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 28 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 7 7
Rank change year-on-year +4 0 +6
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 615 189 245
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 21.27% 14.33% 12.42%
As % of the Qualifications category 59.71% 44.58% 39.20%
Number of daily rates quoted 485 132 184
10th Percentile £350 £328 £288
25th Percentile £425 £450 £352
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £490 £540 £450
Median % change year-on-year -9.26% +20.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £552 £689 £553
90th Percentile £640 £708 £643
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 29 5 8
10th Percentile £18.02 - £13.25
25th Percentile £18.20 £18.51 £13.81
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £18.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% +94.44% -67.27%
75th Percentile £65.25 - £45.00
90th Percentile £69.99 £39.18 £71.18
England median hourly rate £26.22 £60.00 £50.00
% change year-on-year -56.30% +20.00% -16.67%

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 1,030 424 625
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.62% 32.15% 31.68%
Number of daily rates quoted 747 292 397
10th Percentile £315 £151 £263
25th Percentile £408 £324 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £481 £450
Median % change year-on-year +0.94% +6.78% -14.29%
75th Percentile £560 £600 £575
90th Percentile £646 £700 £663
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 49 16 38
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.68 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.20 £18.41 £22.33
Median hourly rate £23.58 £24.09 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -2.14% -15.47% +42.50%
75th Percentile £53.75 £35.00 £52.19
90th Percentile £71.45 £39.61 £58.75
England median hourly rate £35.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -30.00% +33.33% -25.00%

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 28 March 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 28 March 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 28 March 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 +2 322 £484 -4.16% 39
Birmingham +5 98 £480 -19.33% 26
Warwickshire -5 74 £426 -22.64% 3
Worcestershire +4 51 £675 -3.57% 5
Herefordshire 0 39 £600 -14.29% 5
Solihull +1 18 £456 +8.63% 1
Wolverhampton -5 2 - - 1
Coventry -22 2 £488 - 1
Staffordshire - 2 £350 - 11
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
1 119 (19.35%) SAS
2 66 (10.73%) Confluence
3 25 (4.07%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.11%) Tuxedo
5 5 (0.81%) SharePoint
6 4 (0.65%) Apache Airflow
7 3 (0.49%) Apache
8 1 (0.16%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.16%) nginx
8 1 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.16%) SAP EP
Applications
1 7 (1.14%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
3 5 (0.81%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.65%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 1 (0.16%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 2 (0.33%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.33%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.16%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.16%) SAP CRM
2 1 (0.16%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 122 (19.84%) AWS
2 94 (15.28%) Azure
3 36 (5.85%) GitHub
4 31 (5.04%) OpenShift
5 27 (4.39%) GCP
6 23 (3.74%) Amazon S3
7 22 (3.58%) Amazon EC2
8 20 (3.25%) GitHub Actions
9 19 (3.09%) Serverless
10 17 (2.76%) Amazon CloudWatch
11 16 (2.60%) Azure Data Factory
12 12 (1.95%) AWS KMS
12 12 (1.95%) Azure DevOps
13 11 (1.79%) Power Platform
13 11 (1.79%) SaaS
14 10 (1.63%) Microsoft 365
15 9 (1.46%) Datadog
16 8 (1.30%) Amazon SQS
16 8 (1.30%) Route 53
16 8 (1.30%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 21 (3.41%) Firewall
2 17 (2.76%) VPN
3 16 (2.60%) WAN
4 14 (2.28%) BGP
5 12 (1.95%) MPLS
6 11 (1.79%) IPsec
