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 29 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 7 10 23
Rank change year-on-year +3 +13 -10
Contract jobs citing SQL 439 193 124
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 12.83% 11.73% 6.55%
As % of the Programming Languages category 56.79% 47.89% 32.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 335 126 89
10th Percentile £357 £235 £268
25th Percentile £406 £382 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £450 £425
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% +5.88% -15.00%
75th Percentile £500 £524 £575
90th Percentile £575 £622 £629
England median daily rate £500 £500 £538
% change year-on-year - -6.98% -0.46%
Number of hourly rates quoted 5 19 2
10th Percentile - £30.88 £30.73
25th Percentile £21.25 £33.91 £31.26
Median hourly rate £21.50 £50.00 £32.15
Median % change year-on-year -57.00% +55.52% +27.33%
75th Percentile £53.75 - £33.04
90th Percentile £57.35 - £33.57
England median hourly rate £45.90 £37.50 £42.00
% change year-on-year +22.40% -10.71% -8.58%

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 773 403 387
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.60% 24.48% 20.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 565 251 273
10th Percentile £360 £235 £310
25th Percentile £413 £381 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £453 £470
Median % change year-on-year +2.65% -3.62% -6.00%
75th Percentile £538 £524 £575
90th Percentile £638 £613 £638
England median daily rate £524 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.85% -6.45% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 22 11
10th Percentile £21.25 £28.18 £33.93
25th Percentile £29.38 £33.91 £40.25
Median hourly rate £58.00 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +16.00% -11.11% +128.43%
75th Percentile £67.84 - £58.75
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +4.00%

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 29 July 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
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SQL in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 29 July 2026.

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 29 July 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 +2 193 £459 -0.76% 12
Birmingham -1 66 £475 - 41
Warwickshire -12 56 £500 +17.65% 20
Coventry +2 45 £407 +30.24% 6
Solihull -16 16 £528 +25.71% 4
Worcestershire +6 10 £425 -39.29% 6
Staffordshire +1 9 £431 - 10
Dudley - 8 £410 - 3
Herefordshire -4 4 £700 +75.00% 6
Wolverhampton - 3 - - 3
Brierley Hill - 3 £395 -
Wednesbury - 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 59 (13.44%) SAS
2 32 (7.29%) Confluence
3 22 (5.01%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.96%) Tuxedo
5 7 (1.59%) Oracle Workflow
6 6 (1.37%) Apache
6 6 (1.37%) Oracle Self-Service HR
7 4 (0.91%) Apache Spark
8 3 (0.68%) Jupyter
8 3 (0.68%) Microsoft Exchange
8 3 (0.68%) SharePoint
9 2 (0.46%) Apache Airflow
10 1 (0.23%) IIS
10 1 (0.23%) Oracle SOA Suite
Applications
1 12 (2.73%) Microsoft Excel
2 5 (1.14%) Notepad++
3 3 (0.68%) MS Visio
4 2 (0.46%) Chatbot
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft Office
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 14 (3.19%) Dynamics CRM
2 6 (1.37%) Oracle HRMS
3 3 (0.68%) NEC Housing
4 2 (0.46%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 1 (0.23%) Aladdin
5 1 (0.23%) MIS ActiveH
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle EBS
5 1 (0.23%) Oracle ERP
5 1 (0.23%) SAP EWM
5 1 (0.23%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 121 (27.56%) AWS
2 108 (24.60%) Azure
3 67 (15.26%) Power Platform
4 41 (9.34%) Azure DevOps
5 38 (8.66%) Azure Data Factory
