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

6 months to
24 Apr 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 140 248 235
Rank change year-on-year +108 -13 -1
Contract jobs citing BPSS Clearance 722 249 382
As % of all contract jobs in England 1.82% 1.01% 1.03%
As % of the Qualifications category 5.54% 3.22% 3.27%
Number of daily rates quoted 520 162 290
10th Percentile £313 £234 £253
25th Percentile £384 £405 £413
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £475 £500 £500
Median % change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
75th Percentile £575 £585 £615
90th Percentile £673 £671 £675
UK median daily rate £475 £500 £500
% change year-on-year -5.00% - -9.09%
Number of hourly rates quoted 69 22 53
10th Percentile £19.53 £18.50 £13.99
25th Percentile £23.00 £25.15 -
Median hourly rate £47.50 £53.75 £16.06
Median % change year-on-year -11.62% +234.65% -60.42%
75th Percentile £73.00 £74.69 £42.64
90th Percentile £85.36 £77.38 £75.50
UK median hourly rate £43.69 £45.00 £16.06
% change year-on-year -2.91% +180.20% -59.30%

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 13,026 7,730 11,673
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 32.78% 31.43% 31.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 8,740 4,914 7,197
10th Percentile £343 £300 £300
25th Percentile £425 £416 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £520 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year -0.95% -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £630 £650
90th Percentile £725 £725 £746
UK median daily rate £518 £525 £534
% change year-on-year -1.43% -1.59% -3.00%
Number of hourly rates quoted 983 437 971
10th Percentile £17.06 £18.13 £14.00
25th Percentile £21.25 £23.00 £18.00
Median hourly rate £47.50 £47.50 £40.00
Median % change year-on-year - +18.75% -23.81%
75th Percentile £70.29 £67.50 £61.60
90th Percentile £85.36 £81.35 £75.25
UK median hourly rate £46.13 £41.38 £40.00
% change year-on-year +11.49% +3.44% -25.93%

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 24 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 24 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 24 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 +94 236 £512 -4.74% 34
North of England +18 194 £439 -12.25% 49
North West +20 130 £400 -25.65% 32
Midlands +19 117 £445 -0.67% 17
West Midlands 0 88 £470 +9.56% 14
South East -4 87 £476 -12.82% 37
South West 0 51 £516 +79.57% 43
Yorkshire -28 34 £481 +37.50% 4
North East +5 32 £475 +25.00% 13
East Midlands -8 28 £395 -35.56% 3
East of England -23 26 £450 +125.00% 39
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 (5.68%) Confluence
2 14 (1.94%) SharePoint
3 9 (1.25%) Apache Spark
4 7 (0.97%) Apache
4 7 (0.97%) Apache Airflow
5 6 (0.83%) Microsoft Exchange
6 5 (0.69%) nginx
7 3 (0.42%) CMS
7 3 (0.42%) LiveCycle
7 3 (0.42%) Oracle Workflow
7 3 (0.42%) SAS
