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

6 months to
30 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 11 7
Rank change year-on-year +8 -4 +9
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 491 168 231
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 19.98% 10.83% 12.49%
As % of the Qualifications category 57.09% 34.64% 40.31%
Number of daily rates quoted 379 114 178
10th Percentile £352 £400 £325
25th Percentile £455 £477 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £551 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.90% +10.20% -7.41%
75th Percentile £580 £649 £600
90th Percentile £688 £700 £664
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -2.22%
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% +18.18%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.81
90th Percentile - - £69.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £57.33
% change year-on-year -58.08% +4.66% -5.24%

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 860 485 573
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.00% 31.27% 30.97%
Number of daily rates quoted 609 310 350
10th Percentile £305 £172 £294
25th Percentile £422 £400 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £518 £475
Median % change year-on-year -0.97% +8.95% -5.00%
75th Percentile £575 £600 £588
90th Percentile £675 £700 £664
England median daily rate £522 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -0.57% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 43 18 42
10th Percentile £14.00 £17.26 £18.06
25th Percentile £16.30 £18.50 £23.00
Median hourly rate £18.87 £24.86 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -24.10% -12.76% +42.50%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £39.20 £52.50 £68.63
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £46.39
% change year-on-year -45.54% -0.45% +3.09%

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 30 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 30 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 30 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 +1 211 £515 +4.78% 30
Birmingham +11 94 £475 -31.06% 16
Warwickshire +3 77 £380 -31.53% 3
Worcestershire +10 64 £650 +36.84% 7
Herefordshire +1 48 £638 +13.33% 3
Solihull -5 5 £425 +11.11%
Coventry - 5 £325 -
Staffordshire +5 4 £270 -55.00% 8
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
1 101 (20.57%) SAS
2 36 (7.33%) Confluence
3 19 (3.87%) WebLogic
4 9 (1.83%) Apache
5 8 (1.63%) nginx
6 7 (1.43%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (1.22%) Tuxedo
8 3 (0.61%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.20%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.20%) SAP EP
9 1 (0.20%) SharePoint
Applications
1 7 (1.43%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 6 (1.22%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (0.81%) Microsoft Office
4 3 (0.61%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.41%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.20%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.20%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.41%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.41%) SAP ERP
1 2 (0.41%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.20%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.20%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.20%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 96 (19.55%) Azure
2 86 (17.52%) AWS
3 30 (6.11%) GitHub
4 26 (5.30%) OpenShift
5 20 (4.07%) Amazon EC2
5 20 (4.07%) Amazon S3
6 18 (3.67%) Microsoft 365
7 17 (3.46%) Serverless
8 16 (3.26%) GCP
9 15 (3.05%) Azure Data Factory
10 14 (2.85%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 13 (2.65%) Amazon ELB
11 13 (2.65%) SaaS
11 13 (2.65%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 11 (2.24%) AWS KMS
12 11 (2.24%) Power Platform
13 10 (2.04%) Azure DevOps
