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 4 June 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 25 15 17
Rank change year-on-year -10 +2 -4
Contract jobs citing SQL 500 319 416
As % of all contract jobs in the North of England 7.57% 9.59% 8.81%
As % of the Programming Languages category 28.01% 34.30% 33.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 311 233 282
10th Percentile £313 £338 £307
25th Percentile £400 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £463 £475 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.63% - -2.06%
75th Percentile £550 £550 £569
90th Percentile £625 £625 £615
England median daily rate £500 £500 £545
% change year-on-year - -8.26% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 3 10
10th Percentile £24.70 £31.53 £37.63
25th Percentile £35.63 £31.62 £41.25
Median hourly rate £46.80 £33.11 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +41.35% -22.09% +4.71%
75th Percentile £66.60 £53.48 £45.57
90th Percentile £83.20 £64.89 £46.18
England median hourly rate £47.50 £37.25 £42.50
% change year-on-year +27.52% -12.35% -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 1,785 930 1,226
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the North of England 27.03% 27.94% 25.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,167 686 853
10th Percentile £350 £350 £325
25th Percentile £412 £400 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £466 £475
Median % change year-on-year +1.93% -1.89% -9.52%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £575
90th Percentile £625 £611 £625
England median daily rate £513 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -2.38% -2.78% -4.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 93 10 54
10th Percentile £36.30 £31.73 £37.57
25th Percentile £52.50 £55.88 £42.41
Median hourly rate £65.00 £74.50 £47.75
Median % change year-on-year -12.75% +56.02% -0.52%
75th Percentile £74.26 £88.06 £68.75
90th Percentile £80.30 £95.36 £73.90
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.84% -0.80% -

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 4 June 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 4 June 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 4 June 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 -6 254 £461 -2.89% 261
Yorkshire -14 211 £475 - 116
North East -8 47 £425 -8.11% 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 31 (6.20%) Apache Spark
2 25 (5.00%) Apache
2 25 (5.00%) Confluence
3 21 (4.20%) Apache Airflow
4 10 (2.00%) SharePoint
5 8 (1.60%) WebSphere
6 7 (1.40%) Apache Geronimo
6 7 (1.40%) Apache ServiceMix
6 7 (1.40%) Jupyter
6 7 (1.40%) Red Hat Fuse
6 7 (1.40%) Tomcat
7 5 (1.00%) Oracle Workflow
8 4 (0.80%) SAS
9 2 (0.40%) IIS
9 2 (0.40%) Mule
9 2 (0.40%) Mule ESB
9 2 (0.40%) Palantir Foundry
10 1 (0.20%) Adobe Experience Manager
10 1 (0.20%) Camunda
10 1 (0.20%) WebLogic
Applications
1 35 (7.00%) Microsoft Excel
2 4 (0.80%) MS Visio
3 3 (0.60%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.20%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 11 (2.20%) Oracle EBS
2 6 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
3 4 (0.80%) Elite 3E
4 3 (0.60%) Infor LN
4 3 (0.60%) NetSuite
4 3 (0.60%) Oracle Applications
4 3 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
4 3 (0.60%) Salesforce CRM
5 2 (0.40%) Dynamics CRM
5 2 (0.40%) Oracle Cash Management
5 2 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
5 2 (0.40%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
5 2 (0.40%) Oracle Subledger Accounting
6 1 (0.20%) NEC Housing
6 1 (0.20%) Payment Gateway
6 1 (0.20%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 160 (32.00%) Azure
2 128 (25.60%) AWS
3 84 (16.80%) Power Platform
4 55 (11.00%) GCP
5 37 (7.40%) GitHub
6 36 (7.20%) Azure Data Factory
7 29 (5.80%) Serverless
