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 1 September 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
1 Sep 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 10,017 5,126 6,283
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.93% 18.59% 19.01%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.13% 59.16% 62.75%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,063 3,313 4,131
10th Percentile £390 £350 £359
25th Percentile £458 £450 £456
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £548 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year +1.86% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £638 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £700 £735
UK median daily rate £540 £537 £550
% change year-on-year +0.56% -2.36% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 743 501 396
10th Percentile £20.50 £18.51 £15.62
25th Percentile £32.59 £18.87 £26.19
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £60.00
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -58.08% -
75th Percentile £80.00 £47.12 £72.50
90th Percentile £89.62 £73.75 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £58.49
% change year-on-year +152.49% -57.00% -2.52%

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 14,491 8,664 10,013
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.42% 30.29%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,739 5,465 6,298
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £440 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £631 £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 1,124 678 648
10th Percentile £18.26 £18.19 £15.24
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £23.37
Median hourly rate £52.50 £25.15 £50.00
Median % change year-on-year +108.75% -49.70% -8.36%
75th Percentile £74.68 £53.44 £68.75
90th Percentile £88.00 £74.13 £79.42
UK median hourly rate £48.81 £25.15 £47.50
% change year-on-year +94.08% -47.05% -13.64%

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 1 September 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 1 September 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 1 September 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 3,571 £550 +3.77% 1,477
South East +1 2,342 £564 +4.98% 812
South West 0 1,374 £550 -0.90% 778
North of England +3 1,236 £515 +2.83% 654
Midlands 0 911 £475 -7.77% 277
West Midlands +1 776 £475 -8.08% 186
North West +3 721 £530 -0.93% 426
East of England 0 332 £550 - 330
Yorkshire -1 301 £500 +1.63% 125
North East 0 238 £475 -5.00% 125
East Midlands -1 126 £450 -7.69% 91
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
1 345 (3.44%) Confluence
2 246 (2.46%) SharePoint
3 152 (1.52%) SAS
4 112 (1.12%) Microsoft Exchange
5 89 (0.89%) Apache Airflow
6 85 (0.85%) Apache Spark
7 84 (0.84%) Apache
8 32 (0.32%) nginx
9 31 (0.31%) Jupyter
10 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
11 22 (0.22%) Skype for Business
11 22 (0.22%) WebLogic
12 19 (0.19%) Tomcat
13 17 (0.17%) CMS
13 17 (0.17%) Palantir Foundry
14 15 (0.15%) IIS
15 13 (0.13%) JBoss
15 13 (0.13%) Oracle Workflow
16 9 (0.090%) Documentum
16 9 (0.090%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 181 (1.81%) Microsoft Excel
2 135 (1.35%) Microsoft Office
3 98 (0.98%) Microsoft Project
