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 24 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
24 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 9 6
Rank change year-on-year +6 -3 +9
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 565 168 242
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 21.03% 12.03% 12.77%
As % of the Qualifications category 58.61% 38.71% 39.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 438 115 182
10th Percentile £363 £399 £314
25th Percentile £438 £475 £375
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £551 £450
Median % change year-on-year -9.26% +22.44% -16.67%
75th Percentile £575 £689 £575
90th Percentile £661 £725 £645
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -2.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 23 5 8
10th Percentile £17.48 £23.63 £13.78
25th Percentile £18.20 £31.32 £35.38
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 - £39.18 £71.18
England median hourly rate £25.15 £60.25 £56.49
% change year-on-year -58.26% +6.66% -5.85%

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 964 434 610
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.89% 31.09% 32.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 691 283 375
10th Percentile £313 £186 £263
25th Percentile £420 £400 £373
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £497 £525 £450
Median % change year-on-year -5.37% +16.67% -10.94%
75th Percentile £575 £613 £575
90th Percentile £656 £700 £648
England median daily rate £520 £525 £540
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
Number of hourly rates quoted 44 17 39
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.97 £16.83
25th Percentile £16.30 £18.50 £22.66
Median hourly rate £19.44 £29.00 £28.50
Median % change year-on-year -32.98% +1.75% +42.50%
75th Percentile £25.15 £35.00 £58.75
90th Percentile £33.50 £46.18 £67.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £44.50
% change year-on-year -49.70% +12.36% -4.30%

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 24 February 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 24 February 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 24 February 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 +2 265 £492 -0.40% 55
Birmingham +8 100 £480 -30.33% 17
Warwickshire -1 78 £440 -23.48% 8
Worcestershire +9 62 £650 -7.14% 8
Herefordshire +2 46 £625 -10.71% 1
Solihull +1 14 £475 +14.46% 7
Coventry - 5 £488 -
Staffordshire - 3 £350 - 7
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
1 107 (18.94%) SAS
2 47 (8.32%) Confluence
3 26 (4.60%) WebLogic
4 10 (1.77%) Tuxedo
5 6 (1.06%) Apache
6 3 (0.53%) nginx
7 2 (0.35%) SharePoint
8 1 (0.18%) Apache Airflow
Applications
1 9 (1.59%) Microsoft Project
2 8 (1.42%) Microsoft Office
3 6 (1.06%) Microsoft Excel
4 5 (0.88%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 3 (0.53%) MS Visio
6 2 (0.35%) Mozilla Thunderbird
6 2 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 1 (0.18%) AutoCAD
7 1 (0.18%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 2 (0.35%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.35%) SAP S/4HANA
2 1 (0.18%) Dynamics CRM
2 1 (0.18%) Oracle Assets
2 1 (0.18%) Oracle EBS
2 1 (0.18%) Oracle ERP
2 1 (0.18%) Workday HCM
Cloud Services
1 114 (20.18%) AWS
2 96 (16.99%) Azure
3 32 (5.66%) GitHub
4 31 (5.49%) OpenShift
5 25 (4.42%) GCP
6 24 (4.25%) Amazon S3
7 23 (4.07%) Amazon EC2
8 18 (3.19%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 18 (3.19%) Serverless
9 16 (2.83%) Azure Data Factory
10 14 (2.48%) AWS KMS
11 13 (2.30%) Azure DevOps
11 13 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
12 12 (2.12%) SaaS
13 11 (1.95%) Power Platform
14 10 (1.77%) Microsoft 365
15 9 (1.59%) Amazon ELB
15 9 (1.59%) Azure Key Vault
