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 8 August 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
8 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 41 47
Rank change year-on-year +5 +6 +10
Contract jobs citing Java 185 87 61
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 5.29% 5.16% 3.29%
As % of the Programming Languages category 23.42% 20.76% 15.72%
Number of daily rates quoted 130 58 46
10th Percentile £415 £387 £411
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £488 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +2.63% -13.64% +1.85%
75th Percentile £609 £500 £659
90th Percentile £670 £549 £744
England median daily rate £525 £528 £600
% change year-on-year -0.47% -12.08% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 17 5
10th Percentile - - £40.20
25th Percentile - £33.91 £40.50
Median hourly rate - £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% +197.30%
75th Percentile - - £56.25
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £66.00 £50.00 £67.50
% change year-on-year +32.00% -25.93% +2.89%

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 790 419 388
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.60% 24.84% 20.93%
Number of daily rates quoted 582 262 270
10th Percentile £363 £256 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £463 £490
Median % change year-on-year +1.41% -5.52% -2.10%
75th Percentile £538 £538 £575
90th Percentile £638 £613 £650
England median daily rate £523 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.60% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 22 10
10th Percentile £21.25 £28.18 £33.57
25th Percentile £29.38 £33.91 £40.13
Median hourly rate £58.00 £50.00 £55.63
Median % change year-on-year +16.00% -10.11% +125.89%
75th Percentile £67.84 - £58.13
90th Percentile - - £60.38
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% +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 8 August 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 8 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 0 105 £508 +4.21% 28
Birmingham -13 31 £469 -1.32% 23
Solihull -3 26 £450 +7.14% 2
Coventry - 6 £575 - 2
Warwickshire -38 5 £539 +2.75% 3
Herefordshire - 4 £625 -
Worcestershire - 1 £450 -
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 18 (9.73%) WebLogic
2 11 (5.95%) Confluence
3 9 (4.86%) SAS
4 2 (1.08%) OpenROAD
4 2 (1.08%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.54%) Apache
5 1 (0.54%) Apache Spark
5 1 (0.54%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.54%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.54%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.54%) SAP EP
5 1 (0.54%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (2.70%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (2.70%) SAP PSCD
2 1 (0.54%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.54%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.54%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 70 (37.84%) AWS
2 29 (15.68%) Azure
3 27 (14.59%) Amazon S3
4 24 (12.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 24 (12.97%) Amazon EC2
5 19 (10.27%) GitHub
6 17 (9.19%) Amazon SQS
7 16 (8.65%) Power Platform
8 15 (8.11%) AWS KMS
8 15 (8.11%) Route 53
9 12 (6.49%) Serverless
10 11 (5.95%) Amazon ECS
10 11 (5.95%) Amazon EKS
10 11 (5.95%) Azure DevOps
11 10 (5.41%) AWS Lambda
12 9 (4.86%) GitHub Actions
13 4 (2.16%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (2.16%) GCP
13 4 (2.16%) GitHub Copilot
14 3 (1.62%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.54%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 25 (13.51%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (9.19%) MongoDB
3 15 (8.11%) Amazon Aurora
3 15 (8.11%) Amazon RDS
3 15 (8.11%) DynamoDB
4 14 (7.57%) Power BI
5 10 (5.41%) MySQL
5 10 (5.41%) Pentaho
6 8 (4.32%) Metadata
7 7 (3.78%) Data Warehouse
8 6 (3.24%) Data Lake
8 6 (3.24%) NoSQL
8 6 (3.24%) Relational Database
9 3 (1.62%) Amazon Redshift
9 3 (1.62%) Apache Hive
9 3 (1.62%) BusinessObjects
9 3 (1.62%) Hadoop
9 3 (1.62%) Impala
10 2 (1.08%) Ingres
10 2 (1.08%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 44 (23.78%) Git
2 38 (20.54%) Jenkins
3 33 (17.84%) JUnit
4 30 (16.22%) Maven
5 24 (12.97%) SonarQube
6 22 (11.89%) GitLab
6 22 (11.89%) Mockito
7 17 (9.19%) JIRA
8 15 (8.11%) Selenium
9 12 (6.49%) Gatling
10 11 (5.95%) Bitbucket Server
10 11 (5.95%) DbUnit
10 11 (5.95%) jMock
11 10 (5.41%) Cucumber
12 9 (4.86%) Team Foundation Server
12 9 (4.86%) Visual Studio
13 6 (3.24%) REST Assured
14 4 (2.16%) Serenity BDD
15 3 (1.62%) Bitbucket
15 3 (1.62%) Toad
General
1 49 (26.49%) Public Sector
2 40 (21.62%) Social Skills
3 21 (11.35%) Analytical Skills
4 10 (5.41%) Finance
5 7 (3.78%) Banking
5 7 (3.78%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (1.62%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (1.08%) Documentation Skills
