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

6 months to
17 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 22 19 16
Rank change year-on-year -3 -3 -3
Contract jobs citing SQL 583 336 407
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 8.12% 8.85% 8.81%
As % of the Programming Languages category 30.59% 33.14% 35.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 354 247 300
10th Percentile £313 £322 £325
25th Percentile £403 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% - -5.00%
75th Percentile £550 £548 £550
90th Percentile £620 £625 £610
England median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% -0.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 30 4 10
10th Percentile £23.68 £25.41 £35.53
25th Percentile £29.96 £29.31 £37.50
Median hourly rate £44.00 £32.96 £41.38
Median % change year-on-year +33.50% -20.34% +3.44%
75th Percentile £68.02 £43.97 £45.57
90th Percentile £76.90 £61.09 £46.18
England median hourly rate £45.00 £41.66 £42.50
% change year-on-year +8.02% -1.98% -14.26%

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 1,906 1,014 1,151
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 26.56% 26.71% 24.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,220 738 818
10th Percentile £350 £320 £319
25th Percentile £413 £380 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £461 £475
Median % change year-on-year +5.69% -2.89% -9.13%
75th Percentile £575 £538 £569
90th Percentile £650 £604 £626
England median daily rate £520 £520 £540
% change year-on-year +0.05% -3.75% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 91 11 41
10th Percentile £29.96 £30.00 £37.50
25th Percentile £48.75 £31.62 £41.25
Median hourly rate £70.00 £70.00 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year - +42.86% +6.11%
75th Percentile £76.00 £86.63 £71.50
90th Percentile £86.00 £95.00 £79.17
England median hourly rate £65.00 £61.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +5.69% -5.38% +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 17 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 17 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 17 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 -1 310 £475 +1.06% 136
Yorkshire -7 236 £475 - 81
North East -13 52 £425 -8.11% 40
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 41 (7.03%) Confluence
2 32 (5.49%) Apache Spark
3 27 (4.63%) Apache
4 23 (3.95%) Apache Airflow
5 10 (1.72%) SAS
6 9 (1.54%) Jupyter
6 9 (1.54%) SharePoint
7 8 (1.37%) WebSphere
8 7 (1.20%) Apache Geronimo
8 7 (1.20%) Apache ServiceMix
8 7 (1.20%) Red Hat Fuse
8 7 (1.20%) Tomcat
9 5 (0.86%) Oracle Workflow
10 2 (0.34%) CMS
10 2 (0.34%) IIS
10 2 (0.34%) Mule
10 2 (0.34%) Mule ESB
10 2 (0.34%) Palantir Foundry
10 2 (0.34%) WordPress
11 1 (0.17%) Adobe Experience Manager
Applications
1 39 (6.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.51%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.51%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.17%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (1.89%) Oracle EBS
2 7 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 5 (0.86%) Infor LN
4 4 (0.69%) Oracle Payables
5 3 (0.51%) Dynamics CRM
5 3 (0.51%) Elite 3E
5 3 (0.51%) NetSuite
5 3 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
5 3 (0.51%) Salesforce CRM
6 2 (0.34%) Oracle Cash Management
6 2 (0.34%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
6 2 (0.34%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 2 (0.34%) Payment Gateway
7 1 (0.17%) FIS Private Capital Suite
7 1 (0.17%) NEC Housing
7 1 (0.17%) Oracle Applications
7 1 (0.17%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 160 (27.44%) Azure
2 123 (21.10%) AWS
3 102 (17.50%) Power Platform
4 52 (8.92%) GCP
5 42 (7.20%) GitHub
6 32 (5.49%) Azure Data Factory
7 31 (5.32%) Serverless
8 27 (4.63%) Azure DevOps
9 23 (3.95%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 22 (3.77%) dbt
10 22 (3.77%) Snowflake
