SQL Job Trends in the UK excluding London

SQL (Structured Query Language)
UK > UK excluding London

The table below provides summary statistics and salary benchmarking for jobs advertised in the UK excluding London requiring SQL skills. It covers permanent job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 12 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 17 11 11
Rank change year-on-year -6 0 -4
Permanent jobs citing SQL 4,028 3,157 7,931
As % of all permanent jobs in the UK excluding London 6.15% 10.98% 11.53%
As % of the Programming Languages category 40.63% 37.90% 36.31%
Number of salaries quoted 2,369 2,269 5,679
10th Percentile £32,500 £30,750 £31,250
25th Percentile £40,000 £38,500 £38,500
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £52,500 £52,500 £50,000
Median % change year-on-year - +5.00% -4.76%
75th Percentile £67,500 £67,500 £63,750
90th Percentile £82,500 £81,250 £76,250
UK median annual salary £57,500 £60,000 £55,000
% change year-on-year -4.17% +9.09% -7.08%

All Programming Languages
UK excluding London

SQL falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all permanent job vacancies requiring coding skills in the UK excluding London.

Permanent vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 9,915 8,329 21,844
As % of all permanent jobs advertised in the UK excluding London 15.15% 28.98% 31.77%
Number of salaries quoted 6,764 5,702 16,375
10th Percentile £33,750 £32,500 £32,500
25th Percentile £45,000 £42,500 £41,250
Median annual salary (50th Percentile) £57,500 £55,000 £54,000
Median % change year-on-year +4.55% +1.85% -1.82%
75th Percentile £71,250 £71,500 £67,500
90th Percentile £85,000 £85,000 £80,000
UK median annual salary £65,000 £65,000 £60,000
% change year-on-year - +8.33% -7.69%

SQL
Job Vacancy Trend in the UK excluding London

Historical trend showing the proportion of permanent IT job postings citing SQL relative to all permanent IT jobs advertised in the UK excluding London.

SQL job vacancy trend in the UK excluding London

SQL
Salary Trend in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SQL.

Salary distribution trend for jobs in the UK excluding London citing SQL

SQL
Salary Histogram in the UK excluding London

Salary distribution for jobs citing SQL in the UK excluding London over the 6 months to 12 May 2026.

Salary histogram for SQL in the UK excluding London

SQL
Job Locations in the UK excluding London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median salaries quoted in IT jobs citing SQL within the UK excluding London region over the 6 months to 12 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
Permanent
IT Job Ads
Median Salary
Past 6 Months
Median Salary
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
North of England -1 1,150 £50,000 - 356
South East +1 953 £55,000 +0.34% 505
Midlands -20 808 £50,000 -4.76% 232
North West -1 533 £52,500 +5.00% 204
Yorkshire 0 500 £50,000 - 98
West Midlands -17 460 £52,500 - 126
South West -4 410 £50,000 - 129
East Midlands -5 346 £45,000 -7.22% 106
East of England -12 334 £53,356 -19.40% 112
Scotland -4 253 £50,000 +4.17% 57
North East -6 117 £52,130 +1.72% 58
Wales -1 103 £43,250 -33.46% 43
Northern Ireland -18 38 £40,000 -23.81% 11
Isle of Man +3 2 £35,000 -7.89% 1
Channel Islands -1 1 £90,000 +2.86%
SQL
UK

