Software Engineering Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Software Engineering
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics and contractor rates for jobs advertised in the West Midlands requiring Software Engineering skills. It covers contract job vacancies from the 6 months leading up to 22 March 2026, with comparisons to the same periods in the previous two years.

6 months to
22 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 72 54 50
Rank change year-on-year -18 -4 -9
Contract jobs citing Software Engineering 89 39 63
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 3.09% 2.90% 3.20%
As % of the Processes & Methodologies category 3.67% 3.23% 3.79%
Number of daily rates quoted 72 21 32
10th Percentile £407 £413 £358
25th Percentile £439 £456 £367
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year - +5.26% -12.04%
75th Percentile £568 £540 £543
90th Percentile £625 £626 £654
England median daily rate £550 £600 £600
% change year-on-year -8.33% - -
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 0 12
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile £56.50 - £46.25
Median hourly rate £58.00 - £56.88
75th Percentile £68.50 - £58.75
90th Percentile £73.90 - £71.13
England median hourly rate £65.00 £65.00 £62.50
% change year-on-year - +4.00% -3.85%

All Process & Methodology Skills
West Midlands

Software Engineering 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 2,425 1,208 1,661
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 84.29% 89.68% 84.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 1,617 809 1,106
10th Percentile £305 £200 £269
25th Percentile £402 £393 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £500 £475
Median % change year-on-year -2.00% +5.26% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £588 £600
90th Percentile £663 £688 £709
England median daily rate £505 £525 £525
% change year-on-year -3.81% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 54 119
10th Percentile £14.00 £12.36 £11.11
25th Percentile £16.10 £14.70 £14.06
Median hourly rate £24.29 £18.07 £22.50
Median % change year-on-year +34.45% -19.71% +26.98%
75th Percentile £30.00 £24.21 £40.25
90th Percentile £60.08 £34.63 £58.75
England median hourly rate £32.50 £34.00 £32.50
% change year-on-year -4.41% +4.62% -13.33%

Software Engineering
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

Software Engineering job vacancy trend in the West Midlands

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Engineering.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Software Engineering in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 22 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Software Engineering in the West Midlands

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Engineering.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing Software Engineering

Software Engineering
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Software Engineering in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 22 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Software Engineering in the West Midlands

Software Engineering
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 Engineering within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 22 March 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 -28 29 £453 -14.54% 14
Birmingham -10 23 £525 +23.53% 23
Warwickshire -5 12 £520 - 11
Coventry -20 9 £450 -1.37% 5
Worcestershire -8 6 £575 -2.13% 8
Herefordshire -11 5 £550 +4.76%
Solihull -8 2 £1,375 - 4
Staffordshire - 2 - - 12
Software Engineering
England