11 17 (2.92%) Amazon S3
12 16 (2.74%) Google Kubernetes Engine
12 16 (2.74%) SaaS
13 15 (2.57%) AWS Lambda
13 15 (2.57%) GitHub Actions
14 14 (2.40%) OpenShift
14 14 (2.40%) Power Automate
14 14 (2.40%) PowerApps
15 12 (2.06%) Google Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.23%) SSL
2 10 (1.72%) DNS
3 7 (1.20%) Kerberos
4 6 (1.03%) 3GPP
4 6 (1.03%) Network Security
4 6 (1.03%) RTP
4 6 (1.03%) Wireshark
5 5 (0.86%) Firewall
6 4 (0.69%) BGP
6 4 (0.69%) HTTP
6 4 (0.69%) IPsec
6 4 (0.69%) Reverse Proxy
7 3 (0.51%) DHCP
8 2 (0.34%) Internet
8 2 (0.34%) LAN
8 2 (0.34%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.34%) VPN
8 2 (0.34%) WAN
8 2 (0.34%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.17%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 130 (22.30%) SQL Server
2 93 (15.95%) Power BI
3 84 (14.41%) Data Warehouse
4 43 (7.38%) PostgreSQL
5 38 (6.52%) SQL Server Integration Services
5 38 (6.52%) Tableau
6 35 (6.00%) NoSQL
7 34 (5.83%) Relational Database
8 27 (4.63%) Metadata
9 26 (4.46%) Data Lake
10 25 (4.29%) Oracle Database
11 22 (3.77%) MongoDB
11 22 (3.77%) MySQL
12 21 (3.60%) Azure SQL Database
13 20 (3.43%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 16 (2.74%) Hadoop
15 15 (2.57%) Looker
16 14 (2.40%) Delta Lake
17 13 (2.23%) Amazon Athena
17 13 (2.23%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 67 (11.49%) Git
2 46 (7.89%) Jenkins
3 43 (7.38%) JIRA
4 30 (5.15%) GitLab
5 9 (1.54%) Bitbucket
5 9 (1.54%) Gradle
6 8 (1.37%) Flyway
6 8 (1.37%) Selenium
7 7 (1.20%) Cucumber
7 7 (1.20%) Postman
7 7 (1.20%) Sonatype Nexus
8 6 (1.03%) Liquibase
8 6 (1.03%) Oracle Forms
8 6 (1.03%) TeamCity
9 5 (0.86%) Claude Code
9 5 (0.86%) JUnit
9 5 (0.86%) Maven
9 5 (0.86%) REST Assured
9 5 (0.86%) Team Foundation Server
10 4 (0.69%) Snyk
General
1 160 (27.44%) Social Skills
2 112 (19.21%) Finance
3 104 (17.84%) Analytical Skills
4 57 (9.78%) Public Sector
5 47 (8.06%) Banking
6 16 (2.74%) Manufacturing
7 13 (2.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 11 (1.89%) Retail
9 10 (1.72%) Marketing
10 9 (1.54%) Legal
11 7 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
11 7 (1.20%) Games
11 7 (1.20%) Law
11 7 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
12 6 (1.03%) Influencing Skills
13 5 (0.86%) Aviation
13 5 (0.86%) Fire and Rescue
13 5 (0.86%) Military
13 5 (0.86%) Organisational Skills
13 5 (0.86%) Police
Job Titles
1 122 (20.93%) Developer
2 91 (15.61%) Analyst
3 74 (12.69%) Data Engineer
4 67 (11.49%) Senior
5 59 (10.12%) DBA
6 48 (8.23%) Lead
7 38 (6.52%) SQL DBA
8 37 (6.35%) Data Analyst
9 29 (4.97%) Consultant
10 27 (4.63%) Architect
11 26 (4.46%) Java Developer
12 24 (4.12%) Senior Developer
13 22 (3.77%) Software Engineer
14 21 (3.60%) Administrator
15 19 (3.26%) Oracle DBA
16 18 (3.09%) Senior Data Engineer
16 18 (3.09%) SQL Developer
17 17 (2.92%) Software Developer
18 14 (2.40%) Performance Analyst
19 13 (2.23%) Technical Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (7.03%) PySpark
2 40 (6.86%) Kafka
2 40 (6.86%) REST
3 39 (6.69%) .NET
4 34 (5.83%) Spring Boot
5 33 (5.66%) Spring
6 27 (4.63%) XML
7 25 (4.29%) RESTful
8 20 (3.43%) React
9 19 (3.26%) JSON
10 16 (2.74%) HTML
10 16 (2.74%) Web Services
11 15 (2.57%) Middleware
12 12 (2.06%) .NET Core
12 12 (2.06%) AngularJS
13 11 (1.89%) OAuth
14 10 (1.72%) CSS
14 10 (1.72%) OAuth2
14 10 (1.72%) Pandas
15 9 (1.54%) RabbitMQ
Miscellaneous
1 37 (6.35%) Cloud Native
2 35 (6.00%) Data Structures
3 31 (5.32%) Product Ownership
4 24 (4.12%) Replication
5 23 (3.95%) Data Protection Act
6 21 (3.60%) Clustering
7 17 (2.92%) Legacy Systems
8 16 (2.74%) Enterprise Software
9 14 (2.40%) NHS
10 13 (2.23%) Distributed Systems
11 12 (2.06%) Linux Command Line
11 12 (2.06%) Self-Motivation
12 9 (1.54%) AI Agents
12 9 (1.54%) Onboarding
13 8 (1.37%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
14 7 (1.20%) Algorithms
14 7 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
14 7 (1.20%) Management Information System
