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

6 months to
15 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 141 244 226
Rank change year-on-year +103 -18 +2
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 710 242 376
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.81% 0.99% 1.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.46% 3.16% 3.24%
Number of daily rates quoted 522 157 285
10th Percentile £313 £229 £308
25th Percentile £383 £402 £420
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £478 £500 £508
Median % change year-on-year -4.40% -1.48% -7.73%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £623
90th Percentile £673 £670 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £515
% change year-on-year -5.00% -2.91% -6.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 60 19 51
10th Percentile £21.90 £17.12 £13.99
25th Percentile £22.92 £21.50 -
Median hourly rate £50.00 £50.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year - +211.33% -66.60%
75th Percentile £74.26 £71.88 £37.82
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% -66.39%

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 13,009 7,659 11,607
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.19% 31.40% 31.30%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,718 4,898 7,167
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 £745
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £537
% change year-on-year -1.43% -2.23% -2.36%
Number of hourly rates quoted 995 424 932
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.15 £13.88
25th Percentile £20.82 £24.24 £17.72
Median hourly rate £45.46 £50.00 £38.45
Median % change year-on-year -9.08% +30.03% -26.07%
75th Percentile £70.00 £68.00 £61.30
90th Percentile £85.36 £82.25 £76.82
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £38.16
% change year-on-year -2.91% +17.94% -29.34%

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 15 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 15 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 15 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 +97 233 £506 -5.84% 69
North of England +21 199 £440 -12.00% 59
North West +26 140 £400 -25.65% 38
Midlands +11 115 £434 +2.06% 18
West Midlands -7 86 £446 +6.83% 17
South East +5 85 £469 -17.28% 86
South West +5 50 £525 +61.54% 58
North East +2 31 £480 +17.79% 17
Yorkshire -34 30 £481 +78.24% 4
East Midlands -4 28 £395 -35.56% 1
East of England -19 25 £450 +125.00% 38
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 45 (6.34%) Confluence
2 14 (1.97%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.27%) Apache Spark
4 7 (0.99%) Apache
4 7 (0.99%) Apache Airflow
4 7 (0.99%) Microsoft Exchange
5 5 (0.70%) nginx
6 3 (0.42%) CMS
6 3 (0.42%) LiveCycle
6 3 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
6 3 (0.42%) SAS
6 3 (0.42%) 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 (4.79%) Microsoft Excel
2 13 (1.83%) Microsoft Office
2 13 (1.83%) Microsoft PowerPoint
2 13 (1.83%) MS Visio
3 12 (1.69%) Microsoft Project
4 3 (0.42%) 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 (5.07%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.69%) SAP Travel Management
3 7 (0.99%) SAP IBP
3 7 (0.99%) SAP PSCD
4 6 (0.85%) SAP EWM
5 5 (0.70%) SAP HR
6 4 (0.56%) iTrent
6 4 (0.56%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.56%) Payment Gateway
6 4 (0.56%) SAP MM
7 3 (0.42%) Exchequer
7 3 (0.42%) ProductWriter
7 3 (0.42%) SAP HCM
7 3 (0.42%) SAP Payroll
7 3 (0.42%) SAP QM
7 3 (0.42%) SAP VC
8 2 (0.28%) BASE24
8 2 (0.28%) Oracle EBS
8 2 (0.28%) Primavera
8 2 (0.28%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 122 (17.18%) AWS
2 96 (13.52%) Azure
3 41 (5.77%) Power Platform
4 33 (4.65%) GitHub
5 30 (4.23%) Serverless
6 29 (4.08%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (3.52%) GCP
