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

6 months to
22 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 13 19
Rank change year-on-year +8 +6 -9
Contract jobs citing SQL 407 149 145
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.41% 10.96% 7.58%
As % of the Programming Languages category 58.65% 44.35% 34.28%
Number of daily rates quoted 311 108 98
10th Percentile £350 £235 £259
25th Percentile £404 £398 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £464 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.02% +3.06% -14.37%
75th Percentile £512 £575 £575
90th Percentile £575 £674 £625
England median daily rate £500 £515 £550
% change year-on-year -2.91% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 4 1
10th Percentile £52.05 £16.32 -
25th Percentile £53.25 £17.88 -
Median hourly rate £56.00 £26.33 £30.37
Median % change year-on-year +112.73% -13.32% +20.28%
75th Percentile £58.25 £33.91 -
90th Percentile £59.15 - -
England median hourly rate £51.25 £52.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -2.39% +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 694 336 423
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.86% 24.71% 22.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 516 210 309
10th Percentile £350 £262 £260
25th Percentile £410 £403 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -14.29%
75th Percentile £539 £575 £575
90th Percentile £619 £689 £638
England median daily rate £502 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -4.48% -2.78% -4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 14 13
10th Percentile £46.25 £16.83 £40.10
25th Percentile £56.50 £17.44 £55.00
Median hourly rate £59.50 £23.87 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +149.27% -58.49% +96.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £28.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £33.91 £69.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.18
% change year-on-year +3.17% +1.32% -0.52%

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 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 22 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 +4 177 £459 -0.76% 22
Birmingham -6 74 £460 -16.45% 64
Warwickshire -14 36 £445 +13.02% 13
Coventry -1 31 £407 -9.56% 11
Herefordshire +1 17 £550 -21.43% 1
Solihull -4 15 £478 +13.81% 2
Staffordshire +3 9 £450 -18.18% 13
Dudley - 7 £420 - 1
Worcestershire -4 6 £700 - 9
Brierley Hill - 3 £395 -
Wolverhampton - 2 - - 3
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 (14.00%) SAS
2 36 (8.85%) WebLogic
3 15 (3.69%) Confluence
3 15 (3.69%) Tuxedo
4 14 (3.44%) Apache
5 10 (2.46%) SharePoint
6 7 (1.72%) Oracle Workflow
7 6 (1.47%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 5 (1.23%) Apache Airflow
9 4 (0.98%) JBoss
10 3 (0.74%) Apache Spark
10 3 (0.74%) Jupyter
10 3 (0.74%) Microsoft Exchange
11 2 (0.49%) Anypoint
11 2 (0.49%) Liferay
12 1 (0.25%) Apache ServiceMix
12 1 (0.25%) Oracle SOA Suite
12 1 (0.25%) Tomcat
12 1 (0.25%) Umbraco
12 1 (0.25%) WebSphere
Applications
1 10 (2.46%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.23%) Notepad++
3 3 (0.74%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.25%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.47%) Oracle HRMS
2 4 (0.98%) NEC Housing
3 3 (0.74%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.49%) Dynamics CRM
4 2 (0.49%) Maximo
4 2 (0.49%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.49%) SAP FI
5 1 (0.25%) Aareon QL
5 1 (0.25%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.25%) OPENHousing
5 1 (0.25%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.25%) Orchard Housing
5 1 (0.25%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.25%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.25%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.25%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 103 (25.31%) AWS
2 93 (22.85%) Azure
3 51 (12.53%) Power Platform
4 34 (8.35%) Azure DevOps
5 32 (7.86%) Amazon S3
6 23 (5.65%) Amazon EC2
6 23 (5.65%) Azure Data Factory
7 21 (5.16%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 21 (5.16%) Serverless
8 16 (3.93%) GitHub
9 14 (3.44%) GitHub Actions
