SC Cleared Contract Job Trends in Berkshire

Security Check (SC) Clearance
South East > Berkshire

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Berkshire with a requirement for SC Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 13 March 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
13 Mar 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 3 12 10
Rank change year-on-year +9 -2 0
Contract jobs citing SC Cleared 487 137 228
As % of all contract jobs in Berkshire 26.71% 11.63% 11.29%
As % of the Qualifications category 57.91% 33.91% 25.08%
Number of daily rates quoted 354 79 154
10th Percentile £259 £322 £352
25th Percentile £323 £391 £477
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £447 £525 £605
Median % change year-on-year -14.86% -13.22% +3.24%
75th Percentile £526 £616 £660
90th Percentile £600 £663 £688
South East median daily rate £500 £540 £560
% change year-on-year -7.41% -3.57% +4.19%
Number of hourly rates quoted 52 10 17
10th Percentile £22.93 £24.04 £28.25
25th Percentile £73.05 £60.75 £52.90
Median hourly rate £82.00 £67.90 £62.50
Median % change year-on-year +20.77% +8.63% +11.72%
75th Percentile £95.00 £79.30 £67.81
90th Percentile £97.50 £87.02 £76.06
South East median hourly rate £27.50 £61.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -54.92% +1.66% -

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Berkshire

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 Berkshire.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 841 404 909
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire 46.13% 34.30% 45.02%
Number of daily rates quoted 551 215 450
10th Percentile £255 £300 £205
25th Percentile £350 £417 £383
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £450 £550 £525
Median % change year-on-year -18.18% +4.76% -7.89%
75th Percentile £538 £663 £620
90th Percentile £625 £700 £688
South East median daily rate £513 £540 £550
% change year-on-year -5.09% -1.82% +3.77%
Number of hourly rates quoted 108 24 74
10th Percentile £23.81 £41.25 £41.25
25th Percentile £71.95 £55.87 £51.86
Median hourly rate £83.54 £61.63 £61.60
Median % change year-on-year +35.55% +0.04% -4.75%
75th Percentile £88.00 £75.92 £70.06
90th Percentile £95.75 £86.76 £85.65
South East median hourly rate £40.00 £56.75 £57.10
% change year-on-year -29.52% -0.62% +16.54%

SC Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in Berkshire

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing SC Cleared relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Berkshire.

SC Cleared job vacancy trend in Berkshire

SC Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SC Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in Berkshire

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing SC Cleared in Berkshire over the 6 months to 13 March 2026.

Daily rate histogram for SC Cleared in Berkshire

SC Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in Berkshire

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SC Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Berkshire citing SC Cleared

SC Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in Berkshire

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing SC Cleared in Berkshire over the 6 months to 13 March 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for SC Cleared in Berkshire

SC Cleared
Contract Job Locations in Berkshire

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 Berkshire region over the 6 months to 13 March 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
Reading +19 237 £500 -16.67% 16
Wokingham 0 202 £402 -10.67% 16
Bracknell +8 27 £550 - 3
Maidenhead +1 1 - -
Slough -2 1 - - 2
Thatcham - 1 - -
SC Cleared
South East

