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

6 months to
23 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 9,853 4,951 6,746
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.96% 18.11% 19.18%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.51% 58.56% 62.54%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,924 3,203 4,451
10th Percentile £380 £338 £350
25th Percentile £450 £450 £450
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £531 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -1.19% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £626 £625 £645
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £533 £530 £550
% change year-on-year +0.47% -3.64% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 756 436 502
10th Percentile £18.95 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £22.06
Median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.50
Median % change year-on-year +152.49% -56.26% -4.17%
75th Percentile £80.00 £59.93 £71.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.25 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £62.50 £25.15 £55.00
% change year-on-year +148.51% -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 14,175 8,454 10,787
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.59% 30.92% 30.67%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,559 5,333 6,811
10th Percentile £350 £283 £313
25th Percentile £430 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £537
Median % change year-on-year - -2.32% -2.28%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £638
90th Percentile £719 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year +0.10% -0.10% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,059 617 872
10th Percentile £17.87 £18.13 £14.48
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £21.25
Median hourly rate £54.00 £25.30 £43.00
Median % change year-on-year +113.44% -41.16% -23.76%
75th Percentile £75.00 £60.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £88.00 £76.75 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £52.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +107.75% -41.51% -25.00%

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 23 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 23 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 23 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 3,480 £541 +3.02% 627
South East +1 2,442 £550 +1.07% 514
South West 0 1,299 £538 -6.52% 351
North of England +2 1,087 £500 - 295
Midlands +3 970 £469 -6.20% 149
West Midlands +2 829 £469 -6.20% 109
North West 0 577 £525 -0.38% 162
East of England +2 309 £575 +9.52% 120
Yorkshire +3 299 £500 +1.63% 70
North East 0 240 £475 -5.00% 63
East Midlands 0 128 £418 -12.11% 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
1 350 (3.55%) Confluence
2 240 (2.44%) SharePoint
3 160 (1.62%) SAS
4 117 (1.19%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 81 (0.82%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.79%) Apache
8 37 (0.38%) nginx
9 35 (0.36%) WebLogic
10 33 (0.33%) Jupyter
11 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
12 18 (0.18%) Oracle Application Server
13 16 (0.16%) CMS
13 16 (0.16%) IIS
13 16 (0.16%) Oracle Workflow
14 13 (0.13%) Palantir Foundry
15 12 (0.12%) Skype for Business
15 12 (0.12%) Tuxedo
16 11 (0.11%) NetWeaver
17 9 (0.091%) Documentum
