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

6 months to
11 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 10,046 5,083 6,414
As % of all contract jobs in England 22.03% 18.39% 19.25%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.45% 58.63% 63.01%
Number of daily rates quoted 7,081 3,270 4,270
10th Percentile £381 £350 £356
25th Percentile £453 £450 £455
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 £537 £535 £550
% change year-on-year +0.47% -2.82% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 773 474 456
10th Percentile £19.50 £18.51 £15.50
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £24.17
Median hourly rate £65.00 £25.15 £58.49
Median % change year-on-year +158.45% -57.00% -2.52%
75th Percentile £81.73 £54.94 £72.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.55 £80.00
UK median hourly rate £63.50 £25.15 £56.50
% change year-on-year +152.49% -55.48% -5.84%

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 14,465 8,669 10,179
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.73% 31.37% 30.55%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,755 5,449 6,476
10th Percentile £350 £300 £325
25th Percentile £431 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £538
Median % change year-on-year - -2.33% -2.27%
75th Percentile £626 £625 £638
90th Percentile £725 £715 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £525
% change year-on-year - - -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,122 662 762
10th Percentile £18.25 £18.13 £15.11
25th Percentile £25.77 £18.87 £21.37
Median hourly rate £55.00 £25.15 £47.50
Median % change year-on-year +118.69% -47.05% -13.64%
75th Percentile £75.00 £56.00 £67.50
90th Percentile £88.00 £75.71 £78.68
UK median hourly rate £51.25 £25.15 £43.00
% change year-on-year +103.78% -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 11 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 11 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 11 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 3,567 £550 +3.77% 884
South East +1 2,445 £560 +4.19% 667
South West 0 1,340 £538 -6.52% 554
North of England +2 1,136 £505 +1.00% 451
Midlands +1 980 £469 -8.40% 225
West Midlands +1 850 £469 -8.93% 178
North West +2 615 £525 - 297
East of England 0 323 £551 +0.18% 163
Yorkshire +3 304 £500 +1.63% 81
North East 0 241 £475 -5.00% 75
East Midlands -1 118 £438 -6.61% 47
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
1 361 (3.59%) Confluence
2 251 (2.50%) SharePoint
3 169 (1.68%) SAS
4 115 (1.14%) Microsoft Exchange
5 88 (0.88%) Apache Airflow
6 84 (0.84%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.78%) Apache
8 34 (0.34%) nginx
9 32 (0.32%) WebLogic
10 30 (0.30%) Jupyter
11 23 (0.23%) Oracle Application Server
12 21 (0.21%) Tomcat
13 19 (0.19%) Skype for Business
14 16 (0.16%) CMS
14 16 (0.16%) IIS
14 16 (0.16%) Palantir Foundry
15 15 (0.15%) Oracle Workflow
16 12 (0.12%) JBoss
17 11 (0.11%) Tuxedo
18 10 (0.100%) NetWeaver
Applications
1 189 (1.88%) Microsoft Excel
2 129 (1.28%) Microsoft Office
3 96 (0.96%) Microsoft Project
4 76 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 34 (0.34%) MS Visio
