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 3 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
3 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 132 223 249
Rank change year-on-year +91 +26 +5
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 877 318 356
As % of all contract jobs in England 2.00% 1.22% 0.95%
As % of the Qualifications category 6.32% 3.94% 3.12%
Number of daily rates quoted 620 226 242
10th Percentile £340 £308 £200
25th Percentile £400 £401 £400
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £481 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -3.80% - -7.41%
75th Percentile £575 £606 £588
90th Percentile £675 £714 £650
UK median daily rate £483 £494 £500
% change year-on-year -2.22% -1.21% -7.57%
Number of hourly rates quoted 119 29 49
10th Percentile £17.30 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £28.19 £22.63 -
Median hourly rate £43.96 £44.00 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -0.09% +173.97% -63.77%
75th Percentile £63.75 £73.75 £33.00
90th Percentile £81.07 £76.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £43.96 £38.25 £16.06
% change year-on-year +14.93% +138.17% -63.77%

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 13,869 8,073 11,407
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.58% 30.94% 30.52%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,346 5,088 7,062
10th Percentile £350 £282 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £718 £717 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.43% -0.43% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,044 535 994
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.16
25th Percentile £24.19 £20.07 £20.50
Median hourly rate £53.00 £28.50 £42.50
Median % change year-on-year +85.96% -32.94% -22.73%
75th Percentile £74.00 £63.13 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.40 £77.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £51.00 £27.94 £40.94
% change year-on-year +82.53% -31.75% -26.70%

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 3 July 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 3 July 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 3 July 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 +82 281 £499 +5.13% 89
North of England +22 231 £453 -7.93% 93
Midlands +16 143 £459 -6.71% 38
North West +11 132 £438 -12.50% 72
West Midlands +16 118 £473 +4.76% 32
South East -3 108 £492 -5.48% 62
South West +24 70 £525 +50.00% 90
North East +3 61 £453 +4.14% 11
Yorkshire -18 45 £478 -3.54% 10
East of England -13 27 £550 +175.00% 41
East Midlands -5 24 £438 -37.50% 6
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 38 (4.33%) Confluence
2 17 (1.94%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.03%) Apache Spark
4 6 (0.68%) Apache
4 6 (0.68%) Apache Airflow
4 6 (0.68%) SAS
5 3 (0.34%) CMS
5 3 (0.34%) LiveCycle
5 3 (0.34%) Microsoft Exchange
5 3 (0.34%) Oracle Workflow
5 3 (0.34%) WordPress
6 2 (0.23%) CICS
