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

6 months to
20 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 44 35 44
Rank change year-on-year -9 +9 +13
Contract jobs citing Java 151 96 67
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 4.40% 5.64% 3.54%
As % of the Programming Languages category 20.35% 21.97% 16.63%
Number of daily rates quoted 100 66 50
10th Percentile £402 £400 £412
25th Percentile £429 £458 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% +1.85%
75th Percentile £608 £520 £659
90th Percentile £666 £577 £763
England median daily rate £525 £525 £600
% change year-on-year - -12.50% -
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 £67.50 £50.00 £68.75
% change year-on-year +35.00% -27.27% +5.77%

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 742 437 403
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 21.60% 25.66% 21.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 535 268 273
10th Percentile £360 £298 £313
25th Percentile £413 £400 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.26% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £541 £538 £575
90th Percentile £629 £614 £650
England median daily rate £525 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 23 10
10th Percentile £21.25 £28.18 £33.57
25th Percentile £25.00 £33.91 £36.25
Median hourly rate £56.00 £50.00 £47.75
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% +4.71% +98.96%
75th Percentile £67.84 - £56.25
90th Percentile - - £60.38
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +15.04% -13.08% +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 20 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 20 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 -3 86 £513 -1.25% 20
Birmingham -17 28 £449 -7.95% 31
Solihull -1 22 £463 +0.54% 1
Coventry - 5 £650 - 4
Warwickshire -34 4 £550 - 2
Herefordshire - 3 £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 10 (6.62%) WebLogic
2 9 (5.96%) SAS
3 8 (5.30%) Confluence
4 2 (1.32%) OpenROAD
4 2 (1.32%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.66%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.66%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.66%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.66%) SAP EP
5 1 (0.66%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (3.31%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (3.31%) SAP PSCD
2 1 (0.66%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.66%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.66%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 60 (39.74%) AWS
2 27 (17.88%) Azure
3 22 (14.57%) Amazon S3
4 20 (13.25%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 20 (13.25%) Amazon EC2
5 17 (11.26%) GitHub
6 16 (10.60%) Power Platform
7 13 (8.61%) Amazon SQS
8 11 (7.28%) Amazon ECS
8 11 (7.28%) Amazon EKS
8 11 (7.28%) AWS KMS
8 11 (7.28%) Route 53
8 11 (7.28%) Serverless
9 9 (5.96%) AWS Lambda
9 9 (5.96%) Azure DevOps
9 9 (5.96%) GitHub Actions
10 4 (2.65%) Azure Monitor
10 4 (2.65%) GCP
11 3 (1.99%) GitHub Copilot
11 3 (1.99%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.66%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 20 (13.25%) PostgreSQL
2 14 (9.27%) MongoDB
2 14 (9.27%) Power BI
3 11 (7.28%) Amazon Aurora
3 11 (7.28%) Amazon RDS
3 11 (7.28%) DynamoDB
4 10 (6.62%) MySQL
4 10 (6.62%) Pentaho
5 9 (5.96%) Metadata
6 7 (4.64%) Data Warehouse
7 6 (3.97%) Data Lake
7 6 (3.97%) NoSQL
7 6 (3.97%) Relational Database
8 3 (1.99%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (1.99%) Apache Hive
8 3 (1.99%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (1.99%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.99%) Impala
9 2 (1.32%) Ingres
9 2 (1.32%) ZAP BI
Development Applications
1 35 (23.18%) Jenkins
2 34 (22.52%) Git
3 27 (17.88%) Maven
4 25 (16.56%) JUnit
5 20 (13.25%) GitLab
5 20 (13.25%) SonarQube
6 18 (11.92%) Mockito
7 13 (8.61%) JIRA
7 13 (8.61%) Selenium
8 11 (7.28%) Gatling
9 9 (5.96%) Team Foundation Server
9 9 (5.96%) Visual Studio
10 8 (5.30%) Bitbucket Server
10 8 (5.30%) Cucumber
10 8 (5.30%) DbUnit
10 8 (5.30%) jMock
11 6 (3.97%) REST Assured
12 4 (2.65%) Serenity BDD
13 3 (1.99%) Bitbucket
13 3 (1.99%) Toad
General
1 40 (26.49%) Public Sector
2 35 (23.18%) Social Skills
3 12 (7.95%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (5.96%) Finance
5 7 (4.64%) Banking
5 7 (4.64%) Influencing Skills
6 3 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (1.32%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (1.32%) Publishing
