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

6 months to
29 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 42 39 56
Rank change year-on-year -3 +17 +5
Contract jobs citing Java 163 98 58
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 4.72% 5.55% 3.06%
As % of the Programming Languages category 21.91% 21.88% 14.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 112 66 43
10th Percentile £413 £400 £425
25th Percentile £453 £463 £506
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £500 £550
Median % change year-on-year +4.00% -9.09% +1.85%
75th Percentile £621 £520 £675
90th Percentile £670 £577 £765
England median daily rate £525 £525 £600
% change year-on-year - -12.50% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 0 19 2
10th Percentile - £33.91 £55.13
25th Percentile - £41.96 £55.31
Median hourly rate - £50.00 £55.63
Median % change year-on-year - -10.11% +200.68%
75th Percentile - - £55.94
90th Percentile - - £56.13
England median hourly rate £68.50 £50.00 £68.75
% change year-on-year +37.00% -27.27% +5.28%

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 744 448 402
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 21.55% 25.38% 21.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 531 278 265
10th Percentile £368 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £401 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -
75th Percentile £571 £540 £575
90th Percentile £656 £625 £650
England median daily rate £525 £514 £550
% change year-on-year +2.14% -6.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 23 7
10th Percentile £21.25 £30.25 £32.51
25th Percentile £25.00 £33.91 £34.47
Median hourly rate £56.00 £50.00 £55.00
Median % change year-on-year +12.00% -9.09% +129.17%
75th Percentile £67.84 - £57.50
90th Percentile - - £65.25
England median hourly rate £65.00 £55.00 £65.00
% change year-on-year +18.18% -15.38% +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 29 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 29 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 -2 100 £530 +2.02% 15
Birmingham -20 31 £460 -5.64% 65
Solihull -2 19 £475 -5.00% 2
Coventry - 5 £650 - 4
Warwickshire -34 4 £550 - 3
Herefordshire - 2 - -
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 10 (6.13%) WebLogic
2 6 (3.68%) SAS
3 5 (3.07%) Confluence
4 2 (1.23%) OpenROAD
4 2 (1.23%) OpenStack
5 1 (0.61%) NetWeaver
5 1 (0.61%) Oracle SOA Suite
5 1 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
5 1 (0.61%) SAP EP
5 1 (0.61%) SharePoint
Applications
1 5 (3.07%) Microsoft Office
Business Applications
1 5 (3.07%) SAP PSCD
2 1 (0.61%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.61%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.61%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 72 (44.17%) AWS
2 26 (15.95%) Azure
3 23 (14.11%) GitHub
4 20 (12.27%) Amazon S3
5 18 (11.04%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 18 (11.04%) Amazon EC2
6 13 (7.98%) Power Platform
7 12 (7.36%) Amazon ECS
7 12 (7.36%) Amazon EKS
7 12 (7.36%) Serverless
8 10 (6.13%) Amazon SQS
8 10 (6.13%) AWS Lambda
8 10 (6.13%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (5.52%) Azure DevOps
10 8 (4.91%) AWS KMS
10 8 (4.91%) Route 53
11 6 (3.68%) GitHub Copilot
12 4 (2.45%) Azure Monitor
12 4 (2.45%) GCP
13 3 (1.84%) Tricentis Tosca
Communications & Networking
1 1 (0.61%) VPN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (11.66%) MongoDB
2 14 (8.59%) PostgreSQL
3 11 (6.75%) NoSQL
3 11 (6.75%) Power BI
4 9 (5.52%) Metadata
5 8 (4.91%) Amazon Aurora
5 8 (4.91%) Amazon RDS
5 8 (4.91%) DynamoDB
6 7 (4.29%) Data Warehouse
6 7 (4.29%) MySQL
6 7 (4.29%) Pentaho
7 6 (3.68%) Data Lake
7 6 (3.68%) Relational Database
8 2 (1.23%) Ingres
8 2 (1.23%) Oracle Database
8 2 (1.23%) ZAP BI
9 1 (0.61%) IDMS
9 1 (0.61%) SQL Server
9 1 (0.61%) Tableau
Development Applications
1 39 (23.93%) Git
2 33 (20.25%) JUnit
3 30 (18.40%) Jenkins
3 30 (18.40%) Maven
4 28 (17.18%) GitLab
5 22 (13.50%) SonarQube
6 19 (11.66%) Mockito
6 19 (11.66%) Selenium
7 16 (9.82%) Gatling
8 13 (7.98%) Cucumber
9 10 (6.13%) JIRA
10 9 (5.52%) Team Foundation Server
10 9 (5.52%) Visual Studio
11 6 (3.68%) Bitbucket Server
11 6 (3.68%) DbUnit
11 6 (3.68%) jMock
11 6 (3.68%) REST Assured
12 4 (2.45%) Serenity BDD
13 3 (1.84%) Toad
14 2 (1.23%) Cypress.io
General
1 41 (25.15%) Social Skills
