BPSS Clearance Contract Job Trends in England

Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS) Clearance
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for BPSS Clearance qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 21 January 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
21 Jan 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 175 264 245
Rank change year-on-year +89 -19 -17
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 521 235 359
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.61% 0.88% 0.97%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.69% 2.90% 3.14%
Number of daily rates quoted 392 136 272
10th Percentile £313 £220 £350
25th Percentile £394 £399 £431
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £510 £550
Median % change year-on-year -6.86% -7.27% -
75th Percentile £619 £600 £631
90th Percentile £700 £707 £688
UK median daily rate £470 £505 £550
% change year-on-year -6.93% -8.18% -1.35%
Number of hourly rates quoted 36 12 35
10th Percentile £14.41 £20.45 £16.20
25th Percentile £20.00 £33.13 £23.75
Median hourly rate £33.50 £39.43 £45.00
Median % change year-on-year -15.03% -12.39% -14.29%
75th Percentile £56.69 £65.63 £61.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £67.50 £84.36
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £39.43 £45.00
% change year-on-year -15.03% -12.39% -10.00%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

BPSS Clearance 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 England.

Contract vacancies requiring academic qualifications or professional certifications 11,107 8,103 11,429
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.40% 30.40% 30.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,370 4,916 7,147
10th Percentile £313 £300 £300
25th Percentile £419 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £519 £525 £550
% change year-on-year -1.13% -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 874 395 773
10th Percentile £16.00 £19.98 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £25.26 £21.46
Median hourly rate £25.15 £47.25 £48.40
Median % change year-on-year -46.77% -2.39% +7.56%
75th Percentile £61.42 £67.88 £66.25
90th Percentile £75.00 £82.25 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £48.70
% change year-on-year -37.13% -17.86% +8.22%

BPSS Clearance
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing BPSS Clearance relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

BPSS Clearance job vacancy trend in England

BPSS Clearance
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BPSS Clearance.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BPSS Clearance

BPSS Clearance
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing BPSS Clearance in England over the 6 months to 21 January 2026.

Daily rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in England

BPSS Clearance
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BPSS Clearance.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing BPSS Clearance

BPSS Clearance
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing BPSS Clearance in England over the 6 months to 21 January 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for BPSS Clearance in England

BPSS Clearance
Contract Job Locations in England

The table below looks at the demand and provides a guide to the median contractor rates quoted in IT jobs citing BPSS Clearance within the England region over the 6 months to 21 January 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
North of England +29 183 £441 -11.75% 51
London +54 158 £512 -7.78% 37
North West +34 132 £427 -20.63% 35
Midlands +8 82 £430 -4.02% 27
West Midlands -6 55 £463 +3.24% 17
South East -10 39 £431 -16.26% 98
Yorkshire -38 38 £481 +118.75% 5
South West +3 35 £555 -5.93% 71
East Midlands -3 27 £393 - 10
East of England -17 19 £450 +12.50% 62
North East -2 15 £478 -12.39% 11
BPSS Clearance
UK

