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

6 months to
25 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 5 4
Rank change year-on-year +2 -1 +7
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 645 273 268
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 18.73% 15.84% 14.06%
As % of the Qualifications category 55.84% 46.99% 42.07%
Number of daily rates quoted 472 196 191
10th Percentile £360 £313 £338
25th Percentile £413 £425 £396
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £524
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% -4.58% -4.73%
75th Percentile £551 £575 £612
90th Percentile £633 £641 £675
England median daily rate £531 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +1.16% - -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 £55.00
% change year-on-year +151.03% -54.27% -4.06%

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 1,155 581 637
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 33.54% 33.70% 33.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 803 387 414
10th Percentile £325 £205 £309
25th Percentile £408 £392 £388
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £470 £500 £525
Median % change year-on-year -6.00% -4.76% -2.78%
75th Percentile £565 £583 £628
90th Percentile £656 £639 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 85 47 20
10th Percentile £14.96 - £13.93
25th Percentile £33.99 £18.87 £20.12
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £32.15
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -6.69% +16.91%
75th Percentile £67.84 £43.63 £50.63
90th Percentile £75.00 £51.00 £56.50
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 25 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 25 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 25 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 0 413 £470 -10.48% 32
Birmingham -7 83 £488 +2.63% 27
Warwickshire -16 45 £437 -12.60% 6
Solihull +1 35 £463 +2.78% 5
Herefordshire 0 20 £700 - 2
Staffordshire +1 11 £388 +13.14% 6
Coventry -16 11 £425 +54.55% 3
Worcestershire -6 8 £640 +8.94% 7
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 80 (12.40%) SAS
2 71 (11.01%) Confluence
3 18 (2.79%) Apache Airflow
4 12 (1.86%) SharePoint
5 11 (1.71%) WebLogic
6 5 (0.78%) Tuxedo
7 3 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.31%) Apache
8 2 (0.31%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.16%) IIS
9 1 (0.16%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.16%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.16%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.16%) SAP EP
Applications
1 13 (2.02%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 11 (1.71%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.71%) Microsoft Office
3 7 (1.09%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.62%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.62%) Notepad++
Business Applications
1 8 (1.24%) SAP PSCD
2 5 (0.78%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.31%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.16%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.16%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.16%) SAP CO
4 1 (0.16%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.16%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.16%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.16%) SAP FI/CO
4 1 (0.16%) SAP FI-CA
4 1 (0.16%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 157 (24.34%) AWS
2 73 (11.32%) Azure
3 44 (6.82%) GitHub
4 34 (5.27%) Amazon S3
4 34 (5.27%) GitHub Actions
5 31 (4.81%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 29 (4.50%) Amazon EC2
7 27 (4.19%) Power Platform
8 26 (4.03%) Serverless
9 23 (3.57%) AWS Lambda
10 22 (3.41%) Azure DevOps
11 21 (3.26%) Amazon ECS
11 21 (3.26%) Amazon EKS
12 17 (2.64%) Microsoft 365
13 15 (2.33%) GCP
