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 22 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 11 18
Rank change year-on-year +4 +7 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL 451 190 133
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.11% 11.76% 6.76%
As % of the Programming Languages category 57.60% 47.98% 32.76%
Number of daily rates quoted 346 123 97
10th Percentile £356 £235 £260
25th Percentile £404 £383 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year +1.89% +5.88% -14.14%
75th Percentile £500 £523 £550
90th Percentile £575 £625 £626
England median daily rate £500 £500 £535
% change year-on-year - -6.54% -0.93%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 19 2
10th Percentile - £30.88 £30.73
25th Percentile £21.25 £33.91 £31.26
Median hourly rate £37.00 £50.00 £32.15
Median % change year-on-year -26.00% +55.52% +27.33%
75th Percentile £55.25 - £33.04
90th Percentile £57.95 - £33.57
England median hourly rate £46.80 £40.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +15.56% -4.71% -10.52%

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 783 396 406
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.77% 24.50% 20.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 576 243 285
10th Percentile £358 £250 £275
25th Percentile £413 £388 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £453 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.65% +0.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £538 £523 £575
90th Percentile £626 £613 £638
England median daily rate £520 £516 £545
% change year-on-year +0.78% -5.32% -0.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 22 13
10th Percentile £21.75 £28.18 £35.14
25th Percentile £45.00 £33.91 £40.50
Median hourly rate £58.75 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +17.50% -11.11% +128.43%
75th Percentile £67.84 - £58.75
90th Percentile - - £69.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +4.00%

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 22 July 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 22 July 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 22 July 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 +3 191 £459 -0.22% 12
Birmingham -5 76 £460 -8.10% 39
Warwickshire -13 59 £500 +17.65% 14
Coventry +3 45 £407 +30.24% 6
Solihull -15 16 £528 +25.71% 7
Worcestershire +6 10 £425 -39.29% 3
Staffordshire +1 9 £431 - 9
Dudley - 8 £410 - 2
Herefordshire -4 5 £700 +75.00% 5
Wolverhampton - 3 - - 4
Brierley Hill - 3 £395 -
Wednesbury - 1 - -
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 57 (12.64%) SAS
2 32 (7.10%) Confluence
3 20 (4.43%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.88%) Tuxedo
5 7 (1.55%) Apache
5 7 (1.55%) Oracle Workflow
6 6 (1.33%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 5 (1.11%) Apache Airflow
8 4 (0.89%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.67%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.67%) Microsoft Exchange
9 3 (0.67%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.22%) Apache Geronimo
10 1 (0.22%) Apache ServiceMix
10 1 (0.22%) CMS
10 1 (0.22%) IIS
10 1 (0.22%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 1 (0.22%) Tomcat
10 1 (0.22%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.22%) WebSphere
Applications
1 13 (2.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.11%) Notepad++
3 3 (0.67%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.44%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.22%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.22%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (3.10%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.33%) Oracle HRMS
3 3 (0.67%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.44%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.22%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.22%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.22%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.22%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.22%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.22%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.22%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 129 (28.60%) AWS