4 91 (0.91%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 29 (0.29%) MS Visio
6 23 (0.23%) Spreadsheet
7 17 (0.17%) AutoCAD
7 17 (0.17%) Revit
8 16 (0.16%) 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%) OrCAD
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) NUKE
Business Applications
1 124 (1.24%) SAP S/4HANA
2 76 (0.76%) Remedy ITSM
3 47 (0.47%) Oracle ERP
4 35 (0.35%) Oracle EBS
5 31 (0.31%) Dynamics CRM
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
6 26 (0.26%) Teamcenter
7 22 (0.22%) Oracle Payroll
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 16 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
8 16 (0.16%) SAP HR
9 15 (0.15%) Primavera
10 14 (0.14%) SAP FI
11 13 (0.13%) Findur
12 12 (0.12%) iTrent
12 12 (0.12%) SAP GRC
12 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
13 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
13 11 (0.11%) Temenos T24
14 10 (0.100%) SAP CO
Cloud Services
1 1,859 (18.56%) Azure
2 1,664 (16.61%) AWS
3 458 (4.57%) Azure DevOps
4 439 (4.38%) Power Platform
5 421 (4.20%) GitHub
6 380 (3.79%) GCP
7 283 (2.83%) Microsoft 365
8 277 (2.77%) GitHub Actions
9 255 (2.55%) Entra ID
10 242 (2.42%) Serverless
11 201 (2.01%) Amazon S3
12 169 (1.69%) AWS Lambda
13 153 (1.53%) OCI
13 153 (1.53%) SaaS
14 137 (1.37%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 133 (1.33%) OpenShift
16 124 (1.24%) Amazon EKS
17 120 (1.20%) Amazon EC2
18 105 (1.05%) PowerApps
19 104 (1.04%) Power Automate
Communications & Networking
1 421 (4.20%) Firewall
2 341 (3.40%) DNS
3 203 (2.03%) Network Security
4 199 (1.99%) WAN
5 188 (1.88%) VPN
6 173 (1.73%) DHCP
7 161 (1.61%) LAN
8 133 (1.33%) BGP
9 127 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 117 (1.17%) Wi-Fi
11 100 (1.00%) VLAN
12 94 (0.94%) OSPF
13 77 (0.77%) Wireless
14 65 (0.65%) VSAN
15 64 (0.64%) IPsec
16 60 (0.60%) SSL
17 59 (0.59%) SD-WAN
18 58 (0.58%) MPLS
19 54 (0.54%) SAN
20 45 (0.45%) Cisco ASA
Database & Business Intelligence
1 314 (3.13%) Power BI
2 255 (2.55%) SQL Server
3 231 (2.31%) PostgreSQL
4 228 (2.28%) Data Warehouse
5 156 (1.56%) Metadata
6 154 (1.54%) Oracle Database
7 116 (1.16%) Relational Database
8 115 (1.15%) Data Lake
9 97 (0.97%) Amazon RDS
10 91 (0.91%) MySQL
11 87 (0.87%) NoSQL
12 86 (0.86%) MongoDB
13 76 (0.76%) Oracle Reports
14 70 (0.70%) Pentaho
15 59 (0.59%) Amazon Athena
16 56 (0.56%) Tableau
17 52 (0.52%) Amazon Redshift
17 52 (0.52%) Elasticsearch
18 45 (0.45%) Big Data
19 43 (0.43%) Amazon Aurora
Development Applications
1 532 (5.31%) JIRA
2 470 (4.69%) Git
3 425 (4.24%) GitLab
4 389 (3.88%) Jenkins
5 112 (1.12%) Selenium
6 73 (0.73%) SonarQube
7 68 (0.68%) Postman
8 63 (0.63%) JUnit
9 55 (0.55%) JMeter
10 53 (0.53%) Maven
11 45 (0.45%) Cucumber
12 40 (0.40%) Rational DOORS
13 37 (0.37%) Gradle
13 37 (0.37%) Mockito
14 36 (0.36%) Cypress.io
15 35 (0.35%) Zephyr
16 34 (0.34%) Artifactory
17 32 (0.32%) Gatling
17 32 (0.32%) REST Assured
17 32 (0.32%) Visual Studio
General
1 2,176 (21.72%) Social Skills
2 1,998 (19.95%) Public Sector
3 794 (7.93%) Analytical Skills
4 687 (6.86%) Finance
5 362 (3.61%) Military
6 291 (2.91%) Aerospace
7 248 (2.48%) Documentation Skills
8 184 (1.84%) Influencing Skills
9 156 (1.56%) Organisational Skills
10 149 (1.49%) Telecoms
11 139 (1.39%) Banking
12 129 (1.29%) Legal
