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

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 21 21
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -9
Contract jobs citing SQL 336 261 328
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 7.13% 7.75% 6.98%
As % of the Programming Languages category 24.28% 30.56% 27.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 242 169 230
10th Percentile £313 £329 £306
25th Percentile £368 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £444 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -6.58% -5.00% +1.52%
75th Percentile £500 £567 £588
90th Percentile £624 £638 £650
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 4 9
10th Percentile £28.09 - £18.62
25th Percentile £36.00 £26.25 £26.78
Median hourly rate £64.50 £46.25 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +39.46% +8.82% -23.20%
75th Percentile £74.26 £65.00 £45.88
90th Percentile £78.60 - -
England median hourly rate £49.36 £52.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -5.98% +16.67% -2.17%

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 1,384 854 1,205
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 29.36% 25.36% 25.66%
Number of daily rates quoted 955 555 883
10th Percentile £328 £347 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £412
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.52%
75th Percentile £538 £554 £575
90th Percentile £625 £649 £650
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 20 55
10th Percentile £41.94 £39.98 £37.88
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.18 £46.03
Median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +40.75% +2.62%
75th Percentile £70.00 £86.00 £56.75
90th Percentile £74.26 £97.18 £68.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -3.85%

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 11 January 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 11 January 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 11 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
North West +2 193 £415 -7.78% 214
Yorkshire -22 127 £468 -6.40% 179
North East -10 18 £488 +0.52% 75
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 (8.33%) Apache Airflow
2 11 (3.27%) SharePoint
3 10 (2.98%) Apache Spark
3 10 (2.98%) Confluence
4 9 (2.68%) Apache
5 6 (1.79%) SAS
6 5 (1.49%) Apache Pig
7 3 (0.89%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.60%) Mule
8 2 (0.60%) Mule ESB
9 1 (0.30%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.30%) CICS
9 1 (0.30%) IIS
9 1 (0.30%) JBoss
9 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.30%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.30%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.30%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.30%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 27 (8.04%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (2.08%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (1.49%) Chatbot
3 5 (1.49%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (1.19%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.60%) SPSS
6 1 (0.30%) Stata
Business Applications
1 9 (2.68%) Advent Geneva
2 2 (0.60%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.30%) Finacle
3 1 (0.30%) Magento
3 1 (0.30%) Maximo
3 1 (0.30%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 119 (35.42%) AWS
2 116 (34.52%) Azure
3 74 (22.02%) Power Platform
4 47 (13.99%) GCP
5 30 (8.93%) Serverless
6 28 (8.33%) GitHub
7 19 (5.65%) dbt
7 19 (5.65%) Snowflake
8 16 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
9 15 (4.46%) AWS Lambda
9 15 (4.46%) Azure Data Factory
9 15 (4.46%) Azure DevOps
10 14 (4.17%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 9 (2.68%) Amazon EKS
11 9 (2.68%) Amazon S3
12 8 (2.38%) Prefect
12 8 (2.38%) SaaS
13 7 (2.08%) Amazon ECS
