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 24 August 2026.

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

6 months to
24 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 32 25 10
Rank change year-on-year -7 -15 0
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 212 124 193
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.16% 7.15% 10.12%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.71% 7.94% 10.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 157 87 134
10th Percentile £400 £350 £313
25th Percentile £413 £408 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £459 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.37% +5.56% -
75th Percentile £520 £505 £547
90th Percentile £575 £588 £650
England median daily rate £515 £513 £525
% change year-on-year +0.49% -2.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 5
10th Percentile - - £38.70
25th Percentile - £56.88 £40.50
Median hourly rate - £58.75 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - +6.82% +64.74%
75th Percentile - £60.63 £56.25
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - -15.38% +10.94%

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 3,161 1,562 1,757
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.84% 90.03% 92.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,886 1,006 1,176
10th Percentile £325 £235 £250
25th Percentile £413 £375 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £581 £575 £613
90th Percentile £675 £644 £713
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 229 112 77
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.62 £13.00
25th Percentile £20.25 £14.00 £15.22
Median hourly rate £30.73 £25.08 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +22.55% +28.00% -11.36%
75th Percentile £53.75 £36.38 £35.00
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £49.25
England median hourly rate £42.65 £25.32 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.44% -43.73% +2.60%

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 24 August 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 24 August 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
Shropshire -13 69 £490 +5.95% 12
Birmingham -9 54 £475 - 22
Coventry +6 40 £425 +4.62% 9
Solihull -8 14 £438 -23.91% 2
Warwickshire -14 13 £525 +5.00% 3
Herefordshire +2 5 £700 +21.74% 1
Dudley - 5 £400 - 3
Worcestershire +2 4 £700 - 8
Wolverhampton - 3 - - 4
Staffordshire -9 1 £313 -30.56% 6
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 24 August 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 64 (30.19%) Agile
2 59 (27.83%) Security Cleared
3 56 (26.42%) SQL
4 55 (25.94%) Microsoft
5 52 (24.53%) SC Cleared
6 49 (23.11%) Java
7 45 (21.23%) CI/CD
8 40 (18.87%) Azure
8 40 (18.87%) DevOps
9 39 (18.40%) JavaScript
10 36 (16.98%) BPSS Clearance
11 32 (15.09%) Power Platform
11 32 (15.09%) Scrum
12 28 (13.21%) Migration
13 27 (12.74%) Continuous Improvement
13 27 (12.74%) Microservices
14 25 (11.79%) AWS
14 25 (11.79%) Git
14 25 (11.79%) SOAP
15 24 (11.32%) PowerApps
16 23 (10.85%) Azure DevOps
16 23 (10.85%) Problem-Solving
16 23 (10.85%) React
16 23 (10.85%) Sprint Planning
17 22 (10.38%) Power Automate
17 22 (10.38%) REST
18 21 (9.91%) Docker
18 21 (9.91%) Spring
18 21 (9.91%) TDD
19 20 (9.43%) PostgreSQL

