Developer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Developer
England > West Midlands

The median Developer daily rate in the West Midlands is £450, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 26 July 2026.

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

6 months to
26 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 23 11
Rank change year-on-year -8 -12 +1
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 229 119 183
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.59% 7.25% 9.47%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.07% 7.97% 10.34%
Number of daily rates quoted 165 83 135
10th Percentile £378 £339 £285
25th Percentile £410 £398 £326
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £463 £450
Median % change year-on-year -2.70% +2.78% -
75th Percentile £519 £500 £500
90th Percentile £575 £575 £604
England median daily rate £515 £518 £525
% change year-on-year -0.48% -1.43% -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 £55.00 £50.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +10.00% -23.08% +8.33%

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 3,237 1,494 1,769
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 93.15% 90.99% 91.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 2,022 947 1,222
10th Percentile £325 £224 £250
25th Percentile £408 £363 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £486 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.37% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £581 £575 £600
90th Percentile £675 £650 £700
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 199 115 88
10th Percentile £15.60 £12.62 £12.49
25th Percentile £20.78 £14.00 £14.22
Median hourly rate £33.00 £24.34 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +35.58% +24.25% -2.05%
75th Percentile £53.75 £34.87 £39.06
90th Percentile £70.05 £50.00 £57.00
England median hourly rate £45.50 £26.30 £43.00
% change year-on-year +73.00% -38.84% -1.96%

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 26 July 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 26 July 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 -4 72 £475 +2.15% 24
Shropshire -30 47 £446 -2.32% 22
Coventry +10 44 £450 +12.50% 4
Solihull -5 22 £438 -4.89% 1
Warwickshire -9 17 £490 -14.78% 6
Herefordshire -1 6 £700 - 2
Worcestershire -3 5 £700 - 4
Dudley - 4 £400 - 2
Wolverhampton -1 3 - - 2
Staffordshire -9 1 £313 -30.56% 7
Brierley Hill - 1 £390 -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 26 July 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 72 (31.44%) SQL
2 67 (29.26%) Security Cleared
3 66 (28.82%) Java
4 63 (27.51%) Agile
4 63 (27.51%) SC Cleared
5 53 (23.14%) Microsoft
6 49 (21.40%) CI/CD
7 48 (20.96%) Azure
8 45 (19.65%) DevOps
9 37 (16.16%) AWS
10 35 (15.28%) Microservices
10 35 (15.28%) Scrum
11 34 (14.85%) Docker
12 33 (14.41%) JavaScript
12 33 (14.41%) Power Platform
12 33 (14.41%) SOAP
12 33 (14.41%) Spring
12 33 (14.41%) Spring Boot
13 32 (13.97%) Git
13 32 (13.97%) PostgreSQL
14 31 (13.54%) REST
15 29 (12.66%) Node.js
15 29 (12.66%) Problem-Solving
16 28 (12.23%) Migration
16 28 (12.23%) TDD
17 26 (11.35%) Containerisation
18 25 (10.92%) Azure DevOps
19 23 (10.04%) Continuous Improvement
19 23 (10.04%) Grafana
20 22 (9.61%) Amazon S3

