Developer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Developer
England > West Midlands

The median Developer daily rate in the West Midlands is £459, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 31 May 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 14 8
Rank change year-on-year -17 -6 +3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 204 128 219
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.33% 9.08% 11.28%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.83% 10.02% 12.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 140 83 169
10th Percentile £363 £363 £259
25th Percentile £404 £408 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £463 £425
Median % change year-on-year -0.76% +8.82% -10.53%
75th Percentile £519 £530 £510
90th Percentile £575 £613 £611
England median daily rate £513 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -2.38% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 6
10th Percentile - - £38.75
25th Percentile - £56.88 £40.13
Median hourly rate - £58.75 £49.00
Median % change year-on-year - +19.90% +46.77%
75th Percentile - £60.63 £55.94
90th Percentile - - £56.25
England median hourly rate £50.00 £53.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year -6.54% -17.69% -

All Contract IT Job Roles
West Midlands

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the West Midlands. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the West Midlands with a recognized job title 2,989 1,277 1,775
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 92.68% 90.57% 91.45%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,873 831 1,210
10th Percentile £313 £200 £255
25th Percentile £406 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £480 £475 £485
Median % change year-on-year +1.05% -2.06% -3.00%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £600
90th Percentile £688 £640 £700
England median daily rate £518 £518 £525
% change year-on-year - -1.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 183 83 142
10th Percentile £14.90 £12.62 £12.14
25th Percentile £22.50 £14.00 £14.88
Median hourly rate £33.99 £20.00 £19.77
Median % change year-on-year +69.95% +1.16% -1.15%
75th Percentile £59.50 £33.90 £40.38
90th Percentile £69.60 £50.00 £56.13
England median hourly rate £45.00 £30.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year +50.00% -20.00% -16.67%

Developer
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Developer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Developer job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Developer
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the West Midlands.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the West Midlands

Developer
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Developer in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 31 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Developer in the West Midlands

Developer
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the West Midlands.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Developer job vacancies in the West Midlands

Developer
Contract Job Locations in the West Midlands

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Developer within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 31 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
Contract
IT Job Ads
Median
Daily Rate
Past 6 Months
Median Daily Rate
% Change
on Same Period
Last Year
Live
Jobs
Birmingham -7 76 £475 +2.15% 22
Coventry +6 35 £450 +9.09% 7
Shropshire -34 31 £438 -5.41% 6
Solihull -3 22 £438 -4.89%
Warwickshire -9 17 £528 -8.26% 3
Worcestershire +4 8 £700 - 6
Herefordshire -6 4 £700 - 3
Dudley - 3 £400 - 3
Wolverhampton -5 2 - - 2
Staffordshire -7 1 £313 -30.56% 7
Brierley Hill - 1 £390 - 1
Developer
England

Developer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands

For the 6 months to 31 May 2026, Developer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the West Midlands region featuring Developer in the job title.

1 71 (34.80%) SQL
2 52 (25.49%) Security Cleared
3 50 (24.51%) Java
4 48 (23.53%) SC Cleared
5 47 (23.04%) CI/CD
6 46 (22.55%) Agile
7 43 (21.08%) Azure
7 43 (21.08%) DevOps
8 40 (19.61%) AWS
9 39 (19.12%) Microsoft
10 34 (16.67%) Docker
11 31 (15.20%) Git
11 31 (15.20%) REST
12 30 (14.71%) JavaScript
12 30 (14.71%) PostgreSQL
13 29 (14.22%) Containerisation
13 29 (14.22%) Microservices
13 29 (14.22%) Spring
13 29 (14.22%) Spring Boot
14 28 (13.73%) AngularJS
14 28 (13.73%) Node.js
14 28 (13.73%) Problem-Solving
15 26 (12.75%) Full-Stack Development
15 26 (12.75%) Migration
16 25 (12.25%) Scrum
16 25 (12.25%) SOAP
17 24 (11.76%) TDD
18 23 (11.27%) Grafana
18 23 (11.27%) Power Platform
19 22 (10.78%) Azure DevOps