14 14 (2.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 11 (1.71%) AWS CodePipeline
15 11 (1.71%) Dynamics 365
15 11 (1.71%) Power Automate
15 11 (1.71%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 16 (2.48%) Firewall
2 6 (0.93%) DNS
2 6 (0.93%) LAN
2 6 (0.93%) SSL
2 6 (0.93%) WAN
3 5 (0.78%) TCP/IP
3 5 (0.78%) VPN
4 4 (0.62%) DHCP
4 4 (0.62%) Network Security
4 4 (0.62%) PuTTY
4 4 (0.62%) SNMP
4 4 (0.62%) WinSCP
5 3 (0.47%) Internet
5 3 (0.47%) Intranet
5 3 (0.47%) SD-WAN
6 2 (0.31%) HTTPS
6 2 (0.31%) ICMP
6 2 (0.31%) VLAN
7 1 (0.16%) Intrusion Detection
7 1 (0.16%) Wireshark
Database & Business Intelligence
1 65 (10.08%) Data Warehouse
2 60 (9.30%) Pentaho
3 29 (4.50%) PostgreSQL
4 27 (4.19%) Data Lake
4 27 (4.19%) Oracle Database
5 22 (3.41%) MySQL
6 21 (3.26%) Oracle Reports
7 19 (2.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
7 19 (2.95%) SAS Visual Analytics
8 18 (2.79%) Metadata
9 17 (2.64%) Amazon Redshift
10 16 (2.48%) Base SAS
10 16 (2.48%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
10 16 (2.48%) Power BI
11 14 (2.17%) Amazon RDS
12 13 (2.02%) BusinessObjects
13 10 (1.55%) DynamoDB
13 10 (1.55%) NoSQL
13 10 (1.55%) Relational Database
14 8 (1.24%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 100 (15.50%) JIRA
2 78 (12.09%) GitLab
3 67 (10.39%) Git
4 59 (9.15%) Jenkins
5 26 (4.03%) JUnit
6 25 (3.88%) Zephyr
7 21 (3.26%) Postman
8 19 (2.95%) Maven
8 19 (2.95%) Selenium
9 17 (2.64%) Bitbucket
10 13 (2.02%) Cucumber
11 12 (1.86%) Mockito
11 12 (1.86%) WebDriver
12 10 (1.55%) Artifactory
12 10 (1.55%) SonarQube
13 9 (1.40%) JMeter
14 7 (1.09%) Atlassian Bamboo
15 5 (0.78%) Bitbucket Server
15 5 (0.78%) DbUnit
15 5 (0.78%) jMock
General
1 162 (25.12%) Social Skills
2 151 (23.41%) Public Sector
3 48 (7.44%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (5.89%) Finance
5 13 (2.02%) Influencing Skills
5 13 (2.02%) Organisational Skills
6 11 (1.71%) Inclusion and Diversity
7 7 (1.09%) Documentation Skills
8 6 (0.93%) Presentation Skills
8 6 (0.93%) Telecoms
9 5 (0.78%) Legal
10 4 (0.62%) Aerospace
10 4 (0.62%) Military
11 2 (0.31%) Advertising
11 2 (0.31%) Banking
11 2 (0.31%) Billing
11 2 (0.31%) General Ledger
12 1 (0.16%) Manufacturing
Job Titles
1 131 (20.31%) Data Engineer
2 86 (13.33%) Architect
3 52 (8.06%) Developer
4 46 (7.13%) Senior
5 42 (6.51%) Data Architect
6 40 (6.20%) Analyst
7 37 (5.74%) Consultant
7 37 (5.74%) Lead
8 31 (4.81%) Scrum Master
9 28 (4.34%) Tester
10 25 (3.88%) Technical Architect
11 23 (3.57%) Java Developer
12 18 (2.79%) Project Manager
12 18 (2.79%) SAP Consultant
12 18 (2.79%) SAS Architect
12 18 (2.79%) Test Analyst
13 17 (2.64%) Software Engineer
14 16 (2.48%) Data Manager
14 16 (2.48%) SAS Engineer
15 15 (2.33%) SC Cleared Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 36 (5.58%) Spring
2 28 (4.34%) Terraform
3 24 (3.72%) Spring Boot
4 19 (2.95%) REST
5 15 (2.33%) RESTful
6 14 (2.17%) SOAP
7 11 (1.71%) JPA
7 11 (1.71%) JSON
7 11 (1.71%) Web Services
8 10 (1.55%) ActiveMQ
8 10 (1.55%) Oracle Fusion
8 10 (1.55%) WireMock
9 9 (1.40%) AngularJS
9 9 (1.40%) AWS CDK
9 9 (1.40%) Hibernate
9 9 (1.40%) Spring Cloud
10 7 (1.09%) Node.js
10 7 (1.09%) Spring Batch
10 7 (1.09%) Spring Integration
11 6 (0.93%) SAP PI
Miscellaneous
1 42 (6.51%) Product Ownership
2 38 (5.89%) Cloud Native
3 19 (2.95%) Distributed Systems
4 14 (2.17%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.17%) Onboarding
5 12 (1.86%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (1.71%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (1.40%) Analytical Mindset
8 8 (1.24%) Distributed Architecture
9 7 (1.09%) SCADA
10 6 (0.93%) Autonomous Agent
10 6 (0.93%) Data Centre
10 6 (0.93%) Enterprise Cloud
11 5 (0.78%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.62%) Cyber Threat
12 4 (0.62%) Data Structures
13 3 (0.47%) Low-Code
14 2 (0.31%) Data Fabric