8 22 (4.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
9 21 (4.20%) Azure DevOps
10 18 (3.60%) dbt
11 17 (3.40%) SaaS
12 16 (3.20%) GitHub Actions
13 15 (3.00%) Snowflake
14 14 (2.80%) Google Kubernetes Engine
15 13 (2.60%) Amazon S3
15 13 (2.60%) AWS Lambda
16 11 (2.20%) IaaS
17 10 (2.00%) PaaS
18 9 (1.80%) Azure AKS
19 8 (1.60%) Amazon EMR
Communications & Networking
1 17 (3.40%) Firewall
2 14 (2.80%) DNS
3 8 (1.60%) SSL
4 7 (1.40%) TCP/IP
5 6 (1.20%) 3GPP
5 6 (1.20%) RTP
5 6 (1.20%) Wireshark
6 5 (1.00%) IPsec
6 5 (1.00%) Kerberos
7 3 (0.60%) BGP
7 3 (0.60%) DHCP
7 3 (0.60%) HTTP
7 3 (0.60%) Network Security
7 3 (0.60%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.40%) LAN
8 2 (0.40%) VPN
8 2 (0.40%) WAN
8 2 (0.40%) Wi-Fi
9 1 (0.20%) BIG-IP
9 1 (0.20%) Internet
Database & Business Intelligence
1 89 (17.80%) SQL Server
2 77 (15.40%) Power BI
3 66 (13.20%) Data Warehouse
4 40 (8.00%) NoSQL
5 34 (6.80%) PostgreSQL
6 32 (6.40%) Tableau
7 30 (6.00%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 25 (5.00%) Data Lake
9 24 (4.80%) Relational Database
10 23 (4.60%) Azure SQL Database
11 22 (4.40%) Metadata
12 21 (4.20%) Oracle Database
13 19 (3.80%) MongoDB
13 19 (3.80%) SQL Server Reporting Services
14 16 (3.20%) Hadoop
15 15 (3.00%) Delta Lake
15 15 (3.00%) MySQL
16 12 (2.40%) Big Data
17 11 (2.20%) Amazon Athena
17 11 (2.20%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 57 (11.40%) Git
2 50 (10.00%) JIRA
3 41 (8.20%) GitLab
4 37 (7.40%) Jenkins
5 19 (3.80%) Cucumber
6 16 (3.20%) Selenium
7 15 (3.00%) REST Assured
8 11 (2.20%) Postman
9 9 (1.80%) Jaeger
10 8 (1.60%) Flyway
11 7 (1.40%) Bitbucket
11 7 (1.40%) TestRail
12 6 (1.20%) Gradle
12 6 (1.20%) Liquibase
12 6 (1.20%) Oracle Forms
12 6 (1.20%) TeamCity
13 5 (1.00%) JUnit
13 5 (1.00%) Maven
14 4 (0.80%) ERwin
14 4 (0.80%) Snyk
General
1 142 (28.40%) Social Skills
2 111 (22.20%) Finance
3 92 (18.40%) Analytical Skills
4 50 (10.00%) Public Sector
5 48 (9.60%) Banking
6 12 (2.40%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 12 (2.40%) Law
6 12 (2.40%) Legal
7 11 (2.20%) Retail
8 9 (1.80%) Manufacturing
8 9 (1.80%) Marketing
9 8 (1.60%) Financial Institution
10 6 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
10 6 (1.20%) Presentation Skills
11 5 (1.00%) Aviation
11 5 (1.00%) Fire and Rescue
11 5 (1.00%) Police
12 4 (0.80%) Influencing Skills
12 4 (0.80%) Local Government
12 4 (0.80%) Military
Job Titles
1 98 (19.60%) Developer
2 85 (17.00%) Analyst
3 70 (14.00%) Data Engineer
4 58 (11.60%) Senior
5 51 (10.20%) Lead
6 28 (5.60%) Java Developer
7 27 (5.40%) Data Analyst
7 27 (5.40%) DBA
8 26 (5.20%) Consultant
9 23 (4.60%) Architect
10 18 (3.60%) Senior Developer
10 18 (3.60%) Test Engineer
11 17 (3.40%) SQL DBA
12 15 (3.00%) Senior Data Engineer
13 14 (2.80%) Business Analyst
13 14 (2.80%) Software Engineer
14 13 (2.60%) Performance Analyst
14 13 (2.60%) SQL Developer
15 12 (2.40%) Technical Analyst
15 12 (2.40%) Test Automation Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 40 (8.00%) REST
2 36 (7.20%) .NET
3 35 (7.00%) PySpark
4 34 (6.80%) Spring Boot
5 30 (6.00%) Kafka
6 28 (5.60%) Spring
6 28 (5.60%) XML
7 25 (5.00%) RESTful
8 22 (4.40%) Middleware
9 17 (3.40%) HTML
9 17 (3.40%) OpenID
10 15 (3.00%) JSON
10 15 (3.00%) OAuth
10 15 (3.00%) OpenTelemetry
11 12 (2.40%) CSS
11 12 (2.40%) React
11 12 (2.40%) SOAP
11 12 (2.40%) Web Services
12 11 (2.20%) OAuth2
12 11 (2.20%) SailPoint
Miscellaneous
1 36 (7.20%) Cloud Native
2 34 (6.80%) Product Ownership
3 19 (3.80%) Data Structures
4 18 (3.60%) Clustering
4 18 (3.60%) Data Protection Act
5 17 (3.40%) Distributed Systems
6 15 (3.00%) NHS
7 14 (2.80%) Management Information System
8 13 (2.60%) Replication
9 12 (2.40%) Linux Command Line
10 11 (2.20%) Legacy Systems
11 9 (1.80%) Onboarding
12 8 (1.60%) AI Agents
12 8 (1.60%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
