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 14 August 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
14 Aug 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,027 5,105 6,424
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.99% 18.47% 19.28%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.36% 58.71% 63.05%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,075 3,272 4,275
10th Percentile £381 £350 £358
25th Percentile £454 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £538 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year - -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £650
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £537 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.47% -2.82% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 768 481 452
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £26.53 £18.87 £24.17
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £59.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -57.37% -1.68%
75th Percentile £82.12 £55.00 £72.37
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £56.89
% change year-on-year +152.49% -55.79% -5.19%

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 14,456 8,695 10,189
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.70% 31.46% 30.58%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,754 5,449 6,485
10th Percentile £350 £300 £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 1,120 671 758
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.10
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £77.65
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +103.78% -41.51% -21.82%

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 14 August 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 14 August 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 14 August 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 3,528 £550 +3.77% 829
South East +1 2,453 £560 +4.19% 640
South West 0 1,349 £538 -6.52% 470
North of England +2 1,146 £505 +1.00% 349
Midlands 0 962 £469 -8.93% 173
West Midlands +1 835 £469 -8.93% 129
North West +2 628 £525 -0.94% 218
East of England 0 326 £550 - 156
Yorkshire +3 303 £492 - 61
North East 0 239 £475 -5.00% 72
East Midlands -2 115 £438 -10.15% 43
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
1 351 (3.50%) Confluence
2 252 (2.51%) SharePoint
3 173 (1.73%) SAS
4 112 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
5 87 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
6 81 (0.81%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.78%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 28 (0.28%) WebLogic
11 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
12 20 (0.20%) Skype for Business
13 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
14 17 (0.17%) CMS
15 16 (0.16%) IIS
15 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
16 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
17 12 (0.12%) JBoss
18 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
19 10 (0.100%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 185 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 131 (1.31%) Microsoft Office
3 95 (0.95%) Microsoft Project
4 82 (0.82%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 33 (0.33%) MS Visio
6 25 (0.25%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.16%) AutoCAD
7 16 (0.16%) Revit
8 15 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 9 (0.090%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Windchill
14 2 (0.020%) CPLEX
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
Business Applications
1 121 (1.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 79 (0.79%) Remedy ITSM
3 45 (0.45%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 32 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 19 (0.19%) Oracle Payroll
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
10 15 (0.15%) Oracle Payables
11 13 (0.13%) SAP HR
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 FI
14 10 (0.100%) Integrated Workplace Management System
14 10 (0.100%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,827 (18.22%) Azure
2 1,671 (16.67%) AWS
3 451 (4.50%) Azure DevOps
4 436 (4.35%) Power Platform
5 433 (4.32%) GitHub
6 380 (3.79%) GCP
7 281 (2.80%) GitHub Actions
8 277 (2.76%) Microsoft 365
9 255 (2.54%) Entra ID
10 247 (2.46%) Serverless
11 207 (2.06%) Amazon S3
12 169 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
13 158 (1.58%) OCI
14 150 (1.50%) SaaS
