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

6 months to
9 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 8 7
Rank change year-on-year +5 -1 +6
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 586 176 244
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 21.16% 13.17% 12.58%
As % of the Qualifications category 59.73% 41.71% 38.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 466 120 184
10th Percentile £351 £362 £288
25th Percentile £425 £464 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £551 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.71% +22.44% -16.67%
75th Percentile £560 £700 £578
90th Percentile £650 £738 £649
England median daily rate £525 £525 £541
% change year-on-year - -3.00% -1.59%
Number of hourly rates quoted 21 6 10
10th Percentile £17.30 £18.51 £13.25
25th Percentile £18.20 £21.71 £14.00
Median hourly rate £21.46 £35.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -38.69% +22.81% -48.18%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.50
90th Percentile £25.77 £38.49 £68.73
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -58.08% +20.00% -16.67%

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 981 422 635
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.42% 31.59% 32.73%
Number of daily rates quoted 718 281 394
10th Percentile £315 £163 £263
25th Percentile £413 £375 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £510 £450
Median % change year-on-year -3.92% +13.33% -14.29%
75th Percentile £563 £620 £575
90th Percentile £650 £706 £650
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 17 45
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.97 £14.00
25th Percentile £16.30 £18.50 £22.33
Median hourly rate £20.00 £23.60 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -15.25% -17.19% +42.50%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £56.25
90th Percentile £65.25 £39.14 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.77 £52.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year -50.91% +31.25% -19.80%

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 9 March 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 9 March 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 9 March 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 +3 298 £485 -1.62% 47
Birmingham +2 93 £480 -26.38% 18
Warwickshire -2 75 £426 -25.87% 2
Worcestershire +7 58 £663 -5.36% 5
Herefordshire +1 45 £625 -10.71% 1
Solihull 0 14 £450 +7.78% 6
Coventry -22 4 £488 -
Wolverhampton -2 2 - -
Staffordshire - 2 £350 - 7
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
1 115 (19.62%) SAS
2 58 (9.90%) Confluence
3 25 (4.27%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.22%) Tuxedo
5 3 (0.51%) Apache
5 3 (0.51%) SharePoint
6 2 (0.34%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.17%) nginx
Applications
1 9 (1.54%) Microsoft Project
2 8 (1.37%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.02%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.17%) Camtasia
6 1 (0.17%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 2 (0.34%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.17%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 114 (19.45%) AWS
2 92 (15.70%) Azure
3 33 (5.63%) GitHub
4 31 (5.29%) OpenShift
5 27 (4.61%) GCP
6 19 (3.24%) Amazon S3
7 18 (3.07%) Amazon EC2
7 18 (3.07%) Serverless
8 16 (2.73%) Azure Data Factory
9 15 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
10 14 (2.39%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (2.22%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 13 (2.22%) Power Platform
12 11 (1.88%) AWS KMS
12 11 (1.88%) SaaS
13 9 (1.54%) Azure Key Vault
13 9 (1.54%) Datadog
14 8 (1.37%) Microsoft 365
15 7 (1.19%) Amazon SQS
15 7 (1.19%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 21 (3.58%) Firewall
1 21 (3.58%) VPN
2 20 (3.41%) WAN
