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 11 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
11 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 12 7
Rank change year-on-year +9 -5 +9
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 450 170 229
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 19.84% 10.77% 12.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 55.56% 34.84% 41.94%
Number of daily rates quoted 341 126 168
10th Percentile £350 £374 £325
25th Percentile £463 £463 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.45% +10.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £581 £612 £610
90th Percentile £675 £700 £679
England median daily rate £525 £526 £550
% change year-on-year -0.19% -4.36% -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 25 3 12
10th Percentile £18.20 - £44.50
25th Percentile £18.87 - £62.50
Median hourly rate £21.46 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.69% -46.15% -1.52%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.81
90th Percentile - - £69.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £59.50
% change year-on-year -58.08% +0.84% -5.56%

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 810 488 546
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.71% 30.93% 30.88%
Number of daily rates quoted 562 319 336
10th Percentile £300 £208 £325
25th Percentile £425 £400 £406
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £515 £519 £500
Median % change year-on-year -0.77% +3.80% +1.01%
75th Percentile £575 £605 £600
90th Percentile £663 £700 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 19 32
10th Percentile £14.00 £17.55 £17.53
25th Percentile £18.00 £19.25 £23.00
Median hourly rate £18.87 £29.00 £34.75
Median % change year-on-year -34.93% -16.55% +78.21%
75th Percentile £25.15 £39.38 £67.50
90th Percentile £51.05 £52.50 £69.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £46.71 £50.00
% change year-on-year -46.16% -6.58% +11.11%

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 11 January 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 11 January 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 11 January 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 +1 177 £519 +5.49% 30
Birmingham +22 98 £475 -20.83% 6
Warwickshire +2 69 £380 -33.42% 12
Worcestershire +11 63 £650 +36.84% 9
Herefordshire 0 45 £650 +6.21% 3
Coventry - 6 £300 -
Staffordshire +1 5 £270 -40.00% 8
Solihull -3 4 £513 +40.41%
Wolverhampton +5 2 - - 3
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 85 (18.89%) SAS
2 40 (8.89%) Confluence
3 22 (4.89%) WebLogic
4 12 (2.67%) Apache
5 9 (2.00%) nginx
6 7 (1.56%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (1.33%) Tuxedo
8 3 (0.67%) Oracle Workflow
9 2 (0.44%) SharePoint
10 1 (0.22%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.22%) SAP EP
Applications
1 8 (1.78%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 6 (1.33%) Microsoft Project
3 5 (1.11%) Microsoft Office
4 4 (0.89%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.22%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 2 (0.44%) Dynamics CRM
1 2 (0.44%) SAP ERP
1 2 (0.44%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.22%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 100 (22.22%) Azure
2 83 (18.44%) AWS
3 31 (6.89%) GitHub
4 22 (4.89%) OpenShift
5 21 (4.67%) Amazon S3
6 20 (4.44%) Amazon EC2
7 18 (4.00%) Microsoft 365
8 17 (3.78%) Amazon CloudWatch
9 16 (3.56%) Amazon ELB
9 16 (3.56%) GCP
9 16 (3.56%) Serverless
9 16 (3.56%) Virtual Private Cloud
10 15 (3.33%) Azure Data Factory
10 15 (3.33%) SaaS
11 14 (3.11%) AWS KMS
11 14 (3.11%) Azure Monitor
12 11 (2.44%) Power Platform
13 9 (2.00%) Azure DevOps
13 9 (2.00%) Datadog
14 8 (1.78%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 41 (9.11%) Firewall
