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

6 months to
14 Oct 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 26 35 61
Rank change year-on-year +9 +26 +11
Contract jobs citing Java 259 110 50
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 7.23% 5.84% 2.68%
As % of the Programming Languages category 30.61% 23.40% 11.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 190 72 38
10th Percentile £406 £403 £425
25th Percentile £448 £463 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -9.09% -3.30%
75th Percentile £608 £524 £702
90th Percentile £656 £550 £765
England median daily rate £525 £518 £600
% change year-on-year +1.45% -13.75% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 18 0
Median hourly rate - £50.00 -
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 846 470 433
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 23.62% 24.96% 23.18%
Number of daily rates quoted 603 301 258
10th Percentile £396 £325 £313
25th Percentile £419 £425 £381
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £488
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% +2.41% +4.16%
75th Percentile £575 £569 £575
90th Percentile £663 £638 £650
England median daily rate £525 £513 £543
% change year-on-year +2.44% -5.53% -1.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 20 4
10th Percentile £19.45 £33.91 £34.25
25th Percentile £21.25 £35.48 £34.73
Median hourly rate £39.15 £50.00 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year -21.70% +5.26% +156.76%
75th Percentile £53.19 - £63.75
90th Percentile £67.03 - £70.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £56.25 £65.00
% change year-on-year +15.56% -13.46% +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 14 October 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 14 October 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 +4 167 £513 -1.25% 24
Birmingham +2 49 £470 -6.00% 49
Solihull +5 26 - - 5
Coventry - 4 £575 - 3
Warwickshire -34 3 £550 - 6
Herefordshire - 2 - - 2
Worcestershire - 1 £450 -
Staffordshire - 1 £725 - 6
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 17 (6.56%) WebLogic
2 13 (5.02%) Confluence
3 8 (3.09%) SAS
4 6 (2.32%) Apache
5 4 (1.54%) Apache Airflow
5 4 (1.54%) NetWeaver
5 4 (1.54%) SAP EP
6 3 (1.16%) Apache Spark
7 2 (0.77%) OpenROAD
8 1 (0.39%) OpenStack
Applications
1 4 (1.54%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (1.93%) SAP PSCD
2 4 (1.54%) SAP CRM
3 1 (0.39%) SAP FI
3 1 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 121 (46.72%) AWS
2 36 (13.90%) GitHub
3 29 (11.20%) Azure
4 21 (8.11%) Amazon S3
5 17 (6.56%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 17 (6.56%) Amazon EC2
5 17 (6.56%) Power Platform
6 13 (5.02%) Amazon ECS
6 13 (5.02%) Amazon EKS
6 13 (5.02%) Serverless
7 12 (4.63%) AWS Lambda
7 12 (4.63%) GitHub Actions
7 12 (4.63%) GitHub Copilot
8 9 (3.47%) Azure DevOps
9 7 (2.70%) Tricentis Tosca
10 6 (2.32%) Amazon SQS
10 6 (2.32%) GCP
11 5 (1.93%) AWS KMS
11 5 (1.93%) Route 53
12 4 (1.54%) Azure Monitor
Database & Business Intelligence
1 47 (18.15%) MongoDB
2 19 (7.34%) PostgreSQL
3 15 (5.79%) Power BI
4 14 (5.41%) NoSQL
4 14 (5.41%) Relational Database
5 12 (4.63%) Pentaho
6 11 (4.25%) MySQL
7 10 (3.86%) Data Lake
7 10 (3.86%) Metadata
8 9 (3.47%) Data Warehouse
9 5 (1.93%) Amazon Aurora
9 5 (1.93%) Amazon RDS
9 5 (1.93%) DynamoDB
10 3 (1.16%) BusinessObjects
10 3 (1.16%) Oracle Database
11 2 (0.77%) Ingres
11 2 (0.77%) ZAP BI
12 1 (0.39%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 73 (28.19%) Git
2 66 (25.48%) GitLab
3 64 (24.71%) JUnit
4 47 (18.15%) Maven
5 38 (14.67%) Selenium
5 38 (14.67%) SonarQube
6 36 (13.90%) Jenkins
7 33 (12.74%) Gatling
8 32 (12.36%) Cucumber
8 32 (12.36%) Mockito
9 22 (8.49%) JIRA
10 10 (3.86%) Team Foundation Server
10 10 (3.86%) Visual Studio
11 7 (2.70%) Toad
12 6 (2.32%) REST Assured
13 4 (1.54%) Bitbucket Server
13 4 (1.54%) DbUnit
13 4 (1.54%) jMock
13 4 (1.54%) Serenity BDD
14 2 (0.77%) Cypress.io
General
1 86 (33.20%) Social Skills
2 62 (23.94%) Public Sector
3 18 (6.95%) Analytical Skills
4 16 (6.18%) Finance
5 12 (4.63%) Influencing Skills
6 8 (3.09%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (2.70%) Banking