13 7 (1.40%) Robotics
13 7 (1.40%) Security Posture
14 6 (1.20%) Analytical Mindset
14 6 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
14 6 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
15 5 (1.00%) Reinsurance
Operating Systems
1 53 (10.60%) Linux
2 29 (5.80%) Windows
3 18 (3.60%) Unix
4 15 (3.00%) Windows Server
5 8 (1.60%) AIX
6 3 (0.60%) Oracle Linux
6 3 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.60%) Windows Server 2012
7 2 (0.40%) Solaris
7 2 (0.40%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.40%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.20%) VMS
8 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2008
8 1 (0.20%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 163 (32.60%) CI/CD
2 132 (26.40%) Agile
3 119 (23.80%) DevOps
4 111 (22.20%) Analytics
5 104 (20.80%) ETL
6 101 (20.20%) Data Modelling
7 97 (19.40%) Business Intelligence
8 92 (18.40%) Problem-Solving
9 85 (17.00%) Data Pipeline
10 62 (12.40%) Microservices
10 62 (12.40%) Migration
11 61 (12.20%) Performance Tuning
12 60 (12.00%) Test Automation
13 56 (11.20%) Data Engineering
13 56 (11.20%) Validation
14 51 (10.20%) AI
14 51 (10.20%) Data Analysis
15 46 (9.20%) Infrastructure as Code
16 45 (9.00%) Data Governance
17 39 (7.80%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 152 (30.40%) Python
2 88 (17.60%) Java
3 39 (7.80%) PowerShell
4 35 (7.00%) C#
5 31 (6.20%) JavaScript
6 30 (6.00%) T-SQL
7 28 (5.60%) PL/SQL
8 23 (4.60%) Bash
9 15 (3.00%) Shell Script
10 13 (2.60%) TypeScript
11 12 (2.40%) R
12 9 (1.80%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 9 (1.80%) PHP
13 8 (1.60%) Rust
14 6 (1.20%) Kotlin
15 5 (1.00%) Go
15 5 (1.00%) Scala
15 5 (1.00%) VBA
16 4 (0.80%) ProC
16 4 (0.80%) VB
Qualifications
1 59 (11.80%) Security Cleared
2 56 (11.20%) Degree
3 48 (9.60%) SC Cleared
4 21 (4.20%) Computer Science Degree
5 17 (3.40%) BPSS Clearance
6 10 (2.00%) Master's Degree
7 4 (0.80%) Azure Certification
7 4 (0.80%) MBA
8 3 (0.60%) CISSP
9 2 (0.40%) AWS Certification
9 2 (0.40%) DV Cleared
9 2 (0.40%) ITIL Certification
9 2 (0.40%) Microsoft Certification
10 1 (0.20%) CISM
10 1 (0.20%) DBS Check
10 1 (0.20%) Tableau Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 87 (17.40%) Data Quality
2 32 (6.40%) QA
3 22 (4.40%) GDPR
4 9 (1.80%) SLA
5 7 (1.40%) California Consumer Privacy Act
5 7 (1.40%) HIPAA
6 6 (1.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 5 (1.00%) GRC
7 5 (1.00%) PMO
8 4 (0.80%) ISO 20022
9 3 (0.60%) Accessibility
9 3 (0.60%) NIST
9 3 (0.60%) PSD2
9 3 (0.60%) SEPA
9 3 (0.60%) Solvency II
10 2 (0.40%) WCAG
11 1 (0.20%) HL7
11 1 (0.20%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 72 (14.40%) Docker
2 10 (2.00%) Hyper-V
2 10 (2.00%) KVM
3 9 (1.80%) Virtual Machines
4 8 (1.60%) Active Directory
5 5 (1.00%) RACF
6 4 (0.80%) VMware Infrastructure
7 2 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 58 (11.60%) Kubernetes
2 43 (8.60%) Terraform
3 24 (4.80%) Grafana
4 21 (4.20%) Prometheus
5 17 (3.40%) Ansible
6 11 (2.20%) Oracle RMAN
7 9 (1.80%) Kiali
8 6 (1.20%) IBM BigFix
8 6 (1.20%) vCenter Server
9 5 (1.00%) Single Sign-On
10 4 (0.80%) Argo
11 3 (0.60%) Data Guard
11 3 (0.60%) Foglight
12 2 (0.40%) AirWatch
12 2 (0.40%) Consul
12 2 (0.40%) Failover Clustering
12 2 (0.40%) SCCM
12 2 (0.40%) Zipkin
13 1 (0.20%) HAProxy
13 1 (0.20%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 71 (14.20%) Microsoft
2 66 (13.20%) Oracle
3 49 (9.80%) Databricks
4 32 (6.40%) Splunk
5 25 (5.00%) ServiceNow
6 22 (4.40%) Google
7 16 (3.20%) SAP
8 10 (2.00%) IBM
9 7 (1.40%) TIBCO
10 6 (1.20%) RedGate
10 6 (1.20%) Salesforce
10 6 (1.20%) SolarWinds
10 6 (1.20%) Varonis
11 5 (1.00%) MuleSoft
11 5 (1.00%) OpenAI
11 5 (1.00%) SYSPRO
11 5 (1.00%) Teradata
12 4 (0.80%) Adobe
12 4 (0.80%) AppDynamics
12 4 (0.80%) VMware