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 4 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
4 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 5 10
Rank change year-on-year +2 +5 +6
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 375 248 220
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 18.53% 13.14% 11.47%
As % of the Qualifications category 49.41% 40.52% 40.74%
Number of daily rates quoted 274 180 146
10th Percentile £368 £375 £319
25th Percentile £450 £460 £401
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £553 £523
Median % change year-on-year -6.24% +5.84% +4.50%
75th Percentile £580 £635 £609
90th Percentile £671 £688 £688
England median daily rate £525 £526 £550
% change year-on-year -0.19% -4.36% -1.96%
Number of hourly rates quoted 22 3 12
10th Percentile - - £44.50
25th Percentile - - £62.50
Median hourly rate £18.87 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -46.09% -46.15% -
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.81
90th Percentile - - £69.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £57.25 £56.49
% change year-on-year -56.07% +1.35% -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 759 612 540
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 37.50% 32.42% 28.15%
Number of daily rates quoted 507 390 334
10th Percentile £263 £336 £300
25th Percentile £413 £426 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £514 £538 £525
Median % change year-on-year -4.37% +2.38% +6.06%
75th Percentile £575 £628 £600
90th Percentile £650 £725 £700
England median daily rate £525 £530 £550
% change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 54 15 29
10th Percentile £16.30 £20.80 £17.70
25th Percentile £18.87 £24.58 £23.00
Median hourly rate £25.15 £35.00 £34.50
Median % change year-on-year -28.14% +1.45% +42.27%
75th Percentile £40.25 £46.88 £67.50
90th Percentile £50.00 £55.35 £71.50
England median hourly rate £25.15 £52.19 £52.50
% change year-on-year -51.81% -0.59% +16.67%

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 4 November 2025.

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 4 November 2025.

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 4 November 2025. 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 0 128 £525 +9.26% 30
Birmingham +24 100 £475 -20.83% 27
Warwickshire -3 55 £485 -20.10% 6
Worcestershire +14 47 £625 +31.58% 11
Herefordshire 0 38 £700 +14.38% 7
Solihull -4 14 £450 +0.67% 8
Staffordshire +1 6 £350 -22.22% 19
Coventry - 5 £275 -
Wolverhampton - 3 £138 -
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 70 (18.67%) SAS
2 35 (9.33%) Confluence
3 15 (4.00%) WebLogic
4 12 (3.20%) Apache
4 12 (3.20%) nginx
5 7 (1.87%) Apache Airflow
6 4 (1.07%) SharePoint
7 3 (0.80%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.27%) NetWeaver
8 1 (0.27%) SAP EP
8 1 (0.27%) Tuxedo
Applications
1 11 (2.93%) Mozilla Thunderbird
2 7 (1.87%) Microsoft Office
3 4 (1.07%) Microsoft Project
3 4 (1.07%) Spreadsheet
4 3 (0.80%) Microsoft Excel
5 1 (0.27%) AutoCAD
5 1 (0.27%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 1 (0.27%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.80%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.53%) SAP ERP
3 1 (0.27%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.27%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 81 (21.60%) Azure
2 77 (20.53%) AWS
3 32 (8.53%) Amazon S3
4 31 (8.27%) Amazon EC2
5 29 (7.73%) Amazon CloudWatch
6 27 (7.20%) GitHub
7 26 (6.93%) AWS KMS
8 25 (6.67%) Amazon ELB
8 25 (6.67%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 18 (4.80%) OpenShift
10 16 (4.27%) Microsoft 365
11 14 (3.73%) Route 53
12 13 (3.47%) Azure Monitor
13 12 (3.20%) Amazon Glacier
14 11 (2.93%) Amazon ECS
14 11 (2.93%) SaaS
