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 3 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 27 20 18
Rank change year-on-year -7 -2 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL 399 265 372
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 7.37% 8.18% 7.60%
As % of the Programming Languages category 25.38% 30.64% 29.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 286 188 256
10th Percentile £314 £346 £275
25th Percentile £375 £400 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £489 £475
Median % change year-on-year -7.93% +2.89% -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £574 £563
90th Percentile £641 £650 £614
England median daily rate £500 £520 £550
% change year-on-year -3.85% -5.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 5 12
10th Percentile £42.45 - £27.86
25th Percentile £56.06 £26.25 £37.63
Median hourly rate £69.22 £32.81 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +110.97% -22.80% -14.26%
75th Percentile £76.07 £65.00 £44.36
90th Percentile £84.05 - £46.18
England median hourly rate £45.00 £47.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -5.26% +11.76% -16.67%

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 1,572 865 1,282
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 29.05% 26.70% 26.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,072 597 917
10th Percentile £340 £350 £313
25th Percentile £400 £400 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.52%
75th Percentile £538 £573 £550
90th Percentile £622 £650 £625
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.86% -4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 16 62
10th Percentile £42.45 £28.86 £37.70
25th Percentile £52.50 £45.01 £45.88
Median hourly rate £64.63 £65.50 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -1.33% +37.89% +1.49%
75th Percentile £74.26 £86.38 £65.94
90th Percentile £86.00 £99.32 £74.88
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -7.69%

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 3 March 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 3 March 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 3 March 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 -1 226 £425 -10.53% 269
Yorkshire -22 152 £500 -2.44% 165
North East -2 29 £475 +2.70% 63
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 30 (7.52%) Apache Airflow
2 22 (5.51%) Apache Spark
3 16 (4.01%) Apache
3 16 (4.01%) Confluence
4 6 (1.50%) SAS
4 6 (1.50%) SharePoint
5 5 (1.25%) Apache Geronimo
5 5 (1.25%) Apache ServiceMix
5 5 (1.25%) Red Hat Fuse
5 5 (1.25%) Tomcat
5 5 (1.25%) WebSphere
6 2 (0.50%) Apache Pig
7 1 (0.25%) IIS
7 1 (0.25%) Jupyter
7 1 (0.25%) Mule
7 1 (0.25%) Mule ESB
Applications
1 22 (5.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.25%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.00%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.50%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.25%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 9 (2.26%) Advent Geneva
2 2 (0.50%) NEC Housing
2 2 (0.50%) Oracle Applications
2 2 (0.50%) Salesforce CRM
3 1 (0.25%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.25%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.25%) Maximo
3 1 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 130 (32.58%) Azure
2 125 (31.33%) AWS
3 69 (17.29%) Power Platform
4 53 (13.28%) GCP
5 31 (7.77%) Serverless
6 27 (6.77%) GitHub
7 23 (5.76%) Azure Data Factory
8 22 (5.51%) dbt
9 19 (4.76%) Snowflake
10 17 (4.26%) Azure DevOps
11 16 (4.01%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 16 (4.01%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (3.01%) AWS Lambda