8 1 (0.66%) Documentation Skills
8 1 (0.66%) Electronics
8 1 (0.66%) Front Office
8 1 (0.66%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.66%) Local Government
8 1 (0.66%) Retail
Job Titles
1 53 (35.10%) Developer
2 37 (24.50%) Java Developer
3 24 (15.89%) Architect
4 18 (11.92%) Senior
5 15 (9.93%) Java Engineer
6 14 (9.27%) Lead
7 12 (7.95%) Senior Developer
8 11 (7.28%) Scrum Master
8 11 (7.28%) Senior Java Developer
9 8 (5.30%) Quality Engineer
9 8 (5.30%) Solutions Architect
10 6 (3.97%) Data Architect
10 6 (3.97%) Technical Architect
11 5 (3.31%) Analyst
11 5 (3.31%) Consultant
11 5 (3.31%) Data Engineer
11 5 (3.31%) SAP Consultant
11 5 (3.31%) SAP PI Consultant
11 5 (3.31%) Software Engineer
11 5 (3.31%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 47 (31.13%) Spring
2 36 (23.84%) Spring Boot
3 32 (21.19%) REST
4 31 (20.53%) SOAP
5 20 (13.25%) RESTful
6 17 (11.26%) JPA
7 15 (9.93%) ActiveMQ
7 15 (9.93%) AngularJS
7 15 (9.93%) Playwright
7 15 (9.93%) Web Services
8 14 (9.27%) Hibernate
8 14 (9.27%) Spring Cloud
9 12 (7.95%) Node.js
9 12 (7.95%) React
9 12 (7.95%) Spring Batch
9 12 (7.95%) Spring Integration
9 12 (7.95%) XML
10 9 (5.96%) .NET
10 9 (5.96%) ActiveX
11 8 (5.30%) PowerMock
Miscellaneous
1 26 (17.22%) Cloud Native
2 16 (10.60%) Distributed Systems
2 16 (10.60%) Product Ownership
3 7 (4.64%) Linux Command Line
4 6 (3.97%) Autonomous Agent
4 6 (3.97%) Enterprise Software
4 6 (3.97%) Legacy Systems
5 5 (3.31%) Public Cloud
6 4 (2.65%) Private Cloud
7 3 (1.99%) Blog
7 3 (1.99%) Data Protection Act
8 2 (1.32%) Low-Code
8 2 (1.32%) Onboarding
9 1 (0.66%) Analytical Mindset
9 1 (0.66%) Data Structures
9 1 (0.66%) Distributed Architecture
9 1 (0.66%) Legacy Applications
9 1 (0.66%) Legacy Code
9 1 (0.66%) Mobile App
9 1 (0.66%) Self-Motivation
Operating Systems
1 20 (13.25%) Linux
2 13 (8.61%) Unix
3 3 (1.99%) Windows
4 1 (0.66%) Android
4 1 (0.66%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 73 (48.34%) Agile
2 57 (37.75%) CI/CD
3 52 (34.44%) DevOps
4 48 (31.79%) Microservices
5 44 (29.14%) Scrum
6 35 (23.18%) Containerisation
6 35 (23.18%) Test Automation
7 30 (19.87%) Continuous Improvement
7 30 (19.87%) Stakeholder Management
8 29 (19.21%) TDD
9 28 (18.54%) Technical Leadership
10 22 (14.57%) Test Strategy
11 21 (13.91%) BDD
11 21 (13.91%) Problem-Solving
12 20 (13.25%) Migration
13 16 (10.60%) Decision-Making
14 15 (9.93%) Analytics
14 15 (9.93%) ETL
14 15 (9.93%) Kanban
14 15 (9.93%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 39 (25.83%) SQL
2 20 (13.25%) JavaScript
3 19 (12.58%) Python
4 11 (7.28%) VB
4 11 (7.28%) VB6
5 10 (6.62%) PL/SQL
6 9 (5.96%) Shell Script
6 9 (5.96%) VBA
7 6 (3.97%) ABAP
7 6 (3.97%) C#
7 6 (3.97%) TypeScript
8 4 (2.65%) Kotlin
9 3 (1.99%) COBOL
9 3 (1.99%) Groovy
9 3 (1.99%) HiveQL
10 2 (1.32%) C
10 2 (1.32%) C++
10 2 (1.32%) R
11 1 (0.66%) BeanShell
11 1 (0.66%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 83 (54.97%) Security Cleared
2 76 (50.33%) SC Cleared
3 34 (22.52%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (7.28%) AWS Certification
5 5 (3.31%) Degree
5 5 (3.31%) ISTQB
6 3 (1.99%) Azure Certification
6 3 (1.99%) DV Cleared
6 3 (1.99%) ISEB
6 3 (1.99%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (1.32%) Computer Science Degree
8 1 (0.66%) CISM
8 1 (0.66%) CISSP
8 1 (0.66%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.66%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 13 (8.61%) QA
2 11 (7.28%) Accessibility
3 8 (5.30%) Data Quality
4 7 (4.64%) WCAG
5 1 (0.66%) ISO 14001
5 1 (0.66%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 44 (29.14%) Docker
2 7 (4.64%) Postfix
3 3 (1.99%) HDFS
4 1 (0.66%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.66%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 41 (27.15%) Kubernetes
2 17 (11.26%) Grafana
3 8 (5.30%) Prometheus
3 8 (5.30%) Single Sign-On
4 3 (1.99%) Ansible
4 3 (1.99%) Kibana
5 1 (0.66%) Podman
Vendors
1 27 (17.88%) Oracle
2 16 (10.60%) Microsoft
3 11 (7.28%) Jaspersoft
4 10 (6.62%) Denodo
4 10 (6.62%) SAP
5 8 (5.30%) Atlassian
5 8 (5.30%) webMethods
6 4 (2.65%) Talend
7 3 (1.99%) Informatica
7 3 (1.99%) Sonatype
8 2 (1.32%) Actian
8 2 (1.32%) Google
8 2 (1.32%) Splunk
9 1 (0.66%) Ariba
9 1 (0.66%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.66%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.66%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.66%) Zscaler