2 111 (24.61%) Azure
3 69 (15.30%) Power Platform
4 41 (9.09%) Azure DevOps
5 36 (7.98%) Azure Data Factory
6 33 (7.32%) Amazon S3
7 28 (6.21%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 23 (5.10%) Serverless
9 20 (4.43%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 20 (4.43%) Amazon EC2
9 20 (4.43%) GitHub
10 19 (4.21%) Snowflake
11 15 (3.33%) Amazon SQS
11 15 (3.33%) AWS KMS
11 15 (3.33%) dbt
11 15 (3.33%) Route 53
12 14 (3.10%) GitHub Actions
13 12 (2.66%) AWS Lambda
13 12 (2.66%) Matillion
14 11 (2.44%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.00%) Firewall
2 7 (1.55%) SNMP
3 5 (1.11%) PuTTY
3 5 (1.11%) WinSCP
4 3 (0.67%) DNS
4 3 (0.67%) SSL
5 2 (0.44%) DHCP
5 2 (0.44%) LAN
5 2 (0.44%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.44%) VLAN
5 2 (0.44%) VPN
5 2 (0.44%) WAN
5 2 (0.44%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.22%) 4G
6 1 (0.22%) Internet
6 1 (0.22%) MPLS
6 1 (0.22%) Network Security
6 1 (0.22%) tcpdump
6 1 (0.22%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.22%) WPA2
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (17.52%) Data Warehouse
2 72 (15.96%) Pentaho
3 67 (14.86%) Power BI
4 35 (7.76%) PostgreSQL
5 26 (5.76%) Amazon RDS
5 26 (5.76%) SQL Server
6 23 (5.10%) Amazon Redshift
6 23 (5.10%) Oracle Database
6 23 (5.10%) Relational Database
7 22 (4.88%) Tableau
8 21 (4.66%) Oracle Reports
9 19 (4.21%) Azure SQL Database
9 19 (4.21%) DynamoDB
9 19 (4.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 18 (3.99%) Data Lake
11 16 (3.55%) Metadata
11 16 (3.55%) MySQL
12 15 (3.33%) Amazon Aurora
12 15 (3.33%) BusinessObjects
13 14 (3.10%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 89 (19.73%) Git
2 75 (16.63%) JIRA
3 62 (13.75%) GitLab
4 49 (10.86%) Jenkins
5 23 (5.10%) Maven
6 22 (4.88%) Postman
6 22 (4.88%) Zephyr
7 19 (4.21%) JUnit
8 17 (3.77%) Mockito
9 16 (3.55%) SonarQube
10 11 (2.44%) Artifactory
10 11 (2.44%) Bitbucket Server
10 11 (2.44%) DbUnit
10 11 (2.44%) jMock
11 7 (1.55%) Selenium
11 7 (1.55%) Team Foundation Server
12 6 (1.33%) Oracle Forms
13 5 (1.11%) MLflow
14 4 (0.89%) CA Gen
14 4 (0.89%) TestRail
General
1 106 (23.50%) Social Skills
2 86 (19.07%) Public Sector
3 73 (16.19%) Analytical Skills
4 43 (9.53%) Finance
5 11 (2.44%) Banking
6 10 (2.22%) Manufacturing
7 7 (1.55%) Marketing
7 7 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
8 5 (1.11%) Documentation Skills
9 4 (0.89%) Advertising
9 4 (0.89%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 4 (0.89%) Retail
10 3 (0.67%) Billing
10 3 (0.67%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.67%) Military
10 3 (0.67%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.44%) Front Office
11 2 (0.44%) Legal
12 1 (0.22%) Publishing
12 1 (0.22%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 184 (40.80%) Data Engineer
2 74 (16.41%) Developer
3 60 (13.30%) Senior
4 42 (9.31%) Analyst
5 32 (7.10%) Senior Data Engineer
6 30 (6.65%) Java Developer
7 20 (4.43%) Lead
7 20 (4.43%) Tester
8 17 (3.77%) Data Analyst
8 17 (3.77%) QA Tester
9 16 (3.55%) Architect
10 13 (2.88%) AWS Data Engineer
10 13 (2.88%) AWS Engineer
11 12 (2.66%) Azure Engineer
11 12 (2.66%) Full-Stack Developer
12 11 (2.44%) SAS Engineer
13 10 (2.22%) Senior Developer
13 10 (2.22%) Software Engineer
13 10 (2.22%) SQL Developer
13 10 (2.22%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (7.10%) Spring
1 32 (7.10%) Spring Boot
2 28 (6.21%) REST
3 23 (5.10%) Node.js
4 19 (4.21%) JPA
4 19 (4.21%) PySpark
5 18 (3.99%) SOAP
6 17 (3.77%) Hibernate
6 17 (3.77%) Spring Batch
6 17 (3.77%) Spring Integration
6 17 (3.77%) Web Services
7 16 (3.55%) AngularJS
8 15 (3.33%) ActiveMQ
9 14 (3.10%) Flask
9 14 (3.10%) Spring Cloud
10 13 (2.88%) RESTful
11 11 (2.44%) Bootstrap
11 11 (2.44%) Django
11 11 (2.44%) PowerMock
11 11 (2.44%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (3.99%) Cloud Native
2 16 (3.55%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (2.66%) Legacy Systems
4 10 (2.22%) Linux Command Line
4 10 (2.22%) SCADA
5 6 (1.33%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (1.33%) Low-Code
