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

6 months to
24 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 13 8
Rank change year-on-year +10 -5 +8
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 456 168 231
As % of all contract jobs in the West Midlands 20.11% 10.02% 12.78%
As % of the Qualifications category 54.09% 33.94% 41.62%
Number of daily rates quoted 344 127 164
10th Percentile £350 £375 £325
25th Percentile £450 £461 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £519 £550 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.73% +10.00% -5.66%
75th Percentile £581 £619 £610
90th Percentile £675 £700 £675
England median daily rate £525 £526 £550
% change year-on-year -0.10% -4.45% -1.61%
Number of hourly rates quoted 26 3 12
10th Percentile - - £44.50
25th Percentile £18.87 - £62.50
Median hourly rate £21.46 £35.00 £65.00
Median % change year-on-year -38.69% -46.15% -1.52%
75th Percentile £25.15 - £67.81
90th Percentile - - £69.88
England median hourly rate £25.15 £54.76 £57.33
% change year-on-year -54.07% -4.49% -8.27%

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 843 495 555
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in the West Midlands 37.19% 29.53% 30.71%
Number of daily rates quoted 581 328 338
10th Percentile £291 £213 £300
25th Percentile £420 £405 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £513 £520 £520
Median % change year-on-year -1.25% -0.10% +4.00%
75th Percentile £575 £612 £600
90th Percentile £675 £706 £675
England median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 51 18 30
10th Percentile £14.00 £17.26 £17.46
25th Percentile £18.54 £20.13 £23.00
Median hourly rate £21.46 £30.75 £34.75
Median % change year-on-year -30.21% -11.51% +78.21%
75th Percentile £25.15 £41.56 £67.50
90th Percentile £40.46 £52.50 £70.75
England median hourly rate £25.15 £47.25 £52.05
% change year-on-year -46.77% -9.24% +15.67%

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 24 December 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 24 December 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 24 December 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 +1 174 £519 +5.17% 33
Birmingham +26 104 £475 -20.83% 31
Warwickshire +5 71 £388 -33.45% 16
Worcestershire +13 65 £625 +31.58% 22
Herefordshire 0 45 £650 +6.21% 5
Coventry - 6 £300 - 8
Staffordshire 0 5 £270 -40.00% 12
Solihull -4 5 £575 +50.33%
Wolverhampton - 3 - - 10
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 80 (17.54%) SAS
2 37 (8.11%) Confluence
3 22 (4.82%) WebLogic
4 12 (2.63%) Apache
5 10 (2.19%) nginx
6 7 (1.54%) Apache Airflow
7 6 (1.32%) Tuxedo
8 4 (0.88%) SharePoint
9 3 (0.66%) Oracle Workflow
10 1 (0.22%) NetWeaver
10 1 (0.22%) SAP EP
Applications
1 10 (2.19%) Microsoft Office
2 9 (1.97%) Mozilla Thunderbird
3 6 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
4 4 (0.88%) Microsoft Excel
5 2 (0.44%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.44%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.22%) AutoCAD
6 1 (0.22%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 3 (0.66%) Dynamics CRM
2 2 (0.44%) SAP ERP
2 2 (0.44%) SAP PP
2 2 (0.44%) SAP S/4HANA
3 1 (0.22%) Oracle Assets
3 1 (0.22%) SAP CRM
Cloud Services
1 99 (21.71%) Azure
2 81 (17.76%) AWS
3 30 (6.58%) GitHub
4 24 (5.26%) Amazon S3
5 23 (5.04%) Amazon EC2
6 22 (4.82%) OpenShift
7 20 (4.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
8 19 (4.17%) Amazon ELB
8 19 (4.17%) Microsoft 365
8 19 (4.17%) Virtual Private Cloud
9 17 (3.73%) AWS KMS
10 16 (3.51%) Serverless
11 15 (3.29%) Azure Data Factory
11 15 (3.29%) SaaS
12 14 (3.07%) Azure Monitor
12 14 (3.07%) Power Platform