Applications
1 184 (1.87%) Microsoft Excel
2 125 (1.27%) Microsoft Office
3 92 (0.93%) Microsoft Project
4 71 (0.72%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 39 (0.40%) MS Visio
6 21 (0.21%) Spreadsheet
7 13 (0.13%) AutoCAD
7 13 (0.13%) Revit
7 13 (0.13%) Simulink
7 13 (0.13%) SOLIDWORKS
8 9 (0.091%) Chatbot
9 6 (0.061%) Adobe XD
9 6 (0.061%) Sketch
10 5 (0.051%) Notepad++
11 4 (0.041%) Trello
12 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 2 (0.020%) CATIA
13 2 (0.020%) InDesign
13 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
13 2 (0.020%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 121 (1.23%) SAP S/4HANA
2 66 (0.67%) Remedy ITSM
3 41 (0.42%) Oracle ERP
4 36 (0.37%) Teamcenter
5 30 (0.30%) Oracle EBS
5 30 (0.30%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
7 21 (0.21%) Dynamics CRM
8 15 (0.15%) Findur
8 15 (0.15%) Primavera
9 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
10 12 (0.12%) iTrent
10 12 (0.12%) Oracle Payroll
10 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
11 11 (0.11%) Oracle Payables
12 10 (0.10%) Integrated Workplace Management System
12 10 (0.10%) SAP HR
13 9 (0.091%) Salesforce CRM
13 9 (0.091%) SAP ERP
14 8 (0.081%) Maximo
Cloud Services
1 1,748 (17.74%) Azure
2 1,622 (16.46%) AWS
3 408 (4.14%) Azure DevOps
4 401 (4.07%) GitHub
5 398 (4.04%) Power Platform
6 353 (3.58%) GCP
7 268 (2.72%) Microsoft 365
8 252 (2.56%) GitHub Actions
9 248 (2.52%) Entra ID
10 230 (2.33%) Serverless
11 213 (2.16%) Amazon S3
12 160 (1.62%) AWS Lambda
13 143 (1.45%) Amazon EC2
13 143 (1.45%) OCI
14 139 (1.41%) SaaS
15 133 (1.35%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 133 (1.35%) OpenShift
16 124 (1.26%) PaaS
17 114 (1.16%) Amazon EKS
18 107 (1.09%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 419 (4.25%) Firewall
2 325 (3.30%) DNS
3 216 (2.19%) Network Security
4 210 (2.13%) WAN
5 183 (1.86%) LAN
6 176 (1.79%) VPN
7 168 (1.71%) DHCP
8 140 (1.42%) BGP
9 120 (1.22%) TCP/IP
10 115 (1.17%) OSPF
11 112 (1.14%) Wi-Fi
12 99 (1.00%) VLAN
13 83 (0.84%) Wireless
14 61 (0.62%) IPsec
15 59 (0.60%) MPLS
16 58 (0.59%) SAN
17 57 (0.58%) SD-WAN
18 56 (0.57%) VSAN
19 55 (0.56%) VXLAN
20 48 (0.49%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 298 (3.02%) Power BI
2 246 (2.50%) PostgreSQL
3 245 (2.49%) SQL Server
4 228 (2.31%) Data Warehouse
5 148 (1.50%) Oracle Database
6 132 (1.34%) Metadata
7 104 (1.06%) Data Lake
8 101 (1.03%) Relational Database
9 97 (0.98%) Amazon RDS
10 81 (0.82%) Pentaho
11 79 (0.80%) MySQL
12 78 (0.79%) Oracle Reports
13 75 (0.76%) MongoDB
14 66 (0.67%) Elasticsearch
14 66 (0.67%) NoSQL
15 64 (0.65%) Amazon Redshift
16 57 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
17 56 (0.57%) Tableau
18 40 (0.41%) Big Data
19 38 (0.39%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 551 (5.59%) JIRA
2 461 (4.68%) Git
3 393 (3.99%) GitLab
4 369 (3.75%) Jenkins
5 101 (1.03%) Selenium
6 76 (0.77%) JUnit
7 73 (0.74%) SonarQube
8 61 (0.62%) Postman
9 54 (0.55%) Rational DOORS
10 53 (0.54%) JMeter
10 53 (0.54%) Maven
11 47 (0.48%) Cucumber
12 41 (0.42%) Mockito
13 38 (0.39%) Zephyr
14 37 (0.38%) Visual Studio
15 36 (0.37%) Artifactory
15 36 (0.37%) Bitbucket
15 36 (0.37%) REST Assured
16 33 (0.33%) Cypress.io
17 31 (0.31%) Gatling
General
1 2,066 (20.97%) Public Sector
2 2,003 (20.33%) Social Skills
3 742 (7.53%) Analytical Skills
