Middleware Contract Job Trends

Middleware
UK

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs requiring Middleware skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 11 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 216 258 315
Rank change year-on-year +42 +57 -11
Contract jobs citing Middleware 638 342 300
As % of all contract jobs in the UK 1.21% 1.05% 0.70%
As % of the Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards category 6.18% 4.67% 3.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 377 202 205
10th Percentile £416 £405 £410
25th Percentile £475 £448 £469
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £575 £525 £575
Median % change year-on-year +9.52% -8.70% +2.22%
75th Percentile £650 £688 £700
90th Percentile £775 £773 £795
UK excluding London median daily rate £525 £483 £575
% change year-on-year +8.64% -15.96% +12.20%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 20 0
10th Percentile £45.33 £64.70 -
25th Percentile £61.25 £65.00 -
Median hourly rate £65.00 £67.75 -
Median % change year-on-year -4.06% - -
75th Percentile - £68.00 -
90th Percentile - £68.75 -
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £67.75 -
% change year-on-year -4.06% - -

All Software Libraries and Frameworks
UK

Middleware falls under the Software Libraries and Frameworks category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for technical specification, industry standards, software libraries and framework skills 10,322 7,330 9,254
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the UK 19.52% 22.59% 21.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,766 4,948 6,332
10th Percentile £363 £350 £350
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £513 £538
Median % change year-on-year +2.44% -4.65% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £638 £656
90th Percentile £738 £761 £788
UK excluding London median daily rate £500 £475 £500
% change year-on-year +5.26% -5.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 277 159 280
10th Percentile £30.00 £29.21 £22.73
25th Percentile £50.00 £38.52 £43.00
Median hourly rate £65.00 £56.00 £55.63
Median % change year-on-year +16.07% +0.67% -14.42%
75th Percentile £74.26 £68.00 £70.00
90th Percentile £85.00 £80.20 £74.04
UK excluding London median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £58.30
% change year-on-year +4.00% +7.20% -6.72%

Middleware
Job Vacancy Trend

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Middleware relative to all contract IT jobs advertised.

Middleware job vacancy trend in the UK

Middleware
Daily Rate Trend

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Middleware.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Middleware

Middleware
Daily Rate Histogram

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Middleware over the 6 months to 11 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Middleware in the UK

Middleware
Hourly Rate Trend

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Middleware.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the UK citing Middleware

Middleware
Hourly Rate Histogram

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Middleware over the 6 months to 11 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Middleware in the UK

Middleware
Top 18 Contract Job Locations

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Middleware within the UK over the 6 months to 11 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
England +28 516 £575 +4.55% 102
London +59 270 £600 -0.08% 48
UK excluding London -41 260 £525 +8.64% 70
Work from Home -1 178 £555 +13.85% 47
North of England -25 95 £525 +7.69% 14
Midlands -18 55 £550 +22.22% 11
North West -21 53 £525 -4.55% 6
South West -22 39 £613 +22.50% 9
West Midlands -39 37 £583 +25.95% 5
Yorkshire -33 36 £575 +27.88% 2
South East -62 36 £525 -6.67% 20
Scotland -8 28 £525 +10.53% 7
East of England -26 18 £491 -14.57% 10
East Midlands -9 15 £463 +3.47% 6
North East -29 6 £500 +5.26% 6
Wales -15 5 £750 +74.83%
Northern Ireland +5 1 - - 1
Channel Islands +1 1 £625 +11.61%