14 7 (1.20%) Robotics
14 7 (1.20%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 49 (8.40%) Linux
2 28 (4.80%) Windows
3 21 (3.60%) Unix
4 19 (3.26%) Windows Server
5 8 (1.37%) AIX
6 6 (1.03%) Solaris
7 5 (0.86%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.51%) Oracle Linux
8 3 (0.51%) Windows Server 2012
9 2 (0.34%) Ubuntu
9 2 (0.34%) Windows 10
10 1 (0.17%) VMS
10 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2008
10 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 158 (27.10%) CI/CD
2 149 (25.56%) Agile
3 140 (24.01%) Analytics
4 126 (21.61%) Data Modelling
5 124 (21.27%) Business Intelligence
6 121 (20.75%) ETL
7 111 (19.04%) DevOps
8 101 (17.32%) Data Pipeline
9 99 (16.98%) Problem-Solving
10 83 (14.24%) Migration
11 77 (13.21%) Performance Tuning
12 71 (12.18%) Validation
13 70 (12.01%) AI
14 66 (11.32%) Data Engineering
15 61 (10.46%) Data Analysis
16 60 (10.29%) Microservices
17 59 (10.12%) Test Automation
18 58 (9.95%) Stakeholder Management
19 52 (8.92%) Data Governance
20 50 (8.58%) Continuous Improvement
Programming Languages
1 167 (28.64%) Python
2 79 (13.55%) Java
3 49 (8.40%) PowerShell
4 42 (7.20%) C#
5 40 (6.86%) T-SQL
6 33 (5.66%) PL/SQL
7 27 (4.63%) JavaScript
8 22 (3.77%) Bash
9 16 (2.74%) TypeScript
10 13 (2.23%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 12 (2.06%) R
11 12 (2.06%) Shell Script
12 9 (1.54%) Kotlin
12 9 (1.54%) Scala
13 4 (0.69%) VB
14 3 (0.51%) Bicep
14 3 (0.51%) VB6
14 3 (0.51%) VBA
15 2 (0.34%) PromQL
15 2 (0.34%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 92 (15.78%) Security Cleared
2 79 (13.55%) SC Cleared
3 46 (7.89%) Degree
4 19 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 16 (2.74%) Computer Science Degree
6 11 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (1.03%) Azure Certification
7 6 (1.03%) DV Cleared
8 3 (0.51%) CISSP
8 3 (0.51%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
8 3 (0.51%) Master's Degree
9 2 (0.34%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.34%) ITIL Certification
10 1 (0.17%) CISM
10 1 (0.17%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.17%) Numerate Degree
10 1 (0.17%) Oracle Certification
10 1 (0.17%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 114 (19.55%) Data Quality
2 31 (5.32%) QA
3 23 (3.95%) GDPR
4 7 (1.20%) California Consumer Privacy Act
4 7 (1.20%) HIPAA
5 6 (1.03%) GRC
5 6 (1.03%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 4 (0.69%) SLA
7 3 (0.51%) ISO 20022
7 3 (0.51%) NIST
7 3 (0.51%) PMO
7 3 (0.51%) Solvency II
8 2 (0.34%) Accessibility
8 2 (0.34%) Actionable Recommendations
8 2 (0.34%) WCAG
9 1 (0.17%) ISO/IEC 27001
9 1 (0.17%) MiFID
9 1 (0.17%) PSD2
9 1 (0.17%) SEPA
System Software
1 69 (11.84%) Docker
2 17 (2.92%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.23%) Oracle RAC
3 13 (2.23%) Virtual Machines
4 10 (1.72%) Hyper-V
4 10 (1.72%) KVM
5 4 (0.69%) RACF
5 4 (0.69%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 53 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 47 (8.06%) Terraform
3 31 (5.32%) Ansible
4 15 (2.57%) Grafana
5 14 (2.40%) Prometheus
6 13 (2.23%) Data Guard
6 13 (2.23%) Oracle RMAN
7 9 (1.54%) Control-M
8 6 (1.03%) IBM BigFix
8 6 (1.03%) vCenter Server
9 5 (0.86%) SCOM
9 5 (0.86%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.69%) Argo
11 3 (0.51%) Foglight
12 2 (0.34%) Consul
12 2 (0.34%) Enterprise Manager Cloud Control
12 2 (0.34%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.34%) Nagios
12 2 (0.34%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 2 (0.34%) SCCM
Vendors
1 108 (18.52%) Microsoft
2 85 (14.58%) Oracle
3 55 (9.43%) Databricks
4 30 (5.15%) Google
5 23 (3.95%) SAP
6 22 (3.77%) ServiceNow
6 22 (3.77%) Splunk
7 12 (2.06%) IBM
8 10 (1.72%) Alteryx
9 9 (1.54%) Salesforce
10 8 (1.37%) Teradata
11 7 (1.20%) CyberArk
11 7 (1.20%) Informatica
11 7 (1.20%) SolarWinds
11 7 (1.20%) TIBCO
12 6 (1.03%) RedGate
12 6 (1.03%) Sybase
12 6 (1.03%) Varonis
13 5 (0.86%) Adobe
13 5 (0.86%) Infor