4 683 (6.93%) Finance
5 333 (3.38%) Military
6 270 (2.74%) Aerospace
7 245 (2.49%) Documentation Skills
8 152 (1.54%) Influencing Skills
9 145 (1.47%) Legal
10 130 (1.32%) Telecoms
11 127 (1.29%) Organisational Skills
12 121 (1.23%) Banking
13 93 (0.94%) Law
14 88 (0.89%) Police
15 81 (0.82%) Manufacturing
16 74 (0.75%) Inclusion and Diversity
17 71 (0.72%) Presentation Skills
18 41 (0.42%) Marketing
19 36 (0.37%) Aviation
19 36 (0.37%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,433 (14.54%) Architect
2 1,014 (10.29%) Developer
3 876 (8.89%) Senior
4 862 (8.75%) Lead
5 622 (6.31%) Analyst
6 471 (4.78%) Consultant
7 460 (4.67%) Data Engineer
8 401 (4.07%) DevOps Engineer
9 344 (3.49%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 288 (2.92%) Software Engineer
11 260 (2.64%) Technical Architect
12 241 (2.45%) Network Engineer
13 233 (2.36%) Security Architect
14 231 (2.34%) Solutions Architect
15 195 (1.98%) Java Developer
16 191 (1.94%) Delivery Manager
17 189 (1.92%) Data Architect
18 188 (1.91%) Project Manager
19 187 (1.90%) Business Analyst
20 184 (1.87%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 347 (3.52%) REST
2 232 (2.35%) Spring
3 194 (1.97%) Spring Boot
4 174 (1.77%) .NET
5 172 (1.75%) Kafka
6 168 (1.71%) React
7 161 (1.63%) RESTful
8 145 (1.47%) Node.js
9 141 (1.43%) SOAP
10 122 (1.24%) JSON
11 118 (1.20%) AngularJS
12 100 (1.01%) Web Services
13 93 (0.94%) OAuth
14 92 (0.93%) HTML
15 85 (0.86%) PySpark
16 78 (0.79%) XML
17 68 (0.69%) CSS
17 68 (0.69%) Elastic Stack
17 68 (0.69%) LDAP
18 67 (0.68%) Oracle Fusion
Miscellaneous
1 390 (3.96%) Cloud Native
2 335 (3.40%) Onboarding
3 313 (3.18%) Product Ownership
4 273 (2.77%) Data Centre
5 178 (1.81%) Legacy Systems
6 149 (1.51%) Management Information System
7 144 (1.46%) PKI
8 143 (1.45%) Distributed Systems
9 120 (1.22%) Self-Motivation
10 106 (1.08%) CMDB
11 101 (1.03%) Enterprise Software
12 100 (1.01%) Data Structures
13 99 (1.00%) Replication
14 98 (0.99%) Hybrid Cloud
15 91 (0.92%) Clustering
16 84 (0.85%) Security Posture
17 80 (0.81%) Public Cloud
18 75 (0.76%) Virtual Team
19 72 (0.73%) Security Operations Centre
20 71 (0.72%) Cyber Threat
Operating Systems
1 812 (8.24%) Windows
2 682 (6.92%) Linux
3 266 (2.70%) Windows Server
4 202 (2.05%) Unix
5 136 (1.38%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 89 (0.90%) Windows 10
7 79 (0.80%) Android
8 60 (0.61%) Solaris
9 44 (0.45%) Apple iOS
9 44 (0.45%) Mac OS
10 33 (0.33%) AIX
11 32 (0.32%) Ubuntu
12 31 (0.31%) Windows Server 2019
13 29 (0.29%) CentOS
14 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2016
15 15 (0.15%) VMS
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2008
16 11 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
17 10 (0.10%) Embedded Linux
17 10 (0.10%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,049 (20.80%) Agile
2 1,505 (15.27%) DevOps
3 1,380 (14.01%) CI/CD
4 1,073 (10.89%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,053 (10.69%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,050 (10.66%) Problem-Solving
7 877 (8.90%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 767 (7.78%) Migration
9 747 (7.58%) Infrastructure as Code
10 681 (6.91%) ITIL
11 672 (6.82%) Cybersecurity
12 598 (6.07%) Analytics
13 593 (6.02%) Test Automation
14 587 (5.96%) Containerisation
15 581 (5.90%) Software Engineering
