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 2 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
2 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 8 7
Rank change year-on-year +5 -1 +6
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 640 188 238
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 21.85% 14.22% 12.20%
As % of the Qualifications category 60.78% 44.34% 38.83%
Number of daily rates quoted 500 132 178
10th Percentile £350 £325 £284
25th Percentile £424 £450 £328
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £540 £450
Median % change year-on-year -10.19% +20.00% -16.67%
75th Percentile £544 £689 £550
90th Percentile £634 £708 £636
England median daily rate £525 £525 £538
% change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 34 5 6
10th Percentile £18.20 - £13.25
25th Percentile £18.96 £18.51 £13.44
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £14.00
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% +150.00% -63.01%
75th Percentile £65.25 - £20.00
90th Percentile £75.25 £39.18 £29.75
England median hourly rate £32.75 £60.00 £49.11
% change year-on-year -45.43% +22.17% -14.59%

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 1,053 424 613
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 35.95% 32.07% 31.42%
Number of daily rates quoted 760 292 387
10th Percentile £315 £150 £263
25th Percentile £408 £318 £363
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £485 £477 £450
Median % change year-on-year +1.68% +6.00% -14.29%
75th Percentile £552 £600 £575
90th Percentile £638 £700 £663
England median daily rate £520 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 17 36
10th Percentile £14.00 £16.97 £14.00
25th Percentile £18.20 £18.50 £22.24
Median hourly rate £25.00 £28.18 £27.25
Median % change year-on-year -11.28% +3.41% +36.25%
75th Percentile £65.25 £35.00 £42.81
90th Percentile £77.43 £39.14 £58.75
England median hourly rate £37.00 £50.00 £37.50
% change year-on-year -26.00% +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 2 April 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 2 April 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 2 April 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 +1 344 £483 -5.29% 39
Birmingham +3 97 £483 -18.91% 26
Warwickshire -3 76 £413 -25.14% 3
Worcestershire +4 50 £675 -3.57% 5
Herefordshire 0 37 £550 -21.43% 5
Solihull +2 19 £456 +8.63% 1
Staffordshire - 3 £331 - 11
Wolverhampton -5 2 - - 1
Coventry -26 2 £488 - 1
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
1 126 (19.69%) SAS
2 65 (10.16%) Confluence
3 25 (3.91%) WebLogic
4 13 (2.03%) Tuxedo
5 8 (1.25%) Apache Airflow
6 5 (0.78%) SharePoint
7 3 (0.47%) Apache
7 3 (0.47%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.16%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.16%) nginx
8 1 (0.16%) SAP EP
Applications
1 7 (1.09%) Microsoft Office
2 6 (0.94%) Microsoft Project
3 5 (0.78%) Microsoft Excel
4 4 (0.63%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.31%) MS Visio
5 2 (0.31%) Notepad++
6 1 (0.16%) Camtasia
Business Applications
1 2 (0.31%) SAP PP
1 2 (0.31%) SAP S/4HANA
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
1 132 (20.63%) AWS
2 95 (14.84%) Azure
3 34 (5.31%) GitHub
4 31 (4.84%) OpenShift
5 27 (4.22%) GCP
6 25 (3.91%) Amazon S3
7 23 (3.59%) Amazon EC2
8 19 (2.97%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 19 (2.97%) GitHub Actions
8 19 (2.97%) Serverless
9 15 (2.34%) Azure Data Factory
10 13 (2.03%) AWS KMS
11 12 (1.88%) Microsoft 365
12 11 (1.72%) Azure DevOps
12 11 (1.72%) Power Platform
12 11 (1.72%) SaaS
13 10 (1.56%) Amazon SQS
14 9 (1.41%) Datadog
14 9 (1.41%) Route 53