6 11 (1.79%) Network Security
7 10 (1.63%) Intrusion Detection
8 8 (1.30%) LAN
9 7 (1.14%) DNS
9 7 (1.14%) Wireless
10 5 (0.81%) 5G
10 5 (0.81%) OSPF
10 5 (0.81%) SSL
10 5 (0.81%) VLAN
10 5 (0.81%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (0.65%) Unified Communications
11 4 (0.65%) WLAN
12 3 (0.49%) DHCP
12 3 (0.49%) TCP/IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 60 (9.76%) Pentaho
2 49 (7.97%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (5.53%) Data Warehouse
3 34 (5.53%) Oracle Database
3 34 (5.53%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 24 (3.90%) Amazon RDS
5 23 (3.74%) MySQL
6 22 (3.58%) Metadata
7 15 (2.44%) Amazon Redshift
8 14 (2.28%) Oracle Reports
9 13 (2.11%) Elasticsearch
10 12 (1.95%) Metadata Repository
11 11 (1.79%) MongoDB
12 8 (1.30%) Amazon Aurora
12 8 (1.30%) DynamoDB
13 7 (1.14%) Power BI
13 7 (1.14%) Redis
13 7 (1.14%) SAS Visual Analytics
14 6 (0.98%) Relational Database
15 5 (0.81%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 107 (17.40%) Git
2 92 (14.96%) JIRA
3 86 (13.98%) Jenkins
4 62 (10.08%) GitLab
5 45 (7.32%) JUnit
6 36 (5.85%) Selenium
7 18 (2.93%) Cucumber
8 15 (2.44%) Mockito
9 14 (2.28%) Maven
10 13 (2.11%) JMeter
10 13 (2.11%) Postman
10 13 (2.11%) Zephyr
11 12 (1.95%) WebDriver
12 11 (1.79%) SonarQube
13 9 (1.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 9 (1.46%) MSI
14 8 (1.30%) Bitbucket
15 6 (0.98%) DbUnit
15 6 (0.98%) jMock
16 4 (0.65%) CA Gen
General
1 156 (25.37%) Social Skills
2 76 (12.36%) Public Sector
3 57 (9.27%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (5.20%) Finance
5 18 (2.93%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (1.46%) Aeronautics
7 7 (1.14%) Advertising
7 7 (1.14%) Legal
7 7 (1.14%) Organisational Skills
7 7 (1.14%) Presentation Skills
7 7 (1.14%) Telecoms
8 3 (0.49%) Aerospace
8 3 (0.49%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.33%) Electronics
9 2 (0.33%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.16%) Automotive
10 1 (0.16%) Banking
10 1 (0.16%) Police
10 1 (0.16%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 113 (18.37%) Data Engineer
2 55 (8.94%) Senior
3 51 (8.29%) Architect
4 45 (7.32%) Developer
5 41 (6.67%) Analyst
6 34 (5.53%) Tester
7 27 (4.39%) Support Engineer
8 26 (4.23%) Java Developer
9 25 (4.07%) Test Specialist
10 19 (3.09%) Business Analyst
10 19 (3.09%) Data Architect
10 19 (3.09%) Senior Data Engineer
11 18 (2.93%) Platform Engineer
12 17 (2.76%) SAS Engineer
13 16 (2.60%) Consultant
13 16 (2.60%) Lead
13 16 (2.60%) Release Manager
14 14 (2.28%) Administrator
14 14 (2.28%) Delivery Manager
14 14 (2.28%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 43 (6.99%) Spring
2 38 (6.18%) REST
3 32 (5.20%) Spring Boot
4 19 (3.09%) pytest
5 14 (2.28%) JPA
6 13 (2.11%) WireMock
7 12 (1.95%) Kafka
7 12 (1.95%) Keycloak
8 11 (1.79%) Middleware
9 10 (1.63%) FastAPI
9 10 (1.63%) Flask
10 9 (1.46%) AngularJS
10 9 (1.46%) SOAP
11 8 (1.30%) ActiveMQ
11 8 (1.30%) Hibernate
11 8 (1.30%) Node.js
11 8 (1.30%) Spring Batch
11 8 (1.30%) Spring Cloud
11 8 (1.30%) Spring Integration
11 8 (1.30%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 24 (3.90%) Cloud Native
2 17 (2.76%) Distributed Systems
3 15 (2.44%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.28%) Product Ownership
5 13 (2.11%) Data Centre
5 13 (2.11%) Onboarding
6 12 (1.95%) Enterprise Software
7 11 (1.79%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (1.46%) PKI
9 8 (1.30%) Distributed Architecture
9 8 (1.30%) Driving Licence
9 8 (1.30%) SCADA
10 6 (0.98%) Private Cloud
10 6 (0.98%) Security Operations Centre
11 5 (0.81%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (0.81%) Security Posture
12 4 (0.65%) CSOC
12 4 (0.65%) Cyber Threat
12 4 (0.65%) Robotics
13 3 (0.49%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 54 (8.78%) Linux
2 51 (8.29%) Windows
3 34 (5.53%) Unix
4 14 (2.28%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.79%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.49%) Android
