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 12 April 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
12 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 147 247 225
Rank change year-on-year +100 -22 +2
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 702 242 376
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.79% 0.99% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.39% 3.16% 3.21%
Number of daily rates quoted 516 157 285
10th Percentile £313 £229 £308
25th Percentile £384 £402 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £500 £507
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -1.28% -7.91%
75th Percentile £573 £585 £623
90th Percentile £673 £670 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £510
% change year-on-year -5.00% -1.96% -7.27%
Number of hourly rates quoted 58 19 50
10th Percentile £20.43 £17.12 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.76 £21.50 -
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year - +211.33% -67.21%
75th Percentile £74.26 £71.88 £40.23
90th Percentile £85.36 £78.55 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -2.91% +180.20% -66.60%

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 13,023 7,653 11,698
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.21% 31.41% 31.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,727 4,898 7,233
10th Percentile £341 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £419 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £623 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £744
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £536
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.05% -2.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 991 423 934
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.41 £13.99
25th Percentile £20.82 £24.38 £17.73
Median hourly rate £43.00 £50.00 £39.44
Median % change year-on-year -14.00% +26.79% -23.43%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.40 £82.25 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £42.00 £45.00 £38.85
% change year-on-year -6.67% +15.83% -26.59%

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 12 April 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 12 April 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 12 April 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 +86 228 £500 -6.93% 67
North of England +20 196 £445 -11.00% 63
North West +30 142 £400 -25.65% 32
Midlands +8 116 £438 +2.94% 19
West Midlands -9 87 £447 +7.07% 18
South East +4 86 £475 -16.23% 89
South West +9 50 £525 +61.54% 59
Yorkshire -38 30 £481 +78.24% 9
East Midlands -8 28 £395 -35.56% 1
North East -3 26 £478 +17.18% 22
East of England -31 24 £468 +133.88% 42
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 43 (6.13%) Confluence
2 16 (2.28%) SharePoint
3 7 (1.00%) Apache
3 7 (1.00%) Microsoft Exchange
4 5 (0.71%) Apache Spark
4 5 (0.71%) nginx
5 4 (0.57%) CMS
6 3 (0.43%) Apache Airflow
6 3 (0.43%) LiveCycle
6 3 (0.43%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.43%) SAS
6 3 (0.43%) WebLogic
7 2 (0.28%) CICS
7 2 (0.28%) MTS
8 1 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
8 1 (0.14%) ArcGIS
8 1 (0.14%) Camunda
8 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
8 1 (0.14%) SharePoint 2013
8 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 34 (4.84%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.85%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.85%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 13 (1.85%) MS Visio
3 12 (1.71%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.43%) Simulink
5 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
5 2 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.28%) Trello
6 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
6 1 (0.14%) CATIA
6 1 (0.14%) InVision
6 1 (0.14%) MicroStation
6 1 (0.14%) PTC Creo
6 1 (0.14%) Sketch
6 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 36 (5.13%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.71%) SAP Travel Management
3 8 (1.14%) SAP PSCD
4 7 (1.00%) SAP IBP
5 6 (0.85%) SAP EWM
6 5 (0.71%) SAP HR
7 4 (0.57%) iTrent
7 4 (0.57%) Loan IQ
7 4 (0.57%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.57%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.43%) Exchequer
8 3 (0.43%) ProductWriter