13 13 (2.85%) GCP
14 9 (1.97%) Amazon ECS
14 9 (1.97%) Azure DevOps
14 9 (1.97%) Route 53
Communications & Networking
1 47 (10.31%) Firewall
2 39 (8.55%) DNS
3 37 (8.11%) VPN
4 33 (7.24%) WAN
5 31 (6.80%) IPsec
6 26 (5.70%) MPLS
7 23 (5.04%) SMTP
8 22 (4.82%) BGP
9 18 (3.95%) FTP
10 17 (3.73%) HTTP
10 17 (3.73%) SSH
11 13 (2.85%) Network Security
12 11 (2.41%) SSL
12 11 (2.41%) Wireless
13 9 (1.97%) Cisco IPT
13 9 (1.97%) DMVPN
13 9 (1.97%) IMAP
13 9 (1.97%) OpenLDAP
14 6 (1.32%) DKIM
14 6 (1.32%) DMARC
Database & Business Intelligence
1 37 (8.11%) SAS Enterprise Guide
2 34 (7.46%) Pentaho
3 29 (6.36%) PostgreSQL
4 26 (5.70%) Oracle Database
5 21 (4.61%) Amazon RDS
6 16 (3.51%) Elasticsearch
7 13 (2.85%) Metadata
8 12 (2.63%) SAS Visual Analytics
9 9 (1.97%) Amazon Aurora
9 9 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
10 8 (1.75%) Redis
11 7 (1.54%) Metadata Repository
11 7 (1.54%) Power BI
12 6 (1.32%) MongoDB
13 3 (0.66%) InfluxDB
13 3 (0.66%) Relational Database
13 3 (0.66%) SAS Data Integration Studio
14 2 (0.44%) Data Hub
14 2 (0.44%) DataStage
14 2 (0.44%) SAP BW
Development Applications
1 77 (16.89%) Git
2 71 (15.57%) JIRA
3 69 (15.13%) Jenkins
4 30 (6.58%) GitLab
5 18 (3.95%) JUnit
5 18 (3.95%) Selenium
6 17 (3.73%) Vagrant
7 12 (2.63%) SonarQube
8 6 (1.32%) MSI
9 5 (1.10%) Cucumber
9 5 (1.10%) Mockito
10 4 (0.88%) Bitbucket
10 4 (0.88%) Maven
10 4 (0.88%) PVCS
11 3 (0.66%) NeoLoad
12 1 (0.22%) Atlassian Bamboo
12 1 (0.22%) Postman
12 1 (0.22%) TestDirector
General
1 127 (27.85%) Social Skills
2 64 (14.04%) Public Sector
3 37 (8.11%) Analytical Skills
4 13 (2.85%) Telecoms
5 11 (2.41%) Documentation Skills
5 11 (2.41%) Finance
6 9 (1.97%) Aeronautics
6 9 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
7 8 (1.75%) Legal
8 3 (0.66%) Marketing
9 2 (0.44%) Aerospace
9 2 (0.44%) Electronics
9 2 (0.44%) General Ledger
9 2 (0.44%) Influencing Skills
9 2 (0.44%) Manufacturing
10 1 (0.22%) Advertising
10 1 (0.22%) Automotive
10 1 (0.22%) Organisational Skills
10 1 (0.22%) Police
10 1 (0.22%) Publishing
Job Titles
1 39 (8.55%) Platform Engineer
2 37 (8.11%) Senior
3 32 (7.02%) Data Engineer
4 31 (6.80%) Developer
5 29 (6.36%) Support Engineer
6 27 (5.92%) AWS Engineer
7 24 (5.26%) Architect
7 24 (5.26%) DevOps Engineer
8 23 (5.04%) Analyst
9 18 (3.95%) AWS DevOps
9 18 (3.95%) AWS DevOps Engineer
9 18 (3.95%) Cloud Platform Engineer
9 18 (3.95%) Release Manager
10 17 (3.73%) Test Specialist
11 15 (3.29%) Network Engineer
12 14 (3.07%) 3rd Line Engineer
13 13 (2.85%) 3rd Line Support
13 13 (2.85%) Consultant
13 13 (2.85%) Senior Data Engineer
13 13 (2.85%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (6.58%) REST
2 15 (3.29%) pytest
3 14 (3.07%) LDAP
4 13 (2.85%) Keycloak
5 12 (2.63%) Kafka
5 12 (2.63%) Spring
5 12 (2.63%) Spring Boot
6 11 (2.41%) FastAPI
6 11 (2.41%) Flask
6 11 (2.41%) YAML
7 9 (1.97%) 802.1X
8 8 (1.75%) GraphQL
8 8 (1.75%) React
8 8 (1.75%) WebSockets
9 7 (1.54%) gRPC
9 7 (1.54%) HTML
10 6 (1.32%) OAuth
10 6 (1.32%) Swagger
11 5 (1.10%) Elastic Stack
11 5 (1.10%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 22 (4.82%) PKI
2 21 (4.61%) Data Centre
3 20 (4.39%) Onboarding
4 18 (3.95%) Cloud Native
4 18 (3.95%) Replication
5 16 (3.51%) Driving Licence
6 11 (2.41%) Hybrid Cloud
7 10 (2.19%) SCADA
8 7 (1.54%) FPGA
8 7 (1.54%) Product Ownership
9 6 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
9 6 (1.32%) VHDL
10 5 (1.10%) Algorithms
10 5 (1.10%) Self-Motivation
11 4 (0.88%) Data Protection Act
11 4 (0.88%) Legacy Systems
11 4 (0.88%) Security Operations Centre
12 3 (0.66%) Handset
12 3 (0.66%) IoT
12 3 (0.66%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 77 (16.89%) Windows