13 11 (2.76%) IaaS
13 11 (2.76%) SaaS
14 10 (2.51%) PaaS
15 9 (2.26%) Amazon EKS
15 9 (2.26%) Prefect
16 8 (2.01%) Amazon S3
17 7 (1.75%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.26%) Firewall
2 9 (2.26%) DNS
3 6 (1.50%) SSL
3 6 (1.50%) TCP/IP
4 5 (1.25%) IPsec
4 5 (1.25%) Kerberos
5 2 (0.50%) HTTP
5 2 (0.50%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.50%) VPN
6 1 (0.25%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 63 (15.79%) Power BI
2 56 (14.04%) SQL Server
3 52 (13.03%) NoSQL
4 45 (11.28%) Data Warehouse
5 30 (7.52%) PostgreSQL
5 30 (7.52%) Relational Database
6 24 (6.02%) Data Lake
7 22 (5.51%) MySQL
8 18 (4.51%) Tableau
9 17 (4.26%) DB2
9 17 (4.26%) Hadoop
10 16 (4.01%) Metadata
10 16 (4.01%) Snowflake Schema
10 16 (4.01%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 15 (3.76%) MongoDB
12 14 (3.51%) Delta Lake
13 13 (3.26%) Azure SQL Database
14 12 (3.01%) BigQuery
15 11 (2.76%) Power Query
16 10 (2.51%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 49 (12.28%) Git
2 47 (11.78%) JIRA
3 39 (9.77%) GitLab
4 36 (9.02%) Jenkins
5 15 (3.76%) Cucumber
5 15 (3.76%) REST Assured
5 15 (3.76%) Selenium
6 12 (3.01%) Postman
7 8 (2.01%) Jaeger
8 7 (1.75%) Liquibase
9 6 (1.50%) Mocha
9 6 (1.50%) TestRail
10 3 (0.75%) CircleCI
10 3 (0.75%) Cypress.io
10 3 (0.75%) SoapUI
11 2 (0.50%) Flyway
11 2 (0.50%) JUnit
11 2 (0.50%) Mockito
11 2 (0.50%) PyCharm
11 2 (0.50%) Visual Studio Code
General
1 131 (32.83%) Social Skills
2 106 (26.57%) Finance
3 78 (19.55%) Analytical Skills
4 58 (14.54%) Banking
5 37 (9.27%) Public Sector
6 16 (4.01%) Documentation Skills
7 13 (3.26%) Financial Institution
8 8 (2.01%) Law
8 8 (2.01%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 6 (1.50%) Marketing
10 6 (1.50%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.50%) Retail
11 5 (1.25%) Legal
12 4 (1.00%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (1.00%) Local Government
12 4 (1.00%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.00%) Military
13 3 (0.75%) Health Technology
13 3 (0.75%) Wholesale Banking
Job Titles
1 92 (23.06%) Developer
2 73 (18.30%) Analyst
3 66 (16.54%) Data Engineer
4 54 (13.53%) Senior
5 40 (10.03%) Lead
6 28 (7.02%) Data Analyst
7 19 (4.76%) Business Analyst
7 19 (4.76%) Software Engineer
8 17 (4.26%) Architect
9 15 (3.76%) Java Developer
10 13 (3.26%) Senior Developer
10 13 (3.26%) Test Engineer
11 12 (3.01%) DBA
11 12 (3.01%) DevOps Engineer
12 10 (2.51%) AWS Engineer
12 10 (2.51%) Senior Software Engineer
12 10 (2.51%) Test Automation Engineer
13 9 (2.26%) Azure Engineer
13 9 (2.26%) Senior Data Engineer
13 9 (2.26%) SQL DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (11.78%) REST
2 46 (11.53%) .NET
3 32 (8.02%) Kafka
4 29 (7.27%) Spring Boot
5 23 (5.76%) Spring
6 22 (5.51%) RESTful
7 20 (5.01%) React
8 19 (4.76%) XML
9 18 (4.51%) Middleware
10 17 (4.26%) OpenID
11 16 (4.01%) HTML
11 16 (4.01%) OAuth
11 16 (4.01%) PySpark
12 13 (3.26%) CSS
12 13 (3.26%) JSON
13 12 (3.01%) LDAP
13 12 (3.01%) SailPoint
14 11 (2.76%) Node.js
15 10 (2.51%) SOAP
16 9 (2.26%) JMS
Miscellaneous
1 37 (9.27%) Cloud Native
2 21 (5.26%) Clustering
3 20 (5.01%) Product Ownership
4 17 (4.26%) Distributed Systems
5 15 (3.76%) Data Protection Act
6 14 (3.51%) Management Information System
7 11 (2.76%) Data Structures
7 11 (2.76%) Linux Command Line
8 9 (2.26%) Replication
9 8 (2.01%) Public Cloud
9 8 (2.01%) Security Posture
9 8 (2.01%) SWIFT Messaging Network
9 8 (2.01%) Virtual Team
10 7 (1.75%) Onboarding
11 6 (1.50%) Algorithms
11 6 (1.50%) Credit Risk
11 6 (1.50%) Data Centre
11 6 (1.50%) Distributed Computing
11 6 (1.50%) Legacy Systems