6 26 (0.26%) Spreadsheet
7 15 (0.15%) AutoCAD
7 15 (0.15%) Revit
8 14 (0.14%) SOLIDWORKS
9 13 (0.13%) Simulink
10 9 (0.090%) Chatbot
11 6 (0.060%) Adobe XD
11 6 (0.060%) Sketch
12 5 (0.050%) Notepad++
13 3 (0.030%) Adobe Creative Suite
13 3 (0.030%) Trello
13 3 (0.030%) Windchill
14 2 (0.020%) Houdini
14 2 (0.020%) InDesign
14 2 (0.020%) Oracle Smart View
Business Applications
1 122 (1.21%) SAP S/4HANA
2 78 (0.78%) Remedy ITSM
3 44 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
4 34 (0.34%) Oracle EBS
5 31 (0.31%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 31 (0.31%) Teamcenter
6 26 (0.26%) Dynamics CRM
7 22 (0.22%) SAP PSCD
8 18 (0.18%) Oracle Payroll
9 16 (0.16%) Primavera
10 15 (0.15%) Findur
11 14 (0.14%) Oracle Payables
12 13 (0.13%) Temenos T24
13 12 (0.12%) iTrent
13 12 (0.12%) SAP HR
13 12 (0.12%) Siebel CRM
14 11 (0.11%) NetSuite
15 10 (0.100%) Salesforce CRM
15 10 (0.100%) SAP ERP
15 10 (0.100%) SAP FI
Cloud Services
1 1,830 (18.22%) Azure
2 1,685 (16.77%) AWS
3 449 (4.47%) Azure DevOps
4 436 (4.34%) Power Platform
5 433 (4.31%) GitHub
6 380 (3.78%) GCP
7 279 (2.78%) GitHub Actions
8 276 (2.75%) Microsoft 365
9 256 (2.55%) Entra ID
10 253 (2.52%) Serverless
11 219 (2.18%) Amazon S3
12 175 (1.74%) AWS Lambda
13 159 (1.58%) OCI
14 150 (1.49%) Amazon CloudWatch
15 148 (1.47%) SaaS
16 144 (1.43%) Amazon EC2
17 135 (1.34%) OpenShift
18 124 (1.23%) PaaS
19 122 (1.21%) Amazon EKS
20 115 (1.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
Communications & Networking
1 427 (4.25%) Firewall
2 349 (3.47%) DNS
3 208 (2.07%) WAN
4 203 (2.02%) Network Security
5 182 (1.81%) LAN
6 179 (1.78%) DHCP
7 173 (1.72%) VPN
8 134 (1.33%) BGP
9 128 (1.27%) TCP/IP
10 116 (1.15%) Wi-Fi
11 104 (1.04%) OSPF
12 101 (1.01%) VLAN
13 82 (0.82%) Wireless
14 66 (0.66%) VSAN
15 60 (0.60%) IPsec
16 55 (0.55%) MPLS
16 55 (0.55%) VXLAN
17 54 (0.54%) SAN
17 54 (0.54%) SD-WAN
17 54 (0.54%) SSL
Database & Business Intelligence
1 321 (3.20%) Power BI
2 257 (2.56%) SQL Server
3 253 (2.52%) Data Warehouse
4 248 (2.47%) PostgreSQL
5 144 (1.43%) Oracle Database
6 133 (1.32%) Metadata
7 113 (1.12%) Data Lake
8 109 (1.09%) Amazon RDS
9 101 (1.01%) Relational Database
10 91 (0.91%) Oracle Reports
10 91 (0.91%) Pentaho
11 84 (0.84%) MySQL
12 79 (0.79%) NoSQL
13 77 (0.77%) MongoDB
14 60 (0.60%) Amazon Redshift
15 59 (0.59%) Tableau
16 55 (0.55%) Amazon Athena
17 54 (0.54%) Elasticsearch
18 43 (0.43%) Big Data
19 41 (0.41%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 570 (5.67%) JIRA
2 501 (4.99%) Git
3 413 (4.11%) GitLab
4 402 (4.00%) Jenkins
5 106 (1.06%) Selenium
6 75 (0.75%) SonarQube
7 71 (0.71%) JUnit
8 69 (0.69%) Postman
9 58 (0.58%) Maven
10 57 (0.57%) Rational DOORS
11 55 (0.55%) JMeter
12 47 (0.47%) Cucumber
13 45 (0.45%) Zephyr
14 42 (0.42%) Visual Studio
15 41 (0.41%) Mockito
16 39 (0.39%) Bitbucket
17 35 (0.35%) Cypress.io
18 33 (0.33%) Artifactory
19 32 (0.32%) Gatling
19 32 (0.32%) Gradle
General
1 2,116 (21.06%) Social Skills
2 2,073 (20.64%) Public Sector
3 781 (7.77%) Analytical Skills
4 690 (6.87%) Finance
5 335 (3.33%) Military
6 288 (2.87%) Aerospace
7 237 (2.36%) Documentation Skills
