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 20 June 2026, comparing them to the same period in the previous two years.

6 months to
20 Jun 2026
Same period 2025 Same period 2024
Rank 1 4 3
Rank change year-on-year +3 -1 +1
Contract jobs citing Security Cleared 9,485 4,585 7,140
As % of all contract jobs in England 21.96% 18.41% 18.91%
As % of the Qualifications category 69.49% 59.09% 62.03%
Number of daily rates quoted 6,654 3,008 4,657
10th Percentile £380 £337 £356
25th Percentile £450 £450 £455
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £538 £550
Median % change year-on-year -2.33% -2.27% -
75th Percentile £625 £625 £650
90th Percentile £716 £700 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £525 £550
% change year-on-year - -4.55% -
Number of hourly rates quoted 751 333 539
10th Percentile £18.20 £18.41 £14.45
25th Percentile £25.75 £18.87 £22.00
Median hourly rate £63.14 £27.76 £57.44
Median % change year-on-year +127.43% -51.67% -4.27%
75th Percentile £75.00 £65.00 £72.50
90th Percentile £86.11 £80.00 £83.75
UK median hourly rate £60.91 £25.41 £56.50
% change year-on-year +139.71% -55.02% -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 13,650 7,760 11,510
As % of all contract IT jobs advertised in England 31.60% 31.16% 30.49%
Number of daily rates quoted 9,203 4,893 7,098
10th Percentile £350 £280 £313
25th Percentile £425 £413 £425
Median daily rate (50th Percentile) £525 £525 £535
Median % change year-on-year - -1.87% -2.73%
75th Percentile £625 £625 £645
90th Percentile £721 £713 £738
UK median daily rate £525 £520 £525
% change year-on-year +0.96% -0.95% -4.55%
Number of hourly rates quoted 1,034 496 1,021
10th Percentile £17.87 £17.87 £14.00
25th Percentile £23.00 £20.18 £20.25
Median hourly rate £52.50 £30.27 £41.50
Median % change year-on-year +73.44% -27.06% -24.55%
75th Percentile £73.75 £65.00 £65.00
90th Percentile £85.39 £80.50 £77.50
UK median hourly rate £50.00 £30.00 £40.25
% change year-on-year +66.67% -25.47% -27.24%

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 20 June 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 20 June 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 20 June 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 3,367 £525 - 512
South East +1 2,286 £550 - 479
South West 0 1,305 £538 -4.44% 407
North of England +2 987 £500 - 302
Midlands +2 915 £469 -10.67% 146
West Midlands +2 796 £469 -10.58% 109
North West 0 536 £525 +5.00% 177
East of England +2 360 £550 +10.00% 106
Yorkshire -4 254 £500 +1.63% 75
North East +1 228 £480 +0.05% 52
East Midlands -5 108 £438 -7.89% 37
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 (3.63%) Confluence
2 214 (2.26%) SharePoint
3 144 (1.52%) SAS
4 120 (1.27%) Microsoft Exchange
5 86 (0.91%) Apache Airflow
6 79 (0.83%) Apache Spark
7 78 (0.82%) Apache
8 40 (0.42%) Jupyter
9 38 (0.40%) nginx
10 29 (0.31%) WebLogic
11 21 (0.22%) Tomcat
12 19 (0.20%) Oracle Workflow
13 16 (0.17%) IIS
14 15 (0.16%) CMS
14 15 (0.16%) Oracle Application Server
15 14 (0.15%) Skype for Business
16 12 (0.13%) Tuxedo
17 11 (0.12%) NetWeaver
18 9 (0.095%) ArcGIS
19 8 (0.084%) Apache Superset
