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

6 months to
29 May 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 7 4
Rank change year-on-year +4 -3 +15
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 643 192 256
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 19.98% 13.83% 13.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.55% 42.76% 40.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 477 135 184
10th Percentile £358 £300 £299
25th Percentile £420 £449 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £525 £501
Median % change year-on-year -10.67% +4.84% -14.77%
75th Percentile £525 £619 £583
90th Percentile £626 £700 £672
England median daily rate £525 £525 £526
% change year-on-year - -0.19% -4.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 57 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 £52.50 £32.00 £48.56
% change year-on-year +64.06% -34.10% -15.55%

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 1,062 449 632
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 32.99% 32.35% 32.53%
Number of daily rates quoted 743 303 407
10th Percentile £326 £150 £289
25th Percentile £408 £313 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £469 £500 £492
Median % change year-on-year -6.20% +1.73% -8.98%
75th Percentile £541 £588 £597
90th Percentile £650 £689 £684
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 80 22 36
10th Percentile £17.18 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £24.06 £18.51 £21.81
Median hourly rate £52.50 £29.24 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year +79.58% +2.58% +46.15%
75th Percentile £67.84 £48.50 £46.88
90th Percentile £75.00 £58.35 £58.75
England median hourly rate £47.52 £32.50 £40.00
% change year-on-year +46.22% -18.75% -25.93%

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 29 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 29 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 29 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 +3 391 £469 -8.93% 26
Birmingham -3 80 £475 -13.64% 18
Warwickshire -8 64 £389 -22.24% 3
Solihull +4 30 £463 +6.32% 2
Herefordshire 0 28 £550 -21.43% 6
Worcestershire +5 20 £675 -3.57%
Staffordshire +1 4 £388 -21.72% 10
Coventry -16 2 £538 - 1
Wolverhampton -6 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
1 106 (16.49%) SAS
2 96 (14.93%) Confluence
3 24 (3.73%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.02%) Tuxedo
5 11 (1.71%) Apache Airflow
6 7 (1.09%) SharePoint
7 4 (0.62%) Apache
8 3 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.16%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.16%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.16%) SAP EP
Applications
1 8 (1.24%) Microsoft Excel
1 8 (1.24%) Microsoft PowerPoint
1 8 (1.24%) Microsoft Project
2 6 (0.93%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (0.62%) Notepad++
4 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 1 (0.16%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
1 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
1 1 (0.16%) SAP CRM
1 1 (0.16%) SAP EWM
1 1 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 169 (26.28%) AWS
2 77 (11.98%) Azure
3 37 (5.75%) Amazon S3
4 33 (5.13%) Amazon CloudWatch
5 32 (4.98%) Amazon EC2
5 32 (4.98%) GitHub
6 26 (4.04%) GitHub Actions
7 23 (3.58%) GCP
8 20 (3.11%) Serverless
9 18 (2.80%) AWS KMS
10 17 (2.64%) Virtual Private Cloud
11 15 (2.33%) Amazon SQS
11 15 (2.33%) AWS Lambda
11 15 (2.33%) Power Platform
12 14 (2.18%) Route 53
13 13 (2.02%) Azure DevOps
14 11 (1.71%) Microsoft 365
15 10 (1.56%) Amazon ECS
15 10 (1.56%) Amazon EKS
15 10 (1.56%) OpenShift
Communications & Networking
1 20 (3.11%) Firewall
2 12 (1.87%) WAN
3 10 (1.56%) LAN
4 9 (1.40%) VPN
5 8 (1.24%) Network Security
6 7 (1.09%) BGP
6 7 (1.09%) Intrusion Detection
