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

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 24 21 18
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL 351 255 364
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 7.14% 7.57% 7.61%
As % of the Programming Languages category 24.01% 29.24% 29.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 258 163 240
10th Percentile £314 £331 £299
25th Percentile £369 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £444 £475 £480
Median % change year-on-year -6.58% -0.99% -3.08%
75th Percentile £500 £567 £587
90th Percentile £629 £638 £646
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 4 13
10th Percentile £43.13 - £20.91
25th Percentile £53.81 £26.25 £37.55
Median hourly rate £69.38 £46.25 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +50.01% +8.82% -35.61%
75th Percentile £76.07 £65.00 £45.88
90th Percentile £79.33 - £46.12
England median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £43.50
% change year-on-year -4.76% +20.69% -12.12%

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 1,462 872 1,253
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 29.73% 25.89% 26.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,028 569 904
10th Percentile £331 £350 £325
25th Percentile £400 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year - - -9.52%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £575
90th Percentile £625 £638 £638
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 47 19 65
10th Percentile £41.94 £38.45 £37.58
25th Percentile £52.50 £46.18 £45.88
Median hourly rate £57.50 £65.00 £46.18
Median % change year-on-year -11.54% +40.75% -2.78%
75th Percentile £70.00 £86.00 £51.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £97.71 £71.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% +3.31% -6.92%

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 21 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 21 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 21 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 +2 199 £418 -9.73% 232
Yorkshire -23 135 £475 -5.94% 176
North East -15 19 £475 -4.04% 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 (7.98%) Apache Airflow
2 11 (3.13%) Confluence
3 10 (2.85%) Apache Spark
3 10 (2.85%) SharePoint
4 9 (2.56%) Apache
5 6 (1.71%) SAS
6 5 (1.42%) Apache Pig
7 3 (0.85%) Tomcat
8 2 (0.57%) Mule
8 2 (0.57%) Mule ESB
9 1 (0.28%) Anypoint
9 1 (0.28%) CICS
9 1 (0.28%) IIS
9 1 (0.28%) JBoss
9 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Exchange
9 1 (0.28%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.28%) WebLogic
9 1 (0.28%) WebSphere
9 1 (0.28%) WebSphere Application Server
Applications
1 26 (7.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.99%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 6 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
4 5 (1.42%) Chatbot
5 4 (1.14%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.28%) SPSS
Business Applications
1 9 (2.56%) Advent Geneva
2 2 (0.57%) NEC Housing
2 2 (0.57%) Oracle Applications
3 1 (0.28%) Elite 3E
3 1 (0.28%) Finacle
3 1 (0.28%) Magento
3 1 (0.28%) Maximo
3 1 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
Cloud Services
1 123 (35.04%) AWS
2 121 (34.47%) Azure
3 78 (22.22%) Power Platform
4 48 (13.68%) GCP
5 28 (7.98%) Serverless
6 27 (7.69%) GitHub
7 19 (5.41%) Snowflake
8 18 (5.13%) dbt
9 17 (4.84%) Azure Data Factory
10 15 (4.27%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 15 (4.27%) GitHub Actions
11 14 (3.99%) AWS Lambda
11 14 (3.99%) Azure DevOps
12 9 (2.56%) Amazon EKS
13 8 (2.28%) Amazon S3
13 8 (2.28%) Prefect
13 8 (2.28%) SaaS
14 7 (1.99%) Amazon ECS
14 7 (1.99%) AWS CloudFormation