14 9 (1.83%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (1.83%) Datadog
14 9 (1.83%) GitHub Actions
Communications & Networking
1 39 (7.94%) Firewall
2 34 (6.92%) VPN
3 32 (6.52%) WAN
4 28 (5.70%) IPsec
5 26 (5.30%) DNS
6 21 (4.28%) BGP
6 21 (4.28%) MPLS
7 15 (3.05%) Network Security
7 15 (3.05%) Wireless
8 13 (2.65%) SMTP
9 11 (2.24%) FTP
9 11 (2.24%) HTTP
9 11 (2.24%) SSH
9 11 (2.24%) SSL
10 9 (1.83%) Cisco IPT
10 9 (1.83%) DMVPN
11 8 (1.63%) Intrusion Detection
12 7 (1.43%) IMAP
12 7 (1.43%) OpenLDAP
13 6 (1.22%) LAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 42 (8.55%) Pentaho
2 41 (8.35%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 30 (6.11%) Oracle Database
4 29 (5.91%) PostgreSQL
5 21 (4.28%) Amazon RDS
6 19 (3.87%) Metadata
7 16 (3.26%) Elasticsearch
8 14 (2.85%) Data Warehouse
9 12 (2.44%) SAS Visual Analytics
10 11 (2.24%) Metadata Repository
11 9 (1.83%) Redis
12 7 (1.43%) Amazon Aurora
12 7 (1.43%) MongoDB
13 5 (1.02%) Power BI
14 4 (0.81%) InfluxDB
14 4 (0.81%) Relational Database
15 3 (0.61%) SAS Data Integration Studio
16 2 (0.41%) Amazon Redshift
16 2 (0.41%) Data Hub
16 2 (0.41%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 76 (15.48%) Git
2 71 (14.46%) Jenkins
3 69 (14.05%) JIRA
4 36 (7.33%) GitLab
5 20 (4.07%) JUnit
6 19 (3.87%) Selenium
7 12 (2.44%) SonarQube
8 11 (2.24%) Vagrant
9 7 (1.43%) Mockito
10 6 (1.22%) Cucumber
10 6 (1.22%) Maven
10 6 (1.22%) MSI
11 3 (0.61%) NeoLoad
12 2 (0.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 2 (0.41%) Postman
13 1 (0.20%) Bitbucket
13 1 (0.20%) JMeter
13 1 (0.20%) TestDirector
General
1 122 (24.85%) Social Skills
2 64 (13.03%) Public Sector
3 42 (8.55%) Analytical Skills
4 21 (4.28%) Finance
5 14 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
6 13 (2.65%) Telecoms
7 9 (1.83%) Aeronautics
8 7 (1.43%) Legal
8 7 (1.43%) Presentation Skills
9 2 (0.41%) Electronics
9 2 (0.41%) General Ledger
9 2 (0.41%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.41%) Manufacturing
9 2 (0.41%) Marketing
10 1 (0.20%) Advertising
10 1 (0.20%) Aerospace
10 1 (0.20%) Automotive
10 1 (0.20%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.20%) Police
10 1 (0.20%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 49 (9.98%) Data Engineer
2 42 (8.55%) Senior
3 35 (7.13%) Architect
4 31 (6.31%) Developer
5 29 (5.91%) Platform Engineer
6 26 (5.30%) Analyst
7 23 (4.68%) Support Engineer
8 20 (4.07%) Release Manager
9 19 (3.87%) AWS Engineer
10 17 (3.46%) Test Specialist
11 16 (3.26%) Data Architect
12 15 (3.05%) DevOps Engineer
13 14 (2.85%) Network Engineer
13 14 (2.85%) Tester
14 13 (2.65%) Business Analyst
14 13 (2.65%) Consultant
14 13 (2.65%) Senior Data Engineer
14 13 (2.65%) Senior Developer
15 12 (2.44%) Cloud Platform Engineer
15 12 (2.44%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.11%) REST
2 15 (3.05%) pytest
2 15 (3.05%) Spring
2 15 (3.05%) Spring Boot
3 13 (2.65%) Keycloak
3 13 (2.65%) LDAP
4 12 (2.44%) FastAPI
4 12 (2.44%) Flask
4 12 (2.44%) Kafka
4 12 (2.44%) YAML
5 10 (2.04%) Middleware
6 9 (1.83%) 802.1X
6 9 (1.83%) GraphQL
6 9 (1.83%) WebSockets
7 8 (1.63%) gRPC
7 8 (1.63%) React
8 6 (1.22%) HTML
8 6 (1.22%) JPA
8 6 (1.22%) OAuth
8 6 (1.22%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 23 (4.68%) Cloud Native
2 20 (4.07%) Onboarding
3 19 (3.87%) PKI
4 18 (3.67%) Data Centre
5 12 (2.44%) Replication
6 11 (2.24%) Driving Licence
6 11 (2.24%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (2.24%) Hybrid Cloud
7 8 (1.63%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.63%) SCADA
8 7 (1.43%) FPGA
8 7 (1.43%) Product Ownership
9 6 (1.22%) VHDL
10 5 (1.02%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.02%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.02%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (1.02%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.81%) Management Information System
11 4 (0.81%) Self-Motivation
12 3 (0.61%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 57 (11.61%) Windows
