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

6 months to
19 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 10,050 5,081 6,396
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.98% 18.42% 19.24%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.25% 58.56% 63.10%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,102 3,254 4,247
10th Percentile £381 £350 £358
25th Percentile £456 £450 £456
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 £538 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.75% -3.00% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 757 488 433
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.12
25th Percentile £26.25 £18.87 £22.58
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £59.50
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -57.73% -0.83%
75th Percentile £81.73 £54.81 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.07
% change year-on-year +152.49% -55.93% -4.89%

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 14,513 8,676 10,136
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.74% 31.45% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,794 5,431 6,440
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £435 £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 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £523 £525
% change year-on-year +0.48% -0.48% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,120 679 724
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £14.94
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £53.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +110.74% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.62 £67.81
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.16 £77.85
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +98.81% -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 19 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 19 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 19 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 3,536 £550 +3.77% 920
South East +1 2,432 £560 +4.19% 667
South West 0 1,363 £540 -6.09% 585
North of England +3 1,184 £510 +2.00% 502
Midlands 0 938 £469 -8.40% 221
West Midlands +1 810 £469 -8.93% 161
North West +3 662 £525 -0.47% 331
East of England 0 335 £550 - 260
Yorkshire +2 305 £492 - 105
North East 0 241 £475 -3.80% 88
East Midlands -2 117 £450 -4.00% 59
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
1 346 (3.44%) Confluence
2 258 (2.57%) SharePoint
3 169 (1.68%) SAS
4 112 (1.11%) Microsoft Exchange
5 87 (0.87%) Apache Airflow
6 81 (0.81%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.78%) Apache
8 33 (0.33%) nginx
9 30 (0.30%) Jupyter
10 24 (0.24%) WebLogic
11 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
12 21 (0.21%) Skype for Business
13 20 (0.20%) Tomcat
14 17 (0.17%) CMS
14 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
15 16 (0.16%) IIS
16 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
17 13 (0.13%) JBoss
18 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
19 10 (0.100%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 186 (1.85%) Microsoft Excel
2 139 (1.38%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 84 (0.84%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 32 (0.32%) MS Visio
6 26 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 16 (0.16%) AutoCAD
7 16 (0.16%) Revit
8 15 (0.15%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 8 (0.080%) Chatbot
11 7 (0.070%) Windchill
12 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
12 6 (0.060%) Sketch
13 5 (0.050%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
14 3 (0.030%) Trello
15 2 (0.020%) Houdini
15 2 (0.020%) InDesign
15 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 119 (1.18%) SAP S/4HANA
2 80 (0.80%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 29 (0.29%) Teamcenter
7 27 (0.27%) Dynamics CRM
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 20 (0.20%) Oracle Payroll
10 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 16 (0.16%) Primavera
11 14 (0.14%) SAP HR
12 13 (0.13%) Findur
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) SAP FI
15 10 (0.100%) Salesforce CRM
15 10 (0.100%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,855 (18.46%) Azure
2 1,655 (16.47%) AWS
3 466 (4.64%) Azure DevOps
4 434 (4.32%) Power Platform
5 428 (4.26%) GitHub
6 382 (3.80%) GCP
7 279 (2.78%) Microsoft 365
8 278 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 262 (2.61%) Entra ID
10 244 (2.43%) Serverless
