diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
index 17a830788be3f..5ef1f9dea5091 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v1.1.0.rst
@@ -872,6 +872,7 @@ I/O
 - Bug in :meth:`read_parquet` was raising a ``FileNotFoundError`` when passed an s3 directory path. (:issue:`26388`)
 - Bug in :meth:`~DataFrame.to_parquet` was throwing an ``AttributeError`` when writing a partitioned parquet file to s3 (:issue:`27596`)
 - Bug in :meth:`~DataFrame.to_excel` could not handle the column name `render` and was raising an ``KeyError`` (:issue:`34331`)
+- Bug in :meth:`~SQLDatabase.execute` was raising a ``ProgrammingError`` for some DB-API drivers when the SQL statement contained the `%` character and no parameters were present (:issue:`34211`)
 
 Plotting
 ^^^^^^^^
diff --git a/pandas/io/sql.py b/pandas/io/sql.py
index bf050d10d90f6..991d222bfae1f 100644
--- a/pandas/io/sql.py
+++ b/pandas/io/sql.py
@@ -1162,7 +1162,9 @@ def run_transaction(self):
 
     def execute(self, *args, **kwargs):
         """Simple passthrough to SQLAlchemy connectable"""
-        return self.connectable.execute(*args, **kwargs)
+        return self.connectable.execution_options(no_parameters=True).execute(
+            *args, **kwargs
+        )
 
     def read_table(
         self,
diff --git a/pandas/tests/io/test_sql.py b/pandas/tests/io/test_sql.py
index 382d4e611c837..bd53785e89bfe 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/io/test_sql.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/io/test_sql.py
@@ -194,6 +194,11 @@
                 "Name"=%(name)s AND "SepalLength"=%(length)s
                 """,
     },
+    "read_no_parameters_with_percent": {
+        "sqlite": "SELECT * FROM iris WHERE Name LIKE '%'",
+        "mysql": "SELECT * FROM iris WHERE `Name` LIKE '%'",
+        "postgresql": "SELECT * FROM iris WHERE \"Name\" LIKE '%'",
+    },
     "create_view": {
         "sqlite": """
                 CREATE VIEW iris_view AS
@@ -424,6 +429,11 @@ def _read_sql_iris_named_parameter(self):
         iris_frame = self.pandasSQL.read_query(query, params=params)
         self._check_iris_loaded_frame(iris_frame)
 
+    def _read_sql_iris_no_parameter_with_percent(self):
+        query = SQL_STRINGS["read_no_parameters_with_percent"][self.flavor]
+        iris_frame = self.pandasSQL.read_query(query, params=None)
+        self._check_iris_loaded_frame(iris_frame)
+
     def _to_sql(self, method=None):
         self.drop_table("test_frame1")