8 156 (1.55%) Influencing Skills
9 143 (1.42%) Organisational Skills
10 138 (1.37%) Legal
11 133 (1.32%) Telecoms
12 126 (1.25%) Banking
13 99 (0.99%) Law
14 96 (0.96%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 91 (0.91%) Police
16 85 (0.85%) Manufacturing
17 73 (0.73%) Presentation Skills
18 43 (0.43%) Marketing
19 39 (0.39%) Retail
20 36 (0.36%) Aviation
Job Titles
1 1,498 (14.91%) Architect
2 1,051 (10.46%) Developer
3 940 (9.36%) Senior
4 905 (9.01%) Lead
5 593 (5.90%) Analyst
6 525 (5.23%) Consultant
7 481 (4.79%) Data Engineer
8 387 (3.85%) DevOps Engineer
9 375 (3.73%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 294 (2.93%) Software Engineer
11 262 (2.61%) Technical Architect
12 243 (2.42%) Solutions Architect
13 236 (2.35%) Security Architect
14 232 (2.31%) Network Engineer
15 217 (2.16%) Data Architect
16 201 (2.00%) Delivery Manager
17 197 (1.96%) Administrator
18 194 (1.93%) Java Developer
19 187 (1.86%) Project Manager
20 181 (1.80%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 376 (3.74%) REST
2 222 (2.21%) Spring
3 195 (1.94%) .NET
4 187 (1.86%) Spring Boot
5 182 (1.81%) Kafka
6 171 (1.70%) React
7 170 (1.69%) RESTful
8 151 (1.50%) SOAP
9 143 (1.42%) Node.js
10 128 (1.27%) JSON
11 123 (1.22%) AngularJS
12 110 (1.09%) Web Services
13 103 (1.03%) HTML
13 103 (1.03%) OAuth
14 90 (0.90%) XML
15 87 (0.87%) PySpark
16 76 (0.76%) CSS
17 75 (0.75%) Oracle Fusion
18 70 (0.70%) Elastic Stack
19 67 (0.67%) Middleware
Miscellaneous
1 421 (4.19%) Cloud Native
2 349 (3.47%) Onboarding
3 323 (3.22%) Product Ownership
4 277 (2.76%) Data Centre
5 178 (1.77%) Legacy Systems
6 151 (1.50%) Management Information System
7 149 (1.48%) PKI
8 141 (1.40%) Distributed Systems
9 120 (1.19%) CMDB
9 120 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
10 116 (1.15%) Self-Motivation
11 108 (1.08%) Hybrid Cloud
12 102 (1.02%) Clustering
12 102 (1.02%) Data Structures
13 100 (1.00%) Replication
14 85 (0.85%) Public Cloud
15 81 (0.81%) Security Operations Centre
16 78 (0.78%) Cyber Threat
17 76 (0.76%) Operational Technology
18 73 (0.73%) Security Posture
Operating Systems
1 863 (8.59%) Windows
2 706 (7.03%) Linux
3 300 (2.99%) Windows Server
4 203 (2.02%) Unix
5 141 (1.40%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 107 (1.07%) Windows 10
7 76 (0.76%) Android
8 63 (0.63%) Solaris
9 43 (0.43%) Mac OS
10 38 (0.38%) Apple iOS
10 38 (0.38%) Windows Server 2019
11 34 (0.34%) AIX
12 31 (0.31%) CentOS
13 29 (0.29%) Ubuntu
14 21 (0.21%) Windows 7
15 18 (0.18%) VMS
16 17 (0.17%) Windows Server 2016
17 16 (0.16%) Windows Server 2012
18 15 (0.15%) Windows Server 2008
19 14 (0.14%) Embedded Linux
Processes & Methodologies
1 2,115 (21.05%) Agile
2 1,560 (15.53%) DevOps
3 1,462 (14.55%) CI/CD
4 1,170 (11.65%) Stakeholder Management
5 1,128 (11.23%) Continuous Improvement
6 1,062 (10.57%) Problem-Solving
7 926 (9.22%) Stakeholder Engagement
8 815 (8.11%) Infrastructure as Code
9 814 (8.10%) Migration
10 687 (6.84%) Cybersecurity
10 687 (6.84%) ITIL
11 645 (6.42%) Analytics
12 636 (6.33%) Test Automation
13 606 (6.03%) Containerisation
13 606 (6.03%) Software Engineering
14 593 (5.90%) Roadmaps
15 562 (5.59%) AI
