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

6 months to
13 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 10 18
Rank change year-on-year +5 +8 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL 414 170 147
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.23% 12.42% 7.72%
As % of the Programming Languages category 60.53% 47.75% 34.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 324 116 99
10th Percentile £350 £235 £259
25th Percentile £406 £389 £311
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £460 £460 £425
Median % change year-on-year - +8.24% -15.88%
75th Percentile £507 £575 £581
90th Percentile £575 £659 £625
England median daily rate £500 £513 £550
% change year-on-year -2.44% -6.82% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 5 1
10th Percentile £52.05 £16.67 -
25th Percentile £53.25 £18.74 -
Median hourly rate £56.00 £33.91 £30.37
Median % change year-on-year +65.14% +11.66% +20.28%
75th Percentile £58.25 - -
90th Percentile £59.15 - -
England median hourly rate £48.72 £45.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +7.08% +1.11% -8.69%

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 684 356 425
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 21.86% 26.00% 22.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 513 218 308
10th Percentile £340 £235 £260
25th Percentile £410 £400 £337
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.62% +2.78% -14.29%
75th Percentile £538 £574 £575
90th Percentile £619 £679 £638
England median daily rate £507 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.43% -4.55% -2.48%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 12 13
10th Percentile £48.75 £16.78 £40.10
25th Percentile £56.50 £18.31 £55.00
Median hourly rate £61.32 £27.84 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +120.25% -51.58% +96.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £33.91 £58.75
90th Percentile £77.50 - £69.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +3.17% +0.80% -

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 13 May 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 13 May 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 +3 177 £464 +0.60% 11
Birmingham -6 75 £460 -16.45% 47
Warwickshire -12 42 £500 +60.64% 18
Coventry -5 32 £416 +21.02% 8
Herefordshire 0 15 £550 - 2
Solihull -8 15 £478 +13.81% 2
Staffordshire +4 11 £431 -21.59% 11
Worcestershire 0 9 £425 -39.29% 8
Dudley - 7 £420 - 2
Brierley Hill - 3 £395 - 1
Wolverhampton - 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 63 (15.22%) SAS
2 28 (6.76%) WebLogic
3 27 (6.52%) Confluence
4 15 (3.62%) Tuxedo
5 10 (2.42%) SharePoint
6 9 (2.17%) Apache
7 7 (1.69%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (1.45%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 5 (1.21%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.97%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.72%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.72%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.48%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.48%) Liferay
13 1 (0.24%) Apache ServiceMix
13 1 (0.24%) CMS
13 1 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 1 (0.24%) Tomcat
13 1 (0.24%) Umbraco
13 1 (0.24%) WebSphere
Applications
1 11 (2.66%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.21%) Notepad++
3 3 (0.72%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.48%) Chatbot
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 (0.97%) NEC Housing
3 3 (0.72%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.72%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.48%) Maximo
4 2 (0.48%) Oracle EBS R12
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
1 103 (24.88%) AWS
2 93 (22.46%) Azure
3 59 (14.25%) Power Platform
4 38 (9.18%) Azure DevOps
5 32 (7.73%) Amazon S3
6 23 (5.56%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 21 (5.07%) Amazon EC2
7 21 (5.07%) Azure Data Factory
8 19 (4.59%) Serverless
