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

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 21 16 14
Rank change year-on-year -5 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 567 339 451
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 8.06% 9.09% 9.40%
As % of the Programming Languages category 29.76% 33.24% 36.61%
Number of daily rates quoted 342 250 300
10th Percentile £313 £321 £320
25th Percentile £400 £394 £403
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £464 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.37% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £559 £545 £550
90th Percentile £625 £625 £610
England median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 3 12
10th Percentile £23.68 £31.53 £36.15
25th Percentile £29.96 £31.62 £37.59
Median hourly rate £44.00 £33.11 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +32.89% -22.09% +6.25%
75th Percentile £68.02 £53.48 £44.36
90th Percentile £76.90 £64.89 £46.18
England median hourly rate £45.00 £43.16 £42.50
% change year-on-year +4.27% +1.55% -15.00%

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 1,905 1,020 1,232
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 27.07% 27.35% 25.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,222 749 839
10th Percentile £350 £325 £318
25th Percentile £413 £384 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £482 £463 £475
Median % change year-on-year +4.14% -2.63% -9.52%
75th Percentile £571 £538 £570
90th Percentile £640 £611 £625
England median daily rate £520 £520 £543
% change year-on-year - -4.15% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 10 53
10th Percentile £29.96 £31.32 £37.51
25th Percentile £46.66 £36.82 £41.25
Median hourly rate £69.75 £70.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -0.36% +47.37% +2.86%
75th Percentile £76.00 £87.69 £68.75
90th Percentile £84.60 £95.36 £80.63
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.38 £65.00
% change year-on-year +15.30% -13.27% +4.00%

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 5 July 2026.

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 5 July 2026.

