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

6 months to
11 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 8 5
Rank change year-on-year +5 -3 +11
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 654 177 241
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.64% 12.92% 12.62%
As % of the Qualifications category 61.70% 41.55% 39.06%
Number of daily rates quoted 490 120 174
10th Percentile £350 £280 £298
25th Percentile £415 £450 £352
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.48% +16.67% -18.18%
75th Percentile £537 £646 £538
90th Percentile £626 £700 £637
England median daily rate £525 £525 £530
% change year-on-year - -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 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 £47.54 £47.81 £50.00
% change year-on-year -0.55% -4.39% -13.04%

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 1,060 426 617
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 33.45% 31.09% 32.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 744 287 388
10th Percentile £317 £150 £275
25th Percentile £407 £285 £359
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £472 £500 £457
Median % change year-on-year -5.60% +9.53% -13.87%
75th Percentile £544 £600 £575
90th Percentile £650 £700 £677
England median daily rate £522 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.67% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 70 18 34
10th Percentile £18.11 £15.22 £14.00
25th Percentile £20.64 £18.22 £22.08
Median hourly rate £52.50 £22.50 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +133.33% -21.05% +50.00%
75th Percentile £67.84 £40.79 £43.44
90th Percentile £75.23 £59.30 £58.75
England median hourly rate £47.54 £40.55 £40.00
% change year-on-year +17.25% +1.36% -23.81%

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 11 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 11 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 11 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 +2 372 £469 -9.81% 24
Birmingham +2 86 £485 -15.65% 27
Warwickshire -4 74 £389 -24.14% 4
Herefordshire 0 34 £550 -21.43% 3
Worcestershire +5 32 £675 -3.57% 10
Solihull +5 28 £463 +10.12%
Staffordshire +2 4 £388 -21.72% 7
Coventry -19 2 £488 - 3
Wolverhampton -6 1 - - 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 97 (14.83%) SAS
2 93 (14.22%) Confluence
3 24 (3.67%) WebLogic
4 13 (1.99%) Tuxedo
5 9 (1.38%) Apache Airflow
6 8 (1.22%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.61%) 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 10 (1.53%) Microsoft Project
2 6 (0.92%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (0.92%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 4 (0.61%) Notepad++
5 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.15%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 2 (0.31%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.15%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.15%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.15%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.15%) SAP EWM
2 1 (0.15%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 156 (23.85%) AWS
2 81 (12.39%) Azure
3 36 (5.50%) Amazon S3
4 33 (5.05%) GitHub
5 31 (4.74%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 31 (4.74%) Amazon EC2
6 25 (3.82%) GCP
7 24 (3.67%) GitHub Actions
8 21 (3.21%) Serverless
9 16 (2.45%) AWS KMS
9 16 (2.45%) AWS Lambda
10 15 (2.29%) Power Platform
11 14 (2.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
12 13 (1.99%) Amazon SQS
12 13 (1.99%) OpenShift
13 12 (1.83%) Azure DevOps
13 12 (1.83%) Microsoft 365
13 12 (1.83%) Route 53
14 10 (1.53%) Amazon EKS
15 9 (1.38%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 24 (3.67%) Firewall
2 13 (1.99%) Network Security
3 12 (1.83%) WAN
4 10 (1.53%) Intrusion Detection
4 10 (1.53%) LAN
4 10 (1.53%) VPN
5 8 (1.22%) DNS