15 10 (2.67%) Power Platform
15 10 (2.67%) Serverless
16 9 (2.40%) Azure DevOps
16 9 (2.40%) PaaS
Communications & Networking
1 48 (12.80%) Firewall
2 40 (10.67%) DNS
3 34 (9.07%) VPN
4 32 (8.53%) WAN
5 30 (8.00%) IPsec
6 27 (7.20%) SMTP
7 26 (6.93%) MPLS
8 22 (5.87%) FTP
9 21 (5.60%) BGP
9 21 (5.60%) HTTP
9 21 (5.60%) SSH
10 11 (2.93%) IMAP
10 11 (2.93%) OpenLDAP
10 11 (2.93%) SSL
11 10 (2.67%) Wireless
12 9 (2.40%) Cisco IPT
12 9 (2.40%) DMVPN
13 8 (2.13%) Network Security
14 5 (1.33%) Internet
14 5 (1.33%) Junos
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (9.07%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 32 (8.53%) PostgreSQL
3 29 (7.73%) Amazon RDS
3 29 (7.73%) Pentaho
4 25 (6.67%) Oracle Database
5 17 (4.53%) Amazon Aurora
6 12 (3.20%) SAS Visual Analytics
7 11 (2.93%) Metadata
8 9 (2.40%) Data Warehouse
8 9 (2.40%) Elasticsearch
9 8 (2.13%) Redis
10 7 (1.87%) Metadata Repository
11 6 (1.60%) Power BI
12 4 (1.07%) DynamoDB
13 3 (0.80%) SAS Data Integration Studio
14 2 (0.53%) DataStage
14 2 (0.53%) Oracle Database 12c
14 2 (0.53%) SAP BW
14 2 (0.53%) SQL Server
15 1 (0.27%) Amazon Redshift
Development Applications
1 82 (21.87%) Git
2 74 (19.73%) Jenkins
3 68 (18.13%) JIRA
4 30 (8.00%) GitLab
5 23 (6.13%) JUnit
5 23 (6.13%) Vagrant
6 18 (4.80%) Selenium
7 17 (4.53%) SonarQube
8 10 (2.67%) Maven
8 10 (2.67%) Mockito
9 5 (1.33%) Cucumber
10 4 (1.07%) Bitbucket
10 4 (1.07%) PVCS
11 3 (0.80%) Bitbucket Server
11 3 (0.80%) DbUnit
11 3 (0.80%) jMock
12 2 (0.53%) NeoLoad
12 2 (0.53%) Postman
13 1 (0.27%) Atlassian Bamboo
13 1 (0.27%) ClearCase
General
1 113 (30.13%) Social Skills
2 79 (21.07%) Public Sector
3 26 (6.93%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (3.47%) Telecoms
5 12 (3.20%) Finance
6 10 (2.67%) Presentation Skills
7 5 (1.33%) Marketing
8 4 (1.07%) Documentation Skills
9 3 (0.80%) Legal
10 2 (0.53%) Aerospace
10 2 (0.53%) Electronics
10 2 (0.53%) General Ledger
10 2 (0.53%) Inclusion and Diversity
10 2 (0.53%) Influencing Skills
10 2 (0.53%) Manufacturing
11 1 (0.27%) Advertising
11 1 (0.27%) Automotive
11 1 (0.27%) Banking
11 1 (0.27%) Police
11 1 (0.27%) Retail
Job Titles
1 33 (8.80%) Developer
2 31 (8.27%) Platform Engineer
3 29 (7.73%) DevOps Engineer
4 24 (6.40%) AWS Engineer
5 23 (6.13%) Senior
6 20 (5.33%) AWS DevOps
6 20 (5.33%) AWS DevOps Engineer
6 20 (5.33%) Cloud Platform Engineer
6 20 (5.33%) Data Engineer
6 20 (5.33%) Support Engineer
7 18 (4.80%) Architect
7 18 (4.80%) Network Engineer
8 17 (4.53%) Test Specialist
9 16 (4.27%) Release Manager
10 14 (3.73%) 3rd Line Engineer
11 13 (3.47%) 3rd Line Support
11 13 (3.47%) 3rd Line Support Engineer
11 13 (3.47%) Administrator
11 13 (3.47%) Analyst
12 12 (3.20%) Security Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 33 (8.80%) REST
2 15 (4.00%) pytest
3 14 (3.73%) Spring
3 14 (3.73%) Spring Boot
4 13 (3.47%) LDAP
5 12 (3.20%) YAML
6 9 (2.40%) 802.1X
6 9 (2.40%) JPA
7 8 (2.13%) FastAPI
7 8 (2.13%) Flask
7 8 (2.13%) GraphQL
7 8 (2.13%) React
7 8 (2.13%) SOAP
7 8 (2.13%) WebSockets
8 7 (1.87%) gRPC
8 7 (1.87%) HTML
8 7 (1.87%) Keycloak
9 6 (1.60%) ActiveMQ
9 6 (1.60%) Kafka
10 5 (1.33%) AngularJS
Miscellaneous
1 22 (5.87%) Replication
2 21 (5.60%) PKI
3 20 (5.33%) Data Centre
4 16 (4.27%) Driving Licence
5 15 (4.00%) Onboarding
6 11 (2.93%) SCADA
7 10 (2.67%) Cloud Native
8 9 (2.40%) Hybrid Cloud
9 6 (1.60%) Self-Motivation
10 5 (1.33%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.33%) Data Protection Act
10 5 (1.33%) Distributed Systems
10 5 (1.33%) FPGA
10 5 (1.33%) VHDL
11 3 (0.80%) Handset
11 3 (0.80%) IoT
11 3 (0.80%) Private Cloud
11 3 (0.80%) Product Ownership
12 2 (0.53%) Legacy Systems
12 2 (0.53%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 66 (17.60%) Windows
2 65 (17.33%) Linux
