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 3 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 9 6
Rank change year-on-year +6 -3 +11
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 443 212 242
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.33% 11.65% 12.88%
As % of the Qualifications category 53.70% 37.92% 42.38%
Number of daily rates quoted 332 155 173
10th Percentile £350 £360 £325
25th Percentile £459 £445 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £523 £525 £525
Median % change year-on-year -0.48% - +5.00%
75th Percentile £584 £612 £626
90th Percentile £700 £700 £688
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 3 11
10th Percentile - - -
25th Percentile - - £62.50
Median hourly rate £18.87 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.09% -46.15% -
75th Percentile £25.15 - £68.13
90th Percentile - - £70.00
England median hourly rate £25.15 £57.38 £57.99
% change year-on-year -56.17% -1.06% -3.35%

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 825 559 571
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 37.86% 30.71% 30.39%
Number of daily rates quoted 567 356 353
10th Percentile £263 £278 £313
25th Percentile £413 £413 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £522 £525
Median % change year-on-year -1.34% -0.57% +6.06%
75th Percentile £581 £612 £606
90th Percentile £680 £725 £688
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 15 29
10th Percentile £14.69 £20.20 £17.70
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.58 £23.00
Median hourly rate £22.79 £35.00 £35.00
Median % change year-on-year -34.88% - +44.33%
75th Percentile £31.00 £46.88 £67.50
90th Percentile £47.98 £52.50 £71.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £48.56 £52.50
% change year-on-year -48.21% -7.50% +16.67%

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025.

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 3 December 2025. 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 0 155 £519 +8.86% 18
Birmingham +21 114 £475 -20.83% 24
Worcestershire +11 64 £650 +36.84% 11
Warwickshire +3 64 £450 -22.95% 18
Herefordshire 0 49 £650 +6.21% 8
Solihull -3 7 £450 +0.67% 1
Coventry - 6 £300 -
Staffordshire -2 5 £270 -40.00% 11
Wolverhampton - 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 74 (16.70%) SAS
2 36 (8.13%) Confluence
3 18 (4.06%) WebLogic
4 12 (2.71%) Apache
4 12 (2.71%) nginx
5 7 (1.58%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (1.13%) Tuxedo
7 4 (0.90%) SharePoint
8 3 (0.68%) Oracle Workflow
9 1 (0.23%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.23%) SAP EP
Applications
1 11 (2.48%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 10 (2.26%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.45%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.23%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.68%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.45%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.45%) SAP PP
2 2 (0.45%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.23%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.23%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 97 (21.90%) Azure
2 80 (18.06%) AWS
3 31 (7.00%) GitHub
4 29 (6.55%) Amazon S3
5 28 (6.32%) Amazon EC2
6 26 (5.87%) Amazon CloudWatch
7 24 (5.42%) Amazon ELB
7 24 (5.42%) Virtual Private Cloud
8 23 (5.19%) AWS KMS
9 21 (4.74%) Microsoft 365
9 21 (4.74%) OpenShift
10 15 (3.39%) SaaS
10 15 (3.39%) Serverless
11 14 (3.16%) Azure Data Factory
11 14 (3.16%) Azure Monitor
12 13 (2.93%) Power Platform
13 12 (2.71%) Route 53
14 11 (2.48%) Amazon ECS
14 11 (2.48%) Amazon Glacier
15 9 (2.03%) GCP
Communications & Networking
1 51 (11.51%) Firewall
2 42 (9.48%) DNS
3 37 (8.35%) VPN
4 33 (7.45%) WAN
5 31 (7.00%) IPsec
6 28 (6.32%) SMTP
7 26 (5.87%) MPLS
8 22 (4.97%) BGP