2 39 (23.93%) Public Sector
3 10 (6.13%) Analytical Skills
4 9 (5.52%) Finance
5 7 (4.29%) Banking
5 7 (4.29%) Influencing Skills
6 2 (1.23%) Organisational Skills
6 2 (1.23%) Presentation Skills
6 2 (1.23%) Publishing
7 1 (0.61%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (0.61%) Electronics
7 1 (0.61%) Front Office
7 1 (0.61%) Investment Banking
7 1 (0.61%) Local Government
7 1 (0.61%) Retail
Job Titles
1 53 (32.52%) Developer
2 37 (22.70%) Java Developer
3 26 (15.95%) Java Engineer
4 24 (14.72%) Architect
5 19 (11.66%) Senior
6 18 (11.04%) Lead
7 13 (7.98%) Quality Engineer
7 13 (7.98%) Senior Developer
8 12 (7.36%) Scrum Master
8 12 (7.36%) Senior Java Developer
9 8 (4.91%) Solutions Architect
10 6 (3.68%) Data Architect
10 6 (3.68%) Lead Java Engineer
10 6 (3.68%) Technical Architect
11 5 (3.07%) Analyst
11 5 (3.07%) Consultant
11 5 (3.07%) Java Scrum Master
11 5 (3.07%) SAP Consultant
11 5 (3.07%) SAP PI Consultant
11 5 (3.07%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 64 (39.26%) Spring
2 46 (28.22%) Spring Boot
3 31 (19.02%) REST
4 28 (17.18%) SOAP
5 21 (12.88%) Playwright
6 19 (11.66%) RESTful
7 17 (10.43%) JPA
8 16 (9.82%) React
9 13 (7.98%) Kafka
10 12 (7.36%) ActiveMQ
10 12 (7.36%) AngularJS
10 12 (7.36%) Web Services
10 12 (7.36%) XML
11 11 (6.75%) Hibernate
11 11 (6.75%) OpenAPI
11 11 (6.75%) Spring Cloud
12 10 (6.13%) Node.js
13 9 (5.52%) .NET
13 9 (5.52%) ActiveX
13 9 (5.52%) Spring Batch
Miscellaneous
1 30 (18.40%) Cloud Native
2 19 (11.66%) Product Ownership
3 14 (8.59%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (4.29%) Linux Command Line
5 6 (3.68%) Autonomous Agent
5 6 (3.68%) Enterprise Software
5 6 (3.68%) Legacy Systems
6 5 (3.07%) Public Cloud
7 4 (2.45%) Private Cloud
8 3 (1.84%) Blog
8 3 (1.84%) Data Protection Act
9 2 (1.23%) Low-Code
9 2 (1.23%) Onboarding
10 1 (0.61%) Analytical Mindset
10 1 (0.61%) Cyber Defence
10 1 (0.61%) Data Structures
10 1 (0.61%) Distributed Architecture
10 1 (0.61%) Greenfield Project
10 1 (0.61%) Legacy Applications
10 1 (0.61%) Legacy Code
Operating Systems
1 17 (10.43%) Linux
2 10 (6.13%) Unix
3 3 (1.84%) Windows
4 1 (0.61%) Mac OS X
Processes & Methodologies
1 84 (51.53%) Agile
2 62 (38.04%) CI/CD
3 57 (34.97%) Microservices
4 54 (33.13%) Scrum
5 50 (30.67%) DevOps
6 46 (28.22%) Test Automation
7 35 (21.47%) Technical Leadership
8 33 (20.25%) Containerisation
8 33 (20.25%) Continuous Improvement
9 31 (19.02%) Stakeholder Management
9 31 (19.02%) TDD
10 28 (17.18%) Test Strategy
11 24 (14.72%) BDD
12 22 (13.50%) Problem-Solving
13 20 (12.27%) Migration
13 20 (12.27%) Software Testing
14 19 (11.66%) Coaching
15 16 (9.82%) Mentoring
15 16 (9.82%) Observability
15 16 (9.82%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 37 (22.70%) SQL
2 21 (12.88%) JavaScript
3 16 (9.82%) Python
4 12 (7.36%) Shell Script
5 11 (6.75%) VB
5 11 (6.75%) VB6
6 9 (5.52%) VBA
7 8 (4.91%) PL/SQL
8 6 (3.68%) ABAP
8 6 (3.68%) C#
8 6 (3.68%) TypeScript
9 4 (2.45%) COBOL
10 3 (1.84%) Groovy
10 3 (1.84%) Kotlin
11 2 (1.23%) C
11 2 (1.23%) C++
11 2 (1.23%) R
12 1 (0.61%) Apex Code
12 1 (0.61%) PowerShell
12 1 (0.61%) VB.NET
Qualifications
1 79 (48.47%) Security Cleared
2 73 (44.79%) SC Cleared
3 50 (30.67%) BPSS Clearance
4 11 (6.75%) AWS Certification
5 5 (3.07%) ISTQB
6 4 (2.45%) Degree
7 3 (1.84%) ISEB
7 3 (1.84%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 2 (1.23%) Azure Certification
8 2 (1.23%) Computer Science Degree
8 2 (1.23%) DV Cleared
9 1 (0.61%) CISM
9 1 (0.61%) CISSP
9 1 (0.61%) Six Sigma Black Belt
9 1 (0.61%) Six Sigma Green Belt
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (12.88%) QA
2 16 (9.82%) Accessibility
3 12 (7.36%) WCAG
4 8 (4.91%) Data Quality
5 1 (0.61%) ISO 14001
5 1 (0.61%) ISO 9001
System Software
1 46 (28.22%) Docker
2 5 (3.07%) Postfix
3 1 (0.61%) Active Directory
3 1 (0.61%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 52 (31.90%) Kubernetes
2 14 (8.59%) Grafana
3 10 (6.13%) Prometheus
4 8 (4.91%) Single Sign-On
5 7 (4.29%) Kibana
Vendors
1 24 (14.72%) Oracle
2 16 (9.82%) Microsoft
3 10 (6.13%) SAP
4 8 (4.91%) Jaspersoft
4 8 (4.91%) webMethods
5 7 (4.29%) Denodo
6 6 (3.68%) Atlassian
7 3 (1.84%) Dynatrace
7 3 (1.84%) Sonatype
8 2 (1.23%) Actian
8 2 (1.23%) Google
8 2 (1.23%) Splunk
9 1 (0.61%) Ariba
9 1 (0.61%) MuleSoft
9 1 (0.61%) Salesforce
9 1 (0.61%) ServiceNow
9 1 (0.61%) Talend
9 1 (0.61%) Zscaler