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 5 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
5 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +6 -2 +9
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 445 211 244
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.10% 11.54% 12.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 53.36% 37.68% 42.43%
Number of daily rates quoted 334 155 175
10th Percentile £351 £360 £325
25th Percentile £461 £445 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £584 £612 £626
90th Percentile £693 £700 £688
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.99% -3.59% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 3 11
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £62.50
Median hourly rate £18.87 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.09% -46.15% -
75th Percentile £25.15 - £68.13
90th Percentile - - £70.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £57.38 £57.99
% change year-on-year -56.17% -1.06% -3.35%

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 834 560 575
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 37.67% 30.62% 30.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 578 358 355
10th Percentile £276 £272 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £522 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.34% -0.57% +5.00%
75th Percentile £579 £612 £606
90th Percentile £675 £725 £688
England median daily rate £525 £531 £550
% change year-on-year -1.04% -3.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 53 15 29
10th Percentile £14.46 £20.20 £17.70
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.58 £23.00
Median hourly rate £22.01 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -37.11% - +44.33%
75th Percentile £31.00 £46.88 £67.50
90th Percentile £48.09 £52.50 £71.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £48.78 £52.50
% change year-on-year -48.44% -7.09% +16.67%

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025.

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 5 December 2025. 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 0 159 £519 +8.70% 21
Birmingham +23 113 £475 -20.83% 30
Worcestershire +11 64 £650 +36.84% 20
Warwickshire +2 64 £450 -22.95% 20
Herefordshire 0 48 £650 +6.21% 9
Solihull -4 6 £513 +14.65% 1
Coventry - 6 £300 - 3
Staffordshire -2 5 £270 -40.00% 15
Wolverhampton - 2 - - 6
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 74 (16.63%) SAS
2 35 (7.87%) Confluence
3 19 (4.27%) WebLogic
4 12 (2.70%) Apache
5 11 (2.47%) nginx
6 7 (1.57%) Apache Airflow
7 5 (1.12%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.90%) SharePoint
9 3 (0.67%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.22%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.22%) SAP EP
Applications
1 10 (2.25%) Microsoft Office
1 10 (2.25%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
4 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 2 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
5 1 (0.22%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.67%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.45%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.45%) SAP PP
2 2 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.22%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 96 (21.57%) Azure
2 78 (17.53%) AWS
3 31 (6.97%) GitHub
4 27 (6.07%) Amazon S3
5 26 (5.84%) Amazon EC2
6 24 (5.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 23 (5.17%) Amazon ELB
7 23 (5.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 21 (4.72%) AWS KMS
8 21 (4.72%) OpenShift
9 20 (4.49%) Microsoft 365
10 15 (3.37%) SaaS
10 15 (3.37%) Serverless
11 14 (3.15%) Azure Data Factory
11 14 (3.15%) Azure Monitor
12 13 (2.92%) Power Platform
13 11 (2.47%) Amazon Glacier
14 10 (2.25%) Amazon ECS
14 10 (2.25%) Route 53
15 9 (2.02%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 51 (11.46%) Firewall
2 42 (9.44%) DNS