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 (3.93%) Confluence
2 7 (3.06%) WebLogic
3 6 (2.62%) SAS
4 2 (0.87%) OpenStack
4 2 (0.87%) SharePoint
5 1 (0.44%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.44%) IIS
5 1 (0.44%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.44%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 3 (1.31%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (0.44%) Chatbot
2 1 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 16 (6.99%) Teamcenter
2 1 (0.44%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 48 (20.96%) Azure
2 37 (16.16%) AWS
3 33 (14.41%) Power Platform
4 25 (10.92%) Azure DevOps
5 22 (9.61%) Amazon S3
5 22 (9.61%) Amazon SQS
6 18 (7.86%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 17 (7.42%) Amazon EC2
7 17 (7.42%) AWS KMS
7 17 (7.42%) Route 53
8 15 (6.55%) Power Automate
8 15 (6.55%) PowerApps
9 10 (4.37%) Dynamics 365
9 10 (4.37%) Microsoft Copilot
10 8 (3.49%) GitHub
10 8 (3.49%) Microsoft 365
10 8 (3.49%) Serverless
11 5 (2.18%) GitHub Actions
12 4 (1.75%) GCP
13 3 (1.31%) AWS Lambda
Database & Business Intelligence
1 32 (13.97%) PostgreSQL
2 19 (8.30%) Amazon RDS
2 19 (8.30%) DynamoDB
3 17 (7.42%) Amazon Aurora
4 16 (6.99%) Power BI
5 8 (3.49%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (3.49%) Relational Database
6 6 (2.62%) SQL Server
7 5 (2.18%) Metadata
7 5 (2.18%) MongoDB
8 4 (1.75%) WebFOCUS
9 3 (1.31%) Base SAS
9 3 (1.31%) Power Query
9 3 (1.31%) Redis
9 3 (1.31%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 2 (0.87%) Azure SQL Database
10 2 (0.87%) IDMS
10 2 (0.87%) Star Schema
11 1 (0.44%) Data Mining
11 1 (0.44%) Ingres
Development Applications
1 32 (13.97%) Git
2 22 (9.61%) Mockito
3 21 (9.17%) Maven
4 20 (8.73%) Jenkins
4 20 (8.73%) JUnit
5 18 (7.86%) SonarQube
6 13 (5.68%) DbUnit
6 13 (5.68%) JIRA
6 13 (5.68%) jMock
7 12 (5.24%) Team Foundation Server
7 12 (5.24%) Visual Studio
8 11 (4.80%) Bitbucket Server
9 4 (1.75%) GitLab
10 1 (0.44%) Artifactory
10 1 (0.44%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 1 (0.44%) CA Gen
10 1 (0.44%) Cypress.io
10 1 (0.44%) Hudson
10 1 (0.44%) MSTest
10 1 (0.44%) NUnit
General
1 51 (22.27%) Public Sector
2 27 (11.79%) Social Skills
3 24 (10.48%) Analytical Skills
3 24 (10.48%) Finance
4 12 (5.24%) Banking
5 7 (3.06%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 4 (1.75%) Marketing
7 3 (1.31%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.87%) Advertising
8 2 (0.87%) Manufacturing
8 2 (0.87%) Retail
9 1 (0.44%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.44%) Front Office
9 1 (0.44%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.44%) Law
9 1 (0.44%) Legal
9 1 (0.44%) Pharmaceutical
9 1 (0.44%) Police
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (14.41%) SOAP
1 33 (14.41%) Spring
1 33 (14.41%) Spring Boot
2 31 (13.54%) REST
3 29 (12.66%) Node.js
4 22 (9.61%) AngularJS
4 22 (9.61%) JPA
4 22 (9.61%) Web Services
5 20 (8.73%) ActiveMQ
5 20 (8.73%) Hibernate
5 20 (8.73%) React
6 19 (8.30%) Spring Batch
6 19 (8.30%) Spring Integration
7 17 (7.42%) Spring Cloud
8 14 (6.11%) XML
9 13 (5.68%) Flask
9 13 (5.68%) PowerMock
9 13 (5.68%) RESTful
10 12 (5.24%) ActiveX
11 11 (4.80%) .NET
Miscellaneous
1 16 (6.99%) Distributed Systems
2 12 (5.24%) Product Ownership
3 10 (4.37%) Cloud Native
4 4 (1.75%) Enterprise Software
5 3 (1.31%) Algorithms
6 2 (0.87%) BYOD
6 2 (0.87%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (0.87%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (0.87%) Mobile App
7 1 (0.44%) CMDB
7 1 (0.44%) Credit Risk
7 1 (0.44%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.44%) Data Structures
7 1 (0.44%) Greenfield Project
7 1 (0.44%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.44%) Legacy Code
7 1 (0.44%) Low-Code
7 1 (0.44%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.44%) Reference Data
7 1 (0.44%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 19 (8.30%) Linux
2 7 (3.06%) Unix
3 2 (0.87%) Android
4 1 (0.44%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.44%) Mac OS X
4 1 (0.44%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 63 (27.51%) Agile
2 49 (21.40%) CI/CD
3 45 (19.65%) DevOps
4 35 (15.28%) Microservices
4 35 (15.28%) Scrum
5 29 (12.66%) Problem-Solving
6 28 (12.23%) Migration
6 28 (12.23%) TDD
7 26 (11.35%) Containerisation
8 23 (10.04%) Continuous Improvement
9 22 (9.61%) Full-Stack Development
10 19 (8.30%) Business Intelligence
11 18 (7.86%) ETL
11 18 (7.86%) Kanban
11 18 (7.86%) Workflow
12 17 (7.42%) BDD
13 15 (6.55%) Data Modelling
13 15 (6.55%) Sprint Planning
14 14 (6.11%) Stakeholder Management
14 14 (6.11%) User Stories
Programming Languages
1 72 (31.44%) SQL
2 66 (28.82%) Java
3 33 (14.41%) JavaScript
4 18 (7.86%) Python
5 15 (6.55%) C#
6 13 (5.68%) VB
6 13 (5.68%) VB6
7 12 (5.24%) VBA
8 11 (4.80%) PL/SQL
9 8 (3.49%) TypeScript
10 5 (2.18%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 4 (1.75%) Shell Script
12 3 (1.31%) Go
13 2 (0.87%) C
13 2 (0.87%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.87%) Scala
13 2 (0.87%) T-SQL
13 2 (0.87%) VB.NET
14 1 (0.44%) Apex Code
14 1 (0.44%) C++
Qualifications
1 67 (29.26%) Security Cleared
2 63 (27.51%) SC Cleared
3 19 (8.30%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (3.06%) Microsoft Certification
5 5 (2.18%) AWS Certification
5 5 (2.18%) Azure Certification
6 4 (1.75%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
7 1 (0.44%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 10 (4.37%) Accessibility
2 6 (2.62%) QA
3 3 (1.31%) Basel III
3 3 (1.31%) Data Quality
4 2 (0.87%) GRC
5 1 (0.44%) WCAG
System Software
1 34 (14.85%) Docker
2 11 (4.80%) Postfix
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 23 (10.04%) Grafana
2 15 (6.55%) Kubernetes
3 11 (4.80%) Prometheus
4 9 (3.93%) Single Sign-On
5 3 (1.31%) Control-M
5 3 (1.31%) IBM Guardium
5 3 (1.31%) Nessus
6 2 (0.87%) Kibana
6 2 (0.87%) Terraform
Vendors
1 53 (23.14%) Microsoft
2 17 (7.42%) Jaspersoft
3 15 (6.55%) Atlassian
4 14 (6.11%) Oracle
5 8 (3.49%) Talend
6 7 (3.06%) UiPath
7 5 (2.18%) Siemens
8 3 (1.31%) ServiceNow
8 3 (1.31%) Tenable
9 2 (0.87%) Google
9 2 (0.87%) Informatica
9 2 (0.87%) NEC
9 2 (0.87%) Pega
9 2 (0.87%) SAP
10 1 (0.44%) Databricks
10 1 (0.44%) Infor
10 1 (0.44%) Red Hat
10 1 (0.44%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.44%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
10 1 (0.44%) Splunk