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 16 November 2025, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
16 Nov 2025
Same period 2024 Same period 2023
Rank 3 3 4
Rank change year-on-year 0 +1 +5
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 6,248 5,661 7,165
As % of all contract jobs in England 20.79% 18.19% 17.89%
As % of the Qualifications category 62.51% 61.06% 60.36%
Number of daily rates quoted 4,108 3,570 4,499
10th Percentile £325 £350 £369
25th Percentile £450 £450 £463
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £533 £550 £550
Median % change year-on-year -3.18% - -2.22%
75th Percentile £627 £638 £650
90th Percentile £713 £725 £725
UK median daily rate £533 £550 £550
% change year-on-year -3.18% - -2.22%
Number of hourly rates quoted 655 294 479
10th Percentile £18.22 £21.25 £19.99
25th Percentile £18.87 £31.25 £46.09
Median hourly rate £25.15 £60.00 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year -58.08% - -
75th Percentile £46.29 £68.75 £70.00
90th Percentile £72.00 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £55.00 £60.00
% change year-on-year -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 9,996 9,271 11,870
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 33.27% 29.78% 29.64%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,464 5,664 7,588
10th Percentile £304 £313 £308
25th Percentile £418 £425 £438
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £530 £550
Median % change year-on-year -0.94% -3.64% -
75th Percentile £625 £638 £650
90th Percentile £719 £735 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 879 428 719
10th Percentile £17.69 £20.30 £17.72
25th Percentile £18.94 £27.00 £26.50
Median hourly rate £25.15 £51.72 £52.50
Median % change year-on-year -51.37% -1.49% +16.67%
75th Percentile £45.46 £68.04 £69.81
90th Percentile £72.75 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £25.15 £45.00 £53.50
% change year-on-year -44.11% -15.89% +18.89%

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025.

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 16 November 2025. 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 +1 2,063 £550 - 738
South East -1 1,159 £515 -6.37% 772
South West 0 1,076 £550 -4.35% 601
North of England -2 754 £515 +8.44% 217
Midlands +1 676 £519 -9.83% 184
West Midlands 0 521 £520 -9.57% 144
North West +1 490 £543 +14.21% 146
East of England +2 283 £525 +0.05% 309
Yorkshire -7 166 £500 +7.24% 41
East Midlands +1 138 £450 -10.00% 38
North East 0 105 £475 +5.09% 31
South Coast -1 2 - -
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
1 241 (3.86%) Confluence
2 171 (2.74%) SharePoint
3 113 (1.81%) Microsoft Exchange
4 91 (1.46%) SAS
5 86 (1.38%) Apache
6 54 (0.86%) nginx
7 48 (0.77%) Apache Airflow
8 39 (0.62%) Skype for Business
9 32 (0.51%) Apache Spark
10 25 (0.40%) IIS
11 22 (0.35%) CMS
12 18 (0.29%) WebLogic
13 15 (0.24%) SharePoint Server
14 11 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2010
14 11 (0.18%) Exchange Server 2013
14 11 (0.18%) Oracle SOA Suite
15 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2003
15 10 (0.16%) Exchange Server 2007
15 10 (0.16%) Office Communications Server
16 8 (0.13%) Documentum
Applications