7 2 (1.08%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.08%) Retail
8 1 (0.54%) Advertising
8 1 (0.54%) Electronics
8 1 (0.54%) Front Office
8 1 (0.54%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.54%) Local Government
8 1 (0.54%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 67 (36.22%) Developer
2 49 (26.49%) Java Developer
3 24 (12.97%) Architect
3 24 (12.97%) Java Engineer
4 21 (11.35%) Lead
5 18 (9.73%) Senior
6 12 (6.49%) Senior Developer
7 11 (5.95%) Scrum Master
7 11 (5.95%) Senior Java Developer
8 10 (5.41%) Quality Engineer
8 10 (5.41%) SC Cleared Java Developer
9 8 (4.32%) Lead Java Engineer
9 8 (4.32%) Solutions Architect
10 7 (3.78%) Software Engineer
11 6 (3.24%) Data Architect
11 6 (3.24%) Data Engineer
11 6 (3.24%) Technical Architect
12 5 (2.70%) Analyst
12 5 (2.70%) Consultant
12 5 (2.70%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 69 (37.30%) Spring
2 53 (28.65%) Spring Boot
3 38 (20.54%) REST
4 36 (19.46%) SOAP
5 24 (12.97%) RESTful
6 22 (11.89%) JPA
7 21 (11.35%) Web Services
8 20 (10.81%) Hibernate
9 19 (10.27%) ActiveMQ
9 19 (10.27%) AngularJS
10 18 (9.73%) Spring Cloud
11 17 (9.19%) Playwright
11 17 (9.19%) Spring Batch
11 17 (9.19%) Spring Integration
12 16 (8.65%) React
13 15 (8.11%) Node.js
14 12 (6.49%) XML
15 11 (5.95%) Bootstrap
15 11 (5.95%) PowerMock
16 9 (4.86%) ActiveX
Miscellaneous
1 26 (14.05%) Cloud Native
2 19 (10.27%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (8.65%) Product Ownership
4 7 (3.78%) Linux Command Line
5 6 (3.24%) Autonomous Agent
5 6 (3.24%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (3.24%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.70%) Public Cloud
7 4 (2.16%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.62%) Blog
8 3 (1.62%) Data Centre
9 2 (1.08%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.08%) Low-Code
9 2 (1.08%) Mobile App
9 2 (1.08%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.54%) Cyber Defence
10 1 (0.54%) Distributed Architecture
10 1 (0.54%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.54%) Legacy Applications
10 1 (0.54%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 27 (14.59%) Linux
2 13 (7.03%) Unix
3 3 (1.62%) Android
3 3 (1.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3 3 (1.62%) Windows
4 1 (0.54%) Apple iOS
4 1 (0.54%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 81 (43.78%) Agile
2 65 (35.14%) CI/CD
3 58 (31.35%) Microservices
4 55 (29.73%) DevOps
5 54 (29.19%) Scrum
6 40 (21.62%) Containerisation
7 38 (20.54%) TDD
8 37 (20.00%) Test Automation
9 36 (19.46%) Continuous Improvement
10 33 (17.84%) Problem-Solving
11 31 (16.76%) Stakeholder Management
12 30 (16.22%) Technical Leadership
13 24 (12.97%) BDD
14 23 (12.43%) Test Strategy
15 20 (10.81%) Kanban
15 20 (10.81%) Migration
15 20 (10.81%) Software Engineering
16 17 (9.19%) Decision-Making
17 15 (8.11%) Analytics
17 15 (8.11%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 59 (31.89%) SQL
2 21 (11.35%) PL/SQL
3 20 (10.81%) JavaScript
4 18 (9.73%) Python
5 12 (6.49%) Shell Script
6 11 (5.95%) VB
6 11 (5.95%) VB6
7 9 (4.86%) VBA
8 6 (3.24%) ABAP
8 6 (3.24%) C#
8 6 (3.24%) Kotlin
9 5 (2.70%) TypeScript
10 3 (1.62%) HiveQL
10 3 (1.62%) Perl
11 2 (1.08%) C
11 2 (1.08%) C++
11 2 (1.08%) COBOL
11 2 (1.08%) Groovy
11 2 (1.08%) R
12 1 (0.54%) Swift
Qualifications
1 105 (56.76%) Security Cleared
2 98 (52.97%) SC Cleared
3 35 (18.92%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (5.95%) AWS Certification
5 5 (2.70%) Degree
5 5 (2.70%) ISTQB
6 4 (2.16%) DV Cleared
7 3 (1.62%) Azure Certification
7 3 (1.62%) ISEB
7 3 (1.62%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 2 (1.08%) Computer Science Degree
9 1 (0.54%) CISM
9 1 (0.54%) CISSP
9 1 (0.54%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 1 (0.54%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (9.73%) QA
2 12 (6.49%) Accessibility
3 9 (4.86%) WCAG
4 8 (4.32%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.54%) ISO 14001
5 1 (0.54%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 51 (27.57%) Docker
2 9 (4.86%) Postfix
3 3 (1.62%) HDFS
4 1 (0.54%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.54%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 49 (26.49%) Kubernetes
2 22 (11.89%) Grafana
3 8 (4.32%) Prometheus
3 8 (4.32%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (1.62%) Ansible
4 3 (1.62%) Kibana
4 3 (1.62%) Terraform
5 2 (1.08%) Podman
Vendors
1 29 (15.68%) Oracle
2 17 (9.19%) Microsoft
3 15 (8.11%) Jaspersoft
4 11 (5.95%) Atlassian
5 10 (5.41%) Denodo
5 10 (5.41%) SAP
6 8 (4.32%) webMethods
7 7 (3.78%) ServiceNow
8 4 (2.16%) Talend
9 3 (1.62%) Google
9 3 (1.62%) Informatica
9 3 (1.62%) Red Hat
9 3 (1.62%) Splunk
10 2 (1.08%) Actian
10 2 (1.08%) Sonatype
11 1 (0.54%) Ariba
11 1 (0.54%) MuleSoft
11 1 (0.54%) Salesforce
11 1 (0.54%) Zscaler