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

6 months to
28 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 5 5
Rank change year-on-year +2 0 +6
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 653 278 267
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 18.97% 15.93% 14.03%
As % of the Qualifications category 55.96% 47.04% 42.65%
Number of daily rates quoted 478 200 190
10th Percentile £360 £323 £338
25th Percentile £413 £425 £405
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £511 £525
Median % change year-on-year -8.02% -2.57% -4.64%
75th Percentile £575 £575 £612
90th Percentile £663 £638 £675
England median daily rate £535 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.90% - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 18 4
10th Percentile £14.18 - £13.48
25th Percentile £58.43 - £13.81
Median hourly rate £63.14 £18.87 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year +234.58% +4.83% -72.31%
75th Percentile £70.50 £25.15 £25.88
90th Percentile £75.00 - £32.85
England median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.13
% change year-on-year +151.03% -54.38% -3.85%

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 1,167 591 626
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 33.89% 33.87% 32.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 810 395 402
10th Percentile £331 £213 £308
25th Percentile £408 £398 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £473 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -5.40% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £575 £586 £634
90th Percentile £665 £638 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 47 18
10th Percentile £14.96 - £13.78
25th Percentile £33.99 £18.87 £19.35
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £28.25
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% +6.20% +2.72%
75th Percentile £67.84 £43.63 £48.44
90th Percentile £75.00 £51.00 £57.00
England median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
% change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%

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 28 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 28 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 28 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 0 414 £475 -9.52% 37
Birmingham -7 86 £518 +8.95% 54
Warwickshire -10 46 £425 -15.05% 10
Solihull +4 34 £463 +2.78% 4
Herefordshire 0 20 £700 - 5
Staffordshire +1 11 £388 +13.14% 11
Coventry -14 11 £425 +54.55% 3
Worcestershire -5 10 £650 +10.64% 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 78 (11.94%) SAS
2 67 (10.26%) Confluence
3 18 (2.76%) Apache Airflow
4 12 (1.84%) SharePoint
5 9 (1.38%) WebLogic
6 3 (0.46%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.46%) Tuxedo
7 2 (0.31%) Apache
7 2 (0.31%) Apache Spark
8 1 (0.15%) IIS
8 1 (0.15%) Jupyter
8 1 (0.15%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.15%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.15%) SAP EP
Applications
1 14 (2.14%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 12 (1.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 12 (1.84%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.07%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.61%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.61%) Notepad++
Business Applications
1 8 (1.23%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.77%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.31%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.15%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.15%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.15%) SAP CO
4 1 (0.15%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.15%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.15%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.15%) SAP FI/CO
4 1 (0.15%) SAP FI-CA
4 1 (0.15%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 161 (24.66%) AWS
2 72 (11.03%) Azure
3 42 (6.43%) GitHub
4 34 (5.21%) Amazon S3
5 32 (4.90%) GitHub Actions
6 31 (4.75%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 29 (4.44%) Amazon EC2
8 27 (4.13%) Power Platform
9 26 (3.98%) Serverless
10 23 (3.52%) AWS Lambda
