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

6 months to
16 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 9 4
Rank change year-on-year +7 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 668 180 247
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 21.94% 13.28% 12.82%
As % of the Qualifications category 62.02% 42.06% 40.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 510 126 183
10th Percentile £350 £300 £288
25th Percentile £421 £450 £325
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £537 £450
Median % change year-on-year -9.68% +19.33% -16.67%
75th Percentile £544 £674 £547
90th Percentile £625 £700 £637
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 5 6
10th Percentile £18.20 - £13.25
25th Percentile £21.46 £18.51 £13.44
Median hourly rate £56.00 £35.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +60.00% +150.00% -63.01%
75th Percentile £67.84 £41.97 £20.00
90th Percentile £70.41 £52.79 £29.75
England median hourly rate £47.50 £57.50 £48.00
% change year-on-year -17.39% +19.79% -19.87%

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 1,077 428 616
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.37% 31.59% 31.98%
Number of daily rates quoted 768 293 391
10th Percentile £324 £150 £263
25th Percentile £408 £313 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £483 £490 £450
Median % change year-on-year -1.43% +8.89% -14.29%
75th Percentile £552 £600 £575
90th Percentile £638 £700 £675
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 64 18 36
10th Percentile £14.00 £17.26 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.20 £18.50 £22.24
Median hourly rate £25.15 £28.18 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -10.75% -1.12% +42.50%
75th Percentile £67.84 £36.69 £46.56
90th Percentile £75.25 £54.45 £58.75
England median hourly rate £45.46 £50.00 £39.44
% change year-on-year -9.08% +26.79% -24.19%

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 16 April 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 16 April 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 16 April 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 +2 372 £481 -5.66% 27
Birmingham +5 95 £500 -13.04% 19
Warwickshire 0 76 £413 -23.61% 3
Worcestershire +6 43 £675 -3.57% 1
Herefordshire +1 37 £550 -21.43% 5
Solihull +3 20 £456 +8.63% 1
Staffordshire - 4 £350 - 14
Coventry -27 2 £488 -
Wolverhampton -5 1 - -
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
1 134 (20.06%) SAS
2 73 (10.93%) Confluence
3 25 (3.74%) WebLogic
4 13 (1.95%) Tuxedo
5 9 (1.35%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.75%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.60%) Apache
8 3 (0.45%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.15%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.15%) SAP EP
Applications
1 7 (1.05%) Microsoft Office
1 7 (1.05%) Microsoft Project
2 6 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
3 5 (0.75%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.60%) Notepad++
5 2 (0.30%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 2 (0.30%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.30%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.15%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.15%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 139 (20.81%) AWS
2 90 (13.47%) Azure
3 31 (4.64%) OpenShift
4 29 (4.34%) GitHub
5 27 (4.04%) Amazon S3
6 26 (3.89%) GCP
7 25 (3.74%) Amazon EC2
8 21 (3.14%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 17 (2.54%) GitHub Actions
10 16 (2.40%) Serverless
11 15 (2.25%) AWS KMS
12 14 (2.10%) Azure Data Factory
13 13 (1.95%) Microsoft 365
14 12 (1.80%) Amazon SQS
14 12 (1.80%) Power Platform
15 11 (1.65%) Route 53
15 11 (1.65%) SaaS
16 10 (1.50%) Azure DevOps
17 9 (1.35%) Datadog
18 8 (1.20%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 24 (3.59%) Firewall
2 15 (2.25%) WAN
3 14 (2.10%) VPN
4 13 (1.95%) Network Security
5 10 (1.50%) BGP