7 3 (0.42%) WebLogic
8 2 (0.28%) CICS
9 1 (0.14%) Apache Pulsar
9 1 (0.14%) ArcGIS
9 1 (0.14%) Camunda
9 1 (0.14%) Palantir Foundry
9 1 (0.14%) SharePoint 2013
9 1 (0.14%) Smallworld
Applications
1 37 (5.12%) Microsoft Excel
2 14 (1.94%) Microsoft PowerPoint
3 13 (1.80%) Microsoft Office
3 13 (1.80%) MS Visio
4 12 (1.66%) Microsoft Project
5 3 (0.42%) Simulink
6 2 (0.28%) Chatbot
6 2 (0.28%) Spreadsheet
6 2 (0.28%) Trello
7 1 (0.14%) Autodesk Inventor
7 1 (0.14%) CATIA
7 1 (0.14%) InVision
7 1 (0.14%) MicroStation
7 1 (0.14%) PTC Creo
7 1 (0.14%) Sketch
7 1 (0.14%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 32 (4.43%) SAP S/4HANA
2 12 (1.66%) SAP Travel Management
3 8 (1.11%) SAP IBP
3 8 (1.11%) SAP PSCD
4 6 (0.83%) SAP EWM
5 5 (0.69%) SAP HR
6 4 (0.55%) iTrent
6 4 (0.55%) Loan IQ
6 4 (0.55%) Payment Gateway
7 3 (0.42%) Exchequer
7 3 (0.42%) Primavera
7 3 (0.42%) ProductWriter
7 3 (0.42%) SAP HCM
7 3 (0.42%) SAP MM
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%) Teamcenter
Cloud Services
1 127 (17.59%) AWS
2 101 (13.99%) Azure
3 41 (5.68%) Power Platform
4 36 (4.99%) GitHub
5 29 (4.02%) Serverless
6 28 (3.88%) Azure DevOps
7 25 (3.46%) GCP
8 23 (3.19%) GitHub Actions
9 22 (3.05%) AWS Lambda
10 16 (2.22%) AWS CloudFormation
11 15 (2.08%) Microsoft 365
12 12 (1.66%) Amazon ECS
13 11 (1.52%) Azure Data Factory
13 11 (1.52%) Entra ID
14 10 (1.39%) Amazon S3
14 10 (1.39%) Amazon SQS
15 8 (1.11%) SuccessFactors
16 7 (0.97%) Google Workspace
16 7 (0.97%) Power Automate
17 6 (0.83%) Azure Synapse Analytics
Communications & Networking
1 12 (1.66%) DNS
2 11 (1.52%) Firewall
3 10 (1.39%) Network Security
4 5 (0.69%) HTTPS
4 5 (0.69%) Reverse Proxy
4 5 (0.69%) WAN
4 5 (0.69%) WebEx
5 4 (0.55%) DHCP
5 4 (0.55%) VPN
5 4 (0.55%) VSAN
6 3 (0.42%) Ethernet
6 3 (0.42%) Internet
6 3 (0.42%) MPLS
6 3 (0.42%) SSH
6 3 (0.42%) TCP/IP
7 2 (0.28%) Broadband
7 2 (0.28%) LAN
7 2 (0.28%) SAN
7 2 (0.28%) SNMP
7 2 (0.28%) Wireless
Database & Business Intelligence
1 33 (4.57%) Power BI
2 26 (3.60%) PostgreSQL
3 21 (2.91%) SQL Server
4 14 (1.94%) Data Warehouse
4 14 (1.94%) NoSQL
5 12 (1.66%) Metadata
6 11 (1.52%) MongoDB
7 10 (1.39%) DynamoDB
8 8 (1.11%) DocumentDB
8 8 (1.11%) Redis
9 7 (0.97%) Big Data
9 7 (0.97%) Delta Lake
9 7 (0.97%) Geospatial Data
10 6 (0.83%) Tableau
11 5 (0.69%) DataStage
11 5 (0.69%) Relational Database
11 5 (0.69%) Spark SQL
12 4 (0.55%) Amazon RDS
12 4 (0.55%) BigQuery
12 4 (0.55%) MySQL
Development Applications
1 76 (10.53%) JIRA
2 53 (7.34%) Git
3 26 (3.60%) Jenkins
4 25 (3.46%) GitLab
5 10 (1.39%) Selenium
6 8 (1.11%) JUnit
7 7 (0.97%) Cucumber
7 7 (0.97%) Gatling
8 6 (0.83%) Cypress.io
8 6 (0.83%) Mockito
9 4 (0.55%) Bitbucket
9 4 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
9 4 (0.55%) SonarQube
10 3 (0.42%) JMeter
10 3 (0.42%) Maven
10 3 (0.42%) Toad
10 3 (0.42%) WebDriver
11 2 (0.28%) Eclipse
11 2 (0.28%) Team Foundation Server