Middleware
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities 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 49 (7.68%) WebSphere
2 27 (4.23%) Apache
3 25 (3.92%) Tomcat
4 22 (3.45%) Apache Geronimo
4 22 (3.45%) Apache ServiceMix
4 22 (3.45%) Red Hat Fuse
5 21 (3.29%) WebLogic
6 20 (3.13%) CICS
7 13 (2.04%) Confluence
8 6 (0.94%) Anypoint
9 5 (0.78%) JBoss
9 5 (0.78%) WebSphere Application Server
9 5 (0.78%) WordPress
10 4 (0.63%) nginx
10 4 (0.63%) Oracle Workflow
10 4 (0.63%) SAS
11 3 (0.47%) IBM HTTP Server
11 3 (0.47%) Mule
11 3 (0.47%) Oracle SOA Suite
11 3 (0.47%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
1 5 (0.78%) Microsoft Project
2 3 (0.47%) MS Visio
2 3 (0.47%) Navisworks
2 3 (0.47%) Revit
3 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Office
3 1 (0.16%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 1 (0.16%) Spreadsheet
3 1 (0.16%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 45 (7.05%) SAP S/4HANA
2 11 (1.72%) Oracle EBS
3 10 (1.57%) Dynamics CRM
4 7 (1.10%) SAP MDG
5 6 (0.94%) NetSuite
5 6 (0.94%) Oracle Payables
5 6 (0.94%) Oracle Receivables
6 5 (0.78%) Maximo
6 5 (0.78%) Oracle EBS R12
7 4 (0.63%) Oracle Cash Management
7 4 (0.63%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.63%) SAP ERP
8 3 (0.47%) Bloomberg AIM
8 3 (0.47%) Fidessa
8 3 (0.47%) SAP EWM
8 3 (0.47%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.47%) SAP SD
8 3 (0.47%) Shopify
8 3 (0.47%) Temenos T24
9 2 (0.31%) Oracle Applications
Cloud Services
1 128 (20.06%) Azure
2 101 (15.83%) AWS
3 52 (8.15%) Boomi
4 38 (5.96%) SaaS
5 33 (5.17%) Azure DevOps
6 29 (4.55%) GCP
7 22 (3.45%) Power Platform
8 20 (3.13%) iPaaS
9 19 (2.98%) Salesforce Service Cloud
10 17 (2.66%) Dynamics 365
11 16 (2.51%) Salesforce Sales Cloud
11 16 (2.51%) SuccessFactors
12 14 (2.19%) PaaS
12 14 (2.19%) Serverless
13 13 (2.04%) GitHub
14 12 (1.88%) Azure Logic Apps
15 11 (1.72%) Entra ID
16 10 (1.57%) Azure Monitor
16 10 (1.57%) Azure Service Bus
16 10 (1.57%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 42 (6.58%) Firewall
2 23 (3.61%) VPN
3 21 (3.29%) SSL
4 13 (2.04%) HTTP
5 5 (0.78%) DNS
6 4 (0.63%) IPv4
6 4 (0.63%) IPv6
6 4 (0.63%) LAN
6 4 (0.63%) Multicast
6 4 (0.63%) NAS
6 4 (0.63%) SAN
6 4 (0.63%) WAN
7 3 (0.47%) DHCP
7 3 (0.47%) Kerberos
7 3 (0.47%) MQTT
7 3 (0.47%) Reverse Proxy
7 3 (0.47%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.31%) Cisco Nexus
8 2 (0.31%) Network Security
9 1 (0.16%) InfiniBand
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (2.98%) Power BI
1 19 (2.98%) SQL Server
2 17 (2.66%) Relational Database
3 16 (2.51%) Data Warehouse
4 14 (2.19%) DataStage
5 11 (1.72%) Oracle Database
6 10 (1.57%) Data Lake
6 10 (1.57%) PostgreSQL
7 9 (1.41%) Oracle Reports
8 8 (1.25%) Metadata
8 8 (1.25%) SQL Server Integration Services
9 7 (1.10%) Elasticsearch
10 6 (0.94%) Big Data
11 5 (0.78%) MySQL
11 5 (0.78%) NoSQL
12 4 (0.63%) Azure SQL Database
12 4 (0.63%) SQL Server Reporting Services
13 3 (0.47%) MongoDB
13 3 (0.47%) Redis
13 3 (0.47%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 37 (5.80%) JIRA
2 29 (4.55%) Git
3 17 (2.66%) Jenkins
4 16 (2.51%) GitLab
5 7 (1.10%) Oracle Forms
6 6 (0.94%) JUnit
6 6 (0.94%) Postman
7 4 (0.63%) JetBrains Rider
7 4 (0.63%) Selenium
7 4 (0.63%) Visual Studio
8 3 (0.47%) Ant
8 3 (0.47%) Bitbucket