13 108 (1.08%) Inclusion and Diversity
14 105 (1.05%) Law
15 100 (1.00%) Manufacturing
16 90 (0.90%) Police
17 54 (0.54%) Presentation Skills
18 44 (0.44%) Marketing
18 44 (0.44%) Retail
19 39 (0.39%) Local Government
Job Titles
1 1,529 (15.26%) Architect
2 977 (9.75%) Developer
3 949 (9.47%) Lead
4 935 (9.33%) Senior
5 575 (5.74%) Consultant
6 556 (5.55%) Analyst
7 446 (4.45%) Data Engineer
8 405 (4.04%) DevOps Engineer
9 378 (3.77%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 268 (2.68%) Technical Architect
11 264 (2.64%) Software Engineer
12 246 (2.46%) Solutions Architect
13 243 (2.43%) Data Architect
14 230 (2.30%) Network Engineer
15 227 (2.27%) Security Architect
16 194 (1.94%) Administrator
17 188 (1.88%) Delivery Manager
18 187 (1.87%) Cloud Engineer
19 181 (1.81%) Java Developer
20 178 (1.78%) Project Manager
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 873 (8.72%) Terraform
2 370 (3.69%) REST
3 206 (2.06%) Spring
4 196 (1.96%) Kafka
5 181 (1.81%) Spring Boot
6 178 (1.78%) .NET
7 177 (1.77%) React
8 167 (1.67%) RESTful
9 145 (1.45%) SOAP
10 130 (1.30%) JSON
11 128 (1.28%) Node.js
12 108 (1.08%) HTML
13 104 (1.04%) OAuth
14 103 (1.03%) AngularJS
15 98 (0.98%) Web Services
16 92 (0.92%) XML
17 87 (0.87%) PySpark
18 85 (0.85%) CSS
19 76 (0.76%) Oracle Fusion
20 75 (0.75%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 444 (4.43%) Cloud Native
2 366 (3.65%) Onboarding
3 313 (3.12%) Product Ownership
4 262 (2.62%) Data Centre
5 171 (1.71%) Legacy Systems
6 166 (1.66%) Management Information System
7 151 (1.51%) PKI
8 136 (1.36%) CMDB
9 135 (1.35%) Enterprise Software
10 123 (1.23%) Distributed Systems
11 116 (1.16%) Hybrid Cloud
12 112 (1.12%) Self-Motivation
13 109 (1.09%) Replication
14 89 (0.89%) Cyber Threat
15 86 (0.86%) Data Structures
15 86 (0.86%) Security Operations Centre
16 85 (0.85%) Clustering
17 83 (0.83%) Operational Technology
17 83 (0.83%) Public Cloud
18 72 (0.72%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 873 (8.72%) Windows
2 697 (6.96%) Linux
3 334 (3.33%) Windows Server
4 196 (1.96%) Unix
5 141 (1.41%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 126 (1.26%) Windows 10
7 63 (0.63%) Solaris
8 61 (0.61%) Android
9 48 (0.48%) Mac OS
10 37 (0.37%) CentOS
11 36 (0.36%) Windows Server 2019
12 34 (0.34%) Ubuntu
13 33 (0.33%) AIX
14 26 (0.26%) Apple iOS
15 24 (0.24%) Windows 7
16 19 (0.19%) VMS
16 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2012
16 19 (0.19%) Windows Server 2016
17 15 (0.15%) Embedded Linux
17 15 (0.15%) Rocky
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,086 (20.82%) Agile
2 1,528 (15.25%) DevOps
3 1,450 (14.48%) CI/CD
4 1,297 (12.95%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,184 (11.82%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,055 (10.53%) Problem-Solving
7 991 (9.89%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 858 (8.57%) Infrastructure as Code
9 816 (8.15%) Migration
10 756 (7.55%) Cybersecurity
11 710 (7.09%) ITIL
12 632 (6.31%) Test Automation
13 621 (6.20%) Analytics
14 613 (6.12%) Roadmaps
15 607 (6.06%) Technical Leadership
16 601 (6.00%) Containerisation
17 593 (5.92%) AI
18 582 (5.81%) Software Engineering
19 565 (5.64%) Decision-Making
20 539 (5.38%) Data Modelling
Programming Languages
1 1,135 (11.33%) Python