15 139 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 137 (1.37%) OpenShift
17 130 (1.30%) Amazon EC2
18 121 (1.21%) PaaS
19 118 (1.18%) Amazon EKS
20 106 (1.06%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 425 (4.24%) Firewall
2 350 (3.49%) DNS
3 209 (2.08%) WAN
4 200 (1.99%) Network Security
5 181 (1.81%) LAN
6 180 (1.80%) DHCP
7 174 (1.74%) VPN
8 137 (1.37%) BGP
9 130 (1.30%) TCP/IP
10 118 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
11 105 (1.05%) OSPF
12 100 (1.00%) VLAN
13 79 (0.79%) Wireless
14 67 (0.67%) VSAN
15 61 (0.61%) IPsec
16 56 (0.56%) MPLS
17 54 (0.54%) SD-WAN
17 54 (0.54%) SSL
17 54 (0.54%) VXLAN
18 51 (0.51%) SAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 318 (3.17%) Power BI
2 261 (2.60%) SQL Server
3 252 (2.51%) PostgreSQL
4 249 (2.48%) Data Warehouse
5 145 (1.45%) Oracle Database
6 130 (1.30%) Metadata
7 111 (1.11%) Data Lake
8 105 (1.05%) Relational Database
9 102 (1.02%) Amazon RDS
10 92 (0.92%) Pentaho
11 91 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
12 89 (0.89%) MySQL
13 83 (0.83%) MongoDB
14 78 (0.78%) NoSQL
15 59 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
16 58 (0.58%) Tableau
17 56 (0.56%) Amazon Athena
18 49 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
19 44 (0.44%) Amazon Aurora
20 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 560 (5.58%) JIRA
2 491 (4.90%) Git
3 412 (4.11%) GitLab
4 406 (4.05%) Jenkins
5 106 (1.06%) Selenium
6 75 (0.75%) SonarQube
7 73 (0.73%) Postman
8 70 (0.70%) JUnit
9 60 (0.60%) JMeter
10 59 (0.59%) Rational DOORS
11 55 (0.55%) Maven
12 49 (0.49%) Cucumber
13 45 (0.45%) Zephyr
14 43 (0.43%) Visual Studio
15 40 (0.40%) Mockito
16 38 (0.38%) Bitbucket
17 34 (0.34%) Cypress.io
18 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
18 33 (0.33%) Gradle
19 32 (0.32%) Gatling
General
1 2,115 (21.09%) Social Skills
2 2,043 (20.37%) Public Sector
3 788 (7.86%) Analytical Skills
4 694 (6.92%) Finance
5 332 (3.31%) Military
6 295 (2.94%) Aerospace
7 241 (2.40%) Documentation Skills
8 162 (1.62%) Influencing Skills
9 142 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
10 136 (1.36%) Telecoms
11 135 (1.35%) Legal
12 132 (1.32%) Banking
13 101 (1.01%) Law
14 97 (0.97%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 91 (0.91%) Police
16 90 (0.90%) Manufacturing
17 65 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (0.44%) Marketing
19 41 (0.41%) Retail
20 34 (0.34%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,479 (14.75%) Architect
2 1,039 (10.36%) Developer
3 942 (9.39%) Senior
4 906 (9.04%) Lead
5 583 (5.81%) Analyst
6 531 (5.30%) Consultant
7 477 (4.76%) Data Engineer
8 387 (3.86%) DevOps Engineer
9 376 (3.75%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 292 (2.91%) Software Engineer
11 261 (2.60%) Technical Architect
12 243 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
13 238 (2.37%) Network Engineer
14 227 (2.26%) Security Architect
15 213 (2.12%) Data Architect
16 199 (1.98%) Delivery Manager
17 198 (1.97%) Administrator
18 194 (1.93%) Java Developer
19 185 (1.85%) Project Manager
20 183 (1.83%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 373 (3.72%) REST
2 216 (2.15%) Spring
3 195 (1.94%) .NET
4 185 (1.85%) Kafka
5 182 (1.82%) Spring Boot
6 169 (1.69%) React
6 169 (1.69%) RESTful
7 151 (1.51%) SOAP
8 139 (1.39%) Node.js
9 125 (1.25%) JSON
10 121 (1.21%) AngularJS
11 110 (1.10%) Web Services
12 104 (1.04%) HTML
13 103 (1.03%) OAuth
14 87 (0.87%) XML
15 83 (0.83%) PySpark
16 75 (0.75%) CSS
17 74 (0.74%) Oracle Fusion
18 70 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
19 68 (0.68%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 421 (4.20%) Cloud Native
2 357 (3.56%) Onboarding
3 329 (3.28%) Product Ownership
4 267 (2.66%) Data Centre
5 170 (1.70%) Legacy Systems
6 156 (1.56%) Management Information System
7 150 (1.50%) PKI
8 140 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 122 (1.22%) Enterprise Software
10 121 (1.21%) CMDB
11 116 (1.16%) Self-Motivation
12 107 (1.07%) Hybrid Cloud
13 102 (1.02%) Replication
14 101 (1.01%) Clustering
15 99 (0.99%) Data Structures
16 84 (0.84%) Security Operations Centre
17 83 (0.83%) Public Cloud
18 82 (0.82%) Cyber Threat
19 76 (0.76%) Operational Technology
20 74 (0.74%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 869 (8.67%) Windows
2 704 (7.02%) Linux
3 301 (3.00%) Windows Server
4 202 (2.01%) Unix
5 138 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 112 (1.12%) Windows 10
7 78 (0.78%) Android
8 62 (0.62%) Solaris
9 44 (0.44%) Mac OS