SC Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Berkshire 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 8 (1.64%) Microsoft Exchange
2 7 (1.44%) Confluence
2 7 (1.44%) SharePoint
3 1 (0.21%) Apache
3 1 (0.21%) ArcGIS
3 1 (0.21%) Skype for Business
3 1 (0.21%) Smallworld
Applications
1 21 (4.31%) Microsoft Excel
1 21 (4.31%) Microsoft Office
2 16 (3.29%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 4 (0.82%) Microsoft Project
4 1 (0.21%) Autodesk Inventor
4 1 (0.21%) CATIA
4 1 (0.21%) MicroStation
4 1 (0.21%) MS Visio
4 1 (0.21%) Siemens NX
4 1 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
Business Applications
1 6 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 2 (0.41%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 127 (26.08%) Azure
2 96 (19.71%) AWS
3 53 (10.88%) GCP
4 28 (5.75%) Entra ID
5 17 (3.49%) OneDrive
6 16 (3.29%) OpenShift
7 14 (2.87%) Microsoft 365
8 12 (2.46%) Azure DevOps
9 11 (2.26%) Power Platform
10 10 (2.05%) Datadog
11 8 (1.64%) IaaS
12 7 (1.44%) Power Automate
13 6 (1.23%) Azure Sentinel
14 4 (0.82%) AWS CloudFormation
14 4 (0.82%) PowerApps
14 4 (0.82%) SaaS
15 3 (0.62%) Azure ExpressRoute
15 3 (0.62%) Azure Monitor
15 3 (0.62%) PaaS
15 3 (0.62%) Viva Engage
Communications & Networking
1 37 (7.60%) Firewall
2 33 (6.78%) Network Security
3 29 (5.95%) DNS
4 22 (4.52%) DHCP
4 22 (4.52%) Wireless
5 20 (4.11%) LAN
6 16 (3.29%) WAN
7 15 (3.08%) TCP/IP
8 12 (2.46%) BGP
8 12 (2.46%) OSPF
9 11 (2.26%) Unified Communications
9 11 (2.26%) VPN
9 11 (2.26%) Wi-Fi
10 10 (2.05%) 4G
10 10 (2.05%) WLAN
11 9 (1.85%) VLAN
11 9 (1.85%) Wireshark
12 8 (1.64%) FTP
12 8 (1.64%) SD-WAN
13 7 (1.44%) MPLS
Database & Business Intelligence
1 11 (2.26%) SQL Server
2 9 (1.85%) Oracle Database
2 9 (1.85%) Power BI
3 6 (1.23%) Oracle Database 12c
4 3 (0.62%) Data Warehouse
4 3 (0.62%) NoSQL
4 3 (0.62%) Tableau
5 2 (0.41%) SAP Data Services
5 2 (0.41%) SAP HANA
6 1 (0.21%) Amazon RDS
6 1 (0.21%) Data Mining
6 1 (0.21%) GIS
6 1 (0.21%) MongoDB
6 1 (0.21%) MySQL
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Database 11g
6 1 (0.21%) Oracle Reports
6 1 (0.21%) PostgreSQL
Development Applications
1 21 (4.31%) Burp Suite
1 21 (4.31%) Metasploit
2 16 (3.29%) JIRA
3 13 (2.67%) Jenkins
4 10 (2.05%) Rational DOORS
5 7 (1.44%) Subversion
6 4 (0.82%) Bitbucket
6 4 (0.82%) Eclipse
6 4 (0.82%) Maven
7 3 (0.62%) Android Studio
8 2 (0.41%) Balsamiq
8 2 (0.41%) GitLab
8 2 (0.41%) HP UFT
9 1 (0.21%) Browser DevTools
9 1 (0.21%) Git
9 1 (0.21%) NeoLoad
General
1 179 (36.76%) Social Skills
2 72 (14.78%) Analytical Skills
3 71 (14.58%) Public Sector
4 27 (5.54%) Documentation Skills
5 26 (5.34%) Aerospace
6 19 (3.90%) Finance
7 10 (2.05%) Telecoms
8 7 (1.44%) Advertising
9 6 (1.23%) Influencing Skills
10 4 (0.82%) Legal