13 7 (2.08%) AWS CloudFormation
14 6 (1.79%) Apigee
Communications & Networking
1 16 (4.76%) Firewall
2 7 (2.08%) TCP/IP
3 6 (1.79%) DNS
4 3 (0.89%) HTTP
4 3 (0.89%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.60%) SSL
6 1 (0.30%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.30%) FCoE
6 1 (0.30%) Fibre Channel
6 1 (0.30%) Internet
6 1 (0.30%) IP Telephony
6 1 (0.30%) IPsec
6 1 (0.30%) iSCSI
6 1 (0.30%) Kerberos
6 1 (0.30%) LAN
6 1 (0.30%) Multicast
6 1 (0.30%) NAS
6 1 (0.30%) SAN
6 1 (0.30%) VoIP
6 1 (0.30%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 73 (21.73%) Power BI
2 43 (12.80%) SQL Server
3 40 (11.90%) NoSQL
4 28 (8.33%) Data Warehouse
4 28 (8.33%) PostgreSQL
4 28 (8.33%) Relational Database
5 23 (6.85%) MySQL
6 22 (6.55%) Data Lake
7 18 (5.36%) Tableau
8 17 (5.06%) Power Query
9 16 (4.76%) MongoDB
10 14 (4.17%) Azure SQL Database
10 14 (4.17%) BigQuery
10 14 (4.17%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 13 (3.87%) Snowflake Schema
12 11 (3.27%) DB2
13 10 (2.98%) Redis
14 9 (2.68%) Delta Lake
14 9 (2.68%) Hadoop
15 8 (2.38%) PowerPivot
Development Applications
1 43 (12.80%) Git
1 43 (12.80%) JIRA
2 36 (10.71%) GitLab
3 33 (9.82%) Jenkins
4 13 (3.87%) Cucumber
5 12 (3.57%) REST Assured
5 12 (3.57%) Selenium
6 10 (2.98%) Postman
7 6 (1.79%) Jaeger
7 6 (1.79%) Mocha
7 6 (1.79%) TestRail
8 5 (1.49%) Mockito
9 4 (1.19%) Liquibase
10 3 (0.89%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.89%) JUnit
11 2 (0.60%) Cypress.io
11 2 (0.60%) Oracle Forms
11 2 (0.60%) PyCharm
11 2 (0.60%) Sonatype Nexus
11 2 (0.60%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 109 (32.44%) Social Skills
2 96 (28.57%) Finance
3 67 (19.94%) Analytical Skills
4 54 (16.07%) Banking
5 34 (10.12%) Public Sector
6 13 (3.87%) Documentation Skills
7 11 (3.27%) Financial Institution
7 11 (3.27%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (2.08%) Local Government
9 6 (1.79%) Law
9 6 (1.79%) Marketing
9 6 (1.79%) Organisational Skills
9 6 (1.79%) Retail
10 5 (1.49%) Manufacturing
11 4 (1.19%) Billing
11 4 (1.19%) Wholesale Banking
12 3 (0.89%) Health Technology
12 3 (0.89%) Legal
12 3 (0.89%) Military
13 2 (0.60%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 96 (28.57%) Developer
2 65 (19.35%) Analyst
3 54 (16.07%) Data Engineer
4 47 (13.99%) Senior
5 33 (9.82%) Data Analyst
6 23 (6.85%) Lead
7 20 (5.95%) Java Developer
8 19 (5.65%) Software Engineer
9 16 (4.76%) Business Analyst
10 14 (4.17%) Senior Developer
11 13 (3.87%) AWS Engineer
12 12 (3.57%) Test Engineer
13 11 (3.27%) DevOps Engineer
14 10 (2.98%) Azure Engineer
14 10 (2.98%) Business Intelligence Developer
14 10 (2.98%) Data Scientist
14 10 (2.98%) Test Automation Engineer
15 9 (2.68%) Architect
15 9 (2.68%) DBA
16 8 (2.38%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (13.10%) REST
2 40 (11.90%) .NET
3 32 (9.52%) Spring Boot
4 29 (8.63%) Kafka
4 29 (8.63%) Spring
5 19 (5.65%) React
6 15 (4.46%) HTML
6 15 (4.46%) PySpark
6 15 (4.46%) XML
7 14 (4.17%) CSS
7 14 (4.17%) RESTful
8 13 (3.87%) JSON
9 12 (3.57%) JMS
9 12 (3.57%) Middleware
9 12 (3.57%) Node.js
9 12 (3.57%) OAuth
10 11 (3.27%) LDAP
10 11 (3.27%) OpenID
11 10 (2.98%) SailPoint
12 8 (2.38%) Jest
Miscellaneous
1 32 (9.52%) Cloud Native
2 15 (4.46%) Data Protection Act
3 14 (4.17%) Distributed Systems
4 12 (3.57%) Clustering
5 11 (3.27%) Data Centre
5 11 (3.27%) SWIFT Messaging Network
6 10 (2.98%) Data Structures
7 9 (2.68%) Algorithms
8 8 (2.38%) Management Information System
8 8 (2.38%) Onboarding
8 8 (2.38%) Product Ownership
8 8 (2.38%) Virtual Team
9 7 (2.08%) Distributed Computing
9 7 (2.08%) Mainframe
9 7 (2.08%) NHS
10 6 (1.79%) Public Cloud
11 5 (1.49%) Greenfield Project
11 5 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (1.19%) Legacy Code
12 4 (1.19%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 27 (8.04%) Linux