15 8 (1.25%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 24 (3.75%) Firewall
2 18 (2.81%) VPN
2 18 (2.81%) WAN
3 14 (2.19%) BGP
4 12 (1.88%) IPsec
4 12 (1.88%) MPLS
4 12 (1.88%) Network Security
5 10 (1.56%) Intrusion Detection
5 10 (1.56%) LAN
6 8 (1.25%) DNS
7 7 (1.09%) Wireless
8 6 (0.94%) SSL
8 6 (0.94%) VLAN
9 5 (0.78%) 5G
9 5 (0.78%) OSPF
9 5 (0.78%) Wi-Fi
9 5 (0.78%) WLAN
10 4 (0.63%) DHCP
10 4 (0.63%) Unified Communications
11 3 (0.47%) 4G
Database & Business Intelligence
1 62 (9.69%) Pentaho
2 49 (7.66%) PostgreSQL
3 39 (6.09%) Data Warehouse
4 37 (5.78%) SAS Enterprise Guide
5 35 (5.47%) Oracle Database
6 27 (4.22%) Amazon RDS
7 26 (4.06%) MySQL
8 24 (3.75%) Metadata
9 17 (2.66%) Amazon Redshift
10 16 (2.50%) Oracle Reports
11 12 (1.88%) Elasticsearch
11 12 (1.88%) Metadata Repository
12 11 (1.72%) MongoDB
13 10 (1.56%) SAS Visual Analytics
14 9 (1.41%) Amazon Aurora
14 9 (1.41%) DynamoDB
15 7 (1.09%) Power BI
15 7 (1.09%) Relational Database
16 6 (0.94%) Redis
17 5 (0.78%) SQL Server
Development Applications
1 112 (17.50%) Git
2 94 (14.69%) JIRA
3 87 (13.59%) Jenkins
4 65 (10.16%) GitLab
5 46 (7.19%) JUnit
6 36 (5.63%) Selenium
7 18 (2.81%) Cucumber
8 16 (2.50%) Mockito
9 15 (2.34%) Maven
9 15 (2.34%) Postman
9 15 (2.34%) Zephyr
10 13 (2.03%) JMeter
11 12 (1.88%) WebDriver
12 11 (1.72%) SonarQube
13 9 (1.41%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 9 (1.41%) MSI
14 8 (1.25%) Bitbucket
15 7 (1.09%) DbUnit
15 7 (1.09%) jMock
16 5 (0.78%) Bitbucket Server
General
1 160 (25.00%) Social Skills
2 78 (12.19%) Public Sector
3 59 (9.22%) Analytical Skills
4 32 (5.00%) Finance
5 20 (3.13%) Documentation Skills
6 9 (1.41%) Aeronautics
7 8 (1.25%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.09%) Advertising
8 7 (1.09%) Legal
8 7 (1.09%) Organisational Skills
8 7 (1.09%) Presentation Skills
9 5 (0.78%) Aerospace
10 3 (0.47%) Influencing Skills
11 2 (0.31%) Electronics
11 2 (0.31%) Manufacturing
12 1 (0.16%) Automotive
12 1 (0.16%) Banking
12 1 (0.16%) Police
12 1 (0.16%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 123 (19.22%) Data Engineer
2 59 (9.22%) Senior
3 51 (7.97%) Architect
4 46 (7.19%) Developer
5 41 (6.41%) Analyst
6 36 (5.63%) Tester
7 28 (4.38%) Support Engineer
8 27 (4.22%) Java Developer
9 26 (4.06%) Test Specialist
10 21 (3.28%) SAS Engineer
11 20 (3.13%) Business Analyst
12 19 (2.97%) Data Architect
12 19 (2.97%) Platform Engineer
12 19 (2.97%) Senior Data Engineer
13 17 (2.66%) Lead
13 17 (2.66%) Release Manager
13 17 (2.66%) Software Engineer
14 16 (2.50%) Project Manager
15 15 (2.34%) Administrator
15 15 (2.34%) Data Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 44 (6.88%) Spring
2 39 (6.09%) REST
3 33 (5.16%) Spring Boot
4 19 (2.97%) pytest
5 15 (2.34%) JPA
6 13 (2.03%) WireMock
7 11 (1.72%) Kafka
7 11 (1.72%) Keycloak
7 11 (1.72%) Middleware
8 10 (1.56%) AngularJS
8 10 (1.56%) SOAP
9 9 (1.41%) ActiveMQ
9 9 (1.41%) FastAPI
9 9 (1.41%) Flask
9 9 (1.41%) Hibernate
9 9 (1.41%) Node.js
9 9 (1.41%) Spring Batch
9 9 (1.41%) Spring Cloud
9 9 (1.41%) Spring Integration
9 9 (1.41%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 27 (4.22%) Cloud Native
2 19 (2.97%) Distributed Systems
3 16 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
4 14 (2.19%) Data Centre
4 14 (2.19%) Product Ownership
5 13 (2.03%) Onboarding
6 12 (1.88%) Enterprise Software
7 10 (1.56%) Hybrid Cloud
8 9 (1.41%) PKI
9 8 (1.25%) Distributed Architecture
9 8 (1.25%) Driving Licence
9 8 (1.25%) SCADA
10 6 (0.94%) Private Cloud
10 6 (0.94%) Security Operations Centre
11 5 (0.78%) Analytical Mindset
11 5 (0.78%) Security Posture
12 4 (0.63%) CSOC
12 4 (0.63%) Cyber Threat
12 4 (0.63%) Robotics
13 3 (0.47%) Data Protection Act