7 2 (0.33%) AIX
7 2 (0.33%) CentOS
7 2 (0.33%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.33%) Solaris
7 2 (0.33%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.33%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.16%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 183 (29.76%) Agile
2 151 (24.55%) CI/CD
3 133 (21.63%) DevOps
4 102 (16.59%) Scrum
5 98 (15.93%) Analytics
5 98 (15.93%) Continuous Improvement
6 97 (15.77%) Problem-Solving
7 95 (15.45%) Test Automation
8 94 (15.28%) ETL
9 91 (14.80%) Stakeholder Management
10 68 (11.06%) Containerisation
11 67 (10.89%) Data Integration
12 64 (10.41%) Data Pipeline
13 63 (10.24%) Migration
14 61 (9.92%) Data Modelling
15 56 (9.11%) Business Intelligence
16 51 (8.29%) Microservices
17 43 (6.99%) Validation
18 40 (6.50%) Change Management
19 39 (6.34%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 167 (27.15%) SQL
2 74 (12.03%) Python
3 71 (11.54%) Java
4 34 (5.53%) PL/SQL
5 28 (4.55%) Shell Script
6 22 (3.58%) Go
7 19 (3.09%) PowerShell
8 17 (2.76%) Bash
9 6 (0.98%) Perl
10 4 (0.65%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.49%) C++
11 3 (0.49%) HiveQL
11 3 (0.49%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.33%) Bicep
12 2 (0.33%) C
12 2 (0.33%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.33%) SystemVerilog
13 1 (0.16%) C#
13 1 (0.16%) COBOL
13 1 (0.16%) TypeScript
Qualifications
1 615 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 21 (3.41%) DV Cleared
3 20 (3.25%) Azure Certification
4 15 (2.44%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (1.79%) ISTQB
5 11 (1.79%) Microsoft Certification
6 8 (1.30%) AWS Certification
6 8 (1.30%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (1.14%) Degree
7 7 (1.14%) IIBA
8 6 (0.98%) CCNP
9 5 (0.81%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.65%) CCIE
10 4 (0.65%) CISSP
10 4 (0.65%) OCP
10 4 (0.65%) Oracle Certification
11 3 (0.49%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
11 3 (0.49%) CCNA
11 3 (0.49%) CISM
11 3 (0.49%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.37%) Data Quality
2 26 (4.23%) QA
3 15 (2.44%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (2.44%) NIST
4 11 (1.79%) NCSC
5 7 (1.14%) GDPR
6 5 (0.81%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.65%) WCAG
8 3 (0.49%) FATCA
9 2 (0.33%) PMO
9 2 (0.33%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.16%) Cyber Essentials
10 1 (0.16%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.16%) GRC
10 1 (0.16%) PCI DSS
10 1 (0.16%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 110 (17.89%) Docker
2 16 (2.60%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 8 (1.30%) Postfix
5 4 (0.65%) Snort
6 3 (0.49%) HDFS
6 3 (0.49%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.49%) VMware NSX
7 2 (0.33%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.33%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 133 (21.63%) Kubernetes
2 60 (9.76%) Grafana
3 35 (5.69%) Prometheus
4 24 (3.90%) Terraform
5 17 (2.76%) Ansible
6 8 (1.30%) Progress Chef
7 7 (1.14%) Kibana
8 4 (0.65%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.49%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.49%) Podman
10 2 (0.33%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.33%) QRadar
10 2 (0.33%) SCCM
11 1 (0.16%) Backup Exec
11 1 (0.16%) Control-M
11 1 (0.16%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.16%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.16%) logstash
11 1 (0.16%) Puppet
11 1 (0.16%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 134 (21.79%) Oracle
2 78 (12.68%) Talend
3 52 (8.46%) Microsoft
4 47 (7.64%) Denodo
5 34 (5.53%) ServiceNow
6 33 (5.37%) Informatica
7 28 (4.55%) Splunk
8 23 (3.74%) Cisco
9 22 (3.58%) Dynatrace
10 17 (2.76%) Atlassian
11 13 (2.11%) AppDynamics
11 13 (2.11%) Juniper
12 12 (1.95%) SAP
13 11 (1.79%) VMware
14 10 (1.63%) Sage
15 8 (1.30%) CyberArk
15 8 (1.30%) Fujitsu
15 8 (1.30%) Jaspersoft
16 7 (1.14%) HP
16 7 (1.14%) Red Hat