BPSS Clearance
Co-Occurring Skills & Capabilities in England 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 32 (6.14%) Confluence
2 7 (1.34%) SharePoint
3 6 (1.15%) Apache
4 5 (0.96%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.96%) nginx
5 3 (0.58%) Apache Spark
5 3 (0.58%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.38%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.38%) CMS
6 2 (0.38%) MTS
7 1 (0.19%) Camunda
7 1 (0.19%) JBoss
7 1 (0.19%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.19%) SAS
Applications
1 14 (2.69%) Microsoft Excel
2 7 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
2 7 (1.34%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 5 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
3 5 (0.96%) MS Visio
4 3 (0.58%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.38%) Trello
6 1 (0.19%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.19%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 45 (8.64%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (1.54%) SAP EHS
3 7 (1.34%) Oracle EBS
4 6 (1.15%) SAP Travel Management
5 5 (0.96%) SAP QM
5 5 (0.96%) SAP VC
6 4 (0.77%) Oracle EBS R12
6 4 (0.77%) SAP BRIM
6 4 (0.77%) SAP HCM
6 4 (0.77%) SAP Hybris
6 4 (0.77%) SAP PSCD
7 3 (0.58%) Oracle Cash Management
7 3 (0.58%) Oracle Financials
7 3 (0.58%) Oracle Payables
7 3 (0.58%) SAP Payroll
8 2 (0.38%) BASE24
8 2 (0.38%) Exchequer
8 2 (0.38%) OpenText VIM for SAP
8 2 (0.38%) Payment Gateway
8 2 (0.38%) SAP EWM
Cloud Services
1 86 (16.51%) AWS
2 63 (12.09%) Azure
3 24 (4.61%) Power Platform
4 22 (4.22%) Azure DevOps
4 22 (4.22%) GitHub
5 21 (4.03%) GCP
6 20 (3.84%) Serverless
7 13 (2.50%) AWS CloudFormation
7 13 (2.50%) AWS Lambda
8 12 (2.30%) GitHub Actions
9 9 (1.73%) Amazon SQS
9 9 (1.73%) Power Automate
9 9 (1.73%) SaaS
10 8 (1.54%) Microsoft 365
11 7 (1.34%) PowerApps
11 7 (1.34%) SuccessFactors
12 6 (1.15%) Entra ID
12 6 (1.15%) PaaS
13 5 (0.96%) Google Sheets
14 4 (0.77%) Amazon ECS
Communications & Networking
1 13 (2.50%) Firewall
2 8 (1.54%) Network Security
3 7 (1.34%) DNS
4 6 (1.15%) VPN
5 5 (0.96%) LAN
5 5 (0.96%) WAN
6 4 (0.77%) MPLS
6 4 (0.77%) SSH
6 4 (0.77%) VSAN
7 3 (0.58%) 5G
7 3 (0.58%) Radio Access Network
7 3 (0.58%) Reverse Proxy
7 3 (0.58%) SD-WAN
7 3 (0.58%) Unified Communications
7 3 (0.58%) VoIP
7 3 (0.58%) Wi-Fi
8 2 (0.38%) DHCP
8 2 (0.38%) FTP
8 2 (0.38%) SAN
8 2 (0.38%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 19 (3.65%) Power BI
2 14 (2.69%) PostgreSQL
3 12 (2.30%) MongoDB
3 12 (2.30%) NoSQL
4 11 (2.11%) SQL Server
5 10 (1.92%) Redis
6 9 (1.73%) Data Warehouse
6 9 (1.73%) Metadata
7 7 (1.34%) DocumentDB
7 7 (1.34%) Tableau
8 5 (0.96%) BigQuery
8 5 (0.96%) Oracle Database
9 4 (0.77%) DynamoDB
10 3 (0.58%) Aerospike
10 3 (0.58%) Big Data
10 3 (0.58%) DataStage
10 3 (0.58%) GIS
11 2 (0.38%) NonStop SQL
11 2 (0.38%) SQL Server Reporting Services
11 2 (0.38%) Star Schema
Development Applications
1 54 (10.36%) JIRA
2 48 (9.21%) Git
3 21 (4.03%) GitLab
4 19 (3.65%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.73%) Mockito
5 9 (1.73%) SonarQube
6 8 (1.54%) JUnit
7 6 (1.15%) Selenium
8 5 (0.96%) Android Studio
8 5 (0.96%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.77%) Cucumber