8 22 (3.10%) AWS Lambda
9 20 (2.82%) GitHub Actions
10 16 (2.25%) AWS CloudFormation
11 15 (2.11%) Microsoft 365
12 12 (1.69%) Amazon ECS
13 11 (1.55%) Azure Data Factory
14 10 (1.41%) Amazon S3
14 10 (1.41%) Amazon SQS
14 10 (1.41%) SuccessFactors
15 9 (1.27%) Entra ID
16 8 (1.13%) Power Automate
17 6 (0.85%) Azure Synapse Analytics
17 6 (0.85%) PowerApps
Communications & Networking
1 11 (1.55%) Firewall
2 10 (1.41%) DNS
2 10 (1.41%) Network Security
3 5 (0.70%) HTTPS
3 5 (0.70%) Reverse Proxy
3 5 (0.70%) WebEx
4 4 (0.56%) VSAN
4 4 (0.56%) WAN
5 3 (0.42%) SSH
5 3 (0.42%) TCP/IP
5 3 (0.42%) Unified Communications
5 3 (0.42%) VPN
5 3 (0.42%) Wireless
6 2 (0.28%) Broadband
6 2 (0.28%) DHCP
6 2 (0.28%) Ethernet
6 2 (0.28%) MPLS
6 2 (0.28%) NAS
6 2 (0.28%) TETRA
6 2 (0.28%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 34 (4.79%) Power BI
2 23 (3.24%) PostgreSQL
3 18 (2.54%) SQL Server
4 15 (2.11%) NoSQL
5 14 (1.97%) Data Warehouse
6 13 (1.83%) Metadata
7 11 (1.55%) MongoDB
8 10 (1.41%) DynamoDB
9 8 (1.13%) DocumentDB
9 8 (1.13%) Redis
10 7 (0.99%) Big Data
10 7 (0.99%) Delta Lake
10 7 (0.99%) Geospatial Data
11 6 (0.85%) Tableau
12 5 (0.70%) DataStage
12 5 (0.70%) Relational Database
12 5 (0.70%) Spark SQL
13 4 (0.56%) Amazon RDS
13 4 (0.56%) BigQuery
13 4 (0.56%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 80 (11.27%) JIRA
2 53 (7.46%) Git
3 25 (3.52%) GitLab
4 23 (3.24%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.27%) Selenium
6 7 (0.99%) JUnit
7 6 (0.85%) Cucumber
7 6 (0.85%) Mockito
8 5 (0.70%) Cypress.io
9 4 (0.56%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.56%) Gatling
9 4 (0.56%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.56%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.42%) JMeter
10 3 (0.42%) Toad
10 3 (0.42%) WebDriver
11 2 (0.28%) Eclipse
11 2 (0.28%) Maven
11 2 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
11 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 225 (31.69%) Social Skills
2 128 (18.03%) Finance
3 106 (14.93%) Public Sector
4 95 (13.38%) Analytical Skills
5 43 (6.06%) Banking
6 37 (5.21%) Aerospace
7 17 (2.39%) Legal
8 16 (2.25%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.97%) Influencing Skills
9 14 (1.97%) Presentation Skills
10 13 (1.83%) Telecoms
11 11 (1.55%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.27%) Aviation
13 8 (1.13%) Local Government
13 8 (1.13%) Manufacturing
13 8 (1.13%) Publishing
14 7 (0.99%) Retail
15 6 (0.85%) Advertising
16 5 (0.70%) Marketing
16 5 (0.70%) Military
Job Titles
1 107 (15.07%) Analyst
2 86 (12.11%) Senior
3 79 (11.13%) Developer
4 69 (9.72%) Lead
5 60 (8.45%) Architect
6 58 (8.17%) Consultant
7 51 (7.18%) Business Analyst
8 43 (6.06%) SAP Consultant
9 28 (3.94%) Data Engineer
10 27 (3.80%) Administrator
11 24 (3.38%) Delivery Manager
12 23 (3.24%) Senior Analyst
13 19 (2.68%) Senior Business Analyst
14 18 (2.54%) Designer
15 17 (2.39%) Senior Manager
16 15 (2.11%) Systems Engineer
17 14 (1.97%) Java Developer
17 14 (1.97%) Project Manager
17 14 (1.97%) Solutions Architect
18 13 (1.83%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (4.08%) Node.js
2 23 (3.24%) React
2 23 (3.24%) REST
3 21 (2.96%) RESTful
3 21 (2.96%) Spring
4 20 (2.82%) Spring Boot
5 15 (2.11%) .NET
5 15 (2.11%) Kafka
6 14 (1.97%) Middleware
7 13 (1.83%) HTML
7 13 (1.83%) XML
8 12 (1.69%) JSON
8 12 (1.69%) SAP TM
9 10 (1.41%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.41%) OpenAPI
10 9 (1.27%) CSS
10 9 (1.27%) OpenTelemetry
10 9 (1.27%) Swagger
11 8 (1.13%) LangChain
11 8 (1.13%) OAuth
Miscellaneous
1 53 (7.46%) Product Ownership
2 44 (6.20%) Onboarding
3 36 (5.07%) Cloud Native
4 19 (2.68%) Management Information System
5 16 (2.25%) Distributed Systems
6 15 (2.11%) Legacy Systems
6 15 (2.11%) NHS
7 10 (1.41%) Public Cloud
8 8 (1.13%) Self-Motivation
9 7 (0.99%) Algorithms
9 7 (0.99%) Data Centre