8 3 (0.47%) Hudson
8 3 (0.47%) Introscope
8 3 (0.47%) Maven
8 3 (0.47%) Mockito
8 3 (0.47%) Sonatype Nexus
9 2 (0.31%) Cucumber
9 2 (0.31%) ERwin
9 2 (0.31%) IntelliJ
General
1 201 (31.50%) Finance
2 159 (24.92%) Social Skills
3 103 (16.14%) Banking
4 80 (12.54%) Analytical Skills
5 59 (9.25%) Public Sector
6 37 (5.80%) Retail
7 29 (4.55%) Legal
8 21 (3.29%) Investment Banking
9 18 (2.82%) Influencing Skills
9 18 (2.82%) Manufacturing
10 17 (2.66%) Documentation Skills
11 13 (2.04%) Telecoms
12 11 (1.72%) Presentation Skills
13 10 (1.57%) Aerospace
13 10 (1.57%) Financial Institution
14 9 (1.41%) Back Office
14 9 (1.41%) Marketing
14 9 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
15 8 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 6 (0.94%) Law
Job Titles
1 211 (33.07%) Architect
2 87 (13.64%) Solutions Architect
3 68 (10.66%) Developer
4 63 (9.87%) Integration Architect
5 59 (9.25%) Technical Architect
6 47 (7.37%) Lead
7 43 (6.74%) Senior
8 34 (5.33%) Consultant
9 30 (4.70%) Analyst
10 27 (4.23%) Administrator
11 24 (3.76%) Middleware Engineer
11 24 (3.76%) Salesforce Architect
12 22 (3.45%) AWS Architect
12 22 (3.45%) Cloud Architect
12 22 (3.45%) SAP Architect
13 20 (3.13%) Business Analyst
14 19 (2.98%) Software Engineer
15 17 (2.66%) Java Engineer
16 16 (2.51%) Integration Specialist
16 16 (2.51%) Salesforce Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 118 (18.50%) REST
2 75 (11.76%) SOAP
3 54 (8.46%) XML
4 53 (8.31%) JSON
5 38 (5.96%) Kafka
6 26 (4.08%) .NET
6 26 (4.08%) OAuth
7 25 (3.92%) Apache Camel
8 22 (3.45%) Apache Axis
8 22 (3.45%) Web Services
9 20 (3.13%) Lightning Web Components
10 18 (2.82%) OAuth2
11 17 (2.66%) ISPF
12 14 (2.19%) React
12 14 (2.19%) Spring
12 14 (2.19%) Spring Boot
13 12 (1.88%) OpenAPI
13 12 (1.88%) RESTful
13 12 (1.88%) Swagger
13 12 (1.88%) Visualforce
Miscellaneous
1 57 (8.93%) Management Information System
2 54 (8.46%) Data Centre
3 46 (7.21%) Mainframe
4 35 (5.49%) Onboarding
5 28 (4.39%) Legacy Systems
6 27 (4.23%) Clustering
7 25 (3.92%) Product Ownership
8 23 (3.61%) Cloud Native
9 21 (3.29%) Distributed Systems
10 19 (2.98%) Public Cloud
11 18 (2.82%) Enterprise Software
12 14 (2.19%) Data Structures
13 13 (2.04%) Self-Motivation
14 11 (1.72%) CMDB
14 11 (1.72%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
14 11 (1.72%) Legacy Applications
15 10 (1.57%) BYOD
15 10 (1.57%) Data Protection Act
15 10 (1.57%) LIMS
15 10 (1.57%) VSAM
Operating Systems
1 76 (11.91%) Linux
2 36 (5.64%) Unix
2 36 (5.64%) Windows
3 33 (5.17%) zOS
4 17 (2.66%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 14 (2.19%) Ubuntu
6 13 (2.04%) Solaris
7 12 (1.88%) AIX
8 9 (1.41%) Windows Server
9 7 (1.10%) CentOS
10 2 (0.31%) OpenVMS
10 2 (0.31%) Oracle Linux
10 2 (0.31%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 2 (0.31%) VMS
10 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2008
10 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2016
10 2 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
11 1 (0.16%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (23.04%) Agile
2 120 (18.81%) Integration Patterns
3 115 (18.03%) Stakeholder Management
4 113 (17.71%) Problem-Solving
5 110 (17.24%) DevOps
6 102 (15.99%) CI/CD
7 100 (15.67%) ERP
8 91 (14.26%) Migration
9 74 (11.60%) Roadmaps
10 70 (10.97%) User Acceptance Testing
