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

6 months to
26 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 12 18
Rank change year-on-year +7 +6 -8
Contract jobs citing SQL 409 150 148
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.34% 11.02% 7.66%
As % of the Programming Languages category 59.36% 43.99% 34.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 313 108 100
10th Percentile £350 £235 £259
25th Percentile £404 £398 £310
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £464 £425
Median % change year-on-year -1.02% +9.12% -19.05%
75th Percentile £506 £575 £575
90th Percentile £571 £700 £625
England median daily rate £500 £518 £550
% change year-on-year -3.38% -5.91% -
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 £50.00 £49.50 £42.50
% change year-on-year +1.01% +16.47% -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 689 341 429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.48% 25.06% 22.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 513 210 311
10th Percentile £350 £252 £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 £538 £589 £550
90th Percentile £619 £689 £638
England median daily rate £505 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -3.90% -2.78% -4.42%
Number of hourly rates quoted 9 15 13
10th Percentile £46.25 £16.85 £40.10
25th Percentile £56.50 £17.87 £55.00
Median hourly rate £59.50 £27.50 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +116.36% -52.17% +96.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £31.33 £58.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £33.91 £69.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - +4.17%

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 26 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 26 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 +4 178 £460 -0.11% 21
Birmingham -5 73 £450 -18.18% 61
Warwickshire -12 37 £415 +7.10% 16
Coventry +2 32 £407 -9.56% 9
Herefordshire +1 17 £550 -21.43% 1
Solihull -5 15 £478 +13.81%
Staffordshire +4 9 £450 -18.18% 10
Dudley - 7 £420 - 1
Worcestershire -3 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 58 (14.18%) SAS
2 34 (8.31%) WebLogic
3 17 (4.16%) Confluence
4 15 (3.67%) Tuxedo
5 12 (2.93%) Apache
6 11 (2.69%) SharePoint
7 7 (1.71%) Oracle Workflow
8 6 (1.47%) Oracle Self-Service HR
9 5 (1.22%) Apache Airflow
10 4 (0.98%) Microsoft Exchange
11 3 (0.73%) Apache Spark
11 3 (0.73%) Jupyter
12 2 (0.49%) Anypoint
12 2 (0.49%) JBoss
12 2 (0.49%) Liferay
13 1 (0.24%) Apache ServiceMix
13 1 (0.24%) Oracle SOA Suite
13 1 (0.24%) Tomcat
13 1 (0.24%) Umbraco
13 1 (0.24%) WebSphere
Applications
1 10 (2.44%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.22%) Notepad++
3 3 (0.73%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.24%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.47%) Oracle HRMS
2 4 (0.98%) NEC Housing
3 3 (0.73%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.73%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.49%) Maximo
4 2 (0.49%) Oracle EBS R12
4 2 (0.49%) SAP FI
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
1 101 (24.69%) AWS
2 96 (23.47%) Azure
3 55 (13.45%) Power Platform
4 34 (8.31%) Amazon S3
4 34 (8.31%) Azure DevOps
5 23 (5.62%) Amazon EC2
5 23 (5.62%) Azure Data Factory
6 22 (5.38%) Azure Synapse Analytics
6 22 (5.38%) Serverless
7 16 (3.91%) GitHub
8 15 (3.67%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 14 (3.42%) GitHub Actions
10 12 (2.93%) Amazon SQS
10 12 (2.93%) AWS KMS
10 12 (2.93%) AWS Lambda
10 12 (2.93%) Power Automate
10 12 (2.93%) Route 53
11 11 (2.69%) OpenShift
12 10 (2.44%) Snowflake
13 9 (2.20%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.96%) Firewall
