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 28 January 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 13 14 17
Rank change year-on-year +1 +3 -10
Contract jobs citing SQL 262 157 148
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.84% 10.12% 8.11%
As % of the Programming Languages category 43.96% 40.05% 35.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 180 95 99
10th Percentile £362 £350 £259
25th Percentile £431 £431 £316
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £500 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.70% +11.11% -15.49%
75th Percentile £550 £603 £575
90th Percentile £639 £650 £649
England median daily rate £500 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -4.76% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 2 0
10th Percentile £38.80 £37.50 -
25th Percentile £43.00 £41.25 -
Median hourly rate £50.00 £47.50 -
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% - -
75th Percentile - £53.75 -
90th Percentile - £57.50 -
England median hourly rate £50.00 £52.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -4.76% +23.53% -15.00%

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 596 392 414
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 24.67% 25.27% 22.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 405 223 291
10th Percentile £376 £363 £260
25th Percentile £450 £419 £364
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £463
Median % change year-on-year +2.60% +8.11% -11.90%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £575
90th Percentile £633 £700 £675
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 10 10
10th Percentile £40.20 £16.98 £17.46
25th Percentile £46.50 £17.81 £17.56
Median hourly rate £50.00 £23.87 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +109.47% +29.03% -15.91%
75th Percentile £56.88 £33.44 £56.56
90th Percentile £69.25 £53.25 £60.13
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +3.17% +5.00% -7.69%

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 28 January 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 28 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in the West Midlands

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 28 January 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 0 106 £513 +2.25% 25
Birmingham -10 60 £498 -11.40% 58
Warwickshire -9 30 £513 -10.87% 18
Herefordshire -4 22 £550 - 8
Coventry -17 13 £275 -38.89% 22
Worcestershire -12 8 £675 - 8
Solihull 0 7 £555 +13.38% 1
Staffordshire -9 3 £463 +1.37% 10
Wolverhampton +3 1 - - 4
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 44 (16.79%) SAS
2 34 (12.98%) WebLogic
3 21 (8.02%) Apache
4 15 (5.73%) Confluence
5 8 (3.05%) JBoss
5 8 (3.05%) nginx
5 8 (3.05%) SharePoint
5 8 (3.05%) Tuxedo
6 3 (1.15%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (1.15%) Apache Pig
7 2 (0.76%) Anypoint
7 2 (0.76%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.76%) CMS
7 2 (0.76%) Liferay
8 1 (0.38%) Apache ServiceMix
8 1 (0.38%) Drupal
8 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Exchange
8 1 (0.38%) Red Hat Fuse
8 1 (0.38%) Umbraco
8 1 (0.38%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (4.58%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (3.05%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 2 (0.76%) Maya
3 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Office
3 2 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 2 (0.76%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.76%) NUKE
4 1 (0.38%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.38%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 3 (1.15%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.15%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (1.15%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (0.76%) Maximo