11 68 (10.66%) Technical Leadership
12 63 (9.87%) Data Modelling
12 63 (9.87%) Enterprise Architecture
13 61 (9.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 60 (9.40%) CRM
15 59 (9.25%) Continuous Improvement
15 59 (9.25%) Event-Driven
16 57 (8.93%) Microservices
17 56 (8.78%) Validation
18 49 (7.68%) TOGAF
Programming Languages
1 121 (18.97%) SQL
2 84 (13.17%) Java
3 39 (6.11%) Python
4 28 (4.39%) JavaScript
5 23 (3.61%) C#
6 21 (3.29%) Ada
6 21 (3.29%) Apex Code
7 19 (2.98%) Bash
8 17 (2.66%) PL/SQL
9 13 (2.04%) Shell Script
10 12 (1.88%) TypeScript
11 10 (1.57%) C++
11 10 (1.57%) COBOL
12 7 (1.10%) ABAP
12 7 (1.10%) Perl
12 7 (1.10%) PowerShell
12 7 (1.10%) SOQL
13 6 (0.94%) MATLAB
14 4 (0.63%) T-SQL
14 4 (0.63%) X++
Qualifications
1 105 (16.46%) Security Cleared
2 88 (13.79%) SC Cleared
3 40 (6.27%) Degree
4 24 (3.76%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (2.04%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.04%) Master's Degree
6 11 (1.72%) Azure Certification
6 11 (1.72%) TOGAF Certification
7 6 (0.94%) SAP Certification
8 5 (0.78%) AWS Certification
8 5 (0.78%) DV Cleared
8 5 (0.78%) PMI Certification
9 4 (0.63%) PMP
10 3 (0.47%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.31%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.31%) IIBA
11 2 (0.31%) Oracle Certification
12 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Certified Professional
12 1 (0.16%) Postgraduate
12 1 (0.16%) PRINCE2 Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 40 (6.27%) QA
2 34 (5.33%) GDPR
3 20 (3.13%) Def Stans
3 20 (3.13%) IEC 61508
4 18 (2.82%) Data Quality
5 9 (1.41%) SLA
6 8 (1.25%) ISO 20022
6 8 (1.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
7 6 (0.94%) HL7
7 6 (0.94%) PMO
8 5 (0.78%) MISRA
8 5 (0.78%) MISRA C
8 5 (0.78%) NIST
9 4 (0.63%) 21 CFR Part 11
9 4 (0.63%) GMP
9 4 (0.63%) GxP
9 4 (0.63%) ISO/IEC 17025
9 4 (0.63%) Sarbanes-Oxley
10 3 (0.47%) California Consumer Privacy Act
10 3 (0.47%) GRC
System Software
1 26 (4.08%) Docker
2 18 (2.82%) RACF
3 12 (1.88%) Active Directory
4 9 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
5 5 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
6 4 (0.63%) vSphere
7 3 (0.47%) NFS
8 2 (0.31%) EMC RecoverPoint
8 2 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
8 2 (0.31%) VMware ESXi
9 1 (0.16%) GPFS
9 1 (0.16%) Lustre
9 1 (0.16%) Slurm Workload Manager
9 1 (0.16%) Varnish
9 1 (0.16%) VMware Server
Systems Management
1 31 (4.86%) Kubernetes
2 25 (3.92%) Ansible
3 17 (2.66%) OMEGAMON
4 12 (1.88%) Terraform
5 11 (1.72%) Grafana
6 7 (1.10%) Podman
6 7 (1.10%) Single Sign-On
7 6 (0.94%) Check_MK
7 6 (0.94%) Prometheus
7 6 (0.94%) Red Hat Satellite
8 5 (0.78%) ITRS Geneos
8 5 (0.78%) systemd
9 4 (0.63%) Oracle RMAN
10 3 (0.47%) CA Single Sign-On
10 3 (0.47%) CA Wily
10 3 (0.47%) HP ALM
11 2 (0.31%) Avamar
11 2 (0.31%) EMC VPLEX
11 2 (0.31%) Kiali
11 2 (0.31%) Puppet
Vendors
1 108 (16.93%) Oracle
2 100 (15.67%) SAP
3 66 (10.34%) IBM
3 66 (10.34%) Salesforce
4 59 (9.25%) Microsoft
4 59 (9.25%) MuleSoft
5 40 (6.27%) ServiceNow
6 31 (4.86%) Workday
7 26 (4.08%) TIBCO
8 20 (3.13%) VMware
9 19 (2.98%) Databricks
10 14 (2.19%) Dell
10 14 (2.19%) Google
11 12 (1.88%) Red Hat
12 10 (1.57%) Splunk
13 8 (1.25%) Ariba
13 8 (1.25%) Solace
14 7 (1.10%) Bloomberg
14 7 (1.10%) JD Edwards
14 7 (1.10%) Murex