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

6 months to
10 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 585 511 554
Rank change year-on-year -74 +43 +118
Contract jobs citing Spark SQL 61 15 36
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 0.12% 0.051% 0.083%
As % of the Database & Business Intelligence category 0.82% 0.27% 0.48%
Number of daily rates quoted 46 8 21
10th Percentile £338 £411 £323
25th Percentile £427 £441 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £490 £496
Median % change year-on-year -0.05% -1.21% -17.33%
75th Percentile £550 £600 £575
90th Percentile £581 £791 £738
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £350
% change year-on-year - +35.71% -46.15%

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.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for database or business intelligence skills 7,481 5,511 7,446
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 15.12% 18.76% 17.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 5,005 3,742 5,323
10th Percentile £350 £358 £350
25th Percentile £413 £415 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £515 £525
Median % change year-on-year -2.91% -1.90% -3.67%
75th Percentile £600 £635 £650
90th Percentile £700 £762 £775
UK excluding London median daily rate £475 £475 £475
% change year-on-year - - -5.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 234 104 156
10th Percentile £14.26 £19.97 £14.00
25th Percentile £22.87 £23.50 £20.77
Median hourly rate £42.75 £34.58 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year +23.64% -13.56% -33.33%
75th Percentile £70.99 £65.62 £55.00
90th Percentile £79.39 £78.34 £72.50
UK excluding London median hourly rate £39.50 £31.64 £35.00
% change year-on-year +24.84% -9.60% -40.26%

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 job vacancy trend in the UK

Spark SQL
Daily Rate Trend

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

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 10 June 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Spark SQL in the UK

Spark SQL
Top 15 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 10 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
England -72 57 £488 +2.63% 5
London -43 41 £488 -20.41% 4
Work from Home -27 20 £413 -13.16% 5
UK excluding London -80 17 £475 - 1
North of England - 7 £492 - 1
Midlands -58 6 £450 -5.26%
West Midlands - 5 £431 -
Yorkshire - 3 £550 -
North West - 3 £492 - 1
East Midlands -27 1 £600 +26.32%
South East -72 1 £550 +19.89%
South West - 1 £500 -
North East - 1 £475 -
Northern Ireland - 1 £463 -
Scotland - 1 - -

