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

6 months to
27 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 5 10 18
Rank change year-on-year +5 +8 -6
Contract jobs citing SQL 426 169 147
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 13.29% 12.30% 7.68%
As % of the Programming Languages category 61.29% 47.08% 33.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 336 114 103
10th Percentile £358 £235 £259
25th Percentile £406 £386 £311
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £461 £460 £425
Median % change year-on-year +0.27% +8.24% -15.00%
75th Percentile £512 £568 £550
90th Percentile £575 £654 £625
England median daily rate £500 £503 £550
% change year-on-year -0.50% -8.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 2 10 1
10th Percentile £52.05 £18.39 -
25th Percentile £53.25 - -
Median hourly rate £56.00 £33.91 £30.37
Median % change year-on-year +65.14% +11.66% +20.28%
75th Percentile £58.25 £50.00 -
90th Percentile £59.15 - -
England median hourly rate £47.15 £40.50 £45.00
% change year-on-year +16.42% -10.00% -9.61%

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 695 359 437
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 21.68% 26.13% 22.82%
Number of daily rates quoted 523 220 321
10th Percentile £350 £235 £260
25th Percentile £413 £400 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £461 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% +2.50% -14.29%
75th Percentile £538 £550 £550
90th Percentile £619 £664 £638
England median daily rate £513 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.38% -4.55% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 12 14
10th Percentile £48.75 £19.68 £40.15
25th Percentile £56.50 £28.18 £55.31
Median hourly rate £61.32 £33.91 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +80.82% -41.03% +96.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £77.50 - £72.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.84% -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 27 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 27 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 +5 182 £460 - 13
Birmingham -4 77 £472 -10.10% 43
Warwickshire -12 48 £500 +60.64% 17
Coventry -2 33 £416 +33.12% 7
Solihull -9 17 £478 +13.81% 2
Herefordshire +1 12 £538 -2.27% 1
Staffordshire +4 10 £450 -18.18% 6
Worcestershire +3 9 £425 -39.29% 6
Dudley - 7 £420 - 3
Brierley Hill - 3 £395 - 1
Wolverhampton - 2 - - 4
Wednesbury - 1 - - 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 63 (14.79%) SAS
2 32 (7.51%) Confluence
3 28 (6.57%) WebLogic
4 15 (3.52%) Tuxedo
5 9 (2.11%) Apache
6 7 (1.64%) Oracle Workflow
6 7 (1.64%) SharePoint
7 6 (1.41%) Oracle Self-Service HR
8 5 (1.17%) Apache Airflow
9 3 (0.70%) Apache Spark
9 3 (0.70%) Jupyter
9 3 (0.70%) Microsoft Exchange
10 2 (0.47%) Anypoint
10 2 (0.47%) Liferay
11 1 (0.23%) Apache Geronimo
11 1 (0.23%) Apache ServiceMix
11 1 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Fuse
11 1 (0.23%) Umbraco
11 1 (0.23%) WebSphere
Applications
1 12 (2.82%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.17%) Notepad++
3 3 (0.70%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.47%) Chatbot
4 2 (0.47%) Microsoft Office
4 2 (0.47%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.41%) Oracle HRMS
2 4 (0.94%) NEC Housing
3 3 (0.70%) Dynamics CRM
3 3 (0.70%) Oracle EBS
4 2 (0.47%) Oracle EBS R12
5 1 (0.23%) Aareon QL
5 1 (0.23%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.23%) OPENHousing
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.23%) Orchard Housing
5 1 (0.23%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.23%) SAP S/4HANA
5 1 (0.23%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 115 (27.00%) AWS
2 97 (22.77%) Azure
3 63 (14.79%) Power Platform
4 41 (9.62%) Azure DevOps
5 32 (7.51%) Amazon S3
6 24 (5.63%) Azure Data Factory