5 10 (1.50%) Intrusion Detection
5 10 (1.50%) LAN
6 9 (1.35%) DNS
7 8 (1.20%) IPsec
7 8 (1.20%) MPLS
8 7 (1.05%) SSL
8 7 (1.05%) Wireless
9 6 (0.90%) VLAN
10 5 (0.75%) 5G
10 5 (0.75%) DHCP
10 5 (0.75%) OSPF
10 5 (0.75%) WLAN
11 4 (0.60%) PuTTY
11 4 (0.60%) SD-WAN
11 4 (0.60%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (10.03%) Pentaho
2 48 (7.19%) Data Warehouse
3 47 (7.04%) PostgreSQL
4 38 (5.69%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 37 (5.54%) Oracle Database
6 29 (4.34%) Amazon RDS
7 27 (4.04%) Metadata
8 26 (3.89%) MySQL
9 21 (3.14%) Oracle Reports
10 17 (2.54%) Amazon Redshift
11 11 (1.65%) Amazon Aurora
11 11 (1.65%) DynamoDB
11 11 (1.65%) Metadata Repository
11 11 (1.65%) MongoDB
11 11 (1.65%) SAS Visual Analytics
12 10 (1.50%) Elasticsearch
13 9 (1.35%) Power BI
14 7 (1.05%) BusinessObjects
14 7 (1.05%) Relational Database
15 5 (0.75%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 112 (16.77%) Git
2 103 (15.42%) JIRA
3 89 (13.32%) Jenkins
4 70 (10.48%) GitLab
5 45 (6.74%) JUnit
6 40 (5.99%) Selenium
7 21 (3.14%) Zephyr
8 20 (2.99%) Postman
9 15 (2.25%) Cucumber
9 15 (2.25%) Maven
9 15 (2.25%) Mockito
10 13 (1.95%) JMeter
11 12 (1.80%) WebDriver
12 11 (1.65%) SonarQube
13 9 (1.35%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 9 (1.35%) MSI
14 8 (1.20%) Bitbucket
14 8 (1.20%) DbUnit
14 8 (1.20%) jMock
15 6 (0.90%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 166 (24.85%) Social Skills
2 87 (13.02%) Public Sector
3 67 (10.03%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (4.94%) Finance
5 21 (3.14%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (1.35%) Aeronautics
7 8 (1.20%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.05%) Advertising
8 7 (1.05%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (1.05%) Presentation Skills
9 6 (0.90%) Legal
10 5 (0.75%) Influencing Skills
11 4 (0.60%) Aerospace
12 2 (0.30%) Electronics
12 2 (0.30%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.15%) Banking
13 1 (0.15%) Police
13 1 (0.15%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 137 (20.51%) Data Engineer
2 57 (8.53%) Architect
3 54 (8.08%) Senior
4 48 (7.19%) Analyst
5 45 (6.74%) Developer
6 36 (5.39%) Tester
7 28 (4.19%) Java Developer
8 27 (4.04%) Support Engineer
9 26 (3.89%) Test Specialist
10 24 (3.59%) SAS Engineer
11 20 (2.99%) Business Analyst
11 20 (2.99%) Data Architect
12 19 (2.84%) Platform Engineer
13 18 (2.69%) Project Manager
14 17 (2.54%) Data Manager
14 17 (2.54%) Lead
14 17 (2.54%) Release Manager
14 17 (2.54%) Senior Data Engineer
14 17 (2.54%) Software Engineer
15 15 (2.25%) Administrator
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (6.59%) Spring
2 39 (5.84%) REST
3 33 (4.94%) Spring Boot
4 19 (2.84%) pytest
5 15 (2.25%) JPA
6 12 (1.80%) AngularJS
6 12 (1.80%) WireMock
7 11 (1.65%) ActiveMQ
7 11 (1.65%) Hibernate
7 11 (1.65%) Middleware
7 11 (1.65%) SOAP
7 11 (1.65%) Spring Batch
7 11 (1.65%) Spring Cloud
7 11 (1.65%) Spring Integration
7 11 (1.65%) Web Services
8 9 (1.35%) Kafka
8 9 (1.35%) Keycloak
8 9 (1.35%) Node.js
9 8 (1.20%) PowerMock
10 7 (1.05%) RESTful
Miscellaneous
1 27 (4.04%) Cloud Native
2 20 (2.99%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (2.40%) Legacy Systems
3 16 (2.40%) Product Ownership
4 15 (2.25%) Onboarding
5 13 (1.95%) Data Centre
5 13 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
6 8 (1.20%) Distributed Architecture
6 8 (1.20%) Driving Licence
6 8 (1.20%) Hybrid Cloud
7 7 (1.05%) SCADA
8 6 (0.90%) Analytical Mindset
8 6 (0.90%) Private Cloud
8 6 (0.90%) Security Operations Centre
9 5 (0.75%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (0.75%) PKI
9 5 (0.75%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.60%) CSOC
10 4 (0.60%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (0.60%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 60 (8.98%) Linux
2 55 (8.23%) Windows
3 45 (6.74%) Unix
4 15 (2.25%) Windows Server