2 5 (1.22%) Network Security
2 5 (1.22%) PuTTY
2 5 (1.22%) WinSCP
3 4 (0.98%) DNS
4 3 (0.73%) 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 (0.24%) 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 64 (15.65%) Pentaho
2 52 (12.71%) Data Warehouse
3 49 (11.98%) Power BI
4 34 (8.31%) Amazon RDS
5 29 (7.09%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (5.38%) Relational Database
7 19 (4.65%) Amazon Redshift
8 18 (4.40%) Tableau
9 15 (3.67%) MongoDB
9 15 (3.67%) MySQL
9 15 (3.67%) Oracle Reports
10 14 (3.42%) DynamoDB
10 14 (3.42%) Oracle Database
11 12 (2.93%) Amazon Aurora
11 12 (2.93%) Metadata
11 12 (2.93%) SQL Server
12 11 (2.69%) Data Lake
12 11 (2.69%) Delta Lake
13 10 (2.44%) BusinessObjects
14 9 (2.20%) SQL Server Integration Services
Development Applications
1 79 (19.32%) Git
2 64 (15.65%) JIRA
3 57 (13.94%) Jenkins
4 39 (9.54%) GitLab
5 17 (4.16%) JUnit
6 16 (3.91%) Postman
7 15 (3.67%) Maven
7 15 (3.67%) Mockito
8 14 (3.42%) Zephyr
9 13 (3.18%) MSI
10 12 (2.93%) SonarQube
11 9 (2.20%) Bitbucket Server
11 9 (2.20%) DbUnit
11 9 (2.20%) jMock
11 9 (2.20%) Selenium
12 6 (1.47%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 5 (1.22%) MLflow
14 4 (0.98%) CA Gen
14 4 (0.98%) Toad
15 3 (0.73%) Bitbucket
General
1 92 (22.49%) Social Skills
2 76 (18.58%) Public Sector
3 62 (15.16%) Analytical Skills
4 27 (6.60%) Finance
5 10 (2.44%) Banking
6 8 (1.96%) Presentation Skills
7 6 (1.47%) Legal
7 6 (1.47%) Manufacturing
8 5 (1.22%) Documentation Skills
8 5 (1.22%) Retail
9 4 (0.98%) Advertising
9 4 (0.98%) Influencing Skills
10 3 (0.73%) Marketing
10 3 (0.73%) Organisational Skills
11 2 (0.49%) Billing
11 2 (0.49%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.49%) Military
11 2 (0.49%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.24%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 140 (34.23%) Data Engineer
2 68 (16.63%) Developer
3 37 (9.05%) Analyst
4 34 (8.31%) Senior
5 25 (6.11%) Java Developer
6 23 (5.62%) Lead
7 18 (4.40%) Architect
8 16 (3.91%) Data Analyst
9 15 (3.67%) SAS Engineer
10 14 (3.42%) Full-Stack Developer
10 14 (3.42%) Tester
11 13 (3.18%) Senior Data Engineer
12 12 (2.93%) Consultant
13 11 (2.69%) Business Intelligence Developer
13 11 (2.69%) Java Engineer
13 11 (2.69%) Site Engineer
13 11 (2.69%) Site Reliability Engineer
14 10 (2.44%) QA Tester
15 9 (2.20%) DBA
15 9 (2.20%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (9.54%) Spring
2 37 (9.05%) Spring Boot
3 36 (8.80%) REST
4 22 (5.38%) Node.js
5 19 (4.65%) Flask
6 17 (4.16%) Hibernate
6 17 (4.16%) JPA
7 16 (3.91%) RESTful
7 16 (3.91%) SOAP
8 15 (3.67%) Spring Batch
8 15 (3.67%) XML
9 14 (3.42%) AngularJS
9 14 (3.42%) PySpark
9 14 (3.42%) Spring Integration
9 14 (3.42%) Web Services
10 12 (2.93%) ActiveMQ
10 12 (2.93%) Django
10 12 (2.93%) Spring Cloud
10 12 (2.93%) YAML
11 11 (2.69%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 12 (2.93%) Distributed Systems
2 11 (2.69%) Cloud Native
3 10 (2.44%) Product Ownership
4 6 (1.47%) Legacy Systems
4 6 (1.47%) Linux Command Line
4 6 (1.47%) SCADA
5 5 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (0.98%) Clustering
6 4 (0.98%) Data Centre
6 4 (0.98%) Robotics
6 4 (0.98%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.73%) Analytical Mindset
7 3 (0.73%) Credit Risk
7 3 (0.73%) Data Structures
7 3 (0.73%) Educational Technology
7 3 (0.73%) IoT
7 3 (0.73%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.49%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.49%) Management Information System
8 2 (0.49%) Video\Live Streaming
Operating Systems
1 54 (13.20%) Unix
2 43 (10.51%) Linux
3 29 (7.09%) Windows
4 6 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (1.22%) Windows Server