8 3 (0.43%) SAP BRIM
8 3 (0.43%) SAP HCM
8 3 (0.43%) SAP Hybris
8 3 (0.43%) SAP Payroll
8 3 (0.43%) SAP QM
8 3 (0.43%) SAP VC
9 2 (0.28%) BASE24
9 2 (0.28%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 116 (16.52%) AWS
2 96 (13.68%) Azure
3 43 (6.13%) Power Platform
4 31 (4.42%) GitHub
5 29 (4.13%) Azure DevOps
6 28 (3.99%) Serverless
7 25 (3.56%) GCP
8 18 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
9 17 (2.42%) AWS Lambda
10 16 (2.28%) AWS CloudFormation
11 15 (2.14%) Microsoft 365
12 11 (1.57%) Azure Data Factory
13 10 (1.42%) Power Automate
13 10 (1.42%) SuccessFactors
14 9 (1.28%) Amazon SQS
14 9 (1.28%) Entra ID
15 8 (1.14%) PowerApps
16 7 (1.00%) Amazon ECS
17 6 (0.85%) Azure Functions
17 6 (0.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.57%) Firewall
2 10 (1.42%) DNS
2 10 (1.42%) Network Security
3 5 (0.71%) HTTPS
3 5 (0.71%) Reverse Proxy
3 5 (0.71%) WebEx
4 4 (0.57%) VSAN
4 4 (0.57%) WAN
5 3 (0.43%) SSH
5 3 (0.43%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.43%) Unified Communications
5 3 (0.43%) VPN
5 3 (0.43%) Wireless
6 2 (0.28%) DHCP
6 2 (0.28%) Ethernet
6 2 (0.28%) MPLS
6 2 (0.28%) SAN
6 2 (0.28%) SD-WAN
6 2 (0.28%) TETRA
6 2 (0.28%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.84%) Power BI
2 19 (2.71%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (2.56%) SQL Server
4 14 (1.99%) Data Warehouse
5 13 (1.85%) Metadata
6 11 (1.57%) NoSQL
7 9 (1.28%) DynamoDB
8 8 (1.14%) DocumentDB
8 8 (1.14%) Redis
9 7 (1.00%) Delta Lake
9 7 (1.00%) Geospatial Data
9 7 (1.00%) MongoDB
10 6 (0.85%) Tableau
11 5 (0.71%) DataStage
11 5 (0.71%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.71%) Spark SQL
12 4 (0.57%) BigQuery
12 4 (0.57%) MySQL
13 3 (0.43%) Aerospike
13 3 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 77 (10.97%) JIRA
2 52 (7.41%) Git
3 25 (3.56%) GitLab
4 18 (2.56%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.28%) Selenium
6 7 (1.00%) JUnit
7 6 (0.85%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.85%) Mockito
8 4 (0.57%) Bitbucket
8 4 (0.57%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.57%) Gatling
8 4 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
8 4 (0.57%) SonarQube
9 3 (0.43%) JMeter
9 3 (0.43%) Toad
9 3 (0.43%) WebDriver
10 2 (0.28%) Eclipse
10 2 (0.28%) Maven
10 2 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
10 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 224 (31.91%) Social Skills
2 131 (18.66%) Finance
3 106 (15.10%) Public Sector
4 90 (12.82%) Analytical Skills
5 44 (6.27%) Banking
6 37 (5.27%) Aerospace
7 17 (2.42%) Legal
8 15 (2.14%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.99%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (1.99%) Presentation Skills
9 14 (1.99%) Telecoms
10 10 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
11 9 (1.28%) Aviation
12 8 (1.14%) Manufacturing
12 8 (1.14%) Publishing
13 7 (1.00%) Local Government
13 7 (1.00%) Retail
14 6 (0.85%) Advertising
15 5 (0.71%) Billing
15 5 (0.71%) Military
Job Titles
1 104 (14.81%) Analyst
2 82 (11.68%) Senior
3 78 (11.11%) Developer
4 67 (9.54%) Lead
5 61 (8.69%) Architect
6 59 (8.40%) Consultant
7 49 (6.98%) Business Analyst
8 44 (6.27%) SAP Consultant
9 27 (3.85%) Administrator
10 25 (3.56%) Data Engineer
11 22 (3.13%) Delivery Manager
11 22 (3.13%) Senior Analyst
12 18 (2.56%) Senior Business Analyst
13 17 (2.42%) Designer
14 15 (2.14%) Senior Manager
14 15 (2.14%) Systems Engineer
15 14 (1.99%) Project Manager
15 14 (1.99%) Solutions Architect
16 13 (1.85%) Java Developer
16 13 (1.85%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 30 (4.27%) Node.js
2 23 (3.28%) REST
3 22 (3.13%) React
4 20 (2.85%) RESTful
4 20 (2.85%) Spring
5 19 (2.71%) Spring Boot
6 15 (2.14%) .NET
6 15 (2.14%) Kafka
7 14 (1.99%) Middleware
8 13 (1.85%) XML
9 12 (1.71%) JSON
9 12 (1.71%) SAP TM
10 10 (1.42%) AngularJS
10 10 (1.42%) OpenAPI
11 9 (1.28%) OpenTelemetry
11 9 (1.28%) Swagger
12 8 (1.14%) HTML
12 8 (1.14%) LangChain
12 8 (1.14%) OAuth
12 8 (1.14%) PySpark
Miscellaneous
1 50 (7.12%) Product Ownership
2 45 (6.41%) Onboarding
3 36 (5.13%) Cloud Native
4 19 (2.71%) Management Information System
5 16 (2.28%) Distributed Systems
6 15 (2.14%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (2.14%) NHS
7 10 (1.42%) Public Cloud
8 8 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (1.00%) Algorithms