2 60 (13.16%) Linux
3 22 (4.82%) Unix
4 17 (3.73%) Amazon Linux
4 17 (3.73%) VMS
5 12 (2.63%) Windows Server
6 11 (2.41%) Ubuntu
7 10 (2.19%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 3 (0.66%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.44%) CentOS
10 1 (0.22%) AIX
10 1 (0.22%) Android
10 1 (0.22%) Apple iOS
10 1 (0.22%) Embedded Linux
10 1 (0.22%) Mac OS
10 1 (0.22%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.22%) Solaris
10 1 (0.22%) VME
Processes & Methodologies
1 134 (29.39%) DevOps
2 124 (27.19%) CI/CD
3 90 (19.74%) Agile
4 87 (19.08%) Analytics
5 75 (16.45%) Problem-Solving
6 59 (12.94%) Test Automation
7 56 (12.28%) Business Intelligence
7 56 (12.28%) Containerisation
8 55 (12.06%) Continuous Improvement
9 54 (11.84%) Data Pipeline
10 53 (11.62%) Data Integration
11 52 (11.40%) Scrum
12 49 (10.75%) Configuration Management
13 48 (10.53%) Platform Engineering
14 47 (10.31%) Change Management
14 47 (10.31%) ETL
14 47 (10.31%) Migration
15 44 (9.65%) Stakeholder Management
16 42 (9.21%) Data Modelling
17 39 (8.55%) Test Strategy
Programming Languages
1 91 (19.96%) SQL
2 85 (18.64%) Python
3 37 (8.11%) PowerShell
4 31 (6.80%) Java
5 23 (5.04%) Go
6 17 (3.73%) Groovy
7 12 (2.63%) Bash
8 10 (2.19%) Shell Script
9 9 (1.97%) JavaScript
9 9 (1.97%) Perl
10 6 (1.32%) MATLAB
11 5 (1.10%) PL/SQL
11 5 (1.10%) TypeScript
12 3 (0.66%) ABAP
12 3 (0.66%) C#
13 2 (0.44%) C++
14 1 (0.22%) C
14 1 (0.22%) COBOL
14 1 (0.22%) Kusto Query Language
14 1 (0.22%) SystemVerilog
Qualifications
1 456 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 30 (6.58%) DV Cleared
3 27 (5.92%) Azure Certification
4 18 (3.95%) Degree
5 15 (3.29%) AWS Certification
6 12 (2.63%) BPSS Clearance
7 7 (1.54%) Microsoft Certification
8 6 (1.32%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
8 6 (1.32%) CISSP
9 3 (0.66%) CCNA
9 3 (0.66%) CEH
9 3 (0.66%) Cisco Certification
9 3 (0.66%) CISM
9 3 (0.66%) IIBA
10 2 (0.44%) CCA
10 2 (0.44%) CCNP
10 2 (0.44%) Computer Science Degree
10 2 (0.44%) DBS Check
10 2 (0.44%) GCIH
11 1 (0.22%) ITIL Foundation Certificate
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 25 (5.48%) Data Quality
2 16 (3.51%) NCSC
3 12 (2.63%) QA
4 10 (2.19%) NIST
5 8 (1.75%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 7 (1.54%) Accessibility
7 4 (0.88%) WCAG
8 3 (0.66%) GDPR
9 2 (0.44%) PCI DSS
9 2 (0.44%) PMO
9 2 (0.44%) SLA
10 1 (0.22%) IEC 61131
10 1 (0.22%) Sarbanes-Oxley
System Software
1 109 (23.90%) Docker
2 26 (5.70%) Active Directory
3 17 (3.73%) DFS Replication
4 15 (3.29%) Postfix
5 13 (2.85%) Dovecot
6 10 (2.19%) VMware Infrastructure
7 9 (1.97%) Squid
8 5 (1.10%) Terminal Services
9 4 (0.88%) Firmware
10 3 (0.66%) VMware NSX
11 1 (0.22%) Snort
Systems Management
1 106 (23.25%) Kubernetes
2 44 (9.65%) Terraform
3 37 (8.11%) Grafana
4 34 (7.46%) Prometheus
5 14 (3.07%) Ansible
6 9 (1.97%) Nessus
6 9 (1.97%) Proxmox
7 8 (1.75%) Kibana
8 4 (0.88%) logstash
8 4 (0.88%) Progress Chef
8 4 (0.88%) SCCM
9 3 (0.66%) FortiGate
9 3 (0.66%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.44%) QRadar
11 1 (0.22%) Docker Swarm
11 1 (0.22%) Fluentd
11 1 (0.22%) NetBackup
11 1 (0.22%) Puppet
11 1 (0.22%) Rsyslog
11 1 (0.22%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 80 (17.54%) Oracle
2 59 (12.94%) Microsoft
3 47 (10.31%) Cisco
4 37 (8.11%) ServiceNow
5 36 (7.89%) Juniper
6 34 (7.46%) Talend
7 30 (6.58%) Denodo
8 29 (6.36%) Splunk
9 27 (5.92%) Dynatrace
10 20 (4.39%) AppDynamics
11 15 (3.29%) F5
12 14 (3.07%) CheckPoint
13 12 (2.63%) VMware
14 11 (2.41%) SAP
15 10 (2.19%) Broadcom
15 10 (2.19%) CyberArk
16 9 (1.97%) Blue Coat
16 9 (1.97%) Jaspersoft
17 8 (1.75%) Atlassian
18 6 (1.32%) Red Hat