5 6 (1.33%) Product Ownership
6 4 (0.89%) Clustering
6 4 (0.89%) Data Centre
6 4 (0.89%) IoT
6 4 (0.89%) Robotics
6 4 (0.89%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.67%) Data Fabric
7 3 (0.67%) Data Structures
7 3 (0.67%) Educational Technology
7 3 (0.67%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.44%) BYOD
8 2 (0.44%) Legacy Applications
8 2 (0.44%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 56 (12.42%) Unix
2 46 (10.20%) Linux
3 24 (5.32%) Windows
4 7 (1.55%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.22%) AIX
6 1 (0.22%) HPUX
6 1 (0.22%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 184 (40.80%) ETL
2 160 (35.48%) Agile
3 138 (30.60%) Data Modelling
4 126 (27.94%) CI/CD
5 109 (24.17%) Analytics
6 106 (23.50%) Business Intelligence
7 105 (23.28%) Data Pipeline
8 101 (22.39%) Test Automation
9 92 (20.40%) Problem-Solving
10 89 (19.73%) DevOps
11 78 (17.29%) Data Integration
11 78 (17.29%) Migration
12 72 (15.96%) Scrum
13 69 (15.30%) Validation
14 68 (15.08%) Data Engineering
15 55 (12.20%) Continuous Improvement
16 53 (11.75%) Decision-Making
17 43 (9.53%) Data Migration
18 42 (9.31%) AI
19 35 (7.76%) Generative AI
Programming Languages
1 92 (20.40%) Python
2 66 (14.63%) Java
3 63 (13.97%) PL/SQL
4 25 (5.54%) Shell Script
5 16 (3.55%) JavaScript
6 13 (2.88%) C
7 12 (2.66%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 11 (2.44%) Bash
9 8 (1.77%) ProC
9 8 (1.77%) VB
10 7 (1.55%) T-SQL
10 7 (1.55%) VB6
11 6 (1.33%) C#
12 5 (1.11%) Bicep
13 4 (0.89%) Go
13 4 (0.89%) Perl
13 4 (0.89%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.67%) HiveQL
14 3 (0.67%) PowerShell
14 3 (0.67%) R
Qualifications
1 232 (51.44%) Security Cleared
2 208 (46.12%) SC Cleared
3 30 (6.65%) ISTQB
4 17 (3.77%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.66%) Degree
6 6 (1.33%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.33%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 5 (1.11%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.89%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.89%) ISEB
8 4 (0.89%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.89%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (0.89%) PhD
9 1 (0.22%) ACCA
9 1 (0.22%) CIMA
9 1 (0.22%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.22%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.22%) MCSE
9 1 (0.22%) OCP
9 1 (0.22%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 71 (15.74%) Data Quality
2 50 (11.09%) QA
3 10 (2.22%) SLA
4 7 (1.55%) FATCA
5 6 (1.33%) GDPR
6 5 (1.11%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.44%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.44%) GRC
8 1 (0.22%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.22%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.22%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.22%) WCAG
System Software
1 50 (11.09%) Docker
2 9 (2.00%) Active Directory
2 9 (2.00%) Postfix
3 5 (1.11%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.67%) HDFS
4 3 (0.67%) Oracle RAC
4 3 (0.67%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.22%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.22%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 41 (9.09%) Kubernetes
2 32 (7.10%) Grafana
3 23 (5.10%) Terraform
4 9 (2.00%) Prometheus
5 7 (1.55%) WMI
6 5 (1.11%) Ansible
7 2 (0.44%) Data Guard
7 2 (0.44%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.44%) Kibana
7 2 (0.44%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.44%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.22%) Control-M
8 1 (0.22%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.22%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.22%) SCCM
8 1 (0.22%) SCOM
Vendors
1 185 (41.02%) Oracle
2 94 (20.84%) Talend
3 72 (15.96%) Informatica
4 69 (15.30%) Microsoft
5 48 (10.64%) Denodo
6 40 (8.87%) Databricks
7 29 (6.43%) ServiceNow
8 20 (4.43%) SAP
9 15 (3.33%) Jaspersoft
10 14 (3.10%) Atlassian
11 11 (2.44%) Cloudera
11 11 (2.44%) Sage
12 10 (2.22%) Splunk
13 9 (2.00%) Cisco
13 9 (2.00%) Google
14 8 (1.77%) Fortinet
15 7 (1.55%) Actian
15 7 (1.55%) F5
15 7 (1.55%) Palo Alto
15 7 (1.55%) SolarWinds