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 28 December 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
28 Dec 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 184 279 246
Rank change year-on-year +95 -33 -20
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 486 246 359
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.54% 0.87% 0.98%
As % of the Qualifications category 4.52% 2.84% 3.19%
Number of daily rates quoted 355 150 264
10th Percentile £305 £220 £366
25th Percentile £400 £332 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £500 £505 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.99% -8.18% -
75th Percentile £627 £589 £632
90th Percentile £700 £689 £706
UK median daily rate £481 £500 £550
% change year-on-year -3.75% -9.09% -1.79%
Number of hourly rates quoted 41 11 30
10th Percentile £19.00 £20.00 £21.63
25th Percentile £22.63 £30.25 £29.91
Median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £53.75
Median % change year-on-year -13.77% -27.72% -10.42%
75th Percentile £56.69 £64.38 £66.25
90th Percentile £74.26 £67.50 £84.36
UK median hourly rate £33.50 £38.85 £53.75
% change year-on-year -13.77% -27.72% -10.42%

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 10,744 8,673 11,237
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 34.02% 30.50% 30.57%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,043 5,341 7,108
10th Percentile £313 £304 £300
25th Percentile £419 £420 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -4.55% -
75th Percentile £626 £638 £650
90th Percentile £725 £734 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 901 417 690
10th Percentile £16.35 £18.51 £16.25
25th Percentile £19.00 £24.50 £25.10
Median hourly rate £25.15 £46.18 £51.89
Median % change year-on-year -45.54% -11.00% +15.31%
75th Percentile £56.69 £68.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £76.58 £80.30 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £40.00 £51.90
% change year-on-year -37.13% -22.92% +15.32%

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025.

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 28 December 2025. 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 +39 179 £450 -10.00% 133
London +57 148 £525 -8.70% 74
North West +44 129 £430 -20.07% 96
Midlands -6 57 £449 -4.37% 103
West Midlands -4 44 £478 +1.95% 65
Yorkshire -32 38 £481 +118.75% 25
South East -6 36 £484 -2.32% 228
South West +10 35 £555 +8.29% 102
East of England -25 19 £500 +127.39% 160
North East +5 14 £480 +2.13% 12
East Midlands -9 13 £372 - 37
South Coast - 1 £500 -
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 (6.58%) Confluence
2 9 (1.85%) Microsoft Exchange
3 8 (1.65%) SharePoint
4 5 (1.03%) nginx
5 3 (0.62%) Apache
5 3 (0.62%) WebLogic
6 2 (0.41%) Apache Airflow
6 2 (0.41%) CMS
6 2 (0.41%) MTS
6 2 (0.41%) Oracle SOA Suite
7 1 (0.21%) Apache Spark
7 1 (0.21%) JBoss
