SQL Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

SQL (Structured Query Language)
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring SQL skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 17 April 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
17 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 13 18
Rank change year-on-year +8 +5 -8
Contract jobs citing SQL 415 148 150
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.54% 10.87% 7.77%
As % of the Programming Languages category 57.40% 43.66% 35.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 317 107 102
10th Percentile £350 £235 £259
25th Percentile £404 £396 £314
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.16% +5.56% -15.49%
75th Percentile £515 £575 £575
90th Percentile £568 £678 £625
England median daily rate £500 £515 £550
% change year-on-year -2.82% -6.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 3 1
10th Percentile £52.05 £15.97 -
25th Percentile £53.25 £17.01 -
Median hourly rate £56.00 £18.74 £30.37
Median % change year-on-year +198.83% -38.29% +20.28%
75th Percentile £58.25 £26.33 -
90th Percentile £59.15 £30.88 -
England median hourly rate £52.49 £50.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year +4.98% +17.65% -14.63%

All Programming Languages
West Midlands

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 West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 723 339 426
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 23.60% 24.89% 22.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 538 216 312
10th Percentile £350 £271 £260
25th Percentile £412 £406 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -14.29%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £575
90th Percentile £619 £689 £638
England median daily rate £500 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -4.76% -2.42% -5.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 13 13
10th Percentile £46.25 £16.80 £40.10
25th Percentile £56.50 £17.00 £55.00
Median hourly rate £59.50 £20.24 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +193.97% -64.80% +127.72%
75th Percentile £67.84 £28.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £32.88 £69.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £61.60
% change year-on-year +4.00% +1.46% -1.44%

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

SQL job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

SQL
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL

SQL
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SQL in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 17 April 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SQL in the West Midlands

SQL
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SQL

SQL
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing SQL within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 17 April 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
Shropshire +3 185 £465 +0.43% 23
Birmingham -9 74 £460 -14.51% 59
Warwickshire -12 35 £415 +76.60% 20
Coventry -3 32 £407 -9.56% 13
Herefordshire +2 17 £550 -21.43% 3
Solihull -4 15 £478 +13.81% 3
Staffordshire +2 8 £450 -18.18% 15
Dudley - 7 £420 - 1
Worcestershire -3 6 £700 - 7
Brierley Hill - 3 £395 -
Wolverhampton - 2 - - 2
SQL
England

