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

6 months to
25 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 9,973 5,111 6,354
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.83% 18.56% 19.12%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.08% 58.87% 62.90%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,036 3,292 4,193
10th Percentile £385 £350 £360
25th Percentile £456 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £540 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +0.47% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £644
90th Percentile £725 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £538 £534 £550
% change year-on-year +0.66% -2.91% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 749 494 417
10th Percentile £19.78 £18.51 £15.06
25th Percentile £28.50 £18.87 £22.58
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £81.73 £50.82 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.22 £75.00 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £57.50
% change year-on-year +152.49% -56.26% -4.17%

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 14,437 8,682 10,101
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.60% 31.52% 30.40%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,707 5,461 6,389
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £438 £413 £426
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £630 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,126 679 688
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.20 £14.84
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.87
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £48.56
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -48.21% -11.71%
75th Percentile £75.00 £55.00 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.00 £78.35
UK median hourly rate £48.84 £25.15 £45.00
% change year-on-year +94.19% -44.11% -18.18%

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 25 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 25 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 25 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 3,550 £550 +3.77% 560
South East +1 2,386 £560 +4.19% 541
South West 0 1,353 £549 -1.44% 438
North of England +3 1,214 £513 +2.50% 311
Midlands 0 886 £470 -8.74% 157
West Midlands +1 758 £470 -8.74% 112
North West +4 696 £530 - 171
East of England 0 331 £550 - 158
Yorkshire +2 305 £492 - 66
North East 0 237 £475 -5.00% 79
East Midlands -1 119 £438 -12.45% 45
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
1 344 (3.45%) Confluence
2 255 (2.56%) SharePoint
3 156 (1.56%) SAS
4 114 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 83 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 80 (0.80%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 29 (0.29%) Jupyter
10 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
10 23 (0.23%) WebLogic
11 22 (0.22%) Skype for Business
12 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 17 (0.17%) CMS
13 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
15 14 (0.14%) Oracle Workflow
16 13 (0.13%) JBoss
17 9 (0.090%) Documentum
17 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 181 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 134 (1.34%) Microsoft Office
3 97 (0.97%) Microsoft Project
4 85 (0.85%) 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 8 (0.080%) Chatbot
10 8 (0.080%) Windchill
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
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 120 (1.20%) SAP S/4HANA
2 74 (0.74%) Remedy ITSM
3 48 (0.48%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 32 (0.32%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 30 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
7 28 (0.28%) Teamcenter
8 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
9 21 (0.21%) Oracle Payroll
10 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 16 (0.16%) Primavera
11 15 (0.15%) SAP HR
12 13 (0.13%) Findur
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) SAP FI
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 12 (0.12%) Temenos T24
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
14 11 (0.11%) SAP GRC
15 10 (0.10%) SAP ERP
Cloud Services
1 1,874 (18.79%) Azure
2 1,629 (16.33%) AWS
3 472 (4.73%) Azure DevOps
4 438 (4.39%) Power Platform
5 424 (4.25%) GitHub
6 382 (3.83%) GCP
7 282 (2.83%) Microsoft 365
8 276 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 269 (2.70%) Entra ID
10 245 (2.46%) Serverless
11 199 (2.00%) Amazon S3