11 6 (1.50%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 37 (9.27%) Linux
2 19 (4.76%) Windows
3 12 (3.01%) Unix
4 9 (2.26%) Windows Server
5 6 (1.50%) AIX
6 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.50%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.25%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (33.83%) CI/CD
2 118 (29.57%) Agile
3 105 (26.32%) DevOps
4 97 (24.31%) Problem-Solving
5 91 (22.81%) Analytics
6 90 (22.56%) Data Modelling
7 77 (19.30%) Business Intelligence
8 73 (18.30%) ETL
9 64 (16.04%) Data Pipeline
10 59 (14.79%) Microservices
11 56 (14.04%) Data Engineering
12 49 (12.28%) Test Automation
13 46 (11.53%) Data Governance
14 45 (11.28%) Data Analysis
15 42 (10.53%) Performance Tuning
16 40 (10.03%) Stakeholder Management
17 38 (9.52%) Visualisation
18 37 (9.27%) Actionable Insight
18 37 (9.27%) Containerisation
19 34 (8.52%) Computer Science
Programming Languages
1 131 (32.83%) Python
2 77 (19.30%) Java
3 31 (7.77%) C#
4 27 (6.77%) JavaScript
5 21 (5.26%) PL/SQL
5 21 (5.26%) PowerShell
6 16 (4.01%) Bash
7 12 (3.01%) PHP
7 12 (3.01%) TypeScript
8 11 (2.76%) VBA
9 10 (2.51%) Go
9 10 (2.51%) T-SQL
10 8 (2.01%) Rust
10 8 (2.01%) Shell Script
11 7 (1.75%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 4 (1.00%) ProC
12 4 (1.00%) R
12 4 (1.00%) Scala
13 3 (0.75%) C++
13 3 (0.75%) Delphi
Qualifications
1 55 (13.78%) Degree
2 43 (10.78%) Security Cleared
3 28 (7.02%) SC Cleared
4 22 (5.51%) Computer Science Degree
5 16 (4.01%) Master's Degree
6 15 (3.76%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (1.75%) AWS Certification
8 5 (1.25%) Azure Certification
9 4 (1.00%) MBA
10 3 (0.75%) ISTQB
11 2 (0.50%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.50%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.50%) CEH
11 2 (0.50%) CISSP
11 2 (0.50%) GIAC
11 2 (0.50%) GWAPT
11 2 (0.50%) ITIL Certification
11 2 (0.50%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
12 1 (0.25%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 55 (13.78%) Data Quality
2 26 (6.52%) QA
3 13 (3.26%) GDPR
4 11 (2.76%) Accessibility
5 8 (2.01%) ISO 20022
5 8 (2.01%) PSD2
5 8 (2.01%) SEPA
6 7 (1.75%) HIPAA
6 7 (1.75%) WCAG
7 6 (1.50%) California Consumer Privacy Act
7 6 (1.50%) SLA
8 4 (1.00%) PMO
9 2 (0.50%) Actionable Recommendations
9 2 (0.50%) NIST
9 2 (0.50%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 1 (0.25%) HL7
10 1 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
10 1 (0.25%) PERC
10 1 (0.25%) Solvency II
System Software
1 67 (16.79%) Docker
2 9 (2.26%) Virtual Machines
3 6 (1.50%) Hyper-V
3 6 (1.50%) KVM
4 5 (1.25%) Active Directory
4 5 (1.25%) RACF
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle RAC
5 1 (0.25%) vSphere
Systems Management
1 57 (14.29%) Kubernetes
2 33 (8.27%) Terraform
3 23 (5.76%) Grafana
4 20 (5.01%) Prometheus
5 16 (4.01%) Ansible
6 9 (2.26%) Single Sign-On
7 8 (2.01%) Kiali
8 6 (1.50%) IBM BigFix
8 6 (1.50%) vCenter Server
9 4 (1.00%) SCCM
10 2 (0.50%) Control-M
10 2 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.25%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.25%) Foglight
11 1 (0.25%) Kubeflow
11 1 (0.25%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.25%) Oracle Identity Manager
Vendors
1 60 (15.04%) Microsoft
2 46 (11.53%) Oracle
3 34 (8.52%) Databricks
4 32 (8.02%) Splunk
5 22 (5.51%) Google
5 22 (5.51%) ServiceNow
6 9 (2.26%) Advent
6 9 (2.26%) IBM
7 8 (2.01%) Salesforce
8 7 (1.75%) SolarWinds
9 6 (1.50%) MuleSoft
9 6 (1.50%) RedGate
10 5 (1.25%) SAP
10 5 (1.25%) TIBCO
10 5 (1.25%) Varonis
11 3 (0.75%) AppDynamics
11 3 (0.75%) Citrix
11 3 (0.75%) CyberArk
11 3 (0.75%) Informatica
11 3 (0.75%) Teradata