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 7 (3.30%) Confluence
2 6 (2.83%) SAS
3 2 (0.94%) OpenStack
3 2 (0.94%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.47%) ArcGIS
4 1 (0.47%) IIS
4 1 (0.47%) Oracle SOA Suite
4 1 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
4 1 (0.47%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.47%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.47%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 16 (7.55%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.47%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 40 (18.87%) Azure
2 32 (15.09%) Power Platform
3 25 (11.79%) AWS
4 24 (11.32%) PowerApps
5 23 (10.85%) Azure DevOps
6 22 (10.38%) Power Automate
7 14 (6.60%) Amazon S3
7 14 (6.60%) Amazon SQS
8 13 (6.13%) Dynamics 365
9 10 (4.72%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 10 (4.72%) Microsoft 365
9 10 (4.72%) Microsoft Copilot
10 9 (4.25%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (4.25%) AWS KMS
10 9 (4.25%) Route 53
11 7 (3.30%) Serverless
12 5 (2.36%) GitHub
13 4 (1.89%) GitHub Actions
14 3 (1.42%) Amazon ECS
14 3 (1.42%) Azure Data Factory
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (9.43%) PostgreSQL
2 11 (5.19%) Amazon RDS
2 11 (5.19%) DynamoDB
2 11 (5.19%) Power BI
3 9 (4.25%) Amazon Aurora
4 8 (3.77%) Data Warehouse
5 7 (3.30%) Relational Database
6 6 (2.83%) SQL Server
7 4 (1.89%) MongoDB
8 3 (1.42%) Base SAS
8 3 (1.42%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 2 (0.94%) Data Hub
9 2 (0.94%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.94%) Power Query
9 2 (0.94%) Redis
10 1 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.47%) Ingres
10 1 (0.47%) Metadata
10 1 (0.47%) OLTP
10 1 (0.47%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 25 (11.79%) Git
2 15 (7.08%) Mockito
3 14 (6.60%) Maven
4 13 (6.13%) Jenkins
4 13 (6.13%) JUnit
5 12 (5.66%) Team Foundation Server
5 12 (5.66%) Visual Studio
6 11 (5.19%) SonarQube
7 7 (3.30%) Bitbucket Server
7 7 (3.30%) DbUnit
7 7 (3.30%) JIRA
7 7 (3.30%) jMock
8 5 (2.36%) GitLab
9 1 (0.47%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.47%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.47%) Hudson
9 1 (0.47%) NUnit
9 1 (0.47%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 52 (24.53%) Public Sector
2 28 (13.21%) Social Skills
3 20 (9.43%) Finance
4 14 (6.60%) Analytical Skills
5 12 (5.66%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 10 (4.72%) Banking
7 3 (1.42%) Manufacturing
7 3 (1.42%) Marketing
8 2 (0.94%) Legal
8 2 (0.94%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.94%) Retail
9 1 (0.47%) Front Office
9 1 (0.47%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.47%) Military
9 1 (0.47%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 25 (11.79%) SOAP
2 23 (10.85%) React
3 22 (10.38%) REST
4 21 (9.91%) Spring
5 20 (9.43%) Spring Boot
6 18 (8.49%) Node.js
7 16 (7.55%) Web Services
8 14 (6.60%) AngularJS
8 14 (6.60%) JPA
9 13 (6.13%) ActiveMQ
9 13 (6.13%) XML
10 12 (5.66%) ActiveX
10 12 (5.66%) Hibernate
11 11 (5.19%) JSON
12 10 (4.72%) RESTful
12 10 (4.72%) Spring Batch
12 10 (4.72%) Spring Cloud
12 10 (4.72%) Spring Integration
13 9 (4.25%) .NET
13 9 (4.25%) Flask
Miscellaneous
1 16 (7.55%) Product Ownership
2 12 (5.66%) Cloud Native
3 10 (4.72%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (2.83%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.42%) Algorithms
6 2 (0.94%) BYOD
6 2 (0.94%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (0.94%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (0.94%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.47%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.47%) Equities
7 1 (0.47%) Fixed Income
7 1 (0.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.47%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.47%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.47%) Legacy Code
7 1 (0.47%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.47%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.47%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 12 (5.66%) Linux
2 6 (2.83%) Unix
3 1 (0.47%) Android
3 1 (0.47%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 64 (30.19%) Agile
2 45 (21.23%) CI/CD
3 40 (18.87%) DevOps
4 32 (15.09%) Scrum
5 28 (13.21%) Migration
6 27 (12.74%) Continuous Improvement
6 27 (12.74%) Microservices
7 23 (10.85%) Problem-Solving
7 23 (10.85%) Sprint Planning
8 21 (9.91%) TDD
9 20 (9.43%) User Stories
10 18 (8.49%) Front End Development
11 17 (8.02%) Digital Transformation Programme
11 17 (8.02%) Full-Stack Development
12 16 (7.55%) ETL
12 16 (7.55%) Stakeholder Engagement
12 16 (7.55%) Test Automation
13 15 (7.08%) Technical Leadership
14 14 (6.60%) Business Intelligence
14 14 (6.60%) Containerisation
Programming Languages
1 56 (26.42%) SQL
2 49 (23.11%) Java
3 39 (18.40%) JavaScript
4 17 (8.02%) C#
5 13 (6.13%) VB
5 13 (6.13%) VB6
6 12 (5.66%) Python
6 12 (5.66%) VBA
7 11 (5.19%) TypeScript
8 10 (4.72%) PL/SQL
8 10 (4.72%) Scala
9 4 (1.89%) COBOL
10 3 (1.42%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (1.42%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.94%) C
11 2 (0.94%) Go
11 2 (0.94%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.94%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.47%) C++
12 1 (0.47%) ProC
Qualifications
1 59 (27.83%) Security Cleared
2 52 (24.53%) SC Cleared
3 36 (16.98%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (5.19%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (1.42%) DV Cleared
6 2 (0.94%) AWS Certification
6 2 (0.94%) Azure Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 14 (6.60%) Accessibility
2 10 (4.72%) QA
3 3 (1.42%) Basel III
3 3 (1.42%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.94%) GRC
5 1 (0.47%) HL7
5 1 (0.47%) WCAG
System Software
1 21 (9.91%) Docker
2 6 (2.83%) Postfix
3 1 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 12 (5.66%) Grafana
2 9 (4.25%) Kubernetes
2 9 (4.25%) Single Sign-On
3 8 (3.77%) Prometheus
4 2 (0.94%) Kibana
Vendors
1 55 (25.94%) Microsoft
2 12 (5.66%) Oracle
3 9 (4.25%) Atlassian
3 9 (4.25%) Jaspersoft
4 8 (3.77%) Talend
4 8 (3.77%) UiPath
5 5 (2.36%) Siemens
6 2 (0.94%) Databricks
6 2 (0.94%) Google
6 2 (0.94%) Informatica
6 2 (0.94%) Pega
6 2 (0.94%) SAP
6 2 (0.94%) ServiceNow
7 1 (0.47%) Denodo
7 1 (0.47%) Infor
7 1 (0.47%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.47%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7 1 (0.47%) Splunk