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 26 February 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
26 Feb 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 160 267 232
Rank change year-on-year +107 -35 -14
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 604 229 370
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.71% 0.89% 0.99%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.97% 2.94% 3.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 453 144 275
10th Percentile £313 £220 £309
25th Percentile £394 £328 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £473 £508
Median % change year-on-year +0.53% -6.90% -7.73%
75th Percentile £588 £575 £628
90th Percentile £700 £688 £675
UK median daily rate £470 £475 £508
% change year-on-year -1.05% -6.40% -7.73%
Number of hourly rates quoted 45 11 49
10th Percentile £15.10 £18.50 £15.51
25th Percentile £22.68 £25.80 £16.06
Median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £18.13
Median % change year-on-year -13.77% +114.29% -62.29%
75th Percentile £60.00 £65.63 £47.50
90th Percentile £74.26 £67.50 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £36.00 £38.85 £19.57
% change year-on-year -7.34% +98.52% -59.05%

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 12,148 7,798 11,599
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.35% 30.27% 31.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,081 4,802 7,156
10th Percentile £325 £293 £290
25th Percentile £421 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £540
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.78% -1.82%
75th Percentile £619 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £738
UK median daily rate £517 £525 £538
% change year-on-year -1.58% -2.42% -2.18%
Number of hourly rates quoted 934 387 881
10th Percentile £16.09 £20.00 £14.25
25th Percentile £19.34 £25.26 £20.51
Median hourly rate £25.15 £50.00 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year -49.70% +17.65% -8.60%
75th Percentile £65.00 £68.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £80.00 £82.50 £78.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £42.50
% change year-on-year -37.13% -5.88% -10.90%

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 26 February 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 26 February 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 26 February 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
London +93 203 £512 +10.06% 57
North of England +15 182 £450 -10.00% 55
North West +42 139 £424 -21.24% 42
Midlands +8 94 £445 +1.95% 12
West Midlands -13 66 £460 +5.38% 9
South East -5 54 £514 -0.19% 71
South West +10 45 £508 +6.84% 47
East Midlands -1 28 £395 - 3
Yorkshire -61 25 £481 +118.75% 5
East of England -7 22 £450 +125.00% 43
North East -3 19 £475 +32.87% 8
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 41 (6.79%) Confluence
2 12 (1.99%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.16%) Apache
4 6 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (0.83%) Apache Spark
5 5 (0.83%) nginx
6 3 (0.50%) CMS
6 3 (0.50%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.33%) Apache Airflow
