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

6 months to
6 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 7 4
Rank change year-on-year +4 -3 +15
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 655 196 253
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.40% 13.74% 12.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 61.44% 41.97% 39.41%
Number of daily rates quoted 485 139 176
10th Percentile £358 £300 £298
25th Percentile £415 £437 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £513 £506
Median % change year-on-year -8.54% +1.39% -13.91%
75th Percentile £537 £619 £577
90th Percentile £632 £700 £672
England median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 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 £55.00 £29.27 £50.00
% change year-on-year +87.91% -41.46% -13.04%

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 1,066 467 642
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 33.20% 32.75% 32.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 745 311 408
10th Percentile £325 £150 £296
25th Percentile £408 £317 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £492 £500
Median % change year-on-year -4.67% -1.60% -7.41%
75th Percentile £544 £588 £589
90th Percentile £654 £689 £683
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 24 37
10th Percentile £17.39 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £25.00 £18.51 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £32.65 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +60.82% +14.54% +46.15%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £57.05 £58.75
England median hourly rate £51.44 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +58.28% -18.75% -27.27%

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 6 June 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 6 June 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 6 June 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 +3 396 £469 -8.74% 29
Birmingham -5 81 £475 -10.38% 22
Warwickshire -8 63 £394 -21.24% 2
Solihull +2 36 £456 +1.39%
Herefordshire 0 27 £588 -21.67% 4
Worcestershire +3 18 £675 -3.57% 3
Staffordshire 0 5 £388 -21.72% 9
Coventry -13 2 £538 - 1
Wolverhampton -5 1 - -
Walsall - 1 £600 - 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
1 113 (17.25%) SAS
2 100 (15.27%) Confluence
3 18 (2.75%) Apache Airflow
4 17 (2.60%) WebLogic
5 8 (1.22%) Tuxedo
6 7 (1.07%) SharePoint
7 5 (0.76%) Apache
8 3 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.31%) Apache Spark
10 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
10 1 (0.15%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.15%) SAP EP
Applications
1 9 (1.37%) Microsoft Excel
1 9 (1.37%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 8 (1.22%) Microsoft Project
3 7 (1.07%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.61%) Notepad++
5 3 (0.46%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (0.15%) SAP CRM
1 1 (0.15%) SAP EWM
1 1 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 186 (28.40%) AWS
2 86 (13.13%) Azure
3 40 (6.11%) Amazon S3
4 36 (5.50%) GitHub
5 35 (5.34%) Amazon EC2
6 34 (5.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 30 (4.58%) GitHub Actions
8 26 (3.97%) GCP
9 21 (3.21%) Serverless
10 18 (2.75%) AWS KMS
10 18 (2.75%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 16 (2.44%) AWS Lambda
12 15 (2.29%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (2.29%) Power Platform
13 14 (2.14%) Route 53
14 13 (1.98%) Azure DevOps
15 11 (1.68%) Amazon ECS
15 11 (1.68%) Amazon EKS
15 11 (1.68%) AWS CodePipeline
15 11 (1.68%) Microsoft 365
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.05%) Firewall
2 12 (1.83%) WAN
3 10 (1.53%) LAN
4 9 (1.37%) VPN
5 8 (1.22%) Network Security
6 7 (1.07%) BGP
6 7 (1.07%) Intrusion Detection
6 7 (1.07%) SSL
7 6 (0.92%) VLAN
7 6 (0.92%) Wireless
