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 23 May 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
23 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 7 6
Rank change year-on-year +4 -1 +12
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 637 194 230
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.03% 14.16% 12.16%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.96% 43.21% 38.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 475 134 163
10th Percentile £354 £300 £292
25th Percentile £415 £440 £343
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.67% +16.67% -23.40%
75th Percentile £529 £635 £538
90th Percentile £632 £700 £630
England median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 4 6
10th Percentile £18.20 - £13.25
25th Percentile £25.15 £18.51 £13.44
Median hourly rate £63.14 £27.58 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +128.94% +96.98% -49.09%
75th Percentile £67.84 £46.48 £20.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £54.59 £29.75
England median hourly rate £52.50 £32.00 £48.56
% change year-on-year +64.06% -34.10% -15.55%

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 1,045 449 602
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 32.85% 32.77% 31.84%
Number of daily rates quoted 730 304 384
10th Percentile £325 £150 £275
25th Percentile £408 £312 £360
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £460
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% +8.64% -14.77%
75th Percentile £544 £589 £575
90th Percentile £650 £700 £693
England median daily rate £525 £525 £537
% change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
Number of hourly rates quoted 73 20 34
10th Percentile £17.48 £17.84 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £18.51 £21.44
Median hourly rate £52.50 £28.18 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year +86.30% +3.41% +39.74%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £43.44
90th Percentile £75.00 £59.10 £58.75
England median hourly rate £47.54 £35.00 £40.00
% change year-on-year +35.83% -12.50% -25.93%

SC Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in the West Midlands

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

SC Cleared job vacancy trend 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 23 May 2026.

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 23 May 2026.

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 23 May 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 +2 382 £469 -8.93% 27
Birmingham -3 82 £475 -15.56% 20
Warwickshire -9 66 £394 -21.24% 4
Solihull +2 30 £463 +6.32%
Herefordshire 0 28 £550 -21.43% 5
Worcestershire +4 22 £675 -3.57% 5
Staffordshire +1 4 £388 -21.72% 5
Wolverhampton -6 1 - -
Coventry -19 1 £650 - 2
SC Cleared
England