14 7 (1.99%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 17 (4.84%) Firewall
2 7 (1.99%) TCP/IP
3 6 (1.71%) DNS
4 3 (0.85%) HTTP
4 3 (0.85%) HTTPS
5 2 (0.57%) SSL
6 1 (0.28%) Cisco Nexus
6 1 (0.28%) FCoE
6 1 (0.28%) Fibre Channel
6 1 (0.28%) Internet
6 1 (0.28%) IP Telephony
6 1 (0.28%) IPsec
6 1 (0.28%) iSCSI
6 1 (0.28%) Kerberos
6 1 (0.28%) LAN
6 1 (0.28%) Multicast
6 1 (0.28%) NAS
6 1 (0.28%) SAN
6 1 (0.28%) VoIP
6 1 (0.28%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (21.65%) Power BI
2 45 (12.82%) SQL Server
3 44 (12.54%) NoSQL
4 30 (8.55%) Data Warehouse
5 29 (8.26%) PostgreSQL
5 29 (8.26%) Relational Database
6 23 (6.55%) MySQL
7 22 (6.27%) Data Lake
8 18 (5.13%) Tableau
9 16 (4.56%) MongoDB
9 16 (4.56%) Power Query
10 15 (4.27%) Azure SQL Database
11 14 (3.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 13 (3.70%) BigQuery
12 13 (3.70%) Snowflake Schema
13 11 (3.13%) DB2
14 10 (2.85%) Delta Lake
14 10 (2.85%) Redis
15 9 (2.56%) Hadoop
16 8 (2.28%) PowerPivot
Development Applications
1 47 (13.39%) JIRA
2 46 (13.11%) Git
3 37 (10.54%) GitLab
4 34 (9.69%) Jenkins
5 14 (3.99%) Cucumber
6 13 (3.70%) REST Assured
6 13 (3.70%) Selenium
7 10 (2.85%) Postman
8 7 (1.99%) Jaeger
9 6 (1.71%) Mocha
9 6 (1.71%) TestRail
10 5 (1.42%) Mockito
11 4 (1.14%) Liquibase
12 3 (0.85%) CircleCI
12 3 (0.85%) JUnit
13 2 (0.57%) Cypress.io
13 2 (0.57%) Gradle
13 2 (0.57%) Oracle Forms
13 2 (0.57%) PyCharm
13 2 (0.57%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 113 (32.19%) Social Skills
2 106 (30.20%) Finance
3 66 (18.80%) Analytical Skills
4 59 (16.81%) Banking
5 32 (9.12%) Public Sector
6 15 (4.27%) Documentation Skills
7 12 (3.42%) Financial Institution
8 11 (3.13%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.99%) Law
9 7 (1.99%) Local Government
10 6 (1.71%) Legal
10 6 (1.71%) Marketing
10 6 (1.71%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.71%) Retail
11 5 (1.42%) Manufacturing
12 4 (1.14%) Billing
12 4 (1.14%) Wholesale Banking
13 3 (0.85%) Health Technology
14 2 (0.57%) Influencing Skills
14 2 (0.57%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 101 (28.77%) Developer
2 70 (19.94%) Analyst
3 53 (15.10%) Data Engineer
4 48 (13.68%) Senior
5 32 (9.12%) Data Analyst
6 24 (6.84%) Java Developer
6 24 (6.84%) Lead
7 19 (5.41%) Business Analyst
8 17 (4.84%) Software Engineer
9 14 (3.99%) Senior Developer
10 12 (3.42%) AWS Engineer
10 12 (3.42%) Test Engineer
11 11 (3.13%) DevOps Engineer
12 10 (2.85%) Architect
12 10 (2.85%) Azure Engineer
12 10 (2.85%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 10 (2.85%) Data Scientist
12 10 (2.85%) Test Automation Engineer
13 9 (2.56%) DBA
14 8 (2.28%) Senior Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (13.68%) REST
2 40 (11.40%) .NET
3 37 (10.54%) Spring Boot
4 33 (9.40%) Spring
5 31 (8.83%) Kafka
6 19 (5.41%) React
7 17 (4.84%) RESTful
8 16 (4.56%) HTML
8 16 (4.56%) XML
9 15 (4.27%) PySpark
10 14 (3.99%) CSS
10 14 (3.99%) JMS
10 14 (3.99%) JSON
10 14 (3.99%) Middleware
11 12 (3.42%) LDAP
11 12 (3.42%) Node.js
11 12 (3.42%) OAuth
11 12 (3.42%) OpenID
12 11 (3.13%) SailPoint
13 8 (2.28%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 35 (9.97%) Cloud Native
2 16 (4.56%) Distributed Systems
3 15 (4.27%) Data Protection Act
4 13 (3.70%) SWIFT Messaging Network
5 12 (3.42%) Clustering
5 12 (3.42%) Product Ownership
6 11 (3.13%) Data Centre
7 10 (2.85%) Data Structures
8 9 (2.56%) Algorithms
8 9 (2.56%) Management Information System
9 8 (2.28%) Onboarding
9 8 (2.28%) Virtual Team
10 7 (1.99%) Distributed Computing
10 7 (1.99%) Mainframe
11 6 (1.71%) NHS
11 6 (1.71%) Public Cloud
12 5 (1.42%) Greenfield Project
12 5 (1.42%) Self-Motivation
13 4 (1.14%) Legacy Code
13 4 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