11 202 (2.01%) Amazon S3
12 167 (1.66%) AWS Lambda
13 158 (1.57%) OCI
14 152 (1.51%) SaaS
15 138 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 136 (1.35%) OpenShift
17 128 (1.27%) Amazon EC2
18 122 (1.21%) PaaS
19 121 (1.20%) Amazon EKS
20 105 (1.04%) AWS CloudFormation
Communications & Networking
1 424 (4.22%) Firewall
2 349 (3.47%) DNS
3 203 (2.02%) WAN
4 202 (2.01%) Network Security
5 180 (1.79%) VPN
6 176 (1.75%) DHCP
7 172 (1.71%) LAN
8 131 (1.30%) TCP/IP
9 129 (1.28%) BGP
10 121 (1.20%) Wi-Fi
11 100 (1.00%) VLAN
12 94 (0.94%) OSPF
13 80 (0.80%) Wireless
14 69 (0.69%) VSAN
15 62 (0.62%) IPsec
16 59 (0.59%) MPLS
17 56 (0.56%) SD-WAN
18 55 (0.55%) SSL
19 52 (0.52%) SAN
20 44 (0.44%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 315 (3.13%) Power BI
2 270 (2.69%) SQL Server
3 246 (2.45%) Data Warehouse
4 244 (2.43%) PostgreSQL
5 147 (1.46%) Oracle Database
6 137 (1.36%) Metadata
7 115 (1.14%) Data Lake
8 105 (1.04%) Relational Database
9 102 (1.01%) Amazon RDS
10 91 (0.91%) MySQL
11 89 (0.89%) Oracle Reports
12 86 (0.86%) Pentaho
13 84 (0.84%) NoSQL
14 83 (0.83%) MongoDB
15 59 (0.59%) Amazon Redshift
16 57 (0.57%) Amazon Athena
17 55 (0.55%) Tableau
18 49 (0.49%) Elasticsearch
19 45 (0.45%) Amazon Aurora
20 43 (0.43%) Big Data
Development Applications
1 559 (5.56%) JIRA
2 490 (4.88%) Git
3 419 (4.17%) GitLab
4 409 (4.07%) Jenkins
5 106 (1.05%) Selenium
6 75 (0.75%) Postman
7 74 (0.74%) SonarQube
8 66 (0.66%) JUnit
9 57 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
10 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 55 (0.55%) Maven
11 45 (0.45%) Zephyr
12 43 (0.43%) Cucumber
13 42 (0.42%) Visual Studio
14 41 (0.41%) Mockito
15 40 (0.40%) Bitbucket
16 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
17 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
18 33 (0.33%) Gatling
18 33 (0.33%) Gradle
General
1 2,135 (21.24%) Social Skills
2 2,034 (20.24%) Public Sector
3 783 (7.79%) Analytical Skills
4 701 (6.98%) Finance
5 331 (3.29%) Military
6 299 (2.98%) Aerospace
7 247 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
8 169 (1.68%) Influencing Skills
9 142 (1.41%) Organisational Skills
9 142 (1.41%) Telecoms
10 135 (1.34%) Legal
11 134 (1.33%) Banking
12 104 (1.03%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 103 (1.02%) Law
14 95 (0.95%) Manufacturing
15 89 (0.89%) Police
16 65 (0.65%) Presentation Skills
17 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 43 (0.43%) Retail
19 34 (0.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,504 (14.97%) Architect
2 1,032 (10.27%) Developer
3 943 (9.38%) Senior
4 918 (9.13%) Lead
5 564 (5.61%) Analyst
6 548 (5.45%) Consultant
7 463 (4.61%) Data Engineer
8 389 (3.87%) DevOps Engineer
9 379 (3.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 281 (2.80%) Software Engineer
11 264 (2.63%) Technical Architect
12 244 (2.43%) Solutions Architect
13 237 (2.36%) Network Engineer
14 226 (2.25%) Security Architect
15 222 (2.21%) Data Architect
16 198 (1.97%) Administrator
17 194 (1.93%) Delivery Manager
18 188 (1.87%) Java Developer
19 187 (1.86%) Project Manager
20 182 (1.81%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 378 (3.76%) REST
2 202 (2.01%) .NET
2 202 (2.01%) Spring
3 185 (1.84%) Kafka
4 175 (1.74%) RESTful
4 175 (1.74%) Spring Boot
5 169 (1.68%) React
6 153 (1.52%) SOAP
7 134 (1.33%) Node.js
8 125 (1.24%) JSON
9 119 (1.18%) AngularJS
10 114 (1.13%) Web Services
11 110 (1.09%) HTML
12 108 (1.07%) OAuth
13 92 (0.92%) XML
14 82 (0.82%) PySpark
15 78 (0.78%) Oracle Fusion
16 77 (0.77%) CSS
17 71 (0.71%) Elastic Stack
17 71 (0.71%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 434 (4.32%) Cloud Native
2 362 (3.60%) Onboarding
3 327 (3.25%) Product Ownership
4 262 (2.61%) Data Centre
5 169 (1.68%) Legacy Systems
6 155 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 147 (1.46%) PKI
8 137 (1.36%) Distributed Systems
9 128 (1.27%) Enterprise Software
10 125 (1.24%) CMDB
11 118 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
12 110 (1.09%) Hybrid Cloud
13 106 (1.05%) Replication
14 97 (0.97%) Data Structures
15 93 (0.93%) Clustering
16 89 (0.89%) Security Operations Centre
17 87 (0.87%) Cyber Threat
18 81 (0.81%) Public Cloud
19 75 (0.75%) Virtual Team
20 74 (0.74%) Operational Technology
Operating Systems
1 877 (8.73%) Windows
2 708 (7.04%) Linux
3 317 (3.15%) Windows Server
4 203 (2.02%) Unix
5 140 (1.39%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 121 (1.20%) Windows 10
7 74 (0.74%) Android
8 62 (0.62%) Solaris