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 5 July 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
North West -1 301 £475 +1.06% 246
Yorkshire -9 229 £475 - 105
North East -16 49 £413 -11.05% 65
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 38 (6.70%) Confluence
2 32 (5.64%) Apache Spark
3 27 (4.76%) Apache
4 23 (4.06%) Apache Airflow
5 9 (1.59%) Jupyter
5 9 (1.59%) SharePoint
6 8 (1.41%) WebSphere
7 7 (1.23%) Apache Geronimo
7 7 (1.23%) Apache ServiceMix
7 7 (1.23%) Red Hat Fuse
7 7 (1.23%) SAS
7 7 (1.23%) Tomcat
8 5 (0.88%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.35%) IIS
9 2 (0.35%) Mule
9 2 (0.35%) Mule ESB
9 2 (0.35%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.18%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.18%) Camunda
10 1 (0.18%) WebLogic
Applications
1 38 (6.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.53%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.53%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.18%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (1.94%) Oracle EBS
2 7 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.88%) Infor LN
4 4 (0.71%) Elite 3E
4 4 (0.71%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.53%) Dynamics CRM
5 3 (0.53%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.53%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.53%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.35%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.35%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.35%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.35%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.18%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.18%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.18%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.18%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 166 (29.28%) Azure
2 121 (21.34%) AWS
3 104 (18.34%) Power Platform
4 52 (9.17%) GCP
5 38 (6.70%) GitHub
6 34 (6.00%) Azure Data Factory
7 30 (5.29%) Serverless
8 27 (4.76%) Azure DevOps
9 24 (4.23%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 20 (3.53%) dbt
11 18 (3.17%) Snowflake
12 16 (2.82%) SaaS
13 15 (2.65%) Amazon S3
13 15 (2.65%) Google Kubernetes Engine
14 14 (2.47%) AWS Lambda
14 14 (2.47%) GitHub Actions
14 14 (2.47%) Power Automate
14 14 (2.47%) PowerApps
15 12 (2.12%) OpenShift
16 10 (1.76%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.29%) SSL
2 10 (1.76%) DNS
3 7 (1.23%) Firewall
3 7 (1.23%) Kerberos
4 6 (1.06%) 3GPP
4 6 (1.06%) Network Security
4 6 (1.06%) RTP
4 6 (1.06%) Wireshark
5 4 (0.71%) BGP
5 4 (0.71%) HTTP
5 4 (0.71%) IPsec
5 4 (0.71%) Reverse Proxy
6 3 (0.53%) DHCP
7 2 (0.35%) Internet
7 2 (0.35%) LAN
7 2 (0.35%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.35%) VPN
7 2 (0.35%) WAN
7 2 (0.35%) Wi-Fi
8 1 (0.18%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 118 (20.81%) SQL Server
2 94 (16.58%) Power BI
3 76 (13.40%) Data Warehouse
4 39 (6.88%) NoSQL
5 38 (6.70%) PostgreSQL
6 37 (6.53%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 35 (6.17%) Tableau
8 31 (5.47%) Relational Database
9 26 (4.59%) Data Lake
10 25 (4.41%) Metadata
11 22 (3.88%) MongoDB
12 21 (3.70%) Azure SQL Database
13 20 (3.53%) MySQL
13 20 (3.53%) Oracle Database
13 20 (3.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 16 (2.82%) Hadoop
15 15 (2.65%) Delta Lake
16 14 (2.47%) Big Data
17 13 (2.29%) Amazon Athena
17 13 (2.29%) Looker
Development Applications
1 69 (12.17%) Git
2 46 (8.11%) Jenkins
3 45 (7.94%) JIRA
4 33 (5.82%) GitLab
5 11 (1.94%) Selenium
6 10 (1.76%) Cucumber
7 8 (1.41%) Flyway
7 8 (1.41%) REST Assured
8 7 (1.23%) Bitbucket
8 7 (1.23%) Gradle
8 7 (1.23%) Postman
9 6 (1.06%) Liquibase
9 6 (1.06%) Oracle Forms
9 6 (1.06%) Sonatype Nexus
9 6 (1.06%) TeamCity
10 5 (0.88%) Claude Code
10 5 (0.88%) JUnit
10 5 (0.88%) Maven
11 4 (0.71%) Jaeger
11 4 (0.71%) Visual Studio
General
1 157 (27.69%) Social Skills
2 120 (21.16%) Finance
3 94 (16.58%) Analytical Skills
4 52 (9.17%) Public Sector
5 49 (8.64%) Banking
6 16 (2.82%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.29%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (1.94%) Legal
8 11 (1.94%) Retail
9 9 (1.59%) Marketing
10 8 (1.41%) Documentation Skills
10 8 (1.41%) Law
11 7 (1.23%) Games
12 6 (1.06%) Influencing Skills
12 6 (1.06%) Presentation Skills
13 5 (0.88%) Aviation
13 5 (0.88%) Fire and Rescue
13 5 (0.88%) Military
13 5 (0.88%) Police
14 4 (0.71%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 117 (20.63%) Developer
2 93 (16.40%) Analyst
3 71 (12.52%) Data Engineer
4 66 (11.64%) Senior
5 49 (8.64%) DBA
6 45 (7.94%) Lead
7 35 (6.17%) Data Analyst
8 31 (5.47%) SQL DBA
9 28 (4.94%) Architect
9 28 (4.94%) Consultant
10 27 (4.76%) Java Developer
11 23 (4.06%) Senior Developer
12 20 (3.53%) Software Engineer
13 16 (2.82%) Senior Data Engineer
14 15 (2.65%) Software Developer
14 15 (2.65%) SQL Developer
15 13 (2.29%) Administrator
15 13 (2.29%) Business Analyst
15 13 (2.29%) Performance Analyst
15 13 (2.29%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (7.41%) REST
