Developer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Developer
England > West Midlands

The median Developer daily rate in the West Midlands is £475, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 22 March 2026.

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

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 31 21 9
Rank change year-on-year -10 -12 +5
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 192 92 221
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.67% 6.83% 11.23%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.28% 7.56% 12.32%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 56 159
10th Percentile £367 £363 £259
25th Percentile £412 £406 £313
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £473 £425
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% +11.18% -15.00%
75th Percentile £538 £555 £536
90th Percentile £631 £613 £625
England median daily rate £500 £534 £525
% change year-on-year -6.28% +1.62% -8.70%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 0 4
10th Percentile - - £38.25
25th Percentile - - £39.38
Median hourly rate - - £48.13
75th Percentile - - £56.25
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £62.07 £63.00 £62.00
% change year-on-year -1.48% +1.61% -0.80%

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 2,636 1,217 1,794
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.62% 90.35% 91.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,741 831 1,210
10th Percentile £305 £200 £237
25th Percentile £402 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £490 £475
Median % change year-on-year -1.02% +3.16% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £593
90th Percentile £675 £663 £688
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 103 57 139
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.62 £12.18
25th Percentile £17.20 £14.00 £15.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £18.13 £22.00
Median % change year-on-year +38.72% -17.59% +22.22%
75th Percentile £33.38 £28.18 £39.38
90th Percentile £59.50 £34.25 £56.75
England median hourly rate £37.50 £35.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year +7.14% +7.69% -23.53%