6 7 (1.09%) SSL
7 6 (0.93%) VLAN
7 6 (0.93%) Wireless
8 5 (0.78%) DNS
8 5 (0.78%) IPsec
8 5 (0.78%) MPLS
8 5 (0.78%) OSPF
8 5 (0.78%) WLAN
9 4 (0.62%) 5G
9 4 (0.62%) Internet
9 4 (0.62%) PuTTY
9 4 (0.62%) SD-WAN
9 4 (0.62%) WinSCP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 67 (10.42%) Pentaho
2 61 (9.49%) Data Warehouse
3 43 (6.69%) PostgreSQL
4 33 (5.13%) Amazon RDS
5 29 (4.51%) Oracle Database
5 29 (4.51%) Oracle Reports
6 27 (4.20%) MySQL
7 20 (3.11%) Amazon Redshift
8 19 (2.95%) SAS Enterprise Guide
9 18 (2.80%) Metadata
10 17 (2.64%) DynamoDB
11 14 (2.18%) Amazon Aurora
11 14 (2.18%) Power BI
12 13 (2.02%) BusinessObjects
13 11 (1.71%) SAS Visual Analytics
14 9 (1.40%) Data Lake
14 9 (1.40%) MongoDB
15 5 (0.78%) Base SAS
15 5 (0.78%) IDMS
15 5 (0.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 124 (19.28%) JIRA
2 84 (13.06%) Git
2 84 (13.06%) GitLab
3 75 (11.66%) Jenkins
4 33 (5.13%) JUnit
5 29 (4.51%) Zephyr
6 24 (3.73%) Postman
6 24 (3.73%) Selenium
7 16 (2.49%) Maven
7 16 (2.49%) Mockito
8 15 (2.33%) Bitbucket
9 14 (2.18%) SonarQube
10 13 (2.02%) Cucumber
10 13 (2.02%) JMeter
11 12 (1.87%) WebDriver
12 10 (1.56%) Artifactory
12 10 (1.56%) DbUnit
12 10 (1.56%) jMock
13 9 (1.40%) MSI
14 8 (1.24%) Atlassian Bamboo
General
1 160 (24.88%) Social Skills
2 106 (16.49%) Public Sector
3 64 (9.95%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (4.98%) Finance
5 17 (2.64%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (1.40%) Influencing Skills
6 9 (1.40%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (1.24%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (1.09%) Telecoms
9 6 (0.93%) Advertising
10 4 (0.62%) Aerospace
11 3 (0.47%) Legal
12 2 (0.31%) Electronics
13 1 (0.16%) Banking
13 1 (0.16%) Billing
13 1 (0.16%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 1 (0.16%) Military
13 1 (0.16%) Police
Job Titles
1 150 (23.33%) Data Engineer
2 66 (10.26%) Architect
3 48 (7.47%) Developer
4 46 (7.15%) Analyst
5 39 (6.07%) Senior
5 39 (6.07%) Tester
6 31 (4.82%) Java Developer
7 26 (4.04%) Lead
8 24 (3.73%) SAS Engineer
9 21 (3.27%) Business Analyst
10 20 (3.11%) Support Engineer
11 18 (2.80%) Data Architect
11 18 (2.80%) Project Manager
11 18 (2.80%) QA Tester
12 17 (2.64%) Scrum Master
12 17 (2.64%) Software Engineer
13 16 (2.49%) Administrator
13 16 (2.49%) Data Manager
13 16 (2.49%) Delivery Manager
13 16 (2.49%) Test Analyst
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (6.84%) Spring
2 32 (4.98%) Spring Boot
3 22 (3.42%) REST
4 16 (2.49%) JPA
5 15 (2.33%) AngularJS
6 14 (2.18%) ActiveMQ
6 14 (2.18%) Hibernate
6 14 (2.18%) SOAP
6 14 (2.18%) Spring Batch
6 14 (2.18%) Spring Cloud
6 14 (2.18%) Spring Integration
6 14 (2.18%) Web Services
7 12 (1.87%) Node.js
7 12 (1.87%) WireMock
8 10 (1.56%) Middleware
8 10 (1.56%) PowerMock
9 8 (1.24%) AWS CDK
9 8 (1.24%) Bootstrap
9 8 (1.24%) RESTful
10 6 (0.93%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 32 (4.98%) Cloud Native
2 23 (3.58%) Distributed Systems
3 21 (3.27%) Product Ownership
4 15 (2.33%) Legacy Systems
5 14 (2.18%) Data Centre
6 13 (2.02%) Onboarding
7 12 (1.87%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.24%) Distributed Architecture
9 7 (1.09%) Analytical Mindset
10 6 (0.93%) Driving Licence
10 6 (0.93%) Private Cloud
11 5 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (0.78%) Linux Command Line
12 4 (0.62%) CSOC
12 4 (0.62%) Data Structures
12 4 (0.62%) Enterprise Cloud
12 4 (0.62%) Robotics
12 4 (0.62%) SCADA
12 4 (0.62%) Security Operations Centre
13 3 (0.47%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 63 (9.80%) Unix
2 57 (8.86%) Linux
3 42 (6.53%) Windows
4 9 (1.40%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.93%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 5 (0.78%) Android
7 2 (0.31%) AIX