8 5 (0.76%) DNS
8 5 (0.76%) IPsec
8 5 (0.76%) MPLS
8 5 (0.76%) OSPF
8 5 (0.76%) WLAN
9 4 (0.61%) 5G
9 4 (0.61%) Internet
9 4 (0.61%) PuTTY
9 4 (0.61%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.61%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 71 (10.84%) Pentaho
2 63 (9.62%) Data Warehouse
3 45 (6.87%) PostgreSQL
4 35 (5.34%) Oracle Database
5 33 (5.04%) Amazon RDS
6 31 (4.73%) Oracle Reports
7 29 (4.43%) MySQL
8 26 (3.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 22 (3.36%) Amazon Redshift
10 18 (2.75%) Metadata
10 18 (2.75%) SAS Visual Analytics
11 17 (2.60%) DynamoDB
12 14 (2.14%) Amazon Aurora
12 14 (2.14%) Power BI
13 13 (1.98%) BusinessObjects
14 9 (1.37%) Data Lake
15 5 (0.76%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
15 5 (0.76%) Metadata Repository
15 5 (0.76%) Relational Database
15 5 (0.76%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 128 (19.54%) JIRA
2 93 (14.20%) GitLab
3 90 (13.74%) Git
4 81 (12.37%) Jenkins
5 39 (5.95%) JUnit
6 31 (4.73%) Zephyr
7 30 (4.58%) Selenium
8 26 (3.97%) Postman
9 19 (2.90%) Cucumber
10 18 (2.75%) WebDriver
11 16 (2.44%) Bitbucket
11 16 (2.44%) JMeter
11 16 (2.44%) Maven
11 16 (2.44%) Mockito
12 14 (2.14%) SonarQube
13 10 (1.53%) Artifactory
13 10 (1.53%) DbUnit
13 10 (1.53%) jMock
14 8 (1.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 8 (1.22%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 166 (25.34%) Social Skills
2 119 (18.17%) Public Sector
3 66 (10.08%) Analytical Skills
4 33 (5.04%) Finance
5 17 (2.60%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (1.53%) Organisational Skills
8 9 (1.37%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.07%) Telecoms
10 6 (0.92%) Advertising
11 4 (0.61%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.46%) Legal
13 1 (0.15%) Banking
13 1 (0.15%) Billing
13 1 (0.15%) Electronics
13 1 (0.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.15%) Military
13 1 (0.15%) Police
Job Titles
1 153 (23.36%) Data Engineer
2 69 (10.53%) Architect
3 48 (7.33%) Developer
4 44 (6.72%) Analyst
5 42 (6.41%) Tester
6 40 (6.11%) Senior
7 31 (4.73%) Java Developer
8 24 (3.66%) Lead
8 24 (3.66%) SAS Engineer
9 20 (3.05%) QA Tester
9 20 (3.05%) Support Engineer
10 19 (2.90%) Business Analyst
10 19 (2.90%) Scrum Master
11 18 (2.75%) Data Architect
11 18 (2.75%) Project Manager
12 16 (2.44%) Administrator
12 16 (2.44%) Delivery Manager
12 16 (2.44%) Software Engineer
12 16 (2.44%) Technical Architect
12 16 (2.44%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (6.41%) Spring
2 28 (4.27%) Spring Boot
3 22 (3.36%) REST
4 16 (2.44%) JPA
5 15 (2.29%) WireMock
6 14 (2.14%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (2.14%) AngularJS
6 14 (2.14%) Hibernate
6 14 (2.14%) SOAP
6 14 (2.14%) Spring Batch
6 14 (2.14%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (2.14%) Spring Integration
6 14 (2.14%) Web Services
7 12 (1.83%) Node.js
8 10 (1.53%) Middleware
8 10 (1.53%) PowerMock
9 9 (1.37%) AWS CDK
10 8 (1.22%) Bootstrap
10 8 (1.22%) RESTful
11 5 (0.76%) pytest
Miscellaneous
1 34 (5.19%) Cloud Native
2 24 (3.66%) Distributed Systems
3 22 (3.36%) Product Ownership
4 16 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (2.14%) Data Centre
6 13 (1.98%) Onboarding
7 12 (1.83%) Enterprise Software
8 10 (1.53%) Distributed Architecture
9 9 (1.37%) Analytical Mindset
10 7 (1.07%) Enterprise Cloud
11 6 (0.92%) Driving Licence
11 6 (0.92%) Private Cloud
12 5 (0.76%) Cyber Threat
12 5 (0.76%) Linux Command Line
13 4 (0.61%) CSOC
13 4 (0.61%) Data Structures
13 4 (0.61%) Robotics
13 4 (0.61%) SCADA
13 4 (0.61%) Security Operations Centre
14 3 (0.46%) FPGA
Operating Systems
1 59 (9.01%) Linux
2 58 (8.85%) Unix
3 37 (5.65%) Windows
4 9 (1.37%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.92%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.76%) 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 (0.15%) HPUX