9 46 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 37 (0.37%) CentOS
10 37 (0.37%) Windows Server 2019
11 35 (0.35%) Apple iOS
11 35 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 32 (0.32%) AIX
13 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
14 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
15 18 (0.18%) VMS
16 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2012
17 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
17 14 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,131 (21.20%) Agile
2 1,573 (15.65%) DevOps
3 1,472 (14.65%) CI/CD
4 1,228 (12.22%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,164 (11.58%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,047 (10.42%) Problem-Solving
7 957 (9.52%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 832 (8.28%) Infrastructure as Code
9 820 (8.16%) Migration
10 720 (7.16%) Cybersecurity
11 705 (7.01%) ITIL
12 645 (6.42%) Analytics
12 645 (6.42%) Test Automation
13 606 (6.03%) Roadmaps
14 605 (6.02%) Containerisation
15 594 (5.91%) Software Engineering
16 578 (5.75%) AI
17 561 (5.58%) Technical Leadership
18 545 (5.42%) Data Modelling
18 545 (5.42%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,107 (11.01%) Python
2 991 (9.86%) SQL
3 658 (6.55%) Java
4 526 (5.23%) PowerShell
5 350 (3.48%) JavaScript
6 282 (2.81%) Bash
7 228 (2.27%) C#
8 152 (1.51%) TypeScript
9 139 (1.38%) PL/SQL
10 101 (1.00%) Bicep
11 82 (0.82%) C++
12 70 (0.70%) Shell Script
13 65 (0.65%) C
14 46 (0.46%) Go
15 43 (0.43%) Groovy
15 43 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 39 (0.39%) Scala
17 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
17 35 (0.35%) Ruby
18 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,547 (75.09%) SC Cleared
2 2,044 (20.34%) DV Cleared
3 423 (4.21%) Degree
4 370 (3.68%) BPSS Clearance
5 184 (1.83%) CISSP
6 160 (1.59%) Cisco Certification
7 155 (1.54%) Azure Certification
8 146 (1.45%) Microsoft Certification
9 123 (1.22%) AWS Certification
10 116 (1.15%) CISM
11 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 98 (0.98%) PMP
13 85 (0.85%) ISTQB
14 73 (0.73%) CCNP
15 67 (0.67%) CCNA
16 66 (0.66%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 60 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
18 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
19 41 (0.41%) TOGAF Certification
19 41 (0.41%) VCAP
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 427 (4.25%) QA
2 319 (3.17%) Data Quality
3 270 (2.69%) NIST
4 266 (2.65%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 234 (2.33%) NCSC
6 220 (2.19%) Accessibility
7 219 (2.18%) PMO
8 152 (1.51%) GDPR
9 126 (1.25%) GRC
10 122 (1.21%) SLA
11 65 (0.65%) WCAG
12 62 (0.62%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 40 (0.40%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 30 (0.30%) 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%) Actionable Recommendations
System Software
1 668 (6.65%) Docker
2 506 (5.03%) Active Directory
3 376 (3.74%) VMware Infrastructure
4 145 (1.44%) VMware NSX
5 136 (1.35%) VMware ESXi
6 118 (1.17%) vSphere
7 106 (1.05%) Hyper-V
8 78 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
9 43 (0.43%) Oracle RAC
9 43 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
10 31 (0.31%) Firmware
11 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
12 25 (0.25%) vCloud
13 15 (0.15%) Postfix
14 11 (0.11%) NFS
14 11 (0.11%) Squid
15 10 (0.100%) Virtual Servers
16 8 (0.080%) KVM
16 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
17 7 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 868 (8.64%) Terraform
2 818 (8.14%) Kubernetes
3 406 (4.04%) Ansible
4 227 (2.26%) Grafana
5 172 (1.71%) Prometheus
6 134 (1.33%) vCenter Server
7 120 (1.19%) SCCM
8 86 (0.86%) Microsoft Intune
9 72 (0.72%) SCOM
10 61 (0.61%) Argo
11 52 (0.52%) Oracle RMAN
11 52 (0.52%) Puppet
12 50 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
13 36 (0.36%) Data Guard
14 34 (0.34%) Progress Chef
15 28 (0.28%) FortiGate
15 28 (0.28%) Nagios
15 28 (0.28%) WSUS
16 26 (0.26%) Control-M
17 25 (0.25%) Istio
Vendors
1 1,296 (12.90%) Microsoft
2 808 (8.04%) Oracle
3 547 (5.44%) VMware
4 467 (4.65%) ServiceNow
5 382 (3.80%) SAP
6 277 (2.76%) Cisco
7 215 (2.14%) Google
8 183 (1.82%) Splunk
9 179 (1.78%) Databricks
10 134 (1.33%) Red Hat
11 126 (1.25%) Salesforce
12 120 (1.19%) IBM
13 110 (1.09%) Talend
14 105 (1.04%) Palo Alto
15 101 (1.00%) Informatica
16 88 (0.88%) Remedy
17 83 (0.83%) Dynatrace
18 80 (0.80%) Juniper
19 77 (0.77%) Citrix
20 76 (0.76%) F5