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 18 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
18 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 9 8
Rank change year-on-year +6 -1 +7
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 514 169 245
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 19.60% 11.70% 12.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 56.55% 38.06% 40.50%
Number of daily rates quoted 393 117 181
10th Percentile £363 £399 £325
25th Percentile £455 £477 £378
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £508 £551 £450
Median % change year-on-year -7.80% +22.44% -16.67%
75th Percentile £575 £689 £588
90th Percentile £675 £715 £650
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 5 13
10th Percentile - £23.63 £19.70
25th Percentile £18.20 £31.32 £62.50
Median hourly rate £21.46 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.69% -46.15% +71.72%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.50
90th Percentile - £39.18 £69.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £56.49
% change year-on-year -58.08% +6.21% -5.85%

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 909 444 605
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 34.65% 30.75% 32.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 642 289 365
10th Percentile £306 £199 £268
25th Percentile £425 £402 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.76% +16.67% -10.00%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £575
90th Percentile £675 £700 £653
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 16 45
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.68 £17.28
25th Percentile £16.30 £18.41 £23.00
Median hourly rate £19.44 £26.30 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -26.10% -24.86% +79.49%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £33.50 £47.24 £68.25
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.50 £45.21
% change year-on-year -47.05% +5.07% -0.09%

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 18 February 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 18 February 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 18 February 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 +2 227 £500 +1.73% 66
Birmingham +2 97 £480 -30.33% 25
Warwickshire +1 73 £420 -25.10% 12
Worcestershire +9 64 £650 -7.14% 5
Herefordshire +2 47 £625 -10.71% 3
Solihull -1 9 £500 +20.48% 10
Coventry - 5 £488 -
Staffordshire - 3 £350 - 8
Wolverhampton 0 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 90 (17.51%) SAS
2 45 (8.75%) Confluence
3 26 (5.06%) WebLogic
4 7 (1.36%) Tuxedo
5 6 (1.17%) Apache
6 4 (0.78%) nginx
7 1 (0.19%) Apache Airflow
7 1 (0.19%) SharePoint
Applications
1 9 (1.75%) Microsoft Project
2 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Excel
2 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (0.97%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 3 (0.58%) Mozilla Thunderbird
4 3 (0.58%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.39%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.19%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 2 (0.39%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.39%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.19%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.19%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.19%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 98 (19.07%) AWS
2 97 (18.87%) Azure
3 31 (6.03%) GitHub
4 27 (5.25%) OpenShift
5 22 (4.28%) Amazon EC2
5 22 (4.28%) Amazon S3
5 22 (4.28%) GCP
6 17 (3.31%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 17 (3.31%) Serverless
7 16 (3.11%) Azure Data Factory
8 13 (2.53%) SaaS
9 12 (2.33%) AWS KMS
9 12 (2.33%) Azure DevOps
10 11 (2.14%) Amazon ELB
10 11 (2.14%) GitHub Actions
10 11 (2.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 10 (1.95%) Microsoft 365