12 167 (1.67%) AWS Lambda
13 153 (1.53%) OCI
14 151 (1.51%) SaaS
15 133 (1.33%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 130 (1.30%) OpenShift
17 119 (1.19%) Amazon EKS
18 118 (1.18%) Amazon EC2
19 116 (1.16%) PaaS
20 107 (1.07%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 416 (4.17%) Firewall
2 342 (3.43%) DNS
3 200 (2.01%) WAN
4 198 (1.99%) Network Security
5 181 (1.81%) VPN
6 175 (1.75%) DHCP
7 166 (1.66%) LAN
8 133 (1.33%) BGP
9 126 (1.26%) TCP/IP
10 118 (1.18%) Wi-Fi
11 99 (0.99%) VLAN
12 94 (0.94%) OSPF
13 77 (0.77%) Wireless
14 66 (0.66%) VSAN
15 60 (0.60%) IPsec
16 58 (0.58%) MPLS
17 57 (0.57%) SD-WAN
18 52 (0.52%) SAN
18 52 (0.52%) SSL
19 44 (0.44%) VXLAN
Database & Business Intelligence
1 314 (3.15%) Power BI
2 252 (2.53%) SQL Server
3 232 (2.33%) Data Warehouse
4 226 (2.27%) PostgreSQL
5 147 (1.47%) Oracle Database
6 138 (1.38%) Metadata
7 116 (1.16%) Data Lake
8 106 (1.06%) Relational Database
9 97 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
10 85 (0.85%) NoSQL
11 83 (0.83%) MongoDB
12 81 (0.81%) MySQL
13 75 (0.75%) Oracle Reports
14 71 (0.71%) Pentaho
15 58 (0.58%) Amazon Athena
16 57 (0.57%) Amazon Redshift
17 54 (0.54%) Tableau
18 50 (0.50%) Elasticsearch
19 44 (0.44%) Big Data
20 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 543 (5.44%) JIRA
2 469 (4.70%) Git
3 411 (4.12%) GitLab
4 384 (3.85%) Jenkins
5 107 (1.07%) Selenium
6 71 (0.71%) SonarQube
7 64 (0.64%) Postman
8 62 (0.62%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 52 (0.52%) Maven
10 52 (0.52%) Rational DOORS
11 43 (0.43%) Cucumber
12 38 (0.38%) Mockito
12 38 (0.38%) Visual Studio
13 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
14 35 (0.35%) Bitbucket
14 35 (0.35%) Gradle
15 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
15 33 (0.33%) Gatling
15 33 (0.33%) Zephyr
General
1 2,131 (21.37%) Social Skills
2 1,991 (19.96%) Public Sector
3 785 (7.87%) Analytical Skills
4 697 (6.99%) Finance
5 336 (3.37%) Military
6 296 (2.97%) Aerospace
7 245 (2.46%) Documentation Skills
8 176 (1.76%) Influencing Skills
9 154 (1.54%) Organisational Skills
10 147 (1.47%) Telecoms
11 137 (1.37%) Banking
12 134 (1.34%) Legal
13 105 (1.05%) Inclusion and Diversity
13 105 (1.05%) Law
14 98 (0.98%) Manufacturing
15 91 (0.91%) Police
16 58 (0.58%) Presentation Skills
17 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 43 (0.43%) Retail
19 34 (0.34%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,502 (15.06%) Architect
2 1,009 (10.12%) Developer
3 945 (9.48%) Lead
4 931 (9.34%) Senior
5 567 (5.69%) Consultant
6 559 (5.61%) Analyst
7 444 (4.45%) Data Engineer
8 397 (3.98%) DevOps Engineer
9 376 (3.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 275 (2.76%) Software Engineer
11 267 (2.68%) Technical Architect
12 247 (2.48%) Solutions Architect
13 235 (2.36%) Network Engineer
14 225 (2.26%) Data Architect
14 225 (2.26%) Security Architect
15 194 (1.95%) Delivery Manager
16 192 (1.93%) Administrator
17 185 (1.86%) Project Manager
18 184 (1.84%) Azure Engineer
19 181 (1.81%) Java Developer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 857 (8.59%) Terraform
2 374 (3.75%) REST
3 202 (2.03%) Spring
4 200 (2.01%) .NET
5 186 (1.87%) Kafka
6 175 (1.75%) Spring Boot
7 174 (1.74%) React
8 166 (1.66%) RESTful
9 149 (1.49%) SOAP
10 129 (1.29%) Node.js
11 128 (1.28%) JSON
12 114 (1.14%) AngularJS
13 112 (1.12%) HTML
14 110 (1.10%) Web Services
15 109 (1.09%) OAuth
16 91 (0.91%) XML
17 86 (0.86%) PySpark
18 81 (0.81%) CSS
19 79 (0.79%) Oracle Fusion
20 71 (0.71%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 440 (4.41%) Cloud Native
2 361 (3.62%) Onboarding
3 329 (3.30%) Product Ownership
4 259 (2.60%) Data Centre
5 171 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
6 154 (1.54%) Management Information System
7 152 (1.52%) PKI
8 131 (1.31%) CMDB
9 129 (1.29%) Distributed Systems
9 129 (1.29%) Enterprise Software
10 117 (1.17%) Self-Motivation
11 112 (1.12%) Hybrid Cloud
12 101 (1.01%) Replication
13 99 (0.99%) Data Structures
14 87 (0.87%) Clustering
14 87 (0.87%) Security Operations Centre
15 86 (0.86%) Cyber Threat
16 81 (0.81%) Public Cloud
17 78 (0.78%) Operational Technology
18 71 (0.71%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 868 (8.70%) Windows
2 693 (6.95%) Linux
3 319 (3.20%) Windows Server
4 194 (1.95%) Unix
5 135 (1.35%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 123 (1.23%) Windows 10
7 65 (0.65%) Android
8 60 (0.60%) Solaris
9 46 (0.46%) Mac OS
10 36 (0.36%) CentOS
11 35 (0.35%) Ubuntu
12 33 (0.33%) Windows Server 2019
