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

6 months to
25 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 30 38 62
Rank change year-on-year +8 +24 +5
Contract jobs citing Java 227 103 49
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 6.35% 5.65% 2.57%
As % of the Programming Languages category 27.96% 22.06% 11.09%
Number of daily rates quoted 158 67 36
10th Percentile £411 £408 £425
25th Percentile £450 £463 £488
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £512 £500 £575
Median % change year-on-year +2.30% -13.04% +1.10%
75th Percentile £620 £517 £712
90th Percentile £667 £550 £765
England median daily rate £525 £520 £600
% change year-on-year +0.96% -13.33% -
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 £70.00 £50.00 £70.00
% change year-on-year +40.00% -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 812 467 442
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 22.70% 25.60% 23.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 573 295 273
10th Percentile £381 £322 £313
25th Percentile £419 £413 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £492
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +1.73% +3.47%
75th Percentile £575 £559 £575
90th Percentile £663 £625 £650
England median daily rate £525 £515 £550
% change year-on-year +1.94% -6.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 13 22 6
10th Percentile £19.65 - £34.47
25th Percentile £21.25 £33.91 £40.00
Median hourly rate £51.00 £50.00 £56.25
Median % change year-on-year +2.00% -11.11% +204.05%
75th Percentile £67.84 - £59.69
90th Percentile - - £67.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £57.50 £65.00
% change year-on-year +13.04% -11.54% -

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 25 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 25 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 +5 135 £525 +3.04% 35
Birmingham -5 49 £470 -4.86% 67
Solihull +7 27 - - 4
Warwickshire -38 4 £550 -6.38% 5
Coventry - 4 £575 - 5
Herefordshire - 2 - - 2
Staffordshire -11 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 (5.73%) Confluence
2 11 (4.85%) WebLogic
3 8 (3.52%) SAS
4 4 (1.76%) NetWeaver
4 4 (1.76%) SAP EP
5 2 (0.88%) Apache
5 2 (0.88%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.88%) OpenROAD
6 1 (0.44%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.44%) OpenStack
6 1 (0.44%) Oracle SOA Suite
6 1 (0.44%) Oracle Workflow
Applications
1 5 (2.20%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (2.20%) SAP PSCD
2 4 (1.76%) SAP CRM
3 1 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.44%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 108 (47.58%) AWS
2 32 (14.10%) GitHub
3 28 (12.33%) Azure
4 22 (9.69%) Amazon S3
5 19 (8.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 19 (8.37%) Amazon EC2
6 14 (6.17%) Power Platform
7 13 (5.73%) Amazon ECS
7 13 (5.73%) Amazon EKS
7 13 (5.73%) Serverless
8 12 (5.29%) AWS Lambda
8 12 (5.29%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (3.96%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (3.52%) Amazon SQS
10 8 (3.52%) GitHub Copilot
11 7 (3.08%) AWS KMS
11 7 (3.08%) Route 53
12 6 (2.64%) GCP
13 4 (1.76%) Azure Monitor
14 3 (1.32%) Amazon OpenSearch
Database & Business Intelligence
1 35 (15.42%) MongoDB
2 21 (9.25%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (6.61%) Relational Database
4 14 (6.17%) NoSQL
5 12 (5.29%) Power BI
6 11 (4.85%) Metadata
7 9 (3.96%) Data Lake
7 9 (3.96%) Data Warehouse
7 9 (3.96%) Pentaho
8 8 (3.52%) MySQL
9 7 (3.08%) Amazon Aurora
9 7 (3.08%) Amazon RDS
9 7 (3.08%) DynamoDB
10 3 (1.32%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.88%) Ingres
11 2 (0.88%) ZAP BI
12 1 (0.44%) Amazon Athena
12 1 (0.44%) IDMS
12 1 (0.44%) SQL Server
12 1 (0.44%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 62 (27.31%) Git
2 60 (26.43%) JUnit
3 49 (21.59%) GitLab
4 47 (20.70%) Maven
5 39 (17.18%) Jenkins
6 36 (15.86%) SonarQube
7 34 (14.98%) Mockito
8 32 (14.10%) Selenium
9 27 (11.89%) Gatling
10 26 (11.45%) Cucumber
11 19 (8.37%) JIRA
12 9 (3.96%) Team Foundation Server
12 9 (3.96%) Visual Studio
13 6 (2.64%) REST Assured
14 5 (2.20%) Bitbucket Server
14 5 (2.20%) DbUnit
14 5 (2.20%) jMock
15 4 (1.76%) Serenity BDD
16 3 (1.32%) Toad
17 2 (0.88%) Cypress.io
General
1 75 (33.04%) Social Skills
2 58 (25.55%) Public Sector
3 19 (8.37%) Analytical Skills
4 12 (5.29%) Finance
4 12 (5.29%) Influencing Skills
5 9 (3.96%) Banking
