5 Fun SQL Projects You Can Do in a Weekend (For Free!)

Want to turn your weekend into a fun learning sprint and make your resume shine? With just a few hours (and zero cost), you can build impressive SQL projects that show off your skills to future employers. Here are five ideas to get you started — no database design or fancy tools required!

Fun SQL projects? Yes, really! SQL isn’t just about dry reports or endless tables — it can actually be a fun, creative way to explore your favorite topics, analyze real-world data, and even learn more about yourself.

But here’s the best part: while you’re having fun, you’ll also be building projects that look great on your resume. These small weekend challenges show employers that you can turn raw data into insights, think critically, and apply SQL in practical ways — skills every company loves to see.

If you’re just starting out or want to refresh your basics before diving in, grab our SQL Cheat Sheet — it’s a quick, beginner-friendly reference that will boost your confidence and help you jump into these projects right away.

Ready to have some fun and give your resume a boost? Let’s look at five SQL projects you can start (and finish!) this weekend — all for free.

💸 1. Personal Spending Analysis

Description: Discover where your money really goes by analyzing your personal expenses. It’s a practical, eye-opening project that can help you understand your spending habits better.

Before you start: Refresh your basics with the SQL Basics course and strengthen your data summarizing skills with the SQL GROUP BY Practice course, which offers over 100 exercises to help you master GROUP BY.

Data / What you need: Download your bank statement as a CSV file or use a mock expenses CSV (many free templates available online). Use any free online SQL editor to upload and query the data.

Example questions to answer:

• Which category did you spend the most on last month?
• What is your average monthly spending?
• What was your biggest single expense this year?

What you’ll learn: Filtering data with WHERE, grouping and summarizing with GROUP BY, sorting results, and calculating totals and averages.

Boost your resume: Shows you can analyze financial data, uncover trends, and present insights — valuable skills for roles in analytics, finance, or business operations.

🎬 2. Movie Ratings Analysis

Description: Dive into your movie-watching habits and find out which films and genres you love most. A fun, creative project for any movie fan that also sharpens your data skills.

Before you start: Practice joining and grouping data with SQL JOINs. The movie database has a lot of tables (like movies, genres, and ratings), so reviewing joins is especially helpful before you start.

Data / What you need: Use an IMDB ratings CSV, your personal movie log, or export your Netflix viewing activity (you can even combine multiple sources for a richer dataset). Load the file into a free online SQL editor.

Example questions to answer:

• What are your top-rated movies of all time?
• Which genres have the highest average ratings?
• In which months do you watch the most movies?

What you’ll learn: Filtering and grouping data, calculating averages, working with dates, and combining data from different sources if you include Netflix or other logs.

Boost your resume: Demonstrates your ability to analyze entertainment data, find trends, and summarize insights clearly — great for showcasing analytical thinking and SQL skills in a fun, memorable way.

📈 3. Simple Sales Dashboard

Description: Analyze sales data to discover your top products, most valuable customers, and overall sales trends. A classic, practical project that showcases core business analysis skills.

Before you start: Strengthen your skills with the SQL Reporting track, which covers creating basic reports, revenue trend analysis, and customer behavior insights — perfect for building a sales dashboard.

Data / What you need: You can use the popular Northwind sample database, which is included in LearnSQL.com’s SQL Databases for Practice course. You can work with it directly in the LearnSQL.com code editor.

Example questions to answer:

• Which product sold the most units last quarter?
• Who are the top 5 customers by total spend?
• What months had the highest sales revenue?

What you’ll learn: Filtering and grouping data, using aggregate functions like SUM and COUNT, ordering results, and performing basic customer and product segmentation.

Boost your resume: Shows your ability to analyze business data, generate insights that drive decisions, and create summaries — highly valuable for business analyst, marketing, and sales operations roles.

😷 4. COVID-19 Cases Trends

Description: Explore global or country-level COVID-19 data to understand trends in cases and vaccinations. A timely project that teaches you how to analyze and compare large public datasets.

Before you start: Learn to analyze trends with the Window Functions course and the Revenue Trend Analysis course — great for working with time-based data and comparisons.

Data / What you need: Download a public COVID-19 dataset from sources like Our World in Data (CSV format). You can load it into a free online SQL editor for analysis.

Example questions to answer:

• Which countries had the highest number of new cases last month?
• How did vaccination rates change over time in different regions?
• What is the trend of total cases in your country over the past year?

What you’ll learn: Filtering and grouping data, working with dates and time trends, calculating running totals or averages, and comparing results across categories.

Boost your resume: Highlights your ability to work with large, real-world public health data, analyze time-based trends, and generate insights — a strong point for data analysis, public health, or research-related roles.

🎧 5. Favorite Music Stats

Description: Explore your personal music listening habits and find out which artists and tracks truly define your playlists. A fun way to turn your music obsession into an impressive data project.

Before you start: Get ready to explore trends and top rankings in your data with the SQL for Data Analysis track — perfect for analyzing your favorite artists, tracks, and listening patterns.

Data / What you need: Export your Spotify or Last.fm listening history (you can follow steps in this article on downloading Spotify data or use a sample CSV). Use a free online SQL editor to analyze the file.

Example questions to answer:

• Who are your top 5 most-played artists this year?
• Which songs did you play most often in each season?
• How many new artists did you listen to last month?

What you’ll learn: Filtering data, grouping and aggregating play counts, ordering results, and working with date-based analysis.

Boost your resume: Demonstrates your ability to work with personal or real-world data, analyze trends over time, and extract meaningful insights — a great addition for roles in data analysis, marketing, or entertainment analytics.

Conclusion

You don’t need a big budget or a full-time commitment to start building real, impressive SQL projects — just a free weekend and a bit of curiosity. Whether you’re analyzing your own spending, diving into your favorite music, or exploring global trends, each of these projects helps you turn raw data into stories that employers love to see.

If you’re just starting out or want to sharpen your skills before tackling these projects, the SQL from A to Z track on LearnSQL.com is the perfect place to start. This complete learning path takes you from basic queries and functions to advanced reporting, window functions, and even recursive queries — helping you build a solid, job-ready foundation step by step.

Your next career move could be just one fun weekend project away — so pick a dataset, open up your editor, and start querying!