Developer Skill Set
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands 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 9 (4.41%) Confluence
2 6 (2.94%) WebLogic
3 5 (2.45%) SAS
4 2 (0.98%) Apache
4 2 (0.98%) Apache Spark
4 2 (0.98%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.49%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.49%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.49%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.49%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.49%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 2 (0.98%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.49%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (7.84%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.49%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.49%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 43 (21.08%) Azure
2 40 (19.61%) AWS
3 23 (11.27%) Power Platform
4 22 (10.78%) Azure DevOps
5 21 (10.29%) Amazon S3
5 21 (10.29%) Amazon SQS
6 18 (8.82%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 17 (8.33%) Amazon EC2
7 17 (8.33%) AWS KMS
7 17 (8.33%) Route 53
8 11 (5.39%) GitHub
9 10 (4.90%) Power Automate
10 8 (3.92%) GitHub Actions
10 8 (3.92%) PowerApps
10 8 (3.92%) Serverless
11 7 (3.43%) Dynamics 365
12 5 (2.45%) Microsoft Copilot
13 4 (1.96%) Azure Data Factory
13 4 (1.96%) Azure Key Vault
13 4 (1.96%) GCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (14.71%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (9.31%) Amazon RDS
2 19 (9.31%) DynamoDB
3 17 (8.33%) Amazon Aurora
3 17 (8.33%) Power BI
4 10 (4.90%) Data Warehouse
5 9 (4.41%) Relational Database
6 7 (3.43%) SQL Server
7 5 (2.45%) Power Query
8 4 (1.96%) Metadata
8 4 (1.96%) Redis
8 4 (1.96%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (1.96%) WebFOCUS
9 2 (0.98%) Base SAS
9 2 (0.98%) IDMS
9 2 (0.98%) MongoDB
9 2 (0.98%) NoSQL
9 2 (0.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 1 (0.49%) JasperReports
10 1 (0.49%) Pentaho
Development Applications
1 31 (15.20%) Git
2 19 (9.31%) JUnit
2 19 (9.31%) Maven
2 19 (9.31%) Mockito
3 18 (8.82%) Jenkins
4 17 (8.33%) SonarQube
5 13 (6.37%) DbUnit
5 13 (6.37%) JIRA
5 13 (6.37%) jMock
6 11 (5.39%) Bitbucket Server
7 5 (2.45%) Team Foundation Server
7 5 (2.45%) Visual Studio
8 4 (1.96%) GitLab
9 1 (0.49%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.49%) Atlassian Bamboo
9 1 (0.49%) CA Gen
9 1 (0.49%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.49%) Hudson
9 1 (0.49%) MSTest
9 1 (0.49%) NUnit
General
1 39 (19.12%) Public Sector
2 28 (13.73%) Analytical Skills
3 20 (9.80%) Social Skills
4 14 (6.86%) Finance
5 9 (4.41%) Banking
6 4 (1.96%) Marketing
7 3 (1.47%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.98%) Advertising
9 1 (0.49%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.49%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 1 (0.49%) Law
9 1 (0.49%) Legal
9 1 (0.49%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.49%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (15.20%) REST
2 29 (14.22%) Spring
2 29 (14.22%) Spring Boot
3 28 (13.73%) AngularJS
3 28 (13.73%) Node.js
4 25 (12.25%) SOAP
5 21 (10.29%) JPA
5 21 (10.29%) Web Services
6 20 (9.80%) React
7 19 (9.31%) Hibernate