1 187 (2.99%) Microsoft Office
2 134 (2.14%) Microsoft Excel
3 63 (1.01%) Microsoft Project
4 34 (0.54%) MS Visio
5 32 (0.51%) Microsoft PowerPoint
6 22 (0.35%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.27%) Siemens NX
8 15 (0.24%) Simulink
9 11 (0.18%) Mozilla Thunderbird
10 7 (0.11%) Sketch
11 6 (0.096%) Adobe Illustrator
11 6 (0.096%) Photoshop
12 5 (0.080%) Adobe XD
12 5 (0.080%) FrameMaker
12 5 (0.080%) Oracle Smart View
12 5 (0.080%) PTC Creo
12 5 (0.080%) Stateflow
12 5 (0.080%) Trello
12 5 (0.080%) Windchill
13 4 (0.064%) AutoCAD
Business Applications
1 140 (2.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 32 (0.51%) Remedy ITSM
3 27 (0.43%) SAP WM
4 26 (0.42%) SAP EWM
5 23 (0.37%) Teamcenter
6 21 (0.34%) Oracle ERP
6 21 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
7 19 (0.30%) Maximo
8 18 (0.29%) Dynamics CRM
9 17 (0.27%) Primavera
10 16 (0.26%) SAP HCM
10 16 (0.26%) SAP MM
11 15 (0.24%) SAP PS
12 14 (0.22%) Oracle General Ledger
13 12 (0.19%) SAP QM
13 12 (0.19%) SAP VC
14 11 (0.18%) SAP EHS
15 10 (0.16%) SAP HR
15 10 (0.16%) SAP Payroll
16 9 (0.14%) Oracle Receivables
Cloud Services
1 1,035 (16.57%) AWS
2 999 (15.99%) Azure
3 309 (4.95%) Microsoft 365
4 294 (4.71%) GitHub
5 236 (3.78%) Power Platform
6 224 (3.59%) Azure DevOps
7 215 (3.44%) GCP
8 174 (2.78%) Serverless
9 169 (2.70%) Amazon S3
10 150 (2.40%) Entra ID
11 141 (2.26%) GitHub Actions
12 135 (2.16%) SaaS
13 117 (1.87%) OpenShift
14 114 (1.82%) Amazon EC2
15 106 (1.70%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 99 (1.58%) AWS CloudFormation
17 96 (1.54%) AWS Lambda
18 82 (1.31%) Virtual Private Cloud
19 75 (1.20%) Power Automate
20 69 (1.10%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 340 (5.44%) Firewall
2 248 (3.97%) DNS
3 169 (2.70%) VPN
4 140 (2.24%) Network Security
5 122 (1.95%) WAN
6 97 (1.55%) TCP/IP
7 95 (1.52%) BGP
8 88 (1.41%) LAN
9 85 (1.36%) DHCP
10 83 (1.33%) Wireless
11 75 (1.20%) SSL
12 65 (1.04%) SAN
13 58 (0.93%) MPLS
13 58 (0.93%) Wi-Fi
14 56 (0.90%) VLAN
15 54 (0.86%) IPsec
16 49 (0.78%) Cisco ISE
17 45 (0.72%) HTTP
18 42 (0.67%) Skype
19 41 (0.66%) SMTP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 200 (3.20%) PostgreSQL
2 159 (2.54%) Power BI
3 85 (1.36%) Amazon RDS
4 83 (1.33%) MongoDB
5 79 (1.26%) SQL Server
6 75 (1.20%) Oracle Database
7 69 (1.10%) Data Warehouse
8 65 (1.04%) Relational Database
9 64 (1.02%) NoSQL
10 61 (0.98%) Metadata
11 41 (0.66%) Big Data
12 39 (0.62%) Elasticsearch
13 38 (0.61%) MySQL
14 37 (0.59%) Pentaho
15 36 (0.58%) Azure SQL Database
15 36 (0.58%) Data Lake
15 36 (0.58%) SAS Enterprise Guide
16 30 (0.48%) Amazon Redshift
16 30 (0.48%) Redis
17 28 (0.45%) Amazon Athena
Development Applications
1 433 (6.93%) JIRA
2 359 (5.75%) Git
3 348 (5.57%) Jenkins
4 240 (3.84%) GitLab
5 71 (1.14%) Selenium
6 66 (1.06%) SonarQube
7 58 (0.93%) JUnit
8 53 (0.85%) Cypress.io
9 47 (0.75%) Bitbucket
10 45 (0.72%) Postman
11 44 (0.70%) Oracle APEX
12 37 (0.59%) Maven
13 35 (0.56%) Artifactory
14 33 (0.53%) Mockito
15 30 (0.48%) Cucumber
16 23 (0.37%) Rational DOORS
16 23 (0.37%) REST Assured
16 23 (0.37%) Vagrant
17 21 (0.34%) Metasploit
17 21 (0.34%) MSI
General
1 1,735 (27.77%) Public Sector
2 1,628 (26.06%) Social Skills