11 2 (0.28%) Visual Studio
General
1 226 (31.30%) Social Skills
2 127 (17.59%) Finance
3 114 (15.79%) Public Sector
4 96 (13.30%) Analytical Skills
5 42 (5.82%) Banking
6 37 (5.12%) Aerospace
7 18 (2.49%) Legal
8 17 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 14 (1.94%) Presentation Skills
10 13 (1.80%) Influencing Skills
10 13 (1.80%) Telecoms
11 12 (1.66%) Organisational Skills
12 9 (1.25%) Aviation
13 8 (1.11%) Local Government
13 8 (1.11%) Manufacturing
13 8 (1.11%) Publishing
14 7 (0.97%) Retail
15 6 (0.83%) Advertising
16 5 (0.69%) Law
16 5 (0.69%) Military
Job Titles
1 107 (14.82%) Analyst
2 86 (11.91%) Senior
3 80 (11.08%) Developer
4 70 (9.70%) Lead
5 60 (8.31%) Architect
6 58 (8.03%) Consultant
7 50 (6.93%) Business Analyst
8 45 (6.23%) SAP Consultant
9 29 (4.02%) Administrator
10 28 (3.88%) Data Engineer
11 24 (3.32%) Delivery Manager
12 22 (3.05%) Designer
12 22 (3.05%) Senior Analyst
13 18 (2.49%) Senior Business Analyst
13 18 (2.49%) Senior Manager
14 14 (1.94%) Java Developer
14 14 (1.94%) Project Manager
14 14 (1.94%) Senior Developer
14 14 (1.94%) Systems Engineer
15 13 (1.80%) Test Engineer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 29 (4.02%) Node.js
2 23 (3.19%) React
3 21 (2.91%) REST
4 20 (2.77%) RESTful
4 20 (2.77%) Spring
4 20 (2.77%) Spring Boot
5 16 (2.22%) .NET
6 15 (2.08%) Kafka
7 13 (1.80%) XML
8 12 (1.66%) HTML
8 12 (1.66%) Middleware
8 12 (1.66%) SAP TM
9 11 (1.52%) JSON
9 11 (1.52%) OAuth
10 10 (1.39%) AngularJS
10 10 (1.39%) OpenAPI
11 9 (1.25%) CSS
11 9 (1.25%) OpenTelemetry
11 9 (1.25%) Playwright
11 9 (1.25%) Swagger
Miscellaneous
1 56 (7.76%) Product Ownership
2 43 (5.96%) Onboarding
3 36 (4.99%) Cloud Native
4 19 (2.63%) Management Information System
5 16 (2.22%) Distributed Systems
5 16 (2.22%) Legacy Systems
5 16 (2.22%) NHS
6 10 (1.39%) Public Cloud
7 8 (1.11%) Algorithms
8 7 (0.97%) Data Centre
8 7 (0.97%) Enterprise Software
8 7 (0.97%) Linux Command Line
8 7 (0.97%) Self-Motivation
9 6 (0.83%) Data Structures
9 6 (0.83%) Hybrid Cloud
9 6 (0.83%) Replication
10 5 (0.69%) Fat Client
10 5 (0.69%) Mainframe
10 5 (0.69%) Tandem
10 5 (0.69%) Thin Client
Operating Systems
1 60 (8.31%) Linux
2 32 (4.43%) Windows
3 14 (1.94%) Unix
4 11 (1.52%) Android
5 9 (1.25%) Windows Server
6 7 (0.97%) Apple iOS
7 5 (0.69%) Mac OS
8 3 (0.42%) Ubuntu
8 3 (0.42%) Windows 10
9 2 (0.28%) AIX
9 2 (0.28%) Debian
9 2 (0.28%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
9 2 (0.28%) Solaris
10 1 (0.14%) CentOS
10 1 (0.14%) Mac OS X
10 1 (0.14%) VME
10 1 (0.14%) VMS
Processes & Methodologies
1 222 (30.75%) Agile
2 127 (17.59%) Problem-Solving
3 117 (16.20%) CI/CD
4 112 (15.51%) DevOps
5 111 (15.37%) Stakeholder Management
6 76 (10.53%) Continuous Improvement
7 73 (10.11%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 63 (8.73%) Test Automation
9 60 (8.31%) Roadmaps
10 54 (7.48%) Scrum
11 53 (7.34%) Analytics