Applications
1 158 (1.67%) Microsoft Excel
2 129 (1.36%) Microsoft Office
3 76 (0.80%) Microsoft Project
4 72 (0.76%) Microsoft PowerPoint
5 40 (0.42%) MS Visio
6 14 (0.15%) Simulink
6 14 (0.15%) Spreadsheet
7 10 (0.11%) SOLIDWORKS
8 9 (0.095%) AutoCAD
8 9 (0.095%) Chatbot
8 9 (0.095%) Revit
9 5 (0.053%) Notepad++
10 4 (0.042%) Adobe XD
11 3 (0.032%) Sketch
12 2 (0.021%) CATIA
12 2 (0.021%) CPLEX
12 2 (0.021%) Lectora
12 2 (0.021%) Oracle Smart View
12 2 (0.021%) Siemens NX
12 2 (0.021%) Windchill
Business Applications
1 97 (1.02%) SAP S/4HANA
2 57 (0.60%) Remedy ITSM
3 42 (0.44%) Oracle ERP
4 32 (0.34%) Sparx Enterprise Architect
5 30 (0.32%) Teamcenter
6 28 (0.30%) Dynamics CRM
7 19 (0.20%) Oracle EBS
8 16 (0.17%) SAP PSCD
9 15 (0.16%) Findur
9 15 (0.16%) Oracle Payables
10 14 (0.15%) Maximo
11 12 (0.13%) iTrent
11 12 (0.13%) Primavera
11 12 (0.13%) Temenos T24
12 10 (0.11%) SAP ERP
12 10 (0.11%) Siebel CRM
13 9 (0.095%) Integrated Workplace Management System
13 9 (0.095%) Oracle Assets
13 9 (0.095%) Salesforce CRM
13 9 (0.095%) SAP HR
Cloud Services
1 1,640 (17.29%) Azure
2 1,613 (17.01%) AWS
3 371 (3.91%) GitHub
4 369 (3.89%) Power Platform
5 367 (3.87%) Azure DevOps
6 352 (3.71%) GCP
7 247 (2.60%) Serverless
8 243 (2.56%) Entra ID
9 240 (2.53%) Microsoft 365
10 226 (2.38%) GitHub Actions
11 212 (2.24%) Amazon S3
12 171 (1.80%) AWS Lambda
13 153 (1.61%) Amazon EC2
14 134 (1.41%) PaaS
15 132 (1.39%) Amazon CloudWatch
16 131 (1.38%) SaaS
17 129 (1.36%) OpenShift
18 124 (1.31%) OCI
19 108 (1.14%) Virtual Private Cloud
20 102 (1.08%) Amazon EKS
Communications & Networking
1 408 (4.30%) Firewall
2 279 (2.94%) DNS
3 223 (2.35%) Network Security
4 206 (2.17%) WAN
5 187 (1.97%) LAN
6 162 (1.71%) VPN
7 147 (1.55%) DHCP
8 132 (1.39%) BGP
9 113 (1.19%) Wi-Fi
10 111 (1.17%) OSPF
11 103 (1.09%) VLAN
12 91 (0.96%) TCP/IP
13 80 (0.84%) Wireless
14 58 (0.61%) MPLS
15 55 (0.58%) SD-WAN
16 54 (0.57%) VXLAN
17 50 (0.53%) SAN
18 49 (0.52%) IPsec
18 49 (0.52%) Structured Cabling
19 48 (0.51%) BIG-IP
Database & Business Intelligence
1 279 (2.94%) Power BI
2 233 (2.46%) PostgreSQL
3 222 (2.34%) Data Warehouse
4 210 (2.21%) SQL Server
5 138 (1.45%) Oracle Database
6 120 (1.27%) Metadata
7 108 (1.14%) Amazon RDS
8 107 (1.13%) Data Lake
9 95 (1.00%) Relational Database
10 84 (0.89%) Pentaho
11 79 (0.83%) MongoDB
12 73 (0.77%) Elasticsearch
12 73 (0.77%) MySQL
12 73 (0.77%) Oracle Reports
13 67 (0.71%) Amazon Redshift
14 66 (0.70%) NoSQL
15 62 (0.65%) Amazon Athena
16 59 (0.62%) Tableau
17 43 (0.45%) Azure SQL Database
17 43 (0.45%) DynamoDB
Development Applications
1 541 (5.70%) JIRA
2 423 (4.46%) Git
3 404 (4.26%) GitLab
4 368 (3.88%) Jenkins
5 102 (1.08%) Selenium
6 79 (0.83%) JUnit
7 71 (0.75%) SonarQube
8 69 (0.73%) Postman
9 58 (0.61%) Rational DOORS
10 53 (0.56%) JMeter
11 51 (0.54%) Cucumber
12 44 (0.46%) Artifactory
13 41 (0.43%) Bitbucket
13 41 (0.43%) Mockito
14 40 (0.42%) Maven
15 37 (0.39%) Visual Studio
15 37 (0.39%) Zephyr
16 34 (0.36%) Cypress.io
16 34 (0.36%) REST Assured
17 30 (0.32%) WebDriver
General
1 2,029 (21.39%) Public Sector
2 1,932 (20.37%) Social Skills