9 21 (4.74%) FTP
10 20 (4.51%) HTTP
10 20 (4.51%) SSH
11 13 (2.93%) Network Security
12 11 (2.48%) IMAP
12 11 (2.48%) OpenLDAP
12 11 (2.48%) SSL
12 11 (2.48%) Wireless
13 9 (2.03%) Cisco IPT
13 9 (2.03%) DMVPN
14 6 (1.35%) DKIM
14 6 (1.35%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (7.67%) Pentaho
1 34 (7.67%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 32 (7.22%) PostgreSQL
3 27 (6.09%) Oracle Database
4 26 (5.87%) Amazon RDS
5 15 (3.39%) Elasticsearch
6 12 (2.71%) Amazon Aurora
6 12 (2.71%) Metadata
6 12 (2.71%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 8 (1.81%) Data Warehouse
7 8 (1.81%) Redis
8 7 (1.58%) Metadata Repository
9 6 (1.35%) Power BI
10 3 (0.68%) SAS Data Integration Studio
11 2 (0.45%) Data Hub
11 2 (0.45%) DataStage
11 2 (0.45%) InfluxDB
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle Database 12c
11 2 (0.45%) Relational Database
11 2 (0.45%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 84 (18.96%) Git
2 74 (16.70%) Jenkins
3 70 (15.80%) JIRA
4 30 (6.77%) GitLab
5 22 (4.97%) Vagrant
6 19 (4.29%) JUnit
7 18 (4.06%) Selenium
8 13 (2.93%) SonarQube
9 6 (1.35%) Mockito
10 5 (1.13%) Cucumber
10 5 (1.13%) Maven
11 4 (0.90%) Bitbucket
11 4 (0.90%) MSI
11 4 (0.90%) PVCS
12 2 (0.45%) NeoLoad
12 2 (0.45%) Postman
13 1 (0.23%) Bitbucket Server
13 1 (0.23%) DbUnit
13 1 (0.23%) jMock
13 1 (0.23%) TestDirector
General
1 122 (27.54%) Social Skills
2 73 (16.48%) Public Sector
3 33 (7.45%) Analytical Skills
4 15 (3.39%) Telecoms
5 13 (2.93%) Finance
6 9 (2.03%) Aeronautics
6 9 (2.03%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (2.03%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (1.81%) Legal
8 5 (1.13%) Marketing
9 4 (0.90%) Manufacturing
10 2 (0.45%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.45%) Electronics
10 2 (0.45%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.45%) Influencing Skills
11 1 (0.23%) Advertising
11 1 (0.23%) Automotive
11 1 (0.23%) Organisational Skills
11 1 (0.23%) Police
11 1 (0.23%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 41 (9.26%) Platform Engineer
2 36 (8.13%) Senior
3 34 (7.67%) Developer
4 31 (7.00%) Data Engineer
5 30 (6.77%) AWS Engineer
6 29 (6.55%) DevOps Engineer
7 26 (5.87%) Support Engineer
8 22 (4.97%) Architect
9 20 (4.51%) AWS DevOps
9 20 (4.51%) AWS DevOps Engineer
9 20 (4.51%) Cloud Platform Engineer
10 19 (4.29%) Analyst
11 18 (4.06%) Network Engineer
12 17 (3.84%) Test Specialist
13 16 (3.61%) Release Manager
14 14 (3.16%) 3rd Line Engineer
15 13 (2.93%) 3rd Line Support
15 13 (2.93%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
15 13 (2.93%) Consultant
15 13 (2.93%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 32 (7.22%) REST
2 16 (3.61%) LDAP
3 15 (3.39%) pytest
4 12 (2.71%) Keycloak
4 12 (2.71%) YAML
5 11 (2.48%) FastAPI
5 11 (2.48%) Flask
5 11 (2.48%) Kafka
6 10 (2.26%) Spring
6 10 (2.26%) Spring Boot
7 9 (2.03%) 802.1X
8 8 (1.81%) GraphQL
8 8 (1.81%) React
8 8 (1.81%) WebSockets
9 7 (1.58%) gRPC
9 7 (1.58%) HTML
10 6 (1.35%) OAuth
11 5 (1.13%) .NET
11 5 (1.13%) Elastic Stack
11 5 (1.13%) JPA
Miscellaneous
1 22 (4.97%) Data Centre
1 22 (4.97%) Onboarding
1 22 (4.97%) PKI
2 21 (4.74%) Replication
3 15 (3.39%) Driving Licence
4 14 (3.16%) Cloud Native
5 13 (2.93%) Hybrid Cloud
6 9 (2.03%) SCADA
7 7 (1.58%) Product Ownership
8 6 (1.35%) Data Protection Act
9 5 (1.13%) Algorithms
9 5 (1.13%) FPGA
9 5 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
9 5 (1.13%) VHDL
10 4 (0.90%) Legacy Systems
10 4 (0.90%) Security Operations Centre
11 3 (0.68%) Handset
11 3 (0.68%) IoT
11 3 (0.68%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.68%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 79 (17.83%) Windows
2 67 (15.12%) Linux
3 22 (4.97%) Amazon Linux
3 22 (4.97%) Unix
3 22 (4.97%) VMS
4 13 (2.93%) Windows Server
5 11 (2.48%) Ubuntu