10 13 (3.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 12 (2.95%) Amazon SQS
11 12 (2.95%) AWS KMS
11 12 (2.95%) Power Automate
11 12 (2.95%) Route 53
12 11 (2.70%) OpenShift
13 10 (2.46%) AWS Lambda
13 10 (2.46%) GCP
13 10 (2.46%) Snowflake
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.97%) Firewall
2 5 (1.23%) Network Security
2 5 (1.23%) PuTTY
2 5 (1.23%) WinSCP
3 4 (0.98%) DNS
4 3 (0.74%) SSL
5 2 (0.49%) DHCP
5 2 (0.49%) LAN
5 2 (0.49%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.49%) VLAN
5 2 (0.49%) VPN
5 2 (0.49%) WAN
5 2 (0.49%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.25%) AMQP
6 1 (0.25%) BGP
6 1 (0.25%) Internet
6 1 (0.25%) MPLS
6 1 (0.25%) OSPF
6 1 (0.25%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.25%) WPA2
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (14.74%) Pentaho
2 50 (12.29%) Data Warehouse
3 46 (11.30%) Power BI
4 33 (8.11%) Amazon RDS
5 29 (7.13%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (5.41%) Relational Database
7 18 (4.42%) MongoDB
7 18 (4.42%) Tableau
8 17 (4.18%) Amazon Redshift
9 15 (3.69%) MySQL
9 15 (3.69%) Oracle Reports
10 14 (3.44%) Oracle Database
11 12 (2.95%) Amazon Aurora
11 12 (2.95%) DynamoDB
11 12 (2.95%) Metadata
11 12 (2.95%) SQL Server
12 11 (2.70%) Delta Lake
13 10 (2.46%) NoSQL
14 9 (2.21%) Data Lake
14 9 (2.21%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 82 (20.15%) Git
2 63 (15.48%) JIRA
3 59 (14.50%) Jenkins
4 35 (8.60%) GitLab
5 19 (4.67%) JUnit
6 16 (3.93%) Postman
7 15 (3.69%) Maven
7 15 (3.69%) Mockito
8 14 (3.44%) Zephyr
9 13 (3.19%) MSI
10 12 (2.95%) SonarQube
11 11 (2.70%) Selenium
12 9 (2.21%) Bitbucket Server
12 9 (2.21%) DbUnit
12 9 (2.21%) jMock
13 6 (1.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 4 (0.98%) CA Gen
14 4 (0.98%) Eclipse
14 4 (0.98%) IntelliJ
14 4 (0.98%) Toad
General
1 94 (23.10%) Social Skills
2 76 (18.67%) Public Sector
3 62 (15.23%) Analytical Skills
4 28 (6.88%) Finance
5 11 (2.70%) Banking
6 8 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.47%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (1.47%) Legal
7 6 (1.47%) Manufacturing
8 5 (1.23%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.23%) Retail
9 4 (0.98%) Advertising
10 3 (0.74%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 3 (0.74%) Marketing
10 3 (0.74%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.49%) Billing
11 2 (0.49%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.49%) Military
11 2 (0.49%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.25%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 138 (33.91%) Data Engineer
2 69 (16.95%) Developer
3 36 (8.85%) Analyst
4 32 (7.86%) Senior
5 26 (6.39%) Java Developer
6 23 (5.65%) Lead
7 17 (4.18%) Architect
8 16 (3.93%) Data Analyst
9 15 (3.69%) SAS Engineer
10 14 (3.44%) Full-Stack Developer
10 14 (3.44%) Tester
11 13 (3.19%) Consultant
12 12 (2.95%) Java Engineer
13 11 (2.70%) Business Intelligence Developer
13 11 (2.70%) Senior Data Engineer
13 11 (2.70%) Site Engineer
13 11 (2.70%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 10 (2.46%) DBA
14 10 (2.46%) QA Tester
15 9 (2.21%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 41 (10.07%) Spring
2 39 (9.58%) REST
3 37 (9.09%) Spring Boot
4 22 (5.41%) Node.js
5 19 (4.67%) Flask
5 19 (4.67%) Hibernate
6 18 (4.42%) SOAP
6 18 (4.42%) XML
7 17 (4.18%) JPA
7 17 (4.18%) RESTful
8 15 (3.69%) Spring Batch
9 14 (3.44%) AngularJS
9 14 (3.44%) PySpark
9 14 (3.44%) Spring Integration
9 14 (3.44%) Web Services
10 12 (2.95%) ActiveMQ
10 12 (2.95%) Django
10 12 (2.95%) Spring Cloud
10 12 (2.95%) YAML
11 11 (2.70%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 13 (3.19%) Distributed Systems
2 10 (2.46%) Cloud Native
2 10 (2.46%) Product Ownership
3 6 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
3 6 (1.47%) Linux Command Line
3 6 (1.47%) SCADA
4 5 (1.23%) Enterprise Software
5 4 (0.98%) Clustering
5 4 (0.98%) Data Centre
5 4 (0.98%) Data Structures
5 4 (0.98%) Robotics
5 4 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
6 3 (0.74%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (0.74%) Credit Risk
6 3 (0.74%) Educational Technology
6 3 (0.74%) IoT
6 3 (0.74%) Onboarding
6 3 (0.74%) Public Cloud
7 2 (0.49%) Data Protection Act