2 949 (9.47%) SQL
3 645 (6.44%) Java
4 524 (5.23%) PowerShell
5 336 (3.35%) JavaScript
6 288 (2.88%) Bash
7 194 (1.94%) C#
8 160 (1.60%) TypeScript
9 130 (1.30%) PL/SQL
10 108 (1.08%) Bicep
11 68 (0.68%) Shell Script
12 66 (0.66%) C++
13 59 (0.59%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Groovy
15 43 (0.43%) Go
16 38 (0.38%) Scala
17 36 (0.36%) Kotlin
18 33 (0.33%) Apex Code
19 32 (0.32%) Data Analysis Expressions
20 30 (0.30%) Ruby
Qualifications
1 7,523 (75.10%) SC Cleared
2 2,039 (20.36%) DV Cleared
3 420 (4.19%) Degree
4 385 (3.84%) BPSS Clearance
5 183 (1.83%) CISSP
6 160 (1.60%) Azure Certification
7 151 (1.51%) Microsoft Certification
8 150 (1.50%) Cisco Certification
9 130 (1.30%) AWS Certification
10 116 (1.16%) CISM
11 100 (1.00%) PMI Certification
12 97 (0.97%) PMP
13 79 (0.79%) ISTQB
14 72 (0.72%) CCNP
15 62 (0.62%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
16 60 (0.60%) Computer Science Degree
17 55 (0.55%) CCNA
18 42 (0.42%) TOGAF Certification
19 41 (0.41%) VCAP
20 40 (0.40%) PRINCE2 Practitioner
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 432 (4.31%) QA
2 321 (3.20%) Data Quality
3 282 (2.82%) NIST
4 274 (2.74%) ISO/IEC 27001
5 233 (2.33%) NCSC
6 222 (2.22%) PMO
7 214 (2.14%) Accessibility
8 150 (1.50%) GDPR
9 137 (1.37%) SLA
10 129 (1.29%) GRC
11 68 (0.68%) WCAG
12 60 (0.60%) JSP 440
13 44 (0.44%) Cyber Essentials
14 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
15 34 (0.34%) Def Stans
16 25 (0.25%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 24 (0.24%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 20 (0.20%) Government Security Classifications
19 19 (0.19%) Actionable Recommendations
19 19 (0.19%) Cyber Essentials PLUS
System Software
1 664 (6.63%) Docker
2 520 (5.19%) Active Directory
3 383 (3.82%) VMware Infrastructure
4 141 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 138 (1.38%) VMware ESXi
6 121 (1.21%) vSphere
7 113 (1.13%) Hyper-V
8 78 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
9 41 (0.41%) Firmware
10 40 (0.40%) Oracle RAC
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 27 (0.27%) vCloud
12 25 (0.25%) BitLocker
13 11 (0.11%) Postfix
13 11 (0.11%) Virtual Servers
14 10 (0.100%) NFS
14 10 (0.100%) Squid
15 9 (0.090%) KVM
16 8 (0.080%) Citrix Hypervisor
16 8 (0.080%) Embedded Firmware
Systems Management
1 806 (8.05%) Kubernetes
2 404 (4.03%) Ansible
3 223 (2.23%) Grafana
4 173 (1.73%) Prometheus
5 134 (1.34%) vCenter Server
6 127 (1.27%) SCCM
7 85 (0.85%) SCOM
8 81 (0.81%) Microsoft Intune
9 63 (0.63%) Argo
10 49 (0.49%) Single Sign-On
11 48 (0.48%) Puppet
12 47 (0.47%) Oracle RMAN
13 37 (0.37%) Data Guard
14 30 (0.30%) Progress Chef
15 29 (0.29%) Kibana
16 28 (0.28%) Control-M
16 28 (0.28%) WSUS
17 27 (0.27%) Nagios
18 25 (0.25%) Istio
19 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,313 (13.11%) Microsoft
2 789 (7.88%) Oracle
3 551 (5.50%) VMware
4 473 (4.72%) ServiceNow
5 392 (3.91%) SAP
6 281 (2.81%) Cisco
7 220 (2.20%) Google
8 201 (2.01%) Splunk
9 187 (1.87%) Databricks
10 129 (1.29%) Red Hat
11 125 (1.25%) Salesforce
12 115 (1.15%) Palo Alto
13 111 (1.11%) IBM
14 98 (0.98%) Informatica
15 97 (0.97%) Talend
16 85 (0.85%) Remedy
17 82 (0.82%) Dynatrace
18 76 (0.76%) SolarWinds
19 74 (0.74%) CyberArk
19 74 (0.74%) Juniper