2 36 (8.00%) DNS
3 35 (7.78%) VPN
4 31 (6.89%) WAN
5 29 (6.44%) IPsec
6 22 (4.89%) MPLS
7 20 (4.44%) BGP
7 20 (4.44%) SMTP
8 15 (3.33%) FTP
9 14 (3.11%) HTTP
9 14 (3.11%) SSH
10 13 (2.89%) Network Security
11 11 (2.44%) SSL
11 11 (2.44%) Wireless
12 9 (2.00%) Cisco IPT
12 9 (2.00%) DMVPN
13 8 (1.78%) IMAP
13 8 (1.78%) OpenLDAP
14 6 (1.33%) DKIM
14 6 (1.33%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 38 (8.44%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 35 (7.78%) Pentaho
3 29 (6.44%) PostgreSQL
4 27 (6.00%) Oracle Database
5 18 (4.00%) Amazon RDS
6 16 (3.56%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (2.89%) Metadata
8 12 (2.67%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 9 (2.00%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (1.78%) Amazon Aurora
10 8 (1.78%) Redis
11 7 (1.56%) Metadata Repository
12 6 (1.33%) MongoDB
13 5 (1.11%) Power BI
14 3 (0.67%) InfluxDB
14 3 (0.67%) Relational Database
14 3 (0.67%) SAS Data Integration Studio
15 2 (0.44%) Data Hub
15 2 (0.44%) SAP BW
16 1 (0.22%) DataStage
Development Applications
1 74 (16.44%) Git
2 73 (16.22%) JIRA
3 67 (14.89%) Jenkins
4 29 (6.44%) GitLab
5 18 (4.00%) JUnit
5 18 (4.00%) Selenium
6 14 (3.11%) Vagrant
7 12 (2.67%) SonarQube
8 6 (1.33%) MSI
9 5 (1.11%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.11%) Mockito
10 4 (0.89%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.89%) Maven
11 3 (0.67%) NeoLoad
12 1 (0.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.22%) Postman
12 1 (0.22%) TestDirector
General
1 123 (27.33%) Social Skills
2 59 (13.11%) Public Sector
3 39 (8.67%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (2.89%) Documentation Skills
4 13 (2.89%) Finance
4 13 (2.89%) Telecoms
5 9 (2.00%) Aeronautics
6 8 (1.78%) Legal
6 8 (1.78%) Presentation Skills
7 2 (0.44%) Aerospace
7 2 (0.44%) Electronics
7 2 (0.44%) General Ledger
7 2 (0.44%) Influencing Skills
7 2 (0.44%) Manufacturing
7 2 (0.44%) Marketing
8 1 (0.22%) Advertising
8 1 (0.22%) Automotive
8 1 (0.22%) Organisational Skills
8 1 (0.22%) Police
8 1 (0.22%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 37 (8.22%) Platform Engineer
1 37 (8.22%) Senior
2 33 (7.33%) Data Engineer
3 29 (6.44%) Developer
4 28 (6.22%) Support Engineer
5 26 (5.78%) Architect
6 24 (5.33%) AWS Engineer
7 21 (4.67%) Analyst
7 21 (4.67%) DevOps Engineer
8 19 (4.22%) Release Manager
9 17 (3.78%) Test Specialist
10 16 (3.56%) AWS DevOps
10 16 (3.56%) AWS DevOps Engineer
10 16 (3.56%) Cloud Platform Engineer
11 13 (2.89%) Senior Data Engineer
11 13 (2.89%) Senior Developer
12 12 (2.67%) 3rd Line Support
12 12 (2.67%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
12 12 (2.67%) Consultant
12 12 (2.67%) Tester
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (6.44%) REST
2 15 (3.33%) pytest
3 13 (2.89%) Keycloak
3 13 (2.89%) LDAP
4 12 (2.67%) Kafka
4 12 (2.67%) Spring
4 12 (2.67%) Spring Boot
4 12 (2.67%) YAML
5 11 (2.44%) FastAPI
5 11 (2.44%) Flask
6 10 (2.22%) Middleware
7 9 (2.00%) 802.1X
8 8 (1.78%) GraphQL
8 8 (1.78%) React
8 8 (1.78%) WebSockets
9 7 (1.56%) gRPC
10 6 (1.33%) HTML
10 6 (1.33%) OAuth
10 6 (1.33%) Swagger
11 5 (1.11%) Elastic Stack
Miscellaneous
1 21 (4.67%) Cloud Native
2 20 (4.44%) PKI
3 19 (4.22%) Onboarding
4 18 (4.00%) Data Centre
5 15 (3.33%) Replication
6 12 (2.67%) Driving Licence
7 11 (2.44%) Enterprise Software
7 11 (2.44%) Hybrid Cloud
8 8 (1.78%) SCADA
9 7 (1.56%) FPGA
10 6 (1.33%) Product Ownership
10 6 (1.33%) VHDL
11 5 (1.11%) Algorithms
11 5 (1.11%) Legacy Systems
11 5 (1.11%) Self-Motivation
12 4 (0.89%) Data Protection Act
12 4 (0.89%) Security Operations Centre
13 3 (0.67%) Handset
13 3 (0.67%) Mainframe
13 3 (0.67%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 72 (16.00%) Windows
2 60 (13.33%) Linux
3 22 (4.89%) Unix
4 14 (3.11%) Amazon Linux
4 14 (3.11%) VMS
