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 31 August 2026.

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

6 months to
31 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 28 26 12
Rank change year-on-year -2 -14 -3
Contract jobs requiring a Developer 223 127 188
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.47% 7.19% 9.89%
As % of the Job Titles category 7.06% 7.99% 10.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 166 91 132
10th Percentile £400 £350 £313
25th Percentile £413 £407 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £475 £450
Median % change year-on-year - +5.56% -
75th Percentile £535 £515 £550
90th Percentile £604 £613 £650
England median daily rate £520 £507 £525
% change year-on-year +2.51% -3.38% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 1 3
10th Percentile - - £38.10
25th Percentile - £56.88 £39.00
Median hourly rate - £58.75 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year - +36.63% +28.80%
75th Percentile - £60.63 £50.25
90th Percentile - - £53.10
England median hourly rate £55.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year - -15.38% +8.62%

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 3,160 1,589 1,756
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.70% 89.98% 92.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,870 1,028 1,158
10th Percentile £337 £235 £246
25th Percentile £413 £375 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £478 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.51% -4.40% -
75th Percentile £588 £581 £613
90th Percentile £675 £649 £713
England median daily rate £525 £508 £525
% change year-on-year +3.45% -3.33% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 228 109 71
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.62 £12.74
25th Percentile £20.02 £14.00 £14.58
Median hourly rate £30.27 £25.15 £19.59
Median % change year-on-year +20.36% +28.38% -6.65%
75th Percentile £53.75 £40.02 £33.74
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £50.00
England median hourly rate £42.50 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +68.99% -44.11% +4.65%

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 31 August 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 31 August 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
Shropshire -4 79 £490 +5.95% 12
Birmingham -9 58 £475 - 23
Coventry +9 42 £425 +4.62% 8
Solihull -7 12 £425 -26.09% 4
Warwickshire -13 10 £483 -3.50% 7
Dudley - 5 £400 - 6
Herefordshire 0 4 £700 +14.29% 1
Worcestershire +1 3 £575 -11.54% 5
Wolverhampton - 3 £350 - 2
Staffordshire -8 1 £313 -30.56% 7
Developer
England

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

For the 6 months to 31 August 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 82 (36.77%) Agile
2 65 (29.15%) Security Cleared
3 58 (26.01%) SC Cleared
4 56 (25.11%) Microsoft
5 53 (23.77%) Java
6 52 (23.32%) SQL
7 50 (22.42%) JavaScript
8 44 (19.73%) CI/CD
9 43 (19.28%) BPSS Clearance
10 41 (18.39%) DevOps
11 37 (16.59%) Azure
12 34 (15.25%) Power Platform
12 34 (15.25%) Scrum
13 33 (14.80%) Continuous Improvement
14 29 (13.00%) Microservices
14 29 (13.00%) React
14 29 (13.00%) SOAP
15 28 (12.56%) Git
15 28 (12.56%) Migration
15 28 (12.56%) Sprint Planning
16 27 (12.11%) AWS
16 27 (12.11%) REST
17 26 (11.66%) Power Automate
17 26 (11.66%) PowerApps
17 26 (11.66%) Spring
18 25 (11.21%) Front End Development
18 25 (11.21%) Problem-Solving
18 25 (11.21%) Spring Boot
19 22 (9.87%) Azure DevOps
20 21 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement

