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 15 November 2025, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
15 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 16 16 19
Rank change year-on-year 0 +3 -16
Contract jobs citing SQL 219 161 152
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 10.34% 8.50% 7.80%
As % of the Programming Languages category 40.63% 37.88% 35.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 140 101 112
10th Percentile £361 £331 £275
25th Percentile £429 £406 £397
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +8.42% +5.56% -15.09%
75th Percentile £552 £567 £575
90th Percentile £650 £625 £700
England median daily rate £500 £525 £541
% change year-on-year -4.76% -3.00% -1.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 15 3 0
10th Percentile £34.75 £34.14 -
25th Percentile - £34.47 -
Median hourly rate £50.00 £35.00 -
Median % change year-on-year +42.86% - -
75th Percentile - £47.50 -
90th Percentile - £55.00 -
England median hourly rate £50.00 £40.00 £45.00
% change year-on-year +25.00% -11.11% -5.76%

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 539 425 434
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 25.46% 22.44% 22.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 355 254 312
10th Percentile £363 £347 £286
25th Percentile £449 £409 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £505 £495 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.02% +10.00% -14.29%
75th Percentile £573 £575 £600
90th Percentile £633 £662 £700
England median daily rate £513 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -4.74% -2.18% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 16 7 9
10th Percentile £33.91 £18.94 £17.43
25th Percentile £46.50 £23.25 £17.50
Median hourly rate £50.00 £33.93 £18.50
Median % change year-on-year +47.36% +83.41% -58.89%
75th Percentile - £47.50 £19.25
90th Percentile - £66.00 £25.80
England median hourly rate £63.14 £65.00 £60.50
% change year-on-year -2.87% +7.44% -3.20%

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 15 November 2025.

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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 15 November 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SQL in the West Midlands

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 15 November 2025. 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 0 77 £519 -1.38% 26
Birmingham -7 53 £500 +5.26% 88
Warwickshire +10 48 £500 - 47
Herefordshire +2 12 £650 +18.18% 16
Solihull +3 8 £588 +41.57% 7
Coventry -22 8 £275 -42.11% 16
Worcestershire -10 7 £650 +57.58% 19
Staffordshire -12 2 £300 -29.41% 38
Walsall - 1 - - 6
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 30 (13.70%) SAS
2 27 (12.33%) WebLogic
3 24 (10.96%) Apache
4 18 (8.22%) Confluence
5 12 (5.48%) nginx
6 8 (3.65%) JBoss
7 6 (2.74%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 6 (2.74%) Oracle Workflow
8 5 (2.28%) Apache Spark
9 4 (1.83%) Apache Airflow
10 3 (1.37%) Apache Pig
11 2 (0.91%) FileNet
11 2 (0.91%) SharePoint
12 1 (0.46%) CMS
12 1 (0.46%) Drupal
12 1 (0.46%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 15 (6.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (6.39%) Maya
3 12 (5.48%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 9 (4.11%) Microsoft Office
4 9 (4.11%) NUKE
5 5 (2.28%) Adobe Captivate
6 3 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
7 2 (0.91%) Microsoft Project
7 2 (0.91%) MS Visio
8 1 (0.46%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 4 (1.83%) Oracle HRMS
2 3 (1.37%) Dynamics CRM
2 3 (1.37%) Oracle EBS R12
3 2 (0.91%) Oracle EBS
3 2 (0.91%) Primavera
3 2 (0.91%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle Assets
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle General Ledger
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle iProcurement
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle Payables
