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

6 months to
22 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 35 65
Rank change year-on-year +5 +30 -2
Contract jobs citing Java 215 104 49
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.08% 5.77% 2.60%
As % of the Programming Languages category 27.25% 22.46% 11.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 147 68 36
10th Percentile £414 £409 £425
25th Percentile £450 £463 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.50% -13.04% +6.48%
75th Percentile £620 £519 £712
90th Percentile £671 £566 £765
England median daily rate £525 £525 £600
% change year-on-year - -12.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 19 1
Median hourly rate - £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% +214.29%
England median hourly rate £69.75 £50.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +39.50% -28.57% +7.69%

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 789 463 437
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.30% 25.71% 23.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 556 291 274
10th Percentile £375 £320 £313
25th Percentile £419 £413 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £496
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +0.86% +4.37%
75th Percentile £575 £552 £575
90th Percentile £668 £625 £649
England median daily rate £525 £514 £550
% change year-on-year +2.14% -6.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 14 22 6
10th Percentile £19.85 - £34.47
25th Percentile £21.25 £33.91 £40.00
Median hourly rate £51.75 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +3.50% -11.11% +204.05%
75th Percentile £67.84 - £59.69
90th Percentile - - £67.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +16.07% -13.85% -

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 September 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 September 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 +4 126 £525 +1.16% 35
Birmingham -3 47 £470 -4.86% 63
Solihull +5 28 - - 4
Warwickshire -35 4 £550 -6.38% 5
Coventry - 4 £575 - 7
Herefordshire - 2 - - 2
Staffordshire -10 1 £725 - 3
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 13 (6.05%) Confluence
2 11 (5.12%) WebLogic
3 8 (3.72%) SAS
4 4 (1.86%) NetWeaver
4 4 (1.86%) SAP EP
5 2 (0.93%) OpenROAD
6 1 (0.47%) Apache
6 1 (0.47%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.47%) Apache Spark
6 1 (0.47%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.47%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (2.33%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (2.33%) SAP PSCD
2 4 (1.86%) SAP CRM
3 1 (0.47%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.47%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 100 (46.51%) AWS
2 29 (13.49%) GitHub
3 27 (12.56%) Azure
4 21 (9.77%) Amazon S3
5 20 (9.30%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 20 (9.30%) Amazon EC2
6 14 (6.51%) Power Platform
7 13 (6.05%) Amazon ECS
7 13 (6.05%) Amazon EKS
7 13 (6.05%) Serverless
8 12 (5.58%) AWS Lambda
8 12 (5.58%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (4.19%) Amazon SQS
9 9 (4.19%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (3.72%) AWS KMS
10 8 (3.72%) Route 53
11 7 (3.26%) GitHub Copilot
12 6 (2.79%) GCP
13 4 (1.86%) Azure Monitor
14 3 (1.40%) Amazon OpenSearch
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (15.35%) MongoDB
2 22 (10.23%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (6.98%) Relational Database
4 14 (6.51%) NoSQL
5 12 (5.58%) Power BI
6 11 (5.12%) Metadata
7 9 (4.19%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (4.19%) Pentaho
8 8 (3.72%) Amazon Aurora
8 8 (3.72%) Amazon RDS
8 8 (3.72%) Data Lake
8 8 (3.72%) DynamoDB
8 8 (3.72%) MySQL
9 3 (1.40%) Oracle Database
10 2 (0.93%) Ingres
10 2 (0.93%) ZAP BI
11 1 (0.47%) Amazon Athena
11 1 (0.47%) IDMS
11 1 (0.47%) SQL Server
11 1 (0.47%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 57 (26.51%) Git
2 55 (25.58%) JUnit
3 47 (21.86%) Maven
4 42 (19.53%) GitLab
5 40 (18.60%) Jenkins
6 34 (15.81%) Mockito
6 34 (15.81%) SonarQube
7 27 (12.56%) Selenium
8 22 (10.23%) Gatling
9 21 (9.77%) Cucumber
10 19 (8.84%) JIRA
11 9 (4.19%) Team Foundation Server
11 9 (4.19%) Visual Studio
12 6 (2.79%) Bitbucket Server
12 6 (2.79%) DbUnit
12 6 (2.79%) jMock
12 6 (2.79%) REST Assured
13 4 (1.86%) Serenity BDD
14 3 (1.40%) Toad
15 2 (0.93%) Cypress.io
General
1 69 (32.09%) Social Skills
2 54 (25.12%) Public Sector
3 20 (9.30%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (5.58%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (4.19%) Finance
6 8 (3.72%) Banking
