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

6 months to
19 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 6 13 17
Rank change year-on-year +7 +4 -8
Contract jobs citing SQL 370 145 162
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.01% 10.91% 8.29%
As % of the Programming Languages category 52.78% 43.41% 36.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 284 102 109
10th Percentile £350 £235 £259
25th Percentile £404 £388 £319
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £466 £484 £425
Median % change year-on-year -3.74% +13.88% -19.81%
75th Percentile £525 £594 £575
90th Percentile £579 £696 £625
England median daily rate £500 £515 £550
% change year-on-year -2.91% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 2 1
Median hourly rate - £17.59 £30.37
Median % change year-on-year - -42.09% +23.33%
England median hourly rate £45.25 £46.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year -2.69% +9.41% -15.42%

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 701 334 439
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 24.65% 25.13% 22.46%
Number of daily rates quoted 515 206 317
10th Percentile £350 £290 £260
25th Percentile £413 £403 £350
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £480 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.04% +6.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £550 £589 £575
90th Percentile £625 £691 £650
England median daily rate £505 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -3.81% -2.42% -6.03%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 10 14
10th Percentile £35.33 £16.60 £17.90
25th Percentile £48.94 £17.00 £32.78
Median hourly rate £58.00 £19.49 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +197.59% -65.35% +91.86%
75th Percentile £64.00 £26.62 £58.75
90th Percentile £72.10 £31.13 £68.38
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £60.00
% change year-on-year +4.00% +4.17% -4.76%

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 19 March 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 19 March 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 +4 153 £465 -1.69% 19
Birmingham -7 69 £475 -13.64% 66
Warwickshire -8 36 £445 +27.14% 15
Coventry -2 31 £407 -14.32% 8
Herefordshire -1 21 £550 -21.43% 3
Worcestershire -2 10 £700 - 9
Solihull -5 10 £478 +13.81% 6
Dudley - 7 £420 - 5
Staffordshire -8 4 £463 +1.37% 13
Brierley Hill - 3 £395 -
Wolverhampton - 2 - - 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 57 (15.41%) SAS
2 36 (9.73%) WebLogic
3 15 (4.05%) Apache
3 15 (4.05%) Tuxedo
4 13 (3.51%) Confluence
5 10 (2.70%) SharePoint
6 6 (1.62%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (1.08%) JBoss
8 3 (0.81%) Jupyter
9 2 (0.54%) Anypoint
9 2 (0.54%) Apache Spark
9 2 (0.54%) Liferay
9 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Exchange
9 2 (0.54%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 2 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.27%) Apache ServiceMix
10 1 (0.27%) CMS
10 1 (0.27%) Drupal
10 1 (0.27%) Umbraco
10 1 (0.27%) WebSphere
Applications
1 11 (2.97%) Microsoft Excel
2 3 (0.81%) MS Visio
3 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Office
4 1 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.27%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 4 (1.08%) NEC Housing
1 4 (1.08%) Oracle EBS
2 2 (0.54%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.54%) Maximo
2 2 (0.54%) Oracle EBS R12
2 2 (0.54%) Oracle HRMS
2 2 (0.54%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.27%) Aareon QL
3 1 (0.27%) MIS ActiveH
3 1 (0.27%) OPENHousing
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (0.27%) Orchard Housing
3 1 (0.27%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.27%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
Cloud Services
1 94 (25.41%) Azure
2 91 (24.59%) AWS
3 44 (11.89%) Power Platform
4 38 (10.27%) Azure DevOps
5 27 (7.30%) Amazon S3
5 27 (7.30%) Serverless
