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

6 months to
1 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 9 7
Rank change year-on-year +6 -2 +7
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 581 174 240
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 21.35% 12.56% 12.55%
As % of the Qualifications category 59.35% 39.73% 38.59%
Number of daily rates quoted 456 119 180
10th Percentile £351 £362 £311
25th Percentile £425 £464 £374
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £495 £551 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.16% +22.44% -16.67%
75th Percentile £575 £695 £578
90th Percentile £650 £728 £646
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 6 7
10th Percentile £17.48 £18.51 £13.70
25th Percentile £18.20 £21.71 £38.25
Median hourly rate £21.46 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.69% -46.15% +18.18%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.50
90th Percentile - £38.49 £72.41
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £55.80
% change year-on-year -58.08% +7.53% -7.00%

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 979 438 622
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.98% 31.62% 32.51%
Number of daily rates quoted 710 286 387
10th Percentile £313 £179 £270
25th Percentile £413 £400 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £492 £515 £450
Median % change year-on-year -4.47% +14.44% -10.94%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £569
90th Percentile £650 £703 £650
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 17 40
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.97 £16.98
25th Percentile £16.30 £18.50 £22.83
Median hourly rate £19.44 £23.60 £31.50
Median % change year-on-year -17.65% -25.08% +57.50%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £33.50 £39.14 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £41.37
% change year-on-year -49.70% +20.88% -13.82%

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 1 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 1 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 1 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 +3 282 £490 -0.61% 52
Birmingham +3 100 £475 -26.92% 18
Warwickshire -2 77 £445 -22.61% 7
Worcestershire +8 60 £650 -7.14% 5
Herefordshire +1 45 £625 -10.71% 1
Solihull +2 15 £450 +7.78% 6
Coventry - 5 £488 -
Staffordshire - 3 £350 - 5
Wolverhampton 0 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
1 112 (19.28%) SAS
2 54 (9.29%) Confluence
3 25 (4.30%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.24%) Tuxedo
5 3 (0.52%) Apache
6 2 (0.34%) nginx
6 2 (0.34%) SharePoint
7 1 (0.17%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 9 (1.55%) Microsoft Project
2 8 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.03%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.86%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.34%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.34%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.17%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.17%) Camtasia
6 1 (0.17%) Mozilla Thunderbird
Business Applications
1 2 (0.34%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.34%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.17%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.17%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.17%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 115 (19.79%) AWS
2 92 (15.83%) Azure
3 33 (5.68%) GitHub
4 31 (5.34%) OpenShift
5 27 (4.65%) GCP
6 23 (3.96%) Amazon S3
7 22 (3.79%) Amazon EC2
8 18 (3.10%) Serverless
9 17 (2.93%) Amazon CloudWatch
10 16 (2.75%) Azure Data Factory
11 15 (2.58%) GitHub Actions
12 13 (2.24%) AWS KMS
12 13 (2.24%) Azure DevOps
12 13 (2.24%) Power Platform
13 11 (1.89%) SaaS
14 9 (1.55%) Azure Key Vault
14 9 (1.55%) Datadog
14 9 (1.55%) Microsoft 365
15 8 (1.38%) Amazon ELB
15 8 (1.38%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 24 (4.13%) Firewall