6 2 (0.23%) Cloud Foundry
6 2 (0.23%) Ethereum
6 2 (0.23%) Hyperledger
7 1 (0.11%) Apache Pulsar
7 1 (0.11%) Appian
7 1 (0.11%) ArcGIS
7 1 (0.11%) Camunda
7 1 (0.11%) Palantir Foundry
Applications
1 37 (4.22%) Microsoft Excel
2 16 (1.82%) Microsoft Office
3 14 (1.60%) Microsoft PowerPoint
4 13 (1.48%) Microsoft Project
5 12 (1.37%) MS Visio
6 4 (0.46%) Chatbot
7 3 (0.34%) Simulink
8 2 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
8 2 (0.23%) Trello
9 1 (0.11%) Autodesk Inventor
9 1 (0.11%) CATIA
9 1 (0.11%) InVision
9 1 (0.11%) MicroStation
9 1 (0.11%) Navisworks
9 1 (0.11%) PTC Creo
9 1 (0.11%) Sketch
Business Applications
1 26 (2.96%) SAP S/4HANA
2 10 (1.14%) SAP PSCD
3 9 (1.03%) SAP IBP
4 7 (0.80%) SAP BRIM
4 7 (0.80%) SAP EWM
4 7 (0.80%) SAP Travel Management
5 6 (0.68%) SAP HR
6 5 (0.57%) Payment Gateway
7 4 (0.46%) Loan IQ
7 4 (0.46%) Primavera
7 4 (0.46%) SAP Convergent Charging
7 4 (0.46%) SAP MM
8 3 (0.34%) Dynamics CRM
8 3 (0.34%) Exchequer
8 3 (0.34%) iTrent
8 3 (0.34%) ProductWriter
9 2 (0.23%) Oracle Receivables
9 2 (0.23%) Quorum
9 2 (0.23%) R3 Corda
9 2 (0.23%) Ripple
Cloud Services
1 137 (15.62%) AWS
2 136 (15.51%) Azure
3 50 (5.70%) Power Platform
4 35 (3.99%) Serverless
5 34 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
6 29 (3.31%) GitHub
7 28 (3.19%) GCP
8 22 (2.51%) AWS Lambda
9 20 (2.28%) Amazon S3
10 19 (2.17%) GitHub Actions
11 18 (2.05%) Entra ID
12 15 (1.71%) Microsoft 365
13 14 (1.60%) Azure Data Factory
14 10 (1.14%) Amazon ECS
15 9 (1.03%) Azure Monitor
15 9 (1.03%) dbt
15 9 (1.03%) Google Workspace
16 8 (0.91%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 8 (0.91%) Amazon EC2
16 8 (0.91%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 14 (1.60%) DNS
2 12 (1.37%) Firewall
2 12 (1.37%) Network Security
3 7 (0.80%) WebEx
4 6 (0.68%) DHCP
4 6 (0.68%) HTTPS
4 6 (0.68%) WAN
5 4 (0.46%) Ethernet
5 4 (0.46%) SSL
6 3 (0.34%) Internet
6 3 (0.34%) MQTT
6 3 (0.34%) Reverse Proxy
6 3 (0.34%) TCP/IP
6 3 (0.34%) VPN
6 3 (0.34%) Wireless
7 2 (0.23%) Cisco IPT
7 2 (0.23%) LAN
7 2 (0.23%) NAS
7 2 (0.23%) SSH
7 2 (0.23%) Wi-Fi
Database & Business Intelligence
1 41 (4.68%) Power BI
2 21 (2.39%) Data Warehouse
2 21 (2.39%) PostgreSQL
2 21 (2.39%) SQL Server
3 16 (1.82%) Metadata
4 15 (1.71%) MongoDB
5 13 (1.48%) DynamoDB
6 10 (1.14%) NoSQL
7 9 (1.03%) Amazon Athena
7 9 (1.03%) Data Lake
7 9 (1.03%) Relational Database
8 8 (0.91%) Amazon RDS
8 8 (0.91%) Amazon Redshift
8 8 (0.91%) SQL Server Integration Services
8 8 (0.91%) Tableau
9 7 (0.80%) Delta Lake
9 7 (0.80%) MySQL
10 6 (0.68%) Geospatial Data
10 6 (0.68%) Power Query
11 5 (0.57%) Spark SQL
Development Applications
1 72 (8.21%) JIRA
2 41 (4.68%) Git
3 39 (4.45%) GitLab
4 23 (2.62%) Jenkins
5 15 (1.71%) Selenium
6 12 (1.37%) Cucumber
7 10 (1.14%) JUnit
8 8 (0.91%) Team Foundation Server
9 6 (0.68%) Gatling
9 6 (0.68%) Mockito
9 6 (0.68%) Visual Studio
10 5 (0.57%) Cypress.io
10 5 (0.57%) Maven
10 5 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