11 53 (7.34%) Data Modelling
11 53 (7.34%) Migration
12 51 (7.06%) Infrastructure as Code
13 50 (6.93%) Validation
14 47 (6.51%) Microservices
15 46 (6.37%) Decision-Making
15 46 (6.37%) Workshop Facilitation
16 45 (6.23%) AI
17 42 (5.82%) Change Management
Programming Languages
1 109 (15.10%) Python
2 86 (11.91%) SQL
3 66 (9.14%) Java
4 33 (4.57%) JavaScript
5 24 (3.32%) Scala
6 20 (2.77%) PowerShell
7 13 (1.80%) Ruby
8 12 (1.66%) C#
8 12 (1.66%) TypeScript
9 8 (1.11%) Bicep
9 8 (1.11%) C
9 8 (1.11%) C++
9 8 (1.11%) PL/SQL
10 7 (0.97%) Bash
10 7 (0.97%) COBOL
11 4 (0.55%) ABAP
11 4 (0.55%) MATLAB
11 4 (0.55%) VB
12 3 (0.42%) Shell Script
12 3 (0.42%) VB6
Qualifications
1 273 (37.81%) Security Cleared
2 201 (27.84%) SC Cleared
3 48 (6.65%) Degree
4 14 (1.94%) DV Cleared
5 12 (1.66%) Computer Science Degree
6 9 (1.25%) AWS Certification
6 9 (1.25%) Master's Degree
7 7 (0.97%) PMI Certification
8 6 (0.83%) Azure Certification
8 6 (0.83%) CompTIA CySA+
8 6 (0.83%) ISTQB
8 6 (0.83%) PMP
9 5 (0.69%) GIAC
10 4 (0.55%) CompTIA Security+
10 4 (0.55%) CTC Cleared
10 4 (0.55%) DBS Check
10 4 (0.55%) ISTQB Foundation Certification
11 3 (0.42%) AWS Certified Solutions Architect
11 3 (0.42%) MBA
11 3 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 46 (6.37%) Data Quality
2 42 (5.82%) QA
3 23 (3.19%) Accessibility
4 18 (2.49%) NIST
5 17 (2.35%) ISO/IEC 27001
6 14 (1.94%) SLA
7 11 (1.52%) PMO
8 8 (1.11%) PCI DSS
9 6 (0.83%) GDPR
9 6 (0.83%) ISO 20022
9 6 (0.83%) NCSC
9 6 (0.83%) WCAG
10 5 (0.69%) GRC
10 5 (0.69%) IFRS
10 5 (0.69%) IFRS 17
11 4 (0.55%) PSD2
12 3 (0.42%) Actionable Recommendations
12 3 (0.42%) HL7
12 3 (0.42%) ISO 8583
12 3 (0.42%) SEPA
System Software
1 50 (6.93%) Docker
2 24 (3.32%) Active Directory
3 20 (2.77%) VMware Infrastructure
4 9 (1.25%) vSphere
5 5 (0.69%) GPFS
5 5 (0.69%) Hyper-V
5 5 (0.69%) NFS
5 5 (0.69%) VMware ESXi
6 4 (0.55%) Virtual Machines
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
8 2 (0.28%) Virtual Desktop
9 1 (0.14%) Postfix
Systems Management
1 66 (9.14%) Terraform
2 51 (7.06%) Kubernetes
3 12 (1.66%) Grafana
4 11 (1.52%) Ansible
5 8 (1.11%) vRealize
6 7 (0.97%) Kibana
6 7 (0.97%) Prometheus
7 5 (0.69%) Istio
7 5 (0.69%) VxRail
8 4 (0.55%) Argo
8 4 (0.55%) HAProxy
8 4 (0.55%) Packer
8 4 (0.55%) Podman
9 3 (0.42%) Microsoft Intune
9 3 (0.42%) Single Sign-On
10 2 (0.28%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 2 (0.28%) CA Endevor
10 2 (0.28%) Consul
10 2 (0.28%) Kubeflow
10 2 (0.28%) SCCM
Vendors
1 89 (12.33%) SAP
2 70 (9.70%) Microsoft
3 42 (5.82%) Oracle
4 22 (3.05%) VMware
5 19 (2.63%) Cisco
6 17 (2.35%) Databricks
6 17 (2.35%) Google
7 16 (2.22%) IBM
7 16 (2.22%) ServiceNow
8 13 (1.80%) Splunk
9 9 (1.25%) Atlassian
9 9 (1.25%) Workday
10 7 (0.97%) CyberArk
10 7 (0.97%) Salesforce
11 5 (0.69%) Apple
11 5 (0.69%) BeyondTrust
11 5 (0.69%) Citrix
12 4 (0.55%) HP
12 4 (0.55%) Informatica
12 4 (0.55%) webMethods