8 2 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
8 2 (0.77%) Publishing
9 1 (0.39%) Front Office
9 1 (0.39%) Investment Banking
9 1 (0.39%) Local Government
9 1 (0.39%) Military
9 1 (0.39%) Retail
9 1 (0.39%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 89 (34.36%) Developer
2 70 (27.03%) Java Developer
3 48 (18.53%) Java Engineer
4 47 (18.15%) Senior
5 30 (11.58%) Architect
5 30 (11.58%) Quality Engineer
6 27 (10.42%) Lead
7 24 (9.27%) Senior Developer
8 22 (8.49%) Senior Java Developer
9 14 (5.41%) Scrum Master
10 12 (4.63%) SC Cleared Java Developer
10 12 (4.63%) Software Developer
11 9 (3.47%) Java Software Developer
11 9 (3.47%) Senior Java Engineer
11 9 (3.47%) Technical Architect
12 8 (3.09%) Analyst
12 8 (3.09%) Data Architect
12 8 (3.09%) Lead Developer
12 8 (3.09%) Lead Java Developer
12 8 (3.09%) Solutions Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 104 (40.15%) Spring
2 71 (27.41%) Spring Boot
3 41 (15.83%) Playwright
4 40 (15.44%) REST
5 33 (12.74%) SOAP
6 31 (11.97%) JPA
7 30 (11.58%) RESTful
8 28 (10.81%) React
9 23 (8.88%) OpenAPI
10 22 (8.49%) Gherkin
10 22 (8.49%) RabbitMQ
11 20 (7.72%) AngularJS
11 20 (7.72%) JSON
12 19 (7.34%) WireMock
13 17 (6.56%) ActiveMQ
13 17 (6.56%) Hibernate
13 17 (6.56%) XML
14 16 (6.18%) Spring Cloud
15 15 (5.79%) Kafka
15 15 (5.79%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 47 (18.15%) Cloud Native
2 23 (8.88%) Product Ownership
3 15 (5.79%) Distributed Systems
4 10 (3.86%) Linux Command Line
5 8 (3.09%) Autonomous Agent
5 8 (3.09%) Self-Motivation
6 7 (2.70%) Enterprise Software
7 6 (2.32%) Legacy Systems
8 5 (1.93%) Public Cloud
9 4 (1.54%) Data Protection Act
9 4 (1.54%) Private Cloud
10 3 (1.16%) Blog
11 2 (0.77%) Low-Code
11 2 (0.77%) Onboarding
12 1 (0.39%) Distributed Architecture
12 1 (0.39%) Foreign Exchange (FX)
12 1 (0.39%) Legacy Applications
12 1 (0.39%) Legacy Code
12 1 (0.39%) Mobile App
12 1 (0.39%) NHS
Operating Systems
1 18 (6.95%) Linux
2 9 (3.47%) Unix
3 7 (2.70%) Windows
4 1 (0.39%) macOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (51.74%) Agile
2 99 (38.22%) Microservices
3 96 (37.07%) CI/CD
4 92 (35.52%) Scrum
5 86 (33.20%) Test Automation
6 64 (24.71%) Stakeholder Management
7 62 (23.94%) TDD
8 59 (22.78%) DevOps
9 58 (22.39%) Continuous Improvement
10 52 (20.08%) Containerisation
11 44 (16.99%) Software Testing
12 42 (16.22%) Problem-Solving
13 41 (15.83%) Technical Leadership
14 40 (15.44%) Coaching
14 40 (15.44%) Test Strategy
15 38 (14.67%) Software Engineering
16 36 (13.90%) BDD
17 32 (12.36%) Code Quality
17 32 (12.36%) OWASP
18 28 (10.81%) Pair Programming
Programming Languages
1 56 (21.62%) SQL
2 34 (13.13%) JavaScript
3 24 (9.27%) TypeScript
4 22 (8.49%) Python
5 20 (7.72%) Shell Script
6 12 (4.63%) VB
6 12 (4.63%) VB6
7 10 (3.86%) Kotlin
7 10 (3.86%) VBA
8 9 (3.47%) ABAP
9 8 (3.09%) PL/SQL
10 6 (2.32%) C#
11 5 (1.93%) COBOL
12 3 (1.16%) Scala
13 2 (0.77%) Groovy
13 2 (0.77%) R
14 1 (0.39%) Bash
14 1 (0.39%) C++
14 1 (0.39%) PowerShell
14 1 (0.39%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 112 (43.24%) Security Cleared
2 103 (39.77%) SC Cleared
3 89 (34.36%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (5.02%) AWS Certification
5 8 (3.09%) ISTQB
6 6 (2.32%) ISEB
6 6 (2.32%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
7 2 (0.77%) Azure Certification
7 2 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
7 2 (0.77%) Degree
7 2 (0.77%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 37 (14.29%) Accessibility
1 37 (14.29%) QA
2 30 (11.58%) WCAG
3 10 (3.86%) Data Quality
System Software
1 72 (27.80%) Docker
2 3 (1.16%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 86 (33.20%) Kubernetes
2 24 (9.27%) Grafana
3 19 (7.34%) Prometheus
4 15 (5.79%) Kibana
5 9 (3.47%) Single Sign-On
6 1 (0.39%) Ansible
6 1 (0.39%) Control-M
Vendors
1 47 (18.15%) Oracle
2 20 (7.72%) SAP
3 16 (6.18%) Microsoft
4 11 (4.25%) webMethods
5 9 (3.47%) Denodo
6 5 (1.93%) Jaspersoft
7 4 (1.54%) Atlassian
7 4 (1.54%) Dynatrace
8 3 (1.16%) Cloudera
8 3 (1.16%) Databricks
8 3 (1.16%) Google
9 2 (0.77%) Actian
9 2 (0.77%) Sonatype
9 2 (0.77%) Splunk
10 1 (0.39%) Ariba
10 1 (0.39%) IBM
10 1 (0.39%) Pega
10 1 (0.39%) Talend