Performance Optimisation Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Performance Optimisation
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Performance Optimisation skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 5 July 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 121 98 109
Rank change year-on-year -23 +11 +13
Contract jobs citing Performance Optimisation 47 8 5
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.39% 0.52% 0.24%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.62% 0.58% 0.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 38 4 2
10th Percentile £399 - £369
25th Percentile £451 £525 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £575 £430
Median % change year-on-year -13.04% +33.72% -33.85%
75th Percentile £594 £638 £503
90th Percentile £656 £660 £531
England median daily rate £527 £490 £591
% change year-on-year +7.61% -17.10% +13.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1 0 1
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £71.25 - -
Median hourly rate £72.50 - £55.00
75th Percentile £73.75 - -
90th Percentile - - -
England median hourly rate £70.00 £67.00 £30.00
% change year-on-year +4.48% +123.33% -52.80%

All Process & Methodology Skills
West Midlands

Performance Optimisation falls under the Processes and Methodologies category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring process or methodology skills in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies with a requirement for process or methodology skills 2,895 1,370 1,673
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 85.55% 88.79% 81.17%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,895 867 1,116
10th Percentile £313 £206 £273
25th Percentile £405 £363 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £475 £500
Median % change year-on-year +2.11% -5.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £575 £625
90th Percentile £675 £673 £728
England median daily rate £523 £515 £525
% change year-on-year +1.55% -1.90% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 144 90 111
10th Percentile £14.82 £12.62 £11.06
25th Percentile £20.31 £13.96 £14.06
Median hourly rate £33.99 £23.36 £19.95
Median % change year-on-year +45.51% +17.09% -20.20%
75th Percentile £60.06 £33.35 £37.50
90th Percentile £72.54 £50.00 £56.25
England median hourly rate £47.00 £25.15 £38.12
% change year-on-year +86.88% -34.02% +1.65%

Performance Optimisation
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Performance Optimisation relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Performance Optimisation job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Performance Optimisation
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Performance Optimisation.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Performance Optimisation

Performance Optimisation
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Performance Optimisation in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 5 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Performance Optimisation in the West Midlands

Performance Optimisation
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Performance Optimisation.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Performance Optimisation

Performance Optimisation
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 Performance Optimisation within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 5 July 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
Birmingham -12 15 £500 -23.08% 2
Shropshire -39 10 £515 - 1
Warwickshire - 8 £473 -
Coventry -20 6 £456 -
Worcestershire - 3 £638 -
Staffordshire - 2 £431 -
Performance Optimisation
England