4 1 (0.46%) Oracle Receivables
4 1 (0.46%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.46%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.46%) SAP GRC
4 1 (0.46%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 76 (34.70%) Azure
2 69 (31.51%) AWS
3 30 (13.70%) Power Platform
4 29 (13.24%) Amazon S3
4 29 (13.24%) Serverless
5 24 (10.96%) Amazon EC2
6 20 (9.13%) AWS KMS
7 19 (8.68%) Route 53
8 18 (8.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 17 (7.76%) Azure DevOps
9 17 (7.76%) GCP
10 15 (6.85%) Azure Monitor
10 15 (6.85%) Microsoft 365
11 14 (6.39%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 12 (5.48%) Amazon ECS
12 12 (5.48%) Amazon ELB
12 12 (5.48%) GitHub
13 11 (5.02%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (5.02%) GitHub Actions
14 8 (3.65%) Azure Key Vault
Communications & Networking
1 13 (5.94%) DNS
2 12 (5.48%) IMAP
2 12 (5.48%) OpenLDAP
2 12 (5.48%) SMTP
2 12 (5.48%) SSH
3 11 (5.02%) Firewall
4 10 (4.57%) FTP
4 10 (4.57%) HTTP
5 2 (0.91%) DHCP
5 2 (0.91%) TCP/IP
6 1 (0.46%) Internet
6 1 (0.46%) iSCSI
6 1 (0.46%) LAN
6 1 (0.46%) Network Security
6 1 (0.46%) SSL
6 1 (0.46%) VLAN
6 1 (0.46%) VSAN
6 1 (0.46%) WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (19.18%) PostgreSQL
2 34 (15.53%) Pentaho
3 28 (12.79%) Amazon RDS
4 22 (10.05%) Power BI
5 18 (8.22%) Amazon Aurora
6 16 (7.31%) Relational Database
7 14 (6.39%) Data Warehouse
8 13 (5.94%) MongoDB
9 12 (5.48%) MySQL
9 12 (5.48%) Oracle Database
10 10 (4.57%) NoSQL
11 9 (4.11%) Hadoop
11 9 (4.11%) SQL Server
12 8 (3.65%) Redis
13 6 (2.74%) DynamoDB
13 6 (2.74%) SAS Enterprise Guide
14 5 (2.28%) Data Mining
15 4 (1.83%) Apache Hive
15 4 (1.83%) Big Data
15 4 (1.83%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 74 (33.79%) Git
2 59 (26.94%) Jenkins
3 51 (23.29%) JIRA
4 14 (6.39%) JUnit
5 12 (5.48%) Vagrant
6 9 (4.11%) SonarQube
7 8 (3.65%) Eclipse
7 8 (3.65%) IntelliJ
7 8 (3.65%) Selenium
8 7 (3.20%) GitLab
9 6 (2.74%) Maven
10 4 (1.83%) Bitbucket Server
10 4 (1.83%) DbUnit
10 4 (1.83%) jMock
10 4 (1.83%) Liquibase
10 4 (1.83%) Mockito
10 4 (1.83%) Toad
11 3 (1.37%) MLflow
12 2 (0.91%) Gatling
12 2 (0.91%) Sonatype Nexus
General
1 86 (39.27%) Social Skills
2 45 (20.55%) Analytical Skills
3 35 (15.98%) Public Sector
4 18 (8.22%) Finance
4 18 (8.22%) Presentation Skills
5 14 (6.39%) Automotive
5 14 (6.39%) Games
6 8 (3.65%) Influencing Skills
7 7 (3.20%) Banking
7 7 (3.20%) Manufacturing
8 5 (2.28%) Aerospace
8 5 (2.28%) Legal
8 5 (2.28%) Marketing
8 5 (2.28%) Organisational Skills
9 4 (1.83%) Financial Institution
10 3 (1.37%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 2 (0.91%) Documentation Skills
11 2 (0.91%) Electronics
11 2 (0.91%) Telecoms
12 1 (0.46%) Retail
Job Titles
1 40 (18.26%) Developer
2 33 (15.07%) Data Engineer
3 23 (10.50%) Senior
4 19 (8.68%) Platform Engineer
5 17 (7.76%) Analyst
5 17 (7.76%) DevOps Engineer
6 15 (6.85%) AWS Engineer
7 14 (6.39%) Lead
8 13 (5.94%) AWS DevOps
8 13 (5.94%) AWS DevOps Engineer
8 13 (5.94%) Cloud Platform Engineer
9 12 (5.48%) AWS Platform Engineer
10 10 (4.57%) DevOps Platform Engineer
10 10 (4.57%) Software Engineer
11 9 (4.11%) Java Developer
11 9 (4.11%) Python Developer
12 8 (3.65%) Backend Developer
12 8 (3.65%) Consultant
12 8 (3.65%) Data Scientist
12 8 (3.65%) Monitoring Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 34 (15.53%) REST
2 26 (11.87%) HTML
3 24 (10.96%) Spring
4 18 (8.22%) RESTful
5 17 (7.76%) SOAP
6 16 (7.31%) XML
7 15 (6.85%) CSS
7 15 (6.85%) Django
8 14 (6.39%) Hibernate
8 14 (6.39%) Spring Boot
9 13 (5.94%) Flask
10 12 (5.48%) LDAP
11 11 (5.02%) FastAPI
12 10 (4.57%) JSON
13 9 (4.11%) Web Services
14 8 (3.65%) .NET
14 8 (3.65%) EJB
14 8 (3.65%) J2EE
14 8 (3.65%) J2SE
14 8 (3.65%) Play Framework
Miscellaneous
1 23 (10.50%) Cloud Native
2 14 (6.39%) Animation
3 11 (5.02%) Replication
4 9 (4.11%) Distributed Systems
5 6 (2.74%) Algorithms
5 6 (2.74%) IoT