7 2 (0.31%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.31%) Solaris
8 1 (0.16%) HPUX
8 1 (0.16%) Mac OS
Processes & Methodologies
1 204 (31.73%) Agile
2 130 (20.22%) CI/CD
3 122 (18.97%) ETL
4 121 (18.82%) DevOps
5 116 (18.04%) Test Automation
6 104 (16.17%) Scrum
7 102 (15.86%) Continuous Improvement
8 96 (14.93%) Migration
9 86 (13.37%) Analytics
9 86 (13.37%) Problem-Solving
10 85 (13.22%) Stakeholder Management
11 67 (10.42%) Data Integration
12 65 (10.11%) Data Modelling
13 60 (9.33%) Data Pipeline
14 56 (8.71%) Containerisation
15 54 (8.40%) Business Intelligence
16 50 (7.78%) Microservices
17 42 (6.53%) Problem Management
18 41 (6.38%) Change Management
18 41 (6.38%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 210 (32.66%) SQL
2 66 (10.26%) Java
3 48 (7.47%) PL/SQL
4 47 (7.31%) Python
5 24 (3.73%) Shell Script
6 17 (2.64%) Bash
7 15 (2.33%) PowerShell
8 7 (1.09%) Go
9 5 (0.78%) Perl
10 4 (0.62%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.47%) C++
11 3 (0.47%) HiveQL
11 3 (0.47%) JavaScript
11 3 (0.47%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.31%) Bicep
12 2 (0.31%) C
12 2 (0.31%) C#
12 2 (0.31%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.16%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.16%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 643 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 21 (3.27%) ISTQB
3 19 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
4 13 (2.02%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
6 10 (1.56%) SAFe Agilist
7 9 (1.40%) Degree
8 8 (1.24%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 8 (1.24%) Azure Certification
8 8 (1.24%) Microsoft Certification
9 7 (1.09%) CCNP
9 7 (1.09%) IIBA
9 7 (1.09%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 5 (0.78%) AWS Certification
10 5 (0.78%) CCIE
10 5 (0.78%) CCNA
10 5 (0.78%) CISSP
11 4 (0.62%) CISM
11 4 (0.62%) OCP
11 4 (0.62%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.44%) QA
2 33 (5.13%) Data Quality
3 16 (2.49%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (1.87%) NIST
5 11 (1.71%) Accessibility
6 9 (1.40%) FATCA
7 8 (1.24%) GDPR
8 5 (0.78%) SLA
9 3 (0.47%) Cyber Essentials
9 3 (0.47%) GRC
9 3 (0.47%) NCSC
10 2 (0.31%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.31%) PMO
10 2 (0.31%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.16%) P3O
11 1 (0.16%) WCAG
System Software
1 86 (13.37%) Docker
2 10 (1.56%) Postfix
2 10 (1.56%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.09%) Active Directory
4 6 (0.93%) VMware ESXi
4 6 (0.93%) vSphere
5 4 (0.62%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.62%) Snort
6 3 (0.47%) HDFS
6 3 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.31%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 87 (13.53%) Kubernetes
2 64 (9.95%) Grafana
3 32 (4.98%) Prometheus
4 25 (3.89%) Terraform
5 18 (2.80%) Ansible
6 5 (0.78%) Podman
6 5 (0.78%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.62%) CSIRT
7 4 (0.62%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.62%) vMotion
8 3 (0.47%) QRadar
9 2 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.31%) Kibana
9 2 (0.31%) SCCM
9 2 (0.31%) vCenter Server
10 1 (0.16%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.16%) Control-M
10 1 (0.16%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.16%) Puppet
10 1 (0.16%) WMI
Vendors
1 174 (27.06%) Oracle
2 106 (16.49%) Talend
3 60 (9.33%) Denodo
4 53 (8.24%) Informatica
5 38 (5.91%) Microsoft
6 23 (3.58%) Atlassian
7 21 (3.27%) Splunk
8 20 (3.11%) ServiceNow
9 17 (2.64%) Cisco
9 17 (2.64%) Dynatrace
10 16 (2.49%) VMware
11 15 (2.33%) SAP
12 14 (2.18%) Jaspersoft
13 12 (1.87%) Sage
14 9 (1.40%) AppDynamics
15 8 (1.24%) Fujitsu
16 7 (1.09%) HP
17 6 (0.93%) Juniper
18 5 (0.78%) Cloudera
18 5 (0.78%) Red Hat