2 13 (3.87%) Windows
3 7 (2.08%) Unix
4 4 (1.19%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.60%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.30%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.30%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.30%) MVS
7 1 (0.30%) Solaris
7 1 (0.30%) VMS
7 1 (0.30%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 101 (30.06%) CI/CD
2 97 (28.87%) Agile
3 87 (25.89%) DevOps
4 80 (23.81%) Business Intelligence
5 77 (22.92%) Problem-Solving
6 71 (21.13%) Analytics
7 70 (20.83%) Data Modelling
8 50 (14.88%) ETL
9 49 (14.58%) Microservices
10 45 (13.39%) Visualisation
11 42 (12.50%) Data Pipeline
12 40 (11.90%) Data Analysis
12 40 (11.90%) Data Governance
13 39 (11.61%) Data Engineering
14 38 (11.31%) Containerisation
15 37 (11.01%) Stakeholder Management
16 36 (10.71%) Test Automation
17 35 (10.42%) Actionable Insight
18 31 (9.23%) Data Science
18 31 (9.23%) Data Visualisation
Programming Languages
1 109 (32.44%) Python
2 80 (23.81%) Java
3 27 (8.04%) JavaScript
4 24 (7.14%) C#
5 19 (5.65%) PL/SQL
6 13 (3.87%) PHP
7 11 (3.27%) VBA
8 10 (2.98%) T-SQL
8 10 (2.98%) TypeScript
9 8 (2.38%) Bash
9 8 (2.38%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 8 (2.38%) Go
9 8 (2.38%) Scala
10 6 (1.79%) Bicep
10 6 (1.79%) Rust
10 6 (1.79%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.49%) R
12 4 (1.19%) PowerShell
13 3 (0.89%) Delphi
13 3 (0.89%) ProC
Qualifications
1 46 (13.69%) Degree
2 27 (8.04%) Security Cleared
3 20 (5.95%) Computer Science Degree
4 13 (3.87%) SC Cleared
5 12 (3.57%) Master's Degree
6 9 (2.68%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.79%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.49%) AWS Certification
9 4 (1.19%) MBA
10 3 (0.89%) CEH
10 3 (0.89%) GIAC
10 3 (0.89%) GWAPT
10 3 (0.89%) ISTQB
11 2 (0.60%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.60%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.60%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.60%) MCP
12 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.30%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.30%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (12.80%) Data Quality
2 25 (7.44%) QA
3 11 (3.27%) Accessibility
3 11 (3.27%) ISO 20022
3 11 (3.27%) PSD2
3 11 (3.27%) SEPA
4 7 (2.08%) WCAG
5 6 (1.79%) SLA
6 4 (1.19%) GDPR
6 4 (1.19%) PMO
7 3 (0.89%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.30%) HIPAA
8 1 (0.30%) HL7
8 1 (0.30%) PERC
8 1 (0.30%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 63 (18.75%) Docker
2 4 (1.19%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.60%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.30%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.30%) KVM
4 1 (0.30%) NFS
4 1 (0.30%) RACF
4 1 (0.30%) SRDF
4 1 (0.30%) Veritas Cluster Server
4 1 (0.30%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.30%) vSphere
4 1 (0.30%) Xen
Systems Management
1 52 (15.48%) Kubernetes
2 33 (9.82%) Terraform
3 19 (5.65%) Grafana
4 16 (4.76%) Prometheus
5 14 (4.17%) Ansible
6 6 (1.79%) Kiali
7 5 (1.49%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (1.19%) SCCM
9 2 (0.60%) Control-M
10 1 (0.30%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.30%) Oracle Identity Manager
10 1 (0.30%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.30%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.30%) Puppet
Vendors
1 60 (17.86%) Microsoft
2 41 (12.20%) Oracle
3 27 (8.04%) Splunk
4 26 (7.74%) Databricks
5 20 (5.95%) Google
6 19 (5.65%) ServiceNow
7 9 (2.68%) Advent
8 7 (2.08%) MuleSoft
9 6 (1.79%) AppDynamics
9 6 (1.79%) Dynatrace
10 5 (1.49%) IBM
10 5 (1.49%) Salesforce
11 4 (1.19%) Cognos
11 4 (1.19%) F5
11 4 (1.19%) SAP
12 3 (0.89%) Citrix
12 3 (0.89%) Imperva
12 3 (0.89%) Red Hat
12 3 (0.89%) VMware
13 2 (0.60%) Capita