Software Engineering
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 9 (10.11%) Confluence
1 9 (10.11%) WebLogic
2 6 (6.74%) Apache
3 4 (4.49%) JBoss
3 4 (4.49%) OpenStack
4 3 (3.37%) SAS
Applications
1 2 (2.25%) Microsoft Excel
1 2 (2.25%) Microsoft Office
Cloud Services
1 37 (41.57%) AWS
2 25 (28.09%) Azure
3 15 (16.85%) Serverless
4 14 (15.73%) GCP
5 10 (11.24%) Power Platform
6 8 (8.99%) GitHub
7 7 (7.87%) OpenShift
8 6 (6.74%) GitHub Actions
9 5 (5.62%) Azure DevOps
10 4 (4.49%) Amazon EC2
10 4 (4.49%) Amazon S3
10 4 (4.49%) AWS KMS
10 4 (4.49%) AWS Lambda
10 4 (4.49%) Azure Machine Learning
10 4 (4.49%) Azure Synapse Analytics
10 4 (4.49%) Cloud Computing
11 3 (3.37%) Amazon EKS
11 3 (3.37%) Azure Monitor
11 3 (3.37%) Microsoft 365
11 3 (3.37%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 4 (4.49%) Network Security
2 3 (3.37%) 3GPP
3 1 (1.12%) AMQP
3 1 (1.12%) Firewall
3 1 (1.12%) HTTP
3 1 (1.12%) RTCP
3 1 (1.12%) RTP
3 1 (1.12%) SSL
3 1 (1.12%) XCAP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 12 (13.48%) MongoDB
2 10 (11.24%) PostgreSQL
3 8 (8.99%) Relational Database
4 7 (7.87%) MySQL
4 7 (7.87%) NoSQL
4 7 (7.87%) Power BI
5 5 (5.62%) InfluxDB
5 5 (5.62%) Pentaho
6 4 (4.49%) Amazon RDS
6 4 (4.49%) Oracle Database
7 3 (3.37%) Amazon Redshift
7 3 (3.37%) Apache Hive
7 3 (3.37%) BusinessObjects
7 3 (3.37%) Hadoop
7 3 (3.37%) Impala
Development Applications
1 23 (25.84%) GitLab
2 21 (23.60%) Git
3 19 (21.35%) Jenkins
4 14 (15.73%) JIRA
5 11 (12.36%) JUnit
5 11 (12.36%) Selenium
6 7 (7.87%) Liquibase
6 7 (7.87%) Maven
7 5 (5.62%) Atlassian Bamboo
7 5 (5.62%) Bitbucket
7 5 (5.62%) Cucumber
7 5 (5.62%) Mockito
8 4 (4.49%) Artifactory
8 4 (4.49%) CircleCI
8 4 (4.49%) Eclipse
8 4 (4.49%) IntelliJ
8 4 (4.49%) MLflow
9 3 (3.37%) REST Assured
10 2 (2.25%) Postman
10 2 (2.25%) Snyk
General
1 31 (34.83%) Social Skills
2 13 (14.61%) Finance
3 11 (12.36%) Public Sector
4 9 (10.11%) Banking
5 6 (6.74%) Financial Institution
5 6 (6.74%) Influencing Skills
6 5 (5.62%) Analytical Skills
7 4 (4.49%) Telecoms
8 2 (2.25%) Electronics
8 2 (2.25%) Retail
Job Titles
1 34 (38.20%) Software Engineer
2 16 (17.98%) Senior
3 10 (11.24%) Developer
4 8 (8.99%) Java Engineer
5 7 (7.87%) DevOps Engineer
5 7 (7.87%) Senior Software Engineer
6 6 (6.74%) Cloud Engineer
6 6 (6.74%) Data Engineer
6 6 (6.74%) Java Developer
6 6 (6.74%) Lead
7 5 (5.62%) Analyst
7 5 (5.62%) AWS Engineer
7 5 (5.62%) Cloud Software Engineer
7 5 (5.62%) Engineering Specialist
7 5 (5.62%) GCP Engineer
7 5 (5.62%) Site Engineer
7 5 (5.62%) Site Reliability Engineer
8 4 (4.49%) GCP Software Engineer
8 4 (4.49%) Java Software Engineer
8 4 (4.49%) Python Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (22.47%) REST
2 18 (20.22%) Spring
3 15 (16.85%) JSON
3 15 (16.85%) Spring Boot
4 12 (13.48%) RESTful
5 11 (12.36%) Elastic Stack
6 10 (11.24%) XML
7 9 (10.11%) .NET
7 9 (10.11%) HTML
8 8 (8.99%) RabbitMQ
9 7 (7.87%) Playwright
9 7 (7.87%) React
10 5 (5.62%) Gherkin
10 5 (5.62%) GraalVM
10 5 (5.62%) JDBC
10 5 (5.62%) JPA
10 5 (5.62%) OAuth
10 5 (5.62%) OAuth2
10 5 (5.62%) OpenID
11 4 (4.49%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 10 (11.24%) Product Ownership
2 9 (10.11%) Cloud Native
