1.56%) VMware
9 4 (1.25%) Cognos
9 4 (1.25%) MuleSoft
9 4 (1.25%) Talend
10 3 (0.93%) AppDynamics
10 3 (0.93%) Dynatrace
10 3 (0.93%) Veracode