3 654 (6.90%) Analytical Skills
4 636 (6.71%) Finance
5 324 (3.42%) Military
6 270 (2.85%) Documentation Skills
7 268 (2.83%) Aerospace
8 141 (1.49%) Legal
9 122 (1.29%) Banking
9 122 (1.29%) Influencing Skills
10 104 (1.10%) Telecoms
11 97 (1.02%) Law
12 90 (0.95%) Organisational Skills
13 78 (0.82%) Presentation Skills
14 73 (0.77%) Manufacturing
15 64 (0.67%) Inclusion and Diversity
15 64 (0.67%) Police
16 45 (0.47%) Marketing
17 40 (0.42%) Aviation
18 38 (0.40%) Retail
Job Titles
1 1,387 (14.62%) Architect
2 917 (9.67%) Developer
3 815 (8.59%) Senior
4 737 (7.77%) Lead
5 625 (6.59%) Analyst
6 462 (4.87%) Data Engineer
7 424 (4.47%) Consultant
8 419 (4.42%) DevOps Engineer
9 300 (3.16%) Infrastructure Engineer
10 288 (3.04%) Software Engineer
11 276 (2.91%) Technical Architect
12 257 (2.71%) Network Engineer
13 229 (2.41%) Solutions Architect
14 217 (2.29%) Business Analyst
15 207 (2.18%) Project Manager
16 205 (2.16%) Security Architect
17 193 (2.03%) Delivery Manager
18 185 (1.95%) Administrator
19 177 (1.87%) Azure Engineer
20 173 (1.82%) Designer
Libraries, Frameworks & Software Standards
1 291 (3.07%) REST
2 218 (2.30%) Spring
3 183 (1.93%) Spring Boot
4 172 (1.81%) React
5 157 (1.66%) .NET
6 151 (1.59%) Node.js
7 144 (1.52%) Kafka
8 141 (1.49%) RESTful
9 128 (1.35%) LDAP
10 127 (1.34%) SOAP
11 114 (1.20%) AngularJS
12 107 (1.13%) JSON
13 95 (1.00%) PySpark
14 94 (0.99%) OAuth
15 93 (0.98%) Web Services
16 85 (0.90%) HTML
17 74 (0.78%) OpenID
18 73 (0.77%) XML
19 70 (0.74%) Middleware
20 68 (0.72%) SAML
Miscellaneous
1 369 (3.89%) Cloud Native
2 321 (3.38%) Product Ownership
3 287 (3.03%) Onboarding
4 276 (2.91%) Data Centre
5 152 (1.60%) Legacy Systems
5 152 (1.60%) Management Information System
6 135 (1.42%) PKI
7 125 (1.32%) Distributed Systems
8 113 (1.19%) Enterprise Software
9 104 (1.10%) Replication
10 103 (1.09%) Security Posture
10 103 (1.09%) Self-Motivation
11 85 (0.90%) Data Structures
11 85 (0.90%) Hybrid Cloud
12 84 (0.89%) Clustering
12 84 (0.89%) CMDB
13 76 (0.80%) Public Cloud
14 70 (0.74%) Security Operations Centre
15 69 (0.73%) Operational Technology
16 65 (0.69%) Virtual Team
Operating Systems
1 763 (8.04%) Windows
2 631 (6.65%) Linux
3 241 (2.54%) Windows Server
4 180 (1.90%) Unix
5 116 (1.22%) Red Hat Enterprise Linux
6 80 (0.84%) Windows 10
7 74 (0.78%) Android
8 53 (0.56%) Solaris
9 48 (0.51%) Apple iOS
10 36 (0.38%) Mac OS
11 30 (0.32%) Ubuntu
12 28 (0.30%) AIX
13 24 (0.25%) Windows Server 2019
14 22 (0.23%) CentOS
15 21 (0.22%) Windows Server 2016
16 17 (0.18%) VMS
17 14 (0.15%) Windows 7
18 11 (0.12%) Embedded Linux
18 11 (0.12%) Windows Server 2008
19 10 (0.11%) Windows Server 2012
Processes & Methodologies
1 1,907 (20.11%) Agile
2 1,464 (15.43%) DevOps
3 1,305 (13.76%) CI/CD
4 987 (10.41%) Stakeholder Management
5 984 (10.37%) Problem-Solving
6 938 (9.89%) Continuous Improvement
7 770 (8.12%) Migration
8 767 (8.09%) Stakeholder Engagement
9 694 (7.32%) Infrastructure as Code
10 619 (6.53%) Cybersecurity
11 583 (6.15%) ITIL
12 577 (6.08%) Test Automation
13 563 (5.94%) Software Engineering
14 553 (5.83%) Analytics
15 535 (5.64%) Roadmaps
16 534 (5.63%) Containerisation