3 16 (2.73%) BGP
3 16 (2.73%) MPLS
4 15 (2.56%) IPsec
5 13 (2.22%) Network Security
6 10 (1.71%) Intrusion Detection
7 9 (1.54%) DNS
7 9 (1.54%) Wireless
8 8 (1.37%) LAN
9 5 (0.85%) 5G
9 5 (0.85%) OSPF
9 5 (0.85%) VLAN
9 5 (0.85%) Wi-Fi
10 4 (0.68%) Cisco IPT
10 4 (0.68%) DMVPN
10 4 (0.68%) SSL
10 4 (0.68%) Unified Communications
10 4 (0.68%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 58 (9.90%) Pentaho
2 45 (7.68%) PostgreSQL
3 35 (5.97%) Oracle Database
3 35 (5.97%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 34 (5.80%) Data Warehouse
5 23 (3.92%) Amazon RDS
6 22 (3.75%) Metadata
7 18 (3.07%) MySQL
8 14 (2.39%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (2.22%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (2.05%) Metadata Repository
11 11 (1.88%) MongoDB
12 10 (1.71%) Amazon Redshift
13 9 (1.54%) Power BI
13 9 (1.54%) Redis
14 7 (1.19%) Amazon Aurora
14 7 (1.19%) DynamoDB
15 6 (1.02%) Relational Database
16 5 (0.85%) SAS Visual Analytics
16 5 (0.85%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 101 (17.24%) Git
2 91 (15.53%) JIRA
3 82 (13.99%) Jenkins
4 54 (9.22%) GitLab
5 40 (6.83%) JUnit
6 32 (5.46%) Selenium
7 14 (2.39%) Cucumber
7 14 (2.39%) Mockito
8 13 (2.22%) Maven
8 13 (2.22%) Postman
8 13 (2.22%) SonarQube
8 13 (2.22%) Zephyr
9 9 (1.54%) JMeter
9 9 (1.54%) MSI
10 8 (1.37%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 8 (1.37%) WebDriver
11 5 (0.85%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.85%) DbUnit
11 5 (0.85%) jMock
12 4 (0.68%) CA Gen
General
1 144 (24.57%) Social Skills
2 73 (12.46%) Public Sector
3 52 (8.87%) Analytical Skills
4 31 (5.29%) Finance
5 17 (2.90%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (1.71%) Telecoms
7 9 (1.54%) Aeronautics
8 7 (1.19%) Advertising
8 7 (1.19%) Legal
8 7 (1.19%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (1.19%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (0.51%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.34%) Electronics
10 2 (0.34%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.17%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.17%) Automotive
11 1 (0.17%) Banking
11 1 (0.17%) Police
11 1 (0.17%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 95 (16.21%) Data Engineer
2 51 (8.70%) Senior
3 50 (8.53%) Developer
4 46 (7.85%) Architect
5 41 (7.00%) Analyst
6 33 (5.63%) Tester
7 25 (4.27%) Java Developer
8 24 (4.10%) Test Specialist
9 20 (3.41%) Support Engineer
10 19 (3.24%) Business Analyst
10 19 (3.24%) Data Architect
11 18 (3.07%) Platform Engineer
12 16 (2.73%) Consultant
12 16 (2.73%) Engagement Manager
12 16 (2.73%) Senior Data Engineer
13 15 (2.56%) Lead
13 15 (2.56%) Release Manager
13 15 (2.56%) SAS Engineer
14 14 (2.39%) Senior Developer
15 13 (2.22%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (6.66%) REST
2 38 (6.48%) Spring
3 31 (5.29%) Spring Boot
4 19 (3.24%) pytest
5 13 (2.22%) JPA
6 12 (2.05%) FastAPI
6 12 (2.05%) Flask
6 12 (2.05%) Kafka
6 12 (2.05%) Keycloak
7 11 (1.88%) Middleware
7 11 (1.88%) Node.js
8 9 (1.54%) GraphQL
8 9 (1.54%) gRPC
8 9 (1.54%) WebSockets
8 9 (1.54%) WireMock
9 8 (1.37%) AngularJS
9 8 (1.37%) React
9 8 (1.37%) SOAP
10 7 (1.19%) ActiveMQ
10 7 (1.19%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.27%) Cloud Native
2 17 (2.90%) Data Centre
2 17 (2.90%) Onboarding
3 12 (2.05%) Distributed Systems
3 12 (2.05%) Enterprise Software
4 11 (1.88%) Legacy Systems
4 11 (1.88%) PKI
5 10 (1.71%) Hybrid Cloud
6 8 (1.37%) Driving Licence
6 8 (1.37%) Product Ownership
7 7 (1.19%) SCADA
8 6 (1.02%) Security Operations Centre
9 5 (0.85%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (0.85%) Private Cloud
9 5 (0.85%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.68%) Analytical Mindset
10 4 (0.68%) CSOC
10 4 (0.68%) Distributed Architecture
10 4 (0.68%) Robotics