7 2 (0.33%) MTS
7 2 (0.33%) SAS
8 1 (0.17%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.17%) Camunda
8 1 (0.17%) CICS
8 1 (0.17%) JBoss
8 1 (0.17%) LiveCycle
8 1 (0.17%) OpenStack
8 1 (0.17%) Oracle Workflow
8 1 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.17%) SharePoint 2013
Applications
1 23 (3.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 11 (1.82%) MS Visio
3 10 (1.66%) Microsoft Office
3 10 (1.66%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 8 (1.32%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.33%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.33%) Spreadsheet
6 1 (0.17%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.17%) Trello
6 1 (0.17%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 45 (7.45%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.99%) SAP Travel Management
3 5 (0.83%) SAP QM
3 5 (0.83%) SAP VC
4 4 (0.66%) Loan IQ
4 4 (0.66%) Payment Gateway
4 4 (0.66%) SAP BRIM
4 4 (0.66%) SAP EWM
4 4 (0.66%) SAP HCM
4 4 (0.66%) SAP Hybris
4 4 (0.66%) SAP PSCD
5 3 (0.50%) Exchequer
5 3 (0.50%) ProductWriter
5 3 (0.50%) SAP EHS
5 3 (0.50%) SAP MM
5 3 (0.50%) SAP Payroll
6 2 (0.33%) BASE24
6 2 (0.33%) Oracle EBS
6 2 (0.33%) Primavera
6 2 (0.33%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 100 (16.56%) AWS
2 83 (13.74%) Azure
3 40 (6.62%) Power Platform
4 27 (4.47%) GitHub
5 25 (4.14%) GCP
6 24 (3.97%) Azure DevOps
6 24 (3.97%) Serverless
7 15 (2.48%) AWS CloudFormation
7 15 (2.48%) Microsoft 365
8 14 (2.32%) AWS Lambda
8 14 (2.32%) GitHub Actions
9 12 (1.99%) Power Automate
10 10 (1.66%) PowerApps
11 8 (1.32%) Amazon SQS
11 8 (1.32%) Azure Data Factory
11 8 (1.32%) Entra ID
12 6 (0.99%) Azure AI
12 6 (0.99%) Azure Functions
12 6 (0.99%) dbt
12 6 (0.99%) SuccessFactors
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.82%) Firewall
2 10 (1.66%) Network Security
3 8 (1.32%) DNS
4 5 (0.83%) SSH
4 5 (0.83%) WAN
5 4 (0.66%) DHCP
5 4 (0.66%) MPLS
5 4 (0.66%) Reverse Proxy
5 4 (0.66%) VPN
5 4 (0.66%) VSAN
5 4 (0.66%) WebEx
6 3 (0.50%) 5G
6 3 (0.50%) LAN
6 3 (0.50%) Radio Access Network
6 3 (0.50%) Unified Communications
6 3 (0.50%) VoIP
6 3 (0.50%) Wireless
7 2 (0.33%) Broadband
7 2 (0.33%) Ethernet
7 2 (0.33%) SNMP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 31 (5.13%) Power BI
2 16 (2.65%) PostgreSQL
3 14 (2.32%) NoSQL
3 14 (2.32%) SQL Server
4 13 (2.15%) Data Warehouse
4 13 (2.15%) MongoDB
5 11 (1.82%) Metadata
6 10 (1.66%) Redis
7 8 (1.32%) DocumentDB
8 7 (1.16%) Tableau
9 6 (0.99%) Delta Lake
9 6 (0.99%) DynamoDB
9 6 (0.99%) Geospatial Data
10 5 (0.83%) BigQuery
11 4 (0.66%) DataStage
11 4 (0.66%) Relational Database
11 4 (0.66%) Spark SQL
12 3 (0.50%) Aerospike
12 3 (0.50%) GIS
12 3 (0.50%) SAP HANA
Development Applications
1 65 (10.76%) JIRA
2 48 (7.95%) Git
3 25 (4.14%) GitLab
4 14 (2.32%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.49%) Mockito
6 8 (1.32%) JUnit
6 8 (1.32%) Selenium
7 7 (1.16%) SonarQube
8 5 (0.83%) Cucumber
8 5 (0.83%) Cypress.io
9 3 (0.50%) Bitbucket
9 3 (0.50%) Eclipse
9 3 (0.50%) Gatling
9 3 (0.50%) JMeter
9 3 (0.50%) Toad
10 2 (0.33%) Android Studio
10 2 (0.33%) ERwin