11 4 (0.46%) Artifactory
11 4 (0.46%) Atlassian Bamboo
11 4 (0.46%) WebDriver
12 3 (0.34%) Postman
12 3 (0.34%) SonarQube
13 2 (0.23%) MLflow
General
1 257 (29.30%) Social Skills
2 174 (19.84%) Public Sector
3 154 (17.56%) Finance
4 101 (11.52%) Analytical Skills
5 40 (4.56%) Legal
6 38 (4.33%) Banking
7 36 (4.10%) Aerospace
8 31 (3.53%) Organisational Skills
9 20 (2.28%) Documentation Skills
9 20 (2.28%) Influencing Skills
10 19 (2.17%) Presentation Skills
11 14 (1.60%) Manufacturing
12 13 (1.48%) Billing
12 13 (1.48%) Local Government
13 12 (1.37%) Telecoms
14 11 (1.25%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 10 (1.14%) Law
16 9 (1.03%) Aviation
17 6 (0.68%) Advertising
17 6 (0.68%) Marketing
Job Titles
1 107 (12.20%) Analyst
2 98 (11.17%) Senior
3 92 (10.49%) Lead
4 79 (9.01%) Developer
5 75 (8.55%) Architect
6 63 (7.18%) Consultant
7 48 (5.47%) Business Analyst
8 45 (5.13%) SAP Consultant
9 42 (4.79%) Data Engineer
9 42 (4.79%) Designer
10 29 (3.31%) Administrator
11 22 (2.51%) Delivery Manager
12 20 (2.28%) Data Analyst
12 20 (2.28%) Java Developer
12 20 (2.28%) Senior Analyst
12 20 (2.28%) Service Designer
12 20 (2.28%) Solutions Architect
12 20 (2.28%) User Researcher
13 19 (2.17%) Product Manager
14 18 (2.05%) Software Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 27 (3.08%) Node.js
1 27 (3.08%) REST
1 27 (3.08%) Spring Boot
2 25 (2.85%) Spring
3 23 (2.62%) RESTful
4 20 (2.28%) React
5 18 (2.05%) HTML
5 18 (2.05%) Kafka
6 14 (1.60%) .NET
6 14 (1.60%) Playwright
6 14 (1.60%) PySpark
7 13 (1.48%) JSON
8 12 (1.37%) CSS
9 10 (1.14%) AngularJS
9 10 (1.14%) OAuth
9 10 (1.14%) OpenAPI
9 10 (1.14%) XML
10 7 (0.80%) Jest
10 7 (0.80%) OAuth2
10 7 (0.80%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 64 (7.30%) Product Ownership
2 54 (6.16%) Onboarding
3 40 (4.56%) Cloud Native
4 27 (3.08%) Virtual Team
5 24 (2.74%) Web Conferencing
6 21 (2.39%) NHS
6 21 (2.39%) Podcast
7 19 (2.17%) Management Information System
8 14 (1.60%) Distributed Systems
9 13 (1.48%) BYOD
10 11 (1.25%) Algorithms
11 10 (1.14%) Data Centre
11 10 (1.14%) Self-Motivation
12 8 (0.91%) Public Cloud
13 6 (0.68%) Data Structures
13 6 (0.68%) Legacy Systems
13 6 (0.68%) Mobile App
14 5 (0.57%) AI Agents
14 5 (0.57%) Replication
14 5 (0.57%) Tandem
Operating Systems
1 47 (5.36%) Linux
2 42 (4.79%) Windows
3 21 (2.39%) Unix
4 13 (1.48%) Windows Server
5 12 (1.37%) Android
6 9 (1.03%) Apple iOS
7 8 (0.91%) Mac OS
8 5 (0.57%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.23%) AIX
9 2 (0.23%) Solaris
10 1 (0.11%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.11%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 251 (28.62%) Agile
2 142 (16.19%) Stakeholder Management
3 130 (14.82%) CI/CD
4 116 (13.23%) DevOps
5 115 (13.11%) Problem-Solving
6 98 (11.17%) Stakeholder Engagement
7 88 (10.03%) Continuous Improvement
8 77 (8.78%) Roadmaps
9 75 (8.55%) Analytics
10 74 (8.44%) Decision-Making
11 68 (7.75%) Scrum
12 63 (7.18%) Test Automation
13 60 (6.84%) AI
