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

6 months to
16 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 6 4
Rank change year-on-year +3 -2 +6
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 718 271 265
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.58% 15.75% 14.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 59.73% 46.40% 41.80%
Number of daily rates quoted 541 192 190
10th Percentile £358 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £422 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £505 £517
Median % change year-on-year -7.92% -2.32% -6.00%
75th Percentile £541 £573 £612
90th Percentile £630 £650 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £536
% change year-on-year - -1.98% -2.62%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 18 4
10th Percentile £14.26 £18.76 £13.48
25th Percentile £54.84 - £13.81
Median hourly rate £63.14 £18.87 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +234.58% +4.83% -34.55%
75th Percentile £70.41 £25.15 £25.88
90th Percentile £75.00 - £32.85
England median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +152.49% -54.27% -4.06%

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 1,202 584 634
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 34.46% 33.93% 33.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 856 385 416
10th Percentile £326 £178 £308
25th Percentile £405 £380 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £467 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year -6.60% -3.66% -5.64%
75th Percentile £544 £575 £625
90th Percentile £650 £638 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 83 48 22
10th Percentile £16.03 - £14.00
25th Percentile £32.55 £18.87 £20.69
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £34.47
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -12.96% +33.59%
75th Percentile £67.84 £43.44 £51.88
90th Percentile £75.00 £50.75 £58.50
England median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%

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 August 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 August 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 August 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 +1 460 £469 -10.67% 42
Birmingham -6 91 £475 - 24
Warwickshire -16 50 £450 -10.00% 8
Solihull +2 42 £456 +1.39% 6
Herefordshire 0 22 £700 -22.22% 3
Coventry -18 10 £425 +54.55% 4
Worcestershire -7 9 £700 +7.69% 7
Staffordshire -2 5 £388 +13.14% 9
Walsall - 4 £600 -
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
1 105 (14.62%) SAS
2 84 (11.70%) Confluence
3 17 (2.37%) Apache Airflow
4 16 (2.23%) WebLogic
5 13 (1.81%) SharePoint
6 9 (1.25%) Tuxedo
7 3 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.28%) Apache
8 2 (0.28%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.14%) IIS
9 1 (0.14%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.14%) SAP EP
Applications
1 14 (1.95%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.81%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 5 (0.70%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.56%) Notepad++
6 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 8 (1.11%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.70%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.28%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.14%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
4 1 (0.14%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
4 1 (0.14%) SAP FI-CA
4 1 (0.14%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 183 (25.49%) AWS
2 82 (11.42%) Azure
3 49 (6.82%) GitHub
4 39 (5.43%) Amazon S3
4 39 (5.43%) GitHub Actions
5 35 (4.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 33 (4.60%) Amazon EC2
7 29 (4.04%) Power Platform
8 28 (3.90%) Serverless
9 24 (3.34%) AWS Lambda
10 23 (3.20%) Azure DevOps
11 21 (2.92%) Amazon ECS
11 21 (2.92%) Amazon EKS
12 20 (2.79%) GCP
13 18 (2.51%) Microsoft 365
14 15 (2.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 12 (1.67%) Amazon SQS
15 12 (1.67%) AWS KMS