2 23 (3.96%) VPN
3 21 (3.61%) WAN
4 17 (2.93%) BGP
4 17 (2.93%) IPsec
4 17 (2.93%) MPLS
5 13 (2.24%) Network Security
6 12 (2.07%) DNS
7 10 (1.72%) Intrusion Detection
8 9 (1.55%) Wireless
9 7 (1.20%) LAN
10 6 (1.03%) SSL
11 4 (0.69%) Cisco IPT
11 4 (0.69%) OSPF
11 4 (0.69%) SMTP
11 4 (0.69%) TCP/IP
11 4 (0.69%) Unified Communications
11 4 (0.69%) VLAN
11 4 (0.69%) Wi-Fi
11 4 (0.69%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 55 (9.47%) Pentaho
2 46 (7.92%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (5.85%) Oracle Database
3 34 (5.85%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 32 (5.51%) Data Warehouse
5 25 (4.30%) Amazon RDS
6 22 (3.79%) Metadata
7 14 (2.41%) Oracle Reports
8 13 (2.24%) Elasticsearch
8 13 (2.24%) MySQL
9 12 (2.07%) Metadata Repository
10 11 (1.89%) MongoDB
11 9 (1.55%) Redis
12 8 (1.38%) Amazon Aurora
12 8 (1.38%) Power BI
13 7 (1.20%) DynamoDB
14 6 (1.03%) Relational Database
15 5 (0.86%) Amazon Redshift
15 5 (0.86%) SQL Server
16 4 (0.69%) IDMS
Development Applications
1 102 (17.56%) Git
2 87 (14.97%) JIRA
3 85 (14.63%) Jenkins
4 55 (9.47%) GitLab
5 40 (6.88%) JUnit
6 32 (5.51%) Selenium
7 14 (2.41%) Cucumber
7 14 (2.41%) Mockito
8 13 (2.24%) Maven
8 13 (2.24%) Postman
8 13 (2.24%) SonarQube
8 13 (2.24%) Zephyr
9 9 (1.55%) JMeter
9 9 (1.55%) MSI
10 8 (1.38%) Atlassian Bamboo
10 8 (1.38%) WebDriver
11 5 (0.86%) Bitbucket
11 5 (0.86%) DbUnit
11 5 (0.86%) jMock
12 4 (0.69%) CA Gen
General
1 143 (24.61%) Social Skills
2 75 (12.91%) Public Sector
3 50 (8.61%) Analytical Skills
4 24 (4.13%) Finance
5 16 (2.75%) Documentation Skills
6 11 (1.89%) Telecoms
7 9 (1.55%) Aeronautics
8 8 (1.38%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.20%) Legal
9 7 (1.20%) Organisational Skills
10 6 (1.03%) Advertising
11 3 (0.52%) Influencing Skills
12 2 (0.34%) Electronics
12 2 (0.34%) Manufacturing
13 1 (0.17%) Aerospace
13 1 (0.17%) Automotive
13 1 (0.17%) Banking
13 1 (0.17%) Marketing
13 1 (0.17%) Military
13 1 (0.17%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 88 (15.15%) Data Engineer
2 52 (8.95%) Senior
3 51 (8.78%) Developer
4 45 (7.75%) Architect
5 39 (6.71%) Analyst
6 33 (5.68%) Tester
7 25 (4.30%) Java Developer
8 24 (4.13%) Test Specialist
9 20 (3.44%) Platform Engineer
10 19 (3.27%) Data Architect
10 19 (3.27%) Support Engineer
11 17 (2.93%) Business Analyst
12 16 (2.75%) Consultant
13 15 (2.58%) Lead
13 15 (2.58%) Senior Data Engineer
14 14 (2.41%) Release Manager
14 14 (2.41%) Senior Developer
15 13 (2.24%) Administrator
15 13 (2.24%) Engagement Manager
15 13 (2.24%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (6.71%) REST
2 38 (6.54%) Spring
3 31 (5.34%) Spring Boot
4 19 (3.27%) pytest
5 13 (2.24%) JPA
6 12 (2.07%) FastAPI
6 12 (2.07%) Flask
6 12 (2.07%) Kafka
6 12 (2.07%) Keycloak
7 11 (1.89%) Middleware
7 11 (1.89%) Node.js
8 9 (1.55%) GraphQL
8 9 (1.55%) gRPC
8 9 (1.55%) WebSockets
8 9 (1.55%) WireMock
9 8 (1.38%) AngularJS
9 8 (1.38%) React
9 8 (1.38%) SOAP
10 7 (1.20%) LDAP
10 7 (1.20%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.30%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.27%) Onboarding
3 17 (2.93%) Data Centre
4 13 (2.24%) PKI
5 12 (2.07%) Distributed Systems
5 12 (2.07%) Enterprise Software
6 10 (1.72%) Driving Licence
6 10 (1.72%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (1.55%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (1.38%) Product Ownership
8 8 (1.38%) SCADA
9 6 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
9 6 (1.03%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (0.86%) FPGA
10 5 (0.86%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.86%) Security Posture
11 4 (0.69%) CSOC
11 4 (0.69%) Distributed Architecture
11 4 (0.69%) Robotics
11 4 (0.69%) VHDL
Operating Systems
1 49 (8.43%) Linux
2 44 (7.57%) Windows
3 31 (5.34%) Unix
4 11 (1.89%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.20%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.52%) Android