3 562 (8.99%) Analytical Skills
4 453 (7.25%) Finance
5 233 (3.73%) Military
6 206 (3.30%) Telecoms
7 190 (3.04%) Manufacturing
8 147 (2.35%) Documentation Skills
9 146 (2.34%) Electronics
10 133 (2.13%) Marketing
11 120 (1.92%) Aerospace
12 92 (1.47%) Organisational Skills
13 87 (1.39%) Legal
14 81 (1.30%) Banking
15 75 (1.20%) Influencing Skills
16 72 (1.15%) Presentation Skills
17 68 (1.09%) Law
18 42 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
19 39 (0.62%) Aviation
20 36 (0.58%) Police
Job Titles
1 801 (12.82%) Architect
2 621 (9.94%) Developer
3 536 (8.58%) Consultant
4 480 (7.68%) Senior
5 413 (6.61%) Analyst
6 388 (6.21%) Lead
7 258 (4.13%) DevOps Engineer
8 233 (3.73%) Support Engineer
9 193 (3.09%) Network Engineer
10 147 (2.35%) Solutions Architect
11 145 (2.32%) Data Engineer
12 138 (2.21%) SAP Consultant
13 127 (2.03%) AWS Engineer
14 118 (1.89%) IT Engineer
14 118 (1.89%) Platform Engineer
15 116 (1.86%) Administrator
16 112 (1.79%) Security Engineer
17 111 (1.78%) Infrastructure Engineer
17 111 (1.78%) Software Engineer
18 108 (1.73%) Technical Architect
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 249 (3.99%) REST
2 162 (2.59%) React
3 156 (2.50%) Node.js
4 142 (2.27%) Kafka
5 123 (1.97%) JSON
6 118 (1.89%) SOAP
7 108 (1.73%) HTML
8 103 (1.65%) Spring
9 99 (1.58%) XML
10 93 (1.49%) AngularJS
11 90 (1.44%) CSS
11 90 (1.44%) RESTful
11 90 (1.44%) Web Services
12 82 (1.31%) Spring Boot
13 81 (1.30%) .NET
14 65 (1.04%) OAuth
15 64 (1.02%) LDAP
16 54 (0.86%) Elastic Stack
17 52 (0.83%) SAML
18 49 (0.78%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 195 (3.12%) Data Centre
2 192 (3.07%) Onboarding
3 178 (2.85%) PKI
4 151 (2.42%) Management Information System
5 145 (2.32%) Cloud Native
6 122 (1.95%) Product Ownership
7 102 (1.63%) Self-Motivation
8 75 (1.20%) Driving Licence
9 71 (1.14%) Legacy Systems
10 68 (1.09%) Cyber Threat
10 68 (1.09%) Security Operations Centre
11 66 (1.06%) Replication
12 61 (0.98%) Security Posture
13 58 (0.93%) Hybrid Cloud
14 57 (0.91%) CMDB
15 55 (0.88%) Enterprise Software
16 54 (0.86%) Private Cloud
17 50 (0.80%) Analytical Mindset
18 41 (0.66%) Distributed Systems
19 39 (0.62%) Public Cloud
Operating Systems
1 733 (11.73%) Windows
2 493 (7.89%) Linux
3 177 (2.83%) Windows Server
4 170 (2.72%) Windows 10
5 95 (1.52%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 83 (1.33%) Android
6 83 (1.33%) Mac OS
7 82 (1.31%) Unix
8 43 (0.69%) VMS
9 36 (0.58%) Windows Server 2019
10 31 (0.50%) Ubuntu
11 29 (0.46%) Apple iOS
12 28 (0.45%) Amazon Linux
13 25 (0.40%) Windows Server 2016
14 23 (0.37%) CentOS
14 23 (0.37%) Windows 7
15 19 (0.30%) Windows Server 2012
16 18 (0.29%) Windows Server 2003
17 14 (0.22%) Mac OS X
18 9 (0.14%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,249 (19.99%) Agile
2 951 (15.22%) DevOps
3 848 (13.57%) CI/CD
4 775 (12.40%) Problem-Solving
5 618 (9.89%) Migration
6 491 (7.86%) Stakeholder Management
7 429 (6.87%) Cybersecurity
8 422 (6.75%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 401 (6.42%) ITIL
10 395 (6.32%) Infrastructure as Code
11 392 (6.27%) Continuous Improvement
12 369 (5.91%) Business Intelligence
13 361 (5.78%) Service Management
14 338 (5.41%) Test Automation
15 335 (5.36%) Workflow