9 7 (0.99%) Enterprise Software
9 7 (0.99%) Linux Command Line
10 6 (0.85%) Hybrid Cloud
10 6 (0.85%) Replication
11 5 (0.70%) Data Structures
11 5 (0.70%) Fat Client
11 5 (0.70%) Mainframe
11 5 (0.70%) Tandem
11 5 (0.70%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 60 (8.45%) Linux
2 30 (4.23%) Windows
3 14 (1.97%) Unix
4 8 (1.13%) Android
5 7 (0.99%) Windows Server
6 5 (0.70%) Apple iOS
7 3 (0.42%) 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
1 215 (30.28%) Agile
2 129 (18.17%) Problem-Solving
3 116 (16.34%) CI/CD
4 112 (15.77%) Stakeholder Management
5 109 (15.35%) DevOps
6 75 (10.56%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 73 (10.28%) Continuous Improvement
8 63 (8.87%) Test Automation
9 54 (7.61%) Migration
9 54 (7.61%) Scrum
10 53 (7.46%) Data Modelling
10 53 (7.46%) Roadmaps
11 52 (7.32%) Analytics
12 51 (7.18%) Validation
13 48 (6.76%) Infrastructure as Code
13 48 (6.76%) Microservices
14 47 (6.62%) Decision-Making
15 44 (6.20%) AI
15 44 (6.20%) Workshop Facilitation
16 43 (6.06%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 103 (14.51%) Python
2 86 (12.11%) SQL
3 64 (9.01%) Java
4 33 (4.65%) JavaScript
5 20 (2.82%) PowerShell
6 18 (2.54%) Scala
7 13 (1.83%) Ruby
8 12 (1.69%) TypeScript
9 11 (1.55%) C#
10 8 (1.13%) Bicep
10 8 (1.13%) C
10 8 (1.13%) C++
10 8 (1.13%) PL/SQL
11 7 (0.99%) Bash
11 7 (0.99%) COBOL
12 5 (0.70%) ABAP
13 4 (0.56%) MATLAB
14 3 (0.42%) Apex Code
14 3 (0.42%) Shell Script
14 3 (0.42%) VB
Qualifications
1 270 (38.03%) Security Cleared
2 198 (27.89%) SC Cleared
3 48 (6.76%) Degree
4 16 (2.25%) DV Cleared
5 12 (1.69%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (1.27%) AWS Certification
6 9 (1.27%) Master's Degree
7 7 (0.99%) 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 (0.70%) CompTIA Security+
9 5 (0.70%) DBS Check
9 5 (0.70%) GIAC
10 4 (0.56%) CTC Cleared
10 4 (0.56%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.42%) Cisco Certification
11 3 (0.42%) CISSP
11 3 (0.42%) MBA
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 45 (6.34%) Data Quality
2 41 (5.77%) QA
3 23 (3.24%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.54%) NIST
5 16 (2.25%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 12 (1.69%) SLA
7 10 (1.41%) PMO
8 8 (1.13%) PCI DSS
9 7 (0.99%) NCSC
10 6 (0.85%) GDPR
10 6 (0.85%) ISO 20022
10 6 (0.85%) WCAG
11 5 (0.70%) GRC
11 5 (0.70%) IFRS
11 5 (0.70%) IFRS 17
12 4 (0.56%) PSD2
13 3 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
13 3 (0.42%) HL7
13 3 (0.42%) ISO 8583
13 3 (0.42%) SEPA
System Software
1 48 (6.76%) Docker
2 19 (2.68%) Active Directory
3 18 (2.54%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.27%) vSphere
5 5 (0.70%) GPFS
5 5 (0.70%) NFS
5 5 (0.70%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.56%) Virtual Machines
7 3 (0.42%) Hyper-V
7 3 (0.42%) 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 63 (8.87%) Terraform
2 49 (6.90%) Kubernetes
3 12 (1.69%) Grafana
4 11 (1.55%) Ansible
5 8 (1.13%) vRealize
6 7 (0.99%) Kibana
6 7 (0.99%) Prometheus
7 5 (0.70%) Istio
7 5 (0.70%) VxRail
8 4 (0.56%) Argo
8 4 (0.56%) Packer
8 4 (0.56%) Podman
9 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
10 2 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.28%) CA Endevor
10 2 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.28%) SCCM
10 2 (0.28%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.28%) Tivoli
10 2 (0.28%) Tivoli Storage Manager
Vendors
1 92 (12.96%) SAP
2 68 (9.58%) Microsoft
3 42 (5.92%) Oracle
4 20 (2.82%) VMware
5 17 (2.39%) Cisco
5 17 (2.39%) Databricks
5 17 (2.39%) ServiceNow
6 16 (2.25%) Google
6 16 (2.25%) IBM
7 14 (1.97%) Splunk
8 10 (1.41%) Atlassian
8 10 (1.41%) Workday
9 7 (0.99%) CyberArk
9 7 (0.99%) Salesforce
10 5 (0.70%) BeyondTrust
10 5 (0.70%) Citrix
11 4 (0.56%) Adobe
11 4 (0.56%) HP
11 4 (0.56%) Informatica
11 4 (0.56%) webMethods