10 4 (0.82%) Military
11 3 (0.62%) Manufacturing
11 3 (0.62%) Marketing
12 2 (0.41%) Local Government
12 2 (0.41%) Presentation Skills
13 1 (0.21%) Avionics
13 1 (0.21%) Banking
13 1 (0.21%) Electronics
13 1 (0.21%) Law
13 1 (0.21%) Police
Job Titles
1 53 (10.88%) Consultant
2 37 (7.60%) Analyst
3 36 (7.39%) Network Engineer
4 35 (7.19%) Lead
5 32 (6.57%) Architect
5 32 (6.57%) Network Consultant
5 32 (6.57%) Senior
6 22 (4.52%) Penetration Tester
6 22 (4.52%) SIEM Engineer
7 20 (4.11%) Tester
8 19 (3.90%) Project Manager
8 19 (3.90%) Support Engineer
9 18 (3.70%) Cisco Engineer
9 18 (3.70%) Cisco Network Engineer
10 17 (3.49%) SC Cleared Network Engineer
11 16 (3.29%) Developer
12 15 (3.08%) Infrastructure Engineer
13 13 (2.67%) Delivery Manager
13 13 (2.67%) Platform Engineer
13 13 (2.67%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 17 (3.49%) LDAP
2 9 (1.85%) Loki
2 9 (1.85%) Oracle GoldenGate
3 5 (1.03%) Middleware
4 4 (0.82%) Elastic Stack
4 4 (0.82%) XML
5 3 (0.62%) ARM Templates
5 3 (0.62%) SAML
6 2 (0.41%) 802.1X
6 2 (0.41%) ADO
6 2 (0.41%) OAuth
6 2 (0.41%) OAuth2
6 2 (0.41%) OpenID
7 1 (0.21%) LAMP
7 1 (0.21%) MERN Stack
7 1 (0.21%) WPF
7 1 (0.21%) YAML
Miscellaneous
1 27 (5.54%) Data Centre
2 22 (4.52%) Onboarding
3 17 (3.49%) Cloud Native
4 16 (3.29%) Security Posture
5 11 (2.26%) Cyber Security Posture
5 11 (2.26%) Management Information System
6 10 (2.05%) Virtual Team
7 9 (1.85%) Analytical Mindset
7 9 (1.85%) Enterprise Software
8 8 (1.64%) Product Ownership
8 8 (1.64%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (1.44%) Driving Licence
9 7 (1.44%) PMI
10 6 (1.23%) PKI
11 5 (1.03%) Data Protection Act
11 5 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
11 5 (1.03%) Handset
12 4 (0.82%) Operational Technology
12 4 (0.82%) Video Conferencing
13 3 (0.62%) Mobile App
Operating Systems
1 67 (13.76%) Windows
2 62 (12.73%) Linux
3 23 (4.72%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
4 14 (2.87%) Windows Server
5 13 (2.67%) Windows 10
6 8 (1.64%) Unix
7 7 (1.44%) Android
7 7 (1.44%) Kali Linux
8 4 (0.82%) Mac OS
9 2 (0.41%) SUSE
9 2 (0.41%) SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 1 (0.21%) OpenVMS
10 1 (0.21%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 87 (17.86%) ITIL
2 84 (17.25%) Problem-Solving
3 70 (14.37%) Cybersecurity
3 70 (14.37%) Stakeholder Engagement
4 67 (13.76%) CI/CD
5 64 (13.14%) Migration
5 64 (13.14%) Roadmaps
6 54 (11.09%) Continuous Improvement
7 52 (10.68%) DevOps
8 49 (10.06%) Service Management
9 48 (9.86%) Collaborative Working
10 46 (9.45%) Agile
10 46 (9.45%) Change Management
11 45 (9.24%) SIEM
12 44 (9.03%) Stakeholder Management
13 42 (8.62%) DevSecOps
13 42 (8.62%) ITSM
14 28 (5.75%) Validation
15 26 (5.34%) Performance Metrics