SQL
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the UK excluding London 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 96 (2.38%) SharePoint
2 77 (1.91%) Apache Airflow
3 48 (1.19%) Apache Spark
4 47 (1.17%) Microsoft Exchange
5 45 (1.12%) IIS
6 42 (1.04%) Confluence
7 41 (1.02%) Apache
8 18 (0.45%) SAS
9 13 (0.32%) Oracle SOA Suite
10 9 (0.22%) ArcGIS
11 6 (0.15%) CMS
11 6 (0.15%) WebSphere
11 6 (0.15%) WordPress
12 5 (0.12%) CICS
12 5 (0.12%) JBoss
13 4 (0.099%) Jupyter
13 4 (0.099%) OpenEdge
14 3 (0.074%) WebSphere Application Server
15 2 (0.050%) Adobe Experience Manager
15 2 (0.050%) Tomcat
Applications
1 1,461 (36.27%) Microsoft Excel
2 64 (1.59%) Microsoft Office
3 27 (0.67%) Spreadsheet
4 25 (0.62%) MS Visio
5 20 (0.50%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 7 (0.17%) Oracle Smart View
7 3 (0.074%) Photoshop
8 2 (0.050%) Chatbot
8 2 (0.050%) Microsoft Project
9 1 (0.025%) SOLIDWORKS
Business Applications
1 24 (0.60%) Dynamics NAV
1 24 (0.60%) Oracle ERP
2 23 (0.57%) Dynamics CRM
3 17 (0.42%) Magento
4 16 (0.40%) Oracle Payables
5 15 (0.37%) Oracle Financials
5 15 (0.37%) Oracle Receivables
5 15 (0.37%) Shopify
6 14 (0.35%) Oracle Assets
6 14 (0.35%) Oracle General Ledger
7 11 (0.27%) Unit4 Business World
8 10 (0.25%) NetSuite
8 10 (0.25%) Oracle EBS
8 10 (0.25%) Sage 200
9 9 (0.22%) SAP CO
10 8 (0.20%) SAP Business One
11 7 (0.17%) Hyperion Planning
11 7 (0.17%) IBM Planning Analytics
12 6 (0.15%) Infor M3
12 6 (0.15%) NEC Housing
Cloud Services
1 2,238 (55.56%) Azure
2 1,718 (42.65%) Power Platform
3 1,208 (29.99%) Azure AI
4 509 (12.64%) AWS
5 227 (5.64%) Azure DevOps
6 165 (4.10%) GitHub
7 162 (4.02%) SaaS
8 161 (4.00%) Azure Data Factory
9 146 (3.62%) Microsoft 365
10 142 (3.53%) Snowflake
11 132 (3.28%) Serverless
12 125 (3.10%) GCP
13 109 (2.71%) Amazon S3
14 102 (2.53%) Azure Synapse Analytics
15 95 (2.36%) Power Automate
16 92 (2.28%) PowerApps
17 90 (2.23%) AWS Lambda
18 87 (2.16%) Entra ID
19 81 (2.01%) Dynamics 365
20 69 (1.71%) dbt
Communications & Networking
1 50 (1.24%) Firewall
2 41 (1.02%) Internet
3 31 (0.77%) VPN
4 29 (0.72%) DNS
5 19 (0.47%) WAN
6 16 (0.40%) Wi-Fi
7 14 (0.35%) SAN
8 13 (0.32%) DHCP
8 13 (0.32%) Network Security
8 13 (0.32%) TCP/IP
9 11 (0.27%) Broadband
9 11 (0.27%) MQTT
10 10 (0.25%) Intranet
10 10 (0.25%) LAN
10 10 (0.25%) VLAN
10 10 (0.25%) VoIP
11 9 (0.22%) DMZ
12 7 (0.17%) Telnet
13 6 (0.15%) Modbus
13 6 (0.15%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 1,691 (41.98%) Power BI
2 1,349 (33.49%) Tableau
3 461 (11.44%) SQL Server
4 258 (6.41%) Azure SQL Database
5 209 (5.19%) Data Warehouse
6 166 (4.12%) MongoDB
7 134 (3.33%) NoSQL
8 123 (3.05%) Data Mining
9 118 (2.93%) MySQL
10 103 (2.56%) Relational Database
11 102 (2.53%) SQL Server Reporting Services
12 101 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
13 96 (2.38%) Data Lake
14 93 (2.31%) SQL Server Integration Services
15 63 (1.56%) Amazon Redshift
16 59 (1.46%) Elasticsearch
17 56 (1.39%) Power Query
18 53 (1.32%) BigQuery
19 51 (1.27%) Metadata
20 40 (0.99%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 198 (4.92%) Git
2 172 (4.27%) JIRA
3 51 (1.27%) Jenkins
4 38 (0.94%) Selenium
5 37 (0.92%) Oracle Forms
6 36 (0.89%) Postman
7 27 (0.67%) Team Foundation Server
8 26 (0.65%) SoapUI
9 21 (0.52%) GitLab
10 19 (0.47%) WebDriver
11 18 (0.45%) JUnit
12 17 (0.42%) Maven
13 16 (0.40%) Bitbucket