3 37 (8.31%) VPN
4 33 (7.42%) WAN
5 31 (6.97%) IPsec
6 27 (6.07%) SMTP
7 26 (5.84%) MPLS
8 22 (4.94%) BGP
9 21 (4.72%) FTP
10 20 (4.49%) HTTP
10 20 (4.49%) SSH
11 13 (2.92%) Network Security
12 11 (2.47%) SSL
12 11 (2.47%) Wireless
13 10 (2.25%) IMAP
13 10 (2.25%) OpenLDAP
14 9 (2.02%) Cisco IPT
14 9 (2.02%) DMVPN
15 6 (1.35%) DKIM
15 6 (1.35%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (7.64%) Pentaho
1 34 (7.64%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 30 (6.74%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (6.07%) Oracle Database
4 24 (5.39%) Amazon RDS
5 15 (3.37%) Elasticsearch
6 12 (2.70%) Metadata
6 12 (2.70%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 10 (2.25%) Amazon Aurora
8 8 (1.80%) Data Warehouse
8 8 (1.80%) Redis
9 7 (1.57%) Metadata Repository
10 6 (1.35%) Power BI
11 4 (0.90%) MongoDB
12 3 (0.67%) SAS Data Integration Studio
13 2 (0.45%) Data Hub
13 2 (0.45%) InfluxDB
13 2 (0.45%) Oracle Database 12c
13 2 (0.45%) Relational Database
13 2 (0.45%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 82 (18.43%) Git
2 72 (16.18%) Jenkins
3 69 (15.51%) JIRA
4 30 (6.74%) GitLab
5 21 (4.72%) Vagrant
6 18 (4.04%) JUnit
6 18 (4.04%) Selenium
7 12 (2.70%) SonarQube
8 5 (1.12%) Cucumber
8 5 (1.12%) Mockito
9 4 (0.90%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.90%) Maven
9 4 (0.90%) MSI
9 4 (0.90%) PVCS
10 2 (0.45%) NeoLoad
10 2 (0.45%) Postman
11 1 (0.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 1 (0.22%) TestDirector
General
1 121 (27.19%) Social Skills
2 72 (16.18%) Public Sector
3 33 (7.42%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (3.37%) Telecoms
5 13 (2.92%) Finance
6 9 (2.02%) Aeronautics
6 9 (2.02%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (2.02%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (1.80%) Legal
8 5 (1.12%) Marketing
9 4 (0.90%) Manufacturing
10 3 (0.67%) Electronics
11 2 (0.45%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.45%) General Ledger
11 2 (0.45%) Influencing Skills
12 1 (0.22%) Advertising
12 1 (0.22%) Automotive
12 1 (0.22%) Organisational Skills
12 1 (0.22%) Police
12 1 (0.22%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 40 (8.99%) Platform Engineer
2 36 (8.09%) Senior
3 33 (7.42%) Developer
4 31 (6.97%) Data Engineer
5 29 (6.52%) AWS Engineer
6 28 (6.29%) DevOps Engineer
7 26 (5.84%) Support Engineer
8 22 (4.94%) Architect
9 19 (4.27%) Analyst
9 19 (4.27%) AWS DevOps
9 19 (4.27%) AWS DevOps Engineer
9 19 (4.27%) Cloud Platform Engineer
10 18 (4.04%) Network Engineer
11 17 (3.82%) Test Specialist
12 16 (3.60%) Release Manager
13 14 (3.15%) 3rd Line Engineer
14 13 (2.92%) 3rd Line Support
14 13 (2.92%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
14 13 (2.92%) Consultant
14 13 (2.92%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (6.97%) REST
2 15 (3.37%) LDAP
2 15 (3.37%) pytest
3 12 (2.70%) Keycloak
3 12 (2.70%) YAML
4 11 (2.47%) FastAPI
4 11 (2.47%) Flask
4 11 (2.47%) Kafka
4 11 (2.47%) Spring
4 11 (2.47%) Spring Boot
5 9 (2.02%) 802.1X
6 8 (1.80%) GraphQL
6 8 (1.80%) React
6 8 (1.80%) WebSockets
7 7 (1.57%) gRPC
7 7 (1.57%) HTML
8 6 (1.35%) OAuth
9 5 (1.12%) .NET
9 5 (1.12%) Elastic Stack
9 5 (1.12%) JSON
Miscellaneous
1 22 (4.94%) Data Centre
1 22 (4.94%) PKI
2 21 (4.72%) Onboarding
2 21 (4.72%) Replication
3 15 (3.37%) Driving Licence
4 14 (3.15%) Cloud Native
5 12 (2.70%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (2.02%) SCADA
7 7 (1.57%) Product Ownership
8 6 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.12%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.12%) FPGA
9 5 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.12%) VHDL
10 4 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (0.90%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (0.67%) Handset
11 3 (0.67%) IoT
11 3 (0.67%) Security Posture
12 2 (0.45%) Enterprise Software
Operating Systems
1 79 (17.75%) Windows
2 65 (14.61%) Linux
3 22 (4.94%) Unix
