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

6 months to
27 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 127 114 103
Rank change year-on-year -13 -11 +17
Contract jobs citing Performance Optimisation 43 11 12
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.21% 0.60% 0.63%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 1.42% 0.67% 0.77%
Number of daily rates quoted 25 4 8
10th Percentile £406 £470 £293
25th Percentile £463 £506 £300
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £600 £490
Median % change year-on-year -16.67% +22.57% -7.86%
75th Percentile £600 £706 £538
90th Percentile £660 £763 £541
England median daily rate £525 £475 £565
% change year-on-year +10.53% -15.93% +8.13%
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 £50.50 £30.00
% change year-on-year +38.61% +68.33% -60.00%

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 3,023 1,643 1,568
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.75% 89.10% 82.44%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,849 1,045 987
10th Percentile £313 £250 £243
25th Percentile £413 £400 £390
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £520
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% -3.85% +4.00%
75th Percentile £581 £588 £625
90th Percentile £675 £675 £725
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 218 111 40
10th Percentile £13.45 £12.62 £14.70
25th Percentile £17.50 £16.30 £16.81
Median hourly rate £28.05 £23.00 £25.15
Median % change year-on-year +21.93% -8.56% -8.54%
75th Percentile £53.75 £32.44 £37.63
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £55.45
England median hourly rate £41.03 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +63.14% -41.51% -2.27%