16 11 (1.53%) AWS CodePipeline
17 10 (1.39%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 18 (2.51%) Firewall
2 8 (1.11%) DNS
2 8 (1.11%) SSL
2 8 (1.11%) WAN
3 7 (0.97%) VPN
4 6 (0.84%) LAN
4 6 (0.84%) Network Security
5 5 (0.70%) TCP/IP
6 4 (0.56%) DHCP
6 4 (0.56%) PuTTY
6 4 (0.56%) SNMP
6 4 (0.56%) WinSCP
7 3 (0.42%) DMVPN
7 3 (0.42%) Internet
7 3 (0.42%) Intranet
7 3 (0.42%) Intrusion Detection
7 3 (0.42%) IPsec
7 3 (0.42%) SD-WAN
8 2 (0.28%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.28%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 81 (11.28%) Data Warehouse
2 80 (11.14%) Pentaho
3 47 (6.55%) PostgreSQL
4 33 (4.60%) Oracle Reports
5 30 (4.18%) MySQL
6 28 (3.90%) Oracle Database
7 27 (3.76%) Data Lake
8 20 (2.79%) Amazon Redshift
9 19 (2.65%) Amazon RDS
9 19 (2.65%) Metadata
9 19 (2.65%) Power BI
9 19 (2.65%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 19 (2.65%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 16 (2.23%) Base SAS
10 16 (2.23%) BusinessObjects
10 16 (2.23%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 13 (1.81%) DynamoDB
11 13 (1.81%) SQL Server
12 10 (1.39%) NoSQL
12 10 (1.39%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 125 (17.41%) JIRA
2 98 (13.65%) Git
3 92 (12.81%) GitLab
4 85 (11.84%) Jenkins
5 37 (5.15%) Zephyr
6 36 (5.01%) JUnit
7 32 (4.46%) Postman
8 28 (3.90%) Selenium
9 20 (2.79%) Maven
10 19 (2.65%) Bitbucket
11 18 (2.51%) Cucumber
11 18 (2.51%) WebDriver
12 15 (2.09%) JMeter
12 15 (2.09%) Mockito
13 12 (1.67%) SonarQube
14 10 (1.39%) Artifactory
15 7 (0.97%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 7 (0.97%) Bitbucket Server
15 7 (0.97%) DbUnit
15 7 (0.97%) jMock
General
1 186 (25.91%) Social Skills
2 163 (22.70%) Public Sector
3 58 (8.08%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (5.15%) Finance
5 16 (2.23%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (2.09%) Influencing Skills
7 10 (1.39%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 10 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
8 9 (1.25%) Documentation Skills
8 9 (1.25%) Telecoms
9 7 (0.97%) Advertising
10 6 (0.84%) Legal
11 4 (0.56%) Aerospace
11 4 (0.56%) Military
12 2 (0.28%) Banking
12 2 (0.28%) Billing
12 2 (0.28%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 162 (22.56%) Data Engineer
2 82 (11.42%) Architect
3 66 (9.19%) Developer
4 51 (7.10%) Senior
5 47 (6.55%) Analyst
6 42 (5.85%) Tester
7 39 (5.43%) Data Architect
8 36 (5.01%) Java Developer
9 33 (4.60%) Lead
10 31 (4.32%) Consultant
10 31 (4.32%) Scrum Master
11 24 (3.34%) Technical Architect
12 22 (3.06%) QA Tester
13 20 (2.79%) SAS Engineer
13 20 (2.79%) Software Engineer
13 20 (2.79%) Test Analyst
14 18 (2.51%) Administrator
14 18 (2.51%) SAP Consultant
14 18 (2.51%) SAS Architect
15 16 (2.23%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 48 (6.69%) Spring
2 32 (4.46%) Spring Boot
3 23 (3.20%) REST
4 17 (2.37%) RESTful
4 17 (2.37%) SOAP
5 15 (2.09%) WireMock
6 14 (1.95%) JPA
6 14 (1.95%) Web Services
7 13 (1.81%) ActiveMQ
8 12 (1.67%) AngularJS
8 12 (1.67%) Hibernate
8 12 (1.67%) Spring Cloud
9 10 (1.39%) JSON
9 10 (1.39%) Node.js
9 10 (1.39%) Spring Batch
9 10 (1.39%) Spring Integration
10 9 (1.25%) AWS CDK
11 7 (0.97%) Bootstrap
11 7 (0.97%) PowerMock
12 6 (0.84%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 42 (5.85%) Product Ownership
2 41 (5.71%) Cloud Native
3 26 (3.62%) Distributed Systems
4 15 (2.09%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (1.81%) Enterprise Software
5 13 (1.81%) Onboarding
6 11 (1.53%) Distributed Architecture
6 11 (1.53%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (1.25%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (1.11%) Data Centre
9 7 (0.97%) Enterprise Cloud
9 7 (0.97%) SCADA
10 6 (0.84%) Autonomous Agent
11 5 (0.70%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.56%) Data Structures
12 4 (0.56%) Robotics
12 4 (0.56%) Security Operations Centre
13 3 (0.42%) Cyber Threat
13 3 (0.42%) Distributed Applications
13 3 (0.42%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 58 (8.08%) Unix
2 43 (5.99%) Linux
