SC Cleared Contract Job Trends in the West Midlands

Security Check (SC) Clearance
England > West Midlands

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in the West Midlands with a requirement for SC Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 16 September 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Sep 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 4 5 9
Rank change year-on-year +1 +4 +8
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 309 249 225
As % of all contract jobs advertised in the West Midlands 17.04% 13.19% 10.75%
As % of the Qualifications category 47.83% 41.02% 37.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 220 176 148
10th Percentile £325 £358 £325
25th Percentile £425 £455 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £534 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.47% -3.00% +10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £624 £641
90th Percentile £645 £675 £700
England median daily rate £528 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.47% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 1 11
10th Percentile - - £26.25
25th Percentile - - £34.38
Median hourly rate £18.87 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.09% -46.15% -
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.50
90th Percentile - - £68.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -58.08% +6.21% -1.76%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
West Midlands

SC Cleared falls under the Academic Qualifications and Professional Certifications category. For comparison with the information above, the following table provides summary statistics for all contract job vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications in the West Midlands.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 646 607 593
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.63% 32.15% 28.33%
Number of daily rates quoted 429 389 355
10th Percentile £220 £320 £305
25th Percentile £400 £425 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £538 £540
Median % change year-on-year -7.06% -0.37% +9.09%
75th Percentile £584 £635 £603
90th Percentile £649 £725 £705
England median daily rate £525 £538 £550
% change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 12 27
10th Percentile - £20.58 £14.20
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.48 £18.00
Median hourly rate £29.09 £38.75 £27.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.93% +40.91% +37.50%
75th Percentile £41.16 £53.69 £67.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £58.60 £69.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £54.50 £54.53
% change year-on-year -53.85% -0.06% +21.18%

SC Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

Job postings citing SC Cleared as a proportion of all IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands.

Job vacancy trend for SC Cleared in the West Midlands

SC Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SC Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SC Cleared in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 September 2025.

Daily rate histogram for SC Cleared in the West Midlands

SC Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in the West Midlands

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SC Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in the West Midlands citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in the West Midlands

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SC Cleared in the West Midlands over the 6 months to 16 September 2025.

Hourly rate histogram for SC Cleared in the West Midlands

SC Cleared
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 SC Cleared within the West Midlands region over the 6 months to 16 September 2025. 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 +22 86 £475 -20.83% 30
Shropshire -1 85 £525 +6.82% 25
Warwickshire -2 67 £500 -18.86% 22
Worcestershire +13 25 £588 -2.08% 10
Herefordshire +4 20 £700 +14.38% 11
Solihull -5 15 £475 +11.50% 3
Coventry - 5 £275 - 16
Staffordshire 0 4 £343 -21.71% 26
Wolverhampton - 2 £138 - 9
SC Cleared
England

SC Cleared
Co-occurring Skills and Capabilities in the West Midlands by Category

The follow tables expand on the table above by listing co-occurrences grouped by category. The same employment type, locality and period is covered with up to 20 co-occurrences shown in each of the following categories:

