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

6 months to
2 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 36 34 55
Rank change year-on-year -2 +21 -2
Contract jobs citing Java 193 89 52
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 5.55% 5.34% 2.81%
As % of the Programming Languages category 24.37% 22.03% 13.37%
Number of daily rates quoted 136 59 40
10th Percentile £413 £355 £405
25th Percentile £425 £435 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £475 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% -13.64% +1.85%
75th Percentile £594 £500 £656
90th Percentile £670 £550 £729
England median daily rate £525 £530 £600
% change year-on-year -0.94% -11.67% -
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 £67.50
% change year-on-year +35.00% -25.93% +3.05%

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 792 404 389
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.78% 24.25% 21.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 251 276
10th Percentile £363 £250 £313
25th Percentile £413 £386 £368
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £454 £475
Median % change year-on-year +3.38% -4.49% -5.00%
75th Percentile £538 £524 £575
90th Percentile £638 £613 £638
England median daily rate £523 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.46% -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 2 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 2 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 -4 105 £497 +1.91% 30
Birmingham -13 40 £475 - 17
Solihull -1 27 £450 +7.14% 1
Coventry - 6 £575 - 4
Warwickshire -40 5 £539 +2.75% 3
Herefordshire - 4 £625 -
Worcestershire - 1 £450 - 1
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 19 (9.84%) WebLogic
2 14 (7.25%) Confluence
3 7 (3.63%) SAS
4 5 (2.59%) Apache
5 2 (1.04%) OpenROAD
5 2 (1.04%) OpenStack
5 2 (1.04%) SharePoint
6 1 (0.52%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.52%) NetWeaver
6 1 (0.52%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.52%) Oracle Workflow
6 1 (0.52%) SAP EP
Applications
1 6 (3.11%) Microsoft Office
2 1 (0.52%) Microsoft Excel
Business Applications
1 5 (2.59%) SAP PSCD
2 1 (0.52%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.52%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.52%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 74 (38.34%) AWS
2 33 (17.10%) Azure
3 28 (14.51%) Amazon S3
4 25 (12.95%) Amazon CloudWatch
4 25 (12.95%) Amazon EC2
5 19 (9.84%) Amazon SQS
5 19 (9.84%) GitHub
6 17 (8.81%) AWS KMS
6 17 (8.81%) Route 53
7 14 (7.25%) Power Platform
8 11 (5.70%) Azure DevOps
8 11 (5.70%) Serverless
9 10 (5.18%) Amazon ECS
9 10 (5.18%) Amazon EKS
10 9 (4.66%) AWS Lambda
10 9 (4.66%) GCP
11 8 (4.15%) GitHub Actions
12 5 (2.59%) GitHub Copilot
13 4 (2.07%) Azure Monitor
13 4 (2.07%) Google Kubernetes Engine
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.52%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 27 (13.99%) PostgreSQL
2 17 (8.81%) Amazon Aurora
2 17 (8.81%) Amazon RDS
2 17 (8.81%) DynamoDB
2 17 (8.81%) MongoDB
3 12 (6.22%) MySQL
3 12 (6.22%) Power BI
4 9 (4.66%) Pentaho
4 9 (4.66%) Relational Database
5 6 (3.11%) Metadata
6 5 (2.59%) Data Warehouse
7 4 (2.07%) BigQuery
7 4 (2.07%) Data Lake
7 4 (2.07%) NoSQL
7 4 (2.07%) Oracle Database
8 3 (1.55%) Amazon Redshift
8 3 (1.55%) Apache Hive
8 3 (1.55%) BusinessObjects
8 3 (1.55%) Hadoop
8 3 (1.55%) Impala
Development Applications
1 46 (23.83%) Git
2 40 (20.73%) Jenkins
3 36 (18.65%) JUnit
4 32 (16.58%) Maven
5 26 (13.47%) SonarQube
6 24 (12.44%) Mockito
7 21 (10.88%) GitLab
8 20 (10.36%) JIRA
9 15 (7.77%) Selenium
10 13 (6.74%) DbUnit
10 13 (6.74%) jMock
11 11 (5.70%) Bitbucket Server
11 11 (5.70%) Gatling
12 10 (5.18%) Cucumber
13 9 (4.66%) Team Foundation Server
13 9 (4.66%) Visual Studio
14 7 (3.63%) REST Assured
15 5 (2.59%) Serenity BDD
16 4 (2.07%) Atlassian Bamboo
17 3 (1.55%) Toad
General
1 51 (26.42%) Public Sector
2 40 (20.73%) Social Skills
3 22 (11.40%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (6.74%) Finance
5 8 (4.15%) Banking
6 6 (3.11%) Influencing Skills
7 3 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
7 3 (1.55%) Retail
8 2 (1.04%) Documentation Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Advertising
9 1 (0.52%) Electronics
9 1 (0.52%) Front Office
9 1 (0.52%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.52%) Local Government
9 1 (0.52%) Organisational Skills
9 1 (0.52%) Publishing
9 1 (0.52%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 70 (36.27%) Developer
