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

6 months to
10 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 6 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -3 +9
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 729 260 266
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.90% 15.30% 14.39%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.40% 45.69% 42.22%
Number of daily rates quoted 550 184 188
10th Percentile £358 £300 £313
25th Percentile £413 £422 £362
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £511
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -2.20% -7.05%
75th Percentile £543 £573 £612
90th Percentile £633 £665 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
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 £55.25
% change year-on-year +152.49% -54.48% -3.63%

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 1,207 569 630
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 34.60% 33.49% 34.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 863 374 412
10th Percentile £330 £178 £313
25th Percentile £405 £375 £371
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £519
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -3.66% -5.64%
75th Percentile £550 £575 £625
90th Percentile £656 £648 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 84 48 23
10th Percentile £16.03 - £14.00
25th Percentile £30.83 £18.87 £19.74
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £33.93
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -11.58% +31.51%
75th Percentile £67.84 £43.44 £53.13
90th Percentile £75.00 £50.75 £58.75
England median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +114.71% -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 10 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 10 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 10 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 +1 459 £469 -10.67% 44
Birmingham +1 96 £475 - 23
Warwickshire -11 54 £450 -10.00% 12
Solihull 0 45 £463 +2.78% 2
Herefordshire 0 23 £700 -6.67% 4
Worcestershire -6 10 £675 -3.57% 4
Coventry -17 9 £425 +54.55% 4
Staffordshire -2 5 £388 -21.72% 2
Walsall - 4 £600 - 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
1 104 (14.27%) SAS
2 91 (12.48%) Confluence
3 19 (2.61%) WebLogic
4 17 (2.33%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (1.78%) SharePoint
6 9 (1.23%) Tuxedo
7 3 (0.41%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.27%) Apache
8 2 (0.27%) 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 15 (2.06%) Microsoft Office
2 14 (1.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.92%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 7 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.82%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.55%) Notepad++
6 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 8 (1.10%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.69%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.27%) 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
1 187 (25.65%) AWS
2 84 (11.52%) Azure
3 49 (6.72%) GitHub
4 44 (6.04%) Amazon S3
5 40 (5.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 39 (5.35%) GitHub Actions
7 38 (5.21%) Amazon EC2
8 28 (3.84%) Power Platform
8 28 (3.84%) Serverless
9 24 (3.29%) AWS Lambda
10 23 (3.16%) Azure DevOps
11 21 (2.88%) Amazon ECS
11 21 (2.88%) Amazon EKS
12 20 (2.74%) GCP
13 18 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
13 18 (2.47%) Virtual Private Cloud
14 16 (2.19%) AWS KMS
15 14 (1.92%) Amazon SQS
16 12 (1.65%) Route 53
17 11 (1.51%) AWS CodePipeline
Communications & Networking
1 20 (2.74%) Firewall
2 8 (1.10%) DNS
2 8 (1.10%) SSL
2 8 (1.10%) VPN
2 8 (1.10%) WAN
3 6 (0.82%) LAN
3 6 (0.82%) Network Security
4 5 (0.69%) TCP/IP
5 4 (0.55%) DHCP
5 4 (0.55%) Intrusion Detection
5 4 (0.55%) PuTTY