5 11 (2.44%) Windows Server
6 10 (2.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 10 (2.22%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.67%) Windows 10
8 2 (0.44%) CentOS
9 1 (0.22%) AIX
9 1 (0.22%) Android
9 1 (0.22%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.22%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.22%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.22%) Solaris
9 1 (0.22%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 142 (31.56%) DevOps
2 129 (28.67%) CI/CD
3 95 (21.11%) Agile
4 88 (19.56%) Analytics
5 75 (16.67%) Problem-Solving
6 60 (13.33%) Test Automation
7 56 (12.44%) Containerisation
8 55 (12.22%) Business Intelligence
8 55 (12.22%) Continuous Improvement
8 55 (12.22%) Data Integration
8 55 (12.22%) Data Pipeline
8 55 (12.22%) Scrum
9 52 (11.56%) Stakeholder Management
10 49 (10.89%) Migration
11 47 (10.44%) Change Management
11 47 (10.44%) ETL
12 45 (10.00%) Configuration Management
12 45 (10.00%) Platform Engineering
13 43 (9.56%) Data Modelling
14 39 (8.67%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 94 (20.89%) SQL
2 87 (19.33%) Python
3 40 (8.89%) PowerShell
4 29 (6.44%) Java
5 23 (5.11%) Go
6 16 (3.56%) Bash
7 14 (3.11%) Groovy
8 10 (2.22%) Shell Script
9 8 (1.78%) JavaScript
10 7 (1.56%) Perl
11 6 (1.33%) MATLAB
12 5 (1.11%) PL/SQL
12 5 (1.11%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.67%) ABAP
14 2 (0.44%) C#
14 2 (0.44%) C++
15 1 (0.22%) Bicep
15 1 (0.22%) C
15 1 (0.22%) COBOL
15 1 (0.22%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 450 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 30 (6.67%) DV Cleared
3 25 (5.56%) Azure Certification
4 14 (3.11%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.89%) AWS Certification
5 13 (2.89%) Degree
6 6 (1.33%) CISSP
6 6 (1.33%) IIBA
6 6 (1.33%) Microsoft Certification
7 5 (1.11%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 3 (0.67%) CEH
8 3 (0.67%) CISM
9 2 (0.44%) CCA
9 2 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
9 2 (0.44%) DBS Check
9 2 (0.44%) GCIH
10 1 (0.22%) CCNA
10 1 (0.22%) Citrix Certification
10 1 (0.22%) CRISC
10 1 (0.22%) GCFA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 26 (5.78%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.56%) NCSC
3 12 (2.67%) NIST
3 12 (2.67%) QA
4 10 (2.22%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 8 (1.78%) Accessibility
6 5 (1.11%) GDPR
7 4 (0.89%) WCAG
8 2 (0.44%) PCI DSS
8 2 (0.44%) PMO
9 1 (0.22%) IEC 61131
9 1 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
9 1 (0.22%) SLA
System Software
1 110 (24.44%) Docker
2 22 (4.89%) Active Directory
3 14 (3.11%) DFS Replication
3 14 (3.11%) Postfix
4 12 (2.67%) Dovecot
5 10 (2.22%) VMware Infrastructure
6 8 (1.78%) Squid
7 5 (1.11%) Terminal Services
8 4 (0.89%) Firmware
9 3 (0.67%) VMware NSX
10 1 (0.22%) Snort
Systems Management
1 110 (24.44%) Kubernetes
2 41 (9.11%) Terraform
3 37 (8.22%) Grafana
4 34 (7.56%) Prometheus
5 13 (2.89%) Ansible
6 8 (1.78%) Kibana
6 8 (1.78%) Nessus
6 8 (1.78%) Proxmox
7 4 (0.89%) logstash
7 4 (0.89%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.89%) SCCM
8 3 (0.67%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.44%) QRadar
10 1 (0.22%) Docker Swarm
10 1 (0.22%) Fluentd
10 1 (0.22%) NetBackup
10 1 (0.22%) Puppet
10 1 (0.22%) Rsyslog
10 1 (0.22%) Single Sign-On
10 1 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 85 (18.89%) Oracle
2 55 (12.22%) Microsoft
3 42 (9.33%) Cisco
4 35 (7.78%) Talend
5 34 (7.56%) ServiceNow
5 34 (7.56%) Splunk
6 33 (7.33%) Juniper
7 32 (7.11%) Dynatrace
8 31 (6.89%) Denodo
9 25 (5.56%) AppDynamics
10 15 (3.33%) F5
11 14 (3.11%) CheckPoint
12 12 (2.67%) CyberArk
12 12 (2.67%) VMware
13 11 (2.44%) SAP
14 10 (2.22%) Broadcom
15 9 (2.00%) Blue Coat
16 8 (1.78%) Atlassian
16 8 (1.78%) Jaspersoft
17 6 (1.33%) Red Hat