9 17 (4.11%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 16 (3.86%) GitHub
11 15 (3.62%) Snowflake
12 14 (3.38%) GitHub Actions
13 12 (2.90%) Amazon SQS
13 12 (2.90%) AWS KMS
13 12 (2.90%) AWS Lambda
13 12 (2.90%) Route 53
14 9 (2.17%) OpenShift
15 8 (1.93%) GCP
15 8 (1.93%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.93%) Firewall
2 5 (1.21%) PuTTY
2 5 (1.21%) WinSCP
3 4 (0.97%) DNS
3 4 (0.97%) Network Security
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%) AMQP
6 1 (0.24%) BGP
6 1 (0.24%) Internet
6 1 (0.24%) MPLS
6 1 (0.24%) OSPF
6 1 (0.24%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.24%) WPA2
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (16.91%) Pentaho
2 58 (14.01%) Data Warehouse
3 56 (13.53%) Power BI
4 32 (7.73%) Amazon RDS
5 26 (6.28%) PostgreSQL
6 21 (5.07%) Relational Database
7 20 (4.83%) Tableau
8 19 (4.59%) Amazon Redshift
9 16 (3.86%) DynamoDB
10 15 (3.62%) BusinessObjects
10 15 (3.62%) Data Lake
10 15 (3.62%) Oracle Database
10 15 (3.62%) Oracle Reports
11 14 (3.38%) Metadata
12 12 (2.90%) Amazon Aurora
12 12 (2.90%) SQL Server
13 11 (2.66%) Delta Lake
13 11 (2.66%) MySQL
13 11 (2.66%) SQL Server Integration Services
14 10 (2.42%) MongoDB
Development Applications
1 74 (17.87%) Git
2 71 (17.15%) JIRA
3 56 (13.53%) Jenkins
4 49 (11.84%) GitLab
5 16 (3.86%) Postman
6 15 (3.62%) JUnit
6 15 (3.62%) Maven
6 15 (3.62%) Mockito
6 15 (3.62%) Zephyr
7 13 (3.14%) MSI
8 12 (2.90%) SonarQube
9 9 (2.17%) Bitbucket Server
9 9 (2.17%) DbUnit
9 9 (2.17%) jMock
10 7 (1.69%) Selenium
11 6 (1.45%) Artifactory
12 5 (1.21%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 4 (0.97%) CA Gen
13 4 (0.97%) MLflow
14 3 (0.72%) TestRail
General
1 88 (21.26%) Social Skills
2 77 (18.60%) Public Sector
3 64 (15.46%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (7.49%) Finance
5 11 (2.66%) Banking
6 8 (1.93%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.45%) Manufacturing
7 6 (1.45%) Marketing
8 5 (1.21%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.21%) Retail
9 4 (0.97%) Advertising
9 4 (0.97%) Legal
10 3 (0.72%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.72%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.48%) Billing
11 2 (0.48%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.48%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.48%) Military
11 2 (0.48%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.24%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 154 (37.20%) Data Engineer
2 68 (16.43%) Developer
3 38 (9.18%) Senior
4 37 (8.94%) Analyst
5 25 (6.04%) Java Developer
6 22 (5.31%) Architect
6 22 (5.31%) Lead
7 20 (4.83%) Senior Data Engineer
8 19 (4.59%) Data Analyst
9 15 (3.62%) SAS Engineer
9 15 (3.62%) Tester
10 14 (3.38%) Full-Stack Developer
11 11 (2.66%) AWS Data Engineer
11 11 (2.66%) AWS Engineer
11 11 (2.66%) Consultant
11 11 (2.66%) QA Tester
12 9 (2.17%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 9 (2.17%) DBA
12 9 (2.17%) Site Engineer
12 9 (2.17%) Site Reliability Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (7.97%) Spring
1 33 (7.97%) Spring Boot
2 30 (7.25%) REST
3 22 (5.31%) Node.js
4 17 (4.11%) JPA
5 16 (3.86%) Flask
5 16 (3.86%) PySpark
6 15 (3.62%) Hibernate
7 14 (3.38%) SOAP
7 14 (3.38%) Spring Batch
7 14 (3.38%) Spring Integration
7 14 (3.38%) Web Services
8 13 (3.14%) AngularJS
9 12 (2.90%) .NET
9 12 (2.90%) ActiveMQ
9 12 (2.90%) Django
9 12 (2.90%) RESTful
9 12 (2.90%) Spring Cloud
9 12 (2.90%) YAML
10 9 (2.17%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 15 (3.62%) Cloud Native
2 12 (2.90%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (2.17%) SCADA
4 6 (1.45%) Linux Command Line
4 6 (1.45%) Product Ownership
5 5 (1.21%) Enterprise Software
5 5 (1.21%) Legacy Systems
6 4 (0.97%) Clustering
6 4 (0.97%) Data Centre
6 4 (0.97%) Data Structures
6 4 (0.97%) Robotics
6 4 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.72%) Credit Risk
7 3 (0.72%) Data Fabric
7 3 (0.72%) Educational Technology
7 3 (0.72%) IoT