3 8 (8.99%) Distributed Systems
4 7 (7.87%) Public Cloud
5 4 (4.49%) Data Centre
6 2 (2.25%) Greenfield Project
6 2 (2.25%) Private Cloud
7 1 (1.12%) Embedded Systems
7 1 (1.12%) Enterprise Software
7 1 (1.12%) FPGA
7 1 (1.12%) Legacy Systems
7 1 (1.12%) Media Streaming
7 1 (1.12%) Mobile App
7 1 (1.12%) Mobile Banking
7 1 (1.12%) Onboarding
7 1 (1.12%) SCADA
Operating Systems
1 25 (28.09%) Linux
2 9 (10.11%) Unix
3 8 (8.99%) Windows
4 6 (6.74%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 2 (2.25%) Apple iOS
5 2 (2.25%) Windows Server
6 1 (1.12%) Android
6 1 (1.12%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 48 (53.93%) Agile
2 45 (50.56%) CI/CD
3 34 (38.20%) DevOps
4 33 (37.08%) Microservices
5 24 (26.97%) Containerisation
6 23 (25.84%) Continuous Improvement
6 23 (25.84%) Scrum
7 19 (21.35%) Infrastructure as Code
8 17 (19.10%) Problem-Solving
9 11 (12.36%) Computer Science
9 11 (12.36%) Continuous Delivery
9 11 (12.36%) Mentoring
9 11 (12.36%) Test Automation
10 10 (11.24%) Configuration Management
10 10 (11.24%) Continuous Integration
10 10 (11.24%) Software Delivery
11 9 (10.11%) Coaching
11 9 (10.11%) Observability
11 9 (10.11%) TDD
11 9 (10.11%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 37 (41.57%) SQL
2 34 (38.20%) Java
3 30 (33.71%) Python
4 13 (14.61%) Go
5 12 (13.48%) Shell Script
6 7 (7.87%) C#
6 7 (7.87%) PL/SQL
7 5 (5.62%) Kotlin
7 5 (5.62%) Perl
8 4 (4.49%) JavaScript
8 4 (4.49%) PowerShell
8 4 (4.49%) Scala
9 3 (3.37%) C++
9 3 (3.37%) HiveQL
10 2 (2.25%) Swift
10 2 (2.25%) TypeScript
10 2 (2.25%) VB
11 1 (1.12%) Bash
Qualifications
1 36 (40.45%) Security Cleared
2 28 (31.46%) SC Cleared
3 14 (15.73%) Degree
4 10 (11.24%) Master's Degree
5 8 (8.99%) DV Cleared
6 7 (7.87%) Computer Science Degree
7 4 (4.49%) PhD
8 2 (2.25%) ISTQB
8 2 (2.25%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
8 2 (2.25%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
9 1 (1.12%) AWS Certification
9 1 (1.12%) AWS Certified Developer
9 1 (1.12%) AWS Certified DevOps Engineer
9 1 (1.12%) BPSS Clearance
9 1 (1.12%) CISM
9 1 (1.12%) CISSP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 5 (5.62%) WCAG
2 4 (4.49%) QA
3 3 (3.37%) Data Quality
4 2 (2.25%) Accessibility
4 2 (2.25%) FATCA
4 2 (2.25%) SLA
5 1 (1.12%) GDPR
5 1 (1.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
System Software
1 27 (30.34%) Docker
2 3 (3.37%) HDFS
3 1 (1.12%) Active Directory
3 1 (1.12%) Virtual Machines
3 1 (1.12%) VMware Infrastructure
Systems Management
1 36 (40.45%) Kubernetes
2 26 (29.21%) Grafana
3 21 (23.60%) Ansible
3 21 (23.60%) Terraform
4 14 (15.73%) Prometheus
5 8 (8.99%) Puppet
6 7 (7.87%) Progress Chef
7 5 (5.62%) Kibana
8 3 (3.37%) Argo
8 3 (3.37%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (2.25%) HP ALM
9 2 (2.25%) HP Quality Center
9 2 (2.25%) Podman
Vendors
1 14 (15.73%) Oracle
2 11 (12.36%) Microsoft
2 11 (12.36%) Splunk
3 7 (7.87%) Red Hat
4 5 (5.62%) Talend
5 4 (4.49%) Google
5 4 (4.49%) webMethods
6 3 (3.37%) Databricks
6 3 (3.37%) Denodo
6 3 (3.37%) Informatica
7 2 (2.25%) HP
7 2 (2.25%) SAP
8 1 (1.12%) Atlassian
8 1 (1.12%) Cadence
8 1 (1.12%) CyberArk
8 1 (1.12%) Sage
8 1 (1.12%) Salesforce
8 1 (1.12%) ServiceNow
8 1 (1.12%) VMware