Developer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Developer
England > West Midlands

The median Developer daily rate in the West Midlands is £490, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 17 February 2026.

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

6 months to
17 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 33 19 9
Rank change year-on-year -14 -10 +6
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 155 107 229
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 5.98% 7.44% 12.06%
As % of the Job Titles category 6.66% 8.14% 13.04%
Number of daily rates quoted 108 62 163
10th Percentile £363 £363 £259
25th Percentile £414 £407 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £470 £425
Median % change year-on-year +4.26% +10.59% -16.91%
75th Percentile £578 £573 £575
90th Percentile £650 £625 £675
England median daily rate £500 £538 £525
% change year-on-year -7.06% +2.48% -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 £60.00 £65.00 £68.05
% change year-on-year -7.69% -4.48% +8.88%

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 2,328 1,314 1,756
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 89.85% 91.31% 92.47%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,503 839 1,156
10th Percentile £276 £200 £223
25th Percentile £400 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -1.68%
75th Percentile £588 £594 £589
90th Percentile £688 £700 £688
England median daily rate £503 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -4.29% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 88 53 130
10th Percentile £14.00 £13.96 £11.89
25th Percentile £17.13 £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 £40.58 £67.50
England median hourly rate £31.65 £35.00 £35.00
% change year-on-year -9.57% - -12.01%

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 17 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 17 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 -15 53 £475 - 53
Warwickshire +11 29 £485 -17.45% 16
Shropshire -19 28 £481 -8.48% 10
Coventry -15 16 £486 +6.87% 12
Worcestershire -4 14 £650 -7.14% 8
Herefordshire -7 14 £650 -7.14% 4
Solihull -2 6 £500 +0.50% 13
Staffordshire -6 1 £338 -28.95% 8
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 17 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 56 (36.13%) CI/CD
2 50 (32.26%) SQL
3 46 (29.68%) DevOps
4 43 (27.74%) Agile
4 43 (27.74%) Azure
5 41 (26.45%) Problem-Solving
6 40 (25.81%) Security Cleared
7 36 (23.23%) Microsoft
7 36 (23.23%) SC Cleared
8 35 (22.58%) Python
9 33 (21.29%) AWS
9 33 (21.29%) Git
10 32 (20.65%) Containerisation
11 31 (20.00%) Java
11 31 (20.00%) Microservices
12 28 (18.06%) PostgreSQL
12 28 (18.06%) REST
13 27 (17.42%) Docker
13 27 (17.42%) JavaScript
14 26 (16.77%) React
15 24 (15.48%) Serverless
16 23 (14.84%) Kubernetes
17 22 (14.19%) Scrum
18 21 (13.55%) Grafana
19 20 (12.90%) Azure DevOps
19 20 (12.90%) Node.js
19 20 (12.90%) Spring
20 19 (12.26%) HTML
21 18 (11.61%) Power Platform
22 17 (10.97%) Data Modelling