11 3 (0.51%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 47 (8.02%) Linux
2 43 (7.34%) Windows
3 31 (5.29%) Unix
4 11 (1.88%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.19%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.51%) Android
7 2 (0.34%) AIX
7 2 (0.34%) CentOS
7 2 (0.34%) Solaris
7 2 (0.34%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.17%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 180 (30.72%) Agile
2 158 (26.96%) CI/CD
3 143 (24.40%) DevOps
4 101 (17.24%) Problem-Solving
5 98 (16.72%) Scrum
6 95 (16.21%) Stakeholder Management
7 94 (16.04%) ETL
8 93 (15.87%) Test Automation
9 91 (15.53%) Analytics
10 90 (15.36%) Continuous Improvement
11 67 (11.43%) Containerisation
12 65 (11.09%) Data Modelling
12 65 (11.09%) Data Pipeline
12 65 (11.09%) Migration
13 61 (10.41%) Data Integration
14 59 (10.07%) Business Intelligence
15 48 (8.19%) Microservices
16 42 (7.17%) Change Management
17 36 (6.14%) Data Virtualisation
17 36 (6.14%) Validation
Programming Languages
1 164 (27.99%) SQL
2 74 (12.63%) Python
3 68 (11.60%) Java
4 28 (4.78%) PL/SQL
5 25 (4.27%) Shell Script
6 24 (4.10%) Go
7 17 (2.90%) PowerShell
8 16 (2.73%) Bash
9 6 (1.02%) Perl
10 5 (0.85%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.68%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.68%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.51%) HiveQL
12 3 (0.51%) Kotlin
13 2 (0.34%) Bicep
13 2 (0.34%) C++
13 2 (0.34%) MATLAB
14 1 (0.17%) C
14 1 (0.17%) C#
14 1 (0.17%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 586 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 25 (4.27%) DV Cleared
3 20 (3.41%) Azure Certification
4 14 (2.39%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (1.88%) ISTQB
6 10 (1.71%) Microsoft Certification
7 8 (1.37%) AWS Certification
8 7 (1.19%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (1.19%) Degree
8 7 (1.19%) IIBA
9 6 (1.02%) CCNP
10 5 (0.85%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.68%) CCIE
11 4 (0.68%) CISSP
11 4 (0.68%) OCP
11 4 (0.68%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.51%) CISM
13 2 (0.34%) CCNA
13 2 (0.34%) CEH
13 2 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 36 (6.14%) Data Quality
2 30 (5.12%) QA
3 14 (2.39%) NCSC
4 13 (2.22%) NIST
5 12 (2.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 8 (1.37%) Accessibility
7 7 (1.19%) GDPR
8 4 (0.68%) WCAG
9 3 (0.51%) FATCA
10 2 (0.34%) PMO
10 2 (0.34%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.17%) GRC
11 1 (0.17%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 108 (18.43%) Docker
2 10 (1.71%) Active Directory
3 7 (1.19%) Postfix
4 4 (0.68%) Snort
5 3 (0.51%) HDFS
5 3 (0.51%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.51%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.34%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 136 (23.21%) Kubernetes
2 52 (8.87%) Grafana
3 32 (5.46%) Prometheus
4 22 (3.75%) Terraform
5 15 (2.56%) Ansible
6 8 (1.37%) Progress Chef
7 7 (1.19%) Kibana
8 4 (0.68%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.51%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.34%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.34%) Podman
11 1 (0.17%) Control-M
11 1 (0.17%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.17%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.17%) logstash
11 1 (0.17%) Puppet
11 1 (0.17%) QRadar
11 1 (0.17%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 130 (22.18%) Oracle
2 74 (12.63%) Talend
3 55 (9.39%) Microsoft
4 45 (7.68%) Denodo
5 38 (6.48%) ServiceNow
6 31 (5.29%) Informatica
7 28 (4.78%) Splunk
8 26 (4.44%) Cisco
9 22 (3.75%) Dynatrace
10 18 (3.07%) Juniper
11 15 (2.56%) Atlassian
12 13 (2.22%) AppDynamics
13 12 (2.05%) SAP
14 9 (1.54%) Sage
15 8 (1.37%) CyberArk
15 8 (1.37%) F5
15 8 (1.37%) Fujitsu
16 7 (1.19%) Jaspersoft
16 7 (1.19%) Red Hat
17 6 (1.02%) CheckPoint