Security Cleared Contract Job Trends in Central London

Security Clearance
London > Central London

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in Central London with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 1 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 4 16 21
Rank change year-on-year +12 +5 -5
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 443 216 198
As % of all contract jobs in Central London 16.97% 10.50% 8.65%
As % of the Qualifications category 65.44% 42.35% 37.86%
Number of daily rates quoted 331 149 125
10th Percentile £425 £350 £409
25th Percentile £465 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £534 £538
Median % change year-on-year +3.09% -0.74% +1.42%
75th Percentile £638 £627 £638
90th Percentile £700 £716 £738
London median daily rate £550 £525 £538
% change year-on-year +4.76% -2.33% -2.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 3 3 1
10th Percentile £26.60 £18.67 -
25th Percentile £37.25 £21.06 £20.22
Median hourly rate £60.00 £25.08 £20.82
Median % change year-on-year +139.28% +20.47% +15.64%
75th Percentile £70.88 £45.34 £21.41
90th Percentile £74.40 £57.48 -
London median hourly rate £59.50 £25.15 £22.00
% change year-on-year +136.58% +14.32% -63.33%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
Central London

Security 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 Central London.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 677 510 523
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London 25.93% 24.79% 22.85%
Number of daily rates quoted 489 341 332
10th Percentile £405 £315 £400
25th Percentile £463 £456 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £550 £550 £564
Median % change year-on-year - -2.44% +2.50%
75th Percentile £638 £675 £675
90th Percentile £734 £763 £775
London median daily rate £538 £525 £530
% change year-on-year +2.38% -0.94% -3.64%
Number of hourly rates quoted 8 12 5
10th Percentile £19.45 £25.11 £20.33
25th Percentile £26.63 £26.13 £20.50
Median hourly rate £42.53 £31.78 £27.00
Median % change year-on-year +33.86% +17.69% -23.40%
75th Percentile £60.31 £55.06 -
90th Percentile £68.53 £65.39 £37.05
London median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £26.97
% change year-on-year +114.71% -6.75% -50.96%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in Central London

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Security Cleared relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in Central London.

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in Central London

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Security Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in Central London

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in Central London over the 6 months to 1 August 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in Central London

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in Central London

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Security Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in Central London citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in Central London

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared in Central London over the 6 months to 1 August 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in Central London

Security Cleared
Contract Job Locations in Central London

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing Security Cleared within the Central London region over the 6 months to 1 August 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
City of London +12 396 £550 +3.92% 106
City of Westminster +3 33 £600 -4.00% 14
West End of London +4 29 £604 +0.21% 10
Southwark - 9 £600 -
Lambeth - 2 £475 - 1
Security Cleared
London

