Spark SQL Contract Job Trends

Apache Spark SQL
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Spark SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 October 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

	6 months to 22 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Rank	653	543	501
Rank change year-on-year	-110	-42	+95
Contract jobs citing Spark SQL	49	21	58
As % of all contract jobs in the UK	0.089%	0.063%	0.16%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category	0.60%	0.34%	0.88%
Number of daily rates quoted	28	14	27
10^th Percentile	£400	£425	£324
25^th Percentile	£425	£453	£366
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£488	£500	£430
Median % change year-on-year	-2.50%	+16.28%	-20.37%
75^th Percentile	£576	£619	£493
90^th Percentile	£729	£634	£775
UK excluding London median daily rate	£480	£613	£355
% change year-on-year	-21.63%	+72.54%	-40.83%

All Database & BI Skills
UK

Spark SQL falls under the Databases and Business Intelligence category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring database or business intelligence skills.

	6 months to 22 Oct 2026	Same period 2025	Same period 2024
Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills	8,214	6,106	6,611
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK	14.90%	18.23%	17.74%
Number of daily rates quoted	5,464	4,117	4,445
10^th Percentile	£358	£338	£350
25^th Percentile	£420	£413	£425
Median daily rate (50^th Percentile)	£509	£500	£528
Median % change year-on-year	+1.80%	-5.21%	-1.54%
75^th Percentile	£625	£623	£650
90^th Percentile	£718	£725	£778
UK excluding London median daily rate	£475	£475	£485
% change year-on-year	-	-2.06%	-3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted	306	84	90
10^th Percentile	£17.08	£20.69	£17.50
25^th Percentile	£21.25	£29.00	£21.25
Median hourly rate	£40.18	£40.25	£30.40
Median % change year-on-year	-0.16%	+32.38%	-39.20%
75^th Percentile	£57.50	£65.00	£53.75
90^th Percentile	£74.68	£82.28	£69.93
UK excluding London median hourly rate	£39.50	£37.48	£30.00
% change year-on-year	+5.39%	+24.93%	-38.78%

Spark SQL Job Vacancy Trend

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

Spark SQL Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Spark SQL.

Spark SQL Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Spark SQL over the 6 months to 22 October 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Spark SQL in the UK

Spark SQL Top 12 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Spark SQL within the UK over the 6 months to 22 October 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
England	-87	47	£488	+2.63%	52
London	-83	28	£488	+2.63%	25
UK excluding London	-86	20	£480	-21.63%	24
Work from Home	-67	9	£525	-16.00%	33
North of England	-61	8	£538	-12.24%	17
South East	-	8	£425	-	2
Yorkshire	-31	7	£538	-10.42%	9
South West	-	2	£425	-	3
Scotland	-	1	£545	-
East Midlands	-	1	£475	-	1
Midlands	-	1	£475	-	2
North West	-	1	-	-	4

Spark SQL Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities

For the 6 months to 22 October 2026, contractor job vacancies citing Spark SQL also mentioned the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads with a requirement for Spark SQL.

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	SQL	100.0%	49
2	PySpark	89.8%	44
3	Azure	75.5%	37
4	Databricks	73.5%	36
4	Python	73.5%	36
6	CI/CD	59.2%	29
7	Data Pipeline	57.1%	28
8	Data Engineering	53.1%	26
8	Data Quality	53.1%	26
10	Analytics	49.0%	24
10	ETL	49.0%	24
10	Lakehouse	49.0%	24
13	Apache Spark	46.9%	23
14	Data Governance	44.9%	22
15	Business Intelligence	40.8%	20
16	DevOps	38.8%	19
16	Validation	38.8%	19
18	Data Modelling	36.7%	18
19	AWS	34.7%	17
20	Microsoft	32.7%	16
20	Power BI	32.7%	16
20	Power Platform	32.7%	16
23	AI	30.6%	15
24	Continuous Improvement	28.6%	14
24	Delta Lake	28.6%	14
26	Agile	26.5%	13
26	Azure DevOps	26.5%	13
26	Data Warehouse	26.5%	13
26	Migration	26.5%	13
30	Data Ingestion	24.5%	12

Spark SQL Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities by Category

The table below expands on the one above by listing co-occurrences one category at a time. It covers the same employment type, locality and period, with up to 20 co-occurrences in each category.

Database & Business Intelligence

Rank	Skill	Share	Job Ads
1	Power BI	32.7%	16
2	Delta Lake	28.6%	14
3	Data Warehouse	26.5%	13
4	Data Lake	24.5%	12
5	Metadata	22.4%	11
6	Big Data	12.2%	6
6	SQL Server	12.2%	6
8	Apache Iceberg	6.1%	3
8	Azure SQL Database	6.1%	3
8	Data Vault	6.1%	3
8	Parquet	6.1%	3
8	Star Schema	6.1%	3
13	Amazon Athena	4.1%	2
13	Amazon RDS	4.1%	2
13	SQL Server Integration Services	4.1%	2
13	SQL Server Reporting Services	4.1%	2
17	Amazon Redshift	2.0%	1
17	Azure SQL Data Warehouse	2.0%	1
17	DataStage	2.0%	1
17	Enterprise Data Warehouse	2.0%	1