6 8 (3.72%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (0.93%) Publishing
8 1 (0.47%) Electronics
8 1 (0.47%) Front Office
8 1 (0.47%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.47%) Local Government
8 1 (0.47%) Military
8 1 (0.47%) Retail
Job Titles
1 79 (36.74%) Developer
2 60 (27.91%) Java Developer
3 38 (17.67%) Senior
4 34 (15.81%) Java Engineer
5 29 (13.49%) Architect
6 25 (11.63%) Lead
7 24 (11.16%) Senior Developer
8 21 (9.77%) Senior Java Developer
9 19 (8.84%) Quality Engineer
10 14 (6.51%) Scrum Master
11 9 (4.19%) Software Developer
12 8 (3.72%) Data Architect
12 8 (3.72%) Lead Developer
12 8 (3.72%) Lead Java Developer
12 8 (3.72%) SC Cleared Java Developer
12 8 (3.72%) Solutions Architect
12 8 (3.72%) Technical Architect
13 7 (3.26%) Java Scrum Master
14 6 (2.79%) Java Software Developer
14 6 (2.79%) Lead Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 96 (44.65%) Spring
2 72 (33.49%) Spring Boot
3 40 (18.60%) REST
4 35 (16.28%) SOAP
5 33 (15.35%) JPA
6 30 (13.95%) RESTful
7 29 (13.49%) Playwright
8 22 (10.23%) AngularJS
9 20 (9.30%) ActiveMQ
9 20 (9.30%) Hibernate
9 20 (9.30%) React
10 19 (8.84%) OpenAPI
10 19 (8.84%) Spring Cloud
11 18 (8.37%) Web Services
12 15 (6.98%) Kafka
13 14 (6.51%) Gherkin
14 12 (5.58%) .NET
14 12 (5.58%) WireMock
14 12 (5.58%) XML
15 11 (5.12%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 42 (19.53%) Cloud Native
2 23 (10.70%) Product Ownership
3 15 (6.98%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (3.72%) Autonomous Agent
4 8 (3.72%) Linux Command Line
4 8 (3.72%) Self-Motivation
5 7 (3.26%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (2.79%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (2.33%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.86%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.86%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.40%) Blog
10 2 (0.93%) Low-Code
11 1 (0.47%) Distributed Architecture
11 1 (0.47%) Fixed Income
11 1 (0.47%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
11 1 (0.47%) Legacy Applications
11 1 (0.47%) Legacy Code
11 1 (0.47%) Mobile App
11 1 (0.47%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 18 (8.37%) Linux
2 10 (4.65%) Unix
3 3 (1.40%) Windows
4 1 (0.47%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 113 (52.56%) Agile
2 83 (38.60%) CI/CD
3 80 (37.21%) Microservices
4 79 (36.74%) Scrum
5 68 (31.63%) Test Automation
6 56 (26.05%) DevOps
7 52 (24.19%) Continuous Improvement
7 52 (24.19%) TDD
8 50 (23.26%) Stakeholder Management
9 48 (22.33%) Containerisation
10 43 (20.00%) Technical Leadership
11 39 (18.14%) Problem-Solving
12 36 (16.74%) Test Strategy
13 33 (15.35%) Software Engineering
14 31 (14.42%) Software Testing
15 29 (13.49%) Code Quality
16 28 (13.02%) BDD
16 28 (13.02%) Coaching
17 24 (11.16%) Sprint Planning
18 23 (10.70%) SDLC
Programming Languages
1 47 (21.86%) SQL
2 26 (12.09%) JavaScript
3 21 (9.77%) TypeScript
4 17 (7.91%) Python
5 16 (7.44%) Shell Script
6 11 (5.12%) VB
6 11 (5.12%) VB6
7 9 (4.19%) ABAP
7 9 (4.19%) PL/SQL
7 9 (4.19%) VBA
8 8 (3.72%) Kotlin
9 6 (2.79%) C#
10 5 (2.33%) COBOL
11 3 (1.40%) C++
11 3 (1.40%) Groovy
12 2 (0.93%) C
12 2 (0.93%) R
13 1 (0.47%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.47%) Bash
13 1 (0.47%) PowerShell
Qualifications
1 102 (47.44%) Security Cleared
2 95 (44.19%) SC Cleared
3 63 (29.30%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (6.05%) AWS Certification
5 5 (2.33%) ISTQB
6 3 (1.40%) Degree
6 3 (1.40%) ISEB
6 3 (1.40%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (0.93%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.93%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.93%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.47%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 27 (12.56%) QA
2 26 (12.09%) Accessibility
3 20 (9.30%) WCAG
4 9 (4.19%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.47%) ISO 14001
5 1 (0.47%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 63 (29.30%) Docker
2 5 (2.33%) Postfix
3 1 (0.47%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 66 (30.70%) Kubernetes
2 24 (11.16%) Grafana
3 18 (8.37%) Prometheus
4 14 (6.51%) Kibana
5 8 (3.72%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.47%) Ansible
6 1 (0.47%) Control-M
Vendors
1 29 (13.49%) Oracle
2 17 (7.91%) Microsoft
3 13 (6.05%) SAP
4 9 (4.19%) Denodo
5 8 (3.72%) Jaspersoft
5 8 (3.72%) webMethods
6 6 (2.79%) Atlassian
7 4 (1.86%) Dynatrace
8 3 (1.40%) Google
8 3 (1.40%) Sonatype
9 2 (0.93%) Actian
9 2 (0.93%) Splunk
10 1 (0.47%) IBM
10 1 (0.47%) Pega
10 1 (0.47%) Salesforce
10 1 (0.47%) Talend