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 27 September 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 27 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 -32 11 £515 - 1
Coventry -16 8 £469 -
Birmingham -5 7 £488 -32.78% 10
Warwickshire -6 7 £473 +5.82% 3
Worcestershire - 4 - - 1
Staffordshire - 3 £431 - 1
Herefordshire - 1 £625 -
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 (18.60%) SAS
2 5 (11.63%) Apache Airflow
3 2 (4.65%) Adobe Experience Manager
4 1 (2.33%) Apache
4 1 (2.33%) Apache Spark
4 1 (2.33%) Confluence
4 1 (2.33%) SharePoint
4 1 (2.33%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 2 (4.65%) Chatbot
2 1 (2.33%) Microsoft Excel
2 1 (2.33%) Microsoft Project
Business Applications
1 4 (9.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 3 (6.98%) SAP MDG
3 1 (2.33%) Oracle ERP
3 1 (2.33%) Primavera
Cloud Services
1 18 (41.86%) AWS
2 14 (32.56%) Azure
3 6 (13.95%) Amazon S3
4 5 (11.63%) AWS CloudFormation
5 4 (9.30%) Amazon EC2
5 4 (9.30%) Amazon SQS
5 4 (9.30%) Snowflake
5 4 (9.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
6 3 (6.98%) Azure Synapse Analytics
7 2 (4.65%) AWS Lambda
7 2 (4.65%) Azure Machine Learning
7 2 (4.65%) GCP
7 2 (4.65%) Power Platform
7 2 (4.65%) Serverless
8 1 (2.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 1 (2.33%) Azure Data Factory
8 1 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
8 1 (2.33%) Azure ExpressRoute
8 1 (2.33%) IBM Cloud
8 1 (2.33%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 6 (13.95%) NetScaler
2 2 (4.65%) BGP
2 2 (4.65%) DHCP
2 2 (4.65%) DNS
2 2 (4.65%) Firewall
2 2 (4.65%) LAN
2 2 (4.65%) Network Security
2 2 (4.65%) OSPF
2 2 (4.65%) SSL
2 2 (4.65%) TCP/IP
2 2 (4.65%) VLAN
2 2 (4.65%) WAN
3 1 (2.33%) Cisco IOS
3 1 (2.33%) DMZ
3 1 (2.33%) EIGRP
3 1 (2.33%) MPLS
3 1 (2.33%) SAN
3 1 (2.33%) SNMP
3 1 (2.33%) VPN
3 1 (2.33%) VRRP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 6 (13.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 5 (11.63%) Amazon RDS
3 4 (9.30%) SAS Visual Analytics
4 2 (4.65%) Base SAS
4 2 (4.65%) Data Warehouse
4 2 (4.65%) Metadata
4 2 (4.65%) Oracle Database
4 2 (4.65%) PostgreSQL
4 2 (4.65%) Power BI
4 2 (4.65%) SQL Server
5 1 (2.33%) Db2
5 1 (2.33%) DynamoDB
5 1 (2.33%) Elasticsearch
5 1 (2.33%) Hadoop
5 1 (2.33%) MongoDB
5 1 (2.33%) NoSQL
5 1 (2.33%) Oracle Database 12c
5 1 (2.33%) Relational Database
5 1 (2.33%) SAP HANA
5 1 (2.33%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 4 (9.30%) Git
2 2 (4.65%) GitLab
3 1 (2.33%) Hudson
3 1 (2.33%) JIRA
3 1 (2.33%) MLflow
3 1 (2.33%) Rational Rhapsody
General
1 14 (32.56%) Social Skills
2 9 (20.93%) Analytical Skills
3 8 (18.60%) Public Sector
4 5 (11.63%) Finance
5 4 (9.30%) Banking
5 4 (9.30%) Influencing Skills
6 1 (2.33%) Billing
6 1 (2.33%) Documentation Skills
6 1 (2.33%) Legal
6 1 (2.33%) Manufacturing
6 1 (2.33%) Military
6 1 (2.33%) Presentation Skills
6 1 (2.33%) Retail
6 1 (2.33%) Telecoms
Job Titles
1 16 (37.21%) Architect
2 11 (25.58%) Senior
3 7 (16.28%) Developer
4 5 (11.63%) Technical Architect
5 4 (9.30%) Data Engineer
5 4 (9.30%) Infrastructure Architect
5 4 (9.30%) SAS Architect
6 3 (6.98%) Consultant
6 3 (6.98%) Senior Data Engineer
7 2 (4.65%) Data Scientist
7 2 (4.65%) Front-End Developer (Client-Side Developer)
7 2 (4.65%) Front-End Web Developer (Client-Side Web Developer)
7 2 (4.65%) Network Architect
7 2 (4.65%) Pega Architect
7 2 (4.65%) SAP Architect
7 2 (4.65%) SAS Developer
7 2 (4.65%) SAS Engineer
7 2 (4.65%) Senior Architect
7 2 (4.65%) Systems Architect
7 2 (4.65%) Web Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 6 (13.95%) Terraform
2 4 (9.30%) CSS
2 4 (9.30%) HTML
2 4 (9.30%) Node.js
2 4 (9.30%) React
2 4 (9.30%) REST
2 4 (9.30%) SAP Fiori
2 4 (9.30%) SAPUI5
3 3 (6.98%) RESTful
3 3 (6.98%) SAP ALE
3 3 (6.98%) Sass
3 3 (6.98%) SOAP
3 3 (6.98%) Web Dynpro
4 2 (4.65%) .NET
4 2 (4.65%) .NET Core
4 2 (4.65%) CSS3
4 2 (4.65%) HTML5
4 2 (4.65%) Kafka
4 2 (4.65%) LESS
5 1 (2.33%) ASP.NET Core
Miscellaneous
1 8 (18.60%) Cloud Native
2 5 (11.63%) Analytical Mindset
3 4 (9.30%) Enterprise Cloud
3 4 (9.30%) Replication
4 3 (6.98%) Product Ownership
5 2 (4.65%) Distributed Denial-of-Service
5 2 (4.65%) Distributed Systems
5 2 (4.65%) Enterprise Software
5 2 (4.65%) Enterprise Storage
5 2 (4.65%) Legacy Systems
6 1 (2.33%) AI Agents
6 1 (2.33%) Algorithms
6 1 (2.33%) CMDB
6 1 (2.33%) Distributed Applications
6 1 (2.33%) Legacy Applications
6 1 (2.33%) Operational Technology
6 1 (2.33%) SCADA
6 1 (2.33%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 8 (18.60%) Linux
2 5 (11.63%) AIX
2 5 (11.63%) Windows
3 3 (6.98%) Unix
4 1 (2.33%) HPUX
4 1 (2.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 1 (2.33%) Solaris
4 1 (2.33%) SUSE
4 1 (2.33%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
Processes & Methodologies
1 17 (39.53%) CI/CD
2 16 (37.21%) Migration
3 15 (34.88%) Stakeholder Management
4 14 (32.56%) DevOps
5 12 (27.91%) Technical Leadership
6 11 (25.58%) Agile
7 10 (23.26%) Continuous Improvement
7 10 (23.26%) High Availability
8 8 (18.60%) Containerisation
8 8 (18.60%) Infrastructure as Code
8 8 (18.60%) Problem-Solving
9 7 (16.28%) Analytics
9 7 (16.28%) Technical Architecture
10 6 (13.95%) AI
10 6 (13.95%) Computer Science
10 6 (13.95%) Data Governance
10 6 (13.95%) Data Validation
10 6 (13.95%) Performance Tuning
10 6 (13.95%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 6 (13.95%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 9 (20.93%) SQL
2 5 (11.63%) JavaScript
3 4 (9.30%) ABAP
3 4 (9.30%) Python
4 3 (6.98%) PL/SQL
5 2 (4.65%) C#
5 2 (4.65%) Shell Script
5 2 (4.65%) TypeScript
6 1 (2.33%) C
6 1 (2.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
6 1 (2.33%) Java
6 1 (2.33%) T-SQL
6 1 (2.33%) VB
6 1 (2.33%) VB6
Qualifications
1 16 (37.21%) Security Cleared
2 10 (23.26%) SC Cleared
3 6 (13.95%) Degree
4 5 (11.63%) Computer Science Degree
5 4 (9.30%) SAS Certification
6 2 (4.65%) CCNP
6 2 (4.65%) Cisco Certification
6 2 (4.65%) DV Cleared
6 2 (4.65%) Master's Degree
7 1 (2.33%) BPSS Clearance
7 1 (2.33%) CCIE
7 1 (2.33%) CCNA
7 1 (2.33%) PhD
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 6 (13.95%) Data Quality
2 5 (11.63%) QA
3 2 (4.65%) Accessibility
3 2 (4.65%) Basel III
3 2 (4.65%) WCAG
4 1 (2.33%) HL7
4 1 (2.33%) PMO
System Software
1 4 (9.30%) Docker
2 1 (2.33%) NFS
2 1 (2.33%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 9 (20.93%) Kubernetes
2 2 (4.65%) Ansible
3 1 (2.33%) Data Guard
3 1 (2.33%) Grafana
3 1 (2.33%) Kibana
3 1 (2.33%) logstash
3 1 (2.33%) Oracle RMAN
3 1 (2.33%) Prometheus
Vendors
1 7 (16.28%) Cisco
1 7 (16.28%) Databricks
2 6 (13.95%) Microsoft
2 6 (13.95%) Oracle
3 4 (9.30%) SAP
3 4 (9.30%) VMware
4 2 (4.65%) Adobe
4 2 (4.65%) Citrix
4 2 (4.65%) Denodo
4 2 (4.65%) Pega
4 2 (4.65%) Pure Storage
5 1 (2.33%) Brocade
5 1 (2.33%) Fortinet
5 1 (2.33%) Google
5 1 (2.33%) IFS
5 1 (2.33%) OpenAI
5 1 (2.33%) Palo Alto
5 1 (2.33%) SolarWinds
5 1 (2.33%) Talend
5 1 (2.33%) Veeam