14 15 (0.37%) Visual Studio
15 13 (0.32%) Claude Code
16 12 (0.30%) Cucumber
16 12 (0.30%) Mockito
16 12 (0.30%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
17 10 (0.25%) Cypress.io
17 10 (0.25%) MLflow
General
1 1,813 (45.01%) Social Skills
2 714 (17.73%) Finance
3 635 (15.76%) Analytical Skills
4 128 (3.18%) Manufacturing
5 114 (2.83%) Retail
6 103 (2.56%) Public Sector
7 99 (2.46%) Law
8 87 (2.16%) Marketing
9 79 (1.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 58 (1.44%) Legal
11 45 (1.12%) Advertising
12 44 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
12 44 (1.09%) Influencing Skills
13 39 (0.97%) Banking
13 39 (0.97%) Organisational Skills
14 33 (0.82%) Games
15 25 (0.62%) Automotive
16 23 (0.57%) Pharmaceutical
17 19 (0.47%) Back Office
17 19 (0.47%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,745 (43.32%) Analyst
2 1,378 (34.21%) Data Analyst
3 1,180 (29.29%) Junior
4 1,164 (28.90%) Junior Analyst
5 1,147 (28.48%) Junior Data Analyst
6 833 (20.68%) Developer
7 550 (13.65%) Senior
8 310 (7.70%) Data Engineer
9 208 (5.16%) .NET Developer
10 198 (4.92%) Lead
11 190 (4.72%) Senior Developer
12 174 (4.32%) Support Analyst
13 154 (3.82%) SQL Developer
14 143 (3.55%) Software Developer
15 141 (3.50%) Software Engineer
16 131 (3.25%) Applications Support
17 114 (2.83%) Support Engineer
18 102 (2.53%) Trainee
19 100 (2.48%) C# Developer
19 100 (2.48%) Trainee Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 535 (13.28%) .NET
2 316 (7.85%) HTML
3 271 (6.73%) CSS
4 263 (6.53%) .NET Core
5 222 (5.51%) ASP.NET
6 213 (5.29%) React
7 165 (4.10%) ASP.NET Core
7 165 (4.10%) REST
8 158 (3.92%) RESTful
9 138 (3.43%) AngularJS
10 135 (3.35%) Node.js
11 116 (2.88%) SOAP
12 112 (2.78%) JSON
13 110 (2.73%) .NET Framework
14 108 (2.68%) Vue
15 100 (2.48%) Entity Framework
16 95 (2.36%) PySpark
16 95 (2.36%) XML
17 64 (1.59%) Blazor
18 56 (1.39%) ASP.NET Web API
Miscellaneous
1 120 (2.98%) Cloud Native
2 64 (1.59%) Management Information System
3 61 (1.51%) Data Structures
4 57 (1.42%) Enterprise Software
5 53 (1.32%) Self-Motivation
6 52 (1.29%) Onboarding
7 49 (1.22%) Analytical Mindset
8 48 (1.19%) Mobile App
9 45 (1.12%) Greenfield Project
10 44 (1.09%) Legacy Systems
10 44 (1.09%) Product Ownership
11 40 (0.99%) Replication
12 36 (0.89%) Distributed Systems
13 35 (0.87%) Client/Server
13 35 (0.87%) Clustering
14 32 (0.79%) Driving Licence
15 23 (0.57%) Virtual Team
16 21 (0.52%) Algorithms
17 19 (0.47%) Legacy Applications
18 18 (0.45%) Data Centre
Operating Systems
1 188 (4.67%) Windows
2 122 (3.03%) Linux
3 96 (2.38%) Windows Server
4 25 (0.62%) Android
5 16 (0.40%) Apple iOS
5 16 (0.40%) Unix
5 16 (0.40%) VMS
6 10 (0.25%) Windows 10
7 6 (0.15%) Debian
8 5 (0.12%) zOS
9 4 (0.099%) Mac OS
9 4 (0.099%) Solaris
9 4 (0.099%) Ubuntu
9 4 (0.099%) Windows Server 2019
10 3 (0.074%) AIX
10 3 (0.074%) Kali Linux
10 3 (0.074%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
11 2 (0.050%) Windows Server 2016
12 1 (0.025%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,770 (43.94%) Business Intelligence
2 1,433 (35.58%) AI
3 722 (17.92%) Agile
4 616 (15.29%) Problem-Solving
5 611 (15.17%) Analytics
6 460 (11.42%) CI/CD
7 449 (11.15%) DevOps
8 391 (9.71%) Data Modelling
9 390 (9.68%) ETL
10 347 (8.61%) Continuous Improvement
11 304 (7.55%) Full-Stack Development
12 302 (7.50%) Data Engineering
13 292 (7.25%) Mentoring
