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 26 February 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 39 56 82
Rank change year-on-year +17 +26 -41
Contract jobs citing Java 148 45 30
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 5.44% 3.18% 1.61%
As % of the Programming Languages category 21.39% 12.36% 7.25%
Number of daily rates quoted 106 26 21
10th Percentile £420 £406 £306
25th Percentile £438 £434 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £484 £477 £500
Median % change year-on-year +1.47% -4.60% -9.09%
75th Percentile £550 £538 £675
90th Percentile £631 £575 -
England median daily rate £520 £585 £575
% change year-on-year -11.07% +1.74% -8.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 3
10th Percentile - - £17.20
25th Percentile - - £17.31
Median hourly rate £50.00 - £17.50
75th Percentile - - £28.75
90th Percentile - - £35.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £62.50 £62.50
% change year-on-year +4.00% - -3.85%

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 692 364 414
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 25.45% 25.72% 22.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 499 217 299
10th Percentile £358 £347 £260
25th Percentile £425 £410 £353
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £489 £450
Median % change year-on-year +2.25% +8.67% -14.29%
75th Percentile £564 £575 £575
90th Percentile £638 £700 £661
England median daily rate £509 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -3.05% -4.55% -4.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 4 9 13
10th Percentile £51.95 £16.95 £17.50
25th Percentile £54.88 £17.00 £17.75
Median hourly rate £58.00 £20.24 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +186.56% -59.52% +127.27%
75th Percentile £64.00 £28.75 £58.75
90th Percentile £72.10 £54.00 £69.75
England median hourly rate £65.00 £63.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year +3.17% +5.00% -7.16%

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 26 February 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 26 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
Shropshire -2 76 £467 +7.39% 9
Birmingham +1 36 £500 -4.76% 9
Solihull -5 9 £450 +18.11% 6
Warwickshire -6 8 £514 - 2
Herefordshire -12 6 £575 +9.52%
Coventry -17 6 £670 +34.00% 2
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 20 (13.51%) WebLogic
2 18 (12.16%) Apache
3 13 (8.78%) Confluence
4 8 (5.41%) JBoss
5 5 (3.38%) Apache Spark
6 4 (2.70%) SAS
7 2 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (1.35%) Drupal
8 1 (0.68%) Apache Geronimo
8 1 (0.68%) Apache Pig
8 1 (0.68%) Apache ServiceMix
8 1 (0.68%) nginx
8 1 (0.68%) Red Hat Fuse
8 1 (0.68%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.68%) Tomcat
8 1 (0.68%) WebSphere
Applications
1 2 (1.35%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.68%) Maya
2 1 (0.68%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 2 (1.35%) SAP FI
2 1 (0.68%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 68 (45.95%) AWS
2 25 (16.89%) Azure
3 17 (11.49%) Amazon S3
4 14 (9.46%) Amazon EC2
5 12 (8.11%) GCP
6 10 (6.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 10 (6.76%) AWS KMS
