Java Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Java
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Java skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 May 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 48 45 70
Rank change year-on-year -3 +25 -28
Contract jobs citing Java 128 57 44
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 4.04% 4.17% 2.33%
As % of the Programming Languages category 18.93% 16.29% 10.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 90 34 33
10th Percentile £420 £400 £315
25th Percentile £441 £414 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £493 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.93% -6.19% -4.55%
75th Percentile £561 £547 £581
90th Percentile £670 £575 £675
England median daily rate £525 £550 £594
% change year-on-year -4.55% -7.41% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 5 5
10th Percentile - - £40.20
25th Percentile - - £40.50
Median hourly rate - £33.91 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - -38.35% +197.30%
75th Percentile - £50.00 £56.25
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% -0.76%

All Programming Languages
West Midlands

Java falls under the Programming Languages category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring coding skills in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for coding skills 676 350 437
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 21.32% 25.60% 23.13%
Number of daily rates quoted 507 216 317
10th Percentile £350 £235 £260
25th Percentile £412 £400 £335
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £461 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% +2.50% -13.88%
75th Percentile £538 £552 £550
90th Percentile £619 £682 £638
England median daily rate £510 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -2.81% -4.55% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 10 10 13
10th Percentile £48.75 £18.39 £40.10
25th Percentile £56.50 £28.18 £55.00
Median hourly rate £61.32 £33.91 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +80.82% -41.03% +96.13%
75th Percentile £67.84 £45.98 £58.75
90th Percentile £77.50 £50.25 £69.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -

Java
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Java relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Java job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Java
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Java.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Java

Java
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Java in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 22 May 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Java in the West Midlands

Java
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Java.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Java

Java
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 Java within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 22 May 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 -12 57 £469 -8.49% 2
Birmingham -12 35 £500 - 14
Solihull -5 18 £450 +7.14%
Warwickshire -23 6 £539 +19.87% 2
Coventry - 5 £505 - 1
Herefordshire -5 3 £625 +19.05%
Java
England