7 19 (9.31%) Spring Batch
7 19 (9.31%) Spring Integration
8 17 (8.33%) ActiveMQ
9 16 (7.84%) RESTful
9 16 (7.84%) Spring Cloud
10 15 (7.35%) Flask
11 13 (6.37%) CSS
11 13 (6.37%) HTML
11 13 (6.37%) PowerMock
12 11 (5.39%) Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 15 (7.35%) Distributed Systems
2 9 (4.41%) Cloud Native
3 8 (3.92%) Product Ownership
4 3 (1.47%) Algorithms
4 3 (1.47%) Credit Risk
5 2 (0.98%) BYOD
5 2 (0.98%) Enterprise Software
6 1 (0.49%) Client/Server
6 1 (0.49%) CMDB
6 1 (0.49%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.49%) Learning Management System
6 1 (0.49%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.49%) Linux Command Line
6 1 (0.49%) Mobile App
6 1 (0.49%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.49%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 15 (7.35%) Linux
2 5 (2.45%) Unix
3 2 (0.98%) Android
4 1 (0.49%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.49%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (23.04%) CI/CD
2 46 (22.55%) Agile
3 43 (21.08%) DevOps
4 29 (14.22%) Containerisation
4 29 (14.22%) Microservices
5 28 (13.73%) Problem-Solving
6 26 (12.75%) Full-Stack Development
6 26 (12.75%) Migration
7 25 (12.25%) Scrum
8 24 (11.76%) TDD
9 20 (9.80%) Business Intelligence
9 20 (9.80%) Data Modelling
10 19 (9.31%) ETL
10 19 (9.31%) Kanban
10 19 (9.31%) Workflow
11 17 (8.33%) Data Integration
12 16 (7.84%) Decision-Making
13 14 (6.86%) Continuous Integration
13 14 (6.86%) Front End Development
13 14 (6.86%) Performance Tuning
Programming Languages
1 71 (34.80%) SQL
2 50 (24.51%) Java
3 30 (14.71%) JavaScript
4 22 (10.78%) Python
5 10 (4.90%) C#
6 9 (4.41%) PL/SQL
7 6 (2.94%) Data Analysis Expressions
8 5 (2.45%) TypeScript
8 5 (2.45%) VB
8 5 (2.45%) VB6
8 5 (2.45%) VBA
9 4 (1.96%) Go
10 3 (1.47%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.98%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.98%) R
11 2 (0.98%) Scala
11 2 (0.98%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.49%) Bicep
12 1 (0.49%) C
12 1 (0.49%) Swift
Qualifications
1 52 (25.49%) Security Cleared
2 48 (23.53%) SC Cleared
3 10 (4.90%) BPSS Clearance
4 5 (2.45%) AWS Certification
4 5 (2.45%) Azure Certification
5 4 (1.96%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.47%) Microsoft Certification
7 1 (0.49%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.49%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.43%) QA
2 3 (1.47%) Accessibility
2 3 (1.47%) Data Quality
3 2 (0.98%) Basel III
3 2 (0.98%) GRC
3 2 (0.98%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (16.67%) Docker
2 11 (5.39%) Postfix
3 1 (0.49%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 23 (11.27%) Grafana
2 13 (6.37%) Kubernetes
3 11 (5.39%) Prometheus
4 5 (2.45%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.47%) Control-M
5 3 (1.47%) IBM Guardium
5 3 (1.47%) Nessus
5 3 (1.47%) Terraform
6 2 (0.98%) Kibana
Vendors
1 39 (19.12%) Microsoft
2 17 (8.33%) Jaspersoft
3 15 (7.35%) Atlassian
4 12 (5.88%) Oracle
5 8 (3.92%) Talend
6 5 (2.45%) Siemens
7 3 (1.47%) ServiceNow
7 3 (1.47%) Tenable
8 2 (0.98%) Informatica
8 2 (0.98%) NEC
8 2 (0.98%) Pega
8 2 (0.98%) SAP
8 2 (0.98%) UiPath
9 1 (0.49%) Denodo
9 1 (0.49%) Google
9 1 (0.49%) Infor
9 1 (0.49%) Red Hat
9 1 (0.49%) Splunk