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

6 months to
10 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 14 15 18
Rank change year-on-year +1 +3 -15
Contract jobs citing SQL 231 154 146
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.12% 9.74% 8.26%
As % of the Programming Languages category 41.10% 40.00% 36.78%
Number of daily rates quoted 154 95 99
10th Percentile £361 £347 £260
25th Percentile £452 £409 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £489 £500
Median % change year-on-year +5.32% -2.20% -5.12%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £575
90th Percentile £646 £645 £700
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 £49.36 £52.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year -5.98% +16.67% -2.17%

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 562 385 397
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 24.63% 24.35% 22.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 377 223 282
10th Percentile £362 £351 £276
25th Percentile £450 £409 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year +3.00% - -4.76%
75th Percentile £575 £581 £600
90th Percentile £635 £698 £688
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.65% -2.27% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 10 9
10th Percentile £40.20 £16.98 £17.43
25th Percentile £46.50 £17.81 £17.50
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 £19.25
90th Percentile £69.25 £53.25 £25.80
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -3.85%

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 10 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 10 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 10 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 96 £515 +2.75% 32
Birmingham -7 58 £475 -11.63% 35
Warwickshire -12 25 £525 -4.55% 14
Herefordshire -3 17 £575 +4.55% 8
Worcestershire -14 7 £650 +57.58% 5
Coventry -23 7 £273 -42.63% 16
Solihull +3 5 £600 +22.70% 2
Staffordshire -7 3 £463 +27.59% 13
Wolverhampton +4 1 - - 8
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 38 (16.45%) WebLogic
2 36 (15.58%) SAS
3 24 (10.39%) Apache
4 16 (6.93%) Confluence
5 10 (4.33%) nginx
6 9 (3.90%) SharePoint
7 8 (3.46%) JBoss
7 8 (3.46%) Tuxedo
8 4 (1.73%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (1.73%) Apache Spark
9 3 (1.30%) Apache Pig
10 2 (0.87%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.87%) Liferay
11 1 (0.43%) CMS
11 1 (0.43%) Drupal
11 1 (0.43%) FileNet
11 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Exchange
Applications
1 11 (4.76%) Microsoft Excel
2 10 (4.33%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 2 (0.87%) Maya
3 2 (0.87%) Microsoft Project
3 2 (0.87%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.87%) NUKE
4 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.43%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.43%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 3 (1.30%) Dynamics CRM
1 3 (1.30%) Oracle EBS
1 3 (1.30%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (0.87%) Maximo
2 2 (0.87%) Primavera
2 2 (0.87%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.43%) Aareon QL
3 1 (0.43%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.43%) NEC Housing
3 1 (0.43%) OPENHousing
3 1 (0.43%) Orchard Housing
3 1 (0.43%) SAP CRM
3 1 (0.43%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.43%) SAP GRC
3 1 (0.43%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 75 (32.47%) Azure
2 60 (25.97%) AWS
3 29 (12.55%) Power Platform
3 29 (12.55%) Serverless
4 24 (10.39%) Amazon S3
5 19 (8.23%) Amazon EC2