5 6 (2.74%) Product Ownership
6 5 (2.28%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.28%) Onboarding
6 5 (2.28%) Virtual Reality
7 4 (1.83%) Data Structures
7 4 (1.83%) Public Cloud
8 3 (1.37%) Data Centre
8 3 (1.37%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (0.91%) Analytical Mindset
9 2 (0.91%) Derivative
9 2 (0.91%) Mainframe
9 2 (0.91%) Renewable Energy
10 1 (0.46%) Management Information System
10 1 (0.46%) PKI
Operating Systems
1 53 (24.20%) Linux
2 37 (16.89%) Windows
3 27 (12.33%) Unix
4 13 (5.94%) VMS
5 12 (5.48%) Amazon Linux
6 11 (5.02%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.46%) SUSE
8 1 (0.46%) VME
8 1 (0.46%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.46%) Windows Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (41.55%) CI/CD
1 91 (41.55%) DevOps
2 76 (34.70%) Agile
2 76 (34.70%) Problem-Solving
3 73 (33.33%) Business Intelligence
4 64 (29.22%) Analytics
5 61 (27.85%) ETL
6 59 (26.94%) Continuous Improvement
7 49 (22.37%) Scrum
8 46 (21.00%) Data Modelling
9 45 (20.55%) Data Pipeline
10 37 (16.89%) Visualisation
11 36 (16.44%) Test Automation
12 35 (15.98%) Deployment Automation
13 33 (15.07%) Data Integration
14 31 (14.16%) Microservices
15 30 (13.70%) Data Analytics
16 29 (13.24%) Data Virtualisation
17 26 (11.87%) Containerisation
17 26 (11.87%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 71 (32.42%) Python
2 60 (27.40%) Java
3 17 (7.76%) PowerShell
3 17 (7.76%) Scala
4 15 (6.85%) C++
5 14 (6.39%) Groovy
6 13 (5.94%) Go
7 12 (5.48%) PL/SQL
8 9 (4.11%) Tcl
9 7 (3.20%) JavaScript
9 7 (3.20%) Shell Script
9 7 (3.20%) VBA
10 5 (2.28%) C#
11 4 (1.83%) Bash
11 4 (1.83%) Data Analysis Expressions
12 3 (1.37%) R
13 2 (0.91%) COBOL
13 2 (0.91%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.91%) TypeScript
14 1 (0.46%) C
Qualifications
1 86 (39.27%) Security Cleared
2 82 (37.44%) SC Cleared
3 31 (14.16%) Degree
4 18 (8.22%) AWS Certification
5 14 (6.39%) DV Cleared
6 12 (5.48%) Azure Certification
7 10 (4.57%) Computer Science Degree
8 6 (2.74%) Master's Degree
9 4 (1.83%) BPSS Clearance
10 3 (1.37%) ISTQB
10 3 (1.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 2 (0.91%) AWS Certified Developer
11 2 (0.91%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
11 2 (0.91%) ISEB
11 2 (0.91%) OCP
11 2 (0.91%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.46%) AWS Certified SysOps Administrator
12 1 (0.46%) IIBA
12 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Certification
12 1 (0.46%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (16.89%) Data Quality
2 6 (2.74%) Accessibility
3 5 (2.28%) SLA
4 3 (1.37%) QA
5 1 (0.46%) GDPR
5 1 (0.46%) PMO
5 1 (0.46%) WCAG
System Software
1 79 (36.07%) Docker
2 16 (7.31%) Postfix
3 12 (5.48%) Dovecot
3 12 (5.48%) Squid
4 10 (4.57%) DFS Replication
5 4 (1.83%) Active Directory
6 2 (0.91%) Oracle RAC
7 1 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.46%) VMware NSX
Systems Management
1 56 (25.57%) Kubernetes
2 33 (15.07%) Grafana
3 31 (14.16%) Prometheus
4 24 (10.96%) Terraform
5 12 (5.48%) Nessus
6 10 (4.57%) Proxmox
7 9 (4.11%) Ansible
8 8 (3.65%) Puppet
9 3 (1.37%) Oracle RMAN
9 3 (1.37%) Progress Chef
10 2 (0.91%) Argo
10 2 (0.91%) Data Guard
10 2 (0.91%) Istio
10 2 (0.91%) Kibana
10 2 (0.91%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 1 (0.46%) Active Directory Federation Services
11 1 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
11 1 (0.46%) PowerCLI
11 1 (0.46%) SCCM
11 1 (0.46%) WSUS
Vendors
1 76 (34.70%) Oracle
2 43 (19.63%) Microsoft
3 35 (15.98%) Talend
4 29 (13.24%) Denodo
5 24 (10.96%) Splunk
6 17 (7.76%) Dynatrace
6 17 (7.76%) ServiceNow
7 16 (7.31%) Jaspersoft
8 15 (6.85%) AppDynamics
9 13 (5.94%) Cisco
9 13 (5.94%) SAP
10 11 (5.02%) Databricks
10 11 (5.02%) Google
10 11 (5.02%) webMethods
11 8 (3.65%) Adobe
12 5 (2.28%) Atlassian
12 5 (2.28%) Autodesk
12 5 (2.28%) Informatica
13 4 (1.83%) IBM
14 3 (1.37%) Ariba