Application Platforms
1 37 (11.97%) Confluence
2 28 (9.06%) SAS
3 16 (5.18%) WebLogic
4 12 (3.88%) Apache
5 11 (3.56%) nginx
6 7 (2.27%) Apache Airflow
7 4 (1.29%) SharePoint
8 3 (0.97%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.65%) NetWeaver
9 2 (0.65%) SAP EP
10 1 (0.32%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 11 (3.56%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 7 (2.27%) Microsoft Office
3 3 (0.97%) Microsoft Excel
3 3 (0.97%) Spreadsheet
4 1 (0.32%) AutoCAD
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 1 (0.32%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.32%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.97%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.65%) SAP CRM
2 2 (0.65%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 71 (22.98%) AWS
2 68 (22.01%) Azure
3 33 (10.68%) Amazon S3
4 32 (10.36%) Amazon EC2
5 30 (9.71%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 27 (8.74%) AWS KMS
7 25 (8.09%) Amazon ELB
7 25 (8.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 15 (4.85%) Microsoft 365
8 15 (4.85%) Route 53
9 13 (4.21%) SaaS
10 12 (3.88%) Amazon Glacier
10 12 (3.88%) Azure Monitor
11 11 (3.56%) Amazon ECS
11 11 (3.56%) GitHub
12 9 (2.91%) PaaS
13 8 (2.59%) Azure DevOps
14 7 (2.27%) Power Platform
15 6 (1.94%) Amazon SQS
16 5 (1.62%) IaaS
Communications & Networking
1 45 (14.56%) Firewall
2 40 (12.94%) DNS
3 29 (9.39%) WAN
4 28 (9.06%) VPN
5 27 (8.74%) SMTP
6 25 (8.09%) IPsec
7 22 (7.12%) FTP
8 21 (6.80%) HTTP
8 21 (6.80%) MPLS
8 21 (6.80%) SSH
9 16 (5.18%) BGP
10 11 (3.56%) IMAP
10 11 (3.56%) OpenLDAP
10 11 (3.56%) SSL
11 10 (3.24%) Wireless
12 9 (2.91%) Cisco IPT
12 9 (2.91%) DMVPN
13 8 (2.59%) Network Security
14 5 (1.62%) Internet
14 5 (1.62%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 30 (9.71%) Amazon RDS
2 22 (7.12%) PostgreSQL
3 19 (6.15%) Pentaho
4 18 (5.83%) Amazon Aurora
5 12 (3.88%) SAS Enterprise Guide
6 11 (3.56%) Oracle Database
7 9 (2.91%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 5 (1.62%) DynamoDB
9 4 (1.29%) Data Warehouse
9 4 (1.29%) Power BI
10 3 (0.97%) Big Data
10 3 (0.97%) Elasticsearch
10 3 (0.97%) Redis
10 3 (0.97%) SAS Data Integration Studio
11 2 (0.65%) DataStage
11 2 (0.65%) Oracle Database 12c
11 2 (0.65%) SAP BW
11 2 (0.65%) SQL Server
12 1 (0.32%) Amazon Athena
12 1 (0.32%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 67 (21.68%) JIRA
2 56 (18.12%) Git
3 52 (16.83%) Jenkins
4 23 (7.44%) Vagrant
5 18 (5.83%) GitLab
6 13 (4.21%) SonarQube
7 9 (2.91%) Maven
8 6 (1.94%) JUnit
8 6 (1.94%) Mockito
9 4 (1.29%) Bitbucket
9 4 (1.29%) Bitbucket Server
9 4 (1.29%) DbUnit
9 4 (1.29%) jMock
9 4 (1.29%) PVCS
10 2 (0.65%) ScriptRunner
11 1 (0.32%) Cucumber
11 1 (0.32%) JBehave
11 1 (0.32%) Postman
11 1 (0.32%) Selenium
11 1 (0.32%) SoapUI
General
1 100 (32.36%) Social Skills
2 72 (23.30%) Public Sector
3 24 (7.77%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (4.21%) Telecoms
5 10 (3.24%) Presentation Skills
6 9 (2.91%) Finance
7 5 (1.62%) Documentation Skills
7 5 (1.62%) Marketing
8 3 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 3 (0.97%) Influencing Skills
8 3 (0.97%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.65%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.65%) Electronics
9 2 (0.65%) General Ledger
9 2 (0.65%) Legal
9 2 (0.65%) Military
10 1 (0.32%) Automotive
10 1 (0.32%) Police
10 1 (0.32%) Retail
Job Titles
1 35 (11.33%) DevOps Engineer
2 31 (10.03%) Platform Engineer
3 24 (7.77%) AWS Engineer
4 21 (6.80%) Developer
4 21 (6.80%) Network Engineer
5 20 (6.47%) AWS DevOps
5 20 (6.47%) AWS DevOps Engineer
5 20 (6.47%) Cloud Platform Engineer
6 19 (6.15%) Support Engineer
7 17 (5.50%) Architect
8 15 (4.85%) Administrator
8 15 (4.85%) Analyst
9 12 (3.88%) Security Engineer
10 11 (3.56%) AWS Platform Engineer
11 10 (3.24%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 10 (3.24%) DevOps Platform Engineer
12 9 (2.91%) 3rd Line Support
12 9 (2.91%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
12 9 (2.91%) Java Developer
12 9 (2.91%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 13 (4.21%) LDAP
1 13 (4.21%) REST
2 9 (2.91%) 802.1X
2 9 (2.91%) SOAP
2 9 (2.91%) Spring
2 9 (2.91%) Spring Boot
3 7 (2.27%) ActiveMQ
3 7 (2.27%) Web Services
3 7 (2.27%) YAML
4 6 (1.94%) AngularJS
4 6 (1.94%) Bootstrap
4 6 (1.94%) JPA
4 6 (1.94%) Spring Cloud
5 5 (1.62%) .NET
5 5 (1.62%) RESTful
5 5 (1.62%) XML
6 4 (1.29%) Hibernate
6 4 (1.29%) PowerMock
6 4 (1.29%) Spring Batch
6 4 (1.29%) Spring Integration
Miscellaneous
1 23 (7.44%) Data Centre
2 22 (7.12%) Replication
