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 29 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
29 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 2 7 4
Rank change year-on-year +5 -3 +10
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 708 226 286
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.70% 13.73% 15.10%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.51% 42.56% 43.87%
Number of daily rates quoted 529 159 198
10th Percentile £360 £279 £300
25th Percentile £413 £413 £358
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -7.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £538 £575 £612
90th Percentile £631 £678 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 50 18 5
10th Percentile £15.83 £18.76 £13.55
25th Percentile £58.43 - -
Median hourly rate £63.14 £18.87 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year +234.58% +34.79% -49.09%
75th Percentile £70.50 £25.15 £22.00
90th Percentile £75.00 £30.20 £31.30
England median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £52.19
% change year-on-year +151.03% -51.81% -9.23%

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 1,170 531 652
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 34.20% 32.26% 34.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 836 348 416
10th Percentile £337 £160 £310
25th Percentile £406 £347 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £465 £475 £517
Median % change year-on-year -2.11% -8.12% -4.26%
75th Percentile £544 £581 £625
90th Percentile £650 £650 £725
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 82 47 24
10th Percentile £16.42 £18.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £30.28 £21.94 £18.14
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.00 £36.25
Median % change year-on-year +75.00% -17.24% +33.03%
75th Percentile £67.84 £43.63 £56.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £51.00 £58.75
England median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +118.69% -41.51% -21.82%

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 29 July 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 29 July 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 29 July 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 +2 438 £467 -11.02% 53
Birmingham -2 97 £475 - 23
Warwickshire -10 54 £450 -10.00% 6
Solihull +5 44 £463 +2.78% 1
Herefordshire 0 23 £700 -12.50% 6
Worcestershire -5 12 £680 -2.86% 2
Coventry -17 8 £425 +54.55% 2
Staffordshire -2 5 £388 -21.72% 3
Walsall - 4 £600 -
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
1 104 (14.69%) SAS
2 93 (13.14%) Confluence
3 21 (2.97%) WebLogic
4 18 (2.54%) Apache Airflow
5 13 (1.84%) SharePoint
6 10 (1.41%) Tuxedo
7 3 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
8 2 (0.28%) Apache
8 2 (0.28%) Apache Spark
9 1 (0.14%) IIS
9 1 (0.14%) Jupyter
9 1 (0.14%) NetWeaver
9 1 (0.14%) OpenStack
9 1 (0.14%) SAP EP
Applications
1 14 (1.98%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 9 (1.27%) Microsoft Project
4 6 (0.85%) MS Visio
5 4 (0.56%) Notepad++
6 1 (0.14%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 8 (1.13%) SAP PSCD
2 4 (0.56%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.28%) SAP ERP
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle EBS
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle ERP
4 1 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.14%) SAP BRIM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP CO
4 1 (0.14%) SAP CRM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP EWM
4 1 (0.14%) SAP FI
4 1 (0.14%) SAP FI/CO
4 1 (0.14%) SAP FI-CA
4 1 (0.14%) SAP Hybris
Cloud Services
1 188 (26.55%) AWS
2 91 (12.85%) Azure
3 47 (6.64%) GitHub
4 44 (6.21%) Amazon S3
5 41 (5.79%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 38 (5.37%) Amazon EC2
7 37 (5.23%) GitHub Actions
8 26 (3.67%) Serverless
9 24 (3.39%) GCP