Security Cleared
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in Central London 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 16 (3.61%) SharePoint
2 14 (3.16%) Confluence
3 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Exchange
4 3 (0.68%) Apache
5 2 (0.45%) Apache Spark
5 2 (0.45%) nginx
5 2 (0.45%) WebSphere
6 1 (0.23%) Anypoint
6 1 (0.23%) Apache Airflow
6 1 (0.23%) Exchange Server 2013
6 1 (0.23%) SharePoint 2013
6 1 (0.23%) Tomcat
6 1 (0.23%) WordPress
Applications
1 5 (1.13%) Microsoft Excel
2 2 (0.45%) AutoCAD
2 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Office
2 2 (0.45%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 2 (0.45%) Revit
2 2 (0.45%) SOLIDWORKS
3 1 (0.23%) Chatbot
3 1 (0.23%) Maya
3 1 (0.23%) MS Visio
Business Applications
1 6 (1.35%) Oracle EBS
2 3 (0.68%) SAP S/4HANA
3 2 (0.45%) Dynamics CRM
3 2 (0.45%) Exchequer
3 2 (0.45%) iTrent
3 2 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
3 2 (0.45%) Remedy ITSM
3 2 (0.45%) SAP ERP
3 2 (0.45%) Temenos T24
4 1 (0.23%) Findur
4 1 (0.23%) Integrated Workplace Management System
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle Payroll
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle Procure-to-Pay
4 1 (0.23%) Oracle SCM
4 1 (0.23%) SAP HCM
4 1 (0.23%) SAP Payroll
4 1 (0.23%) SAP PM
4 1 (0.23%) SAP QM
Cloud Services
1 116 (26.19%) Azure
2 69 (15.58%) AWS
3 43 (9.71%) GCP
4 34 (7.67%) GitHub
5 28 (6.32%) Power Platform
6 26 (5.87%) GitHub Actions
7 21 (4.74%) Azure DevOps
8 13 (2.93%) Azure AKS
8 13 (2.93%) Google Kubernetes Engine
8 13 (2.93%) Microsoft 365
9 12 (2.71%) Azure Data Factory
9 12 (2.71%) SaaS
10 11 (2.48%) PaaS
11 9 (2.03%) Amazon S3
11 9 (2.03%) Serverless
12 8 (1.81%) OCI
12 8 (1.81%) Power Automate
12 8 (1.81%) PowerApps
13 6 (1.35%) Azure Monitor
13 6 (1.35%) Microsoft Purview
Communications & Networking
1 18 (4.06%) Firewall
2 17 (3.84%) DNS
3 12 (2.71%) Network Security
4 10 (2.26%) VPN
5 5 (1.13%) DHCP
5 5 (1.13%) Internet
6 4 (0.90%) LAN
7 3 (0.68%) NGFW
7 3 (0.68%) SMTP
8 2 (0.45%) FTP
8 2 (0.45%) HTTPS
8 2 (0.45%) Reverse Proxy
8 2 (0.45%) SAN
8 2 (0.45%) TCP/IP
8 2 (0.45%) VSAN
8 2 (0.45%) WAN
9 1 (0.23%) 5G
9 1 (0.23%) Software-Defined Networking
9 1 (0.23%) Structured Cabling
9 1 (0.23%) WebEx
Database & Business Intelligence
1 17 (3.84%) Power BI
2 12 (2.71%) SQL Server
3 7 (1.58%) NoSQL
3 7 (1.58%) PostgreSQL
4 6 (1.35%) Amazon Athena
4 6 (1.35%) Data Lake
5 5 (1.13%) Amazon RDS
5 5 (1.13%) BigQuery
5 5 (1.13%) Data Warehouse
6 4 (0.90%) Big Data
6 4 (0.90%) Elasticsearch
6 4 (0.90%) Metadata
6 4 (0.90%) SQL Server Integration Services
7 3 (0.68%) Geospatial Data
7 3 (0.68%) Relational Database
7 3 (0.68%) SQL Server Analysis Services
8 2 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.45%) BusinessObjects
8 2 (0.45%) OLAP
8 2 (0.45%) SQL Server Reporting Services
Development Applications
1 28 (6.32%) Git
2 20 (4.51%) Jenkins
2 20 (4.51%) JIRA
3 14 (3.16%) GitLab
4 6 (1.35%) Cypress.io
5 5 (1.13%) JUnit
5 5 (1.13%) Mockito
6 4 (0.90%) JMeter
6 4 (0.90%) Postman
6 4 (0.90%) REST Assured
6 4 (0.90%) Selenium
6 4 (0.90%) Visual Studio
7 3 (0.68%) Liquibase
7 3 (0.68%) Visual Studio Code
8 2 (0.45%) Ant