6 7 (1.07%) BGP
6 7 (1.07%) SSL
6 7 (1.07%) Wireless
7 6 (0.92%) VLAN
8 5 (0.76%) 5G
8 5 (0.76%) DHCP
8 5 (0.76%) IPsec
8 5 (0.76%) MPLS
8 5 (0.76%) OSPF
8 5 (0.76%) WLAN
9 4 (0.61%) PuTTY
9 4 (0.61%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.61%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 70 (10.70%) Pentaho
2 52 (7.95%) Data Warehouse
3 44 (6.73%) PostgreSQL
4 33 (5.05%) Amazon RDS
5 28 (4.28%) Oracle Database
6 26 (3.98%) MySQL
7 25 (3.82%) Oracle Reports
8 20 (3.06%) Amazon Redshift
9 19 (2.91%) Metadata
10 16 (2.45%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 15 (2.29%) DynamoDB
11 15 (2.29%) Power BI
12 13 (1.99%) BusinessObjects
13 12 (1.83%) Amazon Aurora
14 10 (1.53%) MongoDB
15 8 (1.22%) SAS Visual Analytics
16 7 (1.07%) Relational Database
17 6 (0.92%) Elasticsearch
18 5 (0.76%) Data Lake
18 5 (0.76%) SAS Data Integration Studio
Development Applications
1 121 (18.50%) JIRA
2 87 (13.30%) Git
3 74 (11.31%) GitLab
3 74 (11.31%) Jenkins
4 31 (4.74%) JUnit
5 25 (3.82%) Zephyr
6 24 (3.67%) Selenium
7 23 (3.52%) Postman
8 14 (2.14%) Bitbucket
8 14 (2.14%) Maven
8 14 (2.14%) Mockito
9 13 (1.99%) Cucumber
9 13 (1.99%) JMeter
10 12 (1.83%) SonarQube
10 12 (1.83%) WebDriver
11 9 (1.38%) DbUnit
11 9 (1.38%) jMock
11 9 (1.38%) MSI
12 8 (1.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 7 (1.07%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 156 (23.85%) Social Skills
2 89 (13.61%) Public Sector
3 71 (10.86%) Analytical Skills
4 35 (5.35%) Finance
5 21 (3.21%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (1.38%) Telecoms
7 8 (1.22%) Organisational Skills
7 8 (1.22%) Presentation Skills
8 7 (1.07%) Influencing Skills
8 7 (1.07%) Legal
9 6 (0.92%) Advertising
9 6 (0.92%) Aeronautics
10 4 (0.61%) Aerospace
11 2 (0.31%) Electronics
11 2 (0.31%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.15%) Banking
12 1 (0.15%) Military
12 1 (0.15%) Police
12 1 (0.15%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 151 (23.09%) Data Engineer
2 60 (9.17%) Architect
3 50 (7.65%) Analyst
4 45 (6.88%) Senior
5 42 (6.42%) Developer
6 36 (5.50%) Tester
7 28 (4.28%) Java Developer
8 25 (3.82%) Lead
9 24 (3.67%) Support Engineer
10 23 (3.52%) SAS Engineer
11 21 (3.21%) Business Analyst
12 19 (2.91%) Administrator
12 19 (2.91%) Project Manager
13 17 (2.60%) Data Manager
13 17 (2.60%) Software Engineer
14 16 (2.45%) Scrum Master
15 15 (2.29%) AWS Engineer
15 15 (2.29%) Consultant
15 15 (2.29%) Senior Data Engineer
15 15 (2.29%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 42 (6.42%) Spring
2 31 (4.74%) Spring Boot
3 21 (3.21%) REST
4 14 (2.14%) JPA
5 13 (1.99%) AngularJS
6 12 (1.83%) ActiveMQ
6 12 (1.83%) Hibernate
6 12 (1.83%) SOAP
6 12 (1.83%) Spring Batch
6 12 (1.83%) Spring Cloud
6 12 (1.83%) Spring Integration
6 12 (1.83%) Web Services
6 12 (1.83%) WireMock
7 11 (1.68%) Middleware
8 10 (1.53%) Node.js
9 9 (1.38%) PowerMock
10 8 (1.22%) RESTful
11 7 (1.07%) AWS CDK
11 7 (1.07%) Bootstrap
11 7 (1.07%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.89%) Cloud Native
2 21 (3.21%) Distributed Systems
2 21 (3.21%) Onboarding
3 19 (2.91%) Product Ownership
4 18 (2.75%) Data Centre
5 13 (1.99%) Enterprise Software
5 13 (1.99%) Legacy Systems
6 8 (1.22%) Distributed Architecture
7 7 (1.07%) Analytical Mindset
7 7 (1.07%) SCADA
8 6 (0.92%) Driving Licence
8 6 (0.92%) Private Cloud
8 6 (0.92%) Security Operations Centre
9 5 (0.76%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (0.76%) Security Posture
10 4 (0.61%) CSOC
10 4 (0.61%) Cyber Threat
10 4 (0.61%) Data Structures
10 4 (0.61%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (0.61%) Robotics
Operating Systems
1 61 (9.33%) Linux
2 56 (8.56%) Unix
3 50 (7.65%) Windows
4 13 (1.99%) Windows Server
5 9 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.76%) Android
7 2 (0.31%) AIX
7 2 (0.31%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.31%) CentOS