Java
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 12 (9.38%) Confluence
2 9 (7.03%) WebLogic
3 8 (6.25%) Apache
4 5 (3.91%) SAS
5 3 (2.34%) Apache Spark
6 2 (1.56%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.78%) Apache Geronimo
7 1 (0.78%) Apache ServiceMix
7 1 (0.78%) NetWeaver
7 1 (0.78%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.78%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.78%) Oracle Workflow
7 1 (0.78%) Red Hat Fuse
7 1 (0.78%) SAP EP
7 1 (0.78%) Tomcat
7 1 (0.78%) WebSphere
Applications
1 3 (2.34%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (1.56%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 1 (0.78%) SAP CRM
1 1 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
1 1 (0.78%) Teamcenter
1 1 (0.78%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 48 (37.50%) AWS
2 20 (15.63%) Amazon S3
3 18 (14.06%) Amazon EC2
3 18 (14.06%) Amazon SQS
3 18 (14.06%) Azure
4 17 (13.28%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 17 (13.28%) AWS KMS
4 17 (13.28%) Route 53
5 10 (7.81%) GitHub
6 7 (5.47%) GCP
7 6 (4.69%) Azure DevOps
7 6 (4.69%) Power Platform
8 4 (3.13%) Google Kubernetes Engine
9 3 (2.34%) Cloud Composer
9 3 (2.34%) Serverless
9 3 (2.34%) Snowflake
10 2 (1.56%) AWS Lambda
10 2 (1.56%) Entra ID
10 2 (1.56%) GitHub Actions
10 2 (1.56%) GitHub Copilot
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.78%) Network Security
1 1 (0.78%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 24 (18.75%) PostgreSQL
2 18 (14.06%) Amazon RDS
3 17 (13.28%) Amazon Aurora
3 17 (13.28%) DynamoDB
4 15 (11.72%) MongoDB
5 12 (9.38%) Relational Database
6 7 (5.47%) Pentaho
7 6 (4.69%) MySQL
7 6 (4.69%) Power BI
8 4 (3.13%) BigQuery
8 4 (3.13%) Metadata
9 3 (2.34%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (2.34%) Apache Hive
9 3 (2.34%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (2.34%) Hadoop
9 3 (2.34%) Impala
9 3 (2.34%) NoSQL
9 3 (2.34%) Oracle Database
10 2 (1.56%) Data Warehouse
10 2 (1.56%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 32 (25.00%) Jenkins
2 29 (22.66%) Git
3 26 (20.31%) JUnit
4 22 (17.19%) Maven
5 21 (16.41%) SonarQube
6 19 (14.84%) Mockito
7 16 (12.50%) JIRA
8 13 (10.16%) DbUnit
8 13 (10.16%) GitLab
8 13 (10.16%) jMock
8 13 (10.16%) Selenium
9 11 (8.59%) Bitbucket Server
10 8 (6.25%) REST Assured
11 6 (4.69%) Serenity BDD
12 5 (3.91%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 5 (3.91%) Cucumber
12 5 (3.91%) Gatling
12 5 (3.91%) JMeter
12 5 (3.91%) Team Foundation Server
13 4 (3.13%) Visual Studio
General
1 39 (30.47%) Public Sector
2 26 (20.31%) Social Skills
3 21 (16.41%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (7.03%) Finance
5 5 (3.91%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (2.34%) Banking
6 3 (2.34%) Presentation Skills
6 3 (2.34%) Retail
7 2 (1.56%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.78%) Advertising
8 1 (0.78%) Electronics
8 1 (0.78%) Publishing
8 1 (0.78%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 49 (38.28%) Developer
2 41 (32.03%) Java Developer
3 25 (19.53%) Lead
4 20 (15.63%) Java Engineer
5 13 (10.16%) Senior
6 10 (7.81%) Data Engineer
7 8 (6.25%) Architect
7 8 (6.25%) Lead Java Engineer
7 8 (6.25%) Senior Developer
7 8 (6.25%) Software Engineer
8 7 (5.47%) SC Cleared Java Developer
8 7 (5.47%) Senior Java Developer
8 7 (5.47%) Test Engineer
9 5 (3.91%) Lead Data Engineer
10 4 (3.13%) Java Software Engineer
10 4 (3.13%) Lead Test Engineer
10 4 (3.13%) Technical Architect
11 3 (2.34%) Lead Developer
11 3 (2.34%) Lead Java Developer
11 3 (2.34%) SailPoint Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (41.41%) Spring
2 46 (35.94%) Spring Boot
3 28 (21.88%) REST
4 27 (21.09%) SOAP
5 21 (16.41%) JPA
5 21 (16.41%) Web Services
