Developer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Developer
England > West Midlands

The median Developer daily rate in the West Midlands is £485, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 21 February 2026.

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

6 months to
21 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 20 9
Rank change year-on-year -11 -11 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 167 103 227
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.25% 7.16% 11.95%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.92% 7.85% 12.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 115 60 163
10th Percentile £366 £362 £259
25th Percentile £413 £406 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £470 £425
Median % change year-on-year +3.30% +10.47% -16.91%
75th Percentile £560 £555 £566
90th Percentile £650 £625 £675
England median daily rate £500 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -6.98% +2.38% -8.70%
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 £61.00 £65.00 £69.10
% change year-on-year -6.15% -5.93% +10.56%

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 2,415 1,312 1,756
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 90.31% 91.17% 92.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,567 844 1,164
10th Percentile £292 £200 £223
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.00% +5.26% -2.56%
75th Percentile £588 £589 £588
90th Percentile £688 £700 £680
England median daily rate £500 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.76% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 57 130
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.90 £11.89
25th Percentile £17.09 £16.67 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.00 £21.59 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +15.79% -4.04% +26.98%
75th Percentile £30.00 £30.68 £43.75
90th Percentile £50.00 £39.14 £67.50
England median hourly rate £33.17 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -5.23% - -12.50%

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 21 February 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 21 February 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 -9 54 £475 +2.15% 46
Warwickshire +8 29 £485 -17.45% 18
Shropshire -28 29 £478 -3.82% 10
Coventry -14 19 £480 +5.49% 16
Worcestershire -1 14 £650 -7.14% 8
Herefordshire -6 13 £650 -7.14% 2
Solihull 0 10 £450 -9.55% 14
Staffordshire -3 1 £338 -28.95% 8
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 21 February 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 59 (35.33%) SQL
2 57 (34.13%) CI/CD
3 48 (28.74%) Security Cleared
4 47 (28.14%) Agile
4 47 (28.14%) DevOps
5 45 (26.95%) Azure
6 44 (26.35%) SC Cleared
7 43 (25.75%) Problem-Solving
8 42 (25.15%) Java
9 37 (22.16%) AWS
10 35 (20.96%) Git
11 34 (20.36%) Microsoft
12 33 (19.76%) Microservices
13 32 (19.16%) Containerisation
14 31 (18.56%) Python
14 31 (18.56%) REST
15 30 (17.96%) PostgreSQL
16 28 (16.77%) Docker
16 28 (16.77%) JavaScript
17 27 (16.17%) Spring
18 26 (15.57%) React
19 25 (14.97%) Node.js
19 25 (14.97%) Scrum
20 23 (13.77%) Serverless
21 22 (13.17%) Azure DevOps
21 22 (13.17%) Grafana
21 22 (13.17%) Spring Boot
22 21 (12.57%) Kubernetes
23 20 (11.98%) Full-Stack Development
24 19 (11.38%) HTML