6 17 (7.36%) GCP
7 16 (6.93%) Azure DevOps
8 15 (6.49%) Azure Monitor
9 13 (5.63%) Microsoft 365
10 12 (5.19%) GitHub
11 11 (4.76%) GitHub Actions
12 10 (4.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 10 (4.33%) Amazon ECS
12 10 (4.33%) Amazon ELB
12 10 (4.33%) AWS KMS
12 10 (4.33%) Power Automate
12 10 (4.33%) Route 53
12 10 (4.33%) Virtual Private Cloud
13 9 (3.90%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 12 (5.19%) DNS
1 12 (5.19%) SSH
2 11 (4.76%) Firewall
3 10 (4.33%) FTP
3 10 (4.33%) HTTP
3 10 (4.33%) IMAP
3 10 (4.33%) OpenLDAP
3 10 (4.33%) SMTP
4 4 (1.73%) Network Security
5 2 (0.87%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.43%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 40 (17.32%) Pentaho
2 35 (15.15%) PostgreSQL
3 24 (10.39%) Amazon RDS
4 22 (9.52%) Power BI
5 17 (7.36%) MongoDB
6 16 (6.93%) Relational Database
7 13 (5.63%) Oracle Database
8 12 (5.19%) MySQL
9 10 (4.33%) Amazon Aurora
10 9 (3.90%) NoSQL
11 8 (3.46%) Data Warehouse
11 8 (3.46%) Hadoop
11 8 (3.46%) Redis
12 6 (2.60%) SAS Enterprise Guide
13 5 (2.16%) Data Mining
13 5 (2.16%) SQL Server
14 4 (1.73%) Amazon Redshift
14 4 (1.73%) Apache Hive
14 4 (1.73%) InfluxDB
14 4 (1.73%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 75 (32.47%) Git
2 61 (26.41%) Jenkins
3 57 (24.68%) JIRA
4 10 (4.33%) Selenium
4 10 (4.33%) Vagrant
5 9 (3.90%) GitLab
5 9 (3.90%) JUnit
5 9 (3.90%) MSI
6 8 (3.46%) Eclipse
6 8 (3.46%) IntelliJ
7 4 (1.73%) Liquibase
7 4 (1.73%) Toad
8 3 (1.30%) MLflow
8 3 (1.30%) SonarQube
9 2 (0.87%) ERwin
9 2 (0.87%) Gatling
9 2 (0.87%) Oracle APEX
9 2 (0.87%) SoapUI
9 2 (0.87%) Sonatype Nexus
10 1 (0.43%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 81 (35.06%) Social Skills
2 44 (19.05%) Public Sector
3 25 (10.82%) Analytical Skills
4 18 (7.79%) Finance
5 17 (7.36%) Presentation Skills
6 8 (3.46%) Banking
6 8 (3.46%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (2.60%) Legal
8 4 (1.73%) Financial Institution
8 4 (1.73%) Manufacturing
9 3 (1.30%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (1.30%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.87%) Automotive
10 2 (0.87%) Games
10 2 (0.87%) Marketing
10 2 (0.87%) Retail
11 1 (0.43%) Billing
11 1 (0.43%) General Ledger
11 1 (0.43%) Law
11 1 (0.43%) Military
Job Titles
1 37 (16.02%) Data Engineer
1 37 (16.02%) Developer
2 17 (7.36%) Platform Engineer
3 16 (6.93%) Analyst
3 16 (6.93%) Consultant
3 16 (6.93%) DevOps Engineer
4 14 (6.06%) Senior
5 13 (5.63%) AWS Engineer
6 11 (4.76%) AWS DevOps
6 11 (4.76%) AWS DevOps Engineer
6 11 (4.76%) Cloud Platform Engineer
7 10 (4.33%) AWS Platform Engineer
7 10 (4.33%) Java Engineer
8 9 (3.90%) Python Developer
8 9 (3.90%) Software Engineer
9 8 (3.46%) Data Scientist
9 8 (3.46%) DBA
9 8 (3.46%) DevOps Platform Engineer
9 8 (3.46%) Monitoring Engineer
9 8 (3.46%) Site Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (13.42%) REST
2 22 (9.52%) Spring
3 19 (8.23%) XML
4 13 (5.63%) Flask
4 13 (5.63%) HTML
4 13 (5.63%) RESTful
5 12 (5.19%) Spring Boot
6 11 (4.76%) FastAPI
7 10 (4.33%) JSON
7 10 (4.33%) LDAP
7 10 (4.33%) SOAP
8 9 (3.90%) Hibernate
9 8 (3.46%) .NET
9 8 (3.46%) EJB
9 8 (3.46%) GraphQL
9 8 (3.46%) HTML5
9 8 (3.46%) J2EE
9 8 (3.46%) J2SE
9 8 (3.46%) Play Framework
9 8 (3.46%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 21 (9.09%) Cloud Native
2 10 (4.33%) Replication
3 6 (2.60%) Algorithms
3 6 (2.60%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (2.16%) Data Structures
4 5 (2.16%) Distributed Systems
5 4 (1.73%) Onboarding
5 4 (1.73%) Product Ownership
5 4 (1.73%) Public Cloud
6 3 (1.30%) Data Protection Act