2 2 (0.76%) Primavera
2 2 (0.76%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.38%) Aareon QL
3 1 (0.38%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.38%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.38%) OPENHousing
3 1 (0.38%) Orchard Housing
3 1 (0.38%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.38%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 79 (30.15%) Azure
2 66 (25.19%) AWS
3 30 (11.45%) Serverless
4 29 (11.07%) Power Platform
5 24 (9.16%) Amazon S3
6 23 (8.78%) Azure DevOps
7 19 (7.25%) Amazon EC2
8 16 (6.11%) GCP
9 13 (4.96%) GitHub
10 12 (4.58%) Azure Data Factory
10 12 (4.58%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (4.58%) OpenShift
11 11 (4.20%) Azure Synapse Analytics
11 11 (4.20%) Microsoft 365
12 10 (3.82%) Azure Key Vault
12 10 (3.82%) Power Automate
13 9 (3.44%) PowerApps
14 8 (3.05%) Amazon ECS
14 8 (3.05%) Amazon ELB
14 8 (3.05%) AWS KMS
Communications & Networking
1 9 (3.44%) DNS
1 9 (3.44%) Firewall
2 8 (3.05%) FTP
2 8 (3.05%) HTTP
2 8 (3.05%) IMAP
2 8 (3.05%) OpenLDAP
2 8 (3.05%) SMTP
2 8 (3.05%) SSH
3 4 (1.53%) Network Security
4 1 (0.38%) AMQP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (17.94%) Pentaho
2 32 (12.21%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (10.31%) Amazon RDS
4 23 (8.78%) Power BI
5 19 (7.25%) MongoDB
5 19 (7.25%) Relational Database
6 13 (4.96%) Oracle Database
7 12 (4.58%) MySQL
8 11 (4.20%) NoSQL
9 10 (3.82%) Data Warehouse
10 9 (3.44%) Redis
11 8 (3.05%) Amazon Aurora
12 7 (2.67%) Tableau
13 6 (2.29%) Hadoop
13 6 (2.29%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 5 (1.91%) Amazon Redshift
14 5 (1.91%) Data Mining
14 5 (1.91%) InfluxDB
15 4 (1.53%) Metadata
15 4 (1.53%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 78 (29.77%) Git
2 64 (24.43%) Jenkins
3 58 (22.14%) JIRA
4 15 (5.73%) GitLab
5 11 (4.20%) JUnit
6 10 (3.82%) Selenium
7 9 (3.44%) MSI
8 8 (3.05%) Eclipse
8 8 (3.05%) IntelliJ
8 8 (3.05%) Vagrant
9 4 (1.53%) Liquibase
9 4 (1.53%) Toad
10 3 (1.15%) Maven
10 3 (1.15%) Mockito
11 2 (0.76%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 2 (0.76%) ERwin
11 2 (0.76%) Gatling
11 2 (0.76%) Oracle APEX
11 2 (0.76%) SoapUI
11 2 (0.76%) Team Foundation Server
General
1 80 (30.53%) Social Skills
2 46 (17.56%) Public Sector
3 30 (11.45%) Analytical Skills
4 20 (7.63%) Finance
5 15 (5.73%) Presentation Skills
6 10 (3.82%) Banking
7 8 (3.05%) Influencing Skills
8 5 (1.91%) Legal
9 4 (1.53%) Financial Institution
9 4 (1.53%) Manufacturing
9 4 (1.53%) Marketing
9 4 (1.53%) Retail
10 3 (1.15%) Automotive
10 3 (1.15%) Documentation Skills
10 3 (1.15%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.76%) Billing
11 2 (0.76%) Games
11 2 (0.76%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.76%) Inclusion and Diversity
12 1 (0.38%) Military
Job Titles
1 44 (16.79%) Developer
2 43 (16.41%) Data Engineer
3 21 (8.02%) Analyst
4 15 (5.73%) Consultant
4 15 (5.73%) Senior
5 13 (4.96%) Architect
6 12 (4.58%) DevOps Engineer
6 12 (4.58%) Site Engineer
6 12 (4.58%) Site Reliability Engineer
7 11 (4.20%) Java Engineer
7 11 (4.20%) Lead
7 11 (4.20%) SAS Engineer
8 10 (3.82%) AWS Engineer
8 10 (3.82%) Platform Engineer
8 10 (3.82%) Python Developer
9 9 (3.44%) Backend Developer
9 9 (3.44%) Data Scientist
9 9 (3.44%) Software Engineer
10 8 (3.05%) AWS DevOps
10 8 (3.05%) AWS DevOps Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (12.21%) REST
2 25 (9.54%) Spring
3 19 (7.25%) XML
4 15 (5.73%) HTML
5 14 (5.34%) RESTful
5 14 (5.34%) Spring Boot
6 13 (4.96%) Flask
7 12 (4.58%) FastAPI
8 10 (3.82%) .NET
8 10 (3.82%) JSON
8 10 (3.82%) SOAP
9 9 (3.44%) GraphQL
9 9 (3.44%) Hibernate
9 9 (3.44%) HTML5
9 9 (3.44%) WebSockets
10 8 (3.05%) gRPC
10 8 (3.05%) J2SE
10 8 (3.05%) LDAP
10 8 (3.05%) Node.js
10 8 (3.05%) Play Framework
Miscellaneous
1 22 (8.40%) Cloud Native