15 9 (1.59%) Route 53
15 9 (1.59%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 26 (4.60%) Firewall
2 25 (4.42%) VPN
3 23 (4.07%) WAN
4 19 (3.36%) IPsec
5 18 (3.19%) BGP
5 18 (3.19%) MPLS
6 14 (2.48%) DNS
6 14 (2.48%) Network Security
7 10 (1.77%) Intrusion Detection
7 10 (1.77%) Wireless
8 7 (1.24%) LAN
8 7 (1.24%) SSL
9 5 (0.88%) Cisco IPT
9 5 (0.88%) DMVPN
9 5 (0.88%) SMTP
10 4 (0.71%) HTTP
10 4 (0.71%) TCP/IP
10 4 (0.71%) Unified Communications
10 4 (0.71%) VLAN
10 4 (0.71%) WLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 52 (9.20%) Pentaho
2 42 (7.43%) PostgreSQL
3 34 (6.02%) Oracle Database
3 34 (6.02%) SAS Enterprise Guide
4 28 (4.96%) Data Warehouse
5 25 (4.42%) Amazon RDS
6 22 (3.89%) Metadata
7 14 (2.48%) Elasticsearch
8 12 (2.12%) Metadata Repository
9 11 (1.95%) MongoDB
10 10 (1.77%) MySQL
11 9 (1.59%) Amazon Aurora
11 9 (1.59%) Oracle Reports
11 9 (1.59%) Redis
12 7 (1.24%) DynamoDB
13 6 (1.06%) Power BI
13 6 (1.06%) Relational Database
14 4 (0.71%) InfluxDB
14 4 (0.71%) SAS Visual Analytics
14 4 (0.71%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 97 (17.17%) Git
2 80 (14.16%) Jenkins
3 78 (13.81%) JIRA
4 49 (8.67%) GitLab
5 38 (6.73%) JUnit
6 30 (5.31%) Selenium
7 14 (2.48%) Mockito
7 14 (2.48%) SonarQube
8 13 (2.30%) Maven
9 12 (2.12%) Cucumber
10 10 (1.77%) Postman
11 9 (1.59%) Zephyr
12 7 (1.24%) JMeter
12 7 (1.24%) MSI
13 6 (1.06%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 6 (1.06%) WebDriver
14 5 (0.88%) DbUnit
14 5 (0.88%) jMock
15 3 (0.53%) CA Gen
15 3 (0.53%) NeoLoad
General
1 141 (24.96%) Social Skills
2 74 (13.10%) Public Sector
3 49 (8.67%) Analytical Skills
4 23 (4.07%) Finance
5 16 (2.83%) Documentation Skills
6 12 (2.12%) Telecoms
7 9 (1.59%) Aeronautics
8 8 (1.42%) Presentation Skills
9 7 (1.24%) Legal
10 6 (1.06%) Advertising
11 5 (0.88%) Organisational Skills
12 3 (0.53%) Influencing Skills
13 2 (0.35%) Electronics
13 2 (0.35%) Manufacturing
14 1 (0.18%) Aerospace
14 1 (0.18%) Automotive
14 1 (0.18%) Banking
14 1 (0.18%) Marketing
14 1 (0.18%) Military
14 1 (0.18%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 79 (13.98%) Data Engineer
2 51 (9.03%) Senior
3 50 (8.85%) Developer
4 44 (7.79%) Architect
5 37 (6.55%) Analyst
6 28 (4.96%) Tester
7 24 (4.25%) Java Developer
8 22 (3.89%) Test Specialist
9 21 (3.72%) Platform Engineer
10 19 (3.36%) Data Architect
10 19 (3.36%) Support Engineer
11 17 (3.01%) Business Analyst
12 16 (2.83%) Consultant
13 15 (2.65%) Lead
13 15 (2.65%) Senior Data Engineer
14 14 (2.48%) AWS Engineer
14 14 (2.48%) Release Manager
14 14 (2.48%) Senior Developer
15 13 (2.30%) Engagement Manager
15 13 (2.30%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 39 (6.90%) REST
2 36 (6.37%) Spring
3 31 (5.49%) Spring Boot
4 19 (3.36%) pytest
5 13 (2.30%) JPA
6 12 (2.12%) FastAPI
6 12 (2.12%) Flask
6 12 (2.12%) Kafka
6 12 (2.12%) Keycloak
7 11 (1.95%) Node.js
8 10 (1.77%) Middleware
9 9 (1.59%) GraphQL
9 9 (1.59%) gRPC
9 9 (1.59%) WebSockets
10 8 (1.42%) AngularJS
10 8 (1.42%) LDAP
10 8 (1.42%) React
10 8 (1.42%) SOAP
10 8 (1.42%) YAML
11 7 (1.24%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 25 (4.42%) Cloud Native
2 19 (3.36%) Onboarding
3 18 (3.19%) Data Centre
4 14 (2.48%) PKI
5 12 (2.12%) Enterprise Software
6 10 (1.77%) Distributed Systems
6 10 (1.77%) Driving Licence
6 10 (1.77%) Hybrid Cloud
7 9 (1.59%) Legacy Systems
8 8 (1.42%) Product Ownership
8 8 (1.42%) SCADA
9 6 (1.06%) FPGA
9 6 (1.06%) Security Operations Centre
10 5 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (0.88%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.88%) Security Posture
10 5 (0.88%) VHDL
11 4 (0.71%) Algorithms
11 4 (0.71%) CSOC
12 3 (0.53%) Data Structures
Operating Systems
1 55 (9.73%) Linux
2 46 (8.14%) Windows