3 21 (6.80%) PKI
4 19 (6.15%) Driving Licence
5 14 (4.53%) Onboarding
6 12 (3.88%) SCADA
7 7 (2.27%) IoT
7 7 (2.27%) Self-Motivation
8 6 (1.94%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.62%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.62%) Cloud Native
9 5 (1.62%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.62%) FPGA
9 5 (1.62%) VHDL
10 4 (1.29%) Blockchain
11 3 (0.97%) Data Structures
11 3 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
11 3 (0.97%) Management Information System
11 3 (0.97%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.97%) Product Ownership
Operating Systems
1 76 (24.60%) Windows
2 67 (21.68%) Linux
3 23 (7.44%) Amazon Linux
3 23 (7.44%) VMS
4 21 (6.80%) Unix
5 13 (4.21%) Windows Server
6 9 (2.91%) Ubuntu
7 8 (2.59%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 7 (2.27%) Windows 10
9 5 (1.62%) Windows Server 2016
10 4 (1.29%) Android
11 2 (0.65%) Windows Server 2019
12 1 (0.32%) AIX
12 1 (0.32%) Apple iOS
12 1 (0.32%) Mac OS
12 1 (0.32%) Mac OS X
12 1 (0.32%) Solaris
Processes & Methodologies
1 93 (30.10%) DevOps
2 62 (20.06%) CI/CD
3 55 (17.80%) Agile
4 53 (17.15%) Problem-Solving
5 48 (15.53%) Analytics
6 42 (13.59%) Platform Engineering
7 39 (12.62%) Change Management
8 37 (11.97%) Configuration Management
9 34 (11.00%) Business Intelligence
10 32 (10.36%) Cloud Security
10 32 (10.36%) Continuous Improvement
10 32 (10.36%) Test Automation
11 29 (9.39%) Test Strategy
12 28 (9.06%) Containerisation
12 28 (9.06%) Scrum
13 27 (8.74%) Migration
14 26 (8.41%) Data Integration
15 23 (7.44%) Incident Response
16 21 (6.80%) Patch Management
17 20 (6.47%) Service Management
Programming Languages
1 65 (21.04%) SQL
2 44 (14.24%) Python
3 40 (12.94%) PowerShell
4 32 (10.36%) Java
5 25 (8.09%) Groovy
6 12 (3.88%) Perl
7 8 (2.59%) Bash
8 6 (1.94%) C#
9 5 (1.62%) JavaScript
9 5 (1.62%) MATLAB
9 5 (1.62%) PL/SQL
10 4 (1.29%) ABAP
11 3 (0.97%) Go
11 3 (0.97%) Ruby
12 2 (0.65%) Scala
12 2 (0.65%) Shell Script
12 2 (0.65%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.32%) C
13 1 (0.32%) Korn
13 1 (0.32%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 309 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 20 (6.47%) Degree
3 18 (5.83%) DV Cleared
4 14 (4.53%) AWS Certification
5 12 (3.88%) Azure Certification
6 11 (3.56%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (2.59%) CISSP
8 5 (1.62%) CompTIA Security+
9 4 (1.29%) CCNA
9 4 (1.29%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.29%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 3 (0.97%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 3 (0.97%) CCNP
10 3 (0.97%) DBS Check
10 3 (0.97%) Microsoft Certification
11 2 (0.65%) CCA
11 2 (0.65%) CISM
11 2 (0.65%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.65%) OCP
11 2 (0.65%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 17 (5.50%) Data Quality
2 8 (2.59%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 8 (2.59%) QA
3 6 (1.94%) NCSC
4 4 (1.29%) SLA
5 3 (0.97%) NIST
6 1 (0.32%) Accessibility
6 1 (0.32%) IEC 61131
6 1 (0.32%) PCI DSS
6 1 (0.32%) PMBOK
System Software
1 73 (23.62%) Docker
2 26 (8.41%) Active Directory
3 21 (6.80%) DFS Replication
4 19 (6.15%) Postfix
5 15 (4.85%) Dovecot
6 11 (3.56%) Squid
7 10 (3.24%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (1.29%) Firmware
9 3 (0.97%) Terminal Services
10 2 (0.65%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.65%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.32%) Snort
11 1 (0.32%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 47 (15.21%) Terraform
2 38 (12.30%) Kubernetes
3 33 (10.68%) Grafana
3 33 (10.68%) Prometheus
4 16 (5.18%) Ansible
5 11 (3.56%) Nessus
6 9 (2.91%) Proxmox
7 6 (1.94%) Single Sign-On
8 4 (1.29%) SCCM
9 3 (0.97%) Kibana
9 3 (0.97%) logstash
9 3 (0.97%) Opsview
9 3 (0.97%) Podman
10 2 (0.65%) Data Guard
10 2 (0.65%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
10 2 (0.65%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.32%) Fluentd
11 1 (0.32%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.32%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.32%) QRadar
Vendors
1 43 (13.92%) Oracle
2 38 (12.30%) Cisco
3 31 (10.03%) Microsoft
4 29 (9.39%) Juniper
4 29 (9.39%) ServiceNow
5 20 (6.47%) Dynatrace
6 19 (6.15%) Denodo
6 19 (6.15%) Talend
7 15 (4.85%) Jaspersoft
7 15 (4.85%) Splunk
8 14 (4.53%) Atlassian
9 13 (4.21%) CheckPoint
10 12 (3.88%) AppDynamics
10 12 (3.88%) F5
11 11 (3.56%) CyberArk
12 10 (3.24%) VMware
13 9 (2.91%) Blue Coat
13 9 (2.91%) HP
14 8 (2.59%) Broadcom
14 8 (2.59%) SAP