8 2 (0.45%) SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)
9 1 (0.23%) Cucumber
9 1 (0.23%) IntelliJ
9 1 (0.23%) Subversion
9 1 (0.23%) TestNG
General
1 110 (24.83%) Public Sector
2 95 (21.44%) Social Skills
3 42 (9.48%) Finance
4 29 (6.55%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (6.09%) Military
6 14 (3.16%) Law
7 13 (2.93%) Banking
8 12 (2.71%) Influencing Skills
9 10 (2.26%) Police
10 7 (1.58%) Telecoms
11 6 (1.35%) Documentation Skills
11 6 (1.35%) Retail
12 5 (1.13%) Financial Institution
13 4 (0.90%) Legal
14 3 (0.68%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 3 (0.68%) Local Government
14 3 (0.68%) Marketing
14 3 (0.68%) Publishing
15 2 (0.45%) Manufacturing
15 2 (0.45%) Presentation Skills
Job Titles
1 99 (22.35%) Architect
2 48 (10.84%) Developer
3 41 (9.26%) Lead
4 38 (8.58%) Senior
5 28 (6.32%) Analyst
5 28 (6.32%) Cloud Engineer
6 22 (4.97%) Consultant
7 21 (4.74%) Data Architect
7 21 (4.74%) Solutions Architect
8 18 (4.06%) Infrastructure Engineer
9 17 (3.84%) DevOps Engineer
10 15 (3.39%) Business Analyst
11 14 (3.16%) Azure Engineer
12 13 (2.93%) Applications Architect
12 13 (2.93%) Data Engineer
12 13 (2.93%) Platform Engineer
12 13 (2.93%) Technical Architect
13 12 (2.71%) GCP Engineer
14 11 (2.48%) Security Architect
14 11 (2.48%) Senior Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 18 (4.06%) REST
2 12 (2.71%) .NET
2 12 (2.71%) Spring
3 11 (2.48%) Spring Boot
4 9 (2.03%) React
4 9 (2.03%) RESTful
5 8 (1.81%) Kafka
5 8 (1.81%) Node.js
5 8 (1.81%) PySpark
5 8 (1.81%) SOAP
6 7 (1.58%) HTML
6 7 (1.58%) JSON
7 6 (1.35%) Swagger
8 5 (1.13%) Oracle Fusion
8 5 (1.13%) Playwright
8 5 (1.13%) scikit-learn
8 5 (1.13%) XML
9 4 (0.90%) Middleware
9 4 (0.90%) RabbitMQ
9 4 (0.90%) Web Services
Miscellaneous
1 31 (7.00%) Cloud Native
2 16 (3.61%) Legacy Systems
3 14 (3.16%) Data Centre
4 11 (2.48%) Onboarding
5 8 (1.81%) Distributed Systems
6 7 (1.58%) Management Information System
6 7 (1.58%) Public Cloud
7 6 (1.35%) AI Agents
7 6 (1.35%) LIMS
8 5 (1.13%) Clustering
8 5 (1.13%) Hybrid Cloud
8 5 (1.13%) Low-Code
8 5 (1.13%) Mobile App
8 5 (1.13%) PKI
8 5 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
9 4 (0.90%) CMDB
9 4 (0.90%) Enterprise Cloud
9 4 (0.90%) NHS
9 4 (0.90%) Private Cloud
9 4 (0.90%) Taxonomies
Operating Systems
1 26 (5.87%) Windows
2 22 (4.97%) Linux
3 15 (3.39%) Windows Server
4 3 (0.68%) VMS
5 2 (0.45%) Mac OS
5 2 (0.45%) Windows 10
5 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2012
5 2 (0.45%) Windows Server 2019
6 1 (0.23%) AIX
6 1 (0.23%) Android
6 1 (0.23%) Apple iOS
6 1 (0.23%) CentOS
6 1 (0.23%) OpenVMS
6 1 (0.23%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 1 (0.23%) Solaris
6 1 (0.23%) Ubuntu
6 1 (0.23%) Unix
6 1 (0.23%) Windows 7
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2008
6 1 (0.23%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 91 (20.54%) DevOps
2 89 (20.09%) CI/CD
3 66 (14.90%) Infrastructure as Code
4 63 (14.22%) Agile
5 53 (11.96%) Migration
6 51 (11.51%) AI
6 51 (11.51%) Containerisation
7 49 (11.06%) Stakeholder Management
8 35 (7.90%) Problem-Solving
9 34 (7.67%) Continuous Improvement
9 34 (7.67%) Stakeholder Engagement
10 32 (7.22%) Platform Engineering
