Developer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Developer
England > West Midlands

The median Developer daily rate in the West Midlands is £500, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 3 December 2025.

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

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 31 18 11
Rank change year-on-year -13 -7 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 133 145 199
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.10% 7.97% 10.59%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.85% 8.53% 11.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 95 92 132
10th Percentile £355 £350 £285
25th Percentile £414 £400 £372
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year +5.26% +5.56% -10.00%
75th Percentile £568 £575 £556
90th Percentile £650 £674 £688
England median daily rate £500 £535 £550
% change year-on-year -6.54% -2.73% -6.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 2
10th Percentile - - £17.16
25th Percentile - - £17.22
Median hourly rate - - £17.38
75th Percentile - - £17.47
90th Percentile - - £17.49
England median hourly rate £55.00 £65.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -15.38% +8.33% +0.54%

All Contract IT Job Vacancies
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 1,941 1,700 1,757
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.08% 93.41% 93.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,251 1,065 1,205
10th Percentile £258 £213 £220
25th Percentile £400 £393 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -4.04%
75th Percentile £588 £600 £588
90th Percentile £683 £706 £688
England median daily rate £504 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -4.05% -1.69% -2.91%
Number of hourly rates quoted 92 66 65
10th Percentile £12.66 £12.65 £15.50
25th Percentile £14.19 £15.29 £17.50
Median hourly rate £25.08 £23.71 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +5.76% +5.38% +26.98%
75th Percentile £31.00 £32.02 £34.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £46.88 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.74 £37.25 £45.00
% change year-on-year -30.91% -17.22% +38.46%

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025. 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 -27 42 £500 - 40
Shropshire -18 28 £503 +7.25% 23
Warwickshire +3 24 £485 -11.82% 22
Worcestershire -3 14 £650 - 4
Herefordshire +1 13 £650 +18.18% 8
Coventry -16 12 £425 -9.57% 13
Solihull +5 4 £588 +46.88%
Staffordshire -3 1 £338 -25.00% 16
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 3 December 2025, 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 47 (35.34%) CI/CD
2 41 (30.83%) DevOps
3 40 (30.08%) Security Cleared
4 39 (29.32%) SQL
5 37 (27.82%) Azure
5 37 (27.82%) Java
6 36 (27.07%) Agile
7 34 (25.56%) Problem-Solving
7 34 (25.56%) SC Cleared
8 31 (23.31%) Microservices
9 28 (21.05%) Python
10 27 (20.30%) Git
10 27 (20.30%) Microsoft
11 25 (18.80%) Serverless
12 23 (17.29%) Containerisation
12 23 (17.29%) JavaScript
13 22 (16.54%) Docker
13 22 (16.54%) React
14 21 (15.79%) AWS
15 20 (15.04%) PostgreSQL
15 20 (15.04%) REST
16 17 (12.78%) Azure DevOps
16 17 (12.78%) JUnit
16 17 (12.78%) Kubernetes
16 17 (12.78%) Spring
17 16 (12.03%) MongoDB
17 16 (12.03%) Scrum
17 16 (12.03%) TypeScript
18 15 (11.28%) HTML
18 15 (11.28%) Node.js