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 (4.52%) Confluence
2 6 (3.87%) Apache
3 5 (3.23%) WebLogic
4 4 (2.58%) SharePoint
5 3 (1.94%) Apache Spark
5 3 (1.94%) Drupal
5 3 (1.94%) JBoss
5 3 (1.94%) SugarCRM
6 1 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.65%) CMS
Applications
1 7 (4.52%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.65%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.65%) Dynamics CRM
1 1 (0.65%) SAP HR
1 1 (0.65%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 43 (27.74%) Azure
2 33 (21.29%) AWS
3 24 (15.48%) Serverless
4 20 (12.90%) Azure DevOps
5 18 (11.61%) Power Platform
6 16 (10.32%) GitHub
7 15 (9.68%) Power Automate
8 13 (8.39%) Azure Key Vault
8 13 (8.39%) GitHub Actions
8 13 (8.39%) PowerApps
9 11 (7.10%) GCP
10 9 (5.81%) Apigee
10 9 (5.81%) Cloud Functions
11 7 (4.52%) Dynamics 365
12 6 (3.87%) Azure Functions
12 6 (3.87%) Azure Logic Apps
13 5 (3.23%) Azure Service Bus
13 5 (3.23%) SaaS
14 4 (2.58%) Amazon SQS
14 4 (2.58%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 5 (3.23%) Firewall
2 1 (0.65%) SSL
2 1 (0.65%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 28 (18.06%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (9.03%) MySQL
2 14 (9.03%) Relational Database
3 12 (7.74%) MongoDB
3 12 (7.74%) Power BI
4 10 (6.45%) Redis
5 6 (3.87%) SQL Server
6 5 (3.23%) BusinessObjects
6 5 (3.23%) Data Warehouse
6 5 (3.23%) NoSQL
6 5 (3.23%) SQL Server Reporting Services
7 4 (2.58%) Amazon Aurora
7 4 (2.58%) Amazon RDS
7 4 (2.58%) BusinessObjects XI
7 4 (2.58%) DynamoDB
7 4 (2.58%) Metadata
7 4 (2.58%) WebFOCUS
8 3 (1.94%) Power Query
9 2 (1.29%) Data Hub
9 2 (1.29%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 33 (21.29%) Git
2 16 (10.32%) JUnit
3 15 (9.68%) JIRA
4 10 (6.45%) Maven
4 10 (6.45%) Mockito
5 9 (5.81%) GitLab
6 8 (5.16%) Jenkins
7 7 (4.52%) Selenium
8 5 (3.23%) SonarQube
9 4 (2.58%) Cucumber
10 3 (1.94%) DbUnit
10 3 (1.94%) Eclipse
10 3 (1.94%) IntelliJ
10 3 (1.94%) jMock
11 2 (1.29%) Cypress.io
11 2 (1.29%) Jaeger
12 1 (0.65%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.65%) Bitbucket Server
12 1 (0.65%) MSTest
12 1 (0.65%) REST Assured
General
1 37 (23.87%) Social Skills
2 25 (16.13%) Public Sector
3 23 (14.84%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (8.39%) Finance
5 7 (4.52%) Banking
6 4 (2.58%) Marketing
6 4 (2.58%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (1.94%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.94%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.29%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.65%) Law
9 1 (0.65%) Legal
9 1 (0.65%) Police
9 1 (0.65%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.65%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 28 (18.06%) REST
2 26 (16.77%) React
3 20 (12.90%) Node.js
3 20 (12.90%) Spring
4 19 (12.26%) HTML
5 15 (9.68%) RESTful
6 14 (9.03%) AngularJS
6 14 (9.03%) CSS
6 14 (9.03%) Spring Boot
7 13 (8.39%) FastAPI
8 11 (7.10%) Flask
8 11 (7.10%) JPA
8 11 (7.10%) SOAP
9 10 (6.45%) .NET
9 10 (6.45%) Web Services
10 9 (5.81%) GraphQL
10 9 (5.81%) Hibernate
10 9 (5.81%) JSON
10 9 (5.81%) WebSockets
11 8 (5.16%) gRPC
Miscellaneous
1 18 (11.61%) Cloud Native
2 6 (3.87%) Product Ownership
3 5 (3.23%) Credit Risk
3 5 (3.23%) Legacy Systems
4 3 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
4 3 (1.94%) Onboarding
5 2 (1.29%) CMDB
5 2 (1.29%) Data Protection Act
5 2 (1.29%) Derivative
5 2 (1.29%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (1.29%) Self-Motivation
6 1 (0.65%) Analytical Mindset
6 1 (0.65%) Data Centre
6 1 (0.65%) Hybrid Cloud
6 1 (0.65%) IoT
6 1 (0.65%) Learning Management System
6 1 (0.65%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.65%) Mainframe
Operating Systems
1 11 (7.10%) Linux
2 4 (2.58%) Unix
3 2 (1.29%) Android
4 1 (0.65%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.65%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (0.65%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (36.13%) CI/CD
2 46 (29.68%) DevOps
3 43 (27.74%) Agile
4 41 (26.45%) Problem-Solving
5 32 (20.65%) Containerisation
6 31 (20.00%) Microservices
7 22 (14.19%) Scrum
8 17 (10.97%) Data Modelling
8 17 (10.97%) Full-Stack Development
9 16 (10.32%) Business Intelligence
10 15 (9.68%) Front End Development
11 12 (7.74%) Clean Code
11 12 (7.74%) Continuous Improvement
11 12 (7.74%) Software Engineering
12 11 (7.10%) API Management
12 11 (7.10%) Decision-Making
12 11 (7.10%) ETL
12 11 (7.10%) Mentoring
12 11 (7.10%) User Experience
12 11 (7.10%) Workflow
Programming Languages
1 50 (32.26%) SQL
2 35 (22.58%) Python
3 31 (20.00%) Java
4 27 (17.42%) JavaScript
5 14 (9.03%) C#
6 12 (7.74%) TypeScript
7 11 (7.10%) Go
8 6 (3.87%) PHP
8 6 (3.87%) VBA
9 5 (3.23%) Scala
9 5 (3.23%) Shell Script
10 4 (2.58%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (1.94%) PL/SQL
11 3 (1.94%) R
12 2 (1.29%) Kotlin
12 2 (1.29%) Ruby
13 1 (0.65%) ABAP
13 1 (0.65%) COBOL
13 1 (0.65%) Perl
13 1 (0.65%) Swift
Qualifications
1 40 (25.81%) Security Cleared
2 36 (23.23%) SC Cleared
3 9 (5.81%) DV Cleared
4 7 (4.52%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.58%) Azure Certification
5 4 (2.58%) Microsoft Certification
6 2 (1.29%) AWS Certification
6 2 (1.29%) Degree
7 1 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.65%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 8 (5.16%) QA
2 5 (3.23%) WCAG
3 4 (2.58%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.29%) SLA
System Software
1 27 (17.42%) Docker
2 3 (1.94%) Postfix
3 1 (0.65%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 23 (14.84%) Kubernetes
2 21 (13.55%) Grafana
3 14 (9.03%) Prometheus
4 6 (3.87%) Kibana
5 5 (3.23%) Ansible
6 4 (2.58%) Terraform
7 3 (1.94%) Control-M
7 3 (1.94%) IBM Guardium
7 3 (1.94%) Nessus
7 3 (1.94%) Puppet
8 1 (0.65%) Hadoop YARN
Vendors
1 36 (23.23%) Microsoft
2 12 (7.74%) Google
3 7 (4.52%) ServiceNow
4 4 (2.58%) Jaspersoft
4 4 (2.58%) SAP
5 3 (1.94%) Atlassian
5 3 (1.94%) Oracle
5 3 (1.94%) Tenable
5 3 (1.94%) webMethods
6 2 (1.29%) Calypso
6 2 (1.29%) IFS
6 2 (1.29%) MuleSoft
7 1 (0.65%) Adobe
7 1 (0.65%) ICL
7 1 (0.65%) Red Hat
7 1 (0.65%) Salesforce
7 1 (0.65%) VMware