6 20 (15.63%) Hibernate
7 19 (14.84%) Spring Batch
7 19 (14.84%) Spring Cloud
7 19 (14.84%) Spring Integration
8 17 (13.28%) ActiveMQ
8 17 (13.28%) AngularJS
9 16 (12.50%) Node.js
10 14 (10.94%) RESTful
11 13 (10.16%) PowerMock
12 11 (8.59%) Bootstrap
13 10 (7.81%) Kafka
14 9 (7.03%) Playwright
15 7 (5.47%) XML
16 6 (4.69%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 18 (14.06%) Distributed Systems
2 5 (3.91%) Cloud Native
3 4 (3.13%) Clustering
3 4 (3.13%) Data Centre
4 2 (1.56%) Autonomous Agent
5 1 (0.78%) Data Protection Act
5 1 (0.78%) Distributed Architecture
5 1 (0.78%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.78%) Legacy Systems
5 1 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
5 1 (0.78%) Mobile App
5 1 (0.78%) Mobile Banking
5 1 (0.78%) Onboarding
5 1 (0.78%) Product Ownership
5 1 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 24 (18.75%) Linux
2 8 (6.25%) Unix
3 5 (3.91%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (2.34%) Android
5 1 (0.78%) Apple iOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 47 (36.72%) Agile
2 44 (34.38%) CI/CD
3 41 (32.03%) Microservices
4 37 (28.91%) DevOps
5 33 (25.78%) Scrum
6 30 (23.44%) TDD
7 26 (20.31%) Problem-Solving
8 22 (17.19%) Containerisation
9 21 (16.41%) Kanban
10 20 (15.63%) BDD
10 20 (15.63%) Software Engineering
10 20 (15.63%) Stakeholder Management
11 19 (14.84%) Continuous Improvement
12 18 (14.06%) Test Automation
13 14 (10.94%) Technical Leadership
14 13 (10.16%) Continuous Integration
14 13 (10.16%) Performance Tuning
15 12 (9.38%) BPMN
15 12 (9.38%) Open Source
15 12 (9.38%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 62 (48.44%) SQL
2 19 (14.84%) PL/SQL
3 18 (14.06%) Python
4 11 (8.59%) Shell Script
5 7 (5.47%) VB
6 6 (4.69%) Kotlin
7 5 (3.91%) JavaScript
7 5 (3.91%) Perl
7 5 (3.91%) VB6
8 4 (3.13%) VBA
9 3 (2.34%) HiveQL
10 2 (1.56%) BeanShell
10 2 (1.56%) C
10 2 (1.56%) C++
10 2 (1.56%) Groovy
10 2 (1.56%) PowerShell
10 2 (1.56%) TypeScript
11 1 (0.78%) Apex Code
11 1 (0.78%) C#
11 1 (0.78%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 71 (55.47%) Security Cleared
2 65 (50.78%) SC Cleared
3 9 (7.03%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (5.47%) Degree
5 6 (4.69%) Azure Certification
6 5 (3.91%) AWS Certification
7 3 (2.34%) ISTQB
7 3 (2.34%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 2 (1.56%) CISM
8 2 (1.56%) CISSP
8 2 (1.56%) DV Cleared
8 2 (1.56%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (0.78%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.78%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 1 (0.78%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (10.16%) QA
2 7 (5.47%) Data Quality
3 6 (4.69%) Accessibility
4 3 (2.34%) FATCA
5 2 (1.56%) SLA
5 2 (1.56%) WCAG
6 1 (0.78%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.78%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 29 (22.66%) Docker
2 11 (8.59%) Postfix
3 3 (2.34%) HDFS
4 2 (1.56%) Active Directory
5 1 (0.78%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 24 (18.75%) Grafana
2 20 (15.63%) Kubernetes
3 8 (6.25%) Prometheus
4 7 (5.47%) Terraform
5 4 (3.13%) Ansible
5 4 (3.13%) Single Sign-On
6 3 (2.34%) HP ALM
7 2 (1.56%) HP Quality Center
7 2 (1.56%) Kibana
7 2 (1.56%) Podman
8 1 (0.78%) Argo
8 1 (0.78%) Docker Swarm
8 1 (0.78%) Progress Chef
8 1 (0.78%) Puppet
Vendors
1 17 (13.28%) Jaspersoft
2 16 (12.50%) Oracle
3 13 (10.16%) Atlassian
4 12 (9.38%) Microsoft
5 10 (7.81%) ServiceNow
6 6 (4.69%) Google
7 5 (3.91%) Denodo
7 5 (3.91%) Red Hat
7 5 (3.91%) SAP
7 5 (3.91%) Talend
8 4 (3.13%) Splunk
9 3 (2.34%) HP
9 3 (2.34%) Informatica
10 2 (1.56%) Actian
10 2 (1.56%) Sonatype
11 1 (0.78%) Ariba
11 1 (0.78%) MuleSoft
11 1 (0.78%) Sage
11 1 (0.78%) Workday
11 1 (0.78%) Zscaler