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 67 (16.14%) SAS
2 36 (8.67%) WebLogic
3 15 (3.61%) Confluence
3 15 (3.61%) Tuxedo
4 14 (3.37%) Apache
5 10 (2.41%) SharePoint
6 7 (1.69%) Oracle Workflow
7 6 (1.45%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 5 (1.20%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.96%) JBoss
10 3 (0.72%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.72%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.72%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.48%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.48%) Liferay
12 1 (0.24%) Apache ServiceMix
12 1 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.24%) Red Hat Fuse
12 1 (0.24%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.24%) WebSphere
Applications
1 10 (2.41%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.20%) Notepad++
3 3 (0.72%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.45%) Oracle HRMS
2 4 (0.96%) NEC Housing
3 3 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.48%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.48%) Maximo
4 2 (0.48%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.48%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.24%) Aareon QL
5 1 (0.24%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.24%) OPENHousing
5 1 (0.24%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.24%) Orchard Housing
5 1 (0.24%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.24%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.24%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.24%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 104 (25.06%) AWS
2 92 (22.17%) Azure
3 50 (12.05%) Power Platform
4 34 (8.19%) Azure DevOps
5 32 (7.71%) Amazon S3
6 23 (5.54%) Amazon EC2
7 22 (5.30%) Azure Data Factory
8 21 (5.06%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 21 (5.06%) Serverless
9 16 (3.86%) GitHub
10 14 (3.37%) GitHub Actions
11 13 (3.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 12 (2.89%) Amazon SQS
12 12 (2.89%) AWS KMS
12 12 (2.89%) Power Automate
12 12 (2.89%) Route 53
13 11 (2.65%) OpenShift
14 10 (2.41%) AWS Lambda
14 10 (2.41%) GCP
15 9 (2.17%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.93%) Firewall
2 5 (1.20%) Network Security
2 5 (1.20%) PuTTY
2 5 (1.20%) WinSCP
3 4 (0.96%) DNS
4 3 (0.72%) SSL
5 2 (0.48%) DHCP
5 2 (0.48%) LAN
5 2 (0.48%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.48%) VLAN
5 2 (0.48%) VPN
5 2 (0.48%) WAN
5 2 (0.48%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.24%) 4G
6 1 (0.24%) 5G
6 1 (0.24%) AMQP
6 1 (0.24%) SD-WAN
6 1 (0.24%) tcpdump
6 1 (0.24%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.24%) WPA2
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (16.87%) Pentaho
2 51 (12.29%) Data Warehouse
3 45 (10.84%) Power BI
4 33 (7.95%) Amazon RDS
5 30 (7.23%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (5.30%) Relational Database
7 18 (4.34%) MongoDB
8 17 (4.10%) Amazon Redshift
8 17 (4.10%) Oracle Database
8 17 (4.10%) Tableau
9 16 (3.86%) MySQL
10 15 (3.61%) Oracle Reports
11 13 (3.13%) Metadata
12 12 (2.89%) Amazon Aurora
12 12 (2.89%) DynamoDB
12 12 (2.89%) SQL Server
13 11 (2.65%) Delta Lake
14 10 (2.41%) NoSQL
15 9 (2.17%) Data Lake
15 9 (2.17%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 91 (21.93%) Git
2 72 (17.35%) JIRA
3 68 (16.39%) Jenkins
4 34 (8.19%) GitLab
5 19 (4.58%) JUnit
6 16 (3.86%) Postman
7 15 (3.61%) Maven
7 15 (3.61%) Mockito
8 14 (3.37%) Zephyr
9 13 (3.13%) MSI
10 12 (2.89%) SonarQube
11 11 (2.65%) Selenium
12 9 (2.17%) Bitbucket Server
12 9 (2.17%) DbUnit
12 9 (2.17%) jMock
13 6 (1.45%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 4 (0.96%) CA Gen
14 4 (0.96%) Eclipse
14 4 (0.96%) IntelliJ
14 4 (0.96%) Toad
General
1 99 (23.86%) Social Skills
2 79 (19.04%) Public Sector
3 63 (15.18%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (6.75%) Finance
5 11 (2.65%) Banking
6 8 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.45%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (1.45%) Legal
7 6 (1.45%) Manufacturing
8 5 (1.20%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.20%) Retail
9 4 (0.96%) Advertising
10 3 (0.72%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.72%) Marketing
10 3 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.48%) Billing
11 2 (0.48%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.48%) Military
11 2 (0.48%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.24%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 138 (33.25%) Data Engineer
2 69 (16.63%) Developer
3 37 (8.92%) Analyst
4 32 (7.71%) Senior
5 26 (6.27%) Java Developer
6 23 (5.54%) Lead
7 17 (4.10%) Architect
7 17 (4.10%) SAS Engineer
8 16 (3.86%) Data Analyst
9 14 (3.37%) Consultant
9 14 (3.37%) Full-Stack Developer
9 14 (3.37%) Tester
10 12 (2.89%) Java Engineer
11 11 (2.65%) Business Intelligence Developer
11 11 (2.65%) Senior Data Engineer
11 11 (2.65%) Site Engineer
11 11 (2.65%) Site Reliability Engineer