7 1 (0.21%) OpenStack
7 1 (0.21%) SAS
Applications
1 18 (3.70%) Microsoft Excel
2 8 (1.65%) Microsoft Office
3 5 (1.03%) MS Visio
4 4 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 2 (0.41%) Microsoft Project
5 2 (0.41%) Spreadsheet
5 2 (0.41%) Trello
6 1 (0.21%) ProjectWise
6 1 (0.21%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 36 (7.41%) SAP S/4HANA
2 8 (1.65%) Oracle EBS
2 8 (1.65%) SAP EHS
2 8 (1.65%) SAP HCM
3 5 (1.03%) Oracle EBS R12
3 5 (1.03%) Oracle Financials
3 5 (1.03%) SAP QM
3 5 (1.03%) SAP VC
4 4 (0.82%) Maximo
4 4 (0.82%) Oracle Cash Management
4 4 (0.82%) Oracle ERP
4 4 (0.82%) Oracle Payables
4 4 (0.82%) Oracle SCM
5 3 (0.62%) SAP BRIM
5 3 (0.62%) SAP Hybris
5 3 (0.62%) SAP Payroll
5 3 (0.62%) SAP PSCD
5 3 (0.62%) SAP Travel Management
6 2 (0.41%) OpenText VIM for SAP
6 2 (0.41%) Oracle BPM
Cloud Services
1 75 (15.43%) AWS
2 53 (10.91%) Azure
3 21 (4.32%) GitHub
4 20 (4.12%) Power Platform
4 20 (4.12%) Serverless
5 17 (3.50%) GCP
6 16 (3.29%) AWS Lambda
7 14 (2.88%) Azure DevOps
8 12 (2.47%) AWS CloudFormation
8 12 (2.47%) Microsoft 365
9 11 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
10 9 (1.85%) Power Automate
11 8 (1.65%) Amazon SQS
11 8 (1.65%) SaaS
12 7 (1.44%) Amazon EC2
12 7 (1.44%) Entra ID
12 7 (1.44%) PowerApps
12 7 (1.44%) SuccessFactors
13 6 (1.23%) Amazon CloudWatch
14 5 (1.03%) Amazon S3
Communications & Networking
1 12 (2.47%) Firewall
2 8 (1.65%) DNS
3 7 (1.44%) LAN
3 7 (1.44%) VPN
4 6 (1.23%) WAN
5 5 (1.03%) Network Security
6 4 (0.82%) MPLS
6 4 (0.82%) SD-WAN
6 4 (0.82%) SSH
6 4 (0.82%) Wi-Fi
7 3 (0.62%) 5G
7 3 (0.62%) BGP
7 3 (0.62%) Cisco Nexus
7 3 (0.62%) DHCP
7 3 (0.62%) OpenLDAP
7 3 (0.62%) OSPF
7 3 (0.62%) Radio Access Network
7 3 (0.62%) Unified Communications
7 3 (0.62%) VLAN
7 3 (0.62%) VoIP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 15 (3.09%) Power BI
2 13 (2.67%) PostgreSQL
2 13 (2.67%) SQL Server
3 11 (2.26%) MongoDB
3 11 (2.26%) NoSQL
4 7 (1.44%) Data Warehouse
4 7 (1.44%) Metadata
4 7 (1.44%) Oracle Database
4 7 (1.44%) Redis
5 5 (1.03%) BigQuery
5 5 (1.03%) DocumentDB
5 5 (1.03%) Tableau
6 4 (0.82%) Big Data
6 4 (0.82%) Hadoop
7 3 (0.62%) DataStage
7 3 (0.62%) GIS
7 3 (0.62%) SAP HANA
7 3 (0.62%) SQL Server Reporting Services
8 2 (0.41%) Azure SQL Database
8 2 (0.41%) Relational Database
Development Applications
1 47 (9.67%) JIRA
2 43 (8.85%) Git
3 18 (3.70%) GitLab
4 17 (3.50%) Jenkins
5 9 (1.85%) SonarQube
6 7 (1.44%) Mockito
7 5 (1.03%) Android Studio
7 5 (1.03%) Bitbucket
7 5 (1.03%) Cypress.io
8 4 (0.82%) Cucumber
8 4 (0.82%) JUnit
8 4 (0.82%) Selenium
9 3 (0.62%) Gradle
9 3 (0.62%) Postman
9 3 (0.62%) Toad
10 2 (0.41%) Babel
10 2 (0.41%) Grunt
10 2 (0.41%) gulp
10 2 (0.41%) WebDriver
10 2 (0.41%) webpack
General
1 149 (30.66%) Social Skills
2 81 (16.67%) Public Sector
3 75 (15.43%) Finance
4 38 (7.82%) Analytical Skills
5 27 (5.56%) Banking
6 22 (4.53%) Aerospace
