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

6 months to
23 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 10 7
Rank change year-on-year +7 -3 +9
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 477 174 234
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.07% 10.96% 12.94%
As % of the Qualifications category 56.85% 35.37% 42.16%
Number of daily rates quoted 364 121 178
10th Percentile £350 £398 £325
25th Percentile £460 £477 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £551 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.90% +10.20% -7.41%
75th Percentile £577 £648 £609
90th Percentile £688 £700 £675
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -2.65%
Number of hourly rates quoted 24 4 12
10th Percentile - £23.46 £44.50
25th Percentile £18.20 £30.88 £62.50
Median hourly rate £20.17 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -42.39% -46.15% +7.44%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.81
90th Percentile - - £69.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £58.38 £57.33
% change year-on-year -56.92% +1.82% -8.76%

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 839 492 555
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.30% 30.98% 30.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 588 316 340
10th Percentile £305 £196 £300
25th Percentile £425 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year -1.15% +4.00% -
75th Percentile £575 £611 £600
90th Percentile £675 £700 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 19 39
10th Percentile £14.00 £17.55 £17.70
25th Percentile £16.30 £18.51 £23.00
Median hourly rate £18.87 £26.13 £34.50
Median % change year-on-year -27.77% -24.28% +76.92%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £39.20 £52.50 £69.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £47.75
% change year-on-year -45.54% -3.29% +6.11%

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 January 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 January 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 January 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 +1 203 £515 +4.46% 31
Birmingham +11 94 £475 -31.06% 12
Warwickshire +2 71 £380 -31.53% 11
Worcestershire +10 65 £650 +36.84% 4
Herefordshire 0 48 £650 +7.26% 3
Solihull -4 5 £425 +16.44%
Coventry - 5 £325 -
Staffordshire +4 4 £270 -44.56% 9
Wolverhampton +4 2 - - 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 94 (19.71%) SAS
2 39 (8.18%) Confluence
3 25 (5.24%) WebLogic
4 15 (3.14%) Apache
5 9 (1.89%) nginx
6 7 (1.47%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (1.26%) Tuxedo
8 3 (0.63%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.21%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.21%) SAP EP
9 1 (0.21%) SharePoint
Applications
1 8 (1.68%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 6 (1.26%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (0.84%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.63%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.42%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.42%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.21%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.21%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.42%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.42%) SAP ERP
1 2 (0.42%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.42%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.21%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.21%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.21%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 103 (21.59%) Azure
2 95 (19.92%) AWS
3 30 (6.29%) GitHub
4 25 (5.24%) OpenShift
5 22 (4.61%) Amazon S3
6 21 (4.40%) Amazon EC2
7 18 (3.77%) Microsoft 365
7 18 (3.77%) Serverless
8 16 (3.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 16 (3.35%) GCP
9 15 (3.14%) Amazon ELB
9 15 (3.14%) Azure Data Factory
9 15 (3.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 14 (2.94%) Azure Monitor
11 13 (2.73%) AWS KMS