12 10 (2.41%) QA Tester
13 9 (2.17%) DBA
13 9 (2.17%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (10.12%) Spring
2 39 (9.40%) REST
3 38 (9.16%) Spring Boot
4 22 (5.30%) Node.js
5 19 (4.58%) Flask
5 19 (4.58%) Hibernate
6 18 (4.34%) RESTful
6 18 (4.34%) SOAP
6 18 (4.34%) XML
7 17 (4.10%) JPA
8 15 (3.61%) AngularJS
8 15 (3.61%) Spring Batch
9 14 (3.37%) Spring Integration
9 14 (3.37%) Web Services
10 13 (3.13%) PySpark
11 12 (2.89%) ActiveMQ
11 12 (2.89%) Django
11 12 (2.89%) Spring Cloud
11 12 (2.89%) YAML
12 11 (2.65%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 13 (3.13%) Distributed Systems
2 10 (2.41%) Cloud Native
2 10 (2.41%) Product Ownership
3 6 (1.45%) Legacy Systems
3 6 (1.45%) Linux Command Line
3 6 (1.45%) SCADA
4 5 (1.20%) Enterprise Software
5 4 (0.96%) Clustering
5 4 (0.96%) Data Centre
5 4 (0.96%) Data Structures
5 4 (0.96%) Robotics
5 4 (0.96%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (0.72%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (0.72%) Credit Risk
6 3 (0.72%) Educational Technology
6 3 (0.72%) IoT
6 3 (0.72%) Onboarding
6 3 (0.72%) Public Cloud
7 2 (0.48%) Management Information System
7 2 (0.48%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 55 (13.25%) Unix
2 43 (10.36%) Linux
3 29 (6.99%) Windows
4 6 (1.45%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.20%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.24%) VME
6 1 (0.24%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 146 (35.18%) Agile
2 144 (34.70%) CI/CD
3 142 (34.22%) ETL
4 109 (26.27%) DevOps
5 101 (24.34%) Analytics
6 99 (23.86%) Business Intelligence
7 97 (23.37%) Data Modelling
8 92 (22.17%) Problem-Solving
9 84 (20.24%) Scrum
10 79 (19.04%) Data Pipeline
10 79 (19.04%) Test Automation
11 74 (17.83%) Data Integration
12 71 (17.11%) Continuous Improvement
13 57 (13.73%) Migration
14 48 (11.57%) Validation
15 47 (11.33%) Data Engineering
16 45 (10.84%) Decision-Making
16 45 (10.84%) Microservices
17 41 (9.88%) Data Virtualisation
18 40 (9.64%) Data Analytics
Programming Languages
1 81 (19.52%) Java
2 70 (16.87%) Python
3 51 (12.29%) PL/SQL
4 35 (8.43%) Shell Script
5 19 (4.58%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.41%) Bash
6 10 (2.41%) Go
7 9 (2.17%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (1.93%) C#
9 7 (1.69%) Bicep
10 6 (1.45%) Perl
10 6 (1.45%) Scala
11 5 (1.20%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.20%) R
12 4 (0.96%) VB
13 3 (0.72%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.72%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.48%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.48%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.48%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 218 (52.53%) Security Cleared
2 194 (46.75%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.06%) ISTQB
4 20 (4.82%) Degree
5 13 (3.13%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.45%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.45%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.20%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.20%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.20%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 4 (0.96%) PhD
11 2 (0.48%) ISEB
11 2 (0.48%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 2 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified Developer
12 1 (0.24%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 72 (17.35%) Data Quality
2 37 (8.92%) QA
3 6 (1.45%) SLA
4 5 (1.20%) GDPR
5 4 (0.96%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.96%) FATCA
5 4 (0.96%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.48%) GRC
7 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.24%) PMO
7 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 84 (20.24%) Docker
2 11 (2.65%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.93%) Postfix
4 4 (0.96%) Oracle RAC
4 4 (0.96%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.72%) HDFS
5 3 (0.72%) Oracle Clusterware
5 3 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 81 (19.52%) Kubernetes
2 39 (9.40%) Grafana
3 31 (7.47%) Terraform
4 21 (5.06%) Prometheus
5 16 (3.86%) Ansible
6 11 (2.65%) Progress Chef
7 6 (1.45%) Puppet
8 4 (0.96%) Kibana
9 3 (0.72%) Data Guard
9 3 (0.72%) Docker Swarm
9 3 (0.72%) Oracle RMAN
10 2 (0.48%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.48%) HP Quality Center
10 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.24%) Control-M
11 1 (0.24%) SCCM
11 1 (0.24%) SCOM
11 1 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 146 (35.18%) Oracle
2 85 (20.48%) Talend
3 59 (14.22%) Microsoft
4 51 (12.29%) Informatica
5 47 (11.33%) Denodo
6 24 (5.78%) ServiceNow
7 22 (5.30%) Databricks
8 17 (4.10%) SAP
9 12 (2.89%) Atlassian
9 12 (2.89%) Jaspersoft
10 9 (2.17%) Fujitsu
11 8 (1.93%) Cloudera
12 7 (1.69%) Google
12 7 (1.69%) NEC
12 7 (1.69%) Sage
13 6 (1.45%) Red Hat
13 6 (1.45%) Splunk
13 6 (1.45%) webMethods
14 5 (1.20%) Dynatrace
14 5 (1.20%) VMware