11 22 (3.37%) Azure DevOps
12 21 (3.22%) Amazon ECS
12 21 (3.22%) Amazon EKS
13 17 (2.60%) Microsoft 365
14 14 (2.14%) GCP
14 14 (2.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 11 (1.68%) AWS CodePipeline
15 11 (1.68%) Dynamics 365
15 11 (1.68%) Power Automate
15 11 (1.68%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.45%) Firewall
2 7 (1.07%) DNS
2 7 (1.07%) SSL
2 7 (1.07%) WAN
3 6 (0.92%) LAN
3 6 (0.92%) VPN
4 5 (0.77%) TCP/IP
5 4 (0.61%) DHCP
5 4 (0.61%) Network Security
5 4 (0.61%) PuTTY
5 4 (0.61%) SNMP
5 4 (0.61%) WinSCP
6 3 (0.46%) Internet
6 3 (0.46%) Intranet
6 3 (0.46%) SD-WAN
7 2 (0.31%) DMVPN
7 2 (0.31%) HTTPS
7 2 (0.31%) ICMP
7 2 (0.31%) IPsec
7 2 (0.31%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (9.95%) Data Warehouse
2 60 (9.19%) Pentaho
3 30 (4.59%) PostgreSQL
4 28 (4.29%) Oracle Database
5 27 (4.13%) Data Lake
6 25 (3.83%) MySQL
7 21 (3.22%) Oracle Reports
8 19 (2.91%) SAS Enterprise Guide
8 19 (2.91%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 18 (2.76%) Metadata
10 17 (2.60%) Amazon Redshift
11 16 (2.45%) Base SAS
11 16 (2.45%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
11 16 (2.45%) Power BI
12 13 (1.99%) Amazon RDS
12 13 (1.99%) BusinessObjects
13 12 (1.84%) NoSQL
14 11 (1.68%) Relational Database
14 11 (1.68%) SQL Server
15 10 (1.53%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 96 (14.70%) JIRA
2 77 (11.79%) GitLab
3 65 (9.95%) Git
4 57 (8.73%) Jenkins
5 25 (3.83%) Zephyr
6 24 (3.68%) JUnit
7 21 (3.22%) Postman
8 19 (2.91%) Maven
9 17 (2.60%) Selenium
10 15 (2.30%) Bitbucket
11 12 (1.84%) Mockito
12 11 (1.68%) Cucumber
13 10 (1.53%) Artifactory
13 10 (1.53%) SonarQube
13 10 (1.53%) WebDriver
14 7 (1.07%) JMeter
15 5 (0.77%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 5 (0.77%) Bitbucket Server
15 5 (0.77%) DbUnit
15 5 (0.77%) jMock
General
1 168 (25.73%) Social Skills
2 158 (24.20%) Public Sector
3 52 (7.96%) Analytical Skills
4 41 (6.28%) Finance
5 13 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
6 12 (1.84%) Organisational Skills
7 11 (1.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
8 7 (1.07%) Documentation Skills
9 6 (0.92%) Telecoms
10 5 (0.77%) Legal
10 5 (0.77%) Military
10 5 (0.77%) Presentation Skills
11 4 (0.61%) Aerospace
12 3 (0.46%) Advertising
13 2 (0.31%) Banking
13 2 (0.31%) Billing
13 2 (0.31%) General Ledger
14 1 (0.15%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 133 (20.37%) Data Engineer
2 89 (13.63%) Architect
3 59 (9.04%) Developer
4 48 (7.35%) Senior
5 43 (6.58%) Data Architect
6 40 (6.13%) Analyst
7 37 (5.67%) Consultant
7 37 (5.67%) Lead
8 31 (4.75%) Scrum Master
9 26 (3.98%) Technical Architect
10 25 (3.83%) Tester
11 24 (3.68%) Java Developer
12 18 (2.76%) Project Manager
12 18 (2.76%) SAP Consultant
12 18 (2.76%) SAS Architect
12 18 (2.76%) Test Analyst
13 17 (2.60%) Administrator
13 17 (2.60%) Software Engineer
14 16 (2.45%) Data Manager
14 16 (2.45%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.51%) Spring
2 29 (4.44%) Terraform
3 26 (3.98%) Spring Boot
4 24 (3.68%) REST
5 19 (2.91%) SOAP
6 15 (2.30%) RESTful
7 11 (1.68%) JPA
7 11 (1.68%) JSON
7 11 (1.68%) Web Services
8 10 (1.53%) ActiveMQ
8 10 (1.53%) Oracle Fusion
9 9 (1.38%) AngularJS
9 9 (1.38%) AWS CDK
9 9 (1.38%) Hibernate
9 9 (1.38%) Spring Cloud
10 8 (1.23%) WireMock
11 7 (1.07%) Node.js
11 7 (1.07%) Spring Batch
11 7 (1.07%) Spring Integration
12 6 (0.92%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 44 (6.74%) Product Ownership
2 38 (5.82%) Cloud Native
3 17 (2.60%) Distributed Systems
4 14 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.14%) Onboarding
5 12 (1.84%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (1.68%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (1.38%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (1.07%) Distributed Architecture
8 7 (1.07%) SCADA
9 6 (0.92%) Autonomous Agent
9 6 (0.92%) Data Centre
9 6 (0.92%) Enterprise Cloud
10 4 (0.61%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (0.61%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.61%) Self-Motivation
11 3 (0.46%) Low-Code
12 2 (0.31%) Data Fabric
12 2 (0.31%) Security Operations Centre