10 3 (0.58%) Bitbucket
10 3 (0.58%) Gradle
10 3 (0.58%) Postman
10 3 (0.58%) Toad
11 2 (0.38%) ERwin
11 2 (0.38%) Grunt
11 2 (0.38%) JMeter
11 2 (0.38%) Maven
11 2 (0.38%) Mocha
General
1 176 (33.78%) Social Skills
2 95 (18.23%) Finance
3 84 (16.12%) Public Sector
4 50 (9.60%) Analytical Skills
5 43 (8.25%) Banking
6 17 (3.26%) Telecoms
7 15 (2.88%) Organisational Skills
8 13 (2.50%) Aerospace
9 12 (2.30%) Influencing Skills
10 9 (1.73%) Documentation Skills
11 8 (1.54%) Billing
12 7 (1.34%) Legal
13 6 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
14 5 (0.96%) Manufacturing
14 5 (0.96%) Retail
15 4 (0.77%) Local Government
16 3 (0.58%) Corporate Banking
16 3 (0.58%) General Ledger
16 3 (0.58%) Investment Banking
16 3 (0.58%) Retail Banking
Job Titles
1 77 (14.78%) Developer
2 66 (12.67%) Analyst
3 62 (11.90%) Senior
4 56 (10.75%) Consultant
5 49 (9.40%) Architect
6 33 (6.33%) Lead
7 32 (6.14%) SAP Consultant
8 30 (5.76%) Business Analyst
9 21 (4.03%) Java Developer
10 17 (3.26%) Senior Developer
11 16 (3.07%) Management Consultant
11 16 (3.07%) Solutions Architect
12 15 (2.88%) Delivery Manager
12 15 (2.88%) Project Manager
13 11 (2.11%) Senior Analyst
14 10 (1.92%) Administrator
14 10 (1.92%) Information Security Advisor
14 10 (1.92%) Security Advisor
14 10 (1.92%) Senior Business Analyst
15 8 (1.54%) Data Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 26 (4.99%) Node.js
2 23 (4.41%) REST
3 19 (3.65%) JSON
3 19 (3.65%) React
4 17 (3.26%) Spring
5 16 (3.07%) Kafka
5 16 (3.07%) RESTful
6 14 (2.69%) Spring Boot
7 13 (2.50%) XML
8 12 (2.30%) SAP Fiori
9 11 (2.11%) Jest
10 9 (1.73%) .NET
10 9 (1.73%) HTML
10 9 (1.73%) Middleware
10 9 (1.73%) OpenAPI
11 8 (1.54%) AngularJS
12 7 (1.34%) SAP TM
12 7 (1.34%) Swagger
13 6 (1.15%) pytest
13 6 (1.15%) SOAP
Miscellaneous
1 33 (6.33%) Onboarding
2 30 (5.76%) Product Ownership
3 21 (4.03%) Management Information System
4 20 (3.84%) Cloud Native
5 13 (2.50%) Legacy Systems
5 13 (2.50%) Security Posture
6 11 (2.11%) NHS
6 11 (2.11%) Public Cloud
7 10 (1.92%) Distributed Systems
8 8 (1.54%) SCADA
9 7 (1.34%) Data Centre
9 7 (1.34%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.34%) Linux Command Line
10 6 (1.15%) Mobile App
10 6 (1.15%) Replication
11 5 (0.96%) Cyber Threat
11 5 (0.96%) Operational Technology
11 5 (0.96%) Tandem
12 4 (0.77%) Driving Licence
12 4 (0.77%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 48 (9.21%) Linux
2 25 (4.80%) Windows
3 17 (3.26%) Unix
4 7 (1.34%) Android
4 7 (1.34%) Windows Server
5 6 (1.15%) Mac OS X
6 3 (0.58%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 3 (0.58%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.38%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.38%) Debian
7 2 (0.38%) VMS
8 1 (0.19%) CentOS
8 1 (0.19%) VME
8 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
8 1 (0.19%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 148 (28.41%) Agile
2 90 (17.27%) Stakeholder Management
3 87 (16.70%) Problem-Solving
4 77 (14.78%) DevOps
5 71 (13.63%) CI/CD
6 58 (11.13%) Continuous Improvement
7 50 (9.60%) Test Automation
8 44 (8.45%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 43 (8.25%) Microservices
10 38 (7.29%) Roadmaps
11 37 (7.10%) Change Management