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 22 March 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 22 March 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 -7 57 £475 +2.15% 61
Warwickshire +11 31 £488 -15.22% 10
Coventry -6 29 £455 -3.19% 15
Shropshire -28 29 £455 -2.31% 3
Solihull +1 16 £438 +4.17% 5
Worcestershire -1 13 £700 - 6
Herefordshire -7 11 £700 - 1
Dudley - 3 £400 - 7
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 2
Staffordshire -6 1 £338 -38.64% 9
Brierley Hill - 1 £390 -
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 22 March 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 66 (34.38%) SQL
2 56 (29.17%) CI/CD
3 52 (27.08%) Security Cleared
4 50 (26.04%) Azure
5 47 (24.48%) SC Cleared
6 45 (23.44%) Agile
6 45 (23.44%) Java
7 44 (22.92%) DevOps
8 39 (20.31%) AWS
8 39 (20.31%) Microsoft
9 35 (18.23%) Problem-Solving
10 33 (17.19%) Containerisation
10 33 (17.19%) Docker
11 32 (16.67%) Git
11 32 (16.67%) JavaScript
11 32 (16.67%) Microservices
12 31 (16.15%) Full-Stack Development
12 31 (16.15%) Python
13 29 (15.10%) REST
14 27 (14.06%) PostgreSQL
14 27 (14.06%) Spring
15 26 (13.54%) React
15 26 (13.54%) Scrum
16 25 (13.02%) Node.js
16 25 (13.02%) Spring Boot
17 24 (12.50%) Power Platform
18 23 (11.98%) Azure DevOps
18 23 (11.98%) Grafana
18 23 (11.98%) Kubernetes
19 22 (11.46%) 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 (3.65%) Confluence
1 7 (3.65%) WebLogic
2 4 (2.08%) SharePoint
3 3 (1.56%) Apache
3 3 (1.56%) Drupal
4 2 (1.04%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.52%) JBoss
5 1 (0.52%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.52%) SugarCRM
5 1 (0.52%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 3 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (1.04%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 1 (0.52%) SAP HR
1 1 (0.52%) SAP PSCD
Cloud Services
1 50 (26.04%) Azure
2 39 (20.31%) AWS
3 24 (12.50%) Power Platform
4 23 (11.98%) Azure DevOps
5 16 (8.33%) Serverless
6 15 (7.81%) GitHub
7 13 (6.77%) Power Automate
8 12 (6.25%) Azure Key Vault
8 12 (6.25%) GitHub Actions
9 11 (5.73%) Amazon S3
9 11 (5.73%) Amazon SQS
9 11 (5.73%) PowerApps
10 9 (4.69%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 9 (4.69%) Amazon EC2
10 9 (4.69%) AWS KMS
10 9 (4.69%) Route 53
11 7 (3.65%) Dynamics 365
11 7 (3.65%) GCP
12 5 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
12 5 (2.60%) Azure Functions
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.08%) Firewall
2 1 (0.52%) SSL
2 1 (0.52%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (14.06%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (8.85%) Power BI
3 10 (5.21%) DynamoDB
3 10 (5.21%) Relational Database
4 9 (4.69%) Amazon Aurora
4 9 (4.69%) Amazon RDS
4 9 (4.69%) Data Warehouse
4 9 (4.69%) Redis
5 8 (4.17%) MongoDB
6 6 (3.13%) SQL Server
7 5 (2.60%) MySQL
7 5 (2.60%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 4 (2.08%) BusinessObjects
8 4 (2.08%) BusinessObjects XI
8 4 (2.08%) Metadata
8 4 (2.08%) Power Query
8 4 (2.08%) WebFOCUS
9 3 (1.56%) NoSQL
10 2 (1.04%) Data Hub
10 2 (1.04%) Oracle Database
Development Applications
1 32 (16.67%) Git
2 17 (8.85%) JUnit
3 15 (7.81%) Maven
3 15 (7.81%) Mockito
4 14 (7.29%) JIRA
5 12 (6.25%) Jenkins
6 9 (4.69%) SonarQube
7 7 (3.65%) DbUnit
7 7 (3.65%) jMock
8 6 (3.13%) GitLab
9 5 (2.60%) Bitbucket Server
9 5 (2.60%) Selenium
10 4 (2.08%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.52%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.52%) CA Gen
11 1 (0.52%) Cypress.io
11 1 (0.52%) Eclipse
11 1 (0.52%) IntelliJ
11 1 (0.52%) MSTest
11 1 (0.52%) REST Assured
General
1 34 (17.71%) Public Sector
2 29 (15.10%) Social Skills
3 26 (13.54%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (5.21%) Finance
5 5 (2.60%) Presentation Skills
6 4 (2.08%) Banking
6 4 (2.08%) Marketing
7 3 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.04%) Advertising
9 1 (0.52%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Law
9 1 (0.52%) Legal
9 1 (0.52%) Police
9 1 (0.52%) Retail Banking
9 1 (0.52%) Telecoms
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (15.10%) REST
2 27 (14.06%) Spring
3 26 (13.54%) React
4 25 (13.02%) Node.js
4 25 (13.02%) Spring Boot
5 20 (10.42%) Flask
6 19 (9.90%) AngularJS
7 17 (8.85%) HTML
7 17 (8.85%) JPA
7 17 (8.85%) Web Services
8 14 (7.29%) CSS
8 14 (7.29%) RESTful
9 13 (6.77%) Hibernate
9 13 (6.77%) SOAP
10 12 (6.25%) FastAPI
11 11 (5.73%) Django
11 11 (5.73%) Spring Batch
11 11 (5.73%) Spring Integration
12 10 (5.21%) YAML
13 9 (4.69%) ActiveMQ
Miscellaneous
1 10 (5.21%) Cloud Native
2 8 (4.17%) Distributed Systems
3 7 (3.65%) Product Ownership
4 5 (2.60%) Credit Risk
5 3 (1.56%) Algorithms
5 3 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
6 2 (1.04%) CMDB
6 2 (1.04%) Derivative
6 2 (1.04%) Linux Command Line
6 2 (1.04%) Onboarding
7 1 (0.52%) Analytical Mindset
7 1 (0.52%) Client/Server
7 1 (0.52%) Data Centre
7 1 (0.52%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (0.52%) Learning Management System
7 1 (0.52%) Legacy Applications
7 1 (0.52%) Mainframe
7 1 (0.52%) Robotics
7 1 (0.52%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 12 (6.25%) Linux
2 3 (1.56%) Unix
3 1 (0.52%) Android
3 1 (0.52%) Apple iOS
3 1 (0.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 1 (0.52%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 56 (29.17%) CI/CD
2 45 (23.44%) Agile
3 44 (22.92%) DevOps
4 35 (18.23%) Problem-Solving
5 33 (17.19%) Containerisation
6 32 (16.67%) Microservices
7 31 (16.15%) Full-Stack Development
8 26 (13.54%) Scrum
9 22 (11.46%) Data Modelling
10 21 (10.94%) Workflow
11 20 (10.42%) Business Intelligence
12 17 (8.85%) TDD
13 16 (8.33%) Data Integration
13 16 (8.33%) Decision-Making
13 16 (8.33%) Front End Development
14 14 (7.29%) API Integration
15 13 (6.77%) Continuous Improvement
16 12 (6.25%) Performance Tuning
17 11 (5.73%) Analytics
17 11 (5.73%) Kanban
Programming Languages
1 66 (34.38%) SQL
2 45 (23.44%) Java
3 32 (16.67%) JavaScript
4 31 (16.15%) Python
5 13 (6.77%) C#
6 8 (4.17%) Go
6 8 (4.17%) PL/SQL
7 6 (3.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
7 6 (3.13%) TypeScript
8 4 (2.08%) Shell Script
9 3 (1.56%) PHP
9 3 (1.56%) R
9 3 (1.56%) Scala
10 2 (1.04%) Ruby
11 1 (0.52%) ABAP
11 1 (0.52%) COBOL
11 1 (0.52%) Groovy
11 1 (0.52%) Perl
11 1 (0.52%) T-SQL
11 1 (0.52%) VBA
Qualifications
1 52 (27.08%) Security Cleared
2 47 (24.48%) SC Cleared
3 8 (4.17%) DV Cleared
4 7 (3.65%) BPSS Clearance
5 4 (2.08%) Azure Certification
6 3 (1.56%) AWS Certification
6 3 (1.56%) Microsoft Certification
7 2 (1.04%) Degree
8 1 (0.52%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.52%) DBS Check
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 7 (3.65%) QA
2 5 (2.60%) WCAG
3 4 (2.08%) Accessibility
4 2 (1.04%) SLA
5 1 (0.52%) Data Quality
System Software
1 33 (17.19%) Docker
2 6 (3.13%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 23 (11.98%) Grafana
1 23 (11.98%) Kubernetes
2 12 (6.25%) Prometheus
3 6 (3.13%) Kibana
3 6 (3.13%) Terraform
4 5 (2.60%) Ansible
5 3 (1.56%) Control-M
5 3 (1.56%) IBM Guardium
5 3 (1.56%) Nessus
6 1 (0.52%) Puppet
Vendors
1 39 (20.31%) Microsoft
2 9 (4.69%) Jaspersoft
3 7 (3.65%) Atlassian
3 7 (3.65%) ServiceNow
4 5 (2.60%) Siemens
5 4 (2.08%) Oracle
6 3 (1.56%) Google
6 3 (1.56%) SAP
6 3 (1.56%) Tenable
7 2 (1.04%) Calypso
7 2 (1.04%) IFS
7 2 (1.04%) NEC
8 1 (0.52%) Adobe
8 1 (0.52%) ICL
8 1 (0.52%) Red Hat
8 1 (0.52%) Salesforce
8 1 (0.52%) Splunk
8 1 (0.52%) webMethods