14 2 (0.31%) Security Operations Centre
14 2 (0.31%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 47 (7.29%) Unix
2 36 (5.58%) Linux
3 26 (4.03%) Windows
4 10 (1.55%) Windows Server
5 3 (0.47%) Solaris
6 2 (0.31%) Android
6 2 (0.31%) Apple iOS
6 2 (0.31%) Mac OS
7 1 (0.16%) CentOS
7 1 (0.16%) Embedded Linux
7 1 (0.16%) HPUX
7 1 (0.16%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 1 (0.16%) Ubuntu
7 1 (0.16%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 209 (32.40%) Agile
2 125 (19.38%) CI/CD
3 121 (18.76%) DevOps
4 118 (18.29%) Continuous Improvement
5 115 (17.83%) Test Automation
6 107 (16.59%) Migration
7 106 (16.43%) Scrum
8 102 (15.81%) ETL
9 98 (15.19%) Analytics
10 91 (14.11%) Problem-Solving
11 69 (10.70%) Data Integration
12 67 (10.39%) Stakeholder Management
13 59 (9.15%) Containerisation
14 57 (8.84%) Data Pipeline
14 57 (8.84%) Stakeholder Engagement
15 56 (8.68%) Data Modelling
16 48 (7.44%) Technical Leadership
17 46 (7.13%) Observability
18 45 (6.98%) Validation
19 43 (6.67%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 156 (24.19%) SQL
2 71 (11.01%) Java
3 35 (5.43%) PL/SQL
4 29 (4.50%) Python
5 17 (2.64%) JavaScript
6 15 (2.33%) Shell Script
7 11 (1.71%) C#
8 10 (1.55%) Bash
8 10 (1.55%) C
9 9 (1.40%) ABAP
10 6 (0.93%) PowerShell
10 6 (0.93%) ProC
11 5 (0.78%) TypeScript
12 4 (0.62%) COBOL
12 4 (0.62%) Scala
13 3 (0.47%) Kotlin
13 3 (0.47%) VB
13 3 (0.47%) VB6
14 2 (0.31%) Go
14 2 (0.31%) T-SQL
Qualifications
1 645 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 49 (7.60%) BPSS Clearance
3 22 (3.41%) ISTQB
4 19 (2.95%) Microsoft Certification
5 12 (1.86%) DV Cleared
6 11 (1.71%) SAFe Agilist
7 10 (1.55%) AWS Certification
8 9 (1.40%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 8 (1.24%) Degree
9 8 (1.24%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 7 (1.09%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 6 (0.93%) Cisco Certification
11 6 (0.93%) CISSP
12 4 (0.62%) CCNA
12 4 (0.62%) CISM
12 4 (0.62%) MCSE
12 4 (0.62%) OCP
12 4 (0.62%) Oracle Certification
12 4 (0.62%) RHCA
12 4 (0.62%) SAS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 50 (7.75%) QA
2 38 (5.89%) Data Quality
3 25 (3.88%) Accessibility
4 15 (2.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.71%) NIST
6 10 (1.55%) NCSC
6 10 (1.55%) SLA
7 6 (0.93%) FATCA
7 6 (0.93%) PMO
8 5 (0.78%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (0.78%) GRC
9 3 (0.47%) GDPR
10 2 (0.31%) WCAG
11 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
11 1 (0.16%) Government Security Classifications
11 1 (0.16%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.16%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.16%) P3O
System Software
1 69 (10.70%) Docker
2 15 (2.33%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.71%) Active Directory
4 8 (1.24%) VMware ESXi
4 8 (1.24%) vSphere
5 6 (0.93%) VMware NSX
6 5 (0.78%) Hyper-V
6 5 (0.78%) Postfix
6 5 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
7 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 62 (9.61%) Kubernetes
2 40 (6.20%) Grafana
3 21 (3.26%) Prometheus
4 13 (2.02%) Ansible
5 4 (0.62%) Podman
5 4 (0.62%) PowerCLI
5 4 (0.62%) vCenter Server
5 4 (0.62%) vMotion
6 3 (0.47%) QRadar
6 3 (0.47%) SCCM
7 2 (0.31%) Kibana
7 2 (0.31%) Single Sign-On
7 2 (0.31%) WMI
8 1 (0.16%) Backup Exec
8 1 (0.16%) Data Guard
8 1 (0.16%) Iperf
8 1 (0.16%) Microsoft Intune
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 153 (23.72%) Oracle
2 79 (12.25%) Talend
3 53 (8.22%) Microsoft
4 50 (7.75%) Denodo
5 41 (6.36%) SAP
6 33 (5.12%) Informatica
7 22 (3.41%) Atlassian
8 21 (3.26%) VMware
9 17 (2.64%) Dynatrace
10 10 (1.55%) Cisco
11 9 (1.40%) Sage
12 8 (1.24%) ServiceNow
12 8 (1.24%) webMethods
13 7 (1.09%) Databricks
13 7 (1.09%) Jaspersoft
14 5 (0.78%) Splunk
15 4 (0.62%) 3PAR
15 4 (0.62%) Fortinet
15 4 (0.62%) KANA
15 4 (0.62%) Veeam