SC Cleared
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
1 103 (16.17%) SAS
2 94 (14.76%) Confluence
3 24 (3.77%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.04%) Tuxedo
5 11 (1.73%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (1.26%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.63%) Apache
8 3 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.16%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.16%) SAP EP
Applications
1 10 (1.57%) Microsoft Excel
2 9 (1.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 9 (1.41%) Microsoft Project
3 5 (0.78%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.63%) Notepad++
5 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.16%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (0.16%) SAP CRM
1 1 (0.16%) SAP EWM
1 1 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 163 (25.59%) AWS
2 79 (12.40%) Azure
3 37 (5.81%) Amazon S3
4 34 (5.34%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 32 (5.02%) Amazon EC2
5 32 (5.02%) GitHub
6 25 (3.92%) GCP
6 25 (3.92%) GitHub Actions
7 20 (3.14%) Serverless
8 18 (2.83%) AWS KMS
9 17 (2.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (2.35%) Amazon SQS
10 15 (2.35%) AWS Lambda
10 15 (2.35%) Power Platform
11 14 (2.20%) Route 53
12 12 (1.88%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (1.73%) Microsoft 365
13 11 (1.73%) OpenShift
14 10 (1.57%) Amazon ECS
14 10 (1.57%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.14%) Firewall
2 12 (1.88%) WAN
3 10 (1.57%) LAN
4 9 (1.41%) VPN
5 8 (1.26%) Network Security
6 7 (1.10%) BGP
6 7 (1.10%) Intrusion Detection
6 7 (1.10%) SSL
7 6 (0.94%) VLAN
7 6 (0.94%) Wireless
8 5 (0.78%) DNS
8 5 (0.78%) IPsec
8 5 (0.78%) MPLS
8 5 (0.78%) OSPF
8 5 (0.78%) WLAN
9 4 (0.63%) 5G
9 4 (0.63%) Internet
9 4 (0.63%) PuTTY
9 4 (0.63%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.63%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (10.52%) Pentaho
2 59 (9.26%) Data Warehouse
3 44 (6.91%) PostgreSQL
4 33 (5.18%) Amazon RDS
5 28 (4.40%) Oracle Database
6 27 (4.24%) Oracle Reports
7 26 (4.08%) MySQL
8 20 (3.14%) Amazon Redshift
9 19 (2.98%) Metadata
9 19 (2.98%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 17 (2.67%) DynamoDB
11 15 (2.35%) Power BI
12 14 (2.20%) Amazon Aurora
13 13 (2.04%) BusinessObjects
14 11 (1.73%) SAS Visual Analytics
15 9 (1.41%) Data Lake
15 9 (1.41%) MongoDB
16 5 (0.78%) Base SAS
16 5 (0.78%) IDMS
16 5 (0.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 120 (18.84%) JIRA
2 83 (13.03%) Git
3 78 (12.24%) GitLab
4 73 (11.46%) Jenkins
5 33 (5.18%) JUnit
6 27 (4.24%) Zephyr
7 24 (3.77%) Selenium
8 23 (3.61%) Postman
9 16 (2.51%) Maven
9 16 (2.51%) Mockito
10 15 (2.35%) Bitbucket
11 14 (2.20%) SonarQube
12 13 (2.04%) Cucumber
12 13 (2.04%) JMeter
13 12 (1.88%) WebDriver
14 10 (1.57%) DbUnit
14 10 (1.57%) jMock
15 9 (1.41%) MSI
16 8 (1.26%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 8 (1.26%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 156 (24.49%) Social Skills
2 103 (16.17%) Public Sector
3 65 (10.20%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (5.18%) Finance
5 17 (2.67%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (1.41%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (1.41%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (1.26%) Organisational Skills
7 8 (1.26%) Telecoms
8 6 (0.94%) Advertising
9 5 (0.78%) Legal
10 4 (0.63%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.31%) Electronics
12 1 (0.16%) Banking
12 1 (0.16%) Military
12 1 (0.16%) Police
12 1 (0.16%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 149 (23.39%) Data Engineer
2 66 (10.36%) Architect
3 49 (7.69%) Analyst
4 44 (6.91%) Developer
5 41 (6.44%) Senior
6 38 (5.97%) Tester
7 31 (4.87%) Java Developer
8 26 (4.08%) Lead
9 23 (3.61%) SAS Engineer
10 22 (3.45%) Support Engineer
11 21 (3.30%) Business Analyst
12 18 (2.83%) Data Architect
12 18 (2.83%) Project Manager
13 17 (2.67%) Scrum Master
13 17 (2.67%) Software Engineer
14 16 (2.51%) Administrator
14 16 (2.51%) Data Manager
14 16 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
14 16 (2.51%) QA Tester
14 16 (2.51%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (6.91%) Spring
2 32 (5.02%) Spring Boot
3 22 (3.45%) REST
4 16 (2.51%) JPA
5 15 (2.35%) AngularJS
6 14 (2.20%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (2.20%) Hibernate
6 14 (2.20%) SOAP
6 14 (2.20%) Spring Batch
6 14 (2.20%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (2.20%) Spring Integration
6 14 (2.20%) Web Services
7 12 (1.88%) Node.js
7 12 (1.88%) WireMock
8 10 (1.57%) Middleware
8 10 (1.57%) PowerMock
9 8 (1.26%) AWS CDK
9 8 (1.26%) Bootstrap
9 8 (1.26%) RESTful