7 15 (3.09%) Organisational Skills
8 14 (2.88%) Telecoms
9 11 (2.26%) Aviation
10 9 (1.85%) Documentation Skills
10 9 (1.85%) Influencing Skills
11 7 (1.44%) Billing
11 7 (1.44%) Legal
12 5 (1.03%) Presentation Skills
13 4 (0.82%) Local Government
13 4 (0.82%) Manufacturing
14 3 (0.62%) Financial Institution
14 3 (0.62%) Marketing
14 3 (0.62%) Retail
15 2 (0.41%) Investment Banking
Job Titles
1 66 (13.58%) Developer
2 60 (12.35%) Consultant
3 59 (12.14%) Senior
4 55 (11.32%) Analyst
5 36 (7.41%) Architect
6 35 (7.20%) SAP Consultant
7 27 (5.56%) Lead
8 22 (4.53%) Business Analyst
9 17 (3.50%) Administrator
9 17 (3.50%) Senior Developer
10 16 (3.29%) Delivery Manager
10 16 (3.29%) Java Developer
11 13 (2.67%) Management Consultant
11 13 (2.67%) Project Manager
12 12 (2.47%) Solutions Architect
13 10 (2.06%) Information Security Advisor
13 10 (2.06%) Security Advisor
13 10 (2.06%) Senior Analyst
14 9 (1.85%) Network Engineer
15 8 (1.65%) Senior Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 20 (4.12%) Node.js
2 19 (3.91%) REST
3 18 (3.70%) JSON
3 18 (3.70%) React
4 14 (2.88%) RESTful
5 13 (2.67%) XML
6 12 (2.47%) Kafka
6 12 (2.47%) SAP Fiori
7 10 (2.06%) Spring
8 9 (1.85%) .NET
8 9 (1.85%) HTML
9 8 (1.65%) ActiveMQ
9 8 (1.65%) Middleware
9 8 (1.65%) pytest
10 7 (1.44%) AngularJS
10 7 (1.44%) Jest
10 7 (1.44%) LDAP
10 7 (1.44%) Spring Boot
11 6 (1.23%) OpenAPI
11 6 (1.23%) Playwright
Miscellaneous
1 37 (7.61%) Onboarding
2 23 (4.73%) Product Ownership
3 19 (3.91%) Management Information System
4 13 (2.67%) Security Posture
5 12 (2.47%) NHS
6 11 (2.26%) Cloud Native
6 11 (2.26%) Legacy Systems
7 8 (1.65%) SCADA
8 6 (1.23%) Mobile App
9 5 (1.03%) Cyber Threat
9 5 (1.03%) Data Centre
9 5 (1.03%) Distributed Systems
9 5 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
9 5 (1.03%) Linux Command Line
9 5 (1.03%) Operational Technology
9 5 (1.03%) Public Cloud
10 4 (0.82%) Driving Licence
10 4 (0.82%) Hybrid Cloud
10 4 (0.82%) Replication
11 3 (0.62%) Handset
Operating Systems
1 43 (8.85%) Linux
2 25 (5.14%) Windows
3 20 (4.12%) Unix
4 8 (1.65%) Android
5 6 (1.23%) Mac OS X
5 6 (1.23%) Windows Server
6 3 (0.62%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
7 2 (0.41%) Apple iOS
7 2 (0.41%) Ubuntu
7 2 (0.41%) VMS
7 2 (0.41%) Windows Server 2019
8 1 (0.21%) CentOS
8 1 (0.21%) Debian
8 1 (0.21%) Robot Operating System
8 1 (0.21%) VME
8 1 (0.21%) Windows 10
8 1 (0.21%) Windows 7
8 1 (0.21%) Windows 8
8 1 (0.21%) Windows Server 2016
Processes & Methodologies
1 127 (26.13%) Agile
2 72 (14.81%) Stakeholder Management
3 69 (14.20%) DevOps
3 69 (14.20%) Problem-Solving
4 61 (12.55%) CI/CD
5 46 (9.47%) Continuous Improvement
6 43 (8.85%) Test Automation
7 38 (7.82%) Change Management
7 38 (7.82%) Microservices
8 33 (6.79%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 31 (6.38%) Migration
10 30 (6.17%) Roadmaps
10 30 (6.17%) Validation
11 28 (5.76%) Risk Management
