SQL Contract Job Trends in Northern Ireland

SQL (Structured Query Language)
UK > Northern Ireland

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in Northern Ireland requiring SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 December 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 8 7 5
Rank change year-on-year -1 -2 -1
Contract jobs citing SQL 33 30 23
As % of all contract jobs in Northern Ireland 13.64% 16.95% 16.20%
As % of the Programming Languages category 67.35% 61.22% 47.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 18 10 14
10th Percentile £305 £224 £165
25th Percentile £372 £269 £303
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £400 £450 £343
Median % change year-on-year -11.11% +31.39% -27.89%
75th Percentile £552 £525 £505
90th Percentile £629 £541 £533
UK median daily rate £500 £520 £538
% change year-on-year -3.85% -3.26% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 0
Median hourly rate - £22.48 -
UK median hourly rate £45.00 £41.33 £45.88
% change year-on-year +8.89% -9.92% +2.69%

All Programming Languages
Northern Ireland

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 Northern Ireland.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 49 49 48
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Northern Ireland 20.25% 27.68% 33.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 24 21 31
10th Percentile £309 £225 £200
25th Percentile £400 £325 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £438 £475 £400
Median % change year-on-year -7.89% +18.75% -20.00%
75th Percentile £597 £538 £500
90th Percentile £690 £575 £538
UK median daily rate £505 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.81% -4.55% -3.08%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 4 1
Median hourly rate - £51.25 £16.12
Median % change year-on-year - +217.93% +19.41%
UK median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in Northern Ireland

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SQL relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Northern Ireland.

SQL job vacancy trend in Northern Ireland

SQL
Daily Rate Trend in Northern Ireland

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Northern Ireland citing SQL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Northern Ireland citing SQL

SQL
Daily Rate Histogram in Northern Ireland

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL in Northern Ireland over the 6 months to 17 December 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SQL in Northern Ireland

SQL
Hourly Rate Trend in Northern Ireland

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Northern Ireland citing SQL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Northern Ireland citing SQL

SQL
Contract Job Locations in Northern Ireland

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL within the Northern Ireland region over the 6 months to 17 December 2025. 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
County Antrim 0 31 £400 -11.11% 17
County Armagh - 1 - - 2
SQL
UK

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Northern Ireland 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 4 (12.12%) Apache Spark
2 2 (6.06%) Apache
3 1 (3.03%) Confluence
Applications
1 3 (9.09%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (6.06%) Microsoft Excel
3 1 (3.03%) Microsoft PowerPoint
Business Applications
1 2 (6.06%) Dynamics GP
Cloud Services
1 17 (51.52%) AWS
2 8 (24.24%) Amazon S3
3 3 (9.09%) AWS Lambda
3 3 (9.09%) Serverless
4 2 (6.06%) WhatsApp
5 1 (3.03%) Power Platform
Database & Business Intelligence
1 7 (21.21%) Amazon QuickSight
1 7 (21.21%) PostgreSQL
2 6 (18.18%) Impala
2 6 (18.18%) Parquet
2 6 (18.18%) Tableau
3 5 (15.15%) Data Lake
4 4 (12.12%) Data Warehouse
4 4 (12.12%) KDB
4 4 (12.12%) Kdb+
5 2 (6.06%) Apache Hive
5 2 (6.06%) Relational Database
5 2 (6.06%) Spark SQL
5 2 (6.06%) Sqoop
6 1 (3.03%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (3.03%) Amazon Redshift
6 1 (3.03%) Big Data
6 1 (3.03%) DynamoDB
6 1 (3.03%) GIS
6 1 (3.03%) Hadoop
6 1 (3.03%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 6 (18.18%) Postman
2 1 (3.03%) GitLab
2 1 (3.03%) JIRA
General
1 15 (45.45%) Finance
2 8 (24.24%) Social Skills
3 5 (15.15%) Front Office
4 4 (12.12%) Analytical Skills
4 4 (12.12%) Banking
5 2 (6.06%) Financial Institution
5 2 (6.06%) Public Sector
6 1 (3.03%) Back Office
Job Titles
1 17 (51.52%) Analyst
2 14 (42.42%) Developer
3 9 (27.27%) Data Analyst
3 9 (27.27%) Senior
4 7 (21.21%) Senior Analyst
5 6 (18.18%) Test Analyst
6 5 (15.15%) Data Migration Analyst
6 5 (15.15%) Migration Analyst
6 5 (15.15%) Senior Test Analyst
6 5 (15.15%) Test Data Analyst
7 4 (12.12%) C# Developer
8 3 (9.09%) Business Analyst
8 3 (9.09%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
8 3 (9.09%) Software Developer
8 3 (9.09%) SQL Analyst
8 3 (9.09%) SQL Data Analyst
8 3 (9.09%) Tableau Analyst
9 2 (6.06%) Data Visualisation Analyst
9 2 (6.06%) KDB Developer
9 2 (6.06%) Remote Support Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (18.18%) Apache Avro
1 6 (18.18%) JSON
2 4 (12.12%) Pandas
3 3 (9.09%) GraphQL
3 3 (9.09%) React
4 1 (3.03%) AngularJS
4 1 (3.03%) JMS
4 1 (3.03%) Middleware
4 1 (3.03%) Murex MxML
4 1 (3.03%) Node.js
4 1 (3.03%) PySpark
4 1 (3.03%) Spring
4 1 (3.03%) Spring Boot
4 1 (3.03%) Vue
Miscellaneous
1 5 (15.15%) Equities
2 2 (6.06%) Derivative
3 1 (3.03%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 1 (3.03%) Linux
1 1 (3.03%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 13 (39.39%) Data Analysis
1 13 (39.39%) ETL
2 9 (27.27%) Continuous Improvement
3 8 (24.24%) Data Modelling
3 8 (24.24%) Problem-Solving
4 6 (18.18%) Business Intelligence
4 6 (18.18%) Validation
4 6 (18.18%) Visualisation
5 5 (15.15%) API Development
5 5 (15.15%) Data Migration
5 5 (15.15%) Data Pipeline
5 5 (15.15%) Data Visualisation
5 5 (15.15%) Migration
6 4 (12.12%) Actionable Insight
6 4 (12.12%) Analytics
6 4 (12.12%) API Testing
6 4 (12.12%) Data Cleansing
6 4 (12.12%) Data Validation
6 4 (12.12%) SQL Optimisation
6 4 (12.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 14 (42.42%) Python
2 8 (24.24%) C#
3 6 (18.18%) PowerShell
4 3 (9.09%) T-SQL
4 3 (9.09%) TypeScript
5 2 (6.06%) Java
5 2 (6.06%) JavaScript
6 1 (3.03%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 4 (12.12%) SC Cleared
1 4 (12.12%) Security Cleared
2 1 (3.03%) AWS Certification
2 1 (3.03%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (30.30%) Data Quality
2 2 (6.06%) SLA
3 1 (3.03%) EMIR
3 1 (3.03%) MiFID
3 1 (3.03%) QA
System Software
1 2 (6.06%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 2 (6.06%) Terraform
Vendors
1 2 (6.06%) Microsoft
2 1 (3.03%) Fujitsu
2 1 (3.03%) Murex