6 3 (1.30%) IoT
7 2 (0.87%) Analytical Mindset
7 2 (0.87%) Animation
7 2 (0.87%) Data Centre
7 2 (0.87%) Derivative
7 2 (0.87%) Mainframe
7 2 (0.87%) Management Information System
7 2 (0.87%) Renewable Energy
8 1 (0.43%) Enterprise Software
8 1 (0.43%) Greenfield Project
Operating Systems
1 46 (19.91%) Linux
2 41 (17.75%) Windows
3 32 (13.85%) Unix
4 11 (4.76%) VMS
5 10 (4.33%) Amazon Linux
5 10 (4.33%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.43%) VME
6 1 (0.43%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 103 (44.59%) CI/CD
2 91 (39.39%) DevOps
3 83 (35.93%) Agile
4 70 (30.30%) Analytics
4 70 (30.30%) Problem-Solving
5 69 (29.87%) Business Intelligence
6 59 (25.54%) Continuous Improvement
6 59 (25.54%) ETL
7 51 (22.08%) Data Modelling
7 51 (22.08%) Scrum
8 49 (21.21%) Data Pipeline
9 41 (17.75%) Test Automation
10 39 (16.88%) Deployment Automation
11 36 (15.58%) Data Integration
12 34 (14.72%) Data Analytics
12 34 (14.72%) Data Virtualisation
13 33 (14.29%) Visualisation
14 31 (13.42%) Microservices
15 28 (12.12%) Business Analytics
16 26 (11.26%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 64 (27.71%) Python
2 47 (20.35%) Java
3 17 (7.36%) Scala
4 16 (6.93%) Go
5 14 (6.06%) PL/SQL
6 13 (5.63%) PowerShell
7 12 (5.19%) Groovy
7 12 (5.19%) Shell Script
8 7 (3.03%) JavaScript
8 7 (3.03%) VBA
9 6 (2.60%) R
10 5 (2.16%) C#
10 5 (2.16%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (1.30%) Bash
11 3 (1.30%) C++
11 3 (1.30%) TypeScript
12 2 (0.87%) COBOL
12 2 (0.87%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.87%) Tcl
13 1 (0.43%) Perl
Qualifications
1 107 (46.32%) Security Cleared
2 95 (41.13%) SC Cleared
3 26 (11.26%) Degree
4 17 (7.36%) AWS Certification
5 16 (6.93%) DV Cleared
6 12 (5.19%) Azure Certification
7 11 (4.76%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (2.16%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.73%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.30%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.87%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.87%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.87%) ISEB
11 2 (0.87%) ISTQB
11 2 (0.87%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 1 (0.43%) IIBA
12 1 (0.43%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 43 (18.61%) Data Quality
2 6 (2.60%) Accessibility
3 4 (1.73%) QA
4 1 (0.43%) GDPR
4 1 (0.43%) PMO
4 1 (0.43%) SLA
4 1 (0.43%) WCAG
System Software
1 81 (35.06%) Docker
2 10 (4.33%) DFS Replication
2 10 (4.33%) Dovecot
2 10 (4.33%) Postfix
2 10 (4.33%) Squid
3 3 (1.30%) Active Directory
3 3 (1.30%) Oracle Clusterware
3 3 (1.30%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 72 (31.17%) Kubernetes
2 32 (13.85%) Grafana
3 30 (12.99%) Prometheus
4 26 (11.26%) Terraform
5 14 (6.06%) Ansible
6 10 (4.33%) Nessus
6 10 (4.33%) Proxmox
6 10 (4.33%) Puppet
7 8 (3.46%) Progress Chef
8 4 (1.73%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (1.30%) Data Guard
9 3 (1.30%) Kibana
10 2 (0.87%) Argo
10 2 (0.87%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.87%) Istio
11 1 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.43%) SCCM
11 1 (0.43%) WSUS
Vendors
1 75 (32.47%) Oracle
2 41 (17.75%) Talend
3 37 (16.02%) Microsoft
4 35 (15.15%) Denodo
5 24 (10.39%) Splunk
6 16 (6.93%) Dynatrace
7 14 (6.06%) AppDynamics
7 14 (6.06%) ServiceNow
8 13 (5.63%) Cisco
9 11 (4.76%) Google
10 10 (4.33%) Jaspersoft
10 10 (4.33%) SAP
10 10 (4.33%) webMethods
11 8 (3.46%) Databricks
12 6 (2.60%) Fujitsu
13 5 (2.16%) Informatica
14 3 (1.30%) Ariba
14 3 (1.30%) IBM
15 2 (0.87%) Adobe
15 2 (0.87%) Calypso