2 39 (6.88%) PySpark
3 38 (6.70%) .NET
3 38 (6.70%) Kafka
4 36 (6.35%) Spring Boot
5 33 (5.82%) Spring
6 27 (4.76%) XML
7 26 (4.59%) RESTful
8 20 (3.53%) JSON
9 18 (3.17%) Middleware
10 16 (2.82%) React
11 15 (2.65%) Web Services
12 12 (2.12%) HTML
13 11 (1.94%) .NET Core
13 11 (1.94%) AngularJS
13 11 (1.94%) OAuth
14 10 (1.76%) OAuth2
14 10 (1.76%) OpenTelemetry
14 10 (1.76%) Pandas
15 9 (1.59%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 38 (6.70%) Cloud Native
2 34 (6.00%) Product Ownership
3 31 (5.47%) Data Structures
4 22 (3.88%) Replication
5 21 (3.70%) Clustering
6 20 (3.53%) Data Protection Act
7 17 (3.00%) Legacy Systems
8 15 (2.65%) Distributed Systems
8 15 (2.65%) Enterprise Software
9 14 (2.47%) NHS
10 12 (2.12%) Linux Command Line
11 9 (1.59%) AI Agents
11 9 (1.59%) Management Information System
11 9 (1.59%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (1.41%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
12 8 (1.41%) Onboarding
13 7 (1.23%) Algorithms
13 7 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
13 7 (1.23%) Robotics
13 7 (1.23%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 48 (8.47%) Linux
2 28 (4.94%) Windows
3 19 (3.35%) Unix
3 19 (3.35%) Windows Server
4 8 (1.41%) AIX
5 6 (1.06%) Solaris
6 3 (0.53%) Oracle Linux
6 3 (0.53%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.53%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.35%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.35%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.18%) VMS
8 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 164 (28.92%) CI/CD
2 148 (26.10%) Agile
3 132 (23.28%) Analytics
4 122 (21.52%) Business Intelligence
5 119 (20.99%) DevOps
6 116 (20.46%) Data Modelling
7 114 (20.11%) ETL
8 98 (17.28%) Problem-Solving
9 94 (16.58%) Data Pipeline
10 78 (13.76%) Migration
11 70 (12.35%) AI
11 70 (12.35%) Performance Tuning
11 70 (12.35%) Validation
12 67 (11.82%) Test Automation
13 63 (11.11%) Microservices
14 61 (10.76%) Data Analysis
14 61 (10.76%) Data Engineering
15 55 (9.70%) Stakeholder Management
16 47 (8.29%) Data Governance
17 46 (8.11%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 163 (28.75%) Python
2 81 (14.29%) Java
3 49 (8.64%) PowerShell
4 42 (7.41%) C#
5 40 (7.05%) T-SQL
6 29 (5.11%) PL/SQL
7 23 (4.06%) JavaScript
8 22 (3.88%) Bash
9 14 (2.47%) TypeScript
10 13 (2.29%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 12 (2.12%) R
12 10 (1.76%) Shell Script
13 8 (1.41%) Scala
14 7 (1.23%) Kotlin
15 4 (0.71%) VB
16 3 (0.53%) Bicep
16 3 (0.53%) Rust
16 3 (0.53%) VB6
16 3 (0.53%) VBA
17 2 (0.35%) PromQL
Qualifications
1 80 (14.11%) Security Cleared
2 69 (12.17%) SC Cleared
3 50 (8.82%) Degree
4 19 (3.35%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (3.17%) BPSS Clearance
6 11 (1.94%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.06%) Azure Certification
7 6 (1.06%) Master's Degree
8 3 (0.53%) CISSP
8 3 (0.53%) DV Cleared
8 3 (0.53%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
9 2 (0.35%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.35%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.18%) CISM
10 1 (0.18%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.18%) Numerate Degree
10 1 (0.18%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (0.18%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 104 (18.34%) Data Quality
2 35 (6.17%) QA
3 22 (3.88%) GDPR
4 7 (1.23%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 7 (1.23%) HIPAA
5 6 (1.06%) GRC
5 6 (1.06%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 5 (0.88%) ISO 20022
7 4 (0.71%) SLA
8 3 (0.53%) NIST
8 3 (0.53%) PMO
8 3 (0.53%) PSD2
8 3 (0.53%) SEPA
8 3 (0.53%) Solvency II
9 2 (0.35%) Accessibility
9 2 (0.35%) WCAG
10 1 (0.18%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.18%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.18%) MiFID
System Software
1 73 (12.87%) Docker
2 16 (2.82%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.29%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (1.76%) Hyper-V
4 10 (1.76%) KVM
5 6 (1.06%) Oracle RAC
6 4 (0.71%) RACF
6 4 (0.71%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 55 (9.70%) Kubernetes
2 45 (7.94%) Terraform
3 30 (5.29%) Ansible
4 17 (3.00%) Grafana
5 15 (2.65%) Prometheus
6 11 (1.94%) Oracle RMAN
7 6 (1.06%) Control-M
7 6 (1.06%) Data Guard
7 6 (1.06%) IBM BigFix
7 6 (1.06%) vCenter Server
8 5 (0.88%) SCOM
8 5 (0.88%) Single Sign-On
9 4 (0.71%) Argo
9 4 (0.71%) Kiali
10 3 (0.53%) Foglight
11 2 (0.35%) AirWatch
11 2 (0.35%) Consul
11 2 (0.35%) Failover Clustering
11 2 (0.35%) SCCM
11 2 (0.35%) Zipkin
Vendors
1 101 (17.81%) Microsoft
2 72 (12.70%) Oracle
3 55 (9.70%) Databricks
4 28 (4.94%) Google
5 25 (4.41%) ServiceNow
6 24 (4.23%) Splunk
7 20 (3.53%) SAP
8 11 (1.94%) IBM
9 9 (1.59%) Salesforce
10 7 (1.23%) Alteryx
10 7 (1.23%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.23%) SolarWinds
10 7 (1.23%) TIBCO
11 6 (1.06%) RedGate
11 6 (1.06%) Sybase
11 6 (1.06%) Teradata
11 6 (1.06%) Varonis
12 5 (0.88%) Adobe
12 5 (0.88%) Infor
12 5 (0.88%) SYSPRO