2 8 (3.05%) Replication
3 7 (2.67%) Product Ownership
4 6 (2.29%) Algorithms
4 6 (2.29%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (1.91%) Data Structures
5 5 (1.91%) Onboarding
6 4 (1.53%) Distributed Systems
6 4 (1.53%) Public Cloud
7 3 (1.15%) Data Protection Act
7 3 (1.15%) IoT
8 2 (0.76%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.76%) Animation
8 2 (0.76%) Credit Risk
8 2 (0.76%) Derivative
8 2 (0.76%) Mainframe
8 2 (0.76%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.76%) Renewable Energy
9 1 (0.38%) PKI
9 1 (0.38%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 42 (16.03%) Linux
2 33 (12.60%) Windows
3 32 (12.21%) Unix
4 8 (3.05%) Amazon Linux
4 8 (3.05%) Ubuntu
4 8 (3.05%) VMS
5 2 (0.76%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.38%) VME
6 1 (0.38%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 118 (45.04%) CI/CD
2 96 (36.64%) DevOps
3 94 (35.88%) Agile
4 79 (30.15%) Analytics
5 78 (29.77%) Problem-Solving
6 68 (25.95%) Business Intelligence
7 64 (24.43%) ETL
8 61 (23.28%) Continuous Improvement
9 57 (21.76%) Data Modelling
9 57 (21.76%) Scrum
10 51 (19.47%) Data Pipeline
11 47 (17.94%) Test Automation
12 43 (16.41%) Data Integration
13 42 (16.03%) Deployment Automation
14 40 (15.27%) Data Analytics
15 37 (14.12%) Data Virtualisation
15 37 (14.12%) Microservices
16 33 (12.60%) Business Analytics
16 33 (12.60%) Visualisation
17 28 (10.69%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 62 (23.66%) Python
2 52 (19.85%) Java
3 19 (7.25%) Shell Script
4 17 (6.49%) Go
4 17 (6.49%) PL/SQL
4 17 (6.49%) Scala
5 11 (4.20%) JavaScript
5 11 (4.20%) PowerShell
6 8 (3.05%) Groovy
7 7 (2.67%) C#
7 7 (2.67%) R
7 7 (2.67%) VBA
8 5 (1.91%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 4 (1.53%) Bicep
10 3 (1.15%) C++
10 3 (1.15%) TypeScript
11 2 (0.76%) Bash
11 2 (0.76%) COBOL
11 2 (0.76%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.76%) Perl
Qualifications
1 124 (47.33%) Security Cleared
2 111 (42.37%) SC Cleared
3 27 (10.31%) Degree
4 18 (6.87%) DV Cleared
5 14 (5.34%) AWS Certification
6 12 (4.58%) Azure Certification
7 11 (4.20%) Computer Science Degree
8 7 (2.67%) BPSS Clearance
9 6 (2.29%) Master's Degree
10 5 (1.91%) Microsoft Certification
11 3 (1.15%) ISTQB
11 3 (1.15%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified Developer
12 2 (0.76%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 2 (0.76%) ISEB
12 2 (0.76%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.38%) ACCA
13 1 (0.38%) CIMA
13 1 (0.38%) PhD
13 1 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (19.08%) Data Quality
2 10 (3.82%) QA
3 6 (2.29%) Accessibility
4 2 (0.76%) SLA
5 1 (0.38%) GDPR
5 1 (0.38%) PMO
5 1 (0.38%) Sarbanes-Oxley
5 1 (0.38%) WCAG
System Software
1 86 (32.82%) Docker
2 8 (3.05%) DFS Replication
2 8 (3.05%) Dovecot
2 8 (3.05%) Postfix
2 8 (3.05%) Squid
3 5 (1.91%) Active Directory
4 3 (1.15%) Oracle Clusterware
4 3 (1.15%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 83 (31.68%) Kubernetes
2 35 (13.36%) Grafana
3 33 (12.60%) Prometheus
4 31 (11.83%) Terraform
5 18 (6.87%) Ansible
6 12 (4.58%) Progress Chef
7 10 (3.82%) Puppet
8 8 (3.05%) Nessus
8 8 (3.05%) Proxmox
9 5 (1.91%) Kibana
10 4 (1.53%) Oracle RMAN
11 3 (1.15%) Data Guard
11 3 (1.15%) Docker Swarm
12 1 (0.38%) HP ALM
12 1 (0.38%) HP Quality Center
12 1 (0.38%) Microsoft Intune
12 1 (0.38%) SCCM
12 1 (0.38%) WSUS
Vendors
1 83 (31.68%) Oracle
2 50 (19.08%) Talend
3 39 (14.89%) Microsoft
4 38 (14.50%) Denodo
5 18 (6.87%) Splunk
6 13 (4.96%) Google
6 13 (4.96%) ServiceNow
7 12 (4.58%) Dynatrace
8 11 (4.20%) Informatica
8 11 (4.20%) SAP
9 10 (3.82%) webMethods
10 8 (3.05%) Databricks
10 8 (3.05%) Jaspersoft
11 7 (2.67%) AppDynamics
12 6 (2.29%) Cisco
12 6 (2.29%) Fujitsu
13 3 (1.15%) Anaplan
14 2 (0.76%) IBM
14 2 (0.76%) MuleSoft
14 2 (0.76%) PagerDuty