12 2 (0.31%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 44 (6.74%) Unix
2 37 (5.67%) Linux
3 24 (3.68%) Windows
4 10 (1.53%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.46%) Solaris
6 2 (0.31%) Android
6 2 (0.31%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.31%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.15%) AIX
7 1 (0.15%) CentOS
7 1 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.15%) HPUX
7 1 (0.15%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.15%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 213 (32.62%) Agile
2 121 (18.53%) CI/CD
3 119 (18.22%) DevOps
4 116 (17.76%) Continuous Improvement
5 110 (16.85%) Test Automation
6 109 (16.69%) Migration
7 104 (15.93%) Scrum
8 103 (15.77%) ETL
9 99 (15.16%) Analytics
10 97 (14.85%) Problem-Solving
11 71 (10.87%) Data Integration
12 69 (10.57%) Stakeholder Management
13 61 (9.34%) Data Pipeline
13 61 (9.34%) Stakeholder Engagement
14 58 (8.88%) Containerisation
15 57 (8.73%) Data Modelling
16 51 (7.81%) Technical Leadership
17 44 (6.74%) Observability
18 43 (6.58%) Validation
19 41 (6.28%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 156 (23.89%) SQL
2 72 (11.03%) Java
3 35 (5.36%) PL/SQL
4 32 (4.90%) Python
5 22 (3.37%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.30%) Shell Script
7 11 (1.68%) C#
8 10 (1.53%) Bash
8 10 (1.53%) C
9 9 (1.38%) ABAP
10 6 (0.92%) PowerShell
10 6 (0.92%) ProC
11 5 (0.77%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.61%) COBOL
12 4 (0.61%) Scala
13 3 (0.46%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.46%) VB
13 3 (0.46%) VB6
14 2 (0.31%) Go
14 2 (0.31%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 653 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 51 (7.81%) BPSS Clearance
3 22 (3.37%) ISTQB
3 22 (3.37%) Microsoft Certification
4 14 (2.14%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.68%) SAFe Agilist
6 10 (1.53%) AWS Certification
7 9 (1.38%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 8 (1.23%) Degree
8 8 (1.23%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
9 7 (1.07%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
9 7 (1.07%) OCP
9 7 (1.07%) Oracle Certification
10 6 (0.92%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (0.92%) CISSP
11 4 (0.61%) CCNA
11 4 (0.61%) CISM
11 4 (0.61%) MCSE
11 4 (0.61%) RHCA
11 4 (0.61%) SAS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 49 (7.50%) QA
2 38 (5.82%) Data Quality
3 25 (3.83%) Accessibility
4 15 (2.30%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.68%) NIST
6 10 (1.53%) NCSC
6 10 (1.53%) SLA
7 6 (0.92%) FATCA
7 6 (0.92%) PMO
8 5 (0.77%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (0.77%) GRC
9 3 (0.46%) GDPR
10 2 (0.31%) WCAG
11 1 (0.15%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.15%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.15%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.15%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.15%) P3O
System Software
1 67 (10.26%) Docker
2 15 (2.30%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.68%) Active Directory
4 9 (1.38%) vSphere
5 8 (1.23%) VMware ESXi
6 7 (1.07%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.77%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.77%) Postfix
7 5 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
8 2 (0.31%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 60 (9.19%) Kubernetes
2 38 (5.82%) Grafana
3 19 (2.91%) Prometheus
4 14 (2.14%) Ansible
5 4 (0.61%) Podman
5 4 (0.61%) PowerCLI
5 4 (0.61%) vCenter Server
5 4 (0.61%) vMotion
6 3 (0.46%) QRadar
6 3 (0.46%) SCCM
7 2 (0.31%) Data Guard
7 2 (0.31%) Kibana
7 2 (0.31%) Oracle RMAN
7 2 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.31%) WMI
8 1 (0.15%) Backup Exec
8 1 (0.15%) Iperf
8 1 (0.15%) Microsoft Intune
Vendors
1 156 (23.89%) Oracle
2 78 (11.94%) Talend
3 57 (8.73%) Microsoft
4 50 (7.66%) Denodo
5 41 (6.28%) SAP
6 31 (4.75%) Informatica
7 22 (3.37%) VMware
8 20 (3.06%) Atlassian
9 17 (2.60%) Dynatrace
10 14 (2.14%) ServiceNow
11 11 (1.68%) Cisco
12 10 (1.53%) Databricks
13 8 (1.23%) Sage
13 8 (1.23%) webMethods
14 7 (1.07%) Jaspersoft
15 5 (0.77%) Splunk
16 4 (0.61%) 3PAR
16 4 (0.61%) F5
16 4 (0.61%) Fortinet
16 4 (0.61%) Veeam