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 (5.39%) WebLogic
2 5 (2.99%) Apache
2 5 (2.99%) Confluence
3 4 (2.40%) SharePoint
4 3 (1.80%) Drupal
4 3 (1.80%) JBoss
4 3 (1.80%) SugarCRM
5 2 (1.20%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.60%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (4.19%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.20%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.60%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.60%) SAP HR
1 1 (0.60%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 45 (26.95%) Azure
2 37 (22.16%) AWS
3 23 (13.77%) Serverless
4 22 (13.17%) Azure DevOps
5 19 (11.38%) Power Platform
6 15 (8.98%) Power Automate
7 14 (8.38%) GitHub
8 13 (7.78%) PowerApps
9 12 (7.19%) Azure Key Vault
10 11 (6.59%) GCP
10 11 (6.59%) GitHub Actions
11 9 (5.39%) Apigee
11 9 (5.39%) Cloud Functions
12 7 (4.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
12 7 (4.19%) Amazon EC2
12 7 (4.19%) Amazon S3
12 7 (4.19%) Amazon SQS
12 7 (4.19%) AWS KMS
12 7 (4.19%) Dynamics 365
12 7 (4.19%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 5 (2.99%) Firewall
2 1 (0.60%) SSL
2 1 (0.60%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (17.96%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (8.38%) MySQL
2 14 (8.38%) Relational Database
3 13 (7.78%) Power BI
4 12 (7.19%) MongoDB
5 9 (5.39%) Redis
6 7 (4.19%) Amazon Aurora
6 7 (4.19%) Amazon RDS
6 7 (4.19%) DynamoDB
7 6 (3.59%) SQL Server
8 5 (2.99%) BusinessObjects
8 5 (2.99%) Data Warehouse
8 5 (2.99%) SQL Server Reporting Services
9 4 (2.40%) BusinessObjects XI
9 4 (2.40%) Metadata
9 4 (2.40%) NoSQL
9 4 (2.40%) WebFOCUS
10 3 (1.80%) Power Query
11 2 (1.20%) Data Hub
11 2 (1.20%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 35 (20.96%) Git
2 19 (11.38%) JUnit
3 13 (7.78%) JIRA
3 13 (7.78%) Maven
3 13 (7.78%) Mockito
4 10 (5.99%) Jenkins
5 8 (4.79%) GitLab
6 7 (4.19%) Selenium
6 7 (4.19%) SonarQube
7 6 (3.59%) DbUnit
7 6 (3.59%) jMock
8 4 (2.40%) Bitbucket Server
8 4 (2.40%) Cucumber
9 3 (1.80%) Eclipse
9 3 (1.80%) IntelliJ
10 2 (1.20%) Cypress.io
11 1 (0.60%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.60%) Jaeger
11 1 (0.60%) MSTest
11 1 (0.60%) REST Assured
General
1 36 (21.56%) Social Skills
2 33 (19.76%) Public Sector
3 29 (17.37%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (7.78%) Finance
5 7 (4.19%) Banking
6 5 (2.99%) Presentation Skills
7 4 (2.40%) Marketing
8 3 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (1.80%) Organisational Skills
9 2 (1.20%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.60%) Advertising
10 1 (0.60%) Documentation Skills
10 1 (0.60%) Law
10 1 (0.60%) Legal
10 1 (0.60%) Police
10 1 (0.60%) Retail Banking
10 1 (0.60%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (18.56%) REST
2 27 (16.17%) Spring
3 26 (15.57%) React
4 25 (14.97%) Node.js
5 22 (13.17%) Spring Boot
6 19 (11.38%) HTML
7 17 (10.18%) AngularJS
7 17 (10.18%) RESTful
8 14 (8.38%) CSS
8 14 (8.38%) JPA
8 14 (8.38%) SOAP
9 13 (7.78%) Web Services
10 12 (7.19%) FastAPI
10 12 (7.19%) Flask
10 12 (7.19%) Hibernate
11 9 (5.39%) .NET
11 9 (5.39%) JSON
12 8 (4.79%) Spring Batch
12 8 (4.79%) Spring Integration
12 8 (4.79%) WebSockets
Miscellaneous
1 18 (10.78%) Cloud Native
2 6 (3.59%) Distributed Systems
2 6 (3.59%) Product Ownership
3 5 (2.99%) Credit Risk
4 4 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (1.20%) CMDB
5 2 (1.20%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.20%) Derivative
5 2 (1.20%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (1.20%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.20%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.60%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.60%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.60%) IoT
6 1 (0.60%) Learning Management System
6 1 (0.60%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.60%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 12 (7.19%) Linux
2 4 (2.40%) Unix
3 2 (1.20%) Android
4 1 (0.60%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.60%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.60%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (34.13%) CI/CD
2 47 (28.14%) Agile
2 47 (28.14%) DevOps
3 43 (25.75%) Problem-Solving
4 33 (19.76%) Microservices
5 32 (19.16%) Containerisation
6 25 (14.97%) Scrum
7 20 (11.98%) Full-Stack Development
8 18 (10.78%) Data Modelling
9 17 (10.18%) Business Intelligence
10 15 (8.98%) Continuous Improvement
10 15 (8.98%) Front End Development
11 14 (8.38%) Decision-Making
12 13 (7.78%) TDD
12 13 (7.78%) Workflow
13 12 (7.19%) Clean Code
13 12 (7.19%) ETL
13 12 (7.19%) Software Engineering
14 11 (6.59%) API Management
14 11 (6.59%) Collaborative Working
Programming Languages
1 59 (35.33%) SQL
2 42 (25.15%) Java
3 31 (18.56%) Python
4 28 (16.77%) JavaScript
5 14 (8.38%) C#
6 11 (6.59%) TypeScript
7 9 (5.39%) Go
8 7 (4.19%) PL/SQL
9 6 (3.59%) PHP
9 6 (3.59%) VBA
10 5 (2.99%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 5 (2.99%) Scala
11 4 (2.40%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.80%) R
13 2 (1.20%) Kotlin
13 2 (1.20%) Ruby
14 1 (0.60%) ABAP
14 1 (0.60%) COBOL
14 1 (0.60%) Perl
14 1 (0.60%) Swift
Qualifications
1 48 (28.74%) Security Cleared
2 44 (26.35%) SC Cleared
3 8 (4.79%) DV Cleared
4 6 (3.59%) BPSS Clearance
5 5 (2.99%) Azure Certification
6 4 (2.40%) Microsoft Certification
7 3 (1.80%) AWS Certification
8 2 (1.20%) Degree
9 1 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.60%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (4.79%) QA
2 5 (2.99%) WCAG
3 4 (2.40%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.20%) SLA
5 1 (0.60%) Data Quality
System Software
1 28 (16.77%) Docker
2 5 (2.99%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 22 (13.17%) Grafana
2 21 (12.57%) Kubernetes
3 12 (7.19%) Prometheus
4 6 (3.59%) Kibana
5 5 (2.99%) Ansible
6 4 (2.40%) Terraform
7 3 (1.80%) Control-M
7 3 (1.80%) IBM Guardium
7 3 (1.80%) Nessus
7 3 (1.80%) Puppet
Vendors
1 34 (20.36%) Microsoft
2 12 (7.19%) Google
3 7 (4.19%) Jaspersoft
3 7 (4.19%) ServiceNow
4 6 (3.59%) Atlassian
5 4 (2.40%) SAP
6 3 (1.80%) Oracle
6 3 (1.80%) Tenable
6 3 (1.80%) webMethods
7 2 (1.20%) Calypso
7 2 (1.20%) IFS
7 2 (1.20%) MuleSoft
7 2 (1.20%) NEC
8 1 (0.60%) Adobe
8 1 (0.60%) ICL
8 1 (0.60%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.60%) Salesforce