3 31 (4.32%) Windows
4 10 (1.39%) Windows Server
5 4 (0.56%) Solaris
6 3 (0.42%) Android
7 2 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.28%) Mac OS
7 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 1 (0.14%) AIX
8 1 (0.14%) CentOS
8 1 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.14%) HPUX
8 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 249 (34.68%) Agile
2 150 (20.89%) CI/CD
3 148 (20.61%) Test Automation
4 141 (19.64%) Continuous Improvement
4 141 (19.64%) ETL
5 140 (19.50%) DevOps
6 126 (17.55%) Scrum
7 119 (16.57%) Migration
8 118 (16.43%) Problem-Solving
9 112 (15.60%) Analytics
10 83 (11.56%) Data Integration
11 75 (10.45%) Data Pipeline
12 74 (10.31%) Data Modelling
13 71 (9.89%) Containerisation
14 70 (9.75%) Stakeholder Management
15 57 (7.94%) Stakeholder Engagement
16 55 (7.66%) Business Intelligence
17 54 (7.52%) Validation
18 51 (7.10%) Microservices
18 51 (7.10%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 212 (29.53%) SQL
2 90 (12.53%) Java
3 52 (7.24%) PL/SQL
4 37 (5.15%) Python
5 18 (2.51%) Shell Script
6 16 (2.23%) JavaScript
7 14 (1.95%) Bash
8 10 (1.39%) C
8 10 (1.39%) C#
9 9 (1.25%) ABAP
10 6 (0.84%) ProC
11 5 (0.70%) PowerShell
12 4 (0.56%) Scala
12 4 (0.56%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.42%) Go
13 3 (0.42%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.42%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.42%) VB
13 3 (0.42%) VB6
14 2 (0.28%) Kusto Query Language
Qualifications
1 718 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 43 (5.99%) BPSS Clearance
3 30 (4.18%) ISTQB
4 22 (3.06%) Microsoft Certification
5 14 (1.95%) DV Cleared
6 11 (1.53%) AWS Certification
6 11 (1.53%) SAFe Agilist
7 10 (1.39%) Degree
8 9 (1.25%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 8 (1.11%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 8 (1.11%) OCP
9 8 (1.11%) Oracle Certification
9 8 (1.11%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 6 (0.84%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.84%) CISSP
11 5 (0.70%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.56%) Computer Science Degree
12 4 (0.56%) MCSE
12 4 (0.56%) RHCA
12 4 (0.56%) SAS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 58 (8.08%) QA
2 47 (6.55%) Data Quality
3 23 (3.20%) Accessibility
4 16 (2.23%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.53%) NIST
6 9 (1.25%) SLA
7 8 (1.11%) NCSC
8 6 (0.84%) FATCA
8 6 (0.84%) GRC
9 4 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.56%) PMO
10 3 (0.42%) GDPR
11 1 (0.14%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.14%) P3O
11 1 (0.14%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 90 (12.53%) Docker
2 15 (2.09%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.53%) Active Directory
4 8 (1.11%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.11%) vSphere
5 7 (0.97%) Postfix
6 6 (0.84%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.70%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.42%) HDFS
9 2 (0.28%) Snort
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 84 (11.70%) Kubernetes
2 50 (6.96%) Grafana
3 30 (4.18%) Terraform
4 25 (3.48%) Prometheus
5 16 (2.23%) Ansible
6 5 (0.70%) Podman
7 4 (0.56%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.56%) vCenter Server
7 4 (0.56%) vMotion
8 3 (0.42%) QRadar
9 2 (0.28%) CSIRT
9 2 (0.28%) Kibana
9 2 (0.28%) SCCM
9 2 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.28%) WMI
10 1 (0.14%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.14%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.14%) Iperf
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 189 (26.32%) Oracle
2 103 (14.35%) Talend
3 60 (8.36%) Denodo
3 60 (8.36%) Microsoft
4 48 (6.69%) Informatica
5 40 (5.57%) SAP
6 23 (3.20%) Atlassian
7 21 (2.92%) VMware
8 15 (2.09%) Dynatrace
9 14 (1.95%) ServiceNow
10 13 (1.81%) Sage
11 12 (1.67%) Cisco
12 10 (1.39%) Jaspersoft
13 8 (1.11%) webMethods
14 7 (0.97%) Databricks
14 7 (0.97%) Splunk
15 6 (0.84%) Cloudera
16 5 (0.70%) F5
17 4 (0.56%) 3PAR
17 4 (0.56%) Nimble Storage