10 2 (0.33%) gulp
10 2 (0.33%) Maven
10 2 (0.33%) Visual Studio
General
1 201 (33.28%) Social Skills
2 110 (18.21%) Finance
3 100 (16.56%) Public Sector
4 71 (11.75%) Analytical Skills
5 41 (6.79%) Banking
6 26 (4.30%) Aerospace
7 17 (2.81%) Organisational Skills
7 17 (2.81%) Telecoms
8 13 (2.15%) Influencing Skills
9 12 (1.99%) Documentation Skills
9 12 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
10 11 (1.82%) Legal
11 8 (1.32%) Retail
12 7 (1.16%) Billing
12 7 (1.16%) Local Government
12 7 (1.16%) Publishing
13 6 (0.99%) Military
14 5 (0.83%) Advertising
14 5 (0.83%) Aviation
14 5 (0.83%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 87 (14.40%) Analyst
2 84 (13.91%) Developer
3 70 (11.59%) Senior
4 56 (9.27%) Architect
5 52 (8.61%) Consultant
6 45 (7.45%) Lead
7 41 (6.79%) Business Analyst
8 37 (6.13%) SAP Consultant
9 21 (3.48%) Administrator
9 21 (3.48%) Data Engineer
10 20 (3.31%) Java Developer
11 17 (2.81%) Solutions Architect
12 16 (2.65%) Senior Analyst
13 15 (2.48%) Senior Developer
14 13 (2.15%) Project Manager
15 12 (1.99%) Management Consultant
15 12 (1.99%) Senior Business Analyst
15 12 (1.99%) Test Engineer
16 11 (1.82%) Delivery Manager
17 10 (1.66%) Systems Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 31 (5.13%) Node.js
2 25 (4.14%) REST
3 24 (3.97%) React
4 20 (3.31%) Spring
5 18 (2.98%) Kafka
5 18 (2.98%) Spring Boot
6 17 (2.81%) JSON
6 17 (2.81%) RESTful
7 14 (2.32%) XML
8 13 (2.15%) SAP TM
9 12 (1.99%) HTML
9 12 (1.99%) Middleware
10 10 (1.66%) Jest
10 10 (1.66%) OpenAPI
11 9 (1.49%) AngularJS
11 9 (1.49%) Swagger
12 8 (1.32%) .NET
12 8 (1.32%) LangChain
12 8 (1.32%) OAuth
12 8 (1.32%) SAP Fiori
Miscellaneous
1 43 (7.12%) Product Ownership
2 36 (5.96%) Onboarding
3 32 (5.30%) Cloud Native
4 25 (4.14%) Management Information System
5 15 (2.48%) Legacy Systems
6 14 (2.32%) Distributed Systems
6 14 (2.32%) NHS
7 11 (1.82%) Security Posture
8 10 (1.66%) Public Cloud
9 9 (1.49%) Self-Motivation
10 8 (1.32%) Enterprise Software
11 7 (1.16%) Linux Command Line
11 7 (1.16%) Tandem
12 5 (0.83%) AI Agents
12 5 (0.83%) Cyber Threat
12 5 (0.83%) Data Centre
12 5 (0.83%) Data Structures
12 5 (0.83%) Replication
13 4 (0.66%) Driving Licence
13 4 (0.66%) Hybrid Cloud
Operating Systems
1 54 (8.94%) Linux
2 28 (4.64%) Windows
3 19 (3.15%) Unix
4 7 (1.16%) Android
4 7 (1.16%) Windows Server
5 6 (0.99%) Mac OS X
6 5 (0.83%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.50%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.33%) Debian
8 2 (0.33%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.33%) VMS
9 1 (0.17%) AIX
9 1 (0.17%) CentOS
9 1 (0.17%) Mac OS
9 1 (0.17%) Solaris
9 1 (0.17%) VME
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
9 1 (0.17%) Windows Server 2019
Processes & Methodologies
1 175 (28.97%) Agile
2 110 (18.21%) Problem-Solving
3 100 (16.56%) Stakeholder Management
4 91 (15.07%) CI/CD
5 87 (14.40%) DevOps
6 60 (9.93%) Continuous Improvement
7 58 (9.60%) Test Automation
8 56 (9.27%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 55 (9.11%) Microservices
10 53 (8.77%) Data Modelling
11 50 (8.28%) Roadmaps
12 44 (7.28%) Validation