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 4 (3.01%) Apache
2 3 (2.26%) Confluence
2 3 (2.26%) Drupal
2 3 (2.26%) JBoss
2 3 (2.26%) SugarCRM
2 3 (2.26%) WebLogic
3 2 (1.50%) CMS
3 2 (1.50%) SharePoint
4 1 (0.75%) Apache Airflow
4 1 (0.75%) Apache Spark
4 1 (0.75%) CICS
4 1 (0.75%) nginx
Applications
1 6 (4.51%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.75%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (4.51%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.75%) SAP HR
2 1 (0.75%) SAP PSCD
2 1 (0.75%) VisionPLUS
Cloud Services
1 37 (27.82%) Azure
2 25 (18.80%) Serverless
3 21 (15.79%) AWS
4 17 (12.78%) Azure DevOps
5 15 (11.28%) Power Platform
6 13 (9.77%) Power Automate
6 13 (9.77%) PowerApps
7 12 (9.02%) Azure Key Vault
7 12 (9.02%) GitHub
8 11 (8.27%) GCP
9 10 (7.52%) Dynamics 365
9 10 (7.52%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (6.77%) Apigee
10 9 (6.77%) Cloud Functions
11 6 (4.51%) Azure Functions
11 6 (4.51%) Azure Logic Apps
12 5 (3.76%) Azure Service Bus
12 5 (3.76%) SaaS
13 4 (3.01%) Azure Cosmos DB
13 4 (3.01%) Azure Monitor
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.76%) Firewall
2 1 (0.75%) SSL
2 1 (0.75%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (15.04%) PostgreSQL
2 16 (12.03%) MongoDB
3 14 (10.53%) MySQL
4 10 (7.52%) Relational Database
5 9 (6.77%) Redis
6 8 (6.02%) Power BI
7 7 (5.26%) NoSQL
8 5 (3.76%) BusinessObjects
9 4 (3.01%) BusinessObjects XI
9 4 (3.01%) DataStage
10 3 (2.26%) Power Query
10 3 (2.26%) SQL Server
11 2 (1.50%) Amazon RDS
11 2 (1.50%) Data Hub
11 2 (1.50%) Data Warehouse
11 2 (1.50%) Oracle Database
12 1 (0.75%) Apache Hive
12 1 (0.75%) Data Mining
12 1 (0.75%) Hadoop
12 1 (0.75%) RDBMS
Development Applications
1 27 (20.30%) Git
2 17 (12.78%) JUnit
3 10 (7.52%) GitLab
4 8 (6.02%) JIRA
5 7 (5.26%) Selenium
6 5 (3.76%) Jenkins
6 5 (3.76%) Maven
6 5 (3.76%) Mockito
7 4 (3.01%) Cucumber
8 3 (2.26%) Eclipse
8 3 (2.26%) IntelliJ
9 2 (1.50%) Cypress.io
9 2 (1.50%) Jaeger
9 2 (1.50%) SonarQube
10 1 (0.75%) Bitbucket Server
10 1 (0.75%) ChangeMan
10 1 (0.75%) DbUnit
10 1 (0.75%) jMock
10 1 (0.75%) NUnit
10 1 (0.75%) REST Assured
General
1 40 (30.08%) Social Skills
2 28 (21.05%) Public Sector
3 19 (14.29%) Analytical Skills
4 8 (6.02%) Banking
5 4 (3.01%) Finance
5 4 (3.01%) Marketing
5 4 (3.01%) Presentation Skills
5 4 (3.01%) Retail Banking
6 3 (2.26%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (2.26%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.50%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 2 (1.50%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.75%) Digital Healthcare
8 1 (0.75%) Legal
8 1 (0.75%) Manufacturing
8 1 (0.75%) Police
8 1 (0.75%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 22 (16.54%) React
2 20 (15.04%) REST
3 17 (12.78%) Spring
4 15 (11.28%) HTML
4 15 (11.28%) Node.js
5 14 (10.53%) .NET
5 14 (10.53%) RESTful
6 13 (9.77%) Gherkin
7 11 (8.27%) Kafka
8 10 (7.52%) Playwright
9 9 (6.77%) FastAPI
9 9 (6.77%) Flask
9 9 (6.77%) GraphQL
10 8 (6.02%) CSS
10 8 (6.02%) JSON
10 8 (6.02%) OAuth
10 8 (6.02%) SOAP
10 8 (6.02%) Spring Boot
10 8 (6.02%) WebSockets
11 7 (5.26%) OAuth2
Miscellaneous
1 17 (12.78%) Cloud Native
2 7 (5.26%) Data Protection Act
3 6 (4.51%) Legacy Systems
4 5 (3.76%) Self-Motivation
5 3 (2.26%) Distributed Systems
5 3 (2.26%) IoT
5 3 (2.26%) Onboarding
6 2 (1.50%) Analytical Mindset
6 2 (1.50%) Credit Risk
6 2 (1.50%) Derivative
6 2 (1.50%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (1.50%) Product Ownership
7 1 (0.75%) CMDB
7 1 (0.75%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
7 1 (0.75%) Hybrid Cloud
7 1 (0.75%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 8 (6.02%) Linux
2 3 (2.26%) Unix
3 1 (0.75%) Android
3 1 (0.75%) VME
3 1 (0.75%) zOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (35.34%) CI/CD
2 41 (30.83%) DevOps
3 36 (27.07%) Agile
4 34 (25.56%) Problem-Solving
5 31 (23.31%) Microservices
6 23 (17.29%) Containerisation
7 16 (12.03%) Scrum
8 14 (10.53%) SDLC
9 13 (9.77%) Clean Code
9 13 (9.77%) User Experience
10 12 (9.02%) Business Intelligence
10 12 (9.02%) Full-Stack Development
10 12 (9.02%) Test Automation
11 11 (8.27%) API Management
11 11 (8.27%) ETL
11 11 (8.27%) Front End Development
11 11 (8.27%) UX Design
12 10 (7.52%) API Integration
12 10 (7.52%) CRM
12 10 (7.52%) Data Protection
Programming Languages
1 39 (29.32%) SQL
2 37 (27.82%) Java
3 28 (21.05%) Python
4 23 (17.29%) JavaScript
5 16 (12.03%) TypeScript
6 13 (9.77%) C#
7 10 (7.52%) Go
8 6 (4.51%) PHP
8 6 (4.51%) VBA
9 5 (3.76%) Data Analysis Expressions
9 5 (3.76%) Scala
10 3 (2.26%) R
11 2 (1.50%) Ruby
11 2 (1.50%) Shell Script
12 1 (0.75%) ABAP
12 1 (0.75%) Bash
12 1 (0.75%) COBOL
12 1 (0.75%) Groovy
12 1 (0.75%) Kotlin
12 1 (0.75%) PL/SQL
Qualifications
1 40 (30.08%) Security Cleared
2 34 (25.56%) SC Cleared
3 8 (6.02%) DV Cleared
4 6 (4.51%) BPSS Clearance
4 6 (4.51%) Degree
5 4 (3.01%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (3.01%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (1.50%) Azure Certification
7 1 (0.75%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (5.26%) Accessibility
2 5 (3.76%) QA
2 5 (3.76%) WCAG
3 2 (1.50%) SLA
System Software
1 22 (16.54%) Docker
2 1 (0.75%) HDFS
2 1 (0.75%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 17 (12.78%) Kubernetes
2 14 (10.53%) Grafana
3 11 (8.27%) Prometheus
4 5 (3.76%) Ansible
5 4 (3.01%) Kibana
6 3 (2.26%) Puppet
6 3 (2.26%) Terraform
7 1 (0.75%) CA Endevor
7 1 (0.75%) Hadoop YARN
Vendors
1 27 (20.30%) Microsoft
2 12 (9.02%) Google
3 6 (4.51%) ServiceNow
4 4 (3.01%) IBM
4 4 (3.01%) SAP
5 3 (2.26%) Oracle
5 3 (2.26%) webMethods
6 2 (1.50%) Calypso
6 2 (1.50%) IFS
6 2 (1.50%) MuleSoft
7 1 (0.75%) Adobe
7 1 (0.75%) Atlassian
7 1 (0.75%) ICL
7 1 (0.75%) Jaspersoft
7 1 (0.75%) Pega
7 1 (0.75%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.75%) VMware