6 29 (6.61%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 26 (5.92%) Amazon S3
8 21 (4.78%) Serverless
9 20 (4.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 19 (4.33%) Amazon EC2
10 19 (4.33%) GitHub
11 18 (4.10%) Snowflake
12 15 (3.42%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (3.42%) AWS KMS
12 15 (3.42%) Route 53
13 13 (2.96%) GitHub Actions
14 12 (2.73%) Matillion
14 12 (2.73%) Microsoft Purview
15 11 (2.51%) GCP
16 9 (2.05%) AWS Lambda
Communications & Networking
1 9 (2.05%) Firewall
2 7 (1.59%) SNMP
3 5 (1.14%) PuTTY
3 5 (1.14%) WinSCP
4 3 (0.68%) DNS
4 3 (0.68%) SSL
5 2 (0.46%) DHCP
5 2 (0.46%) LAN
5 2 (0.46%) TCP/IP
5 2 (0.46%) VLAN
5 2 (0.46%) VPN
5 2 (0.46%) WAN
5 2 (0.46%) Wi-Fi
6 1 (0.23%) 4G
6 1 (0.23%) Internet
6 1 (0.23%) MPLS
6 1 (0.23%) Network Security
6 1 (0.23%) tcpdump
6 1 (0.23%) Wireshark
6 1 (0.23%) WPA2
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (18.00%) Data Warehouse
2 75 (17.08%) Pentaho
3 65 (14.81%) Power BI
4 34 (7.74%) PostgreSQL
5 25 (5.69%) Amazon RDS
6 23 (5.24%) Oracle Database
7 22 (5.01%) SQL Server
8 21 (4.78%) Oracle Reports
9 20 (4.56%) Relational Database
10 19 (4.33%) Azure SQL Database
10 19 (4.33%) DynamoDB
10 19 (4.33%) SQL Server Integration Services
10 19 (4.33%) Tableau
11 18 (4.10%) Data Lake
12 17 (3.87%) Amazon Redshift
13 16 (3.64%) MySQL
14 15 (3.42%) Amazon Aurora
14 15 (3.42%) BusinessObjects
14 15 (3.42%) Metadata
15 14 (3.19%) Delta Lake
Development Applications
1 93 (21.18%) Git
2 74 (16.86%) JIRA
3 61 (13.90%) GitLab
4 51 (11.62%) Jenkins
5 25 (5.69%) Maven
6 22 (5.01%) Postman
6 22 (5.01%) Zephyr
7 19 (4.33%) JUnit
8 17 (3.87%) Mockito
9 16 (3.64%) SonarQube
10 11 (2.51%) Artifactory
10 11 (2.51%) Bitbucket Server
10 11 (2.51%) DbUnit
10 11 (2.51%) jMock
11 7 (1.59%) Selenium
12 6 (1.37%) Oracle Forms
12 6 (1.37%) Team Foundation Server
13 5 (1.14%) MLflow
14 4 (0.91%) MSI
14 4 (0.91%) TestRail
General
1 101 (23.01%) Social Skills
2 85 (19.36%) Public Sector
3 69 (15.72%) Analytical Skills
4 40 (9.11%) Finance
5 10 (2.28%) Banking
5 10 (2.28%) Manufacturing
6 7 (1.59%) Marketing
6 7 (1.59%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (1.14%) Documentation Skills
8 4 (0.91%) Advertising
8 4 (0.91%) Retail
9 3 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 3 (0.68%) Influencing Skills
9 3 (0.68%) Military
9 3 (0.68%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.46%) Billing
10 2 (0.46%) Front Office
10 2 (0.46%) Legal
11 1 (0.23%) Local Government
11 1 (0.23%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 185 (42.14%) Data Engineer
2 71 (16.17%) Developer
3 56 (12.76%) Senior
4 36 (8.20%) Analyst
5 31 (7.06%) Senior Data Engineer
6 29 (6.61%) Java Developer
7 20 (4.56%) Lead
7 20 (4.56%) Tester
8 17 (3.87%) QA Tester
9 13 (2.96%) Architect
9 13 (2.96%) AWS Data Engineer
9 13 (2.96%) AWS Engineer
9 13 (2.96%) Data Analyst
10 12 (2.73%) Azure Engineer
11 11 (2.51%) Full-Stack Developer
11 11 (2.51%) Software Engineer
12 10 (2.28%) Business Intelligence Developer
12 10 (2.28%) SAS Engineer
12 10 (2.28%) SQL Developer
12 10 (2.28%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (7.29%) Spring Boot
2 31 (7.06%) Spring
3 27 (6.15%) REST
4 23 (5.24%) Node.js
5 19 (4.33%) JPA
5 19 (4.33%) PySpark
6 18 (4.10%) SOAP
7 17 (3.87%) Hibernate
7 17 (3.87%) Spring Batch
7 17 (3.87%) Spring Integration
7 17 (3.87%) Web Services
8 15 (3.42%) ActiveMQ
8 15 (3.42%) AngularJS
9 14 (3.19%) Flask
9 14 (3.19%) Spring Cloud
10 11 (2.51%) Bootstrap
10 11 (2.51%) Django
10 11 (2.51%) PowerMock
10 11 (2.51%) RESTful
10 11 (2.51%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 18 (4.10%) Cloud Native
2 16 (3.64%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (2.73%) Linux Command Line
4 11 (2.51%) Legacy Systems