Operating Systems
1 55 (8.59%) Linux
2 52 (8.13%) Windows
3 38 (5.94%) Unix
4 14 (2.19%) Windows Server
5 11 (1.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.47%) Android
7 2 (0.31%) AIX
7 2 (0.31%) CentOS
7 2 (0.31%) Embedded Linux
7 2 (0.31%) Solaris
7 2 (0.31%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.31%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.16%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 187 (29.22%) Agile
2 154 (24.06%) CI/CD
3 137 (21.41%) DevOps
4 104 (16.25%) Analytics
4 104 (16.25%) Scrum
5 100 (15.63%) Test Automation
6 99 (15.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 99 (15.47%) ETL
7 98 (15.31%) Problem-Solving
8 92 (14.38%) Stakeholder Management
9 71 (11.09%) Data Integration
10 70 (10.94%) Migration
11 69 (10.78%) Containerisation
12 66 (10.31%) Data Pipeline
13 61 (9.53%) Data Modelling
14 59 (9.22%) Business Intelligence
15 51 (7.97%) Microservices
16 46 (7.19%) Validation
17 43 (6.72%) Change Management
18 41 (6.41%) Observability
Programming Languages
1 174 (27.19%) SQL
2 73 (11.41%) Python
3 72 (11.25%) Java
4 36 (5.63%) PL/SQL
5 30 (4.69%) Shell Script
6 20 (3.13%) Go
7 19 (2.97%) PowerShell
8 17 (2.66%) Bash
9 6 (0.94%) Perl
10 4 (0.63%) Kusto Query Language
11 3 (0.47%) C++
11 3 (0.47%) HiveQL
11 3 (0.47%) Kotlin
12 2 (0.31%) Bicep
12 2 (0.31%) C
12 2 (0.31%) JavaScript
12 2 (0.31%) SystemVerilog
12 2 (0.31%) TypeScript
13 1 (0.16%) C#
13 1 (0.16%) COBOL
Qualifications
1 640 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 19 (2.97%) Azure Certification
3 18 (2.81%) DV Cleared
4 16 (2.50%) BPSS Clearance
5 13 (2.03%) ISTQB
6 11 (1.72%) Microsoft Certification
7 9 (1.41%) Cisco Certification
8 8 (1.25%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.09%) CCNP
9 7 (1.09%) Degree
9 7 (1.09%) IIBA
10 5 (0.78%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
10 5 (0.78%) CCIE
11 4 (0.63%) CISSP
11 4 (0.63%) OCP
11 4 (0.63%) Oracle Certification
12 3 (0.47%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
12 3 (0.47%) CCNA
12 3 (0.47%) CISM
12 3 (0.47%) SAFe Agilist
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 33 (5.16%) Data Quality
2 29 (4.53%) QA
3 15 (2.34%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (2.34%) NIST
4 10 (1.56%) NCSC
5 7 (1.09%) GDPR
6 5 (0.78%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.63%) WCAG
8 3 (0.47%) FATCA
9 2 (0.31%) PMO
9 2 (0.31%) 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
1 111 (17.34%) Docker
2 16 (2.50%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.41%) Postfix
3 9 (1.41%) VMware Infrastructure
4 4 (0.63%) Snort
5 3 (0.47%) HDFS
5 3 (0.47%) Virtual Machines
5 3 (0.47%) VMware NSX
6 2 (0.31%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.31%) Terminal Services
Systems Management
1 133 (20.78%) Kubernetes
2 63 (9.84%) Grafana
3 35 (5.47%) Prometheus
4 23 (3.59%) Terraform
5 17 (2.66%) Ansible
6 8 (1.25%) Progress Chef
7 7 (1.09%) Kibana
8 4 (0.63%) CSIRT
9 3 (0.47%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.47%) Podman
10 2 (0.31%) Docker Swarm
10 2 (0.31%) QRadar
10 2 (0.31%) 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%) Iperf
11 1 (0.16%) logstash
11 1 (0.16%) Puppet
11 1 (0.16%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 143 (22.34%) Oracle
2 81 (12.66%) Talend
3 53 (8.28%) Microsoft
4 52 (8.13%) Denodo
5 36 (5.63%) Informatica
6 34 (5.31%) ServiceNow
7 28 (4.38%) Splunk
8 25 (3.91%) Cisco
9 22 (3.44%) Dynatrace
10 19 (2.97%) Atlassian
11 14 (2.19%) Juniper
12 13 (2.03%) AppDynamics
12 13 (2.03%) SAP
13 11 (1.72%) VMware
14 10 (1.56%) Sage
15 9 (1.41%) Jaspersoft
16 8 (1.25%) Fujitsu
17 7 (1.09%) HP
17 7 (1.09%) Red Hat
18 6 (0.94%) Remedy