11 13 (2.73%) SaaS
12 11 (2.31%) Power Platform
13 10 (2.10%) Azure DevOps
14 9 (1.89%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (1.89%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 40 (8.39%) Firewall
2 34 (7.13%) VPN
3 32 (6.71%) WAN
4 28 (5.87%) DNS
4 28 (5.87%) IPsec
5 21 (4.40%) BGP
5 21 (4.40%) MPLS
6 15 (3.14%) Network Security
6 15 (3.14%) SMTP
6 15 (3.14%) Wireless
7 13 (2.73%) FTP
7 13 (2.73%) HTTP
7 13 (2.73%) SSH
8 11 (2.31%) SSL
9 9 (1.89%) Cisco IPT
9 9 (1.89%) DMVPN
10 8 (1.68%) IMAP
10 8 (1.68%) OpenLDAP
11 6 (1.26%) LAN
12 5 (1.05%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (8.81%) Pentaho
2 39 (8.18%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 30 (6.29%) PostgreSQL
4 28 (5.87%) Oracle Database
5 22 (4.61%) Amazon RDS
6 16 (3.35%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (2.73%) Metadata
8 12 (2.52%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 9 (1.89%) Data Warehouse
9 9 (1.89%) Redis
10 8 (1.68%) Amazon Aurora
11 7 (1.47%) Metadata Repository
11 7 (1.47%) MongoDB
12 5 (1.05%) Power BI
13 4 (0.84%) InfluxDB
13 4 (0.84%) Relational Database
14 3 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
14 3 (0.63%) SAS Data Integration Studio
15 2 (0.42%) Data Hub
15 2 (0.42%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 78 (16.35%) Git
2 73 (15.30%) Jenkins
3 72 (15.09%) JIRA
4 35 (7.34%) GitLab
5 20 (4.19%) JUnit
6 19 (3.98%) Selenium
7 13 (2.73%) Vagrant
8 12 (2.52%) SonarQube
9 7 (1.47%) Mockito
10 6 (1.26%) Cucumber
10 6 (1.26%) Maven
10 6 (1.26%) MSI
11 3 (0.63%) NeoLoad
12 2 (0.42%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 2 (0.42%) Bitbucket
12 2 (0.42%) Postman
13 1 (0.21%) JMeter
13 1 (0.21%) TestDirector
General
1 124 (26.00%) Social Skills
2 64 (13.42%) Public Sector
3 41 (8.60%) Analytical Skills
4 19 (3.98%) Finance
5 14 (2.94%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (2.73%) Telecoms
7 9 (1.89%) Aeronautics
8 8 (1.68%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.47%) Legal
10 2 (0.42%) Electronics
10 2 (0.42%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.42%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.42%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.42%) Marketing
11 1 (0.21%) Advertising
11 1 (0.21%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.21%) Automotive
11 1 (0.21%) Banking
11 1 (0.21%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.21%) Police
Job Titles
1 45 (9.43%) Data Engineer
2 41 (8.60%) Senior
3 36 (7.55%) Platform Engineer
4 31 (6.50%) Developer
5 26 (5.45%) Architect
6 23 (4.82%) AWS Engineer
6 23 (4.82%) Support Engineer
7 22 (4.61%) Analyst
8 20 (4.19%) DevOps Engineer
8 20 (4.19%) Release Manager
9 17 (3.56%) Test Specialist
10 15 (3.14%) AWS DevOps
10 15 (3.14%) AWS DevOps Engineer
10 15 (3.14%) Cloud Platform Engineer
11 14 (2.94%) Network Engineer
11 14 (2.94%) Tester
12 13 (2.73%) Senior Data Engineer
12 13 (2.73%) Senior Developer
13 12 (2.52%) Consultant
13 12 (2.52%) Lead
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.29%) REST
2 15 (3.14%) pytest
2 15 (3.14%) Spring
2 15 (3.14%) Spring Boot
3 14 (2.94%) LDAP
4 13 (2.73%) Keycloak
5 12 (2.52%) FastAPI
5 12 (2.52%) Flask
5 12 (2.52%) Kafka
5 12 (2.52%) YAML
6 10 (2.10%) Middleware
7 9 (1.89%) 802.1X
7 9 (1.89%) GraphQL
7 9 (1.89%) WebSockets
8 8 (1.68%) gRPC
8 8 (1.68%) React
9 6 (1.26%) HTML
9 6 (1.26%) JPA
9 6 (1.26%) OAuth
9 6 (1.26%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 22 (4.61%) Cloud Native
2 20 (4.19%) Onboarding
3 19 (3.98%) PKI
4 18 (3.77%) Data Centre
5 14 (2.94%) Replication
6 11 (2.31%) Driving Licence
6 11 (2.31%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.31%) Hybrid Cloud
7 8 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.68%) SCADA
8 7 (1.47%) FPGA
8 7 (1.47%) Product Ownership
9 6 (1.26%) VHDL
10 5 (1.05%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.84%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.84%) Security Operations Centre
11 4 (0.84%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (0.63%) Handset