2 52 (26.94%) Java Developer
3 24 (12.44%) Java Engineer
4 23 (11.92%) Architect
4 23 (11.92%) Lead
5 17 (8.81%) Senior
6 12 (6.22%) Data Engineer
6 12 (6.22%) Senior Developer
7 11 (5.70%) Senior Java Developer
8 10 (5.18%) SC Cleared Java Developer
8 10 (5.18%) Scrum Master
9 9 (4.66%) Quality Engineer
10 8 (4.15%) Software Engineer
10 8 (4.15%) Solutions Architect
11 7 (3.63%) Lead Java Engineer
12 6 (3.11%) Technical Architect
13 5 (2.59%) Analyst
13 5 (2.59%) Consultant
13 5 (2.59%) SAP Consultant
13 5 (2.59%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 71 (36.79%) Spring
2 56 (29.02%) Spring Boot
3 41 (21.24%) REST
4 38 (19.69%) SOAP
5 24 (12.44%) JPA
6 23 (11.92%) RESTful
6 23 (11.92%) Web Services
7 22 (11.40%) Hibernate
8 21 (10.88%) ActiveMQ
8 21 (10.88%) AngularJS
9 20 (10.36%) Spring Cloud
10 19 (9.84%) Spring Batch
10 19 (9.84%) Spring Integration
11 17 (8.81%) Node.js
12 16 (8.29%) Playwright
13 15 (7.77%) React
14 14 (7.25%) XML
15 13 (6.74%) PowerMock
16 12 (6.22%) Kafka
17 11 (5.70%) Bootstrap
Miscellaneous
1 25 (12.95%) Distributed Systems
2 24 (12.44%) Cloud Native
3 16 (8.29%) Product Ownership
4 7 (3.63%) Linux Command Line
5 6 (3.11%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (3.11%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (2.59%) Public Cloud
7 4 (2.07%) Autonomous Agent
7 4 (2.07%) Clustering
7 4 (2.07%) Data Centre
7 4 (2.07%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.55%) Blog
9 2 (1.04%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.04%) Low-Code
9 2 (1.04%) Mobile App
9 2 (1.04%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.52%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.52%) Distributed Architecture
10 1 (0.52%) Legacy Code
10 1 (0.52%) Mobile Banking
Operating Systems
1 31 (16.06%) Linux
2 15 (7.77%) Unix
3 4 (2.07%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 3 (1.55%) Android
4 3 (1.55%) Windows
5 1 (0.52%) Apple iOS
5 1 (0.52%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 82 (42.49%) Agile
2 68 (35.23%) CI/CD
3 60 (31.09%) Microservices
4 56 (29.02%) DevOps
5 55 (28.50%) Scrum
6 41 (21.24%) TDD
7 40 (20.73%) Containerisation
8 37 (19.17%) Continuous Improvement
9 35 (18.13%) Test Automation
10 33 (17.10%) Problem-Solving
11 32 (16.58%) Stakeholder Management
12 27 (13.99%) BDD
12 27 (13.99%) Technical Leadership
13 22 (11.40%) Kanban
13 22 (11.40%) Software Engineering
13 22 (11.40%) Test Strategy
14 19 (9.84%) Migration
15 16 (8.29%) Analytics
16 15 (7.77%) Decision-Making
16 15 (7.77%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 67 (34.72%) SQL
2 24 (12.44%) Python
3 22 (11.40%) PL/SQL
4 19 (9.84%) JavaScript
5 15 (7.77%) Shell Script
6 12 (6.22%) VB
7 11 (5.70%) VB6
8 9 (4.66%) VBA
9 6 (3.11%) ABAP
9 6 (3.11%) C#
9 6 (3.11%) Kotlin
10 5 (2.59%) TypeScript
11 4 (2.07%) Perl
12 3 (1.55%) HiveQL
13 2 (1.04%) C
13 2 (1.04%) C++
13 2 (1.04%) COBOL
13 2 (1.04%) Groovy
13 2 (1.04%) R
14 1 (0.52%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 107 (55.44%) Security Cleared
2 99 (51.30%) SC Cleared
3 34 (17.62%) BPSS Clearance
4 12 (6.22%) AWS Certification
5 6 (3.11%) Degree
5 6 (3.11%) ISTQB
6 5 (2.59%) Azure Certification
7 4 (2.07%) DV Cleared
7 4 (2.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 3 (1.55%) ISEB
9 2 (1.04%) Computer Science Degree
10 1 (0.52%) CISM
10 1 (0.52%) CISSP
10 1 (0.52%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 1 (0.52%) Six Sigma Black Belt
10 1 (0.52%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 18 (9.33%) QA
2 11 (5.70%) Accessibility
3 9 (4.66%) Data Quality
4 8 (4.15%) WCAG
5 2 (1.04%) FATCA
6 1 (0.52%) ISO 14001
6 1 (0.52%) ISO 9001
6 1 (0.52%) SLA
System Software
1 51 (26.42%) Docker
2 11 (5.70%) Postfix
3 3 (1.55%) HDFS
4 1 (0.52%) Active Directory
4 1 (0.52%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 49 (25.39%) Kubernetes
2 24 (12.44%) Grafana
3 8 (4.15%) Prometheus
3 8 (4.15%) Single Sign-On
4 7 (3.63%) Terraform
5 3 (1.55%) Ansible
5 3 (1.55%) Kibana
6 2 (1.04%) Podman
7 1 (0.52%) HP ALM
7 1 (0.52%) HP Quality Center
Vendors
1 32 (16.58%) Oracle
2 19 (9.84%) Microsoft
3 17 (8.81%) Jaspersoft
4 13 (6.74%) Atlassian
5 11 (5.70%) SAP
6 8 (4.15%) Denodo
6 8 (4.15%) Google
6 8 (4.15%) ServiceNow
6 8 (4.15%) webMethods
7 5 (2.59%) Talend
8 4 (2.07%) Red Hat
9 3 (1.55%) Informatica
9 3 (1.55%) Splunk
10 2 (1.04%) Actian
10 2 (1.04%) Sonatype
11 1 (0.52%) HP
11 1 (0.52%) MuleSoft
11 1 (0.52%) Sage
11 1 (0.52%) Salesforce
11 1 (0.52%) Zscaler