Security Cleared Contract Job Trends in England

Security Clearance
UK > England

The table below provides summary statistics for contract job vacancies advertised in England with a requirement for Security Cleared qualifications. It includes a benchmarking guide to the contractor rates offered over the 6 months leading up to 31 July 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
31 Jul 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,981 5,025 6,545
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.02% 18.26% 19.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.46% 58.56% 62.99%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,003 3,249 4,359
10th Percentile £381 £340 £352
25th Percentile £452 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £537 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.09% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £634 £625 £644
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £537 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.66% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 772 456 475
10th Percentile £19.33 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.22
Median hourly rate £64.09 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +154.83% -56.26% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80.09 £56.00 £72.33
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.14 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +151.03% -54.27% -8.33%

All Academic and Professional Certifications
England

Security Cleared 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 14,369 8,581 10,391
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.70% 31.18% 30.56%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,673 5,413 6,618
10th Percentile £350 £290 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,103 643 803
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.15 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +114.71% -41.51% -21.82%
75th Percentile £75.00 £58.75 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.63 £78.60
UK median hourly rate £52.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +106.76% -41.51% -23.21%

Security Cleared
Job Vacancy Trend in England

Historical trend showing the proportion of contract IT job postings citing Security Cleared relative to all contract IT jobs advertised in England.

Security Cleared job vacancy trend in England

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Trend in England

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared.

Contractor daily rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Daily Rate Histogram in England

Daily rate distribution for jobs citing Security Cleared in England over the 6 months to 31 July 2026.

Daily rate histogram for Security Cleared in England

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Trend in England

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared.

Contractor hourly rate distribution trend for jobs in England citing Security Cleared

Security Cleared
Hourly Rate Histogram in England

Hourly rate distribution of jobs citing Security Cleared in England over the 6 months to 31 July 2026.

Hourly rate histogram for Security Cleared in England

Security Cleared
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 Security Cleared within the England region over the 6 months to 31 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 +7 3,531 £550 +4.76% 636
South East +1 2,456 £557 +3.53% 531
South West 0 1,326 £538 -6.52% 361
North of England +2 1,121 £503 +0.60% 275
Midlands +3 963 £469 -6.20% 164
West Midlands +1 826 £469 -6.20% 124
North West 0 605 £525 - 146
East of England 0 323 £552 +3.18% 146
Yorkshire +2 301 £500 +1.63% 60
North East 0 239 £475 -5.00% 70
East Midlands 0 125 £428 -7.57% 40
Security Cleared
UK