5 4 (0.55%) SNMP
5 4 (0.55%) WinSCP
6 3 (0.41%) DMVPN
6 3 (0.41%) Internet
6 3 (0.41%) Intranet
6 3 (0.41%) IPsec
6 3 (0.41%) SD-WAN
6 3 (0.41%) VLAN
7 2 (0.27%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 79 (10.84%) Pentaho
2 78 (10.70%) Data Warehouse
3 49 (6.72%) PostgreSQL
4 34 (4.66%) Oracle Reports
5 30 (4.12%) MySQL
6 29 (3.98%) Oracle Database
7 27 (3.70%) Data Lake
8 24 (3.29%) Amazon RDS
9 20 (2.74%) Amazon Redshift
9 20 (2.74%) Metadata
10 19 (2.61%) Power BI
10 19 (2.61%) SAS Enterprise Guide
10 19 (2.61%) SAS Visual Analytics
11 16 (2.19%) Base SAS
11 16 (2.19%) BusinessObjects
11 16 (2.19%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
12 15 (2.06%) DynamoDB
13 13 (1.78%) SQL Server
14 12 (1.65%) Amazon Aurora
15 10 (1.37%) NoSQL
Development Applications
1 127 (17.42%) JIRA
2 100 (13.72%) Git
3 92 (12.62%) GitLab
4 86 (11.80%) Jenkins
5 38 (5.21%) JUnit
6 33 (4.53%) Zephyr
7 28 (3.84%) Postman
7 28 (3.84%) Selenium
8 22 (3.02%) Maven
9 19 (2.61%) Bitbucket
10 18 (2.47%) Cucumber
10 18 (2.47%) WebDriver
11 17 (2.33%) Mockito
12 15 (2.06%) JMeter
13 14 (1.92%) SonarQube
14 10 (1.37%) Artifactory
15 9 (1.23%) Atlassian Bamboo
16 8 (1.10%) Bitbucket Server
16 8 (1.10%) DbUnit
16 8 (1.10%) jMock
General
1 190 (26.06%) Social Skills
2 163 (22.36%) Public Sector
3 60 (8.23%) Analytical Skills
4 37 (5.08%) Finance
5 17 (2.33%) Organisational Skills
6 15 (2.06%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (1.65%) Presentation Skills
8 11 (1.51%) Documentation Skills
9 9 (1.23%) Inclusion and Diversity
9 9 (1.23%) Telecoms
10 7 (0.96%) Advertising
11 6 (0.82%) Legal
12 4 (0.55%) Aerospace
12 4 (0.55%) Military
13 2 (0.27%) Banking
13 2 (0.27%) Billing
13 2 (0.27%) General Ledger
Job Titles
1 161 (22.09%) Data Engineer
2 81 (11.11%) Architect
3 66 (9.05%) Developer
4 50 (6.86%) Senior
5 49 (6.72%) Analyst
6 39 (5.35%) Tester
7 38 (5.21%) Data Architect
7 38 (5.21%) Java Developer
8 34 (4.66%) Lead
9 33 (4.53%) Consultant
10 31 (4.25%) Scrum Master
11 22 (3.02%) Technical Architect
12 21 (2.88%) Software Engineer
13 20 (2.74%) QA Tester
13 20 (2.74%) SAS Engineer
13 20 (2.74%) Test Analyst
14 18 (2.47%) Administrator
14 18 (2.47%) SAP Consultant
14 18 (2.47%) SAS Architect
15 16 (2.19%) DBA
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 52 (7.13%) Spring
2 36 (4.94%) Spring Boot
3 23 (3.16%) REST
4 19 (2.61%) SOAP
5 18 (2.47%) RESTful
6 16 (2.19%) JPA
7 15 (2.06%) ActiveMQ
7 15 (2.06%) WireMock
8 14 (1.92%) AngularJS
8 14 (1.92%) Hibernate
8 14 (1.92%) Spring Cloud
8 14 (1.92%) Web Services
9 12 (1.65%) Node.js
9 12 (1.65%) Spring Batch
9 12 (1.65%) Spring Integration
10 9 (1.23%) AWS CDK
10 9 (1.23%) JSON
11 8 (1.10%) Bootstrap
11 8 (1.10%) PowerMock
12 6 (0.82%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 42 (5.76%) Cloud Native
2 41 (5.62%) Product Ownership
3 27 (3.70%) Distributed Systems
4 15 (2.06%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (1.78%) Onboarding
6 11 (1.51%) Data Centre
6 11 (1.51%) Distributed Architecture
6 11 (1.51%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (1.51%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (1.23%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (0.96%) Enterprise Cloud
8 7 (0.96%) SCADA
9 6 (0.82%) Autonomous Agent
10 5 (0.69%) Data Structures
10 5 (0.69%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (0.69%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.55%) Robotics
12 3 (0.41%) CSOC
12 3 (0.41%) Low-Code
12 3 (0.41%) Private Cloud
Operating Systems
1 58 (7.96%) Unix
2 49 (6.72%) Linux
3 33 (4.53%) Windows
4 10 (1.37%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.69%) Solaris
6 4 (0.55%) Android
6 4 (0.55%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.27%) AIX
7 2 (0.27%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.27%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.14%) CentOS