17 490 (5.17%) Data Modelling
18 486 (5.12%) Decision-Making
19 459 (4.84%) AI
20 444 (4.68%) Scrum
Programming Languages
1 981 (10.34%) Python
2 903 (9.52%) SQL
3 603 (6.36%) Java
4 457 (4.82%) PowerShell
5 276 (2.91%) JavaScript
6 201 (2.12%) C#
7 184 (1.94%) Bash
8 148 (1.56%) TypeScript
9 121 (1.28%) PL/SQL
10 86 (0.91%) C++
11 85 (0.90%) Shell Script
12 67 (0.71%) Bicep
13 64 (0.67%) C
14 54 (0.57%) Go
15 46 (0.48%) Ada
16 44 (0.46%) Scala
17 41 (0.43%) Apex Code
17 41 (0.43%) Ruby
18 35 (0.37%) MATLAB
19 33 (0.35%) Kotlin
Qualifications
1 7,156 (75.45%) SC Cleared
2 1,842 (19.42%) DV Cleared
3 383 (4.04%) Degree
4 280 (2.95%) BPSS Clearance
5 185 (1.95%) Cisco Certification
6 161 (1.70%) CISSP
7 127 (1.34%) Azure Certification
8 107 (1.13%) Microsoft Certification
9 103 (1.09%) AWS Certification
10 102 (1.08%) CCNP
11 101 (1.06%) CISM
12 80 (0.84%) CCNA
13 79 (0.83%) PMP
14 77 (0.81%) PMI Certification
15 64 (0.67%) ISTQB
16 55 (0.58%) Computer Science Degree
16 55 (0.58%) VMware Certified Professional (VCP)
17 48 (0.51%) ITIL Certification
18 41 (0.43%) GIAC
19 36 (0.38%) TOGAF Certification
Quality Assurance & Compliance
1 367 (3.87%) QA
2 290 (3.06%) NIST
3 289 (3.05%) ISO/IEC 27001
4 285 (3.00%) Data Quality
5 210 (2.21%) NCSC
6 179 (1.89%) Accessibility
7 171 (1.80%) PMO
8 167 (1.76%) GDPR
9 104 (1.10%) SLA
10 81 (0.85%) GRC
11 60 (0.63%) JSP 440
12 47 (0.50%) Cyber Essentials
13 44 (0.46%) WCAG
14 42 (0.44%) NIST 800
15 33 (0.35%) Def Stans
16 28 (0.30%) RMADS
17 24 (0.25%) HMG Security Policy Framework
18 23 (0.24%) Government Security Classifications
19 22 (0.23%) COBIT
20 19 (0.20%) PCI DSS
System Software
1 589 (6.21%) Docker
2 433 (4.57%) Active Directory
3 287 (3.03%) VMware Infrastructure
4 114 (1.20%) VMware ESXi
5 103 (1.09%) VMware NSX
6 78 (0.82%) vSphere
7 77 (0.81%) Hyper-V
8 66 (0.70%) Virtual Machines
9 32 (0.34%) Oracle RAC
10 31 (0.33%) Firmware
11 24 (0.25%) BitLocker
12 21 (0.22%) vCloud
12 21 (0.22%) Virtual Desktop
13 19 (0.20%) NFS
13 19 (0.20%) Postfix
14 15 (0.16%) Squid
15 14 (0.15%) Slurm Workload Manager
16 10 (0.11%) Microsoft App-V
17 6 (0.063%) Corosync
17 6 (0.063%) Varnish
Systems Management
1 760 (8.01%) Terraform
2 736 (7.76%) Kubernetes
3 332 (3.50%) Ansible
4 226 (2.38%) Grafana
5 184 (1.94%) Prometheus
6 112 (1.18%) vCenter Server
7 78 (0.82%) Single Sign-On
8 76 (0.80%) SCCM
9 57 (0.60%) Active Directory Federation Services
10 56 (0.59%) Microsoft Intune
11 48 (0.51%) Argo
11 48 (0.51%) FortiGate
12 41 (0.43%) Puppet
13 39 (0.41%) Oracle RMAN
13 39 (0.41%) SCOM
14 36 (0.38%) Podman
15 27 (0.28%) Progress Chef
16 25 (0.26%) Nagios
17 24 (0.25%) vMotion
18 21 (0.22%) Red Hat Satellite
Vendors
1 995 (10.49%) Microsoft
2 668 (7.04%) Oracle
3 463 (4.88%) VMware
4 397 (4.19%) ServiceNow
5 313 (3.30%) Cisco
6 302 (3.18%) SAP
7 197 (2.08%) Splunk
8 168 (1.77%) Databricks
9 149 (1.57%) Google
10 144 (1.52%) Red Hat
11 129 (1.36%) Talend
12 124 (1.31%) Salesforce
13 115 (1.21%) IBM
14 109 (1.15%) Palo Alto
15 100 (1.05%) Informatica
16 95 (1.00%) Juniper
17 84 (0.89%) F5
18 83 (0.88%) SolarWinds
19 81 (0.85%) Fortinet
20 78 (0.82%) CyberArk