Security Cleared
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
1 357 (3.58%) Confluence
2 245 (2.45%) SharePoint
3 168 (1.68%) SAS
4 112 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 86 (0.86%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.80%) Apache
8 36 (0.36%) nginx
9 34 (0.34%) WebLogic
10 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 20 (0.20%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
13 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.15%) CMS
15 13 (0.13%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
18 10 (0.10%) JBoss
Applications
1 191 (1.91%) Microsoft Excel
2 127 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 99 (0.99%) Microsoft Project
4 74 (0.74%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 36 (0.36%) MS Visio
6 24 (0.24%) Spreadsheet
7 14 (0.14%) AutoCAD
7 14 (0.14%) Revit
7 14 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
8 13 (0.13%) Simulink
9 9 (0.090%) Chatbot
10 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
10 6 (0.060%) Sketch
11 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
12 4 (0.040%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Lectora
14 2 (0.020%) NUKE
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 123 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 72 (0.72%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
4 35 (0.35%) Teamcenter
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 23 (0.23%) SAP PSCD
7 21 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
8 16 (0.16%) Primavera
9 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payroll
11 13 (0.13%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.11%) SAP HR
14 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
14 10 (0.10%) SAP ERP
14 10 (0.10%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,783 (17.86%) Azure
2 1,667 (16.70%) AWS
3 428 (4.29%) Azure DevOps
4 422 (4.23%) Power Platform
5 420 (4.21%) GitHub
6 372 (3.73%) GCP
7 271 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
8 267 (2.68%) GitHub Actions
9 246 (2.46%) Serverless
10 245 (2.45%) Entra ID
11 223 (2.23%) Amazon S3
12 171 (1.71%) AWS Lambda
13 150 (1.50%) OCI
14 146 (1.46%) Amazon EC2
15 144 (1.44%) SaaS
16 138 (1.38%) Amazon CloudWatch
17 132 (1.32%) OpenShift
18 127 (1.27%) PaaS
19 119 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
20 111 (1.11%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 425 (4.26%) Firewall
2 333 (3.34%) DNS
3 207 (2.07%) WAN
4 205 (2.05%) Network Security
5 180 (1.80%) LAN
6 169 (1.69%) VPN
7 167 (1.67%) DHCP
8 140 (1.40%) BGP
9 122 (1.22%) TCP/IP
10 113 (1.13%) Wi-Fi
11 111 (1.11%) OSPF
12 100 (1.00%) VLAN
13 84 (0.84%) Wireless
14 63 (0.63%) IPsec
15 62 (0.62%) VSAN
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
17 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
17 56 (0.56%) VXLAN
18 53 (0.53%) SAN
19 51 (0.51%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 316 (3.17%) Power BI
2 248 (2.48%) SQL Server
3 246 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
4 233 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
5 142 (1.42%) Oracle Database
6 126 (1.26%) Metadata
7 111 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 97 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
8 97 (0.97%) Relational Database
9 84 (0.84%) Pentaho
10 83 (0.83%) Oracle Reports
11 81 (0.81%) MySQL
12 73 (0.73%) NoSQL
13 72 (0.72%) MongoDB
14 63 (0.63%) Amazon Redshift
14 63 (0.63%) Elasticsearch
15 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
15 57 (0.57%) Tableau
16 44 (0.44%) Big Data
17 43 (0.43%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 563 (5.64%) JIRA
2 470 (4.71%) Git
3 393 (3.94%) GitLab
4 383 (3.84%) Jenkins
5 100 (1.00%) Selenium
6 77 (0.77%) SonarQube
7 76 (0.76%) JUnit
8 59 (0.59%) Postman
9 57 (0.57%) Maven
10 54 (0.54%) Rational DOORS
11 52 (0.52%) JMeter
12 47 (0.47%) Cucumber
13 44 (0.44%) Mockito
14 39 (0.39%) Visual Studio
15 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
15 38 (0.38%) Zephyr
16 35 (0.35%) Artifactory
17 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 33 (0.33%) REST Assured
19 29 (0.29%) Gatling
General
1 2,095 (20.99%) Public Sector
2 2,059 (20.63%) Social Skills
3 757 (7.58%) Analytical Skills
4 701 (7.02%) Finance
5 344 (3.45%) Military
6 275 (2.76%) Aerospace
7 243 (2.43%) Documentation Skills
8 160 (1.60%) Influencing Skills
9 144 (1.44%) Legal
10 131 (1.31%) Organisational Skills
11 130 (1.30%) Telecoms
12 120 (1.20%) Banking
13 96 (0.96%) Law
14 88 (0.88%) Police
15 83 (0.83%) Inclusion and Diversity
16 81 (0.81%) Manufacturing
17 76 (0.76%) Presentation Skills
18 41 (0.41%) Marketing
19 38 (0.38%) Retail
20 37 (0.37%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,481 (14.84%) Architect
2 1,046 (10.48%) Developer
3 920 (9.22%) Senior
4 885 (8.87%) Lead
5 617 (6.18%) Analyst
6 505 (5.06%) Consultant
7 471 (4.72%) Data Engineer
8 387 (3.88%) DevOps Engineer
9 358 (3.59%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 295 (2.96%) Software Engineer
11 259 (2.59%) Technical Architect
12 240 (2.40%) Network Engineer
13 239 (2.39%) Solutions Architect
14 238 (2.38%) Security Architect
15 202 (2.02%) Data Architect
16 201 (2.01%) Java Developer
17 198 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
18 187 (1.87%) Administrator
18 187 (1.87%) Project Manager
19 185 (1.85%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 364 (3.65%) REST
2 225 (2.25%) Spring
3 189 (1.89%) Spring Boot
4 183 (1.83%) .NET
5 173 (1.73%) Kafka
5 173 (1.73%) React
6 164 (1.64%) RESTful
7 152 (1.52%) SOAP