6 20 (5.41%) Azure Data Factory
6 20 (5.41%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 19 (5.14%) GitHub
8 18 (4.86%) Amazon EC2
9 17 (4.59%) GitHub Actions
10 14 (3.78%) GCP
11 12 (3.24%) OpenShift
12 10 (2.70%) AWS Lambda
13 9 (2.43%) Azure Key Vault
13 9 (2.43%) Power Automate
14 8 (2.16%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 8 (2.16%) Snowflake
15 7 (1.89%) AWS KMS
15 7 (1.89%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 7 (1.89%) Firewall
2 5 (1.35%) Network Security
3 4 (1.08%) DNS
4 2 (0.54%) DHCP
4 2 (0.54%) LAN
4 2 (0.54%) SSL
4 2 (0.54%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.54%) VLAN
4 2 (0.54%) VPN
4 2 (0.54%) WAN
4 2 (0.54%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.27%) 4G
5 1 (0.27%) AMQP
5 1 (0.27%) BGP
5 1 (0.27%) Internet
5 1 (0.27%) MPLS
5 1 (0.27%) OSPF
5 1 (0.27%) tcpdump
5 1 (0.27%) Wireshark
5 1 (0.27%) WPA2
Database & Business Intelligence
1 61 (16.49%) Pentaho
2 39 (10.54%) Power BI
3 35 (9.46%) Data Warehouse
4 30 (8.11%) PostgreSQL
5 29 (7.84%) Amazon RDS
6 21 (5.68%) Relational Database
7 19 (5.14%) MongoDB
8 17 (4.59%) Oracle Database
9 14 (3.78%) Amazon Redshift
9 14 (3.78%) MySQL
10 13 (3.51%) NoSQL
11 12 (3.24%) Tableau
12 11 (2.97%) Oracle Reports
13 8 (2.16%) BigQuery
13 8 (2.16%) Redis
13 8 (2.16%) SQL Server
14 7 (1.89%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (1.89%) Azure SQL Database
14 7 (1.89%) Delta Lake
14 7 (1.89%) Metadata
Development Applications
1 79 (21.35%) Git
2 64 (17.30%) Jenkins
3 61 (16.49%) JIRA
4 27 (7.30%) GitLab
5 14 (3.78%) JUnit
6 13 (3.51%) MSI
7 10 (2.70%) Maven
7 10 (2.70%) Mockito
7 10 (2.70%) Postman
7 10 (2.70%) Selenium
8 9 (2.43%) Zephyr
9 7 (1.89%) SonarQube
10 6 (1.62%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 5 (1.35%) Bitbucket Server
11 5 (1.35%) DbUnit
11 5 (1.35%) jMock
12 4 (1.08%) CA Gen
12 4 (1.08%) Eclipse
12 4 (1.08%) MLflow
12 4 (1.08%) Toad
General
1 86 (23.24%) Social Skills
2 68 (18.38%) Public Sector
3 52 (14.05%) Analytical Skills
4 30 (8.11%) Finance
5 12 (3.24%) Banking
6 8 (2.16%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
7 6 (1.62%) Legal
7 6 (1.62%) Manufacturing
8 4 (1.08%) Advertising
8 4 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
8 4 (1.08%) Retail
9 3 (0.81%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (0.81%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.81%) Marketing
10 2 (0.54%) Billing
10 2 (0.54%) Financial Institution
10 2 (0.54%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.54%) Military
10 2 (0.54%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 105 (28.38%) Data Engineer
2 66 (17.84%) Developer
3 33 (8.92%) Analyst
4 27 (7.30%) Senior
5 25 (6.76%) Lead
6 20 (5.41%) Java Developer
7 17 (4.59%) Architect
8 16 (4.32%) Data Analyst
9 14 (3.78%) Consultant
9 14 (3.78%) Full-Stack Developer
10 13 (3.51%) SAS Engineer
11 12 (3.24%) Java Engineer
11 12 (3.24%) Site Engineer
11 12 (3.24%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 12 (3.24%) Tester
12 11 (2.97%) Software Engineer
13 9 (2.43%) Business Intelligence Developer
13 9 (2.43%) DBA
13 9 (2.43%) Python Developer
13 9 (2.43%) QA Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (10.54%) Spring
2 37 (10.00%) REST
3 33 (8.92%) Spring Boot
4 23 (6.22%) Flask
5 21 (5.68%) Node.js
6 18 (4.86%) XML
7 15 (4.05%) RESTful
8 14 (3.78%) Hibernate
9 13 (3.51%) SOAP
10 12 (3.24%) Django
10 12 (3.24%) JPA
10 12 (3.24%) YAML
11 11 (2.97%) .NET
11 11 (2.97%) FastAPI
11 11 (2.97%) Spring Batch
12 10 (2.70%) AngularJS
13 9 (2.43%) JSON
13 9 (2.43%) PySpark
13 9 (2.43%) Spring Integration
13 9 (2.43%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 17 (4.59%) Cloud Native
2 10 (2.70%) Distributed Systems
2 10 (2.70%) Product Ownership
3 6 (1.62%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (1.35%) Data Structures
4 5 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
4 5 (1.35%) Onboarding
4 5 (1.35%) SCADA
5 4 (1.08%) Clustering
5 4 (1.08%) Data Centre