3 28 (4.96%) Unix
4 11 (1.95%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 7 (1.24%) Windows Server
6 4 (0.71%) Ubuntu
7 3 (0.53%) Amazon Linux
7 3 (0.53%) Android
7 3 (0.53%) VMS
8 2 (0.35%) AIX
8 2 (0.35%) CentOS
8 2 (0.35%) Solaris
8 2 (0.35%) Windows 10
9 1 (0.18%) Embedded Linux
9 1 (0.18%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 161 (28.50%) Agile
2 152 (26.90%) CI/CD
3 136 (24.07%) DevOps
4 97 (17.17%) Problem-Solving
5 89 (15.75%) Stakeholder Management
6 87 (15.40%) Continuous Improvement
7 86 (15.22%) Analytics
8 84 (14.87%) Scrum
9 80 (14.16%) ETL
9 80 (14.16%) Test Automation
10 68 (12.04%) Containerisation
11 62 (10.97%) Data Pipeline
12 61 (10.80%) Data Modelling
13 57 (10.09%) Migration
14 56 (9.91%) Business Intelligence
14 56 (9.91%) Data Integration
15 46 (8.14%) Change Management
16 45 (7.96%) Microservices
17 34 (6.02%) Data Management
18 33 (5.84%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 154 (27.26%) SQL
2 77 (13.63%) Python
3 64 (11.33%) Java
4 25 (4.42%) PL/SQL
4 25 (4.42%) Shell Script
5 24 (4.25%) Go
6 20 (3.54%) PowerShell
7 19 (3.36%) Bash
8 7 (1.24%) Perl
9 6 (1.06%) JavaScript
10 5 (0.88%) MATLAB
11 4 (0.71%) Kusto Query Language
11 4 (0.71%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.53%) Groovy
13 2 (0.35%) Bicep
13 2 (0.35%) C#
13 2 (0.35%) C++
13 2 (0.35%) Kotlin
14 1 (0.18%) HiveQL
14 1 (0.18%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 565 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 28 (4.96%) DV Cleared
3 22 (3.89%) Azure Certification
4 14 (2.48%) BPSS Clearance
5 10 (1.77%) AWS Certification
6 9 (1.59%) Degree
6 9 (1.59%) ISTQB
6 9 (1.59%) Microsoft Certification
7 7 (1.24%) Cisco Certification
7 7 (1.24%) IIBA
8 6 (1.06%) CCNP
9 5 (0.88%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 4 (0.71%) CCIE
11 3 (0.53%) CISM
11 3 (0.53%) CISSP
11 3 (0.53%) OCP
11 3 (0.53%) Oracle Certification
12 2 (0.35%) CEH
12 2 (0.35%) PMI Certification
12 2 (0.35%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 32 (5.66%) Data Quality
2 25 (4.42%) QA
3 15 (2.65%) NCSC
4 12 (2.12%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 12 (2.12%) NIST
5 8 (1.42%) Accessibility
6 7 (1.24%) GDPR
7 4 (0.71%) WCAG
8 3 (0.53%) FATCA
9 2 (0.35%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.35%) PMO
9 2 (0.35%) SOC 2
10 1 (0.18%) Government Security Classifications
10 1 (0.18%) IEC 61131
10 1 (0.18%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 109 (19.29%) Docker
2 11 (1.95%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.59%) Postfix
4 4 (0.71%) Snort
5 3 (0.53%) DFS Replication
5 3 (0.53%) VMware Infrastructure
5 3 (0.53%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.35%) Dovecot
6 2 (0.35%) Squid
6 2 (0.35%) Terminal Services
7 1 (0.18%) HDFS
Systems Management
1 132 (23.36%) Kubernetes
2 47 (8.32%) Grafana
3 33 (5.84%) Prometheus
4 28 (4.96%) Terraform
5 15 (2.65%) Ansible
6 8 (1.42%) Kibana
6 8 (1.42%) Progress Chef
7 4 (0.71%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.53%) FortiGate
9 2 (0.35%) Docker Swarm
9 2 (0.35%) logstash
9 2 (0.35%) Nessus
9 2 (0.35%) Podman
9 2 (0.35%) Proxmox
10 1 (0.18%) Control-M
10 1 (0.18%) Host Intrusion Detection System
10 1 (0.18%) HP ALM
10 1 (0.18%) Puppet
10 1 (0.18%) QRadar
10 1 (0.18%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 120 (21.24%) Oracle
2 63 (11.15%) Talend
3 55 (9.73%) Microsoft
4 42 (7.43%) ServiceNow
5 37 (6.55%) Denodo
6 31 (5.49%) Cisco
6 31 (5.49%) Splunk
7 27 (4.78%) Informatica
8 26 (4.60%) Dynatrace
9 22 (3.89%) Juniper
10 16 (2.83%) AppDynamics
11 12 (2.12%) SAP
12 11 (1.95%) F5
13 9 (1.59%) CheckPoint
13 9 (1.59%) CyberArk
13 9 (1.59%) Jaspersoft
14 8 (1.42%) Atlassian
15 7 (1.24%) Red Hat
15 7 (1.24%) Sage
16 6 (1.06%) Remedy