7 3 (0.72%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.48%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.48%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.48%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 61 (14.73%) Unix
2 39 (9.42%) Linux
3 24 (5.80%) Windows
4 5 (1.21%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (1.21%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.24%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 150 (36.23%) ETL
2 136 (32.85%) Agile
3 132 (31.88%) CI/CD
4 109 (26.33%) Data Modelling
5 100 (24.15%) Business Intelligence
6 99 (23.91%) Analytics
7 97 (23.43%) DevOps
8 88 (21.26%) Data Pipeline
9 83 (20.05%) Test Automation
10 80 (19.32%) Problem-Solving
11 79 (19.08%) Scrum
12 75 (18.12%) Data Integration
13 62 (14.98%) Migration
14 54 (13.04%) Continuous Improvement
15 52 (12.56%) Data Engineering
15 52 (12.56%) Validation
16 46 (11.11%) Decision-Making
17 37 (8.94%) Data Analytics
18 36 (8.70%) Microservices
19 35 (8.45%) Data Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 72 (17.39%) Python
2 61 (14.73%) Java
3 55 (13.29%) PL/SQL
4 31 (7.49%) Shell Script
5 18 (4.35%) JavaScript
6 11 (2.66%) Bash
7 10 (2.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 8 (1.93%) C#
8 8 (1.93%) Go
9 7 (1.69%) Bicep
10 6 (1.45%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.21%) Perl
11 5 (1.21%) R
12 4 (0.97%) VB
13 3 (0.72%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.72%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.48%) Scala
14 2 (0.48%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.48%) VB6
14 2 (0.48%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 224 (54.11%) Security Cleared
2 200 (48.31%) SC Cleared
3 20 (4.83%) ISTQB
4 18 (4.35%) Degree
5 12 (2.90%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.17%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.93%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (1.21%) Azure Certification
8 5 (1.21%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (1.21%) Master's Degree
9 4 (0.97%) PhD
10 3 (0.72%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 2 (0.48%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.48%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 2 (0.48%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.24%) ACCA
12 1 (0.24%) CIMA
12 1 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.24%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 70 (16.91%) Data Quality
2 37 (8.94%) QA
3 8 (1.93%) SLA
4 7 (1.69%) FATCA
5 6 (1.45%) GDPR
6 4 (0.97%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.48%) GRC
8 1 (0.24%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 67 (16.18%) Docker
2 12 (2.90%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.93%) Postfix
4 5 (1.21%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.97%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.72%) HDFS
6 3 (0.72%) Oracle Clusterware
6 3 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 64 (15.46%) Kubernetes
2 39 (9.42%) Grafana
3 33 (7.97%) Terraform
4 18 (4.35%) Prometheus
5 13 (3.14%) Ansible
6 9 (2.17%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.97%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.97%) Oracle RMAN
8 3 (0.72%) Docker Swarm
8 3 (0.72%) Kibana
9 2 (0.48%) HP ALM
9 2 (0.48%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.48%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.48%) Puppet
10 1 (0.24%) Control-M
10 1 (0.24%) SCCM
10 1 (0.24%) SCOM
10 1 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 149 (35.99%) Oracle
2 86 (20.77%) Talend
3 66 (15.94%) Informatica
4 61 (14.73%) Microsoft
5 48 (11.59%) Denodo
6 26 (6.28%) Databricks
7 20 (4.83%) ServiceNow
8 15 (3.62%) SAP
9 12 (2.90%) Atlassian
9 12 (2.90%) Jaspersoft
10 10 (2.42%) Sage
11 9 (2.17%) Cloudera
11 9 (2.17%) Fujitsu
11 9 (2.17%) Google
12 7 (1.69%) Dynatrace
12 7 (1.69%) NEC
13 5 (1.21%) Red Hat
13 5 (1.21%) VMware
14 3 (0.72%) Citrix
14 3 (0.72%) HP