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

6 months to
31 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 7 4
Rank change year-on-year +4 -3 +12
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 648 193 255
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.09% 13.69% 13.14%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.56% 42.32% 39.91%
Number of daily rates quoted 480 136 182
10th Percentile £358 £300 £298
25th Percentile £419 £425 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £520 £500
Median % change year-on-year -9.81% +4.00% -14.89%
75th Percentile £528 £616 £574
90th Percentile £626 £700 £671
England median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 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 £52.50 £32.00 £49.28
% change year-on-year +64.06% -35.06% -14.30%

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 1,070 456 639
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 33.18% 32.34% 32.92%
Number of daily rates quoted 748 306 410
10th Percentile £327 £150 £290
25th Percentile £408 £314 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £495 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.25% -1.00% -7.41%
75th Percentile £544 £588 £593
90th Percentile £650 £689 £688
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 24 37
10th Percentile £17.18 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.06 £18.51 £21.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.15 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +74.16% +5.77% +46.15%
75th Percentile £67.84 £50.00 £43.75
90th Percentile £75.00 £57.05 £58.75
England median hourly rate £47.50 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.15% -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 31 May 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 31 May 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 31 May 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 +2 394 £469 -8.54% 17
Birmingham -3 80 £475 -13.64% 17
Warwickshire -8 64 £389 -22.24% 3
Solihull +2 32 £463 +6.32% 1
Herefordshire 0 28 £550 -21.43% 6
Worcestershire +5 20 £675 -3.57%
Staffordshire 0 4 £388 -21.72% 8
Coventry -15 2 £538 - 1
Wolverhampton -6 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
1 107 (16.51%) SAS
2 97 (14.97%) Confluence
3 24 (3.70%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.01%) Tuxedo
5 12 (1.85%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (1.08%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.62%) Apache
8 3 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.15%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.15%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.15%) SAP EP
Applications
1 8 (1.23%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (1.23%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 8 (1.23%) Microsoft Project
2 6 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.62%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 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
1 172 (26.54%) AWS
2 80 (12.35%) Azure
3 37 (5.71%) Amazon S3
4 34 (5.25%) GitHub
5 33 (5.09%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 32 (4.94%) Amazon EC2
7 28 (4.32%) GitHub Actions
8 25 (3.86%) GCP
9 20 (3.09%) Serverless
10 18 (2.78%) AWS KMS
11 17 (2.62%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 15 (2.31%) Amazon SQS
12 15 (2.31%) AWS Lambda
12 15 (2.31%) Power Platform
13 14 (2.16%) Route 53
14 13 (2.01%) Azure DevOps
15 11 (1.70%) Microsoft 365
16 10 (1.54%) Amazon ECS
16 10 (1.54%) Amazon EKS
16 10 (1.54%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.09%) Firewall
2 12 (1.85%) WAN
3 10 (1.54%) LAN
4 9 (1.39%) VPN
5 8 (1.23%) Network Security
6 7 (1.08%) BGP
6 7 (1.08%) Intrusion Detection
6 7 (1.08%) SSL
7 6 (0.93%) VLAN
7 6 (0.93%) Wireless
8 5 (0.77%) DNS
8 5 (0.77%) IPsec
8 5 (0.77%) MPLS
8 5 (0.77%) OSPF
8 5 (0.77%) WLAN
9 4 (0.62%) 5G
9 4 (0.62%) Internet
9 4 (0.62%) PuTTY
9 4 (0.62%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.62%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 68 (10.49%) Pentaho
2 61 (9.41%) Data Warehouse
3 45 (6.94%) PostgreSQL
4 33 (5.09%) Amazon RDS
5 29 (4.48%) Oracle Database
5 29 (4.48%) Oracle Reports
6 27 (4.17%) MySQL
7 20 (3.09%) Amazon Redshift
7 20 (3.09%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 18 (2.78%) Metadata
9 17 (2.62%) DynamoDB
10 14 (2.16%) Amazon Aurora
10 14 (2.16%) Power BI
11 13 (2.01%) BusinessObjects
12 12 (1.85%) SAS Visual Analytics
13 9 (1.39%) Data Lake
13 9 (1.39%) MongoDB
14 5 (0.77%) Base SAS
14 5 (0.77%) IDMS
14 5 (0.77%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 125 (19.29%) JIRA
2 87 (13.43%) GitLab
3 85 (13.12%) Git
4 77 (11.88%) Jenkins
5 35 (5.40%) JUnit
6 29 (4.48%) Zephyr
7 26 (4.01%) Selenium
8 24 (3.70%) Postman
9 16 (2.47%) Maven
9 16 (2.47%) Mockito
10 15 (2.31%) Bitbucket
10 15 (2.31%) Cucumber
10 15 (2.31%) JMeter
11 14 (2.16%) SonarQube
11 14 (2.16%) WebDriver
12 10 (1.54%) Artifactory
12 10 (1.54%) DbUnit
12 10 (1.54%) jMock
13 9 (1.39%) MSI
14 8 (1.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 162 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 108 (16.67%) Public Sector
3 65 (10.03%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (4.94%) Finance
5 17 (2.62%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
7 9 (1.39%) Organisational Skills
7 9 (1.39%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (1.08%) Telecoms
9 6 (0.93%) Advertising
