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Java freelance projects & contracts in Germany 2026

6.6% of the analysed German IT freelance listings name Java – 3,445 projects, rank 9 of the 60 most requested IT skills. In October 2026 it was 5.6% (−0.5 percentage points from the month before). Java is asked for most often in Java Backend Developer projects: they make up 38% of the engineering projects with Java.

By . Data: 52,106 listings on German IT freelance project boards, May 2026 – October 2026. Published , last updated .

Is Java required or nice to have?

78% of the listings with Java name it as a required skill. That is more often than for most skills of this overview (median 69%). 12% name it as nice to have, 11% without a clear mark.

Java demand by month

Share of listings with Java per month of first publication, with the number of projects under each month; months with fewer than 1,000 projects are left out. Single months fluctuate.

  1. June 2026637 of 7,653 projects8.3%
  2. July 2026752 of 9,884 projects7.6%
  3. August 2026592 of 10,216 projects5.8%
  4. September 2026667 of 10,958 projects6.1%
  5. October 2026735 of 13,054 projects5.6%

Skills asked for together with Java

The 15 skills that listings with Java name most often besides it, as a share of those projects. Blue: typical for Java, i.e. asked for at least 3 times as often as in projects overall; the tick shows the share across all projects.

Under each skill: its share across all projects.

  1. Spring Bootall projects 3.7%48%
  2. Kubernetesall projects 7.1%41%
  3. REST APIsall projects 7.3%39%
  4. CI/CDall projects 9.2%37%
  5. Dockerall projects 4.8%30%
  6. Scrumall projects 8.1%28%
  7. Gitall projects 5.1%27%
  8. TypeScriptall projects 4.3%26%
  9. Microservicesall projects 2.9%25%
  10. Test Automationall projects 5%24%
  11. Agile Methodsall projects 9.1%23%
  12. Jiraall projects 8.5%22%
  13. Angularall projects 2.6%21%
  14. PostgreSQLall projects 2.9%20%
  15. Kafkaall projects 2%19%

Typical for Java – asked for at least 3 times as often as in projects overall – are Spring Boot (48%), Kafka (19%), Microservices (25%), Angular (21%), PostgreSQL (20%), Docker (30%).

Frequent anyway and often part of it here: Agile Methods (23%), Jira (22%).

Roles asking for Java

90% of the projects with Java are engineering projects (3,092 projects) – projects that build software or technical systems; the rest are e.g. consulting, project management or IT operations. The bars show the roles with the most of those projects and their share of them; 5.1% fit none of the major roles. Under each role: how many of its projects name Java, and how often as required.

  1. Java Backend Developerin 92% of the role's projects · required 93%38%
  2. Java Fullstack Developerin 88% of the role's projects · required 93%23%
  3. Test Engineerin 19% of the role's projects · required 70%8.5%
  4. DevOps / Platform Engineerin 13% of the role's projects · required 54%8.3%
  5. ML / AI Engineerin 9.1% of the role's projects · required 74%2.6%
  6. Security Engineerin 7.6% of the role's projects · required 65%2.5%
  7. Angular Developerin 18% of the role's projects · required 48%2.4%
  8. Data Engineerin 4.8% of the role's projects · required 58%2%

Skills related to Java

Skills of this overview that are asked for together with Java much more often than chance would predict.

How to use the data

If Java is in your profile, the blue skills often belong with it – name them if you have them. Projectmatch automatically matches new projects against your profile and shows for each project which of the required skills your profile covers. Browse current Java projects or try it now.

All skills compared: Most in-demand IT skills in German freelance projects. Which skills form clusters: Which skills belong together? Which skills are in particular demand in Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt and other cities: IT freelance projects by city.

Method

An AI model reads the requested skills from each project description, and a project's role from its title and skills; the figures are updated monthly. Details: method of the IT skills analysis.