13 32 (0.32%) AIX
14 28 (0.28%) Apple iOS
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 19 (0.19%) VMS
17 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2012
17 18 (0.18%) Windows Server 2016
18 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
19 12 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,084 (20.90%) Agile
2 1,544 (15.48%) DevOps
3 1,451 (14.55%) CI/CD
4 1,254 (12.57%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,158 (11.61%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,032 (10.35%) Problem-Solving
7 970 (9.73%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 836 (8.38%) Infrastructure as Code
9 806 (8.08%) Migration
10 739 (7.41%) Cybersecurity
11 699 (7.01%) ITIL
12 626 (6.28%) Test Automation
13 625 (6.27%) Analytics
14 602 (6.04%) Roadmaps
15 597 (5.99%) Containerisation
16 592 (5.94%) Software Engineering
17 580 (5.82%) AI
18 577 (5.79%) Technical Leadership
19 550 (5.51%) Decision-Making
20 532 (5.33%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,100 (11.03%) Python
2 955 (9.58%) SQL
3 644 (6.46%) Java
4 521 (5.22%) PowerShell
5 344 (3.45%) JavaScript
6 274 (2.75%) Bash
7 223 (2.24%) C#
8 158 (1.58%) TypeScript
9 131 (1.31%) PL/SQL
10 108 (1.08%) Bicep
11 76 (0.76%) C++
12 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
13 65 (0.65%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Groovy
15 41 (0.41%) Go
15 41 (0.41%) Kotlin
16 38 (0.38%) Scala
17 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
18 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
18 33 (0.33%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 7,481 (75.01%) SC Cleared
2 2,015 (20.20%) DV Cleared
3 423 (4.24%) Degree
4 370 (3.71%) BPSS Clearance
5 180 (1.80%) CISSP
6 158 (1.58%) Azure Certification
7 154 (1.54%) Cisco Certification
8 141 (1.41%) Microsoft Certification
9 120 (1.20%) AWS Certification
10 116 (1.16%) CISM
11 98 (0.98%) PMI Certification
12 96 (0.96%) PMP
13 77 (0.77%) ISTQB
14 74 (0.74%) CCNP
15 61 (0.61%) CCNA
15 61 (0.61%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
17 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
18 41 (0.41%) VCAP
19 40 (0.40%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 419 (4.20%) QA
2 318 (3.19%) Data Quality
3 274 (2.75%) NIST
4 267 (2.68%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 235 (2.36%) NCSC
6 222 (2.23%) PMO
7 215 (2.16%) Accessibility
8 152 (1.52%) GDPR
9 133 (1.33%) SLA
10 129 (1.29%) GRC
11 66 (0.66%) WCAG
12 60 (0.60%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 42 (0.42%) NIST 800
15 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
16 29 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 26 (0.26%) Government Security Classifications
18 25 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
19 21 (0.21%) Actionable Recommendations
20 19 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 658 (6.60%) Docker
2 508 (5.09%) Active Directory
3 372 (3.73%) VMware Infrastructure
4 141 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 134 (1.34%) VMware ESXi
6 117 (1.17%) vSphere
7 107 (1.07%) Hyper-V
8 77 (0.77%) Virtual Machines
9 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
10 39 (0.39%) Oracle RAC
11 34 (0.34%) Firmware
12 26 (0.26%) BitLocker
12 26 (0.26%) vCloud
13 12 (0.12%) Postfix
14 11 (0.11%) NFS
14 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
15 10 (0.10%) Squid
16 9 (0.090%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
17 8 (0.080%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 799 (8.01%) Kubernetes
2 393 (3.94%) Ansible
3 219 (2.20%) Grafana
4 172 (1.72%) Prometheus
5 132 (1.32%) vCenter Server
6 121 (1.21%) SCCM
7 82 (0.82%) Microsoft Intune
8 74 (0.74%) SCOM
9 61 (0.61%) Argo
10 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.48%) Puppet
12 47 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
13 36 (0.36%) Data Guard
14 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
15 27 (0.27%) Control-M
15 27 (0.27%) Istio
15 27 (0.27%) Nagios
15 27 (0.27%) WSUS
16 25 (0.25%) Kibana
16 25 (0.25%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,296 (13.00%) Microsoft
2 775 (7.77%) Oracle
3 536 (5.37%) VMware
4 467 (4.68%) ServiceNow
5 388 (3.89%) SAP
6 283 (2.84%) Cisco
7 215 (2.16%) Google
8 186 (1.87%) Splunk
9 182 (1.82%) Databricks
10 127 (1.27%) Red Hat
11 126 (1.26%) Salesforce
12 118 (1.18%) IBM
13 107 (1.07%) Palo Alto
14 99 (0.99%) Informatica
15 95 (0.95%) Talend
16 82 (0.82%) Remedy
17 80 (0.80%) Dynatrace
18 76 (0.76%) Juniper
19 73 (0.73%) SolarWinds
20 70 (0.70%) F5