8 1 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.14%) HPUX
8 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 250 (34.29%) Agile
2 151 (20.71%) CI/CD
3 143 (19.62%) Continuous Improvement
4 142 (19.48%) Test Automation
5 140 (19.20%) DevOps
6 136 (18.66%) ETL
7 126 (17.28%) Scrum
8 121 (16.60%) Problem-Solving
9 118 (16.19%) Migration
10 112 (15.36%) Analytics
11 81 (11.11%) Data Integration
12 74 (10.15%) Containerisation
12 74 (10.15%) Data Modelling
12 74 (10.15%) Data Pipeline
13 71 (9.74%) Stakeholder Management
14 56 (7.68%) Microservices
15 54 (7.41%) Business Intelligence
15 54 (7.41%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 54 (7.41%) Validation
16 50 (6.86%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 212 (29.08%) SQL
2 98 (13.44%) Java
3 55 (7.54%) PL/SQL
4 37 (5.08%) Python
5 20 (2.74%) Shell Script
6 14 (1.92%) Bash
7 13 (1.78%) JavaScript
8 10 (1.37%) C
8 10 (1.37%) C#
9 9 (1.23%) ABAP
10 6 (0.82%) ProC
11 5 (0.69%) PowerShell
12 4 (0.55%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.55%) Scala
12 4 (0.55%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.41%) Go
13 3 (0.41%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.41%) Kusto Query Language
13 3 (0.41%) VB
13 3 (0.41%) VB6
Qualifications
1 729 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 43 (5.90%) BPSS Clearance
3 27 (3.70%) ISTQB
4 21 (2.88%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (2.06%) DV Cleared
6 11 (1.51%) AWS Certification
6 11 (1.51%) Degree
6 11 (1.51%) SAFe Agilist
7 9 (1.23%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 8 (1.10%) Cisco Certification
8 8 (1.10%) OCP
8 8 (1.10%) Oracle Certification
8 8 (1.10%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 7 (0.96%) CISSP
10 5 (0.69%) Azure Certification
10 5 (0.69%) CCNA
11 4 (0.55%) CISM
11 4 (0.55%) Computer Science Degree
11 4 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 4 (0.55%) SAS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 54 (7.41%) QA
2 47 (6.45%) Data Quality
3 22 (3.02%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.47%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 12 (1.65%) NIST
6 9 (1.23%) NCSC
6 9 (1.23%) SLA
7 6 (0.82%) FATCA
7 6 (0.82%) GRC
8 4 (0.55%) Cyber Essentials
8 4 (0.55%) GDPR
9 3 (0.41%) PMO
10 2 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.27%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.14%) P3O
11 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 92 (12.62%) Docker
2 15 (2.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.51%) Active Directory
4 8 (1.10%) Postfix
4 8 (1.10%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.10%) vSphere
5 6 (0.82%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.69%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.69%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.41%) HDFS
7 3 (0.41%) Snort
8 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 86 (11.80%) Kubernetes
2 52 (7.13%) Grafana
3 30 (4.12%) Terraform
4 25 (3.43%) Prometheus
5 16 (2.19%) Ansible
6 6 (0.82%) Podman
7 4 (0.55%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.55%) vCenter Server
7 4 (0.55%) vMotion
8 3 (0.41%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.41%) QRadar
9 2 (0.27%) Kibana
9 2 (0.27%) SCCM
9 2 (0.27%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.27%) 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 (25.93%) Oracle
2 102 (13.99%) Talend
3 60 (8.23%) Microsoft
4 59 (8.09%) Denodo
5 48 (6.58%) Informatica
6 40 (5.49%) SAP
7 24 (3.29%) Atlassian
8 21 (2.88%) VMware
9 20 (2.74%) ServiceNow
10 15 (2.06%) Dynatrace
11 13 (1.78%) Cisco
11 13 (1.78%) Sage
12 12 (1.65%) Jaspersoft
13 8 (1.10%) Splunk
13 8 (1.10%) webMethods
14 7 (0.96%) Databricks
15 6 (0.82%) Cloudera
16 5 (0.69%) F5
17 4 (0.55%) 3PAR
17 4 (0.55%) Nimble Storage