9 7 (1.00%) Data Centre
9 7 (1.00%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (1.00%) Linux Command Line
10 6 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (0.85%) Replication
11 5 (0.71%) Data Structures
11 5 (0.71%) Fat Client
11 5 (0.71%) Mainframe
11 5 (0.71%) Tandem
11 5 (0.71%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 58 (8.26%) Linux
2 30 (4.27%) Windows
3 12 (1.71%) Unix
4 8 (1.14%) Android
5 7 (1.00%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.71%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.43%) Ubuntu
8 2 (0.28%) AIX
8 2 (0.28%) Debian
8 2 (0.28%) Mac OS
8 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
8 2 (0.28%) Solaris
9 1 (0.14%) CentOS
9 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
9 1 (0.14%) VME
9 1 (0.14%) VMS
9 1 (0.14%) Windows 10
Processes & Methodologies
1 208 (29.63%) Agile
2 127 (18.09%) Problem-Solving
3 113 (16.10%) CI/CD
4 110 (15.67%) Stakeholder Management
5 108 (15.38%) DevOps
6 74 (10.54%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 73 (10.40%) Continuous Improvement
8 62 (8.83%) Test Automation
9 54 (7.69%) Data Modelling
9 54 (7.69%) Roadmaps
10 53 (7.55%) Analytics
10 53 (7.55%) Migration
10 53 (7.55%) Scrum
11 51 (7.26%) Validation
12 49 (6.98%) Microservices
13 46 (6.55%) Decision-Making
14 44 (6.27%) AI
15 43 (6.13%) Change Management
15 43 (6.13%) Infrastructure as Code
15 43 (6.13%) Workshop Facilitation
Programming Languages
1 98 (13.96%) Python
2 84 (11.97%) SQL
3 60 (8.55%) Java
4 27 (3.85%) JavaScript
5 20 (2.85%) PowerShell
6 15 (2.14%) Scala
7 13 (1.85%) Ruby
8 11 (1.57%) C#
8 11 (1.57%) TypeScript
9 8 (1.14%) Bicep
9 8 (1.14%) C
9 8 (1.14%) C++
9 8 (1.14%) PL/SQL
10 7 (1.00%) Bash
10 7 (1.00%) COBOL
11 5 (0.71%) ABAP
12 4 (0.57%) MATLAB
12 4 (0.57%) Shell Script
13 3 (0.43%) Apex Code
13 3 (0.43%) VB
Qualifications
1 267 (38.03%) Security Cleared
2 197 (28.06%) SC Cleared
3 49 (6.98%) Degree
4 16 (2.28%) DV Cleared
5 13 (1.85%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (1.28%) AWS Certification
6 9 (1.28%) Master's Degree
7 7 (1.00%) PMI Certification
8 6 (0.85%) Azure Certification
8 6 (0.85%) CompTIA CySA+
8 6 (0.85%) ISTQB
8 6 (0.85%) PMP
9 5 (0.71%) CompTIA Security+
9 5 (0.71%) DBS Check
9 5 (0.71%) GIAC
10 4 (0.57%) CTC Cleared
10 4 (0.57%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.43%) CISSP
11 3 (0.43%) ISEB
11 3 (0.43%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 44 (6.27%) Data Quality
2 41 (5.84%) QA
3 23 (3.28%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.56%) NIST
5 16 (2.28%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (1.71%) SLA
7 10 (1.42%) PMO
8 8 (1.14%) PCI DSS
9 7 (1.00%) NCSC
10 6 (0.85%) GDPR
10 6 (0.85%) ISO 20022
10 6 (0.85%) WCAG
11 5 (0.71%) GRC
11 5 (0.71%) IFRS
11 5 (0.71%) IFRS 17
12 4 (0.57%) PSD2
13 3 (0.43%) HL7
13 3 (0.43%) ISO 8583
13 3 (0.43%) RMADS
13 3 (0.43%) SEPA
System Software
1 43 (6.13%) Docker
2 19 (2.71%) Active Directory
3 18 (2.56%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.28%) vSphere
5 5 (0.71%) GPFS
5 5 (0.71%) NFS
5 5 (0.71%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.57%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.43%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.43%) VMware NSX
8 2 (0.28%) ACF2
8 2 (0.28%) QEMU
8 2 (0.28%) RACF
8 2 (0.28%) Time Sharing Option
9 1 (0.14%) Postfix
9 1 (0.14%) Virtual Desktop
Systems Management
1 57 (8.12%) Terraform
2 49 (6.98%) Kubernetes
3 11 (1.57%) Ansible
4 8 (1.14%) Grafana
4 8 (1.14%) vRealize
5 7 (1.00%) Prometheus
6 5 (0.71%) Istio
6 5 (0.71%) VxRail
7 4 (0.57%) Argo
7 4 (0.57%) Packer
7 4 (0.57%) Podman
8 3 (0.43%) Kibana
8 3 (0.43%) Microsoft Intune
9 2 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.28%) CA Endevor
9 2 (0.28%) Consul
9 2 (0.28%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.28%) SCCM
9 2 (0.28%) Tivoli
9 2 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 91 (12.96%) SAP
2 69 (9.83%) Microsoft
3 41 (5.84%) Oracle
4 20 (2.85%) VMware
5 17 (2.42%) Cisco
5 17 (2.42%) Databricks
5 17 (2.42%) ServiceNow
6 16 (2.28%) Google
6 16 (2.28%) IBM
7 10 (1.42%) Atlassian
7 10 (1.42%) Splunk
8 9 (1.28%) Workday
9 7 (1.00%) CyberArk
9 7 (1.00%) Salesforce
10 5 (0.71%) BeyondTrust
10 5 (0.71%) Citrix
11 4 (0.57%) Adobe
11 4 (0.57%) HP
11 4 (0.57%) Informatica
11 4 (0.57%) webMethods