8 147 (1.47%) Node.js
9 127 (1.27%) JSON
10 124 (1.24%) AngularJS
11 105 (1.05%) Web Services
12 103 (1.03%) OAuth
13 94 (0.94%) HTML
14 89 (0.89%) PySpark
15 82 (0.82%) XML
16 69 (0.69%) CSS
16 69 (0.69%) Oracle Fusion
17 67 (0.67%) Elastic Stack
17 67 (0.67%) OpenID
Miscellaneous
1 408 (4.09%) Cloud Native
2 346 (3.47%) Onboarding
3 318 (3.19%) Product Ownership
4 281 (2.82%) Data Centre
5 178 (1.78%) Legacy Systems
6 156 (1.56%) Management Information System
7 151 (1.51%) PKI
8 144 (1.44%) Distributed Systems
9 119 (1.19%) Self-Motivation
10 113 (1.13%) CMDB
11 109 (1.09%) Enterprise Software
12 102 (1.02%) Data Structures
13 99 (0.99%) Clustering
14 97 (0.97%) Hybrid Cloud
15 89 (0.89%) Replication
16 81 (0.81%) Public Cloud
17 76 (0.76%) Virtual Team
18 75 (0.75%) Cyber Threat
18 75 (0.75%) Security Posture
19 74 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
Operating Systems
1 829 (8.31%) Windows
2 690 (6.91%) Linux
3 285 (2.86%) Windows Server
4 203 (2.03%) Unix
5 141 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 94 (0.94%) Windows 10
7 82 (0.82%) Android
8 64 (0.64%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 41 (0.41%) Apple iOS
11 37 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) AIX
13 30 (0.30%) CentOS
14 28 (0.28%) Ubuntu
15 17 (0.17%) VMS
15 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
16 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2012
17 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
18 11 (0.11%) Rocky
18 11 (0.11%) Windows 7
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,093 (20.97%) Agile
2 1,521 (15.24%) DevOps
3 1,412 (14.15%) CI/CD
4 1,126 (11.28%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,103 (11.05%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,064 (10.66%) Problem-Solving
7 897 (8.99%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 771 (7.72%) Infrastructure as Code
9 768 (7.69%) Migration
10 684 (6.85%) ITIL
11 678 (6.79%) Cybersecurity
12 624 (6.25%) Analytics
13 599 (6.00%) Test Automation
14 598 (5.99%) Software Engineering
15 593 (5.94%) Containerisation
16 586 (5.87%) Roadmaps
17 556 (5.57%) AI
18 544 (5.45%) Data Modelling
19 540 (5.41%) Decision-Making
20 514 (5.15%) Technical Leadership
Programming Languages
1 1,089 (10.91%) Python
2 970 (9.72%) SQL
3 677 (6.78%) Java
4 467 (4.68%) PowerShell
5 320 (3.21%) JavaScript
6 258 (2.58%) Bash
7 213 (2.13%) C#
8 149 (1.49%) PL/SQL
9 146 (1.46%) TypeScript
10 88 (0.88%) Bicep
11 82 (0.82%) Shell Script
12 78 (0.78%) C++
13 60 (0.60%) C
14 47 (0.47%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 41 (0.41%) Scala
17 40 (0.40%) Apex Code
18 39 (0.39%) Groovy
19 36 (0.36%) Ruby
20 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,495 (75.09%) SC Cleared
2 2,035 (20.39%) DV Cleared
3 416 (4.17%) Degree
4 352 (3.53%) BPSS Clearance
5 177 (1.77%) Cisco Certification
6 159 (1.59%) CISSP
7 147 (1.47%) Azure Certification
8 132 (1.32%) Microsoft Certification
9 118 (1.18%) AWS Certification
10 101 (1.01%) PMI Certification
11 96 (0.96%) PMP
12 92 (0.92%) CISM
13 83 (0.83%) CCNP
14 74 (0.74%) CCNA
15 72 (0.72%) ISTQB
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 57 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
18 45 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
19 43 (0.43%) ITIL Certification
20 38 (0.38%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 385 (3.86%) QA
2 321 (3.22%) Data Quality
3 267 (2.68%) NIST
4 263 (2.64%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 216 (2.16%) Accessibility
6 210 (2.10%) PMO
7 208 (2.08%) NCSC
8 152 (1.52%) GDPR
9 115 (1.15%) GRC
9 115 (1.15%) SLA
10 63 (0.63%) WCAG
11 58 (0.58%) JSP 440
12 48 (0.48%) NIST 800
13 41 (0.41%) Cyber Essentials
14 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
15 28 (0.28%) Def Stans
15 28 (0.28%) ISO/IEC 20000
16 23 (0.23%) HMG Security Policy Framework
17 19 (0.19%) RMADS
18 16 (0.16%) COBIT
System Software
1 657 (6.58%) Docker
2 465 (4.66%) Active Directory
3 351 (3.52%) VMware Infrastructure
4 139 (1.39%) VMware NSX
5 132 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 106 (1.06%) vSphere
7 89 (0.89%) Hyper-V
8 73 (0.73%) Virtual Machines
9 42 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
10 36 (0.36%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 22 (0.22%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) BitLocker
14 18 (0.18%) Postfix
15 14 (0.14%) NFS
16 13 (0.13%) Squid
17 9 (0.090%) KVM
18 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
19 7 (0.070%) UAG
20 6 (0.060%) Corosync
Systems Management
1 835 (8.37%) Terraform
2 779 (7.80%) Kubernetes
3 377 (3.78%) Ansible
4 227 (2.27%) Grafana
5 175 (1.75%) Prometheus
6 131 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 96 (0.96%) SCCM
8 77 (0.77%) Microsoft Intune
9 67 (0.67%) Argo
10 62 (0.62%) SCOM
11 50 (0.50%) Oracle RMAN
11 50 (0.50%) Puppet
12 48 (0.48%) Single Sign-On
13 42 (0.42%) FortiGate
14 33 (0.33%) Data Guard
15 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
16 28 (0.28%) Nagios
17 25 (0.25%) Podman
18 24 (0.24%) VxRail
18 24 (0.24%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,166 (11.68%) Microsoft
2 772 (7.73%) Oracle
3 516 (5.17%) VMware
4 494 (4.95%) ServiceNow
5 372 (3.73%) SAP
6 288 (2.89%) Cisco
7 193 (1.93%) Google
8 183 (1.83%) Splunk
9 177 (1.77%) Databricks
10 142 (1.42%) Red Hat
11 136 (1.36%) Salesforce
12 122 (1.22%) Talend
13 112 (1.12%) IBM
13 112 (1.12%) Informatica
14 100 (1.00%) Juniper
14 100 (1.00%) Palo Alto
15 89 (0.89%) SolarWinds
16 86 (0.86%) F5
17 82 (0.82%) Remedy
18 78 (0.78%) Citrix