3 23 (6.13%) Amazon Linux
3 23 (6.13%) VMS
4 21 (5.60%) Unix
5 10 (2.67%) Windows Server
6 9 (2.40%) Ubuntu
7 7 (1.87%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.53%) Android
9 1 (0.27%) AIX
9 1 (0.27%) Apple iOS
9 1 (0.27%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.27%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.27%) Solaris
9 1 (0.27%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 124 (33.07%) DevOps
2 111 (29.60%) CI/CD
3 81 (21.60%) Agile
4 77 (20.53%) Analytics
5 67 (17.87%) Problem-Solving
6 58 (15.47%) Containerisation
7 56 (14.93%) Test Automation
8 52 (13.87%) Scrum
9 50 (13.33%) Business Intelligence
10 48 (12.80%) Configuration Management
10 48 (12.80%) Platform Engineering
11 46 (12.27%) Data Integration
12 45 (12.00%) Continuous Improvement
12 45 (12.00%) Data Pipeline
13 42 (11.20%) Change Management
13 42 (11.20%) Test Strategy
14 40 (10.67%) Migration
15 38 (10.13%) Data Modelling
16 37 (9.87%) Stakeholder Management
17 36 (9.60%) ETL
Programming Languages
1 72 (19.20%) SQL
2 69 (18.40%) Python
3 40 (10.67%) PowerShell
4 32 (8.53%) Java
5 23 (6.13%) Groovy
6 14 (3.73%) Go
7 13 (3.47%) Perl
8 9 (2.40%) Bash
9 8 (2.13%) JavaScript
10 6 (1.60%) Shell Script
11 5 (1.33%) MATLAB
11 5 (1.33%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.80%) ABAP
12 3 (0.80%) C#
12 3 (0.80%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.27%) Bicep
13 1 (0.27%) C
13 1 (0.27%) Korn
13 1 (0.27%) Scala
13 1 (0.27%) Search Processing Language
Qualifications
1 375 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 31 (8.27%) DV Cleared
3 20 (5.33%) Degree
4 19 (5.07%) Azure Certification
5 16 (4.27%) AWS Certification
6 14 (3.73%) BPSS Clearance
7 6 (1.60%) CISSP
7 6 (1.60%) Microsoft Certification
8 5 (1.33%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
9 4 (1.07%) CCNA
9 4 (1.07%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (1.07%) DBS Check
9 4 (1.07%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
10 3 (0.80%) CCNP
10 3 (0.80%) CEH
10 3 (0.80%) CISM
11 2 (0.53%) CCA
11 2 (0.53%) GCIH
11 2 (0.53%) OCP
11 2 (0.53%) Oracle Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (6.13%) Data Quality
2 14 (3.73%) NCSC
3 11 (2.93%) QA
4 6 (1.60%) NIST
5 5 (1.33%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 4 (1.07%) SLA
6 4 (1.07%) WCAG
7 3 (0.80%) Accessibility
8 1 (0.27%) IEC 61131
8 1 (0.27%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 107 (28.53%) Docker
2 26 (6.93%) Active Directory
3 21 (5.60%) DFS Replication
4 18 (4.80%) Postfix
5 15 (4.00%) Dovecot
6 11 (2.93%) Squid
7 9 (2.40%) VMware Infrastructure
8 4 (1.07%) Firmware
9 3 (0.80%) Terminal Services
10 2 (0.53%) Hyper-V
10 2 (0.53%) Oracle RAC
11 1 (0.27%) Snort
Systems Management
1 83 (22.13%) Kubernetes
2 45 (12.00%) Terraform
3 41 (10.93%) Grafana
4 38 (10.13%) Prometheus
5 11 (2.93%) Nessus
6 9 (2.40%) Proxmox
7 8 (2.13%) Ansible
8 7 (1.87%) Kibana
9 4 (1.07%) SCCM
10 3 (0.80%) logstash
10 3 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
11 2 (0.53%) Data Guard
11 2 (0.53%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
11 2 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
11 2 (0.53%) QRadar
12 1 (0.27%) Fluentd
12 1 (0.27%) HP ALM
12 1 (0.27%) NetBackup
12 1 (0.27%) Rsyslog
12 1 (0.27%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 73 (19.47%) Oracle
2 48 (12.80%) Microsoft
3 43 (11.47%) Cisco
4 34 (9.07%) Juniper
5 33 (8.80%) ServiceNow
6 29 (7.73%) Talend
7 26 (6.93%) Denodo
8 21 (5.60%) Splunk
9 19 (5.07%) Dynatrace
10 15 (4.00%) AppDynamics
11 14 (3.73%) Jaspersoft
12 13 (3.47%) CheckPoint
12 13 (3.47%) F5
13 11 (2.93%) Atlassian
14 10 (2.67%) CyberArk
14 10 (2.67%) VMware
15 9 (2.40%) Blue Coat
15 9 (2.40%) SAP
16 8 (2.13%) Red Hat
17 7 (1.87%) Broadcom