5 10 (2.28%) SCADA
6 6 (1.37%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (1.37%) Low-Code
7 4 (0.91%) Clustering
7 4 (0.91%) Data Centre
7 4 (0.91%) IoT
7 4 (0.91%) Product Ownership
7 4 (0.91%) Robotics
7 4 (0.91%) Self-Motivation
8 3 (0.68%) Data Fabric
8 3 (0.68%) Data Structures
8 3 (0.68%) Educational Technology
8 3 (0.68%) Onboarding
9 2 (0.46%) BYOD
9 2 (0.46%) Legacy Applications
9 2 (0.46%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 55 (12.53%) Unix
2 47 (10.71%) Linux
3 24 (5.47%) Windows
4 7 (1.59%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) AIX
6 1 (0.23%) HPUX
6 1 (0.23%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 182 (41.46%) ETL
2 158 (35.99%) Agile
3 136 (30.98%) Data Modelling
4 124 (28.25%) CI/CD
5 107 (24.37%) Data Pipeline
6 104 (23.69%) Business Intelligence
7 103 (23.46%) Analytics
8 102 (23.23%) Test Automation
9 90 (20.50%) DevOps
10 89 (20.27%) Problem-Solving
11 82 (18.68%) Data Integration
12 72 (16.40%) Scrum
13 71 (16.17%) Migration
14 65 (14.81%) Data Engineering
15 62 (14.12%) Validation
16 59 (13.44%) Continuous Improvement
17 52 (11.85%) Decision-Making
18 42 (9.57%) Data Migration
19 41 (9.34%) AI
20 34 (7.74%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 89 (20.27%) Python
2 65 (14.81%) Java
3 63 (14.35%) PL/SQL
4 26 (5.92%) Shell Script
5 14 (3.19%) JavaScript
6 13 (2.96%) C
7 12 (2.73%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 11 (2.51%) Bash
9 9 (2.05%) T-SQL
10 8 (1.82%) ProC
10 8 (1.82%) VB
11 7 (1.59%) VB6
12 5 (1.14%) Bicep
12 5 (1.14%) C#
13 4 (0.91%) Go
13 4 (0.91%) Perl
13 4 (0.91%) TypeScript
14 3 (0.68%) HiveQL
14 3 (0.68%) PowerShell
15 2 (0.46%) R
Qualifications
1 233 (53.08%) Security Cleared
2 209 (47.61%) SC Cleared
3 30 (6.83%) ISTQB
4 19 (4.33%) BPSS Clearance
5 12 (2.73%) Degree
6 6 (1.37%) DV Cleared
6 6 (1.37%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 5 (1.14%) Azure Certification
8 4 (0.91%) AWS Certification
8 4 (0.91%) ISEB
8 4 (0.91%) Master's Degree
8 4 (0.91%) Microsoft Certification
8 4 (0.91%) PhD
9 1 (0.23%) Cisco Certification
9 1 (0.23%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.23%) ITIL Certification
9 1 (0.23%) MCSE
9 1 (0.23%) OCP
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle Certification
9 1 (0.23%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 67 (15.26%) Data Quality
2 48 (10.93%) QA
3 10 (2.28%) SLA
4 7 (1.59%) FATCA
5 6 (1.37%) GDPR
6 5 (1.14%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 2 (0.46%) Accessibility
7 2 (0.46%) GRC
8 1 (0.23%) Actionable Recommendations
8 1 (0.23%) Government Security Classifications
8 1 (0.23%) ISO 22301
8 1 (0.23%) WCAG
System Software
1 52 (11.85%) Docker
2 9 (2.05%) Active Directory
2 9 (2.05%) Postfix
3 5 (1.14%) VMware Infrastructure
4 3 (0.68%) HDFS
4 3 (0.68%) Oracle RAC
4 3 (0.68%) Virtual Machines
5 1 (0.23%) Hyper-V
5 1 (0.23%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 45 (10.25%) Kubernetes
2 31 (7.06%) Grafana
3 22 (5.01%) Terraform
4 8 (1.82%) Prometheus
5 7 (1.59%) WMI
6 4 (0.91%) Ansible
7 2 (0.46%) Data Guard
7 2 (0.46%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (0.46%) Kibana
7 2 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 2 (0.46%) Oracle RMAN
8 1 (0.23%) Control-M
8 1 (0.23%) HP ALM
8 1 (0.23%) SCCM
8 1 (0.23%) SCOM
Vendors
1 182 (41.46%) Oracle
2 96 (21.87%) Talend
3 71 (16.17%) Informatica
4 68 (15.49%) Microsoft
5 51 (11.62%) Denodo
6 40 (9.11%) Databricks
7 29 (6.61%) ServiceNow
8 18 (4.10%) SAP
9 15 (3.42%) Jaspersoft
10 14 (3.19%) Atlassian
11 11 (2.51%) Cloudera
11 11 (2.51%) Sage
12 9 (2.05%) Cisco
12 9 (2.05%) Splunk
13 8 (1.82%) Fortinet
13 8 (1.82%) Google
14 7 (1.59%) F5
14 7 (1.59%) Palo Alto
14 7 (1.59%) SolarWinds
15 6 (1.37%) Actian