Spark SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 25 (40.98%) Apache Spark
2 9 (14.75%) Apache
3 4 (6.56%) Confluence
4 3 (4.92%) Apache Airflow
5 1 (1.64%) Palantir Foundry
5 1 (1.64%) SAS
Cloud Services
1 49 (80.33%) Azure
2 37 (60.66%) Power Platform
3 27 (44.26%) Azure Synapse Analytics
4 21 (34.43%) Azure Data Factory
4 21 (34.43%) Azure DevOps
5 11 (18.03%) Microsoft Purview
6 8 (13.11%) AWS
7 6 (9.84%) Azure Key Vault
7 6 (9.84%) GitHub
7 6 (9.84%) Serverless
8 5 (8.20%) dbt
8 5 (8.20%) PowerApps
9 4 (6.56%) Azure AI
9 4 (6.56%) GitHub Actions
10 3 (4.92%) Dynamics 365
10 3 (4.92%) Power Automate
11 2 (3.28%) Amazon S3
11 2 (3.28%) Anthropic Claude
11 2 (3.28%) Azure Cosmos DB
11 2 (3.28%) Azure Functions
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (60.66%) Power BI
2 30 (49.18%) Delta Lake
3 24 (39.34%) Data Lake
4 12 (19.67%) SQL Server
5 9 (14.75%) Data Warehouse
6 6 (9.84%) SQL Server Integration Services
6 6 (9.84%) Tableau
7 5 (8.20%) Azure SQL Database
7 5 (8.20%) Big Data
7 5 (8.20%) Data Vault
7 5 (8.20%) Metadata
7 5 (8.20%) Parquet
7 5 (8.20%) Relational Database
7 5 (8.20%) Star Schema
8 4 (6.56%) NoSQL
9 3 (4.92%) Snowflake Schema
10 2 (3.28%) Apache Hive
10 2 (3.28%) Azure SQL Data Warehouse
10 2 (3.28%) Impala
10 2 (3.28%) Sqoop
Development Applications
1 22 (36.07%) Git
2 9 (14.75%) GitLab
3 4 (6.56%) JIRA
4 1 (1.64%) Jenkins
4 1 (1.64%) MLflow
4 1 (1.64%) SonarQube
General
1 20 (32.79%) Social Skills
2 19 (31.15%) Finance
3 7 (11.48%) Analytical Skills
4 6 (9.84%) Public Sector
5 3 (4.92%) Law
6 2 (3.28%) Documentation Skills
6 2 (3.28%) Publishing
7 1 (1.64%) Banking
7 1 (1.64%) Influencing Skills
7 1 (1.64%) Pharmaceutical
Job Titles
1 36 (59.02%) Data Engineer
2 14 (22.95%) Senior
3 10 (16.39%) Senior Data Engineer
4 7 (11.48%) Architect
4 7 (11.48%) Azure Engineer
4 7 (11.48%) Lead
5 6 (9.84%) Azure Data Engineer
6 5 (8.20%) Data Analytics Engineer
6 5 (8.20%) Data Architect
7 4 (6.56%) Analyst
7 4 (6.56%) Azure Architect
7 4 (6.56%) Azure Data Architect
7 4 (6.56%) Data Analyst
7 4 (6.56%) Developer
8 3 (4.92%) Lead Data Engineer
8 3 (4.92%) Platform Engineer
8 3 (4.92%) Senior Tester
8 3 (4.92%) Tester
9 2 (3.28%) Data Migration Engineer
9 2 (3.28%) Migration Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 51 (83.61%) PySpark
2 11 (18.03%) Kafka
3 8 (13.11%) Spark Streaming
4 6 (9.84%) JSON
5 3 (4.92%) ARM Templates
6 2 (3.28%) XML
6 2 (3.28%) YAML
7 1 (1.64%) Great Expectations
7 1 (1.64%) Jinja
7 1 (1.64%) REST
Miscellaneous
1 6 (9.84%) Cloud Native
1 6 (9.84%) Distributed Computing
2 3 (4.92%) Greenfield Project
3 2 (3.28%) Algorithms
3 2 (3.28%) Data Fabric
3 2 (3.28%) Data Structures
3 2 (3.28%) Product Ownership
3 2 (3.28%) Video\Live Streaming
4 1 (1.64%) Analytical Mindset
4 1 (1.64%) Educational Technology
4 1 (1.64%) Enterprise Cloud
4 1 (1.64%) IoT
4 1 (1.64%) Legacy Code
4 1 (1.64%) Legacy Systems
4 1 (1.64%) Life Science
4 1 (1.64%) Onboarding
4 1 (1.64%) Reference Data
4 1 (1.64%) Reinsurance
4 1 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 1 (1.64%) Unix
Processes & Methodologies
1 41 (67.21%) Business Intelligence
2 38 (62.30%) CI/CD
3 36 (59.02%) Analytics
4 35 (57.38%) Data Pipeline
4 35 (57.38%) DevOps
5 34 (55.74%) Data Engineering
6 28 (45.90%) Data Modelling
7 23 (37.70%) Data Governance
8 22 (36.07%) ETL
9 18 (29.51%) Infrastructure as Code
10 16 (26.23%) Agile
10 16 (26.23%) Dimensional Modelling
11 14 (22.95%) Validation
12 13 (21.31%) AI
12 13 (21.31%) Use Case
13 12 (19.67%) Migration
14 11 (18.03%) Performance Tuning
15 9 (14.75%) Change Data Capture
15 9 (14.75%) Data Science
15 9 (14.75%) Machine Learning
Programming Languages
1 59 (96.72%) SQL
2 46 (75.41%) Python
3 10 (16.39%) T-SQL
4 8 (13.11%) PowerShell
5 5 (8.20%) Bicep
5 5 (8.20%) Java
6 2 (3.28%) R
6 2 (3.28%) Scala
7 1 (1.64%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 1 (1.64%) JavaScript
7 1 (1.64%) SAS Macro
7 1 (1.64%) Shell Script
Qualifications
1 11 (18.03%) Security Cleared
2 9 (14.75%) Azure Certification
3 8 (13.11%) SC Cleared
4 6 (9.84%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (9.84%) Microsoft Certification
5 2 (3.28%) DBS Check
6 1 (1.64%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 22 (36.07%) Data Quality
2 5 (8.20%) GDPR
2 5 (8.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
3 1 (1.64%) MiFID
3 1 (1.64%) QA
3 1 (1.64%) SLA
3 1 (1.64%) Solvency II
System Software
1 5 (8.20%) Docker
2 2 (3.28%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 17 (27.87%) Terraform
2 5 (8.20%) Kubernetes
3 1 (1.64%) Grafana
Vendors
1 37 (60.66%) Databricks
2 29 (47.54%) Microsoft
3 3 (4.92%) Foundry
4 1 (1.64%) Hitachi
4 1 (1.64%) OpenAI
4 1 (1.64%) Palantir
4 1 (1.64%) Teradata