7 23 (5.40%) Azure Synapse Analytics
8 21 (4.93%) Amazon EC2
9 20 (4.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 17 (3.99%) Serverless
11 16 (3.76%) GitHub
11 16 (3.76%) Snowflake
12 15 (3.52%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (3.52%) AWS KMS
12 15 (3.52%) Route 53
13 14 (3.29%) GitHub Actions
14 10 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
15 8 (1.88%) GCP
15 8 (1.88%) Matillion
15 8 (1.88%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 8 (1.88%) Firewall
2 5 (1.17%) PuTTY
2 5 (1.17%) SNMP
2 5 (1.17%) WinSCP
3 3 (0.70%) DNS
3 3 (0.70%) SSL
4 2 (0.47%) DHCP
4 2 (0.47%) LAN
4 2 (0.47%) Network Security
4 2 (0.47%) TCP/IP
4 2 (0.47%) VLAN
4 2 (0.47%) VPN
4 2 (0.47%) WAN
4 2 (0.47%) Wi-Fi
5 1 (0.23%) 4G
5 1 (0.23%) AMQP
5 1 (0.23%) Internet
5 1 (0.23%) tcpdump
5 1 (0.23%) Wireshark
5 1 (0.23%) WPA2
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (15.73%) Pentaho
2 62 (14.55%) Data Warehouse
3 60 (14.08%) Power BI
4 32 (7.51%) Amazon RDS
5 30 (7.04%) PostgreSQL
6 22 (5.16%) Tableau
7 20 (4.69%) Relational Database
8 19 (4.46%) Amazon Redshift
8 19 (4.46%) DynamoDB
9 18 (4.23%) Oracle Reports
10 17 (3.99%) Oracle Database
11 16 (3.76%) Data Lake
12 15 (3.52%) Amazon Aurora
12 15 (3.52%) BusinessObjects
13 14 (3.29%) Metadata
14 13 (3.05%) SQL Server
15 12 (2.82%) Azure SQL Database
15 12 (2.82%) SQL Server Integration Services
16 11 (2.58%) Delta Lake
16 11 (2.58%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 72 (16.90%) Git
1 72 (16.90%) JIRA
2 58 (13.62%) GitLab
3 54 (12.68%) Jenkins
4 18 (4.23%) JUnit
4 18 (4.23%) Maven
4 18 (4.23%) Zephyr
5 17 (3.99%) Mockito
5 17 (3.99%) Postman
6 16 (3.76%) SonarQube
7 12 (2.82%) MSI
8 11 (2.58%) Artifactory
8 11 (2.58%) Bitbucket Server
8 11 (2.58%) DbUnit
8 11 (2.58%) jMock
9 6 (1.41%) Selenium
10 5 (1.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 4 (0.94%) CA Gen
11 4 (0.94%) MLflow
11 4 (0.94%) TestRail
General
1 98 (23.00%) Social Skills
2 77 (18.08%) Public Sector
3 67 (15.73%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (7.28%) Finance
5 10 (2.35%) Banking
6 9 (2.11%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (1.64%) Manufacturing
8 6 (1.41%) Marketing
9 5 (1.17%) Retail
10 4 (0.94%) Advertising
11 3 (0.70%) Documentation Skills
11 3 (0.70%) Influencing Skills
11 3 (0.70%) Legal
11 3 (0.70%) Organisational Skills
12 2 (0.47%) Billing
12 2 (0.47%) General Ledger
12 2 (0.47%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.23%) Automotive
13 1 (0.23%) Publishing
13 1 (0.23%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 158 (37.09%) Data Engineer
2 73 (17.14%) Developer
3 40 (9.39%) Senior
4 39 (9.15%) Analyst
5 27 (6.34%) Java Developer
6 22 (5.16%) Architect
6 22 (5.16%) Lead
7 21 (4.93%) Senior Data Engineer
8 19 (4.46%) Data Analyst
9 16 (3.76%) Tester
10 15 (3.52%) SAS Engineer
11 14 (3.29%) Full-Stack Developer
11 14 (3.29%) QA Tester
12 12 (2.82%) AWS Data Engineer
12 12 (2.82%) AWS Engineer
13 10 (2.35%) Business Intelligence Developer
13 10 (2.35%) DBA
14 9 (2.11%) Senior Developer
14 9 (2.11%) Unix Engineer
15 8 (1.88%) Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (8.22%) Spring
1 35 (8.22%) Spring Boot
2 32 (7.51%) REST
3 24 (5.63%) Node.js
4 19 (4.46%) JPA
5 18 (4.23%) SOAP
6 17 (3.99%) Hibernate
6 17 (3.99%) Spring Batch
6 17 (3.99%) Spring Integration
6 17 (3.99%) Web Services
7 16 (3.76%) AngularJS
7 16 (3.76%) Flask
8 15 (3.52%) ActiveMQ
8 15 (3.52%) PySpark
9 14 (3.29%) Spring Cloud
10 13 (3.05%) RESTful
11 12 (2.82%) .NET
11 12 (2.82%) Django
11 12 (2.82%) YAML
12 11 (2.58%) Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 15 (3.52%) Cloud Native
2 14 (3.29%) Distributed Systems
3 9 (2.11%) SCADA
4 7 (1.64%) Product Ownership
5 6 (1.41%) Linux Command Line
6 4 (0.94%) Clustering
6 4 (0.94%) Data Centre
6 4 (0.94%) Enterprise Software
6 4 (0.94%) Robotics