5 4 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
5 4 (1.08%) Public Cloud
5 4 (1.08%) Robotics
6 3 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
6 3 (0.81%) Credit Risk
6 3 (0.81%) IoT
7 2 (0.54%) Derivative
7 2 (0.54%) Educational Technology
7 2 (0.54%) Self-Motivation
8 1 (0.27%) Low-Code
Operating Systems
1 39 (10.54%) Unix
2 37 (10.00%) Linux
3 27 (7.30%) Windows
4 6 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 3 (0.81%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.27%) VME
6 1 (0.27%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 141 (38.11%) CI/CD
2 124 (33.51%) Agile
3 116 (31.35%) ETL
4 105 (28.38%) DevOps
5 91 (24.59%) Analytics
6 87 (23.51%) Problem-Solving
7 80 (21.62%) Business Intelligence
7 80 (21.62%) Data Modelling
8 72 (19.46%) Scrum
9 68 (18.38%) Test Automation
10 66 (17.84%) Continuous Improvement
11 64 (17.30%) Data Integration
11 64 (17.30%) Data Pipeline
12 44 (11.89%) Microservices
12 44 (11.89%) Migration
13 41 (11.08%) Data Engineering
13 41 (11.08%) Validation
14 38 (10.27%) Data Analytics
15 37 (10.00%) Data Virtualisation
15 37 (10.00%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 79 (21.35%) Java
2 71 (19.19%) Python
3 41 (11.08%) PL/SQL
4 27 (7.30%) Shell Script
5 19 (5.14%) JavaScript
6 15 (4.05%) Go
7 9 (2.43%) Bash
7 9 (2.43%) Scala
8 8 (2.16%) C#
9 7 (1.89%) Bicep
9 7 (1.89%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 6 (1.62%) Perl
11 5 (1.35%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.35%) R
12 4 (1.08%) VB
13 3 (0.81%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.81%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.54%) COBOL
14 2 (0.54%) Kotlin
14 2 (0.54%) VBA
Qualifications
1 182 (49.19%) Security Cleared
2 161 (43.51%) SC Cleared
3 19 (5.14%) Degree
4 16 (4.32%) DV Cleared
5 15 (4.05%) ISTQB
6 8 (2.16%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (1.89%) Computer Science Degree
7 7 (1.89%) Master's Degree
7 7 (1.89%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.62%) AWS Certification
9 5 (1.35%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.35%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
10 4 (1.08%) PhD
11 2 (0.54%) ISEB
11 2 (0.54%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 2 (0.54%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.27%) ACCA
12 1 (0.27%) AWS Certified Developer
12 1 (0.27%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
12 1 (0.27%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 68 (18.38%) Data Quality
2 28 (7.57%) QA
3 5 (1.35%) Accessibility
3 5 (1.35%) SLA
4 4 (1.08%) GDPR
5 3 (0.81%) FATCA
5 3 (0.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 1 (0.27%) Actionable Recommendations
6 1 (0.27%) PMO
6 1 (0.27%) Sarbanes-Oxley
6 1 (0.27%) WCAG
System Software
1 82 (22.16%) Docker
2 9 (2.43%) Active Directory
3 4 (1.08%) Postfix
4 3 (0.81%) HDFS
4 3 (0.81%) Oracle Clusterware
4 3 (0.81%) Oracle RAC
4 3 (0.81%) VMware Infrastructure
5 2 (0.54%) Virtual Machines
6 1 (0.27%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 85 (22.97%) Kubernetes
2 38 (10.27%) Grafana
3 30 (8.11%) Terraform
4 24 (6.49%) Prometheus
5 20 (5.41%) Ansible
6 12 (3.24%) Progress Chef
7 6 (1.62%) Puppet
8 5 (1.35%) Kibana
9 4 (1.08%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (0.81%) Data Guard
10 3 (0.81%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.54%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.54%) HP Quality Center
11 2 (0.54%) Microsoft Intune
12 1 (0.27%) Control-M
12 1 (0.27%) SCCM
12 1 (0.27%) WSUS
Vendors
1 114 (30.81%) Oracle
2 69 (18.65%) Talend
3 57 (15.41%) Microsoft
4 41 (11.08%) Informatica
5 36 (9.73%) Denodo
6 21 (5.68%) ServiceNow
7 18 (4.86%) Databricks
8 15 (4.05%) SAP
9 10 (2.70%) Google
10 9 (2.43%) Fujitsu
11 8 (2.16%) Splunk
12 7 (1.89%) Cloudera
12 7 (1.89%) Jaspersoft
12 7 (1.89%) NEC
12 7 (1.89%) Sage
13 6 (1.62%) Dynatrace
13 6 (1.62%) Red Hat
13 6 (1.62%) webMethods
14 5 (1.35%) Atlassian
15 3 (0.81%) Anaplan