7 9 (6.08%) Amazon SQS
7 9 (6.08%) Route 53
8 8 (5.41%) Cloud Computing
9 6 (4.05%) Serverless
10 5 (3.38%) AWS Lambda
10 5 (3.38%) Azure DevOps
10 5 (3.38%) GitHub
10 5 (3.38%) Power Platform
10 5 (3.38%) Tricentis Tosca
11 4 (2.70%) Entra ID
11 4 (2.70%) Google Kubernetes Engine
11 4 (2.70%) OpenShift
12 3 (2.03%) Cloud Composer
Communications & Networking
1 4 (2.70%) Network Security
2 1 (0.68%) DNS
2 1 (0.68%) Firewall
2 1 (0.68%) FTP
2 1 (0.68%) HTTP
2 1 (0.68%) SMTP
2 1 (0.68%) SSH
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (20.95%) MongoDB
2 19 (12.84%) Amazon RDS
3 18 (12.16%) PostgreSQL
4 11 (7.43%) Relational Database
5 10 (6.76%) MySQL
6 9 (6.08%) Amazon Aurora
6 9 (6.08%) DynamoDB
7 7 (4.73%) Hadoop
8 6 (4.05%) Pentaho
9 5 (3.38%) Amazon Redshift
9 5 (3.38%) Apache Hive
9 5 (3.38%) NoSQL
9 5 (3.38%) Oracle Database
9 5 (3.38%) Power BI
10 4 (2.70%) BigQuery
10 4 (2.70%) InfluxDB
11 3 (2.03%) BusinessObjects
11 3 (2.03%) Impala
12 2 (1.35%) Ingres
12 2 (1.35%) Oracle Reports
Development Applications
1 41 (27.70%) Git
2 36 (24.32%) JUnit
3 23 (15.54%) Jenkins
3 23 (15.54%) JIRA
4 22 (14.86%) Selenium
5 20 (13.51%) GitLab
6 18 (12.16%) Maven
6 18 (12.16%) Mockito
7 13 (8.78%) Cucumber
8 11 (7.43%) SonarQube
9 8 (5.41%) Eclipse
9 8 (5.41%) IntelliJ
10 7 (4.73%) DbUnit
10 7 (4.73%) jMock
11 6 (4.05%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 6 (4.05%) Gatling
12 5 (3.38%) Bitbucket Server
13 4 (2.70%) JMeter
13 4 (2.70%) Toad
14 3 (2.03%) REST Assured
General
1 42 (28.38%) Social Skills
2 32 (21.62%) Public Sector
3 24 (16.22%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (10.14%) Finance
5 10 (6.76%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (5.41%) Banking
7 5 (3.38%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
8 2 (1.35%) Investment Banking
8 2 (1.35%) Legal
8 2 (1.35%) Organisational Skills
8 2 (1.35%) Retail
8 2 (1.35%) Telecoms
9 1 (0.68%) Advertising
9 1 (0.68%) Automotive
9 1 (0.68%) Games
9 1 (0.68%) Manufacturing
9 1 (0.68%) Publishing
9 1 (0.68%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 47 (31.76%) Developer
2 39 (26.35%) Java Developer
3 29 (19.59%) Lead
4 26 (17.57%) Java Engineer
5 16 (10.81%) Data Engineer
6 13 (8.78%) Senior
7 9 (6.08%) Lead Java Engineer
7 9 (6.08%) Software Engineer
8 7 (4.73%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 6 (4.05%) Analyst
9 6 (4.05%) Lead Data Engineer
10 5 (3.38%) SailPoint Engineer
10 5 (3.38%) Senior Developer
10 5 (3.38%) Senior Java Developer
10 5 (3.38%) Site Engineer
10 5 (3.38%) Site Reliability Engineer
11 4 (2.70%) Cloud Engineer
11 4 (2.70%) Lead Cloud Engineer
11 4 (2.70%) Operations Engineer
11 4 (2.70%) Test Leader
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 62 (41.89%) Spring
2 45 (30.41%) Spring Boot
3 26 (17.57%) REST
4 23 (15.54%) SOAP
5 21 (14.19%) JSON
6 20 (13.51%) Hibernate
7 18 (12.16%) JPA
8 16 (10.81%) RESTful
8 16 (10.81%) XML
9 14 (9.46%) HTML
9 14 (9.46%) Web Services
10 13 (8.78%) Gherkin
11 12 (8.11%) Node.js
11 12 (8.11%) Spring Batch
12 11 (7.43%) Playwright
13 10 (6.76%) React
13 10 (6.76%) Spring Cloud
13 10 (6.76%) Spring Integration
14 9 (6.08%) AngularJS
14 9 (6.08%) Kafka
Miscellaneous
1 11 (7.43%) Distributed Systems