16 24 (4.93%) Infrastructure Engineering
Programming Languages
1 84 (17.25%) Python
2 63 (12.94%) PowerShell
3 29 (5.95%) Bash
4 20 (4.11%) Kusto Query Language
5 12 (2.46%) SQL
6 9 (1.85%) Korn
6 9 (1.85%) Shell Script
7 8 (1.64%) Java
8 5 (1.03%) Bicep
9 4 (0.82%) Go
10 2 (0.41%) VBScript
11 1 (0.21%) C#
11 1 (0.21%) C++
11 1 (0.21%) JavaScript
11 1 (0.21%) Perl
11 1 (0.21%) PHP
Qualifications
1 487 (100.00%) Security Cleared
2 39 (8.01%) Degree
3 36 (7.39%) CISSP
4 20 (4.11%) CEH
4 20 (4.11%) CISM
5 17 (3.49%) PMP
6 15 (3.08%) Azure Certification
7 14 (2.87%) AWS Certification
7 14 (2.87%) CHECK Team Member
7 14 (2.87%) DV Cleared
8 13 (2.67%) PMI Certification
9 12 (2.46%) CREST Certified
9 12 (2.46%) Cyber Scheme
9 12 (2.46%) GIAC
10 11 (2.26%) BPSS Clearance
11 10 (2.05%) Postgraduate
12 9 (1.85%) CCNP
12 9 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
13 8 (1.64%) Network+ Certification
14 7 (1.44%) GPEN
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (9.24%) ISO/IEC 27001
2 35 (7.19%) NIST
3 32 (6.57%) GDPR
4 15 (3.08%) PMO
4 15 (3.08%) QA
5 14 (2.87%) PCI DSS
6 13 (2.67%) NCSC
7 5 (1.03%) NIST 800
8 3 (0.62%) Accessibility
8 3 (0.62%) DO-254
8 3 (0.62%) IEC 61508
8 3 (0.62%) ISO 26262
8 3 (0.62%) SLA
9 2 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
9 2 (0.41%) JSP 440
10 1 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
10 1 (0.21%) Data Quality
10 1 (0.21%) Def Stans
10 1 (0.21%) ISO 22301
System Software
1 61 (12.53%) Active Directory
2 30 (6.16%) VMware Infrastructure
3 14 (2.87%) vSphere
4 11 (2.26%) Docker
5 9 (1.85%) Oracle RAC
6 5 (1.03%) Hyper-V
6 5 (1.03%) VMware NSX
7 3 (0.62%) Firmware
8 2 (0.41%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.21%) NFS
9 1 (0.21%) Terminal Services
9 1 (0.21%) Virtual Machines
Systems Management
1 33 (6.78%) Kubernetes
2 21 (4.31%) Nmap
3 16 (3.29%) Ansible
4 15 (3.08%) SCCM
4 15 (3.08%) Terraform
5 14 (2.87%) Argo
5 14 (2.87%) Grafana
5 14 (2.87%) Prometheus
6 12 (2.46%) Kibana
7 11 (2.26%) Microsoft Intune
8 10 (2.05%) Oracle RMAN
9 9 (1.85%) Kustomize
9 9 (1.85%) Oracle Enterprise Manager
9 9 (1.85%) Red Hat Satellite
10 5 (1.03%) Nagios
10 5 (1.03%) vCenter Server
11 4 (0.82%) Cisco CUCM
11 4 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
12 3 (0.62%) Systems Management Server (SMS)
13 2 (0.41%) NetBackup
Vendors
1 74 (15.20%) Cisco
2 58 (11.91%) Microsoft
3 44 (9.03%) VMware
4 37 (7.60%) ServiceNow
5 34 (6.98%) Aruba
6 28 (5.75%) Google
7 27 (5.54%) Red Hat
8 22 (4.52%) Juniper
9 21 (4.31%) CyberArk
10 18 (3.70%) BeyondTrust
11 15 (3.08%) Tanium
12 12 (2.46%) FireEye
12 12 (2.46%) Oracle
12 12 (2.46%) SAP
12 12 (2.46%) Splunk
13 11 (2.26%) Citrix
14 10 (2.05%) AppDynamics
14 10 (2.05%) Dynatrace
15 7 (1.44%) Atlassian
16 6 (1.23%) SolarWinds