13 43 (7.12%) Scrum
14 42 (6.95%) AI
14 42 (6.95%) Analytics
14 42 (6.95%) Migration
15 39 (6.46%) Change Management
15 39 (6.46%) Decision-Making
16 38 (6.29%) Infrastructure as Code
17 37 (6.13%) Risk Management
Programming Languages
1 84 (13.91%) Python
2 79 (13.08%) SQL
3 61 (10.10%) Java
4 24 (3.97%) JavaScript
5 16 (2.65%) PowerShell
6 12 (1.99%) Ruby
6 12 (1.99%) Scala
7 9 (1.49%) PL/SQL
7 9 (1.49%) TypeScript
8 8 (1.32%) Bicep
9 7 (1.16%) ABAP
9 7 (1.16%) C#
10 6 (0.99%) COBOL
11 5 (0.83%) Bash
11 5 (0.83%) C++
12 4 (0.66%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.50%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.50%) C
13 3 (0.50%) R
14 2 (0.33%) CLIST
Qualifications
1 252 (41.72%) Security Cleared
2 195 (32.28%) SC Cleared
3 57 (9.44%) Degree
4 25 (4.14%) Computer Science Degree
5 20 (3.31%) Master's Degree
6 14 (2.32%) DV Cleared
7 10 (1.66%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 8 (1.32%) AWS Certification
9 7 (1.16%) PMI Certification
10 6 (0.99%) Azure Certification
10 6 (0.99%) ISTQB
10 6 (0.99%) PMP
11 5 (0.83%) CompTIA Security+
11 5 (0.83%) DBS Check
12 4 (0.66%) CompTIA CySA+
12 4 (0.66%) GIAC
12 4 (0.66%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.50%) CTC Cleared
13 3 (0.50%) ISEB
13 3 (0.50%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 35 (5.79%) Data Quality
1 35 (5.79%) QA
2 23 (3.81%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 21 (3.48%) Accessibility
4 17 (2.81%) NIST
5 14 (2.32%) GRC
6 11 (1.82%) SLA
7 10 (1.66%) Def Stans
8 8 (1.32%) NCSC
9 7 (1.16%) ISO 20022
9 7 (1.16%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.99%) GDPR
10 6 (0.99%) PMO
11 5 (0.83%) IFRS
11 5 (0.83%) IFRS 17
11 5 (0.83%) PSD2
11 5 (0.83%) WCAG
12 4 (0.66%) SEPA
13 3 (0.50%) ISO 8583
13 3 (0.50%) P3O
System Software
1 42 (6.95%) Docker
2 16 (2.65%) Active Directory
3 12 (1.99%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (1.16%) vSphere
5 4 (0.66%) GPFS
5 4 (0.66%) NFS
5 4 (0.66%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.50%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.33%) ACF2
7 2 (0.33%) QEMU
7 2 (0.33%) RACF
7 2 (0.33%) Time Sharing Option
7 2 (0.33%) Virtual Machines
7 2 (0.33%) VMware NSX
8 1 (0.17%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 46 (7.62%) Terraform
2 42 (6.95%) Kubernetes
3 8 (1.32%) Ansible
4 7 (1.16%) vRealize
5 5 (0.83%) Prometheus
5 5 (0.83%) Single Sign-On
5 5 (0.83%) VxRail
6 4 (0.66%) Grafana
6 4 (0.66%) Istio
6 4 (0.66%) Podman
7 3 (0.50%) Argo
7 3 (0.50%) Kibana
7 3 (0.50%) Packer
8 2 (0.33%) Active Directory Federation Services
8 2 (0.33%) Consul
8 2 (0.33%) Kubeflow
8 2 (0.33%) Microsoft Intune
8 2 (0.33%) PingFederate
8 2 (0.33%) Puppet
8 2 (0.33%) Tivoli
Vendors
1 80 (13.25%) SAP
2 65 (10.76%) Microsoft
3 34 (5.63%) Oracle
4 16 (2.65%) IBM
5 15 (2.48%) Cisco
5 15 (2.48%) Google
6 14 (2.32%) VMware
7 13 (2.15%) Databricks
8 9 (1.49%) ServiceNow
9 8 (1.32%) Atlassian
10 7 (1.16%) CyberArk
10 7 (1.16%) Splunk
11 6 (0.99%) Salesforce
12 5 (0.83%) Adobe
12 5 (0.83%) webMethods
12 5 (0.83%) Workday
13 4 (0.66%) Citrix
13 4 (0.66%) HP
13 4 (0.66%) Pega
13 4 (0.66%) Twitter