6 1 (0.24%) VME
6 1 (0.24%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 137 (33.50%) ETL
2 134 (32.76%) CI/CD
3 133 (32.52%) Agile
4 97 (23.72%) DevOps
5 95 (23.23%) Business Intelligence
6 94 (22.98%) Analytics
7 89 (21.76%) Data Modelling
8 82 (20.05%) Problem-Solving
9 79 (19.32%) Scrum
10 75 (18.34%) Test Automation
11 74 (18.09%) Data Pipeline
12 65 (15.89%) Data Integration
13 62 (15.16%) Continuous Improvement
14 58 (14.18%) Migration
15 48 (11.74%) Validation
16 46 (11.25%) Data Engineering
16 46 (11.25%) Decision-Making
17 41 (10.02%) Microservices
18 35 (8.56%) Data Analytics
18 35 (8.56%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 77 (18.83%) Java
2 74 (18.09%) Python
3 51 (12.47%) PL/SQL
4 35 (8.56%) Shell Script
5 19 (4.65%) JavaScript
6 10 (2.44%) Bash
7 9 (2.20%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 9 (2.20%) Go
8 8 (1.96%) C#
9 7 (1.71%) Bicep
10 6 (1.47%) Perl
10 6 (1.47%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.22%) R
12 4 (0.98%) Scala
12 4 (0.98%) VB
13 3 (0.73%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.73%) TypeScript
14 2 (0.49%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.49%) VB6
14 2 (0.49%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 218 (53.30%) Security Cleared
2 195 (47.68%) SC Cleared
3 21 (5.13%) ISTQB
4 20 (4.89%) Degree
5 14 (3.42%) DV Cleared
6 9 (2.20%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.96%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.47%) Master's Degree
9 5 (1.22%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.22%) Computer Science Degree
9 5 (1.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 5 (1.22%) PhD
10 4 (0.98%) AWS Certification
11 2 (0.49%) ISEB
11 2 (0.49%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
11 2 (0.49%) TOGAF Certification
12 1 (0.24%) ACCA
12 1 (0.24%) Cisco Certification
12 1 (0.24%) ITIL Certification
12 1 (0.24%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (16.14%) Data Quality
2 37 (9.05%) QA
3 7 (1.71%) FATCA
3 7 (1.71%) SLA
4 5 (1.22%) GDPR
5 4 (0.98%) Accessibility
5 4 (0.98%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 2 (0.49%) GRC
7 1 (0.24%) Actionable Recommendations
7 1 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
7 1 (0.24%) ISO 22301
7 1 (0.24%) PMO
7 1 (0.24%) Sarbanes-Oxley
7 1 (0.24%) WCAG
System Software
1 71 (17.36%) Docker
2 12 (2.93%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.96%) Postfix
4 5 (1.22%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.98%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.73%) HDFS
6 3 (0.73%) Oracle Clusterware
6 3 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.24%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 70 (17.11%) Kubernetes
2 40 (9.78%) Grafana
3 33 (8.07%) Terraform
4 20 (4.89%) Prometheus
5 15 (3.67%) Ansible
6 11 (2.69%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.98%) Data Guard
7 4 (0.98%) Kibana
7 4 (0.98%) Oracle RMAN
7 4 (0.98%) Puppet
8 3 (0.73%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.49%) HP ALM
9 2 (0.49%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (0.49%) Microsoft Intune
10 1 (0.24%) Control-M
10 1 (0.24%) SCCM
10 1 (0.24%) SCOM
10 1 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 142 (34.72%) Oracle
2 76 (18.58%) Talend
3 61 (14.91%) Microsoft
4 57 (13.94%) Informatica
5 38 (9.29%) Denodo
6 25 (6.11%) Databricks
7 24 (5.87%) ServiceNow
8 17 (4.16%) SAP
9 12 (2.93%) Atlassian
9 12 (2.93%) Jaspersoft
10 10 (2.44%) Sage
11 9 (2.20%) Fujitsu
12 8 (1.96%) Cloudera
13 7 (1.71%) Dynatrace
13 7 (1.71%) Google
13 7 (1.71%) NEC
14 6 (1.47%) Red Hat
15 5 (1.22%) Splunk
15 5 (1.22%) VMware
16 4 (0.98%) webMethods