6 4 (0.94%) Self-Motivation
7 3 (0.70%) Credit Risk
7 3 (0.70%) Data Fabric
7 3 (0.70%) Data Structures
7 3 (0.70%) Educational Technology
7 3 (0.70%) IoT
7 3 (0.70%) Legacy Systems
7 3 (0.70%) Onboarding
8 2 (0.47%) Analytical Mindset
8 2 (0.47%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (0.47%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 68 (15.96%) Unix
2 44 (10.33%) Linux
3 27 (6.34%) Windows
4 5 (1.17%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (1.17%) Windows Server
5 1 (0.23%) AIX
5 1 (0.23%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 155 (36.38%) ETL
2 143 (33.57%) Agile
3 133 (31.22%) CI/CD
4 115 (27.00%) Data Modelling
5 100 (23.47%) Business Intelligence
6 97 (22.77%) DevOps
7 95 (22.30%) Analytics
8 88 (20.66%) Data Pipeline
9 87 (20.42%) Test Automation
10 80 (18.78%) Problem-Solving
11 76 (17.84%) Scrum
12 75 (17.61%) Data Integration
13 62 (14.55%) Migration
14 54 (12.68%) Data Engineering
15 53 (12.44%) Continuous Improvement
16 51 (11.97%) Validation
17 49 (11.50%) Decision-Making
18 38 (8.92%) Microservices
19 35 (8.22%) AI
19 35 (8.22%) Data Analytics
Programming Languages
1 75 (17.61%) Python
2 62 (14.55%) Java
3 60 (14.08%) PL/SQL
4 27 (6.34%) Shell Script
5 19 (4.46%) JavaScript
6 13 (3.05%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 12 (2.82%) Bash
8 8 (1.88%) C#
9 7 (1.64%) Bicep
10 6 (1.41%) Go
11 5 (1.17%) Perl
11 5 (1.17%) PowerShell
11 5 (1.17%) R
12 4 (0.94%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.94%) VB
13 3 (0.70%) HiveQL
14 2 (0.47%) Scala
14 2 (0.47%) T-SQL
14 2 (0.47%) VB6
15 1 (0.23%) VBScript
Qualifications
1 229 (53.76%) Security Cleared
2 208 (48.83%) SC Cleared
3 23 (5.40%) ISTQB
4 16 (3.76%) Degree
5 11 (2.58%) BPSS Clearance
6 9 (2.11%) DV Cleared
7 7 (1.64%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.41%) Azure Certification
9 5 (1.17%) Master's Degree
10 4 (0.94%) PhD
11 3 (0.70%) AWS Certification
11 3 (0.70%) Computer Science Degree
11 3 (0.70%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
12 2 (0.47%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
12 2 (0.47%) TOGAF Certification
13 1 (0.23%) ACCA
13 1 (0.23%) CIMA
13 1 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
13 1 (0.23%) ITIL Certification
13 1 (0.23%) MCSE
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 65 (15.26%) Data Quality
2 41 (9.62%) QA
3 10 (2.35%) SLA
4 7 (1.64%) FATCA
5 6 (1.41%) GDPR
6 4 (0.94%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.47%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.47%) GRC
8 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.23%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
8 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 63 (14.79%) Docker
2 10 (2.35%) Active Directory
3 9 (2.11%) Postfix
4 6 (1.41%) Oracle RAC
5 4 (0.94%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.70%) HDFS
6 3 (0.70%) Oracle Clusterware
6 3 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 55 (12.91%) Kubernetes
2 38 (8.92%) Grafana
3 30 (7.04%) Terraform
4 15 (3.52%) Prometheus
5 10 (2.35%) Ansible
6 6 (1.41%) Progress Chef
7 5 (1.17%) Data Guard
7 5 (1.17%) Oracle RMAN
7 5 (1.17%) WMI
8 2 (0.47%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (0.47%) HP ALM
8 2 (0.47%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (0.47%) Kibana
9 1 (0.23%) Control-M
9 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Intune
9 1 (0.23%) Puppet
9 1 (0.23%) SCOM
Vendors
1 158 (37.09%) Oracle
2 90 (21.13%) Talend
3 71 (16.67%) Informatica
4 65 (15.26%) Microsoft
5 48 (11.27%) Denodo
6 25 (5.87%) Databricks
6 25 (5.87%) ServiceNow
7 16 (3.76%) SAP
8 15 (3.52%) Jaspersoft
9 14 (3.29%) Atlassian
10 10 (2.35%) Cloudera
10 10 (2.35%) Sage
11 9 (2.11%) Fujitsu
11 9 (2.11%) Google
12 8 (1.88%) Splunk
13 7 (1.64%) Cisco
13 7 (1.64%) Dynatrace
13 7 (1.64%) NEC
14 6 (1.41%) Fortinet
15 5 (1.17%) SolarWinds