6 3 (0.52%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.34%) AIX
7 2 (0.34%) Amazon Linux
7 2 (0.34%) CentOS
7 2 (0.34%) Solaris
7 2 (0.34%) VMS
7 2 (0.34%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.17%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.17%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 173 (29.78%) Agile
2 158 (27.19%) CI/CD
3 140 (24.10%) DevOps
4 102 (17.56%) Problem-Solving
5 92 (15.83%) Scrum
5 92 (15.83%) Test Automation
6 91 (15.66%) ETL
6 91 (15.66%) Stakeholder Management
7 89 (15.32%) Continuous Improvement
8 87 (14.97%) Analytics
9 68 (11.70%) Containerisation
10 64 (11.02%) Data Pipeline
11 63 (10.84%) Data Modelling
11 63 (10.84%) Migration
12 57 (9.81%) Business Intelligence
12 57 (9.81%) Data Integration
13 47 (8.09%) Microservices
14 44 (7.57%) Change Management
15 35 (6.02%) Data Management
15 35 (6.02%) Data Virtualisation
Programming Languages
1 162 (27.88%) SQL
2 77 (13.25%) Python
3 67 (11.53%) Java
4 28 (4.82%) PL/SQL
5 25 (4.30%) Shell Script
6 24 (4.13%) Go
7 19 (3.27%) PowerShell
8 18 (3.10%) Bash
9 7 (1.20%) Perl
10 6 (1.03%) JavaScript
11 4 (0.69%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.69%) MATLAB
11 4 (0.69%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.52%) HiveQL
13 2 (0.34%) Bicep
13 2 (0.34%) C#
13 2 (0.34%) C++
13 2 (0.34%) Groovy
13 2 (0.34%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.17%) R
Qualifications
1 581 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 25 (4.30%) DV Cleared
3 21 (3.61%) Azure Certification
4 14 (2.41%) BPSS Clearance
5 11 (1.89%) ISTQB
6 10 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (1.55%) AWS Certification
7 9 (1.55%) Degree
8 7 (1.20%) Cisco Certification
8 7 (1.20%) IIBA
9 6 (1.03%) CCNP
10 5 (0.86%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 4 (0.69%) CCIE
11 4 (0.69%) CISSP
11 4 (0.69%) OCP
11 4 (0.69%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.52%) CISM
13 2 (0.34%) CCNA
13 2 (0.34%) PMI Certification
13 2 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 34 (5.85%) Data Quality
2 29 (4.99%) QA
3 14 (2.41%) NCSC
4 13 (2.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 13 (2.24%) NIST
5 8 (1.38%) Accessibility
6 7 (1.20%) GDPR
7 4 (0.69%) WCAG
8 3 (0.52%) FATCA
9 2 (0.34%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.34%) PMO
9 2 (0.34%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.17%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.17%) GRC
10 1 (0.17%) IEC 61131
10 1 (0.17%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 111 (19.10%) Docker
2 11 (1.89%) Active Directory
3 8 (1.38%) Postfix
4 4 (0.69%) Snort
5 3 (0.52%) HDFS
5 3 (0.52%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.52%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.34%) DFS Replication
6 2 (0.34%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.17%) Dovecot
7 1 (0.17%) Squid
Systems Management
1 135 (23.24%) Kubernetes
2 50 (8.61%) Grafana
3 34 (5.85%) Prometheus
4 26 (4.48%) Terraform
5 17 (2.93%) Ansible
6 8 (1.38%) Progress Chef
7 7 (1.20%) Kibana
8 4 (0.69%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.52%) FortiGate
10 2 (0.34%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.34%) Podman
11 1 (0.17%) Control-M
11 1 (0.17%) Host Intrusion Detection System
11 1 (0.17%) HP ALM
11 1 (0.17%) logstash
11 1 (0.17%) Nessus
11 1 (0.17%) Proxmox
11 1 (0.17%) Puppet
11 1 (0.17%) QRadar
11 1 (0.17%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 129 (22.20%) Oracle
2 68 (11.70%) Talend
3 56 (9.64%) Microsoft
4 41 (7.06%) ServiceNow
5 39 (6.71%) Denodo
6 31 (5.34%) Informatica
7 28 (4.82%) Splunk
8 27 (4.65%) Cisco
9 22 (3.79%) Dynatrace
10 20 (3.44%) Juniper
11 13 (2.24%) AppDynamics
12 12 (2.07%) SAP
13 10 (1.72%) Atlassian
13 10 (1.72%) F5
14 9 (1.55%) CyberArk
15 8 (1.38%) CheckPoint
15 8 (1.38%) Fujitsu
15 8 (1.38%) Jaspersoft
15 8 (1.38%) Sage
16 7 (1.20%) Red Hat