12 3 (0.63%) Mainframe
12 3 (0.63%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 65 (13.63%) Windows
2 61 (12.79%) Linux
3 28 (5.87%) Unix
4 13 (2.73%) Amazon Linux
4 13 (2.73%) VMS
5 10 (2.10%) Ubuntu
6 8 (1.68%) Windows Server
7 7 (1.47%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.63%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.42%) CentOS
10 1 (0.21%) AIX
10 1 (0.21%) Android
10 1 (0.21%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.21%) Solaris
10 1 (0.21%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 147 (30.82%) DevOps
2 142 (29.77%) CI/CD
3 108 (22.64%) Agile
4 95 (19.92%) Analytics
5 82 (17.19%) Problem-Solving
6 68 (14.26%) Continuous Improvement
7 66 (13.84%) Test Automation
8 61 (12.79%) Scrum
9 59 (12.37%) Containerisation
9 59 (12.37%) Data Integration
9 59 (12.37%) Stakeholder Management
10 58 (12.16%) Business Intelligence
10 58 (12.16%) Data Pipeline
11 53 (11.11%) ETL
12 51 (10.69%) Migration
13 47 (9.85%) Data Modelling
14 46 (9.64%) Configuration Management
15 45 (9.43%) Change Management
16 44 (9.22%) Platform Engineering
17 40 (8.39%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 115 (24.11%) SQL
2 88 (18.45%) Python
3 37 (7.76%) PowerShell
4 33 (6.92%) Java
5 24 (5.03%) Go
6 17 (3.56%) Bash
7 15 (3.14%) Shell Script
8 13 (2.73%) Groovy
9 8 (1.68%) JavaScript
10 7 (1.47%) Perl
11 6 (1.26%) MATLAB
11 6 (1.26%) PL/SQL
12 5 (1.05%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.63%) ABAP
14 2 (0.42%) C#
14 2 (0.42%) C++
15 1 (0.21%) C
15 1 (0.21%) COBOL
15 1 (0.21%) Search Processing Language
15 1 (0.21%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 477 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 32 (6.71%) DV Cleared
3 25 (5.24%) Azure Certification
4 16 (3.35%) BPSS Clearance
5 14 (2.94%) Degree
6 13 (2.73%) AWS Certification
7 7 (1.47%) IIBA
8 6 (1.26%) CISSP
8 6 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.05%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 5 (1.05%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.84%) CCIE
10 4 (0.84%) CCNP
11 3 (0.63%) CEH
11 3 (0.63%) CISM
12 2 (0.42%) CCA
12 2 (0.42%) Computer Science Degree
12 2 (0.42%) DBS Check
12 2 (0.42%) GCIH
12 2 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.29%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.56%) NCSC
3 13 (2.73%) NIST
3 13 (2.73%) QA
4 11 (2.31%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.68%) Accessibility
6 6 (1.26%) GDPR
7 4 (0.84%) WCAG
8 2 (0.42%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.42%) PMO
9 1 (0.21%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.21%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.21%) SLA
System Software
1 116 (24.32%) Docker
2 16 (3.35%) Active Directory
3 13 (2.73%) DFS Replication
4 10 (2.10%) Postfix
5 8 (1.68%) Dovecot
5 8 (1.68%) Squid
6 3 (0.63%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.63%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.42%) Firmware
7 2 (0.42%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 123 (25.79%) Kubernetes
2 42 (8.81%) Grafana
3 41 (8.60%) Terraform
4 37 (7.76%) Prometheus
5 14 (2.94%) Ansible
6 10 (2.10%) Kibana
7 8 (1.68%) Nessus
7 8 (1.68%) Proxmox
8 7 (1.47%) Progress Chef
9 4 (0.84%) logstash
10 3 (0.63%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.42%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.42%) QRadar
11 2 (0.42%) SCCM
12 1 (0.21%) Fluentd
12 1 (0.21%) HP ALM
12 1 (0.21%) NetBackup
12 1 (0.21%) Puppet
12 1 (0.21%) Rsyslog
12 1 (0.21%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 96 (20.13%) Oracle
2 53 (11.11%) Microsoft
3 45 (9.43%) Cisco
3 45 (9.43%) Talend
4 37 (7.76%) ServiceNow
5 36 (7.55%) Denodo
6 35 (7.34%) Dynatrace
6 35 (7.34%) Splunk
7 32 (6.71%) Juniper
8 25 (5.24%) AppDynamics
9 15 (3.14%) F5
10 14 (2.94%) CheckPoint
11 13 (2.73%) CyberArk
12 12 (2.52%) SAP
13 9 (1.89%) Blue Coat
13 9 (1.89%) Informatica
14 8 (1.68%) Jaspersoft
15 5 (1.05%) Atlassian
15 5 (1.05%) Fujitsu
15 5 (1.05%) Xilinx