2 56 (11.41%) Linux
3 23 (4.68%) Unix
4 11 (2.24%) Amazon Linux
4 11 (2.24%) VMS
5 9 (1.83%) Ubuntu
6 8 (1.63%) Windows Server
7 7 (1.43%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.61%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.41%) CentOS
10 1 (0.20%) AIX
10 1 (0.20%) Android
10 1 (0.20%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.20%) Solaris
10 1 (0.20%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (28.92%) CI/CD
1 142 (28.92%) DevOps
2 114 (23.22%) Agile
3 92 (18.74%) Analytics
4 84 (17.11%) Problem-Solving
5 66 (13.44%) Scrum
5 66 (13.44%) Test Automation
6 64 (13.03%) Continuous Improvement
7 63 (12.83%) Stakeholder Management
8 59 (12.02%) Containerisation
8 59 (12.02%) Data Integration
9 58 (11.81%) Data Pipeline
10 56 (11.41%) Business Intelligence
11 53 (10.79%) Data Modelling
11 53 (10.79%) ETL
12 51 (10.39%) Migration
13 45 (9.16%) Configuration Management
14 44 (8.96%) Change Management
15 37 (7.54%) Platform Engineering
16 34 (6.92%) Deployment Automation
Programming Languages
1 111 (22.61%) SQL
2 86 (17.52%) Python
3 34 (6.92%) PowerShell
4 32 (6.52%) Java
5 24 (4.89%) Go
6 17 (3.46%) Bash
7 16 (3.26%) Shell Script
8 11 (2.24%) Groovy
9 8 (1.63%) JavaScript
10 6 (1.22%) MATLAB
10 6 (1.22%) Perl
10 6 (1.22%) PL/SQL
11 5 (1.02%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.61%) ABAP
13 2 (0.41%) C#
13 2 (0.41%) C++
13 2 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.20%) Bicep
14 1 (0.20%) Search Processing Language
14 1 (0.20%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 491 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 32 (6.52%) DV Cleared
3 24 (4.89%) Azure Certification
4 16 (3.26%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.65%) Degree
6 12 (2.44%) AWS Certification
7 7 (1.43%) CISSP
7 7 (1.43%) IIBA
8 6 (1.22%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (1.02%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 5 (1.02%) Cisco Certification
10 4 (0.81%) CCIE
10 4 (0.81%) CCNP
10 4 (0.81%) CEH
10 4 (0.81%) CISM
11 2 (0.41%) CCA
11 2 (0.41%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.41%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.41%) GCIH
11 2 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 30 (6.11%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.46%) NCSC
3 13 (2.65%) NIST
3 13 (2.65%) QA
4 11 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.63%) Accessibility
6 6 (1.22%) GDPR
7 4 (0.81%) WCAG
8 2 (0.41%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.41%) PMO
9 1 (0.20%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.20%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.20%) SLA
System Software
1 113 (23.01%) Docker
2 15 (3.05%) Active Directory
3 11 (2.24%) DFS Replication
4 9 (1.83%) Postfix
5 7 (1.43%) Dovecot
5 7 (1.43%) Squid
6 3 (0.61%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.61%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.41%) Terminal Services
8 1 (0.20%) Firmware
8 1 (0.20%) Snort
Systems Management
1 125 (25.46%) Kubernetes
2 41 (8.35%) Grafana
3 39 (7.94%) Terraform
4 36 (7.33%) Prometheus
5 15 (3.05%) Ansible
6 10 (2.04%) Kibana
7 8 (1.63%) Progress Chef
8 7 (1.43%) Nessus
8 7 (1.43%) Proxmox
9 4 (0.81%) logstash
10 3 (0.61%) FortiGate
11 2 (0.41%) Docker Swarm
11 2 (0.41%) QRadar
12 1 (0.20%) CSIRT
12 1 (0.20%) Fluentd
12 1 (0.20%) Host Intrusion Detection System
12 1 (0.20%) HP ALM
12 1 (0.20%) Puppet
12 1 (0.20%) Rsyslog
12 1 (0.20%) SCCM
Vendors
1 94 (19.14%) Oracle
2 54 (11.00%) Microsoft
3 46 (9.37%) Talend
4 39 (7.94%) Cisco
5 36 (7.33%) Denodo
6 35 (7.13%) ServiceNow
7 32 (6.52%) Juniper
8 31 (6.31%) Splunk
9 29 (5.91%) Dynatrace
10 19 (3.87%) AppDynamics
11 15 (3.05%) F5
12 14 (2.85%) CheckPoint
13 13 (2.65%) CyberArk
14 12 (2.44%) SAP
15 10 (2.04%) Informatica
16 9 (1.83%) Blue Coat
17 7 (1.43%) Jaspersoft
18 5 (1.02%) Fujitsu
18 5 (1.02%) Remedy
18 5 (1.02%) Xilinx