12 36 (6.91%) Scrum
13 35 (6.72%) Validation
14 34 (6.53%) Data Modelling
15 33 (6.33%) Risk Management
16 32 (6.14%) Migration
17 31 (5.95%) Analytics
18 29 (5.57%) AI
18 29 (5.57%) Project Management
18 29 (5.57%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 64 (12.28%) Python
2 60 (11.52%) SQL
3 59 (11.32%) Java
4 17 (3.26%) JavaScript
5 13 (2.50%) PowerShell
6 11 (2.11%) Ruby
7 10 (1.92%) PL/SQL
8 9 (1.73%) Scala
9 7 (1.34%) ABAP
9 7 (1.34%) Bash
9 7 (1.34%) TypeScript
10 6 (1.15%) C#
10 6 (1.15%) C++
11 5 (0.96%) COBOL
12 4 (0.77%) Bicep
12 4 (0.77%) Kotlin
12 4 (0.77%) R
13 3 (0.58%) C
13 3 (0.58%) Shell Script
14 2 (0.38%) JCL
Qualifications
1 226 (43.38%) Security Cleared
2 174 (33.40%) SC Cleared
3 49 (9.40%) Degree
4 24 (4.61%) Computer Science Degree
5 18 (3.45%) Master's Degree
6 16 (3.07%) DV Cleared
7 11 (2.11%) BC Cleared
8 10 (1.92%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
9 8 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
10 6 (1.15%) CCNP
11 5 (0.96%) DBS Check
11 5 (0.96%) ISTQB
11 5 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 5 (0.96%) PMP
12 4 (0.77%) Azure Certification
12 4 (0.77%) CompTIA Security+
13 3 (0.58%) CCNA
13 3 (0.58%) CompTIA CySA+
13 3 (0.58%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.58%) SAP Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 24 (4.61%) QA
2 20 (3.84%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 15 (2.88%) Accessibility
4 14 (2.69%) GRC
5 13 (2.50%) NIST
6 11 (2.11%) Data Quality
7 10 (1.92%) Def Stans
8 9 (1.73%) SLA
9 8 (1.54%) PMO
10 6 (1.15%) GDPR
10 6 (1.15%) ISO 20022
11 5 (0.96%) NCSC
11 5 (0.96%) PSD2
12 4 (0.77%) PCI DSS
12 4 (0.77%) SEPA
12 4 (0.77%) WCAG
13 3 (0.58%) IFRS
13 3 (0.58%) IFRS 17
13 3 (0.58%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
13 3 (0.58%) P3O
System Software
1 39 (7.49%) Docker
2 13 (2.50%) Active Directory
2 13 (2.50%) VMware Infrastructure
3 7 (1.34%) vSphere
4 4 (0.77%) GPFS
4 4 (0.77%) NFS
4 4 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
4 4 (0.77%) VMware ESXi
5 3 (0.58%) Hyper-V
6 2 (0.38%) ACF2
6 2 (0.38%) QEMU
6 2 (0.38%) RACF
6 2 (0.38%) Time Sharing Option
6 2 (0.38%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.19%) HDFS
7 1 (0.19%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 36 (6.91%) Kubernetes
2 34 (6.53%) Terraform
3 8 (1.54%) Ansible
4 7 (1.34%) vRealize
5 5 (0.96%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.96%) VxRail
6 4 (0.77%) Grafana
7 3 (0.58%) Kibana
7 3 (0.58%) Microsoft Intune
7 3 (0.58%) Packer
7 3 (0.58%) PingFederate
7 3 (0.58%) Podman
8 2 (0.38%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.38%) Argo
8 2 (0.38%) CA Endevor
8 2 (0.38%) Consul
8 2 (0.38%) Istio
8 2 (0.38%) Puppet
8 2 (0.38%) Tivoli
8 2 (0.38%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 72 (13.82%) SAP
2 51 (9.79%) Microsoft
3 42 (8.06%) Oracle
4 17 (3.26%) Cisco
4 17 (3.26%) VMware
5 13 (2.50%) Google
6 11 (2.11%) IBM
7 9 (1.73%) ServiceNow
8 8 (1.54%) Databricks
9 6 (1.15%) Atlassian
10 5 (0.96%) AppDynamics
10 5 (0.96%) CyberArk
10 5 (0.96%) MuleSoft
11 4 (0.77%) Adobe
11 4 (0.77%) Dell
11 4 (0.77%) Fortinet
11 4 (0.77%) Foundry
11 4 (0.77%) HP
11 4 (0.77%) webMethods
12 3 (0.58%) Juniper