10 4 (0.62%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.46%) Legal
12 2 (0.31%) Electronics
13 1 (0.15%) Banking
13 1 (0.15%) Billing
13 1 (0.15%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.15%) Military
13 1 (0.15%) Police
Job Titles
1 151 (23.30%) Data Engineer
2 67 (10.34%) Architect
3 48 (7.41%) Developer
4 46 (7.10%) Analyst
5 41 (6.33%) Senior
5 41 (6.33%) Tester
6 31 (4.78%) Java Developer
7 26 (4.01%) Lead
8 24 (3.70%) SAS Engineer
9 21 (3.24%) Business Analyst
10 20 (3.09%) Support Engineer
11 18 (2.78%) Data Architect
11 18 (2.78%) Project Manager
11 18 (2.78%) QA Tester
12 17 (2.62%) Scrum Master
12 17 (2.62%) Software Engineer
13 16 (2.47%) Administrator
13 16 (2.47%) Data Manager
13 16 (2.47%) Delivery Manager
13 16 (2.47%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 45 (6.94%) Spring
2 32 (4.94%) Spring Boot
3 22 (3.40%) REST
4 16 (2.47%) JPA
5 15 (2.31%) AngularJS
6 14 (2.16%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (2.16%) Hibernate
6 14 (2.16%) SOAP
6 14 (2.16%) Spring Batch
6 14 (2.16%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (2.16%) Spring Integration
6 14 (2.16%) Web Services
6 14 (2.16%) WireMock
7 12 (1.85%) Node.js
8 10 (1.54%) Middleware
8 10 (1.54%) PowerMock
9 8 (1.23%) AWS CDK
9 8 (1.23%) Bootstrap
9 8 (1.23%) RESTful
10 6 (0.93%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 33 (5.09%) Cloud Native
2 24 (3.70%) Distributed Systems
3 21 (3.24%) Product Ownership
4 15 (2.31%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (2.16%) Data Centre
6 13 (2.01%) Onboarding
7 12 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
8 9 (1.39%) Distributed Architecture
9 8 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (0.93%) Driving Licence
10 6 (0.93%) Private Cloud
11 5 (0.77%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (0.77%) Enterprise Cloud
11 5 (0.77%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (0.62%) CSOC
12 4 (0.62%) Data Structures
12 4 (0.62%) Robotics
12 4 (0.62%) SCADA
12 4 (0.62%) Security Operations Centre
13 3 (0.46%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 63 (9.72%) Unix
2 57 (8.80%) Linux
3 42 (6.48%) Windows
4 9 (1.39%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.77%) 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
1 206 (31.79%) Agile
2 133 (20.52%) CI/CD
3 123 (18.98%) ETL
4 122 (18.83%) DevOps
5 119 (18.36%) Test Automation
6 105 (16.20%) Scrum
7 104 (16.05%) Continuous Improvement
8 97 (14.97%) Migration
9 88 (13.58%) Analytics
10 86 (13.27%) Problem-Solving
10 86 (13.27%) Stakeholder Management
11 68 (10.49%) Data Integration
12 65 (10.03%) Data Modelling
13 60 (9.26%) Data Pipeline
14 58 (8.95%) Containerisation
15 54 (8.33%) Business Intelligence
16 52 (8.02%) Microservices
17 43 (6.64%) End-to-End Testing
17 43 (6.64%) Validation
18 42 (6.48%) Problem Management
Programming Languages
1 212 (32.72%) SQL
2 66 (10.19%) Java
3 48 (7.41%) PL/SQL
4 47 (7.25%) Python
5 24 (3.70%) Shell Script
6 17 (2.62%) Bash
7 15 (2.31%) PowerShell
8 7 (1.08%) Go
9 5 (0.77%) Perl
10 4 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.46%) C++
11 3 (0.46%) HiveQL
11 3 (0.46%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.46%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.31%) Bicep
12 2 (0.31%) C
12 2 (0.31%) C#
12 2 (0.31%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.15%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 648 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 21 (3.24%) ISTQB
3 19 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (2.01%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.70%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (1.54%) Degree
6 10 (1.54%) SAFe Agilist
7 8 (1.23%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 8 (1.23%) Azure Certification
7 8 (1.23%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.08%) CCNP
8 7 (1.08%) IIBA
8 7 (1.08%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 5 (0.77%) AWS Certification
9 5 (0.77%) CCIE
9 5 (0.77%) CCNA
9 5 (0.77%) CISSP
10 4 (0.62%) CISM
10 4 (0.62%) OCP
10 4 (0.62%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.40%) QA
2 33 (5.09%) Data Quality
3 16 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (1.85%) NIST
5 11 (1.70%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.39%) FATCA
7 8 (1.23%) GDPR
8 5 (0.77%) 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 88 (13.58%) Docker
2 10 (1.54%) Postfix
2 10 (1.54%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.08%) Active Directory
4 6 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (0.93%) vSphere
5 4 (0.62%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.62%) 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 90 (13.89%) Kubernetes
2 65 (10.03%) Grafana
3 33 (5.09%) Prometheus
4 25 (3.86%) Terraform
5 18 (2.78%) Ansible
6 5 (0.77%) Podman
6 5 (0.77%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.62%) CSIRT
7 4 (0.62%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.62%) 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
1 175 (27.01%) Oracle
2 107 (16.51%) Talend
3 60 (9.26%) Denodo
4 54 (8.33%) Informatica
5 38 (5.86%) Microsoft
6 23 (3.55%) Atlassian
7 21 (3.24%) Splunk
8 20 (3.09%) ServiceNow
9 18 (2.78%) Dynatrace
10 17 (2.62%) Cisco
11 16 (2.47%) VMware
12 15 (2.31%) SAP
13 14 (2.16%) Jaspersoft
14 12 (1.85%) Sage
15 9 (1.39%) AppDynamics
16 8 (1.23%) Fujitsu
17 7 (1.08%) HP
18 6 (0.93%) Databricks
18 6 (0.93%) Juniper
19 5 (0.77%) Red Hat