Operating Systems
1 28 (7.98%) Linux
2 13 (3.70%) Windows
3 7 (1.99%) Unix
4 4 (1.14%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.85%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 2 (0.57%) Windows Server 2016
6 2 (0.57%) Windows Server 2019
7 1 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 1 (0.28%) Mac OS X
7 1 (0.28%) MVS
7 1 (0.28%) Solaris
7 1 (0.28%) VMS
7 1 (0.28%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 111 (31.62%) CI/CD
2 103 (29.34%) Agile
3 95 (27.07%) DevOps
4 84 (23.93%) Business Intelligence
5 81 (23.08%) Problem-Solving
6 73 (20.80%) Data Modelling
7 72 (20.51%) Analytics
8 54 (15.38%) Microservices
9 53 (15.10%) ETL
10 45 (12.82%) Data Pipeline
10 45 (12.82%) Visualisation
11 43 (12.25%) Data Analysis
11 43 (12.25%) Test Automation
12 42 (11.97%) Data Governance
13 40 (11.40%) Data Engineering
14 39 (11.11%) Stakeholder Management
15 38 (10.83%) Containerisation
16 34 (9.69%) Actionable Insight
17 33 (9.40%) Performance Tuning
18 32 (9.12%) Data Science
Programming Languages
1 109 (31.05%) Python
2 86 (24.50%) Java
3 28 (7.98%) JavaScript
4 24 (6.84%) C#
5 19 (5.41%) PL/SQL
6 13 (3.70%) PHP
7 11 (3.13%) VBA
8 10 (2.85%) T-SQL
8 10 (2.85%) TypeScript
9 9 (2.56%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 8 (2.28%) Bash
10 8 (2.28%) Go
10 8 (2.28%) Scala
11 7 (1.99%) Rust
12 6 (1.71%) Shell Script
13 5 (1.42%) Bicep
13 5 (1.42%) PowerShell
13 5 (1.42%) R
14 3 (0.85%) Delphi
14 3 (0.85%) ProC
Qualifications
1 51 (14.53%) Degree
2 28 (7.98%) Security Cleared
3 23 (6.55%) Computer Science Degree
4 15 (4.27%) Master's Degree
4 15 (4.27%) SC Cleared
5 11 (3.13%) BPSS Clearance
6 6 (1.71%) Azure Certification
7 5 (1.42%) AWS Certification
8 4 (1.14%) MBA
9 3 (0.85%) CEH
9 3 (0.85%) GIAC
9 3 (0.85%) GWAPT
9 3 (0.85%) ISTQB
10 2 (0.57%) AWS Certified Developer
10 2 (0.57%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
10 2 (0.57%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (0.57%) MCP
10 2 (0.57%) Microsoft Certification
11 1 (0.28%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 1 (0.28%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (12.82%) Data Quality
2 30 (8.55%) QA
3 13 (3.70%) ISO 20022
3 13 (3.70%) PSD2
3 13 (3.70%) SEPA
4 11 (3.13%) Accessibility
5 7 (1.99%) WCAG
6 6 (1.71%) SLA
7 5 (1.42%) GDPR
8 4 (1.14%) PMO
9 3 (0.85%) Actionable Recommendations
10 2 (0.57%) HIPAA
10 2 (0.57%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.28%) California Consumer Privacy Act
11 1 (0.28%) HL7
11 1 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
11 1 (0.28%) PERC
System Software
1 65 (18.52%) Docker
2 5 (1.42%) Active Directory
3 2 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
4 1 (0.28%) Hyper-V
4 1 (0.28%) KVM
4 1 (0.28%) NFS
4 1 (0.28%) RACF
4 1 (0.28%) SRDF
4 1 (0.28%) Veritas Cluster Server
4 1 (0.28%) VMware Infrastructure
4 1 (0.28%) vSphere
4 1 (0.28%) Xen
Systems Management
1 55 (15.67%) Kubernetes
2 31 (8.83%) Terraform
3 20 (5.70%) Grafana
4 17 (4.84%) Prometheus
5 14 (3.99%) Ansible
6 7 (1.99%) Kiali
7 5 (1.42%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (1.14%) SCCM
9 2 (0.57%) Control-M
10 1 (0.28%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.28%) Oracle Identity Manager
10 1 (0.28%) Oracle RMAN
10 1 (0.28%) Progress Chef
10 1 (0.28%) Puppet
Vendors
1 62 (17.66%) Microsoft
2 44 (12.54%) Oracle
3 28 (7.98%) Databricks
3 28 (7.98%) Splunk
4 20 (5.70%) Google
4 20 (5.70%) ServiceNow
5 9 (2.56%) Advent
6 7 (1.99%) MuleSoft
7 6 (1.71%) AppDynamics
7 6 (1.71%) Dynatrace
8 5 (1.42%) IBM
8 5 (1.42%) Salesforce
9 4 (1.14%) Cognos
9 4 (1.14%) F5
9 4 (1.14%) SAP
10 3 (0.85%) Citrix
10 3 (0.85%) Imperva
10 3 (0.85%) Red Hat
10 3 (0.85%) VMware
11 2 (0.57%) Brio