11 28 (5.76%) Scrum
12 27 (5.56%) AI
13 24 (4.94%) Computer Science
13 24 (4.94%) Project Management
14 23 (4.73%) Data Modelling
14 23 (4.73%) TDD
Programming Languages
1 58 (11.93%) Python
2 47 (9.67%) Java
2 47 (9.67%) SQL
3 15 (3.09%) JavaScript
4 13 (2.67%) PowerShell
5 11 (2.26%) ABAP
5 11 (2.26%) Ruby
6 10 (2.06%) PL/SQL
7 7 (1.44%) Bash
7 7 (1.44%) C#
7 7 (1.44%) C++
7 7 (1.44%) Scala
8 6 (1.23%) Go
8 6 (1.23%) TypeScript
9 5 (1.03%) R
10 4 (0.82%) Kotlin
11 2 (0.41%) COBOL
11 2 (0.41%) PHP
11 2 (0.41%) Rust
12 1 (0.21%) C
Qualifications
1 243 (50.00%) Security Cleared
2 188 (38.68%) SC Cleared
3 41 (8.44%) Degree
4 21 (4.32%) Computer Science Degree
5 13 (2.67%) Master's Degree
6 11 (2.26%) BC Cleared
7 10 (2.06%) DV Cleared
7 10 (2.06%) ISO 27001 Lead Implementer
8 9 (1.85%) Cisco Certification
9 8 (1.65%) DBS Check
10 7 (1.44%) CCNP
11 5 (1.03%) ISTQB
12 4 (0.82%) ISEB
12 4 (0.82%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
13 3 (0.62%) Azure Certification
13 3 (0.62%) CCNA
13 3 (0.62%) MCP
13 3 (0.62%) SAP Certification
14 2 (0.41%) PMI Certification
14 2 (0.41%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 21 (4.32%) QA
2 16 (3.29%) Accessibility
2 16 (3.29%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 12 (2.47%) GRC
4 10 (2.06%) Def Stans
5 9 (1.85%) NIST
6 8 (1.65%) PMO
6 8 (1.65%) SLA
7 6 (1.23%) Data Quality
8 5 (1.03%) GDPR
8 5 (1.03%) NCSC
9 4 (0.82%) ISO 20022
9 4 (0.82%) WCAG
10 3 (0.62%) PSD2
11 2 (0.41%) ISO/IEC 27002 (supersedes ISO/IEC 17799)
11 2 (0.41%) ITGC
11 2 (0.41%) P3O
11 2 (0.41%) SEPA
12 1 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
12 1 (0.21%) Basel III
System Software
1 34 (7.00%) Docker
2 19 (3.91%) Active Directory
3 9 (1.85%) VMware Infrastructure
4 5 (1.03%) vSphere
5 4 (0.82%) Virtual Machines
6 3 (0.62%) Hyper-V
7 2 (0.41%) GPFS
7 2 (0.41%) NFS
7 2 (0.41%) VMware ESXi
8 1 (0.21%) ACF2
8 1 (0.21%) HDFS
8 1 (0.21%) Postfix
8 1 (0.21%) QEMU
8 1 (0.21%) RACF
8 1 (0.21%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 32 (6.58%) Kubernetes
2 30 (6.17%) Terraform
3 7 (1.44%) Ansible
4 6 (1.23%) Microsoft Intune
5 5 (1.03%) vRealize
6 4 (0.82%) Puppet
6 4 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
6 4 (0.82%) VxRail
7 3 (0.62%) Grafana
7 3 (0.62%) Packer
7 3 (0.62%) PingFederate
8 2 (0.41%) Ambari
8 2 (0.41%) Argo
8 2 (0.41%) Consul
8 2 (0.41%) FortiGate
8 2 (0.41%) Istio
8 2 (0.41%) Podman
8 2 (0.41%) SCCM
8 2 (0.41%) ZABBIX
9 1 (0.21%) Kubeflow
Vendors
1 74 (15.23%) SAP
2 56 (11.52%) Microsoft
3 43 (8.85%) Oracle
4 17 (3.50%) Cisco
5 14 (2.88%) VMware
6 12 (2.47%) ServiceNow
7 11 (2.26%) IBM
8 10 (2.06%) Google
9 9 (1.85%) Atlassian
10 6 (1.23%) Fortinet
11 5 (1.03%) AppDynamics
11 5 (1.03%) webMethods
12 4 (0.82%) CyberArk
12 4 (0.82%) Dell
12 4 (0.82%) MuleSoft
13 3 (0.62%) Adobe
13 3 (0.62%) Broadcom
13 3 (0.62%) HP
13 3 (0.62%) Juniper
13 3 (0.62%) SolarWinds