Performance Optimisation
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 8 (17.02%) Apache Airflow
1 8 (17.02%) SAS
2 1 (2.13%) Apache
2 1 (2.13%) Apache Spark
2 1 (2.13%) Confluence
2 1 (2.13%) SharePoint
2 1 (2.13%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 2 (4.26%) Chatbot
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.13%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 1 (2.13%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (2.13%) Primavera
1 1 (2.13%) SAP ERP
1 1 (2.13%) SAP S/4HANA
Cloud Services
1 18 (38.30%) AWS
1 18 (38.30%) Azure
2 7 (14.89%) Amazon S3
3 6 (12.77%) GitHub
3 6 (12.77%) Snowflake
4 5 (10.64%) AWS Lambda
4 5 (10.64%) Power Platform
4 5 (10.64%) Serverless
5 4 (8.51%) Azure Machine Learning
5 4 (8.51%) Azure Synapse Analytics
5 4 (8.51%) dbt
5 4 (8.51%) OpenShift
6 3 (6.38%) Amazon SQS
6 3 (6.38%) AWS CloudFormation
6 3 (6.38%) Azure Data Factory
6 3 (6.38%) Azure DevOps
6 3 (6.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
7 2 (4.26%) Amazon EC2
8 1 (2.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (2.13%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 5 (10.64%) DNS
1 5 (10.64%) NetScaler
2 3 (6.38%) Firewall
2 3 (6.38%) Network Security
2 3 (6.38%) SSL
3 2 (4.26%) BGP
3 2 (4.26%) DHCP
3 2 (4.26%) OSPF
3 2 (4.26%) VLAN
3 2 (4.26%) VPN
3 2 (4.26%) WAN
4 1 (2.13%) Cisco IOS
4 1 (2.13%) EIGRP
4 1 (2.13%) Fibre Channel
4 1 (2.13%) HSRP
4 1 (2.13%) iSCSI
4 1 (2.13%) LAN
4 1 (2.13%) NAS
4 1 (2.13%) SAN
4 1 (2.13%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (12.77%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 5 (10.64%) Power BI
3 4 (8.51%) SAS Visual Analytics
4 3 (6.38%) Amazon RDS
4 3 (6.38%) Amazon Redshift
4 3 (6.38%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (6.38%) Oracle Database
5 2 (4.26%) Base SAS
5 2 (4.26%) Metadata
5 2 (4.26%) PostgreSQL
5 2 (4.26%) Relational Database
6 1 (2.13%) Data Lake
6 1 (2.13%) DynamoDB
6 1 (2.13%) Elasticsearch
6 1 (2.13%) Hadoop
6 1 (2.13%) NoSQL
6 1 (2.13%) Oracle Database 12c
6 1 (2.13%) Pentaho
6 1 (2.13%) Power Query
6 1 (2.13%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 4 (8.51%) Git
2 3 (6.38%) Jenkins
2 3 (6.38%) MLflow
3 2 (4.26%) GitLab
3 2 (4.26%) Hudson
4 1 (2.13%) JIRA
4 1 (2.13%) REST Assured
4 1 (2.13%) Sonatype Nexus
4 1 (2.13%) Storybook
4 1 (2.13%) Vite
4 1 (2.13%) webpack
General
1 15 (31.91%) Social Skills
2 7 (14.89%) Public Sector
3 6 (12.77%) Analytical Skills
4 5 (10.64%) Finance
4 5 (10.64%) Influencing Skills
5 4 (8.51%) Banking
6 2 (4.26%) Retail
7 1 (2.13%) Billing
7 1 (2.13%) Documentation Skills
7 1 (2.13%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 17 (36.17%) Architect
2 10 (21.28%) Senior
3 8 (17.02%) Data Engineer
4 4 (8.51%) Data Architect
4 4 (8.51%) Developer
4 4 (8.51%) SAS Architect
4 4 (8.51%) Technical Architect
5 3 (6.38%) Analyst
5 3 (6.38%) Lead
5 3 (6.38%) Network Architect
5 3 (6.38%) Senior Analyst
5 3 (6.38%) Senior Data Engineer
6 2 (4.26%) Data Analyst
6 2 (4.26%) Infrastructure Architect
6 2 (4.26%) Lead Architect
6 2 (4.26%) Pega Architect
6 2 (4.26%) SAS Developer
6 2 (4.26%) SAS Engineer
6 2 (4.26%) Senior Data Analyst
6 2 (4.26%) Systems Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 3 (6.38%) OpenTelemetry