11 31 (7.00%) Data Modelling
12 27 (6.09%) Microservices
13 26 (5.87%) Observability
13 26 (5.87%) Test Automation
14 25 (5.64%) Analytics
15 24 (5.42%) Event-Driven
16 22 (4.97%) Cybersecurity
16 22 (4.97%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 49 (11.06%) Python
2 32 (7.22%) SQL
3 29 (6.55%) Java
4 20 (4.51%) C#
4 20 (4.51%) PowerShell
5 18 (4.06%) JavaScript
6 13 (2.93%) Bash
7 10 (2.26%) TypeScript
8 6 (1.35%) Bicep
9 5 (1.13%) Ruby
10 4 (0.90%) Data Analysis Expressions
11 3 (0.68%) Apex Code
12 2 (0.45%) ActionScript
12 2 (0.45%) ActionScript 2.0
12 2 (0.45%) R
12 2 (0.45%) T-SQL
13 1 (0.23%) C++
13 1 (0.23%) PL/SQL
13 1 (0.23%) Shell Script
13 1 (0.23%) X++
Qualifications
1 367 (82.84%) SC Cleared
2 53 (11.96%) DV Cleared
3 17 (3.84%) BPSS Clearance
4 9 (2.03%) Degree
5 7 (1.58%) CISSP
6 6 (1.35%) Azure Certification
7 5 (1.13%) CISM
7 5 (1.13%) DBS Check
8 4 (0.90%) CTC Cleared
8 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Certification
9 3 (0.68%) AWS Certification
9 3 (0.68%) GIAC
9 3 (0.68%) TOGAF Certification
10 2 (0.45%) CEH
10 2 (0.45%) Cisco Certification
10 2 (0.45%) CompTIA CySA+
10 2 (0.45%) CompTIA Security+
10 2 (0.45%) ITIL Certification
10 2 (0.45%) OSCP
10 2 (0.45%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 23 (5.19%) QA
2 17 (3.84%) Data Quality
3 15 (3.39%) NCSC
4 13 (2.93%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 11 (2.48%) NIST
6 8 (1.81%) Accessibility
7 7 (1.58%) Cyber Essentials
8 5 (1.13%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
8 5 (1.13%) GDPR
8 5 (1.13%) Government Security Classifications
9 4 (0.90%) HMG Security Policy Framework
10 3 (0.68%) NIST 800
11 2 (0.45%) 21 CFR Part 11
11 2 (0.45%) GMP
11 2 (0.45%) GRC
11 2 (0.45%) GxP
11 2 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 17025
11 2 (0.45%) ISO/IEC 27005
11 2 (0.45%) SLA
12 1 (0.23%) GLP
System Software
1 28 (6.32%) Docker
2 18 (4.06%) VMware Infrastructure
3 16 (3.61%) Active Directory
4 10 (2.26%) VMware ESXi
5 6 (1.35%) Hyper-V
5 6 (1.35%) Virtual Machines
6 5 (1.13%) vSphere
7 3 (0.68%) BitLocker
7 3 (0.68%) Microsoft App-V
7 3 (0.68%) Terminal Services
8 2 (0.45%) Virtual Desktop
8 2 (0.45%) VMware NSX
9 1 (0.23%) Firmware
9 1 (0.23%) Oracle RAC
9 1 (0.23%) UAG
9 1 (0.23%) XenApp
9 1 (0.23%) XenDesktop
Systems Management
1 65 (14.67%) Kubernetes
2 49 (11.06%) Terraform
3 22 (4.97%) Ansible
4 14 (3.16%) Prometheus
5 12 (2.71%) Grafana
6 9 (2.03%) vCenter Server
7 7 (1.58%) SCCM
8 6 (1.35%) Puppet
9 5 (1.13%) Istio
10 4 (0.90%) Microsoft Intune
10 4 (0.90%) Single Sign-On
11 3 (0.68%) Nagios
11 3 (0.68%) vMotion
12 2 (0.45%) Jamf Pro
12 2 (0.45%) Microsoft Clustering
12 2 (0.45%) WSUS
13 1 (0.23%) Consul
13 1 (0.23%) Failover Clustering
13 1 (0.23%) PowerCLI
13 1 (0.23%) vRealize
Vendors
1 67 (15.12%) Microsoft
2 26 (5.87%) Google
3 24 (5.42%) Oracle
4 22 (4.97%) VMware
5 20 (4.51%) Databricks
6 18 (4.06%) ServiceNow
7 9 (2.03%) Salesforce
8 8 (1.81%) Dynatrace
8 8 (1.81%) SAP
9 6 (1.35%) webMethods
10 5 (1.13%) Citrix
10 5 (1.13%) Splunk
11 4 (0.90%) Fortinet
11 4 (0.90%) MuleSoft
11 4 (0.90%) Palo Alto
11 4 (0.90%) Pure Storage
12 3 (0.68%) Cisco
12 3 (0.68%) Foundry
12 3 (0.68%) HP
12 3 (0.68%) IBM