16 326 (5.22%) Containerisation
17 322 (5.15%) Analytics
18 314 (5.03%) Scrum
19 283 (4.53%) Microservices
20 280 (4.48%) Roadmaps
Programming Languages
1 813 (13.01%) Python
2 492 (7.87%) SQL
3 425 (6.80%) PowerShell
4 401 (6.42%) Java
5 327 (5.23%) JavaScript
6 223 (3.57%) Bash
7 154 (2.46%) TypeScript
8 114 (1.82%) C#
9 90 (1.44%) C++
10 79 (1.26%) Go
11 69 (1.10%) PL/SQL
12 63 (1.01%) C
13 59 (0.94%) Shell Script
14 48 (0.77%) Perl
15 37 (0.59%) ABAP
16 29 (0.46%) Groovy
17 28 (0.45%) Ada
18 27 (0.43%) Bicep
18 27 (0.43%) MATLAB
19 26 (0.42%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 4,794 (76.73%) SC Cleared
2 1,054 (16.87%) DV Cleared
3 303 (4.85%) Degree
4 261 (4.18%) BPSS Clearance
5 124 (1.98%) Microsoft Certification
6 122 (1.95%) CISSP
7 109 (1.74%) Cisco Certification
8 101 (1.62%) Azure Certification
9 83 (1.33%) AWS Certification
10 82 (1.31%) CCNP
11 67 (1.07%) CISM
12 50 (0.80%) ITIL Certification
13 48 (0.77%) Computer Science Degree
14 43 (0.69%) CCNA
15 36 (0.58%) CHECK Team Member
15 36 (0.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 35 (0.56%) CEH
17 32 (0.51%) OSCP
18 30 (0.48%) MCSE
19 28 (0.45%) CHECK Team Leader
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 199 (3.19%) QA
2 188 (3.01%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 187 (2.99%) NIST
4 158 (2.53%) NCSC
5 129 (2.06%) SLA
6 118 (1.89%) GDPR
7 106 (1.70%) Data Quality
8 103 (1.65%) Accessibility
9 48 (0.77%) JSP 440
10 46 (0.74%) PMO
11 39 (0.62%) NIST 800
12 36 (0.58%) WCAG
13 31 (0.50%) ISO/IEC 20000
14 30 (0.48%) GRC
15 29 (0.46%) Def Stans
16 27 (0.43%) Cyber Essentials
17 24 (0.38%) RMADS
18 22 (0.35%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
19 18 (0.29%) COBIT
20 15 (0.24%) HIPAA
System Software
1 506 (8.10%) Docker
2 387 (6.19%) Active Directory
3 200 (3.20%) VMware Infrastructure
4 65 (1.04%) vSphere
5 64 (1.02%) VMware ESXi
6 62 (0.99%) VMware NSX
7 45 (0.72%) Virtual Machines
8 41 (0.66%) Firmware
9 31 (0.50%) Hyper-V
10 27 (0.43%) Virtual Desktop
11 21 (0.34%) DFS Replication
12 19 (0.30%) Postfix
13 15 (0.24%) Dovecot
13 15 (0.24%) NFS
14 11 (0.18%) BitLocker
14 11 (0.18%) Microsoft Virtual Server
14 11 (0.18%) Squid
14 11 (0.18%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.16%) Brightmail
15 10 (0.16%) ISA Server
Systems Management
1 586 (9.38%) Kubernetes
2 554 (8.87%) Terraform
3 277 (4.43%) Ansible
4 158 (2.53%) Grafana
5 132 (2.11%) Prometheus
6 111 (1.78%) SCCM
7 84 (1.34%) Single Sign-On
8 77 (1.23%) Microsoft Intune
9 59 (0.94%) vCenter Server
10 54 (0.86%) Argo
11 50 (0.80%) Packer
12 47 (0.75%) Active Directory Federation Services
13 34 (0.54%) Kibana
14 32 (0.51%) Jamf Pro
15 26 (0.42%) FortiGate
15 26 (0.42%) SCOM
16 24 (0.38%) Consul
17 23 (0.37%) Nessus
18 22 (0.35%) Nmap
18 22 (0.35%) WSUS
Vendors
1 856 (13.70%) Microsoft
2 426 (6.82%) SAP
3 407 (6.51%) Cisco
4 334 (5.35%) VMware
5 329 (5.27%) Oracle
6 287 (4.59%) ServiceNow
7 182 (2.91%) Splunk
8 155 (2.48%) Juniper
9 124 (1.98%) Red Hat
10 97 (1.55%) Google
11 93 (1.49%) HP
12 90 (1.44%) Palo Alto
13 89 (1.42%) Dell
14 80 (1.28%) Atlassian
15 79 (1.26%) Salesforce
16 76 (1.22%) IBM
17 73 (1.17%) SolarWinds
18 71 (1.14%) F5
19 67 (1.07%) Apple
20 61 (0.98%) CyberArk