10 39 (0.39%) Apple iOS
11 36 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 33 (0.33%) AIX
12 33 (0.33%) CentOS
13 31 (0.31%) Ubuntu
14 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
15 17 (0.17%) VMS
16 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
16 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
17 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
18 13 (0.13%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,125 (21.19%) Agile
2 1,549 (15.45%) DevOps
3 1,456 (14.52%) CI/CD
4 1,201 (11.98%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,143 (11.40%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,056 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
7 946 (9.43%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 816 (8.14%) Migration
9 815 (8.13%) Infrastructure as Code
10 693 (6.91%) Cybersecurity
10 693 (6.91%) ITIL
11 643 (6.41%) Analytics
11 643 (6.41%) Test Automation
12 607 (6.05%) Software Engineering
13 604 (6.02%) Roadmaps
14 602 (6.00%) Containerisation
15 568 (5.66%) AI
16 556 (5.55%) Data Modelling
17 551 (5.50%) Technical Leadership
18 528 (5.27%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,112 (11.09%) Python
2 998 (9.95%) SQL
3 670 (6.68%) Java
4 515 (5.14%) PowerShell
5 346 (3.45%) JavaScript
6 280 (2.79%) Bash
7 225 (2.24%) C#
8 150 (1.50%) TypeScript
9 148 (1.48%) PL/SQL
10 96 (0.96%) Bicep
11 85 (0.85%) C++
12 74 (0.74%) Shell Script
13 66 (0.66%) C
14 46 (0.46%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 43 (0.43%) Groovy
17 41 (0.41%) Scala
18 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
18 35 (0.35%) Ruby
19 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,531 (75.11%) SC Cleared
2 2,030 (20.25%) DV Cleared
3 417 (4.16%) Degree
4 363 (3.62%) BPSS Clearance
5 174 (1.74%) CISSP
6 166 (1.66%) Cisco Certification
7 153 (1.53%) Azure Certification
8 142 (1.42%) Microsoft Certification
9 120 (1.20%) AWS Certification
10 108 (1.08%) CISM
11 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 98 (0.98%) PMP
13 84 (0.84%) ISTQB
14 72 (0.72%) CCNP
15 66 (0.66%) CCNA
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
18 41 (0.41%) ITIL Certification
19 40 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
20 38 (0.38%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 411 (4.10%) QA
2 319 (3.18%) Data Quality
3 264 (2.63%) NIST
4 262 (2.61%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 221 (2.20%) NCSC
6 216 (2.15%) Accessibility
7 213 (2.12%) PMO
8 150 (1.50%) GDPR
9 118 (1.18%) GRC
10 117 (1.17%) SLA
11 65 (0.65%) WCAG
12 58 (0.58%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 33 (0.33%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 27 (0.27%) Government Security Classifications
18 25 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 19 (0.19%) RMADS
20 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 667 (6.65%) Docker
2 481 (4.80%) Active Directory
3 366 (3.65%) VMware Infrastructure
4 144 (1.44%) VMware NSX
5 131 (1.31%) VMware ESXi
6 113 (1.13%) vSphere
7 97 (0.97%) Hyper-V
8 76 (0.76%) Virtual Machines
9 42 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 31 (0.31%) Firmware
12 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
13 25 (0.25%) vCloud
14 15 (0.15%) Postfix
15 11 (0.11%) NFS
15 11 (0.11%) Squid
16 9 (0.090%) Virtual Servers
17 8 (0.080%) KVM
18 7 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
18 7 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 861 (8.59%) Terraform
2 807 (8.05%) Kubernetes
3 397 (3.96%) Ansible
4 231 (2.30%) Grafana
5 178 (1.78%) Prometheus
6 131 (1.31%) vCenter Server
7 116 (1.16%) SCCM
8 85 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
9 71 (0.71%) SCOM
10 62 (0.62%) Argo
11 51 (0.51%) Oracle RMAN
12 50 (0.50%) Puppet
13 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
14 39 (0.39%) FortiGate
15 36 (0.36%) Data Guard
16 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
17 28 (0.28%) WSUS
18 26 (0.26%) Control-M
19 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,258 (12.55%) Microsoft
2 800 (7.98%) Oracle
3 535 (5.34%) VMware
4 485 (4.84%) ServiceNow
5 376 (3.75%) SAP
6 281 (2.80%) Cisco
7 210 (2.09%) Google
8 189 (1.88%) Splunk
9 179 (1.79%) Databricks
10 134 (1.34%) Red Hat
11 129 (1.29%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.20%) IBM
13 118 (1.18%) Talend
14 110 (1.10%) Informatica
15 103 (1.03%) Palo Alto
16 92 (0.92%) Juniper
17 89 (0.89%) Remedy
18 85 (0.85%) F5
18 85 (0.85%) SolarWinds
19 83 (0.83%) Dynatrace