14 290 (7.20%) Data Analysis
14 290 (7.20%) Decision-Making
15 266 (6.60%) Data Pipeline
16 264 (6.55%) Software Engineering
17 245 (6.08%) ERP
18 234 (5.81%) Computer Science
19 232 (5.76%) Data Governance
Programming Languages
1 1,939 (48.14%) Python
2 565 (14.03%) C#
3 323 (8.02%) JavaScript
4 288 (7.15%) Java
5 161 (4.00%) TypeScript
6 138 (3.43%) T-SQL
7 132 (3.28%) PowerShell
8 106 (2.63%) PHP
9 104 (2.58%) PL/SQL
10 94 (2.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 68 (1.69%) C++
12 56 (1.39%) VBA
13 52 (1.29%) R
14 50 (1.24%) Bash
15 31 (0.77%) Shell Script
16 29 (0.72%) Scala
17 26 (0.65%) Kotlin
18 15 (0.37%) Groovy
19 10 (0.25%) Go
20 9 (0.22%) Bicep
Qualifications
1 1,164 (28.90%) Azure Certification
2 376 (9.33%) Degree
3 124 (3.08%) Security Cleared
4 121 (3.00%) Computer Science Degree
5 93 (2.31%) SC Cleared
6 44 (1.09%) Microsoft Certification
7 36 (0.89%) DBS Check
8 30 (0.74%) ISTQB
9 28 (0.70%) DV Cleared
10 20 (0.50%) Master's Degree
11 16 (0.40%) ISTQB Advanced Certification
12 15 (0.37%) CIMA
13 14 (0.35%) ACCA
13 14 (0.35%) AWS Certification
14 12 (0.30%) HND
15 9 (0.22%) BPSS Clearance
15 9 (0.22%) HNC
15 9 (0.22%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
15 9 (0.22%) Microsoft Certified Professional
16 8 (0.20%) AWS Certified Developer
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 283 (7.03%) Data Quality
2 117 (2.90%) QA
3 79 (1.96%) GDPR
4 50 (1.24%) Accessibility
4 50 (1.24%) SLA
5 45 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 16 (0.40%) NIST
7 13 (0.32%) Actionable Recommendations
8 12 (0.30%) California Consumer Privacy Act
8 12 (0.30%) TickIT
9 10 (0.25%) HIPAA
10 8 (0.20%) Cyber Essentials
10 8 (0.20%) NCSC
10 8 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 4 (0.099%) ISO 9001
11 4 (0.099%) PCI DSS
12 3 (0.074%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
12 3 (0.074%) JSP 440
13 2 (0.050%) PMO
13 2 (0.050%) WCAG
System Software
1 191 (4.74%) Docker
2 158 (3.92%) Active Directory
3 39 (0.97%) Virtual Machines
4 32 (0.79%) Hyper-V
5 31 (0.77%) VMware Infrastructure
6 9 (0.22%) Virtual Servers
7 7 (0.17%) Microsoft Virtual Server
7 7 (0.17%) VMware ESXi
8 5 (0.12%) Virtual Desktop
9 4 (0.099%) vSphere
10 3 (0.074%) Terminal Server
11 2 (0.050%) Terminal Services
11 2 (0.050%) Time Sharing Option
11 2 (0.050%) VMware NSX
12 1 (0.025%) Firmware
12 1 (0.025%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 153 (3.80%) Kubernetes
2 136 (3.38%) Terraform
3 21 (0.52%) Microsoft Intune
4 17 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
5 16 (0.40%) Ansible
6 15 (0.37%) Grafana
7 9 (0.22%) Kibana
8 8 (0.20%) SCCM
9 7 (0.17%) Prometheus
9 7 (0.17%) SCOM
9 7 (0.17%) vCenter Server
10 6 (0.15%) Control-M
11 4 (0.099%) FortiGate
11 4 (0.099%) Rancher
12 3 (0.074%) Data Guard
12 3 (0.074%) HP Fortify
12 3 (0.074%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
12 3 (0.074%) Oracle RMAN
12 3 (0.074%) Scalr
13 2 (0.050%) Microsoft Clustering
Vendors
1 1,966 (48.81%) Microsoft
2 248 (6.16%) Oracle
3 232 (5.76%) Databricks
4 94 (2.33%) Google
5 76 (1.89%) SAP
6 47 (1.17%) VMware
7 42 (1.04%) Informatica
8 31 (0.77%) Adobe
9 27 (0.67%) ServiceNow
10 23 (0.57%) Citrix
10 23 (0.57%) IBM
11 20 (0.50%) Cloudera
11 20 (0.50%) Facebook
11 20 (0.50%) Talend
12 19 (0.47%) Salesforce
12 19 (0.47%) Veeam
13 17 (0.42%) Cisco
14 16 (0.40%) MuleSoft
15 15 (0.37%) Cognos
15 15 (0.37%) HubSpot