1 3 (6.38%) REST
2 2 (4.26%) Node.js
2 2 (4.26%) RESTful
2 2 (4.26%) XML
3 1 (2.13%) AngularJS
3 1 (2.13%) Apache NiFi
3 1 (2.13%) CSS
3 1 (2.13%) Elastic Stack
3 1 (2.13%) HTML
3 1 (2.13%) JMS
3 1 (2.13%) JSON
3 1 (2.13%) Kafka
3 1 (2.13%) Middleware
3 1 (2.13%) React
3 1 (2.13%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 10 (21.28%) Cloud Native
2 5 (10.64%) Analytical Mindset
2 5 (10.64%) Enterprise Cloud
3 4 (8.51%) Hybrid Cloud
4 2 (4.26%) Legacy Systems
4 2 (4.26%) Product Ownership
5 1 (2.13%) Algorithms
5 1 (2.13%) Data Centre
5 1 (2.13%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 1 (2.13%) Distributed Systems
5 1 (2.13%) Enterprise Storage
5 1 (2.13%) Legacy Applications
5 1 (2.13%) Replication
Operating Systems
1 5 (10.64%) Linux
1 5 (10.64%) Windows
2 3 (6.38%) AIX
2 3 (6.38%) Unix
3 2 (4.26%) Windows Server
4 1 (2.13%) HPUX
4 1 (2.13%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 22 (46.81%) CI/CD
1 22 (46.81%) Migration
2 16 (34.04%) DevOps
3 13 (27.66%) Containerisation
4 12 (25.53%) High Availability
5 11 (23.40%) Data Pipeline
6 10 (21.28%) Agile
6 10 (21.28%) Analytics
6 10 (21.28%) Data Governance
6 10 (21.28%) Data Modelling
6 10 (21.28%) ETL
7 9 (19.15%) Stakeholder Management
8 8 (17.02%) AI
8 8 (17.02%) Data Engineering
8 8 (17.02%) Load Balancing
8 8 (17.02%) Technical Leadership
9 7 (14.89%) Computer Science
9 7 (14.89%) Problem-Solving
9 7 (14.89%) Validation
10 6 (12.77%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 14 (29.79%) SQL
2 11 (23.40%) Python
3 3 (6.38%) Bash
3 3 (6.38%) PL/SQL
4 2 (4.26%) Shell Script
5 1 (2.13%) C
5 1 (2.13%) Data Analysis Expressions
5 1 (2.13%) Java
5 1 (2.13%) JavaScript
5 1 (2.13%) T-SQL
5 1 (2.13%) TypeScript
5 1 (2.13%) VB
5 1 (2.13%) VB6
Qualifications
1 13 (27.66%) Security Cleared
2 9 (19.15%) SC Cleared
3 7 (14.89%) Degree
4 4 (8.51%) Computer Science Degree
4 4 (8.51%) SAS Certification
5 3 (6.38%) Master's Degree
5 3 (6.38%) PhD
6 2 (4.26%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (2.13%) CCNA
7 1 (2.13%) CCNP
7 1 (2.13%) Cisco Certification
7 1 (2.13%) DV Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 12 (25.53%) Data Quality
2 2 (4.26%) Basel III
2 2 (4.26%) QA
3 1 (2.13%) Accessibility
3 1 (2.13%) FATCA
3 1 (2.13%) PMO
3 1 (2.13%) WCAG
System Software
1 6 (12.77%) Docker
2 3 (6.38%) VMware Infrastructure
2 3 (6.38%) VMware NSX
2 3 (6.38%) vSphere
3 2 (4.26%) Active Directory
4 1 (2.13%) Firmware
4 1 (2.13%) NFS
4 1 (2.13%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 14 (29.79%) Kubernetes
2 7 (14.89%) Terraform
3 5 (10.64%) Ansible
3 5 (10.64%) Grafana
4 3 (6.38%) Argo
4 3 (6.38%) vCenter Server
5 2 (4.26%) Microsoft Intune
5 2 (4.26%) Prometheus
6 1 (2.13%) Data Guard
6 1 (2.13%) Kibana
6 1 (2.13%) logstash
6 1 (2.13%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 10 (21.28%) Databricks
2 7 (14.89%) Microsoft
2 7 (14.89%) Oracle
3 5 (10.64%) Cisco
3 5 (10.64%) VMware
4 4 (8.51%) Pure Storage
5 3 (6.38%) Red Hat
5 3 (6.38%) Splunk
6 2 (4.26%) Citrix
6 2 (4.26%) Denodo
6 2 (4.26%) Pega
6 2 (4.26%) Talend
7 1 (2.13%) Cadence
7 1 (2.13%) Dell
7 1 (2.13%) Dynatrace
7 1 (2.13%) IBM
7 1 (2.13%) IFS
7 1 (2.13%) Informatica
7 1 (2.13%) Sage
7 1 (2.13%) SAP