Software Engineer Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Software Engineer
England > West Midlands

The median Software Engineer daily rate in the West Midlands is £470, according to job vacancies posted in the 6 months leading up to 23 September 2026.

The table below compares current contractor rates and summary statistics with the previous two years.

6 months to
23 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 125 115 99
Rank change year-on-year -10 -16 +10
Contract jobs requiring a Software Engineer 40 10 12
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 1.12% 0.55% 0.64%
As % of the Job Titles category 1.23% 0.62% 0.69%
Number of daily rates quoted 13 5 5
10th Percentile £377 £463 £388
25th Percentile £457 £515 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £530 £492
Median % change year-on-year -11.32% +7.83% -18.08%
75th Percentile £500 £892 £588
90th Percentile £575 - £670
England median daily rate £550 £625 £630
% change year-on-year -12.00% -0.79% +6.78%
Number of hourly rates quoted 12 0 2
10th Percentile - - £45.50
25th Percentile - - £46.25
Median hourly rate £55.00 - £47.50
75th Percentile £77.50 - £48.75
90th Percentile - - £49.50
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £65.85
% change year-on-year - -1.29% +1.31%

All Contract IT Job Roles
West Midlands

For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract IT job vacancies in the West Midlands. Most job vacancies include a discernible job title that can be normalized. As such, the figures in the second row provide an indication of the number of contract jobs in our overall sample.

Contract vacancies in the West Midlands with a recognized job title 3,250 1,617 1,738
% of contract IT jobs with a recognized job title 91.39% 89.19% 93.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,919 1,044 1,110
10th Percentile £331 £235 £250
25th Percentile £413 £375 £380
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.41% -1.60% +3.20%
75th Percentile £588 £588 £625
90th Percentile £684 £667 £719
England median daily rate £525 £510 £525
% change year-on-year +2.94% -2.86% -3.98%
Number of hourly rates quoted 250 109 61
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.62 £12.59
25th Percentile £17.75 £14.00 £14.25
Median hourly rate £29.60 £25.15 £21.59
Median % change year-on-year +17.69% +16.49% -2.31%
75th Percentile £53.75 £40.02 £33.93
90th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £52.50
England median hourly rate £42.58 £25.15 £46.18
% change year-on-year +69.28% -45.54% +2.62%

Software Engineer
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings featuring 'Software Engineer' in the job title relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Software Engineer job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands

Software Engineer
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineer in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 23 September 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineer in the West Midlands

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for Software Engineer job vacancies in the West Midlands

Software Engineer
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineer in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 23 September 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineer in the West Midlands

Software Engineer
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 Software Engineer within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 23 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
Birmingham +11 22 £500 -29.68% 39
Shropshire -42 6 £437 +1.86% 3
Coventry - 6 £275 - 11
Worcestershire - 4 - - 9
Staffordshire - 2 - - 4
Software Engineer
England

Software Engineer Skill Set
Top 30 Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in the West Midlands

For the 6 months to 23 September 2026, Software Engineer contract job roles required the following skills and capabilities in order of popularity. The figures indicate the absolute number of co-occurrences and as a proportion of all contract job ads across the West Midlands region featuring Software Engineer in the job title.

1 38 (95.00%) Software Engineering
2 20 (50.00%) Security Cleared
3 19 (47.50%) SC Cleared
4 8 (20.00%) Validation
5 7 (17.50%) Python
5 7 (17.50%) Software Testing
5 7 (17.50%) SQL
6 6 (15.00%) Agile
6 6 (15.00%) C
7 5 (12.50%) Django
7 5 (12.50%) Git
7 5 (12.50%) Hardware-in-the-Loop
7 5 (12.50%) Java
7 5 (12.50%) Oracle
7 5 (12.50%) Performance Engineering
7 5 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
7 5 (12.50%) TDD
7 5 (12.50%) Verification and Validation
8 4 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
9 3 (7.50%) .NET
9 3 (7.50%) .NET Core
9 3 (7.50%) C#
9 3 (7.50%) C++
9 3 (7.50%) Continuous Improvement
9 3 (7.50%) Embedded Linux
9 3 (7.50%) Kotlin
9 3 (7.50%) Linux
9 3 (7.50%) Runbook
9 3 (7.50%) TypeScript
10 2 (5.00%) ADO