8 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 211 (32.21%) Agile
2 144 (21.98%) CI/CD
3 129 (19.69%) DevOps
4 127 (19.39%) ETL
5 123 (18.78%) Test Automation
6 109 (16.64%) Continuous Improvement
7 107 (16.34%) Scrum
8 106 (16.18%) Migration
9 95 (14.50%) Analytics
10 88 (13.44%) Problem-Solving
11 86 (13.13%) Stakeholder Management
12 76 (11.60%) Data Integration
13 65 (9.92%) Data Modelling
14 63 (9.62%) Containerisation
15 59 (9.01%) Data Pipeline
16 54 (8.24%) Business Intelligence
17 50 (7.63%) Microservices
18 49 (7.48%) Validation
19 46 (7.02%) Stakeholder Engagement
20 45 (6.87%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 207 (31.60%) SQL
2 62 (9.47%) Java
3 49 (7.48%) PL/SQL
4 47 (7.18%) Python
5 24 (3.66%) Shell Script
6 17 (2.60%) Bash
7 15 (2.29%) PowerShell
8 6 (0.92%) Go
9 5 (0.76%) Perl
10 4 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.46%) C
11 3 (0.46%) C++
11 3 (0.46%) HiveQL
11 3 (0.46%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.31%) Bicep
12 2 (0.31%) C#
12 2 (0.31%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.31%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.15%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 655 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 23 (3.51%) ISTQB
3 19 (2.90%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (1.98%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
5 11 (1.68%) Degree
5 11 (1.68%) SAFe Agilist
6 9 (1.37%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 8 (1.22%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.07%) Azure Certification
8 7 (1.07%) CCNP
8 7 (1.07%) IIBA
8 7 (1.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 5 (0.76%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.76%) CCIE
9 5 (0.76%) CCNA
9 5 (0.76%) CISSP
10 4 (0.61%) OCP
10 4 (0.61%) Oracle Certification
10 4 (0.61%) SAS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 42 (6.41%) QA
2 33 (5.04%) Data Quality
3 16 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (1.83%) NIST
5 11 (1.68%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.37%) FATCA
7 8 (1.22%) GDPR
8 5 (0.76%) SLA
9 3 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.46%) GRC
9 3 (0.46%) NCSC
10 2 (0.31%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.31%) PMO
10 2 (0.31%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.15%) P3O
11 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 91 (13.89%) Docker
2 10 (1.53%) Postfix
2 10 (1.53%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.07%) Active Directory
4 6 (0.92%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (0.92%) vSphere
5 4 (0.61%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.61%) Snort
6 3 (0.46%) HDFS
6 3 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 89 (13.59%) Kubernetes
2 66 (10.08%) Grafana
3 34 (5.19%) Prometheus
4 27 (4.12%) Terraform
5 18 (2.75%) Ansible
6 5 (0.76%) Podman
6 5 (0.76%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.61%) CSIRT
7 4 (0.61%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.61%) vMotion
8 3 (0.46%) QRadar
9 2 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.31%) Kibana
9 2 (0.31%) SCCM
9 2 (0.31%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.15%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.15%) Control-M
10 1 (0.15%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.15%) Puppet
10 1 (0.15%) WMI
Vendors
1 186 (28.40%) Oracle
2 110 (16.79%) Talend
3 61 (9.31%) Denodo
4 55 (8.40%) Informatica
5 39 (5.95%) Microsoft
6 23 (3.51%) Atlassian
7 22 (3.36%) ServiceNow
8 21 (3.21%) Splunk
9 19 (2.90%) Dynatrace
10 17 (2.60%) Cisco
10 17 (2.60%) SAP
11 16 (2.44%) VMware
12 14 (2.14%) Jaspersoft
13 12 (1.83%) Sage
14 9 (1.37%) AppDynamics
15 7 (1.07%) Databricks
15 7 (1.07%) HP
16 6 (0.92%) Juniper
17 5 (0.76%) F5
17 5 (0.76%) Red Hat