11 10 (1.95%) Power Platform
12 9 (1.75%) Azure Key Vault
12 9 (1.75%) Datadog
Communications & Networking
1 27 (5.25%) Firewall
2 25 (4.86%) VPN
3 23 (4.47%) WAN
4 20 (3.89%) BGP
4 20 (3.89%) MPLS
5 19 (3.70%) IPsec
6 14 (2.72%) DNS
7 12 (2.33%) Network Security
8 10 (1.95%) Intrusion Detection
9 8 (1.56%) Wireless
10 7 (1.36%) LAN
10 7 (1.36%) SMTP
11 6 (1.17%) HTTP
12 5 (0.97%) FTP
12 5 (0.97%) SSH
12 5 (0.97%) SSL
13 4 (0.78%) OSPF
13 4 (0.78%) TCP/IP
13 4 (0.78%) Unified Communications
13 4 (0.78%) VLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 39 (7.59%) Pentaho
2 33 (6.42%) SAS Enterprise Guide
3 32 (6.23%) Oracle Database
3 32 (6.23%) PostgreSQL
4 23 (4.47%) Amazon RDS
5 22 (4.28%) Metadata
6 17 (3.31%) Data Warehouse
7 16 (3.11%) Elasticsearch
8 12 (2.33%) Metadata Repository
9 11 (2.14%) MongoDB
10 9 (1.75%) Redis
11 7 (1.36%) Amazon Aurora
12 6 (1.17%) Relational Database
13 5 (0.97%) MySQL
13 5 (0.97%) Power BI
14 4 (0.78%) DynamoDB
14 4 (0.78%) InfluxDB
15 3 (0.58%) SAS Visual Analytics
16 2 (0.39%) Amazon Redshift
16 2 (0.39%) Data Hub
Development Applications
1 75 (14.59%) Git
2 65 (12.65%) JIRA
3 63 (12.26%) Jenkins
4 37 (7.20%) GitLab
5 28 (5.45%) JUnit
6 23 (4.47%) Selenium
7 14 (2.72%) SonarQube
8 11 (2.14%) Mockito
9 10 (1.95%) Maven
10 9 (1.75%) Cucumber
11 7 (1.36%) MSI
12 6 (1.17%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 5 (0.97%) Vagrant
14 4 (0.78%) JMeter
15 3 (0.58%) DbUnit
15 3 (0.58%) jMock
15 3 (0.58%) NeoLoad
15 3 (0.58%) WebDriver
16 2 (0.39%) Postman
17 1 (0.19%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 128 (24.90%) Social Skills
2 61 (11.87%) Public Sector
3 49 (9.53%) Analytical Skills
4 22 (4.28%) Finance
5 16 (3.11%) Documentation Skills
6 10 (1.95%) Telecoms
7 9 (1.75%) Aeronautics
8 6 (1.17%) Legal
8 6 (1.17%) Presentation Skills
9 3 (0.58%) Organisational Skills
10 2 (0.39%) Advertising
10 2 (0.39%) Electronics
10 2 (0.39%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.19%) Aerospace
11 1 (0.19%) Automotive
11 1 (0.19%) Banking
11 1 (0.19%) Marketing
11 1 (0.19%) Military
11 1 (0.19%) Police
11 1 (0.19%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 58 (11.28%) Data Engineer
2 46 (8.95%) Senior
3 43 (8.37%) Architect
4 40 (7.78%) Developer
5 34 (6.61%) Analyst
6 24 (4.67%) Platform Engineer
7 21 (4.09%) Support Engineer
8 19 (3.70%) Data Architect
8 19 (3.70%) Tester
9 18 (3.50%) Test Specialist
10 16 (3.11%) Business Analyst
11 15 (2.92%) AWS Engineer
11 15 (2.92%) Consultant
12 14 (2.72%) Java Developer
12 14 (2.72%) Release Manager
13 13 (2.53%) Engagement Manager
13 13 (2.53%) Lead
13 13 (2.53%) Senior Data Engineer
13 13 (2.53%) Senior Developer
14 12 (2.33%) Python Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 35 (6.81%) REST
2 31 (6.03%) Spring
3 28 (5.45%) Spring Boot
4 16 (3.11%) pytest
5 13 (2.53%) Keycloak
6 12 (2.33%) FastAPI
6 12 (2.33%) Flask
6 12 (2.33%) Kafka
7 10 (1.95%) JPA
7 10 (1.95%) Middleware
7 10 (1.95%) YAML
8 9 (1.75%) GraphQL
8 9 (1.75%) LDAP
8 9 (1.75%) WebSockets
9 8 (1.56%) gRPC
9 8 (1.56%) Node.js
9 8 (1.56%) React
10 7 (1.36%) JSON
11 6 (1.17%) OAuth
11 6 (1.17%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 24 (4.67%) Cloud Native
2 21 (4.09%) Onboarding
3 18 (3.50%) Data Centre
4 16 (3.11%) PKI
5 11 (2.14%) Enterprise Software
5 11 (2.14%) Hybrid Cloud
6 10 (1.95%) Driving Licence
7 8 (1.56%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.56%) SCADA
8 7 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
8 7 (1.36%) FPGA
8 7 (1.36%) Product Ownership
9 6 (1.17%) Private Cloud
9 6 (1.17%) Replication
9 6 (1.17%) Security Operations Centre
9 6 (1.17%) VHDL
10 5 (0.97%) Algorithms
10 5 (0.97%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (0.97%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.78%) Management Information System
Operating Systems
1 57 (11.09%) Linux
2 47 (9.14%) Windows
3 20 (3.89%) Unix