5 10 (1.50%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.45%) Android
7 2 (0.30%) AIX
7 2 (0.30%) CentOS
7 2 (0.30%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.30%) Solaris
7 2 (0.30%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.30%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.15%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 202 (30.24%) Agile
2 154 (23.05%) CI/CD
3 137 (20.51%) DevOps
4 112 (16.77%) Analytics
5 110 (16.47%) ETL
5 110 (16.47%) Scrum
6 108 (16.17%) Test Automation
7 105 (15.72%) Problem-Solving
8 100 (14.97%) Continuous Improvement
9 92 (13.77%) Stakeholder Management
10 84 (12.57%) Migration
11 76 (11.38%) Data Integration
12 72 (10.78%) Data Pipeline
13 65 (9.73%) Containerisation
13 65 (9.73%) Data Modelling
14 62 (9.28%) Business Intelligence
15 49 (7.34%) Microservices
16 46 (6.89%) Validation
17 45 (6.74%) Change Management
18 42 (6.29%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 190 (28.44%) SQL
2 74 (11.08%) Java
3 70 (10.48%) Python
4 39 (5.84%) PL/SQL
5 31 (4.64%) Shell Script
6 19 (2.84%) PowerShell
7 17 (2.54%) Bash
8 16 (2.40%) Go
9 6 (0.90%) Perl
10 4 (0.60%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.45%) C++
11 3 (0.45%) HiveQL
11 3 (0.45%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.30%) Bicep
12 2 (0.30%) C
12 2 (0.30%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.15%) C#
13 1 (0.15%) COBOL
13 1 (0.15%) JavaScript
13 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 668 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 17 (2.54%) Azure Certification
3 16 (2.40%) DV Cleared
4 15 (2.25%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (1.95%) ISTQB
6 11 (1.65%) Microsoft Certification
7 10 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
8 9 (1.35%) Degree
9 8 (1.20%) AWS Certification
10 7 (1.05%) CCNP
10 7 (1.05%) IIBA
11 5 (0.75%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 5 (0.75%) CCIE
12 4 (0.60%) CCNA
12 4 (0.60%) OCP
12 4 (0.60%) Oracle Certification
13 3 (0.45%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
13 3 (0.45%) CISSP
13 3 (0.45%) SAFe Agilist
14 2 (0.30%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.24%) Data Quality
2 32 (4.79%) QA
3 16 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.25%) NIST
5 7 (1.05%) GDPR
5 7 (1.05%) NCSC
6 6 (0.90%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.60%) FATCA
7 4 (0.60%) PMO
8 3 (0.45%) WCAG
9 2 (0.30%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
9 2 (0.30%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.15%) GRC
10 1 (0.15%) P3O
10 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 108 (16.17%) Docker
2 16 (2.40%) Active Directory
3 10 (1.50%) Postfix
3 10 (1.50%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.60%) Snort
5 3 (0.45%) HDFS
5 3 (0.45%) Hyper-V
5 3 (0.45%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.45%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.30%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 126 (18.86%) Kubernetes
2 61 (9.13%) Grafana
3 33 (4.94%) Prometheus
4 21 (3.14%) Terraform
5 18 (2.69%) Ansible
6 8 (1.20%) Progress Chef
7 5 (0.75%) Kibana
8 4 (0.60%) CSIRT
8 4 (0.60%) Podman
9 3 (0.45%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.30%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.30%) QRadar
10 2 (0.30%) SCCM
11 1 (0.15%) Backup Exec
11 1 (0.15%) Control-M
11 1 (0.15%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.15%) Iperf
11 1 (0.15%) logstash
11 1 (0.15%) Puppet
11 1 (0.15%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 161 (24.10%) Oracle
2 90 (13.47%) Talend
3 55 (8.23%) Denodo
4 51 (7.63%) Microsoft
5 38 (5.69%) Informatica
6 34 (5.09%) ServiceNow
7 28 (4.19%) Splunk
8 23 (3.44%) Cisco
9 22 (3.29%) Dynatrace
10 21 (3.14%) Atlassian
11 18 (2.69%) SAP
12 13 (1.95%) AppDynamics
13 12 (1.80%) VMware
14 11 (1.65%) Jaspersoft
15 10 (1.50%) Juniper
15 10 (1.50%) Sage
16 8 (1.20%) Fujitsu
17 7 (1.05%) HP
18 6 (0.90%) Red Hat
19 5 (0.75%) Dell