6 9 (2.03%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 3 (0.68%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.45%) Android
8 2 (0.45%) CentOS
9 1 (0.23%) AIX
9 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.23%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.23%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.23%) Solaris
9 1 (0.23%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (30.25%) DevOps
2 121 (27.31%) CI/CD
3 90 (20.32%) Agile
4 84 (18.96%) Analytics
5 76 (17.16%) Problem-Solving
6 59 (13.32%) Containerisation
6 59 (13.32%) Test Automation
7 56 (12.64%) Business Intelligence
7 56 (12.64%) Continuous Improvement
8 53 (11.96%) Data Pipeline
8 53 (11.96%) Platform Engineering
8 53 (11.96%) Scrum
9 50 (11.29%) Configuration Management
9 50 (11.29%) Data Integration
10 47 (10.61%) Change Management
11 46 (10.38%) ETL
12 44 (9.93%) Migration
13 42 (9.48%) Data Modelling
14 39 (8.80%) Test Strategy
15 36 (8.13%) Stakeholder Management
Programming Languages
1 88 (19.86%) SQL
2 83 (18.74%) Python
3 39 (8.80%) PowerShell
4 33 (7.45%) Java
5 22 (4.97%) Groovy
6 21 (4.74%) Go
7 12 (2.71%) Perl
8 10 (2.26%) Bash
8 10 (2.26%) Shell Script
9 8 (1.81%) JavaScript
9 8 (1.81%) PL/SQL
10 5 (1.13%) MATLAB
10 5 (1.13%) TypeScript
11 3 (0.68%) ABAP
11 3 (0.68%) C#
12 1 (0.23%) Bicep
12 1 (0.23%) C
12 1 (0.23%) COBOL
12 1 (0.23%) Korn
12 1 (0.23%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 443 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 34 (7.67%) DV Cleared
3 27 (6.09%) Azure Certification
4 18 (4.06%) Degree
5 16 (3.61%) AWS Certification
6 13 (2.93%) BPSS Clearance
7 8 (1.81%) Microsoft Certification
8 7 (1.58%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 6 (1.35%) CISSP
10 3 (0.68%) CCNA
10 3 (0.68%) CEH
10 3 (0.68%) Cisco Certification
10 3 (0.68%) CISM
11 2 (0.45%) CCA
11 2 (0.45%) CCNP
11 2 (0.45%) Computer Science Degree
11 2 (0.45%) DBS Check
11 2 (0.45%) GCIH
11 2 (0.45%) OCP
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (5.64%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.61%) NCSC
3 12 (2.71%) QA
4 10 (2.26%) NIST
5 8 (1.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 6 (1.35%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.90%) WCAG
8 2 (0.45%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.45%) PMO
8 2 (0.45%) SLA
9 1 (0.23%) GDPR
9 1 (0.23%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.23%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 113 (25.51%) Docker
2 30 (6.77%) Active Directory
3 20 (4.51%) DFS Replication
4 18 (4.06%) Postfix
5 15 (3.39%) Dovecot
6 12 (2.71%) VMware Infrastructure
7 11 (2.48%) Squid
8 5 (1.13%) Terminal Services
9 4 (0.90%) Firmware
10 3 (0.68%) VMware NSX
11 2 (0.45%) Hyper-V
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle RAC
12 1 (0.23%) Snort
Systems Management
1 99 (22.35%) Kubernetes
2 50 (11.29%) Terraform
3 38 (8.58%) Grafana
4 35 (7.90%) Prometheus
5 14 (3.16%) Ansible
6 11 (2.48%) Nessus
7 9 (2.03%) Proxmox
8 8 (1.81%) Kibana
9 4 (0.90%) logstash
9 4 (0.90%) SCCM
10 3 (0.68%) FortiGate
10 3 (0.68%) Progress Chef
10 3 (0.68%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.45%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 2 (0.45%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.45%) QRadar
12 1 (0.23%) NetBackup
12 1 (0.23%) Rsyslog
12 1 (0.23%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 80 (18.06%) Oracle
2 59 (13.32%) Microsoft
3 47 (10.61%) Cisco
4 43 (9.71%) ServiceNow
5 36 (8.13%) Juniper
6 34 (7.67%) Talend
7 30 (6.77%) Denodo
8 24 (5.42%) Splunk
9 23 (5.19%) Dynatrace
10 16 (3.61%) AppDynamics
11 14 (3.16%) F5
11 14 (3.16%) VMware
12 13 (2.93%) CheckPoint
12 13 (2.93%) SAP
13 12 (2.71%) Jaspersoft
14 10 (2.26%) Broadcom
14 10 (2.26%) CyberArk
15 9 (2.03%) Atlassian
15 9 (2.03%) Blue Coat
16 6 (1.35%) Red Hat