16 558 (5.55%) Data Modelling
17 546 (5.43%) Technical Leadership
18 531 (5.29%) Decision-Making
Programming Languages
1 1,107 (11.02%) Python
2 1,010 (10.05%) SQL
3 678 (6.75%) Java
4 502 (5.00%) PowerShell
5 341 (3.39%) JavaScript
6 276 (2.75%) Bash
7 226 (2.25%) C#
8 152 (1.51%) PL/SQL
9 149 (1.48%) TypeScript
10 96 (0.96%) Bicep
11 85 (0.85%) C++
12 82 (0.82%) Shell Script
13 66 (0.66%) C
14 45 (0.45%) Go
15 44 (0.44%) Kotlin
16 43 (0.43%) Groovy
17 41 (0.41%) Scala
18 36 (0.36%) Ruby
19 35 (0.35%) Apex Code
20 33 (0.33%) Data Analysis Expressions
Qualifications
1 7,554 (75.19%) SC Cleared
2 2,035 (20.26%) DV Cleared
3 414 (4.12%) Degree
4 368 (3.66%) BPSS Clearance
5 176 (1.75%) CISSP
6 172 (1.71%) Cisco Certification
7 154 (1.53%) Azure Certification
8 139 (1.38%) Microsoft Certification
9 123 (1.22%) AWS Certification
10 106 (1.06%) CISM
11 101 (1.01%) PMI Certification
12 98 (0.98%) PMP
13 82 (0.82%) ISTQB
14 73 (0.73%) CCNP
15 68 (0.68%) CCNA
16 63 (0.63%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 59 (0.59%) Computer Science Degree
18 46 (0.46%) TOGAF Certification
19 42 (0.42%) (ISC)2 CCSP
19 42 (0.42%) ITIL Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 402 (4.00%) QA
2 325 (3.24%) Data Quality
3 263 (2.62%) ISO/IEC 27001
3 263 (2.62%) NIST
4 218 (2.17%) PMO
5 216 (2.15%) NCSC
6 211 (2.10%) Accessibility
7 155 (1.54%) GDPR
8 118 (1.17%) GRC
9 117 (1.16%) SLA
10 65 (0.65%) WCAG
11 59 (0.59%) JSP 440
12 45 (0.45%) Cyber Essentials
13 43 (0.43%) NIST 800
14 32 (0.32%) Def Stans
15 30 (0.30%) Government Security Classifications
16 29 (0.29%) ISO/IEC 20000
17 25 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 19 (0.19%) RMADS
19 18 (0.18%) COBIT
System Software
1 673 (6.70%) Docker
2 479 (4.77%) Active Directory
3 366 (3.64%) VMware Infrastructure
4 142 (1.41%) VMware NSX
5 130 (1.29%) VMware ESXi
6 111 (1.10%) vSphere
7 97 (0.97%) Hyper-V
8 78 (0.78%) Virtual Machines
9 44 (0.44%) Oracle RAC
10 40 (0.40%) Virtual Desktop
11 30 (0.30%) Firmware
12 25 (0.25%) BitLocker
13 23 (0.23%) vCloud
14 16 (0.16%) Postfix
15 12 (0.12%) NFS
16 11 (0.11%) Squid
17 8 (0.080%) KVM
17 8 (0.080%) Virtual Servers
18 7 (0.070%) Embedded Firmware
18 7 (0.070%) Microsoft App-V
Systems Management
1 867 (8.63%) Terraform
2 800 (7.96%) Kubernetes
3 391 (3.89%) Ansible
4 228 (2.27%) Grafana
5 177 (1.76%) Prometheus
6 129 (1.28%) vCenter Server
7 112 (1.11%) SCCM
8 85 (0.85%) Microsoft Intune
9 69 (0.69%) SCOM
10 62 (0.62%) Argo
11 53 (0.53%) Oracle RMAN
12 51 (0.51%) Puppet
12 51 (0.51%) Single Sign-On
13 41 (0.41%) FortiGate
14 35 (0.35%) Data Guard
15 31 (0.31%) Progress Chef
16 28 (0.28%) Nagios
16 28 (0.28%) WSUS
17 24 (0.24%) Control-M
17 24 (0.24%) VxRail
Vendors
1 1,233 (12.27%) Microsoft
2 794 (7.90%) Oracle
3 528 (5.26%) VMware
4 497 (4.95%) ServiceNow
5 374 (3.72%) SAP
6 280 (2.79%) Cisco
7 201 (2.00%) Google
8 186 (1.85%) Splunk
9 177 (1.76%) Databricks
10 138 (1.37%) Red Hat
11 129 (1.28%) Salesforce
12 119 (1.18%) IBM
13 117 (1.16%) Talend
14 109 (1.09%) Informatica
15 99 (0.99%) Palo Alto
16 93 (0.93%) Juniper
17 88 (0.88%) Remedy
18 87 (0.87%) F5
19 86 (0.86%) SolarWinds
20 81 (0.81%) Dynatrace