14 57 (6.50%) Workshop Facilitation
15 55 (6.27%) Data Modelling
15 55 (6.27%) User Research
16 54 (6.16%) Validation
17 52 (5.93%) Infrastructure as Code
18 51 (5.82%) Migration
19 50 (5.70%) Software Engineering
Programming Languages
1 110 (12.54%) Python
2 99 (11.29%) SQL
3 74 (8.44%) Java
4 38 (4.33%) JavaScript
5 26 (2.96%) Scala
6 20 (2.28%) PowerShell
7 18 (2.05%) TypeScript
8 11 (1.25%) C#
9 10 (1.14%) C++
9 10 (1.14%) Shell Script
10 8 (0.91%) C
10 8 (0.91%) VB
11 7 (0.80%) Bash
11 7 (0.80%) Bicep
11 7 (0.80%) PL/SQL
11 7 (0.80%) VB6
12 5 (0.57%) ABAP
12 5 (0.57%) COBOL
12 5 (0.57%) T-SQL
13 4 (0.46%) Ada
Qualifications
1 301 (34.32%) Security Cleared
2 221 (25.20%) SC Cleared
3 55 (6.27%) Degree
4 15 (1.71%) DV Cleared
5 11 (1.25%) AWS Certification
5 11 (1.25%) Azure Certification
6 7 (0.80%) Master's Degree
6 7 (0.80%) Microsoft Certification
7 6 (0.68%) Computer Science Degree
8 5 (0.57%) CompTIA CySA+
8 5 (0.57%) DBS Check
9 4 (0.46%) A+ Certification
9 4 (0.46%) AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
9 4 (0.46%) CCNA
9 4 (0.46%) Cisco Certification
9 4 (0.46%) CTC Cleared
9 4 (0.46%) GIAC
9 4 (0.46%) PMI Certification
10 3 (0.34%) PhD
10 3 (0.34%) PMP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 66 (7.53%) Data Quality
2 53 (6.04%) QA
3 37 (4.22%) Accessibility
4 22 (2.51%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 18 (2.05%) NIST
5 18 (2.05%) PMO
6 17 (1.94%) GDPR
7 13 (1.48%) SLA
8 11 (1.25%) WCAG
9 8 (0.91%) PCI DSS
10 6 (0.68%) GRC
11 4 (0.46%) Actionable Recommendations
11 4 (0.46%) IFRS
11 4 (0.46%) IFRS 17
11 4 (0.46%) ISO 20022
11 4 (0.46%) PSD2
12 3 (0.34%) HL7
12 3 (0.34%) NCSC
12 3 (0.34%) SEPA
12 3 (0.34%) Solvency II
System Software
1 45 (5.13%) Docker
2 29 (3.31%) Active Directory
3 16 (1.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 7 (0.80%) Virtual Desktop
4 7 (0.80%) Virtual Machines
5 4 (0.46%) Hyper-V
5 4 (0.46%) vSphere
6 3 (0.34%) GPFS
6 3 (0.34%) NFS
6 3 (0.34%) VMware ESXi
6 3 (0.34%) VMware NSX
7 1 (0.11%) ACF2
7 1 (0.11%) BitLocker
7 1 (0.11%) RACF
7 1 (0.11%) Time Sharing Option
Systems Management
1 64 (7.30%) Terraform
2 45 (5.13%) Kubernetes
3 17 (1.94%) Grafana
4 10 (1.14%) Kibana
4 10 (1.14%) Prometheus
5 9 (1.03%) Ansible
6 7 (0.80%) Single Sign-On
7 4 (0.46%) Argo
7 4 (0.46%) HAProxy
7 4 (0.46%) Istio
7 4 (0.46%) Microsoft Intune
7 4 (0.46%) Podman
7 4 (0.46%) SCCM
8 3 (0.34%) Puppet
8 3 (0.34%) SCOM
8 3 (0.34%) vRealize
9 2 (0.23%) Active Directory Federation Services
9 2 (0.23%) Kubeflow
9 2 (0.23%) Packer
10 1 (0.11%) VxRail
Vendors
1 100 (11.40%) Microsoft
2 90 (10.26%) SAP
3 39 (4.45%) Oracle
4 29 (3.31%) ServiceNow
5 22 (2.51%) Google
6 20 (2.28%) Databricks
7 16 (1.82%) VMware
8 13 (1.48%) Cisco
8 13 (1.48%) Splunk
9 12 (1.37%) IBM
10 10 (1.14%) CyberArk
11 9 (1.03%) BeyondTrust
11 9 (1.03%) Informatica
12 7 (0.80%) Salesforce
12 7 (0.80%) Workday
13 6 (0.68%) Apple
13 6 (0.68%) Talend
14 5 (0.57%) Atlassian
14 5 (0.57%) Tenable
15 4 (0.46%) Denodo