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 (3.14%) Confluence
2 6 (2.69%) SAS
3 5 (2.24%) SharePoint
4 2 (0.90%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 2 (0.90%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.45%) ArcGIS
5 1 (0.45%) IIS
5 1 (0.45%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.45%) WebLogic
Applications
1 1 (0.45%) Chatbot
1 1 (0.45%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 16 (7.17%) Teamcenter
2 2 (0.90%) Dynamics CRM
3 1 (0.45%) SAP EWM
3 1 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 37 (16.59%) Azure
2 34 (15.25%) Power Platform
3 27 (12.11%) AWS
4 26 (11.66%) Power Automate
4 26 (11.66%) PowerApps
5 22 (9.87%) Azure DevOps
6 15 (6.73%) Dynamics 365
7 13 (5.83%) Amazon S3
7 13 (5.83%) Amazon SQS
8 11 (4.93%) Microsoft 365
9 10 (4.48%) Microsoft Copilot
10 9 (4.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 8 (3.59%) Amazon EC2
11 8 (3.59%) AWS KMS
11 8 (3.59%) Route 53
11 8 (3.59%) Serverless
12 4 (1.79%) GitHub
13 3 (1.35%) Amazon ECS
13 3 (1.35%) Azure Data Factory
13 3 (1.35%) GitHub Actions
Database & Business Intelligence
1 18 (8.07%) PostgreSQL
2 12 (5.38%) Power BI
3 10 (4.48%) Amazon RDS
3 10 (4.48%) DynamoDB
4 9 (4.04%) MongoDB
5 8 (3.59%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (3.59%) Data Warehouse
5 8 (3.59%) SQL Server
6 7 (3.14%) Relational Database
7 6 (2.69%) NoSQL
8 3 (1.35%) Base SAS
8 3 (1.35%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 2 (0.90%) Data Hub
9 2 (0.90%) Data Mining
9 2 (0.90%) Power Query
10 1 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
10 1 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
10 1 (0.45%) Big Data
10 1 (0.45%) Metadata
10 1 (0.45%) Redis
Development Applications
1 28 (12.56%) Git
2 15 (6.73%) Mockito
3 14 (6.28%) Maven
4 13 (5.83%) JUnit
5 12 (5.38%) Jenkins
5 12 (5.38%) Team Foundation Server
5 12 (5.38%) Visual Studio
6 10 (4.48%) SonarQube
7 7 (3.14%) JIRA
8 6 (2.69%) Bitbucket Server
8 6 (2.69%) DbUnit
8 6 (2.69%) GitLab
8 6 (2.69%) jMock
9 1 (0.45%) Artifactory
9 1 (0.45%) Cypress.io
9 1 (0.45%) Hudson
9 1 (0.45%) NUnit
9 1 (0.45%) Rational Rhapsody
9 1 (0.45%) Selenium
General
1 67 (30.04%) Public Sector
2 34 (15.25%) Social Skills
3 25 (11.21%) Finance
4 17 (7.62%) Analytical Skills
5 14 (6.28%) Inclusion and Diversity
6 10 (4.48%) Banking
7 4 (1.79%) Manufacturing
8 3 (1.35%) Marketing
9 2 (0.90%) Legal
9 2 (0.90%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.90%) Retail
10 1 (0.45%) Front Office
10 1 (0.45%) Investment Banking
10 1 (0.45%) Military
10 1 (0.45%) Pharmaceutical
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (13.00%) React
1 29 (13.00%) SOAP
2 27 (12.11%) REST
3 26 (11.66%) Spring
4 25 (11.21%) Spring Boot
5 18 (8.07%) Node.js
6 15 (6.73%) Web Services
6 15 (6.73%) XML
7 13 (5.83%) AngularJS
7 13 (5.83%) JPA
7 13 (5.83%) JSON
8 12 (5.38%) ActiveMQ
8 12 (5.38%) ActiveX
9 11 (4.93%) CSS
9 11 (4.93%) Hibernate
9 11 (4.93%) HTML
10 9 (4.04%) .NET
10 9 (4.04%) Kafka
10 9 (4.04%) Spring Batch
10 9 (4.04%) Spring Integration
Miscellaneous
1 19 (8.52%) Product Ownership
2 14 (6.28%) Cloud Native
3 9 (4.04%) Distributed Systems
4 6 (2.69%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (0.90%) BYOD
5 2 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
5 2 (0.90%) Linux Command Line
5 2 (0.90%) Management Information System
5 2 (0.90%) Mobile App
5 2 (0.90%) Taxonomies
6 1 (0.45%) Data Structures
6 1 (0.45%) Equities
6 1 (0.45%) Fixed Income
6 1 (0.45%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
6 1 (0.45%) Greenfield Project
6 1 (0.45%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (0.45%) Legacy Code
6 1 (0.45%) Low-Code
6 1 (0.45%) Onboarding
6 1 (0.45%) Reference Data
Operating Systems
1 11 (4.93%) Linux
2 6 (2.69%) Unix
3 1 (0.45%) Android
3 1 (0.45%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (36.77%) Agile
2 44 (19.73%) CI/CD
3 41 (18.39%) DevOps
4 34 (15.25%) Scrum
5 33 (14.80%) Continuous Improvement
6 29 (13.00%) Microservices
7 28 (12.56%) Migration
7 28 (12.56%) Sprint Planning
8 25 (11.21%) Front End Development
8 25 (11.21%) Problem-Solving
9 21 (9.42%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 20 (8.97%) TDD
10 20 (8.97%) User Stories
11 19 (8.52%) Digital Transformation Programme
11 19 (8.52%) Technical Leadership
11 19 (8.52%) Test Automation
12 17 (7.62%) Backlog Refinement
13 16 (7.17%) ETL
14 15 (6.73%) Business Intelligence
14 15 (6.73%) User Experience
Programming Languages
1 53 (23.77%) Java
2 52 (23.32%) SQL
3 50 (22.42%) JavaScript
4 19 (8.52%) C#
5 13 (5.83%) VB
5 13 (5.83%) VB6
6 12 (5.38%) VBA
7 11 (4.93%) TypeScript
8 10 (4.48%) PL/SQL
8 10 (4.48%) Python
8 10 (4.48%) Scala
9 4 (1.79%) COBOL
10 3 (1.35%) Data Analysis Expressions
10 3 (1.35%) Shell Script
11 2 (0.90%) C
11 2 (0.90%) T-SQL
11 2 (0.90%) VB.NET
12 1 (0.45%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.45%) C++
12 1 (0.45%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 65 (29.15%) Security Cleared
2 58 (26.01%) SC Cleared
3 43 (19.28%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (5.83%) Microsoft Certification
5 3 (1.35%) Azure Certification
6 2 (0.90%) AWS Certification
6 2 (0.90%) DV Cleared
7 1 (0.45%) Degree
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 20 (8.97%) Accessibility
2 10 (4.48%) QA
3 7 (3.14%) WCAG
4 3 (1.35%) Basel III
4 3 (1.35%) Data Quality
5 2 (0.90%) GDPR
5 2 (0.90%) GRC
6 1 (0.45%) HL7
System Software
1 16 (7.17%) Docker
2 5 (2.24%) Postfix
3 1 (0.45%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 11 (4.93%) Grafana
2 9 (4.04%) Kubernetes
2 9 (4.04%) Single Sign-On
3 7 (3.14%) Prometheus
4 3 (1.35%) Kibana
Vendors
1 56 (25.11%) Microsoft
2 12 (5.38%) Oracle
3 8 (3.59%) Atlassian
3 8 (3.59%) Jaspersoft
3 8 (3.59%) ServiceNow
3 8 (3.59%) Talend
3 8 (3.59%) UiPath
4 2 (0.90%) Adobe
4 2 (0.90%) Databricks
4 2 (0.90%) Google
4 2 (0.90%) Informatica
4 2 (0.90%) Pega
4 2 (0.90%) SAP
4 2 (0.90%) Siemens
5 1 (0.45%) Dynatrace
5 1 (0.45%) Infor
5 1 (0.45%) NEC
5 1 (0.45%) Salesforce
5 1 (0.45%) Salesforce Marketing Cloud
5 1 (0.45%) Splunk