10 23 (3.25%) Power Platform
11 22 (3.11%) AWS Lambda
12 20 (2.82%) Azure DevOps
13 19 (2.68%) Amazon ECS
13 19 (2.68%) Amazon EKS
14 18 (2.54%) AWS KMS
14 18 (2.54%) Microsoft 365
14 18 (2.54%) Virtual Private Cloud
15 16 (2.26%) Amazon SQS
16 14 (1.98%) Route 53
17 11 (1.55%) AWS CodePipeline
Communications & Networking
1 22 (3.11%) Firewall
2 10 (1.41%) WAN
3 9 (1.27%) VPN
4 8 (1.13%) DNS
4 8 (1.13%) SSL
5 7 (0.99%) LAN
6 6 (0.85%) Network Security
7 5 (0.71%) TCP/IP
8 4 (0.56%) BGP
8 4 (0.56%) DHCP
8 4 (0.56%) Intrusion Detection
8 4 (0.56%) IPsec
8 4 (0.56%) MPLS
8 4 (0.56%) PuTTY
8 4 (0.56%) SNMP
8 4 (0.56%) VLAN
8 4 (0.56%) WinSCP
9 3 (0.42%) DMVPN
9 3 (0.42%) OSPF
9 3 (0.42%) SD-WAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 76 (10.73%) Pentaho
2 72 (10.17%) Data Warehouse
3 51 (7.20%) PostgreSQL
4 34 (4.80%) Oracle Database
5 33 (4.66%) MySQL
6 32 (4.52%) Oracle Reports
7 26 (3.67%) Amazon RDS
8 22 (3.11%) Data Lake
9 20 (2.82%) Amazon Redshift
10 19 (2.68%) SAS Enterprise Guide
11 18 (2.54%) SAS Visual Analytics
12 17 (2.40%) DynamoDB
13 16 (2.26%) BusinessObjects
13 16 (2.26%) Power BI
14 15 (2.12%) Base SAS
14 15 (2.12%) Enterprise Data Warehouse
14 15 (2.12%) Metadata
15 14 (1.98%) Amazon Aurora
16 13 (1.84%) SQL Server
17 9 (1.27%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 124 (17.51%) JIRA
2 99 (13.98%) Git
3 91 (12.85%) GitLab
4 86 (12.15%) Jenkins
5 41 (5.79%) JUnit
6 31 (4.38%) Zephyr
7 29 (4.10%) Selenium
8 25 (3.53%) Postman
9 24 (3.39%) Maven
10 19 (2.68%) Bitbucket
10 19 (2.68%) Mockito
11 18 (2.54%) Cucumber
11 18 (2.54%) WebDriver
12 16 (2.26%) SonarQube
13 15 (2.12%) JMeter
14 10 (1.41%) Artifactory
14 10 (1.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
14 10 (1.41%) DbUnit
14 10 (1.41%) jMock
15 8 (1.13%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 178 (25.14%) Social Skills
2 152 (21.47%) Public Sector
3 55 (7.77%) Analytical Skills
4 38 (5.37%) Finance
5 14 (1.98%) Organisational Skills
6 13 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
7 12 (1.69%) Documentation Skills
8 11 (1.55%) Presentation Skills
9 10 (1.41%) Telecoms
10 7 (0.99%) Advertising
10 7 (0.99%) Inclusion and Diversity
11 5 (0.71%) Legal
12 4 (0.56%) Aerospace
13 2 (0.28%) Banking
13 2 (0.28%) Billing
13 2 (0.28%) General Ledger
13 2 (0.28%) Military
Job Titles
1 159 (22.46%) Data Engineer
2 72 (10.17%) Architect
3 64 (9.04%) Developer
4 51 (7.20%) Senior
5 48 (6.78%) Analyst
6 38 (5.37%) Java Developer
7 37 (5.23%) Tester
8 32 (4.52%) Consultant
9 29 (4.10%) Lead
9 29 (4.10%) Scrum Master
10 26 (3.67%) Data Architect
11 22 (3.11%) Software Engineer
12 21 (2.97%) Test Analyst
13 20 (2.82%) QA Tester
14 19 (2.68%) SAS Engineer
15 18 (2.54%) Administrator
16 17 (2.40%) SAS Architect
16 17 (2.40%) Technical Architect
17 16 (2.26%) DBA
17 16 (2.26%) SAP Consultant
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 53 (7.49%) Spring
2 37 (5.23%) Spring Boot
3 26 (3.67%) REST
4 21 (2.97%) SOAP
5 18 (2.54%) JPA
6 17 (2.40%) ActiveMQ
7 16 (2.26%) AngularJS
7 16 (2.26%) Hibernate
7 16 (2.26%) RESTful
7 16 (2.26%) Spring Cloud
7 16 (2.26%) Web Services
8 15 (2.12%) WireMock
9 14 (1.98%) Node.js
9 14 (1.98%) Spring Batch
9 14 (1.98%) Spring Integration
10 10 (1.41%) JSON
10 10 (1.41%) PowerMock
11 9 (1.27%) AWS CDK
12 8 (1.13%) Bootstrap
13 7 (0.99%) XML
Miscellaneous
1 38 (5.37%) Cloud Native
1 38 (5.37%) Product Ownership
2 29 (4.10%) Distributed Systems
3 15 (2.12%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (1.98%) Onboarding
5 13 (1.84%) Data Centre
6 11 (1.55%) Distributed Architecture
6 11 (1.55%) Enterprise Software
6 11 (1.55%) Linux Command Line
7 9 (1.27%) Analytical Mindset
8 7 (0.99%) Enterprise Cloud
8 7 (0.99%) SCADA
9 6 (0.85%) Data Structures
9 6 (0.85%) Private Cloud
10 5 (0.71%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.56%) Autonomous Agent
11 4 (0.56%) Robotics
