🚀 Complete SQL Roadmap to Learn SQL in 2026
🗺️ 6-Month SQL Roadmap
🟢 Month 1 — SQL Fundamentals
Start by understanding how relational databases work.
Week 1: Database Basics
• What is SQL?
• SQL vs MySQL vs PostgreSQL vs SQL Server
• Database, table, row and column
• Primary keys
• Foreign keys
• Relationships
• NULL values
• Data types
• Relational databases
• Basic database design
Week 2: Basic Queries
Master:
• SELECT
• DISTINCT
• WHERE
• AND / OR
• NOT
• IN
• BETWEEN
• LIKE
• IS NULL / IS NOT NULL
• ORDER BY
• LIMIT
Week 3: SQL Functions
• COUNT(), SUM(), AVG(), MIN(), MAX()
• String functions: CONCAT(), UPPER(), LOWER(), LENGTH(), SUBSTRING()
• Date functions: CURRENT_DATE, DATE_PART / EXTRACT, DATE_TRUNC, DATE_DIFF equivalents
Week 4: GROUP BY & HAVING
• GROUP BY
• HAVING
• Revenue by category
• Employees by department
• Average salary by department
🟡 Month 2 — Intermediate SQL
Week 5: CASE Statements
• CASE WHEN THEN ELSE END
• Customer segmentation
• Salary bands
• Order status classification
• Profit categories
• Age groups
Week 6: Joins
Master:
• INNER JOIN
• LEFT JOIN
• RIGHT JOIN
• FULL OUTER JOIN
• CROSS JOIN
• Self JOIN
Week 7: Subqueries
• Scalar subqueries
• Multi-row subqueries
• Correlated subqueries
• EXISTS / NOT EXISTS
• IN / NOT IN
Week 8: CTEs
• WITH cte AS (...) SELECT ... FROM cte
• Multi-step revenue analysis
• Customer segmentation
• Funnel analysis
• Cohort analysis
🟠 Month 3 — Advanced SQL
Week 9: Window Functions
• ROW_NUMBER(), RANK(), DENSE_RANK()
• LAG(), LEAD(), FIRST_VALUE(), LAST_VALUE()
Week 10: Advanced Aggregations
• Conditional aggregation
• Multiple aggregations
• DISTINCT aggregation
• Aggregation with CASE
• GROUP BY with multiple dimensions
Week 11: Date & Time Analytics
• Daily / Weekly / Monthly / Quarterly / Yearly metrics
• Month-over-month growth
• Year-over-year growth
• Date differences
• Customer tenure
• Time between events
Week 12: Advanced SQL Patterns
• Top N per group
• Gaps and islands
• Running totals
• Moving averages
• Consecutive records
• Duplicate detection
• Missing records
• First/last record
• Latest record per customer
🔵 Month 4 — SQL for Data Analytics
Week 13: Sales Analytics
• Revenue, Orders, AOV, Product / Category performance, Customer revenue, Monthly growth, Profit margin
• KPIs: Revenue, Orders, AOV, Gross Profit, Profit Margin, Units Sold, Repeat Purchase Rate
Week 14: Customer Analytics
• New / Existing / Repeat customers
• Customer retention / churn
• Customer lifetime value
• RFM analysis
Week 15: Marketing Analytics
• Leads, Campaigns, Conversions, Marketing channels
• CAC, CPL, CPA, Conversion rate, Campaign ROI
• Funnel: Impressions → Clicks → Leads → Signups → Purchases
Week 16: Product Analytics
• DAU, WAU, MAU
• Retention, Churn
• Feature adoption, Activation
• Conversion funnel, Cohort analysis
🟣 Month 5 — Real-World SQL Projects
Build at least 4 complete projects.
Project 1 — E-Commerce Analytics
• Customers, Orders, Products, Revenue, Profit, Discounts
• KPIs: Revenue, AOV, Profit, Margin, Repeat Purchase Rate, CLV
Project 2 — Customer Churn
August 23, 2026 1.3K 17