Software Engineer Skill Set
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 1 (2.50%) Apache
1 1 (2.50%) Apache Airflow
1 1 (2.50%) Apache Spark
1 1 (2.50%) Confluence
1 1 (2.50%) Tuxedo
Cloud Services
1 2 (5.00%) AWS
1 2 (5.00%) Azure
1 2 (5.00%) Azure Functions
1 2 (5.00%) Serverless
2 1 (2.50%) Azure DevOps
2 1 (2.50%) Azure Logic Apps
2 1 (2.50%) Figma
2 1 (2.50%) GitHub
2 1 (2.50%) GitHub Copilot
2 1 (2.50%) PaaS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 2 (5.00%) Ingres
1 2 (5.00%) Relational Database
2 1 (2.50%) Amazon Athena
2 1 (2.50%) Azure SQL Database
2 1 (2.50%) Pentaho
2 1 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
2 1 (2.50%) RDBMS
2 1 (2.50%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 5 (12.50%) Git
2 2 (5.00%) GitLab
2 2 (5.00%) Team Foundation Server
3 1 (2.50%) Atlassian Bamboo
3 1 (2.50%) Oracle Forms
3 1 (2.50%) PetaLinux
3 1 (2.50%) Visual Studio
General
1 7 (17.50%) Automotive
2 6 (15.00%) Public Sector
3 5 (12.50%) Social Skills
4 4 (10.00%) Aerospace
5 1 (2.50%) Military
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 5 (12.50%) Django
2 3 (7.50%) .NET
2 3 (7.50%) .NET Core
3 2 (5.00%) ADO
3 2 (5.00%) QML
3 2 (5.00%) Qt
3 2 (5.00%) Yocto
4 1 (2.50%) ASP.NET Web API
4 1 (2.50%) Blazor
4 1 (2.50%) COM
4 1 (2.50%) CSS
4 1 (2.50%) Entity Framework
4 1 (2.50%) Node.js
4 1 (2.50%) ODBC
4 1 (2.50%) PostGIS
4 1 (2.50%) PySpark
4 1 (2.50%) REST
4 1 (2.50%) Sass
4 1 (2.50%) SOAP
4 1 (2.50%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 2 (5.00%) Embedded Systems
1 2 (5.00%) Legacy Systems
2 1 (2.50%) FPGA
2 1 (2.50%) Legacy Applications
2 1 (2.50%) Low-Code
2 1 (2.50%) Verilog
2 1 (2.50%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 3 (7.50%) Embedded Linux
1 3 (7.50%) Linux
2 2 (5.00%) FreeRTOS
Processes & Methodologies
1 38 (95.00%) Software Engineering
2 8 (20.00%) Validation
3 7 (17.50%) Software Testing
4 6 (15.00%) Agile
5 5 (12.50%) Hardware-in-the-Loop
5 5 (12.50%) Performance Engineering
5 5 (12.50%) Problem-Solving
5 5 (12.50%) TDD
5 5 (12.50%) Verification and Validation
6 4 (10.00%) Stakeholder Management
7 3 (7.50%) Continuous Improvement
7 3 (7.50%) Runbook
8 2 (5.00%) CI/CD
8 2 (5.00%) Collaborative Engineering
8 2 (5.00%) Full-Stack Development
8 2 (5.00%) SDET
8 2 (5.00%) System Integration Testing
8 2 (5.00%) User Acceptance Testing
8 2 (5.00%) User-Centered Design (UCD)
9 1 (2.50%) Performance Testing
Programming Languages
1 7 (17.50%) Python
1 7 (17.50%) SQL
2 6 (15.00%) C
3 5 (12.50%) Java
4 3 (7.50%) C#
4 3 (7.50%) C++
4 3 (7.50%) Kotlin
4 3 (7.50%) TypeScript
5 2 (5.00%) PL/SQL
5 2 (5.00%) ProC
5 2 (5.00%) VB
5 2 (5.00%) VB6
6 1 (2.50%) SystemVerilog
6 1 (2.50%) Tcl
6 1 (2.50%) T-SQL
6 1 (2.50%) VBA
Qualifications
1 20 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 19 (47.50%) SC Cleared
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 2 (5.00%) ISO 26262
1 2 (5.00%) MISRA
2 1 (2.50%) FATCA
2 1 (2.50%) QA
System Software
1 1 (2.50%) Docker
Vendors
1 5 (12.50%) Oracle
2 2 (5.00%) QNX
3 1 (2.50%) Actian
3 1 (2.50%) Informatica
3 1 (2.50%) Microsoft
3 1 (2.50%) Sage
3 1 (2.50%) Talend
3 1 (2.50%) Xilinx