16 564 (5.72%) Roadmaps
17 525 (5.33%) AI
17 525 (5.33%) Decision-Making
18 521 (5.29%) Data Modelling
19 486 (4.93%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 1,047 (10.63%) Python
2 948 (9.62%) SQL
3 667 (6.77%) Java
4 463 (4.70%) PowerShell
5 303 (3.08%) JavaScript
6 246 (2.50%) Bash
7 205 (2.08%) C#
8 142 (1.44%) PL/SQL
9 141 (1.43%) TypeScript
10 85 (0.86%) Shell Script
11 84 (0.85%) Bicep
12 78 (0.79%) C++
13 61 (0.62%) C
14 49 (0.50%) Go
15 42 (0.43%) Kotlin
16 40 (0.41%) Scala
17 38 (0.39%) Apex Code
18 37 (0.38%) Ruby
19 34 (0.35%) Ada
19 34 (0.35%) Groovy
Qualifications
1 7,392 (75.02%) SC Cleared
2 2,015 (20.45%) DV Cleared
3 405 (4.11%) Degree
4 341 (3.46%) BPSS Clearance
5 181 (1.84%) Cisco Certification
6 162 (1.64%) CISSP
7 144 (1.46%) Azure Certification
8 124 (1.26%) Microsoft Certification
9 111 (1.13%) AWS Certification
10 95 (0.96%) CISM
10 95 (0.96%) PMI Certification
11 91 (0.92%) PMP
12 89 (0.90%) CCNP
13 75 (0.76%) CCNA
14 72 (0.73%) ISTQB
15 59 (0.60%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 56 (0.57%) Computer Science Degree
17 44 (0.45%) TOGAF Certification
18 43 (0.44%) ITIL Certification
19 36 (0.37%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 369 (3.75%) QA
2 305 (3.10%) Data Quality
3 272 (2.76%) NIST
4 265 (2.69%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 214 (2.17%) Accessibility
6 211 (2.14%) NCSC
7 196 (1.99%) PMO
8 153 (1.55%) GDPR
9 110 (1.12%) GRC
10 100 (1.01%) SLA
11 63 (0.64%) WCAG
12 57 (0.58%) JSP 440
13 46 (0.47%) NIST 800
14 43 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
15 28 (0.28%) Def Stans
16 26 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
17 25 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
18 22 (0.22%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 21 (0.21%) RMADS
20 17 (0.17%) COBIT
System Software
1 638 (6.48%) Docker
2 451 (4.58%) Active Directory
3 341 (3.46%) VMware Infrastructure
4 132 (1.34%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.32%) VMware ESXi
6 97 (0.98%) vSphere
7 89 (0.90%) Hyper-V
8 74 (0.75%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.42%) Oracle RAC
10 34 (0.35%) Virtual Desktop
11 28 (0.28%) Firmware
12 21 (0.21%) vCloud
13 20 (0.20%) NFS
14 19 (0.19%) BitLocker
15 18 (0.18%) Postfix
16 13 (0.13%) Squid
17 8 (0.081%) KVM
17 8 (0.081%) Microsoft App-V
17 8 (0.081%) Slurm Workload Manager
18 7 (0.071%) UAG
Systems Management
1 817 (8.29%) Terraform
2 768 (7.79%) Kubernetes
3 367 (3.72%) Ansible
4 230 (2.33%) Grafana
5 178 (1.81%) Prometheus
6 128 (1.30%) vCenter Server
7 88 (0.89%) SCCM
8 70 (0.71%) Microsoft Intune
9 62 (0.63%) Argo
10 58 (0.59%) SCOM
11 49 (0.50%) Single Sign-On
12 48 (0.49%) Oracle RMAN
13 46 (0.47%) Puppet
14 42 (0.43%) FortiGate
15 31 (0.31%) Data Guard
16 29 (0.29%) Active Directory Federation Services
16 29 (0.29%) Progress Chef
17 28 (0.28%) Nagios
18 27 (0.27%) Podman
19 23 (0.23%) WSUS
Vendors
1 1,136 (11.53%) Microsoft
2 752 (7.63%) Oracle
3 504 (5.12%) VMware
4 473 (4.80%) ServiceNow
5 347 (3.52%) SAP
6 290 (2.94%) Cisco
7 190 (1.93%) Splunk
8 182 (1.85%) Google
9 172 (1.75%) Databricks
10 136 (1.38%) Red Hat
11 124 (1.26%) Salesforce
12 123 (1.25%) Talend
13 113 (1.15%) Informatica
14 111 (1.13%) IBM
15 105 (1.07%) Palo Alto
16 98 (0.99%) Juniper
17 92 (0.93%) SolarWinds
18 87 (0.88%) F5
19 80 (0.81%) Citrix
20 79 (0.80%) Fortinet