2 4 (2.70%) Cloud Native
2 4 (2.70%) Clustering
2 4 (2.70%) Data Centre
2 4 (2.70%) Legacy Systems
3 3 (2.03%) Onboarding
3 3 (2.03%) Product Ownership
4 2 (1.35%) Algorithms
4 2 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
4 2 (1.35%) Data Structures
4 2 (1.35%) Derivative
4 2 (1.35%) Linux Command Line
4 2 (1.35%) Mobile App
4 2 (1.35%) Self-Motivation
5 1 (0.68%) Animation
5 1 (0.68%) Enterprise Software
5 1 (0.68%) Mobile Banking
5 1 (0.68%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 26 (17.57%) Linux
2 14 (9.46%) Unix
3 6 (4.05%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 5 (3.38%) Windows
5 3 (2.03%) Android
6 1 (0.68%) Amazon Linux
6 1 (0.68%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.68%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 57 (38.51%) Agile
2 50 (33.78%) CI/CD
3 49 (33.11%) Microservices
4 43 (29.05%) Scrum
5 37 (25.00%) Problem-Solving
6 36 (24.32%) Software Engineering
7 30 (20.27%) DevOps
8 25 (16.89%) Continuous Improvement
8 25 (16.89%) TDD
9 23 (15.54%) Containerisation
9 23 (15.54%) Test Automation
10 22 (14.86%) Mentoring
11 18 (12.16%) Stakeholder Management
12 16 (10.81%) Continuous Integration
13 14 (9.46%) Analytics
13 14 (9.46%) Kanban
13 14 (9.46%) Open Source
14 13 (8.78%) BDD
14 13 (8.78%) Software Testing
15 11 (7.43%) Coaching
Programming Languages
1 85 (57.43%) SQL
2 25 (16.89%) Python
3 23 (15.54%) PL/SQL
4 18 (12.16%) Shell Script
5 13 (8.78%) Scala
6 7 (4.73%) Perl
7 5 (3.38%) JavaScript
7 5 (3.38%) PowerShell
8 4 (2.70%) BeanShell
8 4 (2.70%) Go
8 4 (2.70%) Groovy
8 4 (2.70%) Kotlin
9 3 (2.03%) HiveQL
9 3 (2.03%) VB
10 2 (1.35%) PHP
10 2 (1.35%) Ruby
11 1 (0.68%) C++
11 1 (0.68%) COBOL
11 1 (0.68%) Tcl
11 1 (0.68%) VB6
Qualifications
1 72 (48.65%) Security Cleared
2 66 (44.59%) SC Cleared
3 9 (6.08%) BPSS Clearance
4 7 (4.73%) AWS Certification
4 7 (4.73%) Degree
5 5 (3.38%) DV Cleared
5 5 (3.38%) ISTQB
5 5 (3.38%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
6 4 (2.70%) Azure Certification
6 4 (2.70%) CISM
6 4 (2.70%) CISSP
7 2 (1.35%) ISEB
7 2 (1.35%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (8.11%) QA
2 8 (5.41%) WCAG
3 7 (4.73%) Accessibility
4 5 (3.38%) Data Quality
5 3 (2.03%) FATCA
6 2 (1.35%) SLA
System Software
1 30 (20.27%) Docker
2 6 (4.05%) Active Directory
2 6 (4.05%) Postfix
3 3 (2.03%) HDFS
4 1 (0.68%) DFS Replication
Systems Management
1 37 (25.00%) Kubernetes
2 26 (17.57%) Grafana
3 11 (7.43%) Terraform
4 10 (6.76%) Ansible
4 10 (6.76%) Kibana
4 10 (6.76%) Puppet
5 8 (5.41%) Prometheus
6 4 (2.70%) Progress Chef
7 3 (2.03%) HP ALM
8 2 (1.35%) Docker Swarm
8 2 (1.35%) HP Quality Center
8 2 (1.35%) Podman
9 1 (0.68%) Argo
9 1 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
9 1 (0.68%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 28 (18.92%) Oracle
2 17 (11.49%) ServiceNow
3 10 (6.76%) webMethods
4 9 (6.08%) Google
4 9 (6.08%) Jaspersoft
5 7 (4.73%) Atlassian
5 7 (4.73%) Microsoft
5 7 (4.73%) SAP
6 6 (4.05%) Red Hat
6 6 (4.05%) Splunk
6 6 (4.05%) Talend
7 4 (2.70%) Denodo
8 3 (2.03%) HP
8 3 (2.03%) Informatica
9 2 (1.35%) Actian
9 2 (1.35%) Ariba
9 2 (1.35%) Calypso
9 2 (1.35%) Dynatrace
9 2 (1.35%) PagerDuty
10 1 (0.68%) ForgeRock