11 4 (0.56%) Security Operations Centre
12 3 (0.42%) Cyber Threat
12 3 (0.42%) Distributed Applications
Operating Systems
1 58 (8.19%) Unix
2 52 (7.34%) Linux
3 34 (4.80%) Windows
4 10 (1.41%) Windows Server
5 5 (0.71%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
5 5 (0.71%) Solaris
6 4 (0.56%) Android
7 2 (0.28%) AIX
7 2 (0.28%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.28%) Mac OS
8 1 (0.14%) CentOS
8 1 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
8 1 (0.14%) HPUX
8 1 (0.14%) Ubuntu
Processes & Methodologies
1 242 (34.18%) Agile
2 149 (21.05%) CI/CD
3 137 (19.35%) Continuous Improvement
4 135 (19.07%) DevOps
4 135 (19.07%) Test Automation
5 133 (18.79%) ETL
6 123 (17.37%) Scrum
7 115 (16.24%) Problem-Solving
8 112 (15.82%) Migration
9 97 (13.70%) Analytics
10 80 (11.30%) Data Integration
11 76 (10.73%) Containerisation
12 74 (10.45%) Stakeholder Management
13 68 (9.60%) Data Modelling
14 67 (9.46%) Data Pipeline
15 56 (7.91%) Microservices
15 56 (7.91%) Validation
16 49 (6.92%) Business Intelligence
17 48 (6.78%) Stakeholder Engagement
18 45 (6.36%) End-to-End Testing
Programming Languages
1 209 (29.52%) SQL
2 97 (13.70%) Java
3 53 (7.49%) PL/SQL
4 39 (5.51%) Python
5 24 (3.39%) Shell Script
6 11 (1.55%) JavaScript
7 10 (1.41%) Bash
7 10 (1.41%) C
8 9 (1.27%) ABAP
9 8 (1.13%) C#
10 6 (0.85%) ProC
11 5 (0.71%) PowerShell
12 4 (0.56%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.56%) Perl
12 4 (0.56%) Scala
12 4 (0.56%) TypeScript
13 3 (0.42%) Go
13 3 (0.42%) HiveQL
13 3 (0.42%) Kusto Query Language
13 3 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 708 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 35 (4.94%) BPSS Clearance
3 26 (3.67%) ISTQB
4 19 (2.68%) Microsoft Certification
5 15 (2.12%) DV Cleared
6 11 (1.55%) AWS Certification
6 11 (1.55%) SAFe Agilist
7 10 (1.41%) Degree
8 9 (1.27%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
8 9 (1.27%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (1.13%) OCP
9 8 (1.13%) Oracle Certification
9 8 (1.13%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
10 7 (0.99%) Azure Certification
11 6 (0.85%) CCNA
11 6 (0.85%) CISSP
12 4 (0.56%) CISM
12 4 (0.56%) MCSE
12 4 (0.56%) RHCA
12 4 (0.56%) SAS Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 53 (7.49%) QA
2 45 (6.36%) Data Quality
3 18 (2.54%) Accessibility
4 17 (2.40%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (1.55%) NIST
6 10 (1.41%) NCSC
7 9 (1.27%) FATCA
7 9 (1.27%) SLA
8 5 (0.71%) GRC
9 4 (0.56%) Cyber Essentials
9 4 (0.56%) GDPR
10 2 (0.28%) Government Security Classifications
10 2 (0.28%) PMO
10 2 (0.28%) SOC 2
11 1 (0.14%) HIPAA
11 1 (0.14%) NIST 800
11 1 (0.14%) P3O
11 1 (0.14%) WCAG
System Software
1 91 (12.85%) Docker
2 15 (2.12%) VMware Infrastructure
3 11 (1.55%) Active Directory
4 10 (1.41%) Postfix
5 8 (1.13%) VMware ESXi
5 8 (1.13%) vSphere
6 6 (0.85%) VMware NSX
7 5 (0.71%) Hyper-V
7 5 (0.71%) Virtual Machines
8 3 (0.42%) HDFS
8 3 (0.42%) Snort
9 1 (0.14%) Oracle RAC
Systems Management
1 86 (12.15%) Kubernetes
2 55 (7.77%) Grafana
3 26 (3.67%) Terraform
4 25 (3.53%) Prometheus
5 16 (2.26%) Ansible
6 6 (0.85%) Podman
7 4 (0.56%) PowerCLI
7 4 (0.56%) vCenter Server
7 4 (0.56%) vMotion
8 3 (0.42%) CSIRT
8 3 (0.42%) QRadar
9 2 (0.28%) Kibana
9 2 (0.28%) SCCM
9 2 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
9 2 (0.28%) WMI
10 1 (0.14%) Backup Exec
10 1 (0.14%) Control-M
10 1 (0.14%) Data Guard
10 1 (0.14%) Iperf
10 1 (0.14%) Oracle RMAN
Vendors
1 197 (27.82%) Oracle
2 108 (15.25%) Talend
3 61 (8.62%) Denodo
3 61 (8.62%) Microsoft
4 52 (7.34%) Informatica
5 41 (5.79%) SAP
6 26 (3.67%) Atlassian
7 23 (3.25%) ServiceNow
8 21 (2.97%) VMware
9 14 (1.98%) Cisco
9 14 (1.98%) Jaspersoft
10 13 (1.84%) Sage
11 11 (1.55%) Dynatrace
12 9 (1.27%) Splunk
13 8 (1.13%) Databricks
13 8 (1.13%) webMethods
14 6 (0.85%) Cloudera
15 5 (0.71%) F5
16 4 (0.56%) 3PAR
16 4 (0.56%) Veeam