4 11 (2.14%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 8 (1.56%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.97%) Amazon Linux
6 5 (0.97%) Ubuntu
6 5 (0.97%) VMS
7 3 (0.58%) AIX
7 3 (0.58%) Solaris
8 2 (0.39%) Android
8 2 (0.39%) CentOS
8 2 (0.39%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.19%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.19%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 135 (26.26%) CI/CD
2 133 (25.88%) Agile
3 122 (23.74%) DevOps
4 89 (17.32%) Problem-Solving
5 77 (14.98%) Stakeholder Management
6 73 (14.20%) Analytics
7 72 (14.01%) Continuous Improvement
8 65 (12.65%) Scrum
9 61 (11.87%) Containerisation
10 56 (10.89%) Test Automation
11 54 (10.51%) ETL
12 50 (9.73%) Data Pipeline
13 49 (9.53%) Data Modelling
14 48 (9.34%) Data Integration
14 48 (9.34%) Migration
15 45 (8.75%) Business Intelligence
16 40 (7.78%) Change Management
17 39 (7.59%) Microservices
18 32 (6.23%) Cybersecurity
19 31 (6.03%) Platform Engineering
Programming Languages
1 121 (23.54%) SQL
2 81 (15.76%) Python
3 54 (10.51%) Java
4 24 (4.67%) Go
5 23 (4.47%) Shell Script
6 22 (4.28%) PowerShell
7 21 (4.09%) Bash
8 18 (3.50%) PL/SQL
9 8 (1.56%) Perl
10 7 (1.36%) JavaScript
11 6 (1.17%) MATLAB
12 5 (0.97%) Groovy
12 5 (0.97%) TypeScript
13 4 (0.78%) Kusto Query Language
14 2 (0.39%) C#
14 2 (0.39%) C++
15 1 (0.19%) C
15 1 (0.19%) COBOL
15 1 (0.19%) Kotlin
15 1 (0.19%) R
Qualifications
1 514 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 31 (6.03%) DV Cleared
3 22 (4.28%) Azure Certification
4 16 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.95%) AWS Certification
5 10 (1.95%) Degree
6 8 (1.56%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (1.36%) IIBA
8 6 (1.17%) CCNP
8 6 (1.17%) Microsoft Certification
9 5 (0.97%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.78%) CCIE
10 4 (0.78%) CISSP
11 3 (0.58%) CCNA
11 3 (0.58%) CEH
11 3 (0.58%) CISM
11 3 (0.58%) ISTQB
12 2 (0.39%) CAPM
12 2 (0.39%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.39%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.67%) Data Quality
2 17 (3.31%) NCSC
2 17 (3.31%) QA
3 13 (2.53%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 13 (2.53%) NIST
4 8 (1.56%) Accessibility
5 7 (1.36%) GDPR
6 4 (0.78%) WCAG
7 3 (0.58%) FATCA
8 2 (0.39%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.39%) PMO
8 2 (0.39%) SOC 2
9 1 (0.19%) Government Security Classifications
9 1 (0.19%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.19%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 98 (19.07%) Docker
2 12 (2.33%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.56%) Postfix
4 5 (0.97%) DFS Replication
5 4 (0.78%) Snort
6 3 (0.58%) Dovecot
6 3 (0.58%) Squid
6 3 (0.58%) VMware Infrastructure
6 3 (0.58%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.39%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 119 (23.15%) Kubernetes
2 42 (8.17%) Grafana
3 32 (6.23%) Prometheus
4 30 (5.84%) Terraform
5 15 (2.92%) Ansible
6 10 (1.95%) Kibana
7 8 (1.56%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.78%) CSIRT
8 4 (0.78%) logstash
9 3 (0.58%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.58%) Nessus
9 3 (0.58%) Proxmox
10 2 (0.39%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.19%) Fluentd
11 1 (0.19%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.19%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.19%) Podman
11 1 (0.19%) Puppet
11 1 (0.19%) QRadar
11 1 (0.19%) Rsyslog
Vendors
1 90 (17.51%) Oracle
2 49 (9.53%) Microsoft
3 46 (8.95%) Talend
4 43 (8.37%) ServiceNow
5 31 (6.03%) Cisco
5 31 (6.03%) Splunk
6 30 (5.84%) Denodo
7 26 (5.06%) Dynatrace
8 22 (4.28%) Juniper
9 18 (3.50%) Informatica
10 16 (3.11%) AppDynamics
11 12 (2.33%) SAP
12 9 (1.75%) CyberArk
12 9 (1.75%) F5
13 8 (1.56%) CheckPoint
14 7 (1.36%) Jaspersoft
14 7 (1.36%) Red Hat
15 6 (1.17%) Atlassian
15 6 (1.17%) Fujitsu
15 6 (1.17%) Remedy