6 8 (3.52%) Organisational Skills
7 2 (0.88%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (0.88%) Publishing
8 1 (0.44%) Electronics
8 1 (0.44%) Front Office
8 1 (0.44%) Investment Banking
8 1 (0.44%) Local Government
8 1 (0.44%) Military
8 1 (0.44%) Retail
8 1 (0.44%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 82 (36.12%) Developer
2 63 (27.75%) Java Developer
3 41 (18.06%) Senior
4 36 (15.86%) Java Engineer
5 29 (12.78%) Architect
6 25 (11.01%) Lead
6 25 (11.01%) Senior Developer
7 23 (10.13%) Quality Engineer
8 22 (9.69%) Senior Java Developer
9 14 (6.17%) Scrum Master
10 9 (3.96%) Software Developer
11 8 (3.52%) Data Architect
11 8 (3.52%) Lead Developer
11 8 (3.52%) Lead Java Developer
11 8 (3.52%) SC Cleared Java Developer
11 8 (3.52%) Solutions Architect
11 8 (3.52%) Technical Architect
12 7 (3.08%) Java Scrum Master
13 6 (2.64%) Java Software Developer
13 6 (2.64%) Lead Java Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 100 (44.05%) Spring
2 72 (31.72%) Spring Boot
3 40 (17.62%) REST
4 34 (14.98%) Playwright
4 34 (14.98%) SOAP
5 33 (14.54%) JPA
6 30 (13.22%) RESTful
7 22 (9.69%) React
8 21 (9.25%) AngularJS
8 21 (9.25%) OpenAPI
9 19 (8.37%) ActiveMQ
9 19 (8.37%) Hibernate
10 18 (7.93%) Spring Cloud
11 17 (7.49%) Gherkin
11 17 (7.49%) Web Services
12 15 (6.61%) Kafka
12 15 (6.61%) WireMock
13 14 (6.17%) .NET
13 14 (6.17%) JSON
14 12 (5.29%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 44 (19.38%) Cloud Native
2 23 (10.13%) Product Ownership
3 15 (6.61%) Distributed Systems
4 8 (3.52%) Autonomous Agent
4 8 (3.52%) Linux Command Line
4 8 (3.52%) Self-Motivation
5 7 (3.08%) Enterprise Software
6 6 (2.64%) Legacy Systems
7 5 (2.20%) Public Cloud
8 4 (1.76%) Data Protection Act
8 4 (1.76%) Private Cloud
9 3 (1.32%) Blog
10 2 (0.88%) Low-Code
11 1 (0.44%) Analytical Mindset
11 1 (0.44%) Cyber Defence
11 1 (0.44%) Distributed Architecture
11 1 (0.44%) Greenfield Project
11 1 (0.44%) Legacy Applications
11 1 (0.44%) Legacy Code
11 1 (0.44%) Onboarding
Operating Systems
1 17 (7.49%) Linux
2 10 (4.41%) Unix
3 3 (1.32%) Windows
4 1 (0.44%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 120 (52.86%) Agile
2 88 (38.77%) CI/CD
3 87 (38.33%) Microservices
4 85 (37.44%) Scrum
5 74 (32.60%) Test Automation
6 56 (24.67%) TDD
7 55 (24.23%) Continuous Improvement
7 55 (24.23%) DevOps
7 55 (24.23%) Stakeholder Management
8 48 (21.15%) Containerisation
9 43 (18.94%) Technical Leadership
10 40 (17.62%) Problem-Solving
11 38 (16.74%) Test Strategy
12 36 (15.86%) Software Testing
13 34 (14.98%) Software Engineering
14 33 (14.54%) Coaching
15 32 (14.10%) BDD
16 31 (13.66%) Code Quality
17 25 (11.01%) OWASP
18 24 (10.57%) Pair Programming
Programming Languages
1 49 (21.59%) SQL
2 28 (12.33%) JavaScript
3 21 (9.25%) TypeScript
4 19 (8.37%) Python
5 17 (7.49%) Shell Script
6 11 (4.85%) VB
6 11 (4.85%) VB6
7 9 (3.96%) ABAP
7 9 (3.96%) PL/SQL
7 9 (3.96%) VBA
8 8 (3.52%) Kotlin
9 6 (2.64%) C#
10 5 (2.20%) COBOL
11 3 (1.32%) C++
11 3 (1.32%) Groovy
12 2 (0.88%) C
12 2 (0.88%) R
12 2 (0.88%) Scala
13 1 (0.44%) Apex Code
13 1 (0.44%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 102 (44.93%) Security Cleared
2 94 (41.41%) SC Cleared
3 72 (31.72%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (5.73%) AWS Certification
5 5 (2.20%) ISTQB
6 3 (1.32%) Degree
6 3 (1.32%) ISEB
6 3 (1.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (0.88%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.88%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.88%) DV Cleared
8 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Black Belt
8 1 (0.44%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (13.22%) Accessibility
1 30 (13.22%) QA
2 24 (10.57%) WCAG
3 10 (4.41%) Data Quality
4 1 (0.44%) ISO 14001
4 1 (0.44%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 67 (29.52%) Docker
2 4 (1.76%) Postfix
3 1 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 72 (31.72%) Kubernetes
2 23 (10.13%) Grafana
3 17 (7.49%) Prometheus
4 15 (6.61%) Kibana
5 8 (3.52%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.44%) Ansible
6 1 (0.44%) Control-M
Vendors
1 31 (13.66%) Oracle
2 17 (7.49%) Microsoft
3 13 (5.73%) SAP
4 9 (3.96%) Denodo
5 8 (3.52%) webMethods
6 7 (3.08%) Jaspersoft
7 5 (2.20%) Atlassian
8 4 (1.76%) Dynatrace
9 3 (1.32%) Google
9 3 (1.32%) Sonatype
10 2 (0.88%) Actian
10 2 (0.88%) Databricks
10 2 (0.88%) Splunk
11 1 (0.44%) IBM
11 1 (0.44%) Pega
11 1 (0.44%) Salesforce
11 1 (0.44%) Talend