4 21 (4.72%) Amazon Linux
4 21 (4.72%) VMS
5 13 (2.92%) Windows Server
6 11 (2.47%) Ubuntu
7 9 (2.02%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.67%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.45%) Android
9 2 (0.45%) CentOS
10 1 (0.22%) AIX
10 1 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.22%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.22%) Solaris
10 1 (0.22%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 132 (29.66%) DevOps
2 120 (26.97%) CI/CD
3 89 (20.00%) Agile
4 84 (18.88%) Analytics
5 76 (17.08%) Problem-Solving
6 59 (13.26%) Test Automation
7 58 (13.03%) Containerisation
8 56 (12.58%) Business Intelligence
8 56 (12.58%) Continuous Improvement
9 53 (11.91%) Data Pipeline
10 52 (11.69%) Platform Engineering
10 52 (11.69%) Scrum
11 50 (11.24%) Data Integration
12 49 (11.01%) Configuration Management
13 46 (10.34%) Change Management
13 46 (10.34%) ETL
14 44 (9.89%) Migration
15 42 (9.44%) Data Modelling
16 39 (8.76%) Test Strategy
17 36 (8.09%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 89 (20.00%) SQL
2 82 (18.43%) Python
3 38 (8.54%) PowerShell
4 34 (7.64%) Java
5 21 (4.72%) Go
5 21 (4.72%) Groovy
6 12 (2.70%) Perl
7 10 (2.25%) Bash
7 10 (2.25%) Shell Script
8 9 (2.02%) JavaScript
9 8 (1.80%) PL/SQL
10 5 (1.12%) MATLAB
10 5 (1.12%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.67%) ABAP
11 3 (0.67%) C#
12 1 (0.22%) C
12 1 (0.22%) COBOL
12 1 (0.22%) Korn
12 1 (0.22%) Scala
12 1 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 445 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 33 (7.42%) DV Cleared
3 27 (6.07%) Azure Certification
4 18 (4.04%) Degree
5 16 (3.60%) AWS Certification
6 13 (2.92%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.80%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.57%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 6 (1.35%) CISSP
10 3 (0.67%) CCNA
10 3 (0.67%) CEH
10 3 (0.67%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.67%) CISM
11 2 (0.45%) CCA
11 2 (0.45%) CCNP
11 2 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.45%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.45%) GCIH
11 2 (0.45%) OCP
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (5.62%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.60%) NCSC
3 12 (2.70%) QA
4 10 (2.25%) NIST
5 8 (1.80%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (1.35%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.90%) WCAG
8 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.45%) PMO
8 2 (0.45%) SLA
9 1 (0.22%) GDPR
9 1 (0.22%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 111 (24.94%) Docker
2 30 (6.74%) Active Directory
3 20 (4.49%) DFS Replication
4 16 (3.60%) Postfix
5 14 (3.15%) Dovecot
6 11 (2.47%) VMware Infrastructure
7 10 (2.25%) Squid
8 5 (1.12%) Terminal Services
9 4 (0.90%) Firmware
10 3 (0.67%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.22%) Hyper-V
12 1 (0.22%) Snort
Systems Management
1 101 (22.70%) Kubernetes
2 49 (11.01%) Terraform
3 36 (8.09%) Grafana
4 33 (7.42%) Prometheus
5 14 (3.15%) Ansible
6 10 (2.25%) Nessus
7 9 (2.02%) Proxmox
8 8 (1.80%) Kibana
9 4 (0.90%) logstash
9 4 (0.90%) SCCM
10 3 (0.67%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.67%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.67%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.45%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.45%) QRadar
12 1 (0.22%) NetBackup
12 1 (0.22%) Rsyslog
12 1 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 80 (17.98%) Oracle
2 59 (13.26%) Microsoft
3 47 (10.56%) Cisco
4 42 (9.44%) ServiceNow
5 36 (8.09%) Juniper
6 34 (7.64%) Talend
7 30 (6.74%) Denodo
8 24 (5.39%) Splunk
9 23 (5.17%) Dynatrace
10 16 (3.60%) AppDynamics
11 14 (3.15%) F5
12 13 (2.92%) CheckPoint
12 13 (2.92%) SAP
12 13 (2.92%) VMware
13 10 (2.25%) Broadcom
13 10 (2.25%) CyberArk
13 10 (2.25%) Jaspersoft
14 9 (2.02%) Blue Coat
15 8 (1.80%) Atlassian
16 6 (1.35%) Red Hat