10 6 (0.94%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 31 (4.87%) Cloud Native
2 22 (3.45%) Distributed Systems
3 20 (3.14%) Product Ownership
4 17 (2.67%) Onboarding
5 14 (2.20%) Data Centre
6 13 (2.04%) Enterprise Software
6 13 (2.04%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.26%) Distributed Architecture
8 7 (1.10%) Analytical Mindset
9 6 (0.94%) Driving Licence
9 6 (0.94%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
10 5 (0.78%) Security Operations Centre
11 4 (0.63%) CSOC
11 4 (0.63%) Cyber Threat
11 4 (0.63%) Data Structures
11 4 (0.63%) Enterprise Cloud
11 4 (0.63%) Robotics
11 4 (0.63%) SCADA
11 4 (0.63%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 58 (9.11%) Unix
2 56 (8.79%) Linux
3 40 (6.28%) Windows
4 9 (1.41%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.94%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.78%) Android
7 2 (0.31%) AIX
7 2 (0.31%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.31%) Solaris
8 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (31.08%) Agile
2 128 (20.09%) CI/CD
3 121 (19.00%) DevOps
4 118 (18.52%) ETL
5 110 (17.27%) Test Automation
6 103 (16.17%) Scrum
7 100 (15.70%) Continuous Improvement
8 91 (14.29%) Migration
9 84 (13.19%) Analytics
9 84 (13.19%) Stakeholder Management
10 83 (13.03%) Problem-Solving
11 66 (10.36%) Data Integration
12 63 (9.89%) Data Modelling
13 60 (9.42%) Data Pipeline
14 57 (8.95%) Containerisation
15 55 (8.63%) Business Intelligence
16 50 (7.85%) Microservices
17 43 (6.75%) Change Management
18 42 (6.59%) Problem Management
19 40 (6.28%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 203 (31.87%) SQL
2 65 (10.20%) Java
3 48 (7.54%) Python
4 45 (7.06%) PL/SQL
5 24 (3.77%) Shell Script
6 17 (2.67%) Bash
7 16 (2.51%) PowerShell
8 8 (1.26%) Go
9 5 (0.78%) Perl
10 4 (0.63%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.47%) C++
11 3 (0.47%) HiveQL
11 3 (0.47%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.31%) Bicep
12 2 (0.31%) C
12 2 (0.31%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.16%) ABAP
13 1 (0.16%) C#
13 1 (0.16%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.16%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 637 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 20 (3.14%) BPSS Clearance
3 19 (2.98%) ISTQB
4 13 (2.04%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.73%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (1.57%) SAFe Agilist
7 9 (1.41%) Azure Certification
8 8 (1.26%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 8 (1.26%) Degree
9 7 (1.10%) CCNP
9 7 (1.10%) IIBA
9 7 (1.10%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 5 (0.78%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.78%) CCIE
10 5 (0.78%) CCNA
10 5 (0.78%) CISSP
11 4 (0.63%) CISM
11 4 (0.63%) OCP
11 4 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (5.34%) QA
2 33 (5.18%) Data Quality
3 17 (2.67%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 14 (2.20%) NIST
5 11 (1.73%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.41%) FATCA
6 9 (1.41%) GDPR
7 5 (0.78%) NCSC
8 4 (0.63%) PMO
9 3 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.47%) GRC
9 3 (0.47%) SLA
10 2 (0.31%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.31%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.16%) P3O
11 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 86 (13.50%) Docker
2 10 (1.57%) Postfix
2 10 (1.57%) VMware Infrastructure
3 8 (1.26%) Active Directory
4 6 (0.94%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (0.94%) vSphere
5 4 (0.63%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.63%) Snort
6 3 (0.47%) HDFS
6 3 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 87 (13.66%) Kubernetes
2 63 (9.89%) Grafana
3 31 (4.87%) Prometheus
4 24 (3.77%) Terraform
5 17 (2.67%) Ansible
6 5 (0.78%) Podman
6 5 (0.78%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.63%) CSIRT
7 4 (0.63%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.63%) vMotion
8 3 (0.47%) Kibana
9 2 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.31%) QRadar
9 2 (0.31%) SCCM
9 2 (0.31%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.16%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.16%) Control-M
10 1 (0.16%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.16%) Puppet
10 1 (0.16%) WMI
Vendors
1 165 (25.90%) Oracle
2 101 (15.86%) Talend
3 56 (8.79%) Denodo
4 52 (8.16%) Informatica
5 38 (5.97%) Microsoft
6 23 (3.61%) Atlassian
7 22 (3.45%) ServiceNow
8 20 (3.14%) Splunk
9 17 (2.67%) Cisco
10 16 (2.51%) SAP
10 16 (2.51%) VMware
11 15 (2.35%) Dynatrace
12 14 (2.20%) Jaspersoft
13 12 (1.88%) Sage
14 9 (1.41%) AppDynamics
15 8 (1.26%) Fujitsu
16 7 (1.10%) HP
17 6 (0.94%) Juniper
18 5 (0.78%) F5
18 5 (0.78%) Red Hat