7 2 (0.49%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 56 (13.76%) Unix
2 44 (10.81%) Linux
3 29 (7.13%) Windows
4 6 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.23%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.25%) VME
6 1 (0.25%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (33.17%) CI/CD
2 134 (32.92%) Agile
3 133 (32.68%) ETL
4 99 (24.32%) DevOps
5 93 (22.85%) Analytics
5 93 (22.85%) Business Intelligence
6 87 (21.38%) Data Modelling
7 84 (20.64%) Problem-Solving
8 77 (18.92%) Scrum
9 73 (17.94%) Test Automation
10 72 (17.69%) Data Pipeline
11 66 (16.22%) Data Integration
12 65 (15.97%) Continuous Improvement
13 57 (14.00%) Migration
14 48 (11.79%) Validation
15 47 (11.55%) Data Engineering
16 46 (11.30%) Decision-Making
17 44 (10.81%) Microservices
18 34 (8.35%) Data Analytics
18 34 (8.35%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 80 (19.66%) Java
2 72 (17.69%) Python
3 52 (12.78%) PL/SQL
4 35 (8.60%) Shell Script
5 19 (4.67%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.46%) Bash
6 10 (2.46%) Go
7 9 (2.21%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (1.97%) C#
9 7 (1.72%) Bicep
10 6 (1.47%) Perl
10 6 (1.47%) Scala
11 5 (1.23%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.23%) R
12 4 (0.98%) VB
13 3 (0.74%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.74%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.49%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.49%) VB6
14 2 (0.49%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 214 (52.58%) Security Cleared
2 191 (46.93%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.16%) ISTQB
4 20 (4.91%) Degree
5 14 (3.44%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.21%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.97%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.47%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (1.47%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.23%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.23%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.23%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 4 (0.98%) PhD
11 2 (0.49%) ISEB
11 2 (0.49%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 2 (0.49%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified Developer
12 1 (0.25%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.25%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.25%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (16.22%) Data Quality
2 37 (9.09%) QA
3 7 (1.72%) SLA
4 5 (1.23%) GDPR
5 4 (0.98%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.98%) FATCA
5 4 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.49%) GRC
7 1 (0.25%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.25%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.25%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.25%) PMO
7 1 (0.25%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.25%) WCAG
System Software
1 74 (18.18%) Docker
2 11 (2.70%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.97%) Postfix
4 5 (1.23%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.74%) HDFS
6 3 (0.74%) Oracle Clusterware
6 3 (0.74%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.25%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 71 (17.44%) Kubernetes
2 39 (9.58%) Grafana
3 32 (7.86%) Terraform
4 21 (5.16%) Prometheus
5 16 (3.93%) Ansible
6 11 (2.70%) Progress Chef
7 6 (1.47%) Puppet
8 4 (0.98%) Data Guard
8 4 (0.98%) Kibana
8 4 (0.98%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (0.74%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.49%) HP ALM
10 2 (0.49%) HP Quality Center
10 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.25%) Control-M
11 1 (0.25%) SCCM
11 1 (0.25%) SCOM
11 1 (0.25%) WSUS
Vendors
1 139 (34.15%) Oracle
2 75 (18.43%) Talend
3 59 (14.50%) Microsoft
4 52 (12.78%) Informatica
5 37 (9.09%) Denodo
6 24 (5.90%) Databricks
6 24 (5.90%) ServiceNow
7 17 (4.18%) SAP
8 12 (2.95%) Atlassian
8 12 (2.95%) Jaspersoft
9 9 (2.21%) Fujitsu
10 8 (1.97%) Cloudera
11 7 (1.72%) Google
11 7 (1.72%) NEC
11 7 (1.72%) Sage
12 6 (1.47%) Red Hat
12 6 (1.47%) Splunk
12 6 (1.47%) webMethods
13 5 (1.23%) Dynatrace
13 5 (1.23%) VMware