7 2 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.31%) Solaris
7 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
8 1 (0.15%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.15%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 198 (30.28%) Agile
2 129 (19.72%) CI/CD
3 123 (18.81%) DevOps
4 118 (18.04%) ETL
5 110 (16.82%) Test Automation
6 104 (15.90%) Continuous Improvement
6 104 (15.90%) Scrum
7 94 (14.37%) Problem-Solving
8 86 (13.15%) Analytics
9 83 (12.69%) Migration
10 82 (12.54%) Stakeholder Management
11 65 (9.94%) Data Integration
12 64 (9.79%) Data Modelling
13 62 (9.48%) Business Intelligence
13 62 (9.48%) Data Pipeline
14 52 (7.95%) Containerisation
15 49 (7.49%) Microservices
16 46 (7.03%) Change Management
17 43 (6.57%) Problem Management
18 40 (6.12%) Stakeholder Engagement
Programming Languages
1 206 (31.50%) SQL
2 69 (10.55%) Java
3 53 (8.10%) Python
4 48 (7.34%) PL/SQL
5 27 (4.13%) Shell Script
6 18 (2.75%) Bash
6 18 (2.75%) PowerShell
7 12 (1.83%) Go
8 5 (0.76%) Perl
9 4 (0.61%) Kusto Query Language
10 3 (0.46%) C++
10 3 (0.46%) HiveQL
10 3 (0.46%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.31%) Bicep
11 2 (0.31%) C
11 2 (0.31%) SystemVerilog
12 1 (0.15%) ABAP
12 1 (0.15%) C#
12 1 (0.15%) JavaScript
12 1 (0.15%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 654 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 17 (2.60%) ISTQB
3 15 (2.29%) BPSS Clearance
3 15 (2.29%) DV Cleared
4 12 (1.83%) Azure Certification
5 11 (1.68%) Cisco Certification
6 9 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
6 9 (1.38%) SAFe Agilist
7 7 (1.07%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
7 7 (1.07%) CCNP
7 7 (1.07%) IIBA
7 7 (1.07%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
8 6 (0.92%) AWS Certification
8 6 (0.92%) Degree
9 5 (0.76%) CCIE
9 5 (0.76%) CCNA
9 5 (0.76%) CISSP
10 4 (0.61%) CISM
10 4 (0.61%) OCP
10 4 (0.61%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.05%) Data Quality
2 32 (4.89%) QA
3 18 (2.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 15 (2.29%) NIST
5 11 (1.68%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.38%) FATCA
6 9 (1.38%) GDPR
7 5 (0.76%) NCSC
8 4 (0.61%) PMO
9 3 (0.46%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.46%) GRC
10 2 (0.31%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.31%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.15%) P3O
11 1 (0.15%) PCI DSS
11 1 (0.15%) Sarbanes-Oxley
11 1 (0.15%) SLA
11 1 (0.15%) WCAG
System Software
1 91 (13.91%) Docker
2 12 (1.83%) Active Directory
3 11 (1.68%) Postfix
3 11 (1.68%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.61%) Hyper-V
4 4 (0.61%) Snort
4 4 (0.61%) VMware ESXi
4 4 (0.61%) vSphere
5 3 (0.46%) HDFS
5 3 (0.46%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.46%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.31%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.15%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 93 (14.22%) Kubernetes
2 63 (9.63%) Grafana
3 33 (5.05%) Prometheus
4 26 (3.98%) Terraform
5 21 (3.21%) Ansible
6 7 (1.07%) Progress Chef
7 5 (0.76%) Podman
8 4 (0.61%) CSIRT
8 4 (0.61%) PowerCLI
8 4 (0.61%) vMotion
9 3 (0.46%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.46%) Kibana
10 2 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.31%) QRadar
10 2 (0.31%) SCCM
11 1 (0.15%) Backup Exec
11 1 (0.15%) Control-M
11 1 (0.15%) Data Guard
11 1 (0.15%) Oracle RMAN
11 1 (0.15%) Puppet
Vendors
1 164 (25.08%) Oracle
2 101 (15.44%) Talend
3 59 (9.02%) Denodo
4 50 (7.65%) Informatica
5 43 (6.57%) Microsoft
6 30 (4.59%) ServiceNow
7 24 (3.67%) Splunk
8 23 (3.52%) Atlassian
9 21 (3.21%) Cisco
10 20 (3.06%) Dynatrace
11 19 (2.91%) SAP
12 17 (2.60%) VMware
13 12 (1.83%) Jaspersoft
13 12 (1.83%) Sage
14 10 (1.53%) AppDynamics